My bags are packed and waiting at the front door of my townhouse, and the taxi should be here any time now to take me to the airport.

I'm looking forward to the trip, and will try to blog if I get the chance. E-mail and the like will wait until I'm home again.

Have a good week, folks, and be good to yourselves. And to all my friends here on LJ and at the Exile Games forums, try to keep the volume down so I don't have too much mail to deal with when I get back.

Catch ya all on the other side of the week. :)

I returned last night from Calgary, having taken the weekend to go to that western city and spend some quality time with my significant other, Stef, who is there until October for work and the like. Good weekend, spent lots of time with Stef, and got to see a bit of Calgary, one of the cities I've never been too before, so a good time all around.

At least until I got back to Ottawa...

I arrived back in Ottawa at 11:55 p.m. on an Air Canada flight, the flight itself being quite comfortable and all. No problems de-planeing and all that good stuff, so I finally get to the baggage pick-up area and the carousels. It took more than 45 minutes (!!) for my baggage to be unloaded, even though there were no other flights arriving. Now, while I don't think it's the first time that I've had a long wait for my baggage at Ottawa International Airport, since I remember a couple of times in the past when I travelled and experienced slow baggage handling, it's...well... Heck, when I've picked up my mother after several trips she's taken, the lateness of her coming out of the airport was due to slow baggage handling.

What I want to know is: Why can other airports unload baggage in 10 to 20 minutes, while it always takes an hour or more in Ottawa? Whatever the reason, it's a terrible way to introduce visitors to the city. "Welcome to the nation's capital - and the world's slowest airport baggage handling system!"

I will now unpack my bags, and relax after a long, long, tiring day...