[Rhodes22-list] Biggest Party In The World

[Peter Thorn]

Brad,

Very interesting storey about Caracas.  Did that happen that in Spring of
2002 during the attempted Hugo Chavez coup?  It appears you made a very
timely departure.

PT

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Biggest Party In The World


> Slim,
>
> Thanks, you've given me the excuse to buy that
> motorized mini-dish antenna I want.  We have Direct-TV
> and DSL, (I friggin hate Time-Warner and every other
> cable company), and a fixed dish pointed to CCTV
> 4(Beijing TV).  The CCTV box can pickup broadcasts
> from all over the world but right now its fixed on
> just the one satellite.  On my farm I had one of those
> "mother-of-all-dishes" set-ups but they're not allowed
> in my subdivision.  Is yours a full size system or a
> mini-dish?  Movable or fixed?
>
> My one and only trip to Rio was not a pleasant
> experience but that wasn't Rio's fault.  I had
> ruptured a disc in my back about two weeks prior but
> didn't know it.  I came out of the water on a slalom
> ski and it felt like someone stabbed me in the back.
> Some liquid pain-killer out of the cooler got me
> through the rest of the day.  The next day I was in
> intense pain so I went to a "doc-in-the-box" and he
> said I pulled a muscle and gave me muscle relaxers and
> pain pills.  This Rio trip was coming up and I really
> wanted to fly it so I quit the drugs and flew the
> trip.  We spent 48 hours in Manaus, on the Amazon, on
> the way down and some of the extra-curricular
> activites there only agravated the back situation.  By
> the time we got to Rio all I could do was sit in a
> chaise lounge at the hotel pool, order beer, and drool
> over the view and eye candy walking down Ipenema
> Beach.  When we got back to Miami my crewmembers
> literaly had to carry me off the airplane.  I spent
> two days in MIA recovering to the point that I could
> non-rev home.  They replaced me with a crew-member
> thatthe company flew down on one of the corporate
> jets.  When I got home and had an MRI my L4-L5 was
> ruptured and I had surgery.  Haven't made it to Rio
> since.
>
> The second missed approach at a Carnival experience
> was in Caracus, Venuzala.  We stopped in San Juan and
> they had the 727-200 fully loaded with fuel.  "Why so
> much fuel for this leg"?  Global Operations Command
> (GOC)explained (they didn't mention a word of it when
> I left home) that the air-traffic controllers were on
> strike in Venuzala and they weren't sure we'd be
> cleared to land.  We got there and the military was
> running the control tower.  Everything seemed normal;
> shitty as usual.  We spent the day lying by the pool
> overlooking the gulf but separated from the locals by
> a chain-link fence.  The local kids sell Polar beer to
> hotel guests in tomato-juice sized cans for a quarter.
> The cans are small so they will fit through the holes
> in the fence.  That night we escaped the compound for
> some local flavor.  I got back to my room about 2am
> and was just about to fall asleep when the phone rang.
>  It was GOC explaining that the company had suspended
> operations to Venuzala and they thought United and
> American would the next day.  We had reservations on
> an American flight in 5 hours and were told to get out
> of the country while we still could.  The second
> officer said, "it's Carnival week!  Let's get stuck
> here".  The F/O and I had trips coming up and felt we
> wouldn't get paid if we didn't follow the plan.  We
> had no ground transportation because it was an ad hoc
> dead-head so I tried to call back to the "brain trust"
> to schedule something on the 1-800 number.  I got the
> phone menu, press 1 for this, 2 for that, and just
> stared at the rotary dial phone.  We bummed a ride
> from an American crew at the hotel and checked in for
> the flight.  The ticket agent said "this is Carnival
> week, this flight has been sold out for months".  "No
> mam, we're positive space, look up the agreement".  "I
> don't know nothing about any agreement, I just know
> you're not going on this flight".  So we left the
> country 6 hours later and "celebrated" Carnival at the
> airport terminal.  When we checked in for the second
> flight and checked the bags, the agent said, "I don't
> understand, you're going to Nashville, he's going to
> Kansas City, and he's going to Chicago, all on the
> same reservation, this doesn't make sense"  "Forget
> about it lady, we're all going to Miami, we'll take
> care of it from there".
>
> Oh well, some day before I die I'll really make
> Carnival.
>
> Brad Haslett
> "CoraShen"
>
> --- Steve Alm <salm at mn.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > The biggest party/music festival in the world is
> > going on right now in
> > Brazil--Carnival!  It goes on for a full week, 24/7
> > and culminates in a
> > frenzied finale on Tuesday--Fat Tuesday-- the day
> > before Ash Wednesday and
> > the beginning of Lent.  We have a satellite dish and
> > we get the Brazilian
> > broadcast station, Globo.  They've been showing the
> > parades from all across
> > Brazil and these are the most over-the-top
> > productions I could ever imagine.
> > They make the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade look like a
> > high school homecoming!
> > Maybe someone more internet-savvy than me can come
> > up with some sites that
> > show live feeds or streaming video.
> >
> > The parades are a competition and a sequence of
> > "samba schools" as in
> > "school of fish" for the way they swim through the
> > streets. They're
> > developed and rehearsed back in the vast favelas
> > (slums) and comprise
> > thousands of people in each one.  They have a
> > specific underlying theme and
> > one song that prevails in the whole school
> > accompanied by hundreds of
> > drummers and dancers.  It can take up to an hour for
> > each school to pass,
> > and there are dozens of schools in every parade.
> > The floats, costumes and
> > music are unbelievable. Sometimes the whole float IS
> > the costume for one
> > very important person, or maybe the costume is a
> > beautiful woman dressed in
> > a fancy hat and some paint--that's all.  Some
> > costumes consist of nothing
> > but glue and glitter.  There's no shortage of T & A.
> >  8-)   And bless
> > Globo's heart, they show it all.  Most costumes are
> > so elaborate you can't
> > believe it.  These poor, poor, poor people collect
> > beads, sequins, fabric,
> > etc and spend the whole year hand-making their
> > costume.  After it's over,
> > they carefully take their costume apart and save
> > every bead for next year's
> > costume.
> >
> > Virtually every business closes for Carnival except
> > the bars, hotels and
> > restaurants.  Everybody just goes for it!  If you're
> > not in the parade or
> > watching the parade, you're out on the street anyway
> > partying you butt off.
> > There's nothing like this anywhere else in the
> > world.  Feliz Carnival!
> >
> > Slim
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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> > www.rhodes22.org/list
> >
>
>
>
>
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