Quietly Stroking My Chin

The most intense part of my day

2009-07-27T03:48:00.002-06:00

I feel like I should share what is often the most intense part of my day: the drive home.

Life is surprisingly uneventful in Angola, there isn't much to do. Everything is quite expensive and generally a pain in the ass to do. So, we don't end up doing very much. However, I do have to drive home every day, and it is quite the endeavor.

So, it is broken up into 3 distinct parts: getting out of downtown, the long stretch and the white knuckle drive. Getting out of downtown is not the simplest of tasks, as not only do I have to back into bumper to bumper traffic where nobody wants to let you in, but then you have to navigate the "streets" here. I use the word "streets" roughly, because they are crap. Many of the streets in the city of Luanda were built by Chinese firms, and that means they were built really quickly and on the cheap. Therefore, after 3 years the road has fallen apart, giant potholes everywhere, water overflowing out of sewers. Just a mess. So I navigate these back roads, trying to avoid the potholes and all the people wandering around. Never forget that the people crossing the street can never break their strut, much to the chagrin of all the drivers. To cross a road, you just kind of stick out your bumper and make everyone stop. Pretty sketchy. This all takes about 10 minutes.

Once I manage to get into the long stretch, is where the work begins. It's bumper to bumper, if you leave the smallest space (30 cm), someone will start pushing in your lane. So you are pushed up against all cars, going up and down hills...in a manual transmission. Not fun. Also at the same time, the roads are crawling with police that pull people over for pretty much whatever reason they feel like. Avoiding eye contact here is key, as is looking like a confident asshole. The road is also full of people walking up and down and between traffic trying to sell everything from basketballs, dog chains, pieces of art, popcorn and stereos. This is about 4km, and it takes roughly an hour if I'm lucky.

Now comes the intense part. The white knuckle drive. After I get past the outdoor gym, the road opens up a bit and people start gunning it. You gotta keep up, because not only do you want to get home but someone will smash into you if you aren't going fast. There are giant semi trailer trucks, weaving all over the road, most of their turn signals or brake lights don't work, with tires looking like they are about to pop. There are the "taxis" which are essentially 20 year old Toyota minivans that are spewing black exhaust, full of Angolans, driving like utter maniacs, even if their turn signals work they don't use them. The buses that pull over on the right side every 500 meters or so, but insist on driving in the left lane, so they are essentially weaving in and out with regards to no one. And everyone else, just utter crazies. Half the people drive ridiculous speeds, weaving through everyone, never signalling, and honking/flashing their high beams at everyone, often times with brake lights disconnected. A quarter of the people (usually women) driving incredibly slow, and often side by side, and the last quarter who alternate between the two at random intervals. Most of this is on two lane traffic that opens up to 5 lane traffic, which promptly closes back down to 2 lane traffic.

This is not all though, no siree bob. Angolans have some death wish I think, and they start crossing the road everywhere, so you have to keep a keen eye for someone who looks like they are going to start their slow strut across a busy motorway. They have pedestrian crossing, but they are really just for show. If this wasn't all enough to avoid, there are random dead dogs, pieces of scrap metal, pot holes and god knows what else scattered on the road. Several places have giant semis that just pull out whenever, into the middle of speeding traffic, also Angolans will simply stop their cars in the middle of traffic. Oh yes, and police road checks to get bribes...I mean, "check your papers."

I have seen ridiculous shit here. Semi's jack-knifing across traffic, countless near misses, and just plain idiots abound. This is why I often want a beer when I get home.

African Rhythms

2009-06-02T02:35:00.002-06:00

So here I am in Angola, quite a marked difference from Europe.

I'm not sure how to sum up the past couple of weeks here, but all I can think of is how it all seems a big contradiction.

Life here is hard in some respects. I awake at 4:30am and then drive to work, which takes at least an hour (on good days). The work is long, usually 11-12 hours, followed by a 2 hour drive home. From there, eat, relax for a little bit before getting into bed. Repeat until the weekend.

In other respects, life is somewhat easy. At my gated compound, everyone is super chill. We have a nice pool to relax by, good neighbours, and nothing to worry about. It is in a good area of the city, there are several grocery stores close enough to drive to, and a mall to go buy (very expensive) things at. A domestic life is achievable.

Obviously there are big differences. Everyday, I drive by many ghetto slums, families living in literally a one bedroom shack. On the road to work, there is a large outdoor gymnasium, located in the middle of two opposing lanes of traffic. Angolans are out here all hours of the day, running around, doing chinups, push ups, and generally socializing. The roads are full of guys walking up and down offering goods for sale. These vary between DVD's, tire pumps, and popcorn, and it might be all the same guy carrying those three. Anything you want, you can probably find it while driving home.

The people are for the most part nice, but it's hard to generalize about any group of people. I know I've seen some scary Angolan men, and some women who have looked at me with pure hate in their eyes. That being said, I've met some who just love to laugh and want to help me. What can you say?

I would say the culture is one of lifestyle, in so much as people don't enjoy working. Everywhere I go, it seems that people just look exasperated when they have to do any work. Not everybody of course, but no small number. In regards to the driving, there's a fierce individuality, a definite "Fuck all of you, I'm driving here, and driving the way I want to." It's taken me a little while to get used to.

The life is expensive, I don't know how people get by in the ghettos here. Food I took for granted in France is either ridiculously expensive or just not available here. Creme Fraiche is unheard of it, and that hurts me. Erin and I enjoyed a 15 dollar burger (each obviously), from a misnomered fast food chain. Let's just say that they do things different here. No prices were listed, and they didn't even appear on a screen, the only way us to know the total price was the lady saying it to us...in Portuguese. So, being the North American that I am, I just kept pulling out money until the cashier nodded ok. Then she gestured for us to go sit down, with just our receipt. After waiting 15 minutes, I wondered what the hell was up. Once again, being a dumb foreigner, I just went back in the restaurant waving my receipt and looking lost. After debate from the Angolan employees and yelling at each other, and they finally started to prepare our platter. Total time, around 20-25 minutes.

We did some driving around our area today, and it's damn confusing. Let's just say that it's not a good idea to use compounds as reference points, as one razor wire topped wall and gate looks exactly like all the rest. Also, there are no road names here, or they are at least not posted. To top it off, most roads are one way and you can't turn left in most places. The real kick in the junk is that if you run out of gas driving around aimlessly, is that the gas stations have at least a 45 minute wait because there are so few stations and so many cars.

There isn't too much else to say at the moment. I did get a chance to go to one of the beaches here and it was gorgeous. Being a bit of a fool, I forgot my camera. I'll remember it for next time.

We've been watching some interesting movies lately. We just finished Sunshine tonight, and if you want a good sci-fi movies, I highly recommend it. Also, Near Dark is a good vampire movie, not like anything else I've seen. It's quite...gritty, and not idealized.

I'll start thinking about my next post. Perhaps you'll get to hear about how Sonangol runs the country and more adventures of Erin and I.

I don't know how to begin, so I already have

2009-03-31T14:00:00.004-06:00

My time in France grows short. It's in my best interests to enjoy it as much as I can.

Life has a way of getting interesting when you least expect it.

I will soon begin my African experience with my lovely new wife. I have no idea what to expect, other than that it will be somewhere in between the best and worst.

Work has gotten very hard, when I return home, I have nothing left. I feel utterly drained.

I seem like the only person I know who doesn't like learning languages. It's such a pain, I don't have any fun doing it. Except when I'm drunk, then I enjoy bullshitting in French.

I'm really tired now. I hope everyone is doing well.

It's been awhile

2008-12-02T15:00:00.003-07:00

Aloha all, I've neglected my poor blog. Time to give it some love.

I'm somewhat frustrated with the politics in Canada. Specifically the Liberal and NDP parties, this coalition they have proposed is rather ridiculous. It seems like a bit of a power grab my Dion just so he can put PM of Canada on his CV. And I'm sure he uses a CV instead of a resume, dirty Quebecois. Hell, people voted so he WOULDN'T be in power! But as my friend Steve so eloquently put it, the left has no idea what to do economically right now. They'd screw it all up ("economic stimulus" eh? that worked out real well for the Yanks didn't it...), and everyone would probably vote the conservatives in an overwhelming majority in an underwhelming voter turn out.

What else pisses me off is the complaints about the auto industry lay offs in Eastern Canada. Reminds me of a former issue in the east, the fisheries. They took and took, in the forms of unions negotiating and re-negotiating benefits and salaries, and now they're bitching. GM has more capital in insurance, health care and pension plans than anywhere else, what does that say? Time to realize that automotive manufacturing is done in North America. We cost too much.

At least in oil, everyone I've met realize that it's a limited time only affair. Get in while and gettin's good and enjoy it. No one fools themselves that oil is going to last forever, or the industry.

I was reading about information and how we've reached the petabyte age. Most people don't really understand how much a petabyte truly is, and that is one of the problems. I was reading an article stating how in the past we could make analogies for the amount of information we had. So we've gone from megabyte to gigabyte to terabyte to now petabyte. This equates to using a file folder to a filing cabinet to a library to now. On scales of magnitude, there is no analogy we can use. There is just literally a cloud of information that we can use for pretty much everything, and it's changing how the internet (and thus the world works). There is so much information that we can just use statistics for damn near everything. Ever use google translate? It's all just statistics, nothing more, and it works really well. The problem with this is that with so much information, each piece of information less important. There are billions, if not trillions, of web pages out there. But who visits them?

I saw some pieces of shit tagging the metro tonight. That pisses me off. Graffiti is one thing, but just tagging is not much more than animals pissing to mark their territory. I guess we haven't evolved that much.

Here are some pictures from my recent trip to Switzerland, enjoy:

Well that was nice, but...

2008-11-11T14:07:00.003-07:00

As everyone in the world breathes a collective sigh of relief, as the smoke of this recent American voting session clears, not everyone has come out a winner. Specifically, the gay and lesbians in California got screwed, in a bad way. Somehow, they manage to protest the resolution of proposition 8 in style:

I think this video of Keith Olberman is fairly succint, and quite moving:

I think this is just a sad state of affairs, especially for such a modern state as California. As the evidence pours in, it's becoming increasingly obvious that groups such as the Mormons have played a significant role in this. I just can't get over how and why religious groups are so concerned in the affairs of everyone else. Why are they so concerned with what other people are doing in the their private life? Stupid is as stupid does I suppose, so wake up sheeple.

Other things that I've been noticing lately:

If I'm going to quit my bad habits, I have to replace them with good habits. That may make me somewhat of a boring guy.

Men in France (and everywhere I guess) are really obsessed with their chest, arms and abs at the gym. I guess those are what you can see in the bathroom mirror before work.

I've been completely addicted to Battlestar Gallactica, it's getting out of hand. I always said that I'd never watch it, but as soon as I started (on a very boring weekend in August), it has been slowly spiralling out of control. I highly recommend it to sci-fi geeks.

I'm heading to Geneva soon with the lady for a nice winter vacation. We plan to sleep restfully in our wood filled room, enjoy hot chocolates and fondues, and walk among the (hopefully) snow covered parks in Switzerland. I think it will be restorative.

Oh yes, and this picture made me "happy-sad" this morning:

The United States of France

2008-10-26T13:31:00.002-06:00

Hello all,

It has been on my mind for the past couple of months, how much France reminds me of the US. Well, more to the point, how French people remind me of Americans. Both parties would throw up their hands and complain, and this is one of the reasons why they are similar.

Other reasons:
- Both secretly want the others way of life, and end up traveling to each others countries.
- Both are fiercely nationalistic, but will be self deprecating about their country (you're not allowed to be though)
- When you move to either country, you have to assimilate to the culture
- Both like to talk a lot without backing it up
- Both can be obnoxious tourists
- A lot of people (for each) have only traveled in their respective country, and consider themselves well travelled.
- Both love Canada, but know nothing about it

There's lots more I've found, but can't remember at the moment. Don't worry, they aren't all negative.

There is one thing that really inspired this for me though, it was Friday at the bar. I was invited by some French people to go out for drinks, and of course I'm going to join them. We went to a bar surrounded by all these American people. Ok, whatever. Anyways, I was listening intently to the French conversation, but I realized it was really boring. Just kind of discussing nothing, going over minor, minor details that I personally didn't care about in the slightest or would have thought to discuss as talking points. So, my ears wandered to all the English conversations going on around me. And after two minutes, I realized the same about those ones! This hasn't been the first time for either case as well.

Now the point of this isn't to demonize French people and Americans, because there are good people I've met of both nationalities. I just find it funny how that when they both fall into their natural groups, they have so many damn similarities. I feel that Commonwealth countries have stronger ties in culture than I initially thought. Brits, Aussies, Indians, Malaysians, South Africans, and Kiwis are all people that I have generally got along with quickly, or we share the same ideas of culture and conversation. We end up talking about similar things, and in a similar fashion. It's strange how these things happen.

In any case, life is good otherwise. UFC 89 was very entertaining and I'm glad I got a chance to go see one live. Not a whole lot on my mind right now. Just lots of geophysics, aaaaaand fighting.

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Now playing: Venetian Snares - Szerencsétlen
via FoxyTunes

Getting it together

2008-10-08T15:41:00.003-06:00

Been a little while, but it's been a busy few weeks. What with parents, friends and a girlfriend all coming to Paris and me running back and forth to London, haven't had a moment to sit and reflect. Or walk and reflect, as often happens in Paris.

About the American elections, I think everything that could be said has been. I guess my only thing is that I would honestly like to meet someone who will vote for McCain. Not to convince them otherwise or anything else, just to actually see this mythical beast. Everyone I meet, American or otherwise, is completely sold on Obama. One interesting study I have read recently that relates is that people will cling to their values despite being presented with evidence that completely contradicts what they believe. So what does this tell you? When someone presents you with something, and it's true; question yourself.

Click!

This fucking disgusts me. I've never liked the idea of Dubai and this further cements it in my mind. People are sacrificing their morals for opulence, and in one of the worst possible ways: building shit. There is a price to making or spending your money there, that being your humanity.

Back to the gym on a hopefully stricter schedule. I can see how it is hard for professionals to keep on a program, life gets in the way. And the French in the gym...good lord. For a guy like me, I need some concentration to lift. When I have a group of guys standing around and damn near yelling in their conversation, it's quite the distraction. I suppose though if they've never really worked out before, they wouldn't know...

I'm actually going to see UFC 89, hell yes! Here's hoping Chris Leben KO's Bisping in front of his countrymen and thus forcing me to chuckle under my breath. I also hope Brandon Vera comes ready to fight, not just get a decision.

Download this new Girl Talk album, it's very good: Click!

I'll try for another update soon. We'll see how that goes.

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Now playing: Girl Talk - Play Your Part (Pt. 1)
via FoxyTunes

The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget

2008-09-28T06:54:00.001-06:00

http://www.zenmoments.org/the-cab-ride-ill-never-forget/

Well there you go, something to think about.

Just so you know...

2008-09-04T05:51:00.003-06:00

Also, I have a short rant on snacking. It's bad for you, all the research you've seen recently on that "it keeps your metabolism up" and similar is flawed because it is lacking one part. Human psychology. When you have a proper meal, with other people, you are under a bit of social pressure. You can't eat like a pig and shovel food in, you can't have several plates worth, and you can't eat the worst possible things for you. All the other people (well, I will at least) will say, "What the hell? C'mon, that's disgusting." We eat together not only for the enjoyment of it, but to keep each other in check.

If you are just snacking, you generally do it alone. Generally snacking foods are highly processed, and easy to eat a lot of; so you can sit there the entire afternoon and just push food into your disgorged gullet. That's the problem with eating habits in North America, set meal times are a thing of the past. People just tend to eat all the time. So dammit people, phone up some friends, go to dinner or make dinner with them, sit down and enjoy yourselves.

The reason I say this is two reasons. The first is that one of my French friends who visited the US noticed they had no fixed meal times, and everyone was just constantly eating, and he was both disgusted and frustrated. The other was that I've known quite a few girls over the years, and most especially in Paris, and they are all prone to snacking. Guess who got fat? Wait for you meals people.

Let me clear my throat, kick it over here baby pop, and feel the beat drop!

2008-09-03T14:48:00.002-06:00

So, I haven't made a real post in awhile, I've just been copping out with picture posts. Weak, very weak.

I received one of the best compliments recently. As it was put, "If I didn't know you and I shook your hand, I'd immediately trust you." I've got a great handshake, no joke. Don't be a jerk and squish someone's hand, and don't be a wimp and have a limp dick hand. Give it a reassuring squeeze (but not creepy like), and two good shakes.

I saw Justice in concert, quite the show. For those of you not in the know, they are the new French thing. Post Daft Punk, they are a pretty good reflection of the current French music scene. If you get a chance to see them in concert, it is highly recommended. They put on an epic show.

Randy Couture coming back to fight Brock Lesnar is a poor, poor idea. The fight is going to sell well, and be a one sided beating. Also of note, my most awesome girlfriend suggested that we go to see UFC 89 in Birmingham, well I sure didn't take any convincing. Oh snap, my first event in a month in a half.

Google Chrome is a nice browser if you are just doing very basic browsing. Checking the news, and flipping through some forums is fine. It should be noted that anything you write or create in it, is property of Google after. I trust Google and all, but not that much. That being said, good lord is the browser fast and slick. It's a joy to use if it wasn't for the copyright crap.

I have my own project at work. Whoot! It's nice to be able to control everything, and just say to yourself "I'm on it." I like stress at work, and being busy. That's what they pay you for.

Not a whole lot else right now although there have been multiple occasions I've thought "Wow, that'd be good in a blog entry." Too bad I can't remember any of them.

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Now playing: DJ Z-Trip and DJ P - Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 Pt. 4
via FoxyTunes

So they do call it Greek salad!

2008-08-17T07:47:00.017-06:00

Aloha all!

I got to enjoy an awesome week in beautiful Santorini. I can say that I successfully did nothing, and it was everything that it could be. Actually, the day plan was go to the beach bright and early, leave when the lazy Europeans got there at 11am, go for lunch, siesta, go for drinks then dinner. That was everyday and it was amazing.

Erin bein her pretty self

Me lookin so damn proud in front of the Acropolis

At our Villa in Santorini, stunning.

This was near our swimming hole in the mornings.

Me expressing my feelings on the temperature of the water via my face.

Cafe Frappe, so delicious. It's NOT a frappucino, and definitely not a Tim Hortons "Iced Capp", screw that crap.

The cat that absolutely loved us.

Not too much else to say right now. Summer is going well. I plan to never eat a kebab again, as I found out why they called it Samonella Alley.

I'm also tired of heaing about Michael Phelps, it seems like everyone forgets that Ian Thorpe just absolutely destroyed him in everything at the last Olympics. And Ian only chose not to compete because he had literally nothing left to prove. I'm not saying the guy isn't good, but everyone has a damn short memory.

Hope everyone is having a good one.

Moules et frites, meal of champions

2008-07-26T11:37:00.008-06:00

Aloha all,

I've had a beautiful week of vacation, it truly does a body good. What have I done you may ask? Nothing I'll respond. Truly, I didn't do much at all, just eat, drink and sleep. It's good to get back to the basics.

Suppose I should explain my title. Tom had an awesome idea of going for mussels and fries (a traditional Belgian delicacy, if you can call it that) at some point this week at a particular chain restaurant in Paris, Leon de Bruxelles (I'm sure you can figure that one out). The do mussels, big time. In a truly filling dinner that took course over 2 hours, we dominated giant bowls of mussels (dip baguette in the juice, sooooo good), far too many fries in mayo, delicious Belgian beer, and ended with a waffle covered in chocolate. Therefore this is my recommendation, especially for the guys out there. Get a good buddy, clear your afternoon schedule and give it a shot if you can find a restaurant similar near you. Let's just say that we both went to my apartment, put on relaxing music and splayed contentedly in chairs afterwards. Epic.

It has also been decided that this is the summer of cocktails. So I'm doing my best to try every damn mojito I can. Taking Europe by storm!

I got a chance to wrestle with an Olympic wrestler this week. Obviously, I got my ass handed to me, but it was quite fun to give it a shot. Unlike most North American wrestling, the Europeans prefer Greco-Roman over Freestyle, which is my preference as well. The difference being that you can't grab the legs, or use them for trips for that matter. Therefore, there are a lot of throws (as opposed to double or single leg takedowns), and pummelling. Anyways, here's a few photos of me rockin out:

So that was a lot of fun. I've been in discussions with Caecilie about letting me come out to Copenhagen and maybe I can actually go to the centre for a couple of afternoons and give it a shot. I'd get worked, but it'd be hilarious and a good learning experience.

Not too much else goin on right now. I'm heading off to Greece next week, so wish me luck.

Oh by the way, breakfasts in London absolutely rock. Who would've ever thought beans for breakfast to be a good idea? Surely not someone's girlfriend, that's for sure hehe.
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Now playing: AC/DC - Sin City

BAM!

2008-07-06T14:02:00.006-06:00

So, Forrest took it, one of my blog predictions was finally right! There will be a lot of controversy I'm sure about it, but Rampage didn't do enough to win the fight in my humble opinion.

Life is good in Paris, as always. The sun is starting to shine regularly, and with it the humidity follows. I sweat buckets everyday on the train home from work, it's pretty disgusting actually. It's funny to see everyone's different reactions to the heat. Some people shift around all the time, lots of people fan themselves. Me, I just sit there and take it, it's all psychological.

I love linen, it's definitely my favourite fabric. I think I could deal with an extremely hot country simply because of this. By parental demand, here is a requisite picture of me in recently sent suit.

Now only now a panama hat and I could be the oil man who goes to Africa.

I'm supposed to be having a music exchange this weekend. They are one of my favourite things to do. I totally buy into this post-Napster idea that music is a vessel of culture only, and that it should be free. But because you enjoy, you have to support the artists one way or another. So, if they come in concert, I go to see them. Nonetheless, sitting with a good friend for an afternoon, listening to a bunch of music, hooking up all the hardware, drinking some beer; it's a good time.

Much props to Anderson Silva. The guy is a wrecking machine at 185lbs, and is stepping up to 205lbs on just over a month's notice. Not only this, but if he continues his winning (which I don't doubt he will), he wants to fight 3-4 more times this year. No shit, what a warrior. The quote I had heard was that he realizes he's in his prime so fight him as much as possible. I love it.

I think that's what I love about MMA, right now anyways. There are some guys out there that are leagues above everyone else, and they are few and far between. Watching Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, and GSP, you see an artist at his craft. Fedor constantly moving and adapting, espeically on the ground, moves from on position to another so fast and seemlessly. Both Silva and Penn are monsters standing and on the ground, how would you like your poison? GSP will just blow your mind with athleticism, perfect game plan, and pure punishment he deals out. I've been catching up on my MMA now that I have internet.

Make your own mojitos people. They are absolutely delicious.

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Now playing: CSS - Patins

2008-06-29T07:39:00.002-06:00

Been awhile, I guess the ol' blog deserves some lovin.

What have been my thoughts as of late? Let me tell YOU!

