Last month I spend most of my time studying for my FAA exams and it finally paid off when I took the exam at Fullerton Airport passing with a 98%. I was so excited that I decided to also take my FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot’s Exam. So with a few more days of studying and a week later I saw myself checking into the Helicopter school at John Wayne Airport to take that exam. I passed that one too with a 95%. Hmmm… being an A+ student in University (a few decades ago) it was a little disappointing since I was shooting for 100% and the FAA exam was sooooo close! But, I must admit that there were a few regulations that I just simply couldn’t remember or got mixed up with. So, even though I didn’t score prefect I’m better for it and won’t forget what I got wrong!

Of course, I didn’t stop there.

Since I passed my 107s, I decided to take the Drone Exam for Canada. Normally I wouldn’t be allowed because I’m not a resident of Canada, but because I’m a Canadian citizen, the website at the time said that I should take it if I plan on flying in Canada. After all, it was a good way to test my knowledge as compared to what I learned for the FAA exam.

There are two exams and since I was taking the first one, I though it would be easy and didn’t bother studying for it. As it turns out, there were a few things that are different between the two countries and I ended up only getting 87%. Rats! It was the basic exam, so there were no questions about airspace, radio communications, or aircraft air regs. But I think I would have gotten a better mark in that case, as air space is internationalized across the two countries. oops!

So with my FAAs out of the way, next was to focus on replacing our leaky defective toilet tank. The replacement tank finally came from the New York, but the design was completely different from what we have – even though the company said that this was the only replacement available for our model. Well, my first attempt ended in leaks everywhere and I ended up getting additional tank attachments from Home Depot. Their design just didn’t work or make sence with out seriously stressing and possibly cracking the new tank. After some additional experimentation, I managed to get the tank to match the base system and secure it with no leaks. (June 28 update – it’s been good for a few months now with no problems).

Continuing on with home improvement, we added some window privacy shades for our downstairs room and it looks like etched glass. Sweet! Next are the electrical outlets and replacing the kitchen ceiling lights with dimmable smart-home-controlled LEDs after I bypass and remove the current ballast for each one… well… may be next month!

I decide that I did enough home improvements for one month so that we would still have time to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, enjoy our neighborhood, or go to the beach and watch the para-sailers. Plus, the rangers at Yorba Linda park put in a new dock and I’m looking forward to trying it out when I bring my fishing rod after an early morning walk or run. Ayano and I also enjoyed Mother’s Day brunch at the Black Gold Golf Course up the hill as there was a last minute opening. That Sunday was a pretty hot and sunny but we still decided to walk up in our ‘Sunday’s Best’. The great part was that it was very comfortable in the shade and we had a nice view of the 10th and 19th holes sipping champagne and indulging on oysters and prime rib!

On the ‘hobby side’, last month I did a swap with HTC moving away from developing AR (Augmentative Reality) applications using the Meta 2 to VR (Virtual Reality) with the HTC Vive Pro. Thank you HTC for such a fine development tool! The only problem was that I program using a MAC and needed build a gaming PC that was powerful enough to run high res VR. After a few hiccups, that machine is up and running with the VR headset and I must say … I’m pretty impressed with how far VR has come since CES 2016. That was when I was first exploring VR for some of my projects, but immediately knew that I’d need to wait a while for technology to catch up. Over the next few months I plan to brush up my skills in Unity and start diving into VR.

And to finish off the month, the photobook we did for Susanne and Walter’s trip to Shimane Japan finally came back. Ever since Apple discontinued their Photobook service, I’ve been looking for a new company to make my books. I still haven’t found a decent app yet, but decided to go with Mimeo since they integrate with Apple’s Photo app. Unfortunately as you can see from the pictures, the quality of the book is really bad, so the the search continues.

And that about wraps it up for May.