Evanston: plotted
Evanston: plotted
The sun and I crossed the Equator only a day apart, but I arrived in Chicago to find summer. At 7:00 p.m. the temperature was 83ºF and earlier had reached a record high of 87ºF/30.5ºC, hotter than Opua had been these past few months.
This return tested my first law of flying: that even though it no longer seems possible, each time it gets worse. In support of that thesis, Air New Zealand now allows passengers on international flights only one piece of luggage, so that I, who normally have nothing but my carry-on backpack, had to pay them an extra $75 NZ, which would have been $115 had I not booked my flight last December.
Also, in Los Angeles where I had a relatively short interval before my next flight, the luggage carousel broke.
Offsetting those aggravations were new and better padded seats on Air New Zealand’s 747 and a new touch screen entertainment system. I watched three good movies: THE ARTIST; J. EDGAR; SOLDIER, SAILOR, TINKER, SPY; got some sleep; had a good dinner and a bad breakfast.
Overall the experience was about as unpleasant as the flight out, but probably no worse.
I was very pleased to see Carol, have a shower, brush my teeth, and make a martini, the first of which I knocked over with my elbow as I sat down. At least it wasn’t Laphroaig.
Yesterday I unpacked and tried to find places for stuff. I have too many t-shirts, USB cables, and power adapters. Everything requires a different one, including the new iPad pictured above, which arrived two days earlier than I did and is going to be GANNET’s chartplotter, using the iNavX app.
I had planned to install a standard marine chartplotter until an article in a recent issue of PRACTICAL SAILOR comparing chartplotting apps for the iPad convinced me to buy one instead.
iNavX is simple to understand and use; set up to download all the free NOAA charts and buy those for other parts of the world at what I think are reasonable prices; and does everything I need it to and a good deal more, including being able to interface with NMEA 0183 and 2000, and even wirelessly control some autopilots.
There is controversy as to whether the iPad’s Assisted GPS will provide positions in mid-ocean. I plan on buying an external bluetooth GPS receiver just in case.
The iPad itself is a third generation model. The display is as impressive as claimed. Visiting my usual morning websites was a better experience than I expected. Because of its weight, I don’t think it will replace my Kindle as a reader, but maps and charts in a book I recently read are much clearer on the iPad than the Kindle. With an external keyboard, I could do most of what I need to on an iPad. Among that I couldn’t is use iWeb to produce this site.
The iPad does make the 15” MacBook Pro on which I am presently typing seem Behemoth.
The green dot in the blue triangle is me.
Friday, March 23, 2012