Britain-bound again

Keeping my success rate at about 50% on-time arrival, this time the fog at London City Airport caused a four and a half hour delay. No fog up here...

Arriving mid-afternoon, ours was one of the first flights to land. Our cab driver was none too pleased to have been stuck waiting at the airport with not a single arriving passenger for over 4 hours.

The Millennium Dome looked like a space station.

We had a few over-priced pints at the Dorchester Hotel.

Piccadilly Circus is always a fascinating place to people watch.

And the colourful Madarin Oriental another fine place to relax before missing the flight home…

Another trip to the UK. Always a pleasure.

A real barn burner in Nanikon today

There was a barnhouse fire in our hometown today. The fire started inside a lumber business on the main street in town. The adjacent barnhouse, home to friends of ours, also caught fire. It partially burned and, although thankfully no one was hurt, the entirety of their possessions were to lost to the flames. Upon arriving home from work, I saw this scene. The fire crews were still working to douse the still hot structure, resulting in billowing smoke rising high above the center of town. Plan and discuss with your family your fire escape plans tonight.

A Frankfurt-SFO return flight produces 2,010 kg of CO2

I took a recent trip from Frankfurt to San Francisco for a Silicon Valley meeting with an up-and-coming .com - Thank goodness I had all this legroom to relax while my 11,359 mile round trip flight added 4,430 lbs CO2 (2,010 kg) to our atmosphere. Ouch...

My personal share, apparently, was about 226 gallons, or 856 liters' worth. According to this decent CO2 calculator from TerraPass Inc., I am able to restore karmic balance and achieve environmental peace of mind by offsetting this carbon contribution with one simple payment of USD$39.60. Not knowing this at the time, I was unencumbered with the burden of this knowledge, and so was perfectly able to enjoy watching the Canadian Rockies pass underneath from 39,000 feet.

My total carbon dioxide footprint due to air travel over the last 12 months is rapidly approaching a not-so-trivial offset of USD$1,000 ... very conveniently, they accept Amex/Visa/Mastercard.

Arrival in San Francisco's newly expanded international airport, we put in at gate G100. The new international terminal is spacious, like 15-minutes-walk-to-get-to-the-exit kind of spacious.

On the westbound journey, even though we departed Frankfurt mid-morning and arrived in SFO at noon, we flew so far north that we skirted darkness much of the way. The eastbound return leg departed late evening SFO time and arrived morning in Munich. Here is the in-flight map at mid-point, showing the scale of a trip that crosses 9 timezones.

A recent trip to London made for some more practice in black & white...

The Canadian High Commission in London

Back to colour, I enjoyed this late afternoon view of the sun-lit alps and rising full moon, from Switzerland's beautiful Flumserberg ski resort.

Carving down the slopes on a snowboard is a very different feeling from driving through central Milano. Despite my keen interest, we unfortunately came nowhere near the Duomo, but I did manage to take a few marginal shots.