Thoughts to Count

Google Made me do it

2009-07-22T06:07:00.000-05:00

The return to blogging. Google is now owning my life. I've subscribed to an increasing amount of their services, but hey, for a lazy bloke like me, its a rather easy one stop shop.

Good job google.

Lets see how long the honeymoon will last.

Dreamer.

2007-09-24T12:38:00.000-05:00

It would seem that by some roundabout way, I am back at the Blogger, expressing in the Bloggersphere, or whatever the die-hard-cores callin' it these days.

I call it throwing text into space.
See where it surfaces.

I'll be back.

2006-03-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

I can see not a bud on a branch of a winter-worn tree, nor can I see but an infant bird or young squirrel playfully jaunting. The sun hangs low on the sky's belt and indeed I will not share in it too much longer this day. I feel not the tinge of freshness in the air nor can I say it is a pleasing spectrum of scent. Moreover, I know the winds now to be wholly absent of reminder of longer nights and warmer days. The rains have not cleansed the ground. They have not come to share themselves with us; to make us full and happy.

Yet I, here, now, in the absence of all these things corporeal, without evidence or indication, KNOW what is to come. I KNOW as do all the coated and clothed people who walk now beneath me do, what lies on the most immediate and eventual horizon. We together are scentient. We have no need for the great indicators which our senses derive. We walk with lighter step and wake with lighter heart. We congregate and commiserate on the daily, as it were our only conclusion of the moment. We together KNOW, SHARE and FEEL that which our blood and soul has made unmistakable. We walk on together, ambling with smiles and intent. Born again, alive anew and awakening to perception.

Now it is so soon.
And soon is the only necessity.

Mrs. Robinson

2006-03-21T21:57:00.000-05:00

What was this movie inspired from? Did Paul Simon have something to do with the plot-line...was he a seducer/seducee of his peer's mothers...? You can probably bet on NO.

The best part of this movie, for me, is the sequence that starts off while Hoffman is sunning himself in the pool...leisurely floating on a raft....There's a terrific little acoustic number playing joviantly in the background...something to do with the description of the months of summer....

Hoffman gets off his raft, swims to the edge of the pool, pulls himself out, and ambles slowly up to the house, while buttoning up a bleached white shirt.....He moves inside and the scene changes to the interior of the Taft Hotel, where he casually lies himself on the bed and promptly, the aforementioned Mrs's starts unbuttoning that shirt.....segue into a closeup shot of him smoking a cig against the black headboard of the hotel bed, while his fling is lying across him....she's out of frame and now the camera pans back....he's sitting in his room, detached from everything, and closing the door to his parents.....once again, he gets up to move to the pool, and dives in....swims to the raft and pulls himself onto it....the segue into his climax in the taft suite....

cinematographic ecstacy.

P

The Mysterious Female

2006-03-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

My impatience jumps out at me from the page, and it stabs at my resolve.
I can feel more seperate from myself, streaching to learn the importance of values.
Today, I remembered the first time that I realized it was important to tell people how you feel about them. It seems long ago. Contrary to what I perceived then, the revelation came in a dismal environment. I had pushed my closest relations to the edge, and I had turned in those I loved for the uncomforting magnificence of the world's empty pursuits. Even in that time, I had people all around, but to connect to them was impossible. My most valuable lesson was learned in that time. I told those who I knew I loved them. I understood my mistakes and accepted them with a sense of finality, but with also an appreciation for the future and second chances. I think it was in a most dismal time then that I had seen these things. I think only now that with hindsight I can make out the darkness.

And one day there was a rainbow. It was in May, at sunrise. I had spent the previous night on a rolling high. We laughed and joked, we played like kids and never thought about it. We moved outside in the early hours to get stoned in the park. On the morning dew grass. In the summer morning sky. A rainbow, loud and beautiful, arched over the sky. Bridging our futures with our past. How many ways can history repeat itself?

I took from that day these memories, a book and a belief. When I finished the book I nearly cried. I was on the last chapter, on the bench of the golfcourse near my house. My father was in sight, on the hill that was so large in my youth.
Dominique Francon is in New York, ascending a construction elevator on the city's tallest skyscraper. She recounts her emotions, her amazement, her humbleness. She remembers the years of seperation from her love, she recalls the visible wounds she acceptingly suffered for him. She ascends further up the building, now only a raw steel structure. She sees him. He is standing as part of the structure itself, hundreds of feet from the earth, building toward the sky. She knows him. She knows he is a man of his work, not seperate from it. He is a man of virtue, value and uncomprimising spirit. She arrives at sunset and as he recognizes her, he is not suprised, he is understanding. And he sees in her the same soul of virtue.
I nearly cry. It is warm; a late May evening, still with the freshness of spring in the air. I can't move, I am wrapped in her arms. I wonder if this spirit exists. Can I follow this belief? My father is still ahead of me. He is on top of the biggest hill of my childhood. I stand up and run to where he is and try to put everything into words. He understands, I know. But you have to try to put everything into words. Then the time is passed. We join together in games we've played for years. Though, now, I am keenly aware of the time and of the spirit in that place.

Things are cyclical. There are dismal hours. There are places of ill. Though, they are never without friends, never without hope, and never without spirit. The most inexpliciable is the most true. The most intangible is the most real. It is not what is seen, but what is felt that leads the way. It all goes on.

Something from the Tao Te Ching:

The Valley Spirit never dies.
It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while.
Draw upon it as you will, It never runs dry.

P

Fuck this

2006-03-02T01:16:00.000-05:00

I mean, what do you have to do these days to stay in good terms with people....I think everyone needs to take a step back and look at their lives....Here, in my little group of Montreal amis, I find that we're all just losing ourselves in the last moments of our time together....as we all approach a graduation date, we begin working harder and losing site of the relationships we've built and the time we've spent together over the course of the degree....history repeats itself always, and luckily there'll be a big throwdown after all the stress of this final rush is over...but that's not enough for me...I have begun to value the people much more than the degree...without these folks, I wouldn't have made it through this thing alive...and now, at the end of it all, people seem willing to throw themselves into little pools where there is no interconnection...what a pitiful waste of time...Please, for christ's sake, someone value the truth and not the affront. That is all I ask. Take a step back and look where you'll be in 3 months...out of contact and into something new. The present is all there is and it shouldn't be sacrificed for the supposed future.

Lets wake up and be in love for the day.

P

Senses..and Jackson Pollack,..

2006-02-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

wildly contentious (aka. not really)

2005-10-27T14:07:00.000-05:00

Sorry about that last post....the deal was fresh in my mind and I had to just vent it out to something or someone...if you're interested, call me....otherwise, lets let it rest...

Everything is a decision, and my indecisiveness spoons everything up into one big mangely clump...thoughts are running through my head in every possible causal direction, though the one that usually plays out is the one that has never occurred...I try moving myself past the conceptualization based on current emotions and apparent trends (emotional forcasting or lifestyle suggesting you could call it) and bring my mind into the knowledge that I am what I it and there are no mistakes....to paraphrase a genius.

What then is the importance, friends willing of existential debate? To enjoy and live and evolve without a care for the outcome...passing by humanized suggestions that control is within your grasp, that you can forcast your destiny?...that leaves.... blank. EXACTLY. Nothing...knowingness without knowing, knowledge without understanding, lethargically and apathetically transcendant. It is strange that words can have such demeaning connotations, and it tickles me to arrange them in a way that is contrary to their learned implications...to linguistically contextualize converse inferences...that last phrase was also just for fun, but for another reason altogether.... and if I could get back on track of a philisophical pandering, at this point, I would...but alas, where has it gone. Infact, I think we have surrepititiously arrived.

As my mind wanders in and out of its stunning polarities, my humanity feels lost like a child who walks halfway into a movie...(a quasi-cameo, or a misrepresented lebowskism??)...where have you gone it says to me??...where are you going???...virtues? yes or no?...temperment and patience, humility, understanding....learned or inherited..??...have you practiced YOUR finer human qualities lately?...i'm looking at the floor for my contact lenses. Though I can see fine without them I still cannot seem to find the suckers...Methinks at this point a target needs to be constructed...from the materials of faith, and the soul should become so attuned to that target, night and day, that it may be located during all times, in all weather, at all distances, in the black of night....that when times come, as they certainly do for us humans (on trafalgar, time would do nothing of the sort) when it is necessary to fire a shot on the behalf of our humanity, each one of us will fire without flinching, without contmeplation or wonder and most of all without fear, at that which we understand so vividly to exist in that moment of our lives...at the unchanging charecter of human existance...

