Oh, *that* was fun.

We could see it coming a mile away.  Well, more accurately, a day away. That was a “weather bomb”, the term that meteorologists use to describe a really low pressure system. They happen reasonably often on the Atlantic and are characterized by heavy precipitation and hurricane-force winds, and typically they don’t move so fast.  Almost like a hurricane, but they don’t have the well-defined shape.

Anyway, as luck would have it such a storm was forecast to strike Nova Scotia on New Year’s Eve and last well into New Year’s Day. 30 cm + of snow, 100 kph winds. Not such a big deal, right? Wrong. We were scheduled to fly out of Halifax at 7:30 am on New Year’s Day.

Fortunately we decided to take most of the day of New Year’s Eve to pack. The damage from the various gifts was harsh — we ended up borrowing two bags from my parents, giving us a grand total of 5 suitcases, 2 car seats, and a stroller. Plus the carry on: laptop bag, day bag, diaper bag, Aidan’s bag. Oh, plus the two kids and the two of us. Luggage management was going to be tricky.

And so, at 6 pm when we checked and saw that out flight out the next day was already cancelled, we breathed out a sigh of relief. There would be no rushing to the airport at 5 in the morning through unplowed and drifted streets along the highway admist a blizzard.

Instead we got a phone call at 8 pm from a friendly WestJet agent telling us about the cancelled flight and that WestJet was going to put a flight out at 11:30 pm THAT NIGHT to try to beat the storm. I hummed and hawwed and asked what other options we had. The agent went away for a bit and came back with the news that the next time he could get us out was next Wednesday, standby. Obviously that wasn’t going to work, so I told him we’d take the flight and we shifted into high gear to leave.

Unfortunately we were supposed to spend New Year’s Eve with Gwen’s brother and his girlfriend Pier-Nadeige. They came over while we were rushing around preparing to leave. Fortunately we were mostly packed, so it was just a matter of checking around to see what was left and putting the bags in the car. We also got Aidan up out of bed, having just put him there, because we figured it was better than waking him up after an hour’s sleep.

By 9 pm, when we left for the airport, the snow what coming down pretty heavily. The drive to the airport was slow and difficult due to the snow-covered highways and white-out conditions. Fortunately there wasn’t a tonne of snow down yet. The trip to the airport was complicated by the fact that we had to take two cars since all the luggage wouldn’t fit in one. Actually, we would have had to have taken two anyway since the two car seats filled the backseat of my parent’s Santa Fe leaving only two more seats … and therefore no way to get the truck back to my parents without a second vehicle.

It was 10 pm or so by the time we arrived at the airport (typically a 25-30 min drive). All flights had been cancelled except ours and a second escape flight that WestJet had thrown together. Ours was supposed to leave at 11:15 and the second at 12:10. The check-in counter agents were pretty upbeat despite spending their New Year’s Eve dealing with us. Our agent even invited Aidan behind the counter to push our bags on to the conveyor belt. I don’t know what she was thinking (the liability concerns obviously didn’t enter into her head) but Aidan was in full flirt mode and was having a blast.

We pushed our way through security with our full array of hazardous carry on (see the previous post) and to the children’s play area conveniently located beside our gate. And waited. And waited.

By the time we boarded and pushed back, the girls’ ringette team that was on the flight was counting down to midnight. Well kinda.  They only had cell phones as time pieces, and none of them actually had seconds on them. Close enough. I wasn’t sure we were actually going to get out of the Halifax airport … the snow intensity had increased and I didn’t think visibility was going to be good enough for take-off. But we did! And, in a rather unconventional way too. The pilot put us at the end of the runway, stood on the brakes and ran the engines up to full power. When the brakes were released, the plane literally jumped forward and we were in the air in the shortest take-off I’ve ever experienced.

Once airborne, the flight was uneventful.

