Pilot's Blog Book

May 22nd, 2011.

I have moved this blog to a new server to have better operational and editorial control. This does not affect Virtual Horizons or the eBush Pilot web site which remains at the same address, and all these posts will remain as an archive. Please feel free to browse all these past posts either here or at the new pilot’s blog book below:

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Captain John S Goulet

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May 10 1955 My Birthday

I not sure if it was the birthday cake, the bubbly or just the dread of using up another year in a finite supply of years but something triggered my memory of a seemingly insignificant and misty moment over 50 years ago.

To start with, however, I must say that I enjoyed being 55. Since I was a five “5” was my favorite number. I am fascinated by the power of 5 and anything divisible by 5. So 10 is good too. I think 25 is more important than 20 because it has a five in it and the division of 5 = 5. That makes 5 more interesting than 10 because 25 is divisible by 5 but not by 10.

So in 2010 I was 55 with a birth date of 05- 10- 1955. That felt natural. I took it to mean something significant. I waited 5 years, since I was 50, to say I was 55 and now that it is gone. 2010 came and went and May 10th, 2010 came and went, and 55 came and vanished in a blink. Never to return.

My first remembrance of a significant 5, however, was when I was, you guessed it, five. I had decided to resolve the question of god once and for all. Was there really a god who did wonderful things for us? If there was, I decided to make a simple but straight forward request. I asked for a five dollar bill to be place on my path home from school as a birthday gift from god.

Five dollars was a lot of money in those days but still achievable. I didn’t want to look greedy and have him judge me on the amount I was asking for. I wanted the request to be judged on merit. If it was too little then he again may decide it was frivolous and not worth the effort. So five dollars seemed a rational choice. Needless to say, no blue Canadian five dollar bill appeared on my narrow worn trail through the grass on my way home from school.

It’s not that the “five dollar” moment defined my total lack of belief in a god, and it wasn’t the first time I questioned the belief in god, but it was the first moment I realized I was irretrievably on the far side and there was no going back. From then on I questioned everything. If god didn’t exist then what else have we gotten wrong in our society and culture?

As it turns out we have gotten so much wrong. Racism, slavery, environmental damage, clear cut logging, drift net fishing, hunting to extinction, collateral damage, genocide, cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing, suicide bombing, jihadism, terrorism, communism, McCarthyism, the crusades, Jesus, Judas, Salem witch hunts, the Inquisition, Stalin, Robert Mugabe, and the list goes on and on.

I have to laugh when someone is surprised to find out I am atheist. Often they are dumbfounded which seems to be a natural state for the religious non-thinkers.

“So you believe there is no God?”

“No, I don’t ‘believe’, I ‘know’ there is no god.”

“How can you know that?”

“If you take away faith which is a simply a superstition founded on man’s archaic assumptions of what contributes to the driving forces in the world and replace them with proven modern explanations and proofs using the science of physics and chemistry and biology then there is no longer any need to believe in a mysterious process. The truth is no longer based on hearsay (from human authors of the bible written hundreds of years after the fact) but rather it becomes evident based on reproducible demonstrations of physical properties”

“So you are saying that you are correct and that billions of Catholics and Protestants and Anglicans are incorrect?”

“To start off Christians believe that billions of Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhist are wrong anyway. So that doesn’t leave much credence to your argument for one god, but let’s pretend that all of those religions also believe in a god and therefore that proves a god must exist. Do you agree that to be true?”

“Of course. You are still only one person who says god doesn’t exist when billions believe in god. Therefore you are either super arrogant or simply wrong.”

“Ok let’s look at some examples in history. In 1543 Copernicus published a treaty that explained how the earth revolved around the sun instead of the religious view that everything including the sun revolved around the earth. Since man first became conscious of his environment it was “observed” that the sun rose and set. The authors of Joshua 10:12-13 naively wrote into the Old Testament the same conviction that Neanderthal cavemen must have also held based on an observational illusion. Once man wrote this into a book it then became the law or better known as “the word of god” and not to be questioned.

Therefore when Galileo took up Copernicus’s theory and made it public he was one man against almost everyone else in the world. Now what do you believe? Or better yet what do you know that the earth revolves around the sun? Do you still believe what the church dictated or what the bible says that the sun revolves around the earth? Remember that the bible has not been revised.

Another example of course is at one point in the history of man we all believed that the world was flat and if you sailed too far into the Atlantic you would fall off the edge of the earth. It may visually appear that way when looking across the expanse of an open ocean until you see the sail of a ship slowly sink over the horizon as it passes over the curvature of the earth. Do you still believe the world is flat or have you come to know the earth is round? How do you explain that the ship can sail back over the horizon and return to port?”

In both of these cases everyone was wrong except the first man to realize differently.

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
- Giordano Bruno, burned to death by Inquisition

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

Any good Christian then immediately brings up the argument of faith but that is where the rational discussion ends. Someone said that you can’t use logic to win an argument with someone who believes in something that is not logical. Like Superman being able to fly. There is no logic in a super dense being (man-of-steel) that defies gravity with no propulsion. The two are mutually exclusive and the act of him flying is then just magic. I don’t believe in magic or ghosts either but the bible allows many Christians to believe in such nonsense without having to prove it or actually think about it for just a second. What if the bible’s human authors had tried to address gravity? What if they had said god gave us gravity to keep our feet on the ground (written in a more biblically poetic way)? Then flying would be against religion. Maybe that is why Jihadists blow up airplanes.

So over the years, I have found that I have had to rewrite definitions concerning the religious of the world because the prevailing definitions were written by those who believed in the prevailing dogma. Here is my breakdown written as questions.

• Who is an agnostic person? Anyone who fears that god exists but doesn’t wish to resolve the doubt.

• Who is a religious person? Anyone one who has faith that god exists, but keeps it to themselves because they don’t want anyone to question their faith.