General Romeo Dallaire gives a talk at Concordia on Tuesday....

I'm awake, and the jury is still out...

2005-10-22T15:20:00.000-05:00

Did you ever have one of those nights.??...of course you have...we have all had 'one of those nights' at some point in our wandering existances....so, for me last night was of particular interst...I guess it may be telling, yknow, that like I could derive some character traits from a night like last, or at least identify something of my current state of existence....it is kind of strange the things that seem like normal feel good fun but in retrospect can be pretty out of the ordinary, can be pretty far out of the fucking ordinary....

and if you're wondering the finer details, well, I'm sorry but this post will be written in generalities and you'll have to infer from the little detail I am willing to give...not that I don't like sharing my life with you...people of the internet...digital voyeurs that you are...just that I don't think you're ready for this one...

no animals were hurt in the making of this post. can we just leave it at that??

i'm not being fair. there could have been 8hours of drinking, smoked meat, and some friends involved...maybe not in that order...

boy, this may be a tough day. I think i'll rest.

Phil

Time elapses...

2005-10-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

If there is a theme to this post, you can read it in the title. If you want to read into it further, check out http://dangeroushours.blogspot.com/, which is a temporal anomaly in the blogger world, an assessment of the infinite and of human perception...and in the last few days, I have to wonder where time does go? Left alone all day to my studies of wind turbines and mechanical vibrations, and at night, free to roam creative pastures with ideas and realizations popping in and out of my mind...and after all this it leaves me to wonder if this is concentrated creativity I am smoking and why I haven't been able to wield it in such a way before.

Time is funny. Lunchtime it is now. I just woke up two hours ago, so maybe breakfast is in order. No, can't do breakfast, because there isn't any on the menu. A friend wakes an hour later than I, contemplating the redundancies of life through the window of clairvoyant perception. A sister takes her coffee break from a job that hasn't warrented the grueling anticipation of a coffee break yet...the office still has that new smell, the furniture just assembled to the best of your knowledge of the swedish language...6 hours in the future, old friends are sitting down to their nightly supper, after a full day of work no doubt, and maybe with not much on the horizon other than another workday tomorrow, and perhaps a re-visiting of old places...

above in the relatively infinite, all these discrepancies are indiscernable..the slow revolution of venus brings the low horizion wanderer closest to the northwest corner of a brand new cresent moon (paraphrased, thank jerry garcia),...each one of us separated into space and time see this, all in due course (all at the same latitude). United under the static sky, reflected in it's patience we are, for the reverse is true of our existance from the luminiferous aether's perception....unchanging, but for the rotation and burgeoning of a new day...

scattered though, here, I sit...with static perception and infinite wonder at the timing of it all...my life is a conclusion to my own ancestory, it is a conclusion to this world..my universe is humbly but understandably philcentric...it has begun and it will end with I....the time in between is stationary, and it is shared. It mingles with neighbors, holds hands with lovers and shares with family...it stumbles over strangers and gets run down by the appointed leaders...but in all this while and it all of its journeys, it is right here at the center of the universe, in the hands of the creator and its will is bent to all that desire may dream about....For what you dream of....

P

Saturated

2005-10-04T22:43:00.000-05:00

Poetry is patient
Like these letters, the words wait form
There is a beauty in the sky
The air, the aether
Colors full and reflective
Blue is a deep changing hue
Wisps of white cloud the depths
Formlessnessly rising
A march of the picturesque
Green in variance
With brown, azure and gold
Hints of drooping time and longing
Roll from the inside outward
To falling water
Soaking rose reflections from above
Itself tumbling below
Quenched in time
With the weeping green
And the azure sky

The internet does not understand my queries.

2005-09-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

I am trying to discover how much the average human adult can lift and carry comfortably. I have been querying google and askjeeves with phrases like "How much weight/many pounds can the average human carry/lift" to no avail. I have discovered a lot of useless and unsearched for facts however, like that the average human head weighs between 6-12 pounds, depending on your source, that humans are grossly overweight (there is one page dedicated to "How to have sex if you're fat"), I've learned that Michigan hospitals are 'beefing' up the carrying capacity of their hospital beds and ambulances to accomadate all the overweights, I've seen too many facts about the amazing carrying capacities of ants to enumerate and yet I have not the answer to my question....

Please, can anyone give me a clue here? How much can you carry comfortably.

I'm off now to have lunch with my long forgotten (rather not seen) sister who is in town for the weekend. This ends my friday marathon of school, which has been midly frustrating but which is also clearly on a friday, so not too bad...

Hockey pool draft is tomorrow. It is a fantasy game, and I'm winging it....and BTW, if anyone is out there and reading this, check out my dad's blog for some words on the delicious ocean and a pic of him in '68...Roll, daddy, roll...

P

Breeding Magic

2005-09-22T23:13:00.000-05:00

I would not ever wish that I were blind. But this is nudging my elbow. Maybe I could feign loss of sight, just for a few weeks. Here is the urging:

http://www.guidehorse.org/cuddles.htm

Holy crap.

Startup

2005-09-22T18:50:00.000-05:00

Trying to segue from the Europe trip to North America took a lot out of me...really...Not suprising the lack of postage as a result.

I've decided to extend my graduation date by a semester in favor of working part time now. That means December 2006 is the final FINAL exam. Now I'm working on a wind turbine design project with my final year grouping...should provide some interesting things during the next year. Work will be with the same company I have been working for in Italy, which keeps an idea of 'overseas training' in the back of my mind.

This semester, Tai Chi, Italian course, Hockey. Go MTL, Go.

What is on my mind

2005-09-07T02:10:00.000-05:00

Only four days away from Montreal and what is on my mind? Dreams are telling me that I am thinking of my plateau apartment (roomates Zak and Dan make an appearance), what kind of state I will find that apartment in when I get back (again, responsibility of Z and D), and the neighborhood...shopping at some nice markets on St. Laurent and filling my fridge with food that I will enjoy preparing and eating. University is as well I guess on my head and winter too, because there were instances of doubling socks and zipping all the way to my nose...this along with treks through snowy nights to unseen places, but the overwhelming feeling that what I would find there would be study time.

And what is not spurned on by dreams?..actively I dream of stepping onto the ice for the first time in four months (attending mass as I have come to call it)...of getting to NY and Toronto, Calgary and Minnesota to visit some people and take some time with them....of not inbedding my life in the university community, a diametrically opposed position to one I found myself in before departure, of taking the first weekend to paint my walls and simplify my room, to watch the final installment of Star Wars on the big screen....golfing, speaking english like I haven't in four months...and on and on....

What would you dream of?

Prague and Munich

2005-09-04T04:19:00.000-05:00

See, after a quick readthrough of the last post, it seems that I was just on the way to Auschwitz. I took the hour and a half bus ride to the complex in the town of Osweistien. Auschwitz is actually made up of two seperate camps, Auscwitz I and II. The first camp was made in 1941 and was intended to hold political prisoners and prisoners of war, but it eventually was turned into a death camp where many jews, gypsies and other minorities were sent. Auschwitz II is located about 3km down the road from the first and is also known as Birkenau. This camp was designed for the mass extermination of prisoners, with intentionally built gas chambers and incenerators. The first camp had used gas chambers to murder the prisoners, but the chamber was adapted from an air-raid bunker.

It was amazing to see how the prisoners were treated and how vindictive their captors were. The psychological damage inflicted on the prisoners was in a way more terrible than the mass killings and physical atrocities committed. Criminals were given more authority and privilages than doctors and the educated class. Anyone suspected of hatching an escape plot or communicating with the outside would be publically executed. What suprised me the most were the variety of cells designed with different intents of torture. It wasn´t sufficient to just make cells to throw people into to die, there were cells designed with low light and little air, there were cells that would allow prisoners no room to sit or lie down, forced to stand four at a time for the entire night and work the entire day. The premeditation was evident and sickening.

After a 2 hour tour of the Auschwitz I complex, I decided not to visit Birkenau...I didn´t think I could have learned more...I already had the point: Millions were murdered. This was coldly stated, but just ´matter of factly´ upon entering the gas chamber. There was a stone engraved with the words, "Thousands of people were murdered in this very room, please be silent and solemn. Try to remember those people killed". The walls were still living. In a place that engineered so much death, walking through the buildings and touching the walls, picking up the stones along the paths, grabbing the now un-electrified barbed wire fence, all of these things bring you so close to those who lived in misery there only 60 years ago...Their energies are still alive in that place, and will not be dispelled for a long time.

