jominglau.com!!
huzzah!
Nothing there yet, but patience young grasshopper!
Yeah, i’ve registered my domain name, and i’ve gotten hooked up with some really cheap hosting ($95, for LIFE!) so i’ll be able to hopefully host mostly everything in one place!

Anyways, i’ll be tinkering away at putting that site live in the near future, but with the craziness of life these days, its hard to say when i’ll get this done… I AM paying for the domain name though, so maybe that spending of money will spur me to do something..

But in general, i’ve been doing pretty well! I’m still working at Visible Strategies, and i’ve moved out to Kitsilano with my lovely friend Dear. Work is going pretty well, right now i’m in the marketing department which is kind of weird for me, but it’s interesting… not sure if i’m entirely cut out to be in that role though.. We will see what happens.
I’m still going to bed way too late, and in crappy news, my arms are starting to hurt from being on the computer too much. argh..
anyways, until next time!

Days 9+10: Montana to Washington

July 22 The calm before the storm

Today was a relatively short drive, from Butte to Spokanne. Lunch was in Missoula, a cute little down with a fair amount of hippie/West coast influence. Lunch was served by a girl who was either high, or just ridiculously overfriendly. It was a cute little town, but we had to continue our journey. We took another break in Coeur D’alene, ID. A really pretty resort town, with some rad public art, and killer waterfront and beachiness. It was so busy its parking lot entirely thwarted us. All for the better, since we arrived in Spokane early afternoon for once, as opposed to midnight. We decided to splurge and unwind at the Red Lion Inn by the River, where they had a fluffy bed, a pool and a hot tub.

We had a fantastic afternoon just hanging out in bed, resting our bodies in a soft bed. After a restful afternoon of doing absolutely nothing, we moseyed to a fancy dinner at the Steam Plant Grill, a electric steam plant that had be converted into a restaurant.
You could even eat inside a giant boiler! Amazing! And they even had a dessert stylized after its name: The Smokestack.

After dinner, we explored the expo site a bit, where they had some cool fountains, as well as this amazing carousel, which was handpainted/carved by a famous carousel maker, with an interactive ring collecting game.

July 23 The end of the beginning

Morning had us scammed for our continental breakfast. We were in the midst of getting our first serving when they took the food away! So we hit the fucking road through the Cascades, winding through the mountain forests until we drove over a hill to the sight of the largest city of the whole trip: Seattle.
It was only early afternoon at this point, and we went to the University district for a casual lunch, and this was when the trouble started going down. After we parked, we forgot the map to the place we wanted to eat at, so we wandered into a cafe where the food didn’t satisfy (for me, the small portions, and for Katie, the presence of mayo).

Katie was beginning to feel a bit stressed out at finally arriving our destination, and realizing that she was going to be calling this place home for the next while. This stress led to a lot of tension, but we were able to make it through in one piece. After lunch, we decided we had better start finding a place to stay for the night. I was leaving the next day, so she needed somewhere until she found something. For some strange fucking reasons, EVERYWHERE was booked for the following week. Everywhere not entirely swamped was either entirely sketchy & out of the way (Marco Polo Motel, Hacienda motel) to the point where Katie didn’t feel comfortable going by herself (which was entirely reasonable), or they were ridiculously priced ($209/night). By the time we found some place decent, it was almost 9/10pm, and we had ended up driving across most of South Seattle, ending up in Bellevue. It was a travesty. We were hungry, tired, cranky and frustrated, Katie was super stressed about finding a place to live.

A most unpleasant predicament, that we tried to escape by going to a decent Italian place for dinner. It worked, as we came back to good news!! A sublet had contacted her about a room for the week! So that was a tremendous relief for her, as even the current hotel was booked solid the next day.

Day 11: July 24 New beginnings

So today, we were going to move into the sublet, but communication mishaps pushed it back to 9pm, since the girls who had contacted us were at work and school until the evening. Instead, we did some driving practice to the Pacific Science center, and hung out at Pike Place Market, until I needed to catch the quickshuttle home. All of that went smoothly, and I arrived safely at the holiday inn, where I was picked up by my mom. And that was the end of my journey.

This trip didn’t end up being the transformative journey I had wanted, but I DID learn lots from it, at any rate. Whether it was about our travelling potential, our approaches to travel, or even our general compatibility (& where we required changes to be made), I felt like we were able to learn a lot of valuable insight into each other.

One thing that really struck me about America was the degree of visual pollution, at least in the sense of signage. I don’t know, somehow when I’m in China, it’s almost expected, surrounded by skyscrapers, but not so much if it’s along a strip of tourist traps with no buildings higher than two stories. Is this holding two cultures to different standards? Perhaps. I need to think on this one a bit more before I make up my mind.

The trip also opened my eyes to America and the people that comprised it, the landscapes that shaped the people on the land. Visiting these places can help you understand the people there, and just the way they think. It makes you see how the shape and textures of the and can play a role in determining one’s world view.

The greatness of these landscapes had me in awe, but when you only know a certain place, all you can do is to just live with what you know. What I find is that it feels like so many people have lost their sense of place. With the Internet and the convenience of travel, people are not bound to a place, with its set of rules to play by. If travelers don’t like a place, they can just change the channel and leave. What’s why so much of today’s traveling crowd just pisses me off. They take and take and fucking take, and give nothing back. They don’t hear the lessons that a place has to offer. For the most part, that’s all that human settlements are, an artificial construct created by humans that hides us from the true landscape. And just how “Cosmos” is all a big hoax, distorting our perceptions, our human landscapes obscure us from our land, and the horizon that orients us. Something else that lay bare the artificiality of humanity is in the way we perceive time. I suppose that I understand the necessity for the proper function of human society, but my mind cannot fathom the arbitrary delineations of time on a landscape (i.e. time zones). How and where one place might be at one time at a given coordinate, while across the road, it would be a hour later. I guess the point was reached long ago when we could no longer afford to live by the cycles of the sun and moon, but by strictly regimenting the flow of time into discrete, quantifiable units that we could manipulate for our own uses. While I was on the road, we did use the clock in the car to have a rough sense of the time we had, but at the same time, it was meaningless. The days existed by themselves, our movement dictated by the light of the sun, and not governed by timepieces.

A simpler way to look at life, and one that I hope to be able to recapture somehow.

Having stuck around the Black Hills as long as we did, we really only had a day to check out Yellowstone in daylight. More time would’ve been nice, but with Elly, it would’ve been hard to leave the car for long at any rate. We were able to see some really cool stuff with the time we did have though!

Geothermal and hot spring features, in a dazzling array of shapes and colours.

Katie was a bit concerned at being on top of a hotbed (haha) of volcanic activity, and this picture didn’t help

Something else that struck me about the park was the amount of dead trees, that hadn’t fallen, but were just left standing. The combination of pests and forest fires had really decimated the trees there. So many trees stripped of its foilage as to be haunting, and contrary to what my beliefs of what a forest should “be” (despite my intellectual understanding of its cyclical nature).

Today also abounded with buffalo, much to our delight. We even got to watch some cross a river!! That was really cool

Other buffalo are interested in other things, like the following:

After we left Yellowstone Park, we tried to look for Gallatin Petrified Forest high in the hills of Montana. We turned off onto a gravel path and drove. The road just kept going and going, and after about 1/2 hour of driving, we got skeptical, and abandoned the dream. I think it may have been 10 miles more, but we were driving at 20 miles a hour on this bumpy gravel road. So we decided to make out for a bit, just to say that we made out in the high hills of Montana, on the side of a gravel road. Haha, well that’s why I did it. After that, we got back on the main road, and drove through paradise valley, to get back to I-90, and I was underwhelmed by the landscape.

Perhaps if I had been a settler, this WOULD have been a Paradise Valley, and I would have rejoiced at the fertile fields, However, I think that at this point, I was getting pretty desensitized, and for me, the landscape of Montana had little to offer me. It was just like the Fraser Valley all over again. This was also the point when the reality of non-vacation was setting in for Katie, and she was starting to get homesick with the knowledge of just how far she was from her family, and that she was actually moving to a new place, and not just having a vacation.
We had dinner in Bozeman, and it was pretty much the first place on the trip where young university folk hung out as a place to live, not as a travelling destination. Granted, we hadn’t stopped in many of the big cities along the way to test this theory fully. Dinner satisfied a growing hunger for Mexican, and we hit the road after that, to get to Butte. Dusk in Montana was so strange and surreal. There was an overwhelming… blueness to the skyscape, and visually you could almost see the wall fo blue that crept over the horizon into view, and consumed the other hues. At the same time, our westward trajectory also meant that we were chasing the receding light of the sun. The result was a slow motion conquest of solid azurean night over the diminishing light of the sun. Unfortunately, I think that I was driving at the time, so I didn’t get a chance to snap a shot of this. Topping off the peculiar evening was the Finlen hotel, in historic Butte. You could almost taste the splendor that this place once was, in the proudness of the foyer , with its large marble pillars, to the large prominence of the typewriter behind the front desk, as if futilely resisting the symbolic twins of modern technology, the personal computer and the internet. The elevators even used mechanical buttons that had to be depressed and when we got into our rooms, I just knew that the bathroom once had those clawed bathtubs, rather than the white metallic sheets of metal that surrounded the shower stall.
Three more days left now. Unfortunately, the next couple entries will be relatively sparse on pictures. Til next time!

I’m on a roll here, so let’s continue with this journey! 4 more days!

Morning had us on a hike around Devil’s Tower. Despite it starting to rain and gust, we just plugged on through, and it ended up being a relaly nice walk. It would’ve been silly to make the additional trek to devil’s tower to have only seen it in the dark. In the light, the feeling of awe and majesty remained, like being an ant looking up at a tree. I took a picture of a climber making an ascent of Devil’s Tower. I’ve circled him in red.

This would have totally kicked my ass if I did this drive in the dark. That place was amazing though. We ascended so quickly from the base of the mountain, up and up to alpine meadows, where we drove beside glaciers. At the highest point, we took a short break, and I got in touch with my inner mountain goat.

By the time we arrived at the entrance to Yellowstone Park, and stopped at the nearby town for dinner, , it was pretty much dusk. It was really there that we first got a sense that something had changed. Maybe it was a West Coast influence, where we came out of the midwest and into a place where even the cuisine

had shifted, almost imperceptibly. Beyond that, there was something different in the people, mainly in those we worked there, at the restaurant. These were people, who had come to enjoy the park, rather than a place consisting mainly of immigrants who just were there, working tourist traps as they tried to escape something worse, or to discover America. Because I still hadn’t learned my lesson regarding hotels, I had booked a hotel on the other side of the park, in West Yellowstone. We didn’t want to lose money from our reservation, so off we went, booking it across Yellowstone in the dark. I suck royally at night driving, and Katie swooped in and saved the day, making the brutal 2 hour drive in the forest at night. It was damn epic. We drove right past buffalo walking down the opposite side of the road, the same way people do when they are stumbling home from the bar. It was scary in how we didn’t see him until we had almost driven right past him, his shagginess absorbing all the light. At certain parts, we knew we were driving past geysers, not from the sight of them, but rather, from the smell of them. Perhaps most amazing of all was the incredible night sky. Being so far away from the any city, the light pollution was next to none, so we stopped at an overlook, and looked at the Milky Way sweep across the sky. We stood outside leaning on Ezra as we gazed upwards at the wonder above for a few precious moments, before we couldn’t bear the feeling of being eaten alive by the hordes of mosquitoes who had found us serving ourselves to them on a platter. Finally, we made it to the motel, and inside, a bag of free samples! Sweet!

Secondly, the unleaded pump was locked down with a padlock (apparently they had run out), leaving us only premium grade gas to fill up with, at an equally premium price. Thirdly, across the dirt road that was the main arterial road, was a saloon, lined with many a skull of buffalo that had perished, in one form or another . INTENSE!

