Enjoying Penticton

The weathers been pretty nice since we got here on Saturday. More or less sunny with cloudy periods the whole time. The temps have been great and we've been touring around and soaking up some of the okanagon's sunshine.

A few things have helped to make this one layover more memorable than most. On our first night, the other pilot and I (once again Phil) were outside on the patio of Starbucks in downtown Penticton when we watched another one of our planes fly over top of us on their way in. Some quick emailing back and forth with my roommate gave me the identity of the crew and I immediately shot them an email which I knew they'd get right away on their blackberry. They told us they were just dropping off a couple of people and carrying onto Calgary, so they planned to take off from the airport and then keep it low over the town on their way out. So Phil and I made our way to a parking lot with a better open view towards where the airport was and we noticed a large construction tower right nearby. I emailed the crew and told them we were just beside this crane which they couldn't miss on the departure. So a couple minutes later... holy cow. I catch the lights of the plane as they came screaming overtop of us at maybe about 300 feet, which is damn low. It would be illegal if the airport wasn't so close bye. But even still, they had to keep the plane very very low after departure to accomplish what they did. It was pretty amazing to see, but certainly not normal flying techniques. :) It left a smile on our face for quite some time later.

Today after breakfast Phil and I also decided to hike up towards some of the hills around town (similar to our Vernon hike) and managed to get quite a ways up. We passed some signs that lead us to believe there was a Moose on the prowl in the area. So we were making extra noises in spots to make sure we didn't startle any large creatures. Well, we did. But thankfully not a Moose, we stumbled across a couple of deer. It was still pretty startling though as for the first few seconds they do appear to be the same shape as a Moose, so it gave us quite the initial scare!

We figure we walked about 10kms today and made it back to the hotel to relax as both of our feet were tingling numb after the 3 hour ordeal. Then Phil gets a phone call from the client we brought out here. He is inviting us out to his property in Summerland for drinks. Phil tried to be polite and say no, because we really aren't supposed to be doing stuff like that. But he was insistent we come to his house and gave us his address. After Phil and I deliberated for a few minutes we realized it would be too rude to not go. But unfortunately because we were still on call and still so close to home base we couldn't have any wine with him and his wife. So we walked over to a gas station, bought some coke and called a cab! A $40 cab ride later we arrived at his amazing waterfront property which is nice and secluded in Summerland. Just amazing. We chatted with them for an hour and a bit on their patio and just enjoyed the great scenery and sliced fruit :) Another $40 cab ride and we were back at our hotel... we've decided the company will be reimbursing us for the cab fare as we were keeping up client relations and stuff like that!

Tomorrow we head back to Calgary and our day is done. Wednesday I get to take a trip out all the way to Denver with Air Canada commercially to get my fingerprints taken by US security. It's a large process that is required prior to being able to go on any flight training courses in the states now after 9/11. It's quite a waste though, because I'll fly all the way there and then spend 10 minutes getting the finger prints taken and then fly right back. Especially considering the fact that it is the exact same process I've already gone through with Canadian security in Calgary with the exact same machines, it's just that Calgary isn't a US recognized screening center (no Canadian place is).

I then go on much needed days off this weekend. I will take some time to restock the fridge, relax and hopefully replace my much cracked and smashed windshield in the WRX!

Flying my ass off

Well I guess things are balancing out after that one stint from a few months ago when I didn't fly for 19 days in a row. Now it's the exact opposite. I've been flying every day pretty much for the past 19 except for scheduled days off. And those are barely enough to take care of relaxing, errands and getting out and about.

I'm currently in Thunder Bay Ontario and we leave to go back to Calgary today. Previously this week I've been hopping all over the place to the coast, the interior, up to Grande Prairie and Red Deer. After I get back from this trip I'll be off to the interior again for a 2 night layover in Penticton. But of course this is all subject to change.

Weather in Calgary is rainy and miserable, but out here in Ontario it's actually quite nice. Our clients have moved up their departure time which is good, as before we were set to arrive in Calgary at 12:30am. Now we'll be getting in closer to 10pm.

