Ask Lemmy

You know when a scientist/expert warns people about a disaster and they don't believe him and a short time later they actually suffer from that disaster?

Well. I was that expert. I do disaster response planning for a living.Told a large public company that they are at risk of a certain scenario. They told me that they don't believe it would apply to them and basically kicked me out.

Two weeks later they were on national news for it.

Not that it would have changed a thing - projects we do take months and do not prevent a disaster, just deal with the risk much better.

But still. Felt surreal.

I did a summer contract in forestry, up north, in the mountains, middle of nowhere. We had to get into an area that was beyond a pipeline blockade - meaning a group of indigenous leaders were blocking a pipeline from being built on their land.

The higher ups negotiated with them while we spent days off gaining bad reputations in town.

When we were allowed through, they welcomed us individually and explained their reasons for being cautious. They told us that people dressed as (or actually were) cops tried to convince them they were on public land and force them to leave, they had people pretending to be blockade protesters who came in and tried to burn down their buildings, they had people blow up their signs, they had helicopters drop off equipment and workers beyond the blockade in the night. Taking all this with a heavy pinch of salt, we got through to work.

Not an hour after we started, black goddamn helicopters showed up. About ten of them. They hung out all the first day, there were fewer the second and only one for the next two. And they were low, I could feel the wind from the rotors at times.

I don't know why. We discussed it over plenty of drinks without coming to any good conclusions. I don't know if they thought we were with the blockade and wanted to intimidate us, or why the pipeline people didn't talk to the forestry people to figure out we were just labourers. As it turns out that kind of thing does happen in real life.

A bunch of us took big shits in the open where they could watch.

Been in several car accidents. Rolled a car down a hill. Was hit by a car and went over the bonnet, roof and landed on my feet behind the car bruised but OK.
Got run over by another car dislocated my knee and my heel burst open, the lady in the car gave me about 20 chocolate penguin biscuits for the shock, then I got on a bus and went to my mates house for a joint.
Done illigal bridge swings off of railway bridges and damns and abseiled away from the cops.
Climbed onto the roof of a moving steam train dressed as Indiana Jones walked along the carridge then climbed back in through a window, scaring the crap out of the people in there.
Then met the girl of my dreams, had kids settled down (a little) and lived happily ever after.

In college, rowing for state championship. Sitting in the bow position rowing against the best team in the state. You're not supposed to look out of the boat because you need to keep your head inline so as not to upset the boat. But because I was at the front I could see the other boat peripherally. When the gun went off and we started rowing I expected to see the back of their boat disappear, but it didn't. And after pulling for a couple hundred meters they were still there. We were IN this thing. We weren't losing.

To explain a little about rowing. The coxswain basically communicates with the stroke, the person right in front of him, the strongest rower that the rest of us follow. But he has a bull horn, or at least back then that's what we used. So he communicates with the whole boat. If he calls a "power 10," that means we are supposed to take 10 harder strokes to pick up some speed. A good coxswain knows when to call these. Obviously you can't pull harder 100% of the time or you'll burn out. But this time he was calling them more often than usual sending a subtle message that we were in the race of our lives. You can also hear the other boat calling power 10's and we were matching them. The boat started to have what we call "swing." This is when the rowers are all in sync producing a sort of harmony. The boat feels like it's going faster. Like it's up on plane (not a real thing in an 8 man racing shell).

As the race proceeded, we were neck and neck. At one point the boats got close. Our oars, nearly made contact with their oars. But it wasn't our boat that was off coarse. It was theirs. We held the line as they corrected. They were supposed to beat us, but we were right there. We could hear the excitement in the voice of our coxswain. The finish line was approaching. We were all fighting from hitting the wall. Pushing harder than we ever had, knowing we had a chance. We heard the call from the other boat for a power 10 but our coxswain did not call one. I could see the back of the other boat pull slightly ahead and I thought, this is where they play their trump card. Ten strokes passed by and still nothing from our coxswain, we knew the finish line was coming up but nothing. At this point there is nothing else going through you mind. It's just raw focus. Like tunnel vision. Then it happened. Our coxswain called out, "Power to the finish!" And then something like, "Row like hell! We've got this!" In my peripheral vision that boat was still right there, just like we were still at the start line. They had one of those old timey metal flag things that would rotate 90 degrees making a ching sound, then again when the next boat passed. It had gone ching-ching rapidly almost like a cha-ching, because we had crossed the finish line so close to each other. Then the moment we had been waiting for. He called, "Let it run," meaning we could stop rowing the race was over. He kept us going straight while we all collapsed, laying backward in the boat, oars spread on the water haphazard. I could hear a guy in the other boat dry heaving. After a moment, when it momentum was spent, we were all just sitting there looking at each other asking the rowers on the other team, who one. No one knew. It was a photo finish. We had to wait for the results. It felt like forever. Our teammates were on the shore yelling something to us. There was some chaos we didn't understand and I realized then, this was just like being in the movies.

Was in an expressway pileup and man you sense of time just does go wack. I had somewhat the effect when I was young and we used to walk on the train tracks and we turned around to see a train coming and it seemed like it was ontop of us and we literally lept to the side and actually it was pretty far away we were just surprised by it. got all dirty and scratched up for nothing. Had time to get up and look and see it was a way aways and wait for it. Okay the last thing was not preciesly a movie thing but im just talking about wierd time perception things they sorta immitate with slow motion and such.

I somehow got the highest possible score in an English exam without properly studying for it, and I ended up getting voted as the class rep after a single speech.

I wouldn't know where to start, a lot of what I've been through seem out of movies. Like the time my friends taught their pet talking bird the Wilhelm scream, or the time I tripped a thief, or being held at someone's place like it's Scooby Doo. What counts? Of the things I remember, I guess I'll take a whim and say the third one. Wasn't pleasant.