Is too much credit a bad thing??

Evidently YES!

I recently applied for a new credit card because my current Visa is a Vancity Credit Union Card, which just doesn't seem prudent to have anymore considering I'm living in Calgary.

So I decided that I'd look for a points card of some sort and I opted for a free Visa card offered by RBC. The Visa doubles as a Starbucks card it will give you 1% of what you spend on the Visa back in Starbucks cash. Not too shabby for a free card.

So I applied and earlier this week got a letter in the mail. DECLINED!

I was floored. I have perfect credit and was quite shocked at this letter. I immediately called up RBC to find out what the problem was. They pretty much told me that my debt ratio was too high. I yelled back at them, "I have no debt!". But I began to realize what they were talking about. I have a rather large limit on my current visa (greater than 10k) and I also have a large line of credit (again quite high) through my TD bank out here. I actually did a credit check of myself online to really get to the bottom of this. And yes, simply put, I have enough disposable credit that I could in a matter of seconds/minutes spend more in credit than my current salary! So that's what they were getting at with the debt ratio.

So my next plan of action is to talk to my current Visa and TD bank to get my limits lowered so that I have far less "available credit".

So that's my rant on that subject! After I get it all sorted out I'm going to reapply and they'd better accept!!!

Holy, it's been a while!

I have been quite busy the past couple of weeks, I never got around to posting anything!

Lets see, the hi-lights. I'm now totally moved into my basement room and things are going well there, I've been working my ass off lately, had a flight to Vancouver for a pickup only though, and I'm training a new guy for night shifts this week.

So... to detail a little further:

I got a flight to Vancouver and we were going to have about 1hr on the ground. I called up my folks because I'm in the middle of all my taxes and wanted my Dad to come with some of my tax stuff from last year and so I could show him some of my tax stuff from this year. It's a complicated tax year for me: I have 2 T4's, my own flying business and write offs to work out for last year due to the traffic plane flying (I was a contract pilot), my moving expenses, some flight training expenses, and I made some money on some stocks too... it should be fun. At any rate, I met up with the family at the airport and Justin came out as well to say hello. Seeing as how he's off to Japan pretty soon it was likely the last time I'll see him before he jets off to the land of the rising sun. While I was showing the family and Justin the aircraft, we look up only to see Gordon Campbell and a swarm of executives loading onto a chartered aircraft right in front of us. My Mom promptly sticks her head out the door of the plane and snaps a picture; thanks Mom, how professional =D. I kicked family and friends out before the passengers arrived and it was a bumpy flight back. Actually, coming in was quite bumpy as well. I flew the first leg to Vancouver and we were getting hit pretty good, and we even flew through a bit of hail. My landing was likely the best I have ever had and I was quite happy about it! On the approach back into Calgary it was snowing and there was a low overcast layer. We flew through this for only a few minutes but it was enough for a serious amount of ice to develop on the aircraft. I took pictures because if we had flown through it for any longer it could have become a hazard. (If anyone would like to see the pics, just email me).

On to some good news here. I'm training a new guy for the night shift in the office, and we have just had another guy start on nights as well. What does this mean? Well, I'll be able to step out of nights and within the next 30-45 days I should be seeing the end of my office days here at AirSprint and I'll be transitioning to full time flying! That will be great when it happens and I've got my fingers crossed. But in order for me to get out of the office fully, there are other people being trained for the daytime office shifts and they have to be fully up to speed as well. There is a chance that even after I go full time flying, I could be called back into the office for the odd shift to help out. But hopefully everyone gets trained and up to speed quickly and I can start to see a lot more flying and little to NO office!

So yeah, there you have it. Oh yeah, it's freaking cold here in Calgary. Damn you westcoasters.

Oh, and the owner of the company flew back in from Mexico last night after a family vacation. He calls me up at 3am to say he can't get a cab at the main terminal, so he asks if I can take the keys out of his desk and go and pick him and his family up in his truck at the main terminal! Talk about pressure. I get outside and there is 3 inches of fresh snow out there!!! I drove super carefully, picked him and his family up, and he was tired and didn't want to drive, so I DROVE him back to our offices, where they loaded up seperate cars and drove home after. Talk about crazyness, driving the boss in unplowed snow covered and nearly invisible roads in his HUGE truck. I was glad when that was over.

Haha.. I laugh about it now, but had I parked it in a ditch, this blog entry would have likely started a whole lot differently!

IKEA!

I went, I saw, I conquered.

I had a successful trip to IKEA yesterday with my roommate Mike.

The Goal: To obtain bedroom furniture for my long anticipated move to the basement.

Results: A few bills shorter, but a nice little bedroom has been constructed.

So after spending a good couple of hours wandering the IKEA in southern Calgary my roommate and I proceeded to the furniture pick up isles and successfully loaded up a cart fully with my new bedroom. The items purchased included: A dresser, tall bookcase, small table/desk, simple computer chair. Upon returning home from IKEA we promptly opened up a few beers and began the construction process. The two of us had most of the furniture constructed quite quickly as we were able to create a production line of sorts. First constructed was the dresser which fits nicely into a little nook in the corner of my room. On top of the 4 drawer birch finished unit went my TV, VCR and DVD player. Next up was my tall 6 shelf bookcase also finished in IKEA's birch. The problem I was having with this unit was that I couldn't' put it up against the wall that I wanted to, because the heat control unit would be blocked if I tried to get it close to the wall. Solution! I took out an exacto knife and did some careful measurements and cut out a little rectangular section from the back part of the bookshelf that was made out of particle board. We placed it up against the wall and it was a perfect fit with the heating control unit poking through. I'll just place a picture or something in front of it and reach behind anytime I need to adjust the heat.

