Back from LA

All back from Los Angeles from my weekend layover. We were blessed by some great weather with record high temps too. It was quite warm while we were there, which was great!

The flight in was very very busy. It was likely the busiest airspace I've ever flown into. Trying to negotiate the busy coridors in took a lot of concentration and diligence. At one point, a rouge aircraft somehow ended up in the airspace and caused a couple minutes of tension as we had to make a couple of maneuvers to assure he wouldn't get too close. We lined up on 1 or the 3 parallel runways that were active that night and we had airplanes all around us on the approach to landing. It was pretty intense.

After we got on the ground we were held up as customs took almost 1 full hour to show up! We sat waiting and waiting and waiting on the airplane. When they finally arrived they apologized and cleared us very quickly, then they let it slip that the reason we were held up was because they had to take some extra time clearing Avril Lavigne at the next building over on her private jet.

We stayed at the Sheraton right at the airport and my room had a good view of one of the runways, I enjoyed the view. No free internet though, so I was able to steal a very weak signal a couple of times to check emails and schedules.

The next day we went for a walk around the hotel and airport and had some great views of all the big aircraft coming into land. We were mesmerized by all of the international activity at this massive airport.

Saturday was our day for exploring and we decided we try and take the bus down to Hollywood and check out some of the touristy stuff. So I looked up online which buses to take (as we'd have to take transfers). Well, this kind of worked. First off we missed our very first bus 3 times! Haha, we finally got on the bus and then missed our transfer drop off, so after talking with the bus driver we just stayed on the bus until downtown LA, and we would then transfer over to a subway and take that straight to Hollywood. Well, as we got closer and closer to downtown we realized we were in some rather sketchy areas of town. Myself and the other pilot (Mike) stood out quite obviously as 'not from around these parts'.

We got onto the subway and then missed a transfer there too, then when finally on the right subway we got off one stop too early and had to walk quite a distance into Hollywood. We finally got there and walked the "walk of fame" up and down Hollywood Blvd, checked out all the Hollywood Stars, and also the hand and foot prints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. They were also starting to set up for the Oscars at the Kodak Theater, so that was pretty cool to see. That Kodak Theater is quite the venue! We toured around a bit more, saw the Hollywood sign, took some pictures and then it was time to head it back.

The sun was just starting to set as we got onto another bus to take us back towards the hotel. Once again, we missed our transfer! This time we were in some very sketch areas of town, it was dark out, with some interesting individuals walking around the streets. We finally got back to the area where we could take a bus back towards our hotel and we finally arrived back to the Sheraton in one piece.

That night we ate at the hotel restaurant which had a very tasty burger which was named "best burger in LA 2005". The next morning it was up early and off to the airport for our return to Calgary. A fairly uneventful flight home to a windy Calgary which did cause some good turbulence on the way in.

Here's a photo album (164 pics) which has some shots from my hotel view, trip to hollywood, and some shots from the airport before we departed (and on the departure) from LAX. Oh, and the shots with me and the Donald P Bellasario star are in reference to an episode of JAG which had one of the characters mocking the producer of the show, haha, kind of an inside joke.

click on Hollywood sign to view picture album

From the city of freeze, to the city of angels

It has been very very chilly here in Calgary as of late. -25 chilly. It keeps snowing too, which is slightly unusual for such cold temperatures to allow all this snow to fall. I had to dig my car of about 8 inches of snow in the -35 windchill late last night. Brrrrrr

Now that I'm back from my days off I've finally got some flights booked. I was beginning to think they forgot I worked for the company! Tonight I'm off to Palm Springs and back. Tomorrow I'm off to the city of angels, Los Angeles! I have never been there and I'm even looking forward to the flight in, because that is some of the busiest airspace on the west coast. We get to spend 3 nights there, so hopefully we get put up in a nice hotel that's near some stuff we can check out and explore. The weather looks like it will be nice too, I'm looking forward to some 20 degree weather and sunshine after the deep freeze we've had lately here.

However, our schedule keeps changing every hour, so I'm not sure if this trip will remain in it's entirety. Yesterday I was anticipating spending 5 nights in Scottsdale AZ but that changed too. So, hopefully at least some place nice and warm for a couple of nights. We'll see, things seem to be quite busy at work!

Bugatti Veyron - Fastest production car in the world

Some of you may recall the days when the McLaren F1 was the fastest production car in the world. But now that title belongs to the Bugatti Veyron, which I also like to call the Bugatti Sexerosa! This is one slick automobile which has a top speed of 253 miles per hour, or 407 kilometer per hour. It has 1001 horsepower, 60 cylinders, 4 turbos, 10 radiators, and one heck of a price tag.

