Here I am on my last night in camp and I've been agonizing over what to write about all week. I really don't want my blog to become a chore and on the other hand, I don't want it to go by the wayside either. I get some real enjoyment from writing it. So it just kind of hit me a little bit ago what to write about. It would have been far more appropriate at the time that it happened which was Remembrance Day.
For several days leading up to Remembrance Day, my four year old son had been asking about 'the war.' He'd been learning a bit about what Remembrance Day was about in Kindergarten. It was a bit of a lesson for me to see what he retained from what I would figure they had been saying at school. As far as he was concerned, there had only been one war and that's all. He was wondering what the war was like. Where the war was held. One thing he seemed to have a grasp on was that people died. Seemingly a lot of people. It was bedtime the night before I was leaving for work and two days before Remembrance Day. Stories had been read, songs had been sung and it was time for good nights, I love yous and I'll see you in a week. But that's when the real questions started. Holy. How do I explain this?
As a child I was lucky enough to have parents that entertained my endless questions of why? How come? How does this work? I have very fond memories of weekend drives with my dad heading to a sporting event or the hardware store and becoming fully engrossed in major learning moments of how things work. I think we were on the entrance ramp to the freeway just before going onto the Port Mann Bridge when we started the discussion of how an internal combustion engine works. Fishing in the little green row boat taking my first lesson in molecular physics. I'm not trying to say my dad was some nuclear physicist but to a little kid, he was the all knowing. The answerer of questions. My mom was the teacher of things school. I don't think I went to my mom with the same questions I did my dad. She was who I called when I needed something proof read. Or needed help with something embarrassing. Or bleeding profusely. That's probably another blog entry though.
Now the pressure is coming on to me. I seem to be moving into the position of the answerer of questions. If I was smart...I'd say, "ask your mother" or "call grandpa." But without wanting my sister to fill the comment box after this blog...I'm not that smart. I jump in with both feet and do my best to answer the questions that come from 4 to 6 year olds. I feel that I tend to do okay. They seem to walk away satisfied on most counts that their question has been answered. The surface has only been scratched but I hope they'll continue to think and wonder and come back with another thoughtful question at a later date. So when I started to get grilled at bedtime about 'the war,' I realized that it had the potential to be a really big question. And it was bedtime! But I was leaving for work for a week the very next morning. I couldn't even put it off until tomorrow. I tried to explain what a war is. I explained that there is still wars being fought all over the world. The concept of the world is so vague to a four year old. Their concept of the world is so small. It was enough of a challenge to explain that even though there is wars still going on, that's he's safe. There isn't a war happening anywhere near us. That was my opportunity to explain why we have Remembrance Day. That we remember all the brave men and women that fought so hard give us the safety of not having a war in our neighbourhood. Now that he was understanding that people were trying to shoot and kill each other with guns, Remembrance Day seemed like such a small question...he was trying to digest how adults were allowed to shoot at each other...let alone kill each other! It's bad to even hit someone else! This is where I'm still at a loss. Kids are no strangers to dealing with things with a fist or a foot if talks break down. I've even seen trucks and sticks fly when it get's really heated. They all know by this age though that they're not supposed to hit each other. And now I'm telling him about adults, governments, entire countries of people trying to kill each other. I couldn't explain why. I still can't. Honestly it's been a real eye opener for me. If the world was run by a four year old would it lead to war? I can't think so. When is civilization going to grow up?
I've already learned that children can drive a parent crazy with unending questions. They can be so inquisitive and so innocent. They can also be so cunning and devious at the same time. I hope my children will continue to ask me questions. I hope I can always offer an answer of some kind. I'm not naive enough to think that I will have all the answers to all the questions but I look forward to finding the answers with them and encouraging them to ask more questions. Most of all, I look forward to learning from their questions. Now can anyone answer the question? Why do people try to kill each other just because they don't agree and don't want to get along?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Stuck
This time of year can be particularly challenging trying to fly and work on the West Coast of B.C.. The rain, fog, wind and lack of daylight can really start to wear on you. Tofino has created a whole new form of tourism based on 'Storm Watching.' I'm trying to hold back my sarcasm as I spend a second uninvited day in camp waiting for said storm to pass. I'm tired of watching it.
If you're one of those people that can't stand to see the sight of tree being cut down, then the last two days have been good days for you. Very few trees have died from un-natural causes on this project lately. We have been forced to while away the hours with idle chain saws and a mostly idle helicopter sitting on the deck soaking in the rain, sleet and hail. The float plane that was supposed to come and pick me up to take me home has also sat idle in Port Hardy waiting for the hurricane force winds to pass. My new Macbook loaded with Skype has been my savior this week. I have spent hours sitting with the digital video images of my family keeping in touch daily with school, homework and playdates. It helps to quell the pangs of loneliness but it's just not the same.