First off, I'm always surprised how girls always think the best of guys. "Oh I met this really nice guy we had a chat all night about spontaneity in life and I should just do more random things!" Sorry dear, he was just trying to get in your pants. We can be wily, tricky creatures, and the fairer sex never seems to realize this.

I've learned how to be a lot more patient now that I'm in France. On Friday I had to go through some bureaucratic hoops, and it finally came out that I had basically wasted my day. This doesn't bother me anymore though, I just make a new plan and went to go enjoy my weekend. Whatever you do, don't panic! Also, giving the old ladies who work at these various administrations your best puppy dog look helps.

Had a very French night last night, which is a somewhat of a rarity. Sitting on the tip of Ile-de-cite, with a French picnic. Saucisson, cheese, bread, cantelope, pate, the whole works. And a big box of wine, hahaha. Don't worry, I didn't ruin my palate with that. I did have a nice moment at about midnight as I was sitting on the edge of the river seine, looking about, thinking that when I'm 40 I'll definitely want to remember being 24, carefree, and livin in Paris.

I met a fellow Canadian the other night. She asked, "Let me guess where you are from in Canada, say something!" I responded, "Give 'er." She said, "Oh, you must be from somewhere in the middle." I said, "You're from Ontario, I bet Windsor." She was from Missisauga actually, and we didn't talk after that. God, people from Ontario can be pricks.

I've caught myself saying "Thank God..." too much, so now I'm just going to say, "Thank Chemistry/physics/mathematics..." more often. I think it's a better reflection of my views.

Admittedly one thing pisses me off about France. People give me a lot of shit for not understanding everything in French, after a year of being here. So a lot just revert to speaking English with me, which is ok. But here's the difference, when I speak English with French people I speak slowly and very clearly. I use a lot of sentences that are direct translations from how it is said in French, because it's a lot easier for them to understand. But when everyone speaks French to me, they speak at normal or a heightened pace (even though they know my French isn't anywhere near perfect). Basically, it's their way of holding something over me. When they eventually do hear me speak English with other Anglophones, it kicks in how much I am changing my language for the sake of being understood.

Having the internet is good, I forgot how nice it is to just spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon just surfing and chillin.

I'm throwing out my prediction for the Forrest Griffin/Quintin Jackson fight for the light heavyweight championship. I'm sayin that Griffin takes the 5 round decision. Jackson is a good fighter, but he hasn't really fought a big guy like Forrest in awhile. Having close decisions with Matt Lindland and Dan Henderson makes me think he's a little overrated, both those guys are natural middleweights. Forrest will be walking into this fight at probably 230lbs, and he has cardio for days. It's going to be standing battle for most of it, and Forrest has the footwork to keep his distance and hopefully not get caught.

Anywho, off to the gym here. I've met a pretty Australian girl and I've got to hold onto this one!

And from the ashes, he arose...

2008-06-18T06:28:00.001-06:00

Hey all, I finally got the 'net again. All is well in life, I'll be making a big post in the next day or two, so lets hope some people still check this thing.

There's some interesting stories to tell.

Poshy

Damn France...

2008-05-29T08:00:00.002-06:00

RAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!11111111111one!11one

Ok, so no internet yet....8 weeks later. Son of a...

Anyways, life is going great otherwise. I'm doing the whole social life thing because I can't exactly sit around at home doing nothing, so maybe this is good for me. I have to say the ex-pat friends I've made here are absolutely awesome, we are all crazy in our own little way and it works. I highly recommend people to come out and visit Paris while I'm here, I'll show you a party time.

I've been off and on again in the gym, but it always feels good to get back. I'll keep telling everyone, olympic lifts are the only way to go. You put on muscle and cut fat, quick. Very quick. I'm also completely sold on going entirely natural with your diet, no supplements or anything. It's funny how fast I've changed my tune, but it's so much easier and you feel better this way. Milk and veggies does a body good.

I'm listening to Venetian Snares right now, a great artist to listen to when you feel like you are going to fall asleep (and don't want to).

My French is admittedly getting terrible, all my friends want to speak English now. Oh well, it happens.

Ghislain Poirier put on a good show, but totally catered to the crowd. It ended up being mostly reggae with big rap beats, reggae ain't my thang. But if you want a good DJ, Gohan opened up and he was amazing. You can download a bunch of free mixes on his myspace. Look it up.

DJ Z-Trip is playing soon, I'm stoked.

All this talk of music and I've gotten into it. In London I bought a few vinyl records and my Danish friend has a couple of turntables and mixer she lets me play around on. Beat matching is hard, but I can get some hilarious mixes. At least it's a productive hobby.

I don't know where I'll be after Paris, but I think I'm gonna be in Europe for awhile.

Euro Party!

2008-05-14T01:52:00.011-06:00

By popular demand (i.e. mom and dad), I'm posting some photos of myself and friends from my recent Euro adventures:

In Switzerland, tired and unshaven.
My Swiss friends I stayed with. We were being hippies sitting by the river, they were dancing around.

oooooh, artsy

British Tom and his g/f Blandine, we ran into them randomly at Fountain Bleu

American Tom and British Tom, who looks awkward here? hahaha

Doin what I do best

Caecillie and myself, drivin to Dijon.

Caecillie looking oh so proud of the mountain to be climbed

Tom and Caecillie looking less enthused as we climb said mountain

Drinkin wine at a vineyard

I quickly snapped a shot of my friend Erin in London.

So there you go, some pics of my adventures so far. More to come later, peace all!

I drink your milkshake!

2008-05-05T02:45:00.002-06:00

So sorry everyone, it's been awhile without internet at home, and it's a little awkward making a post from work. But here I go, because there is nothing to do at work.

Life has been very good recently. I had recently taken a trip to Switzerland to hang out with some friends I had met in Barcelona. Switzerland is absolutely beautiful, and I recommend it to anyone in Europe. The countryside is gorgeous and it felt very clean. It really reminded me a lot of British Columbia, in particular places like Nelson and Kimberley. My friends were this hippy/goth/raver lesbian couple, so that was absolutely hilarious to hang out with them for the weekend. We just travelled around, and I got to see Bern, Biel, and Lausanne; in addition to arriving in Geneva. This all being said, I did feel pretty old after this trip, because I just can't do the crazy party scene as if I were a teenager anymore. Everyone has to grow up someday I suppose.

This past weekend I went on a roadtrip with my fellow ex-pat friends, and we had an absolute ball of a time. My friends are amazing, I love 'em. On a mere 2 days of notice, we rented our little Renault Megane and drove down to Dijon and Lyon for 3 days of silliness and fun. The motto of the trip was "Nothing could possibly go wrong" and nothing did. All of us just kept the positivity so high, that everything worked out perfectly. Every random fun idea was done immediately. The Danish girl wanted to climb a mountain, so when we saw one (a small one), we pulled over and ran up it. I saw a vineyard (one of many, many vineyards), so we pulled over and bought wine and took pictures. We all searched for artisinal mustard in Dijon, and almost came to the point where we had to harass old people for it (because you know they would have the good stuff sitting in their basement, I just know it!). Luckily we found a good shop and got our fix of the spicy sauce.

Lyon was fun as well, we managed to have some good food and an interesting time. Nearing the end of the night we found this Danish bar due to a taxi drivers recommendation, and thought it might be interesting to go to. Well, let's just say that the French don't interpret Danish the same way the rest of the world does. By Danish, I think they mean old person's swinger club...it was really awkward. But we laughed it off and just watched the bizarre situation around us. We also went to a very French beach the next day...oh la la. Half naked old women, women breast feeding right out in the open, men running around in underwear and speedos, everyone smoking and drinking wine. It was also funny because the beach cafeteria, where I would expect they serve just hotdogs and burgers (like in North America) was actually a legitimate restaurant with full service, with what looked to be really good food. You can always find good food in France.

So that's a brief update. I'll get some pictures posted up here somehow and you can see my tanned face.
I'm off to London on Thursday, so more stories of adventure to come.

Party!

2008-04-12T06:51:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone, I don't have permanent internet in the new apartment yet, so it's a big pain for me to make postings.

Life has been good, nothing too interesting has come up since Barcelona. So you all aren't missing much.

I'm quite tired right now, I was out late to a French house party last night. I've received the first compliments on my French actually, so for once I feel good about it.

I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write up a proper blog when I get my internet actually back here. Cheers!

About as expected

2008-03-28T14:53:00.014-06:00

So, just got back from Barcelona and I'm cleaning the old apartment. I suppose there are more stressful things to come back to, like home repairs...le sigh.

I dig the Barcelona scene. From my vantage point of being a hosteler, you just meet really interesting people in a nice city. I mean, you can't really ask for more. Not too much to really say about it other than it was good to have chats with an old friend, make some new ones, and eat good food. Oh yeah, and party. Enjoy the pics.

One of the the cool Aussie girls I met, whom lives in London. I love rockin it Euro style

Took the highest resolution picture possible of this so you should be able to zoom a bit on it.

B, diggin the beach.

Delicious tapas with a glass of Rioja.

The last night on a pub crawl with one of the French Swiss girls. French IS good for something!
And people say graffiti is not art...

mmm, fish market.

Architecture is pretty out there in Spain. At least in the rich parts anways.
Me, upset by the fact that we completely shit the bed on the DJ Shadow show and literally arrived as they finished.
Ok then...
I'm a fan of the self portrait.

The most authentically Spanish cafe we went to, they had amazing coffee.

The food will bring you here, and the bureacracy will scare you off

2008-03-21T10:01:00.002-06:00

Oh la la. I hate administrative shit. I hate paperwork, mailing things, booking appointments, all of that. It's just such a pain. Everything in France seems to be centered around this. Everything has to be mailed to you, everything needs to be signed and copied, and the only other option is to do it over a telephone or go in to a store/wherever. I'm not living in the 20th century anymore dammit. I want to be able to do it all online.

For example, I want to add someone to my online banking so that I can give them direct deposit. So, because the French are so paranoid about security, it might not be you on your online banking. So they have to send you an activation code via text messaging or mailing you a paper statement with it. Le sigh. Ok, send me a text. A half hour later, I receive a message on the banking that they have to send me a paper with an activation code for my telephone number so they can send me the code on my phone to activate this person. Jesus. They always forget the part though that mail is just as risky as online transactions, they are such mathematicians. They make this stupid axiom at the start, paper mail is safe and secure. Therefore, everything online is based around this as the foundation of it's security. Doesn't that take the point out of doing it with a computer? To make it easier perhaps?

I think it's good that I'm going on vacation because Paris drives you nuts after awhile. All the people who just stop in the middle of the street, or on stairwells, to talk on their phone or who knows what. It's a lack of common sense.

Also plumbers just rape you here. 600 Euros for a leaky tap...my god. Thankfully my landlord covers it, but really. Oh and you are not allowed to work on any of the plumbing yourself, due to some protectionist law of the plumbers. Grab your ankles everybody, it's the law.

Don't even get me started with the electricity company.

Some things are so easy here, but everything else is a giant pain in the ass to do. Seriously, I need a wife, or something. Actually, that's another quality to look for, someone who is willing to do paperwork.

Anyways, I'm off to Barcelona for the week. I'll post some pictures of all the trouble B and I get into.

Peas.

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Now playing: Pete Rock - The PJ's (featuring Raekwon & Masta Killa)
via FoxyTunes

Ugly The Cat

2008-03-11T08:44:00.002-06:00

Click

So, if you didn't feel at least a little bit of emotion over the past article, well, don't bother continuing to read. Hell, I would say you probably shouldn't even bother with my blog in the first place.

I happened to be eating my breakfast this morning of yogurt and banana when I read this article. It really, really got to me. I guess I've seen a few of these cats like in the story, and I started thinking about it. In fact, I've been thinking about it all day, and I couldn't get my mind off of it.

I always have the debate about how I should consider animals. The logical of me thinks of them as very distinct from people and using this reasoning I can justify being a meat eater. Reading something like this really flips me on my head though. Thinking of when I had my cat, and how you could tell when she was in pain or when she was happy, it leads me to believe that perhaps all emotions are restricted to humans alone.

Perhaps though it is the domesticated animals that are most close to us. If you think about it, dogs and cats have been selectively bred for thousands of years to do one things, to be our companions. They know how you are feeling, and as a result they have the same or similar emotions. Thus, I think we owe something to these animals. We have made them what they are, and it's the ultimate travesty to toss your creation aside or not give it what it needs. In this case it's love, or at least some respect.

As an enlightened species, it is our duty to show other living creatures respect. To treat them all the best we can, even if we are going to eat them in the end. Sure it's all the same in the end, but it's not the end that counts. It's how you get there.

About half...

2008-03-03T11:54:00.005-07:00

Click!

I feel that this is a good intro into my current mental state. So I've been thinking about a wife recently. And after several discussions, I've been told to go back to the 50's.

Ok, I'm not that bad obviously. But given a more modern interpretation, I think it'd be a pretty sweet deal either way. Ok, I'll start with partner A. You work all day, and you don't have to worry about financial affairs or house affairs. The idea of this being, that you can find focus and don't have to deal with everyday gripes on top of some intense work stress. Partner B does all the finances, and house work. Prepares meals, deals with all that work, and thus also has time to fulfill their life. How so? Man, I'd love that lifestyle. I wake up, go workout, maybe get some cleaning and general work done around the house, go to the markets pick up food, and then make a nice dinner. I think I could keep very busy, and not get bored for a long time.

So yeah, I want a sugar momma. But given of the fact where I am now, I'm probably gonna have to be partner A since the partner who can earn the greatest amount of money should probably work. Division of labour, basic economics. But I like the idea of splitting up responsibilities so that you can both relax a lot more, while be it on less income.

So does that sound so 1950's of me? I don't think so. Dealing with household affairs is honestly a job in it's own. Being able to really get into investing for instance, why not? Also, you'd be eating good most of the time (dinner on the table shouldn't be expected every night obviously). I just like the idea of a partnership, you just know this person is solid to take care of that part of this life you've created, and they trust you to take care of the other part. "Do what you need/want to during the day, but just keep your end of the bargain. We'll both live easier as a result." The logic makes sense dammit!

So if there are any rich ladies out there that need a mathemagician to make dinners....

Anywho, France is great. Here's a couple of pics:

I'll spare the more drunken looking ones.

Speaking of cooking, I should probably get at it. le sigh.

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Now playing: Amon Tobin - Solid Steel Presents Amon Tobin - Recorded Live
via FoxyTunes

GQ: Ideal man

2008-03-02T10:06:00.001-07:00

But I try...

The Evidence

2008-02-24T16:13:00.013-07:00

Yes, I now have photographic evidence of where I've been at least in the last few months. I'll hunt down the others this week.

Life is good. A solid weekend of partying is always a good time. I have to admit, seeing Cadence Weapon in Paris was among my top bar nights overall. Everything just worked out so well, and always in an interesting manner. I like fairly...different social experiences. In so much as, I seek out places with the most originality, both of bar and clientèle. It's fun all night to just wander around, dance, drink, chat with random people, and listen to good music. While this doesn't sound too different, it really comes down to atmosphere I guess. Having pounding techno music, and I have a conversation about Frege and how I enjoyed The Foundations of Arithmetic to a pretty French girl, whilst my friend had to deal with a crazier girl who demanded to know how pretty she was. Also what I enjoyed was that I could name the tracks being played, so I guess I've found "my" bar here.

I can see why the world can see the French as rude. It's simply a matter of efficiency, I find here. If you are not interested in doing something, and there is no social obligation, then you are fine to say no. I see the French thinking very logically, and discussions remind me a lot of discussing with my mathematically inclined friends. I also believe in not sugar coating things. What's the point? I think it's a form of vanity and...pussying out. This doesn't mean you have to be a jerk, but I think we shouldn't always be socially obligated to make sure everything is "happy" and "non-offensive". It's perfectly acceptable to have something that is non-acceptable.

Ok, where did that rant stem from? Food is my preferred medium for art. As with everything there are different schools of thought. I prefer just to have inspired food, not bland, good texture, consistency, "mouth feel". I enjoy as I'm tasting, trying to identify all the different aspects of the taste. What ingredients and in what quantity would affect what I'm tasting. So when I have food that I'm unhappy with, or is particularly boring; and most importantly paid for (you can't complain with free food), I make my opinion known if asked. Anyways, long story short, I like European food because they have had a middle and upper class with strong culture for a long time, so they have developed what I consider fine food (as they have had the means to). I guess I found what Quality means to me. At least in this respect.

Speaking of tasty food, everyone should try this recipe, very easy and delicious: Click!

Random Picture Time:

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Now playing: Z-Trip / Run Run Run - Z-TRIP RUNX3-Fade into you MASTERED

And reality unfolds

2008-02-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Once again, abstract thoughts are abound in my noggin. So here's some more.

The other day I started thinking about a nice little project for myself to work on. Basically it involves coding a beat matching algorithm into Winamp so that it can generate playlists from your music that involve "sensible" transitions. What do I mean? It pisses me off when I listen to my Last.fm radio and I go from a heavy electronica song to...Roy Orbison. I mean, c'mon! So I started imagining all the ways I could analyze the beat structure of songs so that I can compare it with other songs. Long story short, it'll be a nice way for me to re-introduce myself into C/C++, work on signal analysis, and perhaps prepare myself for another job opportunity (audio/physics game programmer in Montreal...oh la la).

What interest does this have to anyone other than very few people I know? Nothing, or they are interested and it just goes way over their heads. Why so? Perhaps it's differing interests, a lot of it is not caring, but there is one elusive element I'm trying to capture. The idea that really is stuck in my head is (once again) about making decisions and how people do it. Given the same information about a situation, and one highly likely event, people will still try to predict the opposite. Look the the lottery I suppose. Perhaps it comes down to people thinking always in human terms, instead of objectifying situations more. When someone buys a lottery ticket, they must think they have a decent chance at winning, or why bother? Why would you have a decent chance? Either you don't know the odds are utterly stacked against you, or you must think that there must be something unique about your situation in particular, in that you somehow deserve this win more than everyone else. Perhaps this abstraction to realize that there is no favourite, there is no one special in the system (unless they cheat, but it's a moot point), in these cases you got nothing more than the next guy.

Ok, so other than these situations where there is no bias, how does one evaluate their perspective chances at something? Well, a friend told me a quote, "People judge themselves on what they can do, other people judge them on what they have done in the past." All nice and heartwarming, but my response was, "So whose right?" Her response was, "Well they both are because it's a matter of perspective." Hogwash I say! If there are two judgments on something I'm going to do, then one has to be right if they are unique. Once again, this about the realms of possibility and probability. One is just looking at pure possibilities and then applying no bias, or a false bias towards it. Just because you favour something, doesn't mean that it's actually favoured. But if something happens repeatedly, and it is defined by an agent (i.e. a person/animal/something that makes actions), I am going to throw it out there that it's favoured. If I have gone out for beers every Friday, then it's almost damn certain I will again this Friday! Sure it's not concrete, for certain, but it's damn likely.

I think too many people look to the extremes for rules. You'll never find anything interesting beyond unique cases at the extremes. Look how many people win the lotto, not many. Sure change is possible, but not without precedent. Even then, it tends to repeat itself, so is it really that unpredictable?

In terms of a conclusion, I can only start thinking about what divides us. Sure, everyone always says, think about what brings us together, not separates us. Bah, I'm a mathematician, it's the same difference, it's just a way to define the sets. What is it? Perhaps it is among some of the realizations that I have wrote, and if so, what are the causes of these? Intelligence is the only thing I can think of. Well, a certain type of intelligence anyways, and I feel that it isn't being developed enough. Only with true realization can we get out of this loop. A single person isn't special in the eyes of the universe, or no more special than anyone else. The universe doesn't tilt in your favour just because you are you. No, it does so with what you do and how you do it. My conclusion? Don't rely on possibility and chance to work out for you, make it happen. Or at least, don't be stupid about it.

As I say though, I'm the devil's advocate.

EDIT: I apologize for my rambling a bit there. After a re-read, some of the logical and personal jumps were very awkward. I had meant to say not only have my highly technical conversations been treated with less than enthusiastic opinions, but I've had debates where people try to assert certain falsehoods or unlikelihoods. So it tells me that a certain way of thinking just isn't popular. That should make more sense now.

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Now playing: Nightmares on Wax - Groove St.

Hard to abondon my ways

2008-02-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about machines lately. Not only the live, physical ones, but Turing machines as well. So here we go:

I guess what started it is listening to the new mix by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, The Hard Sell, namely about 12 minutes into Side 1. What caught me right away was how weird it is, how different the sound is, and thus, how rare the track felt. I mean, where else would I hear this? Anywho, for those of you not in the know, it's a sample of a song where a robot is saying he falls in love with a girl. Silly, I know. But what got me thinking was about human emotions, and I feel one of the things I notice is that I can tell where my emotions will lead me sometimes. What actions, other emotions, consequences that will result of me feeling a certain way or doing a certain action will affect my consciousness. I think of this as analogous to the Turing machine problem, and I'll shortly relate this back to why I think robots (in the traditional sense) wouldn't really be able to feel emotions as humans do.

Ok, first Turing machines. Some of you already know this, but a brief intro for everyone else. A Turing machine is considered a pure logic machine, and is the concept in which all computer code is based. That being, every program is expressible as a Turing machine which in turn is expressible in second order logic (maybe first order, Steve help me with this). One of the major theorems, proven by Alan Turing himself, which was based loosely off of Godel's Theorem was that a generalized computer program won't be able to look at other programs to tell if they will end or not. What does that mean? A computer won't be able to tell what it's going to do in the future simply by the way it's programmed.

Second Argument: I propose that my knowledge of the very nature of my emotions (equivalent of a program being designed in the system of Turing machines) is what in itself will be able to predict what I'm going to do next. Unlike a Turing machine. Hmm. So, a robot's emotions would have to somehow be based off of computer code so QED. A robot couldn't know it's own system, bam.

Of course there are a plethora of arguments that can be made against it. I'm just throwing it out there. See if anyone takes the bait.

Also, I highly recommend the High Dials. It's solid rock.

I'll post some pictures soon enough. When I feel/look better, nobody wants to see my pallid face right now.

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Now playing: The High Dials - Save the Machine!

Trading your life for oil...

2008-02-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Being a mathematically minded can be tiring sometimes. Sometimes, not all the time, answers are immediately obvious. Most logical deductions, and a good deal of analytical math (i.e. calculus) has developed as instinct for me. At work, obvious fallacies are immediately exposed, and I can often just tell when something isn't going to work. What becomes a pain is when you have to do it anyways. It ruins the fun of expectation, because when you know how the system works, outcomes don't surprise you. Actually, I hate the waiting the most. I wish computers would work faster.

Perhaps that's true in a greater sense. I find I don't really enjoy just doing where certain outcomes are expected. I activities where there is at least something not known about the situation will end up being a lot more entertaining than just the norm. That being said, I realize that there is a realm of possibilities of conclusions. I suppose that's how everything stays the same, the possibilities are a somewhat fixed set but which one is the change. It sounds simple enough, but most realizations are. For me anyways.

