Calling all aviation lovers! Get your dream plane.

Calling all aviators and plane lovers! A few weeks ago I was on a looping and focused (but thifty...errr...mostly economical....except for a few postcards) buying spree of postcards to get just the right postcard for one person. And she likes planes. I sent her a plane postcard, and I still do, but I wanted to get the 'wow' factor of the first time. For me, that was a personal challenge - one which just happened to click with my mental damage and forgetting the day before except...oh yeah, I have to get xxxxx the perfect plane postcard!
So, wow I have an abundance of Airplane postcards with more coming in groups of 2 and 7 and 16 and...well you get the idea. Many of the postcards are one of a kind, ranging in age from 1907 to 1980. So if you are in love with types of planes, or know someone who loves planes, then please do me a favor and let me know (click on the picture to get the name, I used this picture because you can give the names of the planes). Because I spent days and days (about 40 hours in total over a couple weeks) finding these postcards a few weeks ago, and now, more airplane postcards will be coming in (along with a few old Steam Railroad and old Cruise ship postcards, some white star cruise lines). So if you love Clippers, the Bee Gee, the Mars Martin, or obscure military planes, or race plane winners, please let me know. Seriously. The early ford planes are coming, but I couldn’t find a lot of early Supermarine postcards. If you would like some of the rarer postcards (drawn by famous artists) of the China clipper or menu’s from the Clipper service (sent to me from Argentina!), please let me know because I want to make sure these go to the right homes. Yes, all pictures shown here except the rainbow and stack of sent postcards are pictures of postcards that are here for you to say or email, "I like Bee Gee, can you please send me one, or perhaps a float plane?" And I will send you one...FREE.

The Postcard Project is just about over. I explained why in a blog called 'my undead life', but it is because I am so ill I can’t send out postcards anymore, not like I used to, and these will be the last of the postcards going out, 5,700 is a good number and maybe I will make it to 5,850 or 6,000 post cards if I live long enough but right now, I have special postcards

that need a home (seriously, some very rare postcards not pictured here which I tried to get for several weeks before getting for my maximum price, plus a bit, and then postage to come from UK, Asia, South America) that need the right home.

Over the next week or two, I will keep putting up pictures of more postcards. All you need to do is spread the word to the aviators or plane fans you know and let me know (email is mpshiel@hotmail.com) what makes you or a friend of yours really happy. I don’t want to put up pictures of ALL the postcards, so what you get could be a wild surprise, but I have a Zepplin (the Akron), though I tried for many other period Zepplin postcards. I have US post early planes that are float planes with helicopter additions from the early 19th century (what plane is this???).
If after your requests or getting postcards you choose to look over the wish list or get a $5 gift certificate from Amazon, that would be a personal choice (link in right corner). If you don't, the postcard is still free. You ask, I send.

For me, the thought that each plane postcard I was sending was a bit of a disappointment compared to the first one I sent which amazed the person haunted me. I couldn’t stand that idea of disappointment so I kept looking, searching and finding (oh, from Dec 14 to Jan 16th my notes say). That kind of long term obsession is part of the stroke and brain damage, they say. It is focus, which without being led off of, the thoughts just go round and round ‘must get the best airplane postcards’. I thought Linda had caught it after a week, but now I see it went a bit longer than that. I think I better stop looking for the perfect airplane postcards (well after tonight!).

However it happened, it happened, maybe not balanced to get over 60 postcards to find ONE postcard for ONE person, but hey, that’s the disease and I sure hope I do find one that amazes them. Either way, these postcards are coming from four continents, and I want to make sure they go to the right homes. During that time, I have focused so much on that, and the legal art for the blog that I haven't focused on the needs for a life in an apartment. I have NO watch right now: my watch literally exploded (the pressure from my blood expanding my arm so quickly and so many times, caused over 16 fractures to the watch band). Linda found a watch which has the minimum requirements and put it on the wish list: that it has glow in the dark indiglo and that I can trigger it with my teeth if my hands aren’t working.

This weekend, while working on the postcards (47), that were going out, Cheryl and Linda called me over to see a rainbow.

My disease progression is such that I go from my hospital bed to power chair Indy, which takes me to the study computer, then to the bathroom and back to the bed.

On Sunday I usually sit in the Study, where there are no windows and write postcards and cards for 4 to 5 hours straight (OW!). So anything different is appreciated. I made it to the window to see the full rainbow. It had been raining since late Wed. night, and I hoped this meant the rain was over. It started raining 20 minutes later. But hey, I saw a rainbow!

Take the good where it is found, even when it lasts only for a minute.

I will have rare and unusual aviation, cruise and railroad postcards (mostly planes) coming in to me. I bought them because I love someone, and because I have a disease that made the love loop and loop and loop (which isn't bad, as I still love them, I just know way more about aviation than I used to). So I want to find more homes that love these postcards: If it makes you feel good to look at your favorite plane, then let me know. I just want to send out personal rainbows, because I know that having those seconds or minutes of just looking at something wonderful is beyond description. Let me send you a personal rainbow. PLEASE, spread the word.