Krakow to Prague I did on the night train, arriving on Tuesday morning. Prague is a beautiful city, and after a while of running around on the rest of the trip, I took the time just to hang around and read, relax. I bought the Davinci Code in Krakow before I left and read the 600 pages in 3 days. I had a few beers and lunches in the parks around Prague, and used the internet a few times to catch up on some world news. I also indulged myself a few times too many. I got on the McDonalds sundae train...I ate 5 sundaes in 4 days. They have changed so much since I was a kid. Used to be able to get penuts, then they started charging for the little bagged penuts (surly because some allergic reactions forced lawsuits to ruin sundaes for the rest), and now you don´t get peanuts. I thought we used to get cherries too, but I could be wrong. At least I have discovered that the long battle between chocolate and caramel is finally decided. Caramel it is. Sorry Jenn, strawberry has no place in this debate.

Pawel came in to Prague from Rzesow on his bike friday morning. He took the 13 hour drive straight and arrived at 3am. Friday included some relaxing and recovering for Pawel and for me, reading a new book that I bought which I have on purpose guarenteed to not finish in 3 days by purchasing a boring text. With Pawel in the city it was having a partner in crime again, so we hit up a few bars and had a few beers. Saturday mostly the same thing, and I headed out to Munich last night at 10pm. So, I will be here now for a week long conference before heading back. So far it is working up to be a fun time, with 6 friends coming in...Should work to offset some of the less interesting aspects of a technical conference.

I will have to put a bit more love into these posts...in the next few days I would like to get creative again, given more time to expediate the message.

P

A quick one.

2005-08-28T14:55:00.000-05:00

Not too much in the way of creativity these days...I barely get the time and energy to run the whole update...Something with this blog may have to change soon, there seems to be growing risk of routine posting.

I left Budapest on Wednesday morning to head to Slovakia to hike the High Tatras. The plan here was to get to the mountain town of Stary Smokovec from where I would stash the pack, grab my hiking gear and head into the mountains for a few days. There are mountain 'Chatas' all throughout the Tatras at different points along the trail. They are small chalets with bunk beds and restaurants. You can use them as jump-off spots to continue hiking or mountain climing or whatever you're into. My agenda had me reaching Teryho chata, a four hour hike to 2000m for the first night on Wednesday, then hiking for the whole day Thursday, sleeping again in Teryho and then coming back to Stary Smokovec friday morning where I would take the bus into Poland and onto Krakow. Agenda got tossed though because I decided to hike with a guy I met from NYC and it was also a bit rainy in the mountains. We took our time and made it about one third of the way to Teryho chata before it got dark, so we ended up staying the night at another chata.

I had been getting a bit sick in Budapest (probally from exposure to some exotic germs, dancing in the rain, etc....Barna..:) and now after eating a questionable meal in the Chata and drinking some liquor with petrolesque qualities, the symptoms fully manifested themselves. As I've already told people, and if you've heard you'd recognize the expression that I'm killing through overuse, I had to 'give up the ghost' at some point during the night, forcing exit to my not well appreciated Slovakian Ghoulash. Next day the plan was to continue up to Teryho chata in the morning and do some hiking in the area all day. Made it up to Teryho through a difficult 2.5 hour hike, needing a toilet most of the way, and once finally there all I could do was rest in bed, try to fend of the fever and such. I felt better Friday morning after about 18 hours in bed, so I got an early start and made it back down to civilization by 10:30. Friday was really the only day I was able to enjoy in the mountains. The other days were cloudy with little visibility and I had the sickness. Friday everything had cleared up and I even saw a few mountain deer?? and other wildlife. The idea of these little chatas is great though, and I think I would like to take another chance at the mountains sometime in the future...you can really live well. They are well supplied, with everything liquor, beer and all types of food..It is actually someones' job to carry kegs of beer on their back for 2.5 hours from the base to these chatas at 2000m...

I picked up the bus (extremely crowded) in Stary Smokovec and heading to the border town of Lysa Polana where I crossed into Poland on foot. From there, a minibus to Zakopane in Poland and then again, another bus into Krakow. Journey time 4hrs. Cost: $5.

In Krakow, I didn't have any clue. This officially began the vauge part of my trip. I bought a map at a gas station which to now I've used once. I took the tram to the center and found an internet cafe and called Tim, who I was staying with friday night. Another couchsurfer. Rendezvous'ed with T at a bar and scurried to the apartment to drop off the bags, take a shower, etc. Tim made us both dinner: good. I met Tim's dog, which is not really his because he is dog sitting, but the owner, from what I hear isn't coming back, so it kind of is now...Lobster is frantic. Lots of jumping and arm biting. We left the place to meet up with some of Tims friends in the Jewish neighborhood. Very trendy place, like the Montreal Plateau. Disregarding the orgy of tourism in Krakow that accounts for much of the english you hear, there are a number of ex-pats living here which bring in a whole other section of the english. This is good because a polish word like 'Rzesow' is pronounced 'Jeshov'...not quite easy to pick up. I know the ex-pat story because Tim is from the NE USA and many of his acquaintances are ex-pats. From the Jewish neighborhood, we move onto a club where the DJ plays laughable sequences. Try Micheal Jackson's Bad followed by Land Down Under by some Lionel Richie tune. Try watching people dance emphatically to this and then try to join in. I don't even know why Lionel Richie was popular 25 years ago....why now?...I was tired so I took off to Tims place with his keys. This caused a small confusion the next day cause I didn't know how to locate Tim and had to stash his keys somewhere outside and let him know by email...one couchsurfing problem.

This is getting long...phew...

Yesterday, Pawel came in from up north where he is working, just like I did in Italy. We spent the day checking out the area (Pawels been here like 10 times, so I didn't feel lost), had a dinner of about 50 perogis, and went out bar hopping to have some beers. A calm night. It was great to see someone familiar and get the chance to BS like we were back in MTL.

Today we headed out and did some more lazy cruising around Krakow. Went to Wawel Castle and also had some more good food. Krakow is terrific because it is a small little intimite place, it is all original (the whole city survived bombing in WWII), there are a lot of shops and restaurants and clubs, it has good cosmopolitan culture and everything is dirt cheap. Dinner for instance: a big plate of food at a sit down restaurant and a .5 L beer cost $6 CN. This is in the center. Really cheap..

So, I'm taking it easy in the hostel now. Tonight I'll just read and go to bed early. Tomorrow, I think I'll head out to Auschwitz and do the depressing but interesting tour before heading back to Krakow for the day. Maybe some shopping and bumming around before heading to Prague on the overnight train. That may be the last stop before Munich, I'm not sure...I'm getting a bit fed up from moving around so much.

Yeah, it wasn't too much of a quick update...It was actually pretty tasking to produce...I'll have to share some more once I get the pictures going though...

P

The Photos Keep on Coming....

2005-08-23T14:27:00.000-05:00

Pictures, pictures and pictures....Starting with more churches and places of worship..I have seen a lot in Italy, but I have not seen a Jewish Temple...this was my first non-Christian visit of the tour...The Dahony street synagogue is the second largest in the world. It was designed by a Christian architect and it includes many elements characteristic of a church....You can see in these pictures me sporting a hat that would not stay on my head, the Memorial tree outside the synagogue that recognizes the death of some 10,000 Hungarian Jews in WWII....The other picture brings us back to the Christian faith with St. Stephens basilica....

Next, there are some night-time shots of Budapest, starting with the parliment building and a cityscape from atop a mountain...the daytime picture is of heroes square...

Next, we have some pictures from Statue Park where many of the Communist statues and monuments have been placed after the fall of communism in 89...This is a very strange place, and I recommend it to anyone for a bit of nostalgia...

Again here, there is one photo from Statue Park, and then there are a couple of Barna, his cousin, cousins friend from Transalvania and his wife at dinner...

I have come nearer to the conclusion of my time here...today I spent the day in the famous Medicinal baths...great stuff...paid 6 euros for the whole day...the water has a lot of great minerals and is good for the ol health...the place is a huge complex with a bunch of seperate baths in different rooms...each bath has its own temperature and individual mineral composition...they list em on the walls...outside in the courtyard are three open pools...a cold water one for swimming, a warm water one with a ton of fountains, and a hot water pool...there are people bathing and playing chess at the same time...whacky.

Tomorrow, I go off to Slovakia to hike the Tatras...I dont know when I will be able to use the internet again, so it will be back to the intermittent posting..

