Thoughts on the World

They've started!

2011-04-11T23:00:00.001-04:00

Orange for Green, a photo by Reverend Aviator on Flickr.

Well, there was no fanfare or big press conference that I heard about, but it looks as though they've started to prepare for construction on the (temporary) siding for GO train service to Kitchener. This is fantastic news for all of us in KW!

2011-01-03T09:34:00.002-05:00

Ah.... now that's more like it!

Absence

2009-11-20T10:43:00.003-05:00

Someday I'll get around to writing for fun again.

I just wanted to drop a note to say that I haven't forgotten about the blog entirely, rather I've been swept up into school in a big way. Five classes, two jobs, a wife, and a cat... plus I try to see my friends once in a while too.

Life is great right now, just very busy.

Thank You Big Media

2009-07-07T20:47:00.002-04:00

At the best of times I find that the mainstream media is lazy, hypocritical, and low-brow, however this past couple of weeks has really taken the cake. After listening to CBC Radio 1 begin their hourly 5-minute news segment with a full minute and a half all about Michael Jackson's funeral followed by about 15 seconds on a helicopter crash which killed two Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, I nearly lost it. This is about as coherent as my ranting can be at the moment.

Thank you all (CTV, CNN, CBC, NBC, etc.) for dropping all of the rest of the going ons in the world for the last two weeks to keep us all in the loop that Michael Jackson is still dead. I don't know what I would do with my life if it weren't for you. Oh, I'd probably be informed.

Did you know that there is a revolt happening in Iran? Did you know that there are civilians being shot and killed by police and the army in China this very moment? You'd never know it given the news networks' coverage.
Oh, and FYI, there are still two major wars going on. Iraq and Afghanistan ring a bell? Yeah, I hear a couple of brave Canadian soldiers lost their lives yesterday in a helicopter crash.

Intelligent Waterloo? HA!

2009-01-28T18:11:00.003-05:00

Warning, a rant that many have heard from me before follows. Tune out if you don't want to hear me bitch about stupid drivers and stupid city officials.

-------------------

Waterloo bills itself as one of the smartest (if not the smartest) city in Canada. I would contend that this is an outright lie.
Newsflash, Waterloo-ians : when you have 15 centimeters of snow on your car - CLEAN IT OFF! No, not just the front windshield (with your wipers), no not the windshield and back window, NO not the windshield and front door windows.
Clean the hood. Clean the windshield. Clean the rear window. Clean ALL of the side windows. Clean the roof of your car. Clean the headlights. Clean the tail-lights! And lastly (not that I care, but the police might) clean off your license plates!

Why do I care so passionately about this, you might ask? I don't want to die because you are too damned lazy to take two minutes and clear off your car. Not only are you a danger on the road because you can't see anything, but I can't see the oncoming traffic because there's a blizzard blowing off your car into the oncoming lanes.

Point number two regarding the "Intelligent City".
It has been snowing since at least 7:30 this morning when I drove to work. It's a 45 minute drive in this weather to my job. It took 50 minutes to get back home. I drove to school this evening and it took me another 45 minutes. So far today I have been on the road for 2 hours, 20 minutes. How many municipal snowplows have I seen today? Zero. Zip. Zilch. NONE. I think I may have seen a section of the expressway that was scraped once, but other than that I haven't seen evidence of snowplows being on the roads either. All the city streets have 4-5 inches of slippery dirty snow on them. In some spots it's actually track-bare, but in the middle there's still enough snow that I can hear it rubbing on the underparts of my car (ooo! underparts!).

Guess what folks. We live in Canada. The Great White North. It snows in the winter. It happens every year. Deal with it, and learn to leave a few extra minutes to clean off your car. And to the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Guelph. You have snowplow drivers who you are either not using properly and having them on the roads in daylight hours, or they are not doing their job. FIX IT.

A little bit of Nerdity

2009-01-13T23:17:00.006-05:00

I just thought I'd share a bit of the nerdiness that occupies my mind.
As anyone who has ridden in my car knows, I keep track of the mileage of my car along with the cost of each fill-up of the gas tank in a little book in my glove compartment.

What you may not know is that I take that data and play with it!
A year or so ago, I found a website called Swivel which will take your data and make all sorts of fun graphs and charts with it. I've been keeping this spreadsheet since I bought the car, so I can call it fairly complete data. It shows me things such as the cost (in gas-cents) to run my car per kilometre (averaging 8.3 cents per kilometre),

the number of litres of gas that I use per 100 km (average 8.49 L/100 km),

and with the graphs and charts, I can see how this changes over time, and see trends - i.e. my mileage is decreasing, so there may be something wrong with the engine, or I can follow the gas prices over long time periods. If you look at the gas price chart particularly, you can see the slump in prices that began this fall preceded by the inflationary bubble prior to that.

All from my own data!

Obviously there are some spikes in the data and it can be a bit lumpy, but for viewing general trends it works really well. For all the time it takes to write this stuff down, it sure gives me something to chew on when I enter the data into my spreadsheet!

Check it out the full data here: http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1011726

New Year

2009-01-08T21:23:00.002-05:00

I suppose I should make some sort of update!

Life was a bit overwhelming for the last month of 2008... final exams, final papers, working... it just all seemed to come together in a mass... and then it was over!

I passed everything, with fairly decent marks and I'm pleased with the results.

Between the finish of exams and Christmas, I worked full-time at my job, which helped to refill the coffers a bit, and it definitely kept me active for the time before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, I made the journey home to my family's home (and Vanessa). We had a great Christmas gathering with all the usual suspects in attendance. Two days later, Vanessa's family gathered at V's parents' and we had Christmas Dinner part II (The Revenge of the Cranberries). It was a nice get-together, and I really do think that I'm going to fit into the family quite comfortably.

Oh yeah, I'm getting married in four months. Less than. May 2. I guess we'd better get that guest list finalised. I'm constantly torn with who I can invite because, unfortunately, the hall where we're having the reception (my church) isn't overly large, and we're limited to 180 or so people... which really isn't very many when you take into account the large size of both our families, and our copious amount of friends. Do any etiquette experts have any thoughts on how to gracefully approach this? perhaps posting this thought on my blog is a bad / good idea...? I'm in a bind, either way... the church where we're having the wedding would probably hold everyone we'd like to invite, but the reception hall is just too small. Blah. And no, changing the reception hall location is not an option...

Today on my way home from school i was considering the irony of having ads for car dealerships on the side of public transit buses... advertising on the competition. Genius.

I was thinking about the railway today as well. In Canada there's a strong affection for the railway because it was this "iron ribbon" that brought Canada together in Confederation... it's what made it possible. When someone rides VIA Rail these days the trains are (not irregularly) delayed by freight trains passing especially if the passenger train was behind schedule. Apparently passenger trains are a second priority on the rails. So anyways, this thought ran through my mind and suddenly it clicked that the rail line that is so revered in Canadian history wasn't built to move people across the continent as I'd often assumed... it was built to move goods. Trees. Ores. Coal. How disillusioning to think that this symbol of Canadiana is simply a tool for business... maybe I'm just naive, but that realisation disappoints me greatly.

Sorry for the randomness... just had to get those thoughts out!

Post-humanism

2008-11-25T16:37:00.002-05:00

I sure as hell hope that post-humanist literature is meant to show us that we can do better, and that we will... because it's friggin' depressing otherwise.

I just finished reading Watchmen for my Science Fiction Literature class, and frankly I thought it was a huge turd. Supposedly it's the epitome of graphic novels (read: comic books), and it really didn't live up to the hype in my mind... the characters were confused, confusing, and it left me disappointed as a whole.

Here's the journal I wrote on it:

Reading Watchmen, was a new experience for me, as I've never been all that interested in comic books, so I haven't sought one out to give it a try. I found it to be more like watching a movie, than reading a book... perhaps “reading a movie” would be an accurate description. Whereas giving a close reading to a regular text involves just looking for trends in an author's prose, this medium lends us to having to watch for details that are visually present – repetitions, allusions, etc. The fortunate part of a “graphic novel” is that the pictures don't move or change as in when watching a film, so you are given a long time to study each frame for intricate details. This advantage may be why it took me the better part of two weeks to read this novel in its entirety.

When considering the stereotypical understanding of comic books, I tend to imagine superheroes, and supervillains, all moral issues are black and white, and superheroes are only limited by their conscience in their actions. Watchmen attempts to counter this by presenting the heroes as not only tragically flawed, but totally useless. None of the “heroes” of the story actually accomplish anything heroic (excepting a short rescue from a burning building). The only character who seems to manage any sort of change ends up vaporised shortly thereafter – I mean the newspaper salesman, not Doctor Manhattan. Ironically, the one who manages to bring about world peace is the hero turned supervillain, Ozymandias.

The other main expectation in comic books is that there is always a happy ending – the hero saves. This story brings us so close to that ending, but then snatches it away in the last frames. This is another way that Moore works to turn the idea of superhero comics on its head. However, it is not a satisfying story in any sense for me. There is little resolved by the end of the story, and I can only assume that it is self-referencing the comic book genre as a whole. This meant that much of the depth in the story was likely lost on me – leading me not to enjoy it as regular readers of comic books might have. I didn't know what to expect when reading it, so I was left confused and disappointed with the story.

I think Moore's goal with this story was to critique the story telling quality of the comic book genre, by showing that there are other routes that a story can take. Again, not knowing much of the history of comic books, I can only speak from stereotypical references, so I think that Moore was saying that there was a lot more potential for the graphic novel genre than was currently being utilized, despite laws which limited the story telling capacity at the time.

This novel makes me want to retreat back to reading all the classic authors - Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl...

Boy oh boy

2008-10-19T22:34:00.004-04:00

Dreaming about the future is about the only thing getting me through school right now. Midterms suck.

However, I'm dreaming about:

The next time I get to see Vanessa.
November Rally
Christmas Holidays
Getting married
Taking impossibly awesome roadtrips (Click here for that one.)
Moving to a new apartment in Waterloo
Getting through these bloody exams.
Finishing my undergrad and getting into the real "meat" of my education
Moving to Kingston
Buying a house

Back to studying, I suppose... stay well everyone!

2008-10-16T20:20:00.002-04:00

Update time!

Wedding plans are coming along steadily. We'll be getting married on May 2 (2009) at Dunlop United in Sarnia, then there'll be a reception at High Park United that will be a potuck (mmmmm.... potluck). Ummm... that's the gist of it!

Life right now is a bit hectic for me. I'm working as a frontline tech for an Ontario crown corporation in Guelph. This means that I've got a half-hour commute, and I'm working Monday to Thursday from 8-12, and all day on Fridays, then I have school in the afternoons the first four days of the week. My first two days of the week I'm basically gone from 7:30 AM until 10:30 PM... but Wednesday and Thursday make up for it because I'm done by 3 or 4, plus my weekends are relatively free. The paycheques are a nice change, though. I'm actually starting to be able to afford living here while I'm paying down my line of credit.

Vanessa and I have been fortunate to have a fair amount of time to see each other since school started. She's come to visit a couple of times, and I've been home two or three times as well. The last trip was for Thanksgiving weekend, which was thoroughly busy trying to make time for both of our families as well as for eachother. We did manage a trip to the Pinery with Tim and Val, which was a ton of fun - you can find some pictures of that trip on my Flickr page.

School's been pretty good, although I don't think I'm able to put in quite as much effort as I'd like... my marks aren't showing it, though. I've gotten two great marks so far in my Science Fiction Literature class, as well as a decent showing in Social Psych (70%) and an 80% on my first test for Christian History. I have a midterm test next week for Juvenile Delinquency which should help me gauge how well I'm absorbing that class. I'll admit that I haven't taken a lot of notes in that one, so it may be interesting.

That's about it from KW for now!

Spore

2008-08-12T17:21:00.001-04:00

So... Spore is being released September 7. The day before I start school.

Well, I guess school will have to wait a few days then, won't it?

http://pc.ign.com/objects/735/735340.html

Eeesh

2008-08-01T20:19:00.001-04:00

Gonna be an expensive semester books-wise...

Fall 2008 (1089) ENGL 208B: Section 001 (DEMAN)
	TX.9780930289232	MOORE ALAN ET AL: WATCHMEN	1	$19.99	$19.99
	TX.9780441569595	GIBSON: NEUROMANCER	1	$10.99	$10.99
	TX.281108913791B	ENGL DEPT: ENGL 208B SEC 001 SCIENCE FICTION	1	$42.50	$42.50
	TX.9780415366687	ROBERTS: SCIENCE FICTION 2ND ED	1	$23.50	$23.50
	TX.9780812505153	WELLS H G: WAR OF THE WORLDS	1	$5.99	$5.99
	TX.9780553293357	ASIMOV: FOUNDATION	1	$11.99	$11.99
Fall 2008 (1089) PSYCH 253: Section 001 (LOGEL)
	TX.9780070952027	MYERS & SPENCER: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 3RD CDN	1	$118.95	$118.95
Fall 2008 (1089) SOC 222: Section 001 (CARRINGTON)
	TX.9780195168457	SHOEMAKER: THEORIES OF DELINQUENCY 5TH ED	1	$42.95	$42.95
	TX.9780802086242	DOOB ET AL: RESPONDING TO YOUTH CRIME IN CANADA	1	$32.95	$32.95
	TX.9781552210574	BALA NICHOLAS: YOUTH CRIMINAL JUSTICE LAW	1	$44.95	$44.95
Fall 2008 (1089) RS 240: Section 001 (TATARYN)
	TX.9780534546625	VAN VOORST: READINGS IN CHRISTIANITY	1	$93.95	$93.95
	TX.9780495097266	WEAVER MARY JO: INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY	1	$83.95	$83.95
Fall 2008 (1089) PHIL 328: Section 001 (OREND)
	TX.9781551114361	OREND: HUMAN RIGHTS CONCEPT & CONTEXT	1	$34.95	$34.95

Subtotal:	$567.61
TOTAL:	$567.61

To the Used Bookstore!!

Car Ownership Sucks

2008-07-28T17:39:00.002-04:00

If you don't feel like reading a bitchfest about my car, feel free to skip this entry...

I like my car. I really do. I try to take good care of it. I don't drive it roughly, I give it a regular oil change, I fix things when they break. So why does it have to treat me this way?

The last little while it has been giving off a wonderful gasoline smell in the passenger compartment when it's idling or after I turn it off... lovely if you like that sort of buzz, but I'm not a big fan... also it has been a bit difficult to start every now and then for whatever reason.

So today I took it to Mazda to have a look and see if they could figure out where the smell is coming from (yes, I looked for leaks under the hood, and checked for puddles beneath the car - nada). Turns out the top of the gas tank where there's a little distribution thingy has been leaking. This is located directly beneath the rear passenger seat... the showed me what was happening and it wasn't pretty. Ok, fine... so we've gotta replace the gas tank and the distribution thingy ($1200ish).

