Stuff that didn't make it in RICH GUY

On any given day we are sent press kits, emails and products to review. While there are a lot of things that we see not everything makes it into RICH GUY Magazine, and that can be for any number of reasons.

Here below are 3 things that off the top of my head I know we haven’t included:

Plane Sheets

These are sheets that allow you to personalize your space on an airline seat. They sent me a sample of these sheets and to be honest with you, I doubt I’ll ever use them. Would you spend the time to put a cheesy cover over your plane seat?




The EX Knife Holder

Here is a novel idea for those who’ve wanted to stab their ex’s but didn’t want to spend a few years in jail. We didn’t include this product for 2 reasons. Somewhat cheap plastic and questionable blade characteristics. Not RICH GUY quality but neat nonetheless.

Kiawah Island

Some of the nicest luxury homes are located in Kiawah Island. It’s a sanctuary of sorts for nature. Unfortunately too much of a sanctuary with one of the strictest building codes I’ve ever seen. When I visited the island I was impressed by the quality of the eating establishments but dismayed by the lack of evening activities. I could see this being suitable for the older RICH GUY but not so much for our demographic. Also, while it’s nice to preserve nature, the building code has caused a lot of frustration towards owners, one particular home had to be built around a tree since the owners weren’t allowed to cut it down.

There will be more... ;)

Funny things that don't make sense

Lacsa airlines has a picture on their partners page of 3 people freefalling, obviously skydiving. Is that the right image to portray a fine safety record in aviation? http://www.taca.com/eng/fre/finf/finfourpar.asp

Mind you they look happy, but could in air service be so bad as to make jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft an enjoyable Endeavour?

I was in the grocery store a few weeks ago and saw these “Fresh Ripe Bananas”

Then around the corner I saw that I could save 00 cents on a purchase…WOW! I’ll take them

all!

I didn’t have a wide angle lens for this one, but again in a grocery store I saw baby food on one side of the isle and condoms on the other. I thought that was a nice touch, kudos to the floor manager.

The other day I was walking with one of our RICH GUY models and cars were stopping for her while crossing a busy street. I was amazed, but who in their right mind wouldn’t stop for a beautiful woman. 3 days later I was crossing the street and cars stopped for me too! I now realize that beautiful women and fat guys have something in common.

My US Airways status

Airlines are starting to frustrate me. At the moment I have Chairman status with US Airways, but haven’t been flying much since they merged with America West because their booking systems are messed up and I’ve not been able to book certain flights online (Belize, Trinidad, Grenada etc.). This is annoying to say the least.

As far as the world's airlines go, US Airways ranks "lousy". In my opinion I see it as a lousy, terrible and worthless airline and I always question why I fly with them, and the answer is usually my status. With my Chairman status I would always be upgraded to first class, enjoy a nice meal and access to the first class lounges. My favourite being the one at Charlotte which I have spent many hours in. Although it’s nothing like the lounges that Virgin or BA have, where they feed you and internet is free, it still had one thing that I valued and that was a great smoking lounge. With leather chairs and plasma screen TV’s I could smoke a cigar, watch TV and relax between flights. But even that perk is gone. I have to pay to enter.

I complained to US Airways about this and they offered me numerous lousy excuses about how that was the way it is, yet anyone with status on a different airline going through a USAir hub has free access to the lounge. That’s right, you read that correctly. If you give another airline money but have the proper status you can access the lounge. Meanwhile, if you fly on US Airways aircraft and are a top level flier with them you get the shaft.

So needless to say, I’ve not been flying USAir as much, I decided to diversify. In fact, I’ve only earned 13,416 qualifying miles this year with USAir. I’ve flown on BWIA (Shit), Delta (nice), Liat(junk), United (nice) and American (bleh) for a total of 37,641 miles. If by now you haven’t figured it out, my dilemma is that I’m not going to make status on any of the airlines I’ve flown. It would be good to have at least some status and to do that I need to pick an airline and do a “mileage run”.

The first order of business is always to check the FlyerTalk forums, a great resource for any traveler. I saw that someone had found an obscure flight on USAir to the Virgin Islands for only CDN $238, an incredible bargain, departing from Pennsylvania. That’s not a big deal, since the routing takes me through Charlotte bumping up my qualifying segments too. The only problem: getting to Pennsylvania. Flying with USAir out of Toronto would cost about $451, driving will cost me $300 and flying my own plane would be about $1000. A direct flight from Toronto to the USVI would be $603.

And here I am, at the confirmation page, wondering if it’s really worth it to spend this sort of money to get no perks with an airline that serves no food on most First Class flights and doesn’t reward their top level fliers with simple access to their lounge.

The answer is no, it’s not worth it. I’d rather sit at home and watch TV, so I closed my online booking window and went on to write this entry.

Adventures in Photography

I’m dehydrated and suffering from a mild form of heat exhaustion. At least I think that’s what it is. I’ve had a headache for two days now. Not just a little headache, but one of those “Texas Sized” headaches that sit behind the eyes and make looking at the computer a near impossibility. Oh, and I almost got trampled by cows.
It all started on Saturday when my childhood pal and official RICH GUY Magazine photographer Mark L. Craighead gave me a call. “The moon will be sitting low along the horizon this evening” he jabbered in to the phone. I was a bit confused, what has this got to do with me? He explained that he needed to capture a shot of the moon so that he can keep it in the stock database at RICH GUY. He also knew that I was a survival junkie and couldn’t pass up on a chance to be like Survivorman Les Stroud. But unlike Survivorman we weren’t going to catch our own food or build our shelter. We’re way too lazy for that!

