About the Golf Ball Drops

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Your questions, answered.

Yesterday, I did a golf ball drop. I have another one scheduled for today. And I’ve done at least three of them in the past. (You can read a blog post that details one of them and see a video of another drop embedded in this post.) Here’s a shot from my helicopter’s skidcam to give you a better idea of what it looks like:

Golf Ball Drop

The Tweets

Last night, when I tweeted:

Today’s golf ball drop had 2100 balls. Just learned that tomorrow’s will have 4900. Can you even IMAGINE that many golf balls? Not me.

I got two replies:

mjburian
I don’t understand (but I’m intrigued). You’re dropping them from altitude? Where? Individually?

Daniel_Loxton
Wait, what? Why would someone drop golf balls (or any solid object) out of a helicopter? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST01bZJPuE0

(The link is to a pertinent WKRP in Cincinnati video clip; watch it if you haven’t seen it before.)

So I figured I’d explain what this is about.

Golf Ball Drop Explained

A golf ball drop is usually a charity or fund-raising event. The fundraisers “sell” numbered golf balls for a set price. The balls are taken up in a helicopter and dropped from 200-300 feet onto a target which is normally a standard sized golf hole or cup. Often, a ring of lines is drawn around the target on the grass to mark different levels of prizes. The ball(s) that go in the cup or are within the rings or are even just closest to the center of the target win the prize(s). The money left over after paying for the helicopter, the balls, and the prizes makes up the proceeds from the fund-raising event.

Normally, this is a big spectator event. After all, who doesn’t like helicopters? Who wouldn’t want to watch something being dropped out of one? It’s a fun way to raise money.

Safety Issues

As a safety-conscious pilot, I do everything in my power to make the flight as safe as possible. The dropper sits behind me, strapped in with his door off. All the other helicopter doors are on to limit the possibility of loose items flying out another door.

The balls are usually stored in bags or boxes on the seat beside the dropper. He drops them out the open door — which is on the side opposite of the helicopter’s tail rotor. The balls generally go straight down, but some do bounce off the skid. I’ve never had one bounce dangerously, but I do leave my door on in to prevent one from bouncing back into the cockpit and getting under my pedals.

Below us, the target area is clear of all people and non-essential equipment. I allow only one passenger — the dropper — on board and run with minimum fuel to keep the aircraft light. I point into the wind during the hover.

The only real danger to the flight is the out of ground effect hover right smack dab in the middle of the deadman’s curve. In the unlikely event of an engine failure, things would get ugly fast.

Yesterday’s Drop

Yesterday’s drop was done at the CrackerJax Family Fun Park less than 1/2 mile from Scottsdale Airport. This required additional coordination with the Scottsdale Tower, since CrackerJax is right under the helicopter approach path to the airport.

It was done to raise money for the notMYkid charity. There were a total of 2,100 balls preloaded into 11 very nice drawstring canvas bags. Due to the size and weight of that many balls — an estimated 400 pounds that would not fit in the left rear passenger seat — we did it in two drops, with a hot loading of the balls between the drops.

The photo above is from my helicopter’s skidcam, which I’d rigged up specifically for the flight. On hindsight, I wish I’d pointed it down more; maybe I’ll try a different angle for today’s drop of 4,900 balls — it’ll likely take 3 or 4 drops to do them all.

It’s All in a Day’s Work

Do I like doing golf ball drops? I like doing anything different and interesting, especially if it’s something that can entertain spectators, too. There were very few spectators for yesterday’s drop, but I expect at least 100 for today’s.

And I really can’t knock getting paid to fly.

Why I Bought a New iPad

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No, I really didn’t need it. (Who does?)

I’ll admit that when I first heard the features of the new iPad, I was unimpressed. Although a lot of people made a big deal over the new retina display, that didn’t really interest me at all. After all, I don’t really use my iPad for graphics, movies, or anything else that really takes advantage of the display. But there were two features that really interested me:

  • MiFi
    Smaller than a pack of cards, this MiFi connects me to the Internet just about anywhere I go.

