Best part of the day

The best part of the day is taking the elevator and seeing the certificate of operation signed by commissioner of labor "Cherie Berry."

mmmmm... cherry berry

Yeah the days haven't been too great lately so I'll take what amusement I can.

Flipping channels

There's ESPN, The Golf Channel, ESPN 2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News...
They sure like watching sports here.

Far more bizzare, there seems to be an episode of "king of the hill" on at all times too, do people actually like it?

Heads Carolina, Tails California

Relocated from Ontario to Charlotte. In the airport, decided to talk to a girl who was there waiting. Eventually when she was glancing at her boarding pass, I asked what her seat was. "25E". "Isn't that interesting..." I pull out my boarding pass and show her.. 25F. That's a crazy coincidence. Seriously. If someone did that to me, I'd think they were either some kind of magician, or stalker. I didn't say "Tada!" and I like to think I don't give off a creepy stalker vibe, so there it was, a big coincidence. Neat.

California drivers

Forgot to add in the end of my SD zoo post, that of all the places I've been now, California seems to have the worst drivers. Major case of "what's this lever on my steering wheel, it makes blinky arrows appear on my dashboard? Oh well, no time to worry about that now, I need to figure out what lane I should be in... hmmm... I better just drift halfway in both to keep both bases covered."

Oh, and of course a funny one which is pretty universal, see it back home a lot too. Slower traffic keep right. But, noone wants to perceive themselves as one of those "loser slow drivers." So instead, all the slow drivers drive in the middle lane while people pass on both the left and right sides.

San Diego

So, I finally managed to muster up (most of) a day off. (unfortunately the whole day I had to keep track of time and think about making it back in time) So, I did the main thing in the region that seemed interesting and that I would still enjoy alone - the San Diego Zoo!

There's the Zoo itself, then there's the Wild Animal Park a distance NE of the city. I decided to go to the zoo, I dunno, just because. Maybe I can see the park if I'm ever back this way. As expected, I did enjoy it a lot. It's quite large. Even if there were no animals, I would have really liked just being surrounded by trees and parkland rather than the endless pavement. As for the zoo being greatest in the world, well it's hard to really judge.

Ran out of time unfortunately, but it was a good day.

And San Diego itself seemed really nice, besides having the zoo. Didn't see much, just what I drove by on the highway, but it was far above my expectations. Not that I had any expectations besides the name. For example where "Francisco" sounds like an artist, "Diego" sounds like a thug. Completely wrong assessment.

Dinner back in ontario, the restaurant placed me with another single guy since they were short on space, it was nice talking to him. Especially funny that he mentioned Torremolinos.

Las Vegas

Got to go to Las Vegas a couple days ago. Not for fun though, the plane was there and the radar needed fixing. A short flight, a drive around the airport, and a short time later the problem was solved, it was something ultra simple. Were waiting for an aircraft part in order to return to Ontario. I kindof hoped the part wouldn't arrive, or would be the wrong one, so we'd be stuck in Vegas for the night and I'd get to see some things, at least drive or walk down the strip. But instead I just saw some hotels (like the Luxor, a big pyramid with a light shining upwards) from a short distance as we went to dinner. Too bad. I think it would be neat to see those places sometime, I've heard they're crazy extravagant. Unfortunately, I think most people who are interested in seeing vegas have already been, and it seems like the sort of place that 'average' folk don't need/want to go to more often.

ER

More filming at the airport/hangar, although instead of some bollywood thing (malaysia) it's actually part of an episode of ER. And I never got in the background and screwed up any shots. Neither our plane nor myself got to be extras. It was still a bit neat to see. I recognized the british-indian lady doctor. (Can you tell I've seen ER but not often). Actually, I could have talked to her. As they were packing up, she came inside and was standing a couple meters away and was not busy or with anyone else at that point. Even though I don't really know who she is, would have been cool to meet her. I'd have asked "You guys done for the day?" and she'd say "oh, yeah..." and I'd say "heh you're looking kindof tired..." and she'd smile and say something else and then probably have to go remove some microphone wiring or something. But would have still been nice. Afterwards was kicking myself for not saying anything. Oh well. They might be back there tomorrow, but I accomplished pretty much everything today so I'd just be there to stalk the tv crew and that's not so cool.

Hehe just realized I could have been a freak and shouted "hey I saw you get trampled by a crowd just 2 days ago!" (yes I happened to watch part of an episode of ER (a rerun) for the first time in months, just a couple days before seeing them filming. Coincidence? Yes! This is what a coincidence is!)

