tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7617059975449550602024-02-21T22:37:21.787-08:00Wout Wynants - Unconventional Ponderingsbadaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-11111600533776852402016-03-28T16:34:00.001-07:002017-05-05T04:03:36.528-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Belgium,
March 28<sup>th</sup>, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the
evening of March 10<sup>th</sup>, I posted a tongue-in-cheek comment on my
Facebook page about ‘writing about a plane crash while at an airport’. I was
writing and drinking coffee late at night in the departure hall at Brussels
International Airport. Less than two weeks later, the area I was sitting in was
obliterated by two suicide bombers. The accident I was writing about is the
following one:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b>The Mystery of the Burning Argosy</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On March 28<sup>th</sup>,
1933 (83 years ago today), an Imperial Airways Armstrong Whitworth Argosy II airliner
named “City of Liverpool”, departed Brussels for a flight to London Croydon.
This was the second and final leg of a flight originating in Cologne, Germany.
Approximately 50 minutes later, 4000ft above the town of Klerken, witnesses on
the ground described seeing flames underneath the fuselage, and an object
(which turned out to be one of the passengers) was seen falling from the
aircraft. Moments later an explosion was observed, followed by separation of
the tail of the aircraft. The Argosy crashed nearly vertically into a field
behind the Esen Castle just outside Diksmuide (Dixmude), Belgium. At 13:27 all
fifteen on board were dead. At the time it was the deadliest accident in
British civil aviation history. Its cause was never determined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I first
heard about this accident when I was researching Imperial Airways’s historic
fleet for a graphic novel. Since I currently live less than 10 km from the
crash site, I did some further investigating. Locally, this event is
practically forgotten. This is hardly surprising, and in fact quite forgiveable.
Diksmuide was on the front line of action during World War One, and was almost
completely destroyed during the hostilities. The war left a most overwhelming
imprint in this area, and consequently most historical research centres around the period 1914-18. The
following information is the result of around a year's worth of my own research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">This
accident was a huge event at the time. Almost immediately following the crash,
media speculation was rampant, and all
sorts of crazy stories did the rounds. The police and fire brigade arrived
quickly, followed soon after by members of the press. All possible attempts
were made to keep onlookers at a distance, but this did not prevent occasional
souvenir hunting. Photography at the scene was forbidden by the police, but clever journalists chartered an aircraft and took aerial photos of the scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(Photo: The accident aircraft. G-AACI “City of
Liverpool”)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(Photo: The crash site in 1933)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(Photo: The crash site today, taken from
roughly the same spot)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Journalists
speculated, and their suspicions quickly settled on the passenger who had
fallen (or jumped) out of the burning aircraft. His name was Mr. Albert Voss, a
dentist from Manchester, who the press suggested had reason to have set the
airplane on fire in a spectacular murder-suicide. As a dealer in dental
equipment, he would 'surely' have been able to gain access to numerous flammable
substances (the substance the press focused on was Hecolite paste). The fact that burns
were found on his hands did nothing to help. Mr. Voss was also labelled as a
womaniser who had married a woman 25 years younger than him. He was painted as
a gambler who lived large and squandered his money, putting him into perpetual
debt. Allegedly, Scotland Yard had been on his trail for some time, and that of
fellow passenger Louis Dearden, who was said to be his accomplice in a drug smuggling operation. Mr. Voss was himself said to have been a drug addict, having once ended up in the hospital after an
overdose of aspirin. Scotland Yard was alarmed enough by these rumours to have
his funeral halted in the middle of proceedings. They confiscated his body, and
an autopsy was performed as part of a Coroner’s Inquest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The crash
was investigated by what is now the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s Air Accident
Investigation Branch, or AAIB. The ink of the printed report has faded over the
course of eight decades, but the eyes are drawn to this sobering information on the first page:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The
aircraft, an Armstrong Whitworth ‘Argosy’ series II was constructed in 1929,
and put into service in June of that year. Total flight time on the airframe at
the time of the accident was 4,419 hours. It had flown 90 hours since its last
complete overhaul, after which its Certificate of Airworthiness was renewed. Total
Times on the individual engines had been recorded to the nearest half hour.
The flight mechanic, Mr. W. R. Brown, had signed off the Daily Certificate of
Safety that morning. The aircraft had been maintained and operated to the
appropriate standard, and appears to have been in good working order. The
pilot, Captain Lionel Leleu was very experienced, and had previously served in
the RAF.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Weather
conditions at the time of the accident were very good. According to the
official report:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “There was a clear sky, bright
sunshine and very little wind. At ground level the wind was from the East and
not more than 5 m.p.h.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The report’s
description of the accident mostly corroborates that of eye witness statements
in the press. On Approaching Dixmude there was a sudden change in engine noise,
followed by a considerable volume of whitish smoke coming from the fuselage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “A few moments later, while the
aircraft was descending rapidly but only
at a moderately steep glide angle, apparently under control, flames appeared
from, or around, the back half of the cabin and it became obvious that the
machine was already ablaze”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “An object, which was
subsequently proved to be one of the passengers, was then seen to fall from the
machine”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “While it was still a
considerable distance from the ground – possibly as much as 800 feet – the machine
swung to the right, and almost at the same moment the rear portion of the
fuselage broke off. The structural failure was accompanied by a loud report or
what witnesses describe as an “explosion”. Numerous pieces of structure,
articles of luggage and freight and also one passenger (a woman) were thrown
from the machine when it broke in the air, and were subsequently found on the
ground at various distances from the main wreckage”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “The fire which raged on the
ground, fed by petrol from the main tanks, completely gutted the main debris”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The field
in which Mr. Voss fell is less than one kilometre away from where the Argosy
impacted the ground. I would conservatively estimate, that the time that passed
between his jump/fall and the crash was likely on the order of thirty seconds
or less. Whatever the nature of these events, they happened fast.
His body was examined. Again, from the official report:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “The man’s clothes (no overcoat
found on the body) bore little evidence of fire; his boots showed no signs
whatever of heat. His jacket was only slightly singed at one or two places in
front, but was smeared, particularly at the sleeves, with cellulose paint which
appeared to have come from the walls or ceiling of the cabin. (Suggestive of
rubbing contact with burning paintwork of the machine).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
inquest, for its part, was met by the Jury with an open verdict. The autopsy and
analysis of his organs produced zero evidence of him having been a drug addict.
No evidence was found of Mr. Voss being mentally deranged, or responsible for
the fire. The only chemicals found on him were the traces of cellulite paint
from the aircraft. No evidence of Hecolite, or any other flammable substance
was found.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
accident investigators did a thorough examination of the site and of the recovered
wreckage. Recovery (they had been smashed 2 metres into the ground by the impact) and examination of the three engines was accomplished by
technicians from Belgian airline SABENA. Analysis determined that the aircraft
was essentially working fine up to the point of the outbreak of fire. There was
however one area of possible cause in which no evidence could be recorded. The report states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “<u>NOTE:</u> It was not
possible to arrive at any conclusion regarding the actual pipe-lines of either
the fuel or lubricating systems, as very little of the “Petroflex” tubing had
escaped total destruction by fire”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the end:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “<b>On the evidence established it
is not possible to arrive at any definite conclusion as to the origin and cause
of the outbreak of fire in the aircraft.</b>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many lives
were shattered by this accident. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing by the
courts, the damage to Albert Voss’ reputation, and that of his family, had been
done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">According
to his 1912 English Naturalisation Certificate, Albert Voss was born on the 27<sup>th</sup>
of November, 1863 in Zulpich, Prussia to
David and Esther Voss. At the time of his naturalisation, he had been married
to Minnie Voss (a Belgian National) for 22 years. He lived with her and
their three children, Hugo, Alfred, and Hilda, on Bignor Street in Manchester. His 1911 Census record shows that they had a total of
seven children together, four of who died. His profession was listed as: ‘Artificial
Teeth Maker’. They must have had some means, as they employed a domestic
servant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In January
of 1924 Minnie died at age 57. She was buried at the Burial Grounds of the
Manchester Hebrew Congregation. In 1930 he married Jessie Cohen , age 35. In
newspaper articles pertaining to the Coroner’s Inquest, Jessie’s two daughers
Stella, and Winnie Cohen are mentioned. Jessie was severely affected by Albert’s death, and the
drama from the press attention and Coroner’s Inquest. Albert had taken out a £500
life insurance policy for the day of the flight (something which in these days
was not entirely unusual). It is at present unknown whether this was ever paid
out, but if it was, it covered his outstanding debts and obligations only just.
After all was paid, Minnie was left with just over £2 to her name. She sank
into a deep depression and disappeared. Her body was recovered several months
later from a canal. Her cause of death was an open verdict, but the media
speculated suicide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Even though
the evidence points rather strongly to Mr. Voss being Jewish, there were press
reports of him having made anti-semitic statements while conducting
business on the continent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">According to an article in the Nottingham Evening
Post, April 4<sup>th</sup>, 1933, the manager of a Belgian dental agency in
Brussels, with which Mr. Voss had dealings said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Among the matters we talked of
was the situation in Germany, and he struck me as being particularly
anti-Jewish. I spent the whole of Monday with Mr. Voss and Mr. Dearden, and I
accompanied them on Tuesday morning to the taxi which took them to the
aerodrome.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I strongly
suspect that he may have made those statements to protect himself, and the
future of his business dealings. We must look at Mr. Voss in the context of
what was happening in 1933. The newspapers that reported about the air disaster
were also full of updates about the Nazis and the increasing persecution of
Jews in Germany. For example, some quotes from the Western Gazette of Friday,
April 7<sup>th</sup>, 1933:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“MERCILESS PERSECUTION BY NAZIS”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“FLIGHT INTO BELGIUM AND DENMARK”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“JEWS FIRED UPON BY CUSTOMS OFFICIALS”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Jews fleeing from Germany into
Belgium during the weekend are said to have been fired at by German Customs
officials on the frontier. Many of the refugees, who carried lots of luggage
and large amounts of money, tried to avoid customs by walking through woods not
far from Verviers. A group of 23 were chased by German Customs officials, who
fired many shots at them. The 23 were arrested by Belgian Gendarmerie, but
released by order of the Surte Generale. They were allowed to stay in Belgium,
as it was feared they would be massacred if ordered back. All trains entering
Denmark from Germany were crowded with German Jews. Several hundred arrived in
Copenhagen alone.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mr. Voss’
expensive business trips by air could easily be seen as extravagant, but I
really think that by traveling across borders on a British airline, on a
British passport, he effectively protected himself from the increased scrutiny
he would have faced with a German accent in German border control zones. He
would undoubtedly have had to pass through these, had he chosen the cheaper
option of travel by land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">About Mr.
Louis Dearden, his alleged accomplice in smuggling drugs, little information
could be found. According to his 1911
Census record he was married with two kids, and his profession, like Mr. Voss
is listed as ‘Artificial Teeth Maker’. There is another record that shows the
dissolution of his business by mutual agreement with his business partner in
that same year. It is not presently known whether he subsequently went into
business with Mr. Voss. The evidence suggests that he and Louis Dearden were
both in the business of selling dental
equipment, and that business trips abroad were hardly an unusual activity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I think
some ‘event’, not of Mr. Voss’ doing caused a fire aboard the Argosy and spread
rapidly. He probably saw his life flash before his eyes, realised the situation
was not survivable, and – as he was seated at the very back near the door - made
the rather depressing decision that jumping out of the aircraft would give him
a faster death than being roasted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(Photo: The field in which Mr. Voss’s body fell)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Among the
other passengers several notable stories stand out. Particularly tragic is that
of Hugh McIlrath (age 22) and his sister Catherine (age 19) from Sydney,
Australia. Catherine had attended Cheltenham Ladies College in Gloucestershire. From Hugh's old school:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “It is with regret that we
record the death of Hugh McIlrath, who, with his sister Catherine, was killed
in an aeroplane accident near Dixmude, Belgium, on 28<sup>th</sup> March last.
He had been escorting his sister on various trips to the Continent, and was
then returning to London, whence they were both to sail for Australia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> As Hugh had spent eight years at
Shore, he was well known to the younger generation of Old Boys, with whom he
was always popular. He was very likable, as he was clean and wholesome, with an
instinctive knowledge of the right thing to do at all times. He was appreciated
as well by the masters, who were often secretly amused by the bluff he failed
to carry off when his work was unprepared, but no one could be angry with him
for long, as he was such a good boy and took his defeat in such good part.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> -From The Torch-Bearer, May 1<sup>st</sup>,
1933 (Publication of Sydney Church of England Grammar School)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Their
father, William McIl</span>rath came from humble beginnings, having been born in
Banbridge, Down, Ireland, son of a farmer. He and several brothers emigrated to
Australia where they became successful business owners and philanthropists.
