Holy Arctic Air Mass Batman!

It is COLD!

So cold that I opted not to venture outside tonight like I had planned. And I'll likely stay in the house tomorrow, unless it is neccessary!

Currently it is -41 with the windchill. That is mighty darn cold. Looks like we're going to be in this cold for a few more days at least. There is a massive arctic air mass that is hovering over much of Canada and even starting to creep down into the states. It is just bitterly cold out there.

Here's a screenshot of the weather network's forecast.

Home sweet home

Ok, I'm home. Finally! Now into 3 of my 4 days off and enjoying the non-hotel lifestyle, for a little while at least.

I came back on Thursday night on Westjet and it was actually a really good flight, the plane wasn't crowded and I watched some live TV in the headrest in front of me.

I promptly plugged in my new xbox to give it a good workout. Only to find out that the hard drive was malfunctioning, so I could play some games but not really go anywhere because I couldn't save anything. So the next day it was off to futureshop to exchange it and now we're up and running full tilt. With the package deal that I got came 2 games, Ridge Racer 6 and Gears of War. GOW is amazing! As a matter of fact, the whole damn machine is amazing. I'm happy with my purchase. I then got Tsang to use his EA discount to get me NHL07 and the latest Need For Speed game. Both are also great. NHL07 is what really got me into the whole xbox in the first place, playing it with my roommate Mike at the local futureshop.

While a lot of you west coasters are getting a bunch of snow, hell we have been too! Except we're usually a little more prepared for it out here. And our snow is not wet and heavy but usually pretty dry and light.. and especially so this week because we're having one heck of a cold snap. -24 today and dropping down to -32 in the next couple of days! Brrrrrrr. Too cold!

Last night we had the company xmas party at the Hyatt downtown here in Calgary. This was my first company xmas party out of 3 that I was actually able to attend. It was a pretty classy event with a good turnout. I was very surprised at the quality of the food, wow oh wow, it was amazing. Nice big 4 course meal, with the best piece of steak I've ever had in my life. And of course the best part, an open bar. Which of course usually means trouble too. So, I got a little tipsy last night and partied it up there til about 1:30am which is when they kicked us out, and about the same time I was finding it hard to speak and stand without swaying. There were a few of us that got pretty darn drunk, good times, good times. This morning was a pretty rough event however. Took some time before I was able to really get out of bed and be any sort of productive.

Well, time to kick back and relax for the rest of my days off here, and looks like my next flight is just over to Victoria and Edmonton on Thursday. Then a few trips down south over the next couple of days after that.

A flight!!

The plane is fixed and we get to go for a flight, albeit quick, but I'll take it!

We're off to Boston and back tomorrow. Should be a nice day there, even though we'll only be there for 30 mins.

Then it's back to the hotel life until Thursday.

On a side note, the new Bond movie "Casino Royale" is great. I really like the new Bond. And this movie was a great intro into the whole Bond franchise. I highly, highly recommend it. It's got cars, poker, girls and classic Bond action... what is there not to like?

12 days available, 12 days in Ontario

My schedule as an on call corporate pilot is 12 days available to fly and then 4 scheduled days off. We don't usually work all of those 12 days, maybe around 8. But this set, it would appear I'm working 'em all.

The best part of it all is because I had only anticipated those first 3 days. So now I'll be out east my full set of 12 days. I'll travel back to Calgary on Thursday and then go on my official days off Friday - Monday.

The only good news is that they're sending another pilot here today who will spend the remainder of the days in the same hotel. So at least now I have some human interaction.

I would however, much prefer to be at home hooking up my new Xbox!

Out East... for a while.

Well, what should have been a couple of days out East doing some flying has turned into a long stint. Which is good and bad. Good for the pocket books, as I'm making more money being away from home base, but bad because I hadn't planned on being away for any greater than 5 days.. because that's all I packed for.

So.. today is day 5. See where this is going? And I'm anticipating being here until Wednesday, which is another 5 days. So.. it's time to find me some laundry facilities.

I'm in Kitchner Ontario staying in a Best Western. Kitchner is one of our eastern bases and I'm here to fly the eastern jet. I got out east on Monday when I flew into Hamilton in preparation for some flying which started on Tuesday. I went down to Oklahoma City and back up to Kitchner. The next day we went down to Tucson via a gas stop in Wichita. We then headed back up to Oklahoma City to pick up the people we had dropped off the day prior, and took them down to Georgetown Texas. Georgetown is a little town just outside of Austin Texas. There wasn't a whole lot to do there, so nothing much to report. The next day we flew them back up to Hamilton and then did the quick hop ourselves over to Kitchner. All of a 13 minute flight, and it was only that long because the weather was bad so we had to fly full approaches through the low cloud and fog to get in.

That brings us to today, Friday. I was going to be heading down to Mexico tomorrow to spend a lovely night in Los Cabos, but that all changed when the jet broke. So no more Mexico. It is getting fixed right now and should be up and running for a flight out of here Monday to Hamilton to pick up those same folks once again and take 'em down to Little Rock Arkansas and then over to Indianapolis. We'll spend the night there and take 'em back up to Hamilton Tuesday. At that point I'm hoping I will hop on a Westjet or AirCanada flight back to Calgary to sleep in my own bed. In the past 2 weeks I've only slept there 1 night, but that first week was because I was in Vancouver on holidays.

So yah, here I sit in my little hotel room all weekend long, just waiting for that flight on Monday. Exciting. And it's only me here!

Today I did go out touring around and walked into the Futureshop to take a peak at all the latest and greatest deals on gizmos... and low and behold they've got a big sale on their XBox360's as a result of the big launch for the PS3. Well, I thought long and hard all day long, and actually succumbed!! I had my roommate Mike pick one up for me in Calgary (only GST in Alberta) as it was a one day sale only. So I am now the proud owner of a new XBox, and I won't be able to touch it until Wednesday at the earliest!!!

Back from holidays, for just a few hours

Got back in this morning to Calgary. What a great time I had in Vancouver. Even though the rain poured for the majority of my trip, it was still warm and reminded me of what Vancouver is all about. I'd move back in a heartbeat if it was available, but things are going well in Calgary now, so I'm here for a while.

I'm packing for a few days right now, so I can't write a big blog. Tomorrow morning I'm on Westjet to fly to Hamilton, ON. There I'll spend the day and then very early in the morning on Tuesday I'm off to Little Rock Arkansas, and then Oklahoma City. Back into Kitchner Ontario later that night and then the rest of my days are unknown. Perhaps they'll keep me out there for a few days, but more likely is that I'll take a cab into Toronto and then fly back to Calgary sometime Wednesday.

Was great seeing most of you guys again. I had some good fun playing poker (Casino and Poker night), watching HDTV hockey games, out to some pubs, just hanging out and relaxing, spraining the hell out of my foot (which is getting better thankfully) and everything else which I'm forgetting as I frantically type out this never ending sentence inbetween folding laundry. :)

Well, perhaps I'll post from somewhere out east when I actually know what the heck I'll be doing.

Holy RAIN Batman!

Come back for holidays and I'm swamped (quite literally) with the buckets of rain falling from the sky. Hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of you lowermainlanders and we can catch up... preferably in a warm and dry establishment!