They came in from the Cold

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra played the Bell Center last night. Metal meets Classical wrapped in Christmas. Pretentious, somewhat pompous and a tad bombastic and with it, a hefty dose of hair metal's flair for dramatics. E.g: A BIG light show (though a little too "automated" for my taste - yes, in another life, I was a lighting tech) lots of lasers, smoke, pyros, artificial snow... more Icandy than an Apple fanboy could stand. (that pun comes free of charge). Big guitars (a double-neck came out at one point!), an elevated platform and everything complete with blond, hair-aflying, gyrating, bimbo-esque backup singers.


All in the name of good fun and great music.

This was my first show from TSO and apart from a rather slow going first half, I started warming up to them in the second half and it made for a good evening. Great musicians, great vocals, a very charismatic guitarist/M.C - yeah, he wore a Sainte-Flanelle jersey at the intermission - (the band members had a terrific interaction with the crowd).

I could analyze, re-hash and dissect the whole event...but I won't. It was a great show and I had a great time. A little under 3 hours, it went by too quickly. The afore mentioned guitarist said that we, Montrealers, apparently, are the best crowd...ever (booya!)
Should they come back next year, yeah...I'll go again and prove his point!

Cheers! Go out there and have fun!

Flying High, of sorts...

That's makes today's A380 landing the fourth in a series of wowzers from the skies. I saw the space shuttle Enterprise fly over my house when I was about 11 years old. It was on a ''good will'' trip around the world (today, we would refer to it as a global marketing strategy). The bloody thing was strapped to a Boeing 747 and it flew above us, roaring away...the other kids and I were just slack-jawed with admiration and wonder.
The following summer saw a set of three CF-18 Hornets in formation fly over us in the afternoon sun, probably on their way to Trenton AFB. They flew with a sound and speed I have not experienced since (except in movies but that don't count!).
The third was a weird one...I was on vacation in Gaspé, I think I was 22 back then and witnessed a flight formation of 4 black army helicopters flying low and following the coastline (yeah, yeah...I heard about of the ''conspiracy''). All I know about that event is this...they were indeed helicopters, they numbered four, they were painted black and they flew low...got it. It was still pretty damn cool to see a squadron of choppers whiz by. Now I can add today's Airbus gig to that not very exhausting list! It's always impressive though when you witness something out of the ordinary.

Cheers! Go out there and have fun!

Big Bird part 2.

After a closer inspection of the pictures I took of this afternoon`s A380 landing, I noticed a couple of people ''perched'' with what amounts to the the best, craziest and most dizzying vantage point for plane spotting. I zoomed in on two of the shots.


If you look close on the first zoom, you can see a couple of dark figures on the top of the white roof (2nd pic/previous blog). On the other zooming, 2 black figures are on the top of the left maintenance hanger, were the white trussing meets with the building (3rd pic/previous).

Must be empowering to carry an airport security badge!! I hope these guys brought a camera! I'd pay good money to see the pictures.

Cheers! Go out there and have fun!

Big Bird comes in for a landing.

At 12h17 pm local time, the Airbus A380 touched down at Trudeau International Airport in Montreal. An absolute monster of a plane, the A380 represents the pinnacle of aircraft technology. I took these pictures with a 18-200mm zoom and it was maxed out.

It came in earlier then scheduled and the traffic in the area was brutal, therefore no parking. We just double-parked in the street and had just enough time to jump out of the car and start snapping away.

It was all over in just about 30 short seconds. The plane is supposed to come back on this thursday (15 nov), I hope it lands around the same time...I'll try to set up a couple minutes before!


Man, that thing was big...I'm lucky enough that the office is a couple of klicks away from the airport so a bunch of us went planespotting and we were not alone, at least, on this side of the airport. Apparently, at the intersection of hwy 40 and hwy 13 (one of three viewing hotspot) the cops were telling folks to go back the way they came, they were causing a huge traffic jam. Robert, my collegue, was just a little south of that area and took this video with a Palm PDA. Pretty cool!




My other collegue François also snapped a good pic. Merci vieux!



Our area was filled with bystanders, helicopters news teams....all gawking at this hunk of metal, plastis, rubber, wiring and electronics driven by four of the biggest engines you can see. I hate flying, (scared, actually) but brother, that was a cool display of Aircraft Savoir-Faire!

Fine tuning

I`m still tuning this blog some... I`ll get there.
I know, I know...ain`t rocket science.

I only had a few minutes last night....

Hold on a sec...

Be there soon.