Tofino can keep the storms. Nothing beats a beautiful, clear winter day with fresh snow and calm winds. Come get me Mr. Floatplane Driver...I'm ready to go home!
If you're one of those people that can't stand to see the sight of tree being cut down, then the last two days have been good days for you. Very few trees have died from un-natural causes on this project lately. We have been forced to while away the hours with idle chain saws and a mostly idle helicopter sitting on the deck soaking in the rain, sleet and hail. The float plane that was supposed to come and pick me up to take me home has also sat idle in Port Hardy waiting for the hurricane force winds to pass. My new Macbook loaded with Skype has been my savior this week. I have spent hours sitting with the digital video images of my family keeping in touch daily with school, homework and playdates. It helps to quell the pangs of loneliness but it's just not the same.
Tofino can keep the storms. Nothing beats a beautiful, clear winter day with fresh snow and calm winds. Come get me Mr. Floatplane Driver...I'm ready to go home!
Flight School
If I'm going to tell some helicopter stories I figure I'm best to start right at the beginning. I may not tell them all in chronological order but I think I'll start at flight school. Delta Helicopters operated out of Ladner, B.C. near the Boundary Bay Airport. Keith and Maryanne McMillan ran the school and I can remember it all just felt right when I went to see them while I was trying to pick a school. It didn't feel so much like a school as it just felt like a safe, friendly place to be for the next six months. They had a neat and tidy hanger and office in a rural farming area by the Deese Slough where they kept two Bell 47G2's flying pretty steady. I started in September 1995 and Finished in about March of 1996.
Thirteen and a half years later my memory is a bit muddy about a lot of flight school. I know one thing for sure; when I look back now at how little I knew then...I can't believe I survived! Most of my clear memories are that of shear wonder, shear terror and shear stupidity. Amazing how memories work. Most of flight school was a life changing journey of accomplishing what I had always dreamed of doing. During my first 5 hours of training I was utterly astounded that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fly the damn thing! I had read several books on theory of flight and helicopter aerodynamics before I even started school. I was so sure that had it come down to it... if it was an emergency... (and someone else started it) I would be able to fly one. Boy was I wrong. I would have killed myself and everyone else unfortunate enough to be with me during that emergency! So you can understand my bewilderment when after only 8 hours Keith started to climb out of the helicopter in a farmers field that we'd been doing circuit practice to. He hadn't given me any advance warning that this flight would lead us into my first solo. I can remember that his instructions warned me that the helicopter would take off tail and left side heavy without him in it anymore and that he didn't expect me to land right next to him. Within walking distance was fine... Holy Shit! Here's some of the shear terror and shear wonder all wrapped up in one. I survived the circuit back to field by myself but I remember his instructions were bang on. I worried the tail rotor was going to dig a ditch before the skids finally came up and I remember being so suddenly aware of how high I was as I climbed away from the field. The rest of that experience is pure filler. I landed, Keith smiled, I didn't stop sweating for a while and there was plenty of congratulations all the way around. I would say that that circuit is probably still my strongest memory of wonderment that, "Hey, I'm flying! Holy crap I'm really high!"
I continue to feel lucky that I have a job that is full of times that I can look around and say, "Hey, I'm flying!" There is still moments of "holy crap" but they're fewer and further between. There seems to be just enough of them to keep me honest. One thing that hasn't really changed since flight school is the feeling I get in my stomach before launching out on a flight somewhere I've never been before. The solo nav trips in school would only take us as far as Hope, Mission, Fort Langley and back to Ladner but it sure seemed like a long way from home when you were doing it. At school we only got sent out on a trip if the weather was good. In the real world, we look at the weather and try to figure out if the weather is going to let us get to our destination but you can never know what the weather on the coast is going to do between point A and point B. It's a pretty lonely feeling as the weather is closing in on all sides and you're only half way. Let alone when the fuel gauge is creeping lower than you'd hoped for.
My favourite flight during school had to be when we went into the mountains by Pitt Lake on a beautiful sunny day. I was near the end of my training and we had been working on some confined areas near the Swan E Set Golf course when Keith suggested we do some mountain flying. The sky was deep blue and the air was crisp. We climbed high into the peaks where I had never been before. I'd experienced snowy mountain peaks while skiing but never from this vantage point before. The clarity of every ice crystal in the wind swept snow was like coming out a fog at night to see the road reflectors reach out for miles in your headlights. The Coast Mountains aren't high altitude peaks, but they sure seemed like it when you were suddenly above the haze of the Fraser Valley. In retrospect I had so little feeling for the aircraft that I could hardly notice the loss of performance. Mostly a passenger in awe, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Keith as he explained a proper pinnacle approach and overshoot. And some of the coarse principles of mountain flying. I have yet to develop the fine skills to be a true mountain pilot. After that introduction it was clearly where I wanted to fly. It still is.
