Die Hard Three

When I travel by air I like to document the entire experience – the physical condition of the plane, the comportment of the passengers, any strange smells in the cabin (that are not mine) – all the stuff that does not make it into the blackbox recordings. In the past, I found the collection of this information to be a rather labour intensive endeavour, but the recent proliferation of digital cameras and portable computers it has turned it into a most pleasant experience.

I do this to make the recovery of my personal effects a priority in the unlikely event of a crash. If there’s a chance my possessions (computer, notebook, camera, mobile phone) could in someway contribute to solving The Mystery of the Missing Passenger Jet (A Hardly Boys Mystery) then the investigators combing through the wreckage looking for clues will do so starting with seat 1B.

This flight to Berlin has been especially productive. I managed to somehow get assigned a seat in the first row – unlimited leg room!

And the crew has been especially good. We departed right on time and their execution of the safety demonstration was amongst the best I’ve ever seen.

So, why is it so important for my suff to be recovered? Well I can think of dozens of reasons. Maybe I have some unmailed postcards or a gift I want delivered. Maybe there was enough time before the end and I’ve written a personal message to a loved one. Maybe, just maybe, I have one last piece of wisdom that I want to share with the world.

You probably have this idea in your head that nothing survives a plane crash – but that’s not completely true. A more accurate phrasing would be “very few things live through” a plane crash. Lots of stuff can be recovered especially the data from solid state devices (phones, computers) as well as paper and wallets and stuff like that.

In 2007 I met a woman whose sister was on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. She told me that her sister’s wallet survived the impact and fire mostly intact and it contained a message for her family.

Some people might think writing about such a topic is morbid (especially while doing so on a flight as it passes over the Swiss Alps). But it’s important to examine your mortality every now and again – it’s the only constant in this world and how we deal with death says a lot about how we deal with life.

That and my ticket for this flight was only forty Euros. That’s like sixty dollars Canadian. And my flight from Eindhoven to Milan cost me *half* that. How do they pay for the fuel? What other cost-cutting measures have they implemented? When’s the last time anyone changed the oil?

Paying AirCanada $400.00 to fly an equivalent distance may seem unfair, but it does provide a small amount of reassurance that we’re not going to run out of gas half way over Lake Ontario.

Frank, they’re not here for you. “Weird Al” Yankovic is on the plane.

Don’t worry, the plane was parked when I snapped this one.

So I bailed out of Holland a couple of days ago. Had a great time. Got to visit with M&S as well as YN and EL. And apologies for the lack of posts – I’m a bit behind on my reporting (that’s what I’m calling my blogging now – according to my lawyers it gets me out of several of the class action lawsuits I am currently battling – and while we’re on the topic could someone out there *please* organize all of these class action suits against me into a single, mega-action suit? It defeats the purpose of a class action if there are several of them. Thank you.)

So what did I do on this trip? Well, I messaged my uncle informing him that there’s a town in Holland where all the street names are chosen from the Dutch translation of Lord of the Rings (the subtitles I think) – he’s a huge fan. I also mentioned that I happened to be in the Low Countries and then he asked me to “take lots of pictures”.

Full disclosure: if I were even *planning* on visiting such a place (if it does indeed exist) I would have mentioned nothing, instead opting to surprise my uncle with a complete blog post about my getting lost while collecting one of the kids I was babysitting from De Hobbit peuterspeelzaalwerk and also how it sucks to be Theoden because no one wants to steal his sign.

I mean, Holland is a huge country. What are the chances that this mythical Tolkien village would be within walking distance of my friends’ place where I was staying for my entire visit to their country? Like zero.

Click on the pic to embiggen.

And you thought this trip would be party party party.

For some reason on this “vacation” I’ve been doing a lot of “babysitting”. For example, today I was responsible for the tending and feeding of several (two) small children. Lately I’ve been very popular with this particular line of work and I have no idea why this is.

Case in point: on Saturday I was confronted by the parents of my previous ward who were not very happy with my services from this past Thursday. Their “nanny-cam” captured this image of me (right when I was blinking, of course) and they claimed I was sleeping on the job.