In a matter of hours we were standing at the edge of a steep decline into a valley of trees with our equipment strapped to our backs. I had 8L of water, tent, sleeping bag, burgers, buns and of course my cigars. Total weight, nearly 80lbs. Mark was carrying the same except he had camera equipment instead of cigars. Dusk was approaching so we needed to hurry.

We hiked down to the end of the tree line and decided to set up camp there, far away from any trees that could fall and high enough from the valley floor so that we aren’t washed away if there is some heavy rain.

Mark dug out a fire pit while I went and gathered some wood. I carried a stack of them that would last for hours, but as Survivorman says: “gather what you think is enough and then gather five times that.” So I went back for more. The fire was finally started around 9pm. The food was ready to eat at 10pm. After a nice hearty meal of meat I smoked a cigar by the fire. It was a great moment. The stars in the sky, bonfire and the sounds of the night reminded me of the cowboy ways of the past. It was a great and relaxing moment that could only be eclipsed if we each had our own dancing girls. Unfortunately none could be convinced to make the trek.


Mark went to his tent in order to wait for the moon to make it over the tree line, I went to my tent and tried to sleep. The next thing I knew there was a hint of daylight and a rumbling, then crashing and then from what seemed like inside my tent I heard the sounds of a dinosaur. MOOOOOOO!! Ok, it was a cow not a dinosaur!

A lone cow peeked through the woods, then another and another; finally I counted 30 cows, staring at me like I was an intruder on their land, which of course I was. There was tension in the air. It felt like a battle. The stronger cows formed a barrier against the younger cows. It’s always been my dream to put an entire cow on a rotisserie, I could have one of the smaller ones gutted and out of the woods within 3 hrs. Mark knew that too and without looking at me asked me to put the knife away.

A giant white bull, obviously their leader, walked between the herd, the cows parted to let him pass. I suddenly wondered if Karma was going to kick my ass today for eating all the steaks I’ve had in my life. Luckily the giant bull walked towards Mark, they exchanged words and after a few taps on the head the peace treaty was signed. Things were fine. The Bull ate from an apple tree near our camp and the rest of the cows followed. It was more of a relaxed environment. We all become friends for a while. I was amazed at the social structure that cows had. Clearly a leader needed to assure the herd of safety. There was even a shunned cow, that wasn’t liked by the herd. When she showed up the rest of the cows left. We decided to make breakfast and leave too.

On the way back, while hiking up the hill I decided to show mark how Edmund Hillary climbed Everest. Being overweight, out of shape and completely exhausted I let Mark carry my remaining 60lbs of equipment on top of his own equipment up the last 200 yards of the hill. It’s great to have a friend like Mark.

Thanks Mark, I’m sure Tenzing Norgay Sherpa would be proud.

Eclipse 500 Jet Video

Many people have asked and here it is. This is the video of my test flight for Easy AirShare of the Eclipse 500 VLJ. The flight took place in Mid April. The Eclipse 500 is an incredible little aircraft, and was just recently certified by the FAA. Canadian and European certification is expected later this year.

The Camera was strapped to my head. While you can’t see all the instrumentation, you can see the runway which is much cooler. The interior is so quiet that you can hear us talking inside. I’d never flown this plane before and was getting an “on the fly” lesson while the camera was rolling.

You can read the entire story on the Eclipse 500 Jet by clicking the AIR button on the main menu above. You can buy a share in an Eclipse Jet through Easy AirShare starting at $100,000.

Writer's Block

I’ve been getting some of the most ridiculous product review requests the past few days that I just had to write about them, but there isn’t enough to make a decent story out of it so I’m saving them for another time. I’ve also got a few other articles to finish for the magazine so that they can go to production. I’m torn between sitting at my desk and building a shed in my back yard. Even though it’s a weekday, I feel like slacking off.

The real problem is, I’ve got writer's block. I’m not afraid to admit it. I can’t for the life of me get anything comprehensive written today. I could say it’s the record heat that we’re experiencing in the Toronto area that’s making me feel this way. I could blame it on the humidity. And while you might believe me, I’d know it’s all bullshit, because I spend most of my time in the Caribbean, the heat and humidity never bother me there.

In Canada we tend to complain about the weather much too often, it’s the excuse that we all are dreaming of. In Canada if it gets above 25C it’s TOO HOT!! But I’ve never heard any of the construction workers in Belize complain about the heat and it’s always above 25C. In fact, weather in the Caribbean is a non-issue. It’s constant and almost predictable. I’ve seen workers building in the sweltering heat for days without a single complaint. And we’re talking some serious manual labour. Mind you, they stop working in the rain.

In college I took a business etiquette course. The professor suggested that we talk about the weather to break the “ice”, since it is the only way to open a conversation without offending or insulting anyone’s beliefs or opinions. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, we’re generally too quick to please strangers, but when people talk to me about the weather I just nod my head and think about how afraid they are to say anything else.

I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to build that shed.

Crap, now it’s raining outside…