Spooget? - The Sweet Hint

Backcountry Skiing

2009-02-21T20:50:00.004-07:00

Above Bow Hut:

World Philosophy Day

2008-11-20T20:49:00.002-07:00

Great Article on the BBC today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7739493.stm

World Philosphy Day

2008-11-20T20:49:00.001-07:00

Great Article on the BBC today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7739493.stm

Gangrene in action

2008-09-30T20:19:00.006-06:00

Gangrene. New name was "I Hate the Environment" for the Vernon Tournament. We were seeded first after Saturday. First. Out of 30 B teams. Sunday we lost our first game 14-15. Eeewwwww.... It was all worth it though watching a grown women poor a full beer on her head after she decided she could not finish her beer in a boat race (see below).

Mountain Flying

2008-09-06T14:05:00.000-06:00

Who is John Galt?

2008-05-22T13:46:00.001-06:00

For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.

We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's inmpossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.

And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.

Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

Ouch

2008-03-28T09:00:00.001-06:00

As everyone knows, I enjoy my fantasy baseball. Check this out. While researching new players that I could put on my DL list. I came across Matsui. See the Report below:

Mar 26 The Astros expect Matsui (anal fissure) to return around April 15, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Wowzers

Last Game Yao Played

2008-03-19T19:59:00.003-06:00

Camera was not functioning at peak eff.

First 24 in Texas

2008-02-24T07:46:00.002-07:00

After spending yesterday booting around, I'm impressed with Houston so far. Some interesting things I've noticed:

- Beer = Cheap. A case for under 10 bucks

- Wine = Even Cheaper. Eg - Yellow Tail (all kinds) at Walmart was under 6 dollars

- I've seen more wildlife here then in Calgary. One Beaver, 3 Turtles

- Minute Maid Park - Home to the Astros is awsome.

- This city is the definition of urban sprawl. I was out in the suburbs for most of the day. I didn't even realize I wasn't techincally in Houston. Interstates in town are 5 lanes of pure madness.

- Everyone here has tinted windows. Thats how you spot the rental car.

- Speaking of rental cars, the "renting center" at the airport was massive. Probably 10 000 cars.

I booked half my stuff through hotwire, and its turned out to be awsome. Definietly worth checked into for your next trip.

Whats up next? I've got a date with Yao, McGrady and the rest of the Rockets. Look for me on ESPN tonight.

Should be Good

2008-01-25T19:01:00.001-07:00

Taxi to the Dark Side

Book to Read for 2008

2008-01-09T18:04:00.001-07:00

Although the book was written way back in 1933, it took me until 2007 to read.

"The Lost Horizon - by James Hilton"

After seeing this book everywhere we went in SW China, I decided I'd give it try when we got home. And this book did not disappoint. Probably Top 5 books I've ever read. Here is an exert from wikipedia with the gist:

"Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity. Among the book's themes is the allusion of the possibility of another cataclysmic world war brewing, as indeed it was. It is said to have been inspired at least in part by accounts of travels in Tibetan borderlands".

The description might seem a bit wishy-washy but I assure you the content is much more addictive. Conway encounters many emotions that are similar to issues we contemplate today. We then identify with him, and understand why he makes his decisions. I guess this what makes the best novels. The Lost Horizon draws the reader in, and forces them to contemplate what's important in their lives. In today's world, that is never a bad thing.

Read it now.

Forseeable Future?

2007-12-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Within the last two weeks, I've seen two highly recommended movies. I am Legend and 12 Monkeys. One is a decade old, the other maybe a month. Both highly recommended.

The subject matter in both revolves around an extremely contagious and dangerous virus escaping into the general population, and then killing off 99% of the population. The then leftover population attempts to rectify the situation. Obviously both were highly hollywoodised, but what would really happen if this situation were real?

There are documented cases of villages in remote areas of Africa which have been carpet bombed when a rather exuberant strain of Ebola has developed. But what would happen if a major city were exposed? In today's world, it would be improbable that a rapidly replicating virus/infection would be noticed in time to quarantine an entire city bigger then a million people. Then comes the question of what to do next? Set fire to the city and contain the breakout or risk further infection by trying to help? We would hope the response would be to help.

Assuming the spread was not contained (which would seem quite probable as time went on), what would you do? We would all get a real life crash course in survival skills. A return to living off the land in isolation?

The New Conspiracy.

2007-12-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

JFK?

Roswell?

North American Union?

Coconut Milk?

What do all the above have in common? They've been designed to keep the man down. Out of the loop. Out of the know. Ignorant and simple. Easily controllable.

Since returning from China, we've tried to stay in the spirit of things by shopping and cooking more Chinese style meals at home. We live across from the amazing Chinese grocery which works out nicely for cheap eats. We weren't expecting this cheap though.

One of the recipes we were cooking (like most Chinese recipes) calls for Coconut milk. So we were at the local Canadian grocery conglomerate ^^^^^^^^^^^^^cough^^^^^Safeway%%%%%%%%%Cough and were astounded to find that a can of coconut milk was 3.79. We quickly returned the can to its place on the shelf, and shuffled over to the faithful Chinese marked. An astounding 79 cents later, we had 4 cans for less then price of one at our usual haunt.

It's amazing that the big grocery stores make a profit on these items. We as 'informed' consumers should see through this markup. We'll no longer take the proverbial shaft when it comes to Coconut Milk. No Longer! Rise up. Shop in Chinese! Learn your future through pastries!

Vegetables are also amazingly cheap at the Chinese grocery. The fish are also very entertaining to watch, but maybe not to buy. They do not look like happy fish. And we all know, a happy looking fish is a tasty fish, especially when the recipe calls for coconut milk.

2007-11-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

Almost Got Him
Panda Kindergarten
Playpen full of Puppets
Terracotta Warriors
Great Wall...

China Partie Deux

2007-11-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

As the last email stated, we were headed to Chengdu. On the way to our particular car we noticed that there were only two bunks on each of the sleeper class we were booked into. Hey, 18 hours wasn't going to be too bad after all! But when we got onto the train, we noticed that there is a third bunk, and it is actually in the ceiling. Probably 10 feet in the air. Justin drew the short straw and climbed all da way to da top. Our bunkmates were pretty funny as they spoke no English and were obsessed with making sure we had enough to eat. Lots of beer and lots of these weird seed things. Tasty.

The hostel we found in Chengdu was pretty nice, and loaded with people trying to get into Tibet. Sounded awesome but not in our cards... Although the Chinese gov't randomly decided to close the border to some tourists which was causing some grief. We booked a tour to the world renowned Panda research center outside of town. Lots of bears, which did not look very ferocious at all. Actually looked like humans in costumes. The 5 little babies we saw in a playpen might have been teddy bears, if they hadn't have been moving. Puppets?
The rest of our time in Chengdu was spent on a second mission to a Chinese mountain, but again ended in clouds :(. Always fun taking a bus with a ticket you cannot read, a driver you don't understand, to place you cannot pronounce. We did have a fun ride home though with a bunch of 12-16 year old Buddist monks (in training?) who once we hit Chengdu were peeled to the windows and the big city lights.

Xi'an turned out to be alot nicer then we expected as the old town was completely encompassed by a large city wall. Chinese and their walls... Our sole purpose here was to see the Terracotta Warriors, and they did not disappoint. Thousands of life-size clay soldiers each with a unique face and clothing design standing upright in formation. Row upon Row, buried. Lots of tourists, but easily handled in such a awe-inspiring place.

We finally arrived back in Beijing and were able to hook up with Les. We also called Mr. Wang who graciously arranged a car and driver for us. Driver to where you may ask? Jinshilang - a remote section of the Great Wall that most tourists do not see. Just over two hours from Beijing, it is a section that is still in its original state. Driving in, you could just make out the wall and guard towers along the top ridge of the surrounding mountains. The wall itself was unreal. 10-25 feet high (10-15 feet wide) in sections, with guard towers every couple hundred meters. Pristine condition in some parts, rubble and plants growing in others. Mountains 360 degrees around us. Oh, and the wall continuing along the ridge in both directions as far as one could see. We ended up hiking roughly 10 kms along the wall from another nearby town (Simitai). Where conveniently our driver picked us up (he doesn't speak any English either). Top 10 Travel Day easily! To cap it all off Mr. Wang and family took us out for Hot-hot-Pot. Great to experience another popular method of eating in China.

Now unfortunately we are back at work. Where should we go next?

'The Sweet Hint'

2007-11-08T07:47:00.001-07:00

Email from China

2007-11-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! We'll were about a week into our trip... and definitely no better at speaking Mandarin then before we left. So far the trip is going really well! We arrived in Beijing last Friday, it was a long trip over, but it went pretty smoothly. Beijing was quite a pleasant surprise for us. It's much cleaner and less busy then we were expecting. The area we stayed in has quite a lot of character. We stayed bout 700m north of the Forbidden City. On friday we only adventured far enough to find dinner in a side street near our hotel. Our first ordering adventure! With no english, and not even pinyin (chinese in roman characters) on the menu or windows we knew we were in trouble. Luckily the waitress was very friendly and the menu had small pictures and so with a lot of gesturing and pointing we picked dinner, and it was great! Although the beef dish was made up of more than half whole jalapeno pepper! (They made the meat great, but we couldn't eat them). Saturday we explored Tiananmen Square and the forbiden city. Tiananmen square was big, and bustling with local tourists (even in the pouring rain!) The Forbidden city was quite peaceful, although full of tourists too. The city made up of giant ornate gates and halls. My personal favourite was the hall of Supreme Harmony! It's not too far from the hall of Preserving Harmony... they are definitely trying to promote peacefulness! The architecture with all it's bright red, blue, green and gold paint is different from most of the traveling we have done. Saturday night Sabrina's (my work friend) friends from when she lived in Beijing took us for dinner. They took us to a 100 year old Peking duck house. It was amazing!! The food was delicious, and Mr and Mrs. Wang were wonderful, gracious hosts. We tried some famous Chinese whisky made from rice and learnt how to eat the roasted duck in little rice wraps adding sauce. garlic, cucumber and hot peppers from all the little dishes. They track the ducks they serve, we have a little card to commemorate our duck as #234 098 or something. Sunday we met Justin! Excited to see him after over a year we spent most of the day eating, wandering around and catching up. We found some of the commercial streets, they were insanely busy with young people! That was the kind of shoulder to shoulder traffic we were expecting. We also discovered how hard it is to match characters on street signs to maps in order to find your way home... good thing taxis are cheap! We started sampling the street food too. You can get everything from great dumplings to snakes or centipedes on a stick. My personal favourite was candy coated Kiwi and strawberries on a stick. Monday we biked around a bunch of Hutongs (alleys) to a lake. Tight corners! Later that afternoon we flew to Kunming, in Yunnan. From Kunming we took a bus to Shi'lin, the stone forest. The karst landscape was beautiful, and very peaceful when you could get away from the giant tour groups. That night we took a night bus to Li'jiang. The night buses are totally different here, with two stories of little cots with a basket at your toes. They are about 5'6' long, and just tall enough for ali to sit, making it cosy for Andrew. The three of us were in the back (where there are five little beds across), so andrew was in the middle sticking out into one of the two little aisles. Li'jiang is fantastic! It's been a great place to relax for 5 days! (I think half the appeal is all the tourists make it easier to negotiate, there is even english on the menus.) The center is a restored 'old town'. Built 800 years ago with the back clay chinese style roofs, fabulous stone pathways (no bikes or cars aloud). Unfortunately most of the houses have been converted to tourist shops and restaurants. But the buildings are all original and the rivers flowing along the maze of all the paths, the bridges and all the trees and flowers make it charming and relaxing. We are staying a local guest house in the middle of this little town. our room is partly open to outside, but still warm inside. All the cafes are open to the streets too, great for people watching! (And they watch us too, lots asking for their pictures with Tall Andrew or pretty Justin) We rented mountain bikes and rode out to a small town and then up to a tibetan style monestary. On the way we enjoyed the gorgeous montain valley the city is set in. The local farmers on route were all out in the field, hand harvesting the wheat rolling it into little bushels. Others were using donkeys to till the fields. The farm houses were adorned with all the shucked corn tied together and hanging in the sun to dry. It was neat to see the women washing vegetables in the street in little fountains by their doors, and all the grandpas taking care of the kids. (kids play fighting are great to watch, all ninja inspired) Yesterday we tried to check out the snow capped peak of Jade Dragon Mountain, unfortunatly the clouds hid most of the spectacular views. But we did see Yak! So not all was lost. After lots of relaxing, reading, Chess (Justin's the current china AAJ tour champion), cards (Ali has an undisputed lead here) and eating we head back to Kunming tomorrow and then we'll take the train to Chengdu. I hope you are all well! We are really enjoying china so far!(sorry for the long email... I'm impressed if you made it to here!)