Next he shows me a leak that's coming from up inside the engine... the water pump is leaking. Onto the timing belt. Oh good. So those need to be replaced... another $1200. The timing belt needed to be done about 10k ago anyways, so it's not that huge a deal... annoying nonetheless, but mostly just a catch-up repair.

Now he shows me an engine mount... it's cracked... needs replacing. Woo. More money.

Add on a few other things - a burned out running light, leaky oil cap, rear brakes needing a cleaning, front brake pads nearing their time for replacement, air filter replacement, exhaust pipe starting to corrode, oil pan rusting... my car is apparently a piece of crap... oh, and the bill? Nearly $5,000... I'm going to do the most pressing stuff right now, then get the other stuff done as I can afford it... Sometimes I really hate having a car.

Grr...

Please Welcome...

2008-07-21T19:16:00.002-04:00

A new addition to my family. Sexy McBasserson (still working on a name!):

(I bought it after returning from Europe - just got around to taking a picture today).
She sounds wonderful, and I'm going to be selling off my oldest bass - an Ibanez Roadstar II - if anyone's interested. Part of me hopes I won't find a buyer, though - I really like the Roadstar, but I rarely play it since I got my five string the summer before last, and I'm sure having the new addition it'll be neglected even more... :(

Shifting to Night

2008-07-14T13:35:00.002-04:00

So I started training at my new job last night - I'm working at a distribution centre for a grocery store chain. My job is to go up and down the warehouse aisles and pick out stock to send to the grocery stores while driving this and using an audio system which tells me where to go and how much to pick up from each place. It's voice activated... pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, my first night was fun, I learned how to drive the "jigger" and got to know a bit of the routine for nightshifts. As long as I can get the rest I need, I think I'm going to enjoy this.

That's all for now! :)

EuroTrip 2008 Picture Roundup

2008-07-04T09:13:00.005-04:00

Alright, here's a link to everything. I've put it all on Facebook simply because it's easy (and they have an unlimited space for pictures). I'm going to be posting my very very favourites onto my Flickr page as I have time as well. Enjoy!

Part 1: Pearson and Flight
Part 2: Paris
Part 3: Arras / Vimy
Part 4: More Paris
Part 5: Munich (Dachau)
Part 6: Salzburg
Part 7: Prague
Part 8: Dresden

Dresden - Frankfurt - Toronto - Kitchener

2008-07-03T11:15:00.002-04:00

Now, I'm going to ruin the ending for anyone who has been reading along on my adventure, so prepare yourself. I'm home, safe and sound!

On Tuesday afternoon I caught a train from Dresden to Frankfurt. It was a highspeed ICE train, which travelled around 300 km/h... very cool stuff. It was an entirely uneventful journey, where I finished reading Fluke and started typing up a blog entry only to have my computer lock up after two pages, losing everything. I was not pleased, let me tell you!

Anyway, once I arrived in Frankfurt I made my way to the hotel I was staying at which was only a few steps from the station. The area was a bit sketchy, but I'm sure I've stayed in worse areas before. The hotel itself, on the other hand, was clean and comfortable. As it was about 7 PM by the time I arrived in Frankfurt, there wasn't much of anything still open as far as tourism goes, so I just stayed in the hotel and relaxed for the evening, until about 9:30 when I went back to the train station to get dinner. Usually I try to avoid train station food, but this place had a surprising variety, and I ended up getting fish and chips, so I was pleased! Also stopped at a bookstore that was there and didn't really see anything good in the English section, so I didn't end up getting anything. The last errand I needed to take care of was buying a ticket for the S-Bahn to get me to the airport first thing in the morning. After I bought that, I noted that it had the time and date that I had purchased it on it. Kind of strange, since every system we'd used in Europe (except Paris) had been a case of where you buy a ticket, and then you'd validate it either on the train or before getting on. Oh well...
I went to bed that night pretty late so that I could get a start on beating the jet lag from the trip home.

The next morning I was up at 6:30 (even though my alarm was set for 7) and I took my time packing up and was out of the hotel well before 8. My plan had been to catch the s-bahn at 8:17, but I managed to catch the one prior to it, and was at the airport just before 8 for my 10:45 flight. When I got on the train I noticed that they didn't have validators... soooo... I may have travelled on a ticket that was expired. Fortunately, there are only inspectors on the trains very rarely, and otherwise it's the 'honour system', so I didn't get checked, or fined!

Tim had told me that the airplane would probably be leaving from Pier B in Terminal 1, so I made my way to the set of ticket counters that were labelled as "B" and for the life of me I couldn't find the Air Canada counter... though I did find an automated check-in where I got my boarding pass... now I just needed to get rid of my bags. After a solid 10 minutes of walking up and down considering my options, I finally found a sign which indicated where I had to check in... the C counters! What the heck? Oh well, so I got over there, dropped my bag off, then made my way out towards the gates where my plane was waiting (B pier, as Tim had indicated). I was pretty early, but after clearing security and passport control, I only had about 45 minutes to kill before boarding. I bought a salad and some juice at a little store to finish off the last of my Euro cash (I paid cash for the hotel that morning as well to help get rid of most of them). I sat in a McDonalds on the second level which had a great view over the apron and runways... it's a shame I wasn't able to stay longer. Oh well!

Boarding the flight was a piece of cake, and I ended up seated next to a fellow from Ohio who was returning home with his wife (who sat in the row ahead of him) and a lady who lives in Edmonton and was originally from Poland, returning from a trip there. The flight took off about half an hour late, but managed to catch it up enroute. The three of us in my row had some interesting conversations regarding the role of the church in European and North American society, this being before I mentioned that I'm planning on becoming a minister... The man wasn't a fan of the church in the least, and the lady was Catholic, but didn't really agree with a lot of the teachings of the church. Made for interesting talks. Over the course of the nine-ish hours, I also managed to type out three blog posts, watch two movies - Charlie Bartlett and Charlie Wilson's War - the first of which I'd never heard of, and was extremely impressed with, the second I'd been wanting to see for a while, and was not disappointed in the least.
The flight was generally alright, though we ran through some pretty decent turbulence that I'll admit left me feeling a bit queasy (I hadn't been feeling well since I got up, anyways).
Customs was a breeze, and I had nothing to declare so I was through all that pretty quickly, and Tim met me at the exit. Then we drove home, and I spent the afternoon unpacking, doing laundry and trying to stay awake until 10 to beat the jet lag. I went to bed at 10, and woke up at 10 this morning, so I think I've done well so far! Now I've been working on uploading pictures and writing up this entry for three hours, so it's time for a break.
Have a wonderful day everyone!

Dresden Day 3 - Alone... so alone!

2008-06-30T11:12:00.002-04:00

Pictures here: Dresden

So, in reality this is the first day that I was totally on my own – no Tim, no random companions picked up along the way. I had planned to take it easy, but I couldn't resist at least getting out of the hostel and seeing a few things that I hadn't been to yet.

Of course, I let myself sleep in until about 10 AM, then after showering, said goodbye to the Persian dude, who had decided that he was going to give up on the (now) ex-girlfriend and go back home to spend some time thinking about life. Not a bad idea, if you ask me!
Back in our room, Katherine was just finishing packing, so we decided to have breakfast at the hostel together before she headed off to her camp. We had one of those nice conversations about our plans for the future, which was quite enjoyable. We shook hands after breakfast and I headed out into the town.

I started off heading back to the Altstadt, in search of a tower that was supposed to contain an exhibit detailing the damage done to the city after the firebombing in February 1945. I never did find that one. Instead I ended up at the Rathaus (great name for city hall, eh?) which had a newly re-opened tower and an excellent view from just beneath the clockfaces. I could see all the areas that we'd visited in the city, and of course many areas that I hadn't been to. There was still a bit of morning mist hanging over the city, so the view was a little bit limited, but worth the two bucks I paid to go up.

I'd read about an overhead railway that was near the outskirts of Dresden, which is apparently the oldest of it's kid in the world, and with my affinity for public transit, I thought I'd go out to check it out. I caught a tram, and half an hour later plus a ten minute walk I found a funicular (inclined railway) that led up the side of the mountain – no sign of the overhead railway, so I began to wonder if my guidebook was out of date... no matter, I took a ride up the hill on the fuicular and was shortly in a neighbourhood of very big and expensive looking houses... I wasn't quite sure where to find the spectacular views that the guidebook had talked about, so I ended up walking around for another half hour or so, eventually finding a small platform where you could see a bit of the view toward the city through the trees. Not spectacular exactly, but it was nearly deserted, and I took my shoes off and sat on a bench to read for an hour or so. It was a good way to spend some time.

Around three o'clock I went back to the funicular and then caught a tram back to the Altstadt because there was one last place I had yet to visit – the inside of Frauenkirche! I tried a number of different entrances (the building is relatively circular outside), and finally found one that was allowing people inside... but for an admission! It was one of the few churches that I'd seen charge admission – but this was a church that seriously interested me so I thought “what the heck!” and went in... turns out that it was the entrance to go up to the top of the cupola! And there was an elevator! And very few stairs once up the elevator, just a inclined path that circled upwards between the inner and outer roofs of the cupola. All the way up within the cupola, there are windows facing inwards where you can see that they''ve created an extra level inside the cupola with a normal floor with a large hole that you can see down into the sanctuary through – I'm not an acoustic engineer by any means, but I would guess that with the design the way it is, you could situate a choir up here and it would sound like angel voices coming from on high... but that's just a guess!

Once you reach the top of the path there are two steep flights up stairs which lead outside to the covered area at the the peak of the cupola... the view was fantastic and well worth the admission. Different than the view from the Rathaus in the morning, but now the mist had burned off and I could see all the way to the horizons. I think I stayed up there for a solid 40 minutes just taking in the view and getting pictures of it all!
Once I came back down to the ground, I found the regular entrance to the sanctuary, and made my way in. This church is simply amazing, and that says a lot after all the cathedrals and churches I'd seen on the trip. Still a bit overdone i my taste, but less so than many of the churches I had visited. The interior was relatively modern (due to being rebuilt in 1995), but still had touches of the old world. The altar was HUGE, and depicted Christ walking to Golgotha, I believe. It was one all in stone with gold accents. The organ, which was above the altar seemed to be spotless, its pipes were a gleaming silver. The structure itself was impressive. Above the main seating area in the sanctuary on the ground floor there were three or four levels of balconies looking downwards to the chancel.

I sat in the sanctuary just enjoying the beauty of it all for a full hour, before I decided it was a good time to call it a day. I headed back to the hostel to rest up, as I would be catching a train to Frankfurt the next day.

About 9:30 or so, I went out to get some supper, and stopped at a place for a donër (not a donair). While eating my supper, a group of men (probably late 20s, early 30s, came in with one who was in a skirt and girly hat in the lead. Bachelor party, I'm betting – they started cheering while the one in the lead started doing a goofy dance to the electronic music that had been playing in the restaurant... then as quickly as they'd arrived, they disappeared again! And with that little bit of strangeness done, I called it a night, and went to bed early!

Dresden Day 2... Dragoon Jars

2008-06-29T23:59:00.001-04:00

Pictures here: Dresden

Day two in Dresden started especially well because I ended up having the room in my hostel all to myself – a very nice change from the last week and a half. After breakfast at the hostel, I headed out to meet up with Shyla and Natalie a little way from our hostels. We caught a tram down to the Altstadt, and began our day of sightseeing with a visit to a couple of the Zwinger museums. The first was the porcelain collection of August the Strong – a king, I think. It was alright, porcelain doesn't really turn my crank to be honest. My personal favourite was a dozen or so large jars that August traded 150 soldiers for. Weird. Next we hit up the museum which houses hundreds of suits of armour and swords. This was a little more in my line of interest, I'll admit. Though, the display showing two nights charging at each other with lances kinda drove home just how barbaric and how little life meant in those days.

Next we visited the painting portion of the museum... wow. I'll admit a few of the paintings were boring... more than a few really, but some of them were just amazing to see. Don't ask me to recount all the different artists, but I know Raphael was one, and his portrait of the Madonna with the two cherubs at the bottom indicating the break between heaven and earth was one. Probably the most famous. Another was a painting of the tower of Babylon... I have no idea if it's famous, but it's one I'm familiar with and never thought I'd see in a museum. By this point it was nearing lunchtime, and all three of us were starting to feel more than a little exhausted, so we decided to take a break and grab some lunch.

After lunch, we made our way to yet aother museum, this one known as the “Green Vault” - yes, really, a vault, with thick doors and combinations. It contained the royal collection of precious gems and their various settings, as well as a variety of hand crafted clocks and table settings. Cool stuff. There were rooms and rooms of stuff, varying from a table decoration which rolled down the table with two figures on it (Apollo and Athena?) who would fire arrows when it stopped, to an award made for the king with the only know green diamond (41 Karat... FORTY-ONE) surrounded by a number of 3-4 karat diamonds and hundreds of medium-small diamonds. Sparkly is an understatement for this thing.

This took most of the afternoon, and it was seriously hot outside, so we headed back to our hostels again to recover for a bit, then met up for supper at a little pub near my hostel before going to watch the soccer match. While we were there, Natalie and Shyla noticed a family who were gathered round a table (presumably who were going to be going to see the match as well... they all were painting each other's faces with German flags, and the girls wanted to see if they could get in on the action – they debated it for a bit, then went to ask if they could borrow some facepaint, which the family happily obliged with... what a friendly group!

Once the girls were all decked out, we made our way down to the banks of the river where the “Fan Zone” was, and we discovered that it was full already!! We took a look at the crowd, and decided that we should head back into the city and see if we could find some space at a bar with a TV. After two or three, we found a biergarden that had just enough empty chairs for us, and we settled in to watch the match. All through the match, there were random bursts from what must have been fireworks, though they sounded like small bombs going off... every five or ten minutes we'd hear a BANG! and everyone would jump, but quickly return to watching the game. Very weird... there were police out in force to keep any eye on things in case they got out of hand, but they didn't seem perturbed by the explosions, so I guess everyone followed their queue.
I was torn throughout because I'm truly a fan of Spain at heart, but at the same time, I wanted to cheer for the “home” team. I think I settled on quietly cheering for both teams – turns out that Spain won the game, so the crowd was pretty bummed.

After the game, we headed back to our hostels, and bid each other farewell – exchanging e-mails so that we could keep in touch via Facebook. They were taking a train back to Prague, then flying to Barcelona for the week.

I went back to the hostel and holed up with my laptop to catch up on some blog entries... not ten minutes after sitting down on my bed to work, a fellow came into the room (it seemed I was going to have company in the room this night) who I got talking with, and he proceeded to tell me his life story and why he came to Dresden – that being because his girlfriend had decided to break up with him (he lives in England, but is Persian) and he wanted to convince her to take him back. Yeah, a mess... but possibly for the better, who knows.