    4G connectivity with hotspot capabilities. I do a lot of traveling and have a MiFi unit that I take with me on the road. In fact, because I travel so much, I actually turned off Internet access at my house and use the MiFi there as well. I could imagine replacing my life I with the new iPad and transferring my MiFi data plan over to my new iPad and then using that as my hotspot. Not only would save me $20 a month, but it would give me 4G access instead of 3G wherever 4G was available. It would also reduce the equipment I need to take with me on the road — I would no longer need to take the MiFi and its power adapter.

  • The dictation feature. As a writer, one of the things that frustrates me about using my iPad is the keyboard. On a computer keyboard, I’m a very quick and accurate typist. I think it’s safe to say that I can type faster than I can write by hand. But that speed is completely lost on an iPad. I make too many errors that slow me down too much to use an iPad as a serious writing tool. That means that even on trips where packing light is very important, I still need to bring a laptop if I plan to do any writing. The dictation feature, however, changes all that. If it works well, I should be able to use it for some of my writing.

Because the feature set, as a whole, didn’t really impress me, I had no plans to buy a new iPad in the near future. Part of that was because my iPad 2 had been dropped when it was new and had a dent in one corner. Although it worked perfectly fine and the screen was not damaged, I knew that I would have trouble selling it. And without getting a few hundred dollars for it I just couldn’t justify the purchase of a new iPad to replace it.

All that changed the other day. Fellow author, Jeff Carlson, mentioned that Amazon buys back used iPads. I checked out the Amazon Trade-In Store, and learned that even if classified as “acceptable” (i.e., lowest acceptable) condition, I could still get $342 for my dented iPad 2. So I sold it to Amazon, went to the Apple Store, and bought a new iPad with Verizon 4G and 32 GB of storage space.

(And no, I didn’t have to wait on line. Those of you who know me should know how I feel about that.)

Getting my new iPad ready for use was very easy. I merely backed up the old one to iCloud and then restored the new one from iCloud. A few passwords and photos weren’t carried over properly and I lost a few free samples in my Kindle app, but everything was easily replaced. The new iPad was completely ready to use less than an hour after powering it up for the first time.

I had a $20 per month month-to-month data plan on my iPad 2 and, since I’d just paid for the current month period, I figured I’d switch that over to the iPad 3. It automatically utilizes 4G in areas where 4G is available. Before I leave to go to Washington for the summer, I’ll turn that plan off permanently and switch the 5 GB data plan on my MiFi I to my new iPad. Then I’ll be able to use that for all my 3G/4G wireless needs on a go forward basis, wherever I go.

Dragon Dictate
I wrote this book last year. Learn more.

In all honesty, I had forgotten all about the new iPad’s dictation feature. But the other day, after struggling to type a tweet early in the morning, I remembered it and decided to give it a try. This was actually very easy for me — last autumn I’d written a book about Dragon Dictate for Peachpit Press and the dictation features in the new iPad work very much the same way. The key is to speak slowly and clearly, and if you need to include punctuation you need to say the punctuation.

So I began using the dictation feature of my new iPad whenever I remembered to: for tweets, Facebook updates, and even e-mail messages. I discovered that as long as I spoke slowly and clearly, what I was saying would be pretty accurately transcribed by my iPad. Although I occasionally needed to make a few corrections to what was typed, even correcting that text was quicker than trying to type it on the iPad keyboard myself.

What’s good about this is it it has also reminded me to make more use of Dragon Dictate on my Mac. Dragon Dictate is an amazing software program, but there is a learning curve — the best way to tackle that curve is to use the software as often as possible. Once you get the knack of dictating what you want to write, it comes naturally. So when I decided to write this blog post about my new iPad and my desire to use the dictation features, it seemed natural to do this with Dragon Dictate.

