Pictures From My Trip

One thing I wasn’t able to do yet is post up all the pictures form my trip to Seattle. Well I finally got off my lazy bum and here they are.

 

Day One

Every big trip like this starts with an overly excited mother. I love my mom she’s so full over energy even at her old age.

If it looks like I’m going nuts that’s because it’s actually 3am in the morning and my flight leaves at 5am. Having to stay up all night with no entertainment or exams is a trying experience.

We leave Toronto at night before the sun comes up, first destination is the Detroit transfer station.

It always makes me proud to be an engineer to see aircraft take off, with over several million parts they are arguably the most complex and mission critical machines with many lives depending on them each flight.

No trip is complete without a windows error screen at the departure gate. Luckily our flight was on the other screens otherwise we would’ve had to go to the other end of the terminal to find a working screen that didn’t have an obvious windows crash.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures form the flight to Seattle my camera died and there was no way to change the batteries in flight. This is a picture of me after I arrived in Bellevue.

Bellevue is like a smaller Hamilton it has a large mall that feels scarily like Limeridge.

In Canada we’re somewhat health obsessed, this isn’t the case apparently for the US. Fat is to be praised and to be displayed in bright neon signs!

 

Day Three

 

We visited some of the natural sites around the area here is Snoqualmie falls it looks like it came out of a post card.

Of course the mandatory proof that you were here Photos.

We did most of our touring via taxi since we didn’t know where things were. Had this not been subsidized it would’ve been a enormous bill.

One of our first official tourist location was the aircraft museum here is what the entrance gate looks like.

Well you don’t see this everyday!

 

 

They even let you test drive one… Hey dealer, we’ll take two.

 

They really like BIG in the US this is just one example of a bridge in their museum.

 

By far one of the most impressive aircraft was the retired Concorde it’s a shame everyone couldn’t take a ride at mach 2.

The Concorde was so massive that there was no way I could get a full frame photo of it.

 

 

The museum of flight also had an retired Air Force One Jet. The president really does travel large.

 

I attempted to get my mom into the mood but she refused to “float” like me. Yes I didn’t realize I was making a goofy face, no I wasn’t dying from a depressurization.

 

Day Four

 

 

The next day was spent in Seattle, it is truly a beautiful city.

 

Day Five

The next day started a bit different we had a tour booked at the Boeing aircraft assembly plant. Truly an amazing building the Boeing assembly plant is the Guinness book of records for the largest building in the world. The building is so large in fact that before they hand a full ventilation system rain clouds would form inside the building.

One of the extremely large Rolls Royce turbo fans.

 

 

The tour was followed up by some food in Downtown Seattle by the sea port. We opted to go to this restaurant called the crab pot. It was quite peculiar our server gave us a wooden cutting board and proceeded to call it our “plate” and gave us a mallet calling it our “utensils”. Later on when the meal was ready there was no plates to be found the entire cook very fresh (the boat unloads here) seafood is just dumped on your table without even a bowl. This is truly an experience I’d recommend it to everyone.

Seattle was the birth place of Starbucks, believe it or not the original mermaid was much fatter. She apparently had to go on a diet to seem presentable to the rest of the world.

 

The famous Seattle market is truly a sight, it’s hard to explain what’s it’s like here but you will find the strangest of shops.

 

Day Six

We decided that we should see what it was like to live in the area so day six was spent exploring nature.

 

 

 

Day Seven

 

Alas all good things must come to an end. I had my week in Seattle and now it’s finally time to leave.

 

The wings of modern aircraft are amazing pieces. Also amazing is the Rockies in the distance. Much cooler than our bland background.

 

 

That concludes my trip as you all know I’m back at McMaster now.

Arrived at the Hotel

I’ve finally arrived at the hotel. There was a bit of an airplane fiasco one lady on the airplane had trouble breathing up at 20,000 ft. We volunteered to assist her in flight and as we got to the airport as we were the only two people that were able to translate English –> Mandarin.

Upon arrival at the hotel there was a neat little package that greeted us with an itinerary and a plan for tomorrow. Guess tomorrow’s the big day.

Did some recon work as well asked the hotel receptionist if there were a lot of people checking in that were also going for interviews to get an idea of how much competition I can expect to face, her response was yes we get lots! All the time. But failed to give an actual number.

Tomorrow in a way I’ll be representing Myself, McMaster, and Canada.

The security search

It really is everything they warn you about and more. I mean when in the past were you required to take off your showed just so they can x-ray them?

Travel is truly a pain these days. I don't blame terrorists just plain paranoia.

Arrived at Pearson Intl

Arrived at Pearson airport at 2am. Yes you read right we had to get here earily because we were worried the driver (dad) would be too tired to drive us by 3am.

Strangely at 3am the terminal is dead nothing is open and the self check in doesn't work with baggage.

Prepared and ready to go

I'm finally packed and ready to go!

Got my laptop my cloths my suits and my base electronics. I'm ready to hit the airport at 2am for my check in.

Preparing for departure

Heading from Toronto --> USA more details to follow include final destination details.

Windows Live Writer

Recently I’ve heard about windows live writer I’m currently putting it through it’s paces. One very nice thing that live writer allows you to do is add additional effects for example it can take a rather bland image and add a reflection.

 

 

Although I’ll admit that normally I’d like to stick to the web front end for consistency. I have to say just playing with it’s image manipulation capabilities sure makes me think it can really make these pages pop. Maybe I will play with this for a little longer.

Dell media direct button: Make it work with firefox!

Ok if your a dell laptop user with a dell media direct button but you really honestly don't use it at all I got a treat for you. Like you I got fed up with the button always there mocking me. A while ago I came up with my own solution that maps the "home" key for media direct to firefox.

The first solution used absolute paths which worked for me but I wasn't thinking of public release.

Now I've redone the application to detect your firefox installation, and the best part is after you first run the program for the first time it will install itself so dell quickset detects it as media direct.

Installation is easy:

1. Download the file
2. Copy it to where you want it to stay on your computer
3. Run it!

The program will automatically modify dell quickset to recognize it as Dell MediaDirect, and will automatically detect and launch your firefox for the first time. Couldn't be easier!

If you ever move the program from it's current location just launch it again and it will detect the changes reconfigure itself and let QuickSet know of the changes.

Couldn't be simpler.
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