I've got lots of paperwork that's starting to pile up, so I hope to have some time to myself in Penticton (or wherever) so that I can get some of it done! Hopefully I can scam a wireless signal wherever I end up. I need to update all of my flying logs and also need to finish off a lot more paperwork prior to going on my jet training course in July.

Time to start packing to go home, the story of my life lately!

I can finally relax for a couple of days

With a lot of our pilots away on training, it has been a very very busy set of days on for me. Not really giving me much time to do anything but fly, sleep and eat, and barely at that.

Since Montana I've been to Edmonton, Victoria and Brandon for layovers. And have also done many long day flights as well. I have totaled up that out of the past 30 days I've spent 16 of them in hotels and fully away from home. This translates into a lot of eating out and even had me not eating many meals at home when I was in Calgary, just for the pure fact that I couldn't go grocery shopping. It took its toll on me that's for sure. I finally got the opportunity to stock up the fridge yesterday.

Some highlights from these past few days... hmmm. Well, first off, Brandon Manitoba (where I spent 2 nights) was actually where my Mom went to University. She grew up in Virden Manitoba which is an hour drive west of Brandon. I have visited the area before many times in my childhood visiting the grand parents there. So I had to go and find the University, which was actually just down the road from the hotel. Too bad it was locked up on the weekend, I really wanted to get in and find the grad class picture with my Mom in it!

I did have to snap a picture though for my Mom to show her I was there. Here I am just in front of the main building. Without my sunglasses and squinting quite noticeably!









Then we came across this road sign, so I had to snap a picture in front of it as well to show how close I got to my Mom's hometown.

If only I had a rental car and was not required to be within 30 mins of the airplane at all times (the perks of being on call), then I would have rented a car and drove out to see where my Grand Parents used to live.









I also snapped this shot as we were walking around town.. it had a very nostalgic look to it, so I used photoshop to change it into black and white. I'm getting very tempted to upgrade to a nice digital SLR camera. I've been looking around quite a bit and the Olympus Evolt E-500 dual lens kit has caught my eye for value and performance. As soon as my raise kicks in for going on the jet I'll seriously start looking. :)



Speaking of the jet. I just today finally wrote the exam that is required to even start the training. It was a very tricky and greasy exam. The only questions I got wrong were on topics that I'm well versed on, but Transport Canada gets very playful with describing scenarios and situations. Grrr, it irks me so! It's also very frustrating that they continue to test on very old and outdated methods of computing flight planning information. Stuff that in today's day, I'll never once use as we have very sophisticated programs to do all our planning for us. Perhaps they'll catch up sometime in the next decade, it is the government though, so I guess I can't be too surprised.

I've also been given definitive dates for my training for the jet down in Dallas Texas. I'll be going down for July 11th to 24th. The training facility is called Simuflite and they have a very nice facility there. My roommate Mike just returned from his training and was quite impressed.

After 9/11 there are some very strict regulations that must be followed in order to even receive this type of training in the states for foreign residents. So I have to go down to Denver to get finger printed and submit a bunch of security paperwork and then I'll be approved to go down for the course in July.

Well, that's the jist of what's been going on lately. We've been having some great weather here. Very warm! We hit 31 degrees the other day and have been hovering in the high 20's all week. I just came home from a walk to the local starbucks (20 min walk) and wished I hadn't worn a black shirt! Very toasty!

Hopefully my upcoming week is a little less hectic. I could use a little less crazyness.

Flashback to memory lane

Just getting ready to leave this great freaking hotel here in Whitefish Montana. I don't want to leave!!

Anyways, I was just recalling back on the long day of flying I was doing before this trip. We went to Abbotsford, Oliver (in the okanagon by Osoyoos) and Sechelt (just north east of Vancouver on the Sunshine Coast). Coming into Abbotsford I was flying and we were in and out of the clouds as we were being directed by the air traffic controllers to get lined up for the appraoch in the airport. But this means that you bypass the airport and fly up around Richmond, then by White Rock and then into the approach landing eastbound in Abbotsford. Well, anytime you can break off the approach it's going to save you lots of time. So we started to get some ground contact and eventually we could clearly see the ground and around us. So we got permission to proceed on our own and scoot under the clouds and head on in. Well, in doing this we got nice and low right over Highway #1. As I was lining us up for landing I couldn't help but chuckle how much it reminded me of my Traffic Watch flights I used to fly doing low level over the highways.