While this blog post talks mostly about my new iPad, why I bought one, and how I’m starting to use its dictation features, I’ve also written a how-to post for the Maria’s Guides website where I explain how to use the dictation feature on an iPad. I’ve also included a link to a new video that shows exactly how this works.

Did you just buy a new iPad? If so why? If not, why not? I’m curious about what people are doing, especially people who already owned an iPad. (I’m almost embarrassed to admit that this is my 3rd iPad — I usually keep my electronic devices at least two years before replacing them, but circumstances have encouraged me to replace my iPads more frequently.)

I’m also curious to know how many people who purchased a new iPad are using it for dictation and what their results are. If you have something to say about this, I hope you’ll use the comments link or form to share them with the rest of us.

Amazon KDP Select Double Fail

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A contractual failure followed by a customer service failure.

As detailed in this blog post, I enrolled one of my ebooks into the Amazon.com KDP Select program. Almost immediately, I began seeing weird numbers on my royalty statements for the book: Sales at unit prices of 9¢, negative royalties, free books in a period when they were not authorized.

I immediately began a long and frustrating email correspondence with Amazon.com’s “customer service” staff. In this blog post, I’ll share the chain of correspondence that began in January and ended just the other day.

My original message, sent on or around January 10, 2012:

Subject: WTF? Positive unit sales with negative royalties?

This had better be a mistake.

1/7/2012 shows net unit sales of 13 yet net royalties of MINUS (-) $1.40. How is that even possible? Also, why is the royalty rate only 35%? I am set for 70%.

1/7/2012 also shows net unit sales of 169 at 70% royalty. The book sells for $3.99, yet you’ve calculated an “average offer price” of 9¢. How is THAT possible? I never authorized a selling price less than $3.99 except for 12/25 (free).

What’s going on here? Please explain WITHOUT using some canned response that does not apply to my situation.

The response from someone named Prasanna came on January 12 and, as expected, it contained a bunch of canned information:

Hello,

I can certainly understand your concern about the reports reflecting the royalties in negative. I checked our records and was able to confirm that the all the sales made in the week ending 01/07/2012 were completely free sales due to the free promotion you offered for your book.

However, among those free sales, I noticed that there was a refund that was made for your book which was for a sale made in the previous month. It is due to the refund for the sale made in the last month, the royalty amount is appearing as -$1.40.

Further, with reference to the 35% royalty option, I’ve found that one or more copies of your book were sold outside of countries where the 70% Royalty Option is currently applicable. The 70% Royalty Option is only applicable for sales to customers in these sales territories:

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
San Marino
Switzerland
Spain
United Kingdom (including Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man)
United States
Vatican City

Sales to customers in other locations will receive a 35% royalty. These sales are recorded separately in your royalty reports at the 35% rate.

At this time, the reports don’t show the specific location where your titles were sold. I’ve shared your request for this feature with our business team for consideration as we make future improvements.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

This did not make sense. I had authorized only one day as a giveaway for my book: December 25, 2011. That’s the day I advertised it as being free on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. There should be no free book sales in January at all.

I replied on the same day:

I’m sorry, but this is NOT true. The book was offered for sale for free on just one date: 12/25/11. That is NOT in the week ending 1/7/11.

Kindly explain why there were unauthorized giveaways of my book.

This time, Anuradha replied on January 14:

Hello,

Please know, the Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties report shows the sales you’ve made over the past 6 weeks. The total “units sold” and the “units refunded” will fluctuate each week depending on which day you view the reports and the number of sales made over the combined previous six weeks (to date). Keep in mind the “Week ending” column shows the date that the week ends instead of the week beginning.

Thus, as communicated earlier, the refund which is reflects in week ending 01/07/2012, was for a sale made in the previous month. Hence, the royalty amount is appearing as -$1.40, in week ending 01/07/2012.

Further, the price at which we sell your book may not be the same as your list price. This may occur, for example, if we sell your book at a lower price to match a third party’s price for a digital or physical edition of the book, or Amazon’s price for a physical edition of the book and it appears that your title was price matched with a third party’s web site (to match the competitor’s price).