Next on our list of places to stop at were the Jewel Caves, 3rd the 2nd longest cave system in the world. It was damn hot, and we were so worried for Elly, since we couldn’t bring him in with us at all.. In order to not disturb the microbial ecosystems that had been established there., there was a STRICT no pet policy (which was fair enough), but we couldn’t even leave him somewhere cooler than the car, like inside the visitor’s center. What we ended up doing was that we bought a couple cool bottles of water to put in his cage to cool him off, and we put some metal bowls that Katie had brought with her on her move, to reflect the sunlight away, and to keep in the cool air. I really wish I had taken a picture of our ingenuity.

We also contemplated going caving, and if wanted to, we needed to fit through the opening in that little concrete block below. Given we had to keep our time short for Elly, and a bit freaked out at being in such a claustrophobic space, we decided to pass on that.

The caves themselves were quite surreal, in that they didn’t seem like they had been formed naturally. Perhaps it was a results of the juxtaposition of concrete paths inside a cave. It’s hard to fathom what the caves would have looked like originally, with no fancy lighting to make it look beautiful, no stairs, railings, no nothing. It would’ve been damn freaky is what it would have been. At one point, they turned out all the lights so naturally, Katie and I made out in the total darkness. It was the pitch black that is so much darker than night, darker than shadow, this dark that came from the depths of the earth. Another fascinating thing was the temperature. It was probably at least a 15-20C difference in temperature. When we got back to the surface, we got back to the car, to find that Elly had survived the brutal ordeal, thankfully.

After that, we made our way through Custer State Park and the needles highway, where there were such strange formations, and such a winding, but beautiful drive, full of switchbacks and sweeping curves.

After we made it through the highway, we made our way towards another geologic wonder: Devil’s Tower, a 900-ft bohemoth.

After watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind at Katie’s house only a few nights ago. I was just a little bit creeped out. But just seeing it emerging from the horizon, creeping into view and emerging from the haze of the desert, was something that was breathtaking. Like the Jewel Caves, its geometric nature on such a large scale made it feel like something artificial and human-made. We got there just in time to catch a magnificent sunset, and to imagine that Devils Tower is actually a cool hat.

It was dark by the time we left Devil’s Tower, and then we still needed a place to stay for the night. Recurring theme, anyone? But yeah, right around Devil’s Tower, there was nary a inn nor motel to be found. The closest town was Hullett, which was one of the more surreal drives I’ve had. As we drove, we watched the slow onset of night creep in, casting its shadow over the vast landscape. This was dream-like in itself, but traversing the landscape at dusk, the lone car on the road with headlights pointed to eternity. There was no music to be had either, with the CD player not working, and no radio reception, just the relative silence of Ezra’s engine. It was actually a bit frightening at times, trapped in this moonlit limbo forever, driving onwards through a night that would never end. Finally, a glimmer of light, of civilization, and we had arrived in Hullett. We were glad, despite being famished and having to resort to granola bars, chips and pretzels for dinner.

The morning found us in a decent part of town, although our car Ezra greeted us with a flat tire. The most concerning thing about that was not knowing when it had happened, the night before, or because of some rascals, overnight. Luckily it was fixed with little trouble for $10, after which we paid a visit to the “world famous” Wall Drug (I hadn’t heard of the place either), where weary pioneers travelers once received free ice water on their long journey to the Wild West. Nowadays, it had been reduced to a lukewarm water fountain, no match for the myriad of tacky souvenirs and the smells of breakfast. To give you an idea of how exciting this place was, I entirely forgot to take a picture of it! It also happened to be the land of immigrant workers, a fact that seemed more pronounced the closer whenever we arrived near any tourist destination, and which was something that seemed to trail us our whole way across America. It was as if they had come to pursue the Great American Dream, and ended up in Wall, South Dakota serving breakfast in a tourist trap.

After finishing a hearty breakfast, we quickly hit the road, to head onwards to Mount Rushmore, the “Monument of America”. How could one pass up this ridiculous opportunity to see humanity’s desire for immortality? Along the way, we kept seeing signs for Cosmos Mystery Area. “See it. Feel it. SURVIVE IT!”
How could we resist? Even with the knowledge that it was some ridiculous tourist trap, it hooked us in, line and sinker. When we got there, there was this little shack, where people waited their turn to experience the mystery. In other words, be parted magically from their money. The gimmick there was that apparently gravity apparently did not function normally here, instead exerting itself at an angle.

Then afterwards, we had entered the Black Hills, a remarkably distinct landscape from the surrounding plains. From far away, the dark green trees definitely gave the Black Hills their namesake, an apt name for this forested mountain (below) in comparison to the desert prairie grasslands nearby (1st pic of this post)

After Mt. Rushmore, we backtracked a bit to Rapid City and then broke south-eastwards towards the Badlands. (see map above for a better description). We knew we were probably not in the best of shape, entering Badlands National Park in the late afternoon, if we wanted to get to our destination for the day, the town of Interior. However, we were able to see some rad animals.

Bighorn Sheep, prairie dogs, but alas, no buffalo.
I wish I could have spent so much more time here. This place was utterly fascinating. From the banded layers of rock to the dried up gullies of ephemeral streams, it was like taking a direct look into the distant past.

We were lucky that we had been on a deserted desert road at night, and not an interstate freeway. This kept up for almost a minute, as I tried to find a place to stop on the side of the road, so that I could rinse out my eyes with water, especially important, as I was the driver of the car. So yeah, that was quite the adventure and a half.. but it wasn’t half over! At this point, it was about 11:30, and we were getting hungry, and worried about getting a hotel for the night, given how desoltate this place was… We hadn’t seen a light for about 1/2 an hour or so, and we had no cell phone reception to make reservations over the phone. And it was there, in the town/village/2 houses, volunteer fire department and a church/nowhere of Interior, that Katie and I first experienced what could be eponymous described as the “Tam Syndrome”(after Simon Tam of Firefly fame), at Wagon Wheels, a local pub. We had almost finished driving through this town (all 15 seconds of it) despairing at the lack of food, when we suddenly saw the flicker of an orange fluorescent sign. Yay!!

It felt a bit like a movie; when we walked in, I felt as if everyone sort of shifted subtly to watch us. There was the guys nursing their beers, the pool table, and the jukebox. The only thing out of place was that instead of a bartender carefully scrubbing his glasses, it was a super friendly bartender. You could tell that his friendliness was one primarily reserved for outsiders. Now delving into the depths of nerdom, I’m going to explain what the “Tam “Syndrome” is. In Firefly, a sort of cult classic sci-fi series, Simon Tam was a head surgeon from the core planets who had become a fugitive from the authorities and had suddenly being thrust into small towns on backwater planets throughout the galaxy. There he stuck out sorer than a sore thumb. In short, just feeling entirely out of place. I guess that really, it’s hard not to be, in a town where advertisements were on the sides of conastoga wagons.

We woke up in the town of La Crosse, and hit the road before the day was getting hot. We crossed the Mississippi River this morning, into the state of Minnesota, and vowed to have Mississippi Mud Pie (well, I did, anyways, not sure about Katie), a vow which unfortunately did not end up being fulfilled. I would have loved to actually go to the missisippi river and dip my toes in our something, but we didn’t have the luxury to stop and watch the river flow, so this picture of mainly a highway divider is the best we’ve got to show for it. Besides, aren’t there like crazy mosquitoes, and alligators there, or something?!?!

Minnesota is a land of strange of wondrous objects. Maybe it’s simply the way that people in general sometimes find ways to put meaning in their lives. Some pray. Some write. Some create crazy things, like the world’s biggest twine ball (which I unfortunately, did not see. Here is a picture of somebody else with it though)

As much as I would have loved to see such a wonder, we were on a pretty tight schedule, and didn’t have time to make the detour to visit but we did get to see the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota, a 50ft Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN, and the world’s only corn palace.

In some instances, it seemed like some of these places were sustained really, only by these tourist traps.

Below is a photo of the wall of spam, with over 200o cans of spam lined an overhead display.

Our next stop was in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Despite fertile soils, and the 50 ft tall jolly green giant, there didn’t appear to be much going on in Blue Earth. It was hard to say what people actually did there. In some ways, it felt bit like time had simply frozen in the 1950s in many of these small towns.

We found luncb in a small cafe, serving iced coffee and microwaved burritos that i wouldn’t have eaten had I know they would be the nuke-em-ready type. After the unglorious lunch, we grabbed some food at the dairy queen down the road, and then hit the road again. It was getting pretty hot, especially midday, when we were doing most of our travellinng. It made for all sorts of cool things… like this neato mirage. Ah, what the crazed people crossing the deserts must have felt like.

We careened through the heat of day, until we hit the town of Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the World’s largest corn palace. Slightly ridiculous, even though it was only the exterior that had a thin layer of corn. This was still some ridiculous number of ears of corn.

After an enlightening time at the corn palace, I wanted to get some corn on the cob. strangely enough, there wasn’t a nearby vendor selling them! and the locals didn’t really know either. A travesty! oh well. we needed to hit the road, as we still had a long way to go though, until we would arrive at the City of Wall, our next checkpoint.

We were driving past golden fields now stretching as far as the eye could see, while the harvested hay was rolled into huge bundles, seemingly systematically abandoned. We were following the paths of the pioneers now, who must have looked on the land in wonder, this expanse of land that seemed to stretch on forever, broken only by a river that snaked across the landscape. We took a stop at the rest stop on the bluffs overlooking the river to watch the sunset and to strech our cramped legs. Katie and our other mascot Elessar especially appreciated the short break.

As darkness fell, we were still on the road, determined to get to our hotel as fast as possible. Right before the highway fell into darkness, there was a small bastion of civilization, and there in Big Al’s restaurant, in the town of Reliance, I decided to eat bioregionally, and tried not pemmican as Native Americans may have done, but buffalo burgers, its modern American counterpart. It did get the job done at satiating my belly, and so we continued bulleting down the highway.

Supposedly you’ve seen over 85 of the films listed, you have no life. There are 239 films on this list. I didn’t actually make this list up but apparently I have nothing better to do than to fill out junk like this…if you already think that you have a life don’t bother filling this thing out. My total was movies… so apparently I have a life. *sigh* if only it were true. So here goes!

