I'm currently sitting here at Pearson airport...I decided I am going to take my laptop with me, hahaha.

I don't know if this is the plane I'm flying on, but I board in ten minutes.

I'll talk to you guys later!

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Tags:   American Airlines American Eagle Airlines plane airplane aeroplane jet CRJ Bombardier regional jet CRJ700 N537EA Pearson YYZ airport Air Transat

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I'm not really happy with this edit...couldn't remove those clouds on the left and replace them with blue sky... but I wanted to post a pic of these buildings, so here they are. The lower floors on these buildings are actually parking garages! The complex involves a few buildings behind these towers, and it's actually almost 50 years old. Until I looked them up on Wikipedia a few minutes ago, I figured these structures were only a few years old, based on their radical (I.e., not swathed in light blue glass) design, hahaha. Then again, most of the more interesting building designs in the world I've seen pre-date the Toronto Ugly Condo Boom years. And in fact, most of them pre-date me, too.
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Tags:   Marina City Chicago tower city parking garage condo mixed-use bridge boat Chicago River architecture America USA United States sky

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In fiddling around with settings in the RAW editor, I found a way to make Chicago look like Sim City. Now I can hear the "Auto-Budget" theme in my head!

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Today I walked Ally to work, then went to the Dufferin Mall, where I printed a 20x30 of my close-up pic of the MV Holiday Island that I took in 2010. I've decided to just stick with Wal-Mart or Black's instead of Staples for prints, at least until I have enough spare cash to experiment.

Anyway, I ended up walking 6.4km. Yesterday, we went jogging for about 1.5km; on Saturday we went to Niagara Falls and walked about 6km; and last week I hung out with Ashton Pal and went about 7km. I'm getting lots of much-needed exercise!

Speaking of hwhich, Niagara Falls was fun. We went to the Butterfly Conservatory, the Ten Thousand Buddha Temple, the Bird Kingdom, the Canadian Falls, and walked around Clifton Hill and tried T.G.I. Friday's for the first time. We're gonna go back when it gets warmer and do the Maid of the Mist/Behind The Falls thing.

Only 17 days until I move downtown!

Edit, 7/29/2013: If you look closely in the top right area, you can see the original MV Abegweit docked near the lines of boats. I didn't know it was there when I went to Chicago, and only now clued in to the thought that maybe I had a picture of it! Not that this one is as cool as the second MV Abegweit from the '80s that I sailed on once but never got a picture of...
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Tags:   Chicago city urban Navy Pier John Hancock Observatory tower skyscraper Lake Michigan buildings shore marina water America Illinois Water Tower Place Onterie Center Prentice-Stone Pavilion 600 Lake Shore Drive Lake Shore Place Lake Point Tower River East Center River East Art Center Streeter Place CityFront Place Jardine Water Purification Plant

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What an interesting last 24 hours!

First, I fly through huge clouds to land at Pearson from Chicago...watch the series finale of The Kennedys...go home, and just as I'm getting in bed, Alex walks to my door and says "Andrew? Osama bin Laden is DEAD." And I said "What??" And he said "Osama bin Laden is dead". I just looked at him, and we went to his room and watched CNN for about 15 minutes, including Barack Obama's speech. I couldn't believe they actually got him...but it was great to hear!

I definitely felt strongly about September 11th. I don't know what my American contacts are thinking right now...but I was glued to the TV all afternoon that day. I was just a few days shy of 16 years old at the time. I remember where I was when I first heard of the attacks (I was walking around the halls at recess, when my friend John came up from the other direction and said that planes had flown into the World Trade Center). I read magazine specials, newspaper articles, watched TV coverage, and stood silent in Math class for the moment of silence later that day.

So it brought me surprise and satisfaction to hear that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

I guess that brought an end to coverage of the royal wedding!

And I'm glad they made the announcement of bin Laden's death after I had gone through the airport! The lineup for security at O'Hare was slow enough yesterday afternoon...I can only imagine how busy it is now!

This is the plane I flew on, by the way.

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In other news, today is election day in Canada. I voted about an hour ago...if you haven't done so yet, I encourage you to go do it! It's 8:04pm now, so you still have an hour and a half left!

www.formspring.me/Loops666

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Tags:   American Eagle American Eagle Airlines plane airplane aeroplane jet Embraer EMB-145LR ERJ-145LR N651AE airport Pearson YYZ man person shadow raining tarmac stairs

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Well, once again, what I have to say and what I'm going to say are two different things...the last few days have been pretty stressful for me, but I can't really talk about it, at least not publicly, because that will make things worse. In the process, I'm trying to figure out how in-depth you (my Flickr contacts) want to know me.

I'm a normal guy, and like most people, I have good days and bad days. The past four days have been pretty crappy. It's hard to pretend that stuff isn't bothering me, just for the sake of appearing happy for you guys. Of course, people will tell me to just be myself, but I mean...do you really want to read about someone who's been bummed out for four days in a row? My guess is "No", which is why I'm not sure whether I should talk about what's on my mind, or whether I should have not even hinted that there's something bothering me.

The human mind is the most impressive torture device on Earth.

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Tags:   Bird animal golden-breasted starling Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago exhibit perch wood aves animalia chordata passeriformes sturnidae cosmopsarus cosmopsarus regius

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