Category Archives: Me

Clubfoot of Death

September 21, 2009 landland Leave a comment

I bring your attention to my right foot, which if you haven’t noticed got a lot bigger than my left on the final day’s trek into Machu Picchu. They think I got bitten by a spider. Serves me right for going au natural and avoiding any deet infused liquid death spray (which I succumbed to anyway as soon as I ran out out of Citronella oil). Tourists were so enthralled by my Vibram Five Fingers they didn’t even notice my grotesquely, morbidly obese right ankle as they snapped away in glee at my shoes, even at one point making me stand on one foot so they could take pictures of the bottom of my feet. The ankle got a few inches bigger than this before the swelling started to go down. Homeopathics so did not work for me in terms of not getting bit by tiny, blood thirsty bugs. If anybody has any non toxic remedies for me to try on my next insect filled adventure, I’m all ears.

Me, Stories

San Francisco is rules

May 5, 2009 landland 1 Comment

Back from San Francisco. That was an awesome trip. Minimal computer time, no twitter, no cell phone, no facebook, it felt great. Read this book, Emergency by Neil Strauss, loved it. That, combined with the lack of technology and the natural beauty of SF and surrounding area has got me motoring to learn some new skills. Wrote them down on my to do list. They involve guns, knives, and camping.

The return back to Toronto was disastrous. It included massive check in lineups, rude US Airways agents, turbulent flights, delayed flights, missed connections, rude/frustrated/stressed passengers, terrible food, lack of food, lack of sleep, unwanted overnight stay in Philadelphia, long security lines, rude customs agents, etc. It was probably the roughest 24+ hours of travel I have ever experienced so far. Likely won’t be traveling on US Airways ever again. They suck. At the hotel they put me in, speaking with the hostess and the way too happy to be working at 1 AM check in clerk girl at the hotel they both told me that US Airways always fills their hotel every Saturday and Sunday due to overbooking and missed connections due to delays. Hopefully I won’t have to go through anything like that again. After the delayed flight back into Toronto in the morning, I proceeded to run out of the airport, take the Airport Express to downtown Toronto, take a cab into work and then work an 8 hour shift.

Disastrous return aside, that was a really chill vacation. Probably saw everything I needed to see in SF, my favourite being a night tour of Alcatraz, but what I really enjoyed was the friendly vibe of the city. Went to the park on a Saturday, random hippies just chillin out, smoking pot in one spot. Kids flying their kites in another, lesbians listening to live music someplace else, college fratboys playing frisbee elsewhere, etc. etc. Everybody just out, sharing the space at the park, having fun. Everybody I met was friendly, from the crazy Swedish sisters that felt the need to kiss each other way too much (note: beware of Swedish girls who come to California looking to become Actresses), to the random girls stopping us on the streets to give us props and high fives for no other reason but because we both had somebody in the group with luggage. Seriously, who does that? Apparently San Franciscans.

Heck, even the baseball game was fun, and I didn’t even drink or anything and it was cold. The energy of the crowd was what kept the game exciting, and of course the fights and near fights that broke out. And the random chants of USA and LA Dodgers support swine flu were good times as well.

My watch stopped working near the end of the trip. I only write this because I noticed I wore my watch today. wtf, habit I guess. In fact, I wore it everyday since it stopped working. I made it a running joke anytime we were on a time commitment that we either had lots of time, or we were late because it was 11:20 (what my watch is stuck on). Sadly, I found that way too hysterical for my own good and beat the joke to death.

I had a fmylife.com moment when, in order to save paying the $1.50 fare to ride the bus by using my bus transfer that was about to expire, I ran to catch the bus only to drop, scratch, and crack my Armani sunglasses my brother gave me. I broke an expensive pair of sunglasses in order to save $1.50. FML.

I have pictures. I have videos. I’m sure they’ll show up somewhere. Awesome time with a great group of friends. Ate well, played well, and even had time to work well.

Life, Me

time waits for nobody

April 24, 2009 landland 3 Comments

So here I am, a year older, a little wiser, and just as awesome as always. Read a few things here and there on various blogs that have got me thinking about how time, whether you decide to keep up or not, will continue regardless. One of my best friends recently made a comment about how I am never satisfied with anything. I thought, damn this guys known me for close to 20 years but he doesn’t really know me at all. There’s a difference between satisfaction and challenge. Challenging oneself to be the best self they can be is an entirely different thing from being satisfied with the present moment. They absolutely do not have to be mutually exclusive.

In time, things will change. They always do, because time keeps on moving. If you stop, time doesn’t wait up. If you are satisfied with everything that is, by all means stop and enjoy it all. You should appreciate everything you have. You might find, however, that the things you used to enjoy might not quite do it for you anymore. Where it can get destructive, is when to keep that high of satisfaction you must get the next thing, and then the next, and then the next. I wouldn’t call that true satisfaction. I`ll call it societal brainwashing 101.

