New Camera Toy

After years of putting it off because of educational bills and lots of other expenses, I have broken down and bought a new Canon 1000D Digital SLR camera. It's not a professional format camera but it has lots of features and 10 megapixel clarity, along with the ability to attach lots of different lenses and to do all the things that you digital camera buffs know about.

Just over 10 years ago I had gone to a hawk shop in Billings, Montana and bought a nice Mamiya SLR with lots of lenses and attachments, a motor drive and all. It takes great pictures and puts them right on your choice of film. That was okay 12 years ago but I have always wanted a nice SLR digital since they first came out. Now everything dad and I used to do together in the darkroom out in the garage, plus a whole lot more, you can do sitting in full daylight on your computer screen. I am sure dad would just be amazed if he were still here.

I will attach a few photos here but I have sent out invitations to my Picasa web album and this new camera is going to send a lot higher quality and that means more memory and bigger files so I won't send as many on my blog since I know many of you are still getting stuff via DSL phone lines. That's all I have here and so I feel for you, especially coming from Pittsburgh, where we had cable internet that was pretty fast. Some of my friends have fiber optic and I guess I have envy about that, too. You can get internet garbage so quickly that way - ha!!

Karen is back home, feeling lonely since the cats have gone to Tennessee with her son, Jeremy. He called to say Jupiter was already exploring and since I know his photographic memory, he will be upset as soon as he programs the new house and somebody has the audacity to move anything. Jeremy was setting up the Cat Tree, which Karen insisted had to go with the kitties to give them a familiar sense of home and something to climb on. He got it set up quickly and things are going fine. Apparently Marsy has been shortened to Mars and so it will be Jupiter and Mars. She likes women and always favored Karen, except when I had kitty treats or when the laptop was on my lap and then she slept on my legs. Maybe it put out heat, I don't know. But, after a couple of days of hiding under the bed, she has climbed out and slept under the covers with Teresa, Jeremy's other half. I knew when she got hungry or thirsty enough she would get over her separation anxiety and form up with somebody. Kitties are getting happier now, Karen is missing the meowing under the bedroom door each night and then the constant attention demanding by all the animals. As my friend Roy said, "Dan, this is a BIG MOVE."

Yesterday I found out that the DGCA, the civil aviation authorities in India have decided to rescind my ability to fly the CJ2. This is because it was originally registered under the wrong company. I think it was an honest mistake but it may have been intentional because they really don't allow ex-pat pilots to fly for more than one company at a time. Our Citation XLS is registered to our parent company, Jindal Steel. That's who my original license (called a FATA) was done with. When we added the CJ a month or so later, it was done under Jindal but then our company called for an Argus Audit and they found out that our CJ belongs to IndiaFlySafe, which is our charter company. This meant that my FATA had to be redone and I went in to the DGCA last week to make application for this. A committee met sometime and decided to reject having me fly for two companies since this isn't really allowed here. So, my life just got easier, flying only one jet, but the company isn't really happy about the government decision. If it stays like this, they are going to have to take one of the copilots from the CJ and assign him to me on the XLS because right now Dhaka is the only other CJ captain and he was flying a lot with me on the XLS in order to get certified as a captain on it. He needs 100 hours of supervised flight with a qualified captain (me). We were looking forward to this but now that is trash since if I am out on the XLS, he will need to be here to be ready for CJ flights.

There is still debate in India Aviation government circles as to when they are going to kick all the ex-pat pilots out of India. It was supposed to happen next July, 2010 but now I have seen a letter which said they were having a meeting on the 14th of Oct, where the topic was going to be discussing this issue and a recommendation to have us all gone by October, 2010. No one bothered to explain this to me when I was thinking about coming over here. So, after all my plans to be here for 4 or 5 years and retire, I may have to come home in one year from now. I hope that this all changes, as I am settling in and enjoying it here. Who knows what the outcome will be and I can't worry about it because it just takes all your energy. As Dhaka told me the other day, "Dan, if you can fly in India, you can fly anywhere, because they make it so darn difficult here."

I want to take a moment and put in a shameless plug for my cousin, Dr. Kenneth Clifford. He is a dentist in Northern California. He has taken that Clifford mechanical ingenuity and applied it to dentistry in a very interesting way. He has helped push the development of a Fixed Bridge Denture Replacement System or Mini Dental Implants. Please go to his website: http://www.kenclifford.com/ and see if you might have a patient, friend or relative who could benefit from these. Ken and my father never met a mechanical challenge that they weren't up to. I remember my father sitting at the dining room table with his Leica camera spread all over the table and mother remarking that it would never shoot another picture. Dad took it apart, cleaned and lubricated it, and put it back together. It worked for many more years. He never knew what was wrong but fixed it anyway. I have seen Ken's father, Larry, with Volvo's and VW's spread all over the garage. Cool mechanical ideas can work in dentistry, too.

Here's some photos.

Dan