RNG

Shanelanie

2010-09-07T13:15:00.000-06:00

I went to sonicboom this past weekend. I reconnected with friends I haden't seen in a year and only met over the course of one day. Sonicboom (http://www.sonicboomfestival.com/) is going to become a yearly event I hope, and strangely enough, I feel like if I ever needed anything I could phone those friends and ask, and they would help.

Last year Melanie and Shannon made me feel like I was a worth while guy. That had something inside that was worth shareing with others. At a time where I needed that the most. This past weekend I was so happy to meet them again; and I found that I needed that same boost.

Things aren't so great for me right now. Stress at work is tough. Stress in my personal life is tougher. To have people whom I met so briefly decide that I'm someone worthy of getting to know better and genuienly want to spend time with felt so amazing. Apparently I look younger than I am, awww yeah! Even if its not true it felt good to hear. Sometimes we need that; well I do anyway. But that was the best part. You guys were sincere.

I try my best to make those around me feel pretty good, because I want to be treated the same way. I have a lot of friends that are captains of the positive bus! (I'm looking at you Dave). I'm happy to count Shannon and Melanie (now forever called Shanelanie) as part of the crew. Martin and Matt, (you guys are also awesome!) don't let those two get away!

Dana was another friend I met again. She and Trevor hooked up after last years sonicboom and are still going strong. Yay for for getting drunk finding eachother and staying together! She pretty much got me back on track with my running. Its been a while since I have had the urge to get out and go but after spending the weekend talking to her I'm excited to hit the pavement again. Thank you for saying I'm not fat!...as I ate my marble slab ice cream >.> (I'm just big boned lol).

Anyway I need to feel special again and my friends are the ones there making it happen. Thank you.

Ugh this post feels kind of all over the place. It's been too long since I blogged. Bah lunch is over. Back to work =(

The Running Man

2010-04-20T00:13:00.001-06:00

Why is it that when I am out running someone always has to heckle me from their car as they pass by? I know. I get it. I'm fat...thanks for reminding me. I'm trying to change that, I really am. Today was not a stellar day and that just put the topper on it all. What sucks is that it usually happens at least a couple times a month while I'm running outside. No wonder I can't seem to find anyone to date in this world. Its all about how good you look and I apparently don't got it. <-----check out that fantastic grammar!

It doesn't matter how smart, charming, fun, or nice you are, none of that matters. Just look good and you'll be getting ahead. If I ever have kids (and that's looking like a LONG shot at this point) they are going to be in shape and healthy so help me. It would sure give them a head start in this world it seems.

All I want is one bloody chance. Maybe I won't even screw it up! I think I have a lot going for me honestly. I have a great job which I love. I own my own house. I have a truck and a motorbike that I own outright. I stay active and have an odd but fascinating sense of humor. Well maybe its not that fascinating but I have to talk myself up somehow. But none of that is good enough, cause I don't have the looks to back it all up.

Why is it that it takes 10 people to lift you up and make you feel like someone worth something, and only one person to make you feel like shit? The worst part is all I probably needed was to come home to someone and vent about the idiots I hear on the road, or the frustrating things I deal with in a day, but I don't have that luxury. I'm not good enough for that apparently. Whats wrong with me?

This past year has been probably the toughest in my life. I was always so sure of myself, about my own self worth. I'm starting to lose that and it scares me.

I need to smile more, because I don't know what happens when I can't anymore.
Sorry for venting like this. I've had a rough day and as pathetic as this sounds, this blog is all I've got right now.

I do have to put SOMETHING happy in this post though, and this made me smile. Stop rolling your eyes, I laughed!

Someone call IXII!

2010-04-04T00:47:00.000-06:00

Ok...I know this is WAY late but I have been keeping myself busy, and for me right now, that is a very good thing. This post is going to be all about our superb ambulance staff at Creekside and at the Olympics as a whole.

We had the pleasure of working with Cam. He was managing all of the ambulance staff at Creekside and I believe at the sliding center...maybe even further out that that as I do know he was at the gold medal mens hockey game. Lucky bugger! The paramedics were all excellent to work with. They were all extremely well trained and a lot of fun to be around. See the pictures!

Now most of the paramedic staff at the Olympics were there under interesting circumstances. The union they were a part of was in the middle of contract negotiations with the Provence. Tensions were running high during the talks and the union had decided that none of the union workers would be attending the Olympics. As you can imagine that didn't run so well with many of the paramedics that were set to go and volunteer! So at risk for their own careers they decided to show up and work at the Olympic venues anyway. I sure hope that they aren't under any duress from other union associates for volunteering. The world needs medical staff like these guys!

Liz was one of the paramedics that we got along with very well. She was in a word, awesome! In fact she even gave me a BC Ambulance patch right off of her own shirt. How cool is that!? Being the kid that I am, I asked her if I could go play lights and sirens. This was the result. It was SO MUCH FUN to sit in the drivers seat and push buttons. Code 3 is when they run lights and sirens when they are on the road, and that must be so exciting! After all the fun in the front Ryan and I got to sit in the back. Now we couldn't just sit there by ourselves so we told Liz to jump in on the bed. Now we did warn her that in the pose she struck we would be taking a picture of her ass, but she didn't move so...

We did decide to take another one though, and it turned out very nicely I think! For those that know me and are keeping count, this marks the first time I have been in the back of an ambulance and not been strapped to the bed. YAY! After the day was over I found out that both Liz and her partner that day were heading back to the Westin. They offered to take me with them so I got to sit up front and get driven back to the hotel in style. Yeah I grinned all the way! Oh and bonus points for those who know where the post title came from!

That's all for now!

The Little Things

2010-03-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

So many little things happened out at the Olympics that I needed a blog post to to cover them all. Plus its a nice smattering of randomness.

It was no surprise that there were leaders from many countries visiting the games to watch. Many would not be seen by most visitors and unless you read the papers or watched the news you would not even know they were there. Canada's own Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in attendance. See the picture. Just to the left of the umbrella. Just sitting and conversing with other regular spectators. Pretty cool to see actually. He did however have a contingent of black coated gentleman watching over him, discretely but still there! Think what you will of our Prime Minister, but that was a pretty cool thing to do.