First of all – that’s ridiculous. Nanny-cam? Do I look like a nanny? I certainly don’t feel like one. And second – did you not check my references? No? That’s because I have none (well actually I do now – it’s you guys).

Anyway, this afternoon all I had to do was go to the grocery store and purchase ingredients for the supper for the two children I mentioned in the second paragraph of this post. My thinking was: when I was a child I never got to choose the meals (even on my birthday) so I thought it would be nice if I let the children do the shopping this time.

After my experience on Saturday I decided to protect myself and photo-document the whole thing.

One can clearly see the kids are choosing these items under their own free will.

And everything worked out great. Kids are happy. So am I. And isn’t that what really matters?

It seems like I can’t go anywhere without people asking me to babysit. At first I struggled to figure out if this is normal. Does everyone get asked to look after (and transport) children all the time but no one ever speaks of it? Or does this only happen to me and I’m the one who’s keeping silent?

Either way, I’m here in the Netherlands keeping an eye on the most interesting 28-month-old in the world.

I should mention that this child and I share a special bond – I wrote about this before. You see if it weren’t for me – he wouldn’t exist. It’s an interesting story involving a time-traveling robot from the future (obviously) and a missed train connection but I don’t have time to go into that now.

Right now he’s napping and I’m not sure how long he’s supposed to sleep for. I thought about contacting his parents to ask them but I figured it would be better for everyone involved if the Internet weighed in. Is a three-hour afternoon nap too much for a two year old?

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Some of my readers are under the mistaken impression that I went on this last-minute trip to Europe to confront fears of my own, inevitable mortality. People who know me well understand that this is simply not true as I have already mapped out in great detail the final chapters of my life. They way I see it, many years from now when it’s time to do battle with Death and his icy scythe I will do so at my home in Ottawa armed with the most powerful religious symbols from all the different faiths.

You see up until now (despite my best efforts) I have been unable to figure out which is the one, true religion. So I hatched this plan where (during the final battle with Death) I will employ a symbol from each religion in my attack / defence so I can properly determine which is the True Faith. If my theory is correct when it touches my adversary, the symbol will create a slight burning sensation at the point of contact. I will then convert to that religion right there and then and smite my foe!

Anyway, the real reason I decided to take this short-notice trip outside the country was to escape the endless CBC broadcasts that inundate citizens of the Great White North every hour of every day. It’s bad during normal times but with their exclusive, ongoing coverage of the Olympics it had become unbearable.

Living in Canada is not without its drawbacks and the CBC is one of them. It would be fine if citizens were somehow able to opt out but it’s actually quite difficult. TVs in bars, radios in cars, the Internet, YouTube – the CBC is everywhere and it can be very taxing. On top of the non-stop broadcasts and the multiple television channels and radio stations (in each official language), they have “news” programs that are 100% fake but they don’t tell you that. This means whenever you happen upon a bit of news from the CBC you have no way of knowing if it is real or not. The fake news coupled with the CBC’s country-wide omnipresence in all spectrums of the media (radio, television, Internet) has been known to drive people crazy. There are several well-documented cases.

So the other day I read an article in the Globe and Mail (on their web site actually, for free) where the author was trying to draw attention to the fact that the CBC is being blocked outside of Canada and all the CBC podcasts are currently unavailable for download. I could not believe my eyes: Were two of my prayers being answered simultaneously? Was it possible to escape the Olympics *and* the CBC at the same time? Could it be done with but a single ticket on flight AC838 YOW to FRA? And how good has the CBC’s reporting been on this particular topic? And which religious symbol was I holding in my hand when I prayed to God this specific request? [note to self: be more selective with the prayers – too many decent parking spots; not enough winning lotto numbers]

Upon finishing the article, reading it a second time, and pinching myself to make sure I was not asleep in some wonderful dream about a CBC Newsworld-free world, I opened a new tab in my browser and immediately booked a three-week trip to Europe.

The first couple of days of my vacation were great as I was getting nice and comfortable with the idea that I would not have to worry about any CBC content popping up on my Facebook or any of their embedded links sneaking into my RSS feeder. Then this morning I got an email from my mother telling me that CBC was back on the air – worldwide. It turns out that a Canadian citizen-activist was able to effect change using non-violent, well-reasoned arguments articulated in – get this – a national newspaper (I know, how quaint).

