Comments on the News

What a B-utiful day out there today... 26 degrees.. puffy clouds.. light breeze.. the perfect summer day. I lazed around all morning then had breakfast outside on my deck. I'm slowly getting through my 800 page book... it's a long read but so far not too bad. Mornings like this are perfect for it.

I haven't got much to say really. In the news the only thing of significance is the London Police have captured the four men suspected of trying to set off bombs on the London Transit system earlier this month. This happened after the four that actually went off and killed people two weeks earlier. The police acted fast and got the men in a really short period of time. I swear all the video cameras around London sure helped. We should have more here like that. So kudos to Scotland Yard and the London Police!

The Space Shuttle is in orbit again for the first time since Discovery fell apart on re-entry on the last mission. The news has focused on the launch and bits and pieces of the external fuel tank that fell off on lift off. Just like last time but hopefully not with the same tragic result coming back. Let's face it the Space Shuttle for all its marvelous technology and innovation has been a dud. It was originally designed to lift off once a week and now NASA is lucky if, when it is flying, it goes up once a quarter. I think they need to rethink the whole space objective, get a workable plan, a realistic goal and objective and start fresh. When I was a kid space was the ultimate frontier the possibilities seemed endless. I really expected moon bases, an attempt at landing on Mars and tourists up around Earth by the year 2000... instead it's really gone no where. Worse still the Russians, Chinese, Europeans and Japanese haven't really done anything on their end either other than put the occasional rocket into space. It would seem mankind can't come up with a common goal everyone can strive for in space.

There's another African crisis that's hit the world again. People in Niger are facing starvation and once again we are seeing scenes of fly covered emaciated African children nearing death on our TV screens. Once again the world was notified of the impending crisis and once again the G8 nations of the world ignored it leaving these people to the mercy of their hunger. All this puts the war in Iraq into perspective for me... somehow getting rid of Sadaam and his non-existent weapons of mass destruction was deemed more important than aiding poor Africans who face critical water shortages, disease, famine and death by nature or death by brutal dictatorships. None of which suddenly started the last couple of years... The Western countries of this planet will never see beyond their own interests to really put their help where it's truely needed.

In fact didn't Tony Blair of England recently try to raise funds globally to help get African nations out of their financial debts? When he was doing this Niger never came up? No one thought it might be a good idea to put Niger on the agenda then before people started dieing like they did in Somalia and Ethiopia? Do we have to leave it to the Rock Stars all the time? I have to admit this sort of blindness to humanity makes me angry. Food, water and shelter are basic human needs what better cause for an industrialized nation like those of the G8 to stand up and give genuine assistance? Do they really have to get a financial return in order for them to do it? It would seem so... Iraq has been so much more profitable it would appear. Africa too thoough is a tough sell. People gave en mass to the tsunami victims but the repetitve nature of African atrocities and famines makes people numb to it all. Here's where the generocity of the Muslim world would show the planet their good side. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are so close to places like Ethopia and Somalia, can't some of their money go into helping the people in their back yard? If it does we don't hear or read about it. Very sad.

Pic of the day.. On my morning walk to get the newspaper.. Sherbrooke Street East.... nothing special but hey better than a blank space.

Past Life Regression

The CBC tonight ran a documentary/investigative show on past lives. I have to admit it was rather interesting. A woman in Ontario was put under hypnosis and went back through six lives her subconscious revealed to her. Of course no one knows if it's true but you can't help but be intrigued. She claimed under hypnosis she lived in Africa, Russia, Germany and other parts of the world.

The female investigator picked one of the lives, as a male farmer named Karl who lived outside of Hamburg in the 1830s and went back to the area where she claimed she lived. She found a church and various things that came up in the hypnotic regression, flew the Canadian women over to the location and went through it all with her. The subject was highly emotional. The hypnosis data was vague and general in many instances, probably nothing to really take too seriously but still enough to make it interesting.

I have no clue if any of this could be true but it would be interesting to think we can come back and live other lives in the future. I've always felt that it would take several lives and the experiences in those lives to broaden and develope our individual souls. It would also give us reason to work towards building a better future in our current lives so we can benefit from it in our next lifetime... so giving purpose to humanity's constant drive to develop, build, explore and invent. It can explain why we are so driven even if in the end we all know we will die. Yes most people do it for their children's future but perhaps subconsciously we do it for ourselves as well. It would also clarify why some people come to Earth for very short periods of time and die young. Perhaps it was a mini project in between major lives.

