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www.celtic-connection.com
JULY-AUGUST 2008
Stanley Park Domain Name Battle: Vancouver Parks Board vs. AAA Horse and Carriage
VANCOUVER - "I feel like they are acting like a spoiled kid, they want the domain name," says Gerry O'Neil the Stanley Park horse-and-carriage operator who is in a fight with the Vancouver Parks Board over a website.
Gerry is the owner-operator of AAA Horse and Carriage and owns the Internet domain name www.stanleypark.com.
He claims the Parks Board is using lease negotiations as leverage to get the website for themselves.
O'Neil, who has been taking tourists through Stanley Park in his carriages for 23 years, has been trying to get a 10-year lease, which would allow him to get a loan to build a new kiosk and level the pavement for his horses. Right now, the animals are forced to start their trip uphill.
He has reluctantly agreed to a five-year term. But he thinks the public deserves to know what his landlord is doing. O'Neil is smoldering. He's brimming over with indignation at the unfairness of it all. "I am not a horse's ass" he says, "all I want is to be treated fairly."
A native of Quebec City Gerry arrived in Vancouver with his wife Kathryn and soon after decided the city needed horse-drawn carriages for tourists similar to those in Quebec and Central Park New "fork
Born into a horse loving family, with an Irish pedigree that stretches back to the 1860s, and a French-Canadian heritage (his mother is cousin to Celine Dion), Gerald Joseph Real O'Neil has a passion for horses that dates back to when the O'Neil family would dutifully attend Sunday Mass with a racing program inserted inside the family Bible.
After church, with grandfather, dad and two brothers in tow, they'd watch the gee-gee's run at the nearby track.
Gerry is a family man. He and his wife have two adopted daughters. He is very community conscious and donates thousands of complimentary tickets annually to non-profit organizations to assist in their fundraising.
He also provides free educational tours for inner city kids and more than 6,000 of them over the past 12 years have benefited. He tirelessly promotes the Vancouver Police Mounted Squad, encouraging communication between young people and the police.
With a stable of 18 horses, including a few Belgians, magnificent Clydesdales and two rare Grey Shires, Dudley and Denzil, imported from England where their ancestors were bred to carry knights in full armor into battle, his investment in the Horse & Carriage business is over $2 million.
His concern for the welfare of his stable is reflected in the attention his animals receive. Bach horse draws four or five tours a day, four days per week for five months of the year. They are groomed and bathed every day.
Every six weeks their farrier resets their shoes, trims their hooves and the vet gives them a check-up. In
TRAVEL DIARY
By DAVE ABBOTT
the off-season, or when they retire, they live on land around Matsqui Lake. Professional guides provide narrations during the one-hour ride.
On a recent ride in the carriage-for-two through the park, it was instructive to watch Gerry interacting with the public.
People, old and young, waved. Hundreds of tourist cameras flashed, mothers held up their children to pat the gentle giants, and on numerous occasions he stopped so as to allow the public to ask questions.
Hikers, bathers, lovers, cyclists, joggers and elderly couples all smiled happily as we clip-clopped our way around the seawall before turning into the narrow paths leading to Beaver Lake.
Now, the Vancouver Parks
bureaucrats threaten the future of the Horse Drawn Tours putting the future of the horses in jeopardy. They refuse to compensate O'Neil for the website. They have steadfastly refused him to appear in front of the Vancouver Parks Board, despite needing a long-term lease to secure loans and develop future plans.
His license to operate is 050,000 annually, plus he pays a further 825,000 in leasehold
improvements. That the Parks staff should act in such a manner is a diabolical disgrace.
Records show that past Parks Boards have come to the conclusion that their staff have not always behaved in a way that benefited the park or the public.
Gerry O'Neil said that "unfortunately during the most recent round of negotiations the staff have not been forthright with us and we feel like we have been stonewalled. When I requested to bring this matter before the Commissioners in April, I was deeply disappointed by the Board's refusal to even hear my side of the matter."
The elected officials of the Vancouver Parks Board, led by Vice-Chair Ian Robertson, should mediate a solution and give O'Neil a hearing.
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GERRY O'NEIL, owner of AAA Horse and Carriage is shown above with his prized rare Grey Shires, Dudley and Denzil.
To voice an opinion, call (604 681- Dave Abbott's Travel Diary is 5115, or log on to: heard daily on 600AM Jim www.stanleyparktours.com. Pattison's Radio Network. Dave
can be reached at abbottl @shaw. ca.
Slainte Undergoes Star Trek Surgery
SLAINTE - TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH!
MAUREEN KEANE
Slainte spent some of the time between last month's and this month's column having four and a half hours of surgery to rearrange parts of her digestive tract.