I hope this information is helpful. Thanks for your understanding and for using Amazon KDP.

This information was not helpful. There could not be any “price matching” because the book was available only on Amazon.com due to their KDP Select requirements.

I replied on the same day:

I did not authorize price matching. At least I did not intend to. If I did, kindly tell me where I can de-authorize it.

There is no other version of the book to match to. Amazon has an exclusive for the ebook title. THAT WAS REQUIRED BY AMAZON. The only currently available print copy of the book sells for $14.99. How is 9¢ matching that?

You are obviously picking prices out of thin air and it MUST stop.

On January 18, Violet replied:

Hello Maria,

Our price for your title, Making Movies: A Guide for Serious Amateurs is $3.99 and it was never offered for $0.99. You can confirm the price here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ZSZMCS

I hope this helps. Thank you for using Amazon KDP.

Of course, this didn’t help either. I replied on the same day:

No, this does NOT help. Your reports indicate that you sold over 100 copies of the book for 9¢. WHY? You told me it was price matching. There is no price matching since Amazon has an exclusive on the book.

WHAT IS GOING ON? It certainly seems to me that you are either lying on my royalty statements or selling the book for a lower than authorized price. Which is it?

Violet replied again on January 21:

Hello Maria,

I’ve raised a request to the concerned department to check why your title was offered for a lower price in the week ending January 7, 2012.

I will contact you with more information by the end of the day on Wednesday, January 25.

Thanks for your patience.

And then again on January 30:

Hello Maria,

I wanted to send you a quick e-mail to let you know that I’m still researching on this issue. It usually takes 1-2 business days for this sort of research, but in this case it’s taking a little longer. I’m very sorry about this delay.

I’ll be in touch shortly with an answer for you. Thanks for your patience.

I guess “shortly” has a completely different meaning to the folks at Amazon.com than it does to most folks. I didn’t hear from Violet again until March 20 — more than two months after my initial support request. She finally admitted that Amazon had screwed up:

Hello Maria,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you.

Your books’ promotion did not occur as scheduled on December 25th, and began instead on January 6th. A technical error then caused the promotion period to last longer than expected, but this issue has now been resolved.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. Thanks for your understanding.

So let’s get this straight:

  • Amazon did not do my free book promotion on the day I authorized it.
  • All the advertising I did that day to generate interest in a free copy of my book was not only wasted but must have looked like a cheap lie to the people who followed the link and couldn’t get a free book — thus damaging my credibility.
  • Amazon then ran the free book deal for “longer than expected” — a length of time that is still a mystery to me — thus giving away free copies of my book for longer than I wanted the offer to run.

I replied to her message the same day:

Screw-ups like this, and the amount of time it took you to answer my question — more than TWO MONTHS — are why I’ll never be in KDP Select again.

I promoted that book as free on Christmas Day. So I look like a liar to everyone who attempted to get the book that day on YOUR program for free.

By extending the sale beyond the allowable time, you gave away more copies of my book than you should have. How will you compensate me for those lost sales?

You’re already ripping me off — in comparison to other ebook sellers — by charging a bogus distribution fee and cutting my royalty rate to certain countries. You are clearly using your position in the marketplace to take advantage of authors and publishers.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

But I know you don’t care. It’s business as usual at Amazon.com.

Even though I replied to her message by using the same technique I’d been using all along, the automated response I got said:

Our Customer Service department didn’t receive the e-mail message below. If you still need help, please visit one of the pages below so we can quickly provide you with additional information or give assistance via e-mail or phone.

In other words: fuck off, we’re tired of you.

Think KDP Select is a good deal? Think Amazon actually cares about its publishers? Think again.

Social Networking Fail

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Come on, folks. If you mean it, get it right.

LinkedInI logged into my LinkedIn account today for the first time in a few months and found 16 invitations. Of those, I knew four of the people and accepted two of the invitations.

