Good Links, July Edition–Sort of…Not.

I wasn’t around much for July and when I wasn’t going old-school wireless (i.e. totally detached from civilization–talking no cell phone coverage even) I wasn’t doing much browsing online. I wasn’t even checking my RSS feeds. I know, it is crazy. And I didn’t even miss it. I must have been having a lot of fun to not experience any withdrawal. Anyway, that all babbled and done, I have no good links for July.

But what I DO have are a few things that made me go ‘hmmmm’. First of all, I should note that I am Canadian. Second of all, I traveled to the United States this summer. Whenever I visit our lovely neighbours, I am always amused by the slight differences in culture. What? We aren’t the same? Nooooo. We aren’t. (Alaskans have a very different view of personal space, btw.)

But mostly what I notice is guns. For example, in Canada in the ‘Bear Aware’ brochure there was the same info as in the American brochure. With one exception. In the American literature there was discussion on what sort of firearms work best on bears. I kid you not. Here is an excerpt: “If you are inexperienced with a firearm in emergency situations, you are more likely to be injured by a gun than a bear.” Then it goes on about some parks not allowing firearms before continuing “A .300 Magnum rifle or a 12-gauge shotgun with rifled slugs are appropriate weapons if you have to shoot a bear. Heavy handguns such as a .44 Magnum may be inadequate in emergency situations, especially in untrained hands.”

Huh. So, don’t use a gun on a bear, but if you do, go for a shotgun. And it is best to be well-trained so you don’t accidently shoot yourself. Got it.

And speaking of guns, here is sign you don’t see on banks in Canada. Heck, in Canada, half the time you forget people have even heard of guns, but in the States, well, I always start wondering how many average joes are packing heat and how many walk into banks…thus resulting in this posted sign:

Homeland security is another thing that I don’t give much thought to. However, when taking the ferry, we saw these signs. For a Canadian, they can be almost alarming, (especially one who visits Dictionary.com and reads “fairly large in amount or quantity” under ‘significant’. Yikes!):

What is ‘significant’, really and truly? We asked the ferry terminal operator about the sign and he said a ’1′ is the lowest on the 3 point scale. Gulp. So, on an average day, there is a ‘significant/fairly large’ chance of the ferry being attacked? (He said about 1 in 9 guests get searched on a level 1 day. And no, we didn’t get searched, although a crazy guy back near home thought we were ‘Narcs’. Right, Narcs often go undercover in a Yaris with their 6-year-old.) Oh, and back to guns being everywhere, when we arrived in (American) port the captain said folks could pick up their firearms from the storage area. Double gulp.

What do you think? Do you pack heat when you head to the grocery store, the bank or the ferry? And if you do, why? Have you ever pulled it out?

Just curious.

Seat Assignment

We’re on the plane and I’m watching ‘Spiderman 3′. How cool is that? Sometimes you can catch a flight that has the personal TV thing on the seat in front of you. Then everyone can watch whatever they want. Very cool. Sometimes, they really do use technology for the good of everyone. Plus, I won’t have to rent Spidey 3. Or ‘Next’. Saw that one on the way out. Cool twist on the action movie. It has Nicholas Cage and is very cool. I probably wouldn’t have rented it, but it was great. One of the better ones I’ve seen lately. And funny, because I usually don’t really care for movies I see on planes. It is like I can’t quite get into it or something. Or because the sound quality sucks so bad that I usually miss a lot and have to concentrate to get what I do.

Riddle me this: they can manage this technology feat of independent on-demand TV and music on Air Canada, yet they can’t seem to find themselves a program that books seats properly. How is that? It is strange if you think about it, isn’t it? I mean, you just need someone with some logic and programming skills, and voila!–less headaches for the flight attendants. (And the passengers.)

See, the reason I mention this, is this: we booked our flights online and there is a drop down menu for if you are traveling with a child. (Which of course, we checked off.)

Little note: children cannot sit in emergency seat rows.

And despite us giving them the info they needed, they assigned us seats in the emergency exit row. So, naturally, a lot of shuffling then occurred. Why ask if we are traveling with children if they aren’t going to make the necessary accommodations as a result?

And the strange thing is that this sort of thing seems to happen frequently. Once I was seated separately from my three-year-old and so they had to do some shuffling. Another time or two we were placed (and moved) in the emergency exit row. On this flight, the lady across from us paid EXTRA to ensure that she and her family were all seated together. Which they weren’t. They were refunded their money, but I mean, is it because they are trying to accommodate everyone on where they want to sit on the plane? Like what is happening to the info that they gather? Is it like the recycling program that they used to have in Yellowknife? (They collected the sorted recycling then took it to the dump because it was too expensive to transport out to a recycling facility.)

When I am not in the emergency row, I always seem to be at the back (like as in the last two or three rows) which is annoying. (Maybe sometimes they take in the child factor and try and stick us at the back because of it.) I don’t know why it bugs me being way at the back. Someone said it is the safest. Is it? Really if the plane crashes, is there a ‘safest’ spot?

Once I was so far back in the plane, I couldn’t even recline my seat because of the wall behind me. (It was the ‘Air Miles Seat’, I think. And the lady beside me was reading the same Grisham book as me, but she didn’t think that was as weird and cool as I did. Maybe she checked her sense of humour or they confiscated it at security.) And then there was the time last month that by the time they got to the back of the plane where we were seated, they had run out of food. That was just friggin’ great. And it was suppertime. And we were hungry.

And grandma got to sit in the emergency aisle. And so did grandpa. And we were at the back starving.

Later…

Still watching Spiderman 3…

Sometimes life is just hard. (Or at least if you are Peter Parker and have an alien amplifying your aggression.)

But like Aunt May (Spidey’s aunt) says, sometimes you have to start by forgiving yourself.

And We’re Back…

Well, we’re back home again. No vehicular mishaps or otherwise. Well, other than a lightning storm that prevented the ground crew from putting on bags on the plane on time. So, a one hour delay. But we had one of those planes with the cool TV sets in the back of the seat in front of you. So, we had TV and movies and music. It was great! I loved it. I got to watch some episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and ‘The Class’ that I hadn’t seen before. I really like those two shows.