( ) Rocky Horror Picture Show
( ) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
(x) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
( ) Neverending Story
( ) Blazing Saddles
( ) Airplane
Total:2

(x) The Princess Bride
(x) AnchorMan
( ) Napoleon Dynamite
(x) Labyrinth
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
( ) Anger Management
(x) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total so far: 5

(x) Scream
( ) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
( ) Scary Movie
( ) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(x) American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
( ) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
Total so far: 9

( ) Harry Potter 1
( ) Harry Potter 2
( ) Harry Potter 3
( ) Harry Potter 4
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
(x) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
(x) The Village
( ) Lilo & Stitch
Total so far: 12

(x) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
( ) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
( ) White Chicks
( ) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
( ) I, Robot
( ) Robots
Total so far: 13

( ) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(x) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
(x) Deep Impact
( ) KingPin
( ) Never Been Kissed
( ) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG
Total so far: 17

( ) A Cinderella Story
(x) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
(x) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
(x) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
( ) Flubber
Total so far: 20

( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
( ) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 21

(x) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child’s Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 28

( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
(x) Ocean’s Eleven
( ) Ocean’s Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremecy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
(x) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
(x) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
Total so far: 33

(x) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(x) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
(x) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 36

( ) Best Bet
(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She’s All That
( ) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
(x) Event Horizon
(x) Ever After
( ) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(x) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 43

(x) X-Men
(x) X2
( ) X-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Cr

Subject: Nitrogen

Experience leading project teams and dealing directly with the client. Must be able to Stamp in Florida.
If any, please tell us about any FL DOT experience.
What level of education have you attained?
Performs complex equipment trial runs, investigative tests, repairs and overhauls.
Why are you interested in a utility engineering manager position in south Florida? Engineering degree completed, when and where. Our client is actively looking for a Senior Project Manager to work in the Jacksonville, Florida area.
Microsoft Office knowledge is important. Relocation may be provided for the right candidate. Our client will provide references if needed.
Qualified candidates MUST be a U.
Ability to travel while considering budget priorities. Describe your experience with munitions research, design and development.
Describe the largest project that you worked on. Will diagnose and troubleshoot major truck electronic and electrical systems using computerized diagnostic equipment. Give an example where you ensured that goals and objectives of a program were accomplished within prescribed time frame and budget parameters. Describe your expertise in water chemistry, water and wastewater engineering designs.
Florida Utility Company has immediate need for an Electric Utility Transmission Planning Engineer. Large general contracting firm in southern Florida is actively seeking SUPERINTENDENTS. Contact Info:Please apply online at www. Other relevant industries include aerospace, food, pulp and paper, and pharmaceutical. Individuals with PE registration other than Florida must procure Florida registration within one year of appointment. These are long term contract positions.
As an Electrical Engineer? The ability to develop procurement documents to support statements of work and technical specification and test plans is desired. Architect needed for direct hire position in South , FL. Are you available to accept an immediate assignment?
Do you have forensic or investigative experience?
Please describe the most difficult project over which you had responsibility. Understanding of structural and thermal finite element analysis including static, transient, linear, and nonlinear modeling is required.

January
Just got back from a trip to Japan, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and then visited Katie in North Carolina, spent New Years lost in Norfolk, Virginia, looking for our hotel for a hour and a half. The hotel had hot tub, which was nice. The water in it was lukewarm, stung my eyes and dyed the laces to my swimming trunks pink, which wasn’t so nice. I also visited the site of the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Also, had my first psilocybin trip. Extremely messed up, but enlightening. Started the job hunt again, after a half-hearted effort in the last months of 2005, because of impending paid family trip to Asia.

February
Carried on the family tradition of going to Kam’s Bakery and Restaurant with Mark, Jackie et al. My father has gone there for lunch with his co-workers almost everyday for the last 18 years. Continued job hunt in earnest, becoming more acquainted with Vancouver’s enviromental job network. Valentine’s was spent apart from Katie, but I sent her postcards from around the world, forming a special message. I think they all just kind of arrived in a blob though. Oops.

March
Scored a 6 month internship with Environmental Youth Alliance. My first environmentally-related job, which is a good start. It was a really lucky break, and was such a blast! It seems like so many people in the environmental field in Vancouver have been involved with EYA at some point or another, which is always a good sign. I was a Urban Agriculture Intern, and I spent most of the week in Strathcona Community Garden, an beautiful urban oasis less than 10 minutes from the downtown eastside, one of the roughest neighbourhoods in the country. It was a really neat experience, just being exposed to so many plants every day, getting my hands dirty and learning how to grow things every day! Every Wednesday, we had a “training” workshop, where an intern presented a workshop on anything they wanted. My workshop was on building marshmellow guns. I learned to salsa, juggle, play with poi, and make board games and hackey sacks. Good times!
Much of March, I spent in elementary schools. Along with two other people, we went into schools, and gave presentations to kids about food, and food security. We taught them where food comes from, how to make healthy food choices, and how to grow their own food.
Started a new bank account with Vancity to commemorate my new job. They gave me a green VISA, with pretty leafy designs. Part of the money I spend gets donated to worthy causes!
Helped throw a surprise birthday for my mom. When we turned the lights on and yelled “surprise”, she had this incomprehensible look on her face, and we didn’t know if she was happy and angry. But she was happy.

April
My family traded in our Toyota 4runner, and my sister got a new VW GTI. We christened her Fluffy, after her license plate (FLF). Joyee and I attended Vandigicam’s portrait throwdown, which was a really cool event through Flickr, and we were filmed for this french program on CBC.
Had a birthday hotpot dinner with my friends. It was spectacular, and good fun. My parents gave me a laptop for my birthday, which was really cool, since my old computer was getting pretty ancient.
Jenn Whiting had a trade show for her work in Vancouver, and came to visit! We had all-you-can-eat korean bbq + japanese food. So stuffed. Also took her to see the sights.

May
EYA sent us to the children’s festival at Vanier Park, where we helped a buttload of kids plant seeds, with the naturally degrading sugar-based plant pot. Also helped make a cob house.
Dear came to visit in Vancouver, and I took her sightseeing in Vancouver, and to Vancouver Island for a day trip, and saw Cathedral Grove a place with some of the most amazing trees ever, as well as a wine and cheese by the river. I also fulfilled a life goal of eating a nanaimo bar in nanaimo, by a bar (well, a pub)
Started volunteering for the thrive! guide, a sustainable living guide for the lower mainland. Got to help out with doing research for various sections of the guide.

June
June was a bit hectic… My parents had gone on vacation, and the World Urban Forum was going to Vancouver. That whole month was filled with all sorts of awesome things related to urban planning and sustainability. EYA asked me to help them facilitate some sessions for the World Youth Forum they helped put on, and I was also involved in other ways creating some a cool living plant art piece that was at the public library. I got to meet some rad folks at the World Youth Forum, some peeps from Vancouver, across Canada, and all over the world! For almost two weeks, I was hitting the ground running, from 7:30 until 11:30 some days. I also got to be part of a youth drafting committee at the World Forum, and we helped in getting input to draft a speech that would be read at the closing ceremonies of the World Urban Forum, in front of all sorts of world dignitaries and bigwigs.

July
Starting watching Battlestar Galactica, with Mark, Dan and Sarah.
Katie decided to move to Seattle for us to be closer together, and to try something new. She flew out for weekend for a job interview and to see a few apartments, and I went down, and like any good boyfriend should do, locked my car keys in the power-locked trunk of my car. I ended up fixing it, in a secret way that the car manufacturers didn’t tell me when I phoned for help.
Two weeks, later, I flew to Erie, Pennsylvania, and the two of us embarked on a road trip of epic proportions, driving across the United States, with her worldly possession and her pet rat in trusty Ezra, her dodge stratus. It was a pretty amazing trip, one that still pops into my head from time to time.

August
Nearing the end of my EYA internship, and starting to look for jobs again.
Was a stills photographer for my friend Yu’s film, Can’t See For Looking. Such gorgeous lighting there, and a really neat experience!
Started volunteering for the Vancouver Fruit Tree Project. Go to random houses to pick fruit that would go to waste, and donate to needy organizations! good times!
Mark prepares to leave for Law School in Dalhousie in Halifax. I am sad, but happy for him!
Go on an Alaskan Cruise with my parents, joyee and my grandma. Ate too much food, saw humpbacks all sorts of awesome things, and glaciers, and killer whales! Oh my!
Fly into Seattle from Anchorage, and visit Katie, and go to bumbershoot, and watch katie do tricks with dry ice!

September
EYA internship ends. Re-enter the ranks of the unemployed. Start applying for jobs, but not much luck, despite a few interviews, including one that went fabulously. I also learn how to use the mountable speedlight flash for my digital slr. Fun ensues

October
Attend Bridging Towards Borders, a conference on food security. EYA hooks me up again, by helping land me a scholarship from BLAST (building local agricultural systems todat), and I get to meet inspirational kids from all over the states who are working on food issues. It includes a sumptuous feast of local deliciousness!
Had a really sweet bus ride down to seattle, one where random strangers can connect really well, and I talk to two people most of the ride down to seattle to visit Katie.
1/2 decade anniversary with Katie! we’re so old, wow. We spend it in Olympic National Park, camping partly in the rain, and cooking in the forest darkness. Katie gets to see the Real Pacific Coast. A wonderful time!
Find a posting on craigslist for a chance to help communities become sustainable. I apply to Real Living Solutions, and start volunteering for them. Start volunteering for them a few times a week
Halloween spent in Seattle with Katie. I carve a spaghetti squash, that I also eat for dinner. Dual use! I carve it into the facade of an old man. He is awesome! Katie carves an also awesome snake!

November
November was a month of ridiculous weather… Starting with so much rain it caused brown water by creating landslides into local water reservoir.
I continued to volunteer with Real Living Solutions, and they decide to hire me for a month.
Katie comes up for her B-day, and we do the hotpot thing again. It is delicious!
After the ridiculous bout of rain, this is followed by some ridiculous artic weather, with almost 18 inches of snow. I don’t get to enjoy it all that much though, with work everyday. I get off work to darkness, and it’s not very fun to do that. We also lost power, and had a giant maple tree in my front yard fall over.
I was involved with a North Shore Sustainability Initiative, and was part of the citizenry that got together to brainstorm the kind of community they wanted to live in. It was really cool, and inspiring, giving me hope for living on the North Shore.

December
Work continues, and I start to work with volunteers, training them to do some of the gruntwork as well.
Suddenly realize it is December, and am baffled.
Real Living Solutions decides to keep me on in January! I am officially employed, and given a raise! However, work is stressful, and I’m not used to the pace of business, and business-speak. I’m also supposed to do two things for multiple people at once, all with the same degree of urgency. ack.
Am visiting Katie quite frequently in Seattle, taking the 4 hour bus ride, where I can read, draw, listen to music, and catch up on sleep. It’s mostly relaxing, except at the border. I visit for a few days before christmas holidays, and go see the ACTUAL Dead Sea Scrolls. They are small bits of old paper, but it’s amazing to think that they are from over 2000 years ago. Now I’m paranoid about leaving my homework in a strange place. Will it be found in a few thousands year time?
Mark, Yu, Pat and Sarah return from their respective schoolings from afar, and it was really nice seeing them all!
christmas eve and christmas was spent with family, having some delicious feasts at home.
For New Years, Katie came up, and we had a nice Peking Duck Dinner with friends, and then went to Jason’s house for New Year’s! We played games (Pit, Cranium, drinking games), and just missed New Year’s! We were all looking outside the window of the … whoa, fireworks…. Oh YEAH! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It’s been all in all, a pretty good year. Starting to feel like people are changing incrementally, turning into the people they want to become, getting “real” jobs, getting engaged, getting married. Time seems be going faster as well, and it seems like people are getting older, bodies starting to not work as well as it once did. This is one of the first years where I’ve counted Jan-Dec, rather than September-April. The abolishing of the semester schedule can be disconcerting at times, but I think that it’s a good change. And it will be interesting to see what 2007 will bring.

Here’s at some of the possibilities for 2007:

Continue working at this new job, and hopefully get to take on more responsibility within the company. Perhaps finally finding some sort of financial stability in my life, hopefully enough to move out of my parents, and actually experience living in Vancouver and paying exorbitant rent. Figuring out more clearly what it is I want from life. Getting more involved with the environmental scene in Vancouver, being on the board of directors for two non-profits! Hopefully growing some food. Weekend camping trips! Studying for GREs. Doing more, planning Less. Unbecoming a pack rat. Doing lots of photography. Being more active, and ungimping my knee.

Many belated best wishes to you all!