Those Unconfirmed Reports

2007-09-19T17:59:00.001-06:00

can now be confirmed.

I can run 10 k in 34 mins.

We are going to China!

wow.

2007-09-10T21:02:00.000-06:00

Today I received potentially the greatest email I've ever received. I sent an email to our local dealership requesting to get our car's oil changed and the price of using synthetic oil . This is the replay I received back this morning:

"i have bocked you for 12-sep-07 ay 7.00 fot a service note synthetic oil would be 67.50 for oil"

He may have made the correct career decision by not becoming an english major.

West Coast Trail

2007-09-04T20:41:00.000-06:00

Here's a little math to begin:

77 km = 77,000 m

1 m = Approx. 2.6935 steps.

77, 000 x 2.6935 = 207399.5 <-------- That is a lot of steps.

With Fantasy baseball coming to a close, my blogging time will dramatically increase. So what better place to start then the West Coast Trail? For 8 days Jon, Jen, Ali and I cruised along this formidable opponent. Sea Lions to Martens, Ocean vistas to mud bogs - we saw it all.

The hike was a great treat. The beach walking was perfect and the tidal flats, nooks and crannies were extremely enjoyable to explore. Huge 300 year old trees, as far as the eye could see, were the lumbering giants we'd dreamed about. Historical light houses and relics manning the jagged cliffs added to the aura surrounding the trail. Another great bonus was no killer uphills. Although the ladders up and down the river ravines were not always welcomed with open arms.

We completed the trail in 8 days. If we were rushing we could've done it in 5-6, but the weight of our packs at the start would have definitely slowed us (Ali and I) down. The Mcdons were very patient with us the whole way along which was certainly appreciated. Although Jon definitely would've lost a bet where he would've had to carry my pack all the way to camp... Let's just say the challenge involved us running, sand vs tidal flat...

The trip was not without moments of high adrenaline. Breathtaking shots of Whale blows on the horizon, or the very first cable car ride across one of the mighty rivers.

We split the trail fairly close to even time on the beach and in the forest, although near the end the forest trails became tiresome as were unaccustomed to slogging through so much mud. When stuck in the forest though we were highly entertained by each member of our party acting out their favorite scene from Euro Trip. Robot noises and 'Excusi' were common themes.

The only moments of passioned arguments came from a fiery contested bridge match. The boys were victorious of course, but not without some battle remorse (mostly resulting from the girls accusing me of sandbagging).

We definitely recommend this hike to anyone willing to take up the challenge. Top 5 hikes we've ever done would be a stretch, but definitely top 10.

Below are just some of the great shots taken throughout the week.

Summer Adventure

2007-07-15T09:44:00.000-06:00

Buzz Around the Town

2007-05-09T07:43:00.000-06:00

With the Transit strike looming, the bike paths have been full. Bike Rage will soon become as common a place as Road Rage. It's interesting to see how many people do not understand the basic road laws. Do you feel like you know the road laws better then your fellow blog readers? Here is the competition: Below is a situation I encounter on my commute. The person with the best answer as to how one should proceed through said intersection shall win a prize. Contest closes in 72 Hours.

The Bike ride has been good. Terribly faster then the walking/city transit route, but I cannot enjoy a good read while I bike. It has not been issue free though. Besides the above situation (which in fact sends shivers up my spine), my first ride in I got a flat... Second ride in, broke my chain. Up until yesterday I only had two gears. Now Im up too 12. That remarkably shaved off about 10 minutes. But I do not have back brakes anymore.

Yah...

Stat

2007-05-04T18:02:00.000-06:00

Interesting Stat -

India recently passed Japon for the number of billionaires in the country with a grand total of 36.

80% of India's population lives on 2 Dollars a day or less.

Yikes

Breaking News!

2007-04-06T19:42:00.000-06:00

No This Blogger is not dead! I was eagerly awaiting an entry from a guest blogger but he has yet to pass the material. Why would this blog be having a guest contributer? Lost a bet....

Nicaragua in less then a week! 5 of us are ready to hit the beach/volcano/cerveza shop for some cheap fun. Oh! Cant forget how much I'm looking foward to squishing myself into the Chicken buses! Bird Flu anyone?

In other news, this is the first year I've ever entered a baseball pool. And I am definietly becoming obessive about it. It is truly minding blowing how much time can be wasted waiting to see if your player can squeak out an extra hit when the count is against him.

Here is my team:

C - Jason Kendall
1B - Todd Helton
2B - Ray Durham
3B - Scott Rolen
SS - Calos Guillen
OF - Andruw Jones
OF - Carlos Lee
OF - Brian Giles
Utility - Alex Rios

SP - Jake Peavy
SP - Jason Schmidt
SP - Eric Bedard
SP - Barry Zito
SP - Kelvin Escobar
RP - Joe Nathan
RP - Chad Cordero

Bench - JD. Drew, Ted Lilly, Chad Hensley, Mike Hampton

Hot Hot Hot!

2007-03-18T14:28:00.000-06:00

Over one Year of Scraps.

+

One Blow Torch

+

Eight Foot Deep Pit

=

For scale, those fence post on the edge were roughly 4 and half feet high.

2007-03-12T12:01:00.000-06:00

Two posts in one Day? Crazy talk!

I came across this picture on the Calgary Cachers website.

This is what its all about folks.

This is what its all about folks.

Faceshots Galore

2007-03-12T07:10:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping a catchy title will attract more people to the blog. Hum... I wonder how many people would use "faceshots" as their search criteria in blogger... I can think of many other words I would use...

Kicking Horse this weekend = POW~! Between Saturday night and Sunday morning it probably snowed 35 cms. More at the top. Awesome. Ali's progression is coming along great. We skied a couple of chutes, and even climbed some ladders. She also learnt some great phrases like "What would a Gorb do" and "How to Huck a Cornice".

Quote of the weekend: We were waiting in line, and the chair was stopped for a couple of minutes before anyone was really paying attention. Then we noticed a girl, probably 10 years old who had fallen off the chair in the loading zone, and the lifties were just helping her back up. As they were motioning her back to the waiting point behind the next chair, someone, who shall remain anonymous yells out "Send her to the back of the line!". A few stares of shocked disbelief later we were whisked away on a chair of our own.

Be Prepared

2007-03-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

This Year's installment is on the way.

Second Annual Scavenger Hunt.

End of April.

Shinny

2007-02-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well Another long weekend come and gone, with empathises on long. I ended up working most of the weekend, except for a brilliant saturday afternoon.

We had been invited to play in the first ever Mountain Shinny Day in Canada. Josh and Mauri, who Ali first met through "the company" they work for, created this seemingly monster of an event. They randomly picked a lake out in Kananaskis, checked if it was frozen, then invited a quag number of people out to play some hockey.

Maarten, Ali and I gassed up the geomobile (ha!) with all the gear needed (skates, sticks and beer) and made it out despite an ever nagging work problem.

I think the two ice fisherman were pretty stunned when 25 people showed up with lawn chairs, shovels and sticks. They were even taking pictures of group clearing the rink. Ahhh, the amazement.

Although sceptical at the beginning of how smooth the ice surface was going to be, and whether or not that many people could safely play on the ice when it was 5 degrees above out, I quickly realized both were in perfect condition. 2 feet of ice thickness, and beautiful flat clean slate. It was pretty neat to be able to see all the cracks in 3D, and all the vegeataion and bubbles in an o so cold cryogenic freeze.

The game went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all. My passing and shooting were very Crosby esque, but the skating aspect of my game could use some "work". The only mistake was introducing Maarten to geocaching after the hockey game. Very tired very quickly going straight up a hill in sometimes boot deep snow...

The Second annual Shinnyfest will not come fast enough ~ Stay Tuned for pics.

Memory Lane

2007-02-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

Last week, Ali scored us some free tickets to the Flames-Blackhawks game down at the Dome. It was Mike Vernon retirement night! Oh Boy... Some of the speeches were okay, most were boring, and the ceremony went about 20 minutes too long to appeal to anyones "good taste".

Mike's speech was fairly boring...Interestingly enough, this was not the first time I was almost brought to tears from Vernon's thoughts.

Rewind 15 years or so to the beautiful city of Thunder Bay. My dad worked for Palm Dairies (A Canadian-Dairy that was then owned by Peter Pocklington of Edmonton Oilers fame) at the time, and they were under going a huge marketing campaign centered around, you guessed it, Milk and Mike Vernon.

As a bonus, my dad was able to bring me to a meet and greet/press conference with Mike, who was in town on the tour. (Keep in mind that I was probably 7 or 8 years old at the time) As the first (and pretty much only) NHLer I've ever met, he signed a whole bunch of swag for me and took my picture with him. Very awesome for a hockey fanatic...

From here on in the rest of the story may be conjecture and my dad would need to confirm details. The meet and greet finishes up, and press conference portion of the day starts. I'm sitting with my dad at a banquetesque table bored outta my tree. I started yawning and fidgeting around a bit. I end up in a position that seems copacetic to me, but interesting to others... My arm is resting in the air, seemingly like I had a question... Well of course I didn't, but the MC for the event failed to realize that an eight-year old might not have a valuable contribution to this little get-together.

He points to the back, and I look around, looking for who he's pointing at for a few long seconds. Then realize my arm is in the air and he must mean me. With only a second of hesitation, I impress my wisdom upon all others in the room:

"Are you going to play for Team Canada?"

Humpf. Vernon actually played it really well from what I remember. He said something along the lines about "Honored to be considered, and lots of other great Canadian goalies...Blah Blah Blah" But everyone else laughed? My dad would have to confirm. After telling this tell to Ali, the only thing she found funny was that I was so embarrassed.

I love the fact that I twisted the story and was able to bring a laugh to a NHL great like Vernon. Mike, You are worthy of an Oscar!

Reminiscences are always fun... Perhaps this should be a staple for all blogs? Just wait until you hear about the time by Dad told me I had Ants in my pants, because that is one you wouldn't want to miss...

Updates

2007-02-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

Well lacking a post of any real merit in awhile, coooooool stuff is now abound.

As Jen's blog states, we've got vacation time at worked sealed up, our airplane tickets booked and ravishing desire to hit the road! The four of us (Jen, Jon, Ali and I) are ready for those empty white sandy beaches, latin americain cuisine and some of the best scenery around!

Nicaragua here we come!

This second picture is called the Ometepe volcano. It's an island in the middle of a huge freshwater lake. Apprently it also has freshwater sharks. The plan right now is to climb said volcano. Ha. Suckers at work!

Althought the trip will only last 11 glorious days, it will be a terribly great experience. We got a fairly decent deal on tickets (under 900, alot less then travel cuts quoted us), but not the best we could find. The cheapest tickets were probably only 100 bucks less, but involved alot more connections/flights = less actual time in Nica.

I'm looking foward to reviving such phrases as:

"Dos Cerveza fria Por favor!"

"Donde esta el Bano?"

"Discuple, no hablos espanol!"