I will get you updated soon though...ciao,ciao...P

hoohaa and photos

2005-08-22T19:05:00.000-05:00

Here in Budapest I stay with a man named Barna...Barna is a mech. engineer like I and we've met online through couchsurfing.com....Barna has internet access and therefore so do I by relation...I will now post some photos of the last few days...

First there are some photos from Venice where I spent a day and a half...typical of the Venice photos are the water shots, trying to be artistic but failing in many cases...have a look...

Then there is slovenia...starting with Bovec, a town in the Julian Alps...Bovec is a little resort town where I spent a day and a half checking out the nature and doing some swimming and camping and canyoning...notice the beautiful Soca river...considered by some the best in Europe...also I saw the front line of the Austrian-Hungarian defence from WWI...right down the road from my campsite...(There's a pic of the hammock setup...yeah!!)...creepy old soldier caves there and the original barbed wire fence still standing....and then there's some pictures from me in a field eating dinner at sunset, admiring the mountains and later unfortunately unsettled by the onrush of feeding goats!!! whoa!

From Bovec to Ljubljana, the small capital city of Slovenia...small but beautiful...I went and checked out the Ljubljana castle and have some pics from there, as well as just various pictures from around Ljubs....

And now in Budapest, there are some pictures with Barna and his cousin Arthur...there's also me with a Hungarian gal or two....and of course us after the rain storm in the elevator...a classic....

More pics to come later...enjoy...and please...don't be shy..comment it up..I want to know if I'm doing this only as an exercise in Sanity...

P

In slovenia

2005-08-20T09:13:00.000-05:00

...Since leaving the south of Italy on Monday, I have travelled to Venice in the north and stayed a day before moving onto Slovenia. From Venice on Wednesday morning, I took a two hour train to the Slovene border at Gorizia. I tried getting on a bus to go to the Slovene side but I was told that the bus was only for EU citizens....so, I tried to find a new way to my destination, the border town of Nova Gorica...luckily a woman buying cigarettes at the station overheard my troubles and offered me a ride into Slovenia....good stuff...only took a few minutes and I was there at the bus station...I changed my euros and got 10,000 SIT...I'm rich!..

From there I took the bus up to Bovec, which is in the Julian alps...beautiful mountians with white sand riverbeds and crystal clear water....great alpine drinking water...Bovec is a tourist center, kind of a resort town, I imagine a bit like Banff..I was there for two nights, one day....Wednesday nite, I roamed around with my pack looking for campgrounds to set up my hammock, but they were packed with tourists and kids and were charging 6 euros to stay...no thanks....I walked about 15 minutes down the main road and found a spot in the woods to set up camp....once set up I hit the town for a drink and watched a bit of soccer before heading back to sleep....It was too cold though, even with my many layers of clothes I was freezing by 2am, so I got up and walked into town and slept the rest of the night where it was a bit warmer...Next morning, woke up at 6am and headed back to camp to collect stuff for the day of canyoning...I rented a mountain bike for the day at a place downtown and took the ride to the 'extreme' sports place....On the way I passed by the Bovec airfield where people were setting up to do some sky diving...there was also someone with a little single prop job in the air pulling barrel rolls, loops and other manouvers at 8 am...

Canyoning was great...you take the jeep up to the start, put on your neoprene suit and hike about 25 minutes up the canyon to the start....from there, you plunge down waterfalls, either sliding or jumping from pothole to pothole...the water at 5m deep is absolutely clear....we did a bunch of nice jumps and waterfalls....my favorite was a 5m waterfall that was into a cave...

The rest of the day in Bovec, I spent on the bike, doing tours and site seeing into the national park and around the soca river...I tried swimming once but it was freezing cold...Also saw a bit of WWI history, as the front line was about 500m from my campsite...Really creepy caves...Near Bovec, in Kobarid, one of the bloodiest battles in WWI took place...At night, I went out for a few beers and a meal and had a little talk with some tourists, saw some local music and dancing and then returned to my campsite...this time, I had a sleeping bag and everything was nice and cozy..

Friday morning, I took the 8am bus to Bled, a mountain lake with a church on an island (the big attraction) and therefore tourist sight...The busride through the mountains was intense, beautiful and stressful...I kept thinking we'd tip over and roll all the way down the valley...once in Bled, I quickly made it to the lake and dropped off my bag to take a swim...I swam to the island to check out the church and it was just a church...but the water was terriffic...there are no moter vehicles allowed on the lake...After a large meal for lunch of traditional cuisine (pork chops, potatoes) I was on the bus again to Ljubljana...

Arrived in Ljubs and after finding the hostel, took off to the downtown for a bit of a stroll...the place is tiny (200,000 people) so you can see all there is in about a day....the architecture is beautiful and it is a very clean and well planned city...the center is lively and there are tons of original shops and cafes....a very good vibe here...Today, just sight seeing...went to the Ljubljana castle and saw some buildings by the most famous of Slovenian architects....Now, using the internet at the bar (free!), drinking a green Zlatorog beer, gettin ready to take a early night....maybe....

Tomorrow I have a 8 hour train to Budapest where I'll meet up with Barna, a hungarian guy who'll be hosting me at his home for the night...Budapest for three days then off to Slovakia...I'll try to keep adding as much as I can, but I don't know if I'll have the free internet all the time....!...and photos, I'll try on that one too....

Ciao,ciao,P

The Revival

2005-08-05T08:36:00.000-05:00

Would it be fatuous of me to assume you've missed me, or wondered where I have gone in the past few weeks...????...

Indeed where have I gone? Nowhere really; what has gone in my abscence was the internet access at work....but now, we've been allowed to play in the sun once more (in a much more limited, hall-monitered type of way), and so I can take this short time to write a short discourse on the past and nearly future events.

I've been to Florence in the mean-while, and I've looked at just about every priceless good they've had to offer me. I saw Michelangelo's David for free, having snuck through the back entrance, and I also saw Botteghelli's Venus and Springtime. I especially appreciated the Annuciation by Leonardo DiVinci. And the architecture in Florence is a thing all to its own...Fantastic little spot, you can do it all in about two days the city is so small, and being planted right in prime Chianti country, you can get a bottle of the reds for a nearly 'Baby Duck' price....tasty.

Then I've gone to Capri. Delicious water. We took the opportunity to swim in the Grotto Azure after all the boats were finished visiting for the day....this was by far the best thing I've seen....for those who aren't up on your natural wonders, the Blue Grotto is a huge cave that is accessed on the coast of Capri....Its filled with water, so you've got to take a boat or swim in. The entrance is tiny and the passengers of the small tour boats have to lay down while the driver swiftly guides them through between waves....once inside, you can't see too much cause its really dark (it is a cave, after all)....After your eyes become acclaimatised to the darkness, you can see the cave is massive, about 200 feet long by 100 feet wide...Go in a little further to the middle and turn around, and this is why they call it the Blue Grotto...the sun coming through the small entrance and into the water makes the crystal clear sea glow the most beautiful sapphire blue you'll ever see. The whole experience is tremendous, and free if you're swimming....

So now, I'm finishing up my last week of work before I head out for a 3 week eastern european tour. I'm heading to Rome on the 15th to see the Vatican Museam, then that night going to Venice where I'll stay for 2 days. From Venice I go to Slovenia and into the Julian Alps to do some adventure sports for a day or two and then to the capitol Ljubljana. After that, I'm moving onto Budapest for a three day jaunt over the weekend before heading out to Slovakia's High Tatra mountains for some more natural adventure. A little bit of hiking in the alpines and then I'm off again for Krakow and Wroclaw poland for the first half of the week. Maybe I'll meet up with some friends there, I don't know. From Poland its off to the Czech Republic where I'll spend an as yet undetermined amount of time in Prague and surrounding regions before heading off again. I may stop off in Austria and Switzerland before heading to Munich for the 4th of September if I have time. Then from the 4th to the 10th I'm in Munich for a conference and finally back to Montreal.

This is the last big breath before the plunge. I'll hope to see you all soon after this....

Ciao,
Phil

Vacation

2005-07-22T06:49:00.000-05:00

I just found out yesterday from our boss that my last day of work is on the 12th of August. I'll be staying over the weekend to clear up a few things, then heading out Monday the 15th for a tour of Europe for three weeks, ending up in Munich for a week at the end for a conference. I've got to figure out how to send my luggage ahead of me to Munich Airport, and have it stored there until I show up for my flight back to MTL on the 10th of Sept. Anyone know how I can do this?

