// Until The End Of The World

On Monday April 16th, 2007 33 people were killed at Virginia Tech in on of the deadliest shooting rampage in American history. The Royal Hudson finished one of it's first outings since 1999, as it returned to Squamish after completing it's trip to White Rock for the City's 50th Anniversary Celebration. I finished work at 6am, then went to bed at 9pm.

On Sunday April 17th, 2007 the Royal Hudson had it's first public excursion since 1999, I woke up at 6am, and then went to work at 10:30pm, and nobody would have ever thought that 33 people would be killed the next day.

Just interesting how things can happen just like that. Life isn't planned out just as we think it was...

So if you hadn't figured it out, I was awake for a straight 39 hours from Sunday at 6am, until Monday at 9pm. All for a train you say? Yes... yes indeed.

The Royal Hudson took to the rails for the first time since 1999 and how exciting, stressful, interesting, amazing, frustrating... you know... all those words you could possibly use. The trip was pretty much a success, but technically I can't say that until I have a full DVD thrown together, and I can see how much footage I have. Will it really be a success once it goes out into the market? Who knows!

The stressful times leading up to it were not fun. Advice to all you out there: Do not hire your friends to work for you. I had to fire Sam and Dyllan, but yet in desperation, re-hire Dyllan, only for him to quit. It was an absolute pleasure working with everybody else though. The team including as follows:

Jean Escueta, Nicole Grosson, Andrew Joyce, Linda Joyce, Dave McCormick, Alicia Newton, Thomas Pannett, Fred Robson, Christian Vazzaz, and Joel Weidman.

Christian was awesome to work with. I had just met him a couple weeks ago at the business lunch, and he just got along with everybody, had a good sense of humour, and his work is excellent. Some of the people who had to pop in last minute were Alicia and Linda (Andrew's mom) and it was much appreciated. The last person who really popped in last minute was Thomas. Wow, he literally save my life. I called him up Sunday night and asked if he could drive tomorrow. I wouldn't be able to drive because I would have just got off a graveyard shift and had not have slept since 6am the day before. It was basically a safety concern. Thomas said he would drive though, and we ended up having a pretty good time. Thanks TP, you rock!

It turns out that half the stops we planned never worked out well because we couldn't keep up with the Hudson. I was a little disappointed with that, however we did end up getting a fare bit of film. Another disappointment was that the Hudson did not lead the train up to Squamish on Monday, and the weather was absolutely terrible. One other thing which was disappointing was that I didn't interact with the crew as much as I thought I would, and I didn't really feel I made the project well known to them. I interviewed about two people from the museum, and that was about it.

I returned the camera's yesterday (Tuesday) and it was kind of bitter/sweet. I was happy it was done, and that I didn't have to worry about anymore planning, when I'll be renting the camera's, h0w I'm going to organize a meeting, and so on, and so on. It was a really fun time though, as it was great to see the Hudson out again, and I really enjoyed working with everybody.

Now I begin paying the bills for everything. I think I've calculated more then 2 grand worth of expenses so far, so the fun has yet to begin!

Thanks again everybody, and good to see you again. You know who I'm talking about...