Then later that day we were enroute to Sechelt from Calgary and we were being routed over the North Shore mountains and then over the Second Narrows bridge and then to fly up the coast eastbound towards Sechelt. Well once again, we were over Highway #1 and the other pilot and I had a good laugh as we had been doing it all day.

Ahhh memories. :) It's very methodical to take-off go up to altitude then descent down and land. It adds a lot to the flight when we get to alter that up especially when the weather is nicer and we can fly more scenic routes on quick short hops. That's going to be something I'll miss once getting onto the Jet fleet, as they can't operate into any of the smaller airports that I currently go into on a near daily basis. But, there are also other tradeoffs that I'm looking forward to. Such as getting to Palm Springs just shy of 3hrs instead of the just over 5hrs it takes in the PC-12 aircraft I fly now.

Well, time to get dressed and go flying! The next few days look very busy for me as we are short staffed with other pilots off on training. Should be interestingly busy!

A place better than Vegas!?

And who would have thought it would be found in Whitefish Montana?

That's where I'm typing this blog entry from. A little mountain town just south of Calgary and across the border. We took a group out here for a couple of days of golfing. It appears as though we'll get to stay the whole time.

So what's so special about this place? Well it's kind of like a Whistler town, but it's inbetween seasons and not very busy. We've been put up in a brand new freaking amazing resort lodge. This is by far the best place I've ever stayed in. Barely a couple of months old, this hotel room is HUGE, bigger than some condo's I've looked into. I have a nice desk area, 2 sofa chairs, kitchen unit, wooden patio, fireplace, huge bathroom with large tub, nice shower, a king sized bed and just really well finished.

The place is called the Whitefish Lake Lodge. I didn't bring my camera which I'm regretting now as it's quite amazing. The best I can do is link to the webpage. LINK HERE

The weather's not that great, but it's still better than Vegas. Simple fact is I need to be studying, and this has got to be the best study environment I can think of. Sit back, relax, view out onto the lake landscape, with the fireplace on in the background and a bunch of textbooks scattered around.

This will be a nice couple of nights in the normally $300/nt accomodations! Thankfully we get a crew rate and it's offseason, otherwise the company would never have put us up here.

Vegas no more

Well I spoke way too soon about that Vegas trip, as I of anyone should know that things aren't final until I'm pushing the power levers up on the take-off roll!

The trip got switched over onto a jet and so I'm no longer off for a nice mini-vacation down in Nevada. I then saw that I was crewed on another flight however and all of today I had read it as going to Napa Valley, CA. However, I just realized that is not the case. The airport identifier for Napa Valley (KAPC) is very similar to my actual destination of Kallispell, MT (KFCA). So... instead I'll be spending a couple of nights just south of the border in a ski town instead of a wine town. Oh well.

I also have a bunch of hops planned on Sunday going to Abbotsford, Oliver and Sechelt... should be a nice day of interesting flying.

Of course, all these flights are not for a couple of days yet, and of course are still subject to change. So is the life of a corporate pilot.

Vegas bound

Off to Vegas for what appears to be a 4 night layover starting Sunday. Sounds great right? Well.. yes and no. It's a nice place to go to every once and a while but it's also a pricey place to go! Unless one can make it worth while. But I've also got some exams that I need to write soon in order to go on the Jet course, and if there's anyplace that's not going to be a good study environment.. it's Vegas!

The chances we'll be staying there the whole time is unlikely, but stranger things have happened. We appear to be pretty busy around that time and I imagine the schedule will just end up filling up more and more as the trip approaches.

I will of course have to hit up some poker tables when I'm down there if we do end up staying. :)

Fairly active set of days on call

For some odd reason I was only on call for 9 days this past set. Perhaps they're trying to revamp the schedule, or they just totally screwed something up and neglected to put me on for my normal 12. I don't mind, because I'm back on days off right now and they're quite well needed. I was going pretty strong during this set of 9.

