Wow! What A Ride!

Another slightly edited version of a post I did on gonzo journalist, Hunter S Thompson back in 2013. I liked the sentiment expressed in his quote, though I certainly intend to keep fit so my body is in good working order and the ride is extended for a long time!! haha

Urban Myth: Part 2

here's another urban myth that surfaced in a video that went viral in early 2017. I watched it and thought that it was pretty amazing, so it caught me. After sharing it with a close member of the family who also happens to be a pilot, the truth came out and we had a laugh together afterward, since he informed me that this viral video was actually a well orchestrated hoax. My lack of flying knowledge coupled with some crafty shooting, finished off with CGI created what i thought was a very real landing and it totally fooled me.
I do know that there have been some pretty amazing emergency landings with planes in distress ( way to go Sully!! ) and I'm building a post right now about some of those feats, so watch for that in the near future, as well as more about urban myths we'll shoot down.

Urban Myths: Part 1

This was sent to me from a friend awhile back, so it's not the first time I've read the text accompanying the photo of 'Old Ironsides". It was an interesting read about a real ship, and one that is still afloat today. More on that later, but for now, give it a read and see what you think and read my comments afterwards.

U.S.S. Constitution a.k.a. Old Ironsides

The U. S. S.. Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel, carried 
48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men.
This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. 
She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers).
However, let it be noted that according to her ship's log, 
"On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 
7,400 cannon shot, 
11,600 pounds of black powder and 
79,400 gallons of rum."
Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."
Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 
826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. 
Then she headed for the Azores , arriving there 12 November.. 
She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.
On 18 November, she set sail for England . 
In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war ships,
and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant ships, 
salvaging only the rum aboard each.
By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. 
Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland . 
Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 
40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. 
Then she headed home.
The U. S. S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, 
with no cannon shot, 
no food, 
no powder,
no rum, 
no wine, 
no whisky, 
and 38,600 gallons of water. 



GO NAVY !
So, the ship is the real deal and is the oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. She got her name from George Washington himself but the nickname "Old Ironsides" came from a sailor who, after witnessing shot being deflected off the ships hull during a battle, claimed the ship's sides were made of iron!
As for the tales of her massive stores of rum, wine and whiskey, I had to think b.s., simply based on the size of the ship and the weight of all that liquid, not to mention the volume of all that stuff. Water weighs about 2.2  kg per litre (8.5 lbs per gallon), so all the booze must be about the same, meaning there would be in excess of 450,000 kg (1 million lbs) of additional weight on the ship, if you include the necessary water in the calculations. And, where would they put it all? I mean, the ship is 92 m (304 ft) long and 4.2 m (14 ft) deep in the hull, so not much room when considering you have all those men and all the other supplies required to survive at sea for that time period.
So, I looked into it a bit more and sure enough, came across plenty of discussion forums and websites that all pretty much agreed that this 'article' was a myth. Many of the sites that I read talked mostly about the historical discrepancies, be it the fact that at that time the U.S. was not at war with the British ( it was a quasi-war with the French actually) and that the ship's log does not support much of the locations and destinations as claimed in the article.
And lastly, if you consider the amount of alcohol that would have had to be consumed in the amount of time claimed by the article, they were either bathing in the stuff or using it to swab the decks. For a crew of 475 men to consume 300,561 litres ( 79, 400 gal) in 71 days would mean that each man was consuming about 8.7 litres ( 2.3 gallons) of liquor per day. That would be about 11 standard bottles of rum in a day and pretty much impossible, even for a well seasoned sailor.
Bang bang...shot that one down pretty quick!! Now, I am on the hunt for more of the same sorts of stories that seem to circulate on the internet on a regular basis. Look for my future post titled "Urban Myths: Part 2" where we look at the one wing plane landing!!

