Arriving in Germany

I have not updated my blog for a while and it is hard to believe how fast time is going by. Right now I am on the flight from Calgary to Munich. This is a 10-hour flight and I am very lucky as I have a whole row (3 seats) and can stretch, study maps, sleep and write this blog.

Anyhow, training has slowed down for me since the May long weekend as I got really busy to clean up around the house and to finalize a ground breaking contract with BookingCalendar.com and Appointment.com. I have been in contact with a group from the US for the last 6 month to work on a very exciting venture. This will bring the technology I developed with BookingCalendar.com to the next level. www.BookingCalendar.com will become www.Appointment.com and at the same time we increase our team with very talented people to beef up the design, add more features, develop a consumer portal for appointments and have a very experienced Internet marketing team in place to dominate the appointment scheduling market. The contracts got singed in Seattle June 2^nd and we are in full progress to work on the new venture.

In the mean time I spent as much time as possible with the kids before leaving as I missed them already before leaving. I also wanted to give Penny some time for her training, as she will be handling the kids, the canoe and kayak rental business and packing up the house/kids to follow me July 8^th.

For those who do not know, Penny is my best buddy, partner, mother of my kids and supporter for the x-alps. She was training as hard (as she always does) to get ready for the race. Penny is a powerhouse and lives up to her name (Penny Powers). Besides looking after me, the kids and her businesses (Personal trainer and running www.ColumbiaRiverOutfitters.com) she participated at 2 running events the last 6 weeks and at both races she won her age class and come in as 4^th overall. One race had 1000 runners, the kids and I are very proud of you, way to go Penny.

The kids (Erik and Katia, 3 and 5 years old) are as active as mom and it was great to follow the progress with both starting to ride their bikes without training wheels. They went from pushing to riding all by them self’s within days and now they are riding through obstacles in the skateboard park. At the same time they started to take tennis lessons and keep hitting balls around my ears.

As you can see, there was never a boring moment and I am sure all these events are the reason why time flew by so fast.

Now, once I arrive in Munich, I will get the rental car, my wing (with the right colors), gear, and start exploring the route. Monday I will pick up Frank (supporter in 2007) and his girlfriend Tracye in Geneva and start exploring with the French Alps.

During daytime I will be training, exploring flying and meeting local pilots and Team Nova Pilots and during the evening hours I will spend about 2-4 hours working and updating the blog to keep everyone informed of where we are and what we are doing.

Thanks again to everyone for all these good wishes and all the help we have received so far. I also like to thank the Bookingcalendar.com team (Shalene Wright, Cicely Younk, Ashith Shetty) and the Appointment.com team (Rob Monster , John Leonowich and John Lawler) to allow me to prepare for the race and to be flexible with their times to keep on working on the www.Appointment.com venture.