Category: travelogues

travelogue – if you want to make God laugh …

On By Rick McIn travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

If you want to make God laugh,
tell him what your plans are.
                               –  Yiddish proverb

July 30 to Aug 12th hike Assiniboine to O’Hara

Aug 14 … watch Olympics on TV

Aug 22 to 29 – hike West Coast Trail

Sept 2 until Christmas travel South America

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Lo will I trek the Andes, documenting them for my hiking website.

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Another leave taking for Rick. Is a pattern emerging?

Departing Altadore after a 1-year return stint is not a problem.

We have hired Miguel Constante from Ottawa as men’s Head Coach. I had the job from 1980 – 90. Kelly Manjak from 1990 – 2004. Miguel will be excellent.

Departing my slum lord resident manager job was not problem, either. I will miss the German bakery in Bridgeland, their muesli loaf. The bike ride along river and canal to the gym. The world’s best donair. Proximity to the central library.

Most exciting event of late was my second trip to Dave Adlard’s summer gymnastics camp in Idaho. He had most of us Canuck coaches wanting to move to the USA.

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The most exciting event I missed was Joan’s wedding. Because Bill did not pay my travel expenses and a fat honoraria, I was in Idaho instead of the outdoor ceremony at Emma Lake. Congratulations!

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I can be excused for not believing the often postponed nuptials actually happened until I saw the wedding photos. As I apologized to Bill by e-mail in advance; your wedding plans are as mysterious to me as JLo’s.

My buddy Ronnie is Rockin’ the book tour. His best selling new cookbook should make him a thousandaire.

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The second best competitive sports festival (after the Jack Daniel‘s World Championships of Barbecue) is the Olympics. I plan to camp out by TV & computer for Athens.

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fabulous Perdita Felicien

I loved the Salt Lake winter Olympics. This should be far better!

shewfelt_kyle030824Kyle Shewfelt from our gym is through to his second Olympics, a contender for a medal. I am proud of him & will be loudly cheering the other 4 athletes who qualified from Calgary. Anyone who thinks it is easy to get to the Olympics never got there.

When I was a kid, Calgary was the worst gymnastics city in Canada. No more. I am especially happy for Mark Van Wyk, who coached Olympian Adam Wong for his entire career. Mark was a long time Altadore gymnast — I still remember the day his grandfather first brought him to the gym.

I am watching the Tour de France closely. The Lance Armstrong team is impressive. Seems he could continue to win for years to come. No Olympics for Lance, however. He peaks for France.

Para M Athletic X ConnorWe saw the world’s fastest paralympian, Earl Conner, speak in Calgary.

Paralympians are sensitive to their second class status at the Olympics. Most, in fairness, cannot compare with Olympians. But Earl Conner can. What an athlete!

I will be back in Calgary in 2005. No commitments yet. Who wants to make God laugh?

Calgary is again home. The economy is booming. The rednecks are booming.

Calgary is a place that wants lower taxes, less government involvement … except for subsidies for mad cow disease. That is valid government subsidy obviously.

Slashdot posted a good debate on the gun control issue in the USA. More balanced than Bowling for Columbine. The best point, I thought, was that a random car is far more of a threat than a random gun for most of us. Those of you who believe South America is dangerous, should not drive!

Rick

travelogue – Heart broken in Calgary

On By Rick McIn sport - pro, traveloguesLeave a comment

“When there is nothing left, there is nothing left,” said old school coach Sutter, when his team lost the Championship in 2004. “The only thing left to do is cry.”

The most popular sport in Canada is ice hockey.

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Non-fans of hockey can be excused for not understanding. With playoff beards and weapons, players look like extras from Lord of the Rings. It seems closer to scripted professional wrestling than legitimate sport.

The biggest prize is the Stanley Cup. In the final in 2004 were two unlikely teams:

1) Tampa Bay Lightning

  • 3 years ago last overall in the league of 30 teams
  • hockey in Florida? Jamaican Bobsled Team!
  • once named the worst franchise in professional sports
  • local paper (Tampa Tribune) ran an editorial on why the team lost the championship, the morning after they won. Oops.

2) Calgary Flames

  • Las Vegas odds were 100-1 against winning the Stanley Cup
  • missed the play-offs previous 7 years in series

0210Calgary brought in a warrior — Chris Simon — to bolster our team for the finals. Big, fierce, a physical menace. Some criticized Calgary for dirty play. Not true, in my opinion.

Hockey is not nearly as bad as it looks, by the way. Rugby is much tougher and more dangerous. (I say that despite my father being blinded in one eye while playing hockey.)

I lived a year in Christchurch New Zealand. The fans there, I must declare, are more zealous even than Calgarians. The Crusaders dominated Super 12 Rugby that season.

1234This is Lightning Martin St. Louis — the top player in 2004 — in the final moments of clinching the championships. Many supporting my team, Calgary, felt we should not be penalized for the high stick which cut his face.

