Saturday, January 22, 2005
$300+ later...
flickr
Friday, January 21, 2005
On my way to my haircut today I stopped at the mailbox. What did I find inside? Well, a buncha stupid flyers, but the one thing that caught my eye was a letter from WestJet. Opening up the envelope, I found out that Westjet was refunding me the purchase price of my ticket ($49) due to the inconvenience of them sending me first to Calgary, then to Regina.
Now to be honest I didn't care about the delay, it was sorta fun.
I really don't know what I'll use that credit for, but I suppose it's an excuse to fly somewhere sometime.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
So, I'm back from my trip today.
Pictures can be seen here, I didn't want to upload them to here as Blogger still lacks a decent picture album feature.
Starting with the trip there.
Okay, so for $95 total I was supposed to get a ticket to Regina, from Winnipeg. A nice, straight-forward one hour flight.
Well I should have known it wouldn't have gone that smooth. After getting my boarding pass, I perhaps should have read it over. After going to the ... boarding waiting area place, I happened to glance at a monitor and see that the Westjet cancelled the Winnipeg to Regina flight. Pulling out my boarding pass and checking it, I see it says "Winnipeg to Calgary".
"Sheri," I say, to the gate attendant "I couldn't help but noticing that your flight to Regina was cancelled, and now I'm going to Calgary."
I hand her my boarding pass and she notes that they ticket agent neglected to give me my forwarding ticket from Calgary to Regina. By then, my luggage had already been checked as ending in Calgary.
So with Sheri's help I got my boarding passes straightened out, and boarded the flight to Calgary. Thankfully I more than enough to read and do (Before leaving I had purchased the GBA game Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap). I had a window seat which was nice, and the seat next to me was empty, while the aisle seat was occupied by a high-school aged girl working on her math. Regrettebly, I was unable to help her. I enjoyed the tea and cookies, and the view (sorta, we were pretty much sitting on the wing, so the view was limited). Read some of Chainfire, played some Zelda (whereas I then got stuck with some stupid quest thing and I still haven't figured it out, so much for my gaming during the trip).
Landing in Calgary was fun, and we got there at about 5:00 MST. They had a Starbucks there so I tried one of their new 'drinking chocolate' drinks. I have to say, they're fucking good. I actually plan on going to the Starbucks near here for some more of those. Now, the plane from Calgary to Regina was supposed to leave at 4:50, and they had planned to hold it for us. It turns out, the aircraft was delayed in Vancouver for 'aircraft services'. Well whatever, gave me some more time to enjoy my 'drinking chocolate'. It has some fancy name, but I can't remember it. Anyways, while enjoying the drink I'd forgotten about my luggage. I approached the gate attendant booth and spoke with some lovely ladies about my baggage woes, and after describing my suitcase (sorta yellow and brown, covered in a carpet like texture - but not carpet -, and sorta old-man looking), they were nice enough to call down and have it singled out.
The plane from Calgary to Regina finally boarded at 6:00 MST, so I boarded that then. I got stuck sitting at the back of the plane with two stewardesses studying their little binders and eating smelly Subway. Oh well. I sat and watched out the window as the guys loaded the luggage, on the lookout for my suitcase. Not seeing it, I was getting somewhat concerned as it looked like they had loaded everything. Enter the little tractor-thing pulling a luggage cart with my one bag on it. Hooray.
The plane finally deposited a hungry Matt in Regina at 9:00pm CST, to my waiting parents who carted me directly away to change my shirt (thanks to a bout of turbulence, some tea had sloshed on me). So, back to the hotel to change, and then down to a ballroom for the end of the 'wine and cheese'. Had me some glasses of free wine, then went up to my room (which I found out I was sharing with Tyler, boo) and watched some tv until he came up then red until we went to bed.
The second day I was awakened by my parents and told to get dressed for church. "Church?" I thought, "no one said anything about going to church..."
The service was mercifully short. It was held in what was constantly referred to as the oldest building in Regina. Built in some 1890s or 70s or something. Even the pews were constructed at the same time, apparently by prisoners and then-members. The church was filled with some pretty impressively-old artifacts, such as flags and plaques.