If I look at my own life there are things that I've been fascinated with for no explainable reason. Aviation is one. No one in my family is an aviator or any sort.. past or present. I've loved planes from the beginning and was perhaps stimulated by a flight to London England when I was two years old. In fact I'm fascinated by anything in the sky as I'm always looking upwards when I'm outside. I've been fascinated by African and Egyptian cultures as well as two periods in British History, the 19th century and Tudor England back in the 16th century. Each one being a preoccupation of mine at different times in my life. Arab, Asian and South American cultures seem much more "foreign" and distant to me. Black/American/African culture though seems to dominate now and I am strangely drawn to it but cannot say why. I also felt when in Athens a strange connection there too.. perhaps that was just a tourist thing but the sense of returning home ran through my mind several times and most strongly when I was at the Theatre of Dyonisus at the base of the Acropolis.

Personally I'd love to undergo one of those hypnotic regressions just to see what comes out. I've heard stories of people under hypnosis in these events suddenly speaking foreign languages they never spoke before... naming things and places or events that later were confirmed. Was it just part of things we already knew but forgotten or were they really things embedded in our eternal memories? Like they said at the end of the show, maybe it's just the thought of this possibly being real but the knowledge that we will never be able to confirm if that makes it all so appealing to us. Like UFOs, Ghosts, the Paranormal and other things or events like out of body and near death experiences that intrigue us and capture our imagination.

Life today is sometimes way too mechanical and scientific. Everything is somehow explainable. When I heard medical researchers claiming that certain electrodes stimulate certain parts of the brain to define and create people's feeling of love I thought about how robotic-like we may really be in the end. It all comes down to neurons, brain cells and genetic manipulation and whatever else that can be manipulated here and there to create whatever type of person you want or don't want. It begs us to ask if we are really individuals by self creation or by some explainable predefined genetic makeup that defines us and which can be completely reprogrammed to make us totally different. Are the Picasso's, Einstein's, Shakespear's, Galileo's, da Vinci's, Marco Polo's, Edison's, Wright Brothers, even Hitler's, Bin Laden's and other famous or infamous people through time really special or did they just have lucky or unlucky "wiring" in their genetic makeup? Perhaps manipulation of that will lead to the cybernetic person of the future. ...to the so called perfect human being. Meanwhile past life regression just seems so magical and unexplainable therefore fascinating... at least until someone comes along and spoils it all for us.

Trip Report: Montreal-Toronto-Montreal

Back from Toronto. No pics though, I didn't bring my camera. It was a half day business trip and I didn't want to be lugging it around with me along with my laptop. Good thing I didn't actually, it wasn't all that hot but it was humid and I was sweaty uncomfortable at the airports and it would have been a burden to carry.

My flights were as follows;
YUL-YYZ AC 101 A321 Seat 29A C-GJWI Gate10
YYZ-YUL AC424 767-300ER Seat 30K C-FCAG Gate 124

My A321 was scheduled to leave at 10am. I wanted a later flight so I'd arrive in Toronto around 11-Noon... this way the two salesmen I'd have to train would have their morning free to do their work undisturbed and there would be pressure on them to stick with me in the afternoon knowing my time was limited. It seemed to work at least in James' case. Sean got preoccupied with some deliveries later in the afternoon but essentially I got done what I had to get done.

Anyways, the day was absolutely beautiful for flying. My morning flight out was pretty packed, I'm guessing 75%. I never saw so many A321s in Montreal before in my life... seemed like they were everywhere. Normally this is a rare plane in the city. Security went smooth... Gate 10 was full but quiet. I took a seat facing outside. Boarding went smoothly. We lifted off of 24L and headed out to Toronto following north of the St Lawrence River. We leveled off quite low... I'm guessing somewhere between 15 and 20,000' then shot up to 30,000'+ but that took forever to get to. Landing in Toronto was a very long process. We had to make one giant circle to delay our now already late arrival. Touchdown was smooth. I was out of the terminal around 11:45am.

The only planes of significance at YYZ this morning was a Korean Air 747-400. I noticed a lot of Asians on our plane. The flight was continuing on to Vancouver so I guess many people were heading out across the Pacific. The two fellas next to me had a ticket to Tokyo in fact. Again the Asian presence in Montreal seems to be rising each year. Interesting. I'd love to go over there some day.

