Skydiving part 2

We were getting close to our jumping altitude and Jordi started tightening all the straps for the jump.  It was debatable if I was closer to the door or the guy sitting across the aisle from me so there was some discussion as to who was going to jump first.  Initially I thought it would be better for him to go and make sure there were no catastrophic issues before I jumped.  

The guy jumping before me

 They re-opened the door and the gusting wind was refreshingly cool, much cooler than the 36 degrees on the ground.  The other guy lined up to jump, my heart was racing at this point and, as it turned out it was worse to go second.  I watched this guy basically get sucked out of the plane and fall so fantastically fast.  This was where my pulse reached its all time high.  Before I could even process this and think about what I was doing I was being shuffled forward to the door to get ready to leap.  I got set up in the stance I was instructed and then I was falling. 

It all happened so fast I could have possibly blacked out for a few seconds because I can’t remember really leaving the plane.  The initial fall is not the best feeling in the world, you feel weightless and you have no control.  They tell you to hold on to your harness and arch back by kicking your legs back behind you.   At some point they’ll tap you on the head and then you can let your arms out to do whatever you like.  Once you reach your maximum velocity the feeling instantly becomes so calming.  The only sound you hear is the wind rushing past you as you plummet to the earth, there’s nothing else.  It’s loud in a sense but eerily quiet in another.  I stared straight down at the magnificent view almost the entire time, I wasn’t even thinking about the camerawoman and Jordi at one point had to lift my head up so that my face was in the pictures.   

The expression on my face says it all

12,990ft and dropping

Holding my head up for the pictures

genuinely smiling

Can't properly describe how incredible the view was

Parachute opening

The falling lasted for I think 20-30 seconds but I didn’t have much of a concept of time so I’m not sure.  I could feel when he opened the parachute flap and was waiting to feel the big pull upwards and it came.  Your inner thighs take the brunt of the force and it pinches for a while but then the feeling of floating and the realization that you just jumped out of a plane take over and you just enjoy it.  I let out a many obscenities as I was catching my breath from the initial fall and I could hear Jordi laughing behind me.  He asked me how it was all was ‘amazing’ and 'holy sh*t'.  Jordi gave me the control straps for the parachute and said I could spin us in any direction I wanted.  I still wasn’t quite thinking straight and just taking in the view so I wasn’t doing much with the controls.  After a bit of patience he just took them from me and spun us around and around.   This can get you dizzy quickly but looks pretty cool.  

As we got closer to the landing area he started to go over the landing instructions.  My camerawoman had already reached the ground and was getting the camera prepared to catch my landing and final reaction to the experience.  We swooped in at a fairly high speed but then they pull some extra form of brakes on the chute and you slow down to a stop right as you touch the ground.  The parachute was quickly disconnected and we got my final words on tape to wrap it all up.  

The landing

That deserves a high-five

 There's a bit of follow up with removing the harness, etc. but after that I ran into the two Kuwaitis.  They hadn't jumped yet as they were in the third wave of jumpers.  They asked me how it was and I gave them a brief description but didn't want to ruin the experience for them so I left it at that.  When it came time for them to suit up I went outside and watched the waves of jumpers landing to get a view from the other end of it.   

A view from below

The next wave of divers

I stayed until I saw the Kuwaitis jump.  The girl was going to be landing first but as they were getting close to the ground I heard her tandem jumper yelling for help.  She kept saying 'I can't get her legs up'.  From what I could see at the moment the girl was just hanging, motionless.  The tandem jumper could not get her to bring up her legs for the landing and that could get a bit dangerous if she hit the ground in the wrong way.  The other employees ran to try and help but they couldn't make it in time before the landing.  She seemed to land as softly as she could and the Kuwaiti girl just flopped down face down.  People ran to her attention, and not long after, her brother landed and ran over to her as well. Turns out this girl had began to feel dizzy as they were spinning with the parachute open.  She mentioned this to her tandem jumper but then almost immediately she fainted.  I spoke with the brother about it for a while after she had recovered from it.  At least she got to experience the thrill before fainting.  I guess the young ones just can't handle it like us near-30 year olds.  