I never really saw myself getting into it, but I’m essentially doing pre-sales marketing… Lookinng up potential clients, and preparing material to ge thtem interested. So I am doing a lot of internet research, which works out pretty well for me, since I’m pretty good at it… And what exactly is it that i’m trying to sell? Well essentially, it’s an online tool that helps organizations become more sustainable, but helping them model their operations around the prototypical triple-bottom-line sustainability model (environmental, social and economic) It’s a tool that makes the planning process of writing lengthy reports that nobody reads anyways, into a process that engages people, and lets them see how the different goals an organization (whether a community/city, an institution, or a progressive business) is aiming to achieve fit into the bigger picture of being sustainable. So really, it’s right down my lane, in terms of helping communities become more sustainable. The duties themselves that I’m doing aren’t necessarily building up my skills a lot, but I’m learning a lot, just by having so much exposuree to all these things… Learning about what kinds of things cities are doing, and coming into contact with a lot of people who have jobs that look really cool to me! So as far as I know, I’m working pretty much 5 days a week.

In some ways, I’m essentially doing what I’ve been doing at home, learning about urban planning, and sustainability, but now i’m getting paid to do it, and meeting people who are actually doing it! So I’m pretty pleased… There is a bit of me that is nagging inside, as to how whether this is a good choice, in terms of what I need in my career right now. I feel like I don’t have tons of clear-cut skills, and this job is pretty informal particularly in terms of its organization… everyone just does everything, really… so I’m not sure there is that typical progression, in terms of gaining skills… Would it be good to start in this kind of environment, where there’s not really a sense of clear-cut responsibilities to structure myself? Perhaps I should take this chance, to see how high I can go, in taking on those responsibilities… hmmmm, interesting. So we’ll see how this goes… It’s definitely a change to my schedule… Even though I’ve been on the computer as much as at home, I don’t feel the liberty of surfing wildly at will, or catching up on blogs and such, so I’ve been pretty behind in all that stuff… So i’ll have to establish a new routine. Hopefully a more balanced routine, where I can have a balance of activities. My supervisor had a great idea for getting enough sleep, and just sleeping better. Put your desk lamp on those timers that break the circuit at a given time, so that when bedtime rolls around, it’ll just cut your light off, and then when you need to wake up, it’ll come on, and wake you with light, instead of a blaring alarm, like i’ve been using lately. I should give it a shot and see how it goes.

In the other parts of my life, I’ve been seeing Katie a lot, which has been nice… She came up this weekend, for her birthday! So that was really nice… Went to capone’s for some live jazz and dessert on saturday, and then the fish hatchery and watching some battlestar galactica on sunday as well as a delicious birthday dinner at hotpot, then a cool medicinal herb workshop on monday at the Strathcona community garden, where we made a tincture! You know, those healing items you use in video games.. haha. I bought her the first season of Pinky and the Brain on DVD for her birthday… teehee, it’s 471 minutes of brainy goodness! Narf!

And before I go, I leave you with something I made from the amazing Chatfu comic strip generator. I am the monkey, and Katie is the human. Two reasons I love her… 1) She can make sense of the gibberish that comes out of my mouth (”fro man, that draws…”), and because she has a bob ross t-shirt!

created using chatfu - a comic strip generator

And while we’re on this antiquity binge, meet the bloggers of the 4th century AD

I didn’t get up to much for Halloween, just took it mellow in Seattle with Katie and gave out candy. Only 3 kids came to the door though… And we bought 3 BAGS! dammit kids, where are you?

I’ve been having fun with the jack ‘o lanterns lately… Katie carved snakey, while my creation, the old man is actually a spaghetti squash that we ate too! (Two uses in one!)

technorati tags:Halloween

lots of really cool people there… it’s funny, because there’s a few from wisconsin, and one actually from right around blue earth, minnesota, and some from the mississippi… so it was cool actually knowing where these kids were coming from, because of my road trip, and all the places I drove past during that time.
I’ve been finding that being surrounded by such positive energy regarding the “food movement” is really inspiring, and really makes me see how something along these lines could provide some sort of livelihood, which is really cool!

Tommorow, all the youth delegates are going to Strathcona Community Garden, and EYA’s gonna put them to work.. haha. naw, we’re just going to let them know what the garden is all about, and share a little bit of my past 6 months with them… but i think i hear rain outside… ahhhh… well, i’ll keep my fingers crossed!!

The result of combining Yuletide cheer, and the undead - the picture is pricess!

The folly of trekkie marriages - klingon law

Why you should go to farmer’s markets - Just a few of the reasons why I do love farmer market’s so…

live in harmony with the ways of the farm, and join the organic rebellion! - with names like cuke skywalker, TofuD2, and chewbrocolli, how can you resist?

New airline rules telling us what we can bring on a plane - Not just a ban on snakes, you say?

Beard Envy? Never! - okay, maybe just a little bit!

No words can describe this except simply… Amazing! - At the same time, what would inspire someone to do so?

and lastly, something awesome from my trip to Alaska… Whales! Also I love how excited everyone is nearer to the end of this clip.

Otherwise, read on…

July 16 Wisconsin Dells and reaching the Mississippi

The Economy Inn of America really was economy… They served “breakfast”, of individually packaged doughnuts. wow. healthy and delish! /end sarcasm
But it was a reasonable price, all in all. I do wish it was $3 one person though. haha.

So after our terrific breakfast, we hit the road, bypassing Chicago by going through a million toll booths, each of which cost us about 60 cents…

Wisconsin is famous for its large volume of cheese production, and people there are even sometimes called cheeseheads. So all things considered, I guess it was appropriate for a gas station to construct a 40 ft statue of a farmer dude holding big block ‘o cheese.

Eventually, we arrived at the Wisconsin Dells. I was rather surprised by it, having little expectation of what it would be like. A forested jewel amidst the nearby farmland, it was also one of the biggest tourist traps I’d ever seen. Rollercoasters, waterslides, theme parks, a Ripley’s Believe it or not museum, Ye old time vintage photo studios, all sorts of crap. I wish I had a photo of just how ridiculous it was, and how much visual pollution there was there. The Wisconsin Dells website gives you a taste of what it was like In my mind, all of these human contraptions were simply sullying the beauty of the dells.

Yet again, It’s been a while… I really suck at this whole blogging thing, but yet, I don’t give up. I’m still here, kicking at the dregs of blogdom. It’s not that I haven’t been online, I have been, probably excessively… Applying for jobs, reading blogs (and yes, not writing them), and surfing a buttload. In some ways, I think i’m a bit obsessed with information. There’s so much going on with the world, so many stories of heart-wrenching tragedy, and also of soaring hope, as well as inanity. I’m caught up in the endless sharing of ideas that the internet helps facilitate, and I’m definitely trying to wean myself off of it. It’s just too much information, and what I need to learn to do is synthesize. There must be some way to make use of this knowledge, to harness it, and to share it with the world…

There’s this brilliant tool called del.icio.us… It’s essentially and online bookmarking system, where you can share your links, as well as add useful tags to help you remember or share this information. For anybody who’s interested, you can see what I’ve been surfing here. I’m going to try to make it a sidebar on this blog so that it’s easier to see.
After the cut, I’ll talk about my trip to Alaska (with lots and lots of pictures!), and a little ramble of the thoughts in my head lately…

A cruise ship I saw in the distance


About to board the cruise ship

The main foyer of the ship

Me waiting to go canoeing

Clouds hanging out in the foreset

Close up of some Alaskan flora
And some shenanigans in the city of Ketchikan, land of appropriated animals….

Look, i’m a bear!

Look, joyee’s a bear

Ahhhh, an eagle!! Run!!

Our next stop was in Juneau, where the whole family went whale watching, and boy were we in for a treat!! Fantastic weather, and we were lucky enough to get to see pretty much everything the tour could offer us…

An nomadic orca

Sea lions resting on a buoy (was it because they have no ice bergs because of global warming?!)

Humpback Whales that came right up to the boat!! (they got even closer after I took this)

Humpback Whales breaching!!! weee!!

We really couldn’t have asked for more… Apparently our guide has never had all of these sightings, all in the span of one trip, in her 2 seasons of being a guide! And seeing truly wild animals, especially huge ones like whales is such a humbling experience…
After that adventure, we went back to Juneau and walked around town…

Alaska had some crazy ass masks!!!

Our 3rd port we stopped at was Skagway. We took this neat trainride through some pretty amazing mountain passes

Train going over a bridge

this old bridge (no longer used) reminds me of Back to the Future!! Anybody remember?

The next two days after that were spent at Glacier Bay, and College Fjord, both places with some breathtaking glaciers.

Glacier Bay

My sister, my dad and I

These glaciers, they’re unstoppable!

The glaciers are merging together

My parents trying not to look like they’re freezing their butts off

Another crazy shot of these amazing behemoths!

Sometimes they had this amazing blue hue to the ice

Haha, alright, that’s enough of the glaciers. They were really cool though.. (pun intended!)

Everyone cheering as the chefs came out to introduce themselves, after their hardwork the past week

Looking out at the open water

After that, I got back into Vancouver, and started to get busy doing research for the thrive guide , a sustainable living guide to Vancouver, and some job hunting as well.

So here I am now, and today I realized that I arrived back in vancouver from visiting Katie in North Carolina and leaving my life in Guelph, almost exactly one year ago. It really made me think about what I’ve done with myself since then. I’ve talked to some friends who plowed straight through into Grad School, and now they’re a year away from having a Master’s degree. In some ways, I’m a little envious, because it’s THAT much more you have in terms of credentials when you’re trying to find a career. But at the same time, I just don’t know what I want to do with my life to make that kind of time and financial commitment… While on the surface, I’m at the exact same point I was at last year, unemployed, I do feel like I have so much more direction, in terms of where I want to go and end up. Urban Planning, Urban Agriculture, and Environmental Design are all things that my spirit has been aiming towards, and the last year has revealed to me these fascinating subjects that are so crucial to the survival of human society as we know it, and is also this new fertile ground of creativity.
So my goal now is to figure out how it is exactly I want to make my mark on the world, and well, just start doing it. To stop reading about things, and actually trying things out, and learning about things by creating them. I do feel like I’m on the verge of something… not really a new beginning, but more of a germination, with patterns emerging from where the pieces that have fallen into place…

edit: I’m just going to break this down into smaller chunks… I think 2-3 day pieces

July 14 Arrival

I took a night flight to Cleveland, and for once, I found it impossible to fall asleep. I think I ended up watching Fantastic 4 or something. Night flights are always so peculiar, when it’s so hard to appreciate the distance you cover while careening through the darkened sky at almost 900km/h. The barely perceptible movement across the landscape reminds me of the vastness of the planet.

Morning came, and Katie and her mom Sue picked me up at the Cleveland airport, and back we went to Erie, and I talked to Sue about Net neutrality, about how there is the possibility of tiers of internet service, depending on what kind of network you were on. I always think it’s so cool that I’m able to talk about that kind of stuff with her… I know my mom wouldn’t have the least interest in something like that.

We took it easy for the evening, having shrimp and vegetable kebabs for dinner, followed by some delicious ice cream from brewster’s, and ending the night watching close encounters of the third kind I was pooped at this point, and was drifting in and out of sleep, and in some ways, it made the movie freakier, especially since Katie and I were planning on visiting Devil’s Tower on this trip. Then came a bit of last-minute packing, before passing out for the night.

July 15 Departure

We started the morning at Eat’n Park, where I was soundly defeated by the enormous American Portions. Returning to the house, we slowly began to move Katie’s stuff into the car, and trying to fit it together to maximize the space we had in Ezra, Katie’s 2001 dodge stratus. It reminded me of the simpsons episode where Homer uses his tetris skills to pack the car

Although really, it pretty much was…

After a tearful farewell, we hit the road shortly after lunch… drove through Ohio, and reached the 123 ft tall Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore by evening. Our first tourist stop really, but a nice one.

