1. So today is Blue Monday, which is apparently the most depressing day of the year (also a great comic from Oni Press). The formula for arriving at this day is something to do with the lack of daylight, when mixed with impending credit card bills, tossed in with an (un)healthy mix of failure from all your doomed New Year's resolutions. Why January 21st as opposed to January 22nd is perhaps a bit more contrived than I need to dwell on.
One of the solutions to overcoming the blahs is more exercise and activity. Which sounds like a plan. I've been meaning to get back to the gym, but figured I'd wait until all the New Year's resolution people failed and dropped out. That essentially means I was waiting for Blue Monday. Guess I should swing by the gym sometime in the next week or so.
2. Imagine Iqaluit, but instead of the 7,000 or so people who live here now, imagine 200,000 people. Sound horrific? Sounds a bit like Yakutsk, the coldest city on earth. I'm kind of used to the cold up here at this point. I'm not saying I'm happy when I wake up in the morning and discover the temperature is around -45, but there is something oddly invigorating about going around with your jacket undone and no hat on your head because it's a balmy -20.
Having said that, I think one of the things that makes Iqaluit bearable is that it is relatively small and compact. There's something about a city of 200,000 people all dealing with that level of cold, with all the smoke and fog hanging in the air that sounds really unappealing. You actually hear Inuit in town complain about how big and fast pace Iqaluit is and how much they want to go back to their home community, where it's quieter.
Might sound crazy to those of us from larger places, but it makes sense. I think the idea of hell for most Inuit would be for Iqaluit to grow into some place like Yakutsk.
3. The East Coast Music Awards are being held in Corner Brook in 2009. I would have more to say on this, except I pretty much view the ECMAs as little more than the Nova Scotia Music Industry Awards, just on a bigger scale these days.
4. You've got to love the Japanese marketing ability. For those who need a smoke and a coffee to get going in the morning, the Japanese have a suggestion for you. Honestly, I want to buy this. Not for myself, but I can think of several people who love this. Although if you need a can of coffee and two packs of smokes to get going in the morning, you have problems.
Last Five
1. Windows blues - Band of Horses
2. Past due - The Weakerthans*
3. Choux pastry heart - Corinne Bailey Rae
4. A boy and his machine gun - Matthew Good Band
5. October - U2
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Behind the scenes
This story about Dairy Queen workers in St. John's getting up to some shenanigans is generating quite a bit of comment, much of it of outrage, some of it dipping into moral outrage. You know, "what's wrong with kids these days?" blah blah blah.
First of all, let's make one thing clear, even if I was back in St. John's, I think I would be giving this place a pass for awhile. Which is a pity because I've stopped at that Diary Queen quite a few times, seeing as how it's near where Cathy's parents live. I don't normally go for the hot food, just the ice cream. When I need a burger fix, I go to Burger King or Wendy's.
Still, this Dairy Queen broke the prime rule of fast food places - never make it public what happens behind the scenes.
Look, none of us are idiots. I imagine a good few of us have worked in the food industry over the years. While I was fortunate enough to have never worked at MacDonald's or company, I did wait tables at several restaurants (all of which went bankrupt, but that's another story), including a Pizza Hut. I saw things that I'm sure the customers wouldn't have appreciated. I engaged in activities I bet the owner and customers wouldn't have liked (the worst being taking a particularly hated manager on his last day, dragging him into the dish room, hosing him down and then emptying a bag of flour on him. What can I say? He was a prick and so were we).
But we kept all of this out of the public eye. Whenever you go to a restaurant, especially a fast food place where most of the employees are young, you engage in a willing suspension of disbelief about the food. You know the food is bad for you by any standards. You're probably getting your weekly fat intake when you have a double Whopper. Not to mention how the food was treated before it got to your hands. It could have been reheated. The people who handled it might have forgot to wash their hands. They might have been use the paddy as a puck before you walked into the place.
Some part of your brain knows this, but you chose to not to acknowledge this possibility, because you're hungry and this is what you're craving.
The schmucks at Dairy Queen shagged around. I don't doubt it happens at every fast food place in St. John's a daily basis. Boring work, for crap pay doesn't always inspire the best behaviour in employees. Where they got stupider was putting the video up on Youtube. How people still haven't figured out that most of the odder video up there can come back and bite you on your mooned ass one day is beyond me. But they haven't and this is what you get. Something that happens every day becomes a story. Why? Because there's video. And video always helps to make a bland story that much better.
The hit this Dairy Queen is going to take is substantial. I imagine most of the staff is going to be fired. Because of the bad publicity, it might even close. And that Dairy Queen has been there a long time. I think it's the oldest in town. And it probably deserves it, because it broke the covenant between fast food and consumer.
But never doubt that it happens all the time, and probably worse, in St. John's.
Bon appetite....
Last Five
1. Mother (live) - Tori Amos
2. Neighbourhood #3 (power out) - The Arcade Fire
3. The dope - The Dandy Warhols
4. Another pearl - Badly Drawn Boy
5. Highway patrolman (live) - Bruce Springsteen*
First of all, let's make one thing clear, even if I was back in St. John's, I think I would be giving this place a pass for awhile. Which is a pity because I've stopped at that Diary Queen quite a few times, seeing as how it's near where Cathy's parents live. I don't normally go for the hot food, just the ice cream. When I need a burger fix, I go to Burger King or Wendy's.
Still, this Dairy Queen broke the prime rule of fast food places - never make it public what happens behind the scenes.
Look, none of us are idiots. I imagine a good few of us have worked in the food industry over the years. While I was fortunate enough to have never worked at MacDonald's or company, I did wait tables at several restaurants (all of which went bankrupt, but that's another story), including a Pizza Hut. I saw things that I'm sure the customers wouldn't have appreciated. I engaged in activities I bet the owner and customers wouldn't have liked (the worst being taking a particularly hated manager on his last day, dragging him into the dish room, hosing him down and then emptying a bag of flour on him. What can I say? He was a prick and so were we).
But we kept all of this out of the public eye. Whenever you go to a restaurant, especially a fast food place where most of the employees are young, you engage in a willing suspension of disbelief about the food. You know the food is bad for you by any standards. You're probably getting your weekly fat intake when you have a double Whopper. Not to mention how the food was treated before it got to your hands. It could have been reheated. The people who handled it might have forgot to wash their hands. They might have been use the paddy as a puck before you walked into the place.
Some part of your brain knows this, but you chose to not to acknowledge this possibility, because you're hungry and this is what you're craving.
The schmucks at Dairy Queen shagged around. I don't doubt it happens at every fast food place in St. John's a daily basis. Boring work, for crap pay doesn't always inspire the best behaviour in employees. Where they got stupider was putting the video up on Youtube. How people still haven't figured out that most of the odder video up there can come back and bite you on your mooned ass one day is beyond me. But they haven't and this is what you get. Something that happens every day becomes a story. Why? Because there's video. And video always helps to make a bland story that much better.
The hit this Dairy Queen is going to take is substantial. I imagine most of the staff is going to be fired. Because of the bad publicity, it might even close. And that Dairy Queen has been there a long time. I think it's the oldest in town. And it probably deserves it, because it broke the covenant between fast food and consumer.
But never doubt that it happens all the time, and probably worse, in St. John's.
Bon appetite....
Last Five
1. Mother (live) - Tori Amos
2. Neighbourhood #3 (power out) - The Arcade Fire
3. The dope - The Dandy Warhols
4. Another pearl - Badly Drawn Boy
5. Highway patrolman (live) - Bruce Springsteen*
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Got them Saturday morning reporting blues
There are many reasons why I'm glad I'm no longer a reporter back in Newfoundland. First and foremost was that I was burnt out on the job. It took me awhile to realize that, but I was. And there are other factors why I'm glad I moved and moved into another field of work. Cathy's right in some way, I don't handle change, especially significant upheavals, all that well. If it wasn't for her I still might be slowly losing my mind somewhere in St. John's, trying to pump out copy.
But here's another reason that had me going, "there but for the grace of God..." this morning.
I found out one of my former colleagues is leaving his reporting job at the end of this month. One of the main reasons appears to be he was tired of the long hours and crap pay and wanted to move into something that paid better, that wasn't as stressful and where he could actually watch his kids grow-up without being off covering a meeting somewhere.
Did he go into PR or some kind of government work? Nope.
He's taking a job with a hardware store.
What the fuck does it say about newspapers in Newfoundland when they pay better at a hardware store? There's something deeply, deeply wrong with that.
So yeah, I got up, kissed my wife and thanked whoever is out there that I was smart enough to get out of that racket and go somewhere at least I'm appreciated.
Last Five
1. Jesusland - Ben Folds
2. Famous last words - My Chemical Romance
3. Rena - Blue Rodeo
4. Cool on your island (live) - Tori Amos
5. In the back seat - The Arcade Fire*
But here's another reason that had me going, "there but for the grace of God..." this morning.
I found out one of my former colleagues is leaving his reporting job at the end of this month. One of the main reasons appears to be he was tired of the long hours and crap pay and wanted to move into something that paid better, that wasn't as stressful and where he could actually watch his kids grow-up without being off covering a meeting somewhere.
Did he go into PR or some kind of government work? Nope.
He's taking a job with a hardware store.
What the fuck does it say about newspapers in Newfoundland when they pay better at a hardware store? There's something deeply, deeply wrong with that.
So yeah, I got up, kissed my wife and thanked whoever is out there that I was smart enough to get out of that racket and go somewhere at least I'm appreciated.
Last Five
1. Jesusland - Ben Folds
2. Famous last words - My Chemical Romance
3. Rena - Blue Rodeo
4. Cool on your island (live) - Tori Amos
5. In the back seat - The Arcade Fire*
Thursday, January 17, 2008
38
Well, today I turn 38. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm never really going to age gracefully. And by that I don't mean I'm going to go and start popping Rogaine or check out on the price of facelifts and whatnot. I'm just going to be mildly annoyed with the whole idea of getting older and hate kids.
I also have my lovely wife reminding me that I am, in fact, old. This is the one thing they never tell you about marrying a woman who is younger than you are (Cathy turned 30 back in December). That while they will love you and be wonderful and all, they will also never cease in reminding you how much younger they are than you.
The one thing I take some comfort in is the commentators saying Barack Obama is too young to be president and he's 46. So, you know, 46 is young. Then again, he's eight years older than me and has a reasonably decent chance of being the next president of the United States. So it's best not to look into that analogy too deeply.
Anyway, as an age, 37 wasn't too bad. I travelled to Ottawa, went home for a couple of weeks and had a nice vacation in Florida and a Caribbean cruise. My health is still good, albeit I'm still weighing more than I hoped for a year ago. I said I was going to lose 50 pounds. I might have lost 10.
I started a novel that's now sitting around 125,000 words. Plus I managed to sell a couple of freelance stories, write something in excess of 300 blog posts. And work continues to chug along just fine. I don't mind it and it pays me exceedingly well, which is certainly a step from a couple of years ago.
And myself and Cathy continue to be very much in love. I'm not saying there aren't the occasional hiccup or challenge, but hey, welcome to marriage.
So yeah, that's a pretty good year, all things told. So what's the plan for my 38th year?
1. Finish the novel and shop it around to agents.
2. Do at least 300 blog posts.
3. Try and do the odd freelance piece just to keep in practice. Plus, they're a lovely tax write off for expensive toys like cameras and computers.
4. Get back at the gym, which I stopped doing around October. Drop about 20 pounds.
5. Travel to New York and Italy.
6. Try and overcome general hatred of telephones and call friends and family more often.
7. Get off the computer more and spend more time reading books and with Cathy.
8. Continue to control temper at curling by not cursing.
And really, that's about it. I think that's a good enough list for now. If I get most of that list accomplished, I think 38 will be pretty good. Granted, I'm going to have to start gearing up for 40. There's a tradition of small breakdowns in my family among the men when they turn 40. My uncle bought a Corvette. My dad bought a convertible Camero and fled to Toronto. I turn 40 in January, so my options are somewhat limited, especially if we're still in Nunavut. Still, I'll have to come up with some kind of spectacular meltdown that year. Any suggestions?