I don’t like LinkedIn. It seems like a feeding ground for “business people” trolling for new customers. Just too much bullshit, even for a hardcore Twitter user like me.

The odd thing about LinkedIn is that you’re supposed to know the person you’re inviting to connect. Somehow, people seem able to get around this requirement and still contact me. But do these people honestly expect me to link to them without any idea of who they are or what they do or how a link could benefit us? Most folks use the standard invitation message or simply no message at all, giving me no reason to want to connect.

But today I got a bonus invitation. One guy — a “Cloud Computing Professional” — got creative but still failed:

[redacted] has indicated you are a person they’ve done business with at [redacted,] Inc. · Hi Maria: I hope this email finds u well. I work with [redacted], a company proving business productivity software in the cloud and would like to get in touch with u to discuss possible collaboration on ur technical copywriting. Plz feel free to contact me at ###-###-####. Thanks, [redacted]

He wants me to collaborate with him on some technical writing?

What kind of writer uses “u” for you, “ur” for our (or your?), and “Plz” for please? Would I be expected to write that way, too? Not possible, I’m afraid. You see, I don’t think the word you has too many letters to type, so I tend to type all three of them when writing.

And how many other people who who may have included “writer” in their profile got the same exact message?

I’ve never heard of this person or his company and I certainly have not “done business with” either one of them. Although I was tempted to accept the invitation just to see what his angle was, I really don’t want to spend any more time on LinkedIn than I already do.

So I marked the invitation as the spam it probably was.

Tips for Aerial Photographers

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The pilot really does know best.

The other day, I had a very unusual aerial photography job. I was hired to take two videographers on an air-to-air photo shoot of the world’s largest paper airplane.

There were a few things about this gig that bugged me and, frankly, it all had to do with the primary videographer on the shoot. He did things that severely limited our ability to get the shots he needed and rendered some of my equipment non-functional after the flight.

I’d like to discuss this in a bit of detail in an effort to help other videographers understand how to make the most of an aerial video shoot.

Bad Seating Position

This was an air-to-air photo shoot requiring me to fly in formation with another helicopter that was towing an 800-pound, 45-foot “paper” airplane. (I put paper in quotes because there was some cardboard and tape and metal spars for stabilization, but it was mostly paper.) When the other helicopter dropped the airplane, I’d have to chase the airplane down to the ground. We had no idea how fast the airplane would fly or whether it would fly smoothly or erratically. And, of course, the other helicopter would be dangling a 150-foot long line, so it was vital that I didn’t fly right beneath it after the drop.

The other pilot and I agreed that I’d form up on him. What that means is that he basically ignores me and I have sole responsibility for maintaining a safe distance from him. He’s the “lead,” I’m the “wing.”

In order to maintain a safe distance, I have to be able to see the other aircraft at all times. Seems pretty simple, huh? Can’t maintain a safe distance from something you can’t see.

And this is where the problem arose. In order for me to see the other aircraft, I need a direct line of sight to it. I can’t see through a videographer’s body.

I asked the videographer to sit in the back, behind me. This would give both of us the same view. This is how I prefer to work. It enables me to keep the helicopter in position for the shot. I’ve done this on numerous photo shoots with fast-moving targets. It works.

Aerial Video Shoot
This is a frame-grab from one of my GoPros. Ideally, I should have had only one videographer on board and he should have been sitting behind me.

But the videographer refused to even consider sitting in the back seat. He had to sit in the front. This forced me, in the right seat, to fly with the other aircraft on my left. The videographer’s body obstructed my view to the left toward the other aircraft.

Although I was able to see the other aircraft most of the time, there were two or three instances when I could not see it. To stay safe until I could regain a visual on it, I banked away from where I thought it might be.

The videographer was not happy about this. “Get closer,” he’d say. And I’d reply, “I can’t get closer to something I can’t see.”

On a go-forward basis, I will not allow a photographer or videographer to block my view on any air-to-air photo shoot. If he can’t sit behind me so we can both see the other aircraft, I won’t do the flight. Period.