We were penalized and we lost the championship.

The agony of defeat.

The Flames in their home town have been lovable losers since last winning the Stanley Cup in 1989. I was a big fan back then. I loved hockey then.

This year was far, far better.

Flames fans were happy just to make the play-offs this season. There was no expectation that they do more than bow out gracefully in the first round.

How did we come 2 goals short of winning it all?

Ice hockey in the play-offs is low scoring, like soccer. Good defense can beat good offense.

miikka_4808A hot goalie can carry a team. We had Mikka Kiprusoff. Amazing! He was the third string goalie for another team (who he beat in the play-offs) & had no profile before arriving in Calgary.

We dispatched the star studded Detroit Red Wings (twice the payroll of the Flames) who had the best record in the league this season. Once a powerhouse, their days are over. Good-bye Brett.

Calgary has one superstar, twice the top scorer in the league. Perhaps the best all-around player in the world right now.

I am old enough to have learned not to have celebrity professional sport heros. Jarome Iginla is my hero. The first since Michael Jordan. He was named Sports Illustrated Player of the Year.

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At its best, professional sport can bring people together, inspire people to fitness and setting high goals. To dream. To hope. The Flames did that.

I love sport for the delicious uncertainty of outcome. You never know. It was fun.

I can hardly wait for the Olympics.

sjgame41

drinksThe city of Calgary rallied round the team in unexpected and spontaneous ways. Twenty, then thirty, then fifty thousand people mobbed a street quickly dubbed the Red Mile. Fan support rivaled the play of the team as the lead news story.

I cycled the Red Mile more than once and attended the (city council orchestrated) year end rally. Another 30 thousand fans downtown a few blocks from my apartment.

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Believe.

That was the rallying cry.

I followed the play-offs closely but did not believe we could win … until the final series. By then I was convinced. And as deflated and disbelieving as everyone else when we lost.

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It was emotional. A roller coaster. Ups and downs.

And a relief when it finally ended after 2 months. I had play-off fatigue.

   DON CHERRY

An interesting sidebar is buffoon colour commentator Don Cherry, a throwback to the bad old days of hockey. Often controversial, sometimes entertaining, sometimes (surprisingly) even right-on. He is unique. This might have been his last season. I will miss him.

Has anything else happened over the past 2 months?

Summer is coming. Trust you are well.

Flames Fan Rick 

 

 

 

 

 

travelogue – racing rabbits

On By Rick McIn cycling, hiking, product endorsements, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

Spring has sprung in Calgary. Cycling in March was wondrous. Every day I saw more life.

First sign of spring were the huge hares I had seen all winter. But in March they got frisky. They like to race me as I bike along the canal pathway.

A highlight for me during the winter was the first bald eagle I had ever seen in Calgary. (RC has seen them every year south of town.) This one was waiting on an inevitable death of one of tens of thousands of ducks and geese on the frozen Bow River near Inglewood bird sanctuary.

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I am a working Joe these days. Sitting in Tim Hortons, reading the Sun. I much like coaching at Altadore for the people and the relaxed work environment. There is no club where I would rather coach.

It is mid-season. I am off to Western Canada Championships next weekend, the first time it has been held in Yukon.

As Calvin famously said, Yukon Ho!

The working world is so often a mutually parasitic relationship. Life is too short to work, really.

Though my job as resident manager of an apartment building is beginning to strain, it has been a eye opener on the world of the working poor; those riding the bus home from work with 5 rolls of stolen toilet paper.

I have even been to court evicting a tenant. A sad and costly system, I thought.

ice_climber copyMountains

Last Fall I felt guilty about not getting up to the mountains often enough. But spring has been much better.

Ice climbing with TM was a rush.

My climbing buddy BW fantasized dispatching me as in Touching the Void. He cut the rope — at least in Photoshop.

The first man-made ice wall opened this winter at the International Hostel in Banff. A great place for beginners to try it.

ET has been talking about the Kicking Horse ski resort for years. I finally got there with RH, GN and others after the Jurassic Classic competition. Super snow, lots of variety and we enjoyed a gourmet lunch in Canada’s highest gourmet restaurant.

Later I got a day at Sunshine with friends from Saskatoon.

If you are on as many humour mailing lists as I, you see a lot of comic photos. Many are fakes, of course. I have been fooled by some:

shark touristguy

The Museum of Hoaxes website collects them. 

And did you see the eerie photos of Chernobyl from Feb. 2004?

Los Angeles is a seductive. Every time there I rent a car and spend time roaming town. It’s easy.

On a gymnastics trip this year we took the kids to wheel the beach, still the highlight of town for Canadians. 

Shopping in LA is excellent. I bought high end hiking gear and an MP3 player.

