just call me Mr. Caribbean

Well it looks like I'm headed back down to the Caribbean for the 3rd time this year! The first was Antigua, then Puerto Rico and now I'm off to Guadeloupe. This Caribbean island is the next one down the chain after Antigua by about 100kms. So it will qualify as the furthest I've flown in the jet.

The island is also a region of France and therefore it's a French speaking island and also, it uses the Euro as it's currency! A bit of a pain in the ass, I will take a few Euros with me, but will rely on some American currency and my trusty Starbucks Visa to handle the majority of purchasing.

The trip starts with me spending 4 nights in Montreal beginning Tuesday. From there we will head down through Florida for fuel and then straight out the chain of islands overflying the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, St. Marteen and Antigua finally arriving at Guadeloupe after about 6hrs of flying from Montreal. We will get to spend 8 days and 7 nights at what I'm hoping to be a very nice hotel/resort on the beach somewhere to enjoy another all expenses paid vacation. A nice little perk that I enjoy very much about the job. However, it's not all these peachy trips, so I'm glad when they happen but I still do put up with a lot of equally less enjoyable layovers too.

So hopefully this trip remains the same and I'll be sure to have my bags with me, as I won't be flying commercially to the meet the plane anywhere! I will however, be taking a commercial flight back from Montreal though, but at least when I arrive back in Calgary I have more clothes and accessories should the worst happen AGAIN, and they lose my bags.

and snow it did

yup, she snowed alright. Began around 8am today and hasn't really let up yet, the roads are ok as the ground was warm enough to repel most of the falling snow and most parking lots are just slush. The grassy areas are covered in a couple of inches of wet mess.

In a couple of days the temps should rise again and this will all be gone. I just can't stand all the freaking gravel and salt that gets laid down, the roads were finally starting to clear of all the windshield killing pea gravel and now it's back to being full of it. I want the snow to end!!! I need a new windshield, but don't want to have one installed until after the main snow season ends as I'm sure to pick up some chips throughout the year, I'd just prefer it not be within the first few days of having a brand new windshield installed!

Crazy weather in Calgary

I'm driving down to head out for a walk down by some of the river paths here in Calgary because it is such a nice day. It was sunny, 9 degrees, light winds, just a great day for a walk down by the river. Many other people had the same idea as me too, it was almost summer like out there today.

However, as I drove I hear on the radio the weather forecast for the next couple of days, a winter weather warning?! Yup, an advisory that 15 cms was expected to fall overnight and into tomorrow morning. I did a doubletake as I looked outside at the great weather. This unfortunately has not been an unusual occurance. It seems like this has been happening nonstop over the past couple of weeks. We'll have a great day like today, and then get a bunch of snow, it will then all be gone within 12 hours and we'll be back into the sunshine summer weather again.

Here's the current weather and the storm watch warning on top:

And here's the forecast showing some snow, and then boom, right back into summer weather!

6 am call out

Got called out at 6am this week on Wednesday when another pilot's wife went into labour and therefore couldn't do his flight that day.

So it was an early morning off to Edmonton, to hang out there for most of the day, then back to Calgary and pickup some more folks and head down to Palm Springs for the night. Only got to spend 12hrs there and it was back up to Calgary the next morning.

We've been having really crazy weather here in Calgary. It goes from being a nice sunny and warm 13-15 degrees, and then it's a blizzard outside the next morning, and then the cycle repeats. Unfortunately it was during the blizzard cycle that I drove to work at 7am. Took about 3 times as long to get there, and then we had to deal with snow and ice and all that crap with the plane too. We required anti-icing and then as we went to go we got in a HUGE lineup of airplanes that took 20 mins to taxi for takeoff. Then we had a problem on our takeoff roll, just a flap setting that jumped out of place and sounded an alarm, so we aborted the takeoff (only going about 50km/hr) and had to taxi back and get in line again for takeoff. In the end, after all the delays, the clients could have been in Edmonton in the same amount of time had they just driven!

This weekend looks nice, 16 degrees and sunny so I'm looking forward to it!

Cochrane Rally

It was a pretty chilly morning with a light misting of snow and freezing drizzle when I woke up today. Bright and early after only 4 hours of sleep, I was off to Cochrane (30 min drive towards the Rocky Mountains) to check out the morning stages of the Cochrane Winter Rally.

It was a hoot, I got to see my old rally friends compete in their car #11 and a lot of great other machines ranging from old old Volvo's to brand new Subaru WRX STi's. It has really got me thinking Rally again.. such an expensive sport, but oh so much fun.

Here's some photo's I snapped from a spectating area which had the competiters travel through twice, once in each direction. Just click on the album below, and selecting "slideshow" works best for viewing.

