Ramblings from a frozen mind

First I would just like to mention that after all these years I still am mildly surprised at how good I am at procrastinating. I've managed to be quite consistent about getting out of bed before about 11 on my non-flying days, but any extra time that gave me this morning was just taken up by Youtube! It was fun, but not exactly the most productive activity.

It's still cold out, really really cold! It's even below my cold weather limit for snowmobiling, I guess that's not a bad thing because I won't be tempted to go out instead of studying. We watched the episode of Northern Exposure where everyone is doing crazy things because it's the end of winter, but they all instantly go back to normal as soon as the ice breaks. I couldn't help thinking of that when I read Phil's post comparing living in Inuvik to being on the Enterprise, it was a good post, he even got a proposal out of it!

This week I was crewed on the hold. Every Wednesday, one of the Dash 7s leaves Yellowknife at 7am with a load of people that need to go to Diavik just for the day, and we hold there until about 4. That means that we have to make sure the plane is kept warm enough that it'll start again to come home, which means putting on engine tents. (There's a picture of them on the plane in my post about the cold) This isn't so hard when we're on our own ramp because we go on top of the wing to put them on. But we're not allowed up there at Diavik, so we have to stand on top (the very top!) of slightly too short ladders, which was made even more interesting by the 22kt winds that day. Those things are like giant sails... I was dressed for this, but our First Officer started getting frostbite on his cheeks within the first fifteen minutes we were out, so we sent him inside, then on his second time around his nose went all white. He was convinced his ass was frostbitten too, but there was no way I was checking that for him.

So anyway, I was reminded of our Frozen cheek (aka Canagal) and thought how well her and Sean would get along with Mr Frozen cheek/nose(aka Jason). Then I started to think about Hawaii and wondered what the temperature there was, and how hard it would be to go home to the snow in Calgary, how are you making out Pingcat? Finally, there was envy for Flyin Dutchman, with his little one engine tent that you can put on while standing on solid ground. I was telling the rest of the guys at work about his comment on my blog. "Hmm, +15 in Pheonix, I wonder if we need to tent?" was one reply! Who do you fly for, by the way?

Otherwise, studying is going quite well, I'm getting quite excited about flying now. Last Friday Jack invited me along on a flight to Caribou lake, I got to fly out there, so it was a good teaser for what's to come.

My solution for the world's problems (okay, well, maybe just mine) didn't work out too well. My share of the Millionare Life lottery was the grand sum of.... $40, and the ticket cost $20. Oh well, that's good for a few rounds at the curling club tonight. Life can't be that bad when you don't win a million a year for 25 years, and all there is to complain about is the cold, and even that's just half hearted complaining about your glasses fogging up every time you go inside.

I'm feeling a bit behind the times with this blog thing, I saw some cool things on other blogs. I like the map that shows where people are from who looked at your blog, and there's a thing that tells what phase the moon is at on Open Head Space, and a calendar. Oh yeah, he's also got good pictures. So I will have to learn how to get those sometime, but not now.

Lastly, congratulations Nathan! He's a friend back in SA who's been working very hard to finish up his ATPL (Airline Transport Pilot license) exams, his sister emailed me to tell me that he passed the last one. I think the Canadian system is way more user friendly. Here you have to write two exams, in SA you write one whole test for each subject, which means there are seven in total. Anyway, that's quite an accomplishment in any country, and that also means there aren't anymore exams you can write. Sonya has hers done too, but I already congratulated her in person.

That's about it for now. There isn't really any rhyme or reason to this post, just things that I felt like typing.


Here are some pictures from the day I went flying with Jack and Darcy, it was a beautiful day, and also my first trip anywhere on a ski-plane. And yep, Tindi is having a hard time finding enough pilots, we're just having to hire 'em younger and younger!