Anyways, just things passing through my head.
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Now playing: Bill Withers - Use Me

Another gray day in Paris

2008-01-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

There is something I find comforting in an overcast, rainy day. When the weather isn't too terrible, just constant drizzle. It reminds me of Vancouver I find.

I have to say, that really, the 35 hour work week is an amazing idea. It really just gives you the time to go and do things you need to get done on weekdays. I mean, really, if businesses are open all days of the week, but everyone works, who goes to them? So an afternoon off it was. And it was glorious.

Feeling good now, I think a few days brooding every once in awhile is healthy. Builds character. I guess to follow up my last article, the counter argument is that there does exist change. And that's the funny thing about change, it doesn't last forever. I guess an analogy would be Robert Pirsig's view of different modes of thought in his two books, "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" and "Lila". He discusses the idea basically between science and art minded people, and then goes deeper (or higher I should really say) as in discussing it as different aspects of Quality. He did one really nice analogy that I liked describing the two aspects of quality as a moving train. The first being the very tip of the train, full of change at a constant pace and the rest of the train following making up the other aspect of it. You can substitute my discussion in as that sure change exists at the very start of the train, each moment it pushes through the air. But the rest that follows doesn't change too much, or tends to repeat itself. Both being the same and not. What the hell am I getting at? Well, I guess it is a somewhat Zen thing in that change can only exist without change. That's my big thought for the day.

So where does that leave me? In Paris, drinking wine and doing my thing.

By the way Nicko, if you read this, you were right: The Z-Trip website rocks. Click! Download it all, if you like good music.

Hope all is well.

Everything Changes, But It All Really Just Stays The Same

2008-01-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

So it's a matter of perspective or is it? I see everything as cyclic, at least on some meta level. Sure I do something different at work everyday, but I get up at the same time every morning and get home at the same time, to pretty much do the same thing every night. I go to different places, but end up getting myself into the same situations as I always do. Perhaps the circumstances are different, but the form is always similar.

This makes me believe that a lot of human behaviour (or mine at least) must be genetically based. I construct my reality and environment to suit my genetic tastes. That being said, the nurture side does play a role. Sure I went to school, and that may make me prone to certain things. But the reason I went? Because I'm good at math, something which has to be there to begin with before being fostered. Donc, c'est un boucl.

I've been meaning to write a blog for awhile, but life has a funny way of getting in the way of things. Does anyone else find that it's easy to get caught in a loop? Not just with an activity, as I've gone over, but in terms of thinking. Repeating the same thought process, coming to the same conclusion, but feeling obliged to do it all over again. Perhaps that's why people are so good with computers, because all they are is are loops and loops.

So I guess a concrete example is in order. This has happened to me...quite a few times so far. I meet a girl, she is really impressed with my intelligence (honestly, not trying to make an arrogant statement). We have fun. Then it goes sour. Why? Because what was the initial attraction becomes the point of contest. It becomes too much, I ended up drying the well of all decent conversation within a few months (if that) and everything becomes too hard. Someone loses interest and that's it, done. So if you can't be yourself and make it work, then what the hell can you do? I dunno, I think I'll have to do quite a few more iterations of this scenario to learn something.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Just bitching I suppose. As Calvin (of the & Hobbes variety) stated, "Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around." On the same token, a good quote I read was "Don't tell other people your problems. 20% don't care, and the other 80 are glad you have them."

Anywho, off to my (regularly scheduled) boxe francaise. I'll try to keep up the updates regular, you know, to keep in my theme.
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Now playing: The Chemical Brothers - Alive Alone

Would I invite a vous over for dinner?

2008-01-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

After long delay, the sloth known as Josh emerges. Squints at the daylight, and sighs.

It's been a busy couple of weeks here, so I treated myself to a nice weekend of doing nothing. Mission accomplished. Unfortunately, I didn't get my picks in for UFC 80; yes, I was that lazy. In any case, next week is a fresh start to a... cleaner path. Back to the gym and routine, methinks.

What has been on my mind lately? Well, I found this pretty cool: Click!

This too: Click!

Now, that you've got your weird internet fix, I realized I'm mostly looking for originality in music. When I listen, I thoroughly enjoy people experimenting with different sounds, different ideas of melody and beat, and if it works, I find it fascinating. Though recently, my friends here have had to put up with some really weird shit.

I guess to expand this idea a little, as I tend to do, I realize this what I look for in life. After deducing that is what kind of movies I like, and media in general, I started realizing that it stretches far. I really enjoy exploring new ideas, seeing how they work, and applying them to create new solutions. My project leader at work has been amazing for this so far, because he always takes the newest, most sophisticated approach. This actually makes work difficult quite a bit, but what fun would it be if it wasn't? Life in general, I like to think I'm an explorer at heart. Both literally, and figuratively, I like doing new things.

Wow, just wow: Click!

The US primaries are on right now, and it's getting pretty interesting. I have a feeling that Mitt Romney may take it for the Republicans, and I really hope Obama takes it for the Dems. But Clinton...ugh. Even worse, Guliani.

I tried making my first true French meal last week, and I have to say that it worked out fantastically. I've held off on really doing it up, due to the size of my kitchen. But enough was enough, and the full 4 course meal it was. Starting with pitted prunes wrapped in bacon, then broiled, then a salad with palm tree hearts, corn and pinapple with a dash of red wine vinegar, followed by the main dish of magret de canard, accompanied with green beans and roasted potatoes. A light dessert of chevre and bread and a bottle of Pinot Noir, a feast it was. A big damn mess too. I need a sous chef.

Speaking of food, I got a most generous donation of a cut of deer today from the Finnish dude at work. He went hunting over the weekend with his in-laws and managed to snag a hind quarter of a deer, and he wanted to give it away to a deserving soul. Thus, I had a nice steak, and I must say, it's one of the best cuts of meat I've had in a long while. I wish I could have been there to catch it.

Also, tonight was the first night back at boxe francaise. Muscle memory is an amazing thing, I pretty much picked up where I left off a month ago. I'm also stoked because a new guy at work has also joined and we got to spar a bit. Even more pleasing was that he's actually really good, so we can definitely learn from each other. I really enjoy the kind of people that are attracted to fighting sports. They really understand the idea of good sportsmanship, more so than any other sport I've been in.

Life is good. Thursday is a strike, so I'm taking the day off. Ah France, how I love it.
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Now playing: DJ Shadow - Hindsight

Well, well, well

2008-01-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

After long delay, I'm finally going to make a post. I hope everyone had a good holidays, I know that I did.

It was good to see everyone back in Calgary. I find that despite a bit of traveling now, that not much has changed. That being, I still get along great with all most of my friends, and life is good. I love being able to go see everyone and just pick up right where we left off. It's good to know that I haven't forgotten my roots either, eternally Josh.

I had a good conversation with a few people about the idea of modifying our law structure based on people's religion. It's an interesting debate because, well, I'm not completely convinced of my own argument, or anyone else's for that matter. My stance is that I don't like the idea, I prefer the notion that we create a secular set of laws. For me, the whole notion that we create laws based on each set of belief systems can be troublesome. Mostly because of the fact that people can believe anything and therefore would have an argument for any law because of that. The problem with the a secular law set is then the idea of which moral/ethical system to follow. Philosophers in general haven't decided on the best system (albeit they never really decide on anything), so the religious folk have an argument for this new system since each group can at least agree on a set of laws.

I just watched "I am Legend." It sucks, don't bother. Will Smith has a tendency to fuck up sci-fi films, by neglecting the actual interesting moral problems that result. At least in Omega Man, they made the zombies at least a bit interesting, in that they had an agenda beyond killing all the non-zombies.

I've also realized that I've gotten to the point where I want to get my shit together. I really can't be bothered to chase girls who have no motivation or plans in their life, because that just drags me down. I also like to be with friends who have at least some notion of what they want to do with themselves, because I find it's getting harder and harder to relate otherwise. Is this a good thing? I dunno. But it just is.

I remember the movie, Big Kahuna, talking about the regret. How once you truly feel regret about something, and realize it's nature (that being there is nothing you can do about it) and this realization paints itself across your face. This is how you gain character, supposedly.

Well, I'm not too sure what else to write right now. I'll try to think of some interesting things this week so everyone can have something more substantial to read.
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Now playing: Hot Chip - Take Care
via FoxyTunes

We Can Only Ever Know Epsilon

2007-12-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Had a good discussion last night. First off, I brought up the idea of holophonic sound. Click!

Make sure you wear headphones, preferably the studio monitor kind. It's really kinda creepy, and interesting how they do it. Basically they record it all with a dummy head, with replicated ears. So we made two interesting conclusions from it. One, it's obvious that the ear itself changes how we hear things. It's been tried to use a priori methods to replicate actually being in a place, by using mathematical/wave physics to change the volume and delay of the sound, but they are definitely not the optimum solution. As you can probably hear. But also, what we found interesting, was that in theory you should be able to create a signal processing filter that would change normally recorded sound/music into something that is quasi-3D. Cool.

Information theory was next on the plate. Yes, a digital signal does degrade people. There is this current belief that digital cables are great, because you receive exactly what was sent. It is binary, either the signal gets there or it doesn't. It's nice to think theoretically with computers, but the problem with that is that things take place in reality. So we have to deal with that. When a signal is being sent, there is inherent noise. It isn't like analogue noise, but bits will be changed purely because of entropy. This is why we have compression, redundancy and error checking. So, with the best codes, they are supposed to take into account for all of this. It's a probabilistic affair, you know, quantum mechanics; therefore there is always the exception cases. Areas in cryptography do deal with this problem, that being ensuring integrity. But this happens a lot less than you think, and all we can do is minimize it. Basically, I'm trying to justify pricey stereo equipment.

Yann also brought up a cool way of thinking about the least-squares method of estimation. If you have a bunch of linear equations, and it isn't deterministic (i.e. the vectors intersect), you want to find out how close do they get. This is where it gets cool. You can break it down geometrically and look at orthanormal basis's and think of it in terms of creating orthogonal vectors, which is the shortest distance between to other vectors. For me it was a revelation, because I've always seen the least-squares solution as an ugly affair, something strictly for *those* applied math types. But it does have a nice basis (no pun intended) in linear algebra/geometry, so I can respect it now.

Onto something less technical. I went out on the Champs Elysee the other night. Only two real points of interest. Well, I guess girls always love how it looks, but I'm concerned about more practical things. The first being the price of drinks, and food anywhere near the main road. 175 Euros for a dinner!?! 13 Euros for a drink! My god, and people line up to pay it. The second interesting note was how we got into this bar, "Doobies." There was no door handle, just a buzzer and a slit with a slidable metal cover. So, ring the buzzer...and wait. Then I hear a faint series of knocks on the other side of the door, so what the hell? Match it. Then another series, match that again, and the door opens. We're in, and I wonder at my luck for getting into bars in Europe.

I also had my first dream in French the other night. Very cool, but I'm disappointed it took so long. That being said, the ol' French has gotten a lot better in the past couple of weeks. I've managed to have almost all French conversations at lunch and with some coworkers lately. I feel relatively accomplished.

"Garfield becomes an oddly surrealist comic when you remove the dialogue"

In any case, I'll see all you Calgary folk soon enough. I'm glad to be getting back in cowtown and rippin it up. Party on Wayne...

Life is goooood

2007-12-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy the feeling of being home. Home is not one specific place in my mind, it's what I make of it. Perhaps I just adapt it as the place where I have my routine. Calgary was my home for a long time, I had people I know, certain things to do, and a job to go to. Paris is working out pretty well on that front finally. I've got to the point where every night I have to hurry to do all the things I have planned, it's nice to have your life come together.

That's not to say I'm not going to be super stoked to go home in 2 weeks. I am pumped up for it, I'll be glad to get around some Canadian folk and, well, give 'er. The more I travel, the more I realize how much Canadians truly kick ass. Seriously, we rock folks.

I've been doing quite a bit of boxe francaise the last little while here. Since it's a fairly small class, maybe like 10 people, 15 at the absolute max, all "les anciennes" have to help out the noobs. Since I'm not too shabby, the head instructor Yves has gotten me to show a few new people what's up. Talking in French with a mouthguard is damn near impossible. Luckily though, this is the kind of sport where someone has to watch and imitate. So you know, I punch them in the head, and they watch. In all seriousness, it makes me wonder about the sense of your body.

Click!

This is a link to an article talking about somatic awareness. The idea of where you know your body is at is a sense in itself, and should be given it's credit. We see this all the time in sports, where an athlete has utter control over what they are doing. But while some of this is natural, it's obvious that it requires training. I feel that swimming was really good for this, because you are constantly feeling the water and striving for perfect movement. It just surprises me in savate when someone just can't seem to be able to move their body in a certain way. I suppose any athlete could go to me and wonder why I couldn't do their sport, but...still. Maybe people just need more hip flexibility. Dance more, it's good for you.

Ah work. I make mistakes at work, it' s seriously part of the game there. Damn near everyone does, or they just plain don't deliver on time. Well, all the young people do anyways, damn young whippersnappers. It's surprising how emotional a day can be, and I truly try to not let it get to me. Today, I finally found the cause of a problem that I'd been investigating for a few days, and then you follow the chain of reasoning. Oh logic, it both loves and hates me. So we immediately start wondering what the cause might also affect, and it was a nice big chain. Lovely, but one thing I love about the French is that we take our time with certain decisions. Just don't worry too much and get some more info on what's going on. Luckily, I managed to show that it wasn't affecting anything too much (it actually might have helped, woo!) and that it only requires an extra line of code in the next job. Pimp.

UFC comin up this weekend. My predicting abilities have gotten better, so what the hell, why not make a bet on whose going to win one of the most even (and probably best) fights of the year. I'm taking Huerta over Guida. Roger just seems to have it goin on right now, and he's on fire this year. I also think that Mac Danzig is going to out work Tommy Speers. I hope so anyways, Mac really deserves it.

Henry Rollins - Civil Liberties Under Attack

2007-11-27T15:31:00.001-07:00

God I love Henry Rollins, he's got so much righteous anger. We need people like this in our world.

A couple of rants, comin at ya

2007-11-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Click!

After reading that, all I can think is, what a heartless son of a bitch corporation. I usually detest the human interest articles , but just what happened seemed so terrible. I just hate the idea of them taking the plane ticket money too. Just wow.

I remembered what was the weird thing about traveling. Everyone I met seemed quite intimidated immediately after I told them what I do. Is it really that odd? I had more than a few people just give me this intense stare, and then go talk with someone else. And I didn't even go off on philosophy or oil that much!

So after the strikes here, there is war in the banlieus. For those not in the know, the banlieus are basically the suburbs of Paris. Some of them are rich, but some are definitely very sketchy. Well, just dangerous. So the other night, in front of my friend's house actually, a police car got into an accident with two teenagers on motorbikes. Both of the teenagers died, and the community has gone into an uprising against the police, claiming that it was intentional. So there are crazy amounts of police out there, kids setting fire to cars, and apparently explosions and gunfire. Nutty. I'm glad Paris the city is damn near completely safe from it.

What I've found really weird is that when reading horoscopes (astrological, Chinese calender, etc...) I completely disagree with the nature of it. I mean, after a philosophy of science course, I can't possible see why they would be right, and I see where all the mistakes they make come from. That being said, whenever I read one (I'm a Virgo and a Pig), it is damn near spot on. I was reading one last night and it was damn scary how much it pegged me. It's nowhere near as close as the personality testing I did, but still, for just knowing my birthdate it had a lot of true information.

Ok, something that really pissed me off tonight. I went to do my laundry, and there was a homeless guy in there. Of course, he insisted on speaking to me, I dunno why that always happens. I pulled off the "Mon Francaise n'est pas tres bien" fairly convincingly, but he knew enough English to continue talking. So I meekly ducked out to get my groceries. Anywho, I come back to do the dryer trick, and what do I see? The first thing that catches my eye are the benches out of array, the second thing was the utter stench. Ok, so the dude is trying to sleep in there, I don't really appreciate it, but I guess I can see why. Then what do I see all over the floor? What looks like either piss or beer, with a bunch of cigarette butts as well, which I know weren't there earlier. Not to mention what looks like shit on one of the other benches. Now, I've got a problem.

I mean, I guess this is precisely the reason why I detest so many of the homeless people. They don't seem to respect anyone else, so why the hell should I help them? What also pisses me off is when I get talking with a few of the liberal Frenchies. They will go on and on to me about how we have to support everyone and everyone should be equal (even if we actually aren't, and I've gotten them to admit that). Well you know what? I don't see you volunteering at the homeless shelter. Giving taxes is one thing, but put up or shut up I say.

Not too much else at the moment, but I know I have a few other rants left. I'll let the nicotine depraved rage build up some more, and then take it out on my keyboard.

Hope all is well with everyone!

A Brief Reprieve

2007-11-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Aloha all,

So I've continued my adventures across Europe, and it went pretty well. I have to say that I really like Prague as a city. Immediately when I got there I was overcome by a feeling of familiarity and comfort. The hostel I stayed at, The Clown and Bard, was a very cool place to be. It is most known for it's 32 bed monster room, where all the single travelers congregate. Basically a bunch of young dudes looking to get drunk for cheap in Eastern Europe. And how! I have to say there are two aspects that I really see to traveling; well traveling as a young person and staying in hostels. The first being to see the cities/places, and seeing what the locals are all about. The second is the people that you do meet in the hostels. It's nice to meet all these people in the same situation you are in, and you all randomly meet to go figure out the city.

I noticed immediately the utter age of Prague, it feels (and probably is) the oldest city I've been to; both in history and architecture. The streets are all cobblestone, weird sculptures everywhere, and remnant graffiti from the Soviet Union days everywhere. The Czech people are a pretty cool bunch, they are standoff-ish, but I got chatting with a couple of them and they were very decent. The bars were a great time, the music of Eastern Europe is definitely different than the west. It's a lot more techno; hard beats, strange synths, and fairly fluid. I dig it. The hostel crew and I went to a few interesting places, and I tried my hand at dancing there. That being said, I need some solid funk when I go back to Calgary.

I met a rather interesting British fellow, and we had some good chats. This was his 14th time coming to Prague, he was saying he going to Prague about once every 2 months or so. I guess I can't blame him, it's really addictive. My favourite city is still Paris, so perhaps I'll be doing the same with belle Paris.

So after the messy good times in Prague, I took the train up to Berlin. Something about Europe just screams to me, "Take the train." Even if the bus is cheaper, it's the place where I'll take a train any day of the week. Berlin was...just so German. Walking off the train I saw this:

I don't think the picture really does it justice, but it was this giant sterile place, with level after level of trains everywhere. My hostel was nice enough to give me an email with explicit directions, the main being take the S bahn 7 into Berlin. Guess which trains I could find? S bahn 1-6, and 11-16. Le sigh. Anywho, the hostel there was about the cleanest place I've been. I should have got more pictures of it, because it was crazy how sterile it was. Everything in white in the the room, except the bed frames in brushed aluminum and the floor was wood. In the halls, everything was white, except the doors being in red. I felt like I was in some existential movie, or like the main character in Garden State when he wakes up initially. But it was a weird contrast when walking around in the streets because everything was covered in graffiti, it was crazy. Here's a bathroom at one of the bars I went to, such a strange contrast.

I guess Germany left me feeling a little alone and confused. The people were friendly enough, but I got the sense that I was intruding, people weren't happy to have me there. In Prague, nobody seemed to care, or they were happy to see a traveler spending some money there. In Berlin, it was a feeling that I was being avoided. I dunno, just weird. That being said, a few of the Germans that I did get to chat with were super helpful and really friendly...when they wanted to be. I know there were a couple of girls that a friend and I ended up going to the bar with, and halfway through the night they must have decided they didn't like us. Because it went from friendly conversation and dancing, to them completely ignoring us. I hate to generalize to everyone, but I tried chatting with a few more, and it was a similar (if not quicker) response. Whatever.

This all being said, I'm glad I went and checked it out. As I always say, there's one way to find out. And you're damn right I did.
Here's the holocaust memorial, to get an idea of the German architecture that is abound in the city:
In other news, I recommend picking up a copy of The Economist from November 3rd-9th. It has a really good special report on the impact of religion in the 21st Century here. Hell, in general it's a damn good magazine to read. It's about the most objective reporting that I've found, and that's as much as I can ask for.

I'll write some more when more thoughts bubble to the surface.
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Now playing: Mickey & The Soul Generation - Football

Oh the strikes of France

2007-11-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

More railway strikes here, big surprise. This time, however, my boss found me a ride to get to work. Lucky me. It's pretty funny to evaluate everyone's reaction to the strike. All the French people just take it in stride, with minimal bitching; everyone is more just concerned about finding a way around it. Some of the people from other countries at our office just non-stop bitch about it, talking about how much they hate the unions and the railway staff. Me? I just laugh it off and tell myself, "Only in France." Life is too short to get yourself worked up over these things, and it's just one of the tradeoffs of living here.

I continue my reading of "The Omnivore's Dilemma." The author took a trip to a real farm, one which he refers to as zero sum. By zero sum, he means that it requires almost nothing from the outside, it is ecologically sound because it produces everything it needs and if anything gives back to the environment. I love the idea myself, but as the author points out, this type of farming is very labour intensive. Or is it? If an average conventional farmer only has to work 150 days a year now because of advances in technology and lives in poverty, well, isn't that about right? I mean, if I only work 150 days a year, I would live in poverty as well (well maybe not in France, the average work year is 185 days). But if you work every day, you get paid for it. Not just in money, but such farms produce everything they need since all the food they need is covered.

Where am I going with this? Well, the reason that these farms work is that because they are not a monoculture of crops. They produce all types of animals (chickens and eggs, beef, rabbits, turkeys, pigs) but all sorts of crops (corn, various vegetables, etc..). But this is the only way it can work as each element helps each other, and relies on each other. I think it's really interesting that nature leans toward natural complexity. If you look at a given ecological system, there is no direct logical format to it. Everything is in so-called "strange loops" (to use Douglas Hofstader's terminology), where the result of any given action effects other actions and it is almost impossible to trace a single causal event to every result. What does this say? Well, it seems nonsensical to search for simple solutions to nature if it all tends towards complexity. People knock on science for being too complex, and I've heard arguments such as "If I can't understand it, it can't be true." Maybe you can't understand particle physics (I know I can't at the highest level), but that doesn't mean everybody can't. Maybe it's impossible for one person to understand everything in entirety.

What else? I'm loving the boxe francaise. There is something about sparring that I feel is so...pure. I know when I enter the ring with someone, everything else falls away. All my thoughts of the day, all the other people in the room other than the guy (or girl) in front of me, my surroundings completely other than the ropes of the ring. If you lose your concentration for a second, a good opponent will pounce. So it requires utter focus. I think what best captures it is the final boxing scene from Snatch. It captures the feeling, the memories, the sound, it's very well done. The feeling of time slowing as you see the opponent drop his hand and you drop a left hook across their face, knowing exactly what is going to happen (and it does), such a great feeling.