So, maybe I'll have to watch a few episodes of ER so I can say "I was there!" (if you watch, hint: it'll be an airport (business aviation) scene with the character I mentioned!)

Staffing update

So, that last post was my thoughts for the past couple weeks. Today there was an update. California's taking much longer than planned cause of military restricted access areas. After that, this plane will sleep for a bit. Texas will probably be handled by an office guy. Sometime later, Carolina will happen using someone. Meanwhile, the malaysia plane will head to australia and get started there. Once the plane doing the texas thing finishes some testing and maintenance, it will head towards australia too. It'll probably do malaysia along the way. The forecast is that maybe someone who was relocated to other departments will be relocated back to help with the staffing situation. A bunch of pilots (maybe some of the group that were just layed off?) will need to be hired.

Anyway, overall what this means is that everything's still pretty up in the air.

Staffing

So, we've layed off people, and moved people into other groups, so there's 3 RFTs left. And how many do we need? hmmm...

Well I just started in california (plus the little I did before), relieving J. The plan is for me to finish here after about a week, then go to Malaysia, which requires two, me and K. Meanwhile, there's something in texas, and the last little bit of the US in Carolina, so I assume they'd cut up J's time-off to have him fill in for those bits. So a month after K and I start malaysia, it's time to handover... but who to? There's only J. And he's barely had any time off. Meanwhile, about that same time, australia's supposed to start. So, three of us will be needed, but all three of us will be due for time off. Does that mean we'll be pulling like 9 week work rotations? Excellent planning.

501st post

Blogger shows that my previous post was my 500th post. It should get some kind of award.

Couple

Met a couple the other day, one had attended my high school a couple years after me. She knew who Brian Yeh was, but didn't recognize my name which I thought a little odd. Made me think back about 1997-Scott... it's hard to imagine I'm even related to that guy, let alone actually being the same person. How is it possible?

Really liked that couple though. Then for some reason it really struck me, they are how I hoped/envisioned myself to end up (general not every detail of course). Instead, I'm years behind and a million miles off course. Was kindof sad. Wonder how many people do end up being who they think they will be, and having the life they think they will have? Probably not many.

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Miscellaneous of interest

Booster juice is from Edmonton, Jugo Juice is from Calgary. Who'd have thought Canada's two biggest smoothie chains would be albertan rather than some west coast hippie thing.

Nike "Air Jordan" shoes are a couple hundred bucks. Stephon Marbury isn't as famous but still makes about $20 million/yr and has been an all-star, and decided to make a shoe that sells for $14.95 cause that's all they should actually cost.

"Barefoot Ken Bob" figures shoes are unnecessary and just teach us bad habits which then further make us think we need shoes. He's run many 42km marathons barefoot.

California

Thursday night (23rd) I got a call from work. The USA plane is moving from colorado to california but the coworker with it has to stay behind to finish things, so they needed someone to go meet the plane in california and called me. If it had been middle of the next week, I would have been happy for it, but right then... was really looking forward to a party with my close friends friday evening, and some new year related stuff over the weekend and monday. I could have asked them to try asking other people, but with the economy and job situation the way it is right now, I don't think I should be someone to say "no" when needed. So I was really frustrated about it. It shouldn't have really been a big deal, but felt like it was. If only I'd missed the phone call, if it had been a few minutes later I'd have been out, everything would be good... oh well. It's good to log some work days in january anyways.

So, already grumpy about going, a continuous barrage of little things were nonstop on my nerves. Like not even making it to my room before getting a call to go to the airport and fix things. Like finding the original room smelled bad and having to switch. Then finding the shower handle needs replacing there. Then finding some software is corrupt and needs reinstalling, then finding the internet has cut out when I need to download the patch. Finding multiple times the room key stopped working. That's just a small sample. Nothing big, just so many annoyances when you're already not in a good mood.

Anyways, things got better after the first few days. Except for system problems which made my stay get extended then extended again.

As for other aspects of the trip...
Ok, first of all let me say that "california girls" don't live up to their reputation, it's not just my tastes, all the coworkers agree.
Next... "San Bernardino National Forest"... don't forests usually have trees?
Lots of pavement here, every road is minimum two lanes in each direction plus the centre turning lane.
One time I wanted to go jogging in a park rather than a parking lot, looked like there was only one in the region. And when I got there, found out you have to pay. What a craphole region!
There are mountains nearby, they'd been beckoning me from the moment they appeared from behind the clouds and smog. On the one day that we had some time, we headed that way, but they weren't really that nice. Have to remind myself though, despite the lovely 20 degree temperatures, this is still "winter" so maybe it's an unfair judgement.
But overall, I'm pretty glad I don't live around here.