A safe bet would be to guess I got an iPod, the outrageously cool and popular top seller. But you’d be wrong. I ended up with the Rio Cali 256 Mb flash MP3 player. Why? It runs on a standard AA battery and is computer memory based, rather than a spinning disk. No moving parts. Much more reliable. The downside? Only 60-120 songs at your finger tips rather than thousands.

WAIT as long as possible before you get one. They are not devices for the faint of pocketbook.

My best purchase of hiking gear was a new pack, the Granite Gear Nimbus Latitude 3800 T-PEX (smoke blue). At 3.5 pounds it carries 40 pounds. I’ve often said there is no such thing as a good pack. But it seems this one is.

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Over the winter too I researched and posted a list of World’s best hikes. Unconstrained by imperatives of children, marriage and career, where would a recidivist go?

I have big hikes planned in the Canadian Rockies and to the West Coast Trail this summer.

Whoo hoo!

Calgary Rick

Happy Festivus

On By Rick McIn humour, music, traveloguesLeave a comment

rick_mugDec 23, 2003

Festivus is upon us. Time to mount the pole, air family grievances & limber-up for post-dinner Feats of Strength.

Festivus is my favourite of the secular alternatives to Christmas. Others prefer to spread the message of peace & good will to all men.

onionOnion.com did a great piece on bringing Christmas to Iraq — by force. Xmas is an easy mark for humourists & cynics.

Actually, this is my favourite holiday. I’m happy to be together with family after missing last Christmas in New Zealand.

For others this quotation rings true:

Christmas is … an excuse for alcoholics to mercilessly crush their families, children to have their innocence strangled by overwhelming greed and people who hate each other to gather and inflict torture over a cheese ball and crackers.

(from vegetarian Bill, as quoted by acclaimed journalist KZ.)

Hitler was a violent herbivore non-smoker too, actually, though that is possibly just a coincidence.

masons_2003_santa_smSpeaking of vegetarians, my surrogate family the Masons invited me to one of their favourite annual events, Chocolate for Breakfast. This is a CUPS Christmas fund-raiser for the homeless sponsored by Bernard Callebaut fine chocolates and terrific dance band The Dino Martinis.

Appear Sunday morning in your PJs and dance away your decadent brecky! For the second time in the past 3 years the Mason clan won the grand prize, a huge gourmet chocolate Santa! (click on the photo to see a larger image.)

Trust you are getting a break over the holiday.

If you lack Christmas spirit, go see Love, Actually. It’s a chick flick but anyone would enjoy it — a Hugh Grant movie set in the weeks leading up to Christmas in London.

I’m jolly. Life is good. The gym club is going well, my apartment building now fully rented and I’m healthy if not wealthy nor wise.

I’m always cheered when days grow longer. Makes me pine for hiking adventures next summer.

Know that I am one of those annoying MAC devotees who dis Windoze users while denying the faults of Apple computers. We Macolytes have never been flying higher.

Time Magazine voted the Apple on-line music service iTunes the coolest tech invention of the year. (You can sample the service but it is still available only to Americans.) US$.99 / song — fast, easy, reliable.

Rick KramerFinally Apple has made a dent in the real world — the 97% of people who use Bill Gates operating system. Apple iTunes works on Windows. (I even downloaded iTunes on to Mason‘s PC when he was busy dressing the kids for tobogganing!)

Best song of 2003? I’d vote Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas. Great message, catchy song, great video. Uplifting too is Shania’s She’s Not Just a Pretty Face. Go girl!

I’m finally back to Saskatoon for New Years. The Longs host a wonderful weekend with a giant bonfire on frozen Emma Lake. You have a terrific New Years too!

All about the work,

Rick McSchneider

travelogue – Happy Birthday?

On By Rick McIn ethics, gymnastics, traveloguesLeave a comment

Nov 2, 2003

rick_mugI am … 40something today. There is some debate on the exact number. As you know, I don’t have to count those years in which my birthday was not acknowledged by anyone. I missed two for sure: in Kathmandu & Moose Jaw.

My family has never had much use for birthdays though we will celebrate this one.

Birthdays are, perhaps, a good prompt for introspection.

rick_bike2Happy Birthday?

Lets see.

I’ve written of my philosophy of voluntary simplicity; following my bliss; having achievable goals:

 

  • 1 hour reading / day
  • 1 hour exercise / day
  • few possessions
  • few commitments
  • eat modestly
  • lots of time on the www

This year I want to get out of debt & even start earning some income from this website editing hobby.

My buddy Rockin’ Ronnie travelled to Lynchburg, Tennessee for the Jack Daniel’s World Championships of Barbecue. They finished 2nd in pork butt! A dream come true.

Best news is that I bought a new mountain bike. It’s a half hour commute to the gym each way through the zoo and Inglewood Bird sanctuary on superb river bike paths.  I see more coyotes, deer & bunnies than people or dogs.