"Tienes une habitation mationelle?"

"Mas Despacio Por Favor!"

"I don't fucking understand a word you are saying! Please stop pointing the gun at me!"

Ahhh the travelling life.... This trip will be extra sweet because our plans are only to take day packs. It will be awsome to be so free of constraints! The offer still stand if anyone wnats to book a ticket down with us!

Chicken buses here we come!

Follow you Heart Indeed

2007-02-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

I usually do not post videos like this, but wow. This one was tough to pass up.

We have weathered the storm

2007-01-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

The Storm being interest. We just received a year-end summary of our mortgage in the mail.

Man Do I wish I was a bank.

Of all the money we paid against our mortgage this year, 40% went to paying the interest. I will not go into exact dollar figures, but the amount is close to the grand total of our 4 month trip to South America.

Ridiculous.

The good news is that, that will be the most we shall ever pay in one year! Other good news is that it predicts we shall finish it off by the year 2023. Feels alot closer then 2031, the original endate. If the Mayan calendar is correct, the World is going to end in 2012. Ha! We have cheated you out of 100 Grand bank!

What sucks even more is that if we take the full 25 year term, we will pay the value of our house to bank in interest. What's even crazier then that is how are parents ever afforded a house. 25 years ago, interest rates were up around 15-20%. Granted houses were obviously cheaper, so the compounded interest was not as much (but in relative terms...).

Anyone out there wanna buy our house? 500K should do it, if your curious.

Wow.

2007-01-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

The End of Geocaching

2007-01-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ahh! I just bought the premium membership. I've waited a full year. And now this happens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6276543.stm

Ohh Geez! Is GPS technology doomed? Will everyone forever more get lost in the woods?

On a side note, the CNN story (http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.missile/index.html) said the Chinese's missile's new technology, "rammed" the satellite. Wouldnt you think technology for Star Wars would be further along?

One Month Anniversary for Brick Shelter

2007-01-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

When compared to the national average Inflation Rate, Calgary is on the higher End.
When compared to the national average "Housing Market" (Average New Home, Average resale, Average Increase in the Past Year etc...) Calgary is on the higher end.
When compared to the national average of Migration to a New City, Calgary is on the higher end.

The list could go on and on about Calgary and its associated growing pains. Probably the biggest issue for the average Calgarian is affordable housing. In the past year, many have seen a large increase in their rent, even to the point where it's enough to seek new living arrangments. For those unlucky enough to be able to cover these increases or find other accomadations, they often end up on the "street". Although they are working, and have families to support, they can no longer facilitate a home. With half a dozen homeless shelters and organizations, only a percentage of Calgary's homeless have a bed every night.

In steps the old Brick Furniture building. A block away from our house, this mega building has been deemed for destruction ( Trans-Canada Highway Expansion) for a couple of years now. Sitting empty for the better of year, someone within the City of Calgary brainstormed an idea to turn the building into a homeless shelter, until the new highway is ready to be constructed.

Now In-steps the controversy... Everyone loves the idea of giving a warm spot to the homeless, but "Not in my Backyard Syndrome" was abound. It was absoulety ridiculous. For example, we had a condo board meeting a few weeks before the shelter even opened, and people were complaining of being accosted by, in their words, "undesirables".

The Crescent Heights Community Association (the community in which the site is located) was one the biggest groups against the shelter. As far as I can tell, they thought it was going to be a prison. Several groups demonized the homeless as drunks and drug addicts. Together they created several injunctions that ended up blocking the opening of the shelter through some of the coldest weather this city has has ever seen.

It is disheartening that all these people who are so well off and secure in life weren't about helping others in real need. These residents would never have been affected in the least. 75% living blocks away created unecessary hardship. What is awsomely ironic is the fact that the richest of the group are almost closer to some of the downtown shelters then this one.

The one good thing that came out of the community association battling was that it pushed hard for the busing of people to the shelter. Nobody that is suspected to be bombed or toasted would be allowed to board the bus. I can understand the emphasis for this as secuirty does become an issue for all involved - mostly the volunteers running the shelters.

The only legitimate claim I could see was by several of the business' directly attached to the shelter itself. All the perceived negatives associated with a homeless shelter could create a downturn in business. At the end of the day though, most were able to look past their profit margins and give the shelter the go ahead.

Over the past month, the shelter has been nothing but a delight. We feel safer walking through the parking lot now knowing that it is in use, then we did when it was empty! There haven't been any assoiated problems as we can see. We've seen the bus bringing the shelterees from the downtown core, and all seem very cheerful and happy that at least for another night their family has a warm spot to lay their heads.

Canadian Ultimate Stats

2007-01-04T13:38:00.001-07:00

Check this out. Awsome.

http://www.canadianultimate.com/cuc/2003/demographics.html

The Past, Present and Future

2007-01-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

With my Wife being woooed by another man tonight (can you blame her after what shall now be referred to as the CPM (Christmas Party Meltdown)), I've got a chance to wrap on the Madagascar travel.

Overall, the trip was obviously amazing. Could've been done a little bit cheaper though... We didn't really plan anything before we left, and got kinda stuck buying a couple of plane tickets around and out of the north. But isn't that part of adventure? Before South America 2 years ago, we planned almost absolutely zilch (the only thing we had planned was our plane ticket home, and the Machu Picchu Inka Trail Trek (need to book at least a month in advance).

We didn't take nearly enough people pictures. Although it is tough to try and and get good people photos without being the invasive tourist, we should've made more of an effort looking back. It's always nice to have couple portraits of locals in their element.

Gearwise we took almost the absolute perfect amount. Ali had a larger daypack, while I had a small 50 L bag (Literwise it was equivalent to what I took to Africa the first time by myself, Although I had some school supplies with me). That space included all of our clothes, gadets, and camping gear (except the tent which was strapped to the outside of my bag). I think for the whole month we were there I rotated through 3 shirts, and one pair of shorts, even though I was carrying 5 or 6 shirts and another set of cargo/cutoff pants.

To bring Camping gear is always a battle... We had everything we needed to be self-sufficient if needed. It worked out well. I'll never travel extensively without my sleeping bag again (85% due to Allergies, 15% due to the comfort of sleeping in your "bed"). The tent came in handy when we got stuck in some places without any hotel/guesthouses. The water filter was invaluable on the treks we did because it was able to filter out the grit and shit that was in the already drinkable water. Headlamps, SAKs, etc. were also sweet additions.

The Stove was of questionable use. At home here we use a Camping Gaz screw-on stove, easy to use, and very efficient on fuel. Before we left though we found out we wouldn't be able to find any type of gas canisters in Madagascar. We bought one of those MSR multi-fuel burning stoves (it can burn diesel, gasoline, but perferable kerosene or white gas). Holy fuck did we have problems with it. We couldn't ever find a pure and clean enough fuel mixture, so the flame wouldn't burn cleanly or properly. Nice black soot covered everything we cooked.

The wildlife and national parks did not disappoint. We saw what we expected and more. Lemurs are great, and even a bit cuddly. It is distressing though to know that chances are the island's parks going to be the only thing left in fifty years. From what we saw there was a great mixture of international support and grassroots level initiatives to start preserving the environment, but the question remains will it be too late?

Practising our French was a nice change, but not many people could understand what the fuck I was saying with all my Quebecism. Over the last couple of years, Ali has had alot more opportunity to practise her France French (multiple trips to Geneva), so for the most part people enjoyed speaking with her a little more. We learnt a couple Malagasy phrases but not did get enough exposure in a continuous stream to pick it up.

No major readjustments had to be made when we arrived home. Ali was gone for over 2 months but more then half was in Europe. I think we'd eventually like to go back to Madagascar to see the other corners of the country, but with such a big world it is improbable at this point of making it back.

One month, a good length of time? In our North American culture, there aren't many people who can say they took a month off from to travel (and of the ones who can, most arent willing to leave NA), so we have to consider ourselves very fortunate. It is tough to get back into that travelling groove when you've been out of it for so long, but a month is about the right time you need to start really loving it again . And Wishing you didn't have to go back so soon.

So What's next for 2007? Some of these are probables,

Hiking the West Coast Trail
A week to 10 days in either El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, or my #1 choice Colombia (flights are only $700 bucks!)
10 Days in South Korea (will only be a possible if we can find a really sweet deal on flights... so you folks in Seoul... let us know!)

Some of these are dreams... absence from work for 2008.. 4-8 months

Option #1 -Biking Cairo to Cape Town

Option #2 - Biking the Silk Road (Beijing to Istanbul)

Leave a comment and vote on the better trip...!

Uh Oh.

2006-12-29T15:29:00.001-07:00

Check out this Story:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/29/germany.tourist.reut/index.html

D'OH!

Parc Marojejy

2006-12-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well after my disappointing attempt to spell "Marojejy" in the last post, my wife felt it necessary to correct me. Rest assured, it is now spelt correctly. Click Here to check out an official Blurb about the park. Our guide told us the parc only receives something like 1000 visitors a year(including porters and guides). Amazing difference in numbers when you consider the parks we were coming from.

We left the town of Sambava, roughly an hour or so away, in a private taxi. This was I think our very first time in our own private taxi in all our trips. Our driver's name was Sayid, and he was a pleasant man, spoke a little french, not much english, great driver. I enjoyed being driven by a torturer. From Iraq. One must understand the level of poultry on the roads in Madagascar. Ducks, Chickens, Geese etc. No specific ownership, all wondering around. After nearly every close call Sayid would look over and smile and tilt his head with a grin "Don't worry, no Hit" (on the way back he absolutely destroyed a goose, and gave us a shoulder "ummmph, Shit happens Look").

We arrived to the park gates unscathed, and Sayid dropped us to arrange all the permits, while he went off to find us a guide. The pic to the right is the prices associated with travelling in the park. Had we known about the sweet huts, and sweet cooking shelters we would not have lugged our tents, and gear all the way to Madagascar.

Sayid found our guide over in the local village and he looked nice enough. We arranged with Sayid to pick us up in 3 days time. We started the trek through down the highway where our guide introduced himself "My name is Jackson, like Micheal Jackson!" Instant Success.

Jackson had no warning of our arrival, so as we walked through his village, he ran home and grabbed everything he would need for the next couple of days. Cmon Jackson hurry up! In a blink of an eye he was back, boots, raincoat, and a sac full of rice. He was ready.

That first day was pretty killer. Before we got to the jungle proper, the topography could be compared to the classic picture of African Savannah or prairie, except the difference was the intense humidity. Add in the fact that there was no cloud cover, and you get a couple of baked Canadians looking like they just showered in their clothes.

You could tell exactly where the parc boundaries started and finished due to the mass deforestation. When we finally made into the jungle, we were happy some shade, but were constantly looking over our shoulder for that ever sneaky bug that was ready to strike. The weather held until we made it to camp, and pitched our tent. We found a nice flat spot seen below:

It started to pour. Pour in the kind of way you'd image "cats and dogs" are really like. That flat piece of ground turned into rice paddy. Our feet probably sank 3-4 inches every step we took. Luckily enough, our ground sheet stood its ground (Thanks Ricky!). We actually were able to stay mostly dry except for a few peripherals.

Staying with us in the camp were two older gentlemen (on Swiss, and one french) and then a french couple. These two guys were very eccentric in different way. If the Swiss guys wouldve told us he was a mercenary, I wouldve believe him. He was an absolute nut-job. Some great stories, but whether they were true or not... who knows? The other guy was eccentric, but in a grandfather way. He became fed up with life in France, and moved to Reunion, and was just in Madagascar on a little vacation. He tried to convince us that Esperanto was the language to learn. Lastly, the couple, were potentially the most interesting people weve met travelling. The woman was completely blind.