Parhelia, And Other Strange Sky Stuff

Sun dogs

After witnessing several awesome displays of the northern lights this year, then posting about the how and why of that phenomena, I thought I'd write about another 'wonder in the sky' called parhelia, plus a bit about some related sky effects. Parhelia is an atmospheric spectacle which occurs in cold weather and is caused by ice crystals in the air. Typically referred to as "sun dogs' and appearing as a false sun, or suns, manifesting on either side of the actual sun, I've seen this quite often in Alberta winters and it's always fascinating.
A cousin of the sun dog is the solar halo, also referred to as a nimbus, icebow or gloriole. This is a ring of refracted light which forms a circle around the sun or moon, and can even occur around artificial lights when ice crystals, referred to as "diamond dust", are floating in the air nearby. The solar or lunar halo is created by light reflecting and refracting through the ice crystals in cirrostratus clouds in the upper troposphere, at 5 km - 10 km altitude.
Another oddity is the circumzenithal arc, which is a rainbow like arc positioned above the solar halo as shown in one of the photos below.

The science behind parhelia 

Sun dogs appear in cold temperatures

Circumzenithal Arc

A full sun halo plus sun dogs

Ethereal, to say the least

Rare double halo

Sun dogs, partial halo and circumzenithal arcs

Northern Lights Southern Lights

I've seen the northern lights, or "Aurora Borealis", quite a few times this year at our camp which is north and west of Calgary, including an awesome display on the last weekend of May that went on for several hours and lit up the entire sky. Always awe inspiring to see and it gives me a sense of good fortune whenever we're blessed with a sighting, particularly when they're of such duration. 

In the telling of our sightings it was quite surprising to know that many people have never seen the northern lights at all. It just seemed a 'Canadian thing", since witnessing them all my life. Then there was also the surprise of a conversation about the southern lights, when someone called bullshit on me for saying it was an actual phenomena, to the point where they got out their phone and did an internet search. And yes, the "Aurora Australis" is real and basically the same as it's northern counterpart, just occurring over the southern night sky and less observed, since the re are just not too many people in the Antarctic or Southern India Ocean regions.  

Less surprising is that many people do not know what causes the northern (or southern ) lights, even those who have seen them. Here's what I know, supplemented by some photos I borrowed from the internet. In the most simplest terms, it is caused by the collision of charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere colliding with gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere. The sun's temperature is in the millions of degrees Celsius and gas molecules collisions are frequent and violent. Free electrons and protons are thrown by the rotation of the sun and escape through holes in it's magnetic field. Solar winds blow these charged particles toward the Earth, with most deflected by our own magnetic field. However, the magnetic field around the polar caps is weaker and the charged particles enter the Earth's atmosphere, collide with the gas particles and create the dancing colours we see in the sky. This can occur between 80 and 640 kilometres above the surface of the Earth, which explains the various colours, as different gases exist at different altitudes. We tend to see a lot of greenish yellow aurora around here, caused by higher concentrations of low altitude oxygen, whereas high altitude oxygen causes rarer red lighting effects. Greater concentrations of nitrogen cause blueish and purple red lights  .  

Nrthern lights as seen from space

Another space shot of the phenomena

Sometimes just a simple display

Sometimes a colourful and complicated display ( image courtesy of "Discover Finalnd")

Does this diagram help?

Alternate Energy Wind Turbine Erection

Though this wind turbine construction was done in the U.S.A., the process can't be a whole lot different to build the ones we have here in Alberta. Pretty fascinating to watch one being erected in a time lapsed 6 minutes, and there are some pretty cool facts they display during the video that makes it all the more interesting. Even more so for me, as a Journeyman Crane Operator, as that was my former trade before getting into the exciting world of insurance.

Did I Say "A Brand New Indian AND KTM Duke"?

I still have some tickets left for a raffle draw that includes not only a brand new 2017 Indian Scout, but also a 2016 KTM motorcycle and a third prize of $1000.oo worth of rider gear. It's all part of our Two Wheel Sunday initiative to use our relationship with the motorcycle community so we can raise some money to give back and help those in our community who need a hand up. 

Two Wheel Sunday is an annual event that BlueCircle helped put together back in 2013 and for whom it has been a major sponsor in the past four years.  The meet is held at the beginning of June with the objective of bringing all motorcycle groups, shops, riders and enthusiasts to one place at one time, with the side benefit of raising money for our charity of choice, The Poppy Fund/Veteran's Food Bank.  The 2017 edition was our 4th annual event, and by the attendance, can be deemed a great success, plus we raised $5400.oo for our cause.