After the church service, we all were to go to the Mess and have brunch with the cadets. Mysteriously, someone had not informed the Mess that all the family members would be coming, so they were not prepared with enough food (the SAME thing happens every friggin week, with troops graduating, so one would think they were accustomed to it). So some of the families decided to go out for brunch, at the Saskatchewan Hotel. God damn that was a good burnch. It was a $17 brunch buffet, so that gives you an idea of how good it was. Salmon in lemon butter sauce, tonnes of cakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, FRESHLY made juice (the watermelon was oustanding) and so many other good things. After the brunck I was allowed to return to my hotel room and had the entire rest of the day free. The Delta hotel in Regina is attached via a skywalk to a mall, so I decided to take a trip over there to buy some new batteries for my camera. I then went back to my room, read for a bit and then decided to take a nap. So I slept for an hour or two, then figured I'd go back to the mall and walk around a bit more to see what's there. I ended up buying two new dress shirts and a new tie at Jack Fraser (I still need to buy more shirts and ties, and a suit or two for the new job). This was Sunday, and around supper time my mom called my room to let me know my grandparents had arrived, and that we were going to Bonanza to eat. They have a good salad bar, I was told. And indeed they do. It's a pretty crappy restaurant, but their 'salad' bar had fish sticks, perogies, nachos, pretty good stuff.
After the restaurant, it was back to the hotel for the night.
The next day, Monday, was the day of the big graduation/badge ceremony. Tyler got up and left the room at 6:30, I was lucky enough to sleep in until 8. So my parents and I left for Depot and to the drill hall to get seats for the ceremony. By the way, the bleachers there SUCK. Of course thanks to my dad we were there way too early, so ended up having to sit and wait for it all. It started with my brother's troop (red serged) marching into the hall in formation, and they were then followed by 4 other junior troops, in various stages of blues (uniform type). The troops earn uniform pieces as they advance in their training, so the younger troops had less of the impressive kit. They then paraded around the hall in formation after which the junior troops marched out leaving on my my brother's troop. Then after lots of protocal (higher ranking officers entering and being asked if the ceremony may continue), they got to the dismounted cavalry performance. Most people know the RCMP horse show, where they ride on the black horses in complex cavalry formations. The dismounted cavalry is sort of the same, but it involves the troop marching in somewhat complex formations. It was pretty cool to see actually.
Once that was completed, came the badge ceremony. There were 9 members of the troop who had fathers who were presenting them their new badges, as the fathers were either RCMP members, or other types of peace officers. So my dad was down there fancy shmancy in his red serge. It was a pretty cool thing to see, and I could tell my dad was teared up as he walked back to his seat after presenting Tyler with his new badge.
So once that presentation ceremony was done, everyone milled about the drill hall congratulation everyone and taking lots and lots of pictures. After that was done, my parents and I returned to the hotel room to waste a few hours before the graduation formal supper. That time was well spent reading and more tv watching. Around 6 we left back to Depot and to the drill hall for the supper. It was all fancied up for the occasion, complete with cocktails (which I imbued). The supper there was buffet-style, and pretty damn good. Then there were some toasts, to the Queen, to the Country, to the Force, to the parents, to the wives, and to the newest constables in the RCMP. Thankfully the speeches were kept short, and after some professional family pictures I was able to leave.
Tuesday was the day of leaving, so after getting up at 7am and going down for breakfast, we loaded up and set off. The weather in Saskatchewan was okay, some rain and freezing rain. After passing Portage la Prairie the weather turned into blowing snow with visibility dropping to less than 20m at times. Far be it from that to cause the truck drivers to actually slow down. Us in the right lane going about 80kph, which seemed more than ample to me, while semi-trucks sped past us in the left lane going probably 120kph in this horrible visibility. I hoped beyond hope to drive by one of them in the ditch. We saw one jacknifed in the ditch in Saskatchewan, that was somewhat satisfying, but still.
So that's pretty much it about the trip. If I remeber anything more I will of course, post it.
The blue line indicates my original flight plan, from Winnipeg to Regina. The red line indicates my actual flight plan. From Winnipeg, to Calgary, to Regina.
"Now you have to be nice to people"
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
...such is Barrett's take.
I found out this afternoon that my promotion/transfer finally went through, been waiting for a position to open since April of 2004.
I finally move to a branch on Jan. 24th to start the PFSR trainee role, and I'm very very happy.
Let the celebrations begin.....
woohoo, how exciting.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
So it seems I'll be flying to Regina next weekend, the short 1 hour flight that it is. Well, that's better than a 5-6 hour drive/bus ride. Plus, it only ended up costing $93, which will be paid for by my parent's anyways.
Why am I going to Regina? My brother's graduating from the RCMP academy, so being the good brother that I am I finagled 2 days off work and decided to head out there to see what all the stuff is about.
Rest assured I'll come back with lotsa pictures thanks to my new SD memory card. Most of them will be uninteresting I'm sure, but nevertheless.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Canada did it again. As of now, we OWN every major international hockey tournament. All of them. Fucking rights.
In other news:
Check this out for now.