• Who is a religious zealot? Anyone who fears god exists and publically says that they believe in god because they don’t want anyone to question their fears.

• Who is a religious fanatic? Anyone who says that god supports them or favors them. (For example, movie stars who thank god for winning Oscars, or Presidents who ask god to support them in a war.)

• So what category does as a terrorist fall under? Terrorists are supra-religious. They believe what they want to believe and it has nothing to do with religion. They are sadists.

My definition puts all movie stars, singers, musicians, American Presidents, Ayatollahs, national football league players, African and Middle-East dictators, suicide bombers (they are not terrorists but rather victims of sadistic terrorists), preachers, TV breakfast hosts, and airline pilots in the category of religious fanatics. These are all people who benefit from or trust that they benefit from, or fear they won’t benefit from their faith that there is a god. Note I did not say that they believe in god.

I think that to believe in god you have to be a special category of someone who has been transported through a worm hole from the Paleolithic Age when man learned to use stone tools and bury the dead. Pre-historic australopithecine man would have simply “believed.” Everyone else has been influenced or deliberately brainwashed by generations of simple minded “observational” explanations for twinkling stars, blue moons, eclipses, regressing tides and noises in the night all attributed to god or gods, or even anti-gods such as devils, werewolves, and vampires.

To enforce the belief in gods or devils or vampires, which are all in the same category of a magical phenomenon that can’t be explained by physics or quantum mechanics or even common sense, powerful organizations of men then told the masses that if you don’t believe these lies we will torture and banish you. That of course is the role of the church.

So what category does an atheist fall under? The definition of an atheist is generally given as someone who denies the existence of a god. That is like the police saying “the ‘offender’ denies having robbed the liquor store.” That definition was written by a religious zealot who did not understand the mind of someone who is void of religious faith and therefore does not feel the need to deny the existence of any magical phenomenon such as a god. That is a variety of peace of mind and confidence that is impossible to explain to the religious (all categories) who totally live under the fear of the existence of a god or the fear of not being accepted to heaven.

The religious think that when a convicted murderer finds god he has changed. They think he initially didn’t have the fear of god and that is why he committed the murder. What about the fear of being caught and electrocuted in the chair or hung by the neck until dead? Isn’t that based on a fear? Why is that different than the fear of not going to heaven?

The murderer was just as religious during the act of committing murder as he was during the religious rites read by the priest before his trip to the electric chair when you use my definitions above. The only difference is that in jail he has had a little more time to reflect on the “why” of what he has done and that leads me to the next point. The religious are hedging their bets.

I’ve had lots of religious people ask me, “Aren’t you afraid of not going to heaven?” Why would someone who has no belief in heaven or hell or god be afraid of something that does not exist?

I’ve had other people ask me, “Aren’t you afraid you are wrong?” Think about that. Fear is the fundamental reason religion still survives in this age of technology and science and reasoning. Everyone is hedging their bets. They are unsure. They are afraid of what comes after death. That is why the murderer on death row finds “Jesus”. Just in case.

A rational person, however, doesn’t want to die either and will certainly fight to stay alive but not because of a possible afterlife consequence. I want to stay alive just because I have things to do and there is nothing more I can do after I am gone. I need to do “good” now and feel good about what I have accomplished while I am alive because there is no second chance.

My morals come from within and are not imposed externally by some church or priest trying to make me feel guilty or afraid. Most of those in the religious category have no personal morals. Every beautiful singer who wins the Grammy or each patriotic American president who wins an election and thanks god for choosing them is saying they are favored by god while everyone else who lost is not. Why is everyone else deselected by god and you are favored?

These self righteous snobs are just barely a step above the superstitious witch hunters of the Inquisition. It is the same logic as slavery and forced prostitution. Some are chosen. Some are not. Some are better than others. Is that what you teach your children?

What has this got to do with the number 5 or with my birthday for that matter? Well the fact that I didn’t get a five dollar bill laid out for me by god on the pathway home from school 50 years ago doesn’t explain why I am not religious. I am not religious because I question and reason out answers and explanations and find connections and associations for everything we do and everything around us. None of the logical and defendable answers led to some mysterious god. I am no Richard Dawkins but I realize that as long as unsubstantiated religious fears drive political policy in this world we are doomed to extinction.

We need to wake up and stop waiting for god or god fearing self serving politicians to pass intelligent protective policies to prevent mankind from continuing to destroy our environment. I think that lack of direct action by leaders of the world is the most substantial explanation I know to prove there is no god. Why?

Because if I was god things would be different!

I certainly wouldn’t leave my world to the men of religion such as Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortez, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Robert Mugabe or Muammar Gaddafi. For the end of my 55th birthday and the starting of the rest of my life I want to speak out against all those who have contributed to destroying our world as we found it approximately 100,000 years ago, and support those who have done some good during their one time on earth and don’t need a magical god to explain why they are doing it.

The Cooke Family Foundation of Hope

World Hope Foundation

The Terry Fox Foundation

Muscular Dystrophy Canada

If you know of other non-religious foundations or groups reaching out to help the less fortunate or to protect the environment please send the links in so I can post them.

CHC SUMMIT HISTORY

2005 Prague__Employees Only
2006 Vancouver__Open to Public for first time
2007 Vancouver Fairmont Hotel
2008 Vancouver Fairmont Hotel
2009 Vancouver Fairmont Hotel
2010 Vancouver Westin Bayshore Resort
2011 Vancouver Westin Bayshore Resort

This year’s Summit attracted over seven hundred delegates from companies around the globe, coming together to focus on the human side of safety and to explore how to reduce risk. Fixed wing and helicopter operators, regulators and related industries like oil and gas, insurance and crisis management companies attended presentations to hear about and discuss ways to improve aviation safety standards worldwide.