Still, we aren't quite content with simply raising that bit of money so when the opportunity came up for TWS to get their hands on a motorcycle through a fantastic deal arranged by the great folks at Cycle Works Calgary, we jumped on it immediately. The idea is to sell tickets for a chance to win the bike and increase the amount we could give to another charity we felt was well worth our efforts with ticket sales, Fresh Start Recovery Centre. Obviously, Cycle Works Calgary felt the same and generously offered up another motorcycle to sweeten the pot, plus The Boutique Of Leathers came on board and is throwing in $1000 worth of rider gear, which every rider should have of course!

So, a chance to win either a brand new Indian Scout motorcycle, a 2016 KTM, or $1000 worth of leathers, all for the mere price of $20.00. When you consider the fact that there are only 2500 tickets available, you realize your odds are way, way better than the 1 in 14,000,000 you'd get with Lotto 649 (good luck with that one!! haha)

Want to help out? Buy a ticket, please! Simply contact me through my e-mail  paul@gobluecircle.com and I'll make arrangements to get you a ticket and collect your cash.

As for the Fresh Start Recovery Centre and what they do for our community, read my post "Fresh Start" and look for a future post on their 12 Step Recovery Ride coming up in August.

Protect Yourself, And Your Business Too!

I recently did a couple of posts about Cyber Crime, specifically 'Social Engineering', and how BlueCircle can help protect yourself, your assets and your business, by helping you get the coverage best suited for your needs. 

photo courtesy of ESET Security Community

Of course, like anything else, insurance is one form of protection that will give you a bit of piece of mind if something does go sideways but the best line of defence is always going to be education, training, and instituting processes and procedures that will mitigate the loss potential in the first place. 

Here's some helpful information that I was reading in a recent report on how organizations and businesses can protect themselves from cyber exposure. 

One of the first things a company can do is take an inventory of what is called "Personal Identifiable Information" (PII). It is essential to know what info you collect, why it is collected, what you do with it, where it goes, who gets to share it, and what happens to it when it gets destroyed. 

This will allow you to develop an IT governance program, which will include who has access and how you will protect the information. 

Number one for the latter is setting up good password practices, with protocols to create strong ones as well as regular changes. 

Again, some major emphasis on education for employees, particularly on helping them identify suspicious activity. Empowering employees by helping them understand their cyber responsibilities goes a long way in keeping the risks down. 

Education on the technical side is critical too, as software updates and back ups will also reduce risk. BlueCircle uses the expertise of an excellent IT company, Next Digital, but not everyone has the size or resources to bring in pros like these, so the onus falls on them and their staff to mitigate risk. 

Developing a cyber event response plan is a necessity too. The ability to recognize and then react to a cyber event will make a huge difference in both the short and long term. When privacy regulators respond to a report of cyber breaches they typically ask for the corporate governance and incident response plans, so you can see how critical this is in the grand scheme of things.

Still, while mitigation reduces risk it doesn't always prevent it, hence insurance, so if you need to know more about coverage please contact the experts at BlueCircle.

O' Canada: The Day

Here's a little photo essay of my Canada Day weekend. I'll let the pictures do the talking :)

A wild Wood Lily by our camp

I got whupped in this game! Darn kids!!

A sun shower that lasted about an hour

These little beauties were done up on the BBQ. Scallops directly from Nova Scotia! Amazing!!

A little rain storm forced us inside, where we played Scrabble, enjoyed some Banded Peak brew, and chowed down on bacon wrapped scallops from Adams and Knickle in good old Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Paul ruled the Scrabble board too!!

Burger ( the dog!) loved being outdoors all day and most of the night too! 

Did I say earlier.... "most of the night!"

So dog tired after a day of play that he didn't even finish his cookie!

It was cookin' hot, so a dip in the creek was in order.

I love this tree at the creek, proof that Mother Nature is resilient

I know how to make a splash! yuk yuk

Crokinole is a game many people don't know but is a good bit of fun. 