There were some very nice days to be had at the games through the central weeks. So warm in fact that dressing for a day of patrolling was very difficult. Walking up the path you needed to be in not much else than the shell but standing you definitely wanted a base layer and fleece on. The bright days called for the sun glasses! Speaking of climbing the path, they finally played some music over the speakers leading up to the venue. The crew of cheerleaders who were encouraging the crowds up the path was lead by Francene. She was a lot of fun. Her voice though! Imagine the sexiest most soothing voice you have ever heard, that was her! Then she would switch to french, how cool! Ryan convinced her that she should give a shot out to the med crew on the trail. Awesome! Except he told her to refer to me as Carebear Kallum, which she did of course. Why do I have this sinking feeling that one is going to stick when I get back to Louise.

One of the days that had no event I was working to cover any workforce that may have gotten injured. As luck would have it someone on the course crew did come in with a nasty cut above his eye. Apparently he took a shovel to the face while sculpting the course. At first the doctor was going to glue the laceration shut but it was too wide so stitches it was! We did the procedure right there which was cool, but we also had to ask him if his tetanus was up to date. It was. I of course couldn't remember the last time I had mine done and in a moment of complete stupidity mentioned this fact to Judy our nurse. WRONG! She jumped on my case immediately about not having it, and as anyone who has been reading this blog knows, we had a very well stocked medical trailer. Yes it even came with tetanus vaccine. So here I was getting vaccinated when I didn't even get cut! I really should have it since I was working in a medical position though. Anyone who knows me also knows I have a slight phobia when it comes to needles, but I was all brave. That and Judy wasn't taking no for an answer. The shot didn't hurt at all, however the next day my arm was amazingly sore! Look at me being all growed up!

I did manage to have a room all to myself for the entire stay which was so incredible. I was able to host a couple of people from the crew for a night or two when they didn't want to head back to Squamish; an hour ride by bus, most times standing room only! The absolute best thing about having the room to myself was the fire. At night I would turn off all of the lights and turn on the fireplace. Something about firelight doesn't keep me awake like daylight or electric lights. I drifted off to sleep while the flickering orange light danced on the walls. Something about that was so restful and soothing, it's hard to describe.

I think I'll end here for the evening. Now I want to go sit near a warm fire for a bit!

The Restaurant

2010-03-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Ok here we are at the first rewind post.

A while ago I learned about a restaurant in Whistler called Araxi. It is rather high end but has the distinction of being featured on Hells Kitchen.

http://www.araxi.com/hellskitchen.html

This coupled with the fun of trying a new restaurant was a perfect opportunity for a Valentines dinner! I did in fact manage a reservation for the 14th, awesome! Unfortunately I was to learn not soon after making the reservation that I was fated to go alone; not awesome. The fact that it just happened to be during the Olympics meant that canceling a reservation held a fairly steep monetary penalty, hmm what to do. I was able to move the reservation to another day later in the month, I was still going to be able to go!

Tisha who also worked on the med spec crew with me agreed to come with which was very sweet of her. I was thrilled I didn't have to spend another dinner alone at a restaurant. It really does suck! Now on to the fun stuff!

The decor was very nice and even though it was busy we didn't need to raise our voices to talk. Sitting in the middle of the room still gave us an impression of having a private conversation which was nice. The door staff were of course well dressed, smiling and beautiful. The wait staff were extremely polite and well versed in the restaurants offerings. We decided on trying a local wine found in the Okanagan Valley. All of the wine was uncorked and put into nice carafes. One we saw was about 3 feet in length! Not always functional but looked really cool. We decided to order direct from the regular menu but they did have a tasting menu as well which looked very interesting!

Bread was served with a chopped olive mixture on olive oil. Tasty but if you don't like olives it would have been salty. We started with the Lobster Salad: crisp crab springroll with avocado and apple toasted couscous, mint and celery leaf salad. We have pictures too!

Next was our main courses. Tisha opted for the Grilled Red Tuna: lemon and lime vinaigrette with toasted quinoa and shaved mushrooms Pemberton jade radish, dried tomatoes with salsify. Tisha and I agree it was probably the best tuna we had ever tasted. It really was amazing!

I went with the Local Wild + Cultivated Mushroom Risotto: toasted sage, white wine and truffle essence parmigiano-reggiano and roasted BC hazelnuts. I also added one gram of black truffles. Yes they sell them by the gram. There are only a few things in the world I have heard of sold by the gram and most illegal. Forget all that! Go get a truffle pig and make some real money haha! I am biased because I love risotto but this was superb!

Then came dessert. Valrhona Chocolate Fondant: chocolate dentelle and dulce de leche milk chocolate earl grey tea ice cream. Best ice cream ever! The molten lava part of the chocolate cake was done perfectly! A wonderful way to finish off the meal.

After we were finished we decided to head to the GLC again for some drinks. Well we went through a LOT of beer and some crazy fool actually ordered us a shot as well. We even got our server into the pictures. Sleep would have to wait! On our way home we decided to take in the empty bobsled for some pictures. Tisha managed to get all wet, so of course I have to tease her about it. Here is a picture of her wet butt LOL!

Homecoming

2010-02-28T23:26:00.001-07:00

I have successfully made it back to Calgary. This however is not the end of my journey or the end of the stories I have to tell! I have a backlog of things I need to blog about, so make sure to stay tuned for a bit as I will continue to update this site.

The trip back started at 8pm last night. Unfortunately I didn't even get to use the hot tub one last time. Great sadness! I managed to pack everything I needed and only used one extra bag. My ski bag did however get used to capacity. It had skis, poles, running shoes, ski pants, gloves, and most of my dirty laundry all in the ski bag. Now that was efficient packing! I also had to include all the extra gear I acquired while I was there. Things like, my uniform (smurf suit), gloves, an entire medical backpack etc. The backpack will now be used for all of my summer sports too as I usually took along a smaller first aid kit but this one comes fully equipped! We also got shift gifts which were smaller gifts for working a certain number of days. In total I got 2 pins, one stuffed mascot, a new pair of gloves and a keychain from Birks. Oh and I almost forgot, the final day we worked we all got a Vancouver 2010 watch made by Swatch. Not bad!