Summit Registration

The first time I attended in 2007 I had been invited by Greg Wyght, the brilliant organizer behind the whole show, to make a presentation. Despite having no time at work to attend to such a formidable task, I worked on my own time to put together something solid and meaningful specifically targeting helicopter operators. I overshot my mark on two accounts.

First, I ended up attempting to cram a two day course into a two and one half hour slot. Then, even worst, I attempted to introduce an advanced topic that even Bristow had only just started to tackle: “Behaviour Based Safety Management and Identifying At Risk Behaviour Individuals.” After all, I reasoned, my target audience was supposed to be hardened aviation managers. I thought the aviation world was ready for something new and exciting.

CHC Chief Pilot

In the meantime, seasoned presenters, such as Patrick Hudson and Scott Shappell, where using proven but time worn accidents such as “Piper Alpha” and “Tenerife” to highlight their safety cases and purposely dumbing down day-to-day safety examples by literally using baby rattles and car keys to make their audience laugh their way to understanding.

I made the mistake of talking about up-to-date helicopter incidents and accidents and using day-to-day safety examples from helicopter maintenance technical logs and ended losing most of my “non-safety” oriented audience as their eyes glazed over and rolled to the back of their heads. It’s not that I didn’t have any jokes, but you had to understand the basics of aviation to get the jokes. The few who did laugh at my jokes encouraged me that I was on the right track. I could tell by their reaction that they knew what I was talking about. Overall, the audience just couldn’t absorb 30 years of experience in just two and a half hours.

CHC CEO “Bill” Amelio

This is now my fourth summit and I believe I could now bring back behaviour based safety management topics and at least half of the audience would understand. I have seen the aviation safety awareness side growing but we still have a long ways to go. As aviation experts we should live and breathe risk and safety management. A home town friend recently asked me what I do for recreation on my time off. Besides motorcycle trips, scuba diving, paragliding and the like, where I routinely manage risk, I answered “I am going to a helicopter safety conference.”

For most of the attendees, however, safety is something you learn at a safety conference. I think Greg Wyght would agree with me when I say that safety is something we should discuss, share, question, clarify and illustrate at the summit but it is something we should learn from life. That is why Scott is so successful because he takes his examples from his non-aviation life around him. But at some point the people who work in aviation need to take their safety examples from aviation. And they can only do this when they make aviation their life.

Bristow CEO “Bill” Chiles

I also attend the summit on my time and at my own expense. I find that the company sponsored “delegates” are less likely to be serious about sharing lessons and incorporating the lessons learned into their routines. Some of the delegates only come because they now have someone to pay their way. I am always surprised when a “grey beard” (or grey hair) confesses to me that this is their first time to the summit. “The company finally decided to get serious about safety” as if safety had nothing to do with them personally. Or even worse, “I have been hired by XYZ Company to be their Director of Safety and Quality and so I insisted that they pay for me to attend. It’s my first time.”

First Time Attendees plotting to change their name to “Bill”

My participation is more personally meaningful and rewarding when the time and effort is my own. This is something I do for me. I come here to verify, corroborate, refresh or even to authenticate my knowledge, not to come here hoping to learn something for the first time. If I do learn something here for the first time then I take that away like a precious gem and use it to my bolster my collection.

I believe, however, that the proportion of “paid-to-think-safety” types compared to “real-time-practicing-safety” professionals is becoming less and less at each progressive safety summit and more and more safety managers are getting on board. I felt that this year was the best ever for both quality of presenters and advanced knowledge of the delegates.

My Vote for Best New Presenter of Summit

The best part of the summit, however, is the way that CHC combines the use of very seasoned and educated safety consultants such as Dr. Graham Braithwaite, Dr. Tony Kern, Dr. Douglas Wiegmann, John Nance, and Dr. Scott Shappell. These guys always give presentations worth the time and money to attend. As academics they look at risk and safety management from an industry wide point of view that doesn’t necessarily discuss aviation specifically but safety is safety and anyone can take something away from their presentations. Besides these guys are funny and everyone learns more when they are enjoying the show.

Bayshore Resort & Marina

The other side of the coin is that CHC brings in first time or speciality presenters who may or may not appeal to everyone. As I can mouth the words in synchronisation to Shappell, Kern, and Wiegmann with my eyes closed I now like to attend the less well known or aviation specific presentations. Most are great but some are, for me, duds. But even the duds are good for some.

I attended an “Advanced” Risk Management presentation this year and even though several of us walked out because this guy was addressing safety for kindergarten children there were three ladies in the room who had never heard of a “risk management matrix.” They were busy taking notes and obviously learning something, but maybe they should have done some homework before deciding to spend their company’s money on risk assessment 101. Meanwhile there were several guys looking seriously dejected because the presenter could not even answer a simple few questions on how to apply a risk matrix in real life.

The CHC Safety & Quality Summit is, without doubt, the single best 3-day event anyone can attend for sharing information on how to implement risk and safety management into their airline or helicopter operation. Since CHC runs this conference as a non-profit organization they can’t pay me for their plug but there is no reason I can’t put in a good word for myself.

The single best decision for any company to take would be to hire an air transport consultant, who has integrated risk and safety processes and interventions as an fundamental part of his career, to show your managers how to have the safety and quality summit working for them 365 days of the year instead of just three.

More importantly, an air transport consultant can make use of his 35 years of aviation risk and safety management experience to show their newly appointed quality manager how to make use of the two and a half hour presentation he just attended at the summit. In other words, hire a consultant who lives and breathes aviation safety.

Mr and Mrs Goulet attending another CHC summit in Beautiful British Columbia

Leaving Beautiful British Columbia behind somewhere in the clouds and rain

Returning to Winterpeg with Lake Manitoba in the background

2011 CHC Safety & Quality Summit

One day I will have to calculate how many times I’ve gone Trans-Atlantic. I have been going Trans-Atlantic for 35 years now. That is not the same thing as going “postal” but I guess there is some correlation. How many times can you go to oxygen deprived altitudes of 30,000 to 42,000 ft before you feel the psychotic affects?

