Winterpeg!

A.K.A. Winnipeg.

That's where I am right now. We were supposed to be going to Kenora ON, but the weather was so poor that we were unable to continue on to there. So we stopped here in Winnipeg and our clients took a rental car the rest of the way (about a 3hr drice).

So this is the trip I got put on instead of my Vancouver layover.... Did I mention that I'm here for 5 days!!! Right thru new years. The story doesn't end there... My captain, like many others in the company is starting to get sick... So he flew home and they plan to fly another captain here on sunday. So I'm all by myself, stuck in winnipeg, which by the way is in the middle of a blizzard!

So I'm here in the hotel... Waiting out the storm, but waiting for my pizza to be delivered.

And by the way, I'm posting this via my blackberry... Is there anything this thing can't do?!

Oh.. Pizza just arrived.. Time to eat, and this hotel I'm in is freaking amazing... My room is "fully loaded"!

A 45min X-Mas with the folks

So, as I had mentioned in my last post. I did get the opportunity to come home for a little bit this holiday season.

But man, what a series of events I had to go through so that it could happen.

It all started the day before. I drove up to Edmonton (where it was -25!!) at night and stayed there in a hotel. I got about 3.5hrs sleep and I was off to the airport bright and early for our first of a series of flights. It was simple enough, Edmonton to Calgary. Lots of icing in the area and freezing rain. After landing in Calgary the aircraft had a good coating of ice in places that didn't have icing protection. We were on the ground in Calgary for a couple of hours. But this was mainly spent doing errands for the company, picking up little gifts and extra bits of catering. Then we took the same clients back to Edmonton. We then did a very quick turn around and came right back to Calgary. We were in a bit of a rush now, because we got stuck in some delays enroute to Calgary and our next set of clients were going to be arriving shortly. We were maybe on the ground for 15mins, after changing out the catering and coffee and they had arrived. With MOUNTAINS of gifts. It took some strategic packing to get all of these gifts loaded into the aircraft. Where were we off to next!? VANCOUVER!!!

So as we approached into Vancouver I switched radio frequencies for a minute on our 2nd radio and quickly called my old job at Boundary Bay Airport. They were shocked to hear me and I wished them all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Then back to business. We approached into Vancouver over the water, and on a 2 mile final for landing I couldn't help but mention to my Captain "God damn I love this place".

We pulled up to the executive air terminal building we use at YVR (Shell Aerocentre) and I saw 2 familiar people waiting in the lounge area. It was my parents. I hadn't told them that I was returning to Vancouver and had only mentioned that I was sending a package on this flight and that they should go to the airport and meet the plane to receive it. They were under the impression that I was flying to Phoenix (which I actually was supposed to do the day earlier; schedules change very frequently here though).

So I hop out of the airplane and they are a little surprised to see me. Our next leg was back to Edmonton to finish off the night, so the only rush to get back there was for our restrictions on how long we can be on duty as pilots. 15hrs generally. This is not the time flying, but calculated as an hour before departure until 30 mins after your last flight. So because we had started so early in the day, I only had about an hour tops I could spend on the ground in Vancouver. My Captain was kind enough to let me have that time with my folks. So I met them and yelled, "to the house!"

We quickly drove back to the house so I could see the dog and the new renovations and take in all the xmas joy that I was to be missing this year. It was a great few minutes. Then "take me back to the airport!" On the way I managed to surprise Cindy too, I stopped by her house on my way out and took 2mins to say Merry Christmas. Her response to my Merry Xmas greeting was "What the hell are you doing here!?" ~thanks Cindy! =D

Back at the airport now and I said goodbye to the family and got on to the plane. The Captain had everything ready to go. I shut the door, the engine fired up and before I was even buckled in we were heading for the runway. I got to fly most of the flight home and what a spectacular view departing over the North Shore mountains on the way home. We flew right over Grouse mountain and right beside Whistler on our way back to Edmonton.

Now, we've arrived in Edmonton and I'm pretty darn tired, but I know that I do need to be back in Calgary the next day to start office shifts again. So I prepare to load up the rental car and drive back. Then I get a phone call from the office telling me I have to wait another couple of hours, because one of the other pilots is flying up to Edmonton and also needs to return back to Calgary. Holy cow.. this was starting to turn into a LONG day.

Finally we are on the road at about 12:30am! A good 3 hour drive ahead of us now. I have now been up for 21 hrs straight and only received 3.5hrs of sleep the night prior. I was tired. We made the drive home, it got dicey for a little bit on the last 100kms or so. But we made it. Home and to bed. Up for 24.5hrs by the time I got to sleep. I then proceeded to sleep for 12.5hrs that night! It felt sooooo good.

So, to make a long story short. I spent 24.5hrs of my life running all around the southern portions of Alberta and BC so that I could spend just under 1 hr with my family before Xmas.....

and it was worth every minute : )

Merry X-Mas.. from the office??

Yup.. that's right. I'm in the office working the night shift. It has just become December 25th.

Ho ho ho!! and a Merry Christmas to all.

It's not too bad being the office. It could be worse. I'm glad I am where I am and not in some sleezeball of a place way the heck up in northern Canada.