It was a beautiful place, and we were able to watch the sunset together, the fiery oranges smattering together with the mesmerizing blues. We tried looking for the green flash that you can see with certain sunsets, but no cigar. Creepy was the nuclear power plant smokestack imposing itself on the otherwise beautiful landscape. We hurried back to the car and hit the road, eager to get to our stop for the night. 40 minutes later, we were driving on a dark forsaken highway abounding in construction, so we were naturally elated when we finally saw the lights of civilization, and a sign proclaiming “The People of Gary Welcome You!”
We were quite starving at this point, and we had a few choices: Fast food, an all-night all-you-can-eat chinese buffet located conveniently beside a sketchy “Gentleman’s Club”, complete with pickup trucks in their dirt parking lot. And then there was Arman’s…

I was sold! How can one resist a sign that offering “Jolly good food”. It ended up being delish… A mean Seafood Gumbo, and roasted corn with chili butter. The owner was this frank, gruff yet admirable fellow, who seemed a bit like he had once wanted more in life, but was resigned to what he had, and was honest and proud of in what he did. It just really seemed like he gavea damn about his workers. We could see that he was about to close up, but when we offered to eat on the picnic benches outside, he declined, and said “No, when you pay me, it’s also to be able to sit here and enjoy your meal”. Maybe it’s just that I’ve never worked/managed food establishments, but to me, he seemed to take pride in what he did, and wasn’t just apathetic, even though he knew we were tourists we would likely never come back again.

The fiasco began after dinner, when we drove out the parking lot without our headlights, and was promptly stopped by a passing police cruiser. At first we were worried we had ran a red light or stop sign, but he just gave us a warning. Two warnings, actually. The written warning telling us to turn on our lights, and a spoken warning, that we shouldn’t stick around for the night, as the area was a high drug area. Sketched out, we followed his advice and drove to the next town, except when we got there, pretty much ALL the hotels were booked up, as if there was some bible conference or something. We drove around to 3 or 4 places, and were freaked out by the high security… All the front desks having glass panes at the counter (like movie theatres). Eventually, we got a room at the Economy Inn of America for $67, so snagged it, snuck Katie’s rat Elly into the room, and hit the sack.

Okay, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more!

I’ve been meaning to post earlier, and write about my fantastic road trip across the US with Katie, but alas, it has been a busybusy time. I’ve spent the last week writing in my journal just to wrap my brain around everything that we did on the trip, and this past weekend, my friend Yu asked me to be the movie stills photographer for her short film, so this weekend has been been a write-off. Katie was even supposed to come up this weekend, but at the last minute, I realized that I would most likely be staying there realllly late every day, and that this weekend wouldn’t be the best time. Good idea, since I ended up getting home the past two days at 3am and 1am, respectively. Wouldn’t have left much time to spend with my love, would it? But helping out with this film has been such a fascinating learning experience… Just the work that goes into creating a scene… Simply amazing. And I was able to get a few good shots, even though my lenses aren’t quite fast enough, resulting in a number of blurry blurry shots. It was also my first time really shooting with professional lighting, which was super spiffy! Will post photos when I download them!

But I’m still chugging away at this my road trip chronicles… I have not forgotten ye! So Hang in there, peeps! Wonders shall abound!
Peace.

p.s. oh, I came up with a lame joke! Wanna hear it? Guess you don’t have a choice!

Q: What did the ball say when it wanted to leave?
A: “Let’s roll!”
*Ba-dum-chhhhh*

Subject: Amazon rainforest ‘could become a desert’
From: Scott Sinclair
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:56:47 -0700

This is seriously scary.

Scott

ITEM #1: Amazon rainforest ‘could become a desert’
ITEM #2: Dying Forest: One year to save the Amazon

ITEM #1
Title: Amazon rainforest ‘could become a desert’
And that could speed up global warming with ‘incalculable
consequences’, says alarming new research
Source: Copyright 2006, The Independent
Date: July 23, 2006
Byline: Geoffrey Lean and Fred Pearce

The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into
desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world’s climate,
alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be
irreversible, could begin as early as next year.

Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out
in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand
more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking
down.

Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern
hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate
global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of
control, a process that might end in the world becoming
uninhabitable.

The alarming news comes in the midst of a heatwave gripping
Britain and much of Europe and the United States. Temperatures
in the south of England reached a July record of 36.3C on
Tuesday. And it comes hard on the heels of a warning by an
international group of experts, led by the Eastern Orthodox ”
pope” Bartholomew, last week that the forest is rapidly
approaching a ” tipping point” that would lead to its total
destruction.

The research ­ carried out by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole
centre in Santarem on the Amazon river ­ has taken even the
scientists conducting it by surprise. When Dr Dan Nepstead
started the experiment in 2002 ­ by covering a chunk of
rainforest the size of a football pitch with plastic panels to
see how it would cope without rain ­ he surrounded it with
sophisticated sensors, expecting to record only minor changes.
The trees managed the first year of drought without difficulty.
In the second year, they sunk their roots deeper to find
moisture, but survived. But in year three, they started dying.
Beginning with the tallest the trees started to come crashing
down, exposing the forest floor to the drying sun.

By the end of the year the trees had released more than two-
thirds of the carbon dioxide they have stored during their
lives, helping to act as a break on global warming. Instead they
began accelerating the climate change.

As we report today on pages 28 and 29, the Amazon now appears to
be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the
possibility that it could start dying next year. The immense
forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough in itself to
increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.

Dr Nepstead expects “mega-fires” rapidly to sweep across the
drying jungle. With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the
sun and the rainforest could become desert.

Dr Deborah Clark from the University of Missouri, one of the
world’s top forest ecologists, says the research shows that “the
lock has broken” on the Amazon ecosystem. She adds: the Amazon
is “headed in a terrible direction”.

Fred Pearce is the author of ‘The Last Generation’ (Eden Project
Books), published earlier this year

ITEM #2
Title: Dying Forest: One year to save the Amazon
Source: Copyright 2006, The Independent
Date: July 23, 2006

Deep in the heart of the world’s greatest rainforest, nine days’
journey by boat from the sea, Otavio Luz Castello is anxiously
watching the soft waters of the Amazon drain away. Every day
they recede further, like water running slowly out of an
unimaginably immense bath, threatening a global catastrophe.

He pointed out what was happening on Wednesday, standing on an
island in a quiet channel of the giant river. Just a month ago,
he explained, it had been entirely under water. Now it was
jutting a full 15 feet above it.

It is a sign that severe drought is returning to the Amazon for
a second successive year. And that would be ominous indeed. For,
as we report on page 12 today, new research suggests that just
one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest
into a cycle of destruction.

Just the day before, top scientists had been delivering much the
same message at a remarkable floating symposium on the Rio
Negro, on whose strange black waters this capital city of the
Amazon stands. They told the meeting - convened on a flotilla of
boats by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Greek Orthodox
Church, dubbed the “green Pope” for his environmental activism -
that global warming and deforestation were rapidly pushing the
entire enormous area towards a “tipping point”, where it would
irreversibly start to die.

The consequences would be truly awesome. The wet Amazon, the
planet’s greatest celebration of life, would turn to dry
savannah at best, desert at worst. This would cause much of the
world - including Europe - to become hotter and drier, making
this sweltering summer a mild foretaste of what is to come. In
the longer term, it could make global warming spiral out of
control, eventually making the world uninhabitable.

Nowhere could seem further from the world’s problems than the
idyllic spot where Otavio Luz Castello lives. The young
naturalist’s home is a chain of floating thatched cottages that
make up a research station in the Mamiraua Reserve, halfway
between here and Brazil’s border with Colombia.

Rare pink river dolphin play in the tranquil waters surrounding
the cottages, kingfishers dive into them, giant, bright
butterflies zig-zag across them and squirrel monkeys romp in the
trees on their banks. And an 18ft black caiman answers,
literally, to the name of Fred; gliding up to dine abstemiously
on sliced white bread when called. There is little to suggest
that it may be witnessing the first scenes of an apocalypse. The
waters of the rivers of the Amazon Basin routinely fall by some
30-40 feet- greater than most of the tides of the world’s seas -
between the wet and dry seasons. But last year they just went on
falling in the worst drought in recorded history.

In the Mamiraua Reserve they dropped 51 feet, 15 feet below the
usual low level and other areas were more badly affected. At one
point in the western Brazilian state of Acre, the world’s
biggest river shrank so far that it was possible to walk across
it. Millions of fish died; thousands of communities, whose only
transport was by water, were stranded. And the drying forest
caught fire; at one point in September, satellite images spotted
73,000 separate blazes in the basin.

This year, says Otavio Luz Castello, the water is draining away
even faster than the last one - and there are still more than
three months of the dry season to go. He adds: “I am very
concerned.”

It is much the same all over Amazonia. In the Jau National Park,
18 hours by boat up the Rio Negro from here, local people who
took me out by canoe at dawn found it impossible to get to
places they had reached without trouble just the evening before.
Acre, extraordinarily, received no rain for 40 days recently,
and sandbanks are already beginning to surface in its rivers.
Flying over the forest - with trees in a thousand shades of
green stretching, for hour after hour, as far as the eye can see
- it seems inconceivable that anything could endanger its
verdant immensity. Until recently, scientists took the same
view, seeing it as one of the world’s most stable environments.
Though they condemned the way that, on average, an area roughly
the size of Wales is cut down each year, this did not seem to
endanger the forest as a whole, much less the entire planet. Now
they are changing their minds in the face of increasing evidence
that the deforestation is pushing both the Amazon and the world
to the brink of disaster.

Dr Antonio Nobre, of Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian
Research, told the floating symposium - whose delegates ranged
from politicians and environmentalists, to Amazonian Indian
shamans and Roman Catholic cardinals - of unpublished research
which suggests that the felling is both drying up the entire
forest and helping to cause the hurricanes that have been
battering the United States and the Caribbean.

The hot, wet Amazon, he explained, normally evaporates vast
amounts of water, which rise high into the air as if in an
invisible chimney. This draws in the wet north-East trade winds,
which have picked up moisture from the Atlantic. This in turn
controls the temperature of the ocean; as the trade winds pick
up the moisture, the warm water that is left gets saltier and
sinks.

Deforestation disrupts the cycle by weakening the Amazonian
evaporation which drives the whole process. One result is that
the hot water in the Atlantic stays on the surface and fuels the
hurricanes. Another is that less moisture arrives on the trade
winds, intensifying drought in the forest. “We believe there is
a vicious cycle” says Dr Nobre.

Marina Silva, a fiery former rubber-tapper who is now Brazil’s
environment minister, described how the Government was finally
cracking down on the felling by seizing illegally cut logs,
closing down illicit enterprises and fining and imprisoning
offenders. As a result, she says, it dropped by 31 per cent last
year.

But even so, it has only returned to the levels it was in 2001,
still double what it was 10 years before. And it has reached far
into the forest after the American multinational Cargill built a
huge port for soya three years ago at Santarem, some 400 miles
downriver from here.

This encouraged entrepreneurs to cut down the trees to grow the
soya.

The symposium flew down en masse to inspect the damage this had
caused - vast fields of beans destined to feed supermarket
chickens in Europe, where until recently there had been lush,
trackless forest.

Priests and community leaders who were campaigning to protect
the forest told us how they had received repeated death threats.

So far about a fifth of the Amazonian rainforest has been razed
completely. Another 22 per cent has been harmed by logging,
allowing the sun to penetrate to the forest floor drying it out.
And if you add these two figures together, the total is growing
perilously close to 50 per cent, which computer models predict
as the “tipping point” that marks the death of the Amazon.

The models did not expect this to happen until 2050. But, says
Dr Nobre, “what was predicted for 2050, may have begun to happen
in 2005.” Nobody knows when the crucial threshold will be
passed, but growing numbers of scientists believe that it is
coming ever closer.

One of Dr Nobre’s colleagues, Dr Philip Fearnside, puts it this
way: “With every tree that falls we increase the probability
that the tipping point will arrive.”