So not too much else new right now. I'll give another update soon, hopefully before my little vacation to Eastern Europe.

You cheeky bastard!

2007-11-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I just got back from a rather nice meal of raw meat. Food is good, this I have truly realized in the past weekend.

Yann and I made a jaunt across the channel to merry ol' England to London. What can I say? Their beer is good, this hypothesis we tested over and over...and over again. The women are...easy, but also incredibly good natured. I have been so used to the Parisian women, who hold their head just high enough so that they never have to look into someone's eyes. It's satisfying just to catch the gaze of a random person and hold it for a little while. A little connection that may be soon forgotten but just captures you for the moment.

So one of our little "art projects" was to go to every statue we saw and take a picture doing the pose of said statue. So this lasted about 15 statues and then we found a bar. From there, the day degraded into a series of bars, with video reviews of each. Let's just say the videos get off track near the end, as I lose track of where the hell we are and Yann loses his English speaking abilities.

The next day was just a day of being utterly and completely useless, followed by a night of hitting up London clubs. Well, not the real "club" clubs, but bars that were open late with a dance floor. And everybody hammered. That's one thing about the English, they get shit faced. No two ways about it, I appreciate that. Another thing is the Brits just love their drugs. I've never been offered so many different choices of drugs just walking down the street. A casual offer of heroin? Jesus. I'm also impressed with my getting into bar abilities, and choosing them. Seriously, I have a talent people. Assuming it's not ultra-high class (trans-cool?), and we aren't looking too scrubby, I can manage to get us in. That being said, it may just be dumb luck and I'm blocking the memories of not getting it. Let me think what I want.

A trip to Camden Town was most entertaining. Despite being unclean from the night before (literally, no shower, just off and running), we sidled our way through what was the closest thing to a Middle Eastern market I've been too. There is absolutely everything there, and a lot of things I didn't expect. Goth stores abound, full of spiky looking objects, vintage clothing, food from everywhere, random crap stores, and a raver-esque store with chicks dancing on pillars in the corners. I love it. I also like having merchants trying to sell you things. It's not like in Thailand where it was a forceful shove, here it was just casual chat and a smile. Then lowering the price repeatedly.

So, what did I really think of England? Nice place to visit, I don't want to live there. The food is utter shit, the prices are insane, and I just didn't feel the vibe. When I came to Paris, I felt like I was at home. The people here have so much style, and in a very different way than Londoners. It felt like the Londoners were wearing the clothes because they had to, it didn't look natural at all. Parisians, it just suits them. I see people and I think, they make those clothes look good. An air of casualness, but it's perfected. I guess it's the difference between fashion and style.

The food. Ugh. We had a chat with Yann's French friend and he brought up a good point. When people just eat shitty food, they forget what real food is and just accept it. But once you've had truly good food, you can't go back to eating shit. I think it's easy for people to forget what is truly important in life, and one of those things is what you have 3 times at day (at least!).

Oh yeah, and the Tube is slow. Real slow. I don't know how it works as a transportation system effectively. Well, I guess it doesn't.

So, in conclusion, I've planned my next trip here. In two weeks I'm heading to Prague and then Berlin, hopefully meeting up with my friends who are backpacking across Europe. Party on people and I'll talk to you all soon.

Trust your instincts?

2007-10-27T05:14:00.000-06:00

So, all week I had been thinking of something to write about, and now I've finally found something. As a few of you know, I've had more than a few drunken adventures. By adventure I mean stumbling around aimlessly and ending up in the middle of nowhere, and having to walk for hours and hours. The all time record is a 5 hour walk, which includes a small 20 minute sleep in a park.

Well, now I have a new record, but not for time, definitely distance. Last night, because Yann and I are so damn intelligent, we went straight to the bar after work and drank until midnight straight. No dinner, nothing. Just pure hammered. Well, I was anyways. So, thanks to Yann's friend Pablo, I could rent a Velib bike in record time so that I could continue my journey home for a falafel and pass out. "It'll only take you 30 minutes, no problem, right?" Yeah, no problem. So I'm on the roundabout at Place D'Italie, which is about a medium sized one for Paris. Going home in the right direction, it was perfect. But being drunk, I get seemingly good ideas. So right when I was supposed to turn left, I turned right. Why you may ask? Because it felt like it was the right direction. Serious. So I started climbing this monster hill on my bike, all dressed in nice clothes, and I figured, well I'll see the Seine sooner or later and then just follow it home. Easy as pie. Fast forward to 45 minutes later, I haven't seen the Seine yet, just continuing on my little path...in the opposite direction. I finally found the Seine, and a road going parallel. I can only judge now that I must have been following it in the wrong direction, because it certainly didn't lead me home. The scenery was getting less and less busy, and more and more like suburbia. Yet, I still had confidence in my abilities. This is about an hour and a half into my 30 minute bike ride. Then because of all the bike riding, the soberness started to kick in. "Hey, I have absolutely no idea where the hell I am. But there is a sign pointing to Hotel De Ville, that's close to my house." What I seemed to forget was that each of the suburbs surrounding Paris has a Hotel De Ville. I finally get to it, and the signs start saying "Vitry Centre". Plug in "Vitry-sur-Seine station, France" into Google Maps, and then plug in St. Paul, Paris, France, then you can see how far away I had gotten from my original station.

This is now panic time, I have no idea where the hell I am, it's 2am, and I just have the clothes on my back and a this damn Velib which is constantly squeeking. I figure this is when I should find a map, but all the bus stops in Vitry have their maps stolen or just no map at all. Beautiful. Also, to find the street names in suburbia is next to impossible, there is just posts at intersections pointing in the direction of various landmarks. None of them say Paris. I managed to find a bus stop with a map of the route of the bus. It shows that I'm fucking far from Paris, but not much else, so I start to follow the bus route, stopping at every bus stop to ensure that I am still on the correct route. Eventually, I get back to Paris, and where do I end up? Place D'Italie. Goddamit. It's 2:40, and I figure I can get it right this time. I did manage this, and ended up back at home at exactly 3am. Beautiful.

This morning I have skipped my boxe francaise, I figure I got my workout last night. I don't want to leave the Marais again this weekend.
Here is me in front of the impressive sculpture by Rodin, the gates of hell.

I hope all is well with everyone, I'm still alive and kickin.

Hey good looking, whatcha got there cooking? Somethin for me?

2007-10-18T13:48:00.000-06:00

Dammit, these damn laptop keyboards. Seriously, I was halfway through this post, and I lost it all. Grrrrr.

So it was my first French strike today, woohoo! So if you don't know (shame on you, two times) there is a large debate between the new president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy and the train unions. Mainly this is due to their very, very good retirement packages. In the early 20th century, if you worked in trains, you shoveled coal, got lung cancer and died at 50. Thus, they let you retire at 45, enjoy your 5 years of pain, and kick the bucket. Technology being the wonderful thing that it is, train work has turned mostly into pushing buttons and moving levers...with the same retirement package. Fair? I don't think so. So Sarkozy wants to change it, being the smart guy that he is, and the unions want to keep it the same, them being whiny French people. What does that mean for me? A day of drinking wine, eating cheese and generally being a cool guy.

This has been my first day to sit in my boxers and do nothing for quite sometime. There is nothing quite like just being completely unproductive, I love it.

So, I've been reading this interesting book about great historical military blunders. The commonality I see between it all is that it came down to the generals and that they had too much pride. I compare this with a book I read a few years ago by C.S. Lewis who stated that the greatest sin and root of all other sin (he was a big Christian) was that of pride. So what is pride? Well for me, it is by far and away the most tempting of all sins. It is one of knowledge, for me to say "Yes, I know this. Let me tell YOU about this, because I KNOW it." is so damn tempting. To claim that you are a master of an area of knowledge, especially when you aren't, and get away with it feels so damn good.

Vanity is also a fun sin. Seriously, who doesn't like to look good? Maybe it's not society's definition of looking good, but if you can look in the mirror and say "Hey, I know that handsome guy/beautiful girl!" you automatically feel good.

I realize what I love is to play unspoken mental debates, which are a decent part of business. What do you all reveal? What cards are you going to play? How do you react to new situations? It's such a great mental game, I love it. It's also like picking up a girl, which admittedly I haven't done it quite sometime. Judging the conversation, deciding your position on various subjects (you know, it's never completely truthful, no matter what I say :P), planning the next action, and deciding when to leave it all and go drink with the boys.

What's also fun? Talking in French. I really enjoy it, even though mine is far from perfect. You can be such a cocky bastard, and it's perfectly acceptable. I also like the fact that I have had real conversations recently, and it's not just "how are you? I'm fine."

So, in a half drunken dinner of a cheeseburger (which admittedly sucked) tonight, I have started to plan the future. If all goes according to plan, it's going to be an interesting 2 years. In my opinion, it's best to think about these sort of things, because it's when you are the most honest with yourself. Nonetheless, you should also think about it the next day and review it, but it can give you some good ideas.

Wow, this is an incredibly rambling post. I'm surprised if you've read it all, so good on you. I'll probably write some more this weekend. Party on brothers and sisters.
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Now playing: T.I. - What You Know

Be Careful What You Wish For

2007-10-11T15:30:00.000-06:00

Seriously. Be careful. I have the fortunate luck of usually getting what I hope for, but it's now a matter of hoping for the right thing. It's like that damn monkey's paw tale, it always comes back to bite you in the ass. Hopefully not literally, although...

From the fiery gates of hell

2007-10-10T15:47:00.000-06:00

Aloha faithful (I hope!) readers!

Recently has been an extremely busy time in my life. I've had friends, now parents, visiting Paris which leads to, obviously, copious amounts of drinking and little free time for myself. On top of this, as many of you may know, has been a relative shit show at my work. So my poor neglected blog has got no loving from me.

So I have nothing really new or interesting to report. Work work work, play play, train. That's about the gist of it.

My recent thoughts?

I love a girl with a good handshake. Seriously, give a good grip ladies; any real guy will appreciate it. It shows confidence and a sense of intrigue.

French people are great. When we go out drinking (often) and make fools of ourselves (very often), I rarely hear about it the next time. It's merely, "Boy, weren't we drunk last time? Let's do it again!" I really appreciate this attitude, as it encourages the positive aspects of the social experience.

Reading is awesome. All day long my mind is racing with thoughts of computers and geophysics. But when I get on that train and open up a good book, it's like time stands still and I forget all the troubles of my day. It is one of the finer things I appreciate in life.

Duck is good. But is sucks in Canada.

I'm digging rugby right now. The French team is so great, it's truly an instantiation of the culture. They were losing to New Zealand, but when they brought out Chabal, it was a miraculous change. Like an army bringing out it's hero, the teams disposition changed and they pulled it together for the win. What a great game.

Wearing shinguards when doing kickboxing is necessary. Trust me.

Computers are both great and terrible. They will take all the verbal abuse that I spew at them all day long, but still fuck up.

I hope everybody is doing wonderfully. I want to do a real proper post soon, now that I have my computer back. Stick around, good things to come.

What's the French word for stakeout! Dammit!

2007-09-29T09:04:00.000-06:00

Oh the French. I think if I could sum it all up so far, it would be, "The French just don't give a fuck." I see people walk down the streets and in Metro stations, almost purposefully getting in your way, walking very slowly, sliding in front of you in lines, standing around in the streets, etc... Watching the traffic here just makes me cringe, the driving is nutty, people doing things that make me scratch my head.

So I was in the Metro station on Friday morning, and for the second time, I had heard what sounded like a lady, yelling "Si vous plait!". Really emphasizing the 'plait'. This pisses me off, because at 8am, the last thing you want to hear is someone yelling something over and over. So I figure that this time, I need to find out who this is. It's like what George Carlin talked about when your driving, if someone does a real asshole move, you need to get beside them and see the person to say, "Hey! This guy does look like an asshole!" So I wander on over, all casual, and I finally see this lady. To my surprise, it looks like she has downs syndrom and homeless, so it suddenly all connects. Basically, when people walk by her, without acknowledging what she said, she will yell until you do acknowledge what she said and say, "No" at least. I'm not quite sure as what to think of this one yet.

What else? The fuckin Gypsies. Ok, on the train again, coming home after a long day from work, and this...asshole starts yelling. Not the usual gypsie style of a general announcement to the train, that yes, they are useless and have had such a terrible life, oh they need your mercy. No, this jerk starts yelling it, really abrasively as well. Me, I was asleep in one of the semi-rare occasions I got to both take the train alone and a window seat (with the requisite arm rest, which you then prop your head on your hand), and am woken by this jerk. I mean, really, if it is your job to beg and recieve alms from people, you should at least be good at it. Or have some knowledge of what, I don't know, PISSES off people. Yelling at me after 9 hours of work is not going to inspire sympathy ane encourage me to open my wallet, it's going to encourage me to spit in your general direction. He didn't get a single coin, so maybe this is evolution at work.

I went to a Go Sport location here, which is basically like the French version of a Sport Chek (for you Canucks). Wow, this is how a sports store should be, I was seriously impressed. Everything, all sports, in one store, all with quality items for each sport. There wasn't much selection in terms of brands, but I mean, you at least had one nice thing for each item you need. In principle, it's perfect. I also like how there is only one big chain, that's your sports store, you go there if you need sports stuff. It just makes sense.

The reason I needed to go to said store was because in my boxe francaise class, the professeur finally got on my back about wearing shorts and my cross-training shoes. Basically, he was trying to tell me why pants are necessary and the boxe francaise shoes. They were some bullshit reasons about sweat, but I think it's because of two reasons. One, the French don't like wearing shorts, and they don't want to see anyone else wearing shorts. I don't know why, but it's weird. The second, they don't like actual physical contact (unless you are really good friends, and then you can be lucky to get a fake kiss on the cheek :P), so they don't want to have to be closer than they need to be to my leg. Hell, they don't even kick with their shit, it's with the tip of the shoe, it's as if they are so disgusted with having to touch someone else, they will do it with the furthest point on their body. Whatever.

So yeah, this may sound like I'm upset here, but not at all really. I just find this whole situation very entertaining. I consistently have a good time doing pretty much anything, and I'm always enjoying the food. Yann and I went for dinner last night and I definately enjoy social interaction over food. Sharing meals with someone is a great experience, it's also essential to have a bottle of wine. Also, I love having baguette bread to sop up the delicious sauce at the end of the meal. Then a light dessert, a digestif, and your money.

In terms of literature lately, I highly recommend Hiruki Murakami, as I've found his books very entertaining. They have so much imagination, and the writing style is so quirky, it's as if it is a Japanese Harlan Elison. Try reading "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" or "The Elephant Vanishes".

Music, I've been digging the album "I'll sleep when you're dead" by El-P. It's very solid rap, and not quite as hardcore as the album title makes it out to be.

Otherwise, I remember I had a few other things to say, but when I get back the laptop this week hopefully, I'll write another proper blog.

2007-09-27T09:41:00.001-06:00

New post coming soon, I have some good rants to go on. Seriously, just wait until the weekend.

yeah...YEAH!

Well, why not?

2007-09-16T07:51:00.000-06:00

So, sitting here in an internet cafe, very disappointed about my lack of a laptop. That jingling sound when I shake my laptop eminating from the power supply definitely isn't a good thing. So, warranty time.

In any case, it's been a rather busy week here. Not having a computer has forced me to *gasp* go out and do things. So, first on the list was join a gym. After some misunderstood discussion, I ended up getting 3 free classes to try at this local martial arts gym. First up was a class of Savate. This was good fun, all in all. The instructor comes in, an older fellow, puts on a funk cd and gives us all clothes pins to put on the chest of our shirts. A fun little half sparring game of trying to get the pin off your partner's chest followed. It's pretty hilarious to try, and it definitely helps the reaction times. I also realized how out of shape I am. We go to start doing some pushups and situps later in the class, and half way through each I utterly fail (along with all the other new people, whew!). I'm still sore from it.

I tried the Thai boxing class, figuring I'd enjoy that as well since it's my "roots". It was not to be, the instructor was pretty much a jerk who was working with his conditioning coach the whole time and every 5-10 minutes telling us a new combination to try. Thanks, your helping everyone learn so much. Glad I got to try before I bought it.

I had meant to take the third class of pankration, but me running around Paris looking for computer parts prevented that. As much as I love the French, they are so infuriating sometimes. Take an hour and a half lunch and close the store? Why not! Also the big computer store I eventually found closes at 6:45 every day (it's not even opened on Sundays). Isn't that beautiful when you get home from work at 7:15 to begin with? Not to mention they open at 10...le sigh. Tech support for something still under warranty? That's going to cost your .12 Euro per minute. Jesus.

Nonetheless last night turned out to be quite interesting. I met up with my Australian buddy from work, split a bottle of wine, and went for kebab. Note, kebab isn't just meat on a stick here, it's basically a full blown donair. Randomly enough we run into his Aussie friend, and her Spanish friend and they invite us to a cocktail party. So, it ended up being Justin (the Aussie), myself and a room full of Aussie girls (ok, and one Spanish one). That was definitely not expected. So, I drank champagne, ate cheese and fig, and wondered how the hell I ended up in this scenario. Long story short, I ended up doing shots on the Champs Elysee with one of the Aussie chicks, us both complaining about the French and the opposite sex in general. Pretty entertaining all and all. I also love the fact that I can be in a bar until 6am and keep getting served booze. Well, I don't love it so much today, but you know.

In other news, World Rugby Cup is a great time. One set of commercials at half time, and otherwise it's an hour and a half of good sporting action. That being said, the good games won't start showing up until the semi-finals. It's just not that fun to watch the All Blacks/Aussies/South Africans demolish everyone in their pool.

Anywho, I'm going back home to nurse my hangover. I hope all is well with everyone, as it's pretty decent on my end.

2007-09-09T09:18:00.000-06:00

I was an idiot last night and dropped my laptop. So as a result it either broke my power supply connection i.e. the cable or in the actual laptop.

Therefore this has given me a forced break from internet at home. Which is probably a good thing. Won't be much blogging or internet activity for the next little while, and I'll actually go out and do something.

So interesting updates in the near future.

And if you say the universe looks like a hyperbolic saddle, you already know too much, skip to the end

2007-09-02T14:09:00.000-06:00

So, just got back from an extended wander around Paris. God, this is a great city to just go get lost in, so many interesting places I just randomly run into. There is also always the ultimate safety of the metro system, which you run into a station every few minutes, and it's always 2 trains to get to any other station (beautiful topology, just beautiful!). I stumbled into Jardin du Luxembourg, it looks like a great place to go lose a day in the sun. Bring a book, bottle of wine, and a few like-minded friends, and it's perfect. On up to Montparnasse, with one of the only skyscrapers in Paris, it's really easy to get to. And yes, I finally went to the Eiffel Tower. I have to say, it is quite the interesting piece of engineering. From my point of view, it's an asymptotic point in a regular surface, or at least that is the nature of the design.

On Saturday, I got to have one of my infamous lazy days. For those of you who know me well enough, I've damn near perfected it. The key is inadvertent planning of it all. You need to have food around, but it all has to be easy to make and tasty. My choices? Nutella, peanut butter, cheese, bread, wine, lots of fruit, coffee, and some chocolate. Pretty much all you need for foraging during the day, and in the evening go for a dinner and a walk, then go home and continue where you left off.

While I do say it's a lazy day, I spend a good portion of said days thinking. Just enjoying the complexities of my own consciousness, reading interesting articles, debating them to yourself, appreciating music, and digging around in the caverns of my mind. I feel that there are a lot of people that are afraid of this, they keep themselves busy so they don't have to be by themselves and merely thinking. I think it is one of the best things you can do for yourself, just work out your mind. And it's utterly free!

Friday I enjoyed a drunken night, so once again a few people got drunken emails. Yeah...nevermind those.

The state of MMA is getting very interesting for those who follow. As we've seen with other sports, it only really works with a monopoly architecture. What does this mean for the fighters? Well, they have great potential to get screwed over, but at the same time, this is the only way the company can make enough to pay out the paycheques which are worthy of their talents. We also get an absolute control on quality, if all the best guys are in one organization, there is no problem setting up all the best fights. The big stickler right now is Fedor Emelianenko, the unbeaten former Pride Heavyweight champion. His demands are rather telling of his culture, and it's interesting to see how the contract negotiations are going. At this point in his career, he is obviously concerned about his motherland Russia more than anything, and therefore has requirements other than just monetary (bringing MMA to Russia, his team's fighters to the UFC, yadda yadda). The UFC is just offering a lot of money, and not much else. What does it really come down to? For my sake, being a fan, I hope he just takes the money hahaha.

In any case, I had more on my mind, but I can't remember now. Take 'er easy all.
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Now playing: T.I. - What You Know

Being hungover is like winning the lottery, but they pay you in regret

2007-08-29T12:28:00.000-06:00

So, it's about time I get back to writing on the little ol' blog.

Well, as many people know, it was my birthday yesterday. I'm officially in my mid-twenties, which is a scary thought actually. However, referring to a certain episode of Mission Hill, "You should have started to get your life figured out by your mid-twenties," I feel that I'm definitely getting there.

So, I treated myself to une petite vacance in Nice this past weekend. The French Riviera is absolutely amazing, I really enjoyed it. No, I did not go to any museums or historical places. Hell, I didn't even go to Cannes or Monaco. What I did do? I sat my ass on the beach, drank Ricard, and swam in the beautiful ocean. Perfect blue, absolutely amazing. Swimming in the ocean feels so utterly natural, I'm sure it has something to do with evolution. I felt very cleansed afterwards, like my problems and impurities were washed out to sea. If it was only for a weekend, it was exactly what I needed. Just forget everything in my usual life, and go to a new life. On Saturday I sat on a beach with fellow backpackers and we drank wine and played drinking games. It's funny how drinking games are universal. It was also nice chatting with an American guy (pictured) who I could have what felt like a normal conversation with. I haven't been able to discuss the Michael Vick, the social/economic situation in the US, or perspectives on Europeans with anyone in awhile.

I also acted very...North American. Yes, you should buy your white linen clothes in Nice, and get a proper summer haircut (even if it's the end of summer dammit).

So I had a very interesting conversation on the way home from work today. My office mate and I take the train everyday, and he is petrochemical engineer from one of the top oil and gas engineering schools in the world (Delph University in the Netherlands). So after talking about everything geophysics and oil, we got on the topic of migration. For those of you who don't know, probably everyone, migration is the process we actually use to image the layers of the earth in their "proper" location. Everything up until then is to get rid of artifacts and the physical problems of acquiring the data (like the fact the sound takes longer to reach recievers further away, how the cables in the ocean are affected by waves, or how dynamite actually makes the ground "roll"). What migration does is consider the sound wavefield that is associated with the sound and take into account the reflectors structure (whether they are at an angle or not), and put them in the proper place. But in a generalized sense, the algorithms we use are applicable to any wavefield. So if you think about it, they are doing the same things your glasses are doing. The rays of light hit the wrong parts of your retina, and the glasses adjust them to the right position.

