Tag Archives: Canada

My pedantry about vaccination and immunisation | shoutout @sciencesarah | Custard apple | shoutout @SybariticaBlog

Over the last week as part of my regular blog reading I’ve commented on a couple of blogs.

The first was on Science for Life. 365 which is a post a day blog by an Australian scientist and writer Sarah Keenihan. On Day 257. Killing smallpox and parasites Sarah wrote about her vaccination in Canada before coming to live in Australia. I made a comment about being vaccinated and vaccinating others and mentioned my pedantic habit of referring to vaccination in the context of smallpox immunisation and immunisation for everything else. To me Edward Jenner vaccinated with cowpox (Vaccinia virus). The process was immunisation and vaccination specifically refers to using Vaccinia virus (or a derivative) to immunise against smallpox. I once explained this to a work colleague and she told me I was wrong. She said I didn’t understand vaccination is universally accepted as the term to protect people by stimulating their immune systems and had nothing to do with smallpox. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t have a science background and it wasn’t worth an argument. When I was a lot younger I recall the early iterations of the Australian Immunisation Handbook had an explanatory footnote on the difference between immunisation and vaccination. It last appeared in the sixth edition. I’ve scanned the relevant pages and made them available in this link. I think in earlier iterations the explanation was different.

The second blog I commented on was Sybaritica by John Thompson who lives in Canada, practices law, travels the court circuit of regional and remote Canada and seems to be more Chinese than me. Recently John posted about custard apples and it made me think back to my childhood growing up in Brisbane and being an avid fan. It’s been a long time since I had a custard apple even though they’re readily available. I made a comment on John’s blog and mentioned that I didn’t recall them being that laden with seeds. I saw one in the supermarket on the weekend and knew I had to buy one.

The one I bought had lots of seeds. Perhaps as a child I swallowed them all Anyway, it was delicious.

Good night.

Toronto to Los Angeles to Sydney to Canberra (YYZ to LAX to SYD to CBR)

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I’m grateful that my flight out of Toronto and beyond went relatively well. The journey up to Toronto was a little out there. Toronto is the largest city in Ontario (and Canada) and is the provincial capital. The Toronto Pearson (YYZ) airport is a lot larger than the Ottawa airport (YOW). I spent an hour or so in the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge and enjoyed a couple of glasses of diet coke. My flight from Toronto to Los Angeles was really good. I sat next to a friendly passenger and the entertainment system in the Air Canada aircraft is very good. They have a USB port for recharging and connecting your smartphone and all the programs are on-demand. During my five hour flight I watched quite a few situation comedies that are not yet screened in Australia. I really enjoyed a compilation from the latest Winnipeg comedy festival.

I got into Los Angeles with a reasonable amount of time to spare (two hours) and managed to get into the United Lounge in terminal seven. It looked like United Airlines was continuing to have problems with its flights from that day. There were large lines of unhappy passengers asking to be put onto other flights, some of them were being sent to other airlines while others were being told to spend a night in LA.

When I got on board flight UA839 I thought we were going to have a trouble free flight except we didn’t move for more than an hour. At first we were waiting for domestic connections, then we were waiting for passengers from the last evening’s cancelled flight to turn up and collect their duty free, and then there was an on-board computer failure and the engineers were called. None of this really mattered given the prevailing tail winds and after an hour or so of delays we ended up being in Sydney about 15 minutes late. For me the flight was great. I was really tired and after watching Star Trek XI (2009) and eating dinner I fell asleep and didn’t wake until about 0300 AEST. The last 90 minutes of the flight was a little bumpy but not really bad.

Creamy garlic salad (iPhone)

Prawns and lime (iPhone)

Garlic bread (iPhone)

Tenderloin and gnocchi (iPhone)

Cheese (iPhone)

Sundae (iPhone)

Fruit and yoghurt (iPhone)

Egg and sausage (iPhone)

I’m glad I’m back in Canberra. I’m tired and will sleep well tonight I hope.

Start my 7 week trip from YOW AC lounge – Ottawa, Canada (travelpod.com)
Air Canada jet flies from Toronto to Mexico City using 50 percent cooking oil-derived biofuel (gizmag.com)
Post Cards from North America: On to Toronto (wilkincr.typepad.com)
Big changes for travelers using Los Angeles Airport (orbitz.com)
Air Canada Flew Plane Using 50% Cooking Oil Biofuel for First Time (treehugger.com)
I’m close to leaving Ottawa (garydavidlum.com)
Air Canada embarks on its first biofuel-powered flight from Toronto to Mexico City (engadget.com)
Free wi-fi at LAX? Forget about it (laobserved.com)

YOW to YYZ (Ottawa to Toronto)

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I woke up this morning a little sad that I was going to be leaving Ottawa and Canada. I’ve enjoyed the weather and the meeting I came here for. I always enjoy meeting with Canadians and colleagues from similar countries. I also had a feeling of happiness that I’d be returning to Australia and I’d see Bron again soon. I’ve missed her ❤ I really am not that happy to return to the cold and dry weather of Canberra.

When I woke up I knew that I would be flying in the reverse order of the flight to Ottawa, i.e., Ottawa (YOW) to Chicago (ORD) to Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) and then finally early Sunday morning I’d fly on to Canberra (CBR). My flight with United Airlines to ORD was due to depart at 1241 local time. I left the hotel at 1000 to give myself time for an international connection and in case anything when wrong.