Anyway, there was another person in the room that night as well – a young gal from near Stuttgart, Katherine (Pronounced “Kat-arin”) who was on her way to work at a camp for people with disabilities near Dresden. She was a distinct contrast to the Persian guy who talked non-stop from the moment he arrived. She was quiet, but still confident, ad she participated in the conversation as well, offering a womans viewpoint.

About one o'clock we turned out the lights and went to sleep... My plan for the next day was to take it easy, as it was my last fully day in Dresden, and my poor feet were killing me – I'd been nursing large blisters near my big toes since Munich....

Prague - Dresden, with a bit of an introduction to Dresden!

2008-06-28T23:06:00.001-04:00

Pictures here: Dresden

So, Tim left this morning about 3 AM and since I don't think I slept more than an hour before left, I was quite happy to sleep in until 9 AM or so. I had breakfast at the hotel, repacked my backpack, and headed for the train station by 10 or so. My train wasn't leaving until about 12:30, but I'm quite happy to partake in some people watching and train stations are great for that. Random fact – the train station I left from (Praha Holesovice) was built in 1985 and sports some partiularly dull Soviet architecture. Very straight lines, and low ceilings... what a depressing place. Nonetheless, I enjoyed hanging around waiting for my train. I staked out a spot about halfway down the departures hall, and leaned back against my bag while reading a book (Fluke, if you're wondering, and it's fantastic). After a while, a pair of young women took the seats just behind me, and somehow they knew I spoke English (so much for blending in) – the first thing one said was “Keep a close eye on your bags – an American guy just down the hall was just robbed when he turned away from his bags to give someone directions!'
So, we got to talking, and it turns out that they were from Canada (Vancouver), and were also headed to Dresden – kind of a random stop on the train we were taking. We decided to stick together on the train, and it turned out that our hostels were near eachother in Dresden too – about a block apart, in fact. We took the same tram to get there, then decided we'd meet for dinner after we'd had some time to unpack and settle in a little bit. We wandered around for a bit trying to find a place to eat, and finally settled on an Italian restaurant that had a patio with big umbrellas and a nice view of the street. The waiter (owner?) was hilarious. He was native Italian, and was singing to us with a great sing-song manner, and always referred to the girls, Shyla and Natalie, as “m'lady” - his English was probably about as good as our German, which made ordering even more of an experience. Lots of fun, and the pizza I ordered was delicious.
After supper we decided to go check out some of the sights in the Aldstadt (old town). We visited the courtyard of the Zwinger Palace, as well as the giant square where Fraeunkirche (Church of our Lady(?)). Next we walked along the promenade that runs along the river (The Elbe) where there was an art exhibit comparing Germany and China in a series of simple drawings – pretty neat. I got some awesome pictures of the city's skyline here at sunset. Also, we were able to see the Euro football “Fan Zone” - a big stage and a number of big screens that were set up for fans to watch the soccer games – the next evening was going to be the final game (between Germany and Spain), so we figured we'd head there to watch it after sightseeing for the day.
As it was getting dark, we made our way back to the tram stop nearest to the Aldstadt, and enjoyed some ice cream before we heaeded back to our respective hostels for the night.

Prague day numero deux

2008-06-28T18:31:00.001-04:00

Pictures here: Prague

I must apologise that I've fallen behind on these entries... I'm on vacation, so it's hard to keep a steady schedule! Some of my memories of the morning of this day are a bit fuzzy, so bear with me.

We started out around 10:30 after breakfast at the hotel, and headed for Prague Castle so we could see some of that end of town. The walk to the castle from the metro stop was decidedly beautiful, giving us a good feel for the architecture in this end of town. Lots of terra cotta roofing and clay finishes on the outside of the buildings. There were a number of embassies in the area as well as some public and private gardens.

Another feature is the multitude of streets... this is a place that has no regard for strict city blocks... or blocks at all! There doesn't seem to be a parallel street in the whole place! It certainly makes for interesting navigation. Gradually with a combination of following people and referencing the map, we made it to the long flight of stairs that leads to the castle itself. As we climbed we again were treated to a wonderful view over the city... and people wonder why I like being a pilot!
The castle was overrun with tourists, and the lines to get within the large chapel were very long on top of exorbitant admission prices, so Tim and I decided we'd see what we could see without going into the buildings themselves. I've seen a lot of churches and castles on this trip, I'm sure we didn't miss a huge amount. The church itself was in the process of being scrubbed of some of the grime that had accumulated over the years, so there was scaffolding all around it, obscuring a good chunk of the architecture. Kind of a bummer, but they need to take care of these things to make them last as long as they do I suppose.

Outside the castle, we wandered into the royal gardens as well as visiting what's known as the Bellevediere.. all I could think of was an 80s sitcom with that name, and I'm still not entirely sure what the building was for. Next we were planning to go to the other hill that has a small viewing tower on it that looks out over the city. We weren't planning on going up, but we just wanted tos ee it up close.

On the walk over, we took a roundabout route that took us through a peaceful ravine which is probably part of the flood control system for Prague.
Also along the way we arrived at a monastery where there was a supposedly large theological library as well. We had a snack outside to rest up after our long walk, then went in to the library because I'd seen pictures which made it seem pretty cool. Turns out that it was alright... but not really worth what we paid. Not enough to see, and it was actually quite small. Oh well, at least I saw a few books I recognised.

Then we continued on to the mountain/hill that had the tower on it. It was a fairly long walk, and steep in a few sections. I don't know why it is that we haven't learned to avoid walking up mountains but we do it anyways (see stories from our trip to Barcelona).
Once we finally reached the tower, we were both pretty pooped but being the smart beings that we are, we decided to climb it anyways. It turns out that the tower was built for an exposition back in the late 1800s and it's a 1/3 scale tribute to the Eiffel tower in France. The view, as usual, was spectacular! Lots of pictures were taken, we could even see the stadium from when the Olympics were hosted in Prague (did you know that Prague hosted the Olympics? I didn't!).
Eventually we walked back down the mountain and made our way back into the city itself by crossing one of the bridges, and we headed for the Jewish Quarter after a quick stop at the Opera house. While we were walking along a road with lots of shops, we noticed that just ahead of us were two girls who looked strangely familiar. The pair from Austria that we'd met on the train! Prague is a small city. We tapped them on the shoulder and they immediately recognised us. We decided that since none of us had any specific plans, we'd spend the afternoon sightseeing together. We ended up walking through the Jewish Quarter, then to a gigantic working metronome that was on a hill (it was 30 meters high, I kid you not!) then back towards the castle near which we had dinner at Subway (our first North American food since arriving). We walked through across one of the bridges across the river just as the sun was setting, letting me take some awesome photos, then made our way to Wenceslas Square, where we finally bid eachother goodbye, and promised to keep in touch by way of Facebook.

All in all, a fantastic day!

Tim and I made it back to the hotel around 10:30, and Tim went to bed right away because he was to catch his flight first thing in the morning... he had to leave the hotel at 3 AM in fact. He got out just fine, and on time, so that's good news!

Tomorrow's update will be of my trip from Prague to Dresden, Germany!
Stay well, all!

Prague

2008-06-28T10:36:00.004-04:00

Pictures here: Prague

What a city!

After the muck-up on the way to Prague, both Tim and I were feeling a bit wary about what kind of experience we'd have in Prague. Turns out that our fears were unfounded. The language barrier that had caused us much grief on the train was much less of a problem in the city. This was because a) we didn't need to ask as many questions, and b) being a place of tourism, many more people spoke at least a little bit of English.

Once we'd arrived, we both crashed until the early afternoon. Sleep is my friend, let me tell you! Around 2, we decided it was time to go out into the city and see what we could see, specifically in the Old Town - we started out at what is known as the Astronomical Clock - not really sure if I can explain this one in entirety - it had two different face, neither of which seemed to show time. I'm guessing that one showed the phases of the moon, and the other, Earth's position around the sun (the date), but I'm not sure at the moment - more reading needs to be done! We just so happened to be there when the clock struck an hour and there were some little animatronic saints (I think) who came out of doors on the tower and blessed the crowd. The onlookers were impressed. This clock was built likely in the 1600s...

We visited a number of churches around the old square as well - many were hosting concerts in the evening, frequently based around Mozart and Handel. Cool stuff. The decoration and ornamentation inside the churches in Prague is decidedly different than those of Germany or Austria. Where in those countries everything seemed to be coated in gold leaf, here things were a bit more toned down - wood and [Bohemian?] crystal were the biggest decorative materials (lots of big chandeliers!).

Later we walked across the Charles Bridge - probably Prague's most famous attraction. There are statues of saints on either side of the bridge, an also statues of moments in the life of Christ. Very beautiful stuff here. Also, the bridge was chock full of tourists and salesmen hocking everything from portraits of the tourists themselves to buskers playing music to jewelery.
From here on the bridge we went to one of the towers that are on either end (fortifications at some point, no doubt) and there was a tourist office in the lowest level... and stairs going to the top! It seems that these towers are not as popular as some of the other attractions, or they just plain get missed when walking by, so we paid the small entrance fee to climb to the top and see the view. Totally worth it. The view from up top gives a close-up view of the entire Old Town, and you can watch all the action around the area.

I think it was at this point that we made our way back towards the Old Town Hall Square (where the clock was, as well as a huge church with gigantic black spires) where there was a "Fan Station" set up for people to watch the Euro Cup together - two giant screens as well as a stage for musical acts to perform. We had a couple of sausages for dinner, and leaned against the old town hall for a while and listened to the three musical acts that performed before the main event. The first was a kind of emo-punk-alternative band (they reminded me of Three Days Grace or maybe Relient K) who sang in English and Czech. They were very good. The second was two guys who played guitars over top of pre-recorded bass and drums while one of them sang in Czech... not great, but not bad either. The singer/guitarist was enthusiastic at least! The final act was a burly, blonde muscular dude alone on the stage in leather pants singing to some very cheesy pre-recorded anthem rock. Blech. I highly suspect he was lip-synching. There's just something that seems illegitimate to me about singing or playing to recorded music... But I digress!

After the third act, the semi-final game between Russia and Spain began. The square filled up gradually, and near the front was a large contingent of Russia fans waving flags that sometimes blotted out a large portion of the screen we were watching from our vantage point at the rear of the crowd. It was a pretty intense first half, with both sides getting close shots but no goals. The crowd was excited, but not violent by any stretch. Cheering for Spain, I didn't feel like I'd get beat up for liking the wrong team ;) Partway through the half, a group of about 40 school kids from Spain gathered near where we were and began chanting in Spanish different songs to cheer the team on. It reminded me how much I enjoyed visiting Spain on our last trip... gonna have to go back there someday.

So, after the first half ended it was getting close to 10:00, thus Tim and I headed back towards the metro and our hotel to avoid the crowds that would doubtless form later, and because, well, we were tired after the last night's adventure.

When we got back to the hotel, we watched the last half from the common-room. Spain won 3-0, by the way! WOO!

And that's how our day ended. It was a good one!

More stories to come about our second day in Prague - later tonight. I'm heading out for dinner now (I'm in Dresden, Tim flew home this morning)

Salzburg –> Prague... somehow!

2008-06-26T17:47:00.002-04:00

June 25 / 26

So the last day has been a bit trying, but overall things seemed to work out. We left our hostel in Salzburg around 9 in the morning to check things out at the train station – we were thinking we might catch an earlier train than the 3 PM train that we'd been planning on taking. It turned out there was one leaving for Linz (where we planned to catch our train to Prague) at 9:30! Thus, we hopped on the train and rode out to Linz with our railpasses. We'd have a long layover in Linz, but we'd seen just about everything we wanted to see in Salzburg, so there wasn't a lot of point in hanging around for most of the day. The ride to Linz was fairly uneventful, and we hung out at the seemingly brand new train station, reading books and listening to music... generally just relaxing (just what we needed after going pretty hard the last few days).

The train that would take us to Prague arrived a few minutes late and we climbed aboard... turns out this lateness was an omen. The first hour or so, heading towards the Austrian border everything seemed to be running alright and we were happy to watch the scenery passing by outside our comfortable compartment in the train. Once we passed into the Czech Republic, the scenery became more forested, and the quaint wooden houses of the Austrian countryside became smaller houses with a stucco-type finish and wooden shutters around the windows... somewhat rundown, but still full of life and character.

Perhaps it was just my mindset, but you definitely got the feeling that rural parts of the Czech Republic are still working to catch up with the living standards of Western Europe. Nonetheless, it was all beautiful!

Soon after entering the Czech republic, the train stopped and we were told that we'd need to switch to a bus because they were doing maintenance work on the tracks ahead – they had a bus waiting outside the station and we rode it for about 30 minutes to the next station where a train was waiting to continue...

It was at this station, after rushing to catch the train because it was scheduled to leave minutes after we'd arrived (this is around two hours into our (planned) five hour journey,)we took a 40 minute delay, apparently because we were waiting for a group of young teenagers to arrive at the station after a biking trip. First it seemed they weren't all there, second it took them forever to load the bikes into the baggage car of the train... finally, they got everything and everybody aboard and we continued on. The weather so far that day had been very hot and with just a few clouds in the sky. At this station, the weather seemed to be preparing to turn – the wind was picking up and some ominous clouds were out on the horizon. Rain was coming it seemed.

Continuing along we stopped at a number of stations along the line, some were quick stops, and yet others seemed to take a long time for no apparent reason. We were getting further and further behind, but Tim and I still estimated that we'd make it in plenty of time to get onto the metro in Prague to get to our hotel (it closes at midnight and we were scheduled to arrive at 9 i.e. 10 or 11 with all the delays).

Sometime about 9:30 or so the train stopped on what seemed to be a small siding (Heřmaničky), next to another train. I thought maybe we were picking up more cars, or some people were transferring from one train to the other – especially after a large number of people left our car and began walking up past the train – and in fact a number of the students we'd waited for earlier got their bikes and rode off. The conductors didn't ever tell us anything, as the one in our area spoke zero English, and we speak zero Czech... Tim stopped a girl passing by in the corridor and she told us that some passengers were getting off to catch a bus to another station for some reason, but those going to Praha (Prague) were staying on the train. Okie dokie... that's fine. 45 minutes passes... no word on what's holding us up – people in the train next to us seem to be bedding down for the night and our car is nearly empty. After we'd been sitting for more than an hour I was frustrated because we had no idea what was going on and we had no control over whatever was happening, so I decided to seek out a conductor to find some answers... I never found a conductor, but in the next car up I met some folks who spoke English – a middle-aged Canadian couple, a pair of girls from Korea, and another pair of girls from Austria and Bosnia – they had found eachother a little while before and were sticking together as a group because of the lack of help from the Czech train officials... I asked if they'd mind if Tim and I stuck with them and they were happy to have us. We came up and sat with the young ladies from Austria and Bosnia (Amara and Christina)... the four of us got along very well, and their English was nearly flawless. Amara's accent made me laugh a bit because sometimes she sounded as if she came from New York city... not what I was expecting from Bosnia!

