A word of caution: if you ever have the opportunity to float around over your city in a Bell Mobility blimp, and the temptation hits you to drink, like, lots of water chased down with a grande Mexican coffee just because it's there and it's free and you haven't had a good coffee in a while, think twice. A thousand feet up is a long way to be without a loo (there is no lieu), and they don't just land those things on command.
Don't worry, I survived, and it wasn't until I got to my car after the hour-long ride that my eyes were really floating. But such a minor thing in the grand scheme.
Yes, I went up in a blimp - although the Bell crew prefer "Lightship" (sounds cooler, plus the ship illuminates from the inside) (I prefer blimp). Whatever. Got a call from my Westside Weekly editor, Pat, on Monday afternoon, asking if I would be interested in a ride Tuesday afternoon. Despite the fact I knew I was doing election coverage for the Province that evening, I said "sure" (come on, like you wouldn't?). With Tuesday came another story from the Province, plus I forgot I still had to vote, so I had to cancel my ride (this is starting to feel like one of those story games I played as a kid - "oh, that's good!" "Oh, that's bad!"). But then they rebooked me on a flight the next day (Oh, that's good!). Before which I drank all the water and coffee (oh, that's bad!). But I digress.
The ride was indeed uber cool. If you're OK with heights, that is. It's a little unnerving going up, and down, and it takes some getting used to sitting in a little box dangling 1,000 feet over the city. Add to that the thrill of dangling your $900 camera out an open window (strap wrapped several times around your wrist of course) and you have yourself a real little exploit!
Some little known blimp facts I picked up along the way:
-> There are more astronauts than blimp pilots
-> You cannot buy a ticket to ride a lightship anywhere in the world
-> The aircraft cruises at an average speed of 76 km/h
-> The balloon part is fed with 20-30 bottles of helium, every two or three weeks in order to lift.
-> The aircraft's passenger bubble - the gondola - can hold six people in addition to the pilot.
-> No one but the pilot is needed onboard, but the ship has 15 crew members that keep it in the air and help to bring it back down to earth
-> While there are all sorts of fancy gadgets in the open cockpit, the pilot basically controls it with two foot pedals (left and right) and a big wheel attached to his seat like a wheel chair wheel (up and down)
-> The world record for a continuous flight was made last September by Carl Harbuck, one of three pilots that was in Kelowna with the Bell blimp this week. He wasn't my pilot, but I talked to him afterward. He said he was up for 24 hours, 39 minutes and 55 seconds, just circling Los Angeles over and over and over again
Anyway, the view from above was fantastic, and I got all sorts of excellent pictures out of the deal, including some of the Greenway, my apartment building and the soon-to-be-replaced floating bridge. My favourite, though, is a shot of the so-called "Cultural District." Upon examination later (once I knew to look), you can JUST make out two figures on the roof of the Kelowna Art Gallery - - Kyle and his co-worker Richard, who went out to try and see me when they heard I'd be floating by. Just sorry I missed the cartwheels.
So that was my great blimping adventure. Highly recommendable, I must say. Just wait on the coffee until you're back on the ground.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Thursday, May 05, 2005
now we are 100
So Kelowna turned 100 today. Happy birthday, yawn.
Yes, everyone's excited about Kelowna's centennial, and raving about what a wonderful place this stupid town is. We are so blessed, they say, to live in this paradise. This four-season playground! Cliche, cliche, cliche. Come on, people!
Yes, it's a step up from, say, Saskatchewan, from whence the majority of the population has sprung, but let's analyze a little.
We'll start with summer: It's dry and dusty because we're a semi desert. Drive across the Okanagan after May and all you see are parched tumbleweeds dotting the bland, brown hillsides. Yes, the lake is nice, if you don't mind the motor oil, beer and pee, but shall I start on the immense boredom I'm hit with spending any amount of time on its shores, baking on the flaming sand surrounded by hundreds of bikini clad sex objects (and I use the term loosely, since most of them are several trips to McDonald's beyond being fit enough for even a one piece in public)?
Then there's the wine industry. Great, we have a wine industry, and it's internationally recognized! Except, if you visit anywhere outside the Okanagan, THEY HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT!! Maybe if we stopped calling ourselves "Napa Valley North" we'd get some recognition for who we are instead of trying to ride some other region's shirt tails. Ditto "Silicon Vineyard" and "Hollywood North."
Shall I start on the Cultural District? Who tapes off a few blocks of city and says, "now, this is where our culture will reside." Especially when the "culture" is comprised of a handful of contrived, wannabe arts that I don't believe even the residents of this land buy. And I mean that literally. According to one local potter who has taken the bait, someone from Kelowna purchased her work in Calgary - - but wouldn't buy it in their own "CD."
Segueway to our low self image. I could expand here on a Canadian trait, but let's stick to Kelowna. We don't support our own artisans, artists, craftsmen, musicians, talent. After all, if they're here they must not be very good. So the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra will bankrupt itself bringing in musicians from Switzerland or England or Chicago or wherever to perform, but keeps its own, equally talented performers, in the background. Stigmatized.
