Updates

Hey – sorry for the infrequent updates. I guess we’ve been busy.

I also don’t like writing about down moments as it seems like complaining. Everyone has their own problems, so reading about someone else's is boring.

I’ve personally owned two new mobile phones in my life. My first was when I was 17,

It was a Nokia 8310 – a beautiful tiny phone that was fast, super reliable and did exactly what a mobile phone did. I look back on it with fond memories as it was much more than a phone… it was independence. Not only could I now drive at this age, but I could call and text which were huge steps socially. I still wish I had it for some odd reason, but I’m sure I gave it away.

Doing what all old people do, I’ll tell of all it’s wiz-bang features which were ahead of it’s time. GPRS, Infrared, WAP, 5 text lines, could store 150 SMS and had an integrated antenna! it was a thing of beauty. The reason for this rant… I have a new phone.

It can store a few more than 150 SMS, it’s quad band & CDMA, GPS and GLONASS, I could go on, but most of all, it has a stunning camera in it. 8MP stills and 1080p video is breathtaking. MUCH MUCH clearer than my JVC video camera. Heaps of my blog photos previous to now were taken with an out-dated hand-me-down phone. I took some video on the weekend, and on Monday and the results are outstanding. It’s completely negated the JVC. It won’t go as far to replace a proper HD handy-cam, but for convenience, it will always win. Frustratingly  in one instance on Monday, it significantly outperformed my DSLR camera! You have to click on the sample below to see the clarity and depth of field that this gem captures. In case you haven't guessed, it’s an iPhone 4S.
I certainly don’t ride on the brand of it, but as a device, seemingly nothing else beats it. How this all relates to our trip is to be explained. Aside from being a world phone, It can be used for navigation in cities, captures geotagged photo and video, translating signs and voice, banking facilities… the list goes on. This is going to be our most used tool for sure! I shouldn’t feel guilty buying a new phone should I? It’s been 9 years!

OK so this picture is me revisiting the in-cab winch controller idea. Although technically it works perfect, it has one major and obvious flaw… you need to be in the cab to use it.
So?! you might say, you’ll be in the car when your winching. True!, but you’re not in the car when you’re ‘nipping’ the rope back on to the bullbar, or trying to confirm what gear the winch is in (when you can’t see it from the cab), or winding out a tiny bit of length at the anchor point. The in-cab switch has now become the backup method to the new wireless winch controller. Best of all, it means I don’t need to carry and store the bulky wire winch controller now.

Initially I was concerned at the prospect of a wireless system. The only protection against false activation is the power switch on the side of the remote which protects against accidental button presses, but doesn’t protect against interference from other sources…. pfst, that’s rubbish. I had visions of driving under power lines and running over the winch rope as we drive along at highway speeds. Might sound extreme, but I’d say it’s entirely possible. So, I built the system with a red isolator switch in it. It isolates everything, the socket on the bar, the dash switch and both wireless controllers. And because it’s red, surely we’ll notice it if it’s accidently left on.

On a side note, that pic of the controller was snapped from a video. Anyone who knows anything about video, you can’t just snap a frame out of a video, it looks rubbish, blurry and pixelated…. but then again, I’m continually impressed with this camera!

Wow, I nearly forgot… more important than the car, we’re learning Russian. The words written at the top of my notes read: “So hard, so difficult” was a direct quote from our Russian teacher!
To be honest, I suspect it’s her Russian pessimism shining through as it does seem fairly straight forward. I admit, I did ‘rage-quit’ the second session, I didn’t get it at all and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to continue. Everyone in the class had seemingly done the class activities at home previous, so as they go around the room reading words, I take one minute to figure out a word while they all shout it out like kiss-asses, making me look like a right dumbass. So far I’ve leant 70% of the alphabet which once that’s done, the rest will be easy.
It’s difficult because a lot of the letters look similar to our alphabet, but have an entirely different sound in Russian.