Right now, I am not where I thought I would be at this age. I am comfortable, for sure, and to me that is not something I wish to be for too long. But that isn’t dissatisfaction, not at all. That’s just me, demanding more from myself. Nobody puts this pressure on themselves except for themselves. Its time to put things in motion to start the next phase of my life, because if you wait, you regret. But time keeps ticking, ticking, ticking away. I don’t care if I am here for 1 more day or 100 years if the time I am spending here is being wasted. Wasted on pettiness, on greed, on vanity. Wasted on other people’s expectations, wasted on waiting for others to make the decisions. Its gross. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it. So, I say, stop wasting. Stop wasting time, stop being wasteful to the environment, to your health. Demand more not from others, but from yourself.

I told my manager over lunch to beat me with a bat if I am still here in 1 year. Who says that to their manager, especially right before their performance review? Perhaps an idiotic move to your career, for sure, but honest nonetheless. That’s why I applaud Miss California, who lost Miss America the other day because of her stance on gay marriage. She was honest on her opinion (which I don`t agree with for the record) and because of that lost and was called mean things by not very compassionate people. Hats off to Miss California for speaking her truth. In the long run, honesty wins. It just does. Dishonesty for betterment of self is lacking in integrity and homey don`t play that.

I am moving along, because guess what? Each year I get older, I get wiser. I challenge myself, I explore and discover. Nothing can be taken from that, only added. Long after your looks have faded, or whatever else you think you have going for you, what will you have left? All that remains is your spirit, your consciousness, and time can`t touch that.

memememmememe and only me

April 9, 2009 landland Leave a comment

Happy Good Friday! Long weekends are always nice. I think I might pop back to Niagara for a few days, say hello to a few special people and then hop along on my merry way since I had such a lovely time last weekend. I’ve been sick these past couple of days. I even took Tuesday and Wednesday off because it hurt to talk. I’m starting to feel a tad better and I am hoping that by tomorrow I’ll be good to go.

I booked my vacation off for the end of this month. Its a much needed break to just STOP everything I am doing and do something else for a week. I’ll be heading to San Francisco with two of my best buddies from back in my engineering days, when I was a young pup eager to take on the world. By the way, for anybody living in Toronto flying anywhere in the United States, let me give you some advice. Fly out of Buffalo. Cheapest flight from Toronto to San Fran was $450. From Buffalo, only $219. Yes you read that right, less than half. Its crazy!!

Lately I’ve been going way too overdrive. I’ve been all give give give energy without replenishing any energy back and that is really not something to be sustained for long periods of time. Perhaps my body getting sick is trying to tell me something. That’s why the end of the month will be the start of a new beginning. First, I’m going to knock the GMAT out of the way. Its been nagging me for farrr too long. I’m ready. I’ve been putting in my time, and I will be peaking soon. Once that is out of the way, off I go to San Francisco. Simultaneously, as I’ve been planning my San Fran trip, I have also been planning a trip to Peru. It looks like we have dates set for mid August. I’ll be doing mostly outdoorsy stuff, like going on a 4 day hike on the Inca trail into the ancient city of Machu Picchu, as well as visiting some mountains and rain forests and the like. That trip will be mostly with my friends from Ottawa.

Once I return from my trip from San Fran, I plan to do a lot of reading. I have so many books collecting dust on my book shelf and that is so unfortunate. I also plan on starting P90X as soon as I get back and will continue to do it for the full 90 days. Maybe I’ll tweet about my experiences with it. This summer I also plan on doing some fun side projects that I am looking forward to learning and grinding through. Mostly web related, mostly for fun.

Other news: I switched hosting providers. I’m with a better, more reputable, faster provider now so that is pretty awesome. Also, I broke my phone. I was trying to hack it with Android but failed miserably. After I restored my phone back to Windows Mobile, it has a really rough time connecting to the network. Lol whoops, my bad. So I’m stuck with a tough choice right now. Do I want to get a new phone, in which case I would probably want the Iphone or an Android phone (on my maybe list of things to do would be to develop a mobile app) or do I ax the phone altogether as part of my lifestyle experiments? Its a tough choice, but if I was a betting man I would say I would get a phone.

Finally, I likely won’t be updating any more frequently this month then I have been. Its just a crazy month, but an important one so I still need to keep my priorities aligned and stay focused.

cleaning off my plate.