Soon after Tim and I joined the group, we all moved up to the “first” class coach – not really first class, but it has better upholstery and was 100% less sketchy than the car we'd been sitting in.

My nerves subsided greatly at this point, having some others to commiserate with and make jokes out of the situation. We learned that somehow a tree had fallen across the tracks somewhere ahead of the train, so we were not going anywhere tonight it seemed – we figured that would mean probably around 7 we'd start moving again. We sat talking and joking for another hour or two... around 12:30 we decided it'd be good to at least try to get some sleep and quieted down. It was moments later that a conductor (the good one) stopped by and told us there was a bus waiting to take us to Prague! We all clambered out of the train and discovered that we were at not just a siding, but a tiny station in the middle of nowhere, and there were two buses waiting to take everyone away – one for Prague and one for another station nearer up the line. The girls from Austria and Bosnia, and the Canadian couple just managed to get onto the bus to Prague... Tim and I were too slow apparently because we went to put our bags in the cargo compartment of the bus. So.. the us was too full to take us, and we were left standing at the station. Supposedly another bus would be coming to get us. The time is now 1:00... an hour later, standing in the dark with the two dozen other people who didn't get on the bus, we finally got onto another bus that should have taken us to Prague. Well, it turns out they either didn't understand me when I asked - “Bus to Praha??” or they just lied... but they dropped us at another train station “to catch a train to Prague”... nearer to Prague, but still a solid hour and a half away by car. And here we wait from 2-3:30 AM when not a train arrives, but another bus! This time they take us to ANOTHER train station where there's an actual train waiting. At the last train station we met a fellow from California and the three of us stick together – he's met some locals on the train who speak enough English to help us get clues as to what's going on, although they seem to be in the dark as well. We get on a commuter train that stops for half an hour, and all of us who are from the first train are either half or all asleep waiting for it to take us to Prague's main train station. At this point, it's 4:45 AM and I've been awake somewhere around 23 hours...

So, another 45 minutes on this train, doing my best to stay conscious, we finally arrive at the main station in Prague, and sort things out to get onto the metro and to our hotel at about 6 AM. And then we slept! Until 1 PM myself. Details of our afternoon to come!

PS – I've been meaning to apologise for the formating of these blog posts, not to mention spelling. I'm typing on a miniature laptop and sometimes my fingers tend to mash things, especially at the end of the day!

PPS - It seems that these problems were all caused by a major storm rolling through the area prior to our arrival. Since this is the case, I'm not terribly angry with Czech rail for getting us here so late, however I'm still a bit miffed about the lack of information provided to us in any language. Blah!

The hills are alive... Or full of ice anyways!

2008-06-24T14:55:00.003-04:00

Pictures here: Salzburg & Werfen

Salzburg, Austria. It's freakin' hot! The days have been 30 degrees plus since we left Paris... and humid as a southern Ontario summer. So much for a vacation from the weather!
We arrived in Salzburg yesterday morning after catching a train on the spur of the moment - we were scheduled to go later in the day but arrived at the train station a bit early, so we ended up down here in Austria a few hours early. Crashed at the hostel for a bit, then we went out and painted the town red.

If you believe that you don't know Tim and I very well. We wandered through the altstadt (old town) and took in some gardens that were a playground built for the child of a former Royal in town. Very pretty - also stumbled upon the Pegasus fountain, though we weren't really sure if it was the one from that movie they filmed here years ago, or not... turns out it was. Neato.
Then we walked through some especially touristy areas, a giant cathedral that I don't remember the name of... Dom? Dome? Dam? Something like that. Very pretty, not as big as anything in France that we saw, though. A good chunk of the aldstadt is being taken up by the "fan zone" for Euro 2008... which makes an already touristy place nearly unbearable. Thank providence that there were no games here at the same time we are.
Next we took a funicular up the mountain to the Salzburger fortress - the largest fortress in Europe apparently, it was run by the catholic bishops over the years to protect the arch diocese of Salzburg (Salzburg was a country, you see) - never lost a battle, except to good ol' Napoleon. That was a cool tour... I think we saw just about every inch of the place including the view from the towers - beautiful view out over the city - you can see everything all the way to the airport.
Then we crashed for the night!
Today we revisited the gardens and sat by the river for the bit. On the way we stopped in at a church that was playing organ music inside (a nice change from the silence we've had in every other church). Turns out it was a Presbyterian church (or at least I think so - St. Andrew's doesn't sound very Catholic anyways and the interior didn't have any Marys around that I saw)... I must admit that it made me feel a little more at home. No offense to Catholics, but I'm still a little thrown when I enter a cathedral. Outside the church there was a booth for a tour company that offered trips all around the Salzburg area - there was a tour to ice caves near Werfen. Tim wasn't keen to spend the money, so I decided to go on my own and he hung around town for the afternoon.
My trip took me about an hour south of Salzburg, into the Alps... those are big pieces of rock. I don't think my pictures will do them justice. This is also the area where the Eagle's Nest is - Hitler's super-secret hangout... I can see why he liked the view.
Anywho... ice caves. There's a huge cave that's full of ice that's seeped through the top of the mountain. The science isn't complicated, but i don't want to bore you. It's awesome anyways. The air inside is around freezing and it's awesome. After the heat we've had here, it was a welcome change... the formations inside the cave were amazing, and well worth the 700 steps up, and 700 steps down. I took a few pictures, not sure how well they'll turn out as it was dark because every second person carried a lantern and the guide burned what I think was magnesium strips to increase the brightness at certain points. AWESOME!
I met a few folks on the tour - the guide was Canadian (from Montreal) and we had a great chat, also met some folks from Britain , and some dudes from the US.
The guide inside the cave was native Austrian, I think, but he learned from someone from Britain because he sounded just like when one of the Monty Python characters did a German accent... A few of us were cracking up after he said his first sentence in English. Hilarious.
And now we're back at the hostel and we're leaving for Prague tomorrow afternoon. Not sure if I'll find internet there or not. Hope so. Stay well everyone!

One last note from Munich...

2008-06-22T17:56:00.002-04:00

I saw the neatest thing today... probably one of the last things I'd think to see in an inland city in Germany. Surfing. Surfing! Tim and I took a walk through some giant park (England Park?) that had a river that we suspect to be man-made flowing through it. The water was strikingly fast and in spots where the elevation changed, it made some seriously pleasing rapids. One place was at the very south of the park, presumably where the river enters the park, where it dropped a good five feet over about 30 feet horizontally... this made for one large standing swell from which some young guys could ride their surfboards back and forth across the river (tops, 40 feet wide). There were probably about half a dozen surfers and probably a dozen people who'd just stopped in their tracks to watch. Surreal, but totally cool. I was tempted to join in, that's for sure!

Munich!

2008-06-22T10:59:00.003-04:00

Pictures here: Dachau

Ok, so we've made it to Munich - via Mannheim and Stuttgart... but we're here!
We arrive last night around 4 and started by checking into our hotel and doing the other housekeeping stuff... finding a bank machine, deciding what we'd like to do while here... We ended up getting dinner from a grocery store and having sandwiches in a park where there was a giant red O (I mean like 50 feet high!). What it was supposed to symbolise is beyond me. Anyone happen to know?
We ended up walking from there to a square known as "Marienplatz" where there is a large clocktower that has animatronic figures that do some actions at certain times of day... go figure. The thing that's special is that this was built some 400ish years ago! (Did I mention that Munich is celebrating it's 850th birthday this year? - and you thought Montreal was old...) We hung around the square for a while just taking it all in, and partaking in a bit of people-watching... the weather's been clear and hot for the last two days, so it was nice to be in the cooler evening air.
After that we came back here, and just chilled out for the evening, reading books - I'm reading The World According to Garp at the moment, and it's a hard one to put down, so I was up 'til about 1:00 reading, while Tim packed it i around 11, I think.
This morning we made our way over to the train station to meet up with a guide who would give us a tour of the Dachau concentration camp, in the west end of Munich. I'm still digesting everything we learned there, but I'll tell you that walking through the gas chamber (which "only" killed 50 people in practice) was one of the most eerie experiences of my life.
Now we're back at the hotel for a break before dinner, and I've managed to find an open wifi access point to send out an e-mail or two and post this. The hotel advertises free wireless internet, but I'll be darned if I can make it work right

One last observation from Germany - despite the language being one that I am not in the least familiar with, I've found that it's much easier to communicate with people overall - firstly many people speak enlish, and second they're not as intimidating as Parisians seem to be.

That's it from here for now - stay well! Salzburg tomorrow!

Arras, Vimy, and le tour Eiffel

2008-06-20T17:16:00.003-04:00

Pictures here: Vimy, Paris part 2

Today was a very long and exciting day - we started with a ride on the TGV to Arras - about an hour north of Paris. We spent a couple of hours just exploring the town... beautiful place, and it was so full of history. Yet another enormous cathedral. This one we were two of maybe four people inside, so it was nearly silent... it was a wonderful change from the constant hustle and noise of Paris. After a bit of hunting, we found the meeting place for our bus to the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge - in the process we met up with a few more Canadians - it was nice being able to chat with some folks from back home. One fellow, Leif, was from the Yukon and had come over to visit some cousins in Denmark (go figure!) He had some great stories to tell from back home and over here - one in particular about being charged by a moose had Tim and I laughing pretty hard.
So, after about a half-hour bus ride, we arrived at the memorial where we were given a tour of a section of the communications tunnels, dug in chalk approximately 8 m beneath the surface - very cool. After the tour was done, we had about an hour to make our way to the actual monument of the memorial. It was huge, beautiful, and sad.
Once we were finished there, we returned to Arras, and the train station for our ride back to Paris - for some reason the train was delayed by about 15 minutes enroute - something about passing a EuroStar train or something... not really sure. The station was jam-packed with people when we arrived because of a power failure on the TGV rails - I'm glad it didn't effect us!

Next we headed off to the Eiffel Tower. Last time we were here we didn't go up. We've regretted it ever since, so this time, despite being exhausted, we climbed the stairs up to the second level. What a view! Totally worth the near-heart attack from the 700 stairs...

And then we came back here. Turkey just won their world cup game, and I can hear people outside cheering and honking car horns... lovely stuff! But I must go now, I need to pack before we leave tomorrow morning for Munich.
Stay well folks!

Another busy day in Paris

2008-06-19T17:33:00.003-04:00

Pictures here: Paris

So today was another tourist day... go figure! We visited, Gare du Nord (the train station), Sacre Couer, the Arc de Triumph and the Pantheon. Not a bad listing for one day, I think!
Gare du Nord turned into a three hour extravaganza as Tim and I waited in line for reservations for a trip to Vimy Ridge (happening tomorrow due to the length of the line) and for our voyage to Munich (via Manheim and Stuttgart thanks to Tim's quick thinking when we were informed that the direct train was full). After that we had lunch and planned our day before leaving the station.
Next was Sacre-Couer on Mont Martre - this is a giant church that was built basically to apologise for all the nasty things that happened to the Catholic during the revolution - that's a gross oversimplification, but still. This is one beautiful church - a lot of attention to detail is contained within it. No pictures, because of signs... sorry. The mural in the dome was beautiful... albeit a little silly in some aspects - such as the First Nations (North American "Indians"), African tribal people, Japanese geisha, etc. offering gifts to the gigantic Christ. Not that I find their art silly, just the stereotypical costumes they were portrayed in... yeah yeah, it was the 1870s... Tim and I had an interesting chat about the style of Catholicism when it comes to building places of worship.
Oh yes, and of the other benefits of this basilica was the view of the city! Of this I have pictures. Panoramic ones that I'll post when I'm home!
From this giant domed building we proceeded to another gigantic domed building - the Pantheon - the place where all of France's greatest Men [sic] are buried. My favourite among these was Marie Curie. Also, seeing Foucalt's Pendulum in action was COOL! I'm getting the impression that the French, and Parisiens in particular love to do things that are huge. Everywhere we've gone thus far has been just plain massive by Canadian standards... maybe it's our Protestant practicality... but my goodness, the space in these places is just unreal. The Pantheon was 90% open space... nothing but clear (marble) floor! Even the crypt was massive!
Anywho... from here we headed off to see the Arc de Triumph... after having seen two ginormous buildings in the day (three if you include the train station) I must admit I was a bit underwhelmed... but it's still huge. Especially by the standards of the 18th century. There seemed to be something that was going to be happening - possibly a parade of some sort, police were lining up near the arch and we saw some veterans getting out of a van in French army uniforms... is today an anniversary of something I should know about? We would've stuck around and even gone up to the top of the arch, but it was beginning to rain quite heavily while we were there, so we decided it was a good time to call it a day - 6:30 and we'd been out since 1030 AM. We headed back to the hotel and I crashed for a bit until 8, then
we had pizza at a place near our hotel for supper.
Last, once we returned I sat down and took a test for my eastern religions course online... stupid school getting in the way of my life ;) I passed, so that's good. Now I can relax and enjoy my vacation!
With that, I sleep. Stay well everyone!

I'm alive!

2008-06-18T14:40:00.003-04:00

Pictures here: Pearson and Flight, Paris

And in Paris! France! Yeah, that Paris!

So, Timbo and I flew out of Toronto yesterday evening (thanks to a ride from Amy). We landed here in Paris this morning about 10 AM - that's 4 AM Ontario time... we figured out the metro with only a few bits of confusion and were checked into our hotel near to 1 PM... then we crashed for an hour or so. Neither of us got much sleep on the flight, so it was pretty much a given that we'd sleep once we arrived.
After the nap, we headed out to begin our adventure... we started at Notre Dame cathedral - WOW! I really wasn't prepared for just how large it really is. Absolutely fantastic.
After spending an hour or so around there, we made our way to The Louvre to go get ourselves cultured... we took our time walking, and stopped in at another church along the way just to see the inside.
At the Louvre, we saw about a gazillion bits of art, including the Mona Lisa (not as small as I'd been conditioned to expect since everyone is shockeed it's so small) and the Venus De Milo (Cool to have actually seen it). Along with a number of other extremely famous paintings and sculptures... I'm feeling pretty cultured now.
The Egypt section of the museum was pretty awesome - nice to see stuff that's not in the ROM!

