Mis-adventures in Hinton… umm Alberta

It has been many days since I’ve posted anything. For anyone looking for Weekend in Africa part 2… well it just went through several drafts and then I gave up. Here is the short version and then I’ll get on with my current adventure.

I did my job in Freetown. Grabbed a helicopter to the airport. Got taken for over 120$ of my boss’ money from a very large black man. Threatened without words of being body cavity searched for blood diamonds… spent several hours sitting on an airport apron and then came home. Since I’m still alive, I will gladly invite anyone reading this to drop by my place for coffee and I’ll tell the much longer version complete with sound effects.

Moral is, don’t go to Sierra Leone.

Now for where I currently find myself: Hinton.

I came here to do a specific job, having been recently fired by the asshole who sent me to Sierra Leone. (yet another blog entry in the making.)



I used to be a firefighter. Not just any firefighter; a rappel firefighter. It remains my most favorite and very best job. I did it for 8 summers, so I must have loved it.

Basically the job is waiting around for a forest fire. When you get called you get in a helicopter with 7 other people who become closer than family, fly to wherever that fire might be, and slide down a couple hundred of feet of rope and put out the fire. It sounds very Hollywood, but the reality isn’t the stuff of cheesy movies. It is mostly fun because you get to hang out with some pretty interesting people and have some very fine adventures. It is a job that keeps you artificially young and there really isn’t enough of those in this world.

So flash forward to my crappy media job ending suddenly freeing me up to head out west to participate in the training of the new generation of rappel kids. It is the privilege of alumni of this small group to return and instruct for the three weeks of training, if they can swing it and haven’t burnt any bridges with management.

So here I am in Hinton as a honest to god rappel instructor (looks so cool on a resume) being the hard ass that I really am not.

This camp is run like a boot camp. It often seems harsh to outside folk, and to the rookies, but we are asking people to jump out of a helicopter 250 feet above the ground and be happy about it. You also want to be careful exactly who you let into your little club.

I miss the work, but not so much that I would think of coming back full time. As I’m finding out, you can only get older and I still haven’t managed to get my ass out of bed to join the rookies in their daily 6am fitness.

Mostly I just manage to make breakfast and off to the morning meeting. The commute is not long… no traffic on most days as I just have to walk about 500 feet down a hill and attend the morning meeting where we joke around and tell old stories before the guy in charge tries to cling to some sort of control and tell us not to make the rookies cry so much.

The other instructors are for the most part people who I trained at some point. So suddenly I’m an old timer telling old stories while younger folk patiently listen to me. I don’t know if they are merely politely putting up with me.

Arts and Crafts on a monday

Africa For The Weekend - part one

My boss sent me to Africa for the weekend.

He called me one Wednesday and asked me to prepare to leave for the following day. As usual he was excited and irrational.

‘I believe I will need a business visa to go to Sierra Leone.’ I informed him.

‘Really?’ was his reply, ‘why?’

These conversations happen all the time.

It turned out that it would take at least a week to get everything in order. My common-law wife/roommate would not have to come home to a poorly written note saying that I was off to a recently war-torn country for the remainder of the week.

I can’t get into the reasons for such a hasty trip, because I still do not know why myself. I don’t think the boss has any idea either. It seems to make him feel very important.

However, an adventure is a precious thing, especially when someone else is paying the bills.

I needed shots, three or four of them. I think all four limbs got it. Boss man called ahead to arrange things and for some reason used his name. Apparently he was convinced that if I lied and said I was him I would get faster service. In fact it was slower service, until they discovered that I wasn’t who they thought I was. The nurses don’t actually like him, and his file was flagged.

Meanwhile, the Boss man seemed to think that everything was going perfectly to plan. I suppose when you are the only one making up the plan, which you share with no one, that could be considered true.

The plane to London was crowded and uneventful. I did not sit next to a celebrity or a model.

Heathrow-terminal 4 is not a fun place. It is a dull place with endless lineups for no reason. I thought it would be fun to look at all the strange people. It was, but you end up lined up with those people for a while and if you stare too long, you might look like a security risk.

Apparently the plane to Africa had a flat. It takes 3 hours to change a tire on a plane.

It turned out that I was on the second British Airways flight into Sierra Leone…ever. So the plane wasn’t all that full. It was decidedly less full on the return trip.

I arrived at 12:30pm. Customs was fun. Someone even offered me a job.

Freetown is on a peninsula. To get there from the airport, I had three choices:

1- Hired car - through bandit country.

2- Ferry/hovercraft – I never did figure out which one it was or if the ferry itself was a hovercraft. This sounded like fun. I’ve never been on a hovercraft before. But I had 800$ in my pockets, and didn’t really like being the only out of towner on a boat for an hour.


3- Helicopter – I have been in a helicopter before… a lot.




The helicopter was an aging, slightly rusty Russian thing with an equally aging and rusty Russian flight crew. I know some stuff about helicopters, and what I knew made me nervous.

All the baggage from the plane was thrown in. There was nothing holding it all down. It was just loose in the cabin. There were helpful signs telling me to please use the seatbelts that were not there.

The way I understand it, weight is a pretty important part of making a helicopter fly. The less you have, the better. Suddenly the contents of a sparsely filled jet liner were over filling a rusty machine with Russian safety pamphlets.




We traveled half way down the runway that the jet had landed on, just to get up into the air. I sat next to an open emergency exit, watching the black ocean.

It all worked out: the helicopter landed. The two guys who were supposed to meet me and take me to the hotel met me and took me to the hotel. Only one talked to me; the other one didn’t. He didn’t smile either. I got a room, It had teevee. I checked for bugs, lizards and snakes under the bed and in the toilet. I took a tiny little pill and went to sleep.

Christmas clown

This was my most unexpected Christmas surprise.

It was initially left behind by a friend who found it in the street. He did not tell me that he abandoned it for me to discover after he was safely away. It just sat on the boot rack.

I returned it.

Then some friends engaged us in a gift giving game where we bring something we don't want so you can burden someone else with. I gave up a university textbook that I never read in the first place. The friend gave the clown head.

I ended up with a poster of a model wearing granny panties posing on a red ferrari.

In a wholly unexpected move, I exchanged it (you are allowed one exchange in this strange new Christmas game) for this porcelain work of art. I could have chosen anything else. Perhaps something not so disturbing.

I think I'm growing fond of it. It looks exactly like Gilbert Gottfried.

Sometimes I put it in the fridge.

bike & meter

toast in the morning

Sometimes I eat toast in the morning.

my new flag

This will be my flag for when I get around to creating my own nation.