Tanker time

Yup, France is getting closer, from the sounds of things I will probably be gone some time between November 15th and 20th; although this is not confirmed since we are still waiting on the visa from the French government.

Meanwhile, I am busy packing, cleaning, sorting and slowly going insane. I have already tossed lots of stuff, packed some, moved some to storage, and my place looks like a tornado hit. My place also now looks bare, I took the photos and pictures down.

So, as some might be aware, I will be working on a couple of aerial fire tankers in France, and so I thought that I would find some videos. Well, didn't find ours flying, but I did find some from the current fire in California. The first is a converted DC-10 doing a low drop. Listen to the commentary by a couple of fire fighters who are taping things.



The second clip is of a couple of CL-415's picking up water from a lake. The neat part of this is that there are about 12 of these at the base where I will be stationed, and we even have one being converted from a CL-215 (piston powered) to a CL-415 (turbo-prop) aircraft in our hanger right now. Lots of work is going on with it, lots of structural mods being done. Will be a nice plane when it is done.



So as soon as have a date for departure, I will post and let everyone know. I think that it might be tough living away from everyone for a year (10 and a half months, actually) but it will be an awesome experience in the end.

Pack and sort, pack and sort

Technically, I am on holidays. Technically.

Not really though, since I am busy sorting out 5 years of junk, previous junk from the last place that I lived and then stuffing it into boxes and running said boxes off to the storage place.

I have already filled a corner of the storage place, and it hardly looks like I have made a dent in my place. After all, I have been cleaning out closets and the storage space that I have here.

I have also made two trips to the local charity shop, and it looks like I will need to make another one. That, and a bunch of garbage and some recycling.

Then there are the dust bunnies. I have been moving things that I don't normally move (book shelves for example) and have found some incredible amounts of dust. I had to beat one dust bunny with a large stick so that it wouldn't eat me before I could vacuum it up!


I am still waiting to hear from work about my visa, I have a feeling that it will be a few more weeks before I will be leaving. I am pretty sure that I will get a phone call and be on a plane a day or two later.

Good news though, my steamer trunk arrived, so now I have a nice solid box to ship stuff to France in. And I have discovered that my PS2 will work on 240v electricity! I will be playing Guitar Hero all year long!

So that is about the long and short of it, packing, waiting, breathing too much dust. I hope that I find out sooner than later when I get to go, I really don't like the idea of sleeping on an air mattress for three weeks. =)