On the Europe to Lagos flight, for that matter, I would have to work out how many times I have gone Trans-Alps, or Trans-Mediterranean, or Trans-Sahara. I have been on this flight with Lufthansa, KLM, Swiss Air and British Airways for 25 years now. In fact on this flight I was watching the lay of the Alps and I noticed that we were off track. I can recognize the Matterhorn (remember Rudi from Banner in the Sky), I know where to find Mont Blanc (remember Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), I can easily recognize Geneva and Lake Lucerne, and so I know when we are off track. On this flight we were definitely off our normal track.

I figured we were skirting the Western side of Switzerland and heading for Southern France instead of flying over central Switzerland toward Northern Italy and crossing the city of Genova. I did a quick mental calculation and decided we would cross the French coast near Montpellier. I waited until I could for sure make out the tidal salt water inland waterways of the coast between Montpellier and Marseille before I officially asked the flight attendant “Do you know why we are so far west of our normal track?”

She stared at me like I was a Muslim terrorists (kind of like “where in the hell is this question going”) and then slowly leaned close to me and quietly whispered, like she didn’t want the others to hear, “I don’t know.”

I then asked her to ask the Captain because, after all, he should know.

She hesitantly and reluctantly agreed and only a few minutes later came back to say, “The Captain said he decided to avoid Tunisia and cross Algeria instead.”

About then the lack of oxygen at 36,000 feet took over, along with the three glasses of business class French champagne and two glasses of amazingly earthy, with a black pepper finish, Chilean red wine, I decided to ask, “Why… because of the tear-gas or the bullets?”

I could have said, “Why… because of the power cuts to the air navigation system or because the air traffic controllers couldn’t make their shift through the riots clogged streets?” Both of which are legitimate reasons for international air traffic rerouting, and I know because I have suffered both scenarios, but instead I decided to play the pundit blogger game. Make the normal sound abnormal because we can then strike at the loudest or most “blogged” or most ‘twittered” fear travelling the social network. If I played by the rules for this inflammatory style of reactionary blogging I would be able to say we avoided Tunisia because of “the severe threat to public safety.” I will call this the “cross-hair” effect.

Don’t, however, get this effect mixed up with the “butterfly” effect. (Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.) These politicians and reactionary bloggists are not smart enough to either determine initial conditions or decide on any particular strategy that can or may influence a chosen or preferred outcome. They depend purely on “outcomes” to launch second grade (I mean “grade school” not a “level of quality”) attacks that make their weak-minded or politically prejudiced readers believe that either their statements or the statement of those who they support affected the outcome.

These stand-by-the-sidelines-and-wait-for-the-results-so-we-can-have-our-comeuppance reactionary bullies, Republican or Democrats it makes no difference, trick the not-so-smart Americans into believing that if they say it first and if they can decidedly “lay blame” or simply “point the finger” with resolution, then it must be true and they must be right… at least mostly politically right.

The actual event, being a congress woman getting her brains scrambled or a nine year old girl, a victim of random violence as random as dust being driven by Brownian Motion, getting murdered (perhaps she should be chosen as the official 100,000th American gunshot victim of the past year just like the kid from Bosnia being randomly nominated as the SIX BILLIONTH child of the earth) gets totally lost in the fray.

Representative who beat Tea Party rival ‘gravely wounded’ in shopping mall bloodbath that leaves at least six dead
By David Usborne in New York
Sunday, 9 January 2011

Gabrielle Giffords, a Congresswoman from Arizona, who was shot during a political meeting yesterday
A Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, who had been the target of often incendiary rhetoric from the Tea Party, was gravely wounded in a Tucson hospital last night after she was shot in the head at a political gathering in her constituency in Tucson, Arizona.

The cross-hair effect says that if “I point my scope at you… you must be wrong or wicked or simply a perceived threat” and therefore you must be taken out of the equation with my righteousness. That reaction is somewhere along the lines of “blame the victim” except that the concept is betting on the notion that their twitter or blog or political campaign may actually be seen to be foreshadowing an unlikely random event, like winning the $20,000,000 jackpot on a personal favorite numerical sequence of the 649 lottery that you have used for 20 years, as if they had intellectually predicted a foreseeable outcome.

The proof of their falsehood is simple. Who could have predicted that an innocent precocious nine year old future diplomat would have been shot dead by the 14th bullet of a of a $439 Glock that carried a high capacity 33 bullet clip that President Clinton had banned in 1994. In that President Obama had neglected to renew the time limited law that banned the killer clip for the gun that would have normally only carried a 10 bullet clip, I could almost say that Obama murdered Cristina – except that I am not a reactionary bloggists. I don’t lay blame on victims. In this case the real victims end up getting buried in the rhetoric that somehow blames Sarah Palin for the tragedy.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think Sarah is a bullfrog in a culvert. She has discovered that when she croaks in a resonating pipe more of her web-toed supporters hear her racket but whatever the reactionary press may lead you to think she is still croaking deep below the mainstream of the American highway. Only her politically prejudiced followers think they are filtering out a message but the rest of us only hear bullfrogs. With true freedom of speech, however, as long as she is safe, dependable and reliable and carries a gun that prevents unintentional firing she is free to speak her mind.

If you are looking for a handgun with the ultimate in self defense and reliability, look no further than this Glock® 36 Pistol. With your safety in mind, this Glock® 36 Pistol has the “Safe Action” trigger system that uses a partially tensioned firing pin lock and a drop safety to prevent unintentional firing and the simple finger on trigger, safety off, finger off the trigger, safety on psychology. Designed to last, this Glock® 36 Pistol has all parts coated in tenifer to give your firearm the additional hardness and longevity you want in a handgun. Safe, dependable and reliable, this Glock® 36 Pistol is a favorite among law enforcement agencies and is sure to be your favorite too.