He and his wife funded a new hospital building that became known as the Hugh and Catherine McIlrath Centre for Pathology in 1935.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The woman
who was thrown from the aircraft when the explosion took place was Valerie
Forrester Thomson (age 28). Her body bore gruesome evidence of having been engulfed in fire above the waist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Valerie was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in December of 1903. Her
father, George Forrester Thomson worked in the insurance business there. After
serving in World War One, Mr. Thomson remained on the Continent to help take
care of the war graves. He died in Brussels in 1928, where he lived in a house
on Avenue des Saisons in Ixelles with Valerie and her sister Mary. Valerie
remained in Brussels until at least 1932 when she moved to Henley-on-Thames. She
and her cousin took over the Elizabethan House on Hart street
where they ran a successful tea room and boarding house. The building still
exists, and now houses a Thai restaurant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“AIR CRASH VICTIM’S FUNERAL”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “The funeral of Miss Valerie
Forrester Thomson, of Hart Street, Henley, took place very quietly at Henley
Cemetery on Monday Morning. The service, which was of a very simple character
and conducted by the Rector of Henley (Canon A. E. Dams, R. D.), was attended
by members of the family and a few local residents. There was a wealth of
floral tributes, among which was a wreath from Imperial Airways, Ltd., the
company owning the ill-fated craft, “The City of Liverpool.” “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At 16,
Lotte Voss was the youngest person aboard the flight. After the accident, the
press immediately assumed she was Albert Voss’s niece, adding to the fury of
the public that he would be a bad enough person to set fire to an aircraft that
was carrying his own young relative. It quickly became apparent that the two were no
relation of each other. Lotte was a student at Ivy House School in Wimbledon
Commons, and was travelling alone from her home in Barmen near Cologne. The
school’s principal, Mrs. Leeson, was waiting for her arrival at Croydon. The
Yorkshire Post, April 5<sup>th</sup>, 1933 reports:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Fraulein Lotte Voss, the
19-year-old* Barmen girl, who was killed in the liner disaster, was buried at
Barmen yesterday, says a Reuter message from Cologne. A pathetic figure at the
gravesite was her father. In a death notice published in a Cologne newspaper
Herr Voss described his daughter as “My dearest, my first, and last, my Lotte.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">(*all other
sources report her age as 16 years of age)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
question now is, where do I go from here? In researching this accident for the
past year, many questions have come up with every new piece of evidence I have
found. From the official accident report, it is clear that everything was done
to try and pinpoint a cause with the technology that was available to
investigators of the 1930s. If this accident had happened this year, there
would have been many more tools available for analysis, and I am convinced that
a cause could probably be found. Is there still potential evidence in the
grounds behind Esen Castle? And would any of it be in good enough state to lend
itself to modern analysis techniques? I very recently contacted BAe Systems (the company into which Armstrong Whitworth was absorbed),
and inquired about the possibility of acquiring copies of the Argosy’s
blueprints and purchasing the Type Certificate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I
personally suspect that a bird strike may have ruptured multiple fuel lines
(most of which were destroyed by the post-impact fire, as was noted in the
report). For a cabin to turn into a raging inferno in less than a minute takes
a highly combustible substance, and fuel mist spraying into the cabin is in my
mind the most probable scenario. A build-up of fuel vapour is also a possible explanation for the explosion that blew the tail
off the aircraft. Forensic analysis turned up no evidence of a bomb having
exploded on board. To determine the plausibility of this, would require building at
least a partial Argosy reconstruction and testing it under simulated conditions.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I focused on the five people with whom I felt the strongest
connection in writing this article, but have uncovered background stories
on most of the others. Their stories all deserve to be told in as much detail as possible. The full story of what
happened to the City of Liverpool can only be told in a proper book and that
is what I will strive to produce in the future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Acknowlegements:<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-First and
foremost I would like to thank the staff of the UK Civil Aviation Authority –
Air Accident Investigation Branch, who kindly declassified the original 1933
report and provided me with a high quality electronic copy, as well as a report
for another (non-fatal) accident with an Argosy. The report was my primary
source, against which all other information and evidence was weighed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Chris
Vandewalle of the City Archive of Diksmuide, who provided me with copies of
eye-witness accounts, and copies of the death certificates of the passengers
and crew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Kelly Atkinson,
for her help with research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Fiona
Price, for her encouragement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-Monica Goemaere, of B&B Esen Kasteelhoeve (<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.esenkasteelhoeve.be/"><span lang="NL">www.esenkasteelhoeve.be</span></a></span>). <span lang="EN-GB">Valerie Forrester Thomson’s body fell on what
is now her land. The B&B is wonderful and I can highly recommend it. When
you visit, be sure to leave a flower or two in ‘the spot’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Dr. Pamela
Greenwood, of the Wimbledon Museum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Alexandra
Cropper, of the Manchester Jewish Museum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Anna
Vuylsteke, the 100 year old nursing home resident who gave me her personal
account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Mariette
Broker, for her insights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Paul O’Shea,
of the UK Metropolitan Police<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Peter
Verplancke, of the Ijzertoren Museum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Joost
Freys<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Filip
Boury, Archivist at Esen Castle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Mr. A
Gysel, local Diksmuide Historian<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Jim Davies
& Keith Hayward of the British Airways Museum<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Anyone who
I may have forgotten<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sources:<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-UK
CAA-AAIB Report of the March 28, 1933 accident with Armstrong Whitworth
Argosy-II G-AACI “City of Liverpool” at Dixmude, Belgium<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">-Stadsarchief Diksmuide - Documentatiedossier 'City of Liverpool'</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">-Stadsarchief Diksmuide - Gemeent archief Esen, burgerlijke stand, 1933</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Transcripts
of local eye witness accounts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Official
death certificates of all 15 passengers and crew<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Imperial_Airways_Diksmuide_crash">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Imperial_Airways_Diksmuide_crash</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-‘Contact’
article about the crash. Newsletter of the Belgian Aviation History
Association. Author: Frans van Humbeek.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Evening News, March 29, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The Sydney
Morning Herald, Wednesday April 5<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Nottingham Evening Post, April 4<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Lancashire Daily Post, April 27<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Aberdeen Press & Journal, March 30<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-1911
Census records for Albert Voss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-UK
Naturalisation record for Albert Voss, 1912<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Burial
record for Minnie Voss, 1924<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Albert
Voss Marriage Index (2<sup>nd</sup> marriage to Cohen)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-1911
Census record for Louis Dearden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Business
dissolution notice for Louis Dearden, 1911<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-1911
Census record for George Forrester Thomson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Two local
newspaper clippings from Henley on Thames, supplied to me by the Henley Library<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The Sydney
Morning Herald, March 30<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Torch-Bearer, May 1<sup>st</sup> 1933 issue: <o:p></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #006621; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;">www.shore.nsw.edu.au/file.php?fileID=2848&dl=1</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-McIlrath,
William (1876-1955) Australia Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, 1986<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-Certified
Extracts of Death, made to the Registrar General for England from the
Undersigned British Consulate for the year ended 31<sup>st</sup> December, 1928
– Death with the district of the British Vice Consulate in Brussels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The Courier
and Advertiser, April 5<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Evening Telegraph, April 27<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Citizen, April 4<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The Evening
Telegraph, August 23<sup>rd</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Sunderland Echo, April 5<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Yorkshire Post, April 5<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Evening Telegraph, March 30<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The Derby
Evening Telegraph, March 30<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Lancashire Daily Post, March 29<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Evening News, March 29<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Western Gazette, April 7<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">-The
Western Gazette, March 30<sup>th</sup>, 1933<o:p></o:p></span></div>
badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-62537331808764331372015-01-27T16:13:00.000-08:002015-01-27T16:13:28.688-08:00Adventures in Flying Pt 3 - Beginnings<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I don’t
remember exactly when my interest in aviation started. It’s always just sort of
been there. My earliest memory of being on an airplane, was young me tinkering with the
emergency exit on a DC-9 on a KLM flight from Oslo to Amsterdam. At home, I regularly leafed through an English book titled ‘The Airline
Pilot’, from the Macdonald First Library. It was published in 1970 and had pretty pictures of BOAC VC-10s, and
of happy passengers being served lobster. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Growing up
in early 80s Eindhoven, in the Netherlands was a mixed experience. There
were plenty of books on airplanes at the library, and my family bought me
plenty of my own. There was a military air base just a few
kilometres away, and our house sat right in the approach path. In my mind I can
still hear the sound of the Rolls-Royce Dart engines that powered the
Fokker F-27 aircraft coming in to land. Pairs of F-104 Starfighters from
Gilze-Rijen Air Base, and NF-5s from the local 314 Squadron screamed overhead almost daily. We would sometimes drive past the airport, where I
was mesmerized by the preserved Supermarine Spifire that sat on a pedestal
in front of the officer’s mess. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first
airplane that really made a huge impression on me was a Singapore Airlines Boeing
707 at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. With its golden
yellow and almost purple-blue cheat line on a crisp white background, it was a beautiful bird indeed. Like many boys before me, I decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a pilot. For years it was one of the few
things I talked about. I desperately
wanted to learn to fly, but the expense in Europe at the time (and still…)
meant that this was not going to be a realistic possibility. I got pangs of jealousy whenever I saw a
blip on the TV about some kid flying in a Piper or a Cessna in America. Over there this
sort of thing looked like it was a lot more accessible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I was 10, I developed an interest in radio controlled planes. During
my sister’s horse riding lessons in nearby Son, I usually wandered down to the RC club on the other side of the field. I learned quite a
lot about those things there. Including that it was also not the
cheapest of hobbies. I built a wooden glider model that I bought with saved up
pocket money. It flew reasonably well in a straight line but that was about as
exciting as it would get. It was designed for a winch launch to altitude, after
which a timer (which I couldn’t afford) flipped up the horizontal stabilizer. The thing would then soar down and make a controlled landing. The second plane I built was a ‘Taxi
2’. It was a German Graupner kit that was loosely based on American Cessna
aircraft. It was a motorized airplane, requiring a real engine and a very expensive
radio control unit. This was completely beyond the limits of my pocket allowance. When we left the Netherlands to go to Singapore, I donated the airplane to my school where as far as I know, it hung from the ceiling for several
years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
summer of 1987 I got my first taste of what it was like to fly a real airplane.
I was staying with my aunt and uncle in the Belgian town of Grimbergen, while
my parents were away on an English language course. This was about four months
before we moved to Singapore. My uncle and I took a bike ride out to the local
airport on a sunny afternoon where we spoke to a local pilot. My uncle talked him into taking us up in his Piper Cherokee in
exchange for a modest sum of money, and a few beers (this was Belgium after
all). We flew around the Brussels area for about half an hour, and he let me
take the controls. I can assure you that for those few minutes 12 year old me was king of the world. That flight was quite possibly the best
early birthday present ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Singapore
my interest continued. We
knew several Dutch and Belgian expatriate pilots and engineers who worked for
KLM and Singapore Airlines. I remember many talks about what it was like to fly
747s and the prototype Airbus A300. My school's library had several magazine subscriptions. One of these was for the magazine ‘Flight International’. I spent
a lot of my lunch breaks reading back issues. Every month the
latest issue would glow from its shelf like the holy grail. Competition for it
was fierce. I once almost got into a
physical altercation with another student over who got to read the
‘Farnborough Special’ first. I wanted to fly more than ever. Singapore had a
local flying club, but just as in Europe it was a very expensive activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
summer of 1994 I was in Ohio in the USA, studying music at Denison University. I
had a part-time summer job taking care of the rats in the psychology building.
It was my first ever paid job and it provided a small income. I was scheduled to
attend a jazz course in early August at Manhattan School of Music in New York. I looked forward to meeting Gerry Mulligan, the legendary baritone sax
player who I had listened to so much back in high school. But then something
happened one afternoon at the University library.
I was reading an issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology and was overcome
by a sense of finality. I was having visions of flying and all my
senses told me, that if was ever going to do this for real, now was the time to either shit or get off the pot. I called New York, cancelled the course, and got a refund. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Two weeks later when the money was in the bank, I asked a fellow student to drive me to the local flying school in Newark. I purchased my flight theory books, and got
an idea of what this project was going to cost. Even in 1994 dollars it was
surprisingly affordable. The school’s primary trainer was a Cessna 152 which
rented out at $37/hour including fuel. Dual instruction was an extra $20 on top
of that, but it was still doable. Our music department secretary was kind
enough to loan me her son’s old bicycle so I had some form of getting to and
from the airport seven miles away. I had neither a car nor a driver’s license
at the time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">My first
ever flying lesson was a totally different
experience from what I had anticipated. I had seen many cockpit videos of
airliners taking off, and I was assuming it would all be somewhat similar... My instructor did not want to use headphones,
and we were basically shouting at each other over the deafening engine noise.
The rudder pedals felt very loose, and I was winding all over the place while
taxiing. My instructor was also a bit of a grump and I often wondered if he
actually enjoyed flying. Take off felt completely
out of control. There was no highly coordinated calling out of ‘100 knots’,
‘cross check’, ‘V1’, ‘rotate’, as I had observed in those videos. The machine shuddered as I advanced the throttle, and at around 60
knots it kind of merrily jumped into the air on its own. It was a short flight, and a very sweaty one.
Landing was a definite ‘arrival’, and marked my first experience of hearing
the Cessna’s stall horn go off. The next
few lessons were not much better and I started to wonder whether this had been
such a good decision after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Some weeks
later Oscar the Grouch got sick and I ended up flying with Steve, the head
instructor and airport manager. This was a turning point. The other
instructor was doing his job primarily to build flight time toward his Airline Transport license. Steve was a little older and had no ambition of
ever flying jets. He was a flight instructor because he wanted to teach. During our first lesson together he taught me the technique for controlling those finicky rudder pedals. My taxiing at long last stopped resembling the sinuous crawl of a python. In the air, he showed me how to trim the airplane for level
flight. It felt much more controlled all of a sudden, and I was gaining some semblance of confidence. At the end of the lesson, he insisted I fly with him
from then on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I got very
comfortable with that little Cessna and on one beautiful late afternoon in the
fall of 1994, a little bit of magic happened. At the
end of our lesson I taxied the Cessna up onto the ramp. To my surprise, Steve
told me to keep the engine running and hand him my log book. He endorsed it for solo flight. It was getting late, but he told me if I hurried up,
I’d have time for one lap around the circuit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As he
walked back into the small brick building that served as the flight school my
heart rate went through the roof. I released the brakes and taxied back out. I did my engine run-up and methodically went through the departure
checks. No approaching aircraft on base or final. On board alone for the very first time, I made the radio call:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
departing runway 27 staying in the pattern.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I taxied
onto the ‘piano keys’ and had a huge rush of excitement running through
my veins. I put down 10 degrees of flaps, released the brakes, and gave it the
beans. This was the single most exciting moment of my life up till then. The
images of those cockpit videos came flooding back and that little Cessna
might as well have been a commercial jet. Just for fun (it was my moment so I
figured what the hell) at 55 knots I called out ‘V1, rotate’, and pulled back
on the control column. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As the
ground slowly dropped away, the blanket of pastel greens, yellows, and pinkish
reds, so typical of a Midwestern autumn revealed itself below me. As I
climbed out into the diminishing sunlight, the prominent spire of Swasey chapel stood in
the distance off to my right. There was my University campus. I retracted the flaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning crosswind 27.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I banked
the plane to the left and continued to climb to the traffic pattern altitude of
2000ft. My arms, hands and face were numb from the rush of adrenalin. The
reality of what I was doing was very clear. I pulled back the black throttle
knob and let the engine settle into cruise RPM. As I levelled off, I caught the
grayish blue light shimmering off Buckeye lake, just a few miles in front. Several thousand feet above me a jet descended to the International airport
at Columbus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning downwind for 27.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I made
another 90 degree turn to the left and started thinking about my first
solo landing. There was no wind that afternoon. The
pleasant numbness and tingling in my arms and face continued. As I passed the
end of the runway I pulled out the carburettor heat and reduced the throttle
for approach. The airspeed bled off, and as the needle entered the ‘white arc’
I lowered the flaps back down to 10 degrees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning base, runway 27.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Continuing
the gradual descent, I lowered the flaps to 20 degrees and looked to my right
for any eight -engined monsters that might be trying to get to the airport before
me. Indian Mound Mall, the shopping
center where I usually hung out on Friday nights came into view.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning final for runway 27.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I banked to
the left at thirty degrees, applying light left rudder to keep the turn
coordinator ball in the center. It was drilled into my head that stalling on
the turn to final approach was one of the most common fatal accidents for student
pilots. In front of me was the 4000ft length of Runway 27. To my delight the PAPI lights showed two reds and two whites. I was on the correct glide slope for landing, and
would theoretically miss the tall trees that were in the middle of the approach