We arrived at Toronto's new Terminal One. It was quite open and airy as usual but I hardly took notice of it as I headed out for a taxi. My Punjabi cab driver gave me a confused look when I told him the address in the Industrial Park so I directed him. I made a joke about all the recent shootings in Toronto but he just stayed silent... not sure if he misunderstood me or his reaction was something else. I just shut up in case he took it the wrong way. $34 bucks and 20 minutes later I was there at work.

It's always good to be in the office in Toronto. They are a great gang. This time in summer mode half the staff was there and the manager was on vacation so it was very relaxed. Linda is still off recovering from her mini stroke. Corey, Paul, Dave, Lori & Drew were all there looking good. I met Franca for the first time... a real sweetheart :) In the warehouse a few new people. Ian was his grumpy self.. Rob is always a pleasure to talk to. I met Kim who was rougher around the edges than I expected but still very nice. Chad, the guy at the counter is a little hottie LOL.. seriously... and Tony, the older Indian guy who's been there for ages and is like a rock in that company was his usual polite friendly self. I really like him a lot, it's very quiet and does his work without complaining and gives 110%. I mean ya gotta love a guy from India named Tony.

Anyways before we headed out to Boston Pizza where I treated the guys Gina showed up! She quit about two or maybe three years ago. This chic is something else. A little tiny hefty Italian ball of dynamite LOL!! Seriously. The things that happened to her in her life (her son in a serious car accidents, a War of the Roses divorce... being thrown in jail for battering her ex, trying to steal a huge contract from the company, law suits at her and from her and calling Ward at his home to bitch about someone else being fired who later turned around and abandoned her) matched the number of swear words that came out of her mouth on a hourly basis.... but still she's full of love, always hugging and kissing and gets so excited to see people it can only make you break out in the biggest smile. She didn't disappoint as she practically flew across the room so shocked to see me... grabbed me and gave be the biggest kiss. It was kinda cool to see her. She has more personality than everyone else in that company combined and many of them are full of interesting stories in themselves.

One other interesting thing, Lori and Franca also were really pleased to see me too for some reason. I guess because I'm always friendly on the phone with them... asking how they are and joking around before going on to other people I need to talk to. It was the first time I've ever met Franca and she is even prettier than I thought she'd be so that's cool. Lori though was amazed how much weight I lost!? News to me... I dunno but she claims I'm a lot thinner than the last time I met her. It might be true, I could have lost some weight since I haven't weighed myself in, uh... ...several years... (there must be a phobia for this fear... :) Anyways she won my heart right away LOL... Humm... she must want something from me? :)

James, Sean and I got down to work after lunch and we hacked out all sorts of issues, consulted some of our colleagues in the US... and fired off e-mails to Europe for some needed changes to the label program. I hope it all works out. It was pretty productive and they both seemed happy I came and spent time with them. It was a good learning experience for me too. It's so important to understand what's happening with the end user and the customer. Sometimes we lose sight of that.

Returning to Montreal went well but Toronto is so big and busy it's a hassle moving about. The office is located at the end of the North runway along Derry road but it still takes about 35 minutes to go all away around it to the Terminal for James to drop me off. With no luggage the kiosk spitted out my boarding pass.... er, boarding paper now (which I don't really like since it's so flimsy and could easily tear or get wet compared to the stiffer paper ones in Montreal). I went through security. and found gate 124 quickly. I was hungry so tried to find a restaurant to eat at. There was some bar/café thing that was small and packed with no tables available so I walked over to the other pier where I found a cafe that sold grilled sandwiches. I ordered a roast beef sandwich and a Latté. The sandwich tasted awful and left a bad taste in my mouth. Terminal One really has no where decent to eat.

Lots of interesting planes this afternoon there though. British Airways, KLM (New colours) and Lufthansa's 747-400s were all there. Austrian's A343 was at the mid field terminal while Air France's A343 was at terminal 3. LOT sent in their Star Alliance 767. I saw Jazz's green CRJ-705, Finnair's 757 and SATA's A310. Air India's new 777 was parked at Terminal 3 but best of all Air Canada's Free Spirit 767 pulled up next to our 767 as we were pulling back and I got my first really good look at. It has a huge eagle painted the whole length of the fuselage in a native Indian artistic style. It's really nice and there is only one plane in all of Air Canada's fleet painted like that. It was then I was really disappointed I didn't bring my camera; it would have been a beautiful set of shots. Oh well.