What we both realized, and I found super interesting, is the applicability to other means of wavefields. Imagine a line of people, eyes closed and each with one ear plugged. Someone stands perpendicular to them, and yells. How the hell do they figure out where this person is? Each person by themselves cannot figure out, because they only hear a sound at a particular time. So, if they all calculate when they hear the sound, compare them, then they can figure out where the yeller is. However, as we all know, amplitude (how loud something is) is also a function of distance. The further away you are, the more quiet a sound will appear to be, so the people could just record how loud the sound was for them. So the wavefield has 2 properties you could migrate with! Based upon time (which is isomorphic/similar to what I do at work) or they could each tell how loud the sound is! Friggin cool if you ask me! I'll have to ask at work now if how we take into account of the amplitude of events in relation to them, as it could damn well be useful as a complementary method of migration or interpretation.

Working in a corporate world is turning out to be pretty interesting, but foreign. I had to go home early on my birthday because I had a big client meeting the morning after. But that was kind of cool in itself, actually meeting with someone and figuring out what was the nature of the problems we in encounter. It isn't just some abstract thing on the computer I work with, but a record of a history of an event with real physical properties. It doesn't sound like a big revelation, but to me it was.

So yeah, there I go. Hopefully I'll run into more interesting stuff soon here to write about. I hope everything is well for everyone.

Joshy Poshy

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Now playing: Nine Inch Nails - Hyperpower!

2007-08-19T13:35:00.000-06:00

Ok, just got back from dinner. Had steak tartare for the first time, and it was pretty damn good. The health concerns regarding it bother me a little, so it probably won't be a regular dish for me. Nonetheless, it is part of my culinary adventure! And yes, I had it with an egg on top, with capers and pickled onions. Very French

So I guess I should do the interesting part of the post now. As some of you know by now, I had an adventure in the catacombs of Paris. So here is the night:

I had met this hippie chick on Tuesday when I went out for drinks with Yann. She mentioned almost immediately that she is a cataphile, and that she was going down to the catacombs that night. As soon as she heard that I had never been, she immediately invited me to come along. Obviously, since I was a little drunk and in work clothes, I figured it was a bad idea at the time. So, we agreed to a Friday excursion.

Being the smart boy that I am, I went out and bought everything that I thought I would or could use for the adventure. Flashlights, wine, cheese, bread, bottle opener (very important!), cigarettes, paper and pens, quiche, and lighters; they all turned out to be very useful! On Friday, I gave her a call and I went over to her apartment. After waiting for quite awhile for her friends, we eventually started on the journey. All the while, people were pumping me up for the adventure, and explaining the history and culture of the catacombs.

So here is near the park we came in.
Everything was now a rush. They quickly unlocked the gate to the park, and we ran in under the cover of shadows. While going to the catacombs is not a huge crime, the police do give you a fine and if they find an entrance they will brick it up. So, wandering through the bushes, we came upon a tiny little manhole. It was opened with a key, and I was the first to go in. It was not an easy way at all. I had to squish through a tiny opening feet first, in complete darkness. My bag was passed and found myself at the top of a spiral staircase. Hearing "Allez! Allez!" being yelled behind me, I stumbled down the stairs. It was covered in dirt, and surprisingly slippery, then we reached the bottom.

My first site at the bottom:
Ok, very cramped. I had to constantly duck, and throughout the night there were a few times I boinked my head. That's why the girl said her catacomb name was Bing. So, on we go! Start walking, almost running through the corridors. Left, right, straight. I had no idea where the hell I was, or any idea of how to get out if I wanted. But Bing was very cool, and kept asking if I was ok, and checked up on me throughout the night. So after what seemed like a half hour, we eventually reached a large room:
So we all sat around a table, opened the bottles of wine and one guy with a stereo put on some thumping techno beats. At this point, my mind was a little blown. The whole idea of being 30m under Paris was pretty wild. Bing showed me around, up a set of staircases to a La Poste location, which had a big steel door that looked like it was 60 years old at least.

Apparently it was locked up, and the room we had been in was used as storage previously. Cool. After sitting around, and drinking for a bit, it was time to move again. The cataphiles don't like to stay in one place too long for several reasons. For one, if too many people stay in a room, then people can inadvertently start destroying some of the older graffiti on the walls. There's also the threat of police, so it's best to keep moving. When they leave a room, they will often set off a smoke bomb. Such as this:
Off once again, only this time in a thick haze of smoke. I was starting to feel a bit more relaxed, the wine was a good idea. We eventually reached a point where the ceiling was about a foot or two from the floor, so it was time to crawl. Pushing my bag in front, hand and foot, I was wondering where the hell we were going. Eventually we reached the end. It opened up, but we heard voices. Obviously, I thought, "POLICE!!!". But nobody else seemed panicked, so I went with the flow. That's what I do best actually. We ran into some excavators. There is a group of cataphiles who make it their mission to uncover what the police have blockaded. So this was a new room, that had only been open for a month, and no one knew the last time anyone had seen it. Imagine that, how old this place is.
I was shown some of the writings on the wall. This is some of the very first graffiti that they know of. Writing that are estimated to have been from the 1860's, signatures of long dead people. But here we are appreciating what they've left us. I felt so lucky.
After chatting for awhile, it was off again. Another smoke bomb, and everybody clears out. It felt good, running through the halls. Hearing people talking, music pumped, putting out my hand and feeling centuries of hard work. Eventually we reached the third room. We stopped here for awhile, and ate for awhile. I was so glad I brought some quiche at this point, smoked salmon never tasted so good. Food was being offered, so I proposed some cheese and bread. Bing's eyes lit up and I let her dig in. Most of the cataphiles are not very rich, and tend to work just to get by with no huge career ambitions. Fair enough, so I was glad I could share my wealth with these people who were being so generous. There were other cataphiles around, we chatted for awhile. Everyone there was in such good spirits and so nice, I was very impressed. They were all very happy that I could come down there and see this part of Paris. But onward! More rooms to be had. As a note, each of the rooms had a name, although I can't remember any of them now hahaha.
Here is a Brazilian fellow who was in our group. At this point, he was getting drunk and really wanted to talk to me. He began to explain the history of the catacombs and what I should start looking for. As you see here the walls are brick like in structure, this is a later development of the catacombs, in the early 19th century. Originally, the catacombs began their existence as the people wanted to use the rock for the houses in Paris. So if you look now at buildings there, this is where a lot of the rock is from. This is also why the catacombs are only under streets because it would cave it otherwise.
In the next room I found this to be next to the makeshift table. I don't know how old it was, but I love it. People leaving messages for each other, and everyone has respect for it. You want to leave it so people can enjoy it for generations to come.

Here you can see the differences of the types of structure in the catacombs. Being next to the bare rock felt very good. Very real. Here is Bing, it gives you an idea of how cramped it was, and that there was always a bit of smoke around.
One of the inscriptions as to the date of inspection. You can tell it was the third inspection, the initials were of the inspector and the year. These are everywhere, and the oldest date back to 1777. Mindblowing.

Another interesting thing I found was that there were only white people for the most part. When I asked about it, they were all fairly adamant that it was something only for Parisians and, well, white people. This bit of racism was the one thing I noticed was what you could consider hateful about the cataphiles. Then again, as the Brazilian(he was part French) said, "Could you imagine eating couscous down here? Never! It's wine, cheese, bread!" hahaha, fair enough. This being said, I felt very safe with all the people and it was more that they wanted to keep it secret and controlled. They only want to bring people who can respect it, who have an understanding of the history. For a foreigner, like me, they call a tourist instead of a cataphile. Tourists are looked down upon generally, but they liked me because Bing brought me. That girl is awesome.

We eventually found our way back to the original room where we hung out. It had been about 7 or 8 hours in the catacombs at this point, so I was getting tired. But my Brazilian friend offered to get some pics of me so...proof!
There were two other cataphiles not from our original group that were leaving, so I joined them. After thanking everyone it was off for the final adventure that night. We walked through and found a ladder upwards. Climbing several iterations of the ladder, we reached a small platform and saw the manhole cover. A huge one too. Must have been 70 kilos at least. One of the guys pushed it out with his feet by holding the ladder (risky!) and onto the street we were. Right in the middle of the sidewalk no less! People walking everywhere, giving us strange looks. Covered in dirt we emerged, I was bleary eyed and seeing the morning sun was strange. I bid the guides adieu, and went on my way home. It was a good sleep, and well worth it.

So there it is, my "official" account of it all. A great time, and I will probably go again to the other section in a few weeks. There are two main catacomb areas, and we went to the "easier" and less known one. The one in the 14em is apparently a lot bigger, and there are some areas with flooded water. So I'll have to get some gum boots for it, but I'm up for a challenge.

I went out with friends from work on Saturday, but it felt like it was a different life. What a strange weekend.

I hope all is well with everyone. Next weekend I am off to Nice, so you'll see some beach pictures with the next update! Until next time...

2007-08-13T15:26:00.000-06:00

So after a rather depressing weekend of doing absolutely nothing, I have come around again.

I've continued watching this Human Weapon show, and it's awesome. While it definitely has it's cheesy moments (mostly coming from the former football player saying how he will crush someone with only 2 weeks training), I do enjoy the history aspects of it. The most recent episode focussed on savate, oh how fitting. As most of you probably don't know, savate (or boxe francais) is pretty much French kickboxing. Except they wear shoes, with hard toes, thus the name savate translates to "old boot". Pretty damn cool if you ask me. And as luck would have it I found a gym that you can train in it! Aaand it's like 10 minutes from my apartment. Yeah, that rocks. I can also do muay thai there, and it has a full fledged gym. It also re-opens it's regular hours the day before my birthday, so I think that's a perfect present to myself.

This has also given me reason to actually start practicing French more, as I can pretty much get by on what I have now. Sure, I can't understand the conversations at work for the most part, but I kind of zone out a lunch anyways.

Yeah, not much else to say. I constantly look for things to do at work, but it's a balance. Should I really go bug everyone and prevent them from doing work for my own selfish needs? As a result, I've just been doing little tests of my own, because I might as well.

I've also been researching how to create a database through excel linking word/rtf documents together. If anyone has any good tutorials on this, it'd be most appreciated.

I've also been planning my trip for September/the fall. It looks to be the big decision between either a Greece/Italy/Croatia tour or an Austria/Czech/Hungary/Croatia tour. Decisions decisions, what a pain.

Last night, as I went out for dinner, I ran into some Chinese American girls at the restaurant. At first, I didn't say anything, just casually overheard their conversation. But eventually I had to but in. They were complaining about how weird it was that French guys kiss each other on the cheek. That's how the French are, I explained, it's like hugging in North America. They also remarked how the French take the month of August off for vacation. "But, how do the businesses survive? Don't they want to make money?" The question is, what good is money if you can't do anything with it. Work so you don't have to work is the culture. I overheard some complaints as well about how they didn't get to choose their salad dressing, but I had to shake my head. Americans...sooo ignorant.

Party on everyone.

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Now playing: Amon Tobin - The Killer's Vanilla

2007-08-09T13:18:00.000-06:00

Here I am, drinking a rather overpriced wine (terrible for 10 Euros!) and thinking about all the odd things lately goin on in my life.

So I guess first off, I understand now why French people don't particularly like sushi. Because it sucks here. Seriously, I just got home from a so called restaurant Japanois, and I'm severely disappointed. First off, the miso was crap. It wasn't even really cloudy, just warm water, with all of one, yes one, piece of tofu and I think 3 pieces of seaweed. This was served along with what seemed to be coleslaw with onion. So very Japanese...

Onto the actual sushi...le sigh. So I get it, and admittedly it looks impressive until you pick it up. The whole damn thing was rice! Just a thin slice of fish covering this mound of rice! Hell, if the rice would have been good, but it was really sugary. The rolls were just as bad, as they were not actually closed, they just hid the fact that one side wasn't rolled shut by placing them together. Jesus. I have to say that was one thing Houston was great for, the sushi there was amazing. Actually, in general the seafood there was really well done, those yanks know how to do their sea creatures.

The second point, I just had to shake my head and chuckle to myself today. One of the common things to do in my job is setting up a bunch of data to be processed on a Friday afternoon and letting it run over the weekend, as it often takes a couple of days. However, these jobs can crash, and how. It's a big problem, imagine you submit it all to the computer on Friday at 6, go home, and it all crashes at 7. You're boned. What was common in Houston and Calgary, was you would drop in on Saturday or Sunday afternoon for an hour or less, get your jobs back up and running then get on with your weekend. I mean, whatever, it's an hour out of your time and you make life a helluva lot easier for you the next week. Good investment if you ask me. So I asked the people in the office here if that was common practice, as I assumed it would be, and I got shocked looks in return. "Oh no, you can't do that, you have to fill out a form and get it signed by the centre manager if you want to do that. It's a big deal." I guess I should have expected a form to sign, but wow, just wow. French people are just strange sometimes.

Last night I started watching The Human Weapon series that was on the History Channel. Basically two guys (one an MMA fighter and the other a former football player and wrestler) who go around the world learning martial arts. At the beginning of the episode, they meet one of the top masters/trainers/senseis/whatever who says that in a two weeks time (or however long) they are welcome to come to his gym and he will choose one to fight his top fighter. So they go around to a bunch of dojos/gyms and learn some specific techniques of the art and the history of it all, and go fight the champ. While the champ obviously takes it easy on them, it's a fun show to watch. The guys are entertaining and do actually know about fighting, not like the complete idiots they usually have on these shows. For the most part (as far as my knowledge can confirm) they are very historically accurate, and get information from the masters themselves. A very good show if you can catch it, or download it.

On the one show, I was watching them learn muay thai (of course!) and they went to a kru in the jungle who was teaching muay chaiya. This is one of the older forms of muay thai, which the ring sport of today descends from. It is known for the elbow techniques and being extremely aggressive. How do I know this? Well, Mike Miles is the only person in North America qualified to teach it. Watching the fighters fight it was absolutely amazing, it was the most intense fighting I've ever seen anywhere. All the defensive moves were blocking with an elbow (basically an offensive move) and then using that to counter-attack. Imagine two guys going at it the camera can hardly catch it, and they are not landing a single actual blow on each other. I'm going to find a way to edit the scene and upload it for everyone to see, as it is awesome.

Allright all, more interesting tidbits later.

2007-08-05T14:18:00.000-06:00

The 101st post. Whew, it's been interesting.

What I started thinking about recently is that when people read this blog (or any blog for that matter) you get to know the writer, on an almost intimate basis. You will read about my ups and downs, and I've had a few people talk to me about it and it kind of surprises me. I guess from the safety of my keyboard, I never realize that this actually gets read! I guess the point of this rambling mess is that it's kind of odd having people know you but you don't know them. This isn't me falling into narcissism (too much anywho ^^) but I hope it encourages people to start their own blogs. If anything, I'll read it!

I have to say that there is one thing I miss about Houston, air conditioning everywhere. There is a total of one room at my office (hell, the one room I've been in Paris) which has a/c. And that's for client meetings.

The other thing I've been strongly considering is moving into sales. I think it would be quite the test to start managing client needs and helping them decide on their project goals that they want from my company. I think this also would be a good way to learn about the oil industry in general, as right now I'm just learning geophysics. Yeah, that was kind of random.

I accomplished 3 of the 5 goals for the weekend, and I think that's pretty good. There were a couple of decent bookshops in Paris that I checked out, although Shakespeare & Co is very much a tourist trap. 40 Euros for a book? I don't think so! I also checked out a cool little park near Chateau Vicennes. Unbeknownst to me, there was a large castle and courtyard there I wandered about, along with a decent sized part. Wandering into the forest, finding a tree and sitting in the peace and quiet was most beautiful. It was the first time I could go into public and not see any other people since I've been here. I also read my book and ate bread with nutella. I've given in.

And I finally got a bank card, it only took a month! Le sigh.

Rock on everybody, more later.

2007-08-02T13:40:00.000-06:00

So here I sit, a rainy night in Paris, listening to the Beatles. Life is good, and wine is tasty.

Once again, my thoughts drift towards food. Today, I had andouillette at lunch today, and I have to admit it isn't too bad. All the French people were watching me intensely, waiting for my reaction on my first bite, and hey it was decent. Now, not all of you out there in cyber land will like it, but with a decent mustard sauce, it's an interesting culinary experience. Speaking of culinary experiences, my food goal for this weekend is to find a horse steak as France is one of the few places in the world I could enjoy this delicacy. I've heard nothing but good things.

This brings me to my second point of the post. I think, as being from North America, we think too much about our food in some respects. I say, shut up, eat it, and enjoy it fer chrissakes. I meet almost no vegetarians out here, when I mention the idea, people look at me like I'm stupid. The idea of humanizing animals is utterly foolish. Do we ever see animals with ethics? No, of course not. Mother animals only care for their young because evolution dictates that they do because that results in their genes propagating the best.

But this brings me to my third point, despite the fact that I think it is entirely acceptable to eat animals, we still have to respect what it is we have taken from them for our food. I remember watching a Jamie Oliver show when he was in Italy. The locals had killed a wild boar, and brought it back to the village. They brought the children out and had them watch as they slaughtered and cleaned the animal. As this was happening, one of the adults was talking to the children about how this is life is and this is where your food comes from. I think in Western society we lose touch with this, most people don't really think of the cow which was killed when they go to the supermarket to buy their steak. It is very disconnected, and I really lament this. I still remember being 8 or so, and my uncle taking me to the slaughterhouse where my other uncle worked to get the ingredients for head cheese. While it was a little disturbing at the time, I realize now the importance of such an experience. This is what is required, there is a consequence for the food that you eat. I think that everyone who eats meat should have to go out and see how the process is done for their food. This is life folks, stop hiding behind your televisions and experience and realize it.

So, this brings me to my fourth points (I know, I was really on a roll today!). I was talking with about this a bit with my Finnish friend at work and he completely agreed. He then mentioned to me that he knows a few people that go on wild boar hunts here in France and that he's been on them. So we've tenatively planned to try to go on one in November. Apparently they hunt with spears, how cool is that? They have people who flush the boar out of the bushes (haha, probably me) and then surround it with horse riders who spear it. That would be an utterly European and intense experience. The idea of tracking your food is something really enthralling to me.

Speaking of cool, how cool is Peter MacKay? Pretty damn cool: click! God I love that guy, from the comments on Belinda Stronach to every hilarious comment on politics in general, he's great. I'd love to see him in a leadership position in Canada in a few years.

So this weekend the plan is to go to Harry's New York Bar in Paris where Hemingway used to hang out at so I can have an overly expensive coffee. Take pictures of the Basilica and Panthenon, buy some books and wander parks. It should be exciting.

Oh, and don't drop Nutella containers on tile. They blow up and chocolate with shards of glass go everywhere. Especially not at midnight...after a few glasses of wine. Le sigh.

Party on everybody, and I'll see some of you soon and others, well, less soon.

EDIT: I realized I had one last rant left in me. Click!
Who the hell does MADD think they are? They have no right to start criticizing how much people drink when THEY ARE TAKING THE FUCKING TRAIN! This stupid corporate entity (yes, look it up, it's not a non-profit organization) are trying to retain their relevancy after they have already met their goals. Yes, this is true folks, MADD has done what their original founder wanted accomplished, setting the law for 0.08 BAC level as the legal limit. In fact, they fired the founder and adopted a corporate structure just so they COULD CONTINUE TO EXIST. The government already tells us what drugs they think we can do, they regulate our alcohol consumption, the tax the hell out of our cigarettes, do we really need a proverbial nanny telling us all the time as well? Hell, it wouldn't be so bad if they actually cared about us, but no, they are just doing it so they can make money. The government and corporations especially, should stay out of people's private lives and specifically their private "victim-less crimes". NOTE: I see no victims in enjoying some intoxication with friends and when you aren't behind the wheel of a car.

*breathe out* ok, got that out. Ranting done...for now.

2007-07-29T13:51:00.000-06:00

Notes from a mathemagician in Paris:

When in doubt, drink a half bottle of wine. If further doubts arise, finish it.

Body odour is all relative

The internet is a big place you can find pictures that you never thought could exist, much less should exist.
More random music: Click!
We have begun breeding software. Evolutionary programming is proving to be quite the fruitful method of designing both new software and hardware/machines. The process involves creating an iterative algorithm to design a system that best suits the needs of a problem. Basically, it's like how people have bred animals and crops, they take the best ones of a certain generation, mix those up, and repeat. There are two really interesting parts to it that I see
The first being that current engineers don't know how to reverse engineer evolutionary designed equipment. That means, they don't know how it works. So, if said piece of equipment fails, who is to blame? You can't very well blame the software which designed it, it's not like it can go to jail.
The second being that we can start doing some really crazy things. One experiment was to for some really simple pieces of electronic equipment (all without a clock!) to be able to discern certain frequencies of sound. That's amazing if you think about it, because the only way up until now for a computer to do that is with a clock! Frequency is how many cycles per second the wave repeats, so how the hell can it do it without the main ingredient of time?
Pulling a muscle in your neck sucks. Don't be like me and try to fix it, as you'll just end up pulling the other side too.
Mensa is actually pretty hard to get into
Why do men make more money than women? Because we ask for more raises: click!
If you've done a Meyers-Briggs test, this is fun: click!
I'm an INTJ by the way

I hope everyone is well, as I'm doing ok.

2007-07-23T12:45:00.000-06:00

Well, since I have nothing real to think about all day, my mind goes onto interesting things.

Enjoy: Clicky!

Ok, so I've been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra (by Nietzsche) and now the Tractatus by Wittgenstein. They are providing to be interesting foils to each other. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (TSZ) is a interesting, and rather artistic look at philosophy. It is complicated, beautiful and never really clear as to what he's getting at. Hell, I still don't even really know what Nietzsche's philosophy he is supposedly expounding is, I don't even know what's really going on in the book. He seems to be using a persuasive argument based on how it's delivered than the actual content in the delivery (I know there is a specific word for this, it's in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, it was Pirsig's character's main field of study). For example, when he condemns other philosophers he doesn't say why they are wrong, just that they are, and in elegant terms. The Tractatus is the complete opposite. Wittgenstein is obviously influenced by Frege, Bertrand Russell and other thinkers in the analytical philosophy movement. He is examining the use of language and what can be said in it. The book is written in a very formal argumentative style, where he posits an assumption, argues the reasoning for it, and then continues the argument with said assumption. For example, he discusses that language cannot deal with objects because objects are not a part of language. The only thing that language can deal with is facts about objects, and the collection of all facts about an object will describe an object in language. Facts are a necessity of objects as well, something that you see must have a fact about colour since that is a property of the space the object occupies. As you can see, very concise and precise.

This being said about both of the books, both make the claim in the beginning that they've solved the problem that they are dealing with. In TSZ, I'm not sure what he is even solving, but I do know it has something to do with the inadequacy of the current methods of thought, understanding and human nature. Wittgenstein claims he solves the problem of language, that being what can be expressed, the limits of expression, etc... I have serious troubles with whomever claims they have the answer. So I don't completely love and believe either book, but I think it's important to read something that you don't always agree with. Learn about the other side...lest you be American.