And now the rest of the world has to live with the fallout from the actions of this one individual.

It’s actually quite horrible – and I’m not talking about the CBC’s renewed ability to track me down wherever in the world I happen to be. Full disclosure: they can’t get me any more. On Friday one of the clerks at the German Department of Motor Vehicles* informed me that I am now legally blind (and def) as a result my of dancing too close to the stage during the second set of the DJ Firewerks Lazer and Sound Spectakular at that party in Mannheim on Thursday. “Blind? Really? Then how are you writing this post?” Easy, I’m using apples hi quality voice-to-text software.

Anyway, the problem is, people all across the globe (the planet, not the newspaper) are now going to start believing that they can actually change the things that are important to them by using grassroots methods to put political pressure on entrenched bureaucratic and social hierarchies. These techniques do succeed now and again but their successes are so rare that they end up causing more harm than good. And by “harm” I mean giving false hope to activists who have worked tirelessly to have March 2 declared Planet Earth’s first-ever, international world-wide holiday for everyone (the most worthwhile cause if there ever were one).

Readers who are paying attention know what I’m talking about.

* Traveling without health insurance? There are lots of places one can get high-quality, medical diagnosis (and prognosis) at a fraction of the cost of going to the hospital.

Coming through loud and clear. Mostly loud. And way too clear.

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I imagine after reading my blog for all these years, that many of you *think* you have a pretty good idea of what I did for my birthday (2014 edition).

You probably expected me to spend the final hours of my thirties getting drunk with one of my many international friends, wandering around Paris’ 10th Arrondissement, hopping from bar to bar, searching for strange toilets, and reporting to the city engineers any infrastructure in need of repair that we happen to stumble upon during our quest.

You’re probably also expecting to hear about how I spent the first few hours of my forties hungover with two hours’ sleep, in a police station in a completely different country from where I was the previous evening, giving DNA samples (to rule out my involvement) in an ongoing criminal investigation into a recent high-profile train robbery.

And of course you will want to hear about my visiting a museum dedicated entirely to the guy who wrote the theme to Die Hard, my eating of a delicious döner-kebap so huge that it would be impossible for one man to consume unassisted, and my finishing the night with some beers and a whole bunch of very good friends.

Well I know you hate to be disappointed, but that birthday – the one you imagined – that never happened. (And for the record, I am also disappointed. With you. Once more. For being so far off the mark. Yet again.) Nope, my birthday this year just happened to fall at the one-third point of my three-week vacation – the exact same day as my regularly-scheduled travel-maintenance.

Traveling light (like I always do) involves packing only the essentials for a given trip. But despite the numerous advantages, it can leave one unprepared for unforeseen or unlikely events. That is why it is important to periodically take inventory of your travel situation so you can (if necessary) adjust your plans accordingly. It’s been my experience that this maintenance period is also a good time to do some housekeeping, take a night off, and get some rest to recharge your batteries.

So by some crazy random happenstance, on this trip, my birthday and maintenance day fell on the same day. I had planned for a weekly maintenance schedule because I calculated I would need to do laundry after seven days based on the amount of clothing I was bringing with me.

This meant that I ended up spending the day (and eve) of the anniversary of my birth reviewing my various travel checklists, finding a laundromat, washing, drying, folding, and carefully packing all my clothes, taking an inventory of my supplies, reviewing all my travel documents, photographing any interesting receipts, destroying any evidence that could trace back to me, checking the status of my consumable hygiene products (soap, toothpaste, shampoo) and going to bed early so I could be well rested for the remainder of my trip.

And I am happy to report that everything is good, I am now back at 100% energy – vacation: full speed ahead!

And for your enjoyment, here is a photo collage I made for you of a birthday that only ever existed in your imagination.

Your crazy imagination.

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Well, this morning I got robbed on the train from Paris to Cologne. I know – Happy Birthday to me. Guy went into my backpack while I was sleeping and took my small, secondary travel pack where I was storing some nonessential travel items. The train was completely full and I had placed my backpack on the overhead shelf with the zippers facing out. Yeah, yeah, bad opsec. But not to worry, I had all my important gear in my purse which was jammed between me and the window.