Last Five
1. Mutiny, I promise you - The New Pornographers
2. Bittersweet symphony - The Verve*
3. Gloria - U2
4. Old Dan Tucker - Bruce Springsteen
5. Bluenose - Stan Rogers
I also have my lovely wife reminding me that I am, in fact, old. This is the one thing they never tell you about marrying a woman who is younger than you are (Cathy turned 30 back in December). That while they will love you and be wonderful and all, they will also never cease in reminding you how much younger they are than you.
The one thing I take some comfort in is the commentators saying Barack Obama is too young to be president and he's 46. So, you know, 46 is young. Then again, he's eight years older than me and has a reasonably decent chance of being the next president of the United States. So it's best not to look into that analogy too deeply.
Anyway, as an age, 37 wasn't too bad. I travelled to Ottawa, went home for a couple of weeks and had a nice vacation in Florida and a Caribbean cruise. My health is still good, albeit I'm still weighing more than I hoped for a year ago. I said I was going to lose 50 pounds. I might have lost 10.
I started a novel that's now sitting around 125,000 words. Plus I managed to sell a couple of freelance stories, write something in excess of 300 blog posts. And work continues to chug along just fine. I don't mind it and it pays me exceedingly well, which is certainly a step from a couple of years ago.
And myself and Cathy continue to be very much in love. I'm not saying there aren't the occasional hiccup or challenge, but hey, welcome to marriage.
So yeah, that's a pretty good year, all things told. So what's the plan for my 38th year?
1. Finish the novel and shop it around to agents.
2. Do at least 300 blog posts.
3. Try and do the odd freelance piece just to keep in practice. Plus, they're a lovely tax write off for expensive toys like cameras and computers.
4. Get back at the gym, which I stopped doing around October. Drop about 20 pounds.
5. Travel to New York and Italy.
6. Try and overcome general hatred of telephones and call friends and family more often.
7. Get off the computer more and spend more time reading books and with Cathy.
8. Continue to control temper at curling by not cursing.
And really, that's about it. I think that's a good enough list for now. If I get most of that list accomplished, I think 38 will be pretty good. Granted, I'm going to have to start gearing up for 40. There's a tradition of small breakdowns in my family among the men when they turn 40. My uncle bought a Corvette. My dad bought a convertible Camero and fled to Toronto. I turn 40 in January, so my options are somewhat limited, especially if we're still in Nunavut. Still, I'll have to come up with some kind of spectacular meltdown that year. Any suggestions?
Last Five
1. Mutiny, I promise you - The New Pornographers
2. Bittersweet symphony - The Verve*
3. Gloria - U2
4. Old Dan Tucker - Bruce Springsteen
5. Bluenose - Stan Rogers
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
New York, New York
So Cathy has been going slightly nuts the last couple of weeks trying to figure out what to buy me for my birthday. I'm apparently a thorough pain in the ass to buy for when it comes to these kinds of things. There are several good reasons for this. First, there isn't all that much I need. Secondly, when I do find something I need or want, I tend to buy it immediately rather than hint around for it.
For example, when we were on vacation I bought pretty much everything Cathy could have possible have picked up for me as a gift. Most infuriating was the watch. I have a nice one, but it's a bit heavy. So I wanted a nice, lighter one, and watches are dirt cheap on the islands. However, rather that pointing out several that Cathy might get for me, I instead went and bought it myself (a Citizen Eco-Drive). Same thing with a Swiss Army Knife I happened up in a store. And a few other things.
Anyway, I think Cathy had just about given up when we hit on a brain storm last night. I was discussing whether or not I was going to head to New York in April and working out a budget. I hadn't checked on plane tickets from Ottawa to New York in awhile, but they were quite expensive the last time I checked. The absolute cheapest was over $500 and most were over $600. For a 90 minute flight, it seemed pretty ridiculous. So I hit a few sites and discovered there was a seat sale on. I hemmed and hawed about it, and then Cathy had a brain storm.
"Why don't I buy you the ticket to New York for your birthday?"
And so we had a plan. I booked the ticket and now I'm heading to New York on April 15 and come back here April 21. It's a pretty snazzy gift. Although it's funny. Cathy steadfast refuses to buy me graphic novels. I have a list of about 30 on my wish list there right now. But she will buy me a plane ticket to send me to the New York Comic Con.
When I pointed that out to her, however, she did point out it's not just the comic con. I've already got tickets lined up to see Jon Stewart and I'm trying to get tickets to Letterman. I'm looking at going to see the Yankees and Red Sox play, although a ticket in the nose bleeds - I mean in the upper deck in centerfield - start at $40. Something down the left field line start around $200. So we'll see about that.
And I might catch Spamalot. Plus there are hundreds of other things to do during my time there. Go to Central Park. Go to the Empire State Building. Find some cool, funky shops. Hit weird book stores. And God knows what else. I'm sure some of you nice people can find a thing or two for me to do.
So yeah, a couple of days ago I wasn't sure about going. Now I'm really looking forward to it.
Last Five
1. The Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol
2. Phantom of the Opera - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
3. Parting gift - Fiona Apple
4. Trust me - The Fray
5. Join together - The Who*
For example, when we were on vacation I bought pretty much everything Cathy could have possible have picked up for me as a gift. Most infuriating was the watch. I have a nice one, but it's a bit heavy. So I wanted a nice, lighter one, and watches are dirt cheap on the islands. However, rather that pointing out several that Cathy might get for me, I instead went and bought it myself (a Citizen Eco-Drive). Same thing with a Swiss Army Knife I happened up in a store. And a few other things.
Anyway, I think Cathy had just about given up when we hit on a brain storm last night. I was discussing whether or not I was going to head to New York in April and working out a budget. I hadn't checked on plane tickets from Ottawa to New York in awhile, but they were quite expensive the last time I checked. The absolute cheapest was over $500 and most were over $600. For a 90 minute flight, it seemed pretty ridiculous. So I hit a few sites and discovered there was a seat sale on. I hemmed and hawed about it, and then Cathy had a brain storm.
"Why don't I buy you the ticket to New York for your birthday?"
And so we had a plan. I booked the ticket and now I'm heading to New York on April 15 and come back here April 21. It's a pretty snazzy gift. Although it's funny. Cathy steadfast refuses to buy me graphic novels. I have a list of about 30 on my wish list there right now. But she will buy me a plane ticket to send me to the New York Comic Con.
When I pointed that out to her, however, she did point out it's not just the comic con. I've already got tickets lined up to see Jon Stewart and I'm trying to get tickets to Letterman. I'm looking at going to see the Yankees and Red Sox play, although a ticket in the nose bleeds - I mean in the upper deck in centerfield - start at $40. Something down the left field line start around $200. So we'll see about that.
And I might catch Spamalot. Plus there are hundreds of other things to do during my time there. Go to Central Park. Go to the Empire State Building. Find some cool, funky shops. Hit weird book stores. And God knows what else. I'm sure some of you nice people can find a thing or two for me to do.
So yeah, a couple of days ago I wasn't sure about going. Now I'm really looking forward to it.
Last Five
1. The Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol
2. Phantom of the Opera - Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
3. Parting gift - Fiona Apple
4. Trust me - The Fray
5. Join together - The Who*
Monday, January 14, 2008
Same old same old
Dear God I am so sick of this shit. No wonder I hardly ever write about Newfoundland related politics anymore. Aside from the fact that I've been away from the island for more than two years now, so that sort of distance makes it hard to comment intelligently. But even if I was back there now, if I had to comment every time Williams went spoiling for a fight with a prime minister I would lose my mind.
It's fucking boring. And judging by some of the reaction in the Globe's comments section, people are long past bored with this. Williams is a smart man, but I really, really wish he would find a different drum to beat and get on with governing the province instead of constantly picking fights with the feds. Jesus, I know no Newfoundland premier has ever gone wrong picking a fight with Ottawa, but how many premiers have picked this many fights? I he determined to find what the upper limit of Newfoundlanders tolerance is for this crap?
And guess what? Harper is probably right. Seven seats out of 300+ do not make a difference 95% of the time. Hard reality, but hey, that's Canadian politics. Build a bridge and movie on.
sigh No wonder I've been finding US politics much more interesting lately if this is what's happening back home.
Oh, and since I'm back taking a look at Newfoundland, Buckingham got off fucking lucky. Seven years for the shit he did. He's probably out in less than 2.5 years. Granted, he'll likely never practice medicine again, but still. Selling drugs and sexually abusing women when you were their doctor. There's a special place for people like that and I hope Buckingham spends most of the next 2.5 years there. Wanker.
Oh, and this is quite possibly the worst local news story I've read in ages. Ivan is normally a good writer, but I honestly wondered if this story also came with a free blowjob. They should use this in journalism schools as an example on how to not write puff pieces.
Apparently I'm feisty this evening. I'll try and be in a better humour tomorrow.
Last Five
1. One plus one is one - Badly Drawn Boy
2. Virginia Avenue - Tom Waits
3. About a girl - Nirvana
4. Blister in the sun - Violent Femmes*
5. Well Allright! - The Hives
It's fucking boring. And judging by some of the reaction in the Globe's comments section, people are long past bored with this. Williams is a smart man, but I really, really wish he would find a different drum to beat and get on with governing the province instead of constantly picking fights with the feds. Jesus, I know no Newfoundland premier has ever gone wrong picking a fight with Ottawa, but how many premiers have picked this many fights? I he determined to find what the upper limit of Newfoundlanders tolerance is for this crap?
And guess what? Harper is probably right. Seven seats out of 300+ do not make a difference 95% of the time. Hard reality, but hey, that's Canadian politics. Build a bridge and movie on.
sigh No wonder I've been finding US politics much more interesting lately if this is what's happening back home.
Oh, and since I'm back taking a look at Newfoundland, Buckingham got off fucking lucky. Seven years for the shit he did. He's probably out in less than 2.5 years. Granted, he'll likely never practice medicine again, but still. Selling drugs and sexually abusing women when you were their doctor. There's a special place for people like that and I hope Buckingham spends most of the next 2.5 years there. Wanker.
Oh, and this is quite possibly the worst local news story I've read in ages. Ivan is normally a good writer, but I honestly wondered if this story also came with a free blowjob. They should use this in journalism schools as an example on how to not write puff pieces.
Apparently I'm feisty this evening. I'll try and be in a better humour tomorrow.
Last Five
1. One plus one is one - Badly Drawn Boy
2. Virginia Avenue - Tom Waits
3. About a girl - Nirvana
4. Blister in the sun - Violent Femmes*
5. Well Allright! - The Hives
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Performances
No, I'm not dead. The cold persists longer than I would have liked, but that's not the reason I haven't been around. I'm trying to spend a little less time on the computer these days and a bit more with my wife. Of course, that will be put to the test now that I finally have Windows running properly on the Mac and have managed to get Civilizations IV running like it is supposed to. It's actually running better than when I had it set up on Cathy's old Toshiba laptop. Go figure.
So yeah, part of this weekend was spent with Cathy. The other part was spent immersing myself in the joy that comes with destroying Civilizations. That hasn't left much time for blogging.
Although we did manage to get out and see a movie last night - I Am Legend. Cathy's still a bit mad with me over that one. She doesn't like scary movies and I thought it was going to be more action oriented than it was. She's still pretty upset about the scene with the dog.
I did like it, but more the first two-thirds than the last one-third, where it kind of goes off the rails a bit for me. But really, that's a pretty decent acting performance by Will Smith. That's about some of the best acting you're going to see in a zombie/action/horror movie.
Speaking of good acting performances, I like this story about Gordon Pinsent and the Oscars. He has virtually no chance of being nominated, let along winning. Nominations are as much about money and politics as they are the quality of performance, and Pinsent doesn't appear to have many in his corner with money or influence, despite the near universal acclaim over how well he did in Away From Her. But you can't help but like how modest he is and how genuinely touched he is the nice words Daniel Day-Lewis has to say about him. Both men are class acts.