It's now been three weeks since her operation and she and her new layout have not quite come to a working agreement but negotiations are close.
The surgery was done for a condition called achalasia, which Slainte didn't even realize she had until several months earlier.
Oddly enough, a week after surgery Slainte ran into another member of Seattle's Irish community who had justbeen tested for this disorder and was awaiting the results.
But as much as Slainte would love to tell you about achalasia, heartburn, GERD, GORD and other problems involving the esophagus/ oesophagus, it will have to wait until the next issue.
This month Slainte simply has to tell you all about her surgeon as he was so cool!
Slainte knew the surgery for achalasia was to be laparoscopic (aka keyhole surgery). This type of surgery is done through several
small incisions rather than one long incision. No muscle is cut so pain is easily controlled afterwards.
After Slainte was wheeled into the operating room the nurse gave her a litde tour. She pointed to some sort of console in the corner and said -"That is where your doctor sits."
Now Slainte's litde medicated brain couldn't quite process that. She was here but her surgeon was operating on her over there. Something was not quite right about that.
Then the nurse told her she was having robotic surgery. Wait, my surgeon is 3CPO? What if the robots decide to take over the world when one of them is inside my stomach? So off to sleep went Slainte with visions of Robby the robot wailing his arms around yelling "Warning, warning Mr. Robinson!"
Slainte really had what is called robotic assisted surgery using the da Vinci surgical robot made by Intuitive Surgical. The robot part stands over the patient.
A screen showing the surgical procedure in progress sits near the top of the robot giving the rough appearance of a head.
Below it are the five jointed arms that hold the various surgical instruments. As in laparoscopic surgery, instruments are inserted through small holes.
Since the da Vinci has five arms, Slainte had five small incisions that did not even require stitches.
The brain of the robot is supplied by your surgeon. He sits (rather than stands) at a console where he alone controls the movement of the robot.
The surgeon leans his head forward into a viewer that shows a 3D movie of what is going on inside his patient (laparoscopic cameras only give a 2D picture).
The picture is in color and magnified 10 times to give him a close up view of what he is doing, a handy feature when moving fine nerves and blood vessels about.
As soon as the surgeon removes his head from the viewer, the robot's arms stop moving so the robot never moves blind.
The surgeon's hands move two controllers to direct the movement of the instruments. Software filters out any tremors in the surgeon's hand so every movement is solid and precise.
The surgeon's feet are busy too. Pedals on the floor allow the surgeon to control the zoom and focus of the camera as well as the cautery that seals off small blood vessels to control bleeding. All of this gives the surgeon the feel he is working inside the patient.
The da Vinci robot is now approved for a wide range of surgery including prostate cancer surgery, colorectal surgery, hysterectomies, uterine prolapse and fibroids, gallbladder removal, obesity surgery and esophageal surgery like Slainte's.
Robotic surgery is now being used for open heart surgery too. Traditionally heart surgeons would make a 12-inch incision, crack the sternum and spread open the ribcage, and then stop the heart and put the patient on a heart-lung machine.
Only then could the heart be repaired. Robotic assisted surgery allows the surgeon to operate on the beating heart. Small incisions allow instruments to be inserted between the ribs. As a result there are far less complications, less blood loss, less pain and less scarring.
If a surgeon can operate in the corner of the operating room a good 20 feet away from his patient, couldn't the
surgeon just as well be in the next room? In the next city? Does distance matter at all?
This is the field of telesurgery. Last year researchers from SRI International and the University of Cincinnati conducted the first robotic surgery in a zero gravity environment in an aircraft flying 34,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico.
The eventual goal is to be able to do surgery on injured soldiers on the battlefield or on astronauts on the space station, far from the specialists they may need.
Robotic surgery is available in both Vancouver and Seattle. To see a video of robotic surgery: www.davinciprostatectomy.com/ davinci_prostatectomy/ procedure_multimedia/ video_system.aspx.
For more information on the research being performed by the BioRobotics Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle: brl.ee.washington.edu/ Research_Active/Surgery/ Surger y_Index. html.
For information on the Heartlander, a wormlike robot small enough to crawl across the surface of the beating heart to deliver treatment: www. cs. emu. edu/~heartlander/ index.html.
Slainte!
Maureen Keane MS CN is a graduate of Bastyr University and member of the American Dietetic Association. She is the best selling author of Juicing for Life, What to Eat When You Have Cancer, What to Eat When You Have Diabetes and 14 other health books. If you have a question or comment regarding nutrition or health that you would like to see addressed in this column, e-mail it to Maureen@KeaneNutrition.com.