With the exception, of course, of dealing with Aidan. Aidan doesn’t sleep on the plane and once again, despite the hour, he didn’t sleep. Until, that is, the last 2 minutes of landing in Toronto. One second he was watching the street lights out the window as we were landing (he insisted on the window seat) and the next he was asleep. He didn’t wake up through landing, taxiing or disembarking. I had to carry him off the plane, completely asleep. In the jetway where we had to pick up the gate-checked stroller, I tried to put him down and get him to stand while we juggled bags, but he wouldn’t wake enough to stand. It was eerie. We unfolded the stroller and instead of putting Quinlan into it we plopped Aidan into it.

By the time we got to the terminal Aidan was awake enough to walk, but he was walking like he’d consumed a bottle of Baby Duck. A passing airport worker driving one of those courtesy carts took pity on us and took Gwen and Aidan to the luggage area (this thrilled Aidan to no end) while I puttered along with Quinlan in the stroller (the cart driver wouldn’t take us for some reason).

By now it was 2 am Toronto time, 3 am Halifax time.

As we were waiting for our bags, the other flight from Halifax arrived too. I mention this fact because we were all being put up in hotels for the rest of the night, and transportation to the hotels was by the standard hotel shuttles. With 300+ people trying to make their way to the hotels, this was shaping to be pretty chaotic … and pretty time consuming.

We grabbed our bags and put them on two of those annoying Pearson carts. These carts ($2 each!) have deadman’s handles on them so that they only move if you’re pushing on the bar. Plus they don’t have seats for small children. So, there we were, trying to push these two carts loaded with bags and carseats, a stroller, and two small children through the airport to “Post C22″ to pick up the hotel shuttle. Difficult and slow.

Plus, it was -15C in Toronto.

Our hotel shuttle was a 10 person van.

It was only coming ever 30+ minutes.

There were literally hundreds of people milling about Post C22 since all the hotel shuttles (some of which were busses) were picking up at the same location.

FAIL.

In the end we took a taxi. A taxi, I might add, that cost us $60 (after tip) to go the 15 minutes to the hotel.

The hotel (the Valhalla Inn) was weird. Clearly a 2nd or 3rd rate hotel, stuck off the 427. They only had one luggage cart, and the elevator was about 200 ft from the check-in desk.

By 3:30 am Toronto time (4:30 am Halifax time) we finally got out heads on our pillows. Aidan was still awake. The alarm was set for 7:30am.

We all woke in surprisingly good humour and were up and dressed by 8 when Gwen’s brother Steve and his wife Megan arrived to have breakfast with us. The plan was to go to the restaurant in the hotel and use the $60 in food vouchers that WestJet had given us.

The plan was poorly executed.

When we went in the restaurant, I asked the manager if they honoured the vouchers and he affirmed that they did. We sat down and ordered and then things got complicated. The server told us that we would have to take the vouchers to the front desk and exchange them for restaurant vouchers, which I did. However, the restaurant vouchers were for a specific breakfast … essentially eggs, toast and coffee. I asked the front desk if that meant that we had to have those specific items, but the clerk assured me that the restaurant would be flexible. I went back to the restaurant and saw the server and manager having a none-too-friendly conversation and sure enough, the manager came over and told me that we’d have to have only the items on the vouchers. There was some considerable back-and-forth and much confusion on the part of the manager (who had apparently only been there for 3 weeks and had obviously not dealt with these vouchers much before) and in the end we left the restaurant without having had any breakfast and having wasted a considerable amount of time. I got my original WestJet vouchers back though.

And so we now had to get our hungry selves to the airport. Steve’s car wasn’t big enough for all of us and our bags so Aidan and I went with half the luggage on the shuttle and Gwen and Quinlan went with the rest with Steve and Megan. Having seen the size of the shuttle first hand, it was laughable that WestJet expected to get us, a family of four with all our bags and car seats and sundry to the hotel and back using this meager van. We would have completely filled it ourselves never mind trying to get the other displaced flyers there too. And it only ran every 30 minutes!

It turns out that the other hotels that people were put up in were the Sheraton and the Hilton. Both closer, both much nicer hotels. W.T.F.?!?