Believe it or not I could actually walk with all of these bags, albeit very slowly. They had about 3 buses ready to leave from Whistler that evening. Once one bus was full they would send it off, no waiting! It was actually very smoothly done. I arrived in Vancouver at around 10:30pm and was treated to a fireworks display from the platform. My guess is that I was seeing the end of the victory ceremonies for that evening. The picture is blurry but it was quite beautiful.

Ruth was nice enough to supply me with a sleeping aid which made the ride back quite comfortable. I actually slept right through to Kelowna, but my body is still very tired. Dave was again my transport from the bus station and for that I am eternally grateful! I did manage to secure him one of the patroller backpacks though! Don't ask how. Lets just say it was official surplus!

I did get a couple of texts from Craig while I was on the bus last night. Apparently he was out partying with Sophie, one of he event staff I met while out there. Drat! Wish I was there, the picture explains why, she is gorgeous! She is out all the way from Quebec City! Alas buses take longer to travel than planes. I didn't even know Canada won the gold medal hockey game until Dave told me. Go Canada!

One final update before I head to bed, or rather watch some tv and try and wind down. I wanted to mention an e-mail I have had received tonight. For anyone who read the post on the 27th you know about Frank's story. Well Ruth had sent the blog to Wendy, Franks widow, and she was very touched. Here is an excerpt from her response to Ruth:

That is amazing. I cried the whole way through. What a great thing to do. Frank would have been amazed at the impact he has had but all I can say is that he deserved it. Thank You.

Well I pretty much teared up at that. It seems such a small thing but she is right, he deserved it!
Thanks again to all who are reading. More to come.
And on the 17th day he rested.....sort of!

Olympic dreams

2010-02-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight's blog post is a bit special. Tomorrow will be my last day at the games but just to let you know my stories will continue a bit past the closing of my time here, there is just too much to write about!

Last night I went to a restaurant called Araxi. It was amazing. I originally had a reservation for February 14th (yes that's valentine's day) and I cannot begin to tell you how difficult that was to pull off. Needless to say, those plans kind of fell through but that's another story entirely. The point is, I went, and I had a wonderful meal. More to come in a later post!

Tonight I want to talk about a story from a friend I have met out here at Whistler. There are no pictures, save one, just a tale I want to share with everyone who reads this blog. Thank you very much for doing so by the way!

Ruth is one of the doctors that works on my crew out here on the spectator medical team. She is a doctor that lives here in Whistler and is one of the most amazing people I have met out here. She came to Canada from Ireland and fell in love with the Whistler area, and being here I can totally understand why. This story however is not about her, but someone she knew. His name was Frank.

Frank was an Australian gentleman who spent 5 months out of the year at Whistler. He did this for the an astounding 20 years! He was an amazing skier and was an instructor back in Australia. He routinely brought people out to his home here in Whistler for some amazing skiing and all around fun. Much of his time would be spent touring this group of people around the mountain and instructing people on their skiing technique. The instruction was all under the radar of course as private lessons are strictly forbidden on the mountain because of course they want you to use the hills own ski school. Well that was all fine and good, so the group affectionately referred their trips to the hill as "Skiing with Frank", and wow could he ski. Few people could keep up with him and as I understand it none could match his technique, or love for the sport. After the day on the hill his wife would have an amazing meal prepared for the guests as they arrived back from a day of fun. These meals had also gained a reputation of being exceptional in every way.

Sometimes the groups Frank would host would be of varying skill levels and the people who just wanted a day of skiing sans the instruction, would go off with another host who knew the mountain. This is where Ruth would come along and help out by acting as mountain guide to the more skilled skiers. Ruth was able to ski with Frank on her own when time allowed and was able to enjoy and learn from him every time they went out. One such day happened to be in January of 2009. Another terrible day in paradise as some of us would say. Frank was incredibly excited about the Vancouver Olympics and couldn't wait for them to arrive at Whistler. Truly they have been a sight to behold! The day of skiing ended as it normally would and I think this says it best:

“The snow will fall, the sun will shine, the lifts will run, and isn’t that enough?” -Warren Miller

The next day Frank would suffer a stroke. Ruth received a call from his wife in the middle of the night and gave instructions to hang up and call 911 and she would meet them at the hospital emergency. Bear in mind that Frank at 74 could out ski most people at 30 and was in amazing physical condition; this was a very serious situation! Two days later he would succumb to his injuries caused by the stroke and pass away. His wife had his body cremated and held a party to celebrate his life. Everyone who attended was given a small ribbon tied bag with some of the ashes contained inside. The instructions were to go ski, and spread his ashes over the area that he loved the most. Everyone obliged. Ruth however held on to one extra bag. This is where I picked up the story.

One year later we find ourselves at the Vancouver Olympics. The alpine event hosts some of the best skiers the world has to offer and has been an amazing sight to behold. Ruth had planned to go up and spread the last of Franks ashes on the Olympic course at the games. Unfortunately none of us on the spec med crew have lift passes or reason to go on course, so Ruth asked one of the course workers to go up tomorrow morning and finish her last duty to a very close friend. Because of Ruth, Frank will see the Vancouver Olympics, just as he wished to do.

I hope one day I am worthy of friends like Ruth, and also hope that when my time comes, I can pass doing the things I dearly love, just as Frank did. I'd like to end this post with the motto that has been used at the Olympics as I believe it exemplifies this story and the way that Frank had touched the lives of everyone he met and those that remember him.

With Glowing Hearts

Critical mass

2010-02-25T00:19:00.001-07:00

Skiing on Monday was simply amazing. I will be coming back to whistler for a ski trip in the future. The weather was clear blue skies and not a cloud to be seen. Temperatures were very mild and I was taking advantage. Annie was nice enough to give me her workforce lift pass so I didn't need to spend the $90 on a lift ticket!