Flying our flag with pride

A pano shot of the camp

Good night

More Social Engineering Fraud

My last post was about the ever increasing scourge of "Social Engineering", which is one of the hottest topics in the insurance industry these days. BlueCircle deals with all sorts of insurers who have a well spread variety of cyber-risk insurance and building proper coverage for losses associated with this latest plague of internet scams is now at the forefront.

image courtesy of SysTools

And, just in case you don't think this is a real threat to your personal or company's financial health, how about the case of both Google and Facebook back in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Yes, two giants in the internet and tech worlds and both duped into paying upwards of $100 million to a Lithuanian man who sent out numerous phishing e-mails to employees of these two firms.

The accused fraudster would send out fake invoices and letters from e-mail accounts designed to look exactly like those of an Asian company that did regular multi-million dollar transactions with Google and Facebook. The invoices and letters appeared to be signed by executives and agents of the victimized companies and tricked over trusting employees into wiring funds to alternate and illegitimate accounts belonging to the perpetrator, Evaldas Rimasauskas.

The bulk of the funds have been recovered but if two companies with advanced cyber security can be duped like this, what about your own, smaller business.

image courtesy of Comodo

Obviously, training is the key in detecting dubious payment requests and employees need to know that they are an integral part of a company or business security system.

Tornado Event Revisited

@treesfjnales posted this on Twitter after seeing "The Lawnmower Man" in the Three Hills parade recently. You might recall seeing the viral photo of Theunis Wessels,  cutting his grass during a tornado, on the news or internet, or saw it in my post titled "Yard Work Must Get Done!" back on June 10th. Evidently, the Wessels have a good sense of humour and joined in the local parade which helped put Three Hills on the worldwide map. Pretty funny, without a doubt. As for the Tweet, it apparently went viral as well.

Social Engineering Yet Again!

The scourge of cybercrime is becoming more and more prevalent these days and criminals have taken things to new lows with the types of theft and fraud they're using on unsuspecting victims.

One of those lows is what is generally referred to as "Social Engineering". Best described as a 'modern-day version of the old con-scams", criminals troll social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as company websites, to gather information about company employees and personnel. They also get info from other sources to gain knowledge of a company's vendors and get copies of letterheads, invoices, and other such documents.

Using the gathered information, criminals impersonate vendors and request changes in banking details and payment options. Far too often, employees just take the information, process it and make payments to what turns out to be a fake vendor account. Usually, the criminal activity is only discovered months later, when the real vendor comes looking for the payments they haven't received.

Social Engineering is one of the hottest topics in crime insurance these days and BlueCircle has multiple connections with major insurers who provide coverage for this type of thing.

Educating employees about how these cyber scams work, coupled with training them on best practices for financial account processes and money handling, is the best method to prevent losses but having the comfort of knowing you have coverage for cyber crime is well worth the cost.

National Geographic Appreciates Alberta

Peyto Lake (photographer unknown)

How cool is this? I saw that National Geographic did an online story about some of the greatest road trips in Alberta and our big back yard with the Candian Rockies was one of them, as outlined in the link. Of course, those of us living here already knew that!! haha

Fresh Start

Ever wish you could have a fresh start at something? We all have those moments when some of the things in our daily lives don't quite work out as we planned and we wished we could have another shot at it to see if we can get it right. Now imagine you have a very real issue, like an addiction of some sort, and feel like you have nowhere to go and nobody to help you out. Enter the Fresh Start Recovery Centre, a facility here in Calgary that "is recovering lives by housing, treating and supporting people affected by addiction".

The Fresh Start treatment program follows the disease concept, seeing addiction as an illness that is progressive and potentially fatal if not treated properly. In their 40,000 sq.ft. purpose built home, they employ an interdisciplinary approach to treating addiction through individual and group counseling sessions, in conjunction with enhanced recreational and therapeutic activities by creating an atmosphere conducive to physical, emotional, mental and spiritual growth.