I read a funny title to an article today. Something along the lines of, "Homeland (Security)? That sounds awfully Russian."

I also have a big rant about these so called "cleanse diets," I know more than a few people who do them. For one, a diet is what you eat anyways, and cleanse? Get a friggin enema if that's what you think you need. I can't find a single journal article saying that the human body builds up "toxins" and that these diets will miraculously "cleanse" you in 7 days no less! Does anyone know what kind of toxins these are? Gimme some chemical formulas dammit, no nonsense about "food has toxins which build up in you." People are not cars folks, we don't need our oil changed every 6 months. That's why you poop! Your body is a miraculous machine, it is utterly self regulatory if you eat the right foods. Another argument is, "Well it must work, I felt so good after!" Well that's because your feelings are relative, and you felt like shit during the "detox" so of course you'll feel better afterwards. If you stop feeding yourself the proper nutrients (like, I dunno, protein!) you body will deteriorate as everything is made up of protein. People like to think only muscles are, but damn near everything in your body is made up of these carbon chains. So just eat your veggies, stay away from sugar and fast food, and you'll notice the same difference and be healthier. /rant.

I hope all is well with everyone. Much love

Joshy Poshy

2007-07-22T15:52:00.000-06:00

So, Amsterdam was cool. It is very much a tourist city, with everything kind of set out for you. The coffeeshops, the Red Light district, the museums, and the rest feels like it's for the Dutch people. I suppose that's why I never met anyone there who stays for longer than a couple of days. You come to see what's up, and head on out.

The Red Light district seems so boring once you actually see it. That's sex, right there, plain and simple. You pay, you get. I didn't see any place advertising anything too strange or anything, I guess sex works basically the same everywhere. I did go to a so called "Live Sex Show", that was rather sad and made bored (and want my money back!). Seeing people do that without any emotion or feeling, it makes you realize how silly it all seems. Lots of drunk British guys around hooting and hollering. Le sigh.

The coffeeshops were a good time. It is where I met some of the most interesting and open people there. Most of the people in the hostel seemed very standoff-ish, and didn't really want to talk to me. Then again, it was mostly Americans who never stray from their little group of people, and think that yes, doing your own routine in a different country is traveling. I met a lot of Europeans from, well, everywhere else but France. They were all very different. The Swedes look utterly perfect with their Arayan good looks, well perhaps not perfect but they have very distinctive features. The intense blue eyes are different for me. The Greek guys all seemed very laid back, and looked, well Greek. Skinny, dark hair, few days of growth, hahaha similar tome actually. The Icelandic people look constantly surprised by everything, and have the strangest accent. And well, the Dutch. Strange folk they are. The language is kinda goofy, and people break out in song every once in awhile, or start yelling to each other for no apparent reason. Friggin weird man.

Saw the Van Gogh museum, it was good to see ol' Vincent's works. As can be expected, he uses colour very well. It also had one of the few known pictures of him up, and he didn't look much like his self portraits. I think he portrayed himself as more morose in his paintings. That is pretty interesting about his epilepsy. Hearing about the psychotic fit which led him to cut off part of his ear, I can kinda imagine it. Sitting in a little house with another artist you aren't getting along with, drinking Absinthe, and you finally break in the midday sun. He probably made a big showy thing about it, threatening the other guy, but in a bit of a dramatic moment he grabs part of his own ear and slices it with the razor. He must've had some recognition of what he was doing, otherwise he'd have cut the whole thing off! If anything, that dude really like the pastural pictures, so many pictures of farms.

Reading Godel's Proof right now. If anyone wants an nice introduction to the proof and how it works, namely the Godel numbering of formulas, this is a good book to use. I'm quite impressed with how he did do it, and how he did relate logic to arithmetic. It's very ingenious, and the impact he had on mathematics and science is tremendous. The ramifications are still being felt, especially in computer science and computability. I'm a big fan, and it's only 125 pages, so someone please read it. And not you Steve, as you should damn well know it by now.

The food in the Netherlands? Very average. On my train ride out, guess what the traditional Dutch meal was? Raw fish. Yup, no rice or anything, just slabs of it, slimy stuff too. I had a single bite and grabbed a baguette from the server. I did have a decent Argentinian steak while I was there, but they didn't put anything on it. No salt and pepper, or any other seasoning, and medium rare meant blue rare. However, as you can see, the pastries and desserts there were quite delcious. Oh well I guess, time to start planning the next destination.

Here I am, getting chubby. Dammit.

2007-07-20T10:42:00.001-06:00

Oh man, these dutch are entertaining people. I'm having a rather interesting time. This place, it's like...Ikea. Everything is simple and it makes sense, and everyone is seemily super happy.

So on the train the way here, it was an interesting solution I saw to a problem. A whole bunch of people are sleeping on the train, so the servers/waiters come out and have a loud conversation that basically wakes everybody up. It's about 10 minutes before the arrival so you can wake up and get your stuff ready. I was angry at the lady at the time for talking so loud, then you realize maybe that's her intent? I mean, what does she care if you intensely don't like her for all of 20 minutes at most. It's not like she'd see you again, and if she does you can't do too much about it.

Second thing. I found that the best way for me to explore a city is to get lost. Today I tried a bit of a failed experiment, but was fun nonetheless. Basically, just go in blind, and figure it out from there. I read a study a few years back saying that there are different kinds of travellers. Some like to plan everything out, and some wing it, and there's all kinds in between. I like to wing it. So, taking the transit failed, my stop wasn't labelled as to the street I knew and Dutch is a terible language to try to read it's maps. All of these huge long names, and the city a increasing spherical coordinate system. I was just getting used to the manic, node system in Paris! Everyone takes transit, that seems cool, and tons of people on bikes. I ended up getting off the bus early, then cabbing it. Ah it's nice to have that power sometimes hahaha.

Ok, must get back to the city. But I think I'll have a lot more interesting things to say later.

2007-07-18T16:00:00.001-06:00

Life is good.

After a long discussion over beer and dinner tonight, I've given some thought as to the social condition. That being how to live your life in a society, and what model a society can hope to achieve. Being in Europe is quite nice, there are a lot of liberties. However, for what you get, there are many things that you have to give up as well. For an easy life in some respects (vacations, good food, efficient transportation) you give up the ease of doing things fast. I don't think that a perfect society exists, there is always a tradeoff. But how do you value these things? I mean, I'm enjoying everything here, but I'm frustrated to no end by how I can't do things the way I can in Canada. Is one frustration better than another? How do I judge? There certainly is no empirical test. If it comes down to which is the better quality of life, then the question keeps asking, how can you determine said quality?

Maybe some more statistics must be done.

2007-07-15T11:31:00.001-06:00

My Sunday Night Dinner, or Why the Culinary Arts are my Favourite Kind of Art

I'm wandering the streets of Paris in search of a meal. I pass by many a restaurant, browse the menu and press on. Nothing I see seems to entice my hunger. As I walk around, I see so many cafe's full of people eating and drinking, but the sounds you hear are not the melodic French, but that of brutish Americans. Eventually I see a little restaurant, a brief perusal of the menu suggests it could be worth it.

I step inside, and see what seems to be the blond owner of the restaurant. She invites me to sit where I wish. After sitting, immediately I decide to go for a bottle of San Pellegrino and some wine. While it is only the house red, that's not necessarily a bad thing in Paris. After making my order, I sit and sip some wine. It's suprisingly hot, a thin layer of sweat covers my body. I've learned to just deal with it.

The entree arrives first, foie gras with toast. I spread a generous layer upon the toast, and take a bite. The foie gras has such a delicate flavour, it tastes creamy and begins to melt the moment it hits your tongue. The texture is superb, it is silky smooth. I try it with some tomatoes and cilantro, it is an interesting combination.

While sitting, enjoying the heat, I see dinner arrive. Duck confit, on a bed of lettuce with fries. It should be noted that fries are very different here. Instead of the rectangular blocks as in North America, it is slices of potatoes gently tossed in olive oil and quickly fried to a golden brown. Covered in salt, cilantro and oregano, it is quite a delicious experience. The duck itself is falling off the bone. It's hard to pick it up with your fork because it is so utterly tender. The taste is distinct, but never offensive. The skin, which I don't usually eat, must be eaten with the dark meat, it provides excellent balance.

Finally, a crepe is served. Smeared with chocolate sauce and sliced almonds, it looks very enticing. The slight spongy-ness of the crepe goes well with the slightly warm chocolate and crunch of the almonds. It's a delicious dessert, and when folded with the whipped creme it makes a nice conclusion to the meal. I order a glass of cognac and sip it. The cognac shocks your senses out of the dream like state you've been living in, and suddenly you don't feel as full anymore.

It is time to walk home, I pay and enter the cool night breeze.

2007-07-14T09:25:00.000-06:00

Sitting here on a rather nice Saturday, once again hungover. It's a little lonely here. Walking down the street I see all these couples holding hands and making out, friends all laughing and enjoying dinner together and go to sit by myself for a meal. Such is life I suppose.

Last night was entertaining as I went to the local Canadian bar. It wasn't too Canadian really, just hockey stuff everywhere and everything made out of wood. There was only one other Canadian fellow in the bar as well, a Quebecois fellow who I ended up chatting with for most of the night. I can't remember his name for the life of me, but we had a great chat about everything under the sun. It's always entertaining how those drunken conversations end up. First you talk about pretty interesting technical things (as he was an engineering student), then we got into politics a bit, then humanity. Ultimately it ended up in a conversation about women and how to get French girls. We were both baffled by it, they are a confusing bunch.

One good realization from the conversation, and one I had been thinking about for sometime now is how the Parisian lifestyle is. Everyone seems to think Paris is about going to all these sites, museums and historical places, but when I'm living here it doesn't seem that way at all. For me, and a lot of people, to understand the culture the best is to go have nice meals, meet with interesting people, have good drinks, and generally learn the French way of relaxing in life. At work for example, everyone is super laid back and we'll all go for coffee together and spend 20 minutes just standing around chatting. It's a marked difference from Houston, where everyone just stayed in their offices and tried to communicate as little as possible it seemed.

The new Chemical Brothers album is very average, worth one listen but that's about it really.

Sitting on the train yesterday I was actually thinking that it would be really enjoyable for me to go give a lecture of sorts at my alma mater Strathcona-Tweedsmuir. I think I would really enjoy to give an introductory talk on mathematics and present a couple of basic proofs as to what it is, and give an overview as to the power of it. I dunno if anyone there would be interested, but I think it would be helpful for students because high school math doesn't give you any real idea as to what it is. It could also be good to help show where a math degree would lead in terms of a job too. I was thinking presenting the proof of infinite of primes, the intermediate value theorem, and showing the cardinality of the real numbers is greater than the natural numbers via diagonalization. Most people probably don't know what those are, but those who do will understand that they provide a nice little overview of different proof methods, and they all are entertaining in how they work out.

What else has been on my mind? The new Interpol album rocks, I recommend it to all.

Bah, it's Bastille Day here, so perhaps I should go do something French. Like bitch about the government, or let my dog shit all over the streets, or wear tight jeans in hot weather. Anywho, off to dinner I suppose. Until next time.

2007-07-08T08:03:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting play I found on youtube. It makes me want to play backgammon, mostly because I'm none too good at chess.

Click!

2007-07-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Damn near nothing new to report, but I just wanted to upload a Kid Koala album that I've been rockin out to and share with everyone. So, it's my Friday off, after doing laundry I figured I deserved a bottle of wine. This is me drinking.

And *this* is Kid Koala: Click!

Oh by the way, UFC 73 coming up, my predictions as follows:

Anderson Silva over Nate Marquardt by brutal 2nd rd KO
Sean Sherk over Hermes Franca by terribly boring decision
Rahad Evans over Tito Ortiz by 3rd rd ref stoppage
Kenny Florian over Alvin Robinson in the...2nd by ref stoppage due to a cut (by elbow)
Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera over Heath Herring by whatever the hell he wants, probably an arm bar or triangle sometime in the 1st
Stephan Bonnar over Mike Nickels in a 1st rd stoppage
Jorge Gurgel over Diego Savaria in a decision, possibly split
Frank Edgar over Mark Bocek in a TKO, I dunno what round
Aaaand Josh over both Chris Lytle and Jason Gilliam because nobody cares about this fight but them

2007-07-04T14:21:00.000-06:00

Aloha,

Not too much new on my end but I'm bored, so bloggy bloggy. Been walking around Paris after work, most of the time in search of a restaurant to eat at. Yeah, I should probably be cooking but with dozens if not hundreds of restaurants within walking distance I might as well. I've been trying to have a little bit of everything, and I must say that Paris is a carnivore/omnivores paradise. Last night I had boeuf au poivre, quite tasty. However, the description of a thick steak was a little off, after cutting into it I realized it was just a thin steak folded over. Huh. I tried carpaccio de boeuf tonight, yeah I'm Albertan. It's the first time I've ever tried carpaccio, and it's...different. For those not in the know, it's very thinly sliced raw beef, covered in olive oil with basil and oregano. Not for the faint of heart, but the texture is great.

Fun little song for you all: CLICK!

Work is getting interesting. Basically I run into more math/computer science problems than actual geophysics problems. When we do run into actual geophysics issues, it's time to call the technical supervisor over to figure it out. Man, our propriety software is a big pain in the ass though, there are so many times I just want to plug in some C++ code to solve the problem. It's damn near impossible to create a "real" loop, most of the time, we just have to create these dirty little solutions and then use a module (a small algorithm you just plug numbers into) to clean up your mess. It's all so..inelegant, but if it gets the job done...

I'm getting close to completion of Midnight's Children by Rushdie finally. I've definitely started to realize his genius as a writer, in how that he can weave a story and events so intertwined and elegantly with each other. It is also quite educational, as the history of India and Pakistan for the mid twentieth century was largely unknown to me. I also enjoying learning the cultural differences and similarities, all written so beautifully.

Well, it's only a 4 day work week for me, YAH for the lazy French work laws. However, it will probably only result in me doing laundry and shopping for an extra day. Le sigh.

2007-07-01T09:02:00.000-06:00

So by "popular" demand, here's some pics of my apartment.

So this weekend has been pretty lazy, I did a lot of sitting around...on the computer. Although today, I did manage to get out to a marker, Place Monge. Basically a little farmer's market, about a 15-20 minute walk from the ol' apartment. Quite quaint, I managed to pick up various things, including *drumroll* some chevre fraise to go on my baguette. Yeah, I'm that French. The veggies all looked delicious, and I'm sure they'll taste as good when I get around to cooking it.

Otherwise it was a relaxing Sunday afternoon. I sat in a cafe in Bastille, enjoyed a glass of Savignon Blanc, and had a salade Parisienne. Basically it was advertised as a salad with hard boiled egg, ham, cheese and tomatoes. Being a North American, I was expecting lots of lettuce, and a few chunks of cheese and ham throughout. Aah non non! Out came this utter mound of food, covered in ham and cheese, with a mustard vinegrette all over it. Quite delicious and unexpected. And Belgian Endive on the side, I never thought I'd see that other than my mother's cooking.

Anywho, hope all is well with everything for everyone. Au revoir for now.

2007-06-30T10:25:00.000-06:00

Bonjour!

So, I finally got around to taking some pictures, so people can see what I'm actually up to now.

Here is the main street near my area, St. Paul. It's bubbling with activity all the time. There's everything I really need, a bakery, grocery store, butchers, lots of cafes (including my now usual one with requisite hippie girl working the espresso machine), and metro station.

This is the church that's on St. Paul, quite ornate. I'll probably go once just to check it out.

Below is the museum of modern art I went to today. A very cool place, lots of artists everywhere, but also lots of tourists.

So yeah, here's an installation piece, basically big cotton filled body parts that raise and drop randomly. Yes, that is a bag of boobs.

What an asshole!
Handy!
Hey! Who's that guy?!? And no, that's not a gut I'm sporting...it's the mirrors I swear.
Hmm...red and black.
The chocolate shop near my apartment. I'm sure all the girls are collectively drooling right now.
Right out front of the butchers, sooo good. A little on the pricey side, at 16 Euros a chicken, but man, when I tore into that just minutes ago, it was delicious. I think I took the one on the top left hahaha.
Not too much else new right now, I'm just living a nice lifestyle. Go to work, eating good food, drinking with friends I've met, relaxing in my apartment, wandering the streets, it's all good.

2007-06-26T12:46:00.000-06:00

Hmm...so, here I am. In Paris.

Here's a little something I wrote in panic on the plane:

Ahh the wonders of technology. I'm on my flight to Paris right now, and writing you this. Surely this is a delayed blog, but take what you can get. I'm suddenly surrounded by French people, and I don't know how I feel about it. Recognizing easy words, like numbers and subjects, is coming quick, but I have no context. "Ok, so I know you are talking to me in a group setting, and you mentioned the flight number..." This will be an entertaining few weeks as I stumble about Paris.

I'm already missing Calgary a bit. It is such an easy lifestyle I live while I am home, how could you not enjoy it? Being in your native culture also is refreshing. I find that simply being around people who think like you do is innately satisfying. There was the usual 20 minute panic attack at the airport in Calgary today, much like when I've gone other places. I suppose I should start realizing that when that happens it means it is good and it will all work out. Hopefully.

Ok, cut to the now. Here I sit in the only cafe close to my apartment that has both internet and dinner, sipping a beer and stuffing my face full of baguette. It's admittedly pretty cool so far. French people are actually pretty nice, and most recognize after the first syllable that I'm an Anglophone so they will try to speak English. It's nice, but definately isn't helping me with my French, which is coming along very...average. I dunno what it is, probably the accent, I just am not nasally enough, even with a cold.

So what's good here? The food! So damn delicious, and in a completely different way than Houston. In Houston the food was god because it tasted good, whereas here it is so great because of the inherent quality of it. A burger will taste good if you douse it in grease, and slap on a ton of cheese. But duck will simply taste good in a pan fry with bread crumbs, because it's simply good food. The cafeteria at work simply rocks. For 3 Euros I get a full meal, including an appetizer and coffee afterwards, and it's the real deal. Stewed pork, tandoori chicken, baked salmon, it's all good. The coffee! Good lord is it delicious, this is why people drink coffee! Starbucks tastes like utter crap in comparison, just burnt with no real flavour. I honestly look forward to my coffee breaks not for the break but because of the delicious java. I went to my first bakery today as well, had a danish with raisins, but not quite. The pastries are light, fluffy, warm and without much sugar. It's just so damn good. Sooooo yeah, the French know how to eat.

My apartment for the week is pretty cool, I walk out a little ways and see the arc de triumph. People at work ask me where I stay, and then look in disbelief and laugh. It rocks, it rocks. The only problem is the lack of internet, though that's probably a good thing since it gets me out and about.

However, that's the other thing so far. This city is friggin confusing, it is the complete opposite of a grid system. Streets that go nowhere, everything at angles, there is no real sense of direction since you are surrounded by apartments that look exactly alike. Restaurants? Hmm...cafe, braissere, bar, sushi parlors, all packed together, looking identical. My only real reference right now is the orientation to the arc, as I know what side I'm on (sort of).

Aaaaand the bad. French people and ridiculous systems of rules and laws seem to go hand in hand. The legal procedure for getting me here is simply asinine, there are so many forms to be filled out in duplicate, information repeated everywhere on different forms; very, very specific pictures of me; and I'm not even close to being done it. At work, there are a lot of unspoken rules and regulations people follow, and even more rules which are actively implemented. No listening to music at work (as you may not hear the fire alarm), I can't give first aid to someone since I don't have certification in France, there are fire extinguishers which I can't use because you have to take a course to use them, and that isn't even touching the actual business aspects. I guess the inherent difference is that the French think it is easy because there is always a procedure to follow, whereas I think it is hard because I naturally could find a better way to do it.

And this discussion actually reminds me of Midnight's Children (which I truly intend to finish!). Saleem talks about being able to cheat on exams and whatnot, and I realize that even if I had the ability during school to do so, I wouldn't. Simply because it would be way to boring otherwise. The only enjoyable aspect of a test is the challenge of it. To work your mental muscle, it is innately satisfying.

I'm going to take some pictures soon of random crap, and probably of the Museum of Modern Art because it's just so...hippy. So hope all is well with everyone and send me e-mails/comments to let me know how everyone is doing.

Peas,

Joshy Poshy

2007-06-12T18:28:00.000-06:00

Allright, that's it. I'll pound out another blog.

Back in cowtown, it's purty decent. Nice to see everyone again, obviously a little bit of same shit, different day goin on, but hey, it happens. Vacation is necessary, I can literally feel the decompression. Although, I did go to the gym today, and wow, what a week and a couple thousand of feet of altitude will do to you, i.e. break your spirit. Also the lack of all my beautiful chemical supplements probably didn't help.

I saw Jesus Camp the other night, and I can say, "Meh, stupid is as stupid does." I mean, at first I was shocked and offended that these children are being 'taught' this nonesense. Then I had a much more subtle realization, after looking at the parents of these children and the general environment they are in, what could they truly affect by believing this? I mean, ok, everyone in nowhere, North Dakota believes some strange fallacy. Does that affect me in any way? They don't even know what their beliefs mean, they just think "the world needs a change." What change? Why do you need change? What will these changes accomplish? None of these questions are answered, but it is just left as something vague. It's all a big sham really, of course these hillbillies and trailer trash are upset about their lives, it isn't the best lifestyle. But to lead them on with this belief in Jesus, and appealling to their basic urges of inclusion and exclusion (Dr. Seuss and the birds with stars on their bellies...), of simple answers to non-questions (remember folks, that a question needs a context for it to be considered a question i.e. What does it all mean? has no context), and who can forget primal violence. So all in all, I'm not worried about some trailer trash changing the world really and what they think. I'm worried about what the billionaires and people in power do.

Speaking of people in power, the documentary A Crude Awakening was also definately worth watching. As a brief note, I did respect the props they put out to seismic, because it does rock. They really did get the point across as to how fucked we really are. I mean, no other energy source will really work. We'll run out of nuclear just as fast, if not faster; wind is a pipe dream; fusion...hahahahahaha; we've used up all of hydroelectric pretty much; and then solar. Solar is really the big one, but our implementation of it so far sucks. I liked the stats as well as to how little people realize oil affects absolutely everything we do, and they do a good job illustrating the sheer magnitude of it's use in our society. In the past 150 years we have seen a huge technological boom, and that is almost purely due to the fact we found out how to use oil. Watch it, then go invest in Shell and Exxon-Mobil.

A fun little game is to follow people's chain of reasoning. I know my mom gets quite upset when I do this, because it seems the solution is obvious, but when you follow the actual chain of legitimate arguments, it's actually far down the way with many potential stumbling blocks. If you know the person can take it, you have the chance to argue at each step along the way as well. Don't try this with pro-lifers though...people tend to get upset when their near and dear beliefs are shattered by the cold, austere beauty of logic. And 10 points to the person who can name where I borrowed my description of logic from.