The TV show Top Gear has done a few specials on this car, and in one particular episode they take the Veyron out to a test track with a 5 mile straight to attempt to get the top speed out of it. It is quite the achievement!

I've only done 205 km/hr on the ground, 460 km/hr close to the ground, and 960 km/hr at 40,000 ft. And none of that compares to what this test driver must have experienced during his test drive. WOW.

Another visitor to Calgary

Jon Sy stopped by early this week after taking part in a conference at Lake Louise. I managed to use some days off that were owed to me, and make it so I was guaranteed to be off when he visited. Jon's main itinerary for while he was in town was to experience some Calgary poker action, like Justin and I had done last year.

Monday night I picked him up at the airport and we went straight to Joey Tomato's, a very nice and 'scenic' restaurant here in Calgary. After a steak dinner for Jon and a Roast beef dip for me we headed straight to the Casino. It was 8pm when we arrived and a couple of tables of 1/2 No Limit Hold 'em were on the go, plus a tournament which had started earlier in the evening. As people were knocked out of the tourney, they progressively started filling up more and more of the 1/2 tables. Jon and I were at the same table side by side. Jon had some early success getting up to about plus $100 on top of his $200 buy in. I however did not see any nice cards and I floated around -$50.

The one hand of the night that made the evening for me was when I was dealt QToff in the small blind. 4 callers around the table and I limped in. The flop came QcTc2h. I checked and it was checked all the way around until the player in last place (who had been lucking out and playing very loose all night) bet out $30. I wanted the pot right then, and wanted it known that I had some cards so I re-raised to $60. Everyone else folds, and loosey mcloose called. On the turn came a Jd. Which concerned me slightly, but I didn't think this guy was on a freaking straight draw and at best had top pair, crappy kicker. So I bet out $60 and got a call. The river however came a card I didn't want to see, it was a 8d. This now made it one card to the straight, a nine. And that's exactly the hand I was putting this guy on, Q9. So now I figure, great, I've got tonnes of cash in the pot and he goes and catches his freaking straight! I check in disgust and he grabs $100 and pushes it in. My heart was racing. My rationale at this point was I had to see his freaking lucky cards. I had to pay him off now, and I'd rebuy chips for another $200 and I'd most likely get another good hand up against this clown where I could make my money back and then some. After a lot of though, I pushed my $100 into the pot (I only had $115 total at this point). He flips over his cards to reveal a T8. 2 pair?! Which he made on the river.. and wait a minute.. I had 2 pair as well, but I had a much better 2 pair! I flip over my cards and in great relief grab the mountain of chips from the middle of the table. I was happy, lucky, and happy. I was just shy of $500 at this point and held onto those chips pretty tight. I did luck out with a couple of other hands including one very nice nut flush, which was hard to squeeze money out of people after 4 spades were showing on the river. But I brought my total up to $575 before leaving the table, for a profit of $375 over a 4 hour poker stint.

Sy however was not so lucky. He got into some big pots, and made some big lay downs when less than stellar cards started showing up. Poor guy, came out to Calgary to have some fun, and he did end up loosing his full buy-in of $200.

The next day Sy slept in quite late and we played NHL07 on the xbox for the better part of the afternoon! We then did some shopping and it was back to Joey Tomato's for dinner. Where we saw the first period in the Vancouver/Edmonton game. We opted to not go back to poker that night and to cut losses. I showed Jon our hangar's and he got to see a couple of the planes, but it was rather busy in there as they were changing the engines on one of our turboprops and planes were also arriving. So he didn't get to have the full tour, but got to see some of it at least.

The next morning I dropped him off VERY early and he was on his way back to Vancouver and out of snowy Calgary. I think he had a decent time, he even wanted to take one of the cats home with him, I tried to encourage him but cat and house owner Shelley wasn't too keen on the idea and squashed my attempts. :)

So, who's next to come visit?

Gratuitous shot of the bankroll upon returning home. This includes the $400 I took with me to the casino and the $375 in profits.

2 great movies in 2 days

Well, the flying is still pretty slim pickings. Still nothing since my last trip to Vancouver and back, and that tease of a trip that never did end up happening. I do however have an upcoming trip that will depart mid February and has me spending time in Los Angeles, Scottsdale, Mexico and Palm Springs. So I'm looking forward to that 6 day trip and hoping it stays with me crewed on it!