The first day I didn't fly but was called and informed that I'd be going to a first aid course the next day. Part of the requirements for our operations is that at least one crew member needs to have current first aid training. Well, we don't quite have that anymore, so everyone is getting the opportunity within the next couple of months to go to a one day first aid course held by Saint John's. I went and met up with a couple other pilots who were also doing it that day as well. It was a good course and am glad I got the opportunity to revamp my skills, as the last time I took any official training was back in the days of boy scouts.

Then the flying began. First I had the glorious honor to drive up early in the morning to Edmonton to exchange with another crew member and continue on the flying. So at 7am I was on the road driving up. All of this just so I could make the 40 minute flight right back to Calgary! Oh well. Then we ended up holding in Calgary for a few minutes and took another client to Saskatoon. Then the schedule got all sorts of changed as they were trying to figure out more efficient ways to use planes and crew. So instead of continuing on to Grande Prairie we were told we were going to hold in Saskatoon for 3 nights and then go to Regina.

That plan lasted all of 1 day as the next morning as I was just waking up I got a message that essentially said "get your asses back to Calgary, we need a plane here soon!" Ok, so we hustled out of the hotel and back to the plane and screamed back over to Calgary. Where I was informed that I'd be continuing on with another Captain to Vernon for a 3 night layover. Hmmm... Ok. I had actually only packed for 2 nights as that was my original schedule, but of course things change a mile a minute. I guess there were going to be re-runs on this trip. We head into Vernon where the weather is decent but nothing spectacular... it did get better throughout the afternoon. The first night we walked all around town and pretty much saw everything there was to see right then and there.

The next day was gorgeous! Was to get up to 25 degrees and lots of sun. We decide to head out to one of the hills surrounding town and decide to hike up it. No real paths anywhere we just started going up and up and up. We made it to a first clearing and looked back over town and the valley. Quite a view we had. We were about a third of the way up the hill. Then it got super steep. We were slipping trying to find good footing. It was hot out, we were getting pretty dirty trying to navigate up this terrain and the whole time I'm looking back down and wondering... how the hell are we going to get back down aside from sliding on our asses all the way!?

We make it to the next clearing and take another look around. Wow, what a day and what a view. But then another view appears and that's the last little bit to the top of this hill, which I'm not at this point going to refer to a mountain! We slowly manage to negotiate the slippery and steep terrain and end up splitting our paths towards the last vertical 200 feet. I'm sliding around barely maintaining my balance when my blackberry is buzzing away. It's the other pilot (Phil again, same as from Scottsdale trip last week) and he's made it to the top. A few more minutes and I crest the top. It was quite the hike up and we were rewarded with a nice 360 degree view of the valleys, town and Lake Okanagon. Then we saw something that was even more beautiful - a construction road that went down the other side of the hill!

So we start to head down this hill via this construction back road and keep hearing all these weird sounds. We see an area of shrubs and trees off the side of the dirt road and it appears to be birds or something. We walk a little further and come across a sign that points in that direction with the warning of "MAD DUCKS!" Eeek! Glad we didn't get too close to investigate, we might have been attacked!

As we traveled further down this road we began to realize it was an active construction site and we wouldn't be able to continue down the road without walking right through the middle of a bunch of active machinery. So we look around and see a large open field off the side of the road that appears to go down into another area of town. We opt for this route but run into a barbed wire fence. We managed to just barely sneak underneath this fence and now there's no question about it, we're trespassing on somebody's property. We scurry down the hill and find ourselves in the middle of a vineyard! No grapes however, otherwise I would have tried one just to say I had. :) We then follow this down further and come across somebody's driveway that leads out onto a main road. We squeeze between some fence posts and manage to make our way back into civilization via this road. It was quite the journey and we promptly found a place and had a couple of nice refreshing ice teas.

It was at dinner that night, as I was nursing yet another sunburn, that we found out about another trip we'd be doing the next day. It was going to be a quick hop back to Calgary and then right back into the BC Interior to Salmon Arm which is just a few miles up from Vernon. Then we would position back into Vernon for another night and finish the original trip as planned.