Looking back at flight school, I can't believe how little I knew of what I really should have. That isn't a knock at Keith but just reality that a person can only adsorb so much. One of my current positions at work has me conducting recurrent training and annual check rides with the other pilots in the company. I have the pleasure of working with a very qualified group of professional pilots who take training and good airmanship seriously. I also have to pass a Transport Canada PPC every year that makes me study and sweat. At times I remind myself that every 100 hour commercial pilot graduate had to pass a PPC and that helps bring perspective. Knowing now what I didn't know then, and having a better grasp of how much more I still have to learn in an attempt to keep up with so many pilots I look up to; seems like a daunting task! Flight school at Delta Helicopters finished for me 13 plus years ago. Now I grasp the fact that the real school was just starting.
Thirteen and a half years later my memory is a bit muddy about a lot of flight school. I know one thing for sure; when I look back now at how little I knew then...I can't believe I survived! Most of my clear memories are that of shear wonder, shear terror and shear stupidity. Amazing how memories work. Most of flight school was a life changing journey of accomplishing what I had always dreamed of doing. During my first 5 hours of training I was utterly astounded that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fly the damn thing! I had read several books on theory of flight and helicopter aerodynamics before I even started school. I was so sure that had it come down to it... if it was an emergency... (and someone else started it) I would be able to fly one. Boy was I wrong. I would have killed myself and everyone else unfortunate enough to be with me during that emergency! So you can understand my bewilderment when after only 8 hours Keith started to climb out of the helicopter in a farmers field that we'd been doing circuit practice to. He hadn't given me any advance warning that this flight would lead us into my first solo. I can remember that his instructions warned me that the helicopter would take off tail and left side heavy without him in it anymore and that he didn't expect me to land right next to him. Within walking distance was fine... Holy Shit! Here's some of the shear terror and shear wonder all wrapped up in one. I survived the circuit back to field by myself but I remember his instructions were bang on. I worried the tail rotor was going to dig a ditch before the skids finally came up and I remember being so suddenly aware of how high I was as I climbed away from the field. The rest of that experience is pure filler. I landed, Keith smiled, I didn't stop sweating for a while and there was plenty of congratulations all the way around. I would say that that circuit is probably still my strongest memory of wonderment that, "Hey, I'm flying! Holy crap I'm really high!"
I continue to feel lucky that I have a job that is full of times that I can look around and say, "Hey, I'm flying!" There is still moments of "holy crap" but they're fewer and further between. There seems to be just enough of them to keep me honest. One thing that hasn't really changed since flight school is the feeling I get in my stomach before launching out on a flight somewhere I've never been before. The solo nav trips in school would only take us as far as Hope, Mission, Fort Langley and back to Ladner but it sure seemed like a long way from home when you were doing it. At school we only got sent out on a trip if the weather was good. In the real world, we look at the weather and try to figure out if the weather is going to let us get to our destination but you can never know what the weather on the coast is going to do between point A and point B. It's a pretty lonely feeling as the weather is closing in on all sides and you're only half way. Let alone when the fuel gauge is creeping lower than you'd hoped for.
My favourite flight during school had to be when we went into the mountains by Pitt Lake on a beautiful sunny day. I was near the end of my training and we had been working on some confined areas near the Swan E Set Golf course when Keith suggested we do some mountain flying. The sky was deep blue and the air was crisp. We climbed high into the peaks where I had never been before. I'd experienced snowy mountain peaks while skiing but never from this vantage point before. The clarity of every ice crystal in the wind swept snow was like coming out a fog at night to see the road reflectors reach out for miles in your headlights. The Coast Mountains aren't high altitude peaks, but they sure seemed like it when you were suddenly above the haze of the Fraser Valley. In retrospect I had so little feeling for the aircraft that I could hardly notice the loss of performance. Mostly a passenger in awe, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Keith as he explained a proper pinnacle approach and overshoot. And some of the coarse principles of mountain flying. I have yet to develop the fine skills to be a true mountain pilot. After that introduction it was clearly where I wanted to fly. It still is.
Looking back at flight school, I can't believe how little I knew of what I really should have. That isn't a knock at Keith but just reality that a person can only adsorb so much. One of my current positions at work has me conducting recurrent training and annual check rides with the other pilots in the company. I have the pleasure of working with a very qualified group of professional pilots who take training and good airmanship seriously. I also have to pass a Transport Canada PPC every year that makes me study and sweat. At times I remind myself that every 100 hour commercial pilot graduate had to pass a PPC and that helps bring perspective. Knowing now what I didn't know then, and having a better grasp of how much more I still have to learn in an attempt to keep up with so many pilots I look up to; seems like a daunting task! Flight school at Delta Helicopters finished for me 13 plus years ago. Now I grasp the fact that the real school was just starting.