At any rate, to help fill the days I went and saw a couple of movies recently. The first my roommate Mike and I went to was at the cheap theater in town which has movies that are just about to come out on DVD and cost only $2.50 to see. Not a bad deal, so we went to see "Stranger than Fiction" with Will Ferrell. I really enjoyed this movie, it was not the standard rat pack comedy that Will has been doing as of late, this was a serious movie but with great comedic undertones. It was Will Ferrell, but it wasn't. I thought it was superb. It's all about a lonely IRS tax agent who suddenly one day realizes that someone is narrating his life, he hears a voice narrating various parts of his days. He eventually finds out that it is an author who is the middle of writing a story about him, but to the author it is all fiction, but to Will's character it's all too real. Especially when he finds out she's trying to figure out a way to kill him off. I laughed a lot at this movie, but just because it was so well done. I highly recommend "Stranger than Fiction" to everyone.

The other movie was on Friday night when our other roommate/house owner Shelley asked if Mike and I wanted to go and see a movie. We had been sitting around all day and decided that we needed to get out of the house, so we all piled into the car and headed off for the normal theaters. We went and saw "Blood Diamond" with Leo DiCaprio. I'm not really a fan of Leo's, but I have to say he did a great job in this movie because I totally forgot that it was the same guy who once stood up at the top of the Titanic and declared he was 'King of the Word'. After seeing him in "The Departed" and now "Blood Diamond" I have a new found respect for his acting. This movie was very powerful and takes you deep into the diamond trafficking in Africa and shows the horrors of child soldiers and corruption at all levels. I knew of the existence of this type of diamond trafficking but was still surprised to see a close up view of what really is going on. I will also highly recommend this movie. It has a very good background story and is also action packed leaving you on the edge of your seat at times hoping and cheering for the characters involved.

So all in all a couple of great movies. I was happy to pay for both of them and definatly got my money's worth.

What a tease

As I'm driving home from having coffee with my room mate Mike my phone rings.

"How quickly can you be at the airport, but of course, I will give you your full 90 mins as required, but... how quickly 'could' you be here?"

I reply with "Where am I going, with whom am I going with and what airplane?! I'll be there in 50 mins!"

I learn it's a quick trip to Vancouver and back, possibly a layover in Vancouver. Score! I get back home, hop in the bathroom and quickly shave and freshen up, down to put on the uniform and grab my suitcase. I'm at work exactly in 50 mins and I go to find out more about the flight.

Turns out that we had one of our clients trying to get to Vancouver and he was booked on an Air Canada flight, however they had cancelled it. Why? Fog. Well, this doesn't really mean we can get into the airport either. The forecast was bad, but other airports like Victoria and Abbotsford showed good forecasts, so if he really wanted to get to the lower mainland tonight, we'd be able to at least get him somewhere relatively close to Vancouver. We are told to standby as the Air Canada flight might be going after all. So the plane was all ready to go except for fuel, and then the phone call came in, the flight was cancelled.

What a tease! Barely any work and I was excited to go, and the possibility of a layover in Vancouver is always great. But alas it was not meant to be. Maybe next time.

Where in the world is Matt?

After updating the Destination Tracker, I decided to add another sidebar. It is titled "Where in the world is Matt?"

Here I will post up my upcoming and current trips, so visitors will have an idea of what I'm up to with my latest adventures. Bare in mind however, that the corporate lifestyle does change daily, sometimes hourly.. so it might say I'm in Palm Springs for a week, but then I actually end up in North Dakota somewhere without internet and you'd never know the wiser!

Still a neat little feature that I think adds a new dynamic to my blogging experience.

Destination Tracker Version 3.0

It seems I've adjusted the format and layout of the Destination Tracker in the right sidebar a number of times. Version 2.0 was a listing of all the locations that I have flown to while flying corporate aircraft. Now, with Version 3.0 I'm pleased to announce a linked access to a google maps page showing the satellite/road map of the city/town/municipality that I have visited.

This may not be too exciting for a lot of the destinations, but some of my more unique trips that took me to the arctic circle, and down to Mexico and Antigua offer some neat views via the web based google maps.

Every once and a while I get bored with certain aspects of the layout and they get changed, and lately with all my free time, it was something to keep me occupied with. Although it did not take too long, at least it gave me the feeling of accomplishing something with my time!

Feedback's appreciated, and if at anytime someone finds a deadlink let me know.