Take off was noisy as always on 767s. It was an ex-Canadian 767 still with CP's seats. Mine was broken, as we climbed my seat kept reclining and I had to press the arm button to bring it up... I had to do it over seven times on the climb out of Toronto. I later reported it to the flight attendant so it would be fixed. The pilot said we'd cruise at 33,000' but I swear if we ever got above 15,000' I'd be surprised. We leveled off low and headed straight towards a bank of clouds just past Lake Ontario a we were heading up the St Lawrence, the flight crew raised the wing flaps and the plane dipped under them which was kinda cool but made for a rough portion of the flight. We never climbed after than instead flew at an altitude I'd expect in a Beech 1900D or Dash-8. I kinda liked it because I could spot all sorts of things on the ground and actually see cars and trucks driving on the 401, something you never normally see from much higher altitudes. Plus with the sun setting the shadows on the ground were quite striking and the scenery very pretty. I love looking out of aircraft windows. It always amazes me how fast the trip is to Montreal from Toronto. Once past Lake Ontario it's almost over.

Service was pretty good. A mostly French Canadian cabin crew. I only had water... they don't offer you anything but pretzels or something to buy and it's rarely anything worth buying mind you the food at the terminal was so lousy it couldn't be any worse and perhaps might have taken the bad taste out of my mouth.

We made a nice fly by of Montreal's airport. I saw half the gates at the new International Jetty were occupied...Air France's 747-400 & British Airways 777 was in and a strange large plane was parked at the Aeroquay... I couldn't make out what it was. We flew eastward, turned around over Les Galeries d'Anjou and headed back to what I thought would be 24R but instead we landed on 24L. Touchdown was smooth. The strange plane was a Corsair 747-400 in Blue Tui colours... nice, my first spotting of the Tui 747!!.. so lots of firsts... Air India's 777, Korean Air's 744, LOT's Star Alliance 767, the CRJ-705, Finnair's 757 and I think even Austrian's A340-300 which I have not seen in Montreal yet.

I was out and on my way home in about 20 minutes. So all in all a good trip. I'm relaxing now and perhaps should eat something to get this taste out of my mouth that's still bugging me. Back to work tomorrow as usual.

Cité Divers 2005

First day back at work yesterday, yeah vacation is over... it went well. Traffic is practically non-existant because the last two weeks of July is known as the construction workers vacation period... so all construction workers in the city are sent off on vacation with skeleton staff on sites around the province. Add to this Bombardier is off until August so I had time to catch up on a stack of e-mails.

The only thing of significance is I have to make a quick half day trip to Toronto on Thursday to go over label processes for a couple of the salespeople there. It's long overdue and I thought I'd do this while Bombardier is off and things are slow. I'm flying out on Air Canada (A321 & 767).

Last night Clem, Pascal & I headed down to the Gay Pride Parade which is an annual event here in Montreal. Normally it is held at the end of Gay Pride week and on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. This time some brilliant person decided to hold it Monday night instead. I've never been to one before and have resisted mainly because I tend to see it as the annual event for straight press/media/photographers to get their yearly supply of flaming gay men, drag queens, leathermen and whatever other gay stereotype you can fill the heterosexual world with. Nothing like feeding stereotypes into the minds of those who are looking exactly for that.

To sum it up... I wouldn't have wanted to come from out of town to see this. It was ok but hardly big league. Anyways.. some pics. Those without a flash actually have a surrealistic air to them... I kinda like them more now that I see them, graininess and all.

A pretty good turnout;

It started off with a small rock band

Then the Drag Queens and Lesbians

I kinda like this shot.. someone else's flash but hey it made for an interesting pic

Beefcake & a Queen...

The first flatbed.. this group was somewhat subdued

Finally... some ethnicity..

ok, first good costume if not the best..

Some of the participants

Air Canada's contribution (gotta love Smart Cars)

It got a little bit more elaborate but not much more than this.. I was expecting a whole lot more.

Leather bears perhaps?

ok this is scary...

The former mayor of Montreal, Pierre Bourke

Lesbians

A Drag Queen in one of the best costumes of the night

Sexe dans la Cité... kinda cute... probably the best seats in the parade..

This was nice

Sports minded? I'm not so sure... I think they're just happy to be wearing the white shorts...

Uh....? Yeah, ok...

More men

Ok the CIBC had simple float but it had the most energetic people of everyone... this crowd was really into it

maybe too into it...

anyways... I left through the Village... nice effect on this club..

