It’s been a while since I updated, but I managed to experience travel hell again yesterday and this morning I got to see just how self sufficient we have become as a society.

I was to be in NYC yesterday, but due to complancy on my part the direct flight was full so I was going to go through Toronto through to NYC…. always a combination ripe for disaster. My flight out of Calgary was going to be delayed, which meant a missed connection in Toronto, and having been through this before I knew that I should deal with as much as I could in Calgary, as opposed to leaving it for Toronto where I was sure to get worse service due to the number of people also looking for resolution to their missed flights. Once I got Air Canada to book me on a flight the next day and mark my file so that they knew in Toronto that they were to put me up in hotel I just had to sit and bear it… Things went okay, we landed 3+ hours late and once I got to the right place the hotel was taken care of and this morning I jumped on the airport shuttle at 6:30am.

While in the Air Canada lounge waiting for my flight I was grabbing some cereal when I heard someone yell into the kitchen from the lounge ‘HEY, HEY, HEY, there is a fire here’. A bit alarmed but tired and disinterested I ignored them and went about getting my cereal ready. I heard more commotion next to me asking the kitchen if they could shut it off, and general tense energy, being curious, frustrated and a bit tired I asked someone what was wrong and they pointed me to the DANGER!!!! A large bulb was smoking, more than a cigarette, less than a 4 alarm fire.

You would think that people that travel lots might be mostly competent as they are likely being paid by a company to do business on the road, leading me to believe they have some cerebral capacity. Well this smoking light bulb was quite a complex problem for these folks (let’s say 10-20 people are all looking and very very worried about this grave danger). I grabbed a couple napkins and did a very very brave thing. I unscrewed the light bulb and gave it to someone in the kitchen. I know this will shock most of you, the smoking STOPPED!!! Crazy I know.

Good things we don’t have to fend for ourselves in the wild anymore, we might not last very long.

Well Ms. Julie had never been to the circus and (age not disclosed) she was clearly too old to have never been to a circus… so we decided to catch one while in NYC.

We went to the Big Apple Circus, which was just one of the many activities for the weekend and had a blast. It is a classic one ring circus in a big tent.

I’M GOING TO THE CIRCUS!

I’m gonna swing the hammer and win you a prize.

With a fat ass like that, it was no problem.

My prize.

No circus is complete without, popcorn, cotton candy and some drinks.

Inside the circus tent.

The show was awesome, but of course it was - who doesn’t like the circus.

So we just finished up Thankgiving; and the holiday season is around the corner. While I haven’t posted pics in a while I thought I would post some fun ones of the fall so far.

Trust me she’s having fun! (I was in the backyard building a little roof/house for Mr. Lawnmower in anticipation of the coming winter. (If you’re thinking the lawnmower is hard to pick out, could the grass be that long… unfortunately yes.)

Julie and I took advantage of a nice September day and did a short hike up to the Prarie View fire lookout. It was one of the few times that I have been up there where it was clear enough to see Calgary’s skyline which is about 75 km away.

Calgary in the far distance.

Enjoying the sun.

The self portrait.

Mt. Baldy over looking Barrier lake.

For the Thanksgiving weekend we had the whole family out to Victoria - which was booked when we were supposed to run the marathon… we failed at that but we did have a great weekend. Including Eljah getting his first big boat ride on the ferry to Salt Spring.

One of us fits better here than the other…

“Hey Dad, nice outfit, we match. Does mommy dress you too? I’d say we both look pretty good - she’s got good taste.”

“Hey Dad, I’m cold but this boat ride is neat… how about you pick me up, wrap me in a blanket and put my touque on my head for me?”

“Mom the reason I like ‘Lito’ so much, is that he’s willing to damn near hang me completely over the fence so I can pet the nice donkey. Here donkey, donkey, donkey.”

“Oh ya and the other reason I like ‘Lito’ so much is that when we’re cruising down the street hanging out, and my little legs get tired…”

“… he just picks me and gallops down the road with me… you should try it sometime mom. It’s fun.”

“hmmm… so here I am in a pumpkin patch. Cool! But I’m pretty small and mom dressed me up like a pumpkin, I better go pick one before someone picks me…”

“Hey DAD and JULIE! This one here it’s PERFECT! I’ll pick up for you.”

“I’ll use my elbow to give you a hand. I picked a pretty good one eh!”

One of the things that I wanted to do when I went to Spain this time was spend some time in the Basque region. We managed to hit Pamplona, San Sebastian and Bilbao.

Here are some shots of the sunny day at the Guggenheim in Bilbao:

Front of the museum:

You keep them around when they’re fun…
and this one, she’s fun.

Julie doing her Spain pose for me:

The back of the Guggenheim:

Just a bit down the path from the museum;
Julie finds a strange friend:

Bridging the old architecture with the new:

This building was amazing and I don’t think I have every been in a structure quite as interesting. The story behind the Guggenheim family, how this museum ended up here and impact it has had to the region is pretty neat!

My favorite piece was from the Russian collection. It was a fairly large piece 4-5 feet across and about 3+ feet tall. The piece was of men pulling a boat up the river and was done to depict a time after the Revolution in Russia where it was cheaper to use human labor to pull boats up the river than to hire horses or mules. The picture on its own was awesome but after finding that out it was even more intense.

More to come on my summer travels with Julie.

Well Mr. Blog it has been a long time since I posted but I hope to make it up to you by sharing some pictures and stories about my summer vacation.

I won’t post all the pics (or even many) tonight but I will try and get pictures and short stories relating to the pics out at a regular pace over the next couple weeks. I’ll start with a landscape shot of NYC with hopefully more panoramic shots to come if I can stitch them together properly.

I’m not very good at taking panoramic shots or stitching them together, which means they will be a bit rough but I’m interested in getting better so hopefully over the next few months I’ll achieve that.

Here is a shot from Roosevelt Island looking back on mid-town Manhattan, with the United Nations on the left side of the shot and the 59th street bridge (Queen-borough Bridge) of the far right side of the pic. The Empire State is hiding behind the tall Trump building, which is to the left of the Chrysler building… can you pick them out and more… a fun game to play with the Manhattan skyline.

(You’ll want to click on the pic and look at it in a bigger size to get a better feel for it)

This picture was taken on the 4th of July, which was supposed to be a great fireworks show. Unfortunately I blew the perfect viewing location and Julie who loves fireworks and was excited to enjoy the 4th of July show in NYC had to watch it from behind a bunch of trees and a chain link fence… good thing I made up for it in Spain (more to come on that later - but here is a one shot from one of the nights in Spain). Julie was also treated that memorable 4th of July night with being stuck on Roosevelt Island with the thousands of other people that were trying to take the subway back into the City, so we went for an ‘adventure’ into Queens at midnight to try walk back to the Bridge or catch a cab.

Fireworks on the beach with the waves rolling up over your feet - priceless!