path. I lowered the flaps to 30 degrees and reduced my airspeed to 55 knots. When I crossed the runway threshold I pulled the throttle to idle and slowly lifted the nosewheel up by pulling back on the controls. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The main
gear touched down with a gentle screech. I lowered the nose and applied the toe brakes. I turned off onto
the taxi way and grinned like a Cheshire Cat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
clear of the active runway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I taxied
onto the ramp and shut the aircraft down. As the whirring of the gyroscopic
instruments died away, I opened the door and stepped out. The crisp evening air smelled alive, electrified almost. It was
slightly chilly in my t shirt. As I placed the yellow wooden chocks around the
wheels, and retrieved my flight bag from the cockpit I inhaled slow and deep. Completely
in the moment with just one single thought: Holy crap I just soloed…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-3590456408577166802013-10-08T00:21:00.000-07:002013-10-08T00:21:28.321-07:00On Music and Mountaineering...A long time ago when I was a music student, my flute teachers had the annoying habit of hammering the phrase "Practice your scales!" into my head. Even though I occasionally did practice them, being a teenager I often wondered "What's the point?" This existential dilemma finally got resolved early 2005 when I started following the Flute Chat board on Sir James Galway's Yahoo group. Sir James had posted some video excerpts from a master class in which he discussed, and...far more importantly...demonstrated why those annoying scales are so crucial. As it turns out, if you can play all of them (major, minor, diminished, whole tone and chromatic), at breakneck speed, accurately through the range of your instrument, for all intents and purposes there won't be a piece of classical music that you won't be able to play on sight. Additionally, your 'muscle memory' will be so well tuned to the appropriate note sequences, that memorizing entire pieces of music will be much easier too. Kind of like predictive text, but far less annoying... To make a long story short, I found a new determination to practice my scales and became a better flute player. Plus, I now had a way of actually showing my own flute students why I kept on torturing them with scale assignments.<br />
<br />
<div>
Early this spring I was at the bouldering gym in Gent, Belgium where I have taken up my old climbing hobby again. At the gym, the practice 'routes' are color coded, and on this particular day I was proudly practicing an 'orange' route. I had climbed most of the gray routes in the gym and had just graduated from purple. I was feeling pretty good about it, and the memories of climbing to 6200m in the Himalayas as a 16 year old came flooding back. I got talking to an attractive female staff member who was installing a new orange route on one of the boulders. I asked her how difficult it was going to be. The answer was not what I expected. Orange routes are designed "to be easily tackled by a fifteen year old schoolgirl, wearing her book bag and tennis shoes...", she said with a smile.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My ego firmly reigned in, I once again thought back to that afternoon in Ladakh. Yes, I had climbed to 6200m, but it was on a relatively simple scree slope and involved absolutely no hand holds whatsoever. It was the sort of thing that wouldn't even require the climbing technique of a two year old escaping his play pen. The reality dawned on me. Regardless of my Himalayan ambitions, and hopes to one day climb the north face of the Eiger, when it comes to actual climbing technique...I am effectively a beginner. With fresh determination I watched numerous YouTube videos on basic climbing technique, and started memorizing the moves so I could try them out on my next gym visit. Terms like 'drop knee', 'heel hooking', 'open crimps', and 'closed crimps' were becoming part of my vocabulary. With my typical tendency to over think and over analyze things, I eventually arrived at a very nerdy theory...<br />
<br />
What if all those individual moves and hand holds were like scales... Practicing each one diligently, and then combining them in the completion of a bouldering route (without falling off) could be the equivalent of mastering a short piece of music. Extrapolating that, mastering a large number of bouldering routes could then mean successfully climbing a much longer route...kind of like playing a long, difficult piece of classical music...kind of like climbing the north face of the Eiger... My thoughts raced to another YouTube video, the one that was my primary motivation to start climbing again after recovering from back surgery. I'm talking about the spectacular footage of Swiss climber Ueli Steck climbing that 1800m near vertical mountain face in a mind boggling 2 hours and 47 minutes... In flute terms, that's like playing Flight of the Bumblebee in 20 seconds flat...without a single mistake (a mistake on an Eigerwand solo climb means...well, let's not go there).<br />
<br />
Thinking back to the hypothetical fifteen year old in tennis shoes, my ego took a coffee break once more. Even if I worked my tail off in the climbing gym and managed to get up to the impossible looking 'light green' routes, this was still climbing in a gym... The sort of climbing I have my eyes set on involves mixed terrain on natural rock, as well as snow and ice climbing, which is an entirely different beast altogether. And then there is another slight problem. I am definitely no Ueli Steck, and could never hope to have even a fraction of his natural climbing talent. In any case, my personal best on playing Flight of the Bumblebee on flute is 1 minute and 6 seconds...and it was full! of mistakes... On my next visit to the climbing gym I will be methodically practicing a few moves on an orange route, and will look very silly doing so (something for which I do have a good bit of talent). And perhaps in a month or two I'll be able to climb the whole route. In about a year, I will treat myself to a week in Grindelwald...and I shall wait for good weather with my guide. And I will have a go at the Eiger. However, I will plan on going up its west flank which is arguably more in my skill range. It was climbed in 1871 by a Swiss gentleman...and his pet dog.<br />
</div>
badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-86595540202872725022013-02-04T13:22:00.001-08:002013-02-04T13:22:10.124-08:00Adventures in Flying Pt 2 – “Out of Fuel…”<br />
“Superior pilots use their superior judgment to avoid situations requiring the use of their superior skills” – Anonymous<br />
<br />
The following incident took place in the winter of 1996. I had gotten my pilot’s license the previous year and this provided opportunities for many impractical adventures. I needed to log precious flight time and just about anything became a valid excuse to go flying (see previous blog posts: ‘Why McDonalds Deserves a Michelin Star’ & ‘Destiny in Space’ which feature the airplane in this story). This time around, it was a craving for deep dish pizza, and a desire to fly into Chicago’s famous ‘Meigs Field’. This airport was immortalized by the early versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Unfortunately, in October of that year the great aviation party pooper, Chicago Mayor Richard M Daley had ordered the field shut down… That left us with two options of landing in downtown Chicago: O’Hare and Midway. A college friend (who was also a licensed pilot) and I approached our instructor about how to plan this. He almost immediately scrapped our O’Hare idea. There was a way of doing it, but realistically a little Piper Cherokee had no business delaying 747s at one of the world’s busiest International airports. That left us with Chicago Midway. Still a super busy field, but one that was more suited to handling general aviation traffic in between airline jets.<br />
<br />
This was going to be the longest flight either of us had done, and would be quite expensive. Being private pilots now, we could make use of the FAA provision where ‘passengers’ could share in the cost of the flight. Two of our college friends were coming along for the ride. One would fly with us from Newark-Heath to Chicago. The other one we’d pick up at Smith Field in Ft Wayne, Indiana where we would drop her back off again in the evening. We were both eager to get some flying done. My pilot friend wanted to do the outbound leg and land at Midway. I’d be flying the return leg including the inevitable night flying. The morning temperature at our departure field was very crisp indeed, with snow and ice on the ground. After takeoff, we climbed to our cruising altitude. When flying under Visual Flight Rules, this altitude is determined by your flight direction. If you fly between 0 and 179° on your compass, you fly at ‘odd’ thousands + 500ft. Between 180-359°, you fly ‘even’ thousands + 500ft. This provides a solid 1000ft separation between opposing air traffic. Our instructor had recommended 6500 as a good altitude. Because of the thinner air we could run the engine on a leaner fuel mixture, and save a bit of money. This was new territory. My pilot friend had gone to 10000ft once in a Cessna with an instructor, but neither of us had gone above 3000ft while flying as pilot in command…<br />
<br />
Everything went well as we climbed through 4000ft. The winter landscape below looked spectacular. Then quite suddenly, the Piper’s engine began running rough… My pilot friend and I looked at each other. I don’t think either of us had ever experienced ‘actual’ engine trouble before and our emergency training had been simulated, with the motor at idle…not making dodgy noises. My first thought was to try turning the carburetor heat on. I reached over and put my hand on the control, ready to pull it. Then I thought about it. It was theoretically possible for carburetor ice to form during a climb, but that seemed unlikely. It was so cold outside that any air going into the engine would be bone dry. At that moment I think our collective light bulb went off. Duh!, if we were going to save money on fuel, we really should lean that fuel mixture, which was now threatening to drown our cylinders! This had to be done manually by pulling the bright red knob on my side of the control panel. Our aircraft was a relative old timer, having first flown in 1965 and had a decidedly ‘Old School’ feel to it. As the mixture got adjusted for our climb, the engine started to act like its old self again and we proceeded to Smith Field. I didn’t realize it then, but that initial thought of turning the carb heat on would end up giving me flashbacks for years to come. <br />
<br />
A good hour later my pilot friend landed the Piper at Ft Wayne where we picked up our second 'passenger'. Take off this time was extra exciting, as we knew we were heading into some of the busiest airspace in the World. We climbed back up to 6500ft, this time remembering to lean the fuel mixture as we climbed. I noticed that the fuel gage on our left tank was reading lower than expected. The Piper has a separate fuel tank in each wing, and throughout the flight it is customary to switch between the two. The switch was on the ‘captain’ side of the cockpit and I asked my pilot friend to go ahead and switch it to the other side. We also changed maps at that point. This was once again something new. Prior to this, our flying had been limited to the airspace of the ‘Detroit’ sectional chart. It was now time to switch to ‘Chicago’. There were also noticeably more other aircraft around us. As a twin engine Piper Seneca passed underneath us, the need for that 1000ft vertical separation became reality, rather than a concept in a textbook.<br />
<br />
About 20 miles south east of Midway airport we contacted approach control. We were radar vectored in between a steady stream of 737s and cleared to land on runway 22 Left. My pilot friend made a very smooth touch down. Out of the two of us, he undoubtedly was the one with the more natural flying skills. He had recently nailed a night carrier landing on a US NAVY simulator… After landing we taxied to the South ramp where we parked at one of the general aviation operators based there. Before engine shutdown, I took another look at the fuel gages. The right hand tank seemed to be reading lower than expected as well. We decided we’d probably gotten a bit more of a headwind than expected. Our friend who had flown with us from Ohio said goodbye and was picked up by a friend. The remainder of us caught the airport shuttle to the nearest train station and went into the city. Somewhere downtown, was a fresh baked Chicago deep dish pizza with our name on it! We had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the Windy City.<br />
<br />
We arrived back at Midway around 4pm to make final preparations for our return, which I would be flying. Most of the flying would be at night, which requires some extra precautions. In the dark, you cannot simply rely on outside cues to determine the attitude of the aircraft. Your mind plays tricks with you and it is very easy to get disoriented. The aircraft could be turning itself upside down while your mind is convinced it is flying straight and level. This phenomenon undoubtedly contributed to the death of JFK Jr. three years later during a night approach to Martha’s Vineyard. Night flying, as our instructor had hammered into our skulls, was ‘instrument flying’ and a lot of things needed monitoring. I was very happy to have another pilot on board to share the workload. We obtained a weather briefing for our route which looked fine. Clear skies but very windy. In case there was a strong cross wind, we would divert to Ft Wayne International Airport which had a bigger and wider runway. No sense in risking a difficult landing at night. As our fuel burn had been higher than expected, I did my calculations again. We followed the Instrument Flight Rules on these to be conservative. This meant having enough on board to fly to your destination, divert to your alternate, and then fly another 45 minutes on top of that. What we had on board should have been more than adequate but I had an extra seven gallons put in anyway…just in case. We then filed our flight plan, got our departure clearance and headed back to Indiana.<br />
<br />
Now heading eastbound, we climbed to 5500ft and it looked like it should be another smooth flight. About 45 minutes into it though, my pilot friend who was monitoring the fuel gages said they were looking way too low again. If anything, we were now burning fuel even faster than before! I switched fuel tanks to the other side, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. We were getting slightly worried now. Could there be a fuel leak? We discussed it but decided that was unlikely. We had done thorough pre-flight inspections before every flight that day and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. There were no fluid spills, suspicious stains, or odd smells around the airplane. Could I have cocked up my fuel calculations?...visions of being nagged at by my high school math teacher entered my head.<br />
<br />
We continued our flight and as we got closer to our destination things got even more worrisome. We were consuming fuel at a truly alarming rate, and our gages were nearly on empty. We were 15 nautical miles away from our destination and getting stressed. What the hell was going on here? We had descended to 3000ft and needed to locate an airport, and fast. My pilot friend contacted approach control at Ft Wayne International (our diversion airport) and advised them of our fuel situation. We had the option of being radar vectored (followed and directed by air traffic control on their radar screen) to their airport, or they could direct us to Smith field which was at least 10 miles closer. I decided on Smith because our fuel gages now both read zero…<br />
<br />
We were instructed to descend to 2000ft which is the normal approach altitude for Smith Field. According to approach control the field was dead ahead on our 12 o’clock position, but we were having difficulty spotting it in the dark. There it was! The green and white beacon that marked the airport. I could also see the lights for runway 5/23. My pilot friend reported to Ft Wayne approach that we had the ‘field in sight’ and would be switching over to the local radio frequency. This was to let any aircraft in the vicinity know that we were inbound. Now things really started to get pear shaped and happened very fast from there on out… I needed to get this damned thing on the ground! This wind is strong though… And damn! It’s blowing across the runway… this was exactly the sort of thing we should divert for, but that was irrelevant now. Ironically, Smith field had another runway that would have been perfect for this wind direction, but it had no lights and was only available for daytime use... I overflew the airport and made a steep left turn to get lined up with runway 5 as my pilot friend did the landing checklist. My palms were sweating. We could run out of fuel any second.<br />
<br />
I completed the turn. Damn!! The crosswind had blown me right off course, and CRAP!!…I was several hundred feet too high as well. I’d have to side slip it to get her lined up, and forward slip it to get her down. I banked the plane to the left and added right rudder to point the nose forward. Slowly our approach path corrected. Then we were over the runway, still too high and going about 10 knots too fast… Full flaps!! You don’t generally use full flaps in a crosswind because you can lose control of the aircraft. But there was no other option. This is where you normally slam the throttle in, and fly off for another go at the approach… And at that very moment of thought, the voices in my head started chattering. On one side, my ‘inner neurotypical’ was screaming “GO AROUND YOU DONKEY!!!”. On the other side was my more dominant ‘inner Spock’, calmly saying something along the lines of: “Captain, with the amount of fuel you have left that would be illogical”.<br />
<br />
I’m rather fond of my logic… Throttle to idle!…ah poop it’s already at idle!! Had I idled it any harder, the knob would have come off the console. Turn the engine off!...nah don’t bother…it’ll quit on its own soon anyway… Nose down! Correct to the left! Uh oh…the end of that runway is creeping up. Left bank!, right rudder!!…a whooshing sound… BANG!!! With a jolt we hit the ground… Brakes!!! I slammed them hard. My pilot friend would have done the same if he could have, but unfortunately the Piper Cherokee only has brake pedals for the captain… Off to the left we veered, straight toward the runway lights! Crap! Right rudder! And off to the right we went…toward the other runway lights. Hmm…how many of those did my insurance say they would cover?… When we finally came grinding to a halt we had less than 20ft of runway left in front of us. What the camel crap had just happened?...<br />
<br />
We sat at the end of the runway for at least a minute, regaining our breath. Slowly I released the foot brakes, and added some power to get us taxiing. Neither of us said much. We were both pretty shaken by the whole experience. I’m not sure if our friend in the back seat knew anything bad was going on until my roller coaster landing. It was only a short taxi to the ramp where the operations building was still open. I brought it to a stop by the fuel pumps and we completed the shutdown checklist. Despite all odds the engine was still running. As I emerged from the cockpit drenched in sweat, a ramp worker walked up to us and wished us a good evening. If I remember correctly, the only word out of my mouth was ‘fuel’. I was at this point still completely convinced that I had made a mistake with my fuel planning and my confidence had taken a major beating. Had my atrocious arithmetic nearly killed two of my friends? For a sneaking moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this anymore. My pilot friend asked if I needed him to fly the leg to Newark-Heath. I considered his kind offer for a moment and then changed my mind. I had! to fly the last leg. If I didn’t fly again right the hell now, I knew for myself I would probably never get behind the controls of another airplane again.<br />
<br />
The ramp worker gave us a concerned look when he presented us with our fuel bill. ‘You guys were cutting it close’, he said. ‘Both your tanks were dry to the touch…’ After settling up and exchanging a few concerned looks of our own, we reluctantly got on board again and ran through our departure checklists. I was still fully alert on adrenalin, and determined to take control of this little machine for the flight home. Take off went without incident and the engine ran smoothly. But…again…there was that fuel burn. It was way too fast. We had anticipated it this time and had more fuel on board than we would have ever needed for a flight of that length. We discussed it and agreed we would write a ‘Squawk’ note in the airplane’s flight log. We would also call the flight line manager to explain what had happened. Landing at Newark-Heath happened without further incident. The next thing for my pilot friend and I were our final exams of the semester. After that, I flew home to Singapore for Christmas break where I had a solid three weeks to contemplate the future of my flying career.<br />
<br />
After returning to Ohio in January of ‘97, I bumped into my pilot friend in front of the student union building. He needed to talk to me, and from the look on his face it was something serious… He’d gotten a call back from our instructor just before Christmas. Contrary to what we had thought, there had been a problem with the aircraft after all. A very serious problem. According to the mechanic we’d basically had a 99% chance of blowing up… A section of the fuel system had ruptured, and only part of our fuel was being pumped into the engine. The rest was being vaporized under the engine cowling in a fine, highly explosive mist. That had quite obviously caused our ridiculous rate of fuel consumption. My calculations had been correct after all… For me, the biggest shocker came at dinner that night. It came in the form of a realization which was to become a common flashback. On our first leg when our engine had started to run rough I had almost activated the carburetor heat. My hand had actually been holding the control knob. Had I pulled it, (and not the fuel mixture lever), a movable flap would have directed air from the ‘heat stove’ (on the exhaust pipe) right through the carburetor which was by then completely surrounded by fuel vapor. That baking hot air would have very likely caused a massive explosion, and that really would have been it.<br />
<br />
Something else was nagging at me as well. During the course of my training, I had watched a King Schools instruction video where an anonymous quote was featured:<br />
<br />
“Superior pilots use their superior judgment to avoid situations requiring the use of their superior skills”.<br />
<br />
Yes, I had managed to get the Piper safely on the ground, with a fuel leak, at night, and in a crosswind. But had it really been necessary for us to get into that ‘chain of events’, where a series of subtle failures comes together to nearly cause a crash? From the beginning of the day there had been suspicious fuel readings. I assumed it had been bad math on my part. But when you’re methodical about flight planning, especially with two qualified pilots crunching all the data, there is a certain redundancy that catches most mistakes. Our instructor was pretty philosophical about it. Some years prior he had similarly almost blown up, when a Beech King Air he was flying began coughing up jet fuel in mid-flight. Yes there were clues but the way you learn their significance, is through experience. Of this, we’d now had our first healthy dose and were still alive to talk about it.<br />