After about 3 hours there, we were both pooped, so we headed back here to the hotel. It's 8:45 Paris time (2:45 Ontario time) and I'm just about ready to go to bed... guess the jet lag isn't going to catch me yet!
Pictures will follow - just a matter of weeding them out on my camera. Stay tuned!

I'm voting Republican

2008-06-14T18:05:00.001-04:00

Here's why:

In case you hadn't heard...

2008-05-15T23:08:00.002-04:00

The most beautiful and wonderful girl on the planet has decided that I'm worthy of hanging out with her for a while... the rest of our lives. I'm getting married to Vanessa next year around this time (we're aiming for May 2... hopefully that'll work out).
So that's about it for this update... stay well everyone! :)

School taught me something today...

2008-04-14T23:40:00.003-04:00

I've spent all day writing my take-home exam for Theology. While working away, something finally clicked that I always knew in words, but didn't seem to understand. I thought I'd share:

Faith is passive, not active. It is not works that help us attain salvation. We must remain still, and have faith that God will come through, topping off our bail money to free us from the bondage of sin and death.

Here's the quote where I found my epiphany. It's an autobiographical quote from Luther in a preface to a collection of his Latin works.

I had certainly wanted to understand Paul in his letter to the Romans. But what prevented me from doing so was not so much the cold blood in my heart as that one phrase in the first chapter: "the righteousness of God is revealed in it" (Romans 1:17). For I hated that phrase, "the righteousness of God," which I had been taught to understand as the righteousness by which God is righteous, and punishes un-righteous sinners. Although I lived a blameless life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience before God. I also could not believe that I had pleased him with my works. Far from loving that righteous God who punished sinners, I actually hated him. [...] I was in desperation to know what Paul meant in this passage. At last, as I meditated day and night on the relation of the words "the righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written, the righteous person shall live by faith," I began to understand that "righteousness of God" as that by which the person lives by the gift of God (faith); and this sentence, "the righteousness of God is revealed," to refer to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "the righteous person lives by faith ." This immediately made me feel as though I had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. From that moment, I saw the whole face of Scripture in a new light. [...] And now, where I had once hated the phrase, "the righteousness of God," I began to love and extol it as the sweetest of phrases, so that this passage in Paul became the very gate of paradise to me.

(Preface to the Latin Works (1545); in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 54 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1938), pp. 185-6.)

Now, I always knew Luther was really hard on himself, but it's something else to see it in his own words. I understand where he's coming from. I don't live anything near the "blameless life of a monk", but the feeling is the same - I haven't done anything worthy of God. Sure I've done some good stuff. Heck, I'm planning on doing lots more... but I don't think any of it measures up to the standard of God.
For one moment I've finally been able to see with crystal clarity what faith is, where salvation comes from - how Christ's resurrection bridges the gap between God and humanity. For the first time in a long time, my beliefs feel concrete again. I know my place in things again thanks to a self-critical monk who couldn't deal with the way the Church was doing business. Thank God.

Asus 4G eeePC Review

2008-03-29T14:27:00.007-04:00

Alright, so a quick review. I've had this little guy a few days now and I've been fiddling with it as time allows.

Bought from NCIX.com for approximately $430 CDN (Including shipping and taxes)

I purchased Asus eeePC because I'm traveling to Europe this summer to do some studies, and didn't want to have to lug around my main laptop which is (in my opinion) too fragile to be carrying in a large backpack without special protection. Also, I'm planning on using this for classes in the fall as an alternative to the power-hog that my current laptop is.

(click for full-size)

(click for full-size)

Hardware:

Keyboard -
Ok, first you think you know how small this computer is, but you really don't until you have one sitting in front of you. It's tiny. I'm an average sized guy, and my hands are the same - I can [i]just[/i] fit my fingers onto the home row. I was able to take notes at a meeting this morning without too much trouble, though I'm still getting used to the location of a few keys - especially the number row - the 1 is at the very edge where the ~ key usually is, so my digits are frequently needing to be edited. Otherwise, things are laid out pretty nicely, just very small. If you've got big hands, you're going to be typing with three fingers on each hand, I think.

Screen -
The screen is also small. At first it's kind of shocking how small it is - the new version that PJ posted will probably be more than adequate screen-wise, but again the price will probably be equally larger. That being said, it's still quite usable. An 800x480 screen sounds really small, but it's surprisingly usable for surfing the web (at least the sites I visit), and running office programs. The issue I keep running into is that because I've set it up to run in KDE as opposed to the "easy" mode, the windows are frequently too large for the screen, leaving me tabbing, and hoping the selection ends up on the right button - this is especially annoying in Synaptic.

Touchpad -
It's small, but you get used to it quickly.

Speakers -
They're laptop speakers... decent, but not something I'll use regularly - just plug in some headphones.

Battery life -
Great so far, I ran it all morning today for my meeting on battery and haven't run it out - that was 2.5 hours and it's still indicating 50% left when I just started it again. It was on standby for part of that, so who knows. I think the advertised 3.5 hours is probably attainable.

Video -
I haven't tried anything extensive, just Compiz (which looked great, but wasn't cooperating so I've turned it off again), and YouTube, but they seem to work alright. Oh, and I've tried a few 3d games (OpenGL, probably), and they seem to work smoothly. Hell, I've seen a video of a dude running Warcraft on one of these and it was pretty smooth as well.

Wireless -
Oddly, this laptop seems to get better wireless reception than my $1600 Acer Aspire... why that is, beats me, but it does.

(click for full-size)

Software:
Apparently this is a highly customized version of Xandros 4.0 - By default it starts you with "Easy mode" which is a set of very large icons in tabbed menus - it's pretty enough, but there's no real desktop to work with, and I found it kind of irritating, so I quickly added a couple of repositories by following a link that someone posted in this thread, then installed KDE, because that's what I'm more used to with Linux.

That went pretty smoothly, and now it's a bit easier to customize - add software, etc. I've even set up Synergy so that I can have both of my laptops connected to my desktop computer at the same time and I can control them all from one mouse and full-sized keyboard. Geeky, but definitely worth it.

A special note: Through my experimenting in the last few days with different repositories, I've managed to hose the OS not once, but three times (using stuff from Debian repositories that it didn't like). If you like to toy around with stuff, make sure you create a restore USB key, or have an external drive to run the included DVD from. I've restored the OS three times now, and it takes about 20 minutes, which is pretty quick, and painless once you've created the USB key (a 1 gb stick will do the trick, despite what the manual seems to indicate).

That's about all I can think to review for the moment. If you folks have any questions about it, let me know!

Dang.

2008-02-13T14:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, this is too cool. Some people have figured out that if you hook up a merry-go-round to a water pump, then set it up in a school yard in Africa - voila! Clean water for everyone!

The Story of Stuff

2008-01-29T22:49:00.000-05:00

The beginning of this video is fairly self-evident, but stick it out - it's very enlightening. Please watch it and think about what's said.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Remembering Challenger

2008-01-28T11:06:00.000-05:00

I was only two or so, but the Challenger accident brings tears to my eyes every year that passes. Today is the 22nd anniversary.

Please, take a moment to remember that space exploration is not something that the world does just to show off - the Cold War is over. While it is costly - in dollars and lives - the price is well worth it.

I still dream of being an astronaut. Maybe some day I'll be the first ordained minister in space.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

Rest in peace. Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik.

Two Hundredth Post

2008-01-10T11:37:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't actually posted anything about myself for a while, so I think I will while I've got a bit of time.

In September I moved to Waterloo so that I could begin my studies to become an ordained minister in the United Church. I'm attending the University of Waterloo, and I love it. Obviously, not everything is great, but for the most part, my teachers have been fantastic, and I've been learning lots. Since I don't need a specific major to get into my master's program at seminary, I'm able to take pretty much whatever courses I'd like, which as I've planned out thus far, is going to make for a pretty interesting three years here.
I'm through one semester now, and I passed all five courses, and had decent marks as well. Right now one of my big concerns is plotting out what courses I want to take for the next two and a half years so that I can end up with a Religious studies major, and enough credits to even get my degree! If you're curious, I've shared it here.

On a more personal side of things, I'm living in an apartment with four other people. We each have our own bedrooms, then we share the kitchen and living room... also we have two bathrooms so things in the morning aren't nearly as hectic as they could be. My roommates include an optometry student, two nursing students, and Tim, who works at a college in Kitchener. It's a decent situation, though we all feel that we're getting ripped off rent-wise. Aside from that, though, we take turns making dinner during the week, and share chores... things are pretty good. This is a pretty good living situation for me, easing into the university lifestyle, and living in community. Everyone I live with have been living with other people in this kind of situation for years, so they're all very considerate when it comes to personal space and privacy. I'd like to think that we're all fairly close friends too.

The plan for next year is for Tim and myself to move down to Kitchener into a place (yet to be decided) somewhere near his workplace. This year he is borrowing my car to drive down to work; which has worked pretty well, but it causes a bit of friction when we both need the car around the same time. Also, not Tim's fault, but I waste far too much energy worrying about anything happening to the car while it's in his possession... yes, I'm a control freak. I know.

Other than that, life's pretty busy planning church stuff. We were hoping to host a young adult event at the end of January (25-27), but it looks like it's going to fall through due to lack of interest. Kind of a bummer, to say the least. On the positive side, though, I'll probably use my free weekend to see my girlfriend, Vanessa, back home in Sartown.

There's plenty more I could add, but at the moment I need to run and get some lunch. I'm working at the Bookstore on campus, and my shift starts in an hour! I hope everyone is well.

So much for personal accountability

2007-10-12T11:52:00.000-04:00

So, the Ontario election is over. It was a bittersweet moment for me to see the results in Sarnia's riding - Caroline Di Cocco was tossed aside in favour of a new MPP... unfortunately one from the Conservative Party.

I can't help but laugh at her, though, because now she's blaming Mike Bradley for her loss in the election. The woman who was too busy to read a memo that indicated huge cost overruns on the hospital expansion in Sarnia thinks it's the Mayor's fault. I'm not normally a huge fan of Mayor Mike, but at least he's honest enough and upright enough to want to see the truth shown to the citizens of Sarnia.

From the article:

The final clash came in recent weeks, when Bradley demanded the Ontario government disclose the revised cost for a new Sarnia hospital — a tab later shown to have more than doubled to $319 million.

And the Mayor comments:

“I think there was a plan out of Queen’s Park to spin (the real costs) out until after the election,” Bradley said.

I think he's right.

Free Burma!

2007-10-02T15:07:00.001-04:00

A little early, I know.

The System Working for...

2007-08-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

...not us anyways.

Check out this video:

and this photo:

I wish I could say that I'm surprised that the police would be encouraged to infiltrate and start violence at a peaceful protest such as this... but I'm not.

From news reports I've read, there were four people arrested at the protests this weekend... two men and two women. Hmmm... where are those three in the list?

While watching the video you can see the men speaking with the riot police - pretty much begging to be let past... what kind of protester wants to be arrested?

And on a sidenote - is that Maude Barlow speaking after the old guy?

Heard this little poem today...

2007-08-14T18:51:00.000-04:00

I thought it was appropriate for my current beef with Transport Canada...

When my flying days are over

And from this life I pass.....

I hope they bury me upside down

So T.C. can kiss my ASS

2007-08-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

I'm told that I've crossed over the line of geekiness where I'm just a little different from "normal" people, to the point where I am now a full-fledged geek. That makes me proud, I think.

Check this out:
I went for a short bike ride the other night just to see what's out around my neighbourhood... and found 82 wireless networks. 42 were unsecured apparently... people truly need to be educated about this stuff. Unreal.

Let it be known for liability sake - I would never hack into someone's network... this is just a reading of the SSIDs of networks taken by an automated program.

Disconnecting.

2007-07-02T23:09:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking with me going off to school in the fall, it'll be a good chance for me to disconnect from the consumer culture that we are immersed in.

I just watched the Transformers movie tonight, and while it was pretty cool (albeit aimed at a juvenile audience), I found it diconcerting the amount of advertising that was built into the movie. Granted, the entire Transformers show/movie/whatever was a product placement for a line of toys that were to be sold, so I shouldn't be entirely surprised. I still found it uncomfortable being nearly brainwashed into buying GM products or joining the army. I mean, almost all of the Transformers were General Motors vehicles. Transformers = cool, QED: GM = cool, right? Also, the US Air Force factored in heavily to the movie, showing off all their latest and greatest technology... and naming it piece by piece so that all the kids would be familiar with it. I'm an airplane nut. I am still a little kid when I see a jet go flying by. Vanessa asked me what kind of airplane was flying by at the beginning of the movie, and without hesitation I could tell her that it was a V-22 Osprey... but I digress.

I've been fortunate through certain plugins in my web browser to avoid the majority of the annoying ads that litter the Internet. As well, since I chose internet over cable TV, I don't see much live television. I think having been able to filter out the corporate media from my life (at least somewhat) I've become a bit hyper-sensitive to advertising and I find that it irritates the crap out of me. I don't like being brainwashed to like a certain product. It sometimes feels like I'm operating on a different wavelength than some people just because I don't pay any attention to the latest tv show, or movie, or whatever... If I find stuff I like, I go with it... if I miss out on something put out by the TV, I'm really not feeling like I've missed anything.
Blah. I'm rambling. Time for bed. Stay well everyone!

Remember that old Dennis Leary song "Asshole"?

2007-06-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

Darth Vader likes to be one too!!

Lovely Videos from Cape Breton

2007-06-21T10:30:00.000-04:00

This is what the Internets were made for...

First:

The most dramatic five-second video on the entire weboblag.

Second, some Norwegian kids mess with the train tracks on a high speed line with... results. You'll see. <Clicky>

Oh... and Tim, Vanessa and myself are in Nova Scotia (as noted on Tim's blog). We spent a few days in Halifax, now we're in Ingonish (Cape Breton). We're here 'til tomorrow morning when we return to Halifax to catch the train home on Saturday. Lots of pictures have been taken, and I'll be sure to post them when I have a high speed connection again. Links will follow!
Stay well, everyone!

LOLTrek

2007-05-02T20:37:00.000-04:00

You may have heard of lolcats. Or not. But they're funny. Now I present you with lolTrek:

We has Tribbles
and also Troubles.

Note to self:

2007-05-01T17:10:00.000-04:00

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Satisfaction

2007-04-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

I received a phone call this evening just before I was heading out to do laundry.

"Hello?"
"Hello, am I speaking to Mr. Gord Spence?"
"You certainly are... what can I do for you?"
"I'm calling on behalf of your local MP, Pat Davidson, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the Conservative Party of Canada. We'd like to know if you would be voting for the Conservative Party in the upcoming election."
A beat.
"Ma'am, I don't mean any offense to you, but, Hell NO."
"Haha, ok. You have a good night, sir."
"You too! Bye!"