Biking takes care of my exercise quota. Lately I am finding cycling better for fitness than running. And it’s easier to get motivated to hop on the bike.

double_miniWork at Altadore Gym Club is going well. The boys program is relaxed & we have 3 full-time men’s coaches to shoulder the load.

The boys are strong on tramp and, in the mode of Kyle Shewfelt, good on floor and vault.

This lad, way high on double mini double back, is an Altadore trampolinist who just finished 5th in his age group at World Championships.

I always wanted to be a slumlord. 🙂 You can find me downtown in Bridgeland; Little Italy. TC got me a job as resident manager of an apartment block near Edmonton Trail.

apartment-Edmonton-TrailFrom my balcony you can enjoy a vista of skyscrapers — a compelling homescape even to a recidivistic wanderer like myself. (So far I am camping but camping on real hardwood floors.)

My first duty was to evict 3 of 17 tenants including the sickly alcoholic handyman who is here somewhat at the charity of the owner. Ne’er fear for those I displace — they can camp free a few blocks away at the park beside Edmonton Trail bridge.

Actually, we post eviction for everyone even a day late with rent. All three eventually coughed up the dough. As a capitalist stooge, I don’t care where the money comes from just so long as I get it.

My MP, Stephen Harper, leader of the Official Opposition, the Reform Party CCRAP (Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party) Alliance Party? Conservative Party will defend my right to lord it over tenants.

I’ve never lived downtown before but I always thought that if one must live in the city, one might as well live in the urban hardcore handy to LRT (Light Rail Transit), the main public library, Eau Claire market, Princess Island.

There’s an urban beauty best exemplified in Calgary by the surreal dead calm between towers, illuminated by the reflection off mirrored windows. Brighter than Heaven.

_calgary_glareParty-wise, I am a stone’s throw from the Cecil Hotel & Beer Land (cheapest beer in town). The inner core is an interesting place to live — I saw a pick-up truck hawking live pigeons in China town last week — though I need to wheel around the odd passed-out bag sniffer.

Calgary is a boomtown inevitably attracting a population of angry, damaged dysfunctionals. There seems to be a pretty good social safety net at the nearby Calgary Drop-in Centre — but they won’t let you in at night if you are stoned or drunk.

BM invited me to volunteer to serve breakfast for the homeless sleeping in the gym at Knox United church downtown. Quite a civilized group of people. Many had daytime jobs, actually.

calgaryThe copious amount of media time on the gay marriage debate was a waste of time IMHO.

My own solution is practical; abolish all marriage. Isn’t it a throwback to the time before church & state were separated? What is sacrosanct about the heterosexual couple? Devout Muslims can have 4 wives; a good Mormon as many as he could stand. A Tibetan woman marries a man and all his brothers.

As a happily single guy (that’s my story, I’m sticking to it), I long ago quit apologizing for not being married. I’m not sure of the stats in Canada, but less than half the adults in Australia are married.

Hmm.

In a democracy we could organize. Majority rules, right?. We could vote to TAX all marriage.

Happy birthday to me. 🙂

I’m mostly listening to 50, coveting, like him, an iPod. But RC turned me on to (Trent Reznor protégé) Johnny Cash’s final album. Have you heard it? Excellent!

Johnny lost his beloved wife a few months before he succumbed. Testament to a marriage that worked.

He sings a life retrospection:

You can have it all,
my empire of dirt.

What have I become?
my sweetest friend.

Everyone I know
goes away in the end.

Kind of a bleak way to end a birthday reflection, don’t you think?

OK. Instead a joke:

I was tempted to join the international Sceptics Society — … but can I trust those guys?

Calgary Rick

chloe_rings_2003sm

travelogue – Perth, Australia

On By Rick McIn gymnastics, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

Sept 21, 2003

rick_mug
It snowed in Calgary in September. No surprise; it has snowed every month of the year here at one time or another.

Every morning in Perth I rushed to the window hoping for snow. But I saw only frost. Too bad.

mapIt has never snowed in Perth, Australia — but I was there for the month of July during a winter cold snap. A boat skipper told me that the 4-year drought which broke this year was the very end of El Niño.

I was invited to Perth by a police sports group where I worked with gymnastics coaches and athletes from 27 clubs. Good fun. A great experience.

The kids in Western Australia don’t have much gymnastics equipment — but they are fit.

sm2

smphotos Alastair McNaughton

Just kidding. WA is remote but Perth is a modern city of 1.4 million. The only complaint I heard was that shopping is terrible. Perth ladies fly to Singapore or Sydney with credit cards held high.
I was actually hosted much of the time by the owners of the excellent Olympic Gym Club . (They are looking to hire coaches, by the way.)

I was billeted by locals, the best way to travel. Hospitality can be suffocating, but in western Australia I was well treated.