Of course, I would love to be home for the Holidays, but c'est la vie. I did get the opporunity to make it home actually, December 23rd for just under an hour, which was enough time to quickly whip home and see the family, the xmas deocrations, and our newly renovated house (just new windows/doors/interior paint/tile on the floor/carpets/furniture... pretty crazy all the stuff actually.. =D )

I will post more on my quick return home later. I actually have work to do here on xmas, so maybe tomorrow night I'll get to post it all up! Happy Holidays to all!

Northern Lights

I totally spaced out and forgot to mention that during my flights this past week. When traveling back from Lloydminster and Saskatoon at night there was a very big display of Northern Lights taking up a good chunk of the clear night sky.

AMAZING! Best display I've ever seen. Lots of greens with dancing reds, what a show. I didn't get any pictures because my camera was in the back luggage area and I don't think they really would have shown up either.

There also appeared to be some pretty good meteor activity too, because I managed to witness around 30 shooting stars streaking across the sky as I marveled at the Northern Lights.

It totally made up for nearly losing my forehead to frostbite. =D

Poker Plateau

Well most of you hear of my poker stories fairly often.

Lately with my busy work schedule I haven't really found the time to really sit down and play good poker.

Profits for the past couple of months are nothing close to spectacular, but they are profits nonetheless. Somewhere in the vicinity of $400 in the black since the begininning of November. Lately I find myself playing smaller buy in games, like mini heads up tournemants where 2 players plunk down 10 or 20 bucks and winner takes all, with a couple of bucks going to the house. These definatly are not the money makers, but keep me playing and having a good time. If I'm trying to make the money, I head to the 10 seater tables for some No Limit Texas Hold 'em. I buy in for between $50-$100 and play the tables for 30-60mins and routinely make 30-50% of my buy in within that timeframe.

I really should keep better track of my online play, but I find myself too lazy. Unlike Justin who seems to have a record of every single game that he has ever played online. I have only really recorded some weeks and times when I have sat down at higher limit tables with the intention of making serious $$$.

Total bankroll for online play this year sits around $4000 USD. With $1500 sitting in my online accounts, and $2500 sitting in my US bank account.

"Is it a reasonable thing, I ask you, for a grown man to run about and hit a ball? Poker's the only game fit for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and every man's is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? There's only one way to make a fortune, and that's to down the fellow who's up against you."
--Somerset Maugham from Cosmopolitans

Back from my stint up in Edmonton

So I have since returned from my adventures flying out of Edmonton for a few days. I ended up spending Saturday, Sunday and Monday night in the hotel.

Flew up in the back of one of our planes on Saturday afternoon that was on an empty leg for positioning purposes. I then flew that plane to Lloydminster where we spent a good few hours in the abandoned airport terminal building there waiting for our clients to finish their "meet and greets". It was quite chilly there with the windchill, and I had to spend a good few minutes exposed to all the elements sweeping frost off the wings that had formed prior to departure. Brrrr... I actually felt my forehead freezing.

Checked into the hotel quite late at night and arose the next day to prepare for a flight to Calgary and then over to Saskatoon to bring back clients to Edmonton. Very nice day for flying, blue skies and happiness. Very uneventful and pleasant flights.

The next morning I woke up and got a phone call in the hotel room from my roommate who was in town on a layover himself. So we both decided to go and check out the West Edmonton Mall. I think we ended up spending 7.5hrs there! We just walked around to kill time, window shopped in all the electronic stores and had a great dinner at Earls. They even have a gun store there that has an indoor shooting range, that I'll have to try sometime. We weren't really up for it that day though, so another time for sure though.

Only got about 4hrs of sleep and then had to be at the airport really early to do a quick little flight between the two airports in Edmonton. We were at the business airport right next to downtown, and our clients for Monday wanted to be picked up at the International airport. So I got to handfly the entire flight (all 6 mins of it). That day we were off to Fort St. John where we taxied into town while the clients went to meetings and we had a great breakfast at White Spot. Next it was off to Grande Prairie where we both had a nap on some leather couches while waiting for the clients again. Then on the return to Edmonton we had to really hussle and kick our clients off the plane, because another crew was taking the plane to Vancouver to pick up some other clients to return to Calgary. Now I was done flying for the day and ended up taking a rental car home to Calgary and got in rather late at night.

Quite a busy few days, but full of flying and good times. Too bad it didn't involve any Vancouver flights though.

Aside from the flying, we are VERY busy at the company. This is our busy season and we've got all of our planes flying and all of our crews flying as well. I will likely get xmas off and then will be working over new years. It will be a quiet celebration at my house with not too much going on. I'm available to fly in the middle of it all and hoping that a Vancouver flight will come up so that I can come home and enjoy some of the holidays with family and friends, but the chances are fairly slim.

My home for the Weekend: The Edmonton Ramada!

**Update** I've now found out it's more than the weekend... I'll be spending Saturday, Sunday and Monday night in Edmonton as well!

I'll be living out of a suitcase this weekend while I spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday night at the lovely Ramada Inn in Edmonton. It's actually quite a nice place, and it's located right next to the airport that we use (The city center airport and not the International).




