Finally Friday

Yeesh this has been the longest shortest month i can remember!

What's on for the weekend. Well, tomorrow going shopping with my mother who's contributing to whatever i find as my birthday pressie. Need new unmentionables as well. Then back to hers for birthday cake, couple of days early for me, a few days late for my nephew who turned 20 on Wednesday. He's decided against college and is going to enter an plumbing apprentice program. He's been working as a plumber's helper with his father's company since last summer and really likes it. And let's face it, you won't have too much trouble finding work will you? The IT business waxes and wanes (his original choice) but shit always happens ;)))

Sunday i am hoping my friend Sharon can come over and we can sort out my old computer. It needs reformatting and i've never done it before. My cousin wants first refusal on it and is coming to town fairly soon on her way to move back to Newfoundland so i have to get moving on this. I hope i can get the modem working properly. It worked before but the dialup software kept crashing and it took a few tries to get it to go, when it did, the modem dialed just fine and stayed connected. I'm sure the problem wasn't the modem itself but the dialup connect software. Don't ask me... i have a mental block against things like that. LOL

King of the Sea

Actually King of the Air... canada's military has been flying Sea King Helicopters for 40 years. The same ones, mind you. They are pieces of crap. They spend 30 hours service for every hour in the sky, they have crashed and killed up to 7 good people. The Canadian government was going to contract to have new ones over 10 years ago to be delivered by 2000. But Jean cretien, our "esteemed" leader, bottled out of the contract. Too expensive he says. It cost 500 million to get out of the contract. So how does that add up i'd like to know. In the mean time, these copters are breaking down all the time even if they aren't crashing. These choppers mainly go out to sea and fly on and off the decks of the ships but also do search and rescue too.

Yesterday or the day before another one crashed onto the deck of the Iroquois which had left Halifax a couple of days ago en route to the Persian Gulf. Nobody was killed. Two were injured. apparently they were lifting off for a systems check. It got 30 feet in the air or so and the engines cut out and down it came again. They're bringing the ship back to Halifax to asses the damage to it and then sending it out again.

It's discraceful. It's appalling and highly embarassing that we are giving our armed forces equipment like this to go to war with!! Bringing the ship back? They are probably hoping to salvage the SeaKing for parts for the other ones. I think the following scenario works much better:

Sailor... hey look guys, big shark off the port side!!! (points)
Everyone looks
Sailor and a mate nonchalantly backwards-kick the SeaKing off the starboard side into the drink while whistling Anchors Away.

I wonder if Jean Cretien had the guts to go up in a Sea King for an hour's ride? Too dangerous? Maybe that's why he's just spent a million or more on a cadillac helicopter for himself.

Pah!

Samia Ghadie Visits Halifax

( Samia's visit )