So there are two tentative vacation schedules. I'll start in Rome either way, taking the train there on the 15th...I will check out those things I missed the first time around, then take a flight either to Dublin via London to visit a friend, or to Venice. Going to Dublin will have me staying there for about 4 days before flying back to Venice. From Venice, I'll be going to Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Czech. Rep., Poland and then to Munich on the 4th. I know for sure that I want to see Prague, Budapest and visit some friends in Poland, I'm a little less sure about checking out Vienna and Slovenia, cause I haven't heard too much about either. While in Munich for my conference, I may take a day off to check out Switzerland, or maybe the small hunting village of Duckenhoffen....

So, with only 3 weeks left in this place, I'm taking advantage. Next weekend, I'll be checking out Capri, maybe Caserta and some museams in Napoli. Weekend after, Pompeii and maybe Sorrento again...This weekend, heading out to Florence. I'm leaving tonight with Manal on the train, we're staying in a hostel for two nights and returning with the last train to Saviano on Sunday. Looking forward to seeing some priceless works of art. There's also some priceless tombs I'll be checking out: Michelangelo, Botteghelli, Machiavelli and Galileo. On the topics of great works of art, I offer you one of my new favorites....actually, this artist is my reason for making a trek to the small hunting village of Duckenhoffen in the Bavarian Alps....

New Diggs.......

2005-07-19T03:31:00.000-05:00

I knew, somehow....it must have been a divine intervention....that there was a reason that I have taken nearly 7 years to complete a bachelor's degree. Keep in mind people that my degree was initially 5 years, so that's only 2 years over the normal finish line (I try and try to justify the 7 years but its difficult)....there are actually a lot of things that have tipped me off to the normality of me taking such a long tour through Uni. Firstly and basically, 7 is a lucky number, actually, as the bible goes, it is the number of perfection. So there's the first sign of divinity in my degree. As a second sign of divinity in this degree, I could invoke the 'ol "Holy shit!, it's taken me 7 years to finish this schooling", but that would be a bit to much of a stretch an maybe a little poor in taste (my father would give me no more than a 2 or 3 for this one -referencing of course the arbitrary points system established in the ongoing family game of generic witticism).....A more tangible sign, one occupying every bit of my life now, is this job in Italy, a kind of paid vacation that I wouldn't be on if I had finished a year back.....and now comes the newest big thing, something I've been looking at for a year and a half, but which has only recently neared fruition.

http://news.concordia.ca/administration/004515.shtml

You're looking at our new building....complete with massive black box for visual effects used by Hexagram (contemporary Masons sounds their name), Engineering vibrations lab, fancy staircases, colorful artwork and a 16th floor cafe/terrace...I can't wait to get back to Montreal and explore this building, find all the secret doors and such, even though I won't be using it for too long, cause soon approaches that 7th year. Rumor is that CIADI has an office on the Southwest corner of the 12th floor, with a view of Brossard!, and further out the horizon, Vermont!....that will certainly make studying more of an exercise in procrastination....

Roma

2005-07-18T09:42:00.000-05:00

I was in Rome this weekend, and I've taken and posted these pictures......I think the things I liked most were the Vatican in the morning and the old Egyptian oblelisk in Piazza del Polipo...also the Pantheon...I didn't see the Sistine Chapel though, so I think I'll have to return soon...

From L to R: View of the colums surrounding the Piazza of San Pietro, two views of the Church in the Morning

From L to R: Outside San Pietro again, The Pantheon's sundial, the source of the light

From L to R: View from outside the Pantheon, an 3200 yr. old Egyptian Obelisk in Piazza del Polipo, the front of the Obelisk

From L to R: A fountain outside San Pietro, another view of said fountain, closer view of the church

From L to R: The seahorse fountain in Villa Borghese, the Coliseaum at night, and from behind Vatican City at sunrise

From L to R: A shot of the Ancient City of Rome, and the Colisseo during the daytime

A couple Berlin Photos

2005-07-15T03:55:00.000-05:00

There'll be more coming a bit further on once I get Manal's photos.

From L to R: Isreali, Palastinian and German flags on the Berlin Wall, East-Side transmission tower looming and ready to attack, closer view of the transmission tower.

From L to R: A small picture of a huge and beautiful building near the parliment, The inside of a brand new building that had no-one inside, the Reichstag building (German Parliment) from the lawn in front.

East and West Collide.......

2005-07-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

I'll offer a bit more of the story of Berlin, and I hope to have pictures up soon too. On saturday,

I waited around for Marc and Jasmine to return from their tour of the city. They came back finally around 3.45, so we had about an hour or so to chat before they took off to Prague. I really enjoy getting the chance to chat with those two, for however short of a time we always seem to have together...Maybe that's what makes our mutual company more refreshing...anyway, I walked them to the tram, and then back to the hostel for a quick nap before the return of the Israelies I had met earlier. We planned to go out to see some music and they returned with me napping and dragged me out. Before we got fully out of the neighborhood where we were staying, we all got very stoned which made the following tour pretty hilarious. German is a very funny sounding language when you are high; but the Israeli girls weren't used to it so much and they were having a tough time directing themselves through the english conversation and the city...a lot of mumbling and chuckling.

We were headed towards the center of town and the Love Parade (unofficial this year). The walk past the parliment building was breathtaking...You'll see the pictures soon...We arrived on June 17th Strasse which is a major boulevard that spans from the famous city gate at one end to a monument at the center of a roundabout all the way at the other end. The whole length inbetween was filled with different stages of electronic music. We stopped and danced at most of them....Here is about where I lost the girls...They weren't too talkative, and I was enjoying the hell out of my time, so we we're a bit out of sync....I ended up finding a beautiful beer tent girl who told me I had beautiful eyes, and of course I returned the compliment and we spent a while chatting and gazing, to my ultimate disappointment though, because she didn't live in Berlin and only had one ride home, so we gave eachother little goodbye kisses and parted. BooHoo. But Berlin is a big city right?, and here I am again, on the road, now back toward the hostel and my friends which I haven't seen all that much in the weekend, but with who I am going out on the town later that night. Asking a few more beautiful gals along the way where the train is (I actually know where the train is, but that accent and those eyes are encapsulating me) I finally make it back to Warschaur Strasse and the hostel about 11:30. Now, someone has decided in my absence (fair enough) to go to a 'popular club' that 'everyone goes to' that evening, to which I thought back to Montreal where every local tells every tourist the best places in town are Peel Pub and Thursdays, which of course are about the worst places in town, so already I feel like I'm getting ripped off....but going out with friends can save any night and I used about all of my patience to dance through the generically uninspiring house music of 40 seconds club. The hook at 40s?, the have a terrace on a high floor, like 737 in MTL, and they rip you off at the door. I didn't buy a drink. At least the walk was nice. The station was Potsdamer Platz, and it was surrounded by again, the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. I heard it used to be a mine field.

Sunday we said goodbye to Nadia, Karen and Ben in the morning. Manal and Tanya wanted to do some serious sight seeing. I decided to take a walk of my own with Omer the Israeli, and some kid from Scotland who was in our hostel. We ventured down to the wall and I really soaked in its history. It is still a huge part of the city, but it isn't depressing. It is really liberating. There are generations of human markings of protest and despair but also of victory and humor on the wall. And now, on the western side, there is a string of public beaches and beachside bars. The area is fully rejuvenated. Further down, we found some more amazing architecture, and I was in awe of the transmission tower the east had built to show their economic might. It looks like its going to attack, always. You have to see this thing, its a big glass ball on top of a massive concrete column, about 300m high. It was built to show the east's power, but the west had the last laugh on their athiestic national socialist neighbors; during the daylight hours, the glass panes of the tower sphere reflect the image of a cross, what the westerners have called 'The popes revenge'. Ha!

Now Omer and I were pretty spent again, so back to the hostel for another nap. After about a half hour, I got up and went to the park and drank a few beers with all the other neighborhood berliners. Then Omer and I hit up a indian eatery before heading back. I finally met up with Manal, who was coming back from the train station where she saw Tanya off. We went back down to the Berlin Gate together and checked out rollerblade night, where thousands of people blade around the major downtown roads together. We couldn't rent blades, we came too late, so we checked out some sweet roller disco!...Then just kept touring down the major roads and taking pictures before it was time to get home and pack it in...

That was tough. Now back in Naples, at work, feeling the travelling itch again. Waiting for the weekend when I plan to hit up Rome for a day and be back sunday for a concert. Ciao!

News

2005-07-09T09:59:00.000-05:00

I'm in Germanz and this is a strange kezboard. The y is in the place of the z. I refuse to change mz wazs because this will spell disaster on returning to work, and I cannot be writing engineering reports with the messed up spellings and english. Please, then, just excuse me from making zou suffer through this akward reading experience. Good thing there aren't manz instances of z and y in this language.