Correction to total distance flown post

I previously posted about the total distance I flew in the past year. I just took a quick look at it and realized that I had posted incorrect info.

The new number for total kilometers flown in 2006 is 305,490 kilometers. Just a few kilometers short of getting to the moon as Sacha had pointed out. :)

I also just took the time to review my total distance flown in my career and training. The total number comes to a nice round number of 665,000 kilometers. Taking into account that during my first 800hrs of flight time I was flying much slower aircraft than I am today.

BORED!

I haven't been working much lately, we're overstaffed in anticipation of more aircraft coming soon. But for the time being that means that there is barely enough flights to go around and I'm not getting any flying in at all! My last trip was to Montreal and California and that was a week ago. Today is also my first of 4 scheduled days off, so I won't be doing anything until at least Monday, and even then it doesn't look too promising as the schedule is pretty dead from the looks of things.

I've been going to have coffee at all the various Starbucks throughout Calgary with my roomate Mike who's in the same boat. Anybody have any suggestions of things to do with lots of free time (but can't be scheduled, like a second job)? I've started watching Prison Break season one and that has got me hooked. But I'm looking for other, non expensive ways to occupy my time with. Any suggestions???

Distance travelled in 2006

Earlier I had blogged on my hour accumulations for the 2006 year in my post titled "How much does a corporate pilot work". By just using some simple conversions and averages it would appear that the distance I traveled last year was as follows:

Turboprop Aircraft - 81,302 nautical miles

Jet Aircraft - 68,309 nautical miles ~Actually 83,830 nm

Totaling - 149,611 nautical miles ~Actually 165,132 nm

For a grand total of 276,780 kilometers ~Actually 305,494 kms

That is just shy of traveling around the world 7 times! This does not include any flights I may have done on commercial flights, but only the actually flights that I logged as a crew member. This was also a relatively slow year for flying at only 480 hours in the airplane, so it could be much much more. It will be interesting to see how this compares next year.

Professional Courtesies

I've been traveling quite a lot on commercial air carriers to position for various flights. Lots of travels back and forth to Toronto mainly, but other places as well when we have had to do crew swaps mid flight because of flying time and working day hour restrictions.

Either way, it's a lot of airports, securities, loading onto over packed airplanes and dealing with all of the hassles that I've come accustomed to avoiding with private air travel! It is in these instances that we tend to use certain tools of trade to help aide in making the experience as stress free as possible. It's amazing how far a smile and aircrew security badge will go. Whenever traveling through security I always have my aircrew badge even if just flying home for holidays and not working. Putting it into the bin with my change and other loose articles immediately grants me some slack with the security personal. No longer am I some skid with no credibility, but am a person with which whom they can be a little more relaxed. This usually results in no taking off the shoes and a quick blast through the metal detector.

On my latest commercial flight from Toronto to Calgary last week, we had just finished our flying day and hoped over to the main terminal, still in full uniform. While we could have changed prior to getting there, we leave it on to help get through all the security bullshit and also, depending on the airline, to maybe even get an upgrade. Airlines such as Air Canada with executive class are more susceptible to upgrade a pilot in uniform to business class than anyone else (unless they're willing to pay for the upgrade). Unfortunately that night the flight was completely full and there were even a couple other pilots in the back of the plane with us in economy. However, once there, the flight attendants were very friendly and we were offered free meals, snacks and pretty much anything else they could legally provide to us.

It is professional courtesies like this that help make these situations much more tolerable. I certainly would have preferred to have flown myself back to Calgary and logged the flight hours instead of flying commercially, but as our jet fleet grows the planes are needed all over the country and to accommodate this we are frequently positioning crews via commercial air travel. I don't think I positioned even ONCE, while on the turboprop fleet, but since getting on the jet, I've likely flown at least a dozen times commercially for the purposes of repositioning.

So, when it's necessary to make the sacrifice to travel for work like this, the professional courtesies go along way to make the experience as pain free as possible. I'm sure this is similar in many other jobs as well.

Are professional pilots to be trusted?

According to a recent study, yes!

While perusing the Globe and Mail I stumbled upon this article on the most trusted professionals.

Here's an excerpt of the article indicating that pilots rank 4th in "trustworthiness" in a listing of other professionals.

Canadians rate firefighters as the most trusted professionals, while chief executive officers are deemed among the least trustworthy — along with union leaders, politicians and car salespeople, according to a survey released Monday.