All in all it was a fantastic experience and I recommend to anyone to try it.  As it turns out falling from high above uncontrollably isn't such a bad feeling as long as the chute opens...

Skydiving part 1

It was about one month before I went to Dubai that I made the snap decision to put down a deposit for skydiving.  The idea had popped into my head after I saw a music video of an artist who skydived with the same company.  The video clip made it very intriguing and if I was ever going to skydive in my lifetime, that setting seemed ideal.   I was 50% sure I was going to think about actually doing it and figured it was worth risking the loss of the deposit if I didn’t.  The one thing I made sure of was not to tell anyone that I was planning on skydiving.  It would have been a massacre had I spread the word and chickened out.  It seems my closest friends wait impatiently for those opportunities to hassle and I would do the same to them.  

For certain reasons I only mentioned it to one person on the night before I was scheduled to willingly jump out of a plane.  The conversation that followed was almost enough to convince me not to do it.  I woke up early the next morning, after a mostly sleepless night, with a few graphic dreams of how it could all go wrong.  It took a while to convince myself to show up at the building still thinking that I would have time to back out later if I wanted to.   

When I arrived I first met a brother and sister group from Kuwait.  The guy looked as nervous as I felt but the girl was cool as ice.  Because she was acting so calm I assumed the guy was jumping and she was there for support.  She informed me though that she was jumping as well and it was all her idea since she wanted to do it before she turned 20…..20!. 

My next thought - ’Wellllll shit, now I have to do this.’   

The brother and I took turns pacing around the room trying to calm the nerves. 

Jordi putting on my harness

When the time came to get my jumping partner, they paired me up with a tall, lanky Belgian named Jordi.  He was friendly enough but sported a rather dry and dark sense of humour that I usually would appreciate but not when it was aimed at me in my vulnerable time.  The first thing he felt he had to tell me was that the plane we were jumping out of was the backup and not as good as the normal one.  ‘Sometimes it doesn’t work very well…It’s as flimsy as a paper plane.’    Damn Belgians.  I also had a personal camerawoman from South Africa and she was a bit more sensitive.  She was equipped with a two cameras attached to her helmet, one for video and one for hi-def pics.

Jordi hooked me up in my harness and then walked away, left me standing in the middle of the room for about five minutes.  There was no direction, I had no idea what to do.  I figured he had to take care of something important and my priority was to nonchalantly make the proper adjustments in the crucial areas where the harness was encroaching.  I thought about the upwards pull that was going to come when the chute finally opened and I had to make sure future generations of Kruzers could still be a possibility.    When my Jordi finally came back he was having a good chuckle at me for the show I’d unknowingly been putting on in the middle of the room.  He said he wanted to see how long I would stand there looking like a fool.  Damn Belgians.  He has no idea, I would have stayed there much longer.  

This whole time while he was razzing me I tried to come up with witty comebacks or play it cool but I just couldn’t think of anything. My mind was racing but I had no thoughts the whole time I was there.    

Next was to discuss the safety operations of the jump.  I figured this would be a 1-2 hour presentation but 5 minutes later Jordi slapped me on the back and said ‘let’s go jump out of a plane’.  So we loaded up in the plane with the 4-5 tandem jumpers and we took off for what I found out was going to be 13,000ft over top of The Palm of Dubai.  

The 'paper plane'

About to get on the plane.  Failing at an attempt hide my nervousness and look cool

Last chance to back out

only smiling because I felt I had to

Desert Safari

Much of my time spent in Dubai was filled with shopping and meeting some old friends, relaxing out by the pool but I did manage to see a few sights and experience some of the local attractions.  

As mentioned previously I went atop the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building, man-made structure and freestanding structure in the world.  I ascended to the 124^th of the 140 floors in the building which stood at about 830m tall.  The elevator itself was considered the fastest in the world moving at 10m per second. 