Brazilian politicians say that the country has so many other
pressing problems that the destruction is unlikely to be brought
under control, unless the world helps to pay for the survival of
the forest on which it too depends. Calculations by Hylton
Philipson, a British merchant banker and rainforest campaigner,
reckon that it will take $60bn (£32bn) a year, less than a third
of the cost of the Iraq war.

The scientists insist there is no time for delay. “If we do not
act now”, says Dr Fearnside, “we will lose the Amazon forest
that helps sustain living conditions throughout the world.”

Hmmm. well then.

I’m flying to Katie’s house in Pennsylvania on Thursday… She’s moving out to Seattle to be closer with me, and so we’ll be driving across the States. We’ll be basically following Interstate 90 all the way to Seattle. Going to see the sights, like Mt. Rushmore, lots of crazy caves, Yellowstone Park, ghost towns and hopefully all sorts of tourist traps. It’s been easy to forget that the US is such a big place… Sure Canada’s bigger, but we have 10 times less the number of people…
It’ll be the 2nd major road trip that I’ve had as a non-child. And by far the longest one.
Here’s a picture of the roughly the route we’ll be taking:

I think I’m need of a journey. What I was saying about finding myself… It’s possible to do this without moving your body at all, but there’s something about the way landscapes change that force the mind to re-examine where it is, and catalyze its transformation. And I can think of nobody better to do this with than Katie…. We’ve been apart essentially for all of the past year, and we really do need something to reconnect us.

It’s hard to make my mind understand that this isn’t just a road trip for fun and games… We’re packing Katie’s worldly possessions into a car, and moving them all across the continent. It’s going to be cramped, and we can’t mosey as much as we’d like. Understandably, it’ll also be a big of a stressful time, with Katie moving so far away from everything that she’s familiar with, so I’m hoping that I can help her ease into things a bit more smoothly.

It’s weird that it’s so soon, that Katie will be less than a 3 hr drive away. There’s the possibilities of weekend visits, of going camping trips, and just hanging out without school worries, which was what our relationship during university had to deal with for most of the time.

So in more ways than one, this stasis is coming to a close… of my mind (in my recognition of the need for movement), and of my heart (in finally being able have a less-long distance relationship, where I can seem them more than 4 times a year). I’ve started packing for my trip, travelling light. Clothes? check. Toothbrush? check. Camera? check. Journal? check. And I’m ready to roll.

*rolls away*

I did feel the effects of being away from each other for so long though… There is definitely a sense of synchronicity that wasn’t quite matched up, or that we were unused to. Even when I went up to her hotel room, imagining how I would greet her, she was there, walking down the hall, not to find me, but rather to fight off starvation by getting a snack in the lobby. Or even just the cadence of our thoughts are a bit assymetrical, because as much as two people can talk on the phone, there are those subtle nuances when the whole range of non-verbal communication is factored in. That said, I’m sure the stress and excitement of moving to a new place, where you know almost nobody, job uncertain, housing uncertain, packing up your life in a car, and driving across america would make a mess of the minds of many people.

And I’ve decided that what I need isn’t the most sophisicated alarm clock on the planet, but just Katie to fall asleep to, to regulate my impaired sleeping habits. When all you have is a body pillow and some stuffed animals, there’s just no incentive for me to get to bed. Give me a warm body to snuggle up to anyday. It’s like I’m feeding off of her circadian rhythms.

There were a few moments of ridiculousness on this trip. It was Wednesday night, and we were trying to grab some food in downtown Seattle, and for the life of us, we couldn’t find any good restaurants that were open. Apparently Downtown Seattle is a hotbed of french dinner cuisine. Escargot, veal, duck and cheese plates galore, but it just wasn’t that kind of night. There was this one restaurant with appetizers going for almost $10, and entrees going for $25-35 cdn. Ugh. We did end finding a gem of an african restaurant, and we got this delicious sample plate of different african curry dishes. The other incident, which is possibly one of the more ridiculous things to happen to me, is that as we were putting our luggage into the trunk of my car (which is actually my mom’s), I guess I had put the keys in the cardboard box in the trunk as I was rearranging everything. As the trunk was swinging shut, I had this pang of panic as I heard the solid thunk of the trunk closing, and the flashing brake lights signalling the trunk was locked, to prevent thieves from getting into it.
Sure enough, I was NOT in possession of these keys. Instead, the cardboard box inside the largely impenetrable trunk was now holding the keys hostage. Katie had just run off to get directions to this apartment she was going to look at, and I felt my heart sink. Fuckfuckfuck.

I had overheard stories with my dad’s friends about the keys for these new mercedes. She had thought she had lost the keys to her car one time, and had to reissue a specially programmed key and remote, costing hundreds of dollars. And here I was in downtown Seattle, about 300 kilometres from Vancouver, and the spare keys (at home), and a girlfriend who had gone to find directions to an apartment I was driving to see with her, in half a hour. Just peachy. We called Lang Towing, the operator of the parking lot, and they arrived in about 20 minutes and were kind of helpful. At least they were pleasant. Katie said she had this one dude arrive and he just sat and laughed at her plight. They opened the door to the car alright, but in doing so set off the alarm, which disabled the power locks. So we were sitting here, siren just going nuts, with no way to get into the trunk. The dude basically shrugs, and tells me to phone my dealership, and then try to get them to use my vehicle ID number to get a new key/remote cut/programmed for me at a seattle dealership. Hmm, good idea! Either that, or hire a locksmith to get a new key, which would cost a pretty penny and then some. He wishes us good luck, and tells us to be on our way. Somewhat relieved to at least be in the car, I’m sitting in the passenger seat and put down my bags,, when I realize that i should get a hold of the dealership. I get out of the car, and close the door.
I hear Katie’s voice right beside me, “Don’t close the —” *THUNK*
greattt… yay for my incompotence. Now her purse is stuck in there, with her ID and wallet. She’s supposed to leave today to go back home at 7:50. It’s currently lunchtime.

So we go to the hotel’s business centre to find the number to my mom’s dealership. They tell me that if I have Teleaid, they can send someone over and just a code to pop the trunk. But of course, our family didn’t count on my incompetence to leave the keys in the trunk. So they say they can send someone from Downtown road assistance to fix it.

“They can open the trunk to get my keys?”
“Yeah, they can fix the problem for you. They’ll be there in 45 minutes, or less”

Relieved, we sneak a copy of the USA Today, while we wait outside for the downtown road assistance to arrive. We get a call on Katie’s phone 40 minutes later asking where we were, and if we needed to replace a flat tire. Things are NOT looking good, and we’re both skeptical of this person’s ability to help us in any way whatsoever. Sure enough, they arrive, and have even more trouble than the first person, just getting our door open, while we futilely try to explain to him that the keys are in the trunk, and that we CANNOT open the trunk. He asks us if we’ve pressed the trunk release, which we have done already, but is non-functional from the disabling of the power locks, and even after we tell him we have, he is insistent on pressing the trunk release himself. After attempting this, he tells me exactly what the last person told me, that he can’t help me, and that I should look into getting spare keys UPSed from Vancouver, or get the car towed to the local seattle dealership, and get them to open it somehow, if i don’t want to pay a locksmith hundreds to get me a new key.

So I phone the vancouver dealership to basically tell them that they didn’t help me at all. I was transferred all over, to this man with a british accent to told me that I was most likely SOL. The one chance I had was to bring it to the seattle dealership. The car. Tow it to the dealership, and MAYBE they might be able to help me, and maybe see if I have TeleAid But most likely, I wouldn’t be able to open it, because you DEFINITELY can’t just program remotes to open specific cars. Argh. I get the seattle dealership’s number from him, and tell my sob story to this other guy who says that they probably can’t do anything for me, but that he would look into a few things and then call me back. At this point, I’m envisioning my mom having to drive down to seattle to bring the spare keys down, and katie having to take a cab to the airport, and not be able to see ANY apartments at all. Aggravated, I start pushing buttons on the dashboard, and I hit the button for the hazard lights. which is one button away from the power unlock button. And lo and fucking behold, all the locks are released with the resounding click. My mouth drops, and I dash outside and sure enough, the trunk is unlocked.

In-fucking-compotence.

All of those mercedes dudes, the roadside assistance people, and especially me. After all that, i could have opened it if I had missed the power unlock button by an inch. As we’re driving, the guy from the seattle dealership phones and tells me he has bad news for me. I tell him I have good news for him, that I’m currently driving down the street.
Katie and I go see this cute little apartment with a view of the Space needle, a little studio with a walk-in closet. It’s cute, but a bit pricey at $675 + utilities… Otherwise, it’s a pretty sweet deal, even if the kitchen is small. There’s another place a few floors up with a great view of the water for an extra $75. There’s another place we tried to look at elsewhere, but it turned out to be some random house with no one around, so we gave up on that.
Next stop was the Pacific Science Center, where she had to drop off a completed application form. I had some drama for me at the Subway instead. I really needed to make use of their restroom facilities, after not going all morning, so I amble in and do my business. As I come out, a dude tells me that I now have to go buy something. I go line up, but it’s so damn long, and I’ve paid for 10 minutes of parking, so while he’s cleaning a table, so when I turn the corner, and boot out of there. I faintly heard his insistent voice trailing behind me, but I lose him as the sounds of traffic rush past me.
We go to Pike place market next, driving past the original star bucks store. There’s this amazing group of acapella soul-singers. They were just amazing. Had sandwiches for lunch. BBQ salmon sandwich. Yum. and walk around. It’s a pretty neat place. Lots of delicious looking food, and neat little shops. Somehow, I needed to go the bathroom again, and I just wanted to check out this crazy auto-cleaning bathroom they have at the market. It has little sliding elevator doors to the room, and this crazy cleaning function. I felt like I was on the set of star trek. But as I was doing my business, I kept hearing whirring and clicking noises, and I peed in constant fear of getting myself sprayed and sanitized. Luckily I survived. Next thing we knew, it was time to for Katie to leave Seattle. She’s arriving back in Erie, and then going straight to Tobermory for some camping with her family. Should be a fun time! And then in just another week, I’ll be with her again, setting out to drive across America, to move out here! ahhhhhh!! craziness!
And now, I’m pooped.

I swear it was just yesterday that I was getting ready to go to the world youth forum and the world urban forum. Slightly apprehensive with the prospect of facilitating so many passionate and socially conscious-minded youth from all around the world for the weekend. But the World Youth Forum went relatively well, all in all, given our logistical limitations. If anything, the organizers were maybe a bit overambitious in what they wanted to achieve.
I was assisting in leading the environment group (one of 7 different theme groups at the world youth forum) around vancouver, and we visited the community garden where I work, as well as going sailing and kayaking at Vanier Park.

But all was not just work… I was able to make a few friends throughout that week at WUF, mostly Canadians, and we hung out after all the talks were finished, and went out for dinner and such. We even went for a picnic at Stanley Park, complete with Candied Smoke Salmon and 3 bottles of wine. Simply fun!

Some other World Urban Forum related activities were a living park bench art installation that EYA commissioned to a local artist to help build. Us interns helped with parts of its construction, from growing the plants, to bringing the installation to the site and assembling it. The idea behind it explores the concept of public space, and utilizing it in the form of productive food crops as a self-sustaining system, with a rain collection and irrigation system, as well as a compost system to complete the nutrient cycle.

