Shooting, Flying, nictone

It's finally warm again here in Canmore. Yesterday was a perfect day, one of those days with blue skies, little fluffy clouds, yeah! I ended up shooting video on a local peak yesterday morning for a reality TV show. A few of the west-coast rigging crew organized a really cool swing sort of stunt, and I was climbing camerman. This meant hanging on the side of a cliff until my legs went numb while wrestling a Z1 into submission (those who shoot in the vertical world with that camera will know what "wrestling" means all too well). Lots of fun though, I really like shooting and have done more and more of it over the last five years. I'm now to the point where I can actually keep the camera focused, exposed and on settings for most of the time while hanging in some silly place. A sort of 5.10 cameraman. I really enjoy shooting, it's mentally challenging to do well, there are always problems, it's just a big puzzle to solve especially in tough environments.

The shoot location was up high on a local peak (can't talk too much about the shoot as they have had problems with paparazzi, no kidding), and happily no one seemed to notice or care too much that my paraglider was in the tail of the machine on the way up. The shoot wrapped at 3:30 or so, and the sky was perfect to fly into. The only problem was finding a decent place to launch--lots of big rocks, big scree, not ideal. But right on top of a the ridge I found this perfect little patch of walnut-sized scree, and was in the air within five minutes. Pulled the glider up, YANK!!!, no need to turn to gain a couple of thousand feet in under a minute, flew all the way home and landed in my local school yard an hour later. Flying sure is fun, that was my first real flight of the year. I flew my older Rebel, which is a rock-solid DHV 2 machine, a lot easier to fly than my normal comp gliders. I had no vario, GPS or even watch on to tell me how high I got, but plenty high--swirlies of cloud forming around me, peaks WAY down there high. The snowy peaks were stretched out all around, with the lush green valleys below. I love flying in the spring!

The only problem I've got right now is my right elbow. Yep, blew it out somehow again... I want bionic parts, I really do! I'm so determined to fix this problem that I've done something really radical--quit nicotine. Those who know me well will be laughing, but I've got a serious habit. It started with Skoal years ago, then I quit that and chewed a oil tanker's worth of Nicorette over the years interspersed with Norwegian Snuss. But mainly nic gum--let's just say that I'm hip too all the Nicorette deals out there. Of course occasionally I'd run out of the nic fit gum and get back on huge quantities of Norwegian Snuss or the lip-buster. Anyhow, nicotine delays wound healing and doesn't seem to help inflammation either, so if I'm going to beat this elbow hassle it's no more nicotine. It's been almost three weeks now. The elbow isn't getting better, but I am staying off the dang nicotine gum. It was either that or take up smoking to get off the gum, only half-joking. Whoever thought up the idea of selling nicotine-loaded gum to get off nicotine was brilliant.

Have a great weekend, another nice one here, out the door...