Travel Scams

Click on the link below to learn about scams encountered while traveling.

Travel Scams

 

Welcome

I'm considering a message to family members and friends that, as an alternative to Facebook, I would like to propose staying in touch via a Blog site, built on a free service offered at blogger.com. I am posting some random musings of my own here and you can do the same by creating your own blog and sharing with the public or group of friends and family. You can also post comments that are accessible to other visitors to my blog. 

The messages created on your blog are called "Posts" and you can create them as easily as writing an email message (the method I'm using to create this post) and sending it to a proprietary address that you create in your blogger account. You do have to have a Google account to use Blogger. It is free and no ads will appear on your blog unless you opt to monetize your blog and that, in my opinion, defeats one of the benefits of blogging. 

Note: at the end of a page you will find a link to "Older Posts" that will show earlier posts and a link that will take you back to the top of the blog.

Enjoy... and let me hear from you.

Jay Gunsauls

BTW, in my profile you will find links to other Blogs that I have created, in particular collections of posts related to travel by Jain and Jay.

Titanic Trivia

JACK DAWSON

Aboard the maiden voyage of Titanic was a 23-year-old man listed as J Dawson. Since the release of the 1997 Titanic film, his grave has been well visited by many fans of the film and the character Jack Dawson – with many flowers having been left upon the grave since.

Although some point to some similarities between them, the man buried there is not Jack Dawson, the character from the film, but is in fact Joseph Dawson, who served as a Trimmer aboard Titanic.

Joseph Dawson was born in Dublin, Ireland in September 1888. His parents were Patrick Dawson and Catherine Madden. He is said to have been a carpenter but when he was around 20 years old, he moved across the Irish Sea to Great Britain, where he enlisted in the British Army, serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, which provided the medical care needed to those serving in the army. He left the army in 1911, and sometime after, began his career at sea.

It is said that by the time he boarded Titanic, Joseph Dawson was courting a girl named Nellie Priest, the sister of Titanic Fireman and survivor John Priest.

In Southampton on 6th April 1912, he signed on as a member of Titanic's crew as a Trimmer. Titanic's crew Particulars of Engagements lists the last ship he served upon as being Majestic, a White Star Line ship. A Trimmers job was to deliver the coal to the fireman placing it into the boilers, and to keep the coal properly balanced and stored aboard the ship.

Joseph Dawson did not survive the sinking of Titanic. His body was recovered, listed as body No. 227, by CS Mackay-Bennett. It was noted that he had light hair and a moustache, and that he had his National Sailors' and Firemen's Union card in his possession, card number 35638.

His body was taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he was, along with 120 other victims of the Titanic disaster, buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery.

The following inscription is found on the memorial:

J. Dawson
Died
April 15. 1912.
227

After the release of the 1997 Titanic film, in which the leading male character was named Jack Dawson, the grave of Joseph Dawson, the memorial simply stating the name J Dawson, become a popular destination for fans of the film and the character Jack Dawson. Although there is no connection between the character Jack Dawson and the Titanic victim Joseph Dawson, with Jack Dawson in mind many flowers have been left at the grave, and, it is said, so have love notes been left there.

 

Conflicts in Europe

How did Europe become what it is today?

By Jay Gunsauls

 

I have been studying and visiting museums on the subject of European history and finding it helps me understand how societal changes have occurred and shaped the various issues we are working through in a global way today.

 

The world has had its share of "Rascals" and "Scoundrels" and it doesn't appear this is going to change any time soon. More on this to follow.

 

Hundreds of years B.C. there were small groups of like-minded humans foraging for food; gatherers, hunters and eventually farmers. Conflict was between the humans and nature. At some point in the "metal ages", tools were made to help these humans survive against the elements and to enhance food production. Societal struggles came about when resources were scarce and began appearing over land, poaching, vengeance and at some point, over kidnapping of slaves and women. Demonstrations of superiority and dominance over others (by Rascals) led to tools becoming weapons and efforts being made to protect groups from attack by other groups. We see the advent of castles becoming fortresses and control meted out over the common people by the elites and aristocrats. Farmers and merchants were taxed and made to conform to standards not of their own choosing. Landholders were given compulsory quotas for food production that allowed them to keep a portion for their own use, but when crops failed to yield the prescribed quotas, the landholder suffered the most. Often the land was given up as chattel or even forfeited.

 

In our travels in Europe we are visiting huge mansions and estates once occupied by the aristocracy that are now memorialized, made accessible to us through government ownership (for a small fee). One cannot help but draw a conclusion that many of these succumbed to lack of maintenance, occupation by hostile forces, or perhaps onerous taxation.

 

We learned an interesting accounting related to hunting. At one point the rascals decided that hunting should be restricted to themselves as a measure of their prowess while landholders could kill animals that endangered their crops or families but could not profit from same.

 

The elites (aka Rascals) devised a hierarchy of royalty, nobles, lesser nobles, knights and such in order to give definition to societal structure. Allegiance, loyalty and subservience were tantamount to securing control. Rascals often plotted against other rascals and the number of familial murders and mayhem are quite notable.

 

Conflicts lasted for years as wars. While many were touted and justified as religious or political imperatives, the character of high order individuals makes one wonder. Some were revered, others hated and depending on which end of the sword a person was on they were both.

 

Over decades certain groups rested control over vast geographical areas only to lose that control in subsequent rebellions. Today we see centuries-old buildings reflecting these changes in their architecture, most notably religious structures.

 

Then there were the "Scoundrels" who got the idea they could dominate and control the whole world through plunder and elimination of vast numbers of humans. Vikings, Turks, Napoleon and Hitler are some of the most notable scoundrels (heinous criminals) to live. In the scheme of things, a lot of people suffered, and a few (too many) gained.

 

The World Wars, I and II, certainly didn't teach us anything except how to maim and kill other human beings. Reading and seeing the evidence on the ground puts these events in perspective but I can find no justifiable explanation why they occurred. Human cleverness created the ability to hurl large amounts of lethal material into populated areas and destroy infrastructures hundreds of years in the making.

It seems as though the "higher ups" of today are prone to repeating the worst aspects of our human history.

I'm including a link here for further study and reference:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe

 

Landing Gear

I don't see any other way to promote an idea in aircraft innovation better than posting on social media. Perhaps some person or group within aircraft manufacturing will further develop my idea and I will retain some credit by virtue of this posting date and time.

Every time we see an aircraft landing, one of the things you cannot miss is the smoke from the tires. Tires touching the pavement must immediately accelerate to the forward speed of the aircraft, causing tremendous friction and absorption of energy. Burning rubber wears the tires and leaves an accumulation of rubber on the pavement. I have read that periodic replacement of tires cost airline companies thousands of dollars each. Periodic removal of the rubber left on runway pavement (for safety reasons) has to be very expensive as well.

The concept of my idea is to build a mechanism on the tires or wheels that will act as accelerators when the landing gear is extended, using the forward speed of the aircraft to spin the wheels up to the touch down speed, thus reducing the damage to tires and accumulation of rubber on the pavement.

For maximum benefit and to minimize the cost of design and manufacturing such mechanisms should not require additional control systems.

I can anticipate some resistance to the idea since the current configurations provide for energy absorption on landing, helping to slow the aircraft's forward movement and my suggestion might be said to extend landing distances and add additional stress to current aircraft braking systems. Brakes would also have to be applied after take-off when retracting the landing gear. In most aircraft this is a routine procedure.

In recent years aircraft and airline companies have focused on accomplishing "Zero Carbon" goals by reducing engine emissions. My idea would certainly help in reaching these goals.