I miss my georise friends a bit. It was an interesting little bubble we lived in while in Houston. Spending damn near every waking hour together meant that we got to know each other really well, and I definately enjoyed it when people would call my bluff. And I hope likewise.

Hmm...I feel that I have more to write, but not enough time. Off to the bookstore, more semi-inspired writing later.

2007-06-02T15:46:00.000-06:00

Aww man, a sunburn right before I leave...the whole front of my body too. Lesson #136: Don't fall asleep lying near the pool.

So, the realization that I'm going to be in France is really starting to kick in. This week we had a lunch at the Houston equivalent of the Petroleum Club. For those that don't know, it's basically a nice club for the good ol' boys in oil. When we went around the table, each student saying what what they thought of the program and where they were going, a hearty chuckle broke out from everyone when they heard I don't speak French and am going to Paris. Huh.

We are also finally done everything, no more presentations, no more reports (well for now...), no more tests. It's a bittersweet feeling though, all these people I've been hanging out with for 24/7 are just going to be gone and I don't know when or if I'll see them again. That being said, I think we are all going to be glad to get away from each other at least in the short term. Especially a certain roommate...

Cultural differences are fun. We all had noticed last night that we didn't really know what the other cultures were like, we just knew the stereotypes before we came here. For the most part the stereotypes were false, but I think some of them held true. French people blowing raspberries and eating a lot of chocolate, cream and butter; the Croatian guy drinks A LOT; the Pakistani speaking at rediculously fast tempo; and us Canadians. I don't know how much I instantiate the Canadian stereotype, but it's been fun to have Aaron here. He hunts for moose, has done a lot of wilderness work, and well, has lived in Edmonton hahahaha. I dunno how many of us Canucks really do all those things, but it's pretty entertaining.

One thing that has come up repeatedly in our talks is street fights. If anyone has been to bars in Calgary (or Edmonton for that matter), then you know all about it. As I'm sure it hasn't changed much in the 3 months that I've been gone, but I remember that the fighting had been getting really bad in cowtown. If you went to an average nightclub, you could expect to see at least 3 fights break out on the dancefloor and if you walked to the c-train, you could expect to get challenged twice. It definately sounds like this isn't the case in Europe (thankfully!), but the idea as to why people want to street fight has always confused me. I've done a damn good job at avoiding it my whole life, and I think its worked out pretty damn good for me. Who wants to get injured or injure somebody? In any case, I think this article is a good explanation on the whole thing and it gives some good tips, click! It doesn't mean you're a coward if you choose not to fight, as it takes a lot more confidence to avert the situation than to revert to your id and take that primal challenge.

bah, I should go tend to my sunburn here. See you all soon.

2007-06-02T03:15:00.001-06:00

Yup, Cats rock

Click!

I can understand this.

2007-05-27T21:30:00.000-06:00

sooo...yeah.

Nice to see UFC 71 last night. Rampage was on his game, and that hook he countered with was so clean, right on the button. It's good to see that the myth of Chuck Lidell is broken, because so many people hadn't realized how sloppy his striking really was. In most of his fights, he took a lot of punishment then whipped his arm and dropped a bomb. It's nice to see this renaissance of sorts in MMA, where people are starting to get GOOD at everything. I hope other fighters start taking note, because they won't be able to get away with having a strong chin or being able to cut weight anymore. I really hope Rampage beats Dan Henderson in the next match, he's just so damn charismatic.

Not much else is new right now. I'm tired of living in Houston, tired of my useless roommate who can't do any actual work for himself and calls everything "bullshit man", most of all I am sick and tired of fucking powerpoint. Fat people, I'm sick of those too.

Speaking of fat people, we were at a restaurant before the UFC and I overheard a bit of a conversation at the table next to me. It was 4 big fat geeky guys talking about how they could "take those 2 guys in a fight" and about how many bullets it takes to "take somebody down". Man, playing on Xbox is not real life, repeat after me.

I'll update with an interesting post soon enough

2007-05-24T12:07:00.003-06:00

A rather interesting little story by Isaac Asimov:

The Last Question

It made me smile.

2007-05-23T12:07:00.000-06:00

Read, laugh, realize it's true.

Click!

2007-05-20T19:25:00.000-06:00

Yo dawgs, sup y'all? hahahaha.

I went to San Antonio this weekend. And I must admit that it was a very cool city, I can see why people like it. I'd call it the Vancouver of Texas, it has more culture than anywhere else I've seen down here. The river walkways reminded me of being...*not* in the US, especially Texas. Going to a French Bistro (well, ok, a Texas Bistro) next to the river was more than decent. I dig.

What else? We saw the Alamo! Woo...not really. After hearing a big speech on the "legendary defense of the Alamo" and how they "gave their lives for something bigger, freedom." Shit man, I'm so sick of that. I actually saw several children wearing shirts with "God's Army" written on it. Yeah, this exists people.

I also conned the girls (the only people who wanted to go to San Antonio) to join me at Ripley's Believe it or Not! museum. That was so cool. Guess who I saw(or likeness thereof)? Tycho Brahe. You know it, everyone's favourite 16th century alcoholic astronomer...with a golden nose. All You Can Smoke tour anyone? Yeah, yeah! And seeing a big wooden sculpture of the devil was also pretty cool, he looked so damn suave, how could you not like him? haha.

Also checked out an interesting series of caves. Since they put in humidity doors, everything was dripping wet and looked like it was out of a creepy sci fi movie. When we finally reached the stone we could touch, it was quite slimy. Interesting. Lots of bat guano as well. huh.

To top it all off? We did a Simpson's style drive thru wildlife preserve. Haha, I know, I know, so Texas. But we got to see some cool animals. And we got some food bags and handed out pellets. But it mostly involved throwing the pellets at the animals to try to wake them, that being said I never hit them. Though, this Zebra ate out of my hand. Cool, they have rough lips.

Ok, well now time for the meat of my post. As I look around the US, I feel like I am in the last days of Rome. While in San Antonio, I went to a club and rather than drink, I simply observed. If this is what the culture is going towards, I'm scared. Surely, the club isn't the best place for an overall description of culture, it's an extreme, but it's an accurate example. I see this young generation unconcerned with their future, making themselves happy with their purchases. While this materialism is apparent to everyone, I just am noticing how it is being forced on everyone, but EVERYONE JUST SWALLOWS IT UP. It is expected that you wear bling (gold chains, diamond earrings, oversize Rolex watches, etc...), have new expensive clothes you wear but a few times, and order the most expensive drinks at the bar. I talked with one military fellow, and he said he was going back to Iraq so he could buy another motorcycle. Risking your life for a machine? All the most popular songs (Fergie, Akon, Black Eyed Peas, Pussy Cat Dolls, etc...) just talk about how you should just display your wealth. Spend it all, girls are expected to have jewellry bought for them, ride on 24" chrome rims (everyone has them), and that will make you happy.

Maybe it's not spending money that gets me so worked up, but they just fuck it all up. I mean, going to the bar and buying the most expensive scotch just because it's the most expensive? C'mon guys, that's not classy, that's just sad. The new popular Akon song (don't ask, I have to hear it everywhere) fucks up the name of the Lamborghini...jesus. I guess people need to realize, the objects don't make the person, the person makes the objects. This will sound like me bragging (and maybe it is a little, just a little...), but I will look better in my mere 30 dollar shirt than most Americans will in their 150 dollar one? Why, because I clean myself up, have some respect for myself, don't have a huge gut hanging over my waistband, walk upright with shoulders back, and smile. Even GQ, my favourite magazine, was talking about how often rich people wear suits that look worn. One CEO goes as far as letting his chauffeur wear his suits for the 1st 2 years, then he'll wear them after that. Is this just me? I mean, what you wear, and "own" should not define you, it should compliment you for who you already are. This means that you don't but excess either, but exactly what you need to get the job done.

Whatever. It don't matter I suppose. Everything is going to shit. Our oceans are turning into plastic, click. Ethanol is a joke. Coal still accounts for most of the world's emissions, and it's not going to stop. Nobody here seems to care. I dunno, it's hard to fight. I guess it's easier to ignore than to deal with it.

2007-05-15T12:20:00.000-06:00

Wow, and I thought I was the only one.

Click!

I know, I know, bullshit entries. But, I'll do a real one at some point.

2007-05-14T09:12:00.000-06:00

Cure for cancer? Hmm.... Click(?)

I don't know how true it is, but something you should look into if it interests you.

2007-05-13T22:12:00.000-06:00

Aloha all, it's me again. Big suprise.

I've been really addicted to Bullet the Blue Sky by U2 today, that and Buck 65. I dunno what that says, but the musical extension of my mood.

I cooked a dinner today for all my classmates, and I don't think it went that well. Everybody was really awkward and really silent during dinner, and all the compliments felt really forced. Well, I tried, and I enjoyed it. As well it gave me something to do all afternoon, albeit a fairly expensive endeavor. Gotta try everything once I suppose. I also managed to slice the hell out of my index finger, man, that sucks.

Saw 28 Weeks Later today as well. Good zombie movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Zombies are definately the scariest of the classic horror movie villians in my book. I mean, having your loved ones and people you know turning on you and attacking is a pretty scary thought. Without giving too much either, it demonstrated some interesting parts of human nature, you ultimately have to look out for yourself. When the characters did that, I didn't blame them at all, but I could see the struggle.

Processing is getting pretty interesting, they are finally letting me get my hands into the software so to speak. Just give me the code dammit, I'll figure it out! All the factors you have to weigh and work are interesting. Seeing something you don't want in the data, then you have to think about mathematically and geophysically what it means, then you have to think of which program you want to use to get rid of it. Then you have to think of the algorithm in the program in how it runs and what parameters the program uses, not to mention all the technical syntax details, it gets pretty complex. That's good though, I need something stimulating.

DJ Food is in Calgary on June 18th (or 19th, one of the two). So I'm going, whom else will join me? Nicko, B?

Looking for wiskey today to make a marinade for all the salmon I got, I ran into issues. Apparently you can buy beer and wine on sundays, just no liquor. *sigh*, Americans are so fuckin weird sometimes. I'm sick of Texas, I can't wait to get back to Canada.

I dunno what else to say. I bought a bunch of shit this weekend, and it temporarily made me feel good. Luckily I had actually needed new clothes. Now, new laptop!

Peace y'all

2007-05-06T15:37:00.000-06:00

Starbucks...it rocks. Click!

I wonder why Christians get so offended by the fact that other people don't believe in God. They don't even want to engage in discussion about it, they just get upset. Is it because they no they have no rational arguments to include in the discussion? Hmm...

I went to the Houston Space Centre this weekend. It sucked. Basically for little kids, but even they would get bored with it I think. The tour of the facility involved just looking at the big brown buildings, seeing the training centre with replicas of the compartments of the space station (basically white cylinders), and the coolest part was the Saturn V rocket. But everything felt like it was straight from the 60's, I mean c'mon NASA, you're supposed to be the most technologically advanced agency in the world!

Saw Spiderman 3, and that was a big letdown as well. I mean, it started off very cheesy, which is to be expected, but it should get more serious throughout. And it didn't! I mean, if you want to showoff an asshole Peter Parker, don't make him a goof fer chrissakes. Make him a real dick, and not just dancing down the streets pumping his hips at girls. And what the hell? Venom was in the movie for all of 20 minutes, and then they killed him off. Good job Sam Raimi, you ruined what was potentially the best setup for a villian in the Spiderman series. He's supposed to be Spidey's ultimate foe, but he decided to focus the movie on Peter Parker being a jerk to his girlfriend. Hell I don't need to go to a movie to see that, go to the bar on the weekend.

This brings me to my next point, Americans are dumb. Really dumb. During the previews to the movie, all the absolute worst films I could think of were getting racous laughs and applause from the crowd. Jesus. During the film it was worse, people clapping and laughing at the obvious joke setups, hollering out "Don't do it Spiderman", and getting teary eyed at the supposed sad scenes. These were middle aged people too! Yann and I spent the movie laughing at the atrocious acting, and groaning at the supposed funny scenes. It was funny to see the French stereotype being played on screen next to actual Frenchmen. They were all frustrated, "That's not even how a Frenchman would say it!"

Oh yeah, I love Club Monaco. It's awesome, being stylish is a lifestyle baby. There's a big difference between fashion and style. Style is innate, fashion is for people who don't know any better.

So uh...party on, I'll be back in cowtown as of June 8th (or 9th, something like that), for 2 whole weeks.

EDIT: Ahhh Dilbert: Click.

2007-05-01T16:28:00.000-06:00

Oh crap, I thought I did a complete backup of my harddrive and I hope I didn't. Because I'm missing all of my papers I wrote in school...crap.

The reason for this is that I saw a couple of my friends arguing about the philosophy of science on Facebook and they were getting it all wrong dammit. Science is wonderful, the method is damn near flawless because it doesn't give favouritism to any idea, only the one that is most right. People get so caught up in the word and feelings they have towards that big bad science without realizing what it truly is. It's just a method for understanding the world, based on observation of what's going on, making logical/causal conclusions from that, and taking baby steps. Those are some of the hallmarks of science, others are that a theory should only be considered if it has a counter-thesis, that being it is possible for an event to occur that would prove the theory wrong. Accuracy is important, it has to actually do something for you for you to start using a new theory over the one you are currently using. As we are getting down the chain of importance, aesthetics starts coming into play. I'd rather have a neat, pretty little theory than a big ugly mess, all things being equal.

The next problems is that people treat science like it is something ontological, i.e. out there independant of people. Well if you look at the formulation that I just proposed, science is intrinsicly linked to people. It is a result of how we are viewing the world, and trying to making a systematic way of understanding it. All you post-modernists, Nietchieans (however you spell it), and existentialists will cry, "But system is bad, Freddy claims that any system is flawed, I'm a big follower." Yeah bite me, read this: Click!

So what was Asimov getting at? Ok, a system may have a flaw in it, hell I'll buy that Godel showed that every system that could be modelled by first order logic (WITH IDENTITY!!!!) is incomplete. But that doesn't mean it's always the same fucking flaw now does it? If a system has a flaw that is unrelated to the problem at hand, who the hell cares it has this problem? In mathematics we deal with this all the time, unless you are dealing with foundational mathematics problems or specific Godel statements, you use Zermelo-Franco axioms because they WORK PRETTY DAMN GOOD.

That's what pisses me most off about post-modernists. They claim that they don't need perfection, that it's a fallacy, but they posit that everything else must have it or it's useless when they try to argue their position. Sure science may not be perfect, but it's a helluva lot better than anything else we have going for us. So think of that when you load up your iPod on the car ride or train ride to work, wearing clothes made half way accross the world, to work on a computer system that is umimaginably complex. Has anything else in the course of history given us such tangible results when it comes to understanding reality? I don't think so.

\rant.

2007-04-30T12:07:00.000-06:00

Bored, bored, bored. There ain't much to do here, so I'm starting to play pool at the local bar. I'm getting good at backgammon too.

I've realized that the best way for people to learn something is to have them experience it. For example, my roommates. The moroccan is pretty damn annoying, so I've just responded in kind by being equally annoying and harassing. It's starting to work; poke me in the back randomly, I'll punch you in the stomach. Wake me up by calling out my name repeatedly from the kitchen for no reason, I'll harass you when you fall asleep on the couch. Similarly for the mexican, we're always waiting around for him. So today I said he could find a ride home (since class ended early so we could do presentation work) and nobody else wanted to leave right away. Waiting around for people sure sucks, doesn't it? We can't discount the importance of experience, as lecture and discussion rarely have a visceral memory attached to them.

I was reading an interesting article online that stated that Mars has gone through a global warming of 0.5 C over the past 50 years (or 100, doesn't really matter). Almost identical to what Earth has gone through...

Also another interesting article: Click!
Gotta leave it to the Germans for the ice cold logic of why you can't have your cake and eat it too. It is a pretty good point though, either your for women's rights or you're for multiculturalism; you can't have both. I personally don't believe in culture, or tolerance of culture; people have basic rights. You are your own person dammit, and should be accountable for your own actions. Yeah, I went there Ian.

Check out the floating bed, I want one! Click

Party...PARTY

I was talking with the Europeans and it's rather funny to see the symmetry between Nutella and peanut butter with North America and Europe. As you well know, peanut butter is quite popular in North America here, and we have many choices. And in the far off corner of the shelf is the Nutella (the chocolate hazelnut spread). Apparently it's pretty much the opposite in Europe, all the different kinds of Nutella, with a single jar of peanut butter in the corner. I dunno how I'm gonna make it over there, without my peanut butter and banana sandwiches, how long can a man last? And how the hell can you justify a chocolate spread? Jesus, I just think of spreading a pot belly on bread.

2007-04-24T16:12:00.000-06:00

All day I sit in class next to a sarcastic Frenchman, we have great times. And now I've got the Gmail chat going with everyone all day...oh man, it's fun sending data over a vast network spanning thousands of computers to tell the guy next to you that he's a jerk.

Got to see the computer room at work today. Wow, a computer geek's (like myself) wet dream. Thousands of computers, petabytes of storage (google that fools!), and air conditioning out the wazoo. It was quite interesting to see how they manage problems of topology of the network and how this is evolving over time. Without breaking any contracts here, it is comparable to how music was being traded over the internet. From a hub based system like Napster which everyone connected to and it dealt with individual connections, to the distributed Torrent based system is a comparable evolution. Small, self contained nodes are much more resilient than a big lumbering architechture. If one node fails, no big deal, but if one part of a large architechure does, you're screwed.

I hate to be one criticizing the US gov't (since everyone else does), but CLICK!

Looking at it, and actually being in Houston here, I believe it. America is slowly becoming a fascist state, there is propaganda everywhere, the looming threat of police, rights slowly being taken away. It is all being perpetuated by this relatively new belief of Americans that they think they need to protect everyone, including people in their own country from themselves. Benjamin Franklin put it best, "Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither"

We are all giving each other nicknames in the office, so far: I'm Frostback, Aaron is Vanilla Face, Yann is Hpot (he's a French Harry Potter), and Tommy is Eggroll/the Asian Invasion. Still a few to figure out hehehe.

2007-04-21T17:25:00.000-06:00

Allright, so I pulled my lower back last night, resulting in me being layed up all day. So, what did I do? Read great literature? Work on my presentation? Hell no, I surfed the internet!

And here are some of the most interesting links I found:

A festival winning short

A rediculously cool physics toy

A summary of Christianity

A really cool picture of space

Beautiful waterfalls in Croatia

And possibly the saddest, sickest news story I have ever read

So, those of you at work, new time wasters!

EDIT: An even cooler physics toy!

Wow!

2007-04-19T19:21:00.000-06:00

Allright, allright, I'll stop hoping for a comment and continue.

I said screw it, and got a membership to the gym and big bottle of creatine monohydrate. I'm gonna hit 190 one way or another. I'll be bloated with water, barely any abs, and the scale will teeter at 190, but I'll be there.

We are getting some interesting lectures from head managers from all aspects of the CGGVeritas business. We do a lot of stuff, even though it may all seem the same. Most of it has to do with the Gulf of Mexico and the challenges it presents. There are these giant pockets of salt everywhere, and it makes everyones job more difficult. One of the really interesting things they are doing now is adding Wide Azimuth Marine Surveys to the repetoire. To understand this, you have to understand how a traditional marine survey is shot. Basically a ship towing a bunch of streamers about 10k long with sensors all along. Right behind the ship is an array of pressurized air sources, that make big bubbles which make our seismic data. What wide azimuth does is add 2 more ships with these pressurized air sources on either side of the main ship with streamers, thus adding more angles of attack so to speak for the seismic sound waves. It costs many times more, there ends up being so much data we don't even know if we can process it, and it'll take about 3-4 times as long to do. But big oil cries for big money, and we all know, if you throw enough money at a problem, it'll go away.

I get to explain linear prediction in frequency-phase shift space as a means of anti-aliasing of seismic data in regards to spatial interpolation . What does this mean? Lots of Fourier, lots of matrices, and lots of complex analysis. Yeah...YEAH!!! No. Basically making fake traces (what a seismic sensor recieves from a shot) and predicting what wave it would recieve based on what the data around it looks like so that we can get rid of a nasty property of turning analogue waves into digital ones.

So I dunno what else right now. I had the terrible idea that perhaps my lower back was hurting because it was weak, so I should work it directly. I've been a useless bum who can't bend over all day. My moroccan roomate is driving me nuts, and everyone else for that matter. I realize, it don't matter how smart you are, it don't mean shit if no one wants to/can work with you. A bunch of pretty smart guys will always do better than one really smart guy.

Oh yeah, I saw the Nexen Long Lake project for you Nexicans. Wow, that looks like a big giant pain in the ass to do, even the seismic is a bitch to shoot. Depth analysis at 350ms with hard rock right underneath? Yeah, that's like shooting blindfolded.

2007-04-15T10:16:00.000-06:00

They see me rollin, they hatin, patrollin and tryin to catch me ridin durty.

Went out to a club last night, pretty entertaining. Of course I got slammered, what can you expect out of me? Man, I now believe that Houston is America's fattest city. Seeing giant fat people of every race, jiggling to the latest club tracks....grinding each other *shudder*. Seriously, I thought the bar was all the hot people came out to strut their stuff. Even the beer tub girl, who in Calgary is the absolute hottest girl, untouchable, carved out of stone; in Houston, she had a pretty big ponch, and was in a bikini.

Check out this article from Esquire: Clicky!

I've recently tried the whole maintaining eye contact until the other breaks contact with you, and it does give you power. All of a sudden I've got people smiling to me, coming up to talk at the bar, willing to the "extra mile" at restaurants, and weird enough a lot of people grabbing my ass at the bar. Maybe that isn't due to eye contact though.

I had an absolutely wonderful Saturday, my parents would be proud; somewhat anyways. Chilled out with Yann (one of the Frenchmen), had brunch, and promptly drank coffee whilst playing backgammon. Theeen, we got a bunch of beer and played poker. I like playing for no money, because then I don't lose any hahahaha.

Man, Murphy's Law holds true exactly when you don't want it to. A meta-Murphy's law if you will. The one time we needed to find a restaurant relatively quickly (because everyone was dragging their asses to get ready for the bar), there was none in sight. What the hell this is Houston!?!?! I should be able to find a restaurant anywhere!

I also had this crazy drunken dream last night. Atheists created a place to...not believe I guess, but a minister of types got ahold of it and turned it into a religion of sorts. Preaching to the choir and whatnot. I thought it was pretty entertaining. Also earlier in the dream I was going to people who annoyed me in the bar and punching them in the face. hahahaha.

EDIT: Here's a very, very interesting blog post I found: Click me!

2007-04-11T16:32:00.000-06:00

I finally found a comic that perfectly suits me:
http://xkcd.com/

A couple of my favourites:

Playing Devil's Advocate for the win

Yeah, I know this is a cop-out of a blog, but this is what I filled my day with. Our trainer has the habit of going into in depth explanations of the concepts I completely grasp (oh no, reverse polish notation deserves a half hour explanation? Internet time...) and not enough explanation of concepts I don't get (which results in me writing equations frantically at lunch hour).