Cochrane Rally

Rally Nostalgia

After talking with some friends I used to Rally with back in the day, I have started to reminisce about all the fun times I used to have driving sideways in the gravel and snow.

Most of you know that I used to compete in "TSD/Road Rally" events. These are precision timing and navigational rallies and are not the 'go as fast as you can' rallies. They were a lot of fun, my main co-driver John Ma was probably the best of the best during his time making the calculations and calling out the route book for me. It was my move to Calgary and the selling of my old Subaru Legacy that finally quashed my Rally fun, but I did go out on top, having won championship in points for my class of vehicle.

The friends I made when doing these rallies have continued on and most have jumped up to the "Stage Rally" circuit which is the type of Rallying you see with cars with roll cages, drivers with full fire suits and helmets, and the cars 'going as fast as the drivers dare push them' sideways down gravel logging roads. I have recently been in contact with an old rally friend Christa, and she and others I knew from back in the rally days, are coming out to Alberta to compete in this weekend's "Cochrane Winter Rally". I will be heading out to say hi and talk of rallies past, as well as watch them compete in some designated spectator areas this weekend. I'll take my camera and hopefully get some good shots of the cars in action.

It's just too pricey of a hobby for me to get back into at this point and time, but wow, what a blast I used to have, even just with the TSD/Road Rallies. The last rally I competed in (wasn't with John Ma, but another co-driver) was a winter rally held in and around Merritt and Cache Creek BC. It was my first snow event, for which i bought purpose snow tires thankfully, but it was also the first time I ever had an "off". The "off" meaning, that I went off the road, and more directly.. into a ditch. It was on a straight section of road after a slight turn in which I applied to much gas after exiting and begun fishtailing uncontrollably, I eventually just let the car slide to a stop, but it took an extra little swerve and we ended up in a ditch! It was a pretty wide ditch, filled with snow. I was stuck and had to drive opposite direction to the traffic in the ditch and hop up and out of the ditch, I quickly got out and checked the car for damage and continued on without incurring too much delays thankfully. The car actually did have a little bit of damage to the rocker panel on the passenger side, it made it difficult to open the right rear door, but nothing a little rubber hammer couldn't fix a few days later.

Here are some pics from that event that I managed to find online from the RallyBC website.

Here's the old Rally Car in action!




My encounter with the ditch was also caught on camera


You can see the tire tracks in the snowy ditch on the left as I inspect for damage





Ahh memories, maybe someday soon I'll get back into the sport. For now, I shall watch some downloaded World Rally events to see some of the truly amazing driving they do.

Puerto Rico pictures

I finally got all the pictures organized and labelled in a photo album. Click on the picture from Old San Juan below to view the slideshow album!

The previous post has my trip report from Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico Trip Report

Well, aside from the whole trip starting out with my missing bags, the Puerto Rico trip turned out to be a huge success. We got to stay the entire trip down there for 4 nights and 5 glorious days in the beautiful 30 degree heat of San Juan Puerto Rico.

The hotel we stayed at was defiantly upper class, very fancy and no young kids were seen running about that's for sure. There were even signs posted everywhere about a dress code. I had to bend some of those dress codes as I was very limited in my clothing. The San Juan Hotel and Casino located on Isla Verde just minutes from the airport itself was a great place to relax and enjoy our trip. We were right on the beach, the hotel had many shops and restaurants, even a Starbucks right in the lobby, and 3 separate pools outside. I would never have been able to afford it except for work picking up the tab, it cost the company $350 USD per night!

Our first day we traveled into Old San Juan, which was about a 20 minute drive away. After waiting nearly 40 minutes for a bus to come, we opted to take a taxi and split the fare with 3 college girls who were going into Old San Juan as well. Unfortunately this is not one of those stories that branches off with me saying that I took the 3 Florida State College girls back to my room later for drinks and some Canadian hospitality. Haha, they were a fun bunch of girls and we chatted them up all the way into town. They were on their "reading break" and by the looks of their sunburns; they were getting lots of "reading" done.

At this point I had not purchased any replacement clothes and was borrowing a pair of shorts, socks and shoes of the other pilot Jim. Jim is a bit bigger than me, so my belt was required to keep his shorts from just sliding down haha. We had a good time once we got into town. We went straight to Senior Frogs for a couple of drinks and a light lunch. Senor Frogs is a very famous chain of bar/restaurants in the more exotic vacation destinations with many in Mexico and the Caribbean. I found out when reading the menu, that the bar/club that I had been to during my week long trip in Cabo San Lucas (El Squid Roe) was part of this whole chain.

We then walked around and checked out the town, very historic with old houses, small alleys, cobblestone roads and many monuments. The biggest thing about Old San Juan is the huge naval fortifications that surrounded the area. A very impressive structure that was hundreds of years old that helped protect San Juan's shipping harbors. I got a few pictures of the area and I'll post them all up in a photo gallery soon.