Headed on out zesterdaz morning to Berlin. We got here around noon and were settled into our hostel bz about 1. The hostel is brand spanking new and is magnificent. Plus its onlz 10 euro a night....It does lack a bit of character though, because its new, but everzthing works out to balance in the end.....With mzself and Manal are 5 other canadians, each one of us from a different part of Europe, all converged on the citz for the weekend....Zesterdaz I did a little walk around the citz and realiyed its reallz difficult to speak German...The words aren't at all the same....but most zoung people speak english. This citz is real beautiful....I cannot fullz describe it now, and I would like to have a few more dazs for it all to settle in, but it reminds me of Montreal, but its just more because there are a ton of visitors....it is reallz clean and everzone is respectful...there are a ton of punks and tattoed kids and adults which is great, and everzone is real tall....the women are beautiful....verz....

Last night, nadia, Tanza, Manal and I took to some dinner and then bought some alcohol. Nadia and I took a trip around looking for some relayation and ended up talking with a few intersting cats....I had also earlier in the daz met a real nice girl at a coffee shop who helped me out with some of the confusing german...people are generallz nice, though I feel zou have to come right out and make them feel comfortable...,...no one has gone out of their waz to make us feel welcome; not the waz that things happen in Italz where it is a part of national pride and proballz a part time volunteer dutz to help newcomers out as much as zou can....the people here aren't unpleasent though....its a great place...

After drinking in the hostel for a bit last night, we all went out to a club and saw some german techno....real good vibe....this citz is reallz hip with music and knows how to listen and enjoz....Last night alone there were at least 5 or 6 things I wanted to check out....Richie Hawtin (tech. DJ), Common (hip-hop), Trance partz, funk show, experimental jayy....good good good...and the trains ran all night so getting home was quick and easz....Todaz, I went to coffee with a few people I met from Isreal....funnz thing is there is a guz from isreal stazing in our room at the hostel who knows a friend of mine from McGill....I guess thez both knew eachother from school in Jerusalem...Small world....

I think tonight I'll eat dinner again with the canadians, and then exit to a club with the Isrealis...who knows....but onlz one more daz in this place isn't enough....its teriffic....zou should come here....

I'll do more later...or have zou had enough?

I was born in NY

2005-07-04T09:08:00.000-05:00

I feel like getting monumental with some words and expressing how I feel on this independence day. I want to convey in some way how it feels to be an American, to say some words that will make a difference to me, to convince me that I can be right now to believe in the country that I was born in and that I know, when there is so much wrong with it; when so many disagree.....But those words don't exist, because it is so hard to say anything right now about a country that I hardly understand on the large scale, whose collective democratic motives for liberty and justice are so distorted in many ways...America I think is no more than a belief in the minds of its citizens, and since I am an American, I hold a piece of emotional stock in the place, I have a portion which holds me culpable for all things committed in the name of America the Free, and it is also my passport to freedom and the right to own a piece of beautiful land, and to be a part of a strange and beautiful community...This is my birthright. This is the right of 300 million plus. We are all shareholders in this thing, this monstrosity, this liberator, this evil-doer, the land of opportunity and democratic right, of collectivism and nationalism, harborer of the criminal, protector of christ and the flag, a contradiction and an enigma.

America is free. We are all free. Our minds bind us. We run infinitely in distracted thoughts, retracing our paths, digging with our feet deeper into the confused and blackened ground; we shout progress as we see ourselves burying our feet deeper and deeper in the circular tracks. Not blind, but blinded by the light and the circus and the charade, neon glowing and reflecting off our glazed eyes; we see others and we recognize them as TV stars or famous heroes and we gawk to bask in their transmitted reflective glow. Just the same we see derelict neighbors and paupers and gawk then flip the switch of our schizoprenic minds back to the stars and the lights and the distractions which swirl around us as we move ever faster and harder, digging our feet in the ground shouting 'Progress!' while grabbing at everything that shimmers with flailing arms; things that we touch and posess but do not value or retain as we run ourselves further downward, more tired now and confused, into the continually blackening and magnificently kalidoscopic space. We have constructed a terrific cave of wonder and distraction. I yearn to see a glimpse of the light, true and tangible, from its mouth like Plato once did. I wish this light to shine bright and real and subliminate the distraction.

My roomate (wherever you are TC, we love u so) was once writing a paper on transcending human form and achieving enlightenment. Because I was in science and engineering, he thought to ask me how he would calculate the probability of a specific event occuring for a specific grouping of people over a certain period of time. Naturally, I inquired as to what variables we were dealing with, to get a better idea of the problem. 'What group of people, what event, and what timeframe?' He answered 'All sentient beings achieving nirvana together in an infinite time frame'. My only possible solutions were extrapolated from standard deck-of-cards probability assignments. We were now playing with a veritable non-standard deck. Of course the problem was never solved. We puzzled over it for a few minutes and gave it up. I hadn't realized how important a question it was. Not the question itself, but the thoughts it evoked. The essential background is the buddist belief of whatever type he studied, (Theravadan, Mahatman) that a being cannot achieve complete enlightenment alone because all life energy is intertwined, inexplicably linked, with that of all other sentient beings, making it necessary for all beings to ascend toward Nirvana at one time, with those who have progressed farther being slowed by those who refuse to make steps towards that goal. This means something to me again as I think of my country held up and stagnating in refused progress, some dragging feet while others make heroic steps toward wholeness.

We're all in it together, this at least I can conclude. For better or for worse. With only finite time.

P

New Day no. Infinity

2005-07-01T08:58:00.000-05:00

Whoa!, a long and warm week...somehow difficult and stressful, and I mananged to get myself into circular mind-fuck kind of depression and then just spring back out again....Life sometimes hits my nervous system like a squirrel chomping on the powerlines....

..You know, its always all types of situations together that get me into trouble, not just one thing. For example, the past few days, I've been battling with myself and others for what I believe in. Internally pondering questions of belief can be fine, but impressing beliefs on others for self-validation gets ugly, cause you're always wrong for them and they for you. After a few arguements that went absolutely circular, I started to embrace the 'ol "If you don't have anything nice to say...don't say anything at all", so there again starts my silence and brooding over thoughts which aren't nice and then realizing that maybe I DON'T have ANYTHING nice to say, which leads to more negativity and so on and so forth...but now, isn't that just all some bull?? And to compound the problem, I'm getting closer to being 'Involved' with an attractive young It-al-ian Lady and I'm losing some signals (as always) in doubt and translation...ARGH...

But now, everything is back to 'Normal', which I'm told for me has more ab- associated with it than for everyone else, but I remember how that feels and it is recognizable, by which I mean to say, "Everything is okay and phlabbadablab"

Consider my mindframe summerized.

Now, I said it was warm and sunny, and taking a hit from paulski, I'm unna post up this little slice for you:

It never stops, nor does it ever rain. The beach is my only haven in this weather and luckily I live near a big one.

The un-named events of the past are something like this:

Not wednesday past, but the wednesday before went to go see Ma Pavola (a ballet) at Teatro San Carlo in Naples. My first real ballet. Was kinda strange and sleep inducing and good only for the experience of having gone to 'The Ballet'. There must be better ones.

Last weekend was Festa Dei Gigli in Nola where the people dance around town for nearly 24 hours carrying 80 foot tall decorated wooden obelisks with people playing traditional folk music on each one. There are about 120 men to each of the 8 Gigli, 20 who are playing the music and the 100 others carry the thing. Each Gigli team has had a year to recruit, plan, build (all built the same way) and decorate thier tower. No doubt they workout to carry the thing. After nearly a week there are still men walking around with a very large 'Third shoulder', which is the swollen and bruised area of their upper back that the wooden crossmember of the Gigli was carried on. The band is made up of 3 singers, 2 drummers, keyboardist, guitar, base, and a number of horns (sax, trombone, trumpet). The horn melodies are lofty tunes with your head upturned and mind wheeling. The bass and drums drive the tower through the tiny streets scraping balconies on both sides. I really liked the tune and I am still humming it.

The rest of the week, we had a lot to do at work so I was really tied up. We managed to organize a group trip to Berlin for next friday through monday. Manal and I got a cheap flight and are meeting up there with the Poland crew (6 students from Montreal) and the Munich crew (another 2). All together, we're going to rip the city down, finally getting a chance to celebrate some independence in a city that knows it so soon ago, so first hand.