Don't get me wrong - we want to be a big, grown-up city. Well, some of us do. But we don't want to give up our small town mentality. When Skyreach Place opened, for instance, everyone wanted to go check out the big arena - but then called into radio stations and wrote letters to the editor complaining how expensive the tickets and drinks were. Hello, this is what it's like in a big city. If you don't like it, stay small.
They're also lazy. No aspirations. Just contentment with being here. Existing. La-dee-dah! Sunshine and lakefront and flowers in hanging baskets down Bernard. It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz. You know the part where Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tinman and the Lion are approaching Oz, so the Wicked Witch has to throw them a wrench? She spreads a poppy field before them. A beautiful, expansive, colourful field of poppies. But poppies are a narcotic. So when they get in the middle of the field they want to fall asleep. Upon realizing it they run like mad things to escape. That's Kelowna. You have to run, run and don't look back or else you'll fall asleep. You'll loose your edge, your creativity (after all, who do you have to challenge you? Alex Fong? Jock Hildebrand? Geert Maas, perhaps?). Your stories will suck and your opportunities diminish. You'll fall blissfully asleep and become like everyone else here.
Och, I could go on. And on. And on. Most of you, dear readers, have heard this tirade before. And yet here I am, still located in Kelowna. Fighting sleep with every fiber of my being, yet getting weaker and weaker about running away (what can I say, my family's here!). And so I shake the others, wake up, wake up! We're 100 today - let's try and get real!
Yes, everyone's excited about Kelowna's centennial, and raving about what a wonderful place this stupid town is. We are so blessed, they say, to live in this paradise. This four-season playground! Cliche, cliche, cliche. Come on, people!
Yes, it's a step up from, say, Saskatchewan, from whence the majority of the population has sprung, but let's analyze a little.
We'll start with summer: It's dry and dusty because we're a semi desert. Drive across the Okanagan after May and all you see are parched tumbleweeds dotting the bland, brown hillsides. Yes, the lake is nice, if you don't mind the motor oil, beer and pee, but shall I start on the immense boredom I'm hit with spending any amount of time on its shores, baking on the flaming sand surrounded by hundreds of bikini clad sex objects (and I use the term loosely, since most of them are several trips to McDonald's beyond being fit enough for even a one piece in public)?
Then there's the wine industry. Great, we have a wine industry, and it's internationally recognized! Except, if you visit anywhere outside the Okanagan, THEY HAVEN'T HEARD OF IT!! Maybe if we stopped calling ourselves "Napa Valley North" we'd get some recognition for who we are instead of trying to ride some other region's shirt tails. Ditto "Silicon Vineyard" and "Hollywood North."
Shall I start on the Cultural District? Who tapes off a few blocks of city and says, "now, this is where our culture will reside." Especially when the "culture" is comprised of a handful of contrived, wannabe arts that I don't believe even the residents of this land buy. And I mean that literally. According to one local potter who has taken the bait, someone from Kelowna purchased her work in Calgary - - but wouldn't buy it in their own "CD."
Segueway to our low self image. I could expand here on a Canadian trait, but let's stick to Kelowna. We don't support our own artisans, artists, craftsmen, musicians, talent. After all, if they're here they must not be very good. So the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra will bankrupt itself bringing in musicians from Switzerland or England or Chicago or wherever to perform, but keeps its own, equally talented performers, in the background. Stigmatized.
Don't get me wrong - we want to be a big, grown-up city. Well, some of us do. But we don't want to give up our small town mentality. When Skyreach Place opened, for instance, everyone wanted to go check out the big arena - but then called into radio stations and wrote letters to the editor complaining how expensive the tickets and drinks were. Hello, this is what it's like in a big city. If you don't like it, stay small.
They're also lazy. No aspirations. Just contentment with being here. Existing. La-dee-dah! Sunshine and lakefront and flowers in hanging baskets down Bernard. It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz. You know the part where Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tinman and the Lion are approaching Oz, so the Wicked Witch has to throw them a wrench? She spreads a poppy field before them. A beautiful, expansive, colourful field of poppies. But poppies are a narcotic. So when they get in the middle of the field they want to fall asleep. Upon realizing it they run like mad things to escape. That's Kelowna. You have to run, run and don't look back or else you'll fall asleep. You'll loose your edge, your creativity (after all, who do you have to challenge you? Alex Fong? Jock Hildebrand? Geert Maas, perhaps?). Your stories will suck and your opportunities diminish. You'll fall blissfully asleep and become like everyone else here.
Och, I could go on. And on. And on. Most of you, dear readers, have heard this tirade before. And yet here I am, still located in Kelowna. Fighting sleep with every fiber of my being, yet getting weaker and weaker about running away (what can I say, my family's here!). And so I shake the others, wake up, wake up! We're 100 today - let's try and get real!
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