One of the best things about staying at the Westin is the location. I booted up in my hotel room and walked to the gondola lift. Now that I can get used too! The hill had gotten several 20cm dumps of snow earlier in the week so the runs were in good condition. Most of the groomed stuff was icy because of the thawing and freezing on the sunny sides of the mountain. The steep and shaded faces were in very good condition and still had great snow. Guess where I went to play?

My first run took me right up to the top of the Blackcomb mountain. I hiked up from the top of the lift about 100m through a section called Spanky's Ladder. Through that pass lies a double black playground of fun! For anyone who knows Lake Louise it's much like whitehorn 2 but just so much bigger! Another benefit is that because there is hiking involved no large crowds go up there and the view on the backside is simply gorgeous. See the pictures to get an idea of the view. The run is probably a 45 to 50 degree incline, which may not sound like much, but it can be quite intimidating if your not used to that terrain. The way back to the front was a beautiful little ski out similar to the Sunshine village one only far more visually stunning and faster as it's a blue.

My next run took me down Pakalolo, which is another double black near the glacier express chair. Someone was even taking pictures of my run from the chair. I had to laugh as I'm definitely not good enough to be a camera skier! Now it was time to go take a ride on the peak to peak gondola.

The gondola connects the peaks of Blackcomb and Whistler mountain. Both offer amazing terrain but Whistler was far busier because of the Olympics. The Gondola takes 11 minutes to make the trip across and is the longest unsupported span in the world! Here are some technical details, and I find them fascinating:

Speed: 7.5 meters per second.
Ride Time: approximately 11 min
Frequency: one cabin departs every 49 seconds
Total Distance: 4.4km (straight line)
Length of Unsupported Span: 3.024km (straight line between the two towers that are furthest apart)
Highest Point: above the ground is 415m over Fitzsimmons Creek
Number of Cabins: 28
Capacity of Cabins: 24 seated, 4 standing
Capacity: 2050 people per hour each way
Number of Towers: 4 (2 on Blackcomb and 2 on Whistler)
Height of Towers: 35-65 meters
Track Ropes: the two stationary ropes that the cabin rides upon-each rope is 56mm in diameter. Total length of the track rope with the sag is 4600m
Haul Rope: the single rope that pulls the cars along the track ropes is 46mm in diameter. Total length of the haul rope loop with the sag is 8850m

Then I hopped the peak chair on Whistler and got some great turns down Whistler bowl. Also got some more pictures and one of a very well trained avalanche dog named Hecter. He was so cute! I want a dog! The patrollers were also super nice and fun to talk to. That was pretty much the highlight of the skiing day. I will be going back as there is so much if the mountain I didn't even get to see much less ride!

Now back to medical stuff. Judy the nurse we have on staff brought us some interesting souvenirs. Condoms from the athletes village. Apparently there were some 17,000 condoms brought in to give out during the Olympics. If we think about it; we have several hundred athletes, all staying in the same area and cordoned off from the general public. They are all in peak physical condition and all in their early 20's (give or take). This results in a critical mass of sexual proportions apparently!

The other really funny fact I found out (I thought it was funny) was that we happen to have "Plan B" stocked in our med trailer. For anyone who doesn't know; plan B is the nickname for the morning after medication. Basically its an emergency birth control for someone who happened to make a bad decision the night before. What I can't seem to figure out is why we would stock it in the medical trailer at the Olympic venue. I knew we had good medical coverage at Creekside but I didn't know it was THAT good! Ready for anything I guess.

Dinner tonight was a recommended spot from Tisha one of the medspec crew. There is a burger place in town called Splitz grill. Probably one of the best burgers I have had. It was operated like a Harvey's but so much better. The toppings were varied and fresh, and from the meat right down to the bun it was quality all the way. Not a bad way to end a long day.

Short update

2010-02-24T00:44:00.001-07:00

This is mostly an addendum to the last post.

The night we went to the bobsled we were all finished by about 7:30. Then there was a huge rush of people trying to get on buses and the gondola back down to the village. Cassie and I got separated from the rest of the group and decided it would be much faster to walk down. So that's what we did. Actually we jogged down the mountain and that girl can move! It took us about 7-8 minutes to get down. We were running down the village way ski run at night with no light, and it was a TON of fun! The company I kept while doing it also helped lol.

The next day I went skiing. Wow! Whistler is an amazing mountain. I have a ton of pictures to show and I will definitely write about my day when I get the chance. All I have to say now is, I could do laps on Spanky's Ladder all day and be completely satisfied, and that was only one run on the Blackcomb mountain!

After that day I was invited out to dinner by Greg Cooke from the louise patrol. We all chipped in for groceries and had a nice home cooked meal which was very welcome. We also watched the couples ice dance competition. I'm not much for figure skating but wow did the Canadians put on a show! Definitely earned the gold! I have to admit I did enjoy the American couples choice of music from the phantom of the opera, but I have a soft spot for that score. I love it. After all that I had a sudden urge to go watch The Cutting Edge again.

Toe pick!!

Catching up!

2010-02-22T02:11:00.001-07:00

Ok missed another day of blogging but I hope this will put me back on track. After the night out at the sushi place we were invited back to Dr. Ruth's place for some drinks. She forced me to drink wine! She's very persuasive. It was quite a nice night and she has a very nice condo near the river in town.

After I finally slept in for a day I decided I better go out and have a look at Whistler proper in the day time. It has a nice village atmosphere although right now its crazy busy. They have stages set up throughout the town and CTV has a broadcast pavilion that they do live news from. Even the RCMP were out in full dress. Us Canadians are really putting on a show for the world.

Back on hill I was looking more at my surroundings. I managed to find the doping test facility at Creekside. I took a quick picture of the signage as I thought it was pretty neat to see the actual area where the staff would test the athletes for all kinds of performance enhancements. According to the paper, there were quite a few people who didn't get to show up at the Olympics because of positive tests. Also the geeky engineer in me saw the tents they set up but more interestingly the mobile heating units they are using to keep everything warm. The heaters exhaust inside in the buildings and actually inflate ducts with holes in the sides to disperse the forced air, kind of like a garden soaker hose only far larger. The only question I had was why they decided to put the hot air into the upper portion of the buildings. Doesn't hot air rise? I must have slept through that section of HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning, for the non acronym enhanced readers).