In an unexpected twist I am now flying via Toronto (YYZ).

My flight to Chicago (ORD) was cancelled yet I wasn’t told (they have my mobile telephone and hotel number). When I arrived at the airport (YOW) I was told the Chicago flight was full and I was bumped to the Newark (EWR) flight which left at 1650. That would be a six hour wait at Ottawa airport. When I asked if that gave me enough time in Los Angeles I was told I had an hour which doesn’t seem long enough for there. I was told to then go on-line to check-in because they couldn’t do it at the check-in counter. I proceeded to check-in on-line and discovered a discrepancy. I went back to the counter and asked them to change this. This is when I was told my Chicago flight had been cancelled and I was then told the Newark flight was now delayed. I was then told to go to the Air Canada desk to get a flight to Toronto and then to Los Angeles. They didn’t give me a boarding pass for my flight from Los Angeles to Sydney (SYD). I should point out the entire conversation/interaction lasted fifteen minutes and was very cordial. It seemed the United Airlines computer system is very slow.

I went to the Air Canada desk and they laughed because United Airlines does this regularly. They were also concerned that it looked like my flight from LAX to SYD was now cancelled (it had also been cancelled the night before). They printed me a UA boarding pass on AC card so I’ll see if I get back to Australia (I’m currently writing this in the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge in Toronto).

Security at the Ottawa airport was very thorough. Even though I emptied all my pockets they had to run a handheld metal detector over me. My belt was off yet it pinged over my crotch. The bloke then patted and prodded my crotch and actually felt my penis. I then had to go through the full body scanner. It was totally bizarre.

When I got through security I discovered my flight to Toronto was delayed by 30 minutes. Such is life.

AC451 YOW to YYZ. I have my US visas in my old passport and I need to carry my new passport as well (iPhone)

I also found the Toronto airport very confusing in terms of passing through customs to get checked in for a transit through the USA. I wish I could read French because the French language signage seems to be more comprehensive than the English signs.

The YYZ Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge is very comfortable but there isn’t a view to speak of.

AC795 YYZ to LAX The BlackBerry is still delivering me lots of work e-mails to respond to (iPhone)

I’m sorry if it sounds like all I do is complain. I suppose blogging about the experience is my way of ventilating and feeling like I’ve shared a lesson identified and hopefully a lesson I’ll learn from.

Start my 7 week trip from YOW AC lounge – Ottawa, Canada (travelpod.com)
Emirates Airbus A380 makes emergency landing at Ottawa airport after diverting from Toronto (news.nationalpost.com)
Ottawa airport wired with microphones to record travellers’ conversations (blacklistednews.com)
Air Canada jet flies from Toronto to Mexico City using 50 percent cooking oil-derived biofuel (gizmag.com)
Canadian airports being wired with listening equipment that ‘will record conversations’: CBSA (vancouversun.com)
Passengers on Air Canada flight forced to wait on Ottawa tarmac for three hours (vancouversun.com)
Giant Airbus A380 makes emergency landing in Ottawa (vancouversun.com)
AMEX cardholders to get special perks at Toronto’s Pearson airport (business.financialpost.com)
I’m close to leaving Ottawa (garydavidlum.com)
Canadian Aiport Codes and the “why the Y” (asac.ws)

I’m close to leaving Ottawa :-(

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My meeting has now come to an end. I have one last night here and then I fly back to CBR via YOW, ORD and LAX. This trip has been enjoyable although there have been moments. I wrote a few days ago about part of the saga in getting here. What I haven’t had time to write about is that my bag got lost and didn’t arrive until late Tuesday evening. This meant I attended the first day of a meeting in my travel jeans and a shirt. Not quite the professional image I try to portray.

Lost bag (iPhone)

The United Airlines bag trace page was less than helpful. Each time I checked it simply indicated they were still looking for my bag. On the Monday afternoon I went to Sears in the Rideau Centre and purchased a new business shirt, socks and jocks. The last thing I wanted to do was wash and wear underwear. On the Monday afternoon I also managed to top up my Canadian Virgin Mobile micro sim for 1 GB of data. Can I just say, Virgin Mobile 3G is amazingly fast. I have a Telstra 3G sim in Australia and it is no where near as fast. Telstra is known for its better coverage in Australia and until last week I thought 3G was good. I didn’t realise it could be so much better.

The days have been quite long. The meeting I’m participating in has been very good albeit intense mentally and the postprandial somnolence has been exacerbated by a lack of sleep. Normally I don’t suffer jet lag because of chronic insomnia, however on this trip I have been a little like a zombie from time to time. I didn’t arrive until 0100 on the Monday morning of the meeting and last night I had a teleconference from 2330 to 0030 this morning.

Despite the lack of sleep I’ve been making an effort to walk in the afternoons. I’ve walked around the Houses of Parliament and the Byward Market. On the Monday afternoon I managed to buy some Canadian ice wine tea for a good friend (P) and some Liquorice root tea from the Tea Store for a work friend. The ladies in the store were very lovely and helpful. Like all Canadians, so friendly cheery and helpful.

The Tea Store (iPhone)

Liquorice root [sic] (iPhone)

My diet while on this trip has been a bit up and down. I really haven’t been feeling that hungry and as opposed to previous trips I haven’t been overwhelmed with Tim Horton’s coffeeand doughnuts.