The next day was also gorgeous and we departed Vernon in style, screaming up the valley and pulling some tight turns before aiming back for Calgary. Another uneventful flight into Salmon Arm and then it was back in the plane for a very fun ride. These are always the best, when we're empty and making these quick little positioning legs in good weather. We leveled off about 1000' above the valley floor and went screaming as fast as the plane would go towards Vernon. Of course on the way we did some turns and had some fun. We circled over town and landed back, for a total flight time of 13 mins. Good times.

The next day the weather was not as good. A cold front had just started to pass on through and was causing a lot of instability in the area. So we had to climb up around some building thunderstorms in the area before we could set course for Calgary. We then also experienced some malfunctions with the autopilot which is not dangerous but very annoying. We managed to get most of the system back operating but just to be sure, Phil hand flew the entire way back which was only another 40 minutes.

It was when back in Calgary that I was told I'd be flying yet again the next day, and by no means was this going to a short day. It was a 9am departure to go to Palm Springs to pick up a couple of people and come straight back to Calgary. Oy, my ass hurt just thinking of it. 5 hrs each way is the usual time involved. The flight down was pretty good, leaving a miserable 2 degrees and windy and rainy in Calgary we got to Palm Springs where it was sunny and 35 degrees! Toasty! On the way down we passed some time by watching "Old School" on the other pilots laptop in the cockpit. The way back we couldn't do that, but I had my ipod that I listened to and some time was spent navigating our way around some thunderstorms that had built up in the south eastern areas of Nevada. It's that time of the year again, fun fun.

So then yesterday thankfully I didn't have flights and now today I'm on days off for the next 4. Some time to finally relax and get some errands done. I need to start studying up for some exams that I'll be needing to take before going on course for the Jet in the summer. Well, that was a novel I just wrote there so I'm going to stop now and go and have a beer while I contemplate what to make for dinner!

Couple pics

My Dad just emailed me some pics of when he came out here this past week. Here are a couple of shots he took on the flight over where he got to live it up in luxury on an empty repositioning leg from Vancouver to Calgary.

Leaving Vancouver climbing out:

Another climb out shot by Pitt Meadows:

Phil and I in cruise:

My Dad at the controls! Eek!! Haha - the autopilot was on, don't worry! :)

So where's Phil?? Hard at work of course... and that's an Orange Juice he's drinking if you were wondering. Haha:


So yeah, it worked out great that he was able to quickly hop on the flight. He really enjoyed himself. I even let him hit some buttons on the autopilot after our course changed while heading towards Calgary.

Back home and burnt... with a bit of news

Well.. I guess I'll start off with the news. It was our last day in Scottsdale and the other pilot and I had just finished eating at Earls on the patio in the gorgeous Arizona night warmth when my phone rang. It was my immediate boss. A couple of scenarios rushed through my head. 1. I was fired. :) 2. I did something really stupid. Or 3. It was to be good news.

It was 3. I was offered the position on the Jet (Citation Excel) and after a couple of minutes confirming some details in that regard, I accepted! So, this summer I will be going on a 2 week course down in Texas somewhere to be trained up on the plane. All of the flying is done in full motion simulators and even the tests and exams are done this way. Once that's completed I will be licensed to fly the plane and can officially begin flying it with AirSprint.

So yeah, should be great. Good plane, gets me all sorts of good experience, great destinations (read - more Mexico, Arizona and even further south trips). It also is a decent pay raise, but it also locks me into the company for 2 years on a "training bond" which is simply an agreement between me and the company that if I leave before those 2 years are up, I'll owe whatever is leftover for the cost of the training. Which is UBER expensive. But I don't foresee leaving anytime soon.

So yah, that's the good news! And now onto the layover! We spent an awesome 4 nights there. The flight down sucked though, we were bucking headwinds and turbulence in and out of the tops of some nasty clouds the whole time. Not a very pleasant flight by anymeans. And a windstorm had been developing in Phoenix that day and so the descent into Scottsdale was pretty wild. A bit of a dust storm even picked up a little bit later and left the plane covered in a thin layer of dust and crap when we returned back to the airport on our departure date.

