Nile Creek Falls

I posted these two pics of Nile Creek Falls as a comparison both between my old and new camera, and also between the difference in water flow. I'm not sure when the first pic was taken. Sometime last spring I aimagine, but it must've been later in the year when the water levels drop. The second pic was taken yesterday.

I forgot to mention that there were 2 MCs at the Lorin show. Definitely the only live MCs I'v ever enjoyed, so props to them. I'm really digging Lorin's new cd too.

Also, I had a vivid, intense global warming dream the other night and I've been spooked ever since. Really got me thinking about a lot of stuff.

Gold River and beyond

So I got hired with a small forestry surveying company, based out of Port Alberni. Same type of job as what I was doing in Golden, but slightly different work. Four of us were sent up to Gold River for the week yesterday, to stay in hotels, but when we got there, we realized there was too much snow. Only really worked for like 10 min., but between meetings and travel time, etc, it was a 14hr day. So we came back, changed the game plan, and tomorrow one other guy and myself are going to go back up for the rest of the week. Hotel room and food paid for, $120/day flat rate. Not as much as I was making in Golden, but I was pretty lucky to get into surveying without experience, and even luckier to be getting paid that much. The new company is super safety conscious. So I have to wear corked boots, and even a hard hat for some reason, even though it's mostly open cutblocks. Can't sleep on the way to the site and I also have to carry a first aid kit with me. Anyways, I'm pretty excited. new terrain, new job, decent money. There's a 7 day gig coming up in Zeballos, which is even more remote than Gold River. Tiny west coast (of the island) port town of like 200, accessed by a long dirt road.

I went to the Lorin (Bassnectar) show last weekend with Trina in Vancouver. Lots of freaks, great sound system, and good beats. Lorin spun a little bit of drum n bass, but mostly breaks and dubstep. Good show for sure and seeing Trina is always a treat.

I was going to go to BC provincials for karate, but that'll just be too much trvel time on Friday (from Gold River to Vancouver after work), and I won't get to practice this week. I'm still thining about going to Westerns in Saskatoon, but that'd cost around $800, all included, so probably not.

So apparently vinegar cures dandruff. I'm gonna test this out today, but apparently dandruff is caused by a pH problem, and putting some vinegar on your ehad in the shower after you wash is supposed to fix it. I'm not sure if it's a one-time application, or if you're supposed to rinse it out, but I'll figure it out.

So get this, BC has more coastline than Australia. And it never occurred to me that Canada might have the most coastline in the world, but it actually has like 5 times more than any other country.

So this guy I used to work with. In one day, I found out that he has a glass eye, got fired, his wife left him, and apparently he'd been kidnapped for a week, all separate incidents. trippy.

I'll have internet access in Gold River....

update

The grocery store has been takign their sweet time hiring people, so I'm following up a job offer with a surveying company. Went for my longest run today. 5.2km, 30min. I could definitely go further, but I think i need more arch support. Gone through about 2/3 of my india pictures, slowly making my way towards making this slideshow. Skiied Mt Washington last weekend. Very slushy, bu kinda fun. Soft landings for their terrain park. Good views too, and warm. Well i thought I'd share some research with you. Most people known who Jim Pattison is, or at least know the name. He owns a lot of stuff in Canada, definitely one of the big guys. Revenues of $6 Billion a year. I haven't looked too much into his other holdings (car dealerships, radio, billboards, etc), but I'm familiar with his grocery stores. He owns the Overwaitea Food Group, which encompasses 5 chains, as well as Buy-Low Foods:
-Overwaitea: 17 in BC
-Save-On Foods: 50 in BC, 18 in Alberta
-Buy-Low Foods: 14 in BC, 8 in Alberta
-Cooper's Foods: 14 in BC
-PriceSmart: 8 in BC, mostly Lower Mainland
-Urban Fare: 1 downtown Vancouver
-Bulkley Valley Foods: 1 in Smithers (BC)
Total: 104 in BC, 22 in Alberta

Oh and I did some digging because I keep hearing rumours that Coke and pepsi are owned by the same company. This isn't true, they're still competitors.

I'm still waiting to find out if I can get my old job back, but I'm fairoly confident it's just a matter of days. I went up to Mt Washington the other day. Very slushy, but enjoyable in some spots where it wasn't icy or too thick. Really soft landings for the terrain park. Got a $200 speeding ticket on the way there though. Anyways, I just finished reading two books and if I may, I'd like to share a few quotes/excerpts....

The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran)

On Giving
-You give but little when you give of your possessions
-For what are possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
-Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?
-You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving." The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture

Of Houses
-Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master? Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with a hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
-... the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning at the funeral.