The second thing I did was to sign up for the desert safari, a tourist trap I’m sure but, being from Canada, the desert is fairly new thing to me so I figured I should take it in anyways.  I guess I should be more understanding of the people who visit Canada or Russia and being so happy to see snow for the first time.

 

I was on my own for this trip so I booked this 5 hour desert safari hoping my natural people and social skills would allow me to meet a few people along the way.  There was a family of four that were booked on the same tour as me.  I realized very quickly when we got into the truck that they did not speak much English so I was accepting the fact that we weren’t going to have much conversation.

 

The ‘safari’ starts about 45 minutes out of town so we first drive along the highway to a small town where we wait for all the other trucks that will be in convoy with us.  In this area of the town the locals are expecting us and waiting to sell any and everything to us.  I wasn’t planning on purchasing anything but one of the vendors was selling ‘keffiyehs’ which are the male Arabic headdresses.  They were way overpriced but I went for it anyway and got him to take a photo as well. 

After this the mother of the family I was riding with came over and talked to me despite her not knowing much english, asked me where I was from and what my name was.  She told me they were from Iran and she was so excited to meet someone from Canada.  Immediately she got her son to take a picture of us.  She was very blunt when she looked around and said ‘David, you have no friends?’   no, no friends…travelling alone.  She insisted that for the rest of the day I was to join her and her family.  She then commented that she liked my keffiyeh and said I looked Palestinian.  

Palestinian look

While waiting for all the trucks to arrive we got the chance to rent quad bikes to ride around the small sand dunes.  After about 30 seconds of riding one of the owners flagged me over and told me I had to

1)      Slow down

2)      Stop doing jumps over the dunes

3)      Stop doing donuts in the sand

A few minutes later I needed another reminder.   I blame it on my time and influences in Grande Prairie.  

A view sitting on the Quad

View from the front seat

We had now started the 4x4 in the real dunes in a Ford Expedition style truck and they took us up, down and around the desert trying to get as close to tipping over as possible.  It was enjoyable but I think I would rather have done the driving myself.  The entertainment came from the Iranian family who were all screaming behind me.  The driver and I were enjoying this quite a bit and it gave him a bit more incentive to do a few extra tricks in the sand. The mother of the family was often yelling up to me ‘Daviiiid, Hoobie, Hoobie’ (phonetic spelling).   I had no idea what this meant for most of the ride and figured my best way to respond was to say ‘Hoobie’ back to her.  At the end of the trip the son finally decided to tell me that Hoobie was Farsi for ‘how are you?’  So for a few hours we had been in an endless loop of us asking how the other was doing with no real answer’. 

Stuck truck

At certain points on the trip we would stop for photos and to see the sunset over the desert.  The sand was very soft and warm and really a nice setting to see the sun go down.  The mother took a few more pictures of me and told me to do my Palestinian look for some of them.  While we were standing in the sun she said ‘Canada, cold?’ and did some shivering body language.  I said yes, it’s quite a bit cooler than this usually not taking the time and effort to properly explain that the summers can be very warm.  She then took concern and said ‘Daviiid, the sun…your skin’ and gave me a very worried look.  To calm her down I had to show her my sunscreen and assure her that I was well protected.  

 

 

To finish off the safari we met at a camp in the desert to dine on traditional (or so they said) Arabic food and took in a quick dancing show with a female belly dancer and some other guy dancing with a costume that lights up.  The belly dancer was playing to the crowd and trying to get people involved.  The Iranian mother was always pointing at me and telling the dancer to pick me but thankfully she wasn’t biting up until a point when she got the whole crowd to do some weird finger snapping that I’ve never seen before.  Her hawk-like sight saw me struggling and that’s when she pulled me on stage and got me to give my best belly dancing routine.  I had to lift my shirt do some stomach convulsions and shake my hips.  I’ve gone 29 years focusing on only moving my hips in the forward and backward direction, the sideways movement is not a strength.  There were no pictures but my biggest fan, the mother, loved the show.   

oh yeah, and there were camel rides. I prefer them to horses

Next up, skydiving.  

