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.