Anyway, health providing I'll try and post more over the next few days.
So yeah, part of this weekend was spent with Cathy. The other part was spent immersing myself in the joy that comes with destroying Civilizations. That hasn't left much time for blogging.
Although we did manage to get out and see a movie last night - I Am Legend. Cathy's still a bit mad with me over that one. She doesn't like scary movies and I thought it was going to be more action oriented than it was. She's still pretty upset about the scene with the dog.
I did like it, but more the first two-thirds than the last one-third, where it kind of goes off the rails a bit for me. But really, that's a pretty decent acting performance by Will Smith. That's about some of the best acting you're going to see in a zombie/action/horror movie.
Speaking of good acting performances, I like this story about Gordon Pinsent and the Oscars. He has virtually no chance of being nominated, let along winning. Nominations are as much about money and politics as they are the quality of performance, and Pinsent doesn't appear to have many in his corner with money or influence, despite the near universal acclaim over how well he did in Away From Her. But you can't help but like how modest he is and how genuinely touched he is the nice words Daniel Day-Lewis has to say about him. Both men are class acts.
Anyway, health providing I'll try and post more over the next few days.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Let them eat tofu
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a bunch of links, but I think these all work well together:
1. I know that 2008 is but a crying infant at this point, but I’d like to present an early contender for quote of the year for all things relating to Nunavut. Ladies and Gentlemen, let them eat tofu...
2. I want my own personal army of witch doctors to cower people and make them live in fear of me.
3. I don’t know if this alarm clock is real or not (because Think Geek likes their gag items), but if it is, then I totally would stop hitting the snooze button in the morning. The problem is, there are so many organizations I hate, I’d be hard pressed to pick just one. Although if I had to pick one right now, an organization that suggests the Inuit should eat tofu rather than hunt animals would likely be high up there on the list.
4. Funny how Canadian North and First Air always announce their seat sales on the same day, and that each route, such as Iqaluit to Ottawa, have the same price. That ticket, by the way, is $1,258.26 return, including all taxes and fees. I think the days of getting a flight from here to Ottawa return for less than $1,000 is now over and done with.
5. I still have decided if I’m going to New York in April. I think it depends on a couple of factors…how bad the Visa bill is from the recent cruise, if I can get a decent seat sale from Ottawa to Newark and if I can budget the trip, all expenses in, for under $2,000. But if I do go, I desperately hope U2-3D is playing somewhere. It sounds like an awesome concert movie and after watching Beowulf in 3-D IMAX, I’d love to see this in the same format.
Last Five
1. What am I to you - Norah Jones
2. I would die for you - Garbage
3. Hallelujah - k.d. lang*
4. Ghost in this house - Allison Krauss and Union Station
5. Teeth in the grass - Iron & Wine
1. I know that 2008 is but a crying infant at this point, but I’d like to present an early contender for quote of the year for all things relating to Nunavut. Ladies and Gentlemen, let them eat tofu...
2. I want my own personal army of witch doctors to cower people and make them live in fear of me.
3. I don’t know if this alarm clock is real or not (because Think Geek likes their gag items), but if it is, then I totally would stop hitting the snooze button in the morning. The problem is, there are so many organizations I hate, I’d be hard pressed to pick just one. Although if I had to pick one right now, an organization that suggests the Inuit should eat tofu rather than hunt animals would likely be high up there on the list.
4. Funny how Canadian North and First Air always announce their seat sales on the same day, and that each route, such as Iqaluit to Ottawa, have the same price. That ticket, by the way, is $1,258.26 return, including all taxes and fees. I think the days of getting a flight from here to Ottawa return for less than $1,000 is now over and done with.
5. I still have decided if I’m going to New York in April. I think it depends on a couple of factors…how bad the Visa bill is from the recent cruise, if I can get a decent seat sale from Ottawa to Newark and if I can budget the trip, all expenses in, for under $2,000. But if I do go, I desperately hope U2-3D is playing somewhere. It sounds like an awesome concert movie and after watching Beowulf in 3-D IMAX, I’d love to see this in the same format.
Last Five
1. What am I to you - Norah Jones
2. I would die for you - Garbage
3. Hallelujah - k.d. lang*
4. Ghost in this house - Allison Krauss and Union Station
5. Teeth in the grass - Iron & Wine
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Fever dreams
I'm on Day 2 of feeling like crap. Well, Day 3 really, but Day 2 at home. I really figured I was going to go to work today when I went to bed last night. But I didn't get much sleep and what I did was deeply weird. I don't normally remember my dreams...I've never known if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but last night they were vivid on the rare occasion I managed to nod off when not coughing, sneezing or wondering why my head just didn't explode and get it over with.
And weird? Well, I didn't do much yesterday other try to do some reading, watch some TV and play a new video game - the Lego version of Star Wars: The Complete Saga. The video game is quite fun, although my brain really couldn't handle much of it yesterday. About the only other thing I spent any time on was watching the New Hampshire primary last night. So much for the Obama momentum, eh? Now we're into a dog fight.
Anyway, I managed to have fever dreams that combined the New Hampshire primary with Lego Star Wars. Don't ask me how. Don't even ask me to describe it, really, because I just can't. But it was weird enough that I couldn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. I ended up going out on the couch so I wouldn't wake up Cathy with my tossing and turning.
Anyway, woke up this morning, felt like crap and decided to burn another sick day. I would have been useless at work today.
Cathy didn't have a great night's sleep either, what with me flipping over every two minutes. One thing we miss about being down south, other than the warmth and shopping, was that we had real beds. I think we slept in a Queen-sized bed once. The rest of the time, including all of the cruise, we slept in King-sized beds. Now, those beds are almost too big and if we had one all the time, I think it could be weird. But considering we sleep on a little Double bed, those large beds were real luxuries.
They also had good pillows on board the cruise ship. As Cathy would say, they were "Ninja Pillows." You could buy the pillows and sheets from Carnival, but we decided not to. I think we're regretting that now. It's our first, "here's something we should have bought while we were out" moment - new pillows. The ones we have now are a couple of years old and mine felt like trying to rest my head on a brick last night.
We'll take a look around town on the weekend, but I'm not optimistic. We were looking at Sears for pillows, but they have something like five pages of them. And really, pillows are one of those things you like to try out a bit before buying.
Cathy has said I've been brain dead for the last couple of days. The cold is, of course, to blame. But if you need further proof, this blog post might be in. Fever dreams involving the New Hampshire primary and a need for good pillows. That's all I have in my brain today.
I look forward to the cold being over so I can think reasonably straight again.
Last Five
1. Let it die - Foo Fighters
2. Little tragedies - Hawksley Workman*
3. Wake up dead man - U2
4. End over end - Foo Fighters
5. Sun King - The Beatles
And weird? Well, I didn't do much yesterday other try to do some reading, watch some TV and play a new video game - the Lego version of Star Wars: The Complete Saga. The video game is quite fun, although my brain really couldn't handle much of it yesterday. About the only other thing I spent any time on was watching the New Hampshire primary last night. So much for the Obama momentum, eh? Now we're into a dog fight.
Anyway, I managed to have fever dreams that combined the New Hampshire primary with Lego Star Wars. Don't ask me how. Don't even ask me to describe it, really, because I just can't. But it was weird enough that I couldn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. I ended up going out on the couch so I wouldn't wake up Cathy with my tossing and turning.
Anyway, woke up this morning, felt like crap and decided to burn another sick day. I would have been useless at work today.
Cathy didn't have a great night's sleep either, what with me flipping over every two minutes. One thing we miss about being down south, other than the warmth and shopping, was that we had real beds. I think we slept in a Queen-sized bed once. The rest of the time, including all of the cruise, we slept in King-sized beds. Now, those beds are almost too big and if we had one all the time, I think it could be weird. But considering we sleep on a little Double bed, those large beds were real luxuries.
They also had good pillows on board the cruise ship. As Cathy would say, they were "Ninja Pillows." You could buy the pillows and sheets from Carnival, but we decided not to. I think we're regretting that now. It's our first, "here's something we should have bought while we were out" moment - new pillows. The ones we have now are a couple of years old and mine felt like trying to rest my head on a brick last night.
We'll take a look around town on the weekend, but I'm not optimistic. We were looking at Sears for pillows, but they have something like five pages of them. And really, pillows are one of those things you like to try out a bit before buying.
Cathy has said I've been brain dead for the last couple of days. The cold is, of course, to blame. But if you need further proof, this blog post might be in. Fever dreams involving the New Hampshire primary and a need for good pillows. That's all I have in my brain today.
I look forward to the cold being over so I can think reasonably straight again.
Last Five
1. Let it die - Foo Fighters
2. Little tragedies - Hawksley Workman*
3. Wake up dead man - U2
4. End over end - Foo Fighters
5. Sun King - The Beatles
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Sick day and awards
Stayed home sick today as my head felt like it was going explode and I felt just generally crappy. I might have tried to tough it out, but what was shaping up to be a major pain in the ass week at work magically got easier yesterday, so I can afford to stay home sick for a day, possibly two if necessary.
Oh, and we finally got the car back from the garage....again. The dead battery is repaired. The guys at the garage agreed that an eight year old battery in a Hyudnai Accent that has already died twice was pretty much a lost cause. No idea of the damages yet. They were working late because of the backlog of vehicles and didn't have time to do up a receipt yet. I'll find out what it is tomorrow.
Boo is going slowly mad. He hasn't been out in days, but with the temperatures so cold, we can't take him outside. Even with his coat and boots, it's way too cold. -53 today (schools close at -55, apparently). Tomorrow it gets up to a balmy -47 with windchill. Dear god....
On a more sunny note, I discovered after I got back that Claire has decided to create the Nunies - the Nunavut Blogging Awards. There are three categories - 1. Best Nunavut Blog 2. Best New Nunavut Blog (started in 2007) and 3. Best Blog Post.
For the record, Claire is disqualifying himself; his awards, his rules. Which is fine and I agree as far as that goes. But let's be clear, Claire would win this if he didn't exempt himself. So give him a lifetime achievement award or a Nunavut Blogging Excellence nod or something like that. Most of us wouldn't have found each other if not for the list of blogs that Claire keeps. So hats off to him.
I'm still deciding on who I'm going to submit. There are some that would be shoe-inns if they had only blogged a bit more in 2007. But I might nominate them anyway just because what they wrote was that entertaining anyway. The best post category is going to be the hard one. I think I might have to go back and dig around some of the blogs to find one. But there are a lot of good blogs with a lot of good things to say. It's going to be tough to narrow it down.
I know the award is just for fun and not to be taken too seriously, but it is nice to see the little blogging community thriving and doing well.
Last Five
1. What goes on - The Beatles
2. Monkey gone to heaven - The Pixies
3. Infatuation - Maroon 5
4. Whatever it takes - Ron Sexsmith
5. Not even jail - Interpol*
Oh, and we finally got the car back from the garage....again. The dead battery is repaired. The guys at the garage agreed that an eight year old battery in a Hyudnai Accent that has already died twice was pretty much a lost cause. No idea of the damages yet. They were working late because of the backlog of vehicles and didn't have time to do up a receipt yet. I'll find out what it is tomorrow.
Boo is going slowly mad. He hasn't been out in days, but with the temperatures so cold, we can't take him outside. Even with his coat and boots, it's way too cold. -53 today (schools close at -55, apparently). Tomorrow it gets up to a balmy -47 with windchill. Dear god....
On a more sunny note, I discovered after I got back that Claire has decided to create the Nunies - the Nunavut Blogging Awards. There are three categories - 1. Best Nunavut Blog 2. Best New Nunavut Blog (started in 2007) and 3. Best Blog Post.
For the record, Claire is disqualifying himself; his awards, his rules. Which is fine and I agree as far as that goes. But let's be clear, Claire would win this if he didn't exempt himself. So give him a lifetime achievement award or a Nunavut Blogging Excellence nod or something like that. Most of us wouldn't have found each other if not for the list of blogs that Claire keeps. So hats off to him.