Perth is an enjoyable city. I loved the parks & zoo , the unique and bizarre animals. Aussie is famous for deadly creatures. Little girls at the gym club name the various fist-sized spiders living under the lobby picture frames.

zz57wombat
Rick holding a wombat

After defending myself from this wombat, I was attacked by a koala bear! You don’t believe me? It’s true. Juvenile male koalas are quite active and mobile.
The Tasmanian Devil is much more hyper. Luckily the ones I watched pace were locked up tight.

My last 4 days down under I signed on for a backpacker tour headed north to slightly warmer climes. Highlights:

  • Nambung National Park, Pinnacles Desert
  • sand dune surfing
  • Kalbarri National Park, Murchison Gorge
  • abseiling (facing forward and backward)
  • hand feeding dolphins at Monkey Mia
  • catamaran sailing

I’ve visited many of the famous memorials of the world. But I cannot recall one finer, more surprising, than the Geraldton war memorial. It’s not on the tourist route. We visited only because our driver once lived in this obscure town.

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– Aussie Rick

_____

My friend DB narrowly avoided meeting Michael (big hand on the little hand) Jackson at the Cirque du Soleil studios in Montreal.

I had my own brush with fame — a writer displaced me from the guest room at my brother’s place. You must have heard of Robert J. Sawyer from Toronto. He recently won a Hugo — the People’s Choice award for science fiction writing — for Best Novel of the Year.

Sawyer has previously won the equivalent of the Academy Award, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula, for Best Novel of 1995.

Sawyer joins the elite of science fiction — 16 people who have won both Hugo and Nebula including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, William Gibson and Frank Herbert.

Rob is a good guy. I just finished one of his books, Flash Forward. Excellent.

Kyle-Shewfelt

Just as famous in gymnastics circles is Kyle Shewfelt. We at Altadore Gym Club are proud and still a bit stunned that one of our athletes has become the most successful Canadian gymnast ever, slightly ahead of Curtis Hibbert in the opinion of Hardy Fink of the men’s technical committee.

Kyle won 2 bronze medals at World’s in August. He is one of the favourites for an Olympic medal in Athens next summer.

I am back coaching at Altadore mainly because Kyle has done so well. I am assisting his coach Kelly Manjak in the run up to Athens.

It’s nice to be home at Altadore where I spent over 20 years up until 1990. It’s nice to be back in my hometown, Calgary — though the traffic is insane. Calgary is booming economically, but the quality of life is better in Saskatoon and Christchurch.

I am now living in a huge gorgeous home backing on to the river, rather unlikely accommodation for a minimalist. I will be out soon. The hot tub cover is so badly rotted that I suspect a neighbourhood petition is circulating. I can’t live like this!

I am house sitting for a family gone travelling around the world for 11 months.

Five weeks into a new job, it feels like I am settling in. I look forward to the Daily Show every night, certainly the most insightful news commentary in the States. Humour at the same high level as the best of This Hour Has 22 Minutes in Canada.

I now have fulltime high speed internet, a big improvement from limited access in New Zealand. In my dotage I hope to work on the www. The only glitch is that computer work demands carcinogenic quantities of Diet Coke.

And I am again a tax payer. Or am I?

Vancouver-based Fraser Institute says that Tax Freedom Day — when a typical Canadian family has earned enough to pay off all taxes and to start working for themselves — came June 28. (This includes everything including pension contributions.)

I was savvy enough to start work in August.

In Canada we live in a one party state. If only we had better politicians to vote for — someone like Arnold in California. That’s who we need to guarantee a homeland free and brave. 😦

030rick_gun
typical Schwarzenegger voter

 

 

 

 

love Idaho

On By Rick McIn gymnastics, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

June 29, 2003

rick_mugNot just potatoes you know …

I am back from the scenic lakes & rich forests of the Idaho panhandle. I was invited to be a guest coach at a gymnastics camp in Coeur d’Alene.

The head coach Dave Adlard started his career in Edmonton & this year invited to camp a number of coaches from his distant past. We reminisced.

I had heard great things about Dave’s gym in Coeur d’Alene and the experience exceeded expectations.

Dave is one of the most travelled and popular clinicians in the States, many years on the move working for U.S. Independent Gymnastics Clubs & around the world. He has taught in Australia 5 times, for example.

But looks to me like David Adlard is starting to settle down. He remarried last year — he, his wonderful wife Lisa, his Norwegian Elkhound, 2 cats, & 4 tiny kittens hosted us in their log house on a large wooded property.

adlard_wedding

Like good north Idahoans, we smoked cigars, shot guns & considered taking out the (appropriately named) quad. Dave had me up early every morning exercising; 3 mile run followed by sets of log lifting. I had not known that Dave in recent years had become a gourmet chef, renown for his grilling & deserts. He and entourage put on major dinner parties. I was lucky enough to attend one of them. Fantastic.

adlard2

Dave & Lisa are coaches at FUNtastics Gymnastics. They have two gyms; wonderful coaches, parents & gymnasts.