The way they'd get around is by her hanging onto her boyfriends pack/back, and he explaining whats going on. They'd already travelled all through SE Asia, and this was just another adventure. It's tough to image whether you'd be inspired to travel so much if you couldn't see your surroundings. She definitely is one of the most adventurous people we've ever met. It's tough to even grasp how adventurous he was. He undoubtedly has to watch out and take care of two people 100% of the time. They would probably be my definition of the True Traveller.

The next day we awoke to more rain and decided to make an attempt for the view point between the 2nd and 3rd camps see on this map:

We were staying in Camp 1. The distance was probably only 10 kilometers, but the last 900 meters had 450 meters of elevation. Definitely some of the toughest hiking we've ever done.

Yup, That's sweat.

This was the best view we got. We were supposed to be able to see the villages we walked through the previous day, all the roads in the area, Sambava and even the Indien Ocean... but Alas nothing... This day was also filled with our favorite little creatures called Leeches. We both got several of the little critters, but nothing too bad...

Jackson on the way up showed us cool features all about the jungle, and some of his personal views. Without any scientific training he had some very logical arguments about the planet, and life in general. My favorite was his reasoning of why it was so much hotter down on the beach, then up hear in the "mountains". "Down on the beach, youre closer to the magma".

We slept another night back down in the lagoon, and hiked back out the next morning into the early sun's inferno. We hung out with Jackson, and some of the people lounging around the park gates waiting for Sayid to come. We met this one teenager, probably 14-15, who wanted help with some english words and their meaning. He told us a little about their life, and the village, and then this one english teacher they had. His name was Paul, and he was from Alaska. This "Paul" had spent a year, or two teaching english to all the kids who wanted to learn in the area. The kid remembered to the day when Paul left. He then asked if we knew Paul in Alaska.... In hindsight we had wished we got some kind of contact information for this Paul, to write and tell him just how much of an impact he had on the village. It was a great story.

Here are some cool other pics from the hike:

Parc Nationaux de Madagascar

2006-12-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

We made two forays (two trips, three parks) into the depths of Madagascar. The first two parks we made it to, Andsaibe and Mantadia National Parks were complete opposites of each other. While Parc Marjorjely, in the north of Madagascar was definitely an off the beaten trail experience. There is a saying "See Madagascar before the Malagasy are done with it". That statement as we would find out is only too true.

Only 3 days into our month long foray into our search for adventure in Madagascar, we stopped in a wincy little town called Andsaibe. Nearby, were the two parcs mentioned above. We couldn't afford to stay in the two "nicer" hotels in town, so we found a great little place called the Hotel D'Orchidee.

These bathrooms were the funnest of the whole trip. We werent sure where the water went after being used in the shower or toilet, but most times we flushed or showered you could hear a couple of snorts. Then one night Ali was taking a shower, and the snorting changed from one or two, to all squealy glee! We found out that there were pigs directly under the shower, which may or may not have been enjoying the water as much as we were...

Andasaibe National Park is the most visited park in Madagascar (200,000 Visitors a year). It is the only place in the whole wide world where one can find the fabled "Indri". The largest of the lemur family, these black and white beauties can weigh up to 40 kgs! Mantadia National Park is bascially attached to Andasaibe NP, but is pretty much undevelopped with no tourist infrastructure. No one ventures to this park because it is tough to get vehicle to take you. We decided we wanted to split the day we had available to see both parks.

We ventured over to the Andasaibe gate to find a guide for the next day. After gathering a little information, a Frenchman, who we had met a couple of hours earlier showed up, looking for the same. Not liking the prices and information the guides at the office were offering him, he lambasted them for roughly an hour about how much this park was a racket against tourists. Seeing that the guides were not going to take the prices we were offering them, we decided to try tomorrow morning for a better chance at finding some cheaper guide/transportation.

A couple of hours later, were sitting in our room, playing a couple of hands of two handed bridge, and all of a sudden, the frenchman shows up with two kids... And by kids, I mean he found our guide for tommorrow. The kids, had a car, and were willing to take us too both parks. We were a little concerned that he wasn't an official guide, and we were not going to be allowed in, but he reassured us that wasn't the case...

Low and behold the Frenchman had other ideas, as after they left our room, we could hear them brokering a deal for a Malgasy woman for the night. The sex trade industry in Madagascar is huge. Primarily older french men, looking for a young Malgasy lady. About $25 Canadian was the going rate.

The tour in the morning turned out to great. We saw the famous Indri, upclose and personal. Their calls serenaded us from a great distance. It was infatuating. Quite graceful animals, they moved with quickness through the branches high above. Some interesting facts include:

Monogamous partners for life

They live their whole lives in the trees

They actually only come down once a month to counteract a weird acid build up in their stomachs, caused from the berries they eat, by eating dirt

Ecotourism is really a misnomer. The Indri will no longer be protected once their ability to bring in tourist dollars has run its course. The way our hike worked was, we walk around for a bit, until the guide would hear the Indri, we'd all stop, listen, and then he would take off at top speed through the jungle. Didn't matter if there was a trail or not... And without wanting to risk getting lost, we followed. We saw a couple of other bigger groups of tourists, and they all seemed a little irked when we would come busting through the jungle.

The afternoon we spent in Manatida NP, just to the north. The parc is made up of primarily all original jungle (as opposed to Andsaibe, which was all secondary forest), which was great to see. Much more thick, much more grown over. We did a simple hiketo the top of a "mountain" and then too a natural swimming pool. We could hear the Indri in the distance, but didnt see any wildlife except for a few bugs.

Because this park is off the beaten path, and only a fraction of the tourists make it here, the native populations around the park are able to take more liberties with their surroundings. We couldn't go 10 minutes without seeing a new fire burning on the horizon. Keep in mind this was a NP!

Far Right is Frenchman, then the Guide, the broker, the driver and me. The broker really didn't do anything except bargain the price, and claim a third of the fee. Lucky guy.

Two weeks later, we made a trip into Marjojely National Park. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into...

Updates

2006-12-18T20:33:00.000-07:00

Although it may seem like I have disappeared, rest assured I have not. Terribly busy with work and the Christmas season in full swing. Stay tuned for several upcoming entertaining and insightful posts involving:

- National Park System in Madagascar
- The Brick Homeless Shelter
- Wedding Ring Disaster
- Settlers of Catan

Yahoo!

Taxi Brousse: A Modern Love Story

2006-11-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

To understand the Taxi-Brousse, you must think like a Taxi-brouse! Being the most practicle means of getting from city to city for the average Malagasy, we saw a great cross section of society on our encounters with the Taxi-brouse. Didnt matter if you were fairly wealthy or dirt poor, everyone would ride the same (unless you were filthy rich and had your own 4x4 and Driver). Most people we saw always travelled in the their Sunday best, which meant we couldnt escape our skidesque nature even while riding in the back of a pickup on a dirt road.

The most intriguing thing was the set rate for all voyages. Everyone paid the same price, even Vazahas! This was our first trip into the geopolitical south where we didn't need to bargain for every ride we needed to take. The average was around 75 cents for an hour ride, but some of the more out of the way trips were a bit more expensive.

The classic Taxi-Brousse in Madagascar is a Astro-van type vehicle (also called mini-bus, moto etc..) with roughly space for 15 or contortic passengers, with all their goods on the roof. The "gear" we saw is an interesting tale in itself. Bikes, 50Kg sacks of rice, furniture, and our packs always made for some awkwardly looking design. Luckily enough though, our bags never got tossed off. Others were not so lucky.

For most of our overland journey, we never really had any problems. Yes we were always cramped, soaked in sweat, and more then likely touching some piece of the motor, but never really inconvienced except for a few bruises and scrapes.

Some memorable experiences from those pleasant days bambling along: We spent about an hour or two trying to flag a brouse down that had space for us. We eventually took a truck in the opposite direction to a bigger town, and found one that wasnt full, and were able to catch a ride back and to the town we were headed to. On that same journey, we passed another brousse that had flipped and rolled down an embankment. It didnt seem like anyone was hurt, just alot of gawkers causing delays for passing vehicles. We also pulled over, everyone got out, pointed, mad a collective mouth covering "AWWWE" sound, then we all piled back in. I was confident we would not have the same problem. Our driver had one good eye, and a hat that said "Jesus est le roi des ROIS". I would believe that the driver of the unforunate taxi-gone-over had a hat that exclaimed "Zeppelin is God". All evidence points to smiting.

All was bright and well until the faithful day we attempted to get from the town of Maronstera to Mananra. We knew before leaving we needed to find a good looking truck for the apprently gruelling 9-10 hour journey. After finding a truck going, finding enough passengers became an issue.

Before the truck actually showed up (presumably from the garage, the "business associate" of the driver pulled me aside and took me for a little stroll. The conversation basically went down in broken french (as he somewhat spoke french, and I couldnt understand a fucking thing most Malgasy said in french becuase they spoke too fuckin fast. Ali fit in though...):

"Are you in rush?"
I replied "Yes, we really need to be on this truck today" (thinking that there wasnt going to be enough room).
"We could probably speed this up if your willing to buy 3-4 tickets instead of the 2 you have now" Crap.
"Hummm, Were not in that big of a rush"
"Awww, cmon, you pay a little extra, and we'll leave right away"
"I'll pay more if everyone else pays more" And then I walked away fully knowing that now we are going to sit here until that fucking truck is filled to the brim with passengers.

And did he stick the collective shaft to me. 16 passengers, 2 50 kilo sacks, one spare tire, and a bunch of extra parts in the bed of the truck. I ended up taking a spot in the middle, beside a little kid, who was so close that an hour later he was able to drool/wipe is nose on my shirt due to cramped conditions. He seemed like a very low functioning autistic kid to me, but Ali figured something else.

The first couple of hours were spent bouncing around knees in my face, wishing to knock the large woman sitting on my feet straight out the back. I actually envied the 4 guys standing on the bumper for the whole ride.

We made a stop here and there, but largely uneventful until we made it to the first barge going across one of the destroyed bridges (The govt. will eventually replace a bridge, only to have a typhoon knock it out three weeks later **sigh**). See the pic to the right. The Barge was somewhat interesting and if anything a nice break from the crampness. When we got back on, Ali and I switched position, and I was able to straddle my legs out the back (between some other guys legs who was still standing). It worked out great! Liberty at last!

Every so often we'd come to a ricity old bridge, and we would all have to get out except for the kid and his mom (who it was decided at this point were too much trouble to move, because each time the poor kid would freak out and take forever to get back in). Some passengers left, while others joined. We picked up one guy who started a massive debate in the back of the truck. It was quite interesting as he was definietly talking about us (alot of French and Malagasy words are the same, so we could pick up several things), and everyone was getting in a good laugh about the Vazahas on the truck. It seemed like a couple of the passengers were defending us from unknown dangers, which only angered the one fellow, but made everyone else laugh even harder the more angrier he got.

By the time it started getting dark, we were pretty banged up. Fairly sick of hanging for our lives, and just wanting to get hell off. Ahh.. now the fun begins. We've made it to the beach section. Some really sketchy driving/bridges that creaked under my weight let alone the half ton truck...The men at the back (including me, which it seemed like surprised most people. The guy from the previous paragraph though seemed shocked I was willing to help push) had to hope out and push to triumphant screams from the bed of the truck. It wasnt all glory though as the truck was spewing deep black smoke (which we attributed to the shitty gas more then the condition of the truck) into the pushers faces.

The extreme part of the pushing was to reclaim ones seat... The truck would not stop, so you had to hussle to catch back up, then almost summersault in as the truck was not going to lose anymore time.

Now it's gotten dark. Several more bargs, nothing too exciting. Then the headlights flickered out. We were probably one an hour from Mananra, but ended up wasting about two hours trying to get the lights to turn on. Oops, no one brought a flashlight either. Luckly, we had one of our headlamps with us that saved the day. Our new headlight! We continued on with a flashlight acting as our headlight, cutting through the dark night at an untold rapidity.

We made it to our hostel, where we promtly met our beds. It was here that we realized we would walk the next section of road. Even if it took 3 days.