In the end we all got to the airport in a timely fashion and got ourselves checked in and bags sent on their way. Aidan was in full charm mode again, and the security agent who was running the x-ray machine at the special baggage counter invited him back behind her desk so that he could see the images as they went on by. Um, this seemed like another incredible violation of policy, but it goes to show that Aidan is going to be a force to reckoned with in the future in terms of getting his way.

Remember those food vouchers? Turns out Tim Horton’s honoured them. And there was one right by our departure gate. I spent $40 of vouchers at Tim’s buying breakfast and lunch for us. Breakfast for Aidan was 10 Timbits, a bottle of orange juice and two doses of Gravol. Awesome.

The flight to Vancouver was again uneventful. Aidan didn’t sleep, but also didn’t get airsick despite the double-dose of Gravol. Moving ourselves and bags around in YVR was much easier than Toronto: no-charge carts without deadman’s handles and with child-seats. Ah, bliss.

And the taxi ride home was a better experience and cheaper — $35 (including a $10 tip).

What waited for us in Vancouver, though, was the sorriest, most embarrassing excuse for snow management I’ve ever seen in my life. But more on that later.

We’re in Halifax! Based on past history that typically means that posting frequency here drops, sorry.

We flew out of Vancouver last Saturday just before the deep freeze took hold. It was set to be quite the trip: Vancouver to Calgary, Calgary to Toronto, Toronto to Halifax. Some 12 hours plus of travelling with both kids.  There was snow forecast for the previous Friday which made us concerned about how we were going to get to the airport, but the amount of snow was negligible and making it to YVR wasn’t an issue.

Despite pushing our bags and both carseats through the airport, checking-in was a pretty smooth experience. Getting through security was a bit trickier — perhaps unsurprisingly to readers of this blog, we travel with a lot of carry-on electronics: 3x MP3 players, camera, video camera, PDA, 2x cell phones, 2x laptops, GPS, plus all the associated wall warts. Plus we had LIQUIDS: boiled water for making formula for Quinlan and we ‘accidentally’ smuggled a juice-box full of OJ for Aidan.  A couple of the guards noticed, but each time I noticed them noticing, one would point to Quinlan and that seemed to make it ok. Um hello? A 6 week old drinking OJ from a juice box? Yeah … sure …

The flights were great. Once again, we travelled WestJet. We double-dosed Aidan with Gravol (with our doctor’s permission) which supressed the air sickness that usually affects him but it didn’t knock him out at all. It barely affected his energy level. However, those individual seat-back TV screens were a Godsend once again as he watched TreehouseTV right across the country. He didn’t touch the bag of books and toys that we brought at all.  And Quilan made no fuss whatsoever.

The only hiccup was on the tarmac in Calgary. Calgary was a balmy -25C and according to the cabin announcement the fuel trucks were all frozen and we had a delay for a good 45 minutes.  And then de-icing.  This meant that our tightly-scheduled stopover in Toronto was going to result in a missed flight.   However, it turns out that Halifax was the home-base of the flight crew for the T.O-Halifax leg, and it was the last leg for the plane so they held the flight for the dozen or so of us that were connecting through.

And at the airport, much to our surprise, we were met by my parents and an aunt and uncle of mine (Uncle Roger & Aunt ‘Berta) who had flown in from the frozen depths of Northern Ontario just to see us.  Well, maybe not, but it was nice to visit with them for a couple of days too!

Now, we’ve been here for a few days. I’ll post a bit later about all the things going on.

But bajeezus it’s cold!

Local media guy Buzz Bishop had some questions about the netbook, so rather than miss the opportunity to write a few hundred words that no one will read, I thought I’d post it here. :)

We’ve had the Eee 901 for 5 months now.  The original intention with the netbook was for it to be a second laptop since our main laptop had been completely taken over by Gwen. There was also the thought to use it for geocaching too, but our geocaching activities have tapered off significantly due to the pending and subsequent arrival of Quinlan. Further, we’ve discovered that it’s still a bit too awkward to have in the car in the heat of the hunt.  However, we have used it on a couple road trips where we’ve had MS Streets & Trips and the USB GPS and used it to find our way around the back country of Washington State as well as Vancouver Island.