<br />
As for the Piper (9W), she was successfully repaired and put back into service. I've had many adventures in that airplane. I flew ‘zero G’ parabolas in her, and used her to fly to McDonald’s at Port Columbus International. That night was the last time I ever flew her. For some reason it just worked out that whenever I flew after that, it was in one of the school’s Cessnas. Sometimes I miss that little blue and white airplane. For a little nostalgia I looked her up on flightaware.com. She’s still going strong for an operator in Georgia, 48 years after she first flew.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-41287205042538159972013-01-27T13:41:00.000-08:002013-01-27T13:41:20.538-08:00Adventures in flying Pt 1: “Tarantulas on a Plane".<br />
In the fall of 1995, my junior year at Denison University, that lifelong fascination with snakes had expanded its long nose into an obsession with spiders…the big hairy kind. My curiosity started a few summers earlier in Belgium when I visited an exhibition on tarantulas. This was the day I faced my fears, because up until that very moment I was absolutely terrified of spiders. Within minutes of entering the exhibition hall though, my fear turned into fascination. What my mind had previously perceived as black hairy monsters, revealed itself as a true kaleidoscope of diversity. For the first time I saw the psychedelic colors of the Antilles Pinktoe (Avicularia versicolor), with its bright red backsite, metallic green head and metallic purple legs. The lemon yellow highlights on the legs of the Sri Lankan Ornamental Tarantula (Poecilotheria fasciata), and the mesmerizing blue sheen of the spectacularly aggressive Cobalt Blue Tarantula (Haplopelma lividus). The list goes on. If I were you I would plug these names into Google and take a look for yourself. By the end of the afternoon, I went from being a complete arachnophobe, to having let one walk on my hands.<br />
<br />
This particular adventure was set in motion a year later when I had purchased around 30 spiders from the exhibitor in Belgium with whom I had become friends. I kept them in my University dorm room (other students religiously avoided my corner of that building). He gave me the contact info of his buddy Jim in Cincinnati, Ohio who had a collection that numbered in the thousands. Jim would very likely be interested in trying some captive breeding between his specimens and mine. Why captive breed these beasts? Firstly, it’s pretty easy with a high survival rate of spiderlings. It allows more species to be introduced into the hobby while reducing the need for wild caught spiders. Second, habitat destruction has caused many species to become critically endangered in the wild. Captive breeding could at least ensure survival of the species.<br />
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Back in the States, this spider sightseeing trip looked all nice and exciting in theory, but I had one problem…no car. I felt bad enough about begging people for rides to the local mall, and wasn’t about to ask for a ride down to Cincinnati. Doing the 130 mile trip on my rusty bicycle with a bag of spiders on my back in one weekend would be fitness overkill. Not wanting to miss out on this opportunity though, I did some thinking and it soon dawned on me that with a bit of ‘schmoozing’, I probably had an airplane at my disposal… I was in the process of getting my Private Pilot’s License, and needed to do a number of longer flights to complete the FAA’s ‘cross country’ portion of my training. Why not do one of them to Cincinnati Lunken Field (a stone’s throw from Jim’s house) and let the spiders tag along for the ride? As a student pilot I wasn’t technically allowed to carry passengers, but I couldn’t find anything in the Federal Aviation Regulation about arachnids being ‘legally classifiable as passengers’ so figured it would probably be ok.<br />
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Two Saturdays later, after much flight planning and route plotting, I departed Newark-Heath airport. My flight bag full of spiders was buckled into the seat next to me. It was a very pleasant day for flying with minimal turbulence. After take-off, I opened up the bag to let fresh air in. The cockpit of a Cessna-152 can get pretty hot on a sunny day, and that heat can quickly kill anything that’s in a small enclosure. My route took me over the city of Wilmington where permission was granted to overfly Airborne Airpark. From my Cessna I could see a DC-8 on the runway that had just landed. It felt pretty amazing to have the privilege of operating a real aircraft through controlled airspace. This was no simulation courtesy of Microsoft. The approach over the hills of southeastern Ohio was spectacular, many of the trees having already taken on the red and copper pastel colors that are so typical of a Midwestern autumn. I got some great views of the Ohio River, and after being vectored low over a neighborhood in the hills, I was cleared to land on Runway 25.<br />
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After landing, I was quickly overcome by a ‘kid in a candy store’ feeling and was probably high as a kite on endorphins. I’d just gotten to do a pretty cool bit of flying, and was about to see a world class tarantula collection. As I taxied to the corporate ramp, looking past the perimeter fence, I could already see Jim waiting for me with his van. My focus should have really remained with the airplane but I was too excited. I made a rookie error as a result, and forgot to complete the aircraft shutdown checklist… This oversight was to come bite me in the butt later that day.<br />
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Jim treated me to lunch after which we drove over to his house. His basement which would have been the stuff of nightmares for most, was like a temple for me. There were thousands of containers, neatly organized, containing an unbelievable assortment of exotic spiders. There were larger enclosures as well that had previously contained venomous snakes and crocodilians. He had traded those in order to make more room for the spiders. He was in the process of creating a comprehensive encyclopedia of tarantulas which he wanted to publish.<br />
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I showed him what I had with me, including two sub-adults of a newly discovered species. These were very likely the first two Tapinauchenius elenae spiders imported into the United States. The pride and joy in my collection was a dinner plate size Cameroon red baboon spider (Hysterocrates gigas). This species has a rather aggressive reputation, but mine was surprisingly calm. Granted, its half inch long fangs put me off from ever seriously thinking about handling her… He showed me more Avicularia species as well as a shelf full of Lasiodoras and Theraphosas, the largest spiders on Earth. He had at least one of every species I had ever read about in the literature. He had suitable ‘mates’ for most of my spiders, and I ended up leaving most of my animals in his care. It really is true that time flies when you're having fun.<br />
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A most educational day behind me, it was time to return to Newark and Jim dropped me back off at the airport. I filed a flight plan and walked out onto the ramp to the Cessna. As soon as I opened the door though, I heard the whining of gyros and knew something wasn’t quite right. In my over excited haste, I’d left the Cessna’s ‘Master’ switch on. The electrically operated flight instruments had been draining the battery for most of the day. As a result, the charge was so low that I was unable to get the engine started. Time for an embarrassing phone call to the flight school… I got a well-deserved, though surprisingly kind lecture from my instructor about how ‘them darn checklists’ are there for a reason. His advice was to see if a mechanic could hand-crank the propeller for me, let the engine charge the battery up, and then fly home. Now hand-cranking an airplane is a ridiculously dangerous procedure. It is the WW1 way of starting an airplane (before electric starter motors were available) and involves using your full body weight to swing the propeller around. If you lose your balance, you fall right into it… and that leads to all sorts of unpleasant paperwork.<br />
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After a fair amount begging from me, and head shaking from more experienced pilots, an adventurous mechanic agreed to give it a go. The engine started up after about 20 minutes of hand propping, and I ran it for about an hour to re-charge the battery. Once I got a 'good' indication I shut the engine down. By this time it was getting dark, and the FAA rules on student pilots flying at night were crystal clear: Don’t! Time for another embarrassing call down to Newark to let them know they wouldn’t have their plane back until the following day. Then came the question of sleeping arrangements. I didn’t want to impose on Jim for a place to crash as I’d only just met him in person for the first time. Fortunately for me, the staff at Lunken were very supportive, and they put their crew facilities (including the snooze room) at my disposal.<br />
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The following morning I was up pretty early, eager to be on my way. As soon as I started to load up my airplane though, one of the ramp staff walked up to me and said there was ice on top of my wings. It is probable that I would have noticed the ice myself during the pre-flight procedure, but I was grateful he pointed it out to me…just in case (he probably heard how good I was at following check lists). Trying to take off with ice on the wings tends to lead to more of those annoying forms to fill out. The easiest way to get rid of it was to let the sun melt it off. So I took the guy’s advice, had some breakfast and watched jets take off. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning either.<br />
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Around 10am, my remaining spiders and I finally got the all clear and flew back to Newark. I had seen the most insane collection of tarantulas, and had learned the hard way how important following procedures is to a pilot. I met up with Jim again later that year at a reptile show in Columbus Ohio. I bought more spiders, bringing my collection to a total of 85 and thoroughly ruining my chances of a date for the next two years. My Cameroon red stayed with him for the rest of its days. Hysterocrates species were found to have a particularly nasty venom, and Denison’s entomology professor had politely requested I please keep it off campus. He didn’t want any annoying forms to fill out either… I haven’t kept any spiders in a while now. Being a busy single father, keeping exotic pets is on hold. I am hopeful though that at some point in the future I can admire their beauty again from the comfort of my living room. I will never forget the enthusiasm shared by Jim, and his passionate support for my interest in them. He sadly passed away last August. Thanks for some incredible memories mate!<br />
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(FYI: All my spiders that were not locally bought, were legally imported into the United States with the correct paperwork, and inspected by US Fish & Wildlife at Washington Dulles Airport in August of 1995)<br />
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badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-57798060878109805602012-11-08T02:26:00.000-08:002012-11-08T02:26:10.711-08:00Ladakh 1991 - Boy Meets HimalayasThe following is a chapter from the book:<br />
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One weekend in early 1991, I was watching a documentary on TV about a group from Singapore who were trekking in Nepal to the base camp of Mt Everest. The organizer of the expedition was Bill Kite, a transplanted American who ran a company called Sagarmatha Trekking in Kathmandu. I was mesmerized, and was thinking about how cool it would be to go trekking with this guy. I didn’t have to wait for long. Within weeks, there was mention in morning assembly at school about an upcoming expedition to Ladakh in northwestern India. It would be organized by Bill, and Mr. Gibby. The thing that really caught my imagination was that the trek would take us right past a small (6000+m) Himalayan peak which, time and weather allowing, we would have the option of climbing. ‘Small’ is a relative term in the world of Himalayan climbing. Your base camp is usually located at altitudes that are higher than the summit! of anything located in the 48 contiguous US states, or in the European Alps.<br />
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When I climbed Kinabalu, I’d sworn I’d never set foot on another mountain… So, naturally I started reading all I could find about it. I also rediscovered my dad’s copy of Chris Bonington’s ‘Annapurna South Face’, after checking out ‘Everest the Hard Way’ from our school library. My favorite book by far though, was an old book called ‘On Ice and Snow and Rock’, by Frenchman Gaston Rebuffat. This one cost me a fortune in library late fees over the years, as I just didn’t want to give it back. It talked about all the climbing basics, such as balance and proper hand holds. I spent many hours reading it in the comfort of my bedroom while I should have been doing homework. In my mind, I was making epic ascents up the North faces of the Matterhorn and Eiger in raging snowstorms. I romanticized about a spot on the Eiger known as the ‘Death Bivouac’, completely ignorant of the fact that it has that name for a good reason… This trip to the Northwestern part of the Himalaya, was the opportunity I needed to put all this ‘armchair mountaineering’ into practice.<br />
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Ladakh is situated in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir. It is located near the Ceasefire Line/Line of Control, which marks the border of a long standing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. Passions ran quite high, and there were occasional kidnaps of westerners. Most of those incidents took place in or around Shrinagar. Since we were separated from it by a huge mountain range, Ladakh was considered quite safe. Geographically, it is part of the Tibetan Plateau and Tibetan Buddhism is thoroughly engrained in the local culture. Numerous monasteries, or ‘Gompas’ such as Spituk and Hemis, are found throughout the area. Our trek took place within Hemis National Park, the largest such park in South Asia. The landscape is rugged and is often described as moon like. During the summer months the climate is very dry, and relatively warm. During the brutal winter months, temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero. In this ruggedness, a population of around 200 snow leopards thrives. These are breathtaking but highly secretive creatures that rarely allow themselves to be seen.<br />
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Our trip took place less than six months before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In those days, you could save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on airfare if you flew an ‘Eastern Block’ carrier. As it happened, we flew from Singapore to Delhi on good old Aeroflot Soviet Airlines… Our aircraft was an Ilyushin 86. Many jokes were made about its potential safety, and about the tray tables being made wood. There was the fat male flight attendant who refused to let passengers say no to their inflight meal, because Aeroflot was a ‘civilized airline’. Or the thick white fog that filled the cabin on takeoff, as its underpowered engines struggled to get that big bird in the air. The fact remains, that in its entire operational history, an Ilyushin 86 has never killed a passenger… It was, despite all of its perceived shortcomings, a damned safe airplane to fly on. If our flight to Delhi was entertaining, it was nothing compared to the spectacle that awaited us the following day.<br />
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After a few hours rest at a hotel in Delhi, we returned to the airport for a 4am check in and security check for our flight to Leh. Departure was scheduled for 6. Flights to Leh leave very early. Reason being once the air masses over the Himalayas start heating up with the morning sun, the air becomes very turbulent. So turbulent in fact, that it is not safe to fly in. Leh airport is at an altitude of over 3,000m, making it one of the highest airports in the World. At that altitude a jet has to have both a very high takeoff speed as well as landing speed in order for the wings to provide lift. The runway slopes up at an angle. Takeoff is downhill to help gain speed. Landing is uphill to help the plane stop. About 45 minutes after departing Delhi, the Himalayas came into view and it was one of those sights that you have to see to believe. Officially, photography was prohibited, but I ignored that rule, too gobsmacked to care. The flight attendants didn’t seem to notice anyway. I was able to identify two mountains. K2 in the distance, and surprisingly Nanga Parbat, which we appeared to be very close to indeed… I got a clear view of a feature known as the ‘Silver Saddle’, and in my mind could picture the lone figure of Hermann Buhl slowly making his way to the summit back in 1953, in what was one of the great climbs in history.<br />
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After a series of creative maneuvers and steep turns, dodging sheer mountain faces, we came in for landing at a speed which makes Formula One cars jealous with envy. Bill had joked that the pilots would start throwing out anchors out the cockpit windows. It seemed then, that he might have been only half joking. During the descent, I had felt a slight sting on my left wrist. After we’d landed I realized that the case of my watch (one of those 1980’s ‘Swatch’ waterproof watches) had burst due to the pressure difference. There was also a ringing in my ears. All that, together with the general sensation that my head was indeed hollow, told me that we were now pretty high up. The strange sensation intensified, and after about twenty minutes I felt ‘buzzed’, not unlike being slightly tipsy. Of course, at age sixteen I knew absolutely nothing at all about being drunk… Toward the evening the headache set in, and we’d been told to expect it. We were having mild symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). It is completely normal when you go from near sea level to over 10,000ft in just over an hour. The only thing you can do about it is rest, and wait for your body to acclimatize. For the next few days we did a little sightseeing around Leh and hung out at the guest house.<br />
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At the start of our trek we took a group photo on the banks of the Indus. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the views spectacular. As we made our way toward the Ganda La pass, the 6000m silhouette of the mountain Stok Kangri towered over us. Once across the Ganda La, we entered the gorge through which the Markha river flows. The source of this river was Kang Yatse. This was the 6,400m / 21,000ft mountain that I was absolutely determined to climb to at least part of the way up. To be quite honest, at the beginning of the trip it looked sort of unlikely that I would be capable of doing that. Thanks in part due to exam stress (having just sat for my GCSEs) I had for the previous months been gorging myself on huge amounts of late night snacks… Throughout most of the trek, I was walking at the back of the group and felt very embarrassed about it. I had all this nerdy knowledge about climbing techniques, but was not that confident about being able to put them into practice. Fortunately though, I got a bit of help on the way. With us was Patrick, an experienced American trekking guide. He’s the sort of easygoing chap you just cannot help taking an instant liking to. I had told him from the start that I wanted to get to 6000 meters. He knew that I was determined to get up there and he’d been sharing his knowledge. He taught me the basics of ‘pressure breathing’. In this technique, you focus on pushing the air out of your lungs. Your breathing reflex fills them back up automatically. This way, you get rid of the most CO2 and take up oxygen most efficiently. The second thing he taught me was to keep my steps small. Much smaller in fact than I would normally want to make them. It conserves energy, and even though it appears to slow you down, you can keep going for much longer periods of time. This really becomes important when you’re climbing a high mountain, because getting to the summit is only half of the equation. A lot of mountain deaths occur because climbers spent all their energy getting to the summit, and then just ‘sit down’ for a permanent rest on the way down.<br />
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We hiked past spectacular rock formations. Lhawang, one of our other trekking guides took out his rock climbing boots during rest stops for bouldering practice. Occasionally we’d come across shepherds and their flock of goats going up and down the trail. Our baggage was carried on the back of ponies instead of the traditional porters you see in Nepal. Every morning around 7am, we were woken in our tents with cups of hot tea. Keeping hydrated is really important at high altitudes. In these conditions you will lose up to two liters of fluid just by breathing in and out. When the body produces more red blood cells, your blood thickens. It will start to take on the consistency of maple syrup. At lower altitudes the reduced circulation makes you cold. When you get really high up, this is one of the bigger danger factors for getting frostbite. All of us carried chlorine tablets which enabled us to use river water for drinking. It would taste like drinking out of a swimming pool, but it wouldn’t kill you. Being high up, the difference in temperature between sun and shade was pretty large. In the sunny parts it was quite hot, and a T-shirt would suffice. In the shady spots, it was time for a sweater and a jacket. Layering was the way to go. Having several t-shirts at hand you could just take off and put on as needed. It was the same with the wind. If it was sunny and calm, it was hot and sweaty. But a stiff breeze could cool you down within seconds.<br />
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This trek was also a big exercise in not complaining. I was wearing brand new Dolomite trekking shoes, and I had perhaps not taken enough time to break them in. Needless to say I started to develop blisters on my feet and they rapidly got worse and worse. My left pinky toe, by day three was a pocket of fluid that was held together by the nail. My heels on both feet were huge blisters. To be honest it hurt like hell, but I sort of breathed through it. I was captivated by the sights, as well as by the sheer ‘in the moment’ realization that I was actually hiking in the Himalayas. We were approaching a 6400m mountain that I’d get the chance to go climb on. I was advised to cool my feet as much as possible. At every rest stop that was close to the river bank, I’d take off my shoes and socks and submerge my feet in the icy cold water. After about 10 seconds they were completely numb and the pain was gone for about a half hour while I read a bit. This worked quite well and the pain relief was good. I patched up my feet with anti blister gadgets known as Compeed Second Skin and they worked like magic. After a week, large areas of my feet were completely covered in those. The whole thing didn’t smell too good, but they did their job. The blisters eventually dried out and stopped hurting.<br />
