I piloted an aircraft for the first time. I'm planning to take flying lessons and learn to fly light sport aircraft. An instructor offered me a ride in his "Trike". Officially its called a weight-shift controlled aircraft. Most folks would probably look at it and think "hang glider" although it has wheels, an engine, and carries 2 people.
Here's what I flew. (Click the thumbnail to see a larger image.)
I rode as the passenger, at first. I used that opportunity to take pictures and enjoy the view. Once I got over the fact that there was nothing between me and the ground except 1000 ft of open air, anyway. And there were no "Oh Shit" handles back there. The right side of my brain was busy going, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" until the rational side of my brain reached over and bitch-slapped it and reminded us that A) We're strapped in, and B) The laws of physics are pretty much gonna keep us in our seat anyway. I was fine, after that.
Right up until the instructor offered to take us back to the airport and let me sit up front and fly it myself. Then the right side of my brain piped up again and reminded us of all the times we crashed the Cessna while trying to land it, in Microsoft Flight Simulator. I decided I just wanted to fly around for a while yet. Then he offered to let me take the controls from the back seat right where we were. There are extensions on the control bar and dual throttle controls so either person can fly the plane. Right Side was OK with that because it didn't involve any landings. I had us waggling around a bit at first because I kept over steering. I got the feel for it pretty quick tho, and was even able to fly a straight line along a road, while compensating for a crosswind, without even realizing I was doing it.
After doing that for a while Right Side realized, "Hey, maybe we actually CAN fly this thing." The instructor took us back to the airport where he did a few touch-and-gos mostly to help get me used to the landings, I think. Then he flew around again, landed, and taxied off the runway. We traded seats, and I was the pilot now. He was talking me through everything and helping out a bit on takeoff and landing, but I FLEW THE AIRCRAFT!
We finally landed just about sunset and taxied back to the hangar. When we got off and took off our helmets the instructor looked at me and said, "You're grinning like the guy on the Enzyte commercial."
I told him, "This was better than some sex I've had."
Here's a few more pics I took
The airport.
The countryside.
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I haven't used Skype a lot. I don't have any friends or family overseas and most of the people I speak to on the phone aren't computer geeks. I have, however, played with Skype enough to discover that you can use it as a covert listening device. Thats right kids, you can bug your home or office using Skype.
Basically all you do is set the options in Skype to silently auto-answer and only accept calls from select users.
Launch Skype, log in, click on 'Tools' and select 'Options...' from the menu.
Under Privacy, select the option to only allow calls from contacts.
Under Notifications, turn them all off.
Under Sounds, mute them all.
Under Advanced, select "Automatically Answer Incoming Calls"
Now click on Save, to activate these option settings.
At this point, anyone in your contacts list can Skype you, and be automatically and silently connected. They will be able to hear anything going on in range of the microphone.
Anything they say, will come through the speakers, unless you have the volume turned down, or if they mute their microphone.
What you would probably want to do is create a Skype login specifically for this task and make sure that its only allowed contact is your other Skype identity.
Now, keep in mind that if you were to actually DO any of this, it could very well be illegal, depending on circumstances. I certainly don't want to advocate doing anything illegal. This information is strictly for educational purposes. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM). Or so I've heard...
I kissed a plastic fish goodnight last night.
The latest in my collection is GeoCaching.
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