Another Saturday, another packing day. Off to Vancouver tomorrow afternoon for another week of fun in the warehouse. I’ll have to check but this looks like it’s turning out to be one of my busiest years for flying. I’ve got 2 more trips to Switzerland scheduled in October and November and, hopefully, a few more training flights at the Brampton Flying Club which will add to the current total of 21 individual flights.
Whew! My arms are getting tired.
Spent part of today driving around checking out some of the areas I knew when I lived here over 3 decades ago.
We lived in this house in West Vancouver for a few years. Looks vastly different than I remember. Used to be a dark blue as I recall and the door in front of the car used to be the garage door.
After that, it was out along Marine Drive to Horseshoe Bay. One of the main ferry terminals to the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. Still as pretty as I remember.
Finally, out to Deep Cove. Very, very touristy now.
I transferred from the Richmond Inn to the Hilton yesterday. Much nicer hotel with a great view of the mountains and the airport. And other things.
Woke up this morning to the sight of a car fire about a block away from the hotel. Nothing major so I placed a non-emergency call to the fire department.
Speaking of fire, last night’s sunset was pretty.
Was hoping for some nice weather but so far today is coming up cloudy and cool. Oh well.
Love Vancouver. Hate being stuck here alone on a long weekend on a business trip. Don’t get to go home until Wednesday morning.
I’ll be working all day tomorrow and then have 2 days off. Guess I’ll check out some of the sights over on the North Shore (West and North Vancouver) and if all else fails I’ll walk the seawall at Stanley Park.
I’d much rather be home with Jan.
(picture above taken on the Fraser River near the hotel. Floatplanes are based here right across from Vancouver International Airport)
Nothing makes a Vancouverite madder than someone saying "it always rains out here". Well I lived here back in the 60′s and 70′s and I know it doesn’t *always* rain but it comes close some times. (The above is the view from my balcony at the Richmond Inn).
The flight out here would have been fine except I came down with a migraine headache half way across the country. A fistful of Advil and a quiet night will hopefully straighten me right out.
This week in ground school we had the second of three classes in meteorology. You think you know weather but until you start to look at through a pilot’s eyes you really have no idea of how important and complex it actually is.
Through how air moves (predictably) to the different types of clouds and what they mean to the dangers that weather holds for small aircraft, it’s a fascinating part of the studies. Unfortunately, I’m going to miss the final class next week as I’m off to Vancouver on business. I can make the class up later but I think it’s best to take all 3 in a row so I’ll jump out of the current schedule and pick it up again on a different night.
In the meantime, I’ve picked up a few books on the subject that I’ll read while I’m away.
If you’re interested in the subject, a good place to start is the Cloud Appreciation Society where you’ll find thousands of cloud pictures.
Ok, so it’s a corny headline. Heck it works. High above the Rockies from seat 12F on a Air Canada A320. I’d forgotten just how majestic they were. I’ve seen the Alps and, yes, they’re beautiful too but there’s something about the Rocky Mountains that makes the Canadian heart stir.
A normal economy flight – no meal (unless you buy it) but I was in a good seat. Watched the movie “Cloverfield” and you should save your money. The same jerky camera style that made “The Blair Witch Project” so hard to watch. Bargain basement CGI monster but at least it wasted and hour and a half.
I’ve made it as far as the Richmond Inn and so far all I see is construction. It’s almost as if they were preparing for something. Oh yeah, the Olympics. After work tomorrow, I hope to make it over to my old stomping grounds of West Vancouver and North Vancouver. Lots of places to see.
Of course, no trip to Vancouver would be complete without a trip to White Spot for one of their Triple “O” hamburgers. Those things have been clogging my arteries since 1967 when we moved out here. They don’t taste as good as I remember but at least I made my pilgrimage.
It’s 8 degrees on January 6 in Toronto. Ontario’s largest ski facility, Blue Mountain, announced the layoff of over 1300 people due to a lack of snow and unfavorable snow-making conditions. Trees are starting to blossom. To top it all off, weather forecasters are saying that we’re not really going to get any winter conditions to speak of this year.
On the other side of the country, Vancouver continues to get hit with wind and cold weather possibly leading to the collapse of the inflated dome roof on BC Place stadium yesterday. Their forecast for today shows heavy rain coming which will make the repair difficult.
Our long rate outlook suggests that we might actually see some light snow next Thursday but they’ve been way wrong too many times to count this season so we could be swimming instead. Hell, New York City is looking a 20 degrees today – only 8 below Florida’s expected highs.
I just confirmed that I’ll be travelling to Zurich on February 3 and they’re looking at double digit temperatures next week as well. Looks like I’ll have to get up into the Alps to see any snow this year.
British Columbia, and indeed the entire Northwest coast of North America, has been going through some really savage weather lately. Snow, rain and terrible winds have been lashing the area for weeks and the damage cleanup continues. I haven’t been following the news closely but this story hit home.
I lived in the Vancouver area for a number of years in the 60′s and 70′s. Many, many hours were spent walking through Stanley Park which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest greenspaces on Earth. At the edge of downtown Vancouver, the park is a sanctuary of old growth forests, the seawall and numerous walking paths. It’s hard to believe how powerful the winds must have been to take down some of these huge furs.
Hot. Damm hot! It’s hard to dispute Global Warming when the temperature is hovering at 33 degrees with the humidity making it feel more like 40.
Environment Canada says that 2006 is, so far, the warmest year on record and I believe them. Played golf at 6am today and by 7:00 it was already getting steamy. Both air conditioners, a dehumidifer and a fan are running to keep the house barely comfortable and I’m sure the electric meter is spinning fast enough to generate its own power if we could somehow harness it. Hmmm…. there’s an idea!
Toronto has 10 “official” beaches and only 2 of them are open because of all the shit floating around. Ok, they call it “fecal matter”. Perhaps they should take the gloves off and call it what it is. Seems the torrential downpours of last week just caused the waste treatment plants to give up and dump the crap right into the sewers which drain right into the same lake that supplies Toronto the majority of its drinking water. Not that I’d swim in Lake Ontario or drink Toronto tap water unless I was really desperate.
Hot weather and I have never gotten along; I’m more of a Spring and Fall kind of guy. Makes me wonder why I ever left Vancouver. Oh yeah, I remember, the whole town is full of what is floating in the lake right now. Smug bastards who look down their noses at you when you mention you were born in Ontario. Half of them have never made it all the way down the freeway to Hope and yet they feel knowledgable enough to pass judgement on the rest of the world. Scenery’s nice as long as you don’t have to listen to the population. When you’ve lived in or travelled to as many places as I have, that narrow provinical attitude gets old really fast. A lot of Americans have that same fault but they’re grand enough to extend the view to cover the 48 contiguous States.
Where was I? Hot. Damm hot!! Tonight, I’ll sleep in our air conditioned bedroom and tomorrow I;ll take my air conditioned Jeep to my air conditioned office and we’ll all complain about the heat and do our very best to stay indoors. Hard to believe that in 5 months we’ll be getting ready for Christmas and probably bitching about how cold it is. Weather – without it, Canadians don’t have much to talk about.
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