A less seasoned traveler would be freaked out by such an experience, but not me. In fact I found it kind of exciting. I got to fill out a police report (I’d never done that before). When I was at the station they took me on a tour of the jail cells (that was pretty neat – took a few hours though). Also, now the Cologne police have my fingerprints on file – this will make any future interactions with the German authorities go a lot faster.

But all this goodness aside, I find myself wondering what’s going to happen to all my things. I’d hate to think that the guy who took them is just going to throw them away – I mean at first glance it seems like a rather odd collection of stuff but if you just take a few minutes and go through everything you’ll find that there are some perfectly serviceable items in there.

You know what? To make things easier for the dude I’m just going to make a list of the contents of that pack with some notes about each item. There’s a small chance that the person who robbed me is one of the thirty people who reads this blog and I’m not really one to hold a grudge.

• The headlamp – works fine, it just needs three AAA batteries (they’re in there too) and the clip for the battery housing is on the side.
• The chewing gum is Trident Freshmint flavour – you can’t get it in Europe. It’s both delicious and addictive (so be careful).
• The nail clippers and tweezers – heads-up: you might want to wash those.
• The used Gillette Mach III razor – you’re not supposed to share these so it’s probably best if you just throw it away. Same with the Chapstick.
• The electric trimmer – I brought this with me to trim my… um… beard – this item is perfectly fine for you to trim all your facial hair. In fact I cleaned it just last night – you can go ahead and start using it right away.

The only item I’m really going to miss is the plastic holder for my razor – I’ve had that thing since I started shaving. It had this mirror that you could use to see where to put the little squares of tissue to stop the bleeding.

Nation states should have their own email addresses where visitors can conveniently send messages and feedback regarding their visit to the country. I’m thinking something like feedback@Country_Name.com or some easy-to-remember variant where “Country_Name” is replaced with the name of the country visited.

My immediate problem is I have a message for France and I don’t know how to send it to her. I tried info@france.com, france@gmail.com, gmail@france.com and a bunch of others but I didn’t get any responses. Right now I think I’m going to just post it here on my blog and hope that one of my readers who lives in France passes it along.

Dear France,

thank you for very much for hosting me during the past four and a half days. I had a wonderful time in your beautiful country and I would like to take this opportunity to tell you personally about some of the highlights of my journey.

First up, I do have to admit that (at the beginning) I found it difficult to get used to the French custom of kissing (twice!) all the people I was getting introduced to. We have lots of French culture in Canada and we use this greeting often – but only with women. But then, after a couple days I remembered my experiences with the traditional Finnish getting-to-know-you custom (sitting naked in a super-heated room with the male members of your girlfriend’s immediate family that you just met a few hours earlier) – and I realized how compared to Finland, the French greeting is actually pretty cool – like a high-five or fist-bump (but with kissing).

This kissing of strange men aside, the thing I like most about your country is the hilarious and sexy names you have for many of the things one encounters on a given day touring around France. I even made a collage of my favourites from this trip.

I hope you like it.

Yesterday when I was walking around your capital, I noticed that your 300th birthday is coming up in a few years. Now I know it’s not for a while but if you want, I can help you set up for the party – I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.

And let me know if you need me to bring my turkey deep fryer.

So that’s it for now – I have to run. I’m meeting some friends in Siegburg in a few hours and I have to check out something in Bonn beforehand. Oh, and before I forget, you have a leaking pipe at the corner of Rue de Sophia and Rue de Clignancourt in Paris (arrondissement #10) and the cliffs at Cap Canaille are in serious need of some guardrails.

Again I would like to thank you for the wonderful visit, I hope to return sometime soon.

Kindest regards, your friend always,

Jason

PS: I saw that you are going to be hosting that Star Wars Identities Exhibit thing next month – just a heads-up: it has nothing to do with the real Star Wars – it’s about the movies.

PPS: I studied French in school for fifteen years so I took it upon myself to translate this letter (to the best of my abilities) so that your citizens who do not understand English can also enjoy it.

<Traduction Libre>

France,

merci pour les vacances. Votre pays est belle.