On Talking
-You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts
-And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered
-There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone
-The silence of their aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape


Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

"Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams..."
"...No, it is impossibe; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence - that which makes its truth, its meaning - its subtle and pentrating essence. It is impossible. We live as we dream - alone..."

"Droll thing life is - that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope for is knowledge of self - that comes too late - a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectarors, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary."

"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend I had no particualar desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulity in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance."



next up, Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre.
heavy....

blink

and just like that, my entire plans change. haha, not even an hour after I'd resurrected my blog, I get the phonecall that my E.I. application was denied due to the fact that I'd quit my grocery store job to go to India. I was under the impression that you just had to be laid off from your most recent job, but I guess not. So I'm probably gonna go work fulltime at that same store and wait till June before I re-evaluate my summer ambitions. Who knows, this'll probably actually increase my chances of not having to work this summer. If not, I'll probably try to get back on with that forestry surveying job in Golden for the summer, unless Parks Canada calls me back. So whether this blog is gonan die again or not is still up in the air, but I'll update at least once more.

Lent

So I've been taking part in Lent this year, not oweing to any belief, just because it was good motivation to try something new. Lent is the 46 days leading up to Easter, when you're supposed to give up something you enjoy. Sundays, you usually break the 'fast', although this depends on who you ask. I gave up smoking weed and sugar. By sugar, I mean all added, refined sugar. I've always had a nasty sweet tooth. I'll devour homemade dessert within hours and god halp me around bulk bins. After two weeks, i started eating honey/maple syrup again, and of course, all fruit was fine, but anything with sugar in the ingredients, or any artifical sweetener, i avoided like the plague. The hardest parts were avoiding snacking from bulk bins or accepting bites of sweets from friends. I coudn't use jam on my sandwiches anymore either. Overall, I didn't notice too much of a difference, except I was hungry more often and I never had one sugar rush. I'm really glad I stopped smoking dope though. I sleep much better and it's just nice to be un an even keal. It could've been the lack of sugar that helped me sleep better, but I think it was the lack of dope. I noticed I had a bit more energy too. It's funny how much sugar there is all around you. it's kinda like going vegan, you start to realize how many things have animal products in them. For the record though, i havne't been vegan since I left for India in September. I've been eating eggs and cheese regularly, and occasionally yoghurt (but no milk), as long as it's organic/free-run. Since I left for India, I've gained almost 15lbs (my weight had been stable for about 3 years prior), which I attribute to eating more protein and fat, but also because this was a pretty physcially active winter for me, between karate, skiing, and snowshoeing 7hrs a day for work.

I wasn't alone in Lent. CJ started it, she gave up pop this year and would go vegetarian one day a week. Alex was gonna do no dope/sugar with me, but I'm not sure how well she managed, I keep forgetting to ask. But Lindsay was the superstar, she went fully Vegan (except sundays). I was so stoked that she stuck with it, that's definitely harder than doing no sugar, I think. I'm not sure exactly what's she's gonna do when Lent ends, I think she's going to find a balance, either cutting down drastically on eggs, cheese, etc, or just going vegan a few days out of the week. She has become vegetarian sometime in the last year I believe, so i think meat was already out of the picture for her.

thus far...

ok, so I just thought I'd recap what I've done since I got laid off March 15th. by the way, I think I should add that among my other goals alrady listed, I intend to read as much as humanly possible.

I hitched to Vancouver for a few days (visited Drew, Jolene, and Shannon in Kamloops en route), visited some friends and attended a Taking Back Sunday/Underoath concert. It was good, but the average age must've been like 16. It was alright though, the kids get really into it. But most people were too weak to lift me up to crowd surf.

Back in Golden, I arranged for all of my stuff to be moved back to the island and then me and Alex drove down to Vancouver. I went to 5 karate seminars in 4 days that were taught by one of the top intructors of the continent. Went dancing at The Met and ran into Laura Ramsden, Tyson MacIntosh, and Ashlee's old roomate (who know lives above the girl I was staying with). That was pretty random. Went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge too. That thing is so high, it's like 75m/230feet up. No bridge jumping off that thing, no sir. It was raining and low-eason, so there wasn't too many tourists, and it's actualyl not too too touristy, worth checking out.

During this period, I started and finished The Outsider/Stranger by Albert Camus, my first formal introduction into Existentialism. Only about 100 pages, it didn't grab me at firs,t but I can see now how that's part of the whole setup, the second half was quite good and the the whole conclusion really made me think, but I'm not sure exactly what it all means. I'd recommend it though.

