21 Oct 2010
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts
Today was a beautiful fall day in southern Alberta; just the type of day made for playing hooky from work and heading to the mountains on the motorbikes. Sadly, we couldn’t quite pull that off, but did at least take the scenic route home after work was done. Brenda & I had both taken our motorbikes to work today – the kids had a professional day off of school and Steven was game to hold the fort for the day.
06 Oct 2010
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts,Family
Last weekend Brenda and I had a chance to head off to the States for a weekend away. My parents graciously agreed to look after the kids, so we pulled the kids out of school on Friday morning and dropped them off at lunchtime with Gramps. It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to go to Great Falls – we have neighbours who drive down about once a year and they always seem to enjoy the trip.
The weather was very nice, the driving easy and we were off! We crossed the border by about 4:30 then stopped for coffee in Shelby, MT before eventually arriving in Great Falls just at dusk. We booked into our hotel then went and did a little shopping before having dinner out.
Saturday was just a beautiful autumn day – warm, bright sun and perfect for some exploring. We drove through the Little Belt Mountains to Helena and spent some time in the downtown area window shopping and stopping for a nice lunch before heading back to Great Falls. We did a little more shopping at the mall before grabbing some pitas for dinner and taking them back to the hotel.
Sunday, after we checked out of the hotel, we found Great Springs State Park and walked along the Missouri river a while before we headed to lunch at a very nice Greek restaurant. The drive home was easy and no hassles at the border, although we did manage to spend almost to the duty free limit!
06 Aug 2010
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts,Photos
In my earlier post, I mentioned that Brenda’s work at the Aerospace Museum of Calgary this summer has revolved largely around the preparations for the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s (CWHM) Lancaster bomber western tour. On Tuesday, when the Lanc arrived in Calgary, there was a reception for the CWHM crew and local dignitaries as well as a number of veterans. Once Brenda’s duties at the door were complete, I joined her and we spent the pleasant summer’s evening chatting with some of the staff and volunteers from Hamilton and touring through the Lancaster.
There were only about 150 or so in attendance at the reception, so there was plenty of opportunity to spend a bit of time in the aircraft, the CWHM personnel were unfailingly pleasant and knowledgeable and more than willing to answer any and all questions. They even put up with Brenda’s cheekiness! (Go ahead, ask Brenda how to tell the difference between a Canadian-built Lancaster and a British-built one.)
It was quite the fine evening and a rare chance to have a really good look at one of only two remaining airworthy, operational Lancasters in the world. Although the Mynarski Lanc is a museum piece, the fact that it is actively used and flown lends realism to the historical artifact – it smells of fuel and hydraulic oil. And, as we discovered today when the Lanc overflew our house, the sound of those four roaring engines is unlike any other aircraft today. The sense of history is profound when you consider the 10’s of thousands of young men that risked or gave up their lives in Lancasters.
18 Jul 2010
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts,Geekstuff
This week, on Wednesday, I saw one of the new format Alberta license plates for the first time. A couple of years ago the Alberta government announced a contest to design a new license plate to replace the current design which has been in circulation since 1984 as the pool of ABC-123 format combinations was due to run out. After running the competition, the recession hit and the government decided that replacing every plate in the province was an avoidable expense and announced instead that the format would be changed to simply add another digit (ABC-1234) for newly issued plates. Both formats will be valid for the foreseeable future.
It looks like they plan to avoid vowels; the first two plates the I saw were BBF, but I have since seen a couple of BBB plates. The typeface is definitely narrower and will make the license plate game a little more challenging as the plates are a bit harder to read, especially at an angle or in poor light.
For those of you following along at home, I’m looking for plate 633 right now, or x633 on a new format plate.