Merci encore,

Jason

I’m sufficiently well traveled to know that when a local takes me to see the largest / biggest / tallest whatever in the wherever, I’m for sure to be underwhelmed. The enthusiasm for the landmark is appreciated and I don’t mean any offence, but I’m from Canada and I’m pretty sure that if your country has it so do we – but only bigger, better, and in both official languages.

And this phenomenon isn’t just limited to the natural beauty of our natural nature (the Canadian Shield, coastline, icebergs, lakes, and mountains) it also extends to the engineered world (the Welland Canal – best waterway, CN Tower – best tower, Canadian Tire Centre – worst sports arena location).

We also maintain the top position in lots of other areas, but most important is our standings in the many categories found in the domain of population pacification / control (aka sports / entertainment). We have the largest professional sports trophy – the Stanley Cup (will keep growing in size for the foreseeable future). Rob Ford (also increasing in size) is number one in several categories including best, worst, biggest, blondest, and most hilarious city mayor.

And then there’s Justin Bieber – number one distraction. This kid is really bringing it. Keep up your antics my friend – timing your meltdown to coincide with the Olympics was pure genius. It has enabled our government to pass several draconian surveillance laws right in the middle of the NSA scandal and no one even noticed!

So I’m here in the south of France, relaxing in front of the TV after an exciting morning, when one of my co-conspirators informs me that we need to lay low for few hours to wait for things blow over. Elise suggests that we drive up to Cap Canaille the “largest cliffs in all Europe”.

“Sure, I’m game.” I say but what I’m thinking is “Large cliffs? I guess you guys haven’t been to Baffin Island or seen the opening sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me?” which is really strange because it was one of Roger Moore’s stronger Bond outings.

Anyway, so the four of us pile into the car and drive to this place called Cap Canaille. I was expecting a something like the Niagara Escarpment – nice but not that exciting. And man was I wrong – Cap Canaille is awesome!

And by awesome I mean terrifying.

The road to get there is narrow, winding, centre line-missing, and guardrail-deficient. Towering rock faces above us on one side with sheer cliffs on the other. The French government even had to install wire nets to prevent falling boulders from crashing into our car! And once we got up to the top – it was crazy windy (blowing out to sea) and there were no handrails or any barriers whatsoever!

But the danger was worth it – check out these photos. I’m not sure how the panorama is going to look on your computer but in real life it was spectacular. Click on it for full screen.

Props to Elise, Marc, and Arnaud – thanks for setting this up. I give Cap Canaille my highest rating ever “Four Crapped-pants”

Note: Rating system is a sliding scale based on my level of scaredness during a given excursion.

I was invited to the opening semester party at the University of Mannheim Castle building and I can safely say I was NOT in a laid-back frame of mind. Allow me to explain.

First of all it was just above freezing, the event was *outside* and I had left my thermal sweater back at the apartment (I thought we would in indoors). Second there were hundreds of drunk kids drinking glass-bottled-beer (imported from Hamburg?) and dancing outside on this super-slick, rain-soaked stone courtyard – where I come from this is a proven formula for head trauma and lacerations of the foot. Third the DJ was beat blasting (or whatever it is they do) and no one was wearing any ear protection. And finally it started raining and then it started snowing. Oh yeah, and I had not slept in 32 hours, it was dark, everyone was dressed the same (black jackets must be in this winter) and I was honestly worried that I was going to get separated from my crew and never see them again.

Concerning this last point – if you think I wear my awesome orange hoodie to support the Dutch men’s soccer team in international competition you are wrong. Reminder: Dutch soccer and I are still on a timeout after their embarassing-even-by-professional-soccer-standards behaviour at the World Cup final in 2010. I wear that hoodie so I can be easily identified in a crowd – never get lost again!

And despite the thousands of beers consumed at this party, I didn’t see a single broken bottle – event promoters from Canada outside Germany pay attention – they made the partygoers pay a two-Euro per bottle deposit. This system increases profits because a) some of the drunk people will invariably forget to collect their money b) your customers bus their own empties requiring less staff / infrastructure for the event c) there are fewer broken bottles and d) you can use the savings to reduce the cost of drinks to make your events more attractive than those of your competition.

I should have gone into business.

Was nice to catch up with Team Mannheim.