I'm still deciding on who I'm going to submit. There are some that would be shoe-inns if they had only blogged a bit more in 2007. But I might nominate them anyway just because what they wrote was that entertaining anyway. The best post category is going to be the hard one. I think I might have to go back and dig around some of the blogs to find one. But there are a lot of good blogs with a lot of good things to say. It's going to be tough to narrow it down.
I know the award is just for fun and not to be taken too seriously, but it is nice to see the little blogging community thriving and doing well.
Last Five
1. What goes on - The Beatles
2. Monkey gone to heaven - The Pixies
3. Infatuation - Maroon 5
4. Whatever it takes - Ron Sexsmith
5. Not even jail - Interpol*
Monday, January 07, 2008
Jesus, the cold
Folks, there's no other way to describe it....it's fucking cold here today. -57 with windchill. Jesus Christ.
Yes, it's profanity level cold. And as we're on at least Day 4 of an Extreme Windchill Warning, with about another 36 hours of it left, then I think it at least should be met with an extreme amount of profanity. It's God damn, fucking cold here and there's no way around that. And this just isn't some transplanted southerner bitching and moaning about the cold. People who have lived up here all their lives are complaining about the cold.
I did some checking around earlier, and while I stand to be corrected, I think Iqaluit was the coldest place in Canada today. By a lot. I couldn't find anywhere in Nunavut that came close. And that included checking Grise Fiord, Eureka and Alert. The northern tip of Ellesmere Island, within spitting distance of the North Pole, was warmer than Iqaluit today. That's just deeply wrong.
About the only people happy with this kind of cold are the garages. This is the kind of cold that killed our car's transmission last year. This year it just took out the battery. I called the garage today to see how it was going on getting that replaced. They haven't yet as they spent most of the day running out to tow in vehicles that have died. They must be making a fortune.
Actually, I'm wrong. There are other groups happy with this level of cold are kids and teachers. Seems there are new regulations that says when the temperatures drops below -50 with windchill, they close the schools. They don't want kids waiting for the bus out in these kind of temperatures since you can get frostbite in a matter of minutes. So Cathy got an unexpected day off. That made her happy.
Me, I had to go to work. Getting a taxi was a challenge because:
1. No one wants to walk to work in this kind of cold
2. About half the cars in town are probably in a garage for repairs.
You know things are deeply wrong when you're wishing for the balmy temperatures of -25 like we had in Ottawa last week, let alone the mind-blowing warmth we had in Fort Lauderdale when it was a scorching 9 C. The 35 we had in the Caribbean? Might as well be the surface of the sun to us right now.
It's going to be a long winter, I think.
Last Five
1. Down on Rodeo - Lindsay Buckingham*
2. Dance hall days - Wang Chung
3. Not about to lose - Ron Sexsmith
4. Love is a place - Metric
5. Underneath days - Bob Mould
Yes, it's profanity level cold. And as we're on at least Day 4 of an Extreme Windchill Warning, with about another 36 hours of it left, then I think it at least should be met with an extreme amount of profanity. It's God damn, fucking cold here and there's no way around that. And this just isn't some transplanted southerner bitching and moaning about the cold. People who have lived up here all their lives are complaining about the cold.
I did some checking around earlier, and while I stand to be corrected, I think Iqaluit was the coldest place in Canada today. By a lot. I couldn't find anywhere in Nunavut that came close. And that included checking Grise Fiord, Eureka and Alert. The northern tip of Ellesmere Island, within spitting distance of the North Pole, was warmer than Iqaluit today. That's just deeply wrong.
About the only people happy with this kind of cold are the garages. This is the kind of cold that killed our car's transmission last year. This year it just took out the battery. I called the garage today to see how it was going on getting that replaced. They haven't yet as they spent most of the day running out to tow in vehicles that have died. They must be making a fortune.
Actually, I'm wrong. There are other groups happy with this level of cold are kids and teachers. Seems there are new regulations that says when the temperatures drops below -50 with windchill, they close the schools. They don't want kids waiting for the bus out in these kind of temperatures since you can get frostbite in a matter of minutes. So Cathy got an unexpected day off. That made her happy.
Me, I had to go to work. Getting a taxi was a challenge because:
1. No one wants to walk to work in this kind of cold
2. About half the cars in town are probably in a garage for repairs.
You know things are deeply wrong when you're wishing for the balmy temperatures of -25 like we had in Ottawa last week, let alone the mind-blowing warmth we had in Fort Lauderdale when it was a scorching 9 C. The 35 we had in the Caribbean? Might as well be the surface of the sun to us right now.
It's going to be a long winter, I think.
Last Five
1. Down on Rodeo - Lindsay Buckingham*
2. Dance hall days - Wang Chung
3. Not about to lose - Ron Sexsmith
4. Love is a place - Metric
5. Underneath days - Bob Mould
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Computer headaches
So, last day of vacation and it feels like I'm coming down with a cold. That's not bad timing, I guess. Certainly better than coming down with one on the first day of vacation, but I don't think anyone at work is going to believe me if I call in sick tomorrow. So unless I'm half-dead on Monday morning I'm going to have to tough it out.
As for today, I wish I could say it was spent relaxing and taking it easy on the last day of vacation, but instead I did somethings probably not all that bright. First thing I did was touch up a good chunk of the photos we took during vacation and then sent them off to Wal-Mart. Cathy's folks are going to pick them up for us and send them up in a care package in a few weeks. Yes, our printer can do photos, but it's still much cheaper for Wal-Mart to do it then using our own ink on the photos.
Anyway, I thought that might take an hour or two. It was closer to four because of a few hiccups with the Wal-Mart site.
But then we had the real migraine...I decided to install Windows on my computer.
The nice thing about the new Macs is that I can do this. When I was in Florida I bought VM Fusion (software that allows Windows to run at the same time on my Mac) and a copy of Windows. I know Windows is evil because I use it at work. But at least there I have tech support when things go horrifically wrong. Here, I just have myself and I haven't used Windows on my own since about 1999.
Anyway, after some head bashing against the wall, I managed to get Fusion installed and updated, Windows installed and updated and then an anti-virus program installed and updated. So that was several more hours up in smoke. The one thing I failed to get done was my copy of Civilizations installed. I kept getting error messages and gave up at that point before pitching the works of it out the window.
If nothing else, dealing with Windows has once again reconfirmed why I love Macs so much. Turn them on and the bloody things work out of the box. Hours of fussing around with Windows and my work still isn't done.
Anyway, tomorrow is back to work and I guess back to posting about things other than vacation. Tomorrow is kind of the unofficial start to the new year in Nunavut. All the schools are back and most people who went out for Christmas are now back, or will be shortly. Break time's over.
As for today, I wish I could say it was spent relaxing and taking it easy on the last day of vacation, but instead I did somethings probably not all that bright. First thing I did was touch up a good chunk of the photos we took during vacation and then sent them off to Wal-Mart. Cathy's folks are going to pick them up for us and send them up in a care package in a few weeks. Yes, our printer can do photos, but it's still much cheaper for Wal-Mart to do it then using our own ink on the photos.
Anyway, I thought that might take an hour or two. It was closer to four because of a few hiccups with the Wal-Mart site.
But then we had the real migraine...I decided to install Windows on my computer.
The nice thing about the new Macs is that I can do this. When I was in Florida I bought VM Fusion (software that allows Windows to run at the same time on my Mac) and a copy of Windows. I know Windows is evil because I use it at work. But at least there I have tech support when things go horrifically wrong. Here, I just have myself and I haven't used Windows on my own since about 1999.
Anyway, after some head bashing against the wall, I managed to get Fusion installed and updated, Windows installed and updated and then an anti-virus program installed and updated. So that was several more hours up in smoke. The one thing I failed to get done was my copy of Civilizations installed. I kept getting error messages and gave up at that point before pitching the works of it out the window.
If nothing else, dealing with Windows has once again reconfirmed why I love Macs so much. Turn them on and the bloody things work out of the box. Hours of fussing around with Windows and my work still isn't done.
Anyway, tomorrow is back to work and I guess back to posting about things other than vacation. Tomorrow is kind of the unofficial start to the new year in Nunavut. All the schools are back and most people who went out for Christmas are now back, or will be shortly. Break time's over.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Home again.
So I can manage to post every day I'm on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, but as soon as I hit dry land, I promptly disappear. Typical. Anyway, it's been a busy few days, so here's what's happened since the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale on January 2.
Jan. 2
We hit port around 7 a.m. Once you get into port the cruise people would like to get you off the ship as quickly as possible so they can get the next group of people in. No kidding, by 10 a.m. they have everybody off the ship. By about noon they are taking on the next load of passengers and by 5 p.m. they're off to sea again. Not much in the way of relaxing.
By the way, one last thing about being on a cruise ship. They tell you to budget spending $100 per person, per day. Considering there were two of us on the ship for nine days, we were a bit horrified about that thought. Mercifully, we didn't come close to that. I think what helped is that we didn't drink very much - about five drinks between the two of us - and we didn't gamble at the casino. Our biggest expenses were the internet, soft drink cards, the zip line excursion, photos and tips. We did spend money ashore, but St. Maartin was the worse for it (duty-free and tax free. Everybody went a bit nuts there). The other three islands we didn't spend much at all.
There are two ways of getting off the ship. The slow way is to put your bags outside your door around midnight before you land, and they will take them ashore for you and assist you in disembarking. The quick way is to crab your own gear and drag it off yourself. We wanted to get ashore as quickly as possible. No sense waiting around the boat when we could punt around Fort Lauderdale for the day. Although most of the ones wanting to get off quickly had early flights to catch.
Anyway, we hit port at about the same time as a blast of Arctic air. We got off the ship thinking it was just a bit chilly in the morning, but no, the temperatures remained consistently around 5-10C throughout the day. That mean we needed to change out of the shorts, t-shirt and crocs we were wearing quickly. Fortunately, when we went to the hotel, basically just to drop off our bags, they let us check in early. That made up for the internet not working in the room during our stay (hence the lack of posting).
We kicked around town a bit, finally managed to find a Borders book store and gleefully spent several hours there. That evening, when Cathy found a Beals (where she bought tops for $5 and was very happy) I went and saw Beowulf in 3-D IMAX. Cathy passed on seeing Beowulf....lingering traumatic mental damage from high school English. But I never read it and was curious.
I can't say I loved the movie's story or characters, but by god it is spectacular to look at. In that format, it is probably one of the best looking movies I've ever seen. So I'm glad I went. It was the only movie I saw on vacation, which is a disappointment, but we just had no time.
Jan. 3
Up bright and early to catch our flight to Ottawa. Now, here's the thing. Unless you're an idiot there are plenty of signs and warnings telling you that when you travel internationally to and from the United States, you arrive at the airport early. As in about two hours early. Our flight left a little after 8 a.m. So that mean we were up at 5, caught the shuttle to the airport at 5:30 and were at the airport by 6. We didn't clear security until about 7:15 a.m.
Were the lines that bad? No, not really. The reason it took so long is that Delta Airlines does this unique little thing that I've never seen before. They go through the line and yell out what time your flight leaves. So at 6:20 they started asking if anyone had a flight leaving at 7. A bunch did. So they pulled them ahead of us in the line to let them get checked in. And this went on and on. I'd estimate a good 40-50 people skipped ahead of us in the line because they were late showing up at the airport. Whereas our reward for not being idiots and showing up for an international flight 45 minutes before it departs two days after New Years was to constantly have people waved passed us.
I finally had enough as the time was pushing closer to 7 a.m. and told the woman escorting people passed us that we were taking the next agent and that my patience with these people being late and getting rushed passed us was over. I was polite, but really, that's bullshit. You arrive that late, you deserve to miss you flight.
The rest of the day was uneventful. We breezed passed customs in Ottawa and then spent the rest of the day in a rental car doing some last minute resupplying before heading up north. Cathy discovered our bags were actually light. You can't go back to Iqaluit with bags not packed to the limit. So we hit a Wal-Mart and a few other places to grab a few things.