One night I went out and enjoyed the nightlife a bit which was pretty fun. It was also the night we won the mens skeleton so the pubs were extra busy. I also got to take in some of the local wildlife, they are pretty around here lol. We took in the medals plaza that night as well. The stage actually rotates and the featured bands play after the medal ceremonies are finished. Dave your not going to believe this but......I missed seeing Kid Koala on Feb 13th. I found out on the 14th. DAMN! They also have a mini cauldron burning in the plaza as well.

Last night I took in my first event that I wasn't working at. It was the mens 2 man bobsled. Wow was that ever cool! They got up to 150km/h at the bottom! Craig, one of the guys on my crew even got himself on national TV. We saw 2 sleds roll over that night. One I believe was the Spanish team but the other unfortunately was Canada-1 on their 2nd run. It was such a good run too. So glad they were ok. Its very disconcerting to see a sled speed by upside down with 2 helmets bumping along the ice inside. Above is a shot of Canada-1 coming into the finish. These shots are really tough to get since they are flying by at such high speeds. Its all skill people! Also here we have a shot of the 4 of us that went. Left to right we have Craig the crazy American (with the made in Canada foam hat). Next is Ryan, also from my med crew; Cassie who is a course worker for the downhill. She rides the bus in the morning with Ryan which is how I came to meet her and she is also an Engineer graduated from the U of A, ERTW! Finally, the smokin hot guy on the right is Carlos Spicyweiner.

We actually have quite a tight knit spectator medical crew. We all get along and work very well together. Some of the other crews have some issues and personalities that clash. Annie our crew chief just loves having us. Plus we know how to have a lot of fun. For instance we had a dance off at the end of the day today since we can usually be found patrolling and dancing in place as we move amongst our venue. The police and paramedics watching our competition were cheering us on. Its all on video somewhere. It might be better it gets lost somewhere, but who am I kidding. It will surface at some point!

Tomorrow I get my one and only day off. I will be skiing my butt off on Whistler Blackcomb. I will also be riding the peak to peak gondola because its the largest of its kind in the world and I like that sort of engineering feat stuff. The highest point is 436m/1427 feet off of the ground. Oh its going to be a sight!

Afterwards I will be meeting Dr. Ruth and heading to the Weasel house again, since she hasn't been there yet. It is a sponsored venue for all the weasel workers (course crew) with free beer! Oh and one of the times I was there I happened to get a picture of myself holding the Olympic torch. Yup the torch itself, which was awesome! Its very light and honestly I really wanted to tear one apart to see how it was constructed to make it weather proof. Good job Bombardier, even though the music from that commercial gets stuck in my head and all I want to do it purge it out!

Ok I'm off to bed. I have sleep to catch up on and a whole day of skiing, free beer and hot tubing to take in. Life sure is rough out here!

The Buses

2010-02-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Ok very quick post as it was another long day and I really want some sleep!

So I figured I'd do a quick blurb on the buses here. They have done a pretty monumental job of getting the Olympic bus system set up. Its about as large of a system that is currently running in greater Vancouver. Huge! Mostly it works fairly well. There have been a couple of issues, like early buses not showing up but thats mostly felt by the volunteer staff...which sucks for us!

One of the funniest stories has actually happened to more than one volunteer now. They board the bus and once the doors close the driver then turns to the passengers and asks for directions, I kid you not! They have gotten drivers from all over to try and staff such a large and ultimately temporary system, so many are not fully trained on the route they will be driving (or ARE driving as the case may be).

I'm working on collecting more Olympic pins now too. Just need to find the right people! We were given special medical ones which are very unique and rare which is pretty cool. Hope to find a few more nice ones. Sorry for the short post but I needs my sleep!

Galactical Day!

2010-02-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

Well as our crew leader Annie would say, it was a galactical day!

The ladies downhill was run today and wow was it busy! I was working the lower compound, which confusingly enough is the highest part of the area we patrol. Mostly we watch the crowd fill the area and make sure people are okay. Terry responded to one little boy who tripped and bit through his tongue. Ouch! Not much we can do for that though. It will heal on its own.

The big news was the race itself with no less than 8 crashes on the course. The jump at the bottom was BIG and several ladies didn't land it well. So much so that I was actually posted at the finish line for a while to make sure we had people able to respond to the accidents fast enough as the ladies crew was short staffed. I almost walked out on to the finish area to help one girl that had slid under the inflatable barriers while trying to stop! Incidentally Swiss fans are nuts, check out the size of that bell and Swedish fans are omfg HOT!

There was one crash of particular note and the girl had to be lifted off the course by helicopter. I was involved in the incident and helped with the lift of the patient once she had been air lifted to the helipad and then again when she was transfered to the gurney for the ambulance. She was doing ok and had a sore knee but seemed to be okay even after getting lifted to the ambulance. That was good news! I posted up at the finish after this event to try and respond to any carnage at the finish. It was in the press photo area so afforded me a nice view for a couple of pictures! Including some of the flower ceremony at the end which was sweet. Medical has its advantages! The camera crews were pretty funny to watch. Everyone look left now!

The whole crew went to a sushi restaurant after, to have a nice evening out with the entire MedSpec crew. The sushi was excellent. Bruce, who is on our team is a pilot for United and also flies a private fighter jet for a very rich owner. How awesome of a job is that! He also happens to be personal friend of Michael Dorn. For anyone who doesn't know, he played Lt. Worf on "Star Trek the Next Generation". Well he decided to call him up during dinner so Ryan and I got to chat with him on the phone for a bit. Yes you read that right, I talked with Lt. Worf on the phone! How random and cool is that! He was a super nice guy to talk to by the way!

Sorry for not posting an update yesterday. The downhill was postponed and I slept. In fact I crashed, I was up by the crack of noon, and then I had lunch and slept some more. Needless to say I was tired! Tomorrow is the super combined and that's going to be a long day as well. Hope I don't sleep on the job lol.

Tomorrow's topics: Whistler Village, buses, drinks at Dr. Ruth's house and doping

Let there be Cake!