Friday, November 13, 2009
It's Been Awhile...
Okay, I've been getting hassled by the two people that actually read my blog that I haven't posted lately. Of course I had grand plans to write in my blog most every day when I started...but that hasn't been happening. Really I wasn't planning to write most days but I figured I'd do a fair bit while I'm in camp. So here I am two months since my last post wondering what I'm going to write about. For starters, this is my first post on my new MacBook. I'm certainly loving my new Mac. I've spent hours and hours this week uploading our pictures and organizing them within i-photo. It's a pretty great program and it would have done most of the organizing for me but I realized that the time and date on our digital camera has been wrong for the past year. That made for some pretty frustrating evenings changing dates on pictures. It's all done now and I'm very happy with it all. I guess the next challenge is going to be organizing my music...
Since I posted last we've had a busy little household of milestones. A first day of kindergarten, a first day of grade one, a second birthday, a first visit from the Tooth Fairy and a first time on ice skates. School is going very well for the kids. It's great to see them enjoying it. For me, school was just what happened before the sports started after the bell rang. Joni has taken on the huge task of coaching the little kids soccer team...man she's brave! She spent a day in Nanaimo at a coaching clinic and shows up twice a week with a pre-planned practice in hand and a large supply of patience. I try to help when I'm at home but I lack the patience. I just have to remember that they're only little and it's most important that they have fun.
Work has been far busier as of late. We're back logging full time with four helicopters going flat out at times. This week I'm doing a shift of flying fallers in Smith Inlet. It's not as intense as flying logs and it gives me ample time during the day to do things like organize pictures and write blogs. Flying fallers is not without its challenges though. This time of year presents many challenges. The weather on the coast changes faster than you can make a decisions sometimes. Today we have seen everything from warm sunshine to freezing snow squalls with next to zero visibility. The shortening days also leave little room for being able to wait out the bad weather if someone is stuck in the fog. I suspect I'll still have one more shift of logging or fallers before the Christmas shut down. Training is starting to get under way as well. It is looking to be a busy New Year with logging projects and completing everyone's annual training and check rides. I really enjoy the training. And I always look forward to some good time off over Christmas.
I am going to try hard to write more regularly. The ideas of what to write are what elude me sometimes. Once I start I enjoy it and seem to have more ideas. Getting started can be the challenge sometimes. If there is something you would like me to write about feel free to leave me a comment. I have thought I should start to delve back into my helicopter career and tell some stories. I know I have a few. I would also like to write about my children but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I'm going to do that without opening our family up to some of the nasty people that lurk among the pages of cyberspace. Somehow the thought of telling 'generic' family stories takes all the warmth and fun out of it for me. I'll put my thinking cap on and I promise to tell a good story before I go home on Tuesday!
Since I posted last we've had a busy little household of milestones. A first day of kindergarten, a first day of grade one, a second birthday, a first visit from the Tooth Fairy and a first time on ice skates. School is going very well for the kids. It's great to see them enjoying it. For me, school was just what happened before the sports started after the bell rang. Joni has taken on the huge task of coaching the little kids soccer team...man she's brave! She spent a day in Nanaimo at a coaching clinic and shows up twice a week with a pre-planned practice in hand and a large supply of patience. I try to help when I'm at home but I lack the patience. I just have to remember that they're only little and it's most important that they have fun.
Work has been far busier as of late. We're back logging full time with four helicopters going flat out at times. This week I'm doing a shift of flying fallers in Smith Inlet. It's not as intense as flying logs and it gives me ample time during the day to do things like organize pictures and write blogs. Flying fallers is not without its challenges though. This time of year presents many challenges. The weather on the coast changes faster than you can make a decisions sometimes. Today we have seen everything from warm sunshine to freezing snow squalls with next to zero visibility. The shortening days also leave little room for being able to wait out the bad weather if someone is stuck in the fog. I suspect I'll still have one more shift of logging or fallers before the Christmas shut down. Training is starting to get under way as well. It is looking to be a busy New Year with logging projects and completing everyone's annual training and check rides. I really enjoy the training. And I always look forward to some good time off over Christmas.
I am going to try hard to write more regularly. The ideas of what to write are what elude me sometimes. Once I start I enjoy it and seem to have more ideas. Getting started can be the challenge sometimes. If there is something you would like me to write about feel free to leave me a comment. I have thought I should start to delve back into my helicopter career and tell some stories. I know I have a few. I would also like to write about my children but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I'm going to do that without opening our family up to some of the nasty people that lurk among the pages of cyberspace. Somehow the thought of telling 'generic' family stories takes all the warmth and fun out of it for me. I'll put my thinking cap on and I promise to tell a good story before I go home on Tuesday!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