Antananaviro - Capital Crunch

2006-11-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

The bustling city of 1.4 million (10% of Madagascar's population) was an interesting sight to see. At a distance, as with any large metropolitan area, one sees great potential and industrial stride, but upon further inspection, the complexity of the sprawling monster becomes more apparent.

Spread across three or four rolling valleys, Antananarivo (or Tana), at first impression, was one of the more disappointing capital cities we've been too. The first couple of days spent there involved organizing the rest of our trip, so we didnt see much of the city. What we did see was not very impressive... Many a tout, many a "Non Merci". Unfortuantely, we felt in hurry to organize, so the pestering was quite encompassing at the start. As with the start of any trip into the another culture, its tough to get back into the daily grind of dealing with entrepreneurs aggressively drumming up business.

We returned to the city three weeks to later find we've grown the usual non-north-american-thicker-skin which usually develops after a week or two of being immersed in the system. We were able to hit a couple of the markets in full swing, to many cheers of "Bonjour Monsiuer/Madame, est-ce que il y en a quelque chose je peux te trouver aujourd hui?" We did our best to sweet talk them off, but in the end we succumbed to their manuvering. Eventually, Ali had a small team of men working for her trying to find the tougher items. As in Buenos Aires a couple of years ago, we were required to purchase another rice sack, which became our second bag...

One interesting thing I noticed now that were back in Canada is the traffic in Tana. It is probably the largest city we've ever been in without a traffic light. I don't believe we actually saw one in all of Madagascar. Traffic really never goes above 30 kms in the city, so they are probably unecessary, but... Fifty percent of the vehicles are also all old Renaults, as seen on the left: Great spacious vehicles!

Another interesting point is the concept of being a pedestrian. Always on guard, always watching for crazies on the dirt bike on the sidewalk. You get pretty used to lunging out into the middle of traffic trying to make your way across. Nothing too special... but is it weird to feel safer on those roads then on Calgary's?

It's interesting that I'm more worried about being struck in a crosswalk here, then in Tana, where most drivers are insane. You expect to get hit there, while here... your guard is down, listening to the weee IPOD, and WHAM! Two Broken legs!

The other interesting story we came across was this Italian fellow we met at our hostel. He was in Madagascar to find ammonites (sp?), those sweet little twisty rocks that are worth a good chunk of change. His plan was to smuggle them out of the country and back to Europe. The method of travel was sticking them up the ol poop shoot. He was a bona-fide Han Solo smuggling spice outta Kessel! He claimed to have travelled mainly in West and Northern Africa, bringing hooch and cigarettes across the borders of countries who's border guards became some of his most illustrious conquests...

He also had a story about an island off the coast of Cameroon which is a storage facility for nuclear waste from the US, UK, Russia... An interesting guy, with some great stories, but we decided it was best to move on after he mentioned we could probably make a lot of dough bringing cocaine or heroin back into Canada... We definietly jimmy-rigged the door that night.

In the end, we ended up enjoying Tana alot more then the first time around. We avoided the more touristy areas around some of the bigger hotels, which helped.

Onwards and Upwards to the next post!

Return to the Bleak, Bland, and Unlively!

2006-11-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

We've made it home safe and sound from the amazing island of Madagascar. No apparent infectious diseases or legions, but no baggage either. Are we ready for the return to normality?

Instead of worrying about where were going to get clean drinking water, or whether to eat the fried dough ball instead of the sketchy street meat for breakfast, we will soon begin to get back into our mould of more "normal" problems which have previously impeded our moving up the evolutionary chain. Does a semi colon need to be inserted into this sentence or did I remeber to cc my boss on that email I just sent to that client ring several bells...

In the next couple of weeks stayed tuned for several post-Mada blogs about several aspects of our trip (of what was not discussed in the group emails). As a teaser, below is a description of our time spent in Paris...

Going:

I flew from Calgary to Amsterdam via Frankfurt on a Thursday. I was supposed to meet Ali at her hotel friday night in Rijwiik (town south of Amsterdam by about an hour train ride). Air Canada came through with it stellar performance of 2 hours late on that first flight, meaning one missed connections in Frankfurt... I finally made it to Amsterdam 6 hours later then scheduled. No worries... Oops!

Next day we flew Amsterdam-Paris via Frankfurt. Yes, that is correct, I was in the same airport less then 12 hours after my first missed connection. We made it to our inflation induced hotel in Paris to find out that our room is flooded. We move to a new hotel... No Worries... Can't get any worse!

Next day we head back to Charles DeGaulle for our flight south across the Equator. Get to the check in desk. Woman gives us a strange look. "Youre not on the flight" "Of course we are... Here's our ticket...." Oops, were there a day early. Well.. 30 Euro train back into Paris to find a hotel for the night. At this point we were thinking, well Bad Luck in Paris really just means being inconvienced... no big deal... Bad Luck in Africa could mean you get a tape worm from the seemingly great looking mango Or battling an enraged monkey for your diginity. Might as well get it out now while in Europe!

We made it to Antananaviro without futher incident.

Leaving:

Flight was scheduled to leave at 1:30 am. We arrive at the airport around 10 o clockish. Fight the touts trying to carry our bags for us, and eventually get everything ready for the flight. If you assumed this was a little easy, your intuition was correct. Flight is delayed until 12:55 the next day. Humpf. We stood in line at the Air France desk for roughly two hours, and they set us up with a hotel, breakfast and taxis to/from the airport. No Worries! Turns out this is going to be great because we'll get at least one extra night of sleep on our trip back to Canada. We later find out the pilot was sick. Its funny how one man gets sick, and 250 people get whacked in the crotch.

Next we arrive at the airport, everything goes swimmingly through check-in. All according to plan. No Fuck-Ups, were getting on the plane! Well... As any good story goes, its about time for a fuckup. We were three people away from getting onto the plane, when they decide to hold the line. I start to sweat. Oh no. They realized I'm CIA. They know I've been smuggling cocaine through Panama to Sub-Saharan Africa. The Game is up, I'm caught. I'm going to go missing like when its time to cleans the gutters at my parents house.

Apprently, when rescheduling the flight to tommorrow afternoon, Air France seemingly forgot that Madagascar is a tropical country. How they made this mistake I do not fucking know. People wear parkas when the temperature drops below 2o degrees celsius, the sun beats down incessantly from 5 am to 7 pm each day like clockwork, and Malaria is a common as Spleen eating Candy. The problem of them forgetting that its hotter then hell outside on a black tarmac is that gasoline expands in the heat. In order to get enough fuel for the flight, theyre going to have to unload 15 passengers and their baggage.

It took about an hour and a half for them to get enough people to "volunteer" (as the temp. kept going up...). In this time, they redid the calcuations, and decided 22 people had to get off. Geez... By the time all was said and done, 25 people were taken off the flight, and everyone's baggage. At least we made the flight. Hakuna Matata!

We were nearing the Mediterran sea, when El'Capitan comes over the intercom saying "Were about 25 minutes from landing in Tunis, please return to your seat, and make the apporpriate preparations". Well Shit.

When the fuck did we sign up for a ticket to Tunisia??? As it turns out this is not the first time, we have ended up in the wrong country. The First time in Africa back in university, our flight from Addis Ababa to Cairo, we made an unexpected stop in Khartoum, Sudan. That was pretty crazy, and we were actually relieved to hear we were in Sudan - and not "The Mog" (Mogadishu, capital of Somalia). We had all seen Black Hawk Down quite recently, and the Somalis hate Ethiopians more then Americans.... Our imaginations got a little carried away... In South America 2 years ago, Ali and I were on a Bolivian Air Force cargo jet, which we thought was going to a small jungle town in Bolivia, but we ended up being a part of a small drug run to the Brazilian side of the border. I think the funniest screw up though was when Leanne and I left Milan, on a train to Frankfurt. In the middle of the night, the train split in half (without us knowing), and suffice it to say we were on the wrong end. I woke up in the middle of the night, and the station and we were stopped at a station thatsaid "Luxenmburg". I thought I was just sleepy. We ended up the next morning in the middle of Belgium, before we realized what the fuck happened.

Anyways, back to the story at hand... We ended up having to REFUEL in Tunisia! This made us about another 2 hours late... We finally arrived in Paris 16 or so hours later then we shouldve been... And all Air France did was shat on us. They gave us a tee-shirt, a toothbrush and some deodorant. Oh, also a form to fill out so they can get us our luggage in the "Forseeable Future".

We slept the night in the airport in Paris, not bothering to go the hotel we booked (and paid for) due to the fact that the metro wasnt running, and the taxi was going to cost us more then the hotel room. We made our flight to Toronto without incident, but then got delayed on the connection to Calgary due to a sly fucker who checked in, but never got on the plan. I assume they got the would-be bomber by using the same detective intuition they used when taking nail clippers from granny, and an epi-pen from a epilitic in front of us in secuirty.

Well Stay Tuned for More Adventures! Just wait till you hear about the time we saw a dinosaur!

Here is also a pic to salivate:

Bachelor Coming to a Close

2006-10-10T10:10:00.000-06:00

Well With my impending departure from our society I figured a few valuable statistics would help you with my current mindset.

Number of Actual Meals cooked: 6

Number of Actual Meals in which the main course did not involve Fajitas or Hot Dogs: 0

Number of Movies Watched: 17

Number of Movies Ali would Watch: 2

Number of times my mother found to see if I was still alive during the first week: 7

Number of times my mother asked me if I was lonely during the first week: 7

Number of hours worked overtime in past month: 45

Number of geocaches found in past month 30ish!

Number of times Dishwasher has been run: 3

Number of Hours spent at VVRI recycling all containers since februray: 1.5

Number of items my wife has implictly said not to forget to do before I leave: 324

Number of said task which have been accomplished: 76. Uh Oh.

Number of times House has been cleaned: 0

Number of Days with semi-sustainted physical activity: 3

Number of Drunken "Incidents" which may have resulted in shananigans: 0!

Number of villages pillaged: 1

Number of villages pillaged without my viking friends: 0

Number of hockey pools entered: 3

Number of hockey pools going to be won: 3

Number of Hockey pools going to be won by me: 3

Number of times Flames have lost: HAHAHA!

Number of Monkies I have trained to do my bidding: 4

Africa Part Deux.

2006-10-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

African Moon - Amboseli Game Reserve
Shaba Game Reserve
Wildabeast in sunset
Brydie in front of Pyramids. Duh.
Nile River with Feluccas'

From Malawi to Egypt

2006-10-05T21:27:00.000-06:00

Pics From Africa with a little description. Bear in mind that these were all taken with the shitty still camera from my video camera. Too see the goods, next time your over ask me to see the album (taken by Leanne's camera).

Source of the Blue Nile
Pyramids. Duh.
Kilamanjaro with Elephant
Group in the Highlands of Ethiopia

Best of the Rest from S. America

2006-10-02T21:45:00.000-06:00

Stay Tuned for the Best of the Best from Africa!

Looking Through some Old Pictures

2006-10-01T09:33:00.000-06:00

Contraband photos of the Sistine Chapel:

OH. No. DON'T! AH!

2006-09-29T09:04:00.000-06:00

Well. Can you decipher the above graph? Prize if you can. Clues: It has nothing to do with the conjucated verbs on the side. Those were to help Adam study last night, but he wanted nothing to do with them...

The Straight Dope:

Wolf Girl. I wish I could help you to save the wolves, but then we saw you later in the night whoring it up. I think you just needed attention.

The Chair entrepreneur. He claims he had a friend coming, so he couldnt give a chair away, but he was willing to sell it. By the time we left the DEn last night he had made 9 dollars, selling chairs to standing patrons. Incredible. He wouldn't buy one of our spare chairs though. Everyone at the table thought it was an elaborate plan to get Mer to sit on his "chair", but she wanted nothing to do with this aspiring Charles Bronson.