2010-02-15T23:28:00.001-07:00

So today was the first day with spectators on hill and it got busy!
Oddly enough there wasn't much happening with medical but a ton of things went wrong with the event staff planning. We were on hill, fed watered and ready to go at 6:30am. Did I mention how much I hate mornings? Well this was painful!

Anyway, we have 8000 people getting geared to come up a mountain path which is quite aggressive! The issue was most people didn't know that there was a chair life option to get up to the bleachers. Also, there were some people dropped off by buses half way up the bottom of the path, so they had no idea that they could take a chair, and in some cases, that they couldn't get tickets at the top. Sucked to do the hike for nothing!

The Swiss were completely nuts about this event by the way! Some guy did the hike in ski boots. Now that's dedication. Also they had the biggest cow bells ever seen.

More cowbell!

I had one poor gentleman get up to where I was standing and he looks like he was in a LOT of distress. Then his wife told me he was a heart patient and they were sent up the hill because the gates at the bottom were too busy. Uh NO! I told him he wasn't going to continue up the hill and that the chair was a much better option, and that there was a 1000 person line at the top waiting to get in, which was true! Security was slowing things down but it has to be done.

The doctor had one gentleman come in that had his vision go blurry in one of his eyes. That, coupled with him having heart troubles and several bypass surgeries prompted a few panicked moments from Michelle our doctor. She was fearing a stroke so was looking for weakness of the muscles in the face, any altered breathing or heart rate. Then he took off his glasses and noticed that he was missing a lens. WHEW! Crisis averted, but really funny after the fact!

The event went off smoothly with only a couple of racers falling on course during the run. Unfortunately the Canadians didn't do that well and I was disappointed when Robbie Dixon fell as he was having a good run.

At the end of the day we had a long debrief about all the logistics that went wrong. The event staff coordinator is going to get an ear full but they were understaffed so we did what we could to help. During the debriefing we had cake as it was Annie's birthday (our crew supervisor and lead Doc). We all chipped in and surprised her and it was so tasty! It was one of those perfect cakes. Nice and moist and not too sweet with the icing. Now your all craving cake, Muhahahahahahah!

Tomorrow is the mens super combined which is a downhill race in the morning and a super G in the afternoon so its going to be a long day! Getting to the hill for 6 this time. Arg!

The Pack

2010-02-15T00:34:00.001-07:00

Well I decided that today I should feature the patrol pack that they gave us to use while up here. They are actually really nice. They come with a large detachable cross on the back so when we ski off duty we can detach the cross and still use the pack. Sweet! The bottom also has a rain guard built in so it can be pulled out and covered when it gets really rainy. Like today for instance! It poured on us while I had to hike a case of water by hand up a mountain. It was as fun as it sounds.

Ok back to the pack. It comes really well stocked with band-aids, non-adherent pads, triangular bandages, a pen light, scissors, steri-strips etc. All the necessary items. We also had the option to add some extras from the med supply inside the med trailer. I grabbed some saline rinse that come packaged in individual syringes for single use. The paramedics swear by them as they can be used for irrigation of wounds and even directly on the eyes if needed as it is sterile. Also sweet!

Had a nice tip from Guy too. We made a bleed kit. Its a small collection of essentials for use immediately on any type of bleed case that you keep accessible so you don't have to rummage while someone is leaking all over the floor (wow I sound morbid lol). It consists of 2 telfas (non-adherent dressings), 2 triangular bandages and a pair of latex gloves. Nice little trick. Going to keep one of those kits handy for patrol back at Louise and for the summer for all the sports I play.

Perhaps the weirdest thing we got was in one of the side pockets. A small tube of sunscreen, okay all good, and....wait for it.... two tampons!? Now I can understand the need to have something like that on hand in certain situations, however I'm not sure anyone would actually ask me for one of those lol. Either way, we are carrying some....
Oh and the best part. We get to keep the pack once we are all finished our volunteering here. Awesome!

We did another scenario today with the helicopter. I got to go in and help with the unloading. I think we are getting a lot of practice in because of the events that happened on Friday. Also had some time to get to know the paramedics a bit better today as well. They are really cool people and I hope to get a good tour of one of the ambulances on one of the slower days. Is it weird that I wanted to hook myself up to the heart monitor just to play? Yup still a kid at heart! Speaking of patients. We had a guy come in today that was feeling under the weather and had an elevated heart rate. Apparently there is a GI (gastrointestinal) outbreak going around! Basically its flue like symptoms knocking the workforce out. We now have a ton of antibacterial hand sanitizer around. Normally I'm pretty skeptical of the need for that type of stuff but with the number of people we are going to see and the rate this thing is spreading I'm going to be keeping my hands pretty clean. They really don't want to lose any more of us to sickness.

While I was on the scenario I got to talk with Laura, one of the patrollers I know from Lake Louise. I didn't know this but we have about 2000 military stationed in the surrounding woods and mountains for security right now. One course worker went into the bush to have a pee and all of a sudden one guy stood up and said "If you piss on me I'm going to shoot you and bugger off". WHOA! We only see a fraction of whats going on security wise on TV.

That brings up the notion of internationally protected people (IPP). There are 5 levels. IPP 5's bring their own nurse, doc, paramedic, ambulance and security team. President Obama would be an IPP 5. However we could possibly be called in for an IPP 4 or lower. Crazy! Apparently there may be an IPP 5 at the mans downhill but they are tight lipped on who it may be. Just as well too, it would only make a crazy day crazier!

I'm still alone in my room here at the Westin, so I think I might be having a room to myself which is great. I get a huge king size bed and its nice and comfy. I used the kitchenette tonight for dinner which is so nice. Its so much cheaper to make dinner rather than go out. Although there are some really nice restaurants I will have to go try before I leave. Especially the sushi one in the hotel! There is a place called Araxi that has a winning chef from Hells Kitchen running it now. Might be interesting to go see. Not sure I could get in as I assume its booked solid but would be neat to go have a look!

Well I better head off to bed tonight. I have to be on hill for 6:30 tomorrow morning...which means an even earlier wake up. Ugh!

