Snap happy

Well I've had the new camera since Friday and have been snapping away ever since. So many features and options though it is quite overwhelming. It'll be a long time before I'll have learned half of the things this camera is capable of.

So far I'm quite pleased with it in all regards. It has a very fast shutter rate, accurate auto focus, quick function changes on the go and some incredibly fancy features I have yet to even use!

Here's a sampling of some of the better shots that have come out of the camera. I have a lot to learn yet, including some fancy post editing with programs like Photoshop to truly get the most out of each picture.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Some flowers in the backyard.

Westjet departing out of Calgary at dusk.

The WRX at dusk on a dirt road.

My roommate Mike's new car - Acura RSX-S.

A coworker (Geoff) caught on the Jet staircase shot through a chainlink fence zoomed in.

I'll likely have more pics on the blog from now on as a result of the new camera. I'll want to try all sorts of different techniques and I'll post 'em all up for critique and Oooo's and Ahhh's.. :)

So what do ya all think?

I've joined the Digital SLR Camera craze

Well after MUCH deliberation. I finally decided I'd head to a recommended camera store in town and ask them flat out what they had to say between the 3 cameras I was trying to decide on.

The 3 were in order of personal preference from my own reviews:

Olympus E500 2 lens kit
Nikon D50 body only with separate purchased lenses
Canon Digital Rebel XT with separate purchased lenses

The salesman at The Camera Store here in downtown Calgary was very informative. Explaining that while the Canon and Nikon's had good groundwork, the lenses that came with them were crap. Mainly constructed from cheap plastics and not really a good choice. So if I were to go that route, it was suggested that the body should be purchased and then spring for a better lens (which was going to put me a few hundred dollars out of my price range).

Then he started talking to me about the Olympus and the more and more he looked into the camera the more and more he was impressed over what it had to offer with the 2 lens kit. He explained that the lenses were actually very decent for what I was planning to use the camera for and far superior to the Canon and Nikon counterparts. Not only that, but the package deal has a rebate of $100 right now as well. So this was my selling feature and I was sold.

Almost. Haha, unfortunately they couldn't find the 1 box they had somewhere in the store but they have more on order. So I'm waiting for a phone call in the next few days to tell me my new toy has arrived. Can't wait to start snapping.

A full review on the camera can be found here from this very informative camera and accessory review site: Olympus E500 Review

Here's a pic of the camera with it's lenses:

Are the friendly skies really that friendly?

**Updated with new articles**

A few newspapers from Ontario have been doing a series on Aviation safety over the past couple of weeks. Some of it is very informative. Some of it is a little exaggerated, as can be expected from the Media. But for the most part, it is a well done series.

The articles touch on everything from maintenance practices, to pilot work schedules and overcrowded skies. If you're an avid flier, you might find some of the information surprising. It's definitely worth a read to better educate yourself with aviation safety and regulations within the Canadian Aviation system and how we compare to other countries.

Too Close for Comfort

Collision Course

Air taxi tragedy points to industry flaws

Canadian Pilots battle fatigue

Economics trumps safety: Jazz staff

Judge calls for review of `sliding' air safety

Airline suspends mechanics

Lax air rules blamed for risky landings

Jetsgo problems ignored

As they continue their series, I'll update with more of the articles. But some of the information may be quite surprising. It's true in many situations, but extremely so in Aviation - ignorance is bliss.

My opinion - I'm happy to be at a company which does not imply any pressure to get the job done. We don't cut corners to save a buck or to save time. Our passengers are our clients, and they certainly don't want to risk anything anymore than we do! But there are companies out there that will put pressure on it's young and inexperienced crews (pilots/mechanics) to get the job done. It still exists to some extent as high up as Air Canada. The aviation industry in it's entirety is not well understood by John Q Public. Perhaps that is best, but many are surprised by what actually happens behind the scenes... I know I am.

Cool Impreza Model Car

Looks like a pretty neat model car of the Subaru Rally Impreza eh?