Bathroom incident. Upon further reflection this might have been the most disturbing thing that happened. The troft was full, so I was peeing in a stall, then as I was turning to vacat said stall, there was a guy with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face moving into the stall. Huh. What is going on here? I panicked and fled.

Lastly, the demographic of the DEn. Eeek! A little too much skank, not enough normal-student attire. It was also concluded that IDH policy clearly states leggings are more attractive.

Oh You Funny Man!

2006-09-26T16:29:00.000-06:00

One the Latest blogs written by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Man he is funny. Check out his Blog here.

"History
According to a special on the ABC network, 9-11 happened because Bill Clinton was preoccupied with a sex scandal. I hope the authors of history books migrate toward that opinion. It would make 8th grade a lot more entertaining, especially since 9-11 will probably lead to WWIII between radical Islam on one side and various radical infidels on the other. I figure we’re one dirty bomb away from that.

Teacher: “Billy, can you explain what caused World War III?”

Billy: “Some skank in a blue dress gave the president a hummer?”

Teacher: “Very good, Billy. For homework I would like the class to depict the scene using macaroni.”

Speaking of WWIII, I worry that the Pope might have inadvertently accelerated it with his latest comments about Islam. I don’t know if the Pope has annual performance reviews with God, but I don’t think he’s in for a big raise this year.

God: “Okay, let’s take a look at your accomplishments for the year. Holy Me! You killed a billion people!”

Pope: “Well, that’s one way to look at it. But I like to think that TWO billion would have died if I hadn’t reminded people that war is bad. So I actually saved a billion, not counting the ones that got trampled to death coming to hear me say it.”"

CD Review

2006-09-25T12:15:00.000-06:00

I've had a Chance to go through a little over half of the CDs now from the CD exchange, and here are the best from those selected CDs. Keep in mind I dont remeber the names, and I dont have them in my ipod yet.

Maarten - Track 1 - Josh Ritter - Girl in the War
Mer - Track 5 (?) - Sweet Home Alabama (was in consideration for my cd)
Mic - Track ? - Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel (also in consideration of my cd)
Adam - Track 8 - Massive Attack -? (Song from the start of "House"
Jon - Track 9 - Dont know the band or name, Celtic River Dance is officially its new name.
Justin - Tie between Under the Lighthouse - Big Wreck, High and Dry - Radiohead

As for who's overall cd is best? Clearly it's mine, or I wouldve made someone else's right?

365 Project on hold

2006-09-18T22:41:00.000-06:00

Ali took the Camera :(

Whoa.

2006-09-15T13:09:00.000-06:00

After reading a story on Adam's blog, check out Tucker Max. Absolulety the funniest shit I'v read in a long time.

Uh Oh. Another Driving Incident!

2006-09-14T07:40:00.000-06:00

As an individual proceeds through life they come into contact or are exposed to certain situations which will inveitably define whether or not they proceed to heaven or go straight down the fiery path to hell. How one reacts is how you will be judged in said afterlife. Some people have a severe hate-on for pop music, others are judgmental towards a person's outer exterior, many are doctrined against certain religions.

It was on this fateful morning of Thursday September 14 2006 that I have discovered my "Kryptonite". This subject has brought me to my knees in a maddening-insanity induced glaze of rage on more then one occasion. What can upset a grown man to the point of being compared to a one Bruce Banter? Stupid Pedestrians.

As I was proceeding on my way to work after dropping Ali off at the usual spot, I was stopped at the light at 2nd Ave. and 2nd st (kiddy corner from Eau Claire and near the French Maid). A couple of pedestrians crossed the light during the alotted "white walking man" period. After they had crossed, and the "red flashing man" appeared, I rolled halfway into the crosswalk to attempt to make a right hand turn. Several seconds later, two men start crossing through the intersection, and one man distinguilsy points to the crosswalk, with a cross stern look. At this point I'm not completelty certain if he is pointing at his nice new italian loafers and the fact that it's raining means theyre getting wet, or he's maybe pointing out that we have not washed the rare assortment of bugs on our front (which I prefer to call art)car in a reasonable, yet seasonal amount of time. He then draws my attention by pointing at the "Do not start walking flashing light". I then scream from inside my car "Yes you shouldnt be walking!" Then he walks a couple of more paces, turns around and wags his finger in disapproval.

That is the point where I black out. The situation has spun out of control.

I'm utterly preplexed at the lack of education shown by this man. Are we not supposed to be an enlightened city? Why must people like this drag down our society constantly. Does he not understand the ineffiency he creates but cutting lights like that! THE MADNESS IT SHALL CREATE!!

As the gross display of ignornace infolded, I was able to keep myself in the car (something that didnt happen last time, see previous blog...). I believe I have found the inner light inside myself. From this point foward, I shall no longer be angered by such antics. If someone fails to meet the standards that I adhere to, it will no longer bother me. These constraints that I may have unfairly drapped around the universe without its permission have been unwrapped. I have now found the strenght to live without making judgement on others mental capacity. These situation will no longer plague my existence. I have been reborn into the light.

"My Karma shall runth over your Dogma".

I HATE YOU SIMON BIRCH.

2006-09-13T08:05:00.000-06:00

Friggin Simon Birch. Did anyone else know he was based on Owen Meany and neglect to tell me!

#@$!%^&Y*UI(^&%$#@

The Essence of a Good Party is Chaos

2006-09-11T08:20:00.000-06:00

I'd like to believe that having graduated University means I may call myself educated and refined. Perhaps even an Intellectual? But as soon as the liquor starts flowing, I revert back to my pre-university days of loving nothing more then a little trouble. I would say I'm not alone in this reversal of good taste and exquisite behavior.

The mission started with the goal of fishing a bike out of the river, that I had ceremoniously seen thrown off the Centre Bridge several weeks beforehand. Crossing my fingers that the bike was a "good" bike we set forth on said mission.

Well... Take a couple responsibility impaired individuals, a dog, and an inclination for danger you get Friday night. We left Mer's house on a mission of destruction. Not Hedge, piece of construction, or sign was left untouched on the 10 block odyssey. The climax of the night was most definitely when Justin decided a good place to take a nap was in the middle of the river...

As Saturday morning came and went, we all reverted back to our rational selves with several questions to be pondered for our future lives. And I'm sure Justin was left wondering why he woke up with a limp, wearing Mer's jean jacket, and how she let it get all muddy.

Back to School Madness!

2006-09-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

Well... its that time of year again...

Mer, Jenn, Keltie, Will, James, Erin, D-Money, Adam, Chris, Rachel et al. are headed back to school, Justin, Mike and Les are all teaching school, and I wish I was back at school.

We were in Walmart last night and holy hell was it busy. The school supply section was busier then Hugh Hefner's Bedroom. My goodness... Women screaming for their lost babes, children panicked at facing another dreadful year with "Mrs. BlahBlahblah" and grown men were reduced to their teary-eyed tweened inner counterpart.

My primary mission for going was to get Lost Season 2 on DVD. Mission Accomplished.

Secondary mission was to keep calm in all the madness. We ran into Jenn with our armfulls of medicinal supplies in the "natural section" where she explained to us why natural toothpaste is better. "It tastes great, and dosen't contain Ground up horse". I tortly replied "It has Propolis though, which is ground up Baby". Verbatum. It would appear infact that propolis is not "ground up baby" but wax made by bees. Definietly read the part about happens when a mouse tunnels into the hive and dies.

It is unforunate we all cannot return to 4th grade with the knowledge we have already acquired at this point. 18 / 3 would be no brain teaser, and finger painting would be much more enjoyable. You could also go back and punch Jim Melhout for the shitter he's going to become in 10 years.

I would take any grade really, but potentially somewhere from Grade 10 on as you can truly appreciate the finer points in life without too much dragging you down. Wtih booze, women and lego, youve got yourself a party.

Blog.

2006-08-23T11:11:00.000-06:00

Blog. Yes. Blog. Comedy.

Some Fun Pics from the Cabin, after theyve been "edited"

2006-08-21T22:14:00.000-06:00

A Couple Alien pics:

Other Shots:

Yesterday was so good, Here's #2

2006-08-17T15:33:00.000-06:00

364 and Counting

2006-08-15T14:35:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to find inspiration and spiritual renewal through everyday life, I've decided to attempt to take one picture everyday, for a year. Hopefully this will fuel the fire for the trip to Madagascar.

After our camera got stolen in Peru two years ago, I didn't really care for taking any pictures with our newly acquired camera from the Bolivian black market. It was interesting because for a couple of weeks of travelling we (me and my alter-ego Peter Parker) were both of the opinion of "Why bother, it'll just get pinched again". This would seem as an incredibly negative and NOT the laisser-faire attitude most of you are accustomed to of me. But on the other hand it was nice not having to document details, and just enjoy the experience. It ended up creating a even more of a laid-back attitude in a astoundingly complex paradox. Go with the flow indeed...

I've started a Flickr account, but there is a 20mb limit per month, so I dont knwo if i'll be able to post them all without increasing the workload.

Without further ado, here is #1:

Death of the Cheap airline Industry :(

2006-08-11T08:03:00.000-06:00

Good Thing we already booked our tickets to Mada. With the recent "Crackdown on Terror" by British authorities (apparently the Pakistani helped also...Hehe in the Calgary Herald all it said was "The Pakistani authorities or also claiming victory."), we've witnessed the death of ridiculously cheap flights.

This morning, flights leaving Heathrow are not allowed to have passengers on board with carry-on luggage. Hello 15 hour flight to Delhi, and nothing to do! I guess you wont have to worry about ever forgetting your bag on board. I was suggesting we head down to the airport today and start claiming all of the Nalgenes, laptops, ipods, cell phones etc. that people were going to have to ditch because they're no longer allowed onto the flights. Even the automatic door openers for your car are being confiscated. PoPosterus!

So what might you ask is the correlation between cheap flights and no carry ons? Well let me paint you a picture as Micheanglo would've said to Raphael. Master ----> Grasshopper: You can no longer bring food aboard, meaning prices will be raised to cover the costs associated with having to feed all on board with at least water and those lovely shortbread cookies (Small cost yes for you... but not for me! I will go out of my to eat as much as possible, just like drinks on international flights)! Secondly, no more travelers using those itty bitty carry on suitcases, meaning everyone will be bringing big-sized suitcases. Just because they can. No more advantage to packing light. Which translates to more fuel needed to liftoff! Ahhhh! Gas prices! I guess the cost of all this extra security *might* be passed onto the passenger as well.

What are you going to do without a happy meal and Ipod for our flights? Egad. Soduku

Fuck: The Four Letter Friend Getter

2006-08-09T07:41:00.001-06:00

Kinda just rolls off the Tongue huh? What a great funny saying! What might be even funnier is that it came from my father-in-law. How often do you use expressions from the previous generation? Anyways, the title should create some traffic to the site for the 5 seconds "Spooget" appears on the blogger homepage as "updated". On to the show!

Travelling Blogging. Obession? Maybe... Good reads? Definietly. Travel Blogs are the blogs I most enjoy. I've got a handful bookmarked, and each one I probably once a day to see if they're updated. I just need my fix to live vicariously through these people. Most are travelling, some are done and are going through the post-pardom despression of coming home.

Here is the one I enjoy the most:

HedgeHogs Without Borders

I've been following them for over year. Great writing, and interesting stories. They've gone through South America (the same route we did, but in reverse), into Europe, and are now into the thick of things in South East Asia. Some pretty amazing sights they've seen... Jealous? Yes.

Here is Another:

Me-Go-Round

This is by an American Girl, who split her world travels up into two big trips. She's in the midst of part 2, somewhere in Western China. Awsome pictures, and lots of drawings she's done of the places she's been.

