It is some kind of tradition now that my brothers and me are visiting any kind of museums between Xmas and New Year as long as there is anything to see that flies.

This year we went to see the „International Luftfahrt-Museum“ at Villingen-Schwenningen, a private exibition with most of the aircrafts displayed outdoors.

This year over Christmas time we saw a beautiful snow-covered landscape.
During about two weeks we had a „real winter“ with snow and temperatures below -10° C. This was also the case on Stefan’s day (Boxing Day) when we went out for a walk near the Rossbuck (more photos).

it’s wintertime and the days get shorter. Or the other way round, the nights are getting longer. Today this seasons NOSOL training starts once again and soon the first night-o training is scheduled.

Last week I have prepared my night-o equipment. This year I will start with a Lupine Tesla with a special Li-Io battery pack. I am already using it during my trainings at night.

Having finally the right colors on my GPS map I immediately would like to test its efficiency. That’s why I’ve planned a bike trip (course in the language of GPS) in the Randen region.

Together with Alain we’ve started at Hemmental to our trip to the three observation towers Hagenturm, Schleitheimer Randenturm and Siblinger Randentrum (photo album). Now there is only one tower missing, the Beringer Randenturm. Maybe we will visiting it next year

ok, I have this version of the Garmin map for more than one year but...
.. the colors of this new version are disappointing. While biking in the forrest one can hardly read the map because of the low contrast (light grey on green). After searching the Internet from A to Z and back I had all the possible applications to start modifying a Garmin map. Not on my Mac but on my virtual Windows machine. After a few nights working I am happy with the result.

The colors of the map are now similar to the previous version of the SwissTopo map for Garmin in either normal mode (see photo) or with the backlight on. Plus, I have removed a lot of text that I don’t need while on a bike ride.

Kitzbühel - the Legend, that’s what the slogan of this city is. We have won one week holiday in a hotel only four kilometers away from Kitzbühel at a contest. So we decide to go and see what’s all about that slogan.

Kitzbühel is a nice little city comparable to St. Moritz (maybe) and like many other winter sport places Kitzbühel is famous regarding downhill skiing. One day Alain and me were hiking part of the „Streif“ up to the Hahenkamm while Marianne was running up the mountain.
We did also a couple of bike trips in the surrounding region (see photos).

This year my dad celebrates his 80ies birthday. Time for a birthday celebration with friends and relatives. That’s what Regina, Hannes, Sam and me thought.

And so we start our preparation for this family party. We remember that our parents have invited all their friends already some time ago and everyone was excited about that - they were talking about it whenever they met again. But finding all the addresses after all this years took us some time.

as you know I am building all kind of flying models. There are various stories around the „Jug’s“ and one that interests me most is that of „Zemke’s Wolfpack“.

Now I have built the Pengie V flown by Captain Mike Gladych (HV-M). It is basically a Revell kit with PE parts added from Eduard and a decal set from AeroMaster. To get the best possible result for the natural metal belly I have used Alclad bare metal lacquers (photo gallery).

the so called long distance Swiss championship on orienteering was held in Saluf near Savognin in the Grisons. Personally I don’t like this name. I would prefer standard or classic because when I started orienteering many years ago there was just one distance and it was like that.

The map „God Grond“ has its history too. In 1987 the Swiss championship had to be cancelled due to several objections. Still not totally recovered from my knee operation I absolutely had to start at this event.

that weekend I stopped by one of my favorite hobby shops. They were selling the E-flite Balde 400 package at a special price. I couldn’t resist.

Now I own a model with features I have defined about 25 years ago: electric powered (brushless btw), gyro, radio with electronic mixers built in. So it is my turn to master this thing and learn to fly

On this Saturday my brothers Sam and Hannes had the chance to fly in a Junkers Ju 52. The JuAir is operating four Ju 52 airplanes in Dübendorf. But these flight are fully booked for a long time ahead (usually more than one year).

When Sam an me were searching for a gift to Hannes 50th birthday we discussed such a flight. But it took us quite a while to finally get in the air. Both Sam and me took some photos and put them on Flickr (Sam’s album, Ueli’s album).

This years Swiss Relay Championship in orienteering was held in the Jura. We have been there the last time in 1994 for a five day o-event. Doing orienteering in this region is demanding in both aspects: map-reading and running. But this is exactly what I am enjoying.

The competition center was at the Village de Vacances de Lamoura shown on the far left side in this photo. I have taken a few more photos.

today Nadine’s time as Au-pair in Madrid is ending. She comes back home by airplane. Together with her friends we receive her at the airport.

They were invited to a little welcome party at our home. Nadine advised us what to prepare in advance.

We have spend Whitsun holidays in Seefeld Tirol. Again we could enjoy a very comfortable stay at the Schönruh hotel.
And as for trainings (photos), well the region there looks similar to the Scandinavian terrain, so it is always a pleasure to do orienteering in these forests.

Together with Martina and Corsin we set the first training on Saturday.

on Saturday we travelled to Thann near Mulhouse in the Alsace. There we met Anne and Michèle the daughters of Charlie and Collette, friends of our parents over the years. This time it was Hannes who searched the Internet and found the address of Michèle. But it took a couple of month to fix a date for this reunion (more photos by Sam)

In the afternoon we walked up the hill to the Croix du Rangen. From there we had a beautiful sight to Thann and its surroundings.

swiss championship in night-orienteering, this year with a different modus: mass start!

and again with my brother Sam taking a few photos. I was glad to finally start at this competition too. There was a big traffic jam caused by an accident that more than doubles my driving time to the competition center. And since I didn’t know where the accident happened I was in doubt to arrive in time.

this year we see a very harsh winter. Over and over it starts snowing again as soon as the ‚old‘ snow has been cleared away.

footprints in the snow
This happened from mid december until now. I am wondering how long this will go on.

in the march issue of the swiss-orienteering magazine the cover story is about night orienteering.

Nothing special you might think at first but ..
.. the photos of the front cover and most of the ones in the story have been taken by my brother Sam who is specialized on this kind of photography. And there is also an interview of him and me regarding our passion photography and orienteering.

for the second time MegaJoule was leading their running weeks in Peguera (Mallorca).

After last years success they offered two courses now and therefore Marianne was working from 21. February to 6. March down in Spain. There are a lot of photos from this events on Flickr now (choose your album from the set).

it was about time to finish this plastic modelkit. This Lockheed Vega airplane became famous in 1933 by the pilot Wiley Post who flew around the world with her in 7 days and 19 hours. Two years before he did it in 8 days and 16 hours together with his navigator Harold Gatty.

This kit in scale 1:72 is from Special Hobby. The Winnie Mae fits well to my collection of famous airplanes like the Spirit of St Louis from Charles Lindberg.

occasionally there is a need for a Windows OS, for example the course setting program we are using in our club (Condes) or the very useful GPS-track converter (QuickRoute) from Mats Troeng. To get that on my Mac I am using VirtualBox from Oracle. Usually the Windows guest systems offering a keyboard layout from a Windows computer and therefore have a different key mapping compared to the Mac keyboard.

But you can build your own keyboard. Arne Schirmacher a German fellow had done that for the German Mac keyboard layout and made a description on his website. Following these steps I finished a Swiss German keyboard layout for the MacBook and MacBook pro models that you can install in Windows. You may find that package on Arne Schirmaches website.