Prouty Ultimate Double Century

Since I didn't run the Boston Marathon this year due to personal commitments, my charity / fitness event this year is the Prouty Ultimate, a double century (200 mi bike ride) July 10-11 in hilly New Hampshire.

Day 1 looks particularly challenging, with several steep climbs, especially near the end. Am I ready? Not quite, but with another tough weekend of training ahead, I hope to be.

How Not to Create a Video Photo Story

As dad, I have to prepare a 10-12 minute video photo story for my daughter's upcoming Bat Mitzvah. There must be a web site to do this, right? Upload a bunch of photos, select some music, click "Mix", and it's done. Well, I thought I found the perfect solution in Animoto, but it ended costing more grief and time lost.

Animoto has a slick UI and algorithm to make your photo story compelling. There is a large amount of royalty free music to use. 30 second videos are free. Anything longer is very reasonably priced at $3, including remixes. No subscription charges apply.

I did a couple of test videos and it looked easy enough. The results were certainly much more dynamic than Microsoft Photo Story V3.

However, when I started doing something more substantial I kept hitting issues and frustrations. So don't be lured into animoto's path - it'll just end up costing you more time and frustration.

There is insufficient control on the results. You can only add a spotlight to a specific picture. Other than you are completely reliant on Animoto's algorithm so there's no way to customize the transition or focus of a specific picture. You can't fiddle with timings to make one picture appear during a specific part of a song.

The $3 video is pretty poor quality - it's really just a draft, not even good enough for a web video in my opinion. You can get better resolution - 800x400 approximately, but you have pay $5 for this, every time you re-render. If a regular video is $3 with unlimited remixes, why charge $5 per hi-res render?

The hi-res results are MPEG-4, which can't be edited or imported by Windows Movie Maker (XP). Why not have an option to export to AVI or other format? I upgraded to QuickTime Pro for some simple editing, but that software is pretty useless. I did use the generally helpful Media-Convert site to convert .MP4 to .WMV, but Windows Movie Maker could not use the results.

Bottom line: if you're using XP, use Microsoft's free 5 year old Photo Story 3 and edit it with Windows Movie Maker. The price is right, and the results are easy to customize. Animoto is either a nice algorithm that should never be an attempt at a business, or a business that is lacking a more complete set of tools to get reasonably good results, even for a private short video.

Up Close and Personal with the Cirrus Jet

I was in Duluth, MN earlier this week picking up my 4 year old Cirrus SR22 from two months in factory rejuvenation. While waiting for the very competent service and paint guys to address squawks, I had the chance to get an Up Close tour of the new Cirrus Personal Jet (Vision, SF-50 or whatever the code name of the week is).

Here is are my impressions.

New Massachusetts Bike Law

All bikers and motorists in MA should be aware of the new Bike Law that was passed finally after many attempts. Spread the word!

Some highlights:

* Motorists can be fined for "dooring" cyclists.
* Motorists can't cut off cyclists after passing.
* Cyclists have full use of the lane and cannot be squeezed to the side by a motorist.
* A motorist is liable if they hit a cyclist riding on the shoulder.

This is all good news, as far as I am concerned.

Single Engine Jets - And the winner is...Cirrus

After talking with all the Single Engine Jet (SEJ) manufacturers at NBAA, it's pretty clear that Cirrus will be the dominant player in this space.

Product design is a series of trade offs and compromises. Cirrus has the best balanced single engine jet. I'm certain they will achieve their goals of not being the fastest or furthest or carrying the most load. They will provide the best value. Cirrus has already taken $100,000 unsecured, fully refundable, deposits on over 500 planes, far more than any other SEJ. They are selling to their installed base, which is the largest demographic likely to upgrade to SEJs. Most Cirrus owners, including me, are generally happy with the company and the products.

The Diamond DJet is still suffering through a major engine change, just months before certification. The cabin still feels too small.

The Piper Jet looks interesting. The cabin is heavily copied from the Meridian/Mirage line. They've added vectored thrust to counterbalance nose drop when power is applied. My biggest concern is Piper's financial depth to bring this product through certification and then support it effectively. While it is nice to have the choice to climb above virtually all weather at 35,000', prudent pilots should stay in the mid-20's in case of depressurization. I don't believe there will be an option for a whole airframe parachute.

The Eclipse 400, like the rest of the company, is a joke. The experimental prototype had better not be indicative of the final design since it is so small and cramped. It was hard to get real data on what the 400 will be.

I gave Epic a cursory glance. They have a diverse and exciting product line on paper. The planes look great on the ramp. How well they succeed in certification and in company strength is an open question at this time.

It's pretty clear to me that Cirrus will sell at least 1,000 or more SJ50s over the next few years. With numbers like that, will Cessna again miss this opportunity and again be forced to acquire a small player like Columbia in order to play catch up? How long will Cessna and Embraer stand on the sidelines?

Cirrus continues to be an innovative, exciting company to watch. They will be company who best fills the $1.5-2M market gap between top end single engine pistons under $1M and twin jets like the Mustang which cost over $3M.

NBAA 2008

Just returned from a busy 30 hours at NBAA in Orlando. While the economy is affecting so many sectors, especially commercial aviation, Business/Private/General aviation is generally doing well and will likely do so for several years to come, at least according to Honeywell.

For example, I stopped by the static displays at ORL where you can actually play with the planes. At the Gulfstream display, I checked out the mockup of the new G650. It goes for a cool $60M, and was only introduced in May. I asked the friendly Sales Engineer what the order backlog was. While Gulfstream does not make this public, it is "higher than any major league batting average, and sold out through 2018." Translation: something like 350-400 units. With a non-refundable deposit of $3M (the cost of a Mustang), the deposits alone are worth $1B.

Wii Fit

Nintendo launched the Wii Fit in the US Today. As an individual who takes his endurance exercise pretty seriously, I can't imagine that this game / fitness device will make a significant impact in someone's fitness.

However, I did get a Wii for my son's 11th birthday a few weeks ago and it's the most fun game machine I've played with in a long time (not withstanding $20M Flight Simulators). When I play simple tennis on the game, I get a decent sweat going even if I'm not running around a court. It's a fun, simple distraction from a base line of solid endurance work. It's certainly more entertaining for cross training than watching TV from an elliptical machine.

The best stationary cycling machine I've used is from Expresso. The virtual reality and competition is only way I can stay focused indoors for more than an hour.

Combining an entertaining visual, kinetic and audible experience is a great way for time to pass on otherwise extremely dull indoor activities. The Wii Fit is just a baby step in the right direction for combining exercise and entertainment in new and interesting ways.