It’s turned out to be great to pick up and and take places. It is definitely the best thing to take on business trips. It’s small, light, and runs forever on the battery.  With WiFi on the whole time, I get about 5-5 1/2  hours without plugging in.  That’s long enough to get through even the longest of meetings. 5 1/2 hours almost gets me coast-to-coast on a plane (I’ll let you know how that goes on Saturday, but with the 2 kids it’s pretty unlikely I’ll get much opportunity to use it). It’s light and small enough that it tucks into my day bag without displacing anything.  It’s powerful enough for note-taking, and for running Powerpoint. Even reading PDFs and eBooks is convenient. If I were the sort (and had the time) it’d be ideal for taking to coffee shops too.

Day-to-day use is mostly what it was designed for: travelling the tubes. In the morning I check my various email accounts, blogs and Twitter before scanning the paper and eating breakfast. At night, since we’re pretty much housebound with the two kids, it serves the same purposes: blogs, email and Twitter. But, because it’s so small and light, I can use it in front of the TV, in the kitchen, or in bed as easily as not. There’s no way I’d lug the big 17″ laptop around like this.

I was a little worried about daily use and both the size of the screen and the keyboard, but neither has turned out to be an issue.  The screen is bright, crisp, and easy on the eyes. I can touch-type on the keyboard with only a slightly higher error rate than normal. The screen is a little small, but the application I have the biggest issue with — Google Reader — can be customized so that it fills the screen and it actually ends up being quite comfortable to use.  I still have problems with inadvertent brushes of the touchpad, though.

So, for its purpose, it’s been great. However, it is definitely a second (or third, fourth, etc) computer. It’s awful for photo manipulation due to the small screen and small (and slow) SSD. There’s no DVD drive, so there’s no watching (or ripping) of DVDs. It’s definitely not a machine to do development on either. But for surfing the tubes, writing short documents, blogging and Tweeting, I’m in love.

Twitter has been bad for me. It’s been an ‘enabler’, letting me get my fix of breaking news and political discussion. You can see a bit of my Twitter stream in the right hand side there. If you don’t know what Twitter is, it’s a place where people exchange 140 character messages.  They’re like Facebook or MSN status messages.  In fact, I send my Twitter updates to Facebook as status messages. I tweet a fair bit so it might be pretty annoying to see it all in FB, but no one’s complained yet!

Of course, today was pretty historic in terms of Canadian politics.  Here’s excerpts from my Twitter stream today:

Will she or won’t she? @pmharper visits the Governor-General tomorrow morning to ask for stay of execution.

The suspense is killing me. I’m glad this is happening before work.

How concerned about the environment is @pmharper? He took a motorcade from Rideau Hall to Government House, which are across the street!

I hope there’s somebody recording the conversation between the GG and @pmharper this morning. If nothing than for the history books!

Heh, the PM’s staffers are taunting the reporters by repeatedly opening and closing the doors to Government House.

Coming up on 2 hrs meeting w/ PM & GG. What on earth is taking so long? Him: “Prorogue!” Her: “No” or “Yes”. What else is there?

Today, control of Canada’s government has been seized by a true tyrant. I fail to understand how this helps our country.

Parliamentary democracy has been reduced to tyranny. How can any politician be proud of this moment?

How can any citizen support tyranny over democracy? How can anyone think that today’s political climate benefits our country?

The only way out of this quagmire is for Harper and Dion to both resign and for cooler heads and better leaders to step forward.

Further, it is has never been more clear that parliamentary reform is required.

We cannot allow an unelected leader (in the sense of not elected as leader) so much power as to plunge the country into crisis.

This is a pivotal time in the growth of our country. Do not let the childishness of politicians disenfranchise you.

I truly don’t understand how people can support bullying, fear-mongering, and abuse of power. http://is.gd/agHb

So, that’s a sampling of my thoughts through the day. What you’re not seeing are the responses to these tweets and the tweets of other people.  It passes a lot of people by, but these new technologies are changing how people interact with the world.