Lastly:

Where The Hell is Matt

Originally I was enthralled with this guy. I mean he has danced all over the world and got paid to do it. Sweetest deal for a traveler. The only problem is that the guy is jackass. Famous quotes include "I Hate Backpackers" and "I hate all Thai food". Granted Ive traveled to some sketchy shitholes, but his first 20 posts in his blog were about places in the South Pacific, and SE Asia and how much he hated it all. Yet he kept going, and blogging... and I kept reading and reading... He is a great writer, and does a good job of keeping the reader entertained. His funniest story was probably in India where he had just finished a tour of a Hindu Monastery, and he had a improtu guide who showed him around, and then asked to be paid at the end. Matt refused, and just took off without leaving the guy anything. The guide starting spouting off about Karma, and how it was going to get him. Then as he was leaving, Matt slipped and fell into a big pile of cow shit. Karma.

Normal.

2006-08-02T10:37:00.000-06:00

Wolf in sheepish Clothing

2006-07-28T09:17:00.000-06:00

Well Well Well... Folkfest you've pulled the wool over all our eyes again!

120 Dollars for a "Folk Festival"? C'mon. Why can't they just name it "Concert in the park"? I would actually probably enjoy going, if they changed the name to "Music on the Island". Isn't it implicit that a Folk Festival be accessible to all? 120 dollars? For 4 Days of music, that isn't too bad at all I suppose. But considering you could hear the music 15 blocks away last night, you make the call.

Now for the line-up... Since when is Macy Gray folk? Is she not the same woman who into R & B and all that funk (haha clever!)? Matt Good? "Hello Time Bomb" is definitely not a song most "folkers" would enjoy... (Note I do realize that his music now that he is solo has alot more of a indie sound to it, but C'mon... Matt Good!) Next "Feist" - aren't they a rock band from Quebec?

Lastly, the tarp runners. Shouldn't everyone going be a bit more mellow? As soon as the gates open, several people die in the ensuing stampede to get to the front of the stages! Yikes! Eat more Granola! Go stand in the Curry line first!

Done.

(Stereotyping is okay. As long as you're the one doing the typing.)

List #2 - Great Movies #3 Mini List - Most overrated movies

2006-07-18T11:53:00.000-06:00

Stay tuned for posts with more substance. For the most part I tried to pick movies that were more entertaining, then having a profound spiritual impact on my life - à la Dazed and Confused...

Most Overrated Movies

#3 Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino - Resevoir Dogs - Good. JAckie Brown - Bad. Pulp Fiction - overated.

#2 Dirty Dancing - I havent even seen this movie and I know its crap.

#1 Donnie Darko - Somehow this fucking piece of shit has become a cult classic. The fuckin stupiest movie I think I've possibly ever seen.

Best Movies Ever

Honorourable Mentions - Thin Red Line, Butterfly Effect, Indiana Jones Series, Back to the Future Series, Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Supertroopers, Saw, Garden State.

10. Field of Dreams

Who dosent enjoy a good baseball movie? Best one ever written. Second best baseball movie ever? Hardball. Yes, the genre does lack depth.

9. Eurotrip

Following in the footsteps of Old School and Road Trip. This witty and entertaining comedy follows 4 high school graduates on their summer trip through Europe. Scotty dosen't know...

8. Boondock Saints

Straight to video for this cult-classic. Was supposed to be released the week of Sept.11 2001. Instead straight to the stores due to subject matter. The only movie I ever wrote a university paper on. What class you may ask? Detective Fiction.

7. Contact

Jodie Foster. Aliens.

6. Memento

This movie got a bit overhyped, but was still highly entertaining. Guy Pearce's best movie since Ravenous.

5. Constant Gardner

Great fucking movie. One of the best adaptations I've seen from book to movie. The subject matter is probably the most serious of all movie included on the list, except of course you include saving the planet.

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Ali hated it... I Like it... Go Figure...

3. Black Hawk Down

Like Thin Red Line, does a great job in de-glorifyling war, in a glorifying war era. The only reason Thin Red Line isint 3rd, and Black Hawk Down is, is probably because "The Mog" and East Africa hold a near and dear place in my heart

2. Run Lola Run

The only "foreign" movie on the list (German I think?). I love movies where you kinda get the same story, from other characters aspects (Ex. Go) But this movie just blew my mind. Great.!

1. Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven

How the fuck can you not put this movie at the top of your list. I dare you to try. Or at least to try and debate it with me.

List #1 - Best Read Books

2006-07-11T10:26:00.000-06:00

Creation of Lists... To keep all you Blog readers entertained, it will probably mean more posts. This First list, Top 10 Books I've Read (Series are included as one).

Honoroubable Mentions - One Flew over the Cukoo's nest, Lord of the Flies, Time, Three Musketeers

10. Call of the Wild - Jack London

Cool book about Dogs. And Snowshoeing. I would also recommend White Fang.

9. The Stand - Stephen King

Great novel about a diease that wipes the majority of people on the planet, with a battle between Good and Evil afterwards. All of the other books I've read by him (Dreamcatcher, Tommyknockers, Needful Things, Short Stories Book) have been decent. Except for the Dark Towers series. Absolute shit.

8. Hobbit - Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein

No surprise here. Read them as a kid and loved them. Tried to re-read them a couple of years ago though and trouble getting through the Sam-Frodo adventures into Mordor. Fav. of the three would have to be Return of the King. Favorite Character -Aragon.

7. From Here to Eternity - James Jones

James Jones wrote "Thin Red Line", which was the sequel to this book. Introduction to the solider Witt (Jim Cavziel, in the Thin Red Line who also played Jesus, who we knows second cousin!). Based in Pearl Harbour before they ship out across the Pacific.

I borrowed this book in my fourth year of university from the uni. library, and kept renewing the book (well after I was finished reading it) just to see how long it would take for them to realize that I was no longer a student.... Roughly 6 months, while Ali and I were in the middle of the Bolivian Rannforest, I got an email that stated "Please return the book, you are no longer a student"

6. The Constant Gardner - John Le Carre

Another book turned movie. First Detective story on the listing. Great story about how Pharma. company's policies and testing methods are exploiting people in "developing nations". The movie was very good also. One of the cloest book-movie relationships.

5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

Great book, from the most "classic" author on the list. Second Dectective story on the listing. A Book that alot of people have not read or heard of, but should.

4. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Very Top Heavy. Makes your brain think. Also included is a 35 page speech, which was tough to follow. But the ideas and the setting are fantastic with huge philosophical overtones.

3. Burning Shore Series - Wilbur Smith

Spanning three generations of the Courtney family and the drama that surrounds them in South Africa, from the beginning of the 20th Century, all the way to apartheid. Smith intrically intrically intertwines real historical fact with his characters. Including such people at Smuts and Mandela into these books. 5? books in the series.

2. Harry Potter Series - Jk Rowling

You can fuck right off if you disagree with this choice and HAVE NOT read the books. I find it hilarious that so many people write these books off as children books. Although the subject matter in the first 2-3 books is for a younger audience, her writing is still amazing. I guarantee that if you have not read any of the books, and you pick one up, you will not finish until youve read them all.

1. James Clavell's Asian Saga (Shogun, Taipan, Gaijin, King Rate, Noble House, Whirlwind)

Not much to say here. Everyone who's read Shogun, has clearly stated that it is one of the best books theyve read, if not the best. Taipan started slow, but the ending was amazing. I'm 3/5ths through Gaijin, and it is not disappointing. I'd place it between Shogun and Taipan.

Comments? Or Books I should read?

Here's a list of some I want to hit:

Catcher in the Rye
Robinson Crusoe
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Series
The Dune Series
Thirteen Months (Something like that, about a kid, and each chapter is a month out of his life)
Ender's Game
The Time Traveler's Wife
Most Phillip B Dick books (Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly etc.
The Bourne Trilogy
The Fountainhead
All the King's Men
Watership Down

Madagascar Here we Come!

2006-07-07T14:38:00.000-06:00

Tickets are Booked!

Oh Geez.

2006-07-01T15:42:00.000-06:00

Fucking Ural. I wouldve been the destroyer of all destroyers if it wasnt for URAL.

Bicycle Chaos.

2006-06-27T08:43:00.000-06:00

Start.

I hate fucking Bike Riders in the downtown core. Today, as I was dropping Ali off, a Bike rider proceeded run into our car. He was mad because he felt it was our fault that he was riding his bike in a crosswalk through a yellow light (on the opposite side of the road of where he shouldve been), and felt I shouldnt have been there trying to turn right. Well...

The First thing he said was "What are you doing...". First thing I said was "What were you doing??"

Thankfully no one was hurt. Our car got a little scracthed, his bike looked fine. Whatever no big deal.

Then he says "Well, I'll have to check the regulations on this." Then I proceeded "Yah, you should do that to see what you did wrong" But on the inside I was thinking "You Fucking swizzlestick."

Now Let's review the Alberta Traffic Laws that he violated.

1. Riding his bike in a crosswalk. Technically, while a person is riding their bike, they are considered a vehicle. Techincally he was driving on the sidewalk, in a crosswalk.

2. Wrong side of the road.

3. Proceeded into the crosswalk after the walk sign had disappeared.

Accidents happen, no big deal. The scracthes on the car are barely visible, and the bike tire skids add to the "dirty" motif.

But when are Bike riders going to realize they cannot be both a pedestrian and a vehicle. Drives me INSANE! You see it everyday, a rider on the road who slows down for the red light, then cuts into the crosswalk perpendicular to his original direction of travel. Or the guys riding beside each other on a single lane highway. What about the jerks who almost clip you out on pedestrian bridge without ringing their bell?. I think my all-time fav, is on narrow sidewalks, and the biker is screaming to get the fuck out of the way.

My solution is either to Ban all cars from downtown, or ban all bicycles. Maybe set-up a toll for one or the other. Perhaps more bicycle education is what's needed. Perhaps more emphasis about sharing the road should be made in driver's ed. Perhaps hiring more by-law officers to crack down is the answer. Perhaps creating more taxes for spare bike parts. Perhaps the answer is buring the Brazilian rainforest to stop rubber plant imports.

Perhaps Bikers should just make up their fucking minds.

End.

This Guys is Awsome.

2006-06-26T13:00:00.000-06:00

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/index.html

Too Incredible to Pass Up

2006-06-23T08:20:00.000-06:00

Stole this from Justin. Taken by someone on Jebus, of Jebus. I was playing a couple of fields over. June 21st, First Day of Summer. Well Shit.

Busy Busy Busy Busy....

2006-06-12T08:40:00.000-06:00

Well the summer is definietly starting to ramp up! Lots of crap to do, not enough of time to do it! We've actually got something going on every weekend from three weekends ago, to end of August. 3-4 Weddings, Hopefully a couple of ultimate tournaments, hopefully a couple of backpacking trips...

One of those weekends coming up, were taking a Canoe ride on the Red Deer River! We did a practise run on saturday, and it went pretty well. Ali and I are definietly the slowest ~ mainly causing she's a shitty stroker, and I'm an even worse steerer! But we werent as bad as I expected which is nice...

The actual trip should be awsome. The Scenery will be spectacular, with the river cutting through the badlands of Alberta like a butter knifer. Lots of Hoodoos and Rillwash to see!

Do a little fishing, a little paddling, little relaxing. Hopefully we get addicted to it, and it becomes a sport we truly love. Expensive to start, but not much cost after taht which is nice. It's nice like backpacking where you can get out into the outdoors and just relax without the usual urban sounds and hustle.

Perhaps in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn esque way it could become a sustainable lifestyle. Leaving all behind for a simpler life... just floating down the river...going where the current shale take out...and then becoming a Pirate! AAAAARRRRRHHHH!!!

Carolina: L'equipe destin pour Stanley?

2006-06-06T13:43:00.000-06:00

Une "poste" complement en Francaise? Eeeek!

Premierement, je m'excuse pour ma française... Absolument terrible! Il y a quelques ans que j'ai parlé, ou creer des phrases completes ;)

Ty Conklin = Merde. Woah. Complement.