I think the proper description for that experience is "cathartic". It felt good to be honest with someone who really wanted to know my opinion. I wonder how many people answered that call with the same response as mine... I hope lots. Sarnia's a bellweather for elections. Lets see if we can't get an NDPer or a Green elected for a change!

Fools.

2007-02-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

Ok, I just finished reading an article about how Stephen Harper was trying to link a Liberal MP (Navdeep Bains) to the Air India trial and read all the comments that were flying back and forth between the LPC and CPC. My blood is boiling. People often wonder why my generation has little faith in the government, and why they don't vote. This is why. This kind of self-absorbed bullshit tells people of my generation that the "elected" officials don't give a crap about what they think, rather they're more concerned with winning elections and being in control of parliament than the concerns of the public. The last time I even heard about any legislation being passed was a motion to force the conservatives to follow through with Kyoto. Yeah, that's great and all, but what else has the government done in the last month? Not a damned thing as far as I can tell. All I hear about is how the Cons are preparing for an election and the Liberals are trying to throw Harper out.
Some days I feel that I should run for office, but I think that if I did I'd end up so frustrated with all the meaningless garbage that pours forth from the government that I'd quit after a month. That's assuming I could even be elected... I don't have the money to finance a campaign, and no one would vote for someone who tells the truth about how if they want more services, taxes have to go up... simple fscking economics, folks... something none of the parties currently in parliament have a clue about, apparently. Disillusioned is how I remain for the time being. Government is absolute crap... A bunch of corrupt, arrogant, mindless idiots.

My Grandma ("Baba")

2007-01-21T15:30:00.000-05:00

I really should be writing a service right now, but I have to get this off my mind first.

I just went to visit my grandmother at a nursing home here in town. She's been living there for most of a year now, and it makes me sad in a way, but I know she needs that kind of care now.

I call my grandmother, "Baba". I don't know why, but it's what I've called her since I was a small child, so it stuck. I suppose it's a little childish still using that term, but if you don't like it you can bite me! :)

Anyways. Baba and I have a great connection. I don't get the chance to visit her very often, but when we get together we often talk for an hour or two. We don't seem to limit our conversation to our own lives very often - though that is a very important part - but we talk about the church, world issues, things that worry us. She teaches me so much about life, and what's important... yet she still makes me feel that my opinions and choices are valid. She said to me today when we were talking about me moving to Waterloo today that I'd need to find another job for the summers between terms. I agreed and mentioned that I'd been thinking of working at a church camp in some capacity. Her first thought was that I wouldn't be making a lot there (always the practical one). When I responded that money wasn't the entire purpose of working there, she said something along the lines of what a 'good Christian' I make... it was probably the best compliment I've received in a long time. Made my day. She's proud of me in a way only a grandmother can be, and she worries about me in exactly the same day. On hearing that I'd driven to Waterloo yesterday in a bit of a snow squall, I received a bit of an admonishment, but not an outright "You're crazy!"

Another note from today was that our lives seem to have paralleled eachother of late. Especially in our living circumstances - she recently moved into a nursing home, coming from a more independent style of living on her own. This is my plan for next year - moving in with four or five friends from living by myself for the last two years. It's going to be a huge adjustment, but I know that I can handle it because Baba has faith in me.

I'm really not sure where I was going with this. I think I just want a record of that I really do appreciate all that Baba is to me, and I wish everyone had someone in their family with whom they could connect as we do. As usual, I am blessed!

For the Sexually Promiscuous Gay Male Audience of my Blog...

2007-01-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah, y'know, I don't think that's really part of my target audience with this blog... but Amy sent me a link today because there's an old story about me being told I had syphilis when I donated blood many moons ago. (The gist is that they tested my blood after donation and had a false positive for syphilis... thus I inherited the nickname "Syph-boy" and I'm never allowed to donate again... go me.)

So anyways, Amy sent me this link about getting tested for syphilis, which I have to admit is pretty funny. Check it out: <Click Here>.
Oh, and don't check it at work, it features cartoon penises!

It may not look like winter right now...

2007-01-04T19:12:00.000-05:00

...but it damn well does on my computer!!

(click for larger)

I am so very tired of this weather. Give me Nunavut any day. Or Denver. Whatever.

Since when is green grass in JANUARY acceptable? Seriously, this is Canada we're talking about here, not friggin' Cuba. GAH.

Thanks to digitalblasphemy.com for the great computer generated background. My membership there is so seriously worth the price.

News Flash

2006-12-24T01:23:00.001-05:00

I'm not as put-together as I'd like you all to believe.

That is all.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Belief-O-Matic

2006-12-15T18:12:00.000-05:00

Interesting little website my friend Val referred me to this evening - it's called the "Belief-O-Matic" and it takes a quick survey of your beliefs and places them in a broad category/denomination to show you whereabouts you'd lie in the spectrum of faiths.

My results came out thus:

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (86%)
3. Orthodox Quaker (85%)

Where do you lie in this? Do you feel that it's fairly accurate in placing you where you think you belong? Were you surprised by the results?

I thought mine was fairly accurate... obviously, being a part of the United Church of Canada (and almost a candidate for ministry), that's a mainline, liberal Christian denomination... I also have a great deal of respect for the Quakers, so I thought it was pretty cool to see them come out in my top five.
Post some replies! I'm curious where you ended up!

We have a music video!

2006-12-03T19:04:00.000-05:00

Check it out!

louderVIEW has our first music video! Thanks to Matt Christopher for creating this for us!

So... there's this band... doing a show... if you're not busy...

2006-11-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

So would you be my date? I won't get to sit beside you because, well, I'll be on the stage. But you'll get the privilege of being able to say that you know someone in the band... that'd be the seller for me!

The show is at London Road West United Church in Sarnia (located here), 8 PM on December 2 (Saturday). Admission is $10 and you'll get to see two great bands, louderVIEW (my band) and Days Ransom - a kind of "screamo" band, I guess... their tunes are good, anyway!
Let me know that you'll be there or at least give me your best excuse why you're not!

2006-11-10T19:31:00.000-05:00

The "silent majority" just got a lot quieter. And a lot less "major".

WonderCafe.ca

2006-11-07T17:53:00.000-05:00

The Emerging Spirit Campaign has begun. And it's engendered in a website known as WonderCafe.ca.

This is one of the most exciting petitions we dealt with this summer at General Council. It's an ad campaign for the United Church of Canada, which is aimed to reach out to the younger generation, showing that Christianity doesn't have to be about hating those who are different, and falling in line with whatever you're told to believe. The ads are meant to portray our church as it is: a place where you can explore your faith, and no one is going to force you to believe one set dogma... you have to think for yourself.

My very favourite ad from the campaign was on the front of the Globe and Mail this morning (at right). It shows a bobblehead Jesus with two checkboxes: "Funny" and "Ticket to Hell".

Perhaps one of the more notable events from the day was reading a thread on Fark.com (where flamewars are especially prevalent) and seeing all the positive comments that were being made in regards to the church. They came from all sides - atheists, agnostics, and Christians alike.

So... that's my plug for the day. I hope lots of folks will check it out! If you have any questions, be sure to ask the EZ Answer Squirrel!

Clinton beats Fox

2006-11-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

I'm totally in love with Keith Olberman. He's so eloquent. Maybe a little verbose at times, but it's so nice to listen to, I hardly notice. I just watched this little monologue regarding Bill Clinton's interview with Fox News where Fox tried to make him look bad, but he turned it around and showed them the truth. Huzzah.

Daylight Savings time is Evil.

2006-10-30T07:39:00.000-05:00

No matter how much I appreciate the extra hour of sleep, my body still knows that it's just being toyed with whenn we change the clocks back an hour... and it really doesn't like it. It's 7:30 (8:30 in real-time) and I feel like garbage because I woke up nearly two hours ago. What the crap.

Bambi Meets Godzilla

2006-10-17T23:18:00.000-04:00

I am ashamed to say that I had never seen this classic film before today. Enjoy:

New York City

2006-09-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

August. What a month.
So, I had two beautiful weeks of vacation time at the beginning of August and Bran and I had decided we were going to go to New York City to see DMB play. So we did.

Left and right: Bran on the plane... Grand Central Station during a slow time.

We got to know the Manhattan subways quite well, and visited the

Intrepid Air, Sea and Space Museum:

the Guggenheim Museum:

and Central Park.

Oh yeah, and we saw the Dave Matthews Band play at Randall's Island. The venue wasn't great compared to Red Rocks or the Molson Amphitheatre, for that matter, but the music was top notch. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones came out and jammed with the band for a solid half hour, which was absolutely amazing...
Oh yeah, and we followed up the concert with a short visit to the Empire State Building at 1:00 in the morning. Wow. "The city that doesn't sleep" is an understatement. Note the traffic on the streets in this photo:
So... that was a quick run through of the trip. We saw lots, experienced some new stuff... went to a jazz club... very awesome. It was a great way to spend the weekend, and I'd do it again any day. Next up will be a bit of a hashing out of my experience at the 39th General Council of the United Church of Canada.... I'm still absorbing a lot of that.

A Moment on Earth

2006-09-02T23:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big one on advertising, but this seems like a really cool project. Something that needs support and will be absolutely fascinating to see when it's completed. Check it out!

...yeah yeah, you'll get your update soon enough...

2006-09-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

Yeah, so I owe you guys a huge update post... unfortunately my head isn't together enough to make anything remotely coherent at the moment. I'm sick... not sure where I picked it up, though.

August was a busy month. New York City, Cedar Point, General Council in Thunder Bay, leading a worship service at a church in Forest.

I have some pictures of each event (except Cedar Point) and I'll post them when I get around to it.

For now I leave you with two purchases that I wish to make... I'm finding more and more that I need a five-string bass to play the music that I want to. So here and here are the two options I've narrowed down to. I would prefer the more expensive of the two (EDB405), but I'll have to see if my pockets can handle that.

Oh, and a final note, I'm probably going to be going to school full time next year. Quite possibly at the University of Waterloo. 3 year bachelor degree in sociology, then on to Emmanuel (U of T) or Queen's for my M. Div. / Seminary. We'll see.

95 Theses...

2006-07-23T09:13:00.000-04:00

...of Geek activism.

From: ScienceAddiction.com

Geek activism has not taken off yet, but it should. With the gamers recognizing the need for a louder voice, EFF gaining momentum and Linux taking on the mainstream on the one hand and recent severe losses in privacy, freedom of speech and intellectual property rights on the other, now seems to be the best time to rally around the cause.

Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics.

Reclaim the term ‘hacker’. If you tinker with electronics, you are a hacker. If you use things in more ways than intended by the manufacturer, you are a hacker. If you build things out of strange, unexpected parts, you are a hacker. Reclaim the term.
Violating a license agreement is not theft.
All corporations are not on your side.
Keep in touch with everyone you can vote for and make sure you know where they stand on the issues you care about.
More importantly, make sure they know where you stand on the issues you care about.
Everything will enter the public domain some day- even Mickey Mouse.
Read the original 95 theses. Yes, they are irrelevant to these causes. Yes, they are religious- and not even close to my religion. And yes, they are 500 years old. But they do demonstrate how stating your beliefs clearly, effectively and publicly to challenge the status quo can change the world. Of course, I have no delusions of grandeur!
Use TOR for privacy and anonymity.
Trusted computers must not be trusted.
Democrats may seem to be on your side, but keep an eye on them. They may only be the lesser of two evils.
Republicans may seem to be the enemy, but that is only because they are in power now. The true enemy is a lack of accountability.
Read Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Why do I have to jump through hoops just to get video off my own home movie DVDs?
Know the DMCA so you know what you are up against.
The true enemy is the line: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you fear?” The problem with that line, as Schneier has said, is that it assumes that the desire for privacy implies wrong-doing.
Proprietary data formats must never store public information.
Some corporations are on your side- find them and reward them.
No one has ever told me where I could play my 45 RPMs. Why are my MP3s any different?
The analog hole is not a hole. The world is analog.
If you are in the US, let your Senator know what you feel.
Treating your customers like criminals- or potential criminals- will turn customers away.
This bears repeating, treating paying customers as potential criminals is a losing strategy.
Some corporations may seem to be on your side, but are not.
Fair use is a good thing.
Use multiple operating systems regularly so you truly understand interoperability.
Write to your local newspaper- they can shape the opinions of the people do not understand the issues we care about.
Do not follow the Electronic Frontier Foundation, participate in it.
Read of Thoreau’s words on civil disobedience.
Data mining will not stop terror.
Express your opinion in public.
Blog.
The GPL is not gospel, but it comes close.
Use multiple MP3/music players so you truly understand interoperability.
If you are in the US, let your house representative know how you feel.
Those in favor of suspending some liberties for security, answer this: “Who watches the watchers?”
Except for extreme cases, the government should not be in the business of parenting our children.
When arguing with people who disagree, be polite, but not condescending.
RFID is just a technology- its existence does not make us more secure.
Now and in the future, presence of encryption implies nothing. In fact, whatever it does imply is none of your business. Without any other probable cause, the user must not bear the burden of explaining reasons for use of encryption.
Flame wars help the other side.
New technologies to promote and develop media will prosper because of computers and the Internet, not inspite of it.
Security is a trade-off- what are you willing to give up?
Calling Microsoft evil buys you nothing- it only polarizes the argument.
Holding Google to it’s “Don’t do evil” mantra buys us a lot.
Read of Gandhi’s actions in civil disobedience. Discover Satyagraha.
Use Creative Commons.
Understand the difference between civil disobedience and breaking the law.
Can’t find anything to watch on network TV? Watch Democracy TV.
Frame the argument in terms of the average person, not the edge-case geek. These problems affect geeks first, but will affect everyone in the future.
Privacy, civil liberties and civil rights are a slippery slope. The reason we continuously fight for them is not that we all seek a utopian society where doves fly free- in fact, I seek a perpetual ‘tug-of-war’ where the rope gradually slips in the direction of my beliefs.
Users do not want the permission to use digital media; they want to own digital media. This means using them as they choose, where they choose, in the device of their choice without fear of litigation or sudden inactivity. These users are customers- treat them with respect.
Support the free, public domain archives of information.
Undermine censorship by publishing information censored in oppressive countries.
And then, there is the 12-step plan for the games industry.
Corporations and producers of digital media must trust their own consumers. Sales will reward trust.
Breaking the law because you disagree with the current law is not the way to solve the problem in a democratic society.
ID cards do not make us more secure.
Voicing your views in a Slashdot comment thread is good, in your own blog is better, but in places that non-geeks frequent is best.
DRM does not work because the customer/user has the key, cipher and ciphertext in the player. (thanks Cory Doctorow)
Bloggers have rights- be aware of them.
Find out why electronic voting machines are regulated less than casino gaming machines.
Find out about Spimes- they are in your future if things go well.
Have a global perspective in ideas of geek civil liberties, intellectual property rights and so forth. Do you like your country’s policies in this respect? Can you help people from another country?
Geek activism is not all about extreme positions. There is a gradient- find your position on it.
Read the PATRIOT ACT- know what you are really up against.
In the US, put a few technologists in power in Washington. Abroad, do the same for your own seat of government.
Write to mainstream media- they have more mindshare than they are given credit for.
Read what your founding fathers said before taking someone’s word for it. Quote the founding fathers back at them- there were so many of them, and they said and wrote so much, that you will find a quote for each situation. Try this one for starters, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin. Read more Bejamin Franklin. Read more cool quotes
Read more.
Mixed tapes are legal. Time-shifting TV is legal. Regardless of the media.
Decide what is offensive for yourself- don’t let the government decide it for you. If you do not, pretty soon, you may only see one side of every argument.
Music purchases should not be governed by determining which seller has the most clout among the player manufacturers.
We do not lock the door to our bedrooms or bathrooms because we have something to hide. We do not secure our networks, conversations, emails and files because we have something to hide.
Make sure that if a vendor locks you in, you lock them out.
80% of games are not rated M.
You may agree with Richard Stallman, but make sure you understand the opposing point of view.
An email tax to certify that it is “legitimate” is an aweful idea.
Know your rights and be prepared to defend them.
Open source is not free.
Free is open source.
The ESRB game rating system exists for a reason- so that parents can be parents and the government can get on with more important stuff.
Do not allow corporations to get away with assisting oppressive regimes. Let your voice be heard.
Linux is no longer a philosophy- it is a good piece of software. Use it because it if it fits your needs.
There are reasons based in mathematics that establish the NSA wiretaps and other similar brute data mining ideas do not work.
Multiple nag screens that warn us of possible insecurity do not make us more secure.
More information available to the most nummber of people is a good thing.
There are DRM free alternatives for music you can play anywhere.
Vote.
Free as in free lunch is good. Free as in a free people is even better. For software and for everything else.
Quoting Schneier’s blog: Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” Watch someone long enough, and you’ll find something to arrest—or just blackmail—with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies—whoever they happen to be at the time.
Read our modern geek philosophers- read Bruce Perens, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and even Richard Stallman. Read Schneier to find practical reasons why stupid security mechanisms are stupid. Read them even if you disagree with them- it will help frame your point of view.
DRM only keeps an honest user honest.
You have the right to anonymity on the internet.
Be proud of being a geek, a gamer, a privacy advocate, promoter of free speech and an innovator without fear of litigation, of government or restrictions on liberties- a geek activist.
Most of all- have fun.