We had a rental car and a good hotel, and the only day that was bad weather was the first day. And that was only because it was windy. The temps were great hovering just below 30 degrees celsius in the day and then a very nice 22-25 degrees in the evening. We toured around quite a bit. Did the whole touristy thing in and around Phoenix. We went out to a couple of parks on the outskirkts of town and really got into the desert and did some hiking on some neat trails. Lots of Cacti and cool desert landscape.

We listened to a Latin vibe music station down there that was really quite good! It had a lot of great Latin beats in both English and Spanish. The new Shakira song (Hips don't lie) was always playing and slowly developed into the anthem for our trip. It would come on the radio and we'd turn up the volume and groove out to the tunes.

All in all this was a great trip, mainly because we had the ability to drive around and check things out and weren't stuck to walking to places just around the hotel. I finished reading The Da Vinci Code which was good, and we also spent some time just chilling outside by the pool. Now I'm on days off and my Dad is in town visiting. How'd he get here? Haha, he hitched a ride on his very own private aircraft. :)

The people we flew back from Scottsdale were going to Vancouver, so we dropped them there and we were to reposition back to Calgary empty. So I made some arrangements and my Dad was able to fly back with us. My Mom was not as willing, as she HATES flying and so she stayed at home. But yeah, so my Dad hoped on board and after we got into cruise the other pilot went back and chilled out in the back of the plane and my dad came up and sat in the cockpit with me for the majority of the flight up until about 2 mins before descending into Calgary. He even got to input a bunch of the waypoints into the GPS and select the autopilot to fly them. It was also a great flight back up all the way from Scottsdale. No clouds to be found except over Vancouver. We even flew right over Las Vegas on our way back and had a clear view of the strip. A much more pleasant experience than our trip down. And the flight into Calgary was great too, a nice view of all the mountain ranges which my Dad enjoyed seeing from a different perspective.

Well, off to a family get together. See the relatives that I haven't even seen since I've been in Calgary all this time. No excuses now!

More desert heat coming!

But first I have to sit through a lot of rain! I'm in Vancouver right now. Just had a nice home cooked meal (my dad's taking a bunch of Indian food cooking classes) so that was good. I'm watching the Canucks game right now on the big screen while checking weather for tomorrow's flight.

We're just here for a quick stop overnight and then take off for Scottsdale Arizona tomorrow morning. Where I'll be spending 4 glorious nights at a great hotel by the looks of it. We'll be living it up in style and also in 25-30 degree celsius heat! Can't wait to finish reading The Da Vinci Code poolside over the next couple of days. :)

New Destinations finally

Back from my 3 day stint, which finally included some destinations that I haven't been to before. It's getting harder and harder to go to places that I haven't already been to.

Friday started with a hop over to Vancouver for a drop off and then we headed to Edmonton for the night. The next morning, bright and early, we departed for Bandon Oregon (just south of North Bend). A very famous golf course is down there and while I've flown into North Bend before, I hadn't flown to Bandon before. It was just a small little airport 20 miles south of North Bend. We did have to make a customs and fuel stop in Spokane first though.

The guys we took down were obviously going down to golf and entertain. They brought quite a haul of booze with them as well. We weren't even 30mins into the flight when the other pilot and I looked at each other as we recognized a very familiar smell wafting up from the back. They were having Bailey's in their coffee at 7:45am! Haha, whatever floats their boat I guess.

Approaching the Oregon coast the weather was a little... turbulent. Low clouds and good winds off the water proved to be as ugly as they looked. The last 10 mins of the flight we were getting bounced around all over the place. After dropping off the folks we needed fuel for our next trip, but the tiny little airport in Bandon didn't offer jet fuel, so we needed to do the quick little 10 min flight up the coast to North Bend. We buckled up tight anticipating the bumpy ride down the coast low level below the clouds. It was uber bumpy and actually got me a little nauseated, enough that I didn't eat anything for the next 3 hrs!

