I recently came across a hilarious article by Patrick Smith, a professional airline pilot who writes a regular column for Salon.com called Ask The Pilot. His columns are generally quite interesting and informative, especially for regular travelers or, perhaps, an aerospace engineer who is interested in how commercial aircraft are used on a daily basis.

The article was called The Exploding Toilet and Other Embarrassments, and it made me laugh until I cried. I could barely read it aloud to Ori, so hard was I laughing. I hope you’ll find it just as funny!

On a related note, I can now announce that I’ve found employment in Toronto with Solar Ship, a company that’s working to develop a new kind of aircraft that derives some of its lift from a wing inflated with helium. It’s not lighter-than-air like a blimp, but rather a tool for delivering cargo to remote areas not well-served by road infrastructure.

Here’s a video showing the products we are developing:



I can’t say much more at the moment, but the work is very challenging, interesting, and a fantastic opportunity to be involved in the development of an entirely new kind of aircraft. I feel like a Wright brother as I go to work each day!

I recently watched the excellent film Hotel Rwanda, and was surprised to hear a familiar melody in the soundtrack. Research led me to determine it was part of a song by Wyclef Jean called “Million Voices”.

Here’s a sample of the melody I’m talking about:

Million Voices - Wyclef Jean
The reason it was familiar was that I’d heard it on Al Di Meola’s album The Infinite Desire. (I love practically all of Al Di Meola’s stuff and I highly recommend this album.)

Here’s a sample of the same (or at least, an uncannily similar) melody, as found in the track “Shaking The Spirits”:

Shaking The Spirits - Al Di Meola
Strangely, it appears that the line in Di Meola’s track is sung by an Oriana Di Meola, who must be his daughter, judging from her Twitter feed.

I feel like I’ve heard this melody somewhere else, too. I love finding little connections between pieces like this!

Hello readers,

Now that we’re finally settled, I’ve had time to go through the Gallery and add captions to all of the old photos from Oxford that had been missing them.

In theory, now every photo in the Gallery should be captioned, except for the photos from our Camino. I’m waiting on those because I may choose to present them in a different way. Specifically, I’m thinking of posting a few interesting photos at a time (here on the blog), accompanied by captions extracted from my Camino journal. Maybe even in real time, over the course of the 69 days it took us to walk the Camino in April/May/June.

If you do manage to find any uncaptioned photos in the Gallery, to let me know. I’m now considering the Oxford gallery “closed,” but of course there are regular updates occurring in the Toronto gallery.

I was sitting at my computer and heard lots and lots of sirens outside, so I took my camera and headed towards the commotion: a big fire burning on George Street, just north of Filmore’s Hotel.

The Toronto Fire Services website is currently showing lots of activity:

From what I could tell from the Dundas end, it’s this residential building that’s on fire:


[Update: No, it's not. It's an abandoned house.]

I’ve posted some of my photos of the Fire Department activity in the Gallery.

I’m just back from the Lightbox, where I attended a free premiere of Young Adult, directed by Jason Reitman and starring Charlize Theron.

It was free courtesy of George Stroumboulopoulos, the host of the CBC show “George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.” When Ori and I attended a “Tonight” taping last week, George announced that viewers could sign up to attend the premiere of a “secret movie.”

So I did (Ori had orchestra), and after standing in a long line for about an hour, I finally found out what the film was going to be. And it wasn’t bad! Apparently it will be “very talked about,” and I’d believe it. Anything Charlize Theron associates herself with is bound for at least some media coverage.

Jason Reitman and the film’s writer, Diablo Cody, were in attendance as well, and they answered questions afterwards. Very nice of them to invite us all to attend, and to spend some time talking about their work.

All in all, not a bad free evening’s entertainment!