The Amazing Race last night
I'm not all that surprised by the number of people at TWOP who seem infuriated by the cheerful level of information-sharing on this season of The Amazing Race, but I don't share the annoyance. Normally, being too helpful to other people in a RAAAAACE is going to backfire on you, but since, in this case, everyone seems to be doing it (except for the team eliminated last night), it's not going to backfire on someone.
Besides, it reminds me of an incident in my youth. (Of course it does!)
I was an Air Cadet instructor, and was attending a Lieutenant's Qualifying course for reserve officers on weekends at CFB Greenwood. There was a mix of junior officers from the air, sea, and army elements, but the training officers I remember were all army.
This may have been why they thought it would be a good idea to send us on an orienteering exercise. I mean, I suppose I might have found it handy if I had crashed my glider in the woods, but honestly if I had just been in a plane crash I suspect I would have had other things on my mind and might have opted to sit tight with the bright yellow aircraft and await rescue.
However. We were taken off-base to a local farm, given maps (photocopied from a hand-drawn original) and told to navigate ourselves from, like, Point A to Point F by ourselves. (The key on the map indicated that forested areas were indicated by blank space, while clearings were shown as cross-hatched areas. That alone was too much for my brain--why didn't they just make the clearings clear?)
Anyway... I think we went off in pairs, sent out at five-minute intervals. The first pair, two gung-ho young Army guys who knew what they were doing, dashed off down the lane, turned right into the woods, and vanished.
I was buddied up with a Sea Cadet officer, both of us totally out of our element (heh.) We moseyed down the lane, gloomily discussing how long we would need to be lost before someone sent the bloodhounds after us.
We reached the end of the lane, turned right into the forest...
And the two gung-ho young Army guys stepped out from behind a tree. Accompanied by the three other pairs who'd gone out ahead of us.
"Hi!" they greeted us. "Want some help?"
Why yes, we did! So we all hid behind the tree, flagging down the next few pairs as they arrived, and then the whole crew of us set off through the woods together, following the Army guys. (I believe our group set off when the next pair that included an Army officer arrived, and then that pair waited to form a cluster with the next few pairs.)
At one point we bumped into a couple of the supervising officers, who were (as I have mentioned) Army guys. Our escorts batted their eyelashes and swore we had all just happened upon each other in the woods. The SO's didn't believe us, but they didn't make us start over, either.
Anyway--considering the inter-element squabbling we all engaged in, and considering they could have left us to wander around until we all got eaten by wolves, I thought that was very kind. Mind you, we were not engaged in a competitive event at the time, but I still got nostalgic while watching the race last night!
Besides, it reminds me of an incident in my youth. (Of course it does!)
I was an Air Cadet instructor, and was attending a Lieutenant's Qualifying course for reserve officers on weekends at CFB Greenwood. There was a mix of junior officers from the air, sea, and army elements, but the training officers I remember were all army.
This may have been why they thought it would be a good idea to send us on an orienteering exercise. I mean, I suppose I might have found it handy if I had crashed my glider in the woods, but honestly if I had just been in a plane crash I suspect I would have had other things on my mind and might have opted to sit tight with the bright yellow aircraft and await rescue.
However. We were taken off-base to a local farm, given maps (photocopied from a hand-drawn original) and told to navigate ourselves from, like, Point A to Point F by ourselves. (The key on the map indicated that forested areas were indicated by blank space, while clearings were shown as cross-hatched areas. That alone was too much for my brain--why didn't they just make the clearings clear?)
Anyway... I think we went off in pairs, sent out at five-minute intervals. The first pair, two gung-ho young Army guys who knew what they were doing, dashed off down the lane, turned right into the woods, and vanished.
I was buddied up with a Sea Cadet officer, both of us totally out of our element (heh.) We moseyed down the lane, gloomily discussing how long we would need to be lost before someone sent the bloodhounds after us.
We reached the end of the lane, turned right into the forest...
And the two gung-ho young Army guys stepped out from behind a tree. Accompanied by the three other pairs who'd gone out ahead of us.
"Hi!" they greeted us. "Want some help?"
Why yes, we did! So we all hid behind the tree, flagging down the next few pairs as they arrived, and then the whole crew of us set off through the woods together, following the Army guys. (I believe our group set off when the next pair that included an Army officer arrived, and then that pair waited to form a cluster with the next few pairs.)
At one point we bumped into a couple of the supervising officers, who were (as I have mentioned) Army guys. Our escorts batted their eyelashes and swore we had all just happened upon each other in the woods. The SO's didn't believe us, but they didn't make us start over, either.
Anyway--considering the inter-element squabbling we all engaged in, and considering they could have left us to wander around until we all got eaten by wolves, I thought that was very kind. Mind you, we were not engaged in a competitive event at the time, but I still got nostalgic while watching the race last night!