Full of fuel we departed empty for Scottsdale Arizona! Woo hoo, warm desert weather! Somewhere over the middle of Nevada the cloud layers below disappeared and we had good views of the landscape below us the entire flight. It was a 3.5 hr flight and so we each spent over an hour in the back of the plane relaxing. :) Ahh the perks of empty flying. Man, it really is the way to travel! I was all stretched out and had my laptop going, watching some episodes of the Trailer Park Boys and also doing a Sudoku puzzle from one of the papers in the back. We flew directly over Las Vegas and got a good view of it. I had reception on my blackberry and fired off an email to another crew that was spending the weekend there. I told them to "look up!" and their reply was "do a barrel roll!" Haha, I had a good laugh.

It was 30 degrees when we landed in Arizona and was just what the doctor ordered. We took our rental car and headed to the hotel, where we went straight to the pool and just lounged out and got some sun. A nice meal at a local restaurant and then back to the hotel room for some Zzzz's.

It was already 14 degrees in the morning when we woke up to a beautiful Arizona day. Just as we're about to leave the airport we get word that our passengers are already enroute the airport and that they'll have "lots of bags". Well they actually beat us to the airport and holy cow they weren't kidding. The 3 passengers completely filled the plane with luggage and various goodies. They were moving back to Kelowna for the summer months (they have a winter home in Arizona). It all fit, amazingly, and we were out of there and headed direct the BC interior.

A quick drop off and we were off to Vancouver. After a little wait we were off to Edmonton for a drop off and then to Red Deer (just north of Calgary). The flying day had now hit a whopping 15hrs of duty! Now in Red Deer we left the plane for another crew who were taking it out of there really early in the morning. We took the rental car they had used and drove the hour home to Calgary. It was one heck of a long day, finally finishing about 17hrs after departing the hotel room in Scottsdale.

A good set of days, some pretty decent flying and new locations to add to the destination tracker.

Brushing off the shoulder bars

A flight! Finally a flight! Who knows if I still remember how to fly. :)

Got a three day stint starting tomorrow. Off to Vancouver for a drop off then a night in Edmonton. Saturday I'm off to North Bend Oregon and then we go down to Scottsdale Arizona (Phoenix pretty much). Sunday we go Scottsdale to Kelowna to Vancouver to Edmonton and end in Red Deer which is just north of Calgary. We leave the plane there and take a rental car (1hr drive) back to Calgary. As another crew will be spending the night in Red Deer and taking the plane on a super early flight at 4:30am Monday.

So yeah, will be great! Originally was supposed to have a night in Vancouver but that got changed. Oh well, just happy to be flying again. Today is day 18 of zero work. Hopefully this set of days available will be more productive!

General Updates

Well I've got a few things to report on, so I'll just squish 'em all into one blog entry and call it good. :)

Apache: The white Terror-ier

Some not so great news came in email format from the homefront the other day. Apache, the family Jack Russell Terrier wasn't feeling so hot. He's getting on in his years, but you wouldn't really know it by seeing him. He's still got quite the spark in him and acts like a puppy all the time. Well, it would appear this has caught up with him. He had developed some pain and the inability to jump up on furniture or even negotiate the stairs. So off to the vet, and after some lengthy tests it was quite evident that he has some pretty bad back problems. He has a compressed disc in his back which has been causing him all the pain.

The good news however, other than this, he's in crazy good health. Like stupid crazy good. :) I attribute this to the fact that since my parents retirement a couple years ago, he gets many long walks and lots of play and attention. I recall coming home at one point from Calgary and feeling him and exclaiming "he's all muscular!" And he was, he's very fit and all the tests proved that as well. Not even any arthritis, which we had all expected.

Anyways, so he's on some medication and initially this didn't do a whole lot. He was not a happy camper and was still in considerable pain. They didn't want to put him on steroids, because he is an older dog and therefore his liver isn't likely operating at 100%. But upon a second visit to the vet, they decided the liver was secondary seeing he was in so much pain.

Another email arrived with the latest status report, 20hrs after the vet visit. A new dog! - it rejoiced. He was feeling much better and able to walk around quite easily. So hopefully this added boost will help him recover a bit from his back problems. If necessary however, there is likely to be a visit to the doggy chiropractor and even possibly surgery. It's actually quite coincidental, my sister has had the exact same problem a few years ago and underwent back surgery to fix her up.

