Wednesday, September 06, 2006

What we did this past weekend

I know some people hate the super long posts so I will divide them up and you can read what you like. I will be going in reverse, starting with Monday.

On Monday, my intention was to visit with my good buddy, Jack Schitt, and do nothing but lounge, drink and watch the Labour Day Classic (Argos vs. Ticats). Well, the day before, my good friend DoubleD offered us a couple of VIP passes to watch the annual Canadian International Air Show at the Canadian National Exhibition (128th year). At first, while trying to connect with DoubleD in the park for the tickets (we got in through nefarious means but scanned the tickets on the way out), we took some shots from on the C.N.E. grounds that were not the greatest as one tries to bypass people, buildings, birds, waterfalls and towers. The pictures from the VIP stands, where the planes do special front and center displays, produced some really memorable shots.

I thought Mossy would like some of these. I also think he may get a kick of my loudly laughing out my truck window as I passed these idiot protesters with signs reading things like "We want and Airshow NOT a WARshow". They were protesting the inclusion of the various examples of warplanes from the bomber, to the F-15, to the f-22 Raptor, to the F-18A Hornet. The organizers, dutifully, removed the A-10 Warthog at the last minute in respects to the friends and family of the soldier that was killed by friendly fire from a similar aircraft in Afghanistan. I am no lover of war (what sane person is) but I am not ignorant to the fact that it is various wars that allow me the freedom to write my own personal shit on this blog, to criticize whomever and whatever I want, to be in this country and not as someone's slave and to be treated as anyone's equal. While I agree it affords these poor, misguided idiots the same freedoms, they should not be free to be in the face and ruining a family's outing to the exhibition by poisoning and tainting what is a show about the technology and history of these aircraft, not any agenda for what they are used for.

Ok, I will step off my soapbox now, and go eat dinner. Enjoy the pictures and please feel free to critique as I know they are not the best. Our camera and lenses need a serious, professional cleaning. Oh, one more thing, since this was taken with our Canon Digital Rebel and not the Canon Elura camcorder, the effect is not truly capturing the awesome might of these planes. You can run the slideshow and adjust the timing to 1 second to get a decent idea of some of the planes' actions (i.e. the bi-plane hovering like a helicopter at near stall, or the F-18A hornet gently inching across the sky at its slowest speed while another plane catches up to it at its top speed).

PEACE.

Airshow 2006
Sep 4, 2006 - 379 Photos

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