150 thiest Melbourne Cup!R2 !

Alphen aan den Rijn                Wednesday October 3 2010                  ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

It is getting warmer and wetter in Holland  is what people from weather online have analyzed! It rains more in the winter, more local downpours in August and over the last 10 years the temperature raised with 0.42 dgr. That does not sound too much but Holland ‘s temperature rises TWICE as much as the rest of the world. They also claim that this might be the result of less pollution , so that the sun is stronger. Also the position from Holland is a factor in this.

And yes … the season/flights from Bitterwasser and Kiripotib  started as well on November 1 and on the OLC. The season now has really started, still waiting for the BIG days but they will come in a few days/weeks. Bernd Dolba , one of the organizers at Kiripotib flew a nice FAI triangle of 600 km with a speed of 143 km./h.in the ASH 25EB28.  As he says; Not as bad beginning of the season. Also Bitterwasser started nicely with an over 600 km flight in a Nimbus 4DM.

Favourite horse “so you think”  from Australian top trainer Bart Cummings was the horse tipped to win, but…it turned out different, making the bookmakers dancing in the rain, at this 150 thiest edition of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington.
Till about 200 m before the finish-line, indeed the horse was on steam , but then in the rainy , blowy and very wet conditions , a US- bread horse  called Americain, with Australian owners but  French trained and…with a French jockey, passed by and won with margin!!!!
Australia looked, came as always at 3 to a stand-still and after horses….., bubbles , great dresses and heads were the most important ingredients!! A tiny little bit of disappointment in Australia as well , as it was an import -horse winning this special CUP, but….at-least the owner is an Aussie.

How it is possible to steal a plane from one of the busiest airports in the world , La Mesa in Honduras  , I don’t know , but it happened as 5 men entered the military base , overcame 3 men from security  and took the plane out of the hangar to fly away with it!!!
It seems the plane was confiscated and used in the past to transport drugs. I guess this is just Honduras!

This time it is Indonesia who recommends to NOT fly over their country, more specific due to ash from one of the volcano’s over there. It is better to avoid it for the time being as yesterday volcano Merapi “exploded”again and the Mid-Java area should be avoided. A few international flights , so I heard on the radio yesterday, have been already cancelled!
Though people who know about hurricanes, predicted that Tomas would pass by far away from the former Dutch Antillean’s and would not do any harm there, unfortunately they were wrong. The hurricane turned into  a tropical storm with loads of rain, causing high water and flooding. It even cost , in the night from Monday on Tuesday, the lives of 2 people , one rescue-helper , who helped out in the hospital , but…a wall fell on him and an elderly lady in a car . Due to the tough wind  some places are without  electricity .
Also Bonaire and Aruba were hit by the violent weather.
As you know , I lived, for nearly 2 years, at the beautiful island of Curacao and though I have had once hurricane- force 4 , which scared the hell out of me, it was normally 33 dgr. and  dry but always with a breeze/ wind, just great holiday weather. In the hurricane -period our  TV was always tuned in,on the hurricane-station to be prepared !
By the way Tomas will “grow in strength”again and is on his way to Haiti now. What can we do???? Nothing!

Ever heard of R2??  I did not , till this morning when I read that R2 is the nice good looking robot with an upper-body only, who does the “dirty” stuff in the space shuttle, astronauts do not want to  or cannot do! Today is the one but last flight with the space shuttle Discovery and R2 is allowed to come. His first flight! R 2 is a product of NASA and GM and has already a twitter-account!!!!!!His future however is pretty sad , because, as all the work in the space station is finished in 2020 poor R2 will disappear in the Ocean as “boss” of  the abandoned space shuttle.

Going to Volkel this weekend, means visiting a military base and today I heard that we do not have a lot of F 16’s anymore. First we sold 18 to Chile , WITH all spare-parts belonging to them and now we only have 87 and from those 87 only 25 are flyable. There is no money for parts , so reparations are impossible for those planes.  A shame! And we still have to cut back 200 million on defense. What will happen to the pilots and the engineers?
 I am just enjoying to read the book about the fighter pilots in the past during the “cold ”  war. Never knew that so many had to use their ejector seat while practising!!! An expensive'” hobby”! Have to talk with “Eagle ” this weekend about all of this.

Cu on Sunday, with the latest news about the soaring congress in Volkel. It will be  later during the day.Cheers Ritz

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