So hopefully he's gonna pull through all of this. He's on all sorts of drugs right now, but still quite "Apache-like". The next few weeks will tell.

Poker

I continue to play in feeder tourney's and today got so close to a seat I could taste it. After a couple of hours of play I was headsup for the only entry chip available. I had about 1/3 the chip stack of my opponent who had dominated the entire final table. I was fighting back quite nicely. Then the fateful hand. I'm dealt JJ and he is first to act and does his usual raise. I just go full all in and he calls without hesitation. His had is AJ offsuit. I'm pretty ecstatic as only an Ace or some lucky card combinations is gonna stop me from doubling up and taking the lead. The flop had an Ace. And my miracle Jack never came to save me. Dang! So close.

Other than that, I've been playing in other little heads up games and small 10 seater tourneys to keep my poker account growing and to also help pay for all the entry fees into all the feeder events I've been entering.

Car Stuff!

It's been a while since I've done anything with my car. And the good weather we've been having in Calgary finally meant I could go out and at least clean and wash it. That felt good. One thing that has been irking me for quite some time is the Boost gauge that I have mounted on my dash. It was originally setup using doublesided tape, but after a couple of summers in the hot hot sun, it had given way. So last summer I went and re-did the tape. But it didn't last too long. So for the entire winter I've had my Boost gauge just more or less hanging by it's wires next to my drivers side airvent.

Today I decided it was time to fix this problem. I did the same double taping but this time I'm applying pressure for a greater period of time so the glue on the tape really has some time to make a good bond. Here's my method of vice clamps, pieces of wood and even my leatherman being used to apply even pressure on the base of the gauge mount.



Hopefully this time it holds! I'll release the clamps later today or tomorrow, as the car isn't quite drivable with that all in place.

Also, I've added a very large device to the trunk of my car. My roommate Mike used to have a subwoofer/amp in his old car but had taken it out. His new car that he's getting (the new Honda Civic Si) will already have a factory sub so he asked if I wanted to put his old sub in my car. Hell yeah!

What should have taken maybe 2 hrs, took us pretty close to five freaking hours! Haha, the interior of the Subaru was ripped apart so we could run wires and the dashboard was dismantled so we could plug in wires to the back of my stereo unit. The end result after much cursing, bruising and even some electrical jolting is pretty good. The sub booms really nicely and you can't even hear it from outside aside from some small rattles from the trunk. But once you're in the car, holy, bass city!

The one problem I came across was how am I going to secure it in the trunk so it doesn't slide around. I did some research and was thinking I'd likely end up having to drill some holes and mount it with brackets and bolts. But then I came across what one guy had done with his sub in the back of his Subaru. He had taken the car jack and simply put it on top, and extended it. So I thought hmmm.. and followed suit. It works perfectly! Doesn't move at all and I didn't have the sub is easy to take out if need be. Pics below:



That's all for this update!

Flying, I can barely recall what that's like...

Thank god I'm on Salary. I haven't touched the controls of a plane since my 5 day crazy stint earlier in the month. I then went on my scheduled 3 days off. Then had 12 days on call. I'm now on the night of my 11th day of no flying!

Tomorrow is day 12, there's nothing on the books for me and then the next day I'm back on scheduled days off! And even better, is that we've now transitioned into a 12 on and 4 off schedule. So I'm going to have Monday thru Thursday off. That means that if I manage to get a flight on Friday, and that is best case scenario, I will not have touched a plane in 19 days!

I'm going insane! I've been playing a lot of poker and going for a lot of coffee, some long drives, playing with Mike's pocket bike. Always attached to the Blackberry, hoping that it will buzz away with someone informing me of a flight... but to no avail!

So, not like I need the days off, but at least I can put the Blackberry down and have a beer with dinner and not have to worry about work.

So for the majority of this month, I've been paid to kill time. :) Now for all of you out there that might be saying, "wish I had that kind of job", it's all fine and dandy, but I need the flight hours to further my career! This dry spell of a slow flying schedule with an overage of pilots is just not conducive to my career advancement! Here's hoping for some work!