But man, 8 hours of geophysics a day is...a bit much. I'm starting to realize all that pretty pure math I learned just got ruined by the applied mathematicians (or reality if you want to get picky). Things that are really easy in theory, turn out to be a big bitch when they actually try to apply them. Similarly the big "interesting" (to me) problems, are just either glossed over or assumed to be one way or another.

It's funny, I'm so used to starting with something uber abstract, and then just going from there. But here, we start with a very concrete concept, a sound wave going through different layers of earth, and by the end of the presentation, it's all just abstraction. "That isn't even real! How the hell did we end up here?"

Math math math, seismic, geophysics, oil, Fourier.

Finally saw Borat last night. I laughed, but to say I was impressed is a blatent lie. Wow, people give strange reactions when you introduce them to a vastly different culture, k...

Speaking of culture, a few ideas I'm going to try in Houston: going to a firing range and shoot assault rifles, going to Sunday mass at a Fundamentalist Church, maybe a waterpark...with big fat Americans everywhere hahahaha.

I dunno what else, oh yeah: Click!

2007-04-09T18:10:00.000-06:00

Aloha all

It was nice to see everyone this past weekend. Cowtown changes but it doesn't. I realize now though that I need to be gone for awhile though. I dunno if a year will be enough, it might have to be at least a couple.

Reddit.com is proving to be an excellent time waster while we are waiting for jobs to get processed at work. I read today that NASA may have inadvertantly nuked Jupiter when ending the Galileo probe mission of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons). Basically they didn't want to ditch the probe on Europa because it contains frozen oceans (thus potential life), so they ditched it on Jupiter...at 100,000mph. Guess what it was being powered by? Plutonium, lots of it. At that speed, and given the gravity on Jupiter, the probe reached a depth in the gaseous atmosphere at several thousand atomospheres (Earth is one atmosphere...duh) in mere seconds. If you don't know how a nuke works, it's basically imploding a fissionable material (plutonium, enriched uranium, etc..), usually via very carefully placed explosives around it. Pretty much the equivalent of the Jovian atmospheric depth the probe reached in terms of pressure. They noticed a black spot on Jupiter awhile back..hmmm...

This all being said nuclear energy is goood...probably better than oil in the long run. Clean, highly efficient and you can find ore with....seismic! Yeah...YEAH!

We're finally starting to learn how to actually process seismic data. It's actually pretty cool all the little problems that are inherent in the data, and how we go about solving them. Some of it is pretty ingenious, but I'm always asking about the little details. One thing I'm finding is that geophysics doesn't really care about uber accuracy, you'll hear "It's good enough" *quite* a bit. Despite it all being trigonometry, I haven't had to do any! What what!

Bah, the roommate situation is frustrating. The Mexican dude is getting better, slowly but surely. The Morroccan is getting worse. He now knows he annoys me and he keeps trying to provoke me. All day long he doesn't pay attention to what's going on, then turns and asks me what to do. Along with stupid comments about everything being "Bullshit", or "Oh yes!", I'm in a throttling mood. Thank god for the gym here.

So yeah, flight back sucked due to the huge Latino family aboard with about 20 kids who loved to run around the plane and what sounded like yelling in Spanish for 4 hours. But I'm here, drinkin a beer, cheers.

2007-04-03T16:34:00.000-06:00

Breathe deeply Josh...breathe deeply.

Oh fuck, I knew, knew, knew this would happen. I was coming back from the field saying to myself, "I bet I'm gonna get stuck with the two guys who annoy me the most in my apartment." Guess what? I did.

They follow me around like lost dogs, I don't think either of them has done anything actually on their own before. Going to the grocery store took almost 2 hours, with me looking around for them for an hour of it. The creepy dude who I went on the field with just follows me around and stares at me. Fuck. Not to mention this same creepy dude cannot be on time for anything. Leave at 7:40? Hell no, he gets in the shower at 7:30. I might just give them the keys to the car and I'll find my own ride.

At least I have the master bedroom. P-I-M-P.

Oh and I absolutely rock at giving presentations. A smile, a deep voice and cracking jokes will help you go far in the corporate world methinks. Thank goodness for genetics, as I probably give presenations a lot like my dad.

Anywho, life is good otherwise. Houston weather is awesome, I love the heat.

Also drank some beer with other fellow classmates and found out that there are a lot of things that cross international boundries. Like drinking with your friends and listening to music. As well complaining about the state of women in the world.

Here I am, looking devishly handsome:

2007-04-01T12:45:00.000-06:00

Back in Houston, thankfully.

The last few days in Oklahoma were not too bad. I was doing a lot of office work and finding out some actually relevant to what I'd be doing. So that's good at least.

After talking with some of the other trainees, I realize I got shafted. Everyone else did maybe a day of field work, and that's it. The rest of their time, the crew manager basically held their hand and gave them easy work. Not to mention, I was the only person who had to share a room for the entire field time. And still they bitch about it, hell one guy basically quit any kind of field work the very first day. Makes me feel good though I suppose, I can step up to the plate when everyone else pussies out.

We were all looking for something to do last night, so we ended up driving around town. We finally ended up at the bar we went to on the first bar night, and realized everyone there was about 20 years older than us. So, after that, we saw what looked to be a rather happening nightclub. We get in, and pumping rave music was abound. However, it was pretty much a mexican bar, latinos were absolutely everywhere. All the music was in spanish and had the usual spanish beats to it, ugh. One thing funny was that I was the tallest guy in the bar, it's fun looking over the entire crowd of people.

After working for 2 and a half weeks straight, it makes me truly appreciate a weekend now. Seriously, I'm loving today so hard. Sleeping for *gasp* 11 hours, and breakfast at the Waffle House, I feel like it's an utter luxury.

Apparently evaluations were being done on me while in the field. I'm quite curious as to who the hell was doing it, because everyone there didn't even know who the hell I was really. In fact on the last day I was accused of being a corporate spy.

Anywho, I should work out or do something active here as I'm starting to feel a thin layer of flab on my belly.

2007-03-27T15:53:00.000-06:00

I remember what I was going to blog about now!

I learned the history of the word gringo yesterday. Apparently, the first white people to come to Mexico were soldiers who all wore green shirts. Since Mexicans didn't like them, and the only english word they knew was "green", they all said, "Green! GO!" Thus over time, gringo.

Shell has developed a new method for making light sweet west texas crude oil out of shale. What they do is drill into the shale (usually a mountainside), and insert a heating element. They crank the heat to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, and out comes the oil. They got 1500 barrels out of a test project, so they are starting to set up major operations. This is very, very interesting. Apparently they have brought in many environmentalist consultants in to evaluate the operation, and almost all of them have walked away very impressed.

I ordered a club sandwich at a restaurant today. I expected turkey, bacon, lettuce, you know the usual. Instead of turkey, they put a slice of ham on it. I think I got my pork intake for the day.

Man, some people out here are dumb. One of the guys who was supposed to be watching trains (they interfere with the data) fell asleep...ON THE TRACK. Jesus, Darwin is calling his name.

I knew this would happen. The last couple of days here I'm all in a panic because I have to go meet with a bunch of people whom I haven't seen what they do yet. Aaaaand they are the positions most relevant to what I'm actually doing. So this has held up my huge report I have to write...BAH!

I see fat people everywhere. This one guy at the diner was so huge, he had to suck in his gut just to get into the booth. So many people just waddle around because they can't even walk right. It's no wonder, because absolutely everything is deep fried and salads are just doused in ranch dressing. Also the lettuce in the salads is the white bottom parts, which has pretty much no nutrional value, not to mention all the bacon and cheese on it.

This has all been more motivation to workout when I get back to Houston. Must not get fat, must not get fat.

2007-03-26T18:09:00.000-06:00

Points of interest:

"Dude, you're cool and all, but you're just not gangsta enough!" - told to me by one of the black guys

I saw a few turtles today. That was pretty awesome, I've never seen them in their real live habitat before. They just kind of sit their and chill, as to be expected.

I hate the hypocrisy of some of the landowners down here. There's a few of them who won't let Veritas shoot seismic or lay lines on their property, which is a big pain in the ass. Both for the field crew and me as a processor, it screws up the data and we have to relocate a bunch of points. I bet these are the same people that will bitch about gas prices. Hey stoopid! We're looking for oil! You're holdin up the show!

I never thought one of my skills I'd develop is being able to hop barbwire fences. There's something to put on the resume.

I was going to go on about a big rant of how important the oil industry is, but I'm sure I'd just be re-iterating myself. But think about it anytime you buy anything, watch tv, use a computer (right now fool!), drink water, eat groceries, anything. They all use petroleum products.

Ordered some spinach artichoke pasta last night and they forgot the pasta, it was just sauce. I mean, that's kinda the point of it.

After talking with the field crew here, I realize I lucked out. My friends in Mississippi and Texas are in swamps right now, and one guy in Utah is hiking up mountains. Prairie and some spiky vines aren't that bad in comparison.

To everyone in cowtown, I'll be back the weekend of April 6th-8th. So, the night of the 6th I'll be in the mood to party, so start thinking of things to do. I'll bring my A-game, so you guys better bring yours.

Man, I had all these great things planned to say while I was walkin the line today, and I forgot it all now. Dammit! I'll write more later

2007-03-22T21:33:00.000-06:00

Oh man, today was so cool. I finally got to shoot some seismic. All up until now has just been everything but actually shooting. Setting up, coordinating, yadda yadda. I finally got to make the earth go BOOM today. So cool. What got really cool was when we had a blowout. You hear the shot, then like 3 seconds later, the earth just spews it's guts out of the hole like 30 feet in the air.

The first shot was pretty wild. I had no idea it was coming, and then BOOM. You see the earth explode up about a foot and a big shockwave. First one was a blowout too. Mud everywhere, I loved it. I hope I can go again tommorow.

Not too much else new to report. The guys are really chill out here, they all see me as the computer dude. I'm loadin up music to their MP3 players and whatnot. For a few of the guys who've really been helpin me, I bought a bunch of steaks and grilled them to perfection. All in all, a great day.

I hope everyone is doing well, I might be able to sneak off a video clip and upload it for everyone to see what a seismic shot looks like.

2007-03-20T19:41:00.000-06:00

Allrighty, I promised pictures, so you'll see a few of my adventures.

Today was friggin hard. Walked a long way. I tried to calculate it given the figures I know, but it only showed up to like 2 miles. 10 hours of walking? I don't think so. We also had these 2 dogs follow us all day long, just hangin out with us. It was pretty entertaining, seeing all the trouble they got into. Running into other dogs, them chasing cattle and horses, running through the dirtiest of streams.

The next picture was of this yard we ran into, I swear it looked like the house from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Really freaky, so I naturally had to grab some pics. They had all sorts of weird junk in the yard, I couldn't even figure out what half of it was. The really weird part was that it all seemed very meticulously laid out.

What else? I found that focusing on things that I love during the day definately helps me get through it. My thoughts often fall into my family, my friends, the women I've loved (and still do!). You may all wag your fingers at me, but one thing that has really been motivation is thinking about the 1993 Mazda RX-7 I'm going to buy when I'm finally done all this training/travelling. It's going to be bright yellow and gorgeous...and fast! I think about all the tinkering and tuning I'll do, driving it around on a summer day, working on it in a garage. hahaha, I guess I'm getting into too much detail here, but let's just say I've found motivation.

So this is what a lot of Oklahoma looks like. Big and flat, more like Saskatchewan than Alberta. I can see the clouds pass through the sky when I stop and look. It's literally like in those commercials, when they pass over the sky. The warm wind caresses my body, the slight stinging pains of all those cuts on my arms, the sweat slick down my back. The world is very big, and I feel very small when I'm out there.

It's been kinda nice recently because I've managed to pull one hard day, one easy(ier) day so I'm not as bitter as I was last week.

Oh I found out why the cows chew cable! Given that the guys who are laying out cable, or just working with it, are working hard, they are sweating. Cows love the salt that gets on the cable. And given they are so damn dumb, they chew the hell out of it.

That being said, the guy I was working with today made a couple of interesting comments. Mostly how you can tell when it's going to rain when the cows all go lay down next to each other, and the best places to cross a creek are where the cows go. Not to mention, they generally find the path of least resistence around the forests, as you can tell by their worn path. Perhaps they aren't as dumb as I originally thought, or perhaps us humans gave something up when we got our intelligence.

I hope everyone is doing well. Send me e-mails, tell me how your life is. Start up your own blog! I'll read it if anything. Oh and post pictures too! I want to see how my friends look, or even just my readers.

2007-03-18T19:04:00.000-06:00

Oh the clickity clack therapy of a blog.

Today was tough. Mexicans work friggin hard. They just keep walking. Never speeding up, or slowing down, just a constant steady pace all day long. I had to change t-shirts halfway through today, as mine was just soaked through.

So my boots are a bitch, I should've worn them in better while in Calgary. Just tearing up my achilles tendons. The worst part was stepping in this "stream" today that smelled of cow shit and piss. This was just after I had finished reading a mystery story where the main character had lost his leg to gangrene. So I had THAT running through my head all day.

Well, at least I've got this delicious pizza to keep me company. Well, it's not so delicious, but whatever. It's warm and will care for me.

Throughout the day I was all bitter because everyone around me only spoke Spanish and I had no one to talk to. I was telling myself in my head how much I hated Spanish and how much I hated Mexico, and how I'd never go there. Then something clicked and I figured, "Well maybe I should give it a shot and try to learn it a bit." So at least I have that to think about and work on during my days instead of just being bitter ol' Josh.

I'm too lazy to upload my photos right now, maybe in a post later tonight though. It's some entertaining pictures of...prairie.

2007-03-17T18:31:00.000-06:00

I'm tired and bored. I realize that I wanted an office job for a reason. Labour bores the hell out of me, I crave mental stimulation. Even the physical aspects of my life I had approached before, like martial arts and going to the gym had very much mental aspects to them as well. The focus on form and what was to be accomplished with every action during those very much appealed to me.

My new roomate is a really nice guy, but snores so fuckin loud. I really hope that I can adapt otherwise it's going to be a long stay in Oklahoma.

I saw a penny on the ground today, shining brightly at me. I immediately thought of my mom and her sailboat fund. It both made my day better and saddened me.

Fuckin cows. I was driving around with one of the troubleshooters, fixing the recieving lines today. The biggest problem, as I've mentioned before, is cows chewing on the cables. We'd go replace or fix a cable, and what'd those dumb beasts do as soon as we were walking away? That's right, the whole damn herd would walk over to start chomping on it. Jeeeesus!

That being said, I do like chasing cattle. It's fun to see the utter terror in their eyes when I merely clap my hands at them. Don't they realize that not only does each one weigh many times what I do, but there is a whole damn herd of them? I guess that's why we eat them.

I just wish I had someone to talk to out here. I mean, more than the hey how're you doin kind of conversation. A real sit down chat about something meaningful and interesting.

I recommend to anyone interested in reading, which should be all of you dammit, the book "The Deadly Bride." It's a collection of recent critically acclaimed best short stories in mystery and crime fiction. All of the stories have been excellent, with many of them making me smile or chuckle to myself at the ingenious logic behind it.

I miss all my friends and family. I really do, having no one to talk to all day and night is starting to wear on my consciousness. More soon.

2007-03-15T19:58:00.000-06:00

So today, I was hanging out with 4 black guys from Mississippi or Loiseiana ( I dunno how to spell it). They were admittedly pretty intimidating at first, and I think they were trying to be. But once I got to know them and know how they were, I felt really comfortable. Constantly cracking jokes and razzing each other, talking about women, cars, and usual guy stuff. It made me realize how universal people are. Sure we may talk a bit differently, and with a different perspective, but we aren't really that different. They were really cool cats, and my first true experience with Southern black folk. I'm sorry for the constant reference to race, but it does make a difference suprisingly enough.

Oh man, end of the day, we get sent out to pickup another line. As you can imagine, it's the opposite of laying out a line. So we are walking through this hellish brush, just sticky bushes everywhere, I've got scraps and pokes and all sorts of sources of blood. Not to mention crossing barb wire fences that are rusted to hell, thankfully I had my tentanus shot last year. We get to the very end, and the driver is there wondering what we're doing. He dropped us off at the wrong line to begin with, so we picked up a whole line that hadn't been shot and removed all the flags and markings as to where to put stuff. I guess I'll find out tommorow morning how that went.

Oh and blisters galore. Ain't nothing I can do to prevent those, I'll have foot problems for life...dawg.

I think I'm starting to talk like a southerner. I've picked up a few phrases, and definately slowed down my speech. hahahaha.

Man, working in a labour job definately gives you a kind of strength that you can't get at the gym. It's definately where that elusive "dad strength" comes from. I'm glad I can get the experience doing this, even if it won't really be for that long.

This all being said, I remember being stuck in a bush today, pulling out thorns from my skin, and I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing here, I went through 5 years of intense math for this?" hahahaha, it quickly passed, but looking back I thought it was funny.

Oh snap, I have beef brisket on the way and people to phone and harass. Not to mention beer to drink with the crew, so I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope that I can talk and see you all sooner rather than later.

The Enternally Lovable Joshy Poshy

2007-03-15T05:02:00.000-06:00

aaaah!

Click here

2007-03-14T19:12:00.000-06:00

So, a first true day of labour for me. Interesting.

It started simply enough with a presentation (oh my, another one! ) and a drug test. ha. Afterwards, some hanging around as per usual and then into the field for more...hanging around. By around 11:30 they finally found a group of people for me to join so they drove me out with them to the line we were laying.

It goes like this, for each reciever, which is like a data collection point, there are six or more geophones. These little things are basically a spike you stomp into the ground. So the reciever is a cable with these attached to it, and at the end is an adaptor to attach it to the a collection type cable. About six recievers can connect to this cable, and this cable goes and attaches to a wireless radio with a battery. This is known simply enough as laying recievers. We laid down about 160, mostly likely more, recievers today. Each reciever is about 100-150 feet apart, and there you go. A big long day of walking and stomping stuff.

So what else can I say? I was with two Mexicans and two Guatamalans today, and I heard more Spanish than in the rest of my life. They were good people though, true "salt of the earth" types. There was this one point, while we were waiting for the helicopter to drop off more cables and recievers, we decided to have a bit of a rest/lay down. Everyone was dozing, and in the corner of my eye I saw a bunch of cows get close to the fence we were by. Don't worry, they were on the other side. But it was entertaining, napping in a field, cows next to me, sun shining brightly. I felt like I was in some Mark Twain novel or something.

I was ducking under an electrified fence today and got my ass zapped. That gets you mooo-ving.

Anywho, I'm awful tired here and I think I need to watch an episode of OZ before bed and book my flight home. I'll be back on April 6th folks, so I'll see you then.

2007-03-12T18:30:00.000-06:00

So, I'm sittin in my little hotel room, actually not so little, getting ready for my big field assignment. Ugh. The next 20 days are going to be ugly. 13 hour days, walking 6 miles or more a day, acquiring seismic data. Well, at least I'll be able to set off some dynamite in residential and urban areas, that should be fun, in Oaklahoma no less.

The weekend was good here. We went to a few bars on Friday, as you can tell from my previous post. One was...a logical extension of Broken City, filled with jailbait and all. The other was more of a pub type atmosphere, overall good I'd say. I'm suprised overall with Texans, they are really nice hospitable people. Even moreso than Calgarians I'd say, anyone will happily have a conversation with you and just be friendly overall.

I gave into my consumerism side on Saturday at the mall. I do feel bad about it actually, just buying some stuff that I didn't really need but just wanted. I don't really like the idea of want, but it affects me nonetheless. I wonder if want is a function of what you already have, in that if you have a lot you want more based on that, and if you don't have much you don't want that much. Perhaps it's an experience thing, once you give into consumerism, it's a slippery slope. I dunno, I'm doing my best to keep it at bay though.

Missing home a little bit, wishing I could see a few people back at home. But! I'll be back in cowtown for Easter most likely, so that will be something to look forward to over the coming weeks of hard work.

Actually, I think this field assignment will be good as I'm getting a little sick of some of my group members. There are definate pluses and minuses of having such a diverse set of people. They bring new perspectives and ideas, interesting cultures, but also some agravations. Because we're so different, there are somethings we don't all value the same, so it makes planning things a little difficult. A break will be good.

Anywho, I should get to bed here, I bid you all a good night and I'll update more soon!

2007-03-10T02:43:00.000-07:00

If the clothes fit...say that to say this

oh yes, yes yes

what the hey!

I just stroll on in, and I begin. And I say a couple of rhytmes and I begin. I'll leave with your lady! I'll leave with your lady!

I work my way into their subconsciousness

I see you slither around my ankle like I ain't gonna react

Take a big guess as to which album I took all these latryx's from...that was a big friggin clue.

I'll send whomever guesses right a cd made especially for them, along with a special gift. yeah, you heard me something really nice. And if Randee doesn't get it, I'll be very, very, very disapppointed.

2007-03-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

C'est moi. Aren't I pretty?

Went out for beef brisket tonight, I ordered the 1lb plate but they only gave me the half. I was pretty disappointed.

We got assigned some "homework" tonight. So you can guess what happened, sitting around the lobby drinking beer, discussing what the largest minimum offset for a salvo of a 3d model was. So cool it hurts.

My buddy took a great picture of an ad for Conoco we saw at the restaurant. It was a cowboy lighting a cigarette off of a cattle brand which said Conoco. Wow, oil, tobacco and the beef industry all wrapped up in one beautiful stereotypical ad, how much better can you get?

Ok, even better. I was at the convience store and there was a guy in front of me was buying smokes. He saw the 2 for 1 deal with Marlboro Reds, so he says, "Get me them...no, no all of them." After some confusion, he meant every single double pack, which turned out to be like 8.

So what else can I say? Tommorow is Friday, and that means party...PARTY! Hopefully the yanks won't be too impressed with my super slick dancing moves, but I can't make any promises.

Ok, I've had a few beers and I'm a little cocky. hahahahaha

I've got an apartment with a couple of the other Canadians and people want to keep trading into our place. Are we really that cool? Most likely.

What I am really enjoying about this program is that cracking jokes in class is appreciated and encouraged. They want to keep a light and happy atmosphere as long as the work gets done. It totally fits with the mindset that I'm in right now.

I'm probably making this too long already, but I guess if you don't want to read no one is forcing a gun to your head. If so, I wonder what kind of sick twisted individual is doing that? Or maybe I don't, they could be a crazy stalker. Or maybe ignorance is bliss...oh logical mind games how fun are you.

Ok, ok, I'll stop. More later.

Oh yeah, I added some links to my other favourite blogs so if you're interested check 'em out. Ian's will be long winded but interesting, but hey, that's Ian. Hahahaha, I kid, I kid, he's never interesting. No but seriously, he'll push the culture harder than anyone, and you always need that voice.