On the lack of internet access in rural France

From May 19-30, I'll be pretty much disconnected. The Egale Canada list is going ape over racism silliness, so I may have to unsubscribe from that temporarily just so I don't go insane when I return, but obviously with friends that's not an option. So maybe I should book a day off work to catch up on my journal.

Additionally, I need a way to tell you all about what I do while I'm there. So I'm taking a travel journal I got from leapfish's Mom. I think what I'll do upon my return is maybe take pictures of each page I write, and post that. Or if they don't turn out in focus, I'll scan them, but that takes 100,000 years to do, so it's not my first choice.

I'm certainly not retyping it all, that much I'm sure of.

Flight Info

For those who like to know this sort of thing...

Toronto (YYZ) to Rome (FCO) on Thu, 19/05/2005
Flight: Air Canada 890
-->Depart: 6:25 PM (YYZ)<--[was departing at 8:10 PM]
-->Arrive: 9:00 AM + 1 day (FCO)<--[was arriving at 10:45 AM + 1 day]
Seat(s): 17-H, 17-K

Rome (FCO) to Marseille (MRS) on Fri, 20/05/2005
Flight: Air France 5098
Depart: 12:35 PM (FCO)
Arrive: 2:20 PM (MRS)
Seat(s): Not Assigned

Marseille (MRS) to Rome (FCO) on Mon, 30/05/2005
Flight: Air France 5099
Depart: 10:00 AM (MRS)
Arrive: 11:35 AM (FCO)
Seat(s): Not Assigned

Rome (FCO) to Toronto (YYZ) on Mon, 30/05/2005
Flight: Air Canada 891
Depart: 12:20 PM (FCO)
Arrive: 4:10 PM (YYZ)
Seat(s): 17-H, 17-K

757*

The Boeing 757 is a medium-range transcontinental commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It was designed for Eastern Airlines and British Airways to replace the Boeing 727 and entered service in 1983. Production of the 757 ended in October 2004 after 1,050 had been built.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States Air Force have fitted 757s for VIP transport duties (see C-32), and at least one is in use as a private aircraft (that of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen). Presidential challenger John Kerry used a chartered 757-200, nicknamed "Freedom Bird," during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. The Royal New Zealand Air Force RNZAF has two that are used for transporting troops and VIPs. A 757 is also serving as the Presidential Transport in Argentina.

Cam adds: let me just say that the 757 is pretty much the most boring airplane ever, at least according to wikipedia. I hope that ten posts from now I have something more fun to copy and paste. :)


* Due to some back-posting of Toronto Pride misadventures from the late 90s, this is actually post 758. Oops!

Holy Cannoli!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050517.wpmpm05417/BNStory/Front/

Belinda Stronach has crossed the floor, and is now a Liberal cabinet minister. This means the known votes on the budget are Liberal+NDP = 151, Conservative+Bloc = 152. With three independent MPs, at least one whom will be voting with the government, things are getting mighty interesting.

As someone on the Egale mailing list said today, it's as if we're all watching a Hollywood movie about a minority government, where the producers are trying to spice it up with all sorts of ridiculously unlikely plot twists.

Tangent 1: Scott Brison and Belinda Stronach will both be running for the *Liberal* leadership pretty soon. They might also be back to the private sector a lot sooner than they expected.

Tangent 2: Maybe Lucienne Robillard will finally climb out of her cave and actually start responding to Parti Quebecois propaganda.