And the really cool thing about this model... wait for it... wait for it... It's all constructed from paper!!!

There's a 38 page PDF file on the webpage at the bottom of this post which you can print off on a photo high quality paper and create your own masterpiece. Pretty darn cool. But I'm not sure I have the patience and talent to construct it. If anybody does, let me know how it goes! :)

Here's the webpage: Subaru World Rally Car Paper Model

I worked myself ill

I've been going absolutely non-stop over the past month, barely getting enough time in my days off to catch up on normal life events such as shopping for groceries or doing laundry. And most of the time has been spent away from home.

Yesterday it finally reached it's breaking point when after a couple days of continuous flying, and difficult flying at that (weather issues all over the place), I found myself throwing up for the first time in a long time! And to top it all off, it was inbetween flights. They had to quickly call in another pilot to finish off the rest of my flying.. it's a good thing we were back in Calgary at the time. So I've got today off and am on my way to getting tomorrow off as well so that I can recover. I think it's just been a combo of lack of sleep, crazy eating schedules and crappy food at that, with difficult flying conditions that finally packed it in for me.

I'll then spend the next couple of days flying and will be on days off so that I can recover even more. Ahh the gongshow. Well, back to bed for me.

Westjet's retirement of the 737-200 series

Most of you are familiar that Westjet has got a great brand new fleet with the fancy leather seats and satellite tv in for everyone. Those 737's are the nice new models classifed as the 737-700, 737-800 and 737-600 series. The jist of all those numbers just means that they are slightly different in total size, so more or less passengers.

The airline started with only 3 planes though, and these were pretty old 737-200 series aircraft. But Westjet was a smart cookie and owned the planes outright, that's part of the contributing factor to the whole Westjet success story. Well, those planes were old and noisy and not as technilogically robust as the newer aircraft these days. So once they got the whole airline up and running smoothly, they started to phase out the 200 series. Here's a little video that's quite neat that shows the party they threw to retire the last one. It's neat to see the plane doing something that you don't always associate with a medium sized commercial transport aircraft!

35/949 - Placed in the $$$

So I've finally taken a big step in the large poker tourneys, and placed well within the money.

The event was a $200,000 prize pool $200+15 entry fee, no limit hold-em tourney. At the end of the registration process 949 others had entered. This was by far the biggest tourney at this level of play, that I have been a part of. Top 100 finishers took home the cash. The range in payouts was from 100th paying $300, all the way to 1st which paid out a very nice $45,000 US!

Just to recap, I won my entry by winning a smaller satellite tourney which I paid $21 to play in. Some might say that I should just take the $215 that I won from that tourney and run, but I still have not given up my ambitions to place high in one of these large tourneys.

The game started well and at the first break I had managed to double up. I was quite pleased with my process. I also managed to hit pocket rockets (AA) 3 times in that hour! The second hour was not my friend. My chip stack dwindled and only 2 very successful all ins saved my butt to keep me a contender at the end of that second hour. I had a close call with AA later in the game when I was all in and my opponent was all in as well. He had TT and a 10 hit on the flop! Then the turn card hit and it was thankfully an Ace! Narrowly avoided death on that hit. My next hand was JJ and I took down another decent sized pot. Now I was sitting pretty to coast into the final 100 and at least guarantee myself a $300 pay out. Well I managed to steal a few blinds here and there and outbet some opponents to keep me alive into top 50! Things were looking good as the payouts were now in the $700 range. I was only going to be playing premium hands and play them strong. And that's what happened when my fateful last hand came up. I had AQs and pushed after a weaker opponent limped with what turned out to be JJ. No Ace or Queen came to save my bacon. It was all over, and 35th place was mine.

I'm not too upset. I probably could have coasted into the next payout range, but was happy with my play overall. A couple of stupid moves earlier in the game, but some better ones to also help me get as far as I did.