Wheeling on Fishman's Wharf during 'Golden Hour'

There is a ‘golden hour’ late in the day, in the late summer where everything just looks, well, like we wished we lived in THAT city, instead of the one with backed up gutters during the rain, gray skies and constant construction.

I have been trying to get out as often as humanly possible, regardless of pain. I try to push back against entropy and the whole ‘degenerative disease’ idea. I don’t expect to win, but then, those are the fights which matter the most, no? Just to fight them.

After Linda helped me get dressed and geared up, we headed out to the Fisherman’s Wharf, which sits off James Bay in Victoria. There are two sections to the docks, the residential and commercial area, starting closest to town. Here Linda feel the sun soaking in before we hit the gangway down. The wharf and piers has a shop famous for fish and chips (the calm water making that TWO fish and chip shops), whale watching tours, and diving shops, among residential houses. Also there are slips for ships, and further along, commercial fishing boats.

The Diving shop has a handy display of cell phones they have found while diving, and on the far left of the picture there is a row of digital camera’s found as well.

With the bright paint on the houses, many far more affordable than any waterfront property ($200,000 for a house here, or $800,000 for one across the street from me). The whole effect is almost Italian with the bright colours, a mini Venice. One thing that west coasters love, whether they are on water or not are plants, and the houses erupted in flowers and vines. And often a hummingbird in steel carving or other decoration hung as well.

This house not only had plant life but had shingles covering it (the cedar ones my grandfather taught me to make with a swedish tool and an axe). Even old ironwork benches and rocking chairs had been turned into planters. This houseboard had a cat which owned the place and prowled around. A houseboat owner down the wharf came out with his dog who barked and ran at the cat until the cat turned, hair fully expanded and gave it THE LOOK. Everyone laughed and one said, “One day that cat is going to catch your dog, what then?”

Two piers down from the houses are the professional fishing boats. Now that the salmon, tuna, crab and other seasons are done, it is pretty quiet. The boats range from small boats to a larger net hauler. James Bay used to be where the industrial was placed (including the paint factory where my father got his job), but these fishing boats are the last jog to our memory that the inner harbour isn’t all condos and tourist hotels.

The Victoria Harbour is one of the most busy by size in Canada if not the Western Hemisphere. Planes take off and land regularly, usually taking people back and forth from Vancouver on a 30 minute schedule (government managers usually). For boats the Coho docking downtown for 50 years, the Victoria Clipper, heading out to Seattle by hydrofoil, and the Victoria Express doing a passenger only service to Port Angeles. Of course there are also sailboats and the long ocean kayaks coming and going, plus the whale watchers boats and other power boats. Around the corner near the coast guard station is where ocean liners line up to dock and unload passengers for a day stop (up to nine of them stacked out at sea).

The harbour is due to be dredged and widened, as determined by the FEDERAL government. The city and the local government sued to avoid that, and lost, so a 50 year delayed upgrade to the harbour WILL happen. I don’t know how the planes will take off, as there are three different companies flying from the Harbour. A plane lands or takes off every few minutes (here is one floatplane from Harbor Air just landing), and how the control tower determines the approach with all the boats, I don’t know. But I do know that when the harbour is foggy, they fly over the hill instead, right over our apartment. The advantage is that the float planes can go from ‘downtown to downtown’ in about 30 minutes, which is about 4 hours quicker than by car.

Here is a different company, Westcoast Air, using a larger and different float plane, a double propeller, revving for the taxi to the signal rock. Once at the signal rock, the plane waits for the go ahead from the tower and then revs for full take off, you can see this one just lifting pontoons between the sailboat and the returning whaling watching boat.
The problem is that just around the corner is a rather small entrance into the harbour, also where all the gasoline and explosives are stored, so you really want to make that take-off. But the pilots do that, and then turn sharply while lifting heading toward Vancouver (this take off lane is headed toward the US across the Georgia Strait). Here is an example of a Harbour Air plane just about to clear and bank.
Of course, being BC, there is always interaction with nature. And if you were interested in Fish heads and guts, then this would be a good place to hang out. No, not just talking about seagulls, but seals. We saw three while there, but two were further out in the water, just poking their head up. Here is one along the dock waiting to see if we are about to dump something good.
One of the reasons that Lower Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands are a world destination for divers is the extreme clarity of the water. When the water is clear you can see down twenty to sixty feet as if it was just a foot or two down, as you can see here. The seal finally surfaced and popped up, mouth open in a ‘feed me’ expression. Before you think I am going to be the ‘Seal Whisperer’, I really don’t want to envision me wheeling down with a wagon filled with buckets of chum and guts to the wharf. I will stick to squirrels and peacocks (and peachicks).

Time to head home, and write this up before I forget. If anyone knows the name of the planes, I would appreciate it. When we have some money again, we will return to get fish and chips, or maybe BBQ. Right now, I am just enjoying going out in the sun.