Jan. 4
The big event of this day was that we made it into Iqaluit. Although I checked the weather the night before and it said it was supposed to be clear and cold (God damn cold. As in around -50). I figured the worse we were going to face was trying to get a cab at the Iqaluit airport. With all our bags, all the passengers and with us wearing light winter coats, it was going to be pretty brutal.
Little did I know a blizzard manage to sneak up on the town. And since we were late leaving Ottawa because of deicing, we arrived in the air over the town just as the blizzard was beginning to kick into gear. So we spent about 20 minutes circling town, waiting to see if we could land. Cathy and I were offering up prayers to anyone listening as we not only really wanted to get home at this point, but wed already emailed the person housesitting for us they could go home. That meant there was no one to take care of Boo if we got redirected to Rankin Inlet for the evening.
However, we did get to land. Not the smoothest landing in the world, but we did. And once we were on the ground, they began cancelling flights all over the place. So it was pretty lucky we got down when we did.
And it was as cold as I expected. Folks, never doubt for a second that -52 hurts when you're not wearing the right clothing. I had to run out into the parking lot to get a cart to carry our luggage. Perhaps the most painful two minutes I've had in several years. It hurt. My skin was burning and my head aching for hours afterwards.
Anyway, we got home safe and sound. Boo is one big furry knot having not been brushed in a couple of weeks, but he seemed pretty happy to see us. Although he's unhappy about not getting walks, but really, we're getting extreme windchill warnings from Environment Canada for the next few days. That cold we experienced in Fort Lauderdale had to have its start somewhere. I'm not saying it was in Iqaluit, but I suspect we're pretty close to it.
And now, back to work on Monday. Man, vacation time just flies....
Jan. 2
We hit port around 7 a.m. Once you get into port the cruise people would like to get you off the ship as quickly as possible so they can get the next group of people in. No kidding, by 10 a.m. they have everybody off the ship. By about noon they are taking on the next load of passengers and by 5 p.m. they're off to sea again. Not much in the way of relaxing.
By the way, one last thing about being on a cruise ship. They tell you to budget spending $100 per person, per day. Considering there were two of us on the ship for nine days, we were a bit horrified about that thought. Mercifully, we didn't come close to that. I think what helped is that we didn't drink very much - about five drinks between the two of us - and we didn't gamble at the casino. Our biggest expenses were the internet, soft drink cards, the zip line excursion, photos and tips. We did spend money ashore, but St. Maartin was the worse for it (duty-free and tax free. Everybody went a bit nuts there). The other three islands we didn't spend much at all.
There are two ways of getting off the ship. The slow way is to put your bags outside your door around midnight before you land, and they will take them ashore for you and assist you in disembarking. The quick way is to crab your own gear and drag it off yourself. We wanted to get ashore as quickly as possible. No sense waiting around the boat when we could punt around Fort Lauderdale for the day. Although most of the ones wanting to get off quickly had early flights to catch.
Anyway, we hit port at about the same time as a blast of Arctic air. We got off the ship thinking it was just a bit chilly in the morning, but no, the temperatures remained consistently around 5-10C throughout the day. That mean we needed to change out of the shorts, t-shirt and crocs we were wearing quickly. Fortunately, when we went to the hotel, basically just to drop off our bags, they let us check in early. That made up for the internet not working in the room during our stay (hence the lack of posting).
We kicked around town a bit, finally managed to find a Borders book store and gleefully spent several hours there. That evening, when Cathy found a Beals (where she bought tops for $5 and was very happy) I went and saw Beowulf in 3-D IMAX. Cathy passed on seeing Beowulf....lingering traumatic mental damage from high school English. But I never read it and was curious.
I can't say I loved the movie's story or characters, but by god it is spectacular to look at. In that format, it is probably one of the best looking movies I've ever seen. So I'm glad I went. It was the only movie I saw on vacation, which is a disappointment, but we just had no time.
Jan. 3
Up bright and early to catch our flight to Ottawa. Now, here's the thing. Unless you're an idiot there are plenty of signs and warnings telling you that when you travel internationally to and from the United States, you arrive at the airport early. As in about two hours early. Our flight left a little after 8 a.m. So that mean we were up at 5, caught the shuttle to the airport at 5:30 and were at the airport by 6. We didn't clear security until about 7:15 a.m.
Were the lines that bad? No, not really. The reason it took so long is that Delta Airlines does this unique little thing that I've never seen before. They go through the line and yell out what time your flight leaves. So at 6:20 they started asking if anyone had a flight leaving at 7. A bunch did. So they pulled them ahead of us in the line to let them get checked in. And this went on and on. I'd estimate a good 40-50 people skipped ahead of us in the line because they were late showing up at the airport. Whereas our reward for not being idiots and showing up for an international flight 45 minutes before it departs two days after New Years was to constantly have people waved passed us.
I finally had enough as the time was pushing closer to 7 a.m. and told the woman escorting people passed us that we were taking the next agent and that my patience with these people being late and getting rushed passed us was over. I was polite, but really, that's bullshit. You arrive that late, you deserve to miss you flight.
The rest of the day was uneventful. We breezed passed customs in Ottawa and then spent the rest of the day in a rental car doing some last minute resupplying before heading up north. Cathy discovered our bags were actually light. You can't go back to Iqaluit with bags not packed to the limit. So we hit a Wal-Mart and a few other places to grab a few things.
Jan. 4
The big event of this day was that we made it into Iqaluit. Although I checked the weather the night before and it said it was supposed to be clear and cold (God damn cold. As in around -50). I figured the worse we were going to face was trying to get a cab at the Iqaluit airport. With all our bags, all the passengers and with us wearing light winter coats, it was going to be pretty brutal.
Little did I know a blizzard manage to sneak up on the town. And since we were late leaving Ottawa because of deicing, we arrived in the air over the town just as the blizzard was beginning to kick into gear. So we spent about 20 minutes circling town, waiting to see if we could land. Cathy and I were offering up prayers to anyone listening as we not only really wanted to get home at this point, but wed already emailed the person housesitting for us they could go home. That meant there was no one to take care of Boo if we got redirected to Rankin Inlet for the evening.
However, we did get to land. Not the smoothest landing in the world, but we did. And once we were on the ground, they began cancelling flights all over the place. So it was pretty lucky we got down when we did.
And it was as cold as I expected. Folks, never doubt for a second that -52 hurts when you're not wearing the right clothing. I had to run out into the parking lot to get a cart to carry our luggage. Perhaps the most painful two minutes I've had in several years. It hurt. My skin was burning and my head aching for hours afterwards.
Anyway, we got home safe and sound. Boo is one big furry knot having not been brushed in a couple of weeks, but he seemed pretty happy to see us. Although he's unhappy about not getting walks, but really, we're getting extreme windchill warnings from Environment Canada for the next few days. That cold we experienced in Fort Lauderdale had to have its start somewhere. I'm not saying it was in Iqaluit, but I suspect we're pretty close to it.
And now, back to work on Monday. Man, vacation time just flies....
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Cruising, part 8
So here we are on the last full day of the cruise. We’ll disembark tomorrow morning and that will be that. We came back from lunch to find a US Custom declaration form and the questionnaire on how was the cruise.
I think that’s been a topic of discussion amongst a lot of the passengers. We’re cruise ship virgins, and I don’t think we’ve hit any others in that category. I’m sure they’re here, we just haven’t met them. Most have done several cruises at this point. We met one couple who said this was their 18th cruise. I overheard a guy who said this was his fifth...this year.
None of them seemed especially wowed. They didn’t hate the cruise. They thought it was perfectly fine. But they had all been on better ones with other cruise lines (Royal Caribbean and Princess were cited as being better). And while this was our first and we enjoyed ourselves, it certainly could have been better.
I think one of the disappointments was that since we were travelling at Christmas and New Years, we were expecting more festivities. This was a cruise that happened to take place over the holidays, rather than a holiday cruise. There’s a difference there, obviously. It’s almost like the cruise line was a bit afraid of offending people who weren’t Christians. I’m not Christian, but I’m not going to be offended if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukah. It’s the holiday season. Enjoy it, whatever it’s called. And the cruise line should have done more to celebrate the occasion.
It’s a nice ship, I like the decor. The staff has been very friendly, especially our marvelous waitress, who is originally from Poland, and speaks English in a marvelous singing accent. And our room stewart, who keeps making animals our of towels and leaving them on our bed. Mercifully, we haven’t encountered to many cases of the passengers being asses to the staff.
I think the disappointments have been the food, especially in the main meal in the evening, and the ship board activities, which have been kind of lame. Also, the constant attempts to milk money from you in any number of ways. I appreciate all cruise ships probably do this, but really, it’s exhausting dealing with it going on all the time.
Will we do another cruise? Maybe, but it’s not on the immediate priority travel list and nothing we’ve experienced on this trip made us want to bump off other planned vacations for another cruise. We’ll get around to the Panama Canal eventually, but I think Italy, Australia, Costa Rica and a couple of other trips will come first.
As for the islands, I think we would come back and visit both St. Lucia and Tortola. St. Maarten was nice and all, but it was mostly for the shopping. St, Kitt’s just seemed kind of bland. I know there is much more than than what we saw, but there wasn’t enough to make us want to go back and discover it.
St. Lucia is a lovely tropical paradise. It’s beautiful, with nice people and amazing beaches. I could easily go back and spend another week there. As for Tortola, well, I think I need to either learn to swim or sail first, but it’s a lovely island. And as part of the British Virgin Islands, there are plenty of other islands nearby and easily accessible to explore. I don’t think it would be hard to kill a couple of weeks there. For that matter, if someone made Cathy a decent enough job offer, I suspect we’d be moving there in short order.
I don’t mean this to sound like a downer post. We’ve had a really good time the past couple of weeks and it tends to be easier to focus on the negative than the positive. It was a much need break of warmth and sunlight. Aside from wanting to see Boo and having to go back to work so that we can pay for this vacation, we’re quite happy to stay here. Iqaluit is certainly going to be a shock to the system.
But hey, it’s been fun while it lasted.
I think that’s been a topic of discussion amongst a lot of the passengers. We’re cruise ship virgins, and I don’t think we’ve hit any others in that category. I’m sure they’re here, we just haven’t met them. Most have done several cruises at this point. We met one couple who said this was their 18th cruise. I overheard a guy who said this was his fifth...this year.
None of them seemed especially wowed. They didn’t hate the cruise. They thought it was perfectly fine. But they had all been on better ones with other cruise lines (Royal Caribbean and Princess were cited as being better). And while this was our first and we enjoyed ourselves, it certainly could have been better.
I think one of the disappointments was that since we were travelling at Christmas and New Years, we were expecting more festivities. This was a cruise that happened to take place over the holidays, rather than a holiday cruise. There’s a difference there, obviously. It’s almost like the cruise line was a bit afraid of offending people who weren’t Christians. I’m not Christian, but I’m not going to be offended if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukah. It’s the holiday season. Enjoy it, whatever it’s called. And the cruise line should have done more to celebrate the occasion.
It’s a nice ship, I like the decor. The staff has been very friendly, especially our marvelous waitress, who is originally from Poland, and speaks English in a marvelous singing accent. And our room stewart, who keeps making animals our of towels and leaving them on our bed. Mercifully, we haven’t encountered to many cases of the passengers being asses to the staff.
I think the disappointments have been the food, especially in the main meal in the evening, and the ship board activities, which have been kind of lame. Also, the constant attempts to milk money from you in any number of ways. I appreciate all cruise ships probably do this, but really, it’s exhausting dealing with it going on all the time.
Will we do another cruise? Maybe, but it’s not on the immediate priority travel list and nothing we’ve experienced on this trip made us want to bump off other planned vacations for another cruise. We’ll get around to the Panama Canal eventually, but I think Italy, Australia, Costa Rica and a couple of other trips will come first.