If you disagree with any or all of what I have said- good for you. Let me know how. Let me know why. Let us argue, let us debate. But, in the end, let us get stuff done.

Brazillian Soccer Training Camp

2006-07-01T13:51:00.000-04:00

Covert video of the Brazillian training camp. Now I get it.

2006-07-01T00:07:00.000-04:00

"You're not married, you haven't got a girlfriend, and you haven't watched Star Trek? Good Lord..."

Oh to be a child again...

2006-06-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

I just read this post over on AvCanada... reminded me of the reason I got into flying in the first place. I remember the first time I took the controls of a plane and how much my cheeks hurt from the grin on my face. It really wasn't that long ago, but I have a hard time imagining my life without a place in it for flying.

Yeah, awful pic, but it has good memories attached...!

How many...?

2006-06-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

#470021 +(1045)- [X]

how many emo kids does it take to change a lightbulb?
HOW MANY?!

none they just sit in the dark and cry

#540211 +(487)- [X]

how do you create a user in linux?
<@Viceroy> you can't, if you use linux you're going to live alone forever

#14500 +(187)- [X]

@(F|uid) candlelight dinners suck
@(F|uid) i cant see my food

Warning, if you do decide to check out bash.org, a lot of the quotes are not safe for work and typically aren't exactly... mature.

Yarrrrr!

2006-06-17T09:44:00.000-04:00

Thar be Bus Pirates on these shores, mateys!!

Patience

2006-06-12T20:29:00.000-04:00

I was just going through some old poetry I'd written a couple of years ago and found one I thought I'd share. Perhaps I'll share some more in the future? We'll see. This is entitled "Patience". Make of it what you will.

Patience -- Gord Spence

When will it be?

This room smells like new carpet

The walls are freshly painted, but already worn

Red, white, chipped drywall

We wait

The garbage can shines with irony

Denying its nature in the bright fluorescent light

People stand

Lingering

Conversing aimlessly

Quietly drifting in and out

Why isn’t she here yet?

Stomach knots

Pulse races

Patience runs thin

Would eat

But I can’t

Would walk

But I can’t

I want this to be over now.

Best picture all week

2006-06-11T15:05:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you've ever heard that cats can be somewhat territorial. There is a story here about a little tabby named Jack. He met a bear. He didn't like the bear being on his property. So he chased him up a tree! Want proof? Voila:

Jack don't take crap from nobody.

2006-06-08T17:06:00.000-04:00

Yeah, but I still don't like the VW Bug. Clickez ici.

Pictures from London Conference

2006-06-05T20:27:00.000-04:00

Pam sent me these the other day! Hurrah! Thanks Pam!

Mountains!

2006-06-03T13:18:00.000-04:00

I forgot that you could see the mountains from Calgary until about the second or third day we were there, and I saw them off in the distance. Before we left yesterday, I made sure to grab a couple of shots while we were at the airport!

A free... uh... cookie, to the first person to correctly name the three aircraft types in those pictures!!

A beautiful city. It was a pleasure to visit it for a week, but I don't think I'd want to live there long-term. Especially since the rent is actually higher on average than in Rome! How's that for crazy!?

New toy!

2006-05-31T01:04:00.000-04:00

And you thought me and pointy things was a bad idea!! "Bah!" I say! Bah!

I've been looking for a good camping knife for a while now. Today I passed on getting a replica of Excalibur and went with something a little less flashy, but perhaps a wee bit more useful.

Oh, and I'm in Calgary right now. 7% sales tax is teh r0x0r. I'm doing training with my company and it's going fairly smoothly.

I've been looking forward to this trip for a while now, so it was a bit of a surprise to me when I wasn't all that happy about leaving on Monday morning.

This past weekend was London Conference, which was an absolute blast. I love being able to reconnect with my friends who are scattered about the province and I rarely get to see them. This means that I got about 8 hours sleep over the two nights of Conference. Then Monday I left for the airport at 5:00AM after about 5 hours of sleep. I tried to sleep on the plane but didn't have a lot of luck. So, I was exhausted last night, and now that I've caught up with the timezone I'm just now starting to feel tired (it's 23:00 MDT [01:00 EDT]). I'll try to do a bit of a followup post on Conference when I'm feeling up to it (tomorrow I should think).

Oh, and I saw Over the Hedge tonight. Funniest movie I've seen in a long, long time. See it, you'll like it.

Dwayne: [after shooting the head off a plastic flamingo] Arrrgh! Not again! Those things are so lifelike! Curse you, plastic moldsmen.

Photos from the hike

2006-05-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

Picture in picture in picture in picture....

2006-05-22T14:36:00.000-04:00

Check it out.

Toronto Section - km 1.2 - 21.5

2006-05-21T17:43:00.000-04:00

Tim, Val and myself started the hike at km 1.2 (Campbellbille Rd.) of the Toronto section of the Bruce Trail. The forecast threatened a 60% chance of rain but we lucked out as a high pressure system seemed to be moving in and blew the clouds away early in the day. Of course, this high pressure system brough with it high winds. We were fortunate to be in the woods most of the time, so they didn't really affect us too much, except when crossing out in the open.

There was a fairly rough section between km 10 and 12, which was quite hard on our ankles. The trail was more or less littered with smallish loose rocks (15-20 cm on a side). The size of the rocks meant that our ankles were constantly being bent in odd directions, as well it put a lot of pressure on our knees in a sideways direction. Not so happy. I was leading during this point and elected to set a fairly quick pace, but it still took about an hour to get through. All three of us were fairly winded when we reached the end, just prior to Speyside.

At km 17.4, we started through a trio of farmer's fields. The first and third were wet, but mostly hard-packed for walking on. The second was planted fairly recently, which meant the earth was extremely soft. This brought back memories of my very first hike (Arkona - Grand Bend) and my shoes probably won't forgive me for a while.

The trail then brought us through the Limehouse conservation area where the "Hole in the Wall" is located, as well as a number of crevasses. The terrain is similar to that of Singhampton, though on a smaller scale. The deeper crevasses here were 20 feet deep as opposed to Singhampton's 50 or more in some cases. It was still quite impressive to be climbing down through these gigantic rock formations. All that was left after this section was a short bit of road-walking, which led us to Limehouse and the car! (km 21.5)

Many thanks to Tim's sister, Julie, for giving us a lift to the trailhead so that we wouldn't have to retrace our steps along the trail to get back to the car.

Here's a map Timmy made of the trip.

2006-05-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

I recognise Israel's right to exist, but I also recognise the rights of Palestinians to their own state.

I wish I could come up with an amicable solution for both sides in this conflict. I see that both sides have a point, and both sides have done irreparable harm to the other. Why must the violence and hatred continue? When will it all end?

Three years ago, when I attended General Council 38 in Wolfville, NS, we had a Jewish rabbi and a Palestinian scholar speak about the situation in Israel/Palestine. I remember the feeling of tension in the room was unbearable. I literally had to stand up and walk out of the room after they spoke because I couldn't breathe anymore. The stories from both sides were heartbreaking and convincing. Neither more important than the other, both painful and unimaginable to myself, a young Canadian who has never experienced real violence first-hand.

I don't know where I wanted to go with this, but I want for people to think about situations around the world and realise that they're not black and white. The world is a place full of shades of grey... blacks and whites exist only on paper... in fiction.

Stay well, my friends.

"Quarter-life Crisis"

2006-05-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

I've joked with some people lately that I must be going through my "Quarter-life crisis". I was mostly joking, but in a lot of ways it's true. I caught this bit of prose on a forum that I frequent, and I thought I'd share it with my other twenty-something friends... We're not alone, guys.

BEING TWENTY - SOMETHING

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like.

You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones.

What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't.

One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly,change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look
cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Maybe this will help someone feel like they aren't
alone in their state of confusion........

I know I'm not the only one who's been feeling lonely and confused of late. If you need an ear, I'm around. Everything's going to be alright.

Mail-In Rebates

2006-05-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

begin rant

What a crock! Usually I don't have much of a problem with doing rebates because they take just a few minutes of your time and in a few weeks you get a nice little cheque in the mail. But today's really took the cake for me.

I ordered a second hard drive for my computer because the one I have is getting a little tight for space. It was a pretty sweet deal - $115 (after rebate) for 300GB of space and I needed to get a DVD drive for the computer I'm putting together for the church. So, I went ahead an ordered the drives and they arrived in a spectacularly short time - 2 days after ordering!

Today I finally got around to looking through the rebate instructions and thought they didn't look too bad.
First, I had to go to a website and give them a whack of information so that they can mail me the cheque. I had to enter the invoice number, my home address, phone number, all that jazz. Then I had to get the number off the box for the hard drive. No big deal, it took me maybe five minutes to get everything in. Then I continued on, and it's saying it's going to take 8-10 weeks to deliver the cheque... BUT! I can pay them $5 out of my rebate, and they'll assure that the cheque will be at my door in 2-3 days! Wow! Extortion, I love it! I passed on that option because I really don't need the cash that badly. And it's a $50 rebate, so it's not like it's a huge amount anyways. So, the next step says that I have to confirm my e-mail address so they can send the cheque (huh?). Right, so they're supposed to send the e-mail and I just copy and paste a confirmation number. I check my e-mail 5 minutes after it's supposedly sent... doesn't show. I try waiting a little while longer... no dice. I have to put in the confirmation within 24 hours or it won't go through... great. Oh wait, there's a button to resend the confirmation! I click it... lo and behold both confirmations (the original and the 're-send') arrive in my inbox. Hurrah! I copy and paste the numbers over and continue on through the process. Now I have to print out a form, fill it in, then mail all the documentation in... yeah, this is a really simple process, I love it.
So, I fill out the form and all that, and notice that it says I have to cut out a section of one of the pages with the address to send the papers to, and put it on the envelope. Ok. I don't have gluesticks in my house. I have tape and crazy glue. I'm gonna have to use the tape... it's safer. How much do you want to bet that my rebate is 'lost in the mail' because the label wasn't properly attached? *sigh* So, I staple everything together and fold it up to put in the envelope. I notice that this label is addressed to FLORIDA! What the...!? So, I look at my corkboard where I keep my stamps... I have some leftover ones from before they last raised the postal rates (.50). It's $.85-$1.05 to mail to the US. I have three .50 stamps left. Right on. So, I'm a little over on the postage rate... hope they don't return it *rolling eyes*. So now I'll just mail this in and all will be dandy.

I wonder how many people screw up this rebate process by not noticing that you have to mail in a form, getting the address wrong, forgetting one of the many documents necessary, having their mail lost, not putting on enough postage because it's in the US, or some other stupid reason? We'll see if I get my cheque... rebates really should be easier.

Oh, and I had a sticky note with a list of books I wanted to go out and buy, and now I can't find the darn thing. I'm more than a tad annoyed! I know one that I wanted was Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. I've heard good things about it. Another was one that was recommended on BoingBoing a few weeks ago... something with Red in the title... I'm going to have to go hunting... *sigh*
/end rant

In other news... I'm starting to make loose plans for travelling to Europe this summer. My current through process is something along these lines:
Fly Detroit/Toronto - Copenhagen
Spend a day or two in Copenhagen with my buddy, Rune. Then we'll fly to Zurich, Switzerland, spend a day or two there, then travel by train through the Alps to Venice (two or three days). Then to Florence (two or three days), on to Rome (three or four days). Next a 20-hour ferry to Barcelona across the Mediterranean Sea. (three or four days). Then I'd fly back to Canada, and Rune to Denmark... or something like that. I've got about two weeks to work with, and Rune starts school on the fifth of September. Assuming I go to General Council in Thunder Bay this summer (August 13-19) that means I can leave as early as the 20th of August... which yeah, makes for a busy month, especially since I'm going to see DMB in New York towards the beginning of the month... I hope I don't go broke in the process!
Anywho, I hope all is well with you and yours!

I'm such a slacker

2006-05-09T22:35:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm a loser and I haven't updated much lately. I've been busy with work and such, I suppose. I'll try to post an update soon. Today I give you a fun little video of FedEx arrivals into Memphis during a thunderstorm set to some snazzy music. Enjoy!