Greater Coeur d’Alene has a population of about 50,000. The club membership reached 1001 while I was there. Funtastics is becoming well known too for the excellent competition they host, the Great West Gym Fest.

great_west

Dave’s camp, the 6th annual, was unique. The focus is on FUN with a child-centred approach. Funtastics does everything they can to ensure all gymnasts feel valued & avoid injury. There is not an iota of elitism in their system — yet the gymnasts show good difficulty. This club is on the right track! I hate to admit it, but the USA will soon produce the best gymnasts in the world. The efficiencies of a free market system will supersede the focused training systems in the few remaining totalitarian countries. It is just a matter of time. World Championships will be hosted in California this August, by the way.

_____
I have a love – hate relationship with the USA. The gaffs they have made historically make me histrionic — though I am not 100% sure that Iraq was a mistake. Long term it may be good for the world, where Vietnam clearly was not. Short term Iraq looks bad … but I live in hope.

According to Economist magazine, FOREIGN DISTRUST of America has increased dramatically over the past year according to a (2003) survey of 20 countries by the Pew Research Centre. The proportion of people with a favourable attitude towards the United States has dropped from 61% to 45% in Germany, 63% to 43% in France, 61% to 15% in Indonesia and 25% to just 1% in Jordan.

The number of Americans in PRISON exceeded 2m in 2002, according to a U.S. Justice Department report. This means that one person in every 142 is in the slammer at any one time. America’s jail population–the world’s largest–has nearly doubled since 1990.

Sometimes I have doubts. Is the American way working? How large a prison population can a country support?
_____

Canadian Championships Saskatoon — I returned to Saskatoon in May to help the organizers of this the major year end competition. It was excellent in every way.

A highlight was Rhett Stinson winning gold on Parallel Bars in front of his hometown crowd. Photos of some of my friends there

Stinson

In June I helped out my buddy Rockin’ Ronnie Shewchuk with his barbeque fundraiser at Rouge restaurant in Calgary . Booze, Blues & Barbeque. A good time was had by all.

00eat_til_you_drop

Mad Cow? Fear No Steer.

The barbecue team was able to buy Kobe beef cheap; it is normally all exported to Japan — but not this June.The team will travel in the Fall to Lynchburg, Tennessee for an all important Barbeque championships at Jack Daniel’s distillery.
_____

I am off to Perth Australia tomorrow to lead athlete camps & coach education sessions down under. I will definitely use some of the Dave Adlard playbook.

– Aussie Rick

Hong Kong – no SARS so far

On By Rick McIn travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

April 13, 2003

rick_mugI love Hong Kong.

Wandering fantastic Central, bobbing the harbour on the junk Duk Ling, riding the unique outdoor escalators to Mid-levels — I am giddy as a Filipino nanny on her day off.

For months I had planned a stop-over of 10 days in Hong Kong, arriving March 18th.

I had early warning of some peculiar contagion in Hong Kong — ET emailed me shortly before I departed New Zealand.

At the hostel in Hong Kong we considered SARS (or Atypical Pneumonia as it is called there) a bit of a joke. None of us wore masks. We hardly mentioned the outbreak as the so-called war in Iraq had started. We contrasted the bloodless U.S. TV coverage with the reality coverage from Hong Kong and China. War is Hell.

General Oscar Meyer is not a charismatic enough spokesman for the tube but I thought Rumsfeld and Bush were convincing actors. Perhaps they have come to believe the things they say. The Iraqi’s Minister of Information was best of all.

Some expats in Hong Kong were slightly worried about SARS. A Canadian teacher left abruptly.

Over the 10 days I was there I had a feeling infection was getting closer. A bank worker fell ill. Many in an apartment block were hospitalized. One, then ten schools closed.

I was working in a room at the University of Hong Kong when a SWAT team of 8 custodians arrived. I barely had time to lift laptop off table before the team was scrubbing and disinfecting with Chinese intensity.

I am glad they let me into the airport in Vancouver. It had been a long year. I was really looking forward to coming home; friends, family, a familiar culture. My homecoming was set — dinner out and a sociable week-end in Vancouver.

Ron Shewchuk & Kate Zimmerman bravely hosted me.

Kate is a journalist. She calls me Typhoid Ricky. Truth is the first casualty of humour.

Kate took me to Vancouver Magazine‘s flash Annual Restaurant Awards. High-end food and booze! Free! Kate was correspondent for … Gourmet Magazine, I believe; I for the Hokitoka Wild Foods Festival, New Zealand.

Next day my parents picked me up in Vancouver and evacuated me to their home in the Kootenays. My family has had a spacious cedar house in Crawford Bay for 30 years. I get there as often as I can.

Crawford Bay had a good zoo — the dump — where you could watch bears 24-7.

But no more.

