Holding Pattern

I'm still in a holding pattern, waiting on a VISA.  Got my medical done for another year, fit as a fiddle claims my doctor, but exact same weight/blood pressure/eyesight/etc. four years running, he's getting nervous Transport Canada will question if he's actually checking anything.  I didn't tell him how hard I worked at getting my weight back to last year's!  Resting pulse now 55, so the biking has been doing me good.  Plus I got my dunker and dangerous goods and yearly 139 and Puma training signed off, I just need to get flying!  I believe it's the longest stretch in over 30 years that I haven't flown a helicopter.

So with little to write about, I thought I'd share my collection of quotes.  I find them from time to time in books and online and write them into a note, I'm not always sure who to credit, some are even mine.  Thought I'd share some of the ones that caught my eye, in no particular order....

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” - Mark Twain

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans

“When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,

and when we escape like squirrels from turning in the cages

of our personalities and get into the forest again,

we will shiver with cold and fright but things happen to us

so that we don’t know ourselves.  

Cool, undying life will rush in…” - D.H. Lawrence

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” 

― George Bernard Shaw

If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side

All of us could learn a lesson from the weather, it pays no attention to criticism 

Don't worry about old age, it doesn't last long

Good health is merely the slowest possible way you can die

Life is sexually transmitted

“It’s impossible” said pride.

“It’s risky” said experience

“It’s pointless” said reason

“Give it a try” whispered the heart.

Bad decisions make good stories (I'm thinking that might be mine)

Help someone when they are in trouble and they will remember you when they are in trouble again

Out of Africa - watching Denys Finch Hatton in his Gipsy Moth biplane

"Where will he land?"  Karen Blixen

"The trick is, not to"  Her husband Bror Von Blixen

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." – Winston Churchill

Life is tough, but its tougher if you're stupid. -  John Wayne

You don't know someone until you know what they want

You can't learn anything listening to your own voice

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? -  George Carlin

To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world - Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

90% of statistics are made up on the spot

A lion doesn't concern itself about the opinion of the sheep

The man who has gone nowhere thinks his mother’s soup is the best.

Let’s deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

Who wants to live in a world where everyone thinks the same way?

Forget tomorrow morning. It doesn’t exist yet.

Life of a dog; if you can't eat it or fuck it, then piss on it

Limits, like fear, are often just an illusion - Micheal Jordon

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. – Vivian Greene

Dream as you will live forever, live as you will die today

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me

“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”– Dennis P. Kimbro

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”– Lao Tzu

“If it isn’t a little scary it probably isn’t worth your time.” – Ted Murphy

“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” – C. S. Lewis

“Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, live truly and forgive quickly.” – Paulo Coelho

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” 

― Mae West

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” 

― Allen Saunders

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” 

― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” 

 ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Just biking.....

Still sitting home waiting for VISAs, so there's not much helicopter related activity these days.  My days are spent mountain biking!  Here's some GoPro footage from my ride yesterday I threw together, music is my own; written, sung by, guitar, recorded in my basement.....

VISAs, HUET and HUEBA

Ah, the fun stuff when touring International for offshore oil support.  VISAs.  For some countries it's pretty straight forward, just pay your dues, get your stamp and off you go.  Others require invitation letters and lengthy delays, visits to the embassy or consulate, and repeatedly reapplying as the durations are inconveniently short.  Even with everything in order you can still expect strange queries from officials and delays and visits to backroom offices to wait for hours and of course, further paperwork.  I think the most stressful is having to send your passport to another embassy to apply for a VISA for your next posting while you are still in some other third world country!  But having not been assigned to a permanent base for years, just following exploration contracts around and living out of my suitcase, it gets to be old hat after awhile.  I've got two VISA applications in the works right now.

I spent yesterday getting dunked in a very cold pool, sitting in a mock up of an S92 cockpit,  crashing into sea state "rough" with hundred mile an hour winds and driving rain, and invariably the whole thing would turn upside down as we hit the wet, and we had to get ourselves out and to the surface with the procedures taught.  It wasn't my first time, as it's something you need to repeat every three years for certification to operate offshore.  Being an avid surfer, as well as a certified diver, it's actually quite fun.  I'm good now well into 2018!

Studying up on my Super Puma L2 notes from January, looks like I'm going back on the big birds for awhile.  Hmmm....read back a few posts, I think I've been in this boat before.........

Still home and biking tons!

Two months in Scotland, in the dead of winter, did not suit me well.  From biking daily on the single track trails of rural Tanzania, dancing to the wee hours at least once a week, swimming daily in the Indian Ocean, eating questionable cuisine sparingly....I was in pretty good shape.  Now stick me in Aberdeen for the winter, working dark to dark, with eight hour classroom/simulator sessions and an hour and a half commute on both ends, while staying at a hotel with no gym but attached to a dizzying array of mall restaurants, and pubs.  Basically every menu in Aberdeen offered similar fare....heavily breaded fish and chips and burgers, and of course, beer.  I went from a svelte 184 Lbs, a weight I had maintained for nearly a decade, to a hefty 210!  Guess as you get older you've got to be more careful.  So back to Phase One of the South Beach diet, I'm already down to 195, but I've still got another ten to shed, biking daily on my new steed.  Not a single beer in well over a month.

My long awaited Norco Carbon Sight finally arrived, I threw it together in under an hour and I haven't looked back.  What a sweet ride!  I'm presently foregoing twenty plus years of SPD pedals to give flat pedals another go, as I've had far too many serous injuries from SPD related crashes.  It's taking some getting used to but I can bunny hop as high as I ever could, and I may just ease back into some of the trials riding of my youth.  I think SPDs for mountain biking are history for me.  Being home for so long has me bored.  I spent far too much time trying to find a suitable replacement cologne, as my old favourite Ralph Lauren Safari is unavailable in Canada.   I've been testing and smelling and sampling and to my nose at least (the one that matters of course, whether anyone else likes it is inconsequential), I've kind of settled between Acqua di Parma Colonia Leather (dark and well, leathery), Creed Himalaya (very nice, I could wear this everyday, but damn expensive) and Tom Ford Extreme (not the Tom Ford NOIR Extreme, I got the wrong one once but it's too flowery for me).  I'm thinking the light but very complex Himalaya for day time and the rather exotic and dark Extreme for a night out, and the Leather for anything in between.  I'm also thinking that I might like to try the Acqua Di Parma Colonia original, as it's over 98 years old and as classic as they come.  Very lemony and fresh when you first put it on, but if it was good enough for Cary Grant.....Yeah, I'm bored......

Just got word I won't be bored much longer.  I'll be heading overseas early July, back to a place I'm very familiar with.  Brushing up on my Turkish now.  Then word is down to West Africa, hopefully keeping me busy into 2016.......