After having a couple more beers we headed to the bus station to go back into town. Low and behold we met up with same 3 girls as they were heading back at the same time too. The bus was quite the experience, it was very very crowded and that didn't stop people from continuing to cram at EVERY stop. Just one of those experiences!

The beer of choice for this entire trip was a Puerto Rican beer called "Medalla". It is actually a light beer, which is all they produce, but it does not taste like a light beer. It was very good, low in calories, and cheap cheap cheap! We were having a few of these "cervesa's mas finas" each night - nothing like a cold beer in the 25 degree warm night air of a Caribbean island. I even went as far as to bring back a 12 pack of this beer home. I will be consuming these on my days off which are approaching quickly.

I did manage to buy some new clothes to tide me over for the rest of the trip at the hotel gift shop (touristy Puerto Rico clothes haha) and I found a pair of shorts, actually a pretty good pair of shorts, at a Walgreens down the street from the hotel. I also managed to buy some socks, underwear and other essentials for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the trip was spent sampling many little bars near the hotel, some on the beach, some on top of the hotels, another one right around the corner, all of which provided tasty cold Puerto Rican libations. I spent a bunch of time out on the beach too just relaxing, even getting a little bit of a tan. I did lather up quite a bit with the sunscreen as a precaution from previous warm destination sunburn memories, so my tan is not everything it could have been. But it was great to just sit out on the beach reading a magazine, watching all the beautiful scenery and people on the beach and in the water. Especially after having just gotten over a horrible cold a few days prior, this trip was exactly what I needed.

We did have one run in with a "Puerto Rican Lady of the Night" as we took a shortcut through an alley to go to one of the beach bars. She was yelling at us from across the street asking us if we wanted to have an orgy. It then progressed for the next 5 mins as she tried to chat us up. It was another "experience" talking to "Christine", needless to say we did not take the same route out of the bar back to the hotel.

I was very impressed with Puerto Rico and everything it had to offer. You can quickly find some seedy areas of town, but that's just like any city, I'm quickly reminded of ending up in the wrong areas of town in LA a couple weeks ago! The Caribbean is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I'm not big into all the water activities, but the views, scenery, lifestyle, weather – it just can't be beat. I believe this will become a vacation destination for me in the future. I still really want to go and visit St Martin as it has all the great Caribbean features, plus that very famous airport which provides some crazy views of landing and departing aircraft right over one of the beaches.

I'll try and post up a photo gallery soon, there are not a lot of pictures, but a couple of them capture Old San Juan well. As mentioned in my previous post, I did in fact write this blog entry in the back of the jet, I'm currently 56 minutes from Casper Wyoming on our way to Santa Ana California (by the way, that's the freaking OC!). Cruising at 43,000 ft with the sun warming me from the left side of the aircraft this clear sky morning, this truly is the way to travel.

"Should I get a Blackberry?"

I have been asked this question quite a few times since I first obtained a blackberry thru work a couple of years ago. People who have stolen mine and played with it think it's a cool little gadget and like the idea of being so connected to the world wherever you happen to be. However, I have to tell everyone the same thing, and I'll repeat it here in this posting.

While the Blackberry is a very handy tool, which I use daily, it comes at a great cost. Currently the data packages that all the main carriers offer are ridiculously expensive. Most offer their "unlimited data package" at around $60/month. They do offer smaller data packages, but most people will find that unless they are ONLY using the email features, and never using the web browser, they will exceed the allowed data usage and therefore find that the unlimited package is really the only way to go. Also, that is JUST for the data, you still need the usual phone package, plus network access fees etc.

I get some pretty good discounts thru my Telus plan, and still pay approximately $100 per month for my plan which includes: 250 weekday minutes, unlimited evening and weekends (6pm-8am), 5 cents per min Canadian long distance, voice mail, caller ID, unlimited Blackberry data plan. Without the corporate discounts that I have, the average individual could expect to pay closer to $130-$150 for the exact same package. I also get money from work however to help cover much of this expense.

So does that cool gadget factor really justify the expense? I guess it really depends on what you'd like from a phone.

Another con is when you're talking on your phone it's just like talking on a freaking calculator. Haha, so I tend to tell people forget about the Blackberry unless you're work is helping to pay for it and you really need the "connection to the world". Besides, you can access a lot of the same content from your own cell phone these days (albeit a little trickier).

I am looking forward to upgrading my Blackberry once the new 8800 model is released in Canada, and becomes moderately priced. It will be smaller, have built in GPS with moving map displays, WIFI connection possibilities, camera phone and all the normal Blackberry goodies.