And finally a note on independence. Today is Canada Day, a week ago, "La fete nationale", and on Monday, July 4th. Yes, we know its all turned into a beer-slugging fest and bbq-athon, no matter where you celebrate from. Canada, I'm relatively new to, and I don't particularly take anything out of celebrating their independence. This isn't a hit on Canada, I'm just indifferent. I will celebrate American Independence, because I think now more than ever we need it. I will celebrate an independent spirit of the ancestors who fought to make it that way and I will keep in my foremind the challenge of preserving our independence from any party who exerts force to tie my hands as a citizen; be that party external or internal.

I'll say some more after the fact stuff about Canada when I get the chance...This is too long though and I've got to get out of here.

This Weekend: Beach (Ischia, Capri), Michele sings Choir, dinner with a green-eyed girl.

Ciao

Duty Calls

2005-06-28T11:28:00.000-05:00

...Lets quick sum up that Amalfi trip, cause I'll never do it otherwise....

After the quick dip, there was a private beach found and I got myself closer to the water cave mentioned earlier and actually chanced with my poor swimming and explored its vastness. Fantastic. Then, clouds and sprinkles came and Kelly and I spent 30 mins. talking and drinking a bottle with an ex-mayor of Anzio (near Rome) and his buddies who were along to the coast on the Mayor's yacht for the summer months. He promised us a ride to Sicly if we ever made it back to Amalfi, but he was also rippin' drunk and trying to get kelly to take her shirt off...but I have his cell number and may try my hand at sailing later on...On the beach, we decided taking the bike ride back was not a good idea and that we'd be better to stay the night...so, into the town to find a cheap hotel with now rain coming harder and harder and having no luck until we asked a woman at the flower shop and she left her work to run around the little streets with us in the rain until the 3rd hotel we hit had a room for us (the last room) and we had to take it, though it was 50 euro each for the night..ack...Ok, we've got a place to sleep, but now we need to buy clothes to wear cause all we have are biker grubs and so we did...Showered, dressed and out into the town where we explored and took some pictures and then ate a nice meal in a Trattoria where Kelly got pretty drunk off a half bottle of wine and we just went back to the hotel and slept....

(Photos from L to R: Kelly Drinking at a Fountain, Duomo Cathedral Amalfi)

...Breakfast the next day was included and we took all we could stuff into our bellies and pockets...we also had a nice picture on the roof of the hotel...

(Photo: Kelly and I on the roof of the Hotel)

...Then we took the bikes around amalfi and explored a bit; went up a ways into the mountains and snapped some more photos...

(Photo: Little Waterfall near the Paper Mill Museam)

...then finally decided that we would check out of the hotel and take a bike trip down the coast, back toward Sorrento on the winding cliff roads, checking out little towns on the way. Amalfi was over and we were once again on the bikes, now climbing out from sea-level up to the winding cliff road which EVERYONE told us was too dangerous to bike on...but what they don't tell you is how BEAUTIFUL it is to bike on....the road wasn't too dangerous, you just had to watch out going around curves for busses and such...but the views were BAM!

(Photos from L to R: Positano from the Beach and
two pictures from along the Amalfi coast on the road )

2 hours or so of biking lead us down to the town of Positano where we rolled 'em down to the sea and ate a pizza for sustinance. The beach was small and crowded so we just decided to move on out up the mountain again, this time to our final destination, Vico Ecquense, where we could swim the sea and catch the train afterward. Another 2 hours or so out to Vico and then at the beach for 1.5 where I found a great jumping rock about 200 meters offshore...My swimming is horrible, so horrible I actually failed my first swim class as a little tyke because I couldn't do the Dead Man's Float (I used to hold that it was because I was Neutrally Buoyant and could NOT float, but as I think of it more now, I realize it may just be a test for all the kids to see which ones panic and just aren't used to the water yet...so they fail us for another year's experience); as I've come to realize though, you don't need form unless you're racing and I can cope just fine with Froggin' 'er out 200 meters into the sea....So, I hit the rock, which was about 20 meters tall and pretty frickin' large around...Climbed up out of the water and made it to the top where I looked out onto the sea for a while before vaulting off...I didn't jump from the top, I was a bit too scared, it being my first jump in a while, but now I really want to get back to Vico and hit it again...

Anyway, so after the beach we were onto the train for a few minutes before boppin' off again and down the slow road to our respective homes...I had a great time out there biking and feeling the trip, relaxing, swimming, eating and all that...I have made a vow to do some more of this biker excursions...Next though, I think I may take off to Germany and meet some friends..

Ciao, Ciao, P

Blah

2005-06-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

Did you ever just want to shout and twist and jump and wear funny hats and drink mai-tais when you should really be drinking mescal from the root and be wearing a poncho instead of a 1970's short, short bathing suit; not at the beach but in your kitchen in the middle of the winter with the most preposterous david bowie strange music playing about trolls and dandolien wine and the fragrant taste of everything all at once, a sound, a taste a swoon and then just sleep....

Backwards and upside-down with your head on the ground and your feet in the clouds twinkling toes in the rippling cool of changing photographs....I want to do it all and I want to do it now, now, NOW!! From one place to another lets go, go, go together...friends lets go and daydream in a field together...!....

Celebrate this Day!

2005-06-24T06:51:00.000-05:00

For the past two years, I have celebrated in Quebec on this day, 'La Fete Nationale', St. Jean Baptiste Day. Every year around this time I tell myself that I'm moving to Quebec, marrying a french girl and her culture, and celebrating 'la belle vie'; winter hockey games, summer festivals with folk music in the park...

Thanks to google, I've found out exactly what the origins of this feast are...

The date originally was the pagan celebration of the summer solstice. King Clovis of France christianized the event by making it a religious celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is known as the Precursor of Christ, rebirth, and the light to the world, which explains the link to the solstice. Bonfires were lit to symbolize the light of the World

So, at sundown, lets together raise the Fleur de lys, light a fire, and celebrate the night away with eachother...

Titles can be overemphasized

2005-06-22T05:42:00.000-05:00

Hi Gang! I want to write about all my adventures to the Amalfi Coast, to go along with these pictures that I have, but I just can't do it all in one shot...!...these words now don't flow from my fingers...So I can do something in the mean (median, or middle..not angry or disconsolate) time...I can post the first of my pictures and provide a small background and story. I'll leave this post as an open-ended, part one, of a as-of-now UN - NUMBERED many...

--> Straight to the Background -->

Last friday at work, Kelly and I decided to go on a road trip with our bikes to the sea. We planned to take the train saturday morning to Sarno, and then from there bike out over the mountains and towards the Amalfi coast...Neither of us had ever been on this trek before, but we assumed it would take about 2-3 hours to get to the sea. We planned to take a swim and rest for a few hours before heading on back, either by way of the coast towards Sorrento or Salerno, or just right on through the way we first came. This all certainly sounded nice, so the plans were settled.

Kelly works Saturdays so I met her at 11 AM in the office. I brought my backpack with me cause I needed to carry along some gatorade and towel, food, swim shorts, etc....Kelly argued that this was not a necessity and that I would regret bringing it along 'cause of the extra weight, and although it was a hot humid day in the sun with the pack on, I did not feel at all like it was un-necessary and was in the end glad I had brought it along....so we were off, me looking like a pre-amateur (debutante?) on my old, ragged, rusty mountain bike, mean-while (still in the consolate manner), Kelly looks like a real professional cyclist, (which in fact she almost was at a time in Scotland), all gear'ed up with the fancy biker outfit and road-bike to match...ooh!, I wish I had taken a picture of ourselves.....

...so the blah begins with the train tickets bought and locomotive subsequently caught, all the way to the termini of Sarno; out again into the sweltering heat of mid-day (I first broke a sweat brushing my teeth in the morning) and along our way getting lost a few times for an hour or so until the we treked over the foot of the mountain in the certainty of the mean-time....

And now the monumental began with the burn of my anaerobic quads lactating pain and oozing booze (for I have time and again taken to drinking and this, my first big leg-streaching exercise in a while shot the remaining toxins out of my skin faster than they were absorbed in); Kelly made swift progress up the mountain while I trailed behind....I quickled learned to not look at the scenery while ascending. The combination of little oxygen, immenent dehydration, the heat of the road, the car fumes and the sweeping panoramic all caused an early break to my day when I had to get off the bike and walk it up the hill for a few hundred meters cause I felt dizzy and light-headed....thankfully that was the first and last time I felt like that....