That's a sample of what the room looks like, and it's pretty standard that we see some nice rooms like this but also to see some not so nice rooms.

I'll be flying my ass off on Saturday and Sunday, doing mainly hop skip and jump flights: back and forth from Calgary and a couple other flights out to a place in Saskatchewan called "Humbolt". Should be busy. I'll have to take a rental car up on Friday and then bring it back on Monday; about a 3hr drive.

I'll have my trusty blackberry and hotel tv to keep me company during my visit. Send me an email and keep me entertained!

I was home!! for.. err... 8mins

Yup... it was just supposed to be a flight to Victoria to pick up some clients, but we had some other clients that wanted to go to Vancouver. Because time was tight to pick up our other passengers in Victoria we really had to hustle on the ground in Vancouver. Essentially booting our clients out the door and racing back to the plane and then SCREAMING across to Victoria. Weather was good so I got to hand fly the entire flight. (Normally we use a lot of autopilot because there is a lot of stuff to do in the cockpit on a flight, but because the weather was good and it was going to be a pretty easy flight, I just flew the whole damn thing) It was great, almost as if I was flying my old traffic watch plane... only going about 2.5 times faster. We made it to Victoria in 13mins flat. Screw the ferry!

Once on the ground I had to quickly clean up the plane for the new passengers and just as I had finished they showed up, couldn't have been any more perfect timing. They were early, but it all worked out. Then we came screaming back to Calgary: where it is snowy and dropping down to -23 tonight!! And it's going to be doing something similar again tomorrow night. Brrrrrrr....

Well, hopefully the next time we go to Vancouver we'll have a bit more time on the ground if not a layover.

I'm back in the office tomorrow night for 4 nights of fun! Looks like I've got some flights next week already too. Humboldt Saskatchewan, man.. I'm getting all the places I've never heard of!

Holiday Blackout

Man, xmas is approaching quickly huh!?

Kind of hard for me to judge working such crazy hours. But here in Calgary the lights go up MUCH sooner than back home. This is because ppl don't want to be up during really cold or snowy weather putting up lights. So they go up early. I was totally thrown off when I saw many lights up and running November 1st!

So I'm unable to go home for xmas. This'll be my first holiday season away from home! We get very busy during this period so no employees are allowed holidays during this time. Who knows, maybe I'll get that miracle layover at home sometime around xmas time. As it stands now my schedule shows me starting 5 nights in the office on Christmas Day. Which isn't too bad, I'll have xmas eve off with most of xmas day off and new years off too. Well, that is to say off from the office, but available to fly. And something tells me that I'll likely be used too. I'm getting more and more flights these days, lets just hope for some Vancouver trips with long stays or overnights! I *might* try and make it back for a week or half week at the end of January, but we'll see how things progress here at work.

Wow, 3 updates in one day, I wish I could say I'll be keeping this up to date, but with the shifts I work and what not, it's hard to stay current. So every once and a while you'll just see a bombardment of posts!

Zama Lake Alberta

If you're asking yourself what or where the hell is Zama Lake Alberta, you are having the same reaction I was when I checked my work email to find my trip packages detailing my flight there last Wednesday.

All I could really tell was it was in the middle of nowhere about 2hrs by plane north of Edmonton. It was in a little oil town (town is there because of a big oil facility and pipeline). We were to take a couple of ppl from Calgary to Edmonton to Zama lake and return the same way. They were going for a day meeting.

I made sure to bring some warm gloves, full company jacket (fleece plus outer shell) and some ear muffs (cool ones too.. they're called 180's and wrap around the back of your head instead of overtop.. quite good).

We fly there in a huge headwind and land on this little airstrip that was quite narrow and drop off our passengers. As we're shutting down the engine I take one final look at the outside temperature gauge (-23 degrees!) brrrr... We get out and get the plane all settled in for a 5hr stay and then we walk down a snow covered road and find the "camp". These are a bunch of portables for the ppl working at the oil facility places there. Quite nice in there, we spent most of our time napping and watching a bit of TV in their lounge on big comfy sofa chairs. Not too much else to do out there, and it was damn cold outside so we weren't going exploring. It was cold enough for me to feel my nose hairs freezing together between breaths!

The good thing was these folks wanted to leave early and we were more than happy to oblige. This time we got a nice tailwind on the way home and nearly cut our travel time in half! We were just screaming along. 354knots as opposed to 178knot on the way up... quite the difference wouldn't you say!?

I forgot my camera though, would have been nice to have taken a couple of pictures of the place and then post them up. Next time though.

Next scheduled destination: VICTORIA, BC - Sunday December 5th. Heading there for a passenger pick up, no time to be spent looking around at all. But I will get to fly over Vancouver... kind of... oh well... more to say when I return I'm sure.

The office shakes

and rumbles like the world is going to end... the little figurines on top of the computer monitor that belong to the day shifter are swaying back and forth...

what in the world is going on?! It's a late night cargo run with a 747 rumbling down the runway... it gets me everytime. The first 3 seconds I'm thinking the worst has happened, or there's an earthquake or something. And then I realize what it is and I race to the window to watch the light disappear into the darkness as one hell of a rumble slowly dissipates into the night.