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I kept to the back of the pack during most of the trek, slowed down by the blisters, and attempting to pace myself. After experiencing the stunning sight of the ancient ruins of Hankar Palace sitting precariously on the edge of a steep cliff, we got our first glimpse of Kang Yatse. The forepeak which we would climb on consisted of mostly gentle scree slopes, topped off with a nice snow cap. From here on out, the trekking became steeper and more arduous. There huge boulders to cross and it took some concentration not fall off. Our overnight stop at Tachungtse was only a few hours from base camp. The following day would get us there quite early. This was probably when I’d get the most likely chance to climb as high as I could. Taking Patrick’s advice, I conserved my energy and drank as much water as I could. I ate like a pig at dinner, and stuffed myself with wine gums and probably half a bag of Cadbury’s Garfield chocolates. My backpack, which was more of a candy pantry, was well stocked.<br />
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That night, the excitement of what lay ahead in the morning made sleeping very difficult. I figured reading my book was more rewarding than tossing and turning around all night. This would also just annoy my tent mate. So I put on my parka and sat down with my back against a boulder outside. I was now reading Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris with the aid of the World’s biggest reading lamp. At 5000m, away from civilization and the light pollution it brings, the Milky Way galaxy is bright enough to read a book by.. I read for several hours, in the company of a flask of cold tea and more chocolate. The most surreal thing was that every so often a bright point of light would fly by overhead. It suddenly hit me that those were not airplanes but satellites. This was one of the single most memorable nights of my life…<br />
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The next day’s trek was indeed short. Still, I conserved my energy for what was hopefully to come later that morning. The whole effect was rather comical as I must have looked somewhat like a cat stalking its prey. After arriving at base camp I took a look through the basic climbing gear that had come along. This consisted mostly of a few ice axes. I grabbed an old 1950's wooden axe, just because it looked the coolest and most ‘classic’ of the lot. As soon as my tent was pitched, I got a day sack of snacks & my parka together. Then I went to find Patrick who had done the same. We took one look at each other and said ‘Let’s go’…<br />
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A few teachers went up as well, on a slightly different route with our third trekking guide, Jangbu Sherpa. Jangbu is a very capable climber and in May of 2011 he summited Everest. We set off on the slope, taking tiny steps, conserving our forces. Climbing at even a modest altitude of 5,500m in the Himalayas is a surreal experience. In good, calm weather the effect is somewhat like being in a Salvador Dali painting, but in 3D with a most unusual, completely silent soundtrack. The lack of oxygen, combined with the exertion of climbing, means that you start to mildly hallucinate. My ice axe started encouraging me to keep going, and was apparently giving me directions. At one point Patrick and I became separated, and I started veering off to the right of the planned route. I soon found myself on a rather steep and tricky field of loose scree. It was physically easier climbing, though much riskier. When I got to the edge of the snow, I had to make a sharp left and climb steeply up to get back to the ridge. I did it carefully, and slowly. I’d been climbing for several hours, and it was encouraging to see that ridge get closer and closer. The summit of the forepeak was covered in snow. I didn’t have crampons to the snow line would be as high as I could go that day. I would not be able to reach the top, but I was determined to get as high as I could. 6000m was definitely within reach. I climbed for another hour or so when the scree slope started leveling off, and the other ‘main’ summit of Kang Yatse became visible on the other side. The next thing I remember seeing was Patrick with a wide grin on his face, and a rather flabbergasted looking teacher who I don’t think had expected to see me, Mr. slow poke up there on that ridge. But I was there. About another 100 vertical meters, 150 at most separated me from the summit of the fore peak which was at around 6200m. I wanted to go above 6000m and my goal had been attained. It didn’t matter to me at that point that I didn’t make the summit. Up there it was very peaceful and my senses were one with the mountain. I was completely in the moment and could see the appeal the Himalayas have to Buddhist monks. It made sense now, why they would build monasteries up on high cliffs. The whole experience was very meditative. And the only material goods that mattered at that moment, were the clothes that were keeping me warm.<br />
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Poetics set aside, it was now early afternoon and we still had to get back down. That night was likely to be another cold one. As we were pretty tired, everyone descended at their own pace. This was probably not the smartest of things to do, as that’s how you get lost. And that’s sort of exactly what I did. I lost track of Patrick, Jangbu and the teachers. It was a good lesson in situational awareness, and not panicking. I had to get back to camp while there was still light. The temperature was starting to drop as well. I was now a relatively wise 16 years of age, and the full weight of why the ‘Death Bivouac’ on the Eiger got its name started to become clear. Granted, the north face of the Eiger is a near vertical wall and Kang Yatse is completely non-technical. However, I was now at nearly twice the altitude of that miserable rock ledge in the Swiss Alps, and I didn’t fancy a night in the open without a tent.<br />
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So I took a look around. Directly in front of me, there was only one valley, and by logic it had to be the one that our base camp was in. I had veered off to the right of the normal descent route, so I figured if I found the safest way down into that valley, which was basically following the ridge, I could just hang a left in the valley and follow the stream down toward the camp. It worked. I got back to camp over an hour after the others did, and I was met by a lot of relieved faces. I was happy and winded. I was proud of having attained my goal, and took a rest in my tent, enjoying a cup of hot tea and another half bag of Cadbury’s Garfield. For me the next day would be a rest day. The teachers who went up with me set off again the next morning with full climbing gear. For them, the previous day’s climbing had been an acclimatization exercise. They summited easily and enjoyed the view of K2 from the top.<br />
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Our final day in base camp before trekking back toward Leh, I went for a walk with my former math teacher, Mr. Blythe. We explored the area around the glacier that emerges from the North face of the mountain. The terrain was spectacular, and we took some photographs. Since we were up high and there were no people (or too many animals to speak of) that could ‘do their business’ in the water, I decided to have a drink of the fresh glacial melt water that was flowing there. It was icy cold, but delicious. I think it’s still the best tasting water I ever drank. It had a very slight sweetness to it, comparable to the smoothness of Grey Goose vodka, minus the alcohol.<br />
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Our trek ended in the town of Hemis where we visited the 11th Century Buddhist Monastery. After a final day’s roaming around Leh and buying some souvenirs, we took an early morning flight back to Delhi. We had a flex day before we split up as a group. Some of us, including me would fly back to Singapore. Others would fly on to Moscow and from there to London. That extra day was well spent on a long bus drive to Agra where we toured the Taj Mahal. It was every bit as spectacular as it was on photos, probably more so. The inlay stone work of the tomb was supremely intricate, although the sweltering heat inside would compare favorably with the hottest Scandinavian sauna. At the end of our day, one of our teachers suggested getting a burger at the nearby Wimpy’s Restaurant. Throughout the trip, I’d been talking about paying a ‘major visit’ to Burger King for an overdose of junk food. This seemed like a good way to get a head start on that. The trek had done me good, and despite the wine gums and chocolate I’d lost nearly 20 pounds. That burger & fries though, was a huge mistake. Almost immediately I started feeling queezy, and by the time I made it back to the hotel I had a spectacular case of the runs. I made an attempt at forcing down some spaghetti carbonara at the hotel that evening, but I spent most of that night running between my bed and the bathroom. <br />
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The following mornings came the goodbyes. Most of my expedition mates I would see again in the fall for the start of term. Some were leaving for good. Ian, a cousin of one of my classmates I really would never see again. I was briefly in touch with him through Facebook, but he passed away last year after a long illness. It takes a while, sometimes years before you can talk about incredible experiences like this. The sheer amount of stuff you soak up can be rather overwhelming, even if it is all amazingly positive. Doubly so as a TCK, where after a trip you don’t go home, but simply fly to another foreign country that happens to be the one you live in. The concept of ‘home’ becomes rather complicated, and it completely changes your perception. What to most people is a once in a lifetime experience, becomes almost a way of life and it never ceases to be a rather odd thing. At the end of this trip, having reached my goal of climbing above 6000m, I was absolutely determined to continue climbing in the Himalayas. One of the teachers who summited that day told me: “Now all you need is experience”. It came the following winter, but my beginner’s luck was running out. My next expedition was very nearly my last.<br />
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badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-8609199813057717162012-03-20T09:42:00.001-07:002015-01-28T01:01:40.897-08:00Close Encounters of the Slithering Kind – The Adventures of Snakeman.<div class="MsoNormal">
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“I hope that when you get to Singapore, you will do your homework the <u>night</u> <u>before</u> and <u>not</u> in class. Otherwise let them feed you to the snakes! (especially bushmasters)”</div>
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-Mr. Mitchell, 1987.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For those of you who are reading this blog for the first time, let me back up a little. My name is Wout Wynants, and I am a Third Culture Kid. This means that I spent most of my youth in foreign countries, ‘blending my home culture with foreign cultures to form a type of third culture’. We are also known as Global Nomads and are notorious for not being able to make up our minds as to what we want to do with our lives. I’m a rather fine example of this… A lot of us also had the privilege of getting to do stuff that few others ever get to do. I was lucky enough to have had many such experiences, and my favorite by far was getting to explore my interest in snakes…<o:p></o:p></div>
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As many a kid has done, I used to whine to my parents about wanting a snake as a pet. Annoyingly, they kept saying no… For lack of a genuine serpent, I checked out all available literature on snakes from the kids section of our local library in Eindhoven. One day my mom even bought me a book about the ‘adder’, (Vipera berus) which is the sort of thing I liked to read before going to sleep. It happened to have a complete list of all species of adders, vipers, and pit-vipers known at the time, including their scientific names. By the time I was 13, I’d memorized the lot… Back then, despite being afflicted with the raging hormones of typical young teenager, I dare say this geek was more interested in snakes than in girls… <o:p></o:p></div>
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My first ‘hands on’ experience with a real snake was when I found a dead one along the side of the road in France one summer. It looked like some kind of adder (venomous) so I made quintuply sure it was in fact dead by giving it several pokes with a big stick. The flies departing the blob of twisted entrails that were emerging from a gash in its side convinced me that it was safe to pick up. I carried it by the tail and took it back to our cabin. When my parents saw their 11 year old approach the premises with what appeared to be a venomous snake, they about had a heart attack (Wout-induced heart palpitations are a recurring theme in my life). Once their nerves had settled, being the cool parents that they are they drove me to the local pharmacist where we bought a large glass bottle of formaldehyde solution. The mortal remains came home with us to Holland and I got my ‘pet snake’ after all. Never mind the fact that it sat, dead as a rusty doornail, in a jar on my bookshelf. There was now a snake in my bedroom and as far as I was concerned it was a start. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fast forward a year or two to some amazing news. My dad, who worked for a Dutch electronics company at the time was getting transferred to Singapore, and we’d be moving there for a period of several years. I found out that there were a whopping 144! species of snake (compared to 3 in Holland) lurking in various nooks and crannies on that island. These ranged from reticulated pythons to cobras, rat snakes to pit vipers, as well as sea snakes. This was a reptile nerd’s equivalent of a wet dream… On the practical side, it meant that I was off to an International school for the first time, and I started that school year (1987) at ISSE in Eindhoven. Within a few weeks I was known there as ‘Snakeman’. The school had a small library where I discovered reptile books written in English. It was fascinating, though I admit I was a little intimidated when I first read about the sheer size that a king cobra could grow to. But it was a time of discovery and anticipation. Would I really get to see sea snakes and salt water crocodiles? One animal whose sheer beauty captured my mind was the mangrove snake (Boiga dendrophila). Jet black with bright yellow bands, and considered ‘relatively mildly’ venomous, this was the one I wanted to get my hands on the most. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My first educational experience in Singapore was at a place called Dover Court. My English grammar needed a bit more fine tuning before I could enroll at UWCSEA. By the school office, hung a poster showing the most amazing photos of the ‘Dangerous Snakes of Singapore’. I was soon drawn toward the Wagler’s pit viper, better known as the ‘temple’ pit viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri). I was having visions of going out into the jungle and catching one to keep as my first ‘real’ pet snake. Never mind the fact that it was venomous... According to the poster, its bite was supposed to be non-fatal, but ‘extremely painful’. As a gung ho 13 year old snake expert, the ‘extremely painful’ bit was something I would just ‘deal with’. I was completely oblivious to the fact that the cause of that extreme pain would be tissue destruction and abscess formation, and that it would likely lead to permanently impaired function and possible amputation if I was really unlucky… To me it was a cool snake, and the part that probably intrigued me most was that it was allegedly very docile and could be ‘freely handled’. Later that year, I got to test that theory out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My art teacher at Dover Court (this slightly crazy Australian lady) intrigued me with tales of the blue coral snake (Calliophis bivirgata) which was then considered to be the ‘most venomous’ snake in Singapore. To this day there is still no anti-venom. The school had a sizeable ‘grounds’ area, and in one corner there was a big pile of rubble that I regularly sorted through during recess, hoping and hoping to find one… Alas, all I found was a big agamid lizard which nonetheless proved to be good entertainment. I showed it to a pretty girl from Poland who I had a crush on, thinking she’d be all impressed… All I got for my efforts was the loudest scream I had ever heard and a lot of swearing in Polish. Something told me this was probably not the most effective way of getting a date... I really could have used the book ‘Dating for Herpetologists for Dummies’ back then.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At ‘half-term’, we flew an hour north to the island of Penang in Malaysia. High on my list of priorities was a visit to the famous Snake Temple, where Wagler’s pit vipers wander around freely, being considered a sign of good luck. My first snake encounter of the trip occurred on our second day there. I had some time to myself and went for a walk on the beach in front of our hotel. There, sitting on the sand was a snake charmer. And he just happened to have a real cobra, complete with the famous ‘spectacles’ on its hood. He was a friendly chap and even allowed me to stick my hand in the box to pet it. It hissed quite loudly, but otherwise it was a fairly gentle animal. Seriously misunderstood creatures, those cobras ;-) He also happened to have a second basket sitting next to him, and when I inquired about its contents he pretty much made my day. He had a mangrove snake! This one he allowed me to play with and he was nice enough to take a picture of me holding it… My ‘WHAM!’ shorts positively date this picture to the 80’s: <o:p></o:p></div>
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Toward the end of the trip we visited the Snake Temple. As it had said in the guidebook, the vipers were crawling all over the ornaments in the temple, and were indeed docile enough to handle:</div>
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I was very tempted to let one ‘accidentally’ slip into my leather bag, but I figured Singapore Airlines might have issues letting me bring it on the flight home…<o:p></o:p></div>
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After the summer of 1988, I entered UWCSEA where the adventure continued. I’d gone on numerous visits to the Singapore Zoo, where I had inquired about the possibility of volunteering at the reptile house. I was told that the only way in which they would consider that, was if it was for an academic project. I mentioned this to my head of year. He then did something that I will be eternally thankful for, as it put in motion the single most incredible experience of my life. He wrote to the Zoo, asking if they could help me with my 3<sup>rd</sup> Year biology project. I wanted to do it on pit viper venom. According to my books, it had some interesting digestive properties (it breaks down tissues, essentially digesting the snake’s prey from the inside out) which I intended to explore. This study, of course required some venom… The letter we got back from the zoo was very positive. They would be happy to help out, and provide me with what I needed. I wasn’t (of course) allowed to do the venom extraction myself. Their head keeper would be doing that for me. He ‘milked’ two Kanburi pit vipers (Trimeresurus/Cryptelytrops kanburiensis) for me. The following day (when we were supposed to work on our projects in school) I took it to Biology class along with some cubes of chicken breast I was going to test it on. Another aspect of snake venom that had me curious was that it was supposedly safe to drink. According to ‘the literature’ it is essentially a cocktail of various proteins that should be processed by the stomach like any other food. So…I had myself a little taste and about gave my poor teacher a coronary. It wouldn’t be the last time. The venom, as expected didn’t do anything to me, and by my teenage standards this theory had been ‘peer reviewed’… ;-)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have to say I miss the carefree days of the late 80’s. I don’t want to be one of those people who whine about the ‘good old days’, but it was fantastic, as a young teen to be able to walk along a beach in South East Asia without fear of being kidnapped. Similarly, if an eccentric kid were to bring snake venom onto a school campus anno 2012, it would likely result in a SWAT team being called, as well as felony charges being filed…<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Singapore Zoo, like most others, had an on-site veterinarian. But when it came to reptile medicine, especially when it involved the dangerous ones, most treatments were done by zookeepers. The vet determined the treatment, and the keepers were responsible for administering it. One of the most common issues when keeping exotics of any type, is that they refuse to eat. In most reptiles, a feeding response can be obtained by administering an injection of vitamin B complex. If the vitamin B shot didn’t work, the animal was usually quarantined and observed to determine other treatment options. This being a large zoo, inevitably specimens died. The staff was very aware of my keen interest in all things snake, so if one died, they were more than happy to give it to me for dissection. My teacher loaned me a dissection kit which I took to the zoo on Sundays. Usually I would dissect whatever was there during the day, and as a result gained quite an extensive knowledge of snake anatomy, as well as (occasionally) diseases and causes of death. A small (2m) king cobra died with a big lump in its body:<o:p></o:p></div>
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With local species the zoo didn’t usually bother with extensive necropsies. The frozen snake went home with me in a cooler, to be taken to school Monday morning, where my teacher had kindly allowed me to dissect it during activity time after classes. With help from my chemistry teacher, the skin was preserved as well. The swollen ‘lump’ turned out to be the heart, surrounded by a massive blood clot. It was swollen and torn in four places. Do king cobras have coronaries? Perhaps having too many reticulated pythons for lunch (king cobras eat other snakes in the wild, and at the zoo were fed primarily on small reticulated pythons which were readily available locally) has adverse effects on its cholesterol levels…<o:p></o:p></div>
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The list of stuff I was able to dissect while I volunteered there is quite staggering. It included reticulated pythons, a blood python, Indian cobra, spitting cobra, king cobra, many-banded krait, several species of Tropidolaemus Cryptelytrops & Trimeresurus pit vipers, a mamushi viper, false habu…the list goes on and on… When I enrolled at Ghent University for my brief ill-fated stint as a veterinary student last year, I quickly realized what a lucky bastard I was for having had access to all these exotics… The only dissection practical scheduled for that semester was an ‘Ascaris suum’, which is a worm…which lives up the ass of a pig… <o:p></o:p></div>
