Words from Wik

Wow. I just read an article that blew my mind. It’s about the latest that can be done to have one’s DNA analyzed for health risks and other things. Amazing. Read here. If you only read the first page you will get the picture, but I couldn’t help but read the entire article.

I don’t know, maybe I have been behind the times, but I am amazed this can be done on a large scale and cheaply. I will seriously consider this, as I think many young people would.

So you may or may not have heard about the storm that is currently over the North Sea. Well if not see here. Basically a big storm is going over the North Sea, and flooding was feared for a while, as well as disruptions in oil production. The worst seems to be over in the coastal areas, but where I am right now it’s still not good.

Biggest effect this has had on us is with our fresh water supply. The sign below was posted around the platfrom last night:

Our fresh water is shipped in to us and stored locally, and with the storm ships are unable to come and replenish our supplies. So we’re effectively sitting ducks, rationing our water until the storm passes, and have no laundry in the meantime. Now this may seem like no big deal, but trust me, it is. See, no one comes offshore with 5 or 7 or 10 of everything. Most people do laundry every other day, and have only a couple of sets of things to wear.

I myself have only 3 t-shirts and maybe a couple more underwears. And I arrived on Wednesday, and tomorrow is day 4 of my stay, so guess what? I begin cycling the shirts I wore already. A couple days after that I will do the same with underwear. And you know it can’t be good when everyone on the platfrom is doing the same. Latest news is that maybe Monday the weather will be better. And maybe not. And it can only get worse. We can still use the showers right now, but who knows how long that will last?

So on my latest days off (and probably my last days off here on my North Sea assignment) I flew all the way down to South Africa. I had heard a lot about the place, so I thought I would go see what it’s really like.

My impression is this: South Africa is the easy, tourist friendly Africa; hence it is not the ‘real’ Africa. It is pretty easy for an English speaker to get around, there are lots of tourist places to stay and visit, and the (white) people are generally well off and enjoy a decent standard of living.

That said however, there are other issues with the place. Some places are inherently dangerous, and you have to know about them and avoid them (dangerous as in Taxi driver groups having gun battles between each other and killing each other/bystanders, all over who gets to run what routes). One other issue is cultural (or more closely racial) inequality. Most of the well-off people are white, and the majority black population is still, in general, less educated and in lower paying jobs, or unemployed.

This inequality also affects the white population. Affirmative Action dictates that companies must hire 80% black people for new jobs. This makes it hard for employers because of the education level differences still present, and also for young white South African looking for jobs. The people I talked with say most white South Africans looking for jobs have to either go abroad or start their own business.

Some of these things make me think of the movie Blood Diamond, and the line TIA (This Is Africa), referring to how some things just are the way they are in Africa, and likely won’t change for a while. That’s how I felt about some things here in SA, the inequality and other points as well.

Anyways, that’s it for my sociocultural analysis, next post I’ll try and put up some nice pictures!

I am writing this update from an offshore platform in the North Sea. Coming to this platform was quite an experience, and that’s what I’ll write about today. Another day I’ll write what it’s like actually being here (after I’ve had some time to form my opinions).

I was told before coming to the UK that you get onto the platform by helicopter. That’s fine and dandy; I had flown in a helicopter before for work in northern Canada. You just put on your coveralls, hop in, put on some ear protection and off you go!

Well, it’s very different here in the North Sea. I think the industry here is one of the most regulated in the word.

First of all, when you check in the heliport (a separate building from the normal airport), all your bags are searched. That’s right, someone goes through all the things in your bags and makes sure there is no: alcohol, sharp objects, drugs. Even prescription medicine is taken from you (but then given to the medic on the platform to give back to you).

Now, how about carry on luggage? That doesn’t exist. The most you are allowed to take is something that will fit in the one pocket of your survival suit (more on that later). That’s about enough room for my paperback novel, or a folded newspaper to read on the plane. I had to give my laptop to them as just another piece of luggage.

So once I was checked in, we proceed through the metal detectors (which goes fast; nobody has any carry-on luggage). We then enter a room and everyone starts putting on their survival suit.

Some background. North Sea temperature is currently about 6 degrees Celsius or so. That gives people about 5 minutes of survival time in the water before cold and hypothermia overcomes them. That’s why everyone, including the pilots, must fly in survival suits. Basically it’s a glorified dry suit, which will keep the wearer (almost) completely dry if immersed in water. Coupled with a thermal suit underneath (which is also mandatory), it gives people several (some tell stories of up to 12) hours of survival in case of a submersion emergency.

On top of the survival suit everyone wears a life jacket with built-in re breather (which allows you to re-breathe your own exhaled air, as well as adding a small canister of compressed air). For a good site with pictures of what we look like and the equipment we use check out this place (expand images on the right).

So this is all standard and par for the course. Everyone that was on my flight had done this before and just went through the motions. I had to ask them for a suit in my size, which ended up being a little tight in the neck (the seal which keeps water from going inside down your neck is like a wide rubber band. For a similar effect try wearing a 1.5″ wide rubber band around your neck for a 90 minute flight that slightly cuts off circulation to your brain.)

But really, the experience was quite enjoyable. When we were all walking out onto the tarmac in single file, suited up, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. As far as I was concerned, I was a NASA astronaut suited up for a space mission! Well okay, not quite.

But from walking up to the chopper and feeling the turbine exhaust in your face, to flying over the sea and seeing platforms strewn about, to getting off the chopper once secure on the platform and seeing a man standing behind a mounted gun pointed at you ready to shoot down any flames that may come out of the chopper with his ammunition of foam, to marching through thick sliding steel doors to the place where you pass off your re-breather to the crew waiting to come home, it was a very cool experience.