Westjet Seat 06A

Written onboard my Westjet flight from Edmonton to Toronto March 3rd

Enroute from Edmonton to Toronto on my Westjet commercial flight and I've come to a rather interesting conclusion.

I have been in this same seat before, and on this airplane twice before! It seems that I always get assigned or end up picking this seat all the time as it's a window seat and I prefer to sit closer to the front of the plane. At least 4 times in the past year of travel I can recall having seat 06A.

How do I know that I've sat in this particular airplane in seat 06A a couple of times prior? Simple, because the damn seatback television sucks in this seat and is continually turning itself off and on, there's obviously a bad connection here somewhere, and I can recall this same frustration on past trips!

So, if you get booked on Westjet, beware of seat 06A, there's a slight chance you'll be disappointed in the performance of the seatback television system!

Jets are busy, so we go to California

Well, looks like we won't be doing that trip on Monday from Hamilton to Edmonton. Instead we head out to Santa Ana California on Sunday (via Casper, WY for fuel) to do a pickup and take one guy up to Edmonton. I believe I will then take a rental car home to Calgary right after. That will prove to be a long day tomorrow, as I also have to drive out to Kitchner Ontario (45mins each way) to pick up the other pilot and bring him to Hamilton with my rental car.

I have been busier than expected while out in Hamilton. I managed to meet up with Bonnie and fiancee Jim last night in Toronto for dinner as they were heading into town for the weekend. Having a rental car has really made this trip easier, and now I have travelled all over the place in the GTA (with the help of some quick phone calls from prior locals to help me navigate through some tricky stretches).

Today I was out driving around again checking out the sights of Hamilton (not a whole lot!) but i did go to the Canadian Heritage Warplane Museum, which is located right at the Hamilton airport. They've got a lot of great Canadian Aviation artifacts including a lot of aircraft on display. They are actively restoring many of the aircraft and you can watch and talk to the volunteers who are helping to restore all of the amazing heritage aircraft. It was definatley worth my time to check it out, and I suggest anyone else who wanders through Hamilton Ontario to check it out as well!

Puerto Rico post still to come, likely once I've returned to Calgary and settled back in a bit into my days off. Or perhaps I'll take my laptop with me into the plane tomorrow as we travel to California and I'll relax in the back of the plane and write it all out there.

Back from Puerto Rico

Now currently in Hamilton Ontario, where I'll stay until a flight back out west on Monday. I did manage to get my bag back from Westjet as it was waiting for me in Montreal as I had arranged. I'm happy to have that back finally.

Pretty tired right now, so I'm off to bed. Will have a couple days of just lounging around here in Hamilton so I'll post up more details about my great Puerto Rico trip soon, and maybe I'll even get my photo's uploaded too.

Check back soon for those posts.

in Montreal, WITHOUT my checked bag!

Well, I'm off to Puerto Rico tomorrow, staying in the lovely San Juan Hotel and Casino.. BUT, my bags never left Edmonton to Toronto and therefore certainly didn't make my connecting flight to Montreal. What a freaking mess. All I have is my carry on bags to tide me over for 5 days in Puerto Rico, but that won't be enough, so I'll end up having to buy a bunch of clothes there to last me until I get back to Montreal (where my bags will be waiting for my return). Just another awesome kink in the hose for this gongshow of a trip. And I'm only on day 2 of 12 so far!

I'll post upon my return from Puerto Rico as I'm unsure if I'll have internet while there.. bye for now.

Getting to Montreal has become a gong show

Due to recent bad weather out east and what appears to be the airlines rebooking many of their flights, I was left without a direct trip to Montreal! Instead I travelled tonight (Friday) up to Edmonton in the back of one of our PC-12 turboprops on an empty leg as they positioned up here. I then took a $60 cab ride to the hotel here in Edmonton where I will spend tonight. Tomorrow I will take a commercial flight out to Toronto, where I'll spend the night again. Then Sunday morning I will take yet another commercial flight to Montreal, and then hope in our own jet and then complete the flight down to San Juan Puerto Rico (via Wilminton NC for fuel).

So yah, quite the gong show. With all these added costs, I could have had one heck of a first class ticket to Montreal!

Head starting to clear...

well the cough and fever stopped a couple of days ago, but was replaced by a head cold which I'm trying to get over right now.

Today is my last scheduled day off and tomorrow I'm not scheduled to fly and won't, because all the airplanes are busy elsewhere. Saturday looks like I'll be booked on an airline to Montreal to position for the Sunday trip down to Puerto Rico. I really want to go on that flight, but if this head cold doesn't clear up, that's going to be bad news and I'll likely have to back out of the trip. Right now I figure I'm at about a 70% chance of being good to go.

Well, back to the hot lemon water and watching Old School on TV.