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My habit of continually bringing ever more exotic carcasses to school didn’t go unnoticed, and one day when I brought my (now infamous) yellow cooler to school containing a baby salt water crocodile which had been crushed by its minivan-sized ‘mom’, my teacher (and the other) had had enough. He was (quite rightfully so I should add) concerned about the risk of infectious diseases that these animals might carry. None of the staff at the school were reptile or exotic animal experts, and their insurance didn’t come anywhere near the coverage required for the stuff I was bringing onto campus. There was also no way of knowing for sure what diseases or parasites these animals carried. He wrote a letter to my parents explaining all this, and that for those reasons I would no longer be allowed to do dissections on campus. I was bummed about this at the time, but when I look at that letter now I can only look back in deep gratitude. I will be forever thankful to the science staff at UWCSEA for putting up with, and supporting my eccentricities for as long as they did. The experience was simply awesome.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I had now held snakes, fed them, and dissected them, but I hadn’t yet caught one… Our house in Singapore, at 25 Sunset Place, bordered a local park and the neighborhood has a system of storm drains. One morning I was taking a shower when I heard screams in the garden through the bathroom window. This was followed about 20 seconds later by my mom banging on the door saying there was a snake in the garden. I didn’t bother drying off. Soaking wet I put my clothes on. I grabbed my self-made snake hook and ran downstairs, through the kitchen and into the garden. On a low tree branch, was a mildly venomous green vine snake (Ahaetulla prasina). My mom took pictures while I caught it. My parents knew by this time that I more or less knew what I was doing and weren’t too concerned anymore. This was neat though. It was the first snake I ever caught, and she got it on camera:<o:p></o:p></div>
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When you play around with snakes, there are going to be occasional mishaps, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had one take a nibble on me. Getting bit by a non-venomous snake is something that’s really a lot more startling than it is painful, though for most people the thought of snakebite has this romanticized aura of sheer horror about it. If you want to see exactly how ‘not that big of a deal’ it is, I suggest you check out the ‘SnakeBytesTV’ channel on YouTube. There’s a colorful character there known as ‘Chewy’ who usually gets tagged several times in each episode. It isn’t a big deal and I really wish the broader public would ‘get’ that. There is currently some fairly vicious and above all, sleazy! legislating happening in the United States (those politicians should really be focusing on fixing the economy), which recently resulted in several species of python being banned from the reptile hobby. And it unfortunately seems to be only the beginning. A few highly publicized incidents with privately kept venomous snakes is threatening that hobby as well, which would be a big shame as the vast majority of new knowledge we gain about these animals comes from the dedicated studies done by private keepers. Most Universities have neither the desire nor the funds to do proper research on venomous snakes, and it is largely the efforts of those private individuals which stimulate the propagation of new knowledge. One of the finest examples of why the ‘venomous hobby’ should be here to stay is the amazing work done by Al Coritz, better known on YouTube as ‘Viperkeeper’. I would strongly encourage you to check out his YouTube channel for a look at what the responsible day-to-day work with a collection of venomous snakes looks like. One video which is a must-see is entitled ‘Polylepis on a stick’. It puts to rest a lot of the myths surrounding the black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) which has had a lot of undeserved bad press recently, and has traditionally had the reputation of being a vicious killing machine. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Looking back at my experiences, I can say without a shred of a doubt that the ideal ‘job’ for me would have been a hybrid between the late Steve Irwin, and Mark O’Shea (I’m far too geeky to be a pure Steve Irwin type). I went off to College as a double major in biology and music, hoping to do more research on snake venom, but at my University the one herpetologist was mostly an ecologist and had very little interest in snakes. The TV channel ‘Animal Planet’ didn’t exist yet, and I had no idea that within a few years there would indeed be a market for eccentric reptile geeks like myself. More recently, hardcore academics and passionate enthusiasm have been able to mix very successfully. Dutchman Freek Vonk, a PhD candidate at the University of Leiden, is combining a television career with National Geographic and Discovery Channel, with his fascinating research into the medicinal (potential pharmaceutical) properties of animal toxins. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As for me, snakes will always be a part of my life in some form or another. I’ve been very, very! lucky to have had the opportunity to explore my interest in them to the max, and this at a very early age. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This article was a condensed version of one of the chapters in my book. There are more stories involving sea kraits, spitting cobras, komodo dragons, monitor lizards, and salt water crocodiles, but for those you will have to wait for its publication.</div>
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badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-8307761682976513512012-01-03T17:10:00.000-08:002015-01-28T01:00:11.566-08:00Phoenix from the Ashes: A Personal Journey in Healing.“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”<br />
-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.<br />
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In November 2009, my family and I boarded an Air France Boeing 777 at LAX for a transatlantic flight to Paris. For me, it meant the end of a combined 16 years in the United States, which had seen me through University, marriage, becoming a father…twice, and five years of running my own businesses. I weighed 130kg (285lbs), had high blood pressure, three severely abscessed teeth, chronic low back pain, and a rather fatalistic outlook on life. I was beyond spent. Completely burnt out… I’m going to deviate here from my normal blogging, and tell you about how my physical and mental health got to a crisis point and about the nearly two year journey it took to regain my overall balance.<br />
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I suppose the beginnings of the downward spiral started in 2004 when I had to take a medical leave of absence from my work at JPMorgan Chase. I was needed at home to help my wife, who was now unable to take care of our son. In one sense, this was the push that I needed to finally become fully self-employed. On the flip side though, this meant my benefits package ceased to exist, and I had now joined the 40 million+ Americans without medical insurance. The state of California provided rudimentary coverage for our son, but adults generally didn’t qualify. In addition to taking on most parenting duties, I had to continue building my music teaching business (until then I had only taught students during weekends). Rent still needed to be paid and we had to eat… In other words, the pressure was on.<br />
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Things went well for a year, but then I caught a particularly heavy cold that wouldn’t go away. It rapidly turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia. I remember going in to teach on a Saturday morning, and the effort of carrying my instruments into the studio left me wheezing and gasping for air for 20 minutes. During my first lesson, I was demonstrating a Bach Partita on clarinet to my student Michael when I nearly collapsed. There was a deep rumble in my breathing, and it was obvious there was water in my lungs. He jokingly called it the Partita that nearly killed Wout! I needed medical attention, but visiting a doctor without insurance would have cost in excess of $300, not including any prescription medication. At the time, that $300 was needed for food and rent. I could in theory go to the ER, but there’d be a long wait, and it wouldn’t have been safe to leave my wife alone for that long. Luckily, JP, the voice coach at the music school was very knowledgeable about natural remedies and suggested I take a very high dose of garlic. It would kill any sort of bug in my system. After my lessons, I drove over to Target (a popular American retail chain) and bought a bottle of (supposedly odorless…) garlic pills.<br />
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That night to my wife’s chagrin, (there is no such thing as odorless garlic pills…) I took half the bottle, 50 pills in total and went to sleep. After an hour or two, I woke up in a cold sweat and with a tingling sensation in my chest. I fell back asleep, and by morning I felt much better. I repeated the 50 garlic pill binge the following night, and after that all symptoms were gone. I stank to high heaven and people turned up their noses at me for a week, but the pneumonia was gone. Impressive for $4,99 worth of garlic pills. I had dodged a bullet.<br />
My next ‘incident’ happened as we were driving home from that same Target store two years later. I was eating a chocolate bar which suddenly became a little too crunchy for comfort. Half a tooth had broken off. The other half, including most of the root, was still stuck in my jawbone. It didn’t hurt as the nerve was long gone. The tooth had cracked and rotted away from the inside, until inevitably bits started falling off. I went to the dentist who charged me $75 for an x-ray. The tooth needed surgical extraction which would cost another $375… This was again beyond my meager means at the time, and I decided to take a wait and see approach. Eventually, the root became infected, forming an abscess. Now it did hurt, and the left side of my face including my upper lip was swelling up. Part of that lip had gone completely numb. This was right on my flute playing embouchure. There were mild episodes of panic, as playing and teaching flute was how I made a living now. <br />
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My parents were visiting from Belgium when the swelling was at its worst. Dropping them off at the airport on their last day, my dad pretty much ordered me to go straight to a dentist. I was very glad I listened to him because if I had waited another day, the abscess could have gone into my brain. The dentist wanted to extract immediately. It is impossible however, to administer a local anesthetic into infected tissue. But the dopey bastard dentist decided to try it anyway. All this did was create even more pressure inside the abscess, which was now a ridiculously painful bubble of pus and lidocaine. <br />
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By now it was obvious that this tooth was not going to get pulled that day, so he sent me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics. After paying $30 for Penicillin, it promptly gave me an allergic reaction and I went back in for advice. He (as well as everyone in the waiting room) was rather shocked to see me as I could have now modeled for one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Grotesques’. I got a prescription for Keflex which did the trick, and the swelling subsided. A week later the tooth was extracted, and the source of the infection was gone. The damage however, had been done… The abscess had invaded my upper lip and messed up a nerve. The flute embouchure I had worked on for years was gone. It was impossible to play, and panic really started to set in. <br />
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It was time for some solid advice. Not a friendly chat, a shoulder to cry on or a bottle of bourbon, but solid information from a reputable source. Was it possible to recover from something like this and play again? And if it was, how the hell do I do it? There’s a place online where the greatest bunch of flute players on the planet hangs out. It’s called ‘Galway Flute Chat’, on Yahoo groups, which is organized by Sir James Galway. I posted my predicament on there, and a short while later, Sir James himself responded. He told me not to worry and that I was probably onto a ‘very good thing’. Some years back he had pulled one of his own teeth out while eating a crusty piece of Swiss bread. It had been impossible for him to play too, and as he was scheduled to go on tour, he had a dentist install a temporary bridge. He advised me to rebuild my embouchure in a different part of my lips, and if I worked diligently, I would probably end up sounding better than before. I took his advice and moved my embouchure. It felt weird at first, and it was quite uncomfortable, but I gave it a chance and with many hours in the company of three French gentlemen named Moyse, Taffanel, and Gaubert, I could play again, with a bigger sound and more projection power. I still have a copy of that email and will never forget Sir James’ support and kindness. <br />
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My bliss was short lived. Another abscess was right around the corner, this time in my lower jaw. A root canal would have fixed it, but this was a cheap emergency dentist. If you were an adult he would only do extractions. He estimated that to be completely pain free, I’d need several root canals, two bridges and an implant which would run me a whopping $35,000. I was both shocked and skeptical. I started to have serious thoughts about spending some time in Belgium (my official home country), where a dentist asking this sort of money would under normal circumstances be lynched. I was given a prescription for antibiotics and told to come back in a week. This time the drug did absolutely nothing at all. Whatever bug was causing this infection, it was resistant to Keflex.<br />
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I didn’t want to go back to this dentist yet again, because I frankly couldn’t stand his face anymore. Thinking back to the pneumonia incident, I started wondering about natural remedies again. Because of the smell, my wife forbade the use of any more garlic. I went online and researched herbs with natural antibiotic properties. Eventually, I stumbled upon oregano oil which supposedly is 18 times stronger than Vancomycin (the strongest antibiotic known to modern medicine). I found some at a store called Henry’s Market. As soon as I’d bought it, I pipetted a full squirt right on top of the offending molar, and instantly realized I should have read the instructions first. I had a flashback to that fateful ‘summer of sushi’ in New York in 1996, where what looked like guacamole, turned out to be wasabi…<br />
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When my eyes had stopped watering and my heart rate & breathing had returned to within serviceable parameters, I went back into the store for a bag of empty capsules. At the end of the day, the experience was no less effective than the garlic. As recommended online, I took 4 drops of oregano oil 4 times a day in a capsule. Within three days the abscess was gone, and I do mean gone. Dodging bullets was becoming the fashionable thing to do. These natural remedies were seriously effective, but I couldn’t help but think that perhaps there might be something to this whole ‘socialized health care’ debate after all… Several other teeth and molars had begun to hurt, and it had become virtually impossible for me to chew anything tougher than burgers and pasta. <br />
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In addition to physical ailments, my mental sanity was at that point put to the test as well. Enter a recurring theme in the domestic misery that was my life in Southern California, my mother-in-law… I had a very special ‘secret name’ for her, but for the sake of keeping this article suitable for more ‘choice-word-conscious’ readers, I will refer to her as ‘Major Stress Factor 1’. I endured the manic and sociopathic tendencies of ‘Major Stress Factor 1’ for a full seven years. She is one of those manipulators who will get your guard down before going in for the kill… She had my wits seriously weakened, and hammered it into my mind that I was basically this horrible loser of a person, who didn’t deserve her daughter, and who certainly didn’t deserve to be a parent. The problem with long term exposure to a career manipulator is that eventually you start believing the lies. She was a huge financial drain on us as well, always needing more money. It’s insane really, the magnitude of funding that got funneled into her little schemes and demands. And all that time, I was too weak to put my foot down and put a stop to it. Then, in early 2009 she tried to take something that really wasn’t hers to take and we ended up in court for the next several months. This was a horrifying, and at the same time a very ‘therapeutic’ experience as it allowed me to excise this stress factor from my life once and for all. It was one of those situations where the term ‘failure is not an option’ ceases to be a Hollywood catchphrase and becomes brutal reality. She had to be stopped. Enough was enough…<br />
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Even with the income from my two businesses, $300/hr. for an attorney was out of the question, so I had to act as my own. This is never recommended, but there was no time to think about that. I had to get the job done, the alternative being too depressing to consider. After many sleepless nights, endless research, and some brilliant assistance from the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, I found the paragraph that would ultimately sink her case like the Bismarck. What I read to the judge during the trial’s closing arguments, was the ‘plural unisex legal’ version of Molly Weasley’s words before she dispatched Bellatrix Lestrange in the final Harry Potter book. The judge actually grinned at me when I read it to him…this was the precise bit of textbook legalese he needed to rule in our favor. If in the future I get into another long term relationship, I might just ask my partner to provide me with a notarized certificate signed in triplicate by two independent psychiatrists verifying that her mother is not a sociopath, psychopath, multiple personality, or any other form of bug nuts bat shit crazy!!! Until you’ve experienced it first hand, it is impossible to understand the sort of damage a toxic ‘in-law’ (or partner) can inflict on your life.<br />
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The way I have traditionally coped with stress is by eating. Between our house and my music studio was a McDonalds, which in the USA is a dirt cheap place to eat, especially if you order from the ‘dollar menu’. At the time, that menu included the double cheeseburger, which was one of the few things I was still able to chew without being in too much pain. For my afternoon snack on my way to the music school I’d usually get a large fries, 4 double cheeseburgers, and a big cup of Coke. In between students I’d go to 7-11 to get a few hot dogs. After teaching it was back to McDonald’s for more double cheeseburgers. I conservatively estimate that during my last two years in California, I consumed around 1700 of these… Once home, there was more stress and therefore more eating. Food was only half the story however, as I still had to be able to unwind at night. <br />
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Enter several large gin & tonics, a bottle of wine, and several glasses of absinthe. Right before bed I had a swig of Pepto Bismol to control the heartburn… In the morning I resurrected myself with ludicrous amounts of coffee, flavored with equally ludicrous amounts of Coffee Mate. I was now 34, weighed 130kg, and had stage 1 hypertension. I was completely apathetic. I figured, ‘you know what, I’m fat and it doesn’t matter’. I had mentally gone on autopilot and into combat/survival mode. I was focused on the court case, and little else mattered. I was comfortable with my weight and I had accepted that I was fat. By this time, the US economy had started to unravel. My two music businesses were tanking and it was time to pull the plug. They had supported a family of four (plus parasitic relatives) for five years and it had been a good run. Three weeks after winning the trial, we packed up and moved to Belgium, where one of the first things I did, was go to the dentist…<br />
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He took x rays of my jaws, and concluded that there were a few root canals to be done, some holes to be patched, but that it was unlikely that I would lose too many more teeth. Over the course of a week, my left side was fixed. Some say much happiness lies in the ‘simple things’. One of my best ever memories is coming home from the dentist and being able to bite into an apple again! I ended up losing the molar that had the abscess. A specialist in Ostend did his best to save it, but it had a crack across two roots and became re-infected. I had it removed, along with a wisdom tooth that was also behaving badly. Teeth fixed, I still weighed 130 kilos and with my shoulder length hair, I looked like a pixie frog with a pony tail.<br />
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In April 2010, ‘Major Stress Factor 2’ stepped out of my daily life. It was painful for less than two weeks, and after that some interesting things started to happen. Firstly, seven years of chronic heartburn spontaneously disappeared. The medication I took for it went in the bin. Also, my desire for alcohol went away, completely. For the first time in years, I was able to fall asleep the ‘normal’ way, without needing booze to knock myself out. For the next year I stopped drinking completely, and to be honest, it wasn’t very difficult. I had just lost the taste for it. My mom encouraged me to start going outside after taking the kids to school, and go for walks. Breathing the crisp morning air was fantastic. I enjoyed these moments of peace so much that I began to walk multiple times a day. <br />
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When I was confident that my knees could take it, I began to jog. First short distances, then eight months later, I was averaging 30k a week. I was losing weight, and dropping pant sizes. I went from a size 38 down to a 32 and had to buy a shorter belt. Having to go into the store to buy smaller clothes was fun! Curious to see where I was at, I hopped on the scale. When I did, it was quite a shock, and my first thought was that these numbers couldn’t possibly be right. But surreal as it seemed, it wasn’t a lie. The scale read 93kg! In just under a year I had lost 37 kilos (82 pounds). Encouraged, I joined the local gym to tone up my muscles. I was determined to take this all the way and to have that coveted six-pack of abs. This went well in the beginning, but it didn’t last long. I was finally starting to feel those abs under the last bit of remaining belly flab when disaster struck. <br />