As for the islands, I think we would come back and visit both St. Lucia and Tortola. St. Maarten was nice and all, but it was mostly for the shopping. St, Kitt’s just seemed kind of bland. I know there is much more than than what we saw, but there wasn’t enough to make us want to go back and discover it.
St. Lucia is a lovely tropical paradise. It’s beautiful, with nice people and amazing beaches. I could easily go back and spend another week there. As for Tortola, well, I think I need to either learn to swim or sail first, but it’s a lovely island. And as part of the British Virgin Islands, there are plenty of other islands nearby and easily accessible to explore. I don’t think it would be hard to kill a couple of weeks there. For that matter, if someone made Cathy a decent enough job offer, I suspect we’d be moving there in short order.
I don’t mean this to sound like a downer post. We’ve had a really good time the past couple of weeks and it tends to be easier to focus on the negative than the positive. It was a much need break of warmth and sunlight. Aside from wanting to see Boo and having to go back to work so that we can pay for this vacation, we’re quite happy to stay here. Iqaluit is certainly going to be a shock to the system.
But hey, it’s been fun while it lasted.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Cruising, part 7
So, the second last day of the cruise. Well, I guess third, as we get into port on January 2nd. However, we’re going to try and disembark as early as we can. I see no reason to stay on the boat until noon or so when we could get off around 9 a.m. and then spend the whole day puttering around Fort Lauderdale instead. I think Beowulf is playing at a local theatre in 3-D IMAX, and I would love to see that.
It feels hotter today than it has when we were further south. I understand why, of course. In our other ports of call we had the trade winds, air conditioning and a dip in the ocean to keep us cool. On the boat you still have the air conditioning, but most of the places where you would lie out in the sun is shaded from the wind. So it’s very easy to roast. I tried lying out and getting a tan for a bit today. I lasted about 40 minutes and cried uncle. Yes, the Vitamin D is lovely and all, but I was beginning to feel like a roasted pig. As for dipping in the ocean, well, I think they frown on that when we’re moving at 20 knots. And the pools are, of course, packed.
There was also a hairiest chest contest on-board today. I take great comfort in knowing I wouldn’t have won if I entered.
The other highlight...flying fish. I don’t know how we didn’t notice them before, but there are schools of flying fish racing alongside the ship for short bursts. I know people down here think nothing of them. It would be like me making a big deal of seeing a cod. But they’re kind of cool to watch. It’s like they’re surfing on air for short bursts of time before wiping out into an ocean swell.
It also brought back a memory of when we were in St. Kitt’s. I went to a little place on the beach looking for some food. A woman next to me asked the counterperson what kind of fish was in the fish sandwich. Apparently it was flying fish. I had the image of the woman trying to take a bite of the sandwich and the fish making a break from the bun and flying off to the ocean.
Yes, my brain in strange.
This evening, of course, is New Years. That means I suspect very few of you are reading this right now. But hey, I write because I like it. They have some things planned, but it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of activities going on. A party on the upper deck starting at 11 p.m. A formal supper and a few other activities. We’ll be celebrating New Year’s somewhere off the coast of Cuba. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, although some part of me wishes we were back in Newfoundland for our traditional New Years at Anne’s (now Karin and Andrew’s). The warmth is nice and all, but it would be good to have some family and friends around to celebrate New Year’s with.
Anyway, tomorrow I’ll do a wrap up of what we thought of the boat and which islands we would recommend and want to go back and visit again.
I hope you all have a Happy New Years, where ever you are in the world today.
It feels hotter today than it has when we were further south. I understand why, of course. In our other ports of call we had the trade winds, air conditioning and a dip in the ocean to keep us cool. On the boat you still have the air conditioning, but most of the places where you would lie out in the sun is shaded from the wind. So it’s very easy to roast. I tried lying out and getting a tan for a bit today. I lasted about 40 minutes and cried uncle. Yes, the Vitamin D is lovely and all, but I was beginning to feel like a roasted pig. As for dipping in the ocean, well, I think they frown on that when we’re moving at 20 knots. And the pools are, of course, packed.
There was also a hairiest chest contest on-board today. I take great comfort in knowing I wouldn’t have won if I entered.
The other highlight...flying fish. I don’t know how we didn’t notice them before, but there are schools of flying fish racing alongside the ship for short bursts. I know people down here think nothing of them. It would be like me making a big deal of seeing a cod. But they’re kind of cool to watch. It’s like they’re surfing on air for short bursts of time before wiping out into an ocean swell.
It also brought back a memory of when we were in St. Kitt’s. I went to a little place on the beach looking for some food. A woman next to me asked the counterperson what kind of fish was in the fish sandwich. Apparently it was flying fish. I had the image of the woman trying to take a bite of the sandwich and the fish making a break from the bun and flying off to the ocean.
Yes, my brain in strange.
This evening, of course, is New Years. That means I suspect very few of you are reading this right now. But hey, I write because I like it. They have some things planned, but it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of activities going on. A party on the upper deck starting at 11 p.m. A formal supper and a few other activities. We’ll be celebrating New Year’s somewhere off the coast of Cuba. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, although some part of me wishes we were back in Newfoundland for our traditional New Years at Anne’s (now Karin and Andrew’s). The warmth is nice and all, but it would be good to have some family and friends around to celebrate New Year’s with.
Anyway, tomorrow I’ll do a wrap up of what we thought of the boat and which islands we would recommend and want to go back and visit again.
I hope you all have a Happy New Years, where ever you are in the world today.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Cruising, part 6
Ah Tortola....
I feel a touch like an idiot for not knowing Tortola is the biggest island in the British Virgin Islands. It feels like one of those things I really ought to have known, or perhaps did know, but just forgot. Regardless, it wasn’t until we hit the tourist information booth today did we realize where we were.
I’d feel like an idiot if Cathy hadn’t told me about the conversation she overheard at the gift shop yesterday. A lady was arguing with one of the sales clerks about how many sea days there were after Tortola. The lady said it was one; the clerk two. After realizing the clerk might indeed have a better idea than she did, the lady apparently ran off to her room to call her travel agent to fix her tickets home.
Oooops.
Anyway, Tortola certainly started off like it was going to be a bad day. It’s the longest island stop of the cruise, but we’re at the island on a Sunday when everything is closed. And to add to matters, our sea kayaking adventure was cancelled because of high winds. So there we were on the dock at 8:45 a.m. with suddenly nothing to do.
We opted for a tour of the island. It turned out to be better than I expected, with lots of local information and plenty of stunning views. Tortola makes San Francisco or St. John’s like prairie. It’s also the first time I’ve feared for my life in a vehicle since the Pacific Coast Highway last year. You go up and down several hundred feet in a matter of minutes, around blind hairpin turns and with new roads appearing from nowhere. No one appears to wear a seatbelt either.
But we didn’t see any accidents or bodies, so I guess they know what they’re doing. All the Caribbean islands have volcanic origins, but you really feel it with Tortola.
When the tour finished around noon, we decided to head to one of the sister islands of Tortola. You can easily see dozens from the high points in Tortola, little islands scattered all over the place. We went to Virgin Gorgola (I think that’s the spelling) which reputed had this amazing beach. So we hopped on a ferry and went over.
The reputation was worth it. It’s not one of the typical Caribbean beaches, with vendors all over the place and miles of sandy beach. There was a beach, but also plenty of large rocks sheltering the place. It was like a Newfoundland beach, in someways, except the water was warm and you could actually see the ocean bottom.
I finally found the Caribbean beach they advertise in all those commercials. It really was crystal clear waters. We’re kind of kicking ourselves for not going there first thing in the morning. We only really got to spend an hour splashing around before having to head back. We didn’t even have snorkeling gear with us. It’s the first time we’ve kicked ourselves for doing the wrong thing on the cruise. It really was a lovely beach.
And now we’re heading back to Fort Lauderdale. We arrive back in port on January 2. Time she flies like a fruit, my friends....
I feel a touch like an idiot for not knowing Tortola is the biggest island in the British Virgin Islands. It feels like one of those things I really ought to have known, or perhaps did know, but just forgot. Regardless, it wasn’t until we hit the tourist information booth today did we realize where we were.
I’d feel like an idiot if Cathy hadn’t told me about the conversation she overheard at the gift shop yesterday. A lady was arguing with one of the sales clerks about how many sea days there were after Tortola. The lady said it was one; the clerk two. After realizing the clerk might indeed have a better idea than she did, the lady apparently ran off to her room to call her travel agent to fix her tickets home.
Oooops.
Anyway, Tortola certainly started off like it was going to be a bad day. It’s the longest island stop of the cruise, but we’re at the island on a Sunday when everything is closed. And to add to matters, our sea kayaking adventure was cancelled because of high winds. So there we were on the dock at 8:45 a.m. with suddenly nothing to do.
We opted for a tour of the island. It turned out to be better than I expected, with lots of local information and plenty of stunning views. Tortola makes San Francisco or St. John’s like prairie. It’s also the first time I’ve feared for my life in a vehicle since the Pacific Coast Highway last year. You go up and down several hundred feet in a matter of minutes, around blind hairpin turns and with new roads appearing from nowhere. No one appears to wear a seatbelt either.
But we didn’t see any accidents or bodies, so I guess they know what they’re doing. All the Caribbean islands have volcanic origins, but you really feel it with Tortola.
When the tour finished around noon, we decided to head to one of the sister islands of Tortola. You can easily see dozens from the high points in Tortola, little islands scattered all over the place. We went to Virgin Gorgola (I think that’s the spelling) which reputed had this amazing beach. So we hopped on a ferry and went over.
The reputation was worth it. It’s not one of the typical Caribbean beaches, with vendors all over the place and miles of sandy beach. There was a beach, but also plenty of large rocks sheltering the place. It was like a Newfoundland beach, in someways, except the water was warm and you could actually see the ocean bottom.
I finally found the Caribbean beach they advertise in all those commercials. It really was crystal clear waters. We’re kind of kicking ourselves for not going there first thing in the morning. We only really got to spend an hour splashing around before having to head back. We didn’t even have snorkeling gear with us. It’s the first time we’ve kicked ourselves for doing the wrong thing on the cruise. It really was a lovely beach.
And now we’re heading back to Fort Lauderdale. We arrive back in port on January 2. Time she flies like a fruit, my friends....
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Cruising, part 4 and 5
We had technical difficulties yesterday...Carnival wouldn’t let us log on using the laptop, which meant no posting from this computer. So today it’s a two-for-one blog post. Below is yesterday’s post. So any reference to “today” actually means for the 28th.
As for today, we were in St. Kitt’s. Not much in the way of exploring for this place, nor can I really speak much about it. We got off the ship, hopped in a sea taxi, which zipped us over to a beach about 10 minutes away. And from there we sat on a beach for several hours. It was nice. Yes, we can laze around the boat all we want, but there is something to be said about roaming around on a beach and taking a dip in the Caribbean Sea to cool off a bit. We also managed to not get burned, through judicious use of sun screen and an umbrella. However, I think we did manage to get some colour, so the people in Nunavut won’t give me grief about going to the Caribbean and not getting a tan.
I’ve never really been laying out in the sun and getting a tan. I tend to get bored too quick. And even with my iPod and a fresh book (Hornsby’s “Slam”) I still felt the urge to roam up the beach and go hunting for shells and take pictures.
As for impression of the island...it’s seems more...domesticated than St. Lucia. Granted, we only saw a small part of the island, but there seemed to be more wealth kicking around as we saw quite a few expensive houses and cars. And there didn’t seem to be any imminent danger of the jungle taking over at any given moment.
And there are monkeys. I know this because we had several people offering to let the monkey crawl around me, and then someone to take my picture for a few dollars. I declined, mainly because the monkey’s, very small ones, never looked particularly happy.
Tomorrow is Tortola and then two days on the ocean to get back to Fort Lauderdale. We’ve been looking forward to this vacation for so long and it just seems to be flying by at warp speed.
........
