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Archive for January, 2009

January 30th, 2009: 11:21 pm

I couldn’t let Brad’s photo competition of the month end without this seemingly relevant contribution.

I caught this sunset above the clouds after takeoff from London’s Heathrow Airport (close to 5pm) last week, returning home from a week in Madrid.

January 27th, 2009: 7:24 am

The best souvenir from Madrid…

Being a continent away from Tiffany and Lola for a week can seem like a long time. And certainly, almost any baby that I saw on the Metro or out in the shops was a large reminder of how much I missed Lola. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Thanks to technology, I was in contact with my family on a (near) daily basis. Between Gmail, Live Messenger, and Skype, we were emailing, voice chatting, e-calling, and webcam calling, making the great divide seem that much smaller.

January 25th, 2009: 6:58 pm

It is January 25 when I am writing this, and I am on British Airways flight 0103 from London to Calgary, somewhere inland just to the west of the Hudson Bay. This puts me at 11pm London Time, 4pm Mountain Time, and what must be something around 6pm wherever I am.

A departure time of 4:10pm (although we likely were not in the sky until closer to 5pm) put us in a state of just-past-sunset. A fairly empty flight has given most everyone onboard the luxury of spreading out in their own aisles for considerably more comfort. The dark cabin has caused most travellers to fall asleep and I can’t help but wonder how badly this will mess up their sleep cycles when they arrive to a morning rhythm at 7pm.

Whats really confusing me is that we are crossing seven time zones in a span of almost nine hours. This gives me reason to believe that the sky around should be getting slowly darker through the course of the flight. However it is actually getting slightly brighter! While I haven’t solved this riddle, I have come to the conclusion that the flight is scheduled at a time such that the pilots do not fly home facing a blinding sunset the entire flight. Though experiencing a ‘reverse-sunset’ would be rather interesting.

My window seat has treated me thus far to seven hours of a dusk on pause. I sat still long enough to watch two movies (RocknRolla and Star Wars: The Clone Wars), and now its starting to feel weird that I am not engulfed in a midnight darkness. Too bad I can’t watch the NHL all-star game that is presumably near finished now, or fire off emails and IMs on-board. Maybe in a few years…

January 20th, 2009: 3:35 pm

(11:20pm Madrid Time)

It is amazing how a little face time can go a long way. While I have not been getting any face time with downtown Madrid, I am accomplishing considerably more in my meetings – the reason for being one-third of the way around the world.

My hotel is in the middle of a business centre. It is under 100 m away from the offices, but 30+ minutes by Metro away from the downtown core and all its authentically European goodness. There is some merit in crashing in the hotel nearby after working into the evening though, and not having to commute any considerable distance.

The Madrid Metro is fantastic. You can get many places in any number of ways, and its cheap to boot.

Here are more images from Sunday’s out n about


Belting the classics. I think.


I was in time to catch the shoe-on-wire festival!


Museo del Jamon! I waited since 2005 to go back here!!!


The thermometer only reached 7 C.

(12:10am January 19 Madrid Time)

The Palace Real is a large palace that has more rooms than any other palaces in Europe. Also after paying admission, you then learn that you are prohibited from taking photographs inside the palace. So you will have to go to Madrid and check it out for yourself sometime. [Palace Real

There is a lot more interesting things to see in Madrid than I thought based on the last trip. The moral of the story is: get a good guide book for whatever location you are going to. One with pictures to show you that something is actually interesting.

Walking around the streets made me realise how much I miss Europe. All the apartment buildings and balcony stylings have an addictive visual quality to them.

Walking around the streets made me remember how much walking you do! My feet are extremely sore now and protest each new step.

See?  Siiiiiiiii!