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One early morning in June of 2011, I was sitting on my son’s bed, putting on a sock when this electrical jolt shot down my right leg. This was immediately followed by the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. My L5-S1 intervertebral disc had ruptured, and its contents were now wrapped around my sciatic nerve. All those years of being fat had taken its toll on my back. It’s difficult to describe the pain, other than that it was so intense that it was impossible to think of anything else. My mind was completely focused it, and in the most perverted sense of Zen, it was oddly meditative… I was taken to the AZ Damiaan Hospital in Ostend by ambulance to see to their neurosurgeon. Awaiting further tests, they gave me an epidural injection with an anesthetic which sort of took the edge off the pain, but nothing more. I then got a strong narcotic injected into my right butt cheek. Again, it helped take the edge off, but that was about it… <br />
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The annoying thing about nerve pain is that other than surgically removing the source, there really isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. An MRI scan was done to map out the damage, and I was scheduled for surgery. In the meantime, I met some interesting fellow patients in the Neurosurgery ward. One gentleman was being rebuilt after the electrical platform he was working on got hit by a city train, plunging him 20ft down into traffic below. Another chap was there to have a blood clot removed from his brain after being struck on the head by a crane cabin. I’m telling you, socks should come with safety instructions… <br />
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Surgery itself was (from my perspective at least) quick and painless. In the operating room, a nurse came with three syringes that were hooked up to my IV line. Two smaller ones containing clear liquids (one of which was the paralytic, curare), and a large one that contained the thick white propofol which two years earlier had helped Michael Jackson ‘cross over’ to the spirit World. When I woke up from surgery, the pain was completely gone. Unfortunately, so was about half of the feeling in my right leg… The surgeon told me that the disc fragment had been jammed so tightly against the nerve, that it was bright purple from bruising. This was not a good sign, and it could take a year until it was clear how much of this damage was going to be permanent. <br />
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The following day I practiced walking for the first time with the hospital physical therapist, and I nearly fell on my ass. I had virtually no power in my leg, especially in the calf. I had to lock my knee to balance myself. This was another panic moment. Back in high school, I had gotten involved with mountaineering and eventually did some climbing in the Himalayas. As my health was returning, I’d started hatching plans. Perhaps in a year or two, with intense training (and winning the lottery perhaps to fund these plans) I might be able to drag my previously fat posterior up Cho Oyu or Broad Peak. In my current state though, it looked like that would very likely be a pipe dream. Even basic walking was a struggle now, and climbing seemed as elusive now as flute playing was right after that first dental abscess. But I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel quite yet. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body, and on a positive note, it was clear that my brain was once again capable of generating eccentric thoughts. My sense of ‘self’ was starting to come back.<br />
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I was prescribed physical therapy and ordered to strictly avoid anything even remotely resembling a gym or a piece of exercise equipment. That was the worst part for me. I was getting used to being active again, and the thought of taking it easy for several months was sheer torture. For climbing (and in the more immediate future, learning to walk again), I realized the key to my recovery would be regaining full use of my calf muscle. I figured that if there were some viable nerves & muscles left, I could work on strengthening those to compensate for the ones that had joined the Belgian railroad Union. Every time I walked up the stairs I did it slowly, and with every step of my right foot, I would put it on the tippy toe, and then slowly put weight on it until my foot was flat. At first it just seemed silly. But I stuck to the routine, and slowly strength started building up. It was nothing compared to my normal leg, but it was a start. <br />
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I began talking to one of my physical therapists about my climbing aspirations, as well as the fact that I had serious cabin fever. I had not done any form of exercise in three months, and I had re-gained about 20 pounds. Because of the stress it places on the lower spine, I was not allowed to go jogging anymore (ever) and he suggested stair climbing as an alternative. Lucky for me, my current home town of Diksmuide is home to a peace monument & museum called the Ijzertoren. It is an 84m (275ft) high tower and has stairs all the way to the top. I drove over right after my session ended and explained my situation. This being Belgium, they don’t generally make a big stink about ‘insurance issues’, and they gave me full use of the tower facilities during opening hours. I was still in sports attire, so I gave it a go right there and then. It took me 9 ½ minutes to get to the top, and about that much to get back down. I felt pretty good so I went up and down 2 more times before calling it a day.<br />
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I really liked it and started going multiple times a week. I would drop my kids off at summer camp & then go climb ‘The Tower’. On August 22nd I decided to give myself a birthday present in the form of an endurance test (yes I’m odd at times, but it really felt like a ‘gift’ to be able to do this). I brought a small backpack and several liters of drinking water. Over the course of 3hrs, 55min I went up and down the tower 12 times. Total vertical height gained was 1008m. Afterward I put on a dry t-shirt, went to a restaurant and ordered spaghetti Bolognese. I figured I had earned it. All this exercise meant that the weight was once again coming off, and my leg (as hoped) was gaining strength. <br />
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Fast forward another four months to the present time. I can stand on the toes of my right foot again. Some areas are still completely numb, but overall strength is about 95% of what it is in my ‘normal’ leg and I can live with that. My ‘op-site’ has healed and I’ve been back in the gym doing mild to moderate weight training. I was at ‘The Tower’ a week and a half ago and went up & down 8 times in 1hr, 47 min. This stair climbing feels like an obsession, but it’s a relatively healthy one and damned good preparation for climbing. They’ve offered to let me try and climb a full 8 hour day as another endurance test. What would really be neat would be to do a 17 hour ‘marathon’ climb. 17 hours is the average roundtrip time from the South Col of Mt Everest to the summit and back. I wouldn’t get the effect of the altitude, but again, it’s a start, as well as completely & utterly barking mad, which for me is half the fun. I’m unlikely to ever forget the support from the staff at the Ijzertoren either.<br />
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So is this the end of my struggles? I seriously doubt it. I’m due for another MRI in March to look at a disc in my neck which is in danger of the same thing happening. Part of my routine in the gym is strengthening my neck muscles to support it. It needs to be perfectly stable before my neurosurgeon will sign off on me for a return to Himalayan climbing. I found out it’s possible to safely climb again after a hernia. Through Facebook I contacted former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski, who summited Everest after having recovered from the exact same injury that I had. His advice was ‘spin classes’ and loads of them… <br />
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If in March the disc turns out to be toast, it means more surgery and at least another six month setback. But to be honest, it really isn’t that big of a deal. Absolutely everyone is at some point in their life exposed to hardship, whether it be financial struggles, tormentors, accidents, illnesses, or death of friends and relatives. I’ve come to the conclusion that happiness and inner peace are not determined by how much, or how little of it you endure, but by how you eventually make the decision to focus, keep going, and are able to get through these experiences with your sense of humor still intact.badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-43209155076811448602011-11-25T10:29:00.000-08:002018-12-10T04:41:27.103-08:00TCK Employment Part 2.) ‘Destiny in Space’.When I graduated college the first time in 1996, the World was in the middle of a serious shift in employment outlook. Across all industries, people were losing their jobs, good jobs. Companies were entering wave after wave of downsizing, and managers got laid off after 20, or 30 years with their companies. From a purely corporate perspective it made sense of course. Why keep expensive executives around if they could be made redundant or their skills outsourced? From a human point though, it was pretty shitty. It became obvious that this trend was here to stay, and would probably get much worse. I didn’t see a long-term corporate career track as a viable future, and I made up my mind that in the long run, I would be self-employed. Working for someone else had lost its appeal. However, there were to be some distractions along the way. The first of these distractions came in the form of an event that had taken place back in 1992. I was still in high school then, and didn’t become aware of it until I read about it during my last year of college. The event in question was STS-45. <br />
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On March 24, 1992 at 8:13 am, space shuttle Atlantis departed the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on mission STS-45, carrying the first Belgian astronaut, Dirk Frimout. I found out about this over Christmas in Singapore in 1995. A friend of the family gave me a signed copy of Frimout’s book ‘In Search of the Blue Planet’ (original title: ‘Op Zoek Naar De Blauwe Planeet’), which he co-wrote with journalist Suzy Hendrickx. This book came at the right moment in time. Academically things were going really well for me, and I was having a blast building flight time. The first module of the International Space Station ISS was under construction, and John Glenn was contemplating going for another ride up. And now a Belgian had earned his astronaut wings. Could this possibly be something I could do? After all, what boy hasn’t dreamt of being an astronaut? <br />
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I wrote to NASA asking for an application, and for information on what the selection requirements were. It came in the mail about three weeks later, and I have to say getting anything in the mail with NASA written on it is pretty exciting. They were looking for two types of astronauts: Pilots, and Mission Specialists. Pilot Astronaut was what I wanted to go for, but here was a little problem. They were looking for people with at least 1000 hours of Pilot In Command time on jet aircraft. I was nearing 200 hours, a lot of it with an instructor in command, and on aircraft with a piston engine and a propeller instead of an afterburner. Most of the Shuttle pilots had come from the Air Force and Navy, flying jet fighters. How could I get around this issue? Being somewhat eccentric, I asked myself the following question: How much would a small jet cost to buy and fly it 1000 hours, and how would this compare to the cost of getting all my ratings as an airline pilot (my Plan B)?. Total cost of training at OATS in Oxford, including a Boeing 737 type rating was around US$120,000. So that would have to be my hypothetical budget. I bought the latest copy of Trade-A-Plane to see what was available. I was in need of a ‘Budget Jet Fighter’…<br />
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I went to the Warbird-Jet category, and to my delight several potentially suitable aircraft were for sale. The first thing I saw was a picture of a stunning F-100 Super Sabre. A fabulous machine, but the owner was asking $650,000 which was way over budget. Next was a Lockheed T-33 trainer. Docile handling with freshly serviced ejection seats, but at $230,000 still too expensive. A Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker! Alas, the owners wanted $1Million… The first aircraft I actually made a phone call about was a French built Fouga Magister, priced at $85,000. It was based in California. However, the first thing the rep asked was how much flight time I had. When I gave him the honest answer he remained polite, but informed me that they wouldn’t sell a jet to anyone with less than 500 hours of flight time. Next on the list was a former Singapore Armed Forces Hawker Hunter, $35,000. For this one, I had to make a call to Australia. Again, one of the first things the broker asked me was how much flight experience I had. He didn’t outright refuse to sell, but he strongly recommended against it, the Hunter being a very complex aircraft to fly. Annoying as this was for a hotshot private pilot to hear, it should be noted that these were some very honest sellers. They were genuinely concerned with the safety of anyone that might be flying their merchandise, and those watching it fly from the ground.<br />
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So far the non-dodgy stuff. Next on the list, a MiG-21 UM, $18,000 with spare engine, located in Ontario, Canada. This was starting to sound more promising. The UM was a two-seater, meaning I could theoretically take people for rides. I called up the broker, a friendly chap who was originally from the Czech Republic. It turns out he was also the broker for the million dollar Flanker. He promised to fax me a spec sheet with shipping costs later that afternoon, and so he did. The pictures and schematic of the MiG looked awesome. The numbers however, were a bit worrisome.<br />
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The first thing that struck me was the fuel capacity, which with drop tanks was over 1100 gallons. Jet fuel at the local airport cost $1,40/gallon, which meant that filling her up would cost over $1500... The top speed of Mach 2.05 was a bit daunting as well. The Never Exceed speed on the Cessna 152 I flew was 149 knots, above which any control inputs could tear the wings off. Getting up to cruise speed in the MiG would require a gas-guzzling full afterburner takeoff, reducing my range to a miserable few hundred miles. And that was just the fuel… I also needed to factor in maintenance. A licensed Aircraft mechanic cost $85/hr. This particular plane required more than 24 hours of maintenance for every hour flown. On top of that, all maintenance manuals were probably in Russian. In the end, by my calculations (fuel, maintenance, machine gun permits, taxes, and insurance!) the total cost per flight hour came to over $5000 which would mean one hell of an expensive Big Mac! (See: ‘Why McDonald’s Deserves a Michelin Star’). Also, going supersonic in US airspace requires a nearly impossible to get FAA permit. The Budget Jet Fighter was a bit farfetched, and in hindsight reminds me of an episode of Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson famously said: ‘Yes, you can buy a supercar for under £10,000, but for the love of God, don’t!’ <br />
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Not being interested in an expensive lawn ornament, the idea of Mission Specialist Astronaut became a lot more appealing. I went straight to the source, and contacted some current and past Mission Specialists to ask about their work experience. I corresponded with Astronaut Janice Voss, who offered some good advice. I also met former Astronaut Kathy Sullivan the following summer at Denison, when she gave a lecture to kids at a camp. She flew with Dirk Frimout on STS-45 and I was super excited to meet her. Just for fun, I made an attempt at contacting some of the original Mercury 7 - the pioneers. My strongest lead was for Gordon Cooper, pilot of Mercury-Atlas 9 in 1963, and Gemini 5 (along with Pete Conrad) in 1965. He is still one of my biggest all-time heroes. Browsing through Who’s Who in America, I found out he was the president of Galaxy Group, a company in Van Nuys, California. The company’s address and phone number were listed. One late afternoon, I picked up my dorm room phone and dialed the number. Expecting a secretary to pick up, I was surprised to hear a male voice with an Oklahoma drawl answer with: “Afternoon, Galaxy…”. I explained that I was interested in becoming an astronaut and was curious about Mr. Cooper’s experiences. There was a pause on the other end, and then the words: “Well, this is Gordon Cooper you’re speaking to right now. What do you want to know?”. For a moment I was speechless, and this is without a shred of doubt the most nervous I have ever been on the phone with anyone. It was a very enjoyable chat, and I’ll forever be thankful for having the opportunity to have a conversation with him. <br />
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Meeting the requirements for selection as a Mission Specialist was going to be a lengthy undertaking, as it pretty much required a PhD in science or engineering. This was my motivation for re-enrolling at Denison for another degree. By then, Denison’s undergraduate Physics and Astronomy department had established itself as one of the best in the country, and I felt I was in good hands. I continued my flying on the weekends, and it certainly took on the flavors of the moment. The flight school in Newark had just obtained use of a gorgeous blue Piper Cherokee 180 which became my new toy (I very nearly crashed it a year later, one gloomy winter night over Ft Wayne, Indiana. See: "Adventures in Flying Part 2 - Out Of Fuel"). One aspect of astronaut training which had always fascinated me, were the zero gravity flights. Until 2004, NASA trained astronauts on a KC-135 Stratotanker. When flown in a parabolic flight path, it provided up to 25 seconds of weightlessness for those aboard. The plane was affectionately known as the Vomit Comet. I was eager to try this out for myself, and had my instructor demonstrate the maneuver in the Piper, which then became known as the Vomit Comet Junior. The procedure that seemed to work the best, was to start at a safe altitude and go into a moderate dive. As you accelerate to 110 knots, you pull back on the controls and climb steeply until the airspeed bleeds off to about 75, which is when you push the nose down. If you time it right, you can get around 3-4 seconds where everything in the cockpit that wasn’t tied down will be floating around you. I took several of my friends up in the Piper, and only one (a German exchange student) lost her lunch, luckily after we were back on the tarmac. The most memorable of these flights was when I took my friend Jason up. Jason was a huge Trekkie and had a large model of the Star Trek Voyager on his desk. He was very eager to see it float in midair... This was seen to and we both had a mile wide grin on our faces during the drive back to campus.<br />
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As we all know, I never did make it into space. Physics is a subject which fascinated me, but my math skills were just not good enough to do it at this level. I switched over to geology, which for me was a lot more user-friendly. With a professor I was able to do some research on the Neptune-Triton system which was intense, but enjoyable. By the time graduation came, I had lost my drive and was burnt out. The trend in science was that my doctoral thesis would involve roughly 100,000 words about some minuscule aspect of an even tinier detail in my field of study. Big Picture research was gone. Even though I enjoy reading an occasional peer-reviewed article in Nature or Icarus, as a general rule I find National Geographic and Harry Potter to be far more gratifying.<br />
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One thing is for sure though. I will never have that lingering guilt swimming around in the back of my mind asking: “Could I have done this?” Because I gave it all I had, and the honest answer is no, probably not. And I am ok with that. My life philosophy is that when a good opportunity presents itself, you should go for it and try. Chances are brutally good that it won’t work out, but what you get out of the experience teaches you a lot about life and about yourself. For me, the most important lesson has been to not be afraid to fail. That’s where you find out what your strengths and your limits are, and where your ego gets in line with your abilities. Another lesson is that after a failure, you get up off your ass, figure out what to do next, and try again and again until eventually you do succeed. Where this process will ultimately lead me I don’t know, but it certainly has a habit of leaving me with an inexhaustible supply of great stories.badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-47302790365808485842011-11-01T15:39:00.000-07:002015-01-28T00:53:00.627-08:00TCK Employment Part 1.) 'Let’s Get Another Degree'.I was reading an article on tckworld.com* the other week. It was written by the late Dr. Ruth Hill Useem, whose research led to the term ‘Third Culture Kid’. The article was the result of a study of adult TCKs and how their experiences abroad shaped their adult lives. It was, to say the least a rather revealing article! The third part dealt with the phenomenon of ‘Prolonged Adolescence’, and (like it or not), it described my experience with a scary degree of accuracy. Two things really popped out. Firstly, it turns out over 80% of us go on to get Bachelor’s degrees. Secondly, it can take us an utterly ridiculous amount of time to make up our minds about what we want to do with our lives, when it comes to work and careers. Take me for example. I’m 37 and still not exactly sure what I’m doing…<br />
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In case you are new to this blog, let me back up a little. My name is Wout Wynants, and I am a Third Culture Kid. This means that I spent most of my youth in foreign countries, blending my home culture with foreign cultures to form a type of ‘third’ culture. We are also known as ‘Global Nomads’. I was born in Belgium, lived in the Netherlands until I was 12, moved to Singapore at 13, and the USA at 18. This is where I lived continuously (except for my ‘Nokia year’ when I lived in the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK) until moving back to Belgium two years ago… you get my point ;-). I’m writing a book about my adventures growing up in South East Asia. I started blogging as a way to keep motivated, and to elaborate on my more recent experiences as a Belgian who is living in his ‘passport’ country for the first time!<br />
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I first started thinking about the concept of ‘work’ when I was in high school. I was getting reports from friends back home, who in fits of amazing teenage responsibility were getting their first summer jobs. It sounded like fun, earning your own money and getting to buy things with it. Hearing them talk about it, I started to feel slightly inferior. I was after all, still relying on my parents for an allowance. Why couldn’t I get a job over the summer? The answer was very simple: There was a law against it. When you live in a foreign country (this was in the early 90s and rules may have changed since then), and your parents are under a contract it is rare that your host country will allow dependents to work, and Singapore was no exception. Not even my mom could work if she wanted to, and this is a frustration still shared by many expat spouses. The advice I got across the board, was to focus on my studies. There’d be plenty of time for work when I got older…<br />