UAE - intro

I recently returned from a trip to the UAE, spending time in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.  It was my first time not only in that country but also in that part of the world.  Before I go into some of the more entertaining stories I will introduce the cities (or emirates) and country.  

The United Arab Emirates is a collection of seven different emirates each governed by one person but all with the same national president.  Early in the 1900’s the pearling industry thrived but was basically eradicated during the two wars and the culture pearls of Japan.  

In the 1960’s is when the oil era began the UAE had long had a close relationship with the United Kingdom.  Agreements were in place that no land would be released/sold to anyone other than the British and no foreign relationships made without their consent.  In exchange for this agreement the British offered their military to defend the land and ports of the Sheikdoms (what would become the UAE).  

The seven sheikdoms plus Bahrain and Qatar were in negotiations to combine into one country.  Bahrain and Qatar chose to be independent while the other areas joined to become the UAE with Abu Dhabi as the capital.  

The first UAE president Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, referred to as the ‘father’, died in 2004 and was succeeded by his son Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the ruler of Abu Dhabi and, therefore, the president of UAE.  Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mouktoum is the current ruler of Dubai and prime minister of UAE.   

Burj Khalifa

Many highways and buildings in Dubai and Abu Dhabi are named and created in honour of the rulers.  The Burj Khjalifa  (Tallest building in the world) was originally to be named Burj Dubai but after a lot of support was given by the current UAE president the tower was renamed in his honour.  In almost all, if not all, buildings and randomly on street signs you will see large posters/pictures paying their respects to each ruler.  

Fountain show from atop the tallest building in the world at ~830m

Abu Dhabi is the financial center of the UAE and takes up almost 90% of the total land of the country. Dubai is quite a bit smaller but is regarded as the city to go to for entertainment.  Land in general is very scarce, much of it owned by the rulers and their sons.  The ruler of Abu Dhabi has 32 sons (from different wives) that each have their own large piece of land with proper, ostentatious palaces.  I asked a friend why some of the palaces or pieces of land were larger than others if all 32 sons got a ‘piece of the pie’.  The answer is that the son’s wealth depends on whether his mother was from the UAE or of another nationality.  The natural citizens receive the bigger piece of said pie.  Due to the lack of land many construction projects have first created new land on the coast by dredging the sand from the gulf.  The more famous ones being the Palm and ‘The World’ in Dubai but also major, less assuming projects in Abu Dhabi.  

Over the past couple decades there has been a significant change in the cityscape of both Abu Dhabi and Dubai.  The picture below shows a main street of Dubai in the 90s and then again in 2003. Add another 9 years of non-stop construction on to that...

   

This all started a long time ago when the rulers came up with the ‘2030 initiative’.  This plan, in conjunction with Qatar, was to make both countries in the list of top 10 places to live.  There wasn’t a very large population of Emiratis so to realize this vision the UAE decided to make their country an open and welcoming place for foreigners.  The current population of ~ 8 million people is only about 15% Emirati.  Foreigners were enticed with above average compensation and a high-class lifestyle.   They understood that they would never be afforded the same luxuries as a native citizen, including:

-          They could never become citizens

-          They would not receive free health care, schooling and accommodations

-          They would have to pay tax (zero tax for Emiratis)

-          Allowance towards cleaning staff and childcare

-          Almost impossible to marry a citizen

So, in the end they would receive compensation but would not be able to stay in the Emirates unless supported to work.  If their work or contract ended they would be expected to leave almost immediately.  All of these government sponsored programs are coming from oil so the next question is…what happens when the oil is gone?

The answer is that the rulers, and government, obviously realized this would happen someday so they made a plan to invest in only foreign companies or countries with the objective to sustain themselves financially for 50 years after the oil is gone.  What happens after that would be the next question….