Back on the island, after I unpacked and sorted myself out, I hiked up Mount Finlayson (416m) in Goldstream Provincial Park, overlooking everything from Victoria to Sooke to the Olympic Peninsula. Despite the poor visiblity, Mt Baker was somehow still present, although barely. I stayed in the super posh Hotel Grand Pacific with my mom, because she was there for work. Awesome pool, hot tub, saune, steam room. I put in almost 4hrs there in 24hrs. Wandered in Victoria a bit, then went camping with Andy Gondek out in Jordan River, which is about halfway from Sooke and Port Renfrew. It rained a bit and the birds ate all our food, but it was still pretty cool for being the first camping of the year. my first camping trip last year (with Drew) wasn't till May long weekend, so I was pretty stoked. The enxt day, we tripped out two stoned girls in one of the two cafes (no gas stations) of Jordan River, then went and explored French Beach, before I hitched back to Qualicum. Made it all the way in one ride, only waited about 10 minutes.

Aside from cooking, karate, I haven't done much this week. Followed up some potential job opportunities, sorted through lots of pics, played catch, and played some soccer with everyone Emily works with. We finally watched Borat the other night. The only other movie that's made me laugh that hard was Jackass 2. Top notch, I loved it, highly recommended.

I was going to go back to Golden this weekendand go to the Taste the Chaos concert in Calgary and see Saosin/Senses Fail, but for various reasons, i've decided not too. In its place, though, I have another plan, which would include exploring a brand new region, but I'll wait till I'm sure about it, before I spill the beans.

mission statement

Alright, so here's the deal. I got laid off a few weeks ago and I'm waiting for my E.I. application to go through. I've got some money to fall back on in the meantime, so I've got as much free time as I want. I gotta make the money last a while, but as anyone close to me knows, I am thrifty to a fault. Now that I'm out of the workforce, I actually feel, ironically, much more pressure than I did when I was working. When I was working, I did my 10hrs a day and went home. Job was easy enough as long as I got enough sleep, and there weren't too many expectations placed on me in my leisure time, cuz everyone else was burnt out too. Now that I'm on the island and unemployed, I find that I only have my own expectations to live up to, and since I don't have an income, I feel as though I should be extremely productive, whether it be visiting people I haven't seen in a while, hitchhiking around and exploring the province, hiking, practicing karate, going for runs, meditating, etc. So if it's 4pm and I have yet to be outside, I start to feel really guilty. So this is sort've a public way of keeping myself in check, logging my activities and so forth. I spit in the face of routine, so hopefully I'll be all over the map, both mentally and physically. I'm definitely open to suggestions too. I'd love to be invited to visit someone, regardless of the distance. And if I'm not out of the house, I'll likely either be practicing karate, downloading shitloads of new music, or organizing my pictures from India. Trying to make a slideshow is pretty intimidating, but mark my words, it will happen.

A quick note though. My main priority in the next 6 months is to take July and August off, so if I decided that this goal would be better served by working in the meantime, I'll do it, but only because I'll be quitting at the end of June. So unless I run out of money and won't be able to survive the summer, I'll be going hard July/August. I have several grandiose ideas, but I'll unfold those slowly.

Onwards...

J'ai retourné

I'm back. 3 months in India. Still processing it all. Not sure what I'll do with this blog. Almost everyone I could think of was on my email list and I had a separate site for photos, so there's not much to add here right now. But in case I forgot to send you mass emails while I was gone and you're interested in wading through 25 long emails, lemme know and I'll forward them to you in one long document. And if you want to see my photos, I'll have to give you the password personally. I'll probably set up another photo site at some point for everyone to view once I've sorted through all my pictures and made a slideshow. Happy Holidays.

wow what a morning. ok, so i wanted to figure out a plan in case my water purifier didn't show up in the mail. so i called the place in victoria to try to figure out a scheme of me getting one from them, then me sending them mine when it arrives and getting a refund. problem is that it's different packaging, and they don't trust ebay, so they wouldn't do it. So I called Steripen and they were very helpful and it took 3 calls to the store in victoria, 5 calls to steripen, and 3 to fed ex, but we've arranged that Steripen will fed ex me a purifier overnight to Vancouver and Ashley will be able to pick it up after work tomorrow. if she misses it, she can still pick it up on saturday. because steripen has a fed ex account, it's only gonna cost me 35 bucks for the overnight international shipping, whereas i think it woulda been 65 normally. so i'm pretty happy. sounds like that should all work out. i'm glad i was up at 8am to figure this all out. ok, now to deal with the other 20 thigns on my list....

all smiles.....