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So over the summers, I filled my time with reading and hanging out with other expat kids. I also volunteered at the reptile house of the Singapore Zoo, which is probably THE coolest thing I have ever done in my life, period. I didn’t watch a whole lot of TV as Singapore in the early 1990s only had two television channels that were in English. The few shows that were relatively bearable were on in the evening. After watching yet another episode of Who’s the Boss, and seeing Macho Man Randy Savage (rest his soul) get bit by a king cobra for the tenth time, I’d inevitably pick up a biology or chemistry book, or do something else that was educational. During weekends it was much of the same. Perhaps this helps explain why so many of us go on to get Bachelor’s degrees… We’re not necessarily smarter than any other demographic group (not by a long shot), but for lack of something better to do, we sure got used to doing a lot of studying. It is what we do best.<br />
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After graduating high school, I moved to the USA, where my ‘F1’ Student visa allowed me a certain amount of paid work on campus. For the first year however, it was still a no-go. Virtually all of the on-campus jobs were (and quite rightfully so, I should add) reserved for students who were on a work-study program. They needed the work to help pay for their education. I’ll be the first one to admit I’ve had a supremely privileged upbringing, and have no right to complain. Still, there were practical matters to consider. At some point, I would have to learn to make my own money.<br />
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The opportunity finally came over summer break, when I got my first ever part-time job, taking care of a professor’s lab rats in the psychology department. This involved feeding and general husbandry, but mostly cleaning up vast amounts of poop, extra poop, and then yet more poop. But it was good fun (reminiscent of volunteering at the zoo) and the hours were very flexible. Extra fun was to be had cleaning the cages, which was done using a walk-in dishwasher that looked like it came straight out of Back to the Future. It didn’t matter when during the day it got done, as long as it got done. I was issued my own key to the building for after-hours access. I loved that flexibility. <br />
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During my junior year, after getting top grades in a photography course, I was invited to become a lab teaching assistant. This was one of the few jobs I could do as a non-financial-aid student because professors usually picked their assistants purely on merit. This was, as far as working for somebody else goes, the most enjoyable job I have ever had. Mr. Yong, the photography professor, was a transplanted Malaysian and I got along with him very well. <br />
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It was 1995, and rather than mouse clicks and megapixels, photography still involved working with nasty chemicals. And my name wouldn’t be Wout Wynants, if I didn't cause the occasional ‘minor mishap’. One evening when I was tired and not paying attention, I accidentally slipped a photograph straight from the ‘stop bath’ into selenium toner without rinsing it in water first. Mixing these two goodies produces extremely toxic hydrogen selenide gas. Fortunately, the ‘adrenaline fix’ that followed when I realized my mistake meant I was able to open all the doors and windows before the coroner would have been needed. It was great fun working with beginning photography students on their printing techniques. I did this work for the rest of my time as a student during my ‘first’ degree. <br />
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In May of 1996 graduation time came. I had earned a Bachelor’s degree in music by way of the Liberal Arts, and was supposed to be ready for the big wide World that lay beyond the campus of my ‘Alma Mater’. That was the theory at least. Academically, my last year was intense. We did a big concert with trumpet player Marvin Stamm, improvised in front of Wynton Marsalis (just a tiny bit of pressure there!), and to top it off, my mentor and saxophone teacher Al Goelz died of heart failure that past Christmas. I was completely burnt out on music, and in any case did not think my saxophone playing was good enough to be making a living with it. I had work experience as a rat poop scooper (not much opportunity for career advancement), and as a photo-lab assistant (which qualified me to be a starving artist). The hard reality was, that even with a degree in hand, I was now qualified for little more than an entry level position in the fast food industry. So I re-enrolled at Denison, and pursued another degree, this time in physics. It will be the subject of next week’s article:<br />
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TCKs and Employment Part 2.) ‘Destiny in Space’.<br />
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(*Article referred to: http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art1.html)badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-66634605021510221472011-10-16T15:01:00.001-07:002012-04-20T01:43:34.014-07:00TCK Food Cravings Part 1: ‘Why McDonalds Deserves a Michelin Star’Lately, I’ve started to think McDonald’s deserves a Michelin star. Now before you think I’ve gone bonkers, let me explain my reasoning. Anyone who has ever had a McDonald’s burger knows that there’s better out there, and even Ray Croc, when addressing business students, famously said that most people can make a better burger than McDonalds. Gordon Ramsay would undoubtedly describe it as reconstituted donkey vomit, and its infamous ‘Dollar Menu’ strongly contributed to my weight ballooning up to 265lbs during my hyper-stressful final year in the United States.<br />
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As a once rather frequent customer of the ‘golden arches’, I have ingested Big Macs in 11 countries on 3 continents. And after a while I started to notice something. Whether you eat a Big Mac in Eindhoven, New York City, San Diego, Singapore, Newcastle, Amsterdam, or Atlanta, the damn thing always, always! tastes exactly the same. One way in which ‘Micky D’s’ qualifies for a Michelin star, is its almost superhuman level of consistency.<br />
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Earlier this year, I started reading about the special relationship that Third Culture Kids have with fast food. It’s something that we, as a group tend to gravitate toward, and when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. A really long time ago, a famous Greek chap called Heraclitus said: ‘Change is the only constant’. When living abroad, this also holds true. It just happens to occur at a much accelerated pace. Friends in your International school leave as their parents get new assignments. Teachers come and go. Eventually it’s your own time to move on to new cultures and places. Changes, changes, and more changes. In order to find some semblance of stability and things you were used to in your previous country, you tend to go looking for common denominators. The consistency of fast food provides a good one.<br />
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Having said that, I have to mention that not all fast food is as consistent as McDonalds... In 1991, during my second visit to India, we had an overnight stop in Delhi. One ‘bright spark’ had mentioned there was a ‘Wimpy Bar’ close to the hotel. The next time I find myself hungry in Delhi, I’m going to stick to butter chicken and other local curries, because that Wimpy meal gave me the second biggest case of the runs in my life. (Incidentally, the first biggest case of the runs in my life, to which I’m devoting a chapter in my book, was the infamous ‘Dhunche apple pie incident’, which happened the following year. It resulted in a helicopter evacuation from Yala Peak base camp, and my inability to tolerate vinegar for the next eighteen years). When in exotic places, if in doubt, stick to local food from reputable sources, which is much tastier and far less likely to kill you!<br />
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Having found your ‘common denominator’, sometimes you get desperate for a Big Mac. Very desperate indeed… After finishing up my IB at UWCSEA in 1993, I moved to central Ohio to start college. Along with continuing my education, another lifelong dream was fulfilled. I learned to fly, and got my pilot’s license in 1995. Two years later I also got my driver’s license. I was considering becoming an airline pilot at the time, and eager to build ‘hours’, just about anything became a valid excuse to go flying. This included a good burger. My instructor had mentioned to me that there was a McDonald’s across the road from the executive ramp at Columbus International Airport. One late afternoon when I was studying with my friend Jim (not his real name) who was also a pilot, we got hungry. ‘Do you want to fly to McDonald’s?’ It was a 20 minute flight to Port Columbus, during which we enjoyed a fabulous airborne sunset. After landing, we taxied past several Boeing jets, cast in a copper red evening glow, as they were lining up for departure. It was after nightfall when we took off back to Newark. It was one of those ‘perfect’ moments of eccentricity where you have to look back in complete wonder and gratitude to all the truly amazing things life has granted you so far. I will never forget that evening. The Big Mac tasted extra special that night, with the added aroma of freshly burnt jet fuel. We ended up doing this two or three more times before we graduated. We took various friends along for the ride, both for their pleasant company and to help split the fuel cost!<br />
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Every time I eat at McDonald’s now, I think back to those amazing nights. And that’s where my other reasoning for that Michelin star comes in. According to the Michelin guide, (as quoted from Wikipedia) a restaurant with three stars offers: ‘exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey’. The cuisine may not be terribly exceptional, but throughout my years as a Third Culture Kid, the journeys in getting there have, with few exceptions, been very special indeed.badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-19862184802167762302011-10-02T12:59:00.000-07:002011-10-02T12:59:48.911-07:00Social Networking, and Why Mark Zuckerberg is Not a Supervillain.People complain about the ‘evils’ of social networking all the time. Not a week goes by where some television reporter talks about yet another way in which Facebook is invading your privacy, and why nobody needs to know about the fact that you’re eating 100 year old eggs, that your kid puked into your fish tank, or that your dinner tasted off, and you are heading to bed.<br />
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Twenty years ago, you had to be a super geek to have access to a primitive form of what we now know as email. If mere mortals wanted to communicate with people, you had two options. Write a letter, mail it, and wait a few years until you got a reply, or you picked up the phone and waited for your astronomical phone bill to arrive in the mail.<br />
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As a global nomad, one of the few certainties in life is saying goodbye to people, often for a very, very, long time, and possibly forever. People’s lives change. They move onto other things, other countries, marry and have kids. Some fade into oblivion, others become famous. Occasionally, someone ends up in jail.<br />
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Finding old friends became practical in the mid-1990s. You could do an Alta Vista search (the Google Guys were still getting their PhDs), and occasionally you’d have success. Along came ‘chat platforms’, which really shrank the Earth and made real-time ‘chatting’ from Granville, Ohio with your colleagues on Antarctica a reality. It was some time in 2007 when I started hearing the name ‘Facebook’ mentioned. I created my account in 2008 if my memory serves me right, and it pretty much took off from there.<br />
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At the time of writing, I have 464 Facebook friends and counting. Some people like to nag about that, and say that it’s a waste of time, and things like: ‘you only need about one or two good friends in your life’, and having online friends takes away from the face-to-face experience, and how much time I must be wasting keeping in touch with all these ‘friends’ of mine. Whoa! Time out here people! And before you ask, yes I do consider all of them friends to varying degrees. The vast majority, I have met in person. Those who I yet have to have a cup of coffee with are mostly friends of relatives, or ‘friends of friends’. Using this networking, I’ve gotten to know some truly astonishingly interesting people.<br />
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One of the first things I do in the morning when de-zombifying over a cup of coffee, is read over the previous night’s Facebook updates. Reading people’s updates is like reading the morning paper, with the big exception that every single ‘article’ is about people that you’re actually interested in. And since I have friends in virtually every time zone, my feed is getting updated 24/7. Even if it’s as simple as ‘I just bought such & such’, ‘twisted my ankle :- (’, or ‘is having coffee’, I enjoy reading it.<br />
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Some people find this stupid, but for the instant that I read that little update, I think of that person, and more often than not, some little memory of that person comes flooding back, and therein really lies the magic. These people are hundreds, or even thousands of miles away, and you don’t know when, if ever you’ll see them again, but in that instant, for those brief moments, they are a part of your life again. And I think that’s pretty damned cool. <br />
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One of the more intriguing aspects of my Facebook experience has been coming across people I didn’t get on with so well in school. The bullies and other dodgy characters that used to make my school life hell from time to time, also entered the information age... Out of curiosity I started ‘adding’ some of them. This is where it gets interesting. In many cases, individuals that were less than nice, have ended up becoming some pretty cool people. It is an eye opener to the fact that people do change, and everyone has their individual life path to lead. They had their own challenges and insecurities to deal with, and it led to growth.<br />
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I recently got back in touch with a girl (you know who you are) from high school, who was and still is one of my best friends, even though the last time I saw her in person was at graduation in 1993. We’re both rather eccentric individuals with a wide range of interests. We both volunteered in the Singapore Zoo on Sundays. Her passion was the big cats, and I was a reptile man through and through. About a week ago I had a long chat with her, and we discussed this teasing issue. Being yourself can come at a heavy price during those image-conscious high school days. As it turns out she ended up coming to the same conclusions, and her ‘friends’ list contains some former tormentors. <br />
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This is a fine example of how social networking breaks down barriers. Twenty years ago we would have been left with grudges and bad memories. Now, we can strip away layer after layer of assumptions and wrong conclusions. For me it has really helped letting go of issues from the past. You process the past, cherish the good experiences, work through the BS, and move forward.<br />
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People can complain about you and your company Mr. Zuckerberg. Or they can moan about other social networking sites like MySpace, Google +, and Twitter, but I will always appreciate what you and your peers have done and continue to do. Even if Facebook decides to start charging a nominal fee in the future, you’ll still be cool with me and I will gladly pay it. Thanks to you and your colleagues, I am able to reconnect with long lost friends and strengthen those bonds further. And that, to me is priceless.badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-91036401923683522542011-09-24T15:48:00.000-07:002011-09-24T15:48:21.105-07:00Too Bad Peanut Butter, and Dodging Mad Cyclists in AmsterdamFriday last week, I drove up and down to Amsterdam with my sister, to help her move her stuff to our parents’. She is moving to Helsinki, Finland next month after 13 years in Amsterdam. To be totally honest, I merely provided transportation and she’s the one that did all the carrying. Other than simply being a lazy sod, I had a hernia repaired in my back a few months ago, and have pinky-sworn to my physical therapist that until she gives me the green light, the heaviest object I shall be lugging around is my laptop.<br />
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I left Belgium at 5:30 in the morning, armed with my new Tomtom GPS, and several cans of Red Bull in an effort to make the most of my day, hoping to beat the infamous traffic at the Kennedy Tunnel in Antwerp. I was looking forward to driving in Holland. I often complain about the homicidal driving habits of fat Belgians in Mercedes-Benzes and other German ‘prestige-metal’, and was looking for a repeat of the downright pleasant and polite Dutch driving I encountered around Eindhoven this past July. As it turns out though, Amsterdam is not Eindhoven... <br />
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I encountered my first ‘Amsterdammer’ on the freeway, as he was making a valiant attempt at driving his blue Audi up my rear. He then (predictably) started blinking his high-beams at me, which is Audi-ish for: ‘move over you silly slow person’. My first thought was that he must be Belgian… But the yellow and black license plate that was tickling the hairs on my bum was most certainly Dutch. Then I spotted the driver, and had thoughts similar to those of Arthur Dent as he first spotted the Vogon Constructor Fleet. He… or rather ‘it’ had a filthy gray beard that would have given Roald Dahl’s ‘Mr. Twit’ a run for his money. In fact, I may have briefly spotted fragments of old cheese in his moustache and, quite possibly, the putrid skeleton of a long-deceased sardine swimming in his nose hairs. Then I noticed the maniacal blue eyes and did the sensible thing to do. I cut in front of the 20 ton lorry I had been attempting to overtake, let ‘Mr. Twit’ through, and drank another can of Red Bull.<br />
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Here is where I have to give thanks to the wits of my new best friend forever, Mr. Tomtom, also a Dutchman. The device is simply astonishingly accurate and incredibly easy to read. I like the fact that all the telemetry readouts are very similar to those you find on the seat-back entertainment system on commercial airplanes. The only thing that could make the navigation in my car any sexier would be to install a Garmin 1000 unit on my dashboard with a HUD just for fun, but then the wise words of a former girlfriend pop into my head: “It’s a car! Wout, not an airplane!!”. Sigh…<br />
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After observing a Boeing 767 crossing the freeway bridge, dodging countless blind cyclists, and driving with half the car on the raised tram tracks because a van was parked on the road (which, my sister assures me is perfectly normal in Amsterdam), we reached the center more or less in one piece. At this point in time, the title of Bill Cosby’s famous book for graduates entered my mind: “Congratulations! Now what?”. We were in the less than envious position of needing a place to park. The Dutch phrase ‘helaas pindakaas’, which roughly translates into ‘too bad, peanut butter’, also entered my mind. No wonder there’s so many bicycles in this city!<br />
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Eventually we did manage to find a spot along the posh Herengracht, which used to be a bustling center for banking, back in the days of horse drawn carriages. Now, the buildings are mostly vacant, and that’s hardly surprising. At 5 Euros an hour, not even the bankers could afford to park here! I was told it is theoretically possible to get a ‘proper’ parking permit for central Amsterdam, but the waiting period’s a whopping 7 years…<br />
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Amsterdam is a fantastic place for a day on the town, especially as a global nomad. I had my first Starbucks Macchiato since leaving California and my first BK double cheeseburger with twisty fries in…well, a very long time. For the resident expats there’s the amazing Eichholtz Deli, who stock anything from Vegemite to Jolly Ranchers. To give an idea of exactly how amazing these guys are, they can actually do the impossible. They carry the holy grail of candy bars. The empress of sugary confections, which has delighted the palate of anyone (without a coconut allergy) who has ever visited Australia properly, the mighty Cherry Ripe! A secret like this however, doesn’t stay hidden for long among those initiated. It so happened that earlier that day, the manager of a certain ‘Mrs. Kidman’, in transit to New York, had come in and bought the lot… <br />
Too bad, peanut butter!badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-761705997544955060.post-42802969657281249002011-09-21T08:00:00.000-07:002011-09-21T08:00:04.476-07:00On the blog again!Blimey, I have seriously neglected this blog! My one and only post was back in October of 2009, and very little of that posting is still relevant. The what, how, and why is too complicated to describe in a blog post. It is however a damned good story, and I might one of these days write a book about it.<br />
In a nutshell, I have been living in Belgium for nearly two years now, after living on and off in the USA for the previous 16 years. My profession is still, officially a classical flute player. The practical reality however is, that I'm still on the prowl for meaningful work... <br />
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A few months ago I started writing down my thoughts, as I was looking back on my youth spent in South East Asia, and started reliving adventures with poisonous snakes, Himalayan mountains, strange foods, and tropical sunsets. It made me realize pretty quickly that all in all, I've been having a pretty amazing life. There have been some epic ups and downs, but it's rarely been boring. <br />
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I came to the conclusion that these adventures in 'book' form would make a good read, and provide a look at how a Third Culture Kid adapted to life in the tropics, and had a bloody fantastic time in the process. <br />
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For the next year or so, I'm going to be blogging about life as an adult TCK, the process of finding a literary agent, and hopefully getting the thing published. The last thing I published was an adaptation of a book of flute exercises for saxophone, and was a such complete commercial disaster that I don't think total revenues were sufficient to even cover the price of an ISBN number... <br />
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Better luck this time around!badaboehmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02432604310574939199noreply@blogger.com3