In other words, you can point it where ever you like. As long as you don’t pull the trigger the gun is safe.

Ok I almost forgot my point. The flight attendant retorted, “Actually he said there is turbulence over Tunisia.”

Ice Shacks have been around a long time and are certainly not new to Manitoba lakes. The basic principle of an ice shack is to provide shelter from the wind and cold while you are ice fishing. In recent times, however, ice shacks have taken on a whole new purpose. The shacks have become the new social gathering place.

Ice fishing used to be a very serious business in that fishermen were expecting to eat what they caught. Many families in our community grew up on what their fathers shot or caught. Moose meat and pickerel was the mainstay of a regular diet. I imagine there was also a social aspect to getting together to “go fishing” but in the simple version of “you ate what you caught” there was not much room for social fishing.

Nowadays with the catch and release philosophy being prominent there is more reason to have your friends around so you can share the victory of the catch and the satisfaction of the release.

Another big social change might be that where once the warm, friendly and inviting pub was seen as the place to meet and have a few drinks with your friends the new meeting place is now the cold and frozen surface of the nearest lake. While there is still a law against drinking and driving a snowmobile or ATV there is less enforcement for such a minor infraction compared to drinking and driving on the “no tolerance” highways.

In the Ice Shack you can have a beer or two and still be able to jump on your sled and rush over to a friend’s house to pick up a ring of Kubasa without being worried about losing your license. There is just that much more freedom to relax and enjoy yourself with a group of friends.

The most relevant reason, moreover, for the Ice Shack becoming the new watering hole, or in this case the fishing hole, is what I see as a slight if not unconscious backlash against the bombardment of electronic communications we are smothered with. Between Skype, Facebook, and Twitter we know almost too much about all of our relatives and friends. We know when they are on line – we know what they like and don’t like – we know who they know. We know instantly, that is if we are online at that moment, when someone announces their engagement or pregnancy.

I heard the following conversation in my neighbor’s ice shack.

First Girl: “Did you hear Stella is expecting?”

Second Girl: “Yeah, I saw it on her Facebook last night.”

Third Girl: “Talking of Facebook did you all see the invitation to the (snowmobile) ride I put on my wall for New Years?”

First Girl: “Where should we meet?”

Third Girl: “I am not sure yet. I’ll just post it on my page when we decide.”

First Girl: “God, there is no point to us coming here if we all have to live on Facebook.”

Fourth Girl: “I only check my Facebook once in a while. Why don’t you just phone us?

Second Girl: “Have you got my phone number?”

My young and energetic neighbor, and his equally energetic girlfriend, appears to be the social center for a number of young singles and couples in our small town. Like all his friends he grew up here and is still working and living here and as a consequence have kept the high-school connection going.

Because of that homebound familiarity, despite the fact that they are all electronically connected, the Ice Shack crowd is inadvertantly leading the resistance. Facebook, like an embedded Moses, is leading us all toward an electronic wilderness and the ultimate isolation that comes with it. Socially, when interfacing with the computer screen we have lost our sense of touch and the feelings that come with it.

The Facebook generation has more friends than the proverbial girl that screwed the football team with about as much personal relationship as she would have with each team member as they tucked in their shirt tails to head out the locker room door. The sentiment is like finding out that your girlfriend is pregnant by reading her Facebook wall. The information is not personal. It is presented to you and everyone else with the social graces of a “gang bang.”

Ironically, however, being less electronically connected the Ice Shack doesn’t take you further into the wilderness but rather it can be a place to meet up with friends and family and actually find out or pass on gossip face-to-face. It brings people closer together.

The Ice Shack crowd still feels the need to get together, chat, regale tales of their last weekend’s adventure and share Old Dutch ripple chips, onion dip, kubasa, Ritz Crackers and cold beer. Oh, and catch a few fish while they are passing around the pretzels.

Visit The Travelographer to view all the Ice Shack Images.

CNN Snow Storms in Europe

I felt like I was on a version of the Amazing Race where teams have to find their way across the globe to beat the other teams to the next destination. Well here I was competing against thousands of other contestants trying to get out of Europe and back home for Christmas.

I started and almost finished in Lagos Nigeria where, after a roast turkey and cranberry sauce dinner topped off with cranberry crumble at the Sheraton Hotel, I headed to the airport by 8pm planning to get there by 9pm at the latest. I had already checked in so I only had to get through security and to the gate before the 9:50 boarding time. By 8am the traffic should have died off and it should not have taken longer than about 20 minutes to get to the airport. That was not about to happen.

Still about 6 kilometers from the Murtala Muhammad International airport we came into a slow moving traffic blockade. We were crawling along while the time was speeding by. It took an hour to get through the next 3 kilometers until finally we came to a standstill. On the other side of the road the traffic had disappeared and then there was no more cars coming. We came to a stop opposite a jet fuel tanker truck that had lost control on the road and jacked across both the lanes. How that affected us was that the two lanes of traffic that could not pass the jacked truck were backed up all the 3 kilometers to the critical intersection and toll gate that we had to pass through. Once a Nigerian driver enters an intersection he will not give up a centimeter even if it causes complete gridlock. I knew I was screwed. I was going to miss my flight.

Then an angelic sound came screaming past our car. A brand new BMW police motorcycle literally pushed itself in-between the two lanes of parked cars in some cases smashing side mirrors if the drivers did not part like the Red Sea for Moses. Way back behind him I could hear more sirens so I knew a VVIP motorcade was making its way through the parted waters of automobiles. The motorcycle cop pushed and smashed his way all the rest of the way to the critical gridlocked intersection so as to clear the log jam for his “clients” following behind. The lead motorcade SUV only made it up to beside us before completely getting blocked. We had to wait for the intersection to clear before anyone could move again.