PS. Sorry about the blurry pack pictures. I'm tired!

Postponed

2010-02-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

That was the word of the day. The mens downhill was postponed to a different day as the course was terrible. The upper mountain has gotten about 20cm of fresh snow over the last 2 days and there is another system coming through tonight. This makes for wonderful high altitude skiing but very bad course conditions. In fact it has been so warm that Whistler and the base of the mountains have been getting rain for the last few days. Of course the race course is mostly in the rain zone. With no freezing temperatures the course would have been far too soft to run races and the course would have deteriorated very quickly.

This also lead to the womens combined race being postponed as well. FIS rules state that racers MUST have a training run the day before the race so they have good knowledge of the course. Since the training run was supposed to be today that race won't happen tomorrow.

We did a scenario today involving the helicopter. It was super cool and much nicer than working with the chopper at Louise. The snow is so heavy here it doesn't blow around in your face from the rotor wash like at Louise. Greg Cooke was the poor skier patient that we got to handle and treat. My crew is responsible for the traffic control of the run near the helipad and assisting with the lift of the patient from the heli-sling into the sled. I also got to help with moving Greg from the sled into the athlete med room (which is very well stocked) and from there to the ALS (Advanced Life Support) ambulance. A quick run down of the scenario: He took a spill and had a bi-lateral pelvic fracture. His condition worsened and by the time we had him into the med room he had no carotid pulse, Oh CRAP! They treated with drugs and CPR to no effect and it was decided that he would need surgical help to get his heart back to a normal rate and rhythm. Good thing this was all a a scenario! Its good to be prepared but I hope we don't have to treat anyone with problems that severe. Doc Ryan (awesome guy) was running the show in the med room for the scenario. Great picture I think! That's Cookie on the table, haha poor guy.

So far I have been alone on my room. I had someone drop off stuff for my room mate but upon coming back after supper his things are gone and I am again alone in my own room. Cool! Also the hot tub here both indoor and outdoor are amazing! I am so spoiled staying at the Westin...in Whistler...during the Olympics!

Had a great dinner with all the docs tonight. I know a few from working the Louise world cup and many recognize me as well. Its nice to have so many familiar faces around. The docs really are some of the most amazing people I have met out here. All extremely good at what they do but also know how to have a good time. Reminds me of some engineers I know =) We watched the womens moguls tonight at the pub. We were so excited with Jennifer Heil's run! It was a shame that she only got silver, but honestly the american girls run was incredible. Our gold is out there somewhere! Did you see the rain pouring down during that competition? Par for the course out here for now =(

As a final note for tonight, the tai chicken soup they make for us is out of this world!
I think all the pictures turned out great too!

The MedSpec team. We rock!

Annie our crew leader has the red sleeve on. Left to right: Tisha, Guy, Annie (doc), Kallum (duh), Ruth (doc), Bruce, Rhiannon. Eydie (nurse) is taking the picture. The rest of the crew was trained the day before this pic was taken. This is almost at the top of the climb to the spectator stands, thus the reason for the sign in the background! Tomorrow I'll try and show the packs they have supplied us with. Very well stocked and easy to use. They spared no expense out here. Canada will be paying off these games for a long while me thinks. Importing snow is expensive! Yes we are unofficially called the smurfs!

Day 1

2010-02-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well this will turn out to be a short post. Mostly because watching the opening ceremonies ate away my evening.
Highlights included (in my mind):

Hydralics engineering fail!
Nelly...she had very nice...shoes!
Rain in Vancouver (I was shocked!)
Georgia participating in the march of nations (Inspiring)

I'm super tired and have to be on hill at 6:30 tomorrow! Its the mens downhill and its as popular in Europe as the gold medal hockey game is for Canada. Needless to say it will be busy. The hike up to the bleachers is quite aggressive. If your not in at least a moderate amount of physical shape the climb on foot will be very difficult. Who would have thought a mountain would be tough to climb! I will be suggesting heavily that people take the chairlift to the top.

Todays big news as you have all heard I'm sure, was the death of a luge competitor on a practice run. I heard the call come out on the radio and we weren't sure what was really happening for a few minutes. In our hearts we hoped he would be okay but once we heard that they were performing CPR our hopes were severely weakened. The hard fact is that CPR rarely results in a resuscitation. If anyone has seen the news footage, its very clear he wasn't going to survive. He died the moment he hit the steel girder.140km/h was the reported speed I heard. It was a very difficult way to start the games and many of us felt the pressure of our positions weigh down on us.

I watched the opening ceremonies in the lounge at the hotel with a few others. Everyone clapped and cheered when Georgia entered during the march. It must have been incredibly difficult for the team to do that, but they managed it and walked together as a team into that arena. Is there no better way to honor the memory of their team mate than by continuing on the olympic journey and performing at their best for the games?

I hope that the rest of the games remain safe, and that no one; be it athlete, spectator or otherwise needs my attention. Cheers everyone. I hope your tomorrow is better than today. Pictures and more fun type posts to come tomorrow. Promise!

The Arrival

2010-02-11T22:24:00.001-07:00

Well I survived 18 hours of bus travel and arrived in Whistler unscathed.The travel bags consisted of 4 separate bags. One duffel (which weighed 50lbs) one bag of skis, poles and running shoes, one carry on and one computer. I think the 2nd heaviest bag was the computer...well maybe not but this sucker could secure a large boat I'm sure!

I don't really understand why BC has a picture of a sun on their provincial flag. Ever since I crossed the border past Lake Louise it has been overcast and gray! In fact its raining outside right now. Everything is quite wet. I'm hoping its going to turn into snow but its not looking good.

Once I arrived in Whistler everything went very smoothly. They have a really good system set up to process the 8000 plus volunteers here. Coloured lines along the floor can take even the most lost individual to the right area. All I needed was some photo ID and viola I had my accreditation which gets me into any of the venues I need to be a part of. Ski patrol actually has a lot of access because we need to be able to respond anywhere, so I have access to the field of play, athlete preparation areas, press areas, as well as any spectator area. Pretty cool!