So we continued the climb for the next hour or so, and by the end of it all I was pretty tired. My mantra for the entire day had been 'For every mountain I climb there's a mountain I come down', and sure enough it turned truer than I could have ever envisioned with a sense of hands-free, coasting joy and sometimes further enthralled with the screming, white-knuckled exuberance of rolling at 30 KMpH on a bike I just know isn't a precision machine (sorry Mom); all feelings which sweep up the pain and nearly the distance of the past 2 hours in only 15 minutes or so, the last part culminating in a ride down the winding face of those mountains on the coast, glimpsing at cars on hairpin turns while concentrating on the spectacular sight of the mediterrainian's unknown shore beyond the horizon and its nearer wave splashed beaches of gold and grey....And then, WHACK!, I'm right there in town with all those tourists and honeymooners, glad to be close to the sea-breeze but still with memory alive of the recent mountain gust and surely shaking from the adrenaline pumping through my veins....

Now it was time to swim, so we headed out to the end of the pier and I hesitated for a minute or two while I changed into my swim trunks and found a path down to the water on the concrete pilons that make up the out-cropping....Kelly had to find a
place to change into her costume so off she went to do just that and I hesitated again a minute or so, planning my dive into the sea so I wouldn't get cracked or crunched in any way...finally, I akwardly dove into the water and floated around for a while, trying to make up my mind which view was better: the open water or the high cliffs....I noticed a huge 'sea-cave' in the cliff not too far off which I vowed to go check out...I leisurly practiced my swim strokes -the doggie paddle, the back
stroke and my modified breast stroke which I'm told is called the frog- and then out again onto the rocks where I rested and took these photos of Amalfi for myself and for you:....

Sorry, for now its almost lunch and I'm quite hungry....We'll have to pick up from here the next time;... P.

New York, New York

2005-06-17T09:33:00.000-05:00

Just thinking about NY, after I have recieved some pictures from the homestead...There are so many things that I miss about that place, things which always seem accentuated when I'm away...right now my image of life in NY is glossy. The blemishes that have sickened my view in the past have now faded, and all ugliness loses its reprehensibility. It was those damned cute deer and my parents hard at work that maybe done it to me...!....I know though, that my mind always selectively forgets the undesireable aspects of life in any place but that at present -maybe to serve for nostalgia's sake- and that these are bound to surface again when the 'mundane' takes hold in my world...But let this message serve as a reminder that nothing but perception is wrong with NY...

HORSHOE FALLS: COHOES, NY - MAY 3, 2005

Photos - Random/Recent

2005-06-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

Here are some photos from the past while in Italy. I have uploaded and posted some pics from Genoa, -the first four are Genoa, which is a shame because I have only one of Nice (my batteries died, and I was enjoying myself too much to really be bothered with picture taking)- also some from other random voyages around the Napoli region. To the brief description:

The first picture is of a striped building I really liked from Genoa, which bordered the Piazza Duomo. You can see a bit of the big church on the left, but unfortunately no pictures...really nice church though, 'dun 'up in the Baroque style. Second would be columns of the second floor of the Genoa Museam from inside the courtyard. There are a lot of exhibits of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings from WWII, and more references to the Japanese experience of WWII around the city. This is a connection I have yet to investigate, but intend to. Third picture is of me sitting atop a Lion that guards the entrance to Duomo...I felt like a big man. Fourth of Genoa is just a landscape shot of some old building in the main downtown plaza. These buildings are still amazing to me, but if you are from Europe, I guess this picture would just be boring.

Now the fifth one is of the beach in Nice. If you're desperate and are into voyeurism, take a look at the full version of this pic and maybe you can find some topless gal....It took about 5 minutes on the beach to acclimatise myself to the topless bathing effect; you out there in the cyber world, having not visited, may find it more intriguing...

Now we get to the older pics. The mountainous valley is just that. I have pledged to climb and camp out on this mountain (Mile High!), but it defeated me with a thunderstorm the first time...The building in the water, I don't know exactly what it is or why its there, but I found it interesting and so the picture...The spraypaint mural is tremendous, the boss says, 'Time to get to work' (in my mind). The palmtree walkway was near the water castle, and the last picture is from inside a different water castle in downtown Napoli, Castel Dell'Ovo (I had posted a picture of this castle from the outside a few weeks before, and now that I think of it, this photo is probally a repeat....:(...


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So, thats the briefs..!..

Des Nouvelles

2005-06-14T08:36:00.000-05:00

Quickly:

We got a black and white TV at our house now (free gift!) that we can watch some cable shows on. Also getting connected again with the news (italian stuff only) and some soccer games.

Yesterday was saint Antonio's day. With every second person in our neighborhood being named some version of Antonio (Antonella, Antionetta, Antonello, etc...) there were a lot of 'Big Festas' happening. We woke up to 5 am bombing --Manal said 'What is that???', I drowsily muttered 'We're being bombed', and tried again to sleep--, (Saint Antonio must have loved the fireworks), and ate home cooked sweets and meats after work and throught the nite.

I finally have shaved my playoff beard, a relic from the Timbits victory in Mid April. My face feels refreshed.

Manal and I both now own bicycles (see pics below). Mine is a mean, black, road-hog..., Manal's is a cute old fashioned bike with a basket, a bell and some florescent pink highlights...

Manal and I went to a club and saw some horrifying music...live DJ that only the children 5 and under were dancing to...yes, children in a club...We drank 10percent beer called 'Delerium' that had a pink elephant on the glass (a glass which Manal made me steal) and then we both rode home on my bike...it was very difficult, dangerous and hysterical at the same time..

Manal went to Pompeii on sunday and was amazed at how big it was, and how little shade the ruins permitted her (she is trying to 'lose' her tan). I tried to find the sea to take a swim; a 30 km adventure on my bike. I ended up happening onto the back entrance of the Pompeii ruins, and got kicked out by a security guard.

Phew!

New Blog

2005-06-10T02:41:00.000-05:00

P-diddy, aka Pawel, aka Paul Tarnowski has come up big with a most telling tale of Poland and the surrounding areas....his words are delightfully angst filled at times and completely a hysterical laugh....Paul knows as well as I do how much time can be spent on a computer at work, producing nothing but good words for friends....so as Paul writes on, check out his blog, Poland 2005, in the sidebar....

Buy it on Paperback, June 2005. $9.95US, $15.95CN.

And the bombs bursting in Air....

2005-06-10T02:21:00.000-05:00

Fireworks are prolific here. I'm guessing they are cheap, or little Vincenzo down the street wouldn't have had the aerial bombardment suffered upon us for his 3rd birthday....A sad side effect of selling cheap fireworks, other than a culture of sloth footed childeren, is the proliference itself, and the 'experienced' amateurs who are tasked with setting up the enormous displays....take for instance the big Virgin Mary festival we witnessed the other nite....after listening to an hours worth of the yawn inducing musical prose of Antonello Venditi (Manal chimes in with "He's the Italian Version of Tom Jones"), we are subjected to the most hazardous looking fireworks display in my experience.....

...for anyone who has ever witnessed the spectacle of the International Fireworks Competition in Montreal, you would know fully of the beauty of such large displays...At park Jean-Drapeau, the firework displays are set up, and certainly, a perimeter is set up around the park, keeping onlookers at a safe distance, as determined by some expert.

....In Nola, there are apparently no experts. There are no limits to how close you may come...only your own common sense stands as a virtual barrier between you and immolation....So, the other night, let come close as we've ever been to a fireworks show, we took most of our liberties in approaching at an unsafe distance.....when the fire started falling from the sky, I began to think that maybe we were a little too near...sure the 'works looked more magnificent then ever...they were blowing up right over head, and the perspective effect provided was great...like the firey branches of a willow sweeping down on you from above....but then there was a stray bomb that ventured to shoot itself right towards us spectators, and you wouldn't have beleived my joy when it did finally ignite in a shower of silver streaks right beside my vantage point, not 10m away!.....I was in the show!....we were laughing while running for our lives...!...we feared God, and still waited against all better judgement to see the Finale (which indeed was grand)....

...come to see the fireworks here, they make you part of the show. Its fun. And dangerous...but if you don't get blown up by it, you may be happier then you've ever remembered after watching such a spectacle..

Was it S. Wonder or L. Richie?.....

2005-06-07T07:50:00.000-05:00

who said 'I just called to say I Love You'....? Does any one else have a day or a time that they decide they're going to use for the sole purpose of catching up with friends and others who they love and appreciate?? Is this an affect of my supreme procrastination only? Do you sometimes call to say 'I Love You'?

Vacation Holiday

2005-06-04T02:22:00.000-05:00