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 Charlie Knox26, m, resident of spa, northern ireland, a thinker, who tries to be real, enjoys the company of nala(left), indebted to jesus for his grace and instruction in life and whose, amongst other things, studying sports science at UUJ. enjoy rugby a whole lot! |
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Sunday, September 07, 2003 YFC job didn't happen. Was going to be too much on top of school etc. Just working at school and rugby coaching now... posted by charlie | 10:35 PM | Not a good start I played my first rugby match of the season yesterday, playing for our 3's against Coleraine 2's @ home. We were beat 25-8. I didn't loose any games last season so it wasn't a great start to this one really. On the up side i got a score down which is always nice. posted by charlie | 10:30 PM | Thursday, September 04, 2003 Back to school........ I started a new job yesterday at Ballynahinch High School. I'll be working there 30 hours per week as a classroom assistant. Basically I stay with one class all day and go around with them to all their classes. I've actually really enjoyed re-learning some stuff that I'd forgotten, and also learning some stuff for the first time. Education is definitely wasted on the young. A random sample of some of the things i've learnt so far....... - Henry VII got onto the throne by killing Richard III - Harry Potter's parents were killed - 'L'oiseau' means 'the bird' in French - Regular Polygons are polygons whose sides and angles are all the same posted by charlie | 4:55 PM | Monday, September 01, 2003 New paintball type place coming close to Ballynahinch I was dandering in Drumkeeragh tonite when i came across a sign that said 'Combat games in progress DO NOT ENTER' As i walked a little further two guys were working on putting a makeshift roof on an old house. As i stopped to chat they were telling me about this new business venture they were taking on. As of the next couple of weeks they are starting to cater for groups of 12 people to come and have a day playing army games in the forest. For £30 quid a day pp they provide guns, masks, suits and guide you through a day of varying combat games. They let me shoot one of the guns and i was immediately hooked - it looked like a real rifle and even had an automatic setting that acts like a machine gun. Having always wanted to do this type of thing i've decided to try a book a group in fairly soon - let me know if you're interested. posted by charlie | 10:53 PM | Someone was praying for Travelling mercies!!! We’re safe home – just about. Trip home was fun to say the least. We got the train to the airport in Chicago. Trip to Philadelphia was good – on time, plenty of space on the flight, better service than on the way out to Chicago. However when we arrived in Philadelphia we were informed that our flight had been delayed for an hour from 8:00 until 9:00. Fair enough, some time to dander about the airport. As 9:00 was near approaching we were told the flight had been further delayed until 9:45 – doh! I rang Dad to tell him not to come to Dublin at the arranged time. About 15 minutes later we got another announcement... ‘Folks we are sorry to have to bring you this information, the plane you were to fly on has been found to have some mechanical errors and the technicians say it will be 12:00 before you flight is ready to go, we are sorry about this. We will be happy to issue $10 food tokens to allow you to purchase some food.’ A few minutes later, another announcement. ‘Folks we have located another plane, you will now be leaving from C30(another gate) at 11:00, please collect your food voucher and make your way top C30.’ So we got our voucher, got a pile of free food and headed to the gate. As 11:00 got closer it was apparent that we wouldn’t leave at 11:00, and as we’d thought we didn’t leave until 12:30.’ (paragraph worth reading) So a little late, we were on our way across the Atlantic to Dublin. We got some food, the movie was switched on etc. I was trying to sleep but with little success. About 4.5 hours into the flight and with an hour and a half to go I was nearly sleeping when the plane took a bit of a downturn, at the same time the seatbelt sign came on. This was a fairly normal thing – I thought we had just hit some turbulence. However the reaction of the crew caused me to think differently. 2 of the crew members ran up the aisle and began to make sure everyone had their belt on and that their seatbacks were in the upright position, that their tables were up and that any bags were put away – again this was unusual for just turnbulence. Then came an announcement .... ‘Folks the Captain has informed us that there has been an electrical failure in the coolers, we do smell some smoke and we are having to descend to a suitable altitude in order to ventilate the plane.’ In the following moments the crew continued to converse amongst themselves and the pilot – none of them were talking to passengers. Then the captain spoke ‘Folks, it seems we have had a fire on board, I think we have isolated it but we can’t be sure. This means we will be making an emergency landing at the closest airport, Shannon, which is about 25 minutes away.’ At this there was a certain amount of worry in me and obviously in some of those around me too!! People started to read the safety book, the one that nonone pays any attention to at the start of the flight! Here we were sitting way above the Atlantic ocean on a plane that might have been on fire, the big question was, were we going to make it.’ The thing that unnerved me most was the reaction of the crew – usually with turbulence etc they are quite calm – this time they looked worried and flustered. As time went on the crew were still talking every so often to the captain – obviously being updated on how things were developing – they looked fairly worried. Then suddenly, after standing together for quite some time the crew all split up and made their way to their personal lockers – all of them at the same time got something from their belongings and made their way to the front of the plane for more discussion – I was wondering what it was they had got. Then I was able to see that they had all got hold of books, obviously with some procedure in them. Next came an announcement... ‘We would like anyone on the plane who has military experience or who has had fire fighting experience to make themselves known by pressing the service button on their seat.’ At this point a few people obviously pressed the button. These people were then brought to the emergency exits and instructed as to how to help us evacuate the plane – then we were all asked to review the safety booklet and the procedures to follow – at this stage I thought we were going to end up in the sea and began to usher up a prayer or two! Then from here we were just left to wait out the long 15 minutes to Shannon only with occasionally instructions for what to do when (and if) we landed!! Eventually and after a few anxious minutes we touched down @ Shannon –this was followed by both a cheer and lots of applause – we stopped in the middle of the runaway to allow the FIRE people to carry out an initial inspection before rolling up to the gate where could disembark. When we arrived at the gate we were asked to leave all belongings on the plane and to get off as quickly as possible – this we did. In the end we waited in Shannon until 3:00 (from 10:00) and then we got a 4 hour journey to Dublin by coach –we arrived at Dublin airport 11 hours late but no complaints at least we arrived, at certain points I wasn’t so sure we would. (Our story made the news - click here to see the RTE initial report) posted by charlie | 10:38 PM | |
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