The desk and chair I constructed today. I could only get the desk in white as the size I wanted in birch was completely sold out (obviously very popular for a $19 table top).

I've taken most of my things and moved in, still a few things though remain upstairs in my previous room.

The room had actually been ready for a couple of weeks, but due to my hectic schedule of office and flying work and then getting sick, I hadn't been able to do much about it.

So I've now spent a couple of nights down there and I'm quite happy to have my own official space...... even if it has been 7months coming. =D

A couple of quirks about the new room. It's direclty under the kitchen. So I can faintly hear the kitchen drawers being opened and closed. I can hear the water from the bathroom closest to me and if people are stomping loudly above me, I can hear it as well due to the hardwood floors in the house. Not too bad though, quite manageable.

I'll try and take a couple of pictures soon so you can get an idea of my quaint little space.

Next up is a new bed. A buddy of ours works for a major retailer and can get us top of the line models for extremely, and I mean extremely good deals... like 25% of retail. We just need to show up at the warehouse and load it into the back of our vehicle (totally legit, don't worry!). So for now though I continue to sleep on a little IKEA double mattress on the floor that I've been borrowing since I got here.

Alrighty... back to my first night of 5 in the office.

2 Day Prairie Tour

I'm back from an interesting trip.

Made even more interesting by the fact that I had the beginnings of a head cold and had decided to tempt fate and try and fly. BAD MOVE. My sinus' were not too happy with me. I was able to help minimize the pain by doing slower descents and trying to unplug my ears as much as possible. Anyways, so... about the trip.

The plane was to pretty much shuttle one of our clients around to many small towns in Alberta and Saskatchewan. His company produces pumps for oil rigs and he has stores all around north america and for these couple of days he was hitting up the prairies.

So... because he wanted to go to so many places on the first day we actually needed two planes to accommodate, otherwise the pilots would fly too much in one day if they were to do it all on one plane. So after a morning flight with a different client to Regina, we went directly to Lloydminster and picked up the pump guy and his group.

That first day we flew to Provost AB and then to Estevan SK. Let me tell you this, all of the places we visited were small towns and were totally unlike the big cities. In Provost we had an older fellow come up to us after we landed and offered to give us a ride into town if we needed one. We were hungry and wanted to grab some lunch so we accepted his offer and he drove us into town were we ate, and then an hour later he came to pick us up again! We chatted with him for a bit, he was an old timer at the airport that had seen his fair share of the aviation industry. That town was very friendly. Once in Estevan we were staying the night, so after getting the plane all settled for the night we cabbed into town to the Days Inn. Thank god this place was decent. It was actually just renovated at the beginning of February and the hotel was really nice. I met up with the Captain down in the hotel bar/lounge for some dinner. I saw he was drinking and so hell, that meant I could drink too! So I got a beer, but quickly realized my sense of taste wasn't the best because of my cold and it probably could have been water and I wouldn't have known the difference. At this bar we looked and up on a mini stage they had 3 little jeopardy podiums set up. It was jeopardy trivia night. My captain, who's a younger guy and a lot of fun immediately signs up for it! Later we found out though that it was for Rock and Roll Jeopardy and he wasn't comfortable with that, so after seeing a few contestants go through the questions he decided to bolt and ditch the game! But that wasn't before our clients came and sat down 2 tables from us. Kind of funny, they were staying in the same hotel (obviously cause it was the only semi-decent one in town). We kinda said hi to them and we each awkwardly ignored each other. =D

That night after dinner I went back into the hotel room and tried to figure out a way to help relieve some of my sinus pains. I tried a technique that I had googled using my blackberry while we were in Provost. The method was to take a cup and place a napkin in the bottom, get some hot water and pour some into the cup to soak the paper napkin, then quickly dump the water and all you're left with is a steaming cup of napkin. You cup it up against your ear and let the steam work it's way into your ear and relieve the pressure. In theory this sounded great. But it didn't really do the trick, I did feel it getting close, but not close enough. I then decided to have a really hot shower. So I did, a good 30mins worth. It defiantly loosened up the sinus' and made me feel a little better, but still not 100%. I popped some pills and went to bed.

The next morning we were at the airport quite early and getting the plane ready to go for the day. I couldn't believe what came running out towards me on the airport ramp. It was a cat! He was quite friendly, he was the "airport cat". There to keep the mouse population down. =D

He was a funny character, very vocal and wanting attention. As we were loading the passengers onto the plane he came trotting up beside the aircraft and before I could close the door the little bugger jumped up the stairs and into the damn airplane! I was able to stop him and take him outside, but he kept trying to get in. I ended up picking him up and then walking him back to the terminal building and throwing him inside. The clients all had a good laugh about it.

The second day consisted of us flying to Swift Current SK, Kindersly SK, Red Deer AB and then returning empty back to Calgary. Most of those stops were fairly uneventful. We never left the airport at any of them and just hung around. At least they all had someplace we could go and sit down in and just relax and wait for the clients to finish their tours. I was feeling a little less sinus pain that day but my nose was running all day and was still quite unpleasant.

After landing in Calgary I made sure I wasn't going to be scheduled to fly for a couple of days so that I could recover. I was given 3 sick days and I now don't go back in to work the night shift until Tuesday. So I've got a couple days off to recover, hopefully. As I right this I'm still quite congested and have a bit of a headache. My ears are also still a bit plugged, but I'll clear them out over time as this sickness leaves my body.

I didn't bother taking any pics this time cause it was all the same view.... FLAT!