All in all it’s a great country to visit and all your needs are taken care of.  It has a bit of an extreme climate but it’s a nice change from the Russian winters.  Since most of the people in the Emirates are foreigners the common language ends up being English.  It makes it very easy to get around as a tourist and get what you need but the downside is being in a different country but not getting a sense of its people, culture and history.  At first view the cities seem very ‘perfect’.  It’s unnaturally clean, artificially green and everything in its place.  You can see the instant transition from the edge of the perfect cities to the bare desert.

'grass' to desert transition

Anyways, to finish this off it is a great place to visit and if you can afford it an exciting and entertaining place to live.  Look into it if you get the chance.    

Soon to come...my adventures in Dubai

Russian pronunciation

I use the goole translate app to practice my russian speaking. I still need to improve my pronunciation because if I make this mistake in public it could cause me some trouble....

День защитника Отечества

Supporting my opinion that Russia has mastered the idea of holidays, today is 'Defender of the Fatherland Day' also known as Men's Day.  I can't think of a better titled holiday. 

It used to be called 'Red Army Day' and then renamed to 'Soviet Army and Navy Day' and is supposed to celebrate people who have served in the Russian Army.  Despite being too skinny, weak, and generally too scared to ever serve in any army I still feel like this day is for me. 

On Women's day the female employees are showered with chocolates and flowers and treated and queens for the day.  We, as Men, don't get the same attention but do receive many emails thanking us for being men and praising our manly ways.  That will suffice for me.

Correction:  On the day following Men's Day, which is a day off, the women planned a very nice celebration where we snacked on finger foods and received gifts.  I've been spoiled and will not be able to let another February 23rd pass without my proper recognition.  I'm bringing this holiday to Canada....

The spread

My gift - 'I am hard to find, easy to lose and impossible to forget'

My teaching method

Part of teaching is making sure your students are properly humiliated when they make mistakes.   My class recently told me one of our printers wasn't working.  I first told them it was their business and it was working the last time I used it so I'm sure it's something simple.  After another day of struggling they were still not able to figure out the problem.  I intervened, found the problem and fixed it in a matter of seconds.  Since it was such an easy fix I created a nice storyline for the students to follow so they could see my experience and how I reached my conclusion.  The email is below.....

The other day you told me the printer in 107 wasn’t working.  I was told that you had tried everything but there was something wrong with this printer.  So, I decided to check it out.  

I started to assess the situation.  First thing I thought to myself is that this printer used to work.  The front panel said it was ‘ready’ so I looked behind the printer and noticed there were sooooo many connections on the back (3).  I got a bit dizzy from looking at all of these and had to step back and try and decide what to do. 

I noticed an ‘ethernet’ cabley type of thing on the ground beside the printer.  I also noticed there was an Ethernet input connectionny thing on the printer as well. 

 

 

They looked similar to me but I just wasn’t sure if this was a problem.  Just because they look the same, does that mean they can go together?????!!?    So, I  decided to call some people from Microsoft and even made a call to the guys at NASA because this seemed like a high tech, maybe even space type of technology.  After some serious research they came back to me and said,

‘Dave, we have figured it out.  You need to plug the Ethernet cabley thing into the Ethernet connectionny thing’

‘No, no!!  that can’t be it!’  I said

‘Trust us’

‘I can’t guys, this is serious.  What if I get hurt?  What if I die?’

‘Dave, we’re sure of this.  You won’t get hurt, we think’. 

So, I closed my eyes and plugged in the cabley thing to the connectionny thing…..

All of sudden the printer sprang to life..IT WORKED!!! IT WORKED!!!! and the best part was that I wasn’t hurt and I wasn’t dead.  I was still alive! 

Can you tell me what the moral of this story is?

Stay tuned for the next story, arriving whenever you guys give me the opportunity. 

Sincerely,

Dave'