I learned with great sadness today that the Ryan PT-22 I had the pleasure of promoting in my portfolio was destroyed in a crash, with the loss of the two souls onboard.
I did not know the pilot nor the passenger, as the plane had changed hands since I had worked on its leaflet, but my heart goes out to their families in this difficult time.
Blue skies and tail winds.
For a multitude of reasons, the summer of 2019 was a pretty intense one for me, and one of the things I did to try and cope with it was getting back to writing. I set to write at least one micro-story or poem every single day, based on a one-word prompt posted on Twitter by #vss365. I called them my “ink therapy”.
Here are a few; I hope you like these little children of mine. Some are silly, some are grotesque, some chew the scenery with dramatic gusto… It was a lot of fun and it helped me get back on my feet.
And that’s pretty swell, if you ask me.
Here’s the link:
Enjoy!
This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history.
So it finally happened!
I’ve officially seen more than one Catalina hahaha! I’m super pumped to say this has been a wonderful day as far as PBY spotting goes, as I had the immense pleasure and privilege not only to check out N24VP in Ocaña near Toledo, but also talk with the Pacific Rim Catalina team there and climb aboard for a visit, that included something that had eluded me so far with “Miss Pick-Up”: a seat in the cockpit!
N24VP, also known to her owners as “La Bruja de la Mancha”, the Witch of the Mancha (the region of Spain where they are now), was featured in the Cat Pack before when she was still EC-FMC under the care of David Pajus. It seems that the new team’s (and David’s before that) years of hard work have finally paid off and the plane is finally close to being in flying condition. Sadly for us in Europe, this means that with the departure of PH-PBY from the Netherlands, only two flying Catalinas will remain in the European circuit: G-PBYA “Miss Pick-Up” from Duxford in the UK, and N9767 “Princess des Étoiles” in Paris, France.
Stay tuned for a photo series, and the very first Cat Pack video episode ever!
This series of posts will retrace a few of the surviving airworthy (or close) PBYs around the world, and their history. Sometimes, we look back at some that are no longer with us.
In addition to its many fine accomplishments, the PBY Catalina also holds an unfortunate first in the history of aviation : Cathay Pacific’s VR-HDT “Miss Macao”, a PBY-5A, was the very first airliner to ever be hijacked, on July 16th 1948.
Tragically, during the struggle for control shots were fired, impairing the pilots and sending the plane to fatally crash in the sea below. There was only one survivor, one of the hijackers.
“Okay Mister Comfort Zone, get your skinny ass outta here and make way for the mighty North Sea!”
This is the kind of vids I’m looking for as I save for and plan my own adventures. Things have been quiet here, but there’s been development on the personal and professional front, and not as much on the writing front. I’m glad to report the plan to get the boat in two years is going well so far, although I’m uncertain at this point of the kind of budget I’ll be looking at due to increases in expenses that cannot be avoided. With discipline, I should be alright though.
In the meantime, I will be sailing as crew and help with repair on friends’ boats which will teach me very valuable skills for the future.
I don’t post as much as I used to and I have to admit I’m not happy with that. This is something that I would like to improve in the future. Social media have taken a lot from what used to be posted here, but their ephemeral nature is not always suited to longer, deeper posts or updates.
With the changes in my daily routine, most notably the far longer commute, I’ve been back to reading, and reading a lot. Since mid-January, I’ve read or re-read Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, The Expanse series by “James S. A. Corey”, the Song of Ice and Fire series by G.R.R. Martin, and the latest, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
I know, that’s a lot. I read a lot.
I’ve also restarted for the nth time work on both WIPs. Inspired by the microstories episodes, though unrelated, I have decided to give my sci-fi book the title The Uncertain War, and as of now, it is no longer a trilogy, but a single book divided in three parts; depending on how it ends up it might become a trilogy again in the future. Since I hadn’t worked on the book proper for about seven or eight years (the longest stretch so far, though I started working on it more than twenty years ago…), I have decided that instead of trying to catch up with it, I would write a series of five short-stories, each focused on an aspect of this universe. The Meikashi Pearl & other stories is tentatively scheduled for release next October, though under what form, I do not know yet.
Secondly, I have finally found, I think, a way to get out of the writer’s block that has been holding the development of Dragon Run for the last year or two. A reshuffling was due, and I’m going to follow this path and see where it takes me, but I’ve got an idea now of where to take them from where they had ended up to the story’s proper resolution.
2017 will mark ten years since my epic road trip across the USA, and this year will see another road trip across the north of Spain, then up to Paris. A dedicated blog will open accordingly, in due time.
Finally, after years of flip-flopping around the issue, I’ve pulled the trigger and passed the sailing license test. My three-year project laid last November to get a sailing boat and sail around the world is so far going to plan smoothly.
tl;dr: Not much to show, but lots of projects and ideas.
To Be Continued.
Following the closure of freylia studios as a commercial entity, freylia.net is now back online after a slight cleanup.
The homepage remains fairly empty at the moment as I’m not quite decided on what to put on it yet (or even how to call it), but the legacy photo galleries and portfolio have been restored.
There’s been quite a bit of work behind the scenes these past few weeks and the most visible result is a refresh of the site to reflect this evolution.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about refocusing the core offering of the business, and the natural result to that is a return to only localization and LSP-grade services. As a consequence, a few adjustments were needed:
– First, as of July 1st, photography services are no longer offered. The existing portfolio will remain published for reference, and I don’t exclude the possibility of one-off assignments, but it’s off the list;
– Localization management and consulting are now their own suite of services, to separate them from purely linguistic jobs. Coaching and training programmes are now available;
– A new contact form is now online to facilitate requests and queries from visitors and/or potential clients.
That’s all for the main developments, next will probably be a refresh of this very blog’s looks soon for consistency, and I’m working on an ebook about localization-ready design, of which a free sample will be posted here.
Feel free to comment below, and stay tuned!
Que dire ? Umberto Eco, avec Saint-Ex, était l’un de mes écrivains fondateurs, et a eu une influence considérable sur ma manière de voir le monde et son étrange population, de le sentir, de le décrire. Un géant d’érudition qui restait accessible, qui donnait libre cours au langage, qui taillait sa route au milieu des mots là où d’autres peinait à s’ouvrir ne serait-ce qu’un sentier. Une perte immense, un autre jardin secret dont la clé est à jamais perdue. Adieu, maestro, merci de nous avoir éclairé aussi brillament, aussi fugace qu’ait été le moment. Je vous dois tellement. J’aurais aimé vous rencontrer et vous le dire. Trop tard désormais. Sic transit gloria mundi. Mais je n’oublierai pas.