A succession of savvy and fiscally prudent B.C. Provincial governments saved enough money to install gigantic steel boxes in place of rural dumps. Bears no longer hang around for free lunch.

Sure the Crawford dump is only open 2 days / week and there is a hefty charge for depositing trash. But if you don’t like it you can abandon your old bike carcass up on the mountain like the locals do.

That savvy and fiscally prudent bit — just kidding — B.C. politics is half comedy, half tragedy. B.C. just sold off the new inter-island ferries for about $.0001 on the dollar, I understand. High government office in this Province is the kiss of death — every Premiere finishes his career in jail or ruinous scandal.

gordonThe current B.C. Premiere, Gordon Campbell, was recently arrested in Hawaii for drunk driving. Students at the U of Saskatchewan are using his mug on an anti-drunk driving poster.

Crawford Bay is quiet and remote — but only a scenic ferry ride across the lake to very cool Nelson, B.C. (You know Nelson from the movie Roxanne, with Steve Martin.)

Nelson is an alternate lifestyle nexus where you can stock up on bulk tofu & enjoy an astonishing selection of non-dairy milks. Have you tried oat drink? (non-GMO, heart safe, finest whole organic oat groats.)

The co-op sells only fair trade coffee.

nelsonAging hippies in Nelson hang out at the excellent Oso Negro coffee shop. Not much has changed for them in Nelson since they first arrived as draft dodgers. The potency of the ganja, of course.

Most backpackers I met in New Zealand had not visited Canada — but all had reverence for British Columbia; dope of such quality that even second hand smoke can strip you of an Olympic medal.
My father said we even had a dope grower on our own mountain in teeny Crawford Bay, a fellow defending his private property with a gun. But Dad thought the doper was now dead. (Perhaps eliminated by a competitor like Escobar.)

I had not heard of the Kootenay Cartel but determined to hike up the hill to see for myself.

Nothing.

Well, nothing but a tiered clearing, big permanent trailer, shotgun chair overlooking the road up the mountain. Perhaps they grow rice.

No worries, though. Nelson and Kootenays are as charming as ever. And no SARS so far.

Gladly the SARS scare is in decline. This is not the big plague, but rather a practice run for something worse.

Shame that closet racists can mutter against anyone Asian. Shame that Hong Kong will be avoided.

But Hong Kong will bounce back. Five years ago I feared the central planners in Beijing wanted Shanghai to usurp Hong Kong as the financial and transportation hub of Asia.

hong_kongcelebrating the handover 1997

Yet Hong Kong — truly the land of the vertical — is building the 4th and 5th highest buildings in the world on opposite sides of the harbour. Disneyland is going in. And the most futuristic covered harbour front ever conceived.

But I am glad to be home. Home to the best country in the world.
Severely cute,

Rick McSARS

wave_kiwi

Hey! My Mom soon off to New Zealand on holiday.

land of the long drop – New Zealand

On By Rick McIn hiking, photos, traveloguesLeave a comment

rick_mugMarch 23, 2003

Kiwis have a great affection for lakes. But it would take one filled with beer to much interest a Canadian.

For me the unreported yet pre-eminent highlight of New Zealand are the many varied and fantastic waterfalls. These are the long drops of which I speak — though long drop is also Kiwi slang for a toilet in the wilderness.

waterfallPride of place goes to Sutherland Falls, near Milford, the highest and most hyped waterfall in New Zealand. The water pounds down with unbelievable force. I tried to walk behind the watery curtain but was driven back by the wind generated by the Falls.

125sutherland3Sutherland was a Scot, the first white man to settle permanently in remote, wet Milford Sound. Alone but for his dog Groatie; he was known as The Hermit of Milford. He discovered and named the falls asserting they were the world’s highest — 5000 feet. Tourists began to flock to Milford the following year though the falls were eventually measured to be only 1904 feet over 3 leaps.

Scots like Sutherland were bred to migrate to the cold, wet, dark extremes of the world. They had the wrathful Hellfire of a vengeful Presbyterian God to keep them warm.

The south of the south island in New Zealand is Scotish. Reminders of Scottish heritage are everywhere though the only whiskey distiller recently went bust.

The largest southern city is Dunedin, Celtic for Edinburgh. A statue of Robbie Burns welcomes sons of Scotland to the town centre.

I, gone south to hike the southern alps, lucked into a spot on the coveted Milford Track — the finest walk in the world, as it is called. This sobriquet is much mocked by hikers, each listing better Tracks. (The West Coast Trail, for example.)

The controversy began in 1908 when a London Spectator editor changed the title of an article on the New Zealand track from the author’s A Notable Walk to The Finest Walk in the World. The appellation stuck.

Yet, as one hiker rationalized, Travelling New Zealand and missing the Milford Track would be like travelling to Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower.

Fact is the Milford is a fantastic hike unfairly diminished by detractors most of whom have not hiked it. It is particularly fantastic in good weather — I had perfect weather. Endless highs, man.