So, St. Lucia today and the first of our paid excursions. We’re only doing two on this cruise. On Tortola we’re going sea kayaking. Today we had the bright idea to go on a zip line tour of a rain forest.
I don’t know who came up with the idea of doing this...sending people up into the canopy of a rainforest, lay about 5 pounds of gear and straps on their body, hook them to a thin line and then push them off the edge of a perfectly good tree. Whoever did come up with it was either a madman or a genius. But whatever the verdict, there’s no denying it’s a hell of a lot of fun. We managed to not make fools out of ourselves, although I discovered that it is very hard to swoop on the zip line and take photos at the same time. Pity, really.
Also, there wasn’t a lot to photograph. St. Lucia doesn’t appear to have a lot of native wildlife. Some snakes and birds, but certainly none of the really interesting and weird things you might see in Costa Rica, where we were thinking of going earlier this year.
No, the feeling you get in St. Lucia is green. Overwhelming, pervasive green. Not much in the way of riotous colour. Maybe we were there simply at the wrong time of the year. But instead what we saw was unending green.
Don’t get me wrong. We love the green. After all the snow in Nunavut, green is good. Green is amazing. And while I forgot to do it in St. Maarten, I did manage to get around to hugging a tree today. Granted, it happened when I failed to break properly coming to the end of a particularly long and fast stretch on the zip line and kind of hit the tree. Still, I welcomed its embrace. It was a good tree.
Our tour guide told us there is about 126,000 people on St. Lucia, which is weird when you consider the island is small - about 16 miles across, about 40 miles north to south. Nunavut has about 1,000,000 million square miles and 30,000 people. So that’s a lot of people with very little land to go around.
And yet, it never feels like the people are winning. When we sailed out of Castries this evening, you could look back and see far more trees than houses. It was like that when driving to the rain forest on the eastern part of the island. You would see houses, but they would be surrounded by trees. There were no lawns to speak of.
The humans are winning, but you get the feeling it could still go either way. Give the green of the island a few years without any humans around and they would make quick work of all traces of human settlement.
It’s a beautiful place. It hardly seems fair to judge it against St. Maarten. We saw little of that island aside from the market area. But we both really like St. Lucia. I could see us coming back some time in the future to visit for longer than a day.
As for today, we were in St. Kitt’s. Not much in the way of exploring for this place, nor can I really speak much about it. We got off the ship, hopped in a sea taxi, which zipped us over to a beach about 10 minutes away. And from there we sat on a beach for several hours. It was nice. Yes, we can laze around the boat all we want, but there is something to be said about roaming around on a beach and taking a dip in the Caribbean Sea to cool off a bit. We also managed to not get burned, through judicious use of sun screen and an umbrella. However, I think we did manage to get some colour, so the people in Nunavut won’t give me grief about going to the Caribbean and not getting a tan.
I’ve never really been laying out in the sun and getting a tan. I tend to get bored too quick. And even with my iPod and a fresh book (Hornsby’s “Slam”) I still felt the urge to roam up the beach and go hunting for shells and take pictures.
As for impression of the island...it’s seems more...domesticated than St. Lucia. Granted, we only saw a small part of the island, but there seemed to be more wealth kicking around as we saw quite a few expensive houses and cars. And there didn’t seem to be any imminent danger of the jungle taking over at any given moment.
And there are monkeys. I know this because we had several people offering to let the monkey crawl around me, and then someone to take my picture for a few dollars. I declined, mainly because the monkey’s, very small ones, never looked particularly happy.
Tomorrow is Tortola and then two days on the ocean to get back to Fort Lauderdale. We’ve been looking forward to this vacation for so long and it just seems to be flying by at warp speed.
........
So, St. Lucia today and the first of our paid excursions. We’re only doing two on this cruise. On Tortola we’re going sea kayaking. Today we had the bright idea to go on a zip line tour of a rain forest.
I don’t know who came up with the idea of doing this...sending people up into the canopy of a rainforest, lay about 5 pounds of gear and straps on their body, hook them to a thin line and then push them off the edge of a perfectly good tree. Whoever did come up with it was either a madman or a genius. But whatever the verdict, there’s no denying it’s a hell of a lot of fun. We managed to not make fools out of ourselves, although I discovered that it is very hard to swoop on the zip line and take photos at the same time. Pity, really.
Also, there wasn’t a lot to photograph. St. Lucia doesn’t appear to have a lot of native wildlife. Some snakes and birds, but certainly none of the really interesting and weird things you might see in Costa Rica, where we were thinking of going earlier this year.
No, the feeling you get in St. Lucia is green. Overwhelming, pervasive green. Not much in the way of riotous colour. Maybe we were there simply at the wrong time of the year. But instead what we saw was unending green.
Don’t get me wrong. We love the green. After all the snow in Nunavut, green is good. Green is amazing. And while I forgot to do it in St. Maarten, I did manage to get around to hugging a tree today. Granted, it happened when I failed to break properly coming to the end of a particularly long and fast stretch on the zip line and kind of hit the tree. Still, I welcomed its embrace. It was a good tree.
Our tour guide told us there is about 126,000 people on St. Lucia, which is weird when you consider the island is small - about 16 miles across, about 40 miles north to south. Nunavut has about 1,000,000 million square miles and 30,000 people. So that’s a lot of people with very little land to go around.
And yet, it never feels like the people are winning. When we sailed out of Castries this evening, you could look back and see far more trees than houses. It was like that when driving to the rain forest on the eastern part of the island. You would see houses, but they would be surrounded by trees. There were no lawns to speak of.
The humans are winning, but you get the feeling it could still go either way. Give the green of the island a few years without any humans around and they would make quick work of all traces of human settlement.
It’s a beautiful place. It hardly seems fair to judge it against St. Maarten. We saw little of that island aside from the market area. But we both really like St. Lucia. I could see us coming back some time in the future to visit for longer than a day.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Cruising, part 3
I don’t know how big Phillipsburg in St Maarten is, but imagine what happens when not one, not two, but five cruise ships hit town at once. And the monstrosity we’re on, which has 2,000 passengers and another 1,000 in crew, wasn’t even the biggest. Only four could fit at the wharf, so the fifth ship had little boats running back and forth between it and a wharf. To say that the place was madness was an understatement.
Here’s the apparent appeal of Phillipsburg. In the downtown area, right next to the beach are literally hundreds of shops. Some sell tourist kitsch. Some sell really tacky tourist kitsch (when you’re selling five t-shirts for $10, you’re not expecting high quality or creative). And then there’s the rest, which is where the real feeding frenzy takes place.
There’s no duty on items in St. Maarten. Nor is there any sales tax. So there are dozens of jewelry, liquor and electronics stores, all clamoring for your business. It’s a touch on the crazy side. But if you’re looking for deals, I have to admit it is an impressive place to visit.
Cathy was pretty good and managed to not buy that much. I wasn’t as successful, picking up a nice Swiss Army Knife and a pair of Bose headphones. I hemmed and hawed about the headphones. I even walked away for several hours, just to make sure I wanted them, but I broke down in the end. I put them on when I got back on board and selected a random song...”Are you all right?” by Lucinda Williams.
These are the single greatest thing I have ever bought for my ears. Dear God, you can’t hear a thing except the music. The rest of the world just disappears like magic and there’s nothing but the song. Beautiful.
We’re on our way to St. Lucia where we’re going on a canopy adventure tomorrow morning. We’re both really looking forward to that. I mean, the shopping was nice, but we didn’t see any of the island. It’ll be nice to get away from the crowds and go soaring through trees.
Tonight, we’re going to have the surreal experience of watching Jaws while on-board a cruise ship. They’ve been showing movies the last couple of nights. Last night it was Raiders of the Lost Ark. I sat up in the balcony and watched the movie. Behind me, a couple of kids who had never seen the movie before oohed and ahhed at all the right moments. All that was missing was the popcorn.
***
This is something rattling around in my head. I didn’t have the computer with me last night when it was coming to me, so here’s hoping it survived the 24 hour delay.
It’s about 9 p.m. and I’m on the 9th deck. Cathy’s in the room, trying to sleep off a vicious bout of nausea. She’s taken pills, but they haven’t worked much. Me sitting in the room staring at her with a worried look is just annoying her, so it’s out of the room I go.
There are any number of things to do on board the ship in the evenings. I could catch a Motown singer at the Phantom Lounge. There’s a small casino on-board. There are several lounges where someone is playing the piano. Hell, even some of the hot tubs are still going.
But I find I like the 9th deck, the Lido Deck, at this time of the evening. During the day, it’s packed with sun worshippers and kids splashing in pools. It’s filled with people eating lunch or snacking on pizza. But once the sun sets around 5 o’clock, people vacate it and head down into the ship. There’s little to do and, as a result, only a few people linger.
It’s nice. It’s quiet. I like it. After all day of being surrounded by hundreds of people making their way here and there aboard the Miracle, the peace and quiet is relaxing.
So I’m sitting at a table, a tuna sandwich from the deli in front of me. My iPod is going and playing Hospital Music by Matthew Good. Not a cheerful album, but it suits my mood fine. I’m looking out the window and for the first time since we left For Lauderdale on Christmas Eve, there are lights out the window. We’re passing by some island. There are also lights of several cruise ships. We’re close. There’s a flash of light, breaking across the blackness between the island and the Miracle. I figure it’s a lighthouse and wait for the light to repeat, but it doesn’t. One flash in the dark and whatever it was is gone.
I look back to my book, which is 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. I read one of his books earlier the year - Heart Shaped Box - and thought it was about the best ghost story I’ve read since I was a kid. This one is a collection of short stories. Not all of them work, but the ones that do, like “Pop Art”, fills me with awe and makes me want to hit my head off the table at the same time. He’s that damn good.
Then again, Joe is playing a little game. He doesn’t give you the other part of his last name - King. It’s not always an advantage to have a famous parent, but there’s a good chance if you’re smart enough, you might pick up a few tricks from the old man. Joe is obviously smart enough.
It dawns on me at some point that I’m feeling pretty good. Good music, good book, watching an island sail past me in the night and hardly anyone around. It’s almost like I have the entire ship to myself. A realization like that, that you’re having an almost perfect moment can snap you out of it permanently. But then a new song starts, one short story ends and another one is calling out to be read. Outside, lights continue to slowly slide by. I sink back into the moment.
Here’s the apparent appeal of Phillipsburg. In the downtown area, right next to the beach are literally hundreds of shops. Some sell tourist kitsch. Some sell really tacky tourist kitsch (when you’re selling five t-shirts for $10, you’re not expecting high quality or creative). And then there’s the rest, which is where the real feeding frenzy takes place.
There’s no duty on items in St. Maarten. Nor is there any sales tax. So there are dozens of jewelry, liquor and electronics stores, all clamoring for your business. It’s a touch on the crazy side. But if you’re looking for deals, I have to admit it is an impressive place to visit.
Cathy was pretty good and managed to not buy that much. I wasn’t as successful, picking up a nice Swiss Army Knife and a pair of Bose headphones. I hemmed and hawed about the headphones. I even walked away for several hours, just to make sure I wanted them, but I broke down in the end. I put them on when I got back on board and selected a random song...”Are you all right?” by Lucinda Williams.
These are the single greatest thing I have ever bought for my ears. Dear God, you can’t hear a thing except the music. The rest of the world just disappears like magic and there’s nothing but the song. Beautiful.
We’re on our way to St. Lucia where we’re going on a canopy adventure tomorrow morning. We’re both really looking forward to that. I mean, the shopping was nice, but we didn’t see any of the island. It’ll be nice to get away from the crowds and go soaring through trees.
Tonight, we’re going to have the surreal experience of watching Jaws while on-board a cruise ship. They’ve been showing movies the last couple of nights. Last night it was Raiders of the Lost Ark. I sat up in the balcony and watched the movie. Behind me, a couple of kids who had never seen the movie before oohed and ahhed at all the right moments. All that was missing was the popcorn.
***
This is something rattling around in my head. I didn’t have the computer with me last night when it was coming to me, so here’s hoping it survived the 24 hour delay.