Poor Choice of Equipment

Two years ago, I spent over $10,000 on a Moitek gyro-stabilized video camera mount. This system uses three Kenyon KS-8 gyros to remove virtually all vibration from a camera while bearing all the weight of the camera equipment and giving the videographer a wide range of motion left, right, up, and down. No, it’s not as flexible as a hand-held camera, but as long as the videographer can keep the subject in the frame, he’ll get smooth video of it.

In an effort to recoup the cost of this system — and compensate me for the 30 minutes of setup and 30 minutes of tear-down time required for use — I charge $500 per day.

I offered this to the client though the booking company they were working with. They declined. I assumed they preferred to hand-hold the camera.

Red and Redder
RED and redder.

When I arrived for the shoot, I discovered that the video guy had rented a Tyler Mini Gyro. This device has three smaller gyros mounted on a short monopod. The camera is mounted on top. The videographer usually places the monopod between his legs on the seat or on his lap while shooting. This stabilizes the video but limits motion in that the monopod base needs to be repositioned to make a significant vertical change of view. Without moving the base, the videographer would need to lean out into the slipstream to look down or lean back into the cockpit to look up. This isn’t always possible.

Apparently, the videographer was relying on me to keep in perfect formation with the other aircraft to prevent his need to move the camera. This was not possible, as discussed above. So when the paper airplane was released and it began its steep descent, he was unable to stay locked onto it with his camera.

I think using my mount or hand-holding the camera — possibly with a simpler gyro mount such a Micro-Gyro Mount offered by Blue Sky Aerials would have really benefited him. And I find it odd that although his equipment included a very costly RED camera, he had to rely on a rented gyro stabilizer.

Tampering with My Equipment

As discussed in numerous places throughout this blog, I’m a big fan of GoPro cameras and have three of my own that I sometimes use in flight. The folks from GoPro were at this event and they rigged up a bunch of their cameras all over the paper airplane and lift helicopter. They were thrilled that I already had good mounting solutions and loaned me a Hero 2 for one of my mount positions. So my helicopter had three GoPros, one of which was not mine, each of which had one of my 16GB cards in it. My arrangement with the GoPro guys was that after the flight, they’d pull video off each card and give the card back to me for my own personal (but limited) use.

Note that I mounted all the cameras with the GoPro guys. The video guy did not participate in this at all.

We did the flight and landed out in the desert near where the paper airplane had crashed. They did some video of the recovery on the ground. When we got back to my helicopter, I noticed that one of the GoPro mounts was missing its camera. I assumed it had fallen off and was very surprised because I know from experience how solid that mount is. That’s when the videographer told me he’d already removed them. Sure enough, all three mounts had been tampered with and all three cameras were gone.

Back at base, I went to the GoPro guys to find my cameras and the missing pieces of my mounts. They stuck to their word and I got everything back — except a piece from each of two mounts: a vibration isolator and a thumbscrew. Without these two pieces, two of the mounts are non-functional.

I don’t know who has them: the videographer or the GoPro guys. I suspect it’s the videographer. He likely put them in his pocket when he disassembled the mounts and forgot to give them back. (He also forgot to return a harness I provided for the shoot. That’s being shipped back to me this week.)

It is a Federal offense to tamper with equipment on an aircraft. Obviously, I’m not going to call the FAA to give this guy grief. But I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The Pilot Really Does Know Best

When you hire an experienced pilot for an aerial photo or video shoot, you need to fully communicate the needs of the mission before the flight and listen to the pilot’s advice. You need to work with your pilot to make a team to get the job done.

I know for a fact that I could have flown in perfect formation with the other aircraft if I could have seen it out my own window. I have done this before — not only with aircraft but with cars and trucks on the ground on tracks and on desert race courses, and with boats on lakes and rivers. A pilot cannot be expected to fly in formation with something he can’t see.

I know this videographer was unhappy with the results he got. But who is really to blame? I don’t think it’s me.