After an agonizing half hour the cars ahead started to move and then slowly it came our turn. The motorcade went first but we followed behind like a NASCAR driver in the leader’s draft. But slowly the motorcade left us behind and eventually we started to slow down again until about 1 kilometer from the intersection. This time the intersection was being partially blocked by another jet fuel tanker truck broken down and blocking one of the two lanes. We were moving but so slow I could not envision making it through in time to catch my flight. It was now 9:30.

My driver had an official apron pass and so he suggested we bypass the toll gate to the international and take a side road that led to a back gate into the airport parking area. I told him to go for it. We pulled over into the dirt and grass and headed to the dark side of the airport. Within 5 minutes we had left the madness and reached the gate. The security managing the gate knew the driver and let us in. I grabbed my bags and ran across the tarmac and entered the airport from a back door. It was 10:00. 10 minutes after boarding time.

I managed to get through the security checks, after being sent back through the scanner twice, once for my belt and then for my shoes, and ran to the gate getting there at 10:20. The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt had luckily been delayed and had just started boarding. I literally almost walked straight onto the plane. I was worried Frankfurt would have been closed because of the snow storm but the Captain said they were getting rain and we should have no problems getting in. I figured that if Lufthansa made it into Frankfurt then Air Canada would make it and I would get home. That was my belief and my relief. I ate my dinner, watched half a movie and slept until about 30 minutes before landing.

I missed breakfast as I planned to have it at the Senator Lounge in the airport so I was still a little groggy when the Captain announced that Frankfurt had closed the airport because of continuing snow all night. He said the airport would be snow clearing for at least 4 hours so all flights would be diverting to Munich. I am incredible lucky with international travel so I really wasn’t worried. These kind of things always happen days after I have travelled or days before. I figured if I just went back to sleep everything would work out by the time I woke up.

After we landed, however, the head purser announced that Frankfurt would be closed for at least 4 more hours and even then we would need an hour to get clearances to take off. That would get us into Frankfurt, IF THEY OPENED, by 13:30. For sure I would miss the Air Canada flight if they made it in and if they didn’t then I would have to wait until the next day anyway. This was not looking so good.

The heaad purser came on again and told us to get comfortable but refrain from using the toilet unless absolutely necessary. He explained that because the airport was not allowing us to park at a gate we were going to have to sit it out on the apron parking lot. Plus because there was no immigration or security set up to deal with our unexpected flight arrival that we would have to remain on the airplane for the duration. We were settling in for a long wait.

At that point I decided that waiting around for my fate to hand me deliverance was not the answer. I went up to the head purser and asked If I could be let off in Munich. I explained that it made no sense for me to go to Frankfurt either way and that there was a Toronto and a Montreal flight leaving Munich later today. Since the weather was bright and sunny I knew they would make it in and out of Munich with no problem.

By then a couple came up behind me and said that their destination was Munich anyway. Again there was no sense in them going to get stuck in Frankfurt when they were already at home. The purser agreed and called the Captain, the Captain called the tower, and the tower called the airport management. The airport agreed to set up a special immigration desk and security check-point to receive us and to send us a terminal bus.

In the end about 14 of us decided to get off. When the bus came I stood on the top of the stairs looking across the sunlit apron covered in bunkers of piled snow wondering if I wasn’t jumping out of the flying pan into the fire. The Captain made the announcement that any of us could de-plane here in Munich but once we were down the stairs we were not going to be allowed back on.

Munich to Frankfurt – Cancelled

To cut a long story short I had to wait until the Air Canada check-in counter opened to rebook my routing and request a seat. I was the first in line and the young lady immediately got flustered with the reality that her first check in for the day was a tough one. She actually told me to go to Lufthansa to get my ticket reissued. I pointed out that it was an Air Canada ticket. She told me that without a booking reference she would not know how to rebook me. I pointed out that the booking reference was on the printed out e-ticket. She actually told me that rebooking flights was tougher now that everyone had e-tickets. Huh!

Finally when I wouldn’t go away she decided to give it a try and was able to rebook me for the flight, but on standby. He supervisor had shown up and explained that there was 25 “standbys” ahead of me and most of them were from yesterday and the day before. Munich had just recovered from their portion of the winter storm and not everyone had yet been accommodated.

I took my standby ticket and waited as they boarded the incredibly long line of weary disheveled passengers. For some of them this was their third day of waiting for a seat. The rest of the 25 “wanna-seats” huddled closely around the counter straining to hear their names. The Air Canada supervisor printed out three extra tickets and called the lucky winners. It was like winning a lottery and each time I heard a shout for joy. One lady beside me, however, had only arrived yesterday from a diverted flight. She had not been waiting for three days. So when they called her name I asked politely “What is your secret?” “How did you get on?”

“I got here early,” she said “and registered with Lufthansa.”

I had done that as well but I will still on the bottom of the list. Then it dawned on me that she was prominently holding her Air Canada Elite Card. I looked at my ticket and realized that the very frustrated young lady that had originally rebooked me had not swiped my frequent flyer card. I went up to the desk and tried to get the supervisors attention. She originally dismissed me saying that after she attended to the next batch of names she would attend to me. I knew that might be too late so I held up my card and said very loudly, “I don’t think you put my Elite Card on my standby request.”

She took my card and stopped to stare at it for a second. Then she yelled out loud, “Ladies, I have an Elite Member. Let’s reload.” She immediately tore up the boarding passes she had just printed and they all murmured and pointed at the computer screen discussing who they were going to “OFFLOAD.” Ok, the supervisor said, “Let’s OFFLOAD this guy.”

The way they said the word it sounded like they were physically removing cattle from a freight car. She then printed out a new boarding card. She picked up the card and looked at it like it was a news bulletin and yelled out “MR GOULET”. I called out “HERE” feeling like a school kid at roll call and she looked over as if she had never seen me before.