If you haven’t yet, read the last two posts about my court experience to get the full picture.

After all the action in the courtroom I had a brief chat with the Officer about the things that went on that day. Well actually, he did most of the talking. Basically I just told him that I didn’t want the demerits due to insurance, and he went on to tell me this:

Everyone knows that the Police have a quota for tickets that they must meet. It’s no secret. (Actually it was to me. I had heard people talk about ticket quotas but I had never heard solid confirmation until now). Every Officer has to write 20 tickets a month, it’s no secret. That’s why close to the end of the month you see guys out there with the radar guns so that they can meet their quota. Now it’s unfortunate when we have to give out tickets to good citizens like you. And because of that there are some “chicken-shit” tickets given out, tickets that you don’t normally see. And with those tickets you can usually get them dropped. But for speeding they have become very strict, and they won’t just drop them.

So he was explaining all this to me, almost apologetically for having given me this ticket. He wasn’t too thrilled about the ticket quota and I can understand why (they have to write close to one ticket every work day). Moral of the story? Don’t speed in the last 5 days of the month (thinking back, I got my ticket Dec 28). And if you get a chicken-shit ticket, fight it! (I am still not sure what would make a chicken-shit ticket. Maybe changing lanes without signaling or something like that?)

This post is a continuation of my previous court post, so check that one out if you want to know what I’m talking about.

So here is some of the advice I got from the Lawyer friend: when you’re taking a ticket to court, show up a few minutes early, go into the courtroom and try to find the Police Officer who gave you the ticket. If he’s not there, that’s probably good news, because if he doesn’t show up they throw the ticket out (I heard advice elsewhere that if you change your court date after setting one initially, it may conflict with the Officer’s schedule and he may not be able to show up to court).

If the Officer is there, go and sit down beside him and talk to him. Tell him why you’re there (I want no demerits please) and he may be willing to do that for you. Or he may not.

I think that’s about all the advice I remember. So I was going in there hoping either a) the officer does not show up (no, I did not change my court date) or b) he is cool with giving me no demerits.

On the court date I show up nice and early, find the officer responsible for my ticket, and tell him who I am. We start talking, I do as I was advised and tell him that I’m just here to get my demerits taken off. He is pretty cool with that, says he will talk to the prosecutor and ask if the demerits can be dropped. BUT (and he mentions this is a big but) in the end it is up to the prosecutor whether or not the charge can be lowered. He can do his best but ultimately the decision is not his (which is not how I interpreted the advice from Lawyer Friend). He mentions that likely the deal I got offered before would still stand if nothing else, and that if it comes to that I should take it. He said that I “would have no leg to stand on” if it went to trial, and I definitely agreed (I have no lawyer, just being in the courtroom and approaching the Officer was scary enough, and I am not about to go arguing a case I don’t have while not having any idea what I’m doing)! But I said I would make that decision once he talks to the prosecutor.

So he goes and talks to the prosecutor, I take a seat in the second row. I hear them talk and the prosecutor says pretty much “nope, I won’t take off the demerits.” The officer comes back to me when he’s done, and I tell him that I heard it all, so I’ll just go head and take the deal. I’ll take 2 demerits and half the fine, what else can I do? The officer informs me that I have to go tell the prosecutor myself, and leaves me to it. So I do just that, and tell the prosecutor I will take the deal. He briefly looks at me and says: “Alright, and tell you what, I can do you one better.” He then lowers the charge to a section 57, which basically changes it from speeding to not obeying a sign. He says something along the lines that it will not go on my record this way, so I’m like “alright, sounds good to me.”

What followed was that everyone got a turn to be called up and discuss the case with the judge. Luckily I was not first, so I saw what the person before me did. Basically you just stand up in the middle of the court room at the center podium and represent yourself. Luckily the prosecutor did most of the talking for me saying things like “…would like to enter a guilty plea to a charge under section 57 with…” and rambled on, half of which I didn’t understand. Then the judge just asked me if I agree with what was said and I say Yes. Then he asked me how much time I need to pay, and I just repeated what the person before me said, which was two weeks (I actually ended up paying the fine that day after everything). And that was it! Over! So I left the courtroom and started chatting with the Officer which actually ended up being the most interesting part of the day.

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and now that I have something to write about I may as well go ahead with my plans. So here goes, my first entry.

On the break between Christmas 2006 and New Year’s, I got a ticket leaving downtown, going northbound on Center Street. The limit there is an “un-posted 50”, and I was unfortunately clocked at 79. That’s 29 over, which got me a ticket of $172 that comes with 3 demerits (interestingly enough, I was 2 km/h away from getting the next category of ticket which comes with 4 demerits).

As I’ve done in the past, I went to the First Appearance Center to try to get the charge lowered to something with no demerits. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible, and I can vouch for that. The best deal they could give me was to halve the fine and give me two demerits by changing the charge to speeding 14 km/h over.

Now let me back up for a bit. Before I went to the first appearance center, I talked with one of my coworkers about the ticket, and he said he would give his lawyer friend a call. Long story short, I got some advice about what to do when taking the ticket to court.

So as I’m sitting there contemplating taking the lowered charge, I think about the plan I had going in: to me, the fine is negligible; I know I did something wrong and I will pay the fine as a consequence. The story with demerits is different; they go on my record and potentially raise my (already demoralizingly high) insurance. So my plan was to take nothing less than zero demerits. Being faced with 2 vs. 3 makes no difference to me, both go on my record, so I tell them I mean business and decline the deal. A court date is set for March.