As you can imagine, this is no small task and there's a fair bit of expense to keeping this program going, which is one of the reasons we decided to help by doing some fundraising. Two Wheel Sunday Motorcycle Association, in conjunction with some generous sponsorship from Cycle Works Calgary, have joined forces with the Fresh Start Recovery Centre to hold a raffle for not one, but two motorcycles, as well as a set of leathers for riding, on sale now from myself and other TWS members, $20.oo each and only 2500 tickets sold. Pretty darn good odds for sure, and considering that 85% of the money donated to Fresh Start goes toward running the program, you can see why they're so highly rated by Charity Intelligence Canada.

Co-incidentally, there is the Fresh Start "12 Stop Ride for Recovery Motorcycle Road Rally" being held on August 26, 2017. This is a scavenger hunt style of motorcycle ride and should be a lot of fun, so keep an eye out for future posts on this blog and on the Facebook page of  BlueCircle as the date nears. The raffle draw for the two bikes and leather gear will be held at this event, though you do not have to be present to win.

As for purchasing tickets for the raffle, please let everyone you know who likes motorcycles and who wants to make a dramatic change in someone's life that they can contact me at paul@gobluecircle.com to get theirs for a chance to win.

Win A New Indian Motorcycle!!

Two Wheel Sunday is an annual event that BlueCircle helped put together back in 2013 and for whom it has been a major sponsor in the past four years.  The meet is held at the beginning of June with the objective of bringing all motorcycle groups, shops, riders and enthusiasts to one place at one time, with the side benefit of raising money for our charity of choice, The Poppy Fund/Veteran's Food Bank.  The 2017 edition was our 4th annual event, and by the attendance, can be deemed a great success, plus we raised $5400.oo for the Veteran's Food Bank.

Still, we aren't quite content with simply raising that bit of money so when the opportunity came up for TWS to get their hands on a motorcycle through a fantastic deal arranged by the great folks at Cycle Works Calgary, we jumped on it immediately. The idea is to sell tickets for a chance to win the bike and increase the amount we could give to another charity we felt was well worth our efforts with ticket sales, Fresh Start Recovery Centre. Obviously, Cycle Works Calgary felt the same and generously offered up another motorcycle to sweeten the pot, plus The Boutique Of Leathers came on board and is throwing in $1000 worth of rider gear, which every rider should have of course!

So, a chance to win either a brand new Indian Scout motorcycle, a 2016 KTM, or $1000 worth of leathers, all for the mere price of $20.00. When you consider the fact that there are only 2500 tickets available, you realize your odds are way, way better than the 1 in 14,000,000 you'd get with Lotto 649 (good luck with that one!! haha)

Want to help out? Buy a ticket, please! Simply contact me through my e-mail paul@gobluecircle.com and I'll make arrangements to get you a ticket and collect your cash.

As for the Fresh Start Recovery Centre and what they do for our community, read my post, scheduled for Thursday, as well as another future post on their 12 Step Recovery Ride coming up in August.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

No doubt we're a 'young' country by many standards, though we've been here for a few more than the official 150 years. There are archeological findings of Norse settlements at L'Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Norseman Leif Eriksson mentioned "Vinland" in the year 1000 A.D.. It was also written about by Adam of Bremen, a historian and geographer, in 1075 A.D., after he met King Svend Estridson of Denmark and discussed the northern lands of which he had knowledge.

Landing at L'Anse aux Meadows reenactment 2000

Years later, around 1504, Jaques Cartier explored Canada in the St. Lawrence River area after France and various other European explorers had ventured to NewFoundland and Labrador. To put that in perspective, the first established city in North America was St. Augustine, Florida, in 1513, The French controlled New France for many years but ceded the territories to Britain and Spain in 1763, after losing the "7 Years War". Quebec City was established in 1608 and is the oldest French speaking community in North America. it's also the only walled city north of mexico and has 4.3 km of walls.

In 1867, The Dominion Of Canada was formed, as Sir john A McDonald and the other Fathers of Confederation united British colonies in North America. It was the first time the term 'Dominion" was used to describe a country and indicated that Canada was a self governing colony of the British Empire.

Jacques Cartier meets with the Iroquois people in what is now Montreal.

The Iroqouis word for village or settlement is kanata (Canada) and European explorers used the name to describe the new lands