“You can board now Mr Goulet.” The rest of the gathering silently looked on in despair. In the end about 12 passengers still did not get on. The head purser had been notified that I was coming so he met me at the door and stopped me for a moment while he diverted a lesser passenger to the back of the plane in order to get me a better seat. He stowed my carry on and made sure I was comfortable.

My original flight to Frankfurt ended up sitting on the Munich tarmac for 6 hours and did not get into Frankfurt until very late. My original Air Canada flight (Toronto to Frankfurt) did make it into Frankfurt minutes before they had closed the airport that morning but was delayed by the closure and left for Toronto 6:30 hours late. But they ultimately left before my Lufthansa flight arrived. I would have missed Air Canada for sure. And they would not have known why I didn’t show up. In other words, I would have still been in Europe today. In this version of the Amazing Race I was the clear winner.

Past Snow Storms. Can anyone see a trend here? Do you think it is about time Europe invested in a snow blower or two?

Snow Storms Europe Jan 2009

Snow Storms Europe Jan 2010

It is only October but I feel the hint of Christmas in the cool Atlantic air. The smell of burning wood drifts along the streets of old Lisbon reminding me of winter in Canada when smoke, from wood stoves and fireplaces, remains suspended below the tree tops. This smoke, however, is from the glowing embers of the old-world vendors roasting chestnuts. They are on almost every street-corner and tourist and locals alike are keeping the vendors busy shaking and stirring the rock salted nuts in the process of steaming them open over the flameless heat.

The crowded street scene of vendors, shoppers, young lovers and general gawkers reminded me of the sepia smoke and fog filled impressions I got from reading Charles Dickens novels set in turn-of-the-century England.

But not quite.

I mostly wandered around the streets of Lisbon watching the shoppers and tourists as they watched the street performers. I watched the watchers watching those who like being watched.

I don’t like clowns or street performers. I never did. I never liked mimes or Marcel Marceau. Staticman is intriguing while still being repulsive. I don’t see the statue. I only see the sad little person who feels compelled to make a display of themselves. A static display that is.

But I like watching the reaction from the crowd. I am always amazed at how many people are intrigued or mesmerized by watching someone doing nothing.

Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what is normal and what is not. For example, are living statues just as much a part of the European landscape as bronze or marble statues? I’ve seen them in London, Paris, Amsterdam and now Lisbon. The art of being still. The ability to be frozen in time while still alive.

Months before Christmas and all through the streets not a creature was stirring not even a… Statue?

But for the onlooker, unlike a real statue which you expect to move at any time and it never does, there is the strange attraction of not knowing what the statue is capable of. You acclimatize to the fact that they don’t move and then they surprise you with a subtle gesture.

A slight movement that may or may not have been your imagination. So you watch and wait. When the statue moves you feel a slight tinge of satisfaction. They are human after all.

To see all the Travelographer Images of Portugal 2010 Click Here

Click here for YouTube Video of STATICMAN

Joe Moncado has been cutting my hair since June of 1973. Just as high school was coming to an end I decided to cut off my longish high school locks because I didn’t want to join the teamsters looking like a “hippie”. I needed to be taken seriously to get a job up north driving trucks for Brodsky Construction on the Hydro projects. Joe settled on a “Bay Street” business cut as I told him to avoid the more severe military look. And it worked. I got the job.

Of course I have had other stylists cut my hair over the years including Olaf’s brother in Fiji. Olaf was our flight dispatcher for Turtle Airways. I needed a hair cut badly and he suggested I visit his brother at the Fiji Mocambo Hotel. He warned me, however, that his brother was a raging queen and confessed that no matter how many times he beat him senseless he couldn’t beat the homo out of him.

I can still envision Olaf pontificating as he drew the last of the sticky yellow nicotine out of his unfiltered self rolled cigarette, “I guess he is what he is, but he can still cut hair.” Indeed Jimmy had a purple razor-cut hair style and long glittering finger nails that sparkled as he flashed his scissors back and forth over my head. In the end, however, I still looked like a pilot. That was all that counted.

Then there was skin-and-bones Mohammed in the Maldives who gave me the most homoerotic head and shoulder massage imaginable after each haircut. That was worth the 6 bucks any day.

There was also the very young and very gay hairstylist in Singapore. He had blond streaks in his dark brown Asian hair hacked with what looked like a machete, and long thin bony fingers that hesitated just a little too long when raked across my scalp. The results, however, were nothing short of straight.

And Amy, the well proportioned Pilipino girl, who was as sexually neutral as anyone can be. I guess that had a lot to do with the fact that her 6’4″ Polish boyfriend would show up occasionally to supervise the proceedings.

But overall Joe, the Master Barber, has certainly dominated the style of my hair cuts over the past 37 years. When I went to see him several weeks ago I was heading for a meeting in Portugal and I wanted to chop off the summer growth and make myself presentable again. Joe made a case that I didn’t need to go “business man” short but could settle for a more modern younger looking style. He was very proud of what he came up and after blowing it dry from the back to the front he stood back expectantly almost as if he was waiting for me to say something. I remember recognizing the “Harrison Ford” look and the “Sean Connery” look and the “Bon Jovi” look but this style did not ring a bell.

It wasn’t until I saw the 2010 American Music Awards last night that it hit me. OMG. I’ve got a Justin Bieber hair cut.

Pasted from Billboard

But most frighteningly, it’s started to spawn. Much like Jennifer Aniston’s first season on Friends sparked a frenzy of women getting a copycat cut known as The Rachel, Bieber’s wispy side-swept ‘do has legions of teen and preteen boys flocking to the salon for their very own jolt of cranial mojo—just don’t call it The Bieber…because then it would be silly.
Pasted from Popeater.com

So this one I will call the Justin Beaver haircut as up until the show last night I had thought this kid’s name was Justin Beaver (a reasonably good name for a Canadian) and after all I wouldn’t want it to sound silly.