The next thing that has been coming me now is Katie. My dear dear Katie, who i’ve been apart from for almost a year now. After graduation, we decided to tough it out, doing the long distance deal, with me in BC and her in North Carolina, and for so long, it seemed like the opportunity for us to be together would never arrive, and that we’d be stuck flying across the continent and making 1 week visits 4 times a year to somehow sustain the relationship. But she’s decided to move to Seattle to basically be closer to me, and words cannot describe how excited I am right now. It’s as if my soul can actually sense that her presence is closer than it has been for a long time, and I’m feeling more alive, in the knowledge that she’s merely 300km away! She’s actually there right now, for a job interview this morning (Good luck), to be a Science-on-the-go Outreach Educator! She gets to use an inflatable planetarium! Soooo cool!! hahaha *geeks out*
So I’m hoping that she gets this job, but if she doesn’t, she’ll be driving out from Pennsylvania all the way to Washington in less than 2 weeks at any rate! And I’ll be flying over to drive back with her!! *so excited* road trip!
We’ll hopefully be essentially retracing the Oregon Trail out west. Damn, i feel like I’m a pioneer already! And seeing Mt. rushmore, as well as a number of other ridiculous monuments! it’s going to be a blast, if all works out!

And best thing yet, is that I took this thursday off, so I’m going to go visit her a day! YAY!
time for bed, cuz the i’ll be 5 more hours closer to being in her arms! *yes, i do feel like a lovesick puppy*

Things are starting to come together though, I think. Katie and I have set a date….
for her to move to seattle, that is! haha. I’m gonna try and see if I can book a few days off to fly over, and drive across the continent with her. funfunfun…

speaking of setting dates, this is adorable… the pinnacle of geek love, i would say!

And one of the greatest cultural artefacts of our age?

Oh, and today,
I discovered the magic of….

Using your FEET to draw things on microsoft paint!!
simply amazing!!!
Check it out!

5 imaginary dollars for the first person to guess what this is a picture of!

okay, this post has been more than “kind of” random.

But yeah, my friend and I started giving this ant its own life story, about an ant who had been seperated from his colony, and forced to find his identity in a world without his colony. Ants are a collective species, and usually don’t exist without their colonies, and we wondered how the ant would come to grips with who he was, now that he was alone… away from his queen, his family, his love.
Does he have a purpose to live anymore?

He is then exposed to a world of wonderful new things, strange lands, all kinds of insects that teach him life lessons along his journey. I was going to make a webcomic out of this, but I don’t really have the skillz to pull it off, both artistically or in terms of website savviness. But the vagrant ant is, in a way, is a sort of story of my own life, as a wanderer in my life, trying to learn and grow and find meaning.

One day, I will create this comic!

Check one off…, originally uploaded by vagrantant.

my list of life goals…
To have a nanaimo bar leaning on a bar, by a bar(pub) in nanaimo!

Currently, I am in a mostly carless state… my parents traded in the old Toyota 4Runner SUV (yay!), to get a car for my sister… so she has a shiny new VW 2007 GTI… it’s also standard, so combined with the fact that it’s also my sister’s car now, I don’t have ready access to a car. I don’t really have any complaints about that right now, since I’m not using it to get to work at all. I’ve just been using monthly bus passes, and it takes me about 40 minutes to get to work, which isn’t shabby at all, and sometimes my sister carpools me 1/2 way to work anyways, so it’s worked out.

Speaking of work, work has been just super… The other interns I work with are all pretty cool, and the job itself is pretty chill. For most of april, me and two other girls went into elementary schools to give presentations about food. We talked about where food comes from, healthy food choices, and taught them to grow some of their own vegetables. All in all, we went to about 25 different class rooms, so we talked to over 600 kids withint about a 3 week span or so, so that was a really neat experience. I also got to know the vancouver transit system REALLY well, so that was just one of the side benefits of that, I guess. The kids usually seemed pretty keen about the whole presentation, especially being able to grow food.

We’ve also been working on this terraced garden that we call the “means of production”. Basically a grassy hill in a park that the Environmental Youth Alliance took over and just started to a garden in. The really cool thing about this garden is that it is being used to grow supplies for artists supplies! willows for basket weaving or charcoal for drawing, irises for making paper, and various trees that are used for intricate inlay work on carpentry projects like guitars or cabinets and such. As well, they have got a small fruit orchard, with a number of pear and apple trees, and various varieties of strawberries and blueberries!

We’ve also been growing a whole variety of plants, in order to save for seed. It’s all organic and natural gardening, and we’ve grown at least 4 kinds of beans, tomatoes, 3 kinds of lettuce, beets, chard, oriental greens, herbs and more!
We’ve also gone to this school, to help them beautify their school grounds by replacing compacted grass and gravel with all sorts of native plants. And another project we’re currently doing is the conversion of a rooftop ornamental garden at the YWCA into a viable vegetable garden. There’s been the share of not-so-pleasant experiences, like shovelling rotting compost that had been left unturned for 4 months too long, or spending the good part of an bonejarring afternoon pickaxing compact clay, but really, i can’t complain. it’s all been such an interesting learning experience. Last week was spent at the Vancouver children’s festival, where we ran a booth, where kids came and planted seeds to take home, in a small biodegradeable pot that could be placed right into the ground when transplanting. Just amazing! We were provided with delicious, nutritious and free food (courtesy of Capers community markets) Organic milk, fair trade chocolate samples, and much more. On top of it all, the marketing coordinator at capers seemed to really like me, and told me to apply for a job there if I wanted one after my internship was over! sweet! After work that whole week, we would sneak into the volunteer tent to snack on some more free food, and then go to the beach and just hang out, and chill out. One day, I found some bread buns on the ground, and just decided to start juggling them.

Speaking of juggling… that is something that I learned to do at work!! And got paid for it!!! Every wednesday, one of the intern facilitates a workshop, and so everyone has just been bringing their skill to the table, and teaching all sorts of great things… One was a workshop on juggling. We’ve also done salsa and merengue dance, designing board games, making duct tape wallets, learning meditation, or the intricacies of hacky sack. One intern also ran an event called Foods Not Bombs (where we approached businesses for food donations that was perfectly edible, but was not fit to sell), and then cooked vegetarian meals for people who were living in poverty/on the streets, and went to nearby parks to distribute. Two other workshops were on acting and finding oneself through voice and movement.

This week, we’ve been learning how to install drip irrigation in this small apple orchard in the community garden that we work in… It’s a pretty interesting idea, and something that really does give one a sense of accomplishment, after a good day of work. Our next impending project is to create an art piece for the World Youth Forum in mid-June.. One that integrates the concepts of what urban agriculture is about, so that should be really quite exciting… I think that we’ll be doing a mandala, essentially a geometrical pattern that is supposed to symbolically represent a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective. They’re often used for meditation… So we’ll be making this out of plants, sticks, stones, sand, and perhaps even found objects… It should be a really interesting project!

I’ve also become involved with the thrive! guide, which is a guide on sustainable living in Vancouver… It’s going to be a 200 page booklet that will be available as a resource for people to find out how to live more lightly on this planet of ours. I’m volunteering as a research and writing assistant, so that has been a pretty interesting experience, for sure! It will be super good experience, and just terrific being part of something that is so positive, which is important when you are fighting this seemingly endless battle for the future.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t been enjoying myself… I’ve been super lucky this past month or so… A whole bunch of my friends from Guelph have been coming to visit Vancouver! My friend Jenn came earlier in april as did ebru, and Dear will be coming tommorow, so it’s good to see these terrific people, after not seen them basically since the end of august! And it seems like a whole bunch of guelphies are starting to make their way westwards, which is just awesome!
Speaking of making their way westward, my dearest Katie has also decided to check out the scene on the West coast… she’s quit her job at the aquarium, and will be moving back home to her parents for a month to recharge, and then driving all the way across the continent, essentially! I really hope that I’ll somehow be able to fly one-way to drive at least part of the way with her, so that she doesn’t have to drive by her lonesome, because really, that is not much fun at all. So I guess that will be the end of beach bumming, diving in shark tanks, and watching the Atlantic ocean crash on the shore, and startling the ghost crabs. It will also mean she can watch the waves of the Pacific crash instead, and the end of mysterious phone calls that will suddenly decide to crap out, and the two of us being within a 3 hour drive of each other. After a year of not living about a 50 hour drive away, it’ll be a nice change, and it’s still hard to really grasp the fact that I will be able to hold her in my arms again. *sigh* So yeah, that’s basically been me this past month or two… There’s been more especially in my mental realm, but that shall have to wait for another day..

Night Bus

There is a taste,
a taste of sweetness
sugar left in the mouth two hours too long
while watching street lights streak by
light trails away from there,
a place of stasis; the bus stop
a bus stops, screeches and halts
to let me join the ranks
of the formerly stranded passengers of the night

to careen towards a land of silent trees
hushed voices insulated from the shadows outside,
that tired eyes see peering from windows without

and then, almost home, just
the pneumatic swish of doors to stand
in between me and my dreams.

Some of the other streams are community assets mapping, which is identifying resources for different groups in the community, whether it’s first nations people, people with disabilities, or new immigrants. And the last stream is concerned with the World Urban Forum… this is a crazy event going on in June in Vancouver… It’s an urban sustainability conference that happens every 2 years, and it’s run in partnership with the UN-HABITAT program. this year is the 30th anniversary of the event, so some people will be really involved in helping organize the event… And I dunno, this position is really cool, cuz we’ll be getting paid to go to events… like the world urban forum, which has a lot to do with urban planning, which is what i am seriously considering in going into for my masters at some point down the road… I’m working with 11 other interns, and they all seem really cool… really really diverse group, and it’ll definitely be interesting working with them!

I suppose the only downside that it’s not a lot of money involved, but honestly, it’s definitely about the experience of this position…. and being surrounded by so much positive energy is really awesome, and EYA knows so many people and organizations in vancouver, they’ll definitely help in networking around and getting contacts for jobs and such…. And being in the urban agriculture stream, i’ll get to get my hands dirty every day, and also get to be outside and enjoy the sunshine! Very exciting stuff!

I guess I’ve also been a little busy… at my INTERNSHIP!!! whoa! yeah, i’m gainfully employed now, at an environmental non-profit, called Environmental Youth Alliance(EYA). They’re pretty rad… I’ll tell you more about what I’m doing in the next post, i just need to unload some mental thoughts. But in brief, I’m quite a happy camper, and am super happy about the situation, happy to be surrounded by such positive energy, and am going to make the most of this experience, to network as much as possible, and to just out in the environmental community…

Since I’ve started the job, I’ve been commuting by bus a lot more, and it’s been much less painless than I imagined. It’s all in your mindset, and how you approach the idea of commuting… If you just give yourself a bit more time to get to your destination, it can actually be a reasonably enjoyable experience. I’ve also just been OUT in vancouver much more, rather than being cloistered in the suburbia of north vancouver, and it’s been easy to get around to events and such, which is super cool. It’ll take some adjustment, in terms of being able to spoil myself rotten on my mom’s delicious home-cooked meals, and enjoying dinner together as a family, but I think it’ll be worth it…

Besides the job, I’ve just been trawling the internet as usual, reading a lot on environmentalism and sustainability.. Damn, I’m such a nerd… and if you don’t think so, this proves it: I jumped on the del.icio.us bandwagon… it’s basically social bookmarking.. I can basically bookmark/tag articles that I find interesting, to share with the rest of the world. So if you want can access a portion of the crazy brain of joming, you can do so here
More nerdiness: my online wishlist
Tommorow, I’m going to Vancouver Island with my sister, my mom’s cousin Anne and her husband Rudy… we might go horseback riding in nanaimo, or look at Cathedral Grove, this amazing temperate rainforest! Should be an excellent time!!

I keep collecting all these interesting and weird articles on the net, but i forget to actually post them… so here goes nothing:

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time before they did this… hehehe

But I didn’t think that musical breast implants were just a matter of time, but apparently they are.

And lastly, a website documenting bad scrabble hands that people have gotten. How silly is that.

That is all.