My Uncle in England

I called my Uncle Bill in England this afternoon. He's the uncle who lost his wife (my aunt obviously) a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd give it a try even though Pat told me he was very hard of hearing. I was expecting an old man in his mid to late 80s to answer with a frail voice and a lot of requests to repeat myself... well.. it was anything but. :)

He sounded strong and clear and confident. He had no trouble hearing me and was a pleasure to talk to. In fact he said he tried to get a hold of me several times but turned out he was dialing one number in my telephone number wrong. He was worried something had happened to me. I really am bad at keeping in touch with people, it's one of my weak points and not one I really do intentionally.

Anyways the funeral went well, they had a gathering at the little church opposite his old House where I stayed several times as a kid. All the family gathered and he said it was so nice to see everyone and hear how well they were all doing. It's the first time in years they've all been together. He also went into detail about my Aunt's Alzheimer's.. how she was tested and how they got her medication right at the beginning so fast enough to prevent it from worsening. At the end of her life though he said she was really gone and was not responding to the medication (for her Pancreatitis). In other words she was ready to go.

Saw the first rainbow in Montreal in years tonight as I headed out for supper... Perhaps a sign from my Aunt and Parents above that everything is fine LOL... well.. ok kinda sappy but I'd still like to think that.

Plane Spotting & New Glasses

I phone the optician this morning to see if my new glasses were ready. They were so I headed down to Rockland to pick them. I have to say I'm pretty pleases with them. They have a top rim and are more rectangular. They also have the Transition lenses that darken in the sun which so far I have to say I love!. I went outside to the car and immediately they turned into sunglasses... since I rarely wear sunglasses this is perfect for me. Anything will help. They go back to normal quite fast once you go inside. I can't see them being any good for Sheila though since she like really dark glasses. She's paranoid of everything so UV rays and Glocoma are just sitting there waiting to attack her... in the car the tinting wouldn't be enough for her. For me they are perfect :) I'm really pleased.

I then headed out to Fairview Pointe-Claire and mulled around the shopping mall. I bought nothing. I've decided to wait until later... get a list of what I really need and do it slowly over the next few months. I desperately need classic clothing... a leather jacket, good brown shoes, casual black shoes, a Polo shirt or two, a quality T-Shirt or two, more pants... things that don't go out of style next season.

From there I went over to the airport to do some more spotting. Mark suggested getting together but never said what time or where so I took a chance he might show up... but he didn't. He probably went this evening but I was pretty tired and had seen several new things so left pretty satisfied. Youri dropped by and so did Vince, two guys from the YULAviation board. Both are them were really nice to talk to.

Since I've posted a lot of pics of the same planes I'll try and post new ones or variants of ones I've posted before.

Air Labrador's Dash-8 came in. I rarely see this plane. Dash-8s are hardly anything to get excited about but the deep blue colour of their livery is quite stunning.


Now, I saw a United Express Embraer 170 approach the runway but he seemed kinda high. Suddenly he powered up and aborted the landing.... flew over the runway and off to the north..


He came back about 10-15 minutes later and made a successful landing. I don't know what happened or why it was aborted but it was unusual.


Another plane I rarely see landing... Air Transat's massive A330-300




Air France sent in it's 777-300, one of three daily flights from Paris for the French National Airline.











Mexicana flew in this tiny A318... a very rare plane in this corner of the world. Kinda cute actually and in new colours.



The Czech nation airline Czech Airlines's A310 landed from Prague;






My favorite, Swiss Air Lines' A330-200 came in from Zurich;


Air Canada's Star Alliance 767-300 arrived from Frankfurt. It's another rare spotting for me;








Another favorite, KLM's MD11 arrived from Amsterdam Schiphol;






Now the highlight of the afternoon... Corsair's 747-300 came in from Paris. Over 500 passengers on this plane, a charter flight. It would later fly back to Paris via Moncton New Brunswick of all places. Nice plane though, 747s are increasingly rare.













Several Air Transat A310s landed... this one as the Mexicana A318 was leaving for Mexico City. It had a very short turn around;













All in all pretty good. Sata also had an A310 that headed back to Portugal when I arrived and Miami Air flew in a 737, both planes left from 24L so my pics were not very clear. This summer has been quite active with lots of flights and very few lulls in arrivals or departures. The airport must be having an excellent year. It sure works well for us spotters