Photographic Evidence

2006-04-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

Yep... she's mine :) 2002 Mazda Protege 5, Midnight Blue

Notice

2006-04-18T22:49:00.000-04:00

I bought a car today. It's a standard, and it has a sunroof.

That is all. Continue about your business.

150th Post

2006-04-14T09:54:00.000-04:00

I leave you all with a quote:

the thing about iceland is, it smells bad. because of all the sulphur that´s erupting from the earth all around you, it´s like you´re living in a giant fart. i now realize the plight of my underpants.
- Greg Gutfel

Wheeee!!

2006-04-13T17:17:00.000-04:00

Ok, dudes and dudettes. Firefox is king. Alternatively.

To Whom it May Concern:

2006-04-13T16:06:00.000-04:00

WAHOO!!! It's not quite what I was hoping for, but it sure beats going back to my old job. YAY!!!

Because I have a moment to myself...

2006-04-12T18:57:00.000-04:00

*Appearance*

[ ] I am shorter than 5'4.
[ ] I have many scars.
[ ] I tan easily.
[ ] I wish my hair was a different color.
[ ] I have friends who have never seen my natural hair color.
[ ] I have a tattoo.
[ ] I am self-conscious about my appearance.
[ ] I have/I've had braces.
[ ] I wear glasses/contacts.
[ ] I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.
[ ] I've been told I'm attractive by a complete stranger.
[ ] I have more than 2 piercings.
[ ] I have piercings in places besides my ears.
[x] I have freckles.

*Family/Home Life*

[x] I've sworn at my parents.
[ ] I've run away from home.
[ ] I've been kicked out of the house.
[x] My biological parents are together.
[ ] I have a sibling less than one year old.
[y] I want to have kids someday.
[ ] I've had children.
[ ] I've lost a child.

*School/Work*

[x] I'm in school.
[x] I have a job.
[x] I've fallen asleep at work/school.
[x] I almost always do my homework.
[x] I've missed a week or more of school.
[x] I've been on the Honor Roll.
[ ] I failed more than 1 class last year.
[ ] I've stolen something from my job.
[ ] I've been fired.
[x] I've skipped school.

*Embarrassment*

[ ] I've slipped out a "lol" in a spoken conversation. (that's the moment I quit the Interweb)
[ ] Disney movies still make me cry.
[ ] I've peed from laughing.
[x] I've snorted while laughing.
[x] I've laughed so hard I've cried.
[ ] I've glued my hand to something.
[ ] I've laughed till some kind of beverage came out of my nose.
[x] I've had my pants rip in public.

*Health*

[x] I was born with a disease/impairment.
[ ] I've gotten stitches.
[ ] I've broken a bone.
[ ] I've had my tonsils removed.
[ ] I've sat in a doctors office with a friend.
[x] I've had my wisdom teeth removed.
[x] I had a serious surgery.
[x] I've had chicken pox.

*Traveling*

[x] I've driven over 200 miles (322 km) in one day. (Ha! I've done over 1000 km in a day... )
[x] I've been on a plane.
[x] I've been to the USA.
[ ] I've been to Mexico.
[x] I've been to Niagara Falls.
[ ] I've been to Japan.
[ ] I've Celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
[x] I've been to Europe.
[ ] I've been to Africa.
[ ] I've been to Asia.
[ ] I've been to South America.

*Experiences*

[ ] I've gotten lost in my city.
[x] I've seen a shooting star.
[x] I've wished on a shooting star.
[x] I've seen a meteor shower.
[ ] I've gone out in public in my pajamas.
[x] I've pushed all the buttons on an elevator.
[ ] I've kicked a guy where it hurts.
[x] I've been to a casino.
[ ] I've been skydiving.
[ ] I've been an abuse victim.
[x] I've gone skinny dipping.
[x] I've played spin the bottle.
[ ] I've drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour.
[ ] I've crashed a car.
[ ] I've been Skiing.
[x] I've been in a play.
[x] I've met someone in person from the internet.
[x] I've caught a snowflake on my tongue.
[x] I've seen the Northern Lights.
[x] I've sat on a roof top at night.
[ ] I've flown kites on a rooftop.
[ ] I've played chicken.
[x] I've played a prank on someone.
[x] I've ridden in a taxi.
[x] I've seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[ ] I've eaten Sushi.
[ ] I've been snowboarding.

*Relationships*

[x] I'm single.
[ ] I'm taken.
[ ] I'm in a serious relationship, and wanna marry that person, but not quite yet.
[ ] I'm engaged.
[ ] I'm married.
[y] I've had someone cheat on me.
[ ] I've gone on a blind date.
[x] I've been the dumpee more than the dumper.
[x] I have had a fear of commitment.
[x] I have a fear of abandonment.
[ ] I've gotten divorced.
[x] I've had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.
[ ] I've told someone I didn't love them when I did.
[x] I've kept something from a past relationship.

*Sexuality*

[ ] I've had a crush on a teacher.
[x] I am a cuddler.
[x] I love to flirt.
[x] I've been kissed in the rain.
[ ] I've hugged a stranger.
[ ] I have kissed a stranger.

*Honesty/Crime*

[ ] I am a terrible liar.
[ ] I've done something I promised someone else I wouldn't.
[x] I've done something I promised myself I wouldn't.
[ ] I've snuck out of my house.
[ ] I have lied to my parents about where I am.
[x] I am keeping a secret from the world. (aren't we all?)
[x] I've cheated while playing a game.
[ ] I've cheated on a test.
[x] I've run a red light.
[ ] I've been suspended from school.
[x] I've witnessed a crime.
[ ] I've been in a fist fight.
[ ] I've been arrested.
[ ] I've shoplifted.

*Drugs/Alcohol*

[x] I've consumed alcohol.
[ ] I regularly drink.
[ ] I've passed out from drinking.
[ ] I have passed out drunk at least once in the past 6 months.
[x] I've taken painkillers when I didn't need them.
[ ] I'm a stoner sometimes.
[ ] I've snorted cocaine.
[ ] I've eaten shrooms.
[ ] I've popped E.
[ ] I've inhaled Nitrous.
[ ] I've done hard drugs.
[ ] I have cough drops when I'm not sick.
[ ] I can't swallow pills.
[ ] I can swallow about 5 pills at a time no problem.
[ ] I have been diagnosed with clinical depression.
[x] I shut others out when I'm depressed.
[ ] I take/used to take anti-depressants.
[ ] I'm anorexic or bulimic.
[x] I've slept an entire day when I didn't need it.
[ ] I'm addicted to self harm.
[ ] I've woken up crying.
[x] I've cried myself to sleep.
[ ] I've seen a therapist.

*Death and Suicide*

[ ] I'm afraid of dying.
[ ] I hate funerals.
[ ] I've seen someone die.
[x] Someone close to me has attempted suicide.
[ ] Someone close to me has committed suicide.
[ ] I've planned my own suicide.
[ ] I've attempted suicide.
[ ] Didn't have the balls to go through w/ it.
[ ] I've written a eulogy for myself.

*Materialism*

[ ] I own over 5 rap CDs.
[ ] I have an unhealthy obsession with anime/manga.
[ ] I own multiple designer purses, costing over $100 a piece.
[ ] I own something from Hot Topic.
[ ] I own something from Pac Sun.
[ ] I collect comic books.
[ ] I own something from The Gap.
[x] I own something I got on e-bay.
[ ] I own something from Abercrombie
[x] I own a nice car. (I love my Sunflower... gonna miss it when I sell it!)

*Political/Social Attitudes*

[ ] In general, I don't like people.
[ ] I'm very outgoing.
[x] I listen to political music.
[ ] I'm Democratic.
[ ] I'm Republican.
[x] I'm liberal.
[ ] no party affiliation
[ ] I really just don't care
[ ] I hate tree huggin' liberals
[x] I don't like Bush because he is dumb.
[x] I don't like Bush with my own reasons to back it up.
[ ] I am for Bush.
[ ] I'm religious.
[x] I dress fairly modestly.
[ ] My attitude is, "If you've got it, flaunt it."

*Random*

[x] I can sing well.
[ ] I've stolen a tray from a fast food restaurant. (How about the cafe?? haha)
[x] I open up to others easily.
[x] I watch the news.
[x] I don't kill bugs.
[x] I hate hearing songs that sacrifice meaning for the sake of being able to rhyme.
[x] I curse regularly.
[ ] I sing in the shower.
[ ] I am a morning person.
[ ] I paid for my cell phone ring tone.
[x] I'm a snob about grammar.
[ ] I am a sports fanatic.
[ ] I twirl my hair
[ ] I have "x"s in my screen name
[x] I love being neat
[ ] I love Spam
[x] I've copied more than 30 CD's in a day (copied them onto my computer... suck it RIAA)
[ ] I bake well.
[ ] My favorite color is either white, yellow, pink, red or blue
[ ] I would wear pajamas to school.
[ ] I like Martha Stewart.
[ ] I know how to shoot a gun.
[ ] I am in love with love.
[ ] I am guilty of tYpInG lIkE tHiS.
[x] I laugh at my own jokes.
[ ] I eat fast food weekly.
[ ] I believe in ghosts.
[ ] I am online 24/7, even as an away message. (Not since I started paying my own electric bill... unless my server counts!)
[ ] I've not turned anything in and still got an A in a certain class.
[ ] I can't sleep if there is a spider in the room.
[ ] I am really ticklish.
[ ] I love white chocolate
[ ] I bite my nails.
[x] I play video games.
[x] I'm good at remembering faces.
[ ] I'm good at remembering names.
[ ] I'm good at remembering dates.
[ ] I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Moratorium

2006-04-10T20:11:00.000-04:00

I think I'm going to have a moratorium on commas. I seem to use them wherever I feel like without regard to any sorts of grammatical rules which is unfortunate. Boo.

The benefit concert went splendidly - we raised over $600! Huzzah! Umm... yeah. Now I'm just waiting for some word on my job. I spoke with $big boss on Thursday and he says that he's going to make sure that my contract is extended to the end of the year and hopes that they'll be able to hire me permanently sometime after that. We'll see I guess.

Do you have any idea how painful it was to write all that without any commas? I kept cringing when I put in an apostrophe wanting it to drop to the bottom of the letters! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Oh - check it out - I'm on a nerd-dating site! I think I may have mentioned this already... I don't know.

Never talk to Muffin Trees

2006-04-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

And other such muffin-silliness. Enjoy! :) >clicky<

Maybe this is why Sympatico seems to hate me...?

2006-04-01T17:03:00.000-05:00

Gord's andwidth usage over the last 11 months or so:

Timeframe	Upload (GB)	Download (GB)	Total	Over
25-APR-2005 - 25-MAY-2005	8.9	9.5	18.4	8.4
26-MAY-2005 - 25-JUN-2005	19.2	15.4	34.6	24.6
26-JUN-2005 - 25-JUL-2005	3.8	14.6	18.4	8.4
26-JUL-2005 - 25-AUG-2005	2.2	6.8	9	-1
26-AUG-2005 - 25-SEP-2005	4.7	14.3	19	9
26-SEP-2005 - 25-OCT-2005	8.6	12.2	20.8	10.8
26-OCT-2005 - 26-NOV-2005	6.4	7.9	14.3	4.3
26-NOV-2005 - 25-DEC-2005	9.4	9.8	19.2	9.2
26-DEC-2005 - 25-JAN-2006	4.7	11.3	16	6
26-JAN-2006 - 25-FEB-2006	9.6	14.7	24.3	14.3
26-FEB-2006 - 25-MAR-2005	6.1	8.1	14.2	4.2

Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!!!

2006-03-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

Doctor Who Season 2 starts April 15th!! YES!!!!!!

For those who Missed/Ignored/Didn't Get my e-mail This week:

2006-03-30T22:26:00.000-05:00

Just a heads up about a up coming concert that is happening at Grace United Church. It is a Benefit concert and all the info you need in below. I'm just sending the word out so that everyone has the opportunity to come out.
Remembering Vietnam

Just before the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City)
in southern Vietnam the Government of Canada sent
planes to transport innocent, orphaned children to
Canada to be adopted and raised in this country. One
of those children was Trent Kilner who, over the past
year, has been coming into contact with the 56 others
he came across to Canada with. He has not been in
contact with any of them since 1975 and so this year
the 57 Orphans are gathering in Toronto with the
national news media present to remember those people
involved in Operation Babylift-Trent has had his story
told on Canwest Global, the Sarnia Observer, the front
page of the Toronto Star and more. In our support and
rememberance of this, Adam Kilner and friends will be
holding a concert to remember this event in history
and raise money to help this event become a reality.
Help make history and buy a ticket to this event!!!

When: Friday, April 7 at 8pm
Where: Grace United Church (990 Cathcart Blvd, Sarnia*)*
Who: Adam Kilner, Dan Leaver, Gord Spence, Danny Dakak, Will Klie (James Divine)
Cost: $10 or as able

Baby Got Book

2006-03-28T22:27:00.000-05:00

I like big Bibles and I cannot lie... >clicky<

Thanks to Dan for the link!

Want a good way to waste some time?

2006-03-19T21:39:00.000-05:00

WARNING:
VIEWING THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE WILL CAUSE LOSS OF PRODUCTIVITY OF VARYING LENGTHS. REPEATED USE MAY CAUSE BLINDNESS.

You have been warned. >Clicky<

It's the last 50 images posted to livejournal. If you click the pictures it'll bring you to the entry that they're attached to. Enjoy... I do.

2006-03-17T14:53:00.000-05:00

I love my hat.

Don't Be A Wanker

2006-03-16T21:30:00.002-05:00

dontbeawanker@hotmail.com was my e-mail address for a long time... then it got screwed up and I had to switch it... it became dontbewankers. I tried out Google Talk this evening, which encourages me to use my gmail account that has been long-neglected. I've had my hotmail address since grade nine... nearly nine years.
Tim says he'll ditch long_strides when he grows up. I'm not so sure if I could leave dontbewankers. I mean, it has become a part of me. A part of my personality, at any rate. It's childish, it's rude... but it's a hell of an icebreaker sometimes! What do you guys think? Has dontbewankers served its usefulness? Should I start weaning myself onto gmail just to start consolidating my many e-mail contact points? Do I want to trust google with all of my information? I'm curious! Inform me!

PSA: Howie's Gone Webbed!

2006-03-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen... My dearest Amy has joined the few, the proud, the bloggers! Yes, you too can enjoy news from Howie... things are looking good so far, let's hope she keeps it up!

Stay well everyone. And yes, Amz, I'm praying for your orphans!

Uh... sorry?

2006-03-11T18:26:00.000-05:00

Val just tried to call me, making me realise that my phone's ringer has been off for nigh on a week... so if you have been trying to get a hold of me via telephono... sorry.

What's that? No one ever calls me because they can always find me on MSN?

I need a life....