Music du Moment - Jimmy Eat World - Static Prevails.

Sporting Rivalries

2006-06-02T18:26:00.000-06:00

Helllloooooooo Sports Fan!!!

Edmonton and Carolina huh? The Hurricanes are a bit of a surprise, but the Oilers? Nope. You can take a look over at Savage Indecision, to see that I predicted the Oilers were going to go all the way. Although I did not predict it in my own predictions post....

The series should be good, and the Oilers are going to have their hands full... The D-Core of Pronger-Spacek-Staios-Smith is going to be busy with the Hurricanes rolling three great scoring lines. In their previous series, the Oilers have really only faced 2 best... Who the hell has Doug Weight on their 3rd line?????

Oilers in 6.

Greatest Rivialries in Sports:

NHL: Oilers-Flames, Canadiens-Leafs, Detroit-Colorado (Late nineties), Canada-Russia

MLB: Yankees-Red Sox, Giants-Dodgers

NFL: Cowboys-Redskins

NBA: Lakes-Celtics (Bird vs. Johnson era)

Soccer: Argentina-Brazil, England-France,

Cricket: Ashes Tournament (Austraila-England)

Ultimate: Furious - Sockeye

Tennis: Sampras - Agassi

Top Notch

2006-05-29T13:20:00.000-06:00

Basically, We drove the shit out of a Jeep Cherokee all weekend, and got paid for it! Not Too shabby... Sucked that it was over the weekend, but a good deal. It was tough garnering respect from everyone out there in their 350, Doublewide, Quad carrying trucks until we were covered in mud, but I'd say we pulled it off well.

Here is pic of the truck midmorning Sunday. The week before it had rained pretty much all day everyday, making for some muddy cruddy roads.

Saw lots of wildlife:

Also a Black Bear and a Grizzly, and then about 50-100 White-Tailed Deer. Sweetness~

But if I were to be working out in the field every day, these things would be passé and bland.

Too bad that people get so jaded after awhile. Happens with everything I suppose.

Ultimate Season Is Here!

2006-05-16T08:13:00.000-06:00

The Straight Dope.

2006-05-12T09:39:00.000-06:00

Bronco's New Plan of Cleaning up the Downtown Core

Good, Bad, Maybe a little Both?

After catching two people doing coke outside our dining room table friday night, I've got no problem with it, but.....

As we were cooking dinner friday night with Ricky in town, I peered down from our dining room to see a man going absolutely bonkers on the passenger side cab of a truck. We proceeded to watch them every now and again until he pulled out some Blow, and both him and his companion turned into Rudolph.

We were a little surprised, but not completely shocked. We do live in the "hood".... Will a huge influx of money fix this problem? Yes better police presence downtown is good, but is that where we need it?

Everyday I walk to work on a tangent that takes me past two homeless shelters, and the easiest place to get drugs n' hookers in the city. Now I dont want to imply that all homeless are involved with drug trade, or that they are the cause of crime downtown, but you cant deny that higher percentages of the homeless use narcotics and get into trouble with the law then the percentage of the general population.

So perhaps this money should be going towards education, and programs releated to and combatting these issues? You've really got to wonder... The Calgary Homeless shelter has got a great progam, where the institue acts as a middle man. There are something like 75 rooms (seperate from the more traditional shelter), which are given out to homeless who have a job, or are actively looking, but cant afford to live anywhere. They get free rent and their own living space, but are expected to contribute around the shelter (laundry, cooking, cleaning etc...). A bigger program like this would go alot further for "cleaning up" the downtown core.

The story takes a turn for the worst, as we later find out these snifflers are actually our neighbors, who live two doors down. Interesting... but who cares right? Well as they were disembarking from thier luxury liner 1980 Ford F-150 the other night, a girl, probalby no older then 8 jumps out with them... Granted, she wasnt there when her parents were bobbing for rock, but what kinds of home situation is this? I could care fucking less about the parents, but I do feel like we should keep a watch out to see if the girl needs help.

Over and Out.

Wang of Wangs.

2006-05-09T13:25:00.000-06:00

Rant Begin.

Barry Bonds might be the most hated guy in Baseball. There was a poll on espn.com today asking if you caught Barry Bonds's XXX homer (whatever it is to pass Hank Aaron, 756 maybe?)
What would you do with the ball?

A) Donate to the Hall of Fame

B) Keep it!

C) Give it back to Barry

D) Sell it!

E) Throw it back.

56% or something of respondents would Sell it. Who the fuck would buy it? I would choose E. Not because he is undoubtly juiced, but because he is possibly the worst role model on the planet. I would never want my kids to look up to a guy who dosen't have time to sign a few autographs, unless they've got some cash, and be willing to sign a release form. A release form?? Gawd...

Barry Bonds is the Wang of Wangs.

Rant End.

Top Ten Big Cities in the World

2006-05-04T09:13:00.000-06:00

Weekly Top Ten List, anything and everything
This week - My 10 Favorite Big Cities (Pop. over 250, 000)

10. Las Vegas, Nevada
Original Sin City. Only spent 50 or so hours in Vegas, split between two seperate trips, but never actually slept for more then 4 or 5 hours total. Did manage to get asked to leave the Paris Casino more then once though... Lifetime total: 5 Dollars Up.

9. Addis Abbba, Ethiopia
One of the highest altitude capitals in the world. Biggest open air market in Africa = Absoluetly fucking crazy.

8. Vancouver, British Columbia
Shitty Weather, but sweet being on the ocean, many awsome parks.

7. Budapest, Hungary
Hometown?

6. Calgary, Alberta
Gotta love Flames Fever? Nice and close to the Rockies

5. Cuzco, Peru
Free Drinks on every street corner. Enough Said.

4. Paris, France
How could anyone not love the city of love? So much history to take in. Lots of great Bread! The Louvre

3. Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Food. Italien influences with cows everywhere make for the Best Ice Cream Beef Combos around! Also nice to have a bottle of wine (or 2... or 3) with every dinner..

2. La Paz, Bolivia
Absolutely Chaotic. Markets spring up anywhere anytime. Dynamite being blown off down the street from the hostel was also cool (Miners were on strike...). There is also a Witch's market that sells anything you oculd ever want to brew your own magic potion

1. Cairo, Egypt
Not only does Memphis (ancient name) have the best street meat you can find, it's got a street named after my Birthday! Who wouldve thought?? This does not actually ever sleep. Espically those kids on bikes with about 200 loaves bread percariously balanced on their nogins

Three Greatest Towns to Chill out in

3. Tofino, British Columbina - Maybe Uculettlet would be nicer, but the Canadian Surf captial is definietly a fun place to be, although does ahve a huge touristy flaire...

2. Rurrenbaque, Bolivia - Great little town in the Bolivian rainforest with only two options to get there:

Bolivian Gov't passenger flight. Basically a cargo ship with some seats.
16 hour bus ride, starting out on the road the United Nations has desginated "The World's Most Dangerous Roads"

If the place weren't 42°C all the time, and didn't have spiders the size of your baby brother, it would be heaven on earth.

1. Dahab, Egypt - Great little town on the Sinai penisula in the Red Sea. Recent events have brought the place into a negative light, but still the greatest place to catch up on reading, drinking, snorkelling or watching US warships shoot Tomahawk cruise missels into Iraq.

Potential Travel Routes

2006-05-02T12:18:00.000-06:00

Were still in the process of debating where we should head this fall...

One potential cool route would be going overland from Addis to Cairo (or reverse).
Egypt ---> Sudan ---> Ethiopia. Fairly traveled route, easy border crossing, cool. Month is most likely too short to appreciate this fully. Cairo is also my favorite big city in the world.

Another option linked to the above would be flying in and out of Addis and going east in Djibouti, and then up into Eritrea. Cant go Ethiopia ---> Eritrea due a closed border between the two (many clashes over borders ~ Eritrea used to be part of Ethiopia).

Madgascar and Comoros. Enough Said. Lemurs and Beaches, who could ask for more?

Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Route travelled by Maarten a few weeks ago. He brought home some awsome pics. Would look into more treks in the "jungle". Possibly Gorilla viewing?

Lastly, this is new, right into the armpit of Africa. Cameroon, through Equitorial Guinea into Gabon (fly into Yaounde, and out of Libreville). Apprently Gabon has some of the most untouched rainforest on the planet. One intrest here would be the possiblity to use our french. Were both fully bilingual in french, which would be exciting to get back into.

Flights.... We will be flying out of Amsterdam, because of our free flights there! But to get to any destination were looking at between 400 (for any country on or near the Medi.). The cheapest is Cairo at around 400 bucks, while the most expensive is Equitorial Guinea at around 1400.... Definietly worth it though...! It's too bad it will only be a month... and not a year.... ****sigh****

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago

2006-04-26T12:53:00.000-06:00

Going Blog Crazy today.

Places Traveled So Far...

Canada - B.C., Alberta, Saska., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec (Gatineau...)
U.S. - Washinton, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota

Why Have I been to more States then Provinces...? I guess most provinces are bigger!

Europe - France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary
Fucked up Train ride with Leanne - Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium

Africa - Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya

South America - Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay

Airports Visited - Heathrow (London), Khartoum (Sudan), Copenhagen (Denmark), Dallas, Miami, Toronto

Countries seen at a distance (but not while flying) ~ Saudi Arabia, Isarel, Mozambique, Brazil

Back to Africa

2006-04-26T09:57:00.000-06:00

News Flash: Vacation Request has been Approved!

Ali will be gone from middle of Sept. to middle of Nov. with me gone Oct. to Nov. sweet deal-o!

Now where the hell are we going to go?

My List - China, then Madagascar, then Mali, then Syria/Iran combo.

Ali's List - South Africa/Nanmbia, then Ethiopia

Any suggestions?

Shoot!! Shooot! Shoooooooooooooot!

2006-04-26T08:26:00.000-06:00

Does that make you mad when people start chanting it when your favorite hockey team is on the power play? Me? Nope, makes me laugh. It's funny how some people think they know when a better time to shoot is then the professional athelete who gets paid millions to do exaclty that...

Good Start to the playoffs, All Canadian teams now ahead in their series. Edmonton-Calgary series would be absoluelty ridiculous. This city would go fucking maniacal.

We were talking about our favorite Flames last night (even though I'm not a huge flames fan).

1. Yelle
2. Regehr
3. Iginla

Case Closed.

Weekend at the Chateau

2006-04-24T09:07:00.000-06:00

Ali and I were lucky enough to volunteer this weekend for Spleen's Breath of Life Race up at Lake Louise. All accomdation, food and ski was taken care of which was awsome! I'd never been to the Chateau before, and it was a little disappointing... 8 Dollars for beer? Cmon...

We were helpers in the Kid Zone each evening (while the parents were at the receptions and dinners for the events). Pretty fun, the kids were absolutely bonkers Saturday night with about 65 kids going bananas for 5 hours. Pretty tiring but still fun! I enjoyed the lego section

The event was awsome, and raised a good chunk for change for Cystic Fibrosis research. Over the years, it has raised around 4 million bucks, which seems like a astronoimcal number. It was great to see alot of work, going towards a great cause!

Playoff Hockey Predictions

2006-04-21T08:11:00.000-06:00

Edmonton over Detroit in 7
Dallas over Colorado in 5
Calgary over Anahiem in 5
San Jose over Nashville in 7

Calgary Dallas West conference Final with Dallas Advancing

Ottawa over Tampa in 4
Montreal over Caroline in 7
New Jersey over New York in 5
Philly over Buffalo in 6

Ottawa over New Jersey in the Conference final

Dallas over Ottawa in the Stanley Cup Final.

Yup that is Correct. Dallas taking it, and I'm winning the fucking pool

Perito Morneo Glacier, Argentina

2006-04-19T12:58:00.001-06:00

Salar Del Uyunni, Bolivia

2006-04-19T09:04:00.000-06:00