March 27, 2009 landland Leave a comment

The past week has been an interesting one. Lots of ups and downs and decisions that had to be made. The weekend was great, I did a lot of rock climbing and went back to Niagara Falls to see some friends. Climbing is getting good, there are more people that come out to climb with us now and some of them are already getting really good. Its interesting to see these guys who have a natural gift at climbing and are already climbing better than I am, when I have put in so much time and effort to get to the level I’m at. Its a really humbling experience, that is for sure. If you’ve ever done any sport I’m sure you know what I am talking about, that one guy who just does things and makes it look effortless. It can make some people jealous, but for me I just get motivated to try even harder.

Saw some friends for a birthday as well. It was so good, to finally see some friends and not have to think about my life and just absorb into theirs. We played poker and I won of course 😉 I really love poker, its such a fascinating game for me. From an outsiders perspective it would seem like a game of luck (those are the guys you can beat the easiest, imo) but really there is so much strategy involved. I wish I had the opportunity to play more often, perhaps in the summer I will give it a go.

Work has been great this past week. Lots of interesting stuff going on and I learned quite a bit. I convinced my coworkers to go rock climbing as a team building exercise next month, lol. It should be fun. Last month we went skiing up at Blue Mountain and that was pretty awesome, although we got lost in Coldwater, Ontario (I have no idea where that is) and ended up 2 hours late. I woke up at 6 am just to get on the road by 7 am so we could get to Blue Mountain by 9:30, but ended up getting there at 11:30. It was still a beautiful day to go skiing and I had a lot of fun. I’m sure rock climbing will be interesting, and by the end of it I will have a bunch of tired out coworkers.

Yesterday I went to see my naturopath. She is such an incredible person, and understands me so well. She has an amazing way of putting things into perspective for me, really one of the few people who actually listens and understands where I am coming from. I get the impression from her that the feeling is mutual, and its a relationship I am really happy to have. Afterwards, I went to see "I Love You, Man " with one of my best mates, and movie buddy. We are going to watch all the movies this summer, just like how we did it last summer. Definitely looking forward to it.

Been playing email tag with a friend. I was hoping to get a way for a week to recharge my batteries but we keep having scheduling conflicts. No biggy, though, I am pretty sure it will work out in the end. A battery recharge is something I could use right about now. Things are looking good. I should be able to get back to a healthy balanced schedule within the next month or two. That’s the plan anyways. Of course we all know plans never really go according to plan 😉

Geekery, Me

when things don’t go the way as planned.

March 13, 2009 landland Leave a comment

Things aren’t going as planned. I’ve been struggling these days to keep things balanced, prioritizing items, and not letting myself get in my way. There’s a ton I want to do/write around here but right now I am struggling to find the time to do so.

I’ve been wanting to put in a commenting system here that really kicks butt. There are two that are competing for my attention and I am keeping a close eye on both. They are disqus and intense debate. Both are really cool but neither stands out above the other. Both have a lot to offer but neither are really above what I have already in place to justify the switch. The cool thing about both is that they are integrating with social networks and the like (what isn’t nowadays) so that your comments can “follow” you as you go around the net. Both are super cool and have tons of potential but I am waiting on some maturity before I make a decision. Probably won’t be happening for a while.

I’m looking forward to the warmer weather. I think my being locked in a cave, in all its anti-social glory, is starting to turn me into Jack Nicholson in The Shining. The only people I see these days are my coworkers, and the only people I speak to are dissatisfied techies and my parents. My only saving grace is rock climbing but I have had to defer that for a couple weeks because of the GMAT. But the GMAT isn’t going nearly as smoothly as I projected. I do great on some tests and I do so-so on others. I need consistency before I do anything. It sucks because I keep deferring and deferring and deferring and I might defer it past the deadline for Uni applications. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, in fact that would probably be my preference but I don’t want to stay in my cave any longer! I have a pile of books just waiting to be read. I have vacations to plan, people to see, things to do. My mind has been telling me “As soon as your done this thing man, BJJ, that’s what you are going to do. 5 days a week man! You can do it!” and “Oh man your grip strength is incredible now, and you can do triple the amount of chinups you could do before without even breaking a sweat. Now imagine if you had time to get in even more workouts. Rock climbing machine!” and “These books, you have to read them. There’s so much wisdom and knowledge to be applied. Hurry man, you’re wasting away your time. You aren’t young anymore!” and so on and so forth. Can you imagine trying to study with all that racket?

Truth is, I am in no rush to back to school, so my mind needs to stfu. But I do want to write this GMAT thing soon, just to get it over with. How soon? When I’m ready and not a moment before. And yes, I am still young, I plan to live until I’m 150, and then by the time I’m 150 the medicine and technology during that time will let me live until I’m 1000. 😉 So I am doing just fine. I’ll be missing some events here and there, like a trip to Boston, and some climbing, and some birthday parties. But those are the breaks, and I’m fine with that. I want to earn everything that comes to me, including the good and bad.

Lesson for today: Tell your brain to shut up. Then tell it you love it.

Awesomeness Deluxe