It’s about 9 p.m. and I’m on the 9th deck. Cathy’s in the room, trying to sleep off a vicious bout of nausea. She’s taken pills, but they haven’t worked much. Me sitting in the room staring at her with a worried look is just annoying her, so it’s out of the room I go.
There are any number of things to do on board the ship in the evenings. I could catch a Motown singer at the Phantom Lounge. There’s a small casino on-board. There are several lounges where someone is playing the piano. Hell, even some of the hot tubs are still going.
But I find I like the 9th deck, the Lido Deck, at this time of the evening. During the day, it’s packed with sun worshippers and kids splashing in pools. It’s filled with people eating lunch or snacking on pizza. But once the sun sets around 5 o’clock, people vacate it and head down into the ship. There’s little to do and, as a result, only a few people linger.
It’s nice. It’s quiet. I like it. After all day of being surrounded by hundreds of people making their way here and there aboard the Miracle, the peace and quiet is relaxing.
So I’m sitting at a table, a tuna sandwich from the deli in front of me. My iPod is going and playing Hospital Music by Matthew Good. Not a cheerful album, but it suits my mood fine. I’m looking out the window and for the first time since we left For Lauderdale on Christmas Eve, there are lights out the window. We’re passing by some island. There are also lights of several cruise ships. We’re close. There’s a flash of light, breaking across the blackness between the island and the Miracle. I figure it’s a lighthouse and wait for the light to repeat, but it doesn’t. One flash in the dark and whatever it was is gone.
I look back to my book, which is 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. I read one of his books earlier the year - Heart Shaped Box - and thought it was about the best ghost story I’ve read since I was a kid. This one is a collection of short stories. Not all of them work, but the ones that do, like “Pop Art”, fills me with awe and makes me want to hit my head off the table at the same time. He’s that damn good.
Then again, Joe is playing a little game. He doesn’t give you the other part of his last name - King. It’s not always an advantage to have a famous parent, but there’s a good chance if you’re smart enough, you might pick up a few tricks from the old man. Joe is obviously smart enough.
It dawns on me at some point that I’m feeling pretty good. Good music, good book, watching an island sail past me in the night and hardly anyone around. It’s almost like I have the entire ship to myself. A realization like that, that you’re having an almost perfect moment can snap you out of it permanently. But then a new song starts, one short story ends and another one is calling out to be read. Outside, lights continue to slowly slide by. I sink back into the moment.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Cruising, part 2
So the word for today is nausea. The slight choppy seas I mentioned the other day have become slightly larger choppy seas. Forget the pale, nearly translucent blue you see in the pictures. The Caribbean today is a darker blue, almost purple, you might see around Newfoundland with white caps. I got up out of bed this morning and headed to a trivia contest (I finished third) and by the end of it came to the conclusion that this whole being upright thing was vastly over-rated and retreated to the room to lie down. Cathy went out for a bit as well, before reaching the same conclusion and retreating.
I eventually bit the bullet and went to the store on-board and bought some anti-nausea meds. I now feel better, although we’ll see how long that lasts. Long enough to get some lunch down. Now the trick is making sure it stays down. I haven’t thrown-up, which is good. Here’s hoping the trend continues.
I know it’s silly because it’s the open ocean, but I really thought the Caribbean would be smoother sailing. Goes to show what I know when it comes all things seafaring. There’s a reason why I’m a townie and not a bayman.
Anyway, tomorrow we hit St. Maarten, where there are shopping opportunities galore, especially if you believe all the literature being pumped out by the boat’s crew. Handily little maps of places you can go which have met with Carnival’s exacting standards of what makes a good merchant (for which Carnival probably gets a kick-back). Especially if you want to buy gold and jewels. There must be about a half dozen diamond exchanges near the dock where we disembark. It never ends. Still, it’ll be nice to hit land and now weave like a drunken sailor every time I try to stand-up.
Today’s on-board observation is the number of teenagers on the Miracle. They’re not annoying me, which is impressive really. But it is interesting to see how many of them are here with their girlfriends/boyfriends. I was ironing a shirt last night (supper was a formal affair) and was chatting with a teenage boy around 16 who was doing the same, trying to look impressive for his girlfriend. And we’ve seen plenty of teenagers who are obviously couples.
All I’m saying is that if I were 16 years old, a cruise ship in the Caribbean with my girlfriend would be a pretty cool place to be. I think that would be a fun vacation. As long as I didn’t have a Jewish mother. Because man, there are a bunch of them on-board. And I’ve watched plenty of TV shows and movies with Jewish moms and I thought it was just bad writing and exaggerating a cliche. But they seem to be pretty much on the mark. It’s kind of scary to watch them in action, they’re that intimidating. Puts Catholic mothers to shame, and that’s saying something.
By the way, we have taken plenty of photos, but given the slow Internet speeds on board (makes Iqaluit look fast), and how much time we have purchased, those pics will have to wait until later.
Enjoy your Boxing Day sales.
I eventually bit the bullet and went to the store on-board and bought some anti-nausea meds. I now feel better, although we’ll see how long that lasts. Long enough to get some lunch down. Now the trick is making sure it stays down. I haven’t thrown-up, which is good. Here’s hoping the trend continues.
I know it’s silly because it’s the open ocean, but I really thought the Caribbean would be smoother sailing. Goes to show what I know when it comes all things seafaring. There’s a reason why I’m a townie and not a bayman.
Anyway, tomorrow we hit St. Maarten, where there are shopping opportunities galore, especially if you believe all the literature being pumped out by the boat’s crew. Handily little maps of places you can go which have met with Carnival’s exacting standards of what makes a good merchant (for which Carnival probably gets a kick-back). Especially if you want to buy gold and jewels. There must be about a half dozen diamond exchanges near the dock where we disembark. It never ends. Still, it’ll be nice to hit land and now weave like a drunken sailor every time I try to stand-up.
Today’s on-board observation is the number of teenagers on the Miracle. They’re not annoying me, which is impressive really. But it is interesting to see how many of them are here with their girlfriends/boyfriends. I was ironing a shirt last night (supper was a formal affair) and was chatting with a teenage boy around 16 who was doing the same, trying to look impressive for his girlfriend. And we’ve seen plenty of teenagers who are obviously couples.
All I’m saying is that if I were 16 years old, a cruise ship in the Caribbean with my girlfriend would be a pretty cool place to be. I think that would be a fun vacation. As long as I didn’t have a Jewish mother. Because man, there are a bunch of them on-board. And I’ve watched plenty of TV shows and movies with Jewish moms and I thought it was just bad writing and exaggerating a cliche. But they seem to be pretty much on the mark. It’s kind of scary to watch them in action, they’re that intimidating. Puts Catholic mothers to shame, and that’s saying something.
By the way, we have taken plenty of photos, but given the slow Internet speeds on board (makes Iqaluit look fast), and how much time we have purchased, those pics will have to wait until later.
Enjoy your Boxing Day sales.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Blog cruising, part 1
So we’re aboard the Miracle right now, going through some mild chop on our way down to St. Maarten. The chop isn’t severe, but as this is my first time on a boat in quite awhile, it’s taking me a bit to get used to. It’s a big damn boat. I’m sure it would be worse if the boat was smaller, but since it’s bloody huge, there’s just the occasional disoriented moment as the boat rocks back and forth.
This is our first cruise, so it’s a touch on the weird side for both of. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice ship, the crew is doing a good job and once you get past the fact that it’s nearly impossible to not spend money on this thing, you’re fine.
I thought Disney was bad for the psychology involved in trying to get you to part with your money. But Carnival has obviously learned from the masters and improved upon them. The whole idea of giving you a card where you charge all of your expenses and you don’t have to pay them until the end of the cruise. It’s devious, I have to admit. I suspect more than one person has hit the end of the cruise, looked at their bill and had a small stroke. We’re trying our best to go spend into oblivion, but you do have to remind yourself to be careful.
Then again, there are clearly people here who are not hurting for money. At all. Even in the slightest.
The other thing is that today is Christmas. The only other day I can think of that was less like Christmas than today was back in ’96 when I was in South Korea. I had arrived two weeks before Christmas, and while there is a growing Christian population, most of the country isn’t. So aside from some ex-pat teachers gathering at our apartment for supper, it wasn’t much of a holiday.
We’re seeing the same thing here. There are a few people wearing hats. There’s a bit of Christmas music and whatnot. Last night saw a Christmas performance on the main stage, but dancers in red velvet mini-skirts, while hos of a sort, aren’t filling me with the spirit of the season. But the boat isn’t really decorated and you have to strain to know it’s anything other than just another day.
It’s nice and all and don’t get me wrong. I’ll take this over whatever the temperature in Iqaluit is right now. It’s just...strange. I also feel sad for the crew. Having to work away from their families on Christmas must suck.
Strangest moment so far...sitting in the lunch room with about six different buffets on the go when “Do they know its Christmas?” begins playing over the speakers. There’s something deeply wrong with hearing the lyric “Feed the world...” with about 2,000 people eating food on a luxury cruise.
Oh, and there is internet access. It’s just slow, very expensive and despite promises of wifi, we can’t access it from our room. This is actually being written in a Word document and cut and pasted into blogger. In other words, don’t expect daily updates on the blog.
We don’t have anything planned for St. Maarten yet...I think we just plan to poke around and do some twacking (window shopping for the non-Newfoundlanders). In St. Lucia we’ve booked a canopy tour, which should be fun. St. Kitt’s is up in the air. I think we might just sit on a beach. And in Tortola, we’re going sea kayaking.
Anyway, more updates and observations as I think of them Hope you’re al enjoying your holidays, where ever you happen to be.
This is our first cruise, so it’s a touch on the weird side for both of. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice ship, the crew is doing a good job and once you get past the fact that it’s nearly impossible to not spend money on this thing, you’re fine.
I thought Disney was bad for the psychology involved in trying to get you to part with your money. But Carnival has obviously learned from the masters and improved upon them. The whole idea of giving you a card where you charge all of your expenses and you don’t have to pay them until the end of the cruise. It’s devious, I have to admit. I suspect more than one person has hit the end of the cruise, looked at their bill and had a small stroke. We’re trying our best to go spend into oblivion, but you do have to remind yourself to be careful.
Then again, there are clearly people here who are not hurting for money. At all. Even in the slightest.
The other thing is that today is Christmas. The only other day I can think of that was less like Christmas than today was back in ’96 when I was in South Korea. I had arrived two weeks before Christmas, and while there is a growing Christian population, most of the country isn’t. So aside from some ex-pat teachers gathering at our apartment for supper, it wasn’t much of a holiday.
We’re seeing the same thing here. There are a few people wearing hats. There’s a bit of Christmas music and whatnot. Last night saw a Christmas performance on the main stage, but dancers in red velvet mini-skirts, while hos of a sort, aren’t filling me with the spirit of the season. But the boat isn’t really decorated and you have to strain to know it’s anything other than just another day.
It’s nice and all and don’t get me wrong. I’ll take this over whatever the temperature in Iqaluit is right now. It’s just...strange. I also feel sad for the crew. Having to work away from their families on Christmas must suck.
Strangest moment so far...sitting in the lunch room with about six different buffets on the go when “Do they know its Christmas?” begins playing over the speakers. There’s something deeply wrong with hearing the lyric “Feed the world...” with about 2,000 people eating food on a luxury cruise.
Oh, and there is internet access. It’s just slow, very expensive and despite promises of wifi, we can’t access it from our room. This is actually being written in a Word document and cut and pasted into blogger. In other words, don’t expect daily updates on the blog.
We don’t have anything planned for St. Maarten yet...I think we just plan to poke around and do some twacking (window shopping for the non-Newfoundlanders). In St. Lucia we’ve booked a canopy tour, which should be fun. St. Kitt’s is up in the air. I think we might just sit on a beach. And in Tortola, we’re going sea kayaking.
Anyway, more updates and observations as I think of them Hope you’re al enjoying your holidays, where ever you happen to be.
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