A poll of 1,000 Canadians, conducted on behalf of Sympatico.MSN, found that 93 per cent of respondents rate firefighters as trustworthy, followed by nurses (87 per cent), pharmacists (86 per cent), airline pilots (81 per cent) and doctors (80 per cent).

CEOs, on the other hand, are considered trustworthy by just 21 per cent of the adult Canadians who were polled by Ipsos Reid between Dec. 21 and 27. Only union leaders (19 per cent), local politicians (12 per cent), national politicians and car salespeople (both at 7 per cent) ranked below CEOs in the “whom do we trust” survey.

Curious to know how your profession possibly ranks? Take a wild guess where car salesman ends up on the list!

Firefighters: 93 per cent.

Nurses: 87 per cent.

Pharmacists: 86 per cent.

Airline pilots: 81 per cent.

Doctors: 80 per cent.

Police officers: 69 per cent.

Teachers: 69 per cent.

Armed forces personnel: 65 per cent.

Day care workers: 61 per cent.

Accountants: 54 per cent.

Judges: 52 per cent.

Chiropractors: 49 per cent.

Financial advisers: 47 per cent.

Charitable organization employees: 41 per cent.

Environmentalists: 39 per cent.

Plumbers: 39 per cent.

People who work for religious institutions: 37 per cent.

Judicial system employees: 33 per cent.

Television and radio personalities: 29 per cent.

Real estate agents: 28 per cent.

Journalists: 26 per cent.

Lawyers: 25 per cent.

Auto mechanics: 25 per cent.

New home builders: 23 per cent.

Other members of the press: 22 per cent.

CEOs: 21 per cent.

Union leaders: 19 per cent.

Local politicians: 12 per cent.

National politicians: 7 per cent.

Car salespeople: 7 per cent.

4 times coast to coast

Well, pretty close to it. Just got back last night from my latest travels. Started with Calgary to Montreal for a night, then over to San Jose via Sioux Falls SD for fuel for a night, and then back to Montreal. Then Montreal to Toronto and a commercial flight back to Calgary. All of this was in our brand new jet too, what a great pieces of machinery!

I am very impressed with the performance of the aircraft. I wish I could fly this one exclusively!

Overall this trip was pretty good. I got to spend some time in Montreal where I got to use some of my horrible French comprehension and also got to explore a little bit of down town San Jose. Staying in the Hilton downtown San Jose was an added bonus, some good views from way up on the top floor.

Because the jet is brand new we actually have 2 new clients that were anxious to see their investments. So we had the closet of the aircraft filled with 3 bottles of Dom Perignon to be presented to the clients as a congratulatory offering from the company. On return back to Montreal our first clients mentioned there was still some champagne left. After they had left, Colin and I were in the back of the airplane pouring ourselves a glass each. Here's a shot of me being oh so hoity toity about to enjoy a glass of $200 champagne. However, while it did taste "expensive", I probably couldn't have told you the difference between a $20 or $200 bottle. I'm not a big fan of champagne as it is, I guess my palete just isn't quite so refined yet. Haha.


The next clients we were to meet didn't want to take the plane for a fight, but instead wanted to have a little cocktail party around it. So it was arranged, we parked the plane in the very nice hangar facilities we use in Montreal and cleaned it up real nice. Turned on all the lights and gizmos and then some curtains were set up around the airplane and a couple of tables were arranged with catering and a bar service. It was quite the little production. The client brought his family and friends to come and check out the new toy and we were there to answer some questions. However, everyone just assumed we spoke French. So the majority of the night was spent saying the words "I'm sorry but I don't speak much French". I did however get a few phrases out, but it was for the most part an awkward time of French/English misunderstandings.

After the event was done, we took the plane and flew it to Toronto. Another crew was to pick it up there the next day and carry on with some other flights. We then took an AirCanada flight home. The plane had the new on demand entertainment system onboard so I watched a movie and some tv shows. It's a very nice system, it's not live, but you have such a great choice of picking whatever you want that it really is a great way to make the 4 hours more tolerable.

I stock up on groceries...

... and it was bound to happen. I get a call an hour ago informing me I would be going away for 4 days on a trip. It's been very slow so I'm happy to get back in the plane, but at the same time, I JUST stocked up on groceries!

Looks like I'm taking our brand new jet out to Montreal tomorrow so we can then fly some folks to San Jose California on Wednesday. Then Thursday we take 'em right back to Montreal and end the night in Toronto. After that it's anybodies guess as to where we'll end up. So I'm taking some extra clothes as who knows where it's all going to lead too!