Ohh, I’ve probably plugged this to death, but if you want to look at pictures i’ve taken, come visit my site on flickr. There’s a little doodad on the sidebar (under the calendar) to see some thumbnails of recent photos. I know it works on my computer… does it work for everybody else?

Alright, let’s get onto some pictures, but before that, if you haven’t yet, do this NOW!
It’s a little test personality awareness. It’d be great if you followed the link and did the test. click 6 buttons, easy peezy! Yay for self-discovery!

alright picture time!

It’s like a carpet of mossy goodness!

Me frozen in the air. So silly…

6 more photos to see


In early january, when the salmon return upstream to the site of their birth to spawn and restart the cycle of life. Bald Eagles also flock here by the hundreds to partake in the feast in the river!

The decay of a cedar trunk

The beauty here is so simple…

The ray of light cast onto the water is supercool!

I love this rugged landscape!

Does anybody else see a face in the clouds?

It was spectacular up there at the top of Second Peak. All you could see was the snow-capped mountains surrounding you, the marauding clouds cresting on the mountain ridge, and the brown square shades of civilization far below.

And on the drive back, was the stunning view of the mountains, layered in fading shades of coniferous island forests, a landscape carved by the glacial forces of long ago. The smell of temperate rainforests crisp and fresh, permeating the inner sanctums of my being.

It’s experiences like this that really makes you feel alive, and make you want to fight to keep this beauty alive in the world, and let the rhythm of nature run its course.

After a crazy weekend, I feel like I’ve suddenly hit a wall of stillness, inside of me… For a brief moment, my inner self was stirred, the mirrored surface of my psyche rippling from her visit. Katie was here from Friday night to Monday morning… So 2.5 days… so many words to say, so much touch to catch up on. So much happening this weekend, and so little time.
On friday, I had lunch with some relatives in Richmond, and after I got a haircut that seemed to drag on forever, Joyee and I drove to Seattle. Katie was arriving at SeaTac at 9:33pm, so we went to Dave’s House, made dinner, and then went to his work, and I picked myself up a pair of these babies. Ridiculously comfortable shoes, with good support for crazyweird feet like mine. In fact, I’m wearing these right now… AROUND THE HOUSE! don’t worry, they’re still virgins, haven’t ever touched the outside ground.

Then we drove to the airport to pick up Katie, and I don’t know what it is, but everytime I’m about to see her after not having seen her for ages, like when I’m walking towards the arrival gate from the plane, or when I’m waiting for her to walk out of the gates, I feel my stomach’s about to flip itself inside out, like when I’m about to kiss someone for the first time, or similar to the dull throb that happens sometimes when I think about being in her arms, except magnified ten-fold. The realization that you’re about to see your love in mere moments makes you miss them that much more, I guess. I wonder if couples still feel like that when they get older, people my parent’s age.
We spent the night at Dave’s place, and I honestly had such a good sleep. Sleeping alone is just about the crappiest thing ever, once you’ve experienced sleeping next to a warm body… The warmth just dissolves all the stray thoughts in my head, and the touch of skin just relaxes me entirely. No wonder I don’t like going to sleep these days…
and then came back to Vancouver Saturday, and went to Aberdeen centre, in Richmond… They have a fantastic food court there, and Daiso is amazing, so I took Katie there to bask in its glory.
Saturday night was my Dad’s company chinese new year dinner, which was good times. Lots of prizes… Katie got $100 in “red pocket” from winning at Bingo! There was also Kareoke, and lots of food…
Sunday, we woke up, and took a walk to safeway to buy some food from Safeway, and it was just a wonderful walk.. The sun was shining, the air fresh and crisp, and I was wearing one of my favourite jackets. The chinese silk filled one, that I can’t wear in the rain, but that keeps me so warm, and is such a brilliant hue of blue. And at that moment, I realized that I was literally bursting with joy!! It really made me realize how much more content I was when she was around.
We came back with raisin bread and cinnamon buns…
Katie and I went to see some Cantonese Opera and Wushu performances. Mark had some tickets from his mom’s work, and was nice enough to offer them to us. The show was pretty rad, with awesome costumes in the opera, and really talented kids doing crazy wushu moves. There was this one performance by a guy with a giant hammer dueling with a guy with a cudgel. Like so:

All that said, I am still using google (ugh), partly because there isn’t really any other comparable competitor, in terms of

It’s a little heartening to hear that Google is refusing to comply to the demands by the US government, but with Google stocks taking a beating on the market, who knows what may happen…

Something else scary to think about: The conservatives taking to power in Canada, and acting in tandem of U.S gov’t policies, on things like the Kyoto protocol, abortion rights, marriage rights for gays and lesbians, and just being flung into the far right depths of conservatism…
Blargh….

At the end of the trip, i’ll be heading up to shanghai for a few days… I don’t even remember if i’ve ever been there (as a kid), and seeing it as an adult should be an interesting experience. I’ve heard lots about the architecture there, how it’s an fascinating mix of modern western, and classical chinese buildings.

And then it’ll be back to vancouver on the 28th of december… and with any luck, I’ll be able to get myself a plane ticket to visit katie again. I haven’t been able to snag one yet, but in some ways, i’m almost more excited to see her than for this trip to asia that my parents are bringing me on. I just miss katie so much…. Part of it is just being able to hold someone in your arms just the way you want to be held… There’s always hugs from friends and family, but it’s just not the same. I suppose after 3 long months, I just really miss the idea of being able to snuggle up to a warm body at night, or even just holding their hand. Being so far away from each other, everything just seems so… disjointed or something, and being together, everything just becomes intuitive and natural. It’s just been hard on me lately, I guess.. seeing the majority of my friends all paired up in love, and seeing my sister with her loved one, and even my dad and my mom… To me, there’s just the sense of being alone that creeps up on you, like the shadow you never notice… you can never quite put your finger on it. I’m all for people finding contentment in themselves, but at some point, you just want to share that not with family or friends (as spectacular as they may people), but with somebody that thinks the world of you, for whom you shine brighter than any star in the sky. And the biggest irony of all is that I have that special someone, but we’re just not close enough that we can enjoy even the simple joy of the same bedtime.

p.s. And because I can’t make up my fucking mind ever, I’ve decided to give flickr a shot again, for my photo hosting services… you can check it out here. I’ve discovered that a few of my friends have started using it, and it’s so good to have some feedback on photos. And regardless, there’s just a lot more community participation in flickr than in buzznet. I figure that flickr might be an easy way for me to post photos while i’m traveling around, so we’ll give it a shot.

I think that being away from Vancouver during the winters the past four years, I’ve sort of forgotten what it’s like… So it’s definitely been a bunch of surprises, with a week of magical fog, and now, wetwet snow. And the cold that doesn’t bite, but seeps slowly deep inside of you. It appears that this year has been a bit of an anomaly, with the crazy early mountain snow and everything.

I think that sometime over the past month or so, I think I’ve realized the importance of my health… I’ve finally gotten fed up with my gimped knee, and decided to go to physio about it, and the guy gave me some exercises to do, which are good, and I feel like my legs are getting stronger already. And my sister’s been trying to get me into hulahooping… She’s got these big-ass hulahoops, which are much easier than the small plastic kid’s versions. It’s a decent workout too, so I’ve just been hulahooping away in my garage. I’ve always been under the impression that you need to rotate your hips when you hulahoop, but it’s definitely not the case at all… It’s all about the side-to-side motion. I also went to the chinese doctor in Chinatown, who gave me some nasty tasting medicine that seems to have been good for me. I’m not an alcoholic, but I’ve sort of been having some slight liver problems the past while, and the medicine has helped with that. I guess it’s just ever since my grandpa passed away, I’ve been paying more attention to my health, because I’m finding that there’s definitely some patterns among my relatives, so I need to look after myself better than I’ve been.

Oh, some things I’ve read lately… the poor guy who gave his girlfriend the kiss of death, and something that is really cool, but slightly unholy. I was reading this article about the 11 year quest to invent coloured bubbles that didn’t leave stains everywhere. Interesting implications of what you can do with disappearing dyes that these bubbles use, like finger paint that only works on special paper.. But one thing that I ended up thinking about is what if these strange chemicals pose any risk to people. It’s advertised as non-toxic obviously, but it seems like such an unstudied chemical, and given that bubbles sell somethign like 2 million bottles a year, that would be a damn lot of coloured bubble stuff everywhere!
I was also at Mark’s Graduation, and you can see photos from that here.
It was a good time, and definitely classier, being in the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, and not the “Gryphon Dome”. Haha. Possibly because it was my own graduation, with so many friends I know graduating with me, but the Guelph grad had more… spunk, more character. Our speaker was a prof I took meteorology 2030 with, Terry Gillespie. He had just received his Professor Emeritus, and he gave a terrific speech, with references to Lord of the Rings, Dr. Seuss, and a story involving poo. And even though the Gryphon Dome had folding chairs with no comfy cushioning, people were allowed to move around a lot more. My family could (and clearly was) coming up to me, talking to me, and taking pictures and such, and it was cool with everyone. You can find photos of that here, even though I graduated in June. haha

In job news, there isn’t really any… Still unemployed and living at home, but in surprisingly good spirits.. I’m thinking the winter season won’t be good for finding any jobs except retail, so I’m just going to enjoy myself, and get myself prepared to rock out in the 2 to the 006, jobwise.
I’ll probably send in my resume right before I leave, and then follow up when I get back. I’ll be hopping over to Japan for 4 days, and then Hong Kong for 2 weeks from Dec 10-28. My cousin Patrick is getting married in Hong Kong, so going for that, and then my dad’s been telling me that the WTO is convening in Hong Kong right while we’re there, and that I should try to do some photojournalism there… That would be rad. I’ve been thinking about approaching a few places to submit a photoessay, so we’ll see how it goes….
So that’s my life this past week or so. Just chugging along…
And if you’ve made it down to the bottom of the post, here’s your prize.. Guess the Joming!
Which one of the two below is me? Left? Right? Or Both?! Write your guesses in the comments!!

Saddam: WHATEVER. Let’s play
*plays*
Saddam: ROCK!
Judge: TWO PAPERS!
Saddam:  DUDE, DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF is two papers?
Judge: Two papers are better. Two papers cover the rock TWICE.
       That fucking rock ain’t going NOWHERE  

And the TIGER HAND!! simply brilliant..
Inspired, I found a site that had rock paper scissors (RPS) variants..
and here’s some of what i found..
RPS-7 (with 7 moves)

the arrows point to what move beats what…

There’s also variations, with 9, 11, and 15 different moves. All those times I’ve been using guns and lightning moves when i played rock paper scissors… And then the pinnacle of rock paper scissordom: RPS-25!!! behold the wonder!!

Click the photo for a larger photo

So, who wants to play? *grin*

The idea of wiring the planet offends some people’s sensibilities. To some, it betokens a lack of reverance for wild nature. Some even seem to think that knowing more about nature is somehow transgressive. It seems to me that the opposite is true, that destroying things in ignorance is profoundly worse, and that anyone whose sympathy with nature is based on nature’s unknowable-ness has housed their faith in a home of straw, and the wind is picking up.

But will we know what to listen for? That strikes me as a whole different question. Science, despite its aspirations to the contrary, is a cultural endeavor. Data are never value-free. How might we develop a culture of planetary science that is most inclined to make wise choices, choices which can then best inform our societal choices about how to best act to preserve, protect, restore and recreate natural systems?

Basically, these people want to hook up real life places with sensors to monitor the environment,so that they’ll be able to better manage and monitor it.
In a way, this technology scares me quite a bit, in terms of what it’s capable of, and to a certain extent, I DO feel like humans are acting irreverently, as if they own the planet. But at the same time, humans have SUCH an impact on the world, and really, they do need to act as stewards of this place we call Earth…