In the end the money breakdown was as follows:

Buy in fee: $ 21
35th place payout: $900
Profit: $879

Beating out all the pros who were also in this tourney... priceless. :)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm also entered into a free invite only tourney as a result of my participation in this event. It's for a shot at winning a seat into the World Series of Poker. I believe that's on Wednesday, so who knows... I could be off to Vegas! :)

How much is your time worth?

This is a commonly used phrase surrounding the charter/fractional/ownership style of traveling that I'm deep within. It became even more evident on this past Wednesday when I traveled commercially with United down to Denver from Calgary for some security screening (fingerprinting).

I can easily say that I hate the commercial way of traveling, after experiencing what the private type of traveling has to offer.

Many of our clients view their time as quite valuable, and rightfully so. I'll now detail a couple of scenarios to help bring my point across.

Lets say my trip to Denver was that of a business nature. And lets say that I didn't have to go directly to Denver, but to another town nearby that's about an hour drive away from the closest International Airport. I need to be at a meeting with 5 of my associates by 12:30pm.

Commercial Travel time factoring:

Flight time to Denver: 2:00
Sedan and driver from Denver to town X: 1:00
Check in time/customs/security screening/grabbing bags: 2:30

Total time traveling: 5:30 requiring showing up at the airport at 7:00am.

Private Travel time factoring:

Flight time direct to town X (Jet fleet): 2:10
Customs/loading and unloading plane: 0:20

Total time traveling: 2:30 requiring showing up at the airport at 10:00am.

So now lets take into consideration some costs. 6 round trip tickets to Denver in business class $6-8,000. Sedan and driver to and from town X $500. Plus the likely hood of having to spend a night in a hotel in Denver for 6 people $1,000.

So we're roughly looking at total costs of approx $8,500. And total travel time of 30hrs. So our cost for each individual is $1,415 and 30 hrs worth of traveling.

Ok, so now lets look at the Private travel costs. 2:10 of flying in our jet at owner rates is roughly going to cost $5,000 each way, so $10,000 round trip. Per person we're looking at roughly $1,660 and total time of traveling at likely less than 10hrs! Starting to see some value in this way of traveling?

How about this then. Lets say we use the turboprop fleet instead. The travel time bumps up by 1hr each way, but the operating costs are significantly less. Total cost for the turboprop trip at owner rates would be about $2,500 each way for $5,000 round trip. Per person it's an amazing cost of $840 for lets say 12hrs of travel time!

This is why our business is thriving. We're able to take people from point A to point B and bypass 90% of the hassles of normal commercial flying. Not to mention that we can fly directly to mainy small airports and bypass all of the connecting flight mumbo jumbo. No taking your shoes off at the security line ups. Forget about waiting in huge lines that snake for miles in the terminal buildings. Customs will meet the airplane directly and are 'usually' a much more pleasant experience.

So for myself pretending to be the business executive, this service is invaluable. The time wasted running around airport terminals, unnecessary extra travel, being held up in hotel rooms... this could be time spent elsewhere and much more effectively.

We don't just fly business executives around though, we do a lot of personal flying for people that do have a fair bit of $$$ who are just fed up with all the hassles of commercial travel. And can you blame them?!

So, how much is your time worth?

Poker goodness!

Well I haven't really played any poker this past month. I've been so busy, having spent half my days in hotels and the other half flying, eating or sleeping!

Anywho, so the past couple of days I've played in 9 games. 2 of them were 10 seater mini tourney's and I placed 1st and 2nd in those. The other 6 were just heads up tourney's winner take all style, and I won all 6. Then today I also played in an entry chip tourney for Sunday's big game. I beat out 20 people for the prized spot of 1st, which paid the $215 entry fee for the game. And for some reason this will be a big game, and is going to be a prize pool of $200,000! Normally it's only $125,000 but I'm not complaining!

So on Sunday June 4th at 5pm EST I'll be playing on www.ultimatebet.com for my shot at a piece of the $200,000 prize pool. I imagine 1st place will get somewhere in the vicinity of $40,000. So load up the free software and come find me in the Scheduled tourney section.

Hopefully my poker luck will continue through.