The uniforms are actually quite nice! They are a light blue and are all made by Hudsons Bay Company. We get 2 long sleeved shirts, one jacket shell, one set of ski pants, one vest, a toque and a welcome kit which came with a nice insulated mug and an entire bottle of Cold FX (I guess they want us to remain not sick). I'll make sure to get a picture of myself all dressed up in the uniform when I have some time tomorrow. Tonight is all about getting settled in.

I am in my hotel room at the Westin as I noted peviously. Its nice. I even have a full kitchenette! Below are a couple of pictures.

I am slated to be on the sofa bed which kinda sucks but its pretty comfy. My room mate hasn't shown up yet so I still don't know who is bunking with me yet. Still this is pretty swank! The costs associated with Whistler are not exaggerated though. The internet connection here is about $14 a day. However the lady I talked to at check in cut me a deal since I was staying for 17 days which was nice...still expensive though.

Mini bars continue to amuse me. I can have small bag of chocolate covered peanuts for the low low price of $9.35! Dinner was a recommended spot called Citta's (pronounced cheetahs). Great burger, and beef veggie soup on the side. They are also reported to have the best poutine in town. I will have to check that out later! Hopefully next time not solo, but all I wanted was food and to get back to the hotel room. Well I have a bunch of reading to do now, and some planning for tomorrow. I receive my on site training tomorrow morning and will be getting my patrol pack at that time too. Should be an interesting day.

Final Destination

2010-02-10T13:27:00.003-07:00

Well hopefully I have better luck than the people in the movies did. For those who don't know, the blog title today is from a thriller/horror movie where the characters somehow escape death, only to be hunted down by said mysterious force and taken out in a myriad of unrealistic ways. Whats worse, they made sequals!

Anyway the post today is about my experience with Greyhound; who will be ferrying me to Whistler tonight.

First I wanted to check that I was getting off at the right destination. There are two Whistler locations you can go to:

Whistler Village
Whistler Creek(e)

I picked "creek" as I will be working Whistler Creekside, but thought I'd better check. Turns out the village will be much better for when I initially show up. Ok no problem. I'll just call Greyhound and make sure I can hop off at the village. They are the same city right? ....... Right!? Well the guy on the other end of the phone didn't know because he is at the call center, but he could help me change my ticket which would cost $300 for the new fare and I could be refunded for the original one, which was about half that amount. Uh no thanks! So I called the Whistler depot and asked what was going on and lo and behold I can hop off the bus at the village, no ticket change needed as they are the same town. Customer service FAIL! Although the local guys have their act together.

Then I checked the baggage restrictions because I wanted to verify what I was allowed to take with me on the bus, how many bags, checked items etc. Well most of the stuff was common sense but well, I'll let the pictue speak for itself.

Now I won't be taking any firearms with me and props to Greyhound for allowing some types to be taken in the first place. However.....apparently it isn't alright to take an unlicensed firearm on the bus! I know they are only covering their ass but if something is actually illegal to possess it would logically follow that you can't take it with you on a cross country bus ride!

The Calm Before the Storm

2010-02-08T09:51:00.001-07:00

Well it hasn't been that calm!
Last week I was planning on getting prepared for leaving but as usual the best laid plans are frought with dissapointment. I had some pretty deep personal issues to deal with and didn't much feel like doing anything. Still don't. The weekend was full of skiing, which again I didn't really feel like doing but was convinced to go do anyway.

Saturday I was supposed to meet Jen and company but everyone slept in which left me on the hill alone (people seriously need to stop diching me this week....). Luckily my friends Jason and Tina were at Louise that day and we got some good turns in. Sunday I was at Sunshine (and the sun was actually shining!) with Trevor, his new lady Dana and her friend Sarah(sp?), which was also fun but my legs are very angry at me now, and refuse to stop aching.
Which leaves me where I am now, PANIC MODE!

I still need to find proper winter boots and gloves and they need to be as devoid of labels and symbols as possible. Seriously; VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) will have people roaming around making sure that we are only wearing approved uniforms and attire while not displaying any non-sanctioned apparel logos or names. Good thing I'm taking some duct tape.

Dave has graciously agreed to give me a ride to the bus station late on Wednesday so luckily I have that part covered; as well as taking care of my house while I'm gone. Oh and congratulations to Both Dave and his wife Jamie on their new baby boy Dylan! He is home from the hospital now, and resting comfortably with mom and dad for any who didn't know.

So yeah back to prep work. I have crazy work days ahead of me trying to get everything sorted out for leaving for a month. Tomorrow morning I get to go out and unspool plastic pipe in the cold which normally I would be excited about (yes this is actual engineering work) but I have so much stuff I want to try and get done at the office!

My evenings are also packed full with my raiding schedule. I have 9 other people relying on me here; not about to let them down either. Plus I don't want them to sell me out and find another tank! Besides whats more lovable then a furry bear with rockets on his butt!
The WoW players will get it but check this out for a better and more visual explaination. The bear is actually my character and I thought my niece Molly would get a kick out of seeing this.

http://daily-quests.com/comic/?p=285 <----- Based on a true story!

So basically I don't think I get to sleep for the next week, possibly longer. Oh yeah, and I have to pack....

First Blog Post Ever

2010-02-05T08:57:00.003-07:00

Well I have no idea what I'm doing but people said, or rather I said, that it would be a good idea to start a blog so I could comment on my time volunteering for the Olympics. So here it is. If I get into this I might even keep this going who knows. Comments are allowed for anyone with a google account, that should cover most of the world.

We did finally get our accomodation information. I am staying at the Westin in Whistler. I have no idea what its going to be like and I assume I have a room mate but that's not confirmed. They have complimentary wireless which is great. Hopefully its good enough for me to raid with because I'm not missing out on my 10 man while I'm down there. Gotta have priorities! The website makes it look pretty nice though!

http://www.westinwhistler.com/

I leave VERY late on Feb 10th via greyhound. Then I'm offically gone for the month of Feburary. Not too sure what kind of carnage I will see doing spectator care but I'm sure once crowds of people gather to watch some form of sporting event there is bound to be some drunk idiot making a mess for everyone.