The highlight of the trip for me was the stunning Mackinnon Pass. Vistas in every direction. I scrambled part way up a peak adjacent to the alpine saddle.

My friend RC contends I hike mainly so I can dangle my feet off cliff ledges. He’s right. I was told it would take me about 12 seconds to reach the hut 800m below this sign on Mackinnon Pass.

078keaProviding much entertainment for hikers is another outlandish bird, the Kea, the only alpine parrot. This one did a proficient job of unzipping my pack!

Huge blunder on the Milford; I forgot my long pants in the van. There are two spots called Sandfly Point in New Zealand — you pass both on the Milford Track! Fjordland and the West Coast are notorious for these sneaky, blood-sucking vampire bugs.

Most National Parks are places where you cannot step off the trail lest you bruise lichen — but where fish can be hooked, suffocated, bludgeoned and devoured. Such are the inconsistencies in a world where Tequila is legal, Peyote not.

040trout

040trout2lunker Rainbow and Brown trout thrive in the incredibly clear Clinton

Milford is different. All mammals (except bats and hikers) are fair game. If you have a license you can shoot anything you want — but at least 1 km. off the track please.

For many years I went slackjawed at photos of Milford Sound and dreamed of visiting. It is a classic Fijord with vertical walls. The famous photo is The Mitre, reputed to be the second highest mountain (after Hawaii) that rises directly from the sea.

159kayak5I signed on for a kayak tour with Rosco’s, a great outfit with a bit of a scandalous reputation. The comic guides paddle and entertain every day of the year from the wettest settlement in New Zealand. (9m of rain in 1988)

I am not sure the guides are actually paid — as the main remuneration seemed to be picking-up tourist chicks.

No doubt that Queenstown resort in the Remarkables is the four-season adventure capital of the world. What other destination might be a contender? Chamonix?

Bungie jumping was first popularized in Queenstown and the world’s highest tourist jump is here; a 134m platform suspended by cables over the Nevis River.

Queenstown is the draw but ET prefers Wanaka, the mellower, secondary adventure capital. My favourite activity in Wanaka, actually, was taking in a film in the retro theatre there now called Cinema Paradiso. It is filled with old sofas, pillows, even a Morris Minor. Patrons lounge where they like. At intermission you are offered fresh cookies, coffee, or can pre-order dinner to enjoy during the second half of the movie. Brilliant.

I also golfed in Wanaka. Leave it to Kiwis to cross golf with rugby, creating a football-shaped golf ball. No putting — instead you birdie by landing the ball in a net target.

golf_crossDriving in this country is the biggest adventure thrill ride of them all. Of course it is dangerous — the number of traffic fatalities almost equals the number of deaths from teen suicide!

Still some of my best moments have been driving narrow (one way) winding scenic minor highways. Paradise, near Glenorchy, lived up to its name.

I had hoped to sell my beloved van for close to what I paid for it — unfortunately I had to sell at half the purchase price. That was the biggest downer of my Kiwi travels by far.

Only about 20,000 people live on the magnificent west coast of the south island. Why? Rain and sandflies drive normal people insane. Westcoasters pride themselves on being rogues and outsiders.

West coast precipitation (similar to S.E. Alaska and Patagonia) heaps snow in massive quantities on coastal mountains. Gravity pushes the resulting glaciers towards the sea while warm (tourist!) temperatures at lower altitudes melt them.

foxI hiked atop Fox Glacier with guide Shells (she had seashells in her dreadlocks) enjoying a most entertaining day. Finally, after many attempts, I saw the oft-clouded top of Mt. Cook and equally impressive Mt. Tasman.

Delightfully unpretentious, the Wildfoods Festival in west coast Hokitoka was a hoot. A crapulous block party with 22,000 drinkers, wild food is also available; westcargots (snails), beer-flavoured ice cream, wallaby, horse, wild goat, offal, mountain oysters, chamois, grasshoppper, meal worm, salmon with sandfly sauce, seagull, scorpion, eel and more. I stayed away from the bull penis sausage but sampled bambi burger, paua pattie, ostrich pie and managed a swallow of chocolate hoohoo grub, a West Coast favourite.

The primo west coast feed is whitebait and locally brewed Monteith’s beer. White bait is fish, each less than 2 cm long, caught by hand net and usually fried into a patty. Mmmm.

The entertainment is gleefully bad. (ie Elvis impersonators, men dressed as naughty nuns, droll British colonial administrators giving folks stick, etc.)

313bullsbull’s penis sausage

My last day of travel started with Wild Foods and finished at Castle Hill in the alps, scrambling limestone boulders and sloshing an hour through an underground river. A superb and appropriate last day.

New Zealand is magic. Photos do not do it justice — excepting those of Ted Scott, the Kiwi photo laureate.