If you want to get in on the craze you can call Joe (Oh, by the way, he as straight as they come which is not really relevant but I thought I’d mention it in case you were wondering) in Winnipeg anytime at 2047973550 and ask for a hairstyle just like John’s. I am sure he will know what you mean.

On an otherwise quiet Sunday night in Lac du Bonnet Holly and I wandered down to the Lakeview Hotel pub to watch Holly’s brother perform his special brand of music for the Fire & Water Music Concert Series. The originally scheduled artist, known to be unreliable, had failed to show up and Sheldon, the concert organizer, needed a warm body. Richard had been working for Sheldon busting concrete for his new Laundromat and volunteered to fill in as the warm up musician for the headliner act. In a nutshell Holly and I were paying the entrance fee to provide support for a close relative and we had no idea of who the main act was supposed to be.

Fire & Water Concert Series

We got to the pub early and settled in close to the stage so Richard would feel our presence. Although Richard is used to performing on stage he is always just “one of the band.” Here he had to fill in at least 45 minutes all alone with nothing but an un-tunable guitar and a beat up amp to front him. I was expecting to be embarrassed, because Richard has a way of pushing your patience and tolerance to the limits, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear an original if not somewhat eclectic collection of very presentable music. The audience was also very appreciative of his candor and humor as he talked and sang and played his way through the noticeably long 45 minutes. He kept looking at his watch and asking “is my time up yet?” Part of the reason for his nervousness was because this was Richard’s debut of his original and provocative new song “Jimmy Page Robbed the Liquor Store”. I think the title speaks for itself.

Anyway after a lively applause Richard joined Holly and I at our table. While he was still basking in the glow of his achievement a long legged white haired lady came up to congratulate Richard for his performance. This lady, Debra Lyn, was the next act and, as it turned out, a class act. After the brief interlude she took command of the stage and beamed her professional smile across the room while winning over the crowd with her stage presence. She was all the pro and worked the crowd into believing they were attending a indoor concert hall and not just the local pub. And her voice and music was true. Her only accompanist was the extraordinary harmonica player Gordon Kidder. Gord is well known on the Winnipeg Blues scene and is simply amazing.

It was only in the middle of the first set that I took notice of her name. Debra Lyn Neufeld. I have a cousin, Shelly, who married a Neufeld from Winkler and I could not help think they might have known each other. Shelley and her husband, Hank Neufeld, had just stopped on route from Ottawa to make a short visit with Shelley’s aunties before returning to the tar sands where they live. At that point Debra made a somewhat gushy interjection to say how she always loved Lac du Bonnet because…. At first I thought she meant this in the way that all travelling musicians and politicians say “I love (fill-in-the-blank) and the people are so great.” But then it dawned on me she said “Does anyone here know the Lagsdine family?” I thought “Yes I do”, but no one else spoke up. Shelley was a Lagsdine before marrying Hank Neufeld.

During the intermission I took the opportunity to meet with Debra and introduce myself. I was surprised to discover that Debra Lyn was Hank’s sister and since Hank was my cousin by marriage then by proxy Debra was (by my estimates) my second cousin or as we called it when I was growing up, “kissing cousins.” The traditional meaning of a kissing cousins is a relative close enough to be greeted by a kiss. My definition was always skewed in that I figured a kissing cousin was just far enough outside arms length that you could get caught kissing without being accused of incest.

Holly and I stayed to the end and really enjoyed the show. After the last set I bought one of Debra Lyn’s $20 CDs and later played it in my new Ford F150 with the 1000 watt amp and 8″ Kenwood subwoofer boom box. I suppose having watched her play live and after realizing that we were kissing cousins I might have been prejudiced but I thoroughly enjoyed her vibrant brand of blues especially when cranked up really loud cruising down the highway.

During her live performance, however, I was not enamored with the shrill tightly-wound sound of the particular guitar she chooses to play. The “steel guitar” tone did not fit the mood of the music. The guitar she used to record the album sounded more like the deeply resonating hollow bodied acoustic (albeit “electric”) guitar I would have expected. For the live performance I suspect she used is a version of the steel guitar used by Mark Knopfler on the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms but correct me if I am wrong. Richard said it is a terribly difficult guitar to play and I guess I will give her credit for that.

Either way Debra Lyn Neufeld’s CD is my road-warrior music now. I don’t go anywhere without it. Check her out at Debra Lyn Neufeld

LISBON, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Midfielder Carlos Martins created four goals as Benfica survived a late fightback to beat Lyon 4-3 in their Champions League Group B match on Tuesday, reviving their hopes of reaching the next round.

Pasted from Reuters

Why does a bright eyed boy from the Canadian prairies really care?

Because when you see Carlos and the team up front and center, and in person, suddenly they become your family. Carlos, Fabio and Javi were as real as the family I came to the game with. I didn’t bring my camera to document this event, however, as the transformation from an afternoon Portuguese business meeting into a 300hp-Mercedes-adrenalin-powered drive to the Estadio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica stadium in Lisbon happened so quickly I didn’t really get a chance to plan this out.

When I first walked into the stadium I was dizzy from the reality of seeing a European football match live for the first time. The noise of the crowd and proximity to the players & referees made it all so unreal. It was all too bright and vivid and panoramic to be real.

I kept waiting for the instant reply but it never came. I kept waiting for the commentator but he never said a word. What I did get was a lot of shouting, singing, chanting, hugging, and jumping up and down every time OUR team scored a goal. So I wasn’t just family with the team but every one (except a few Lyon fans) of the 45,000 fans who showed up. And there was four goals so we logged plenty of family time hugging and jumping.

I must admit it was fun and fast and furious. The 90 minutes went by in no time and as suddenly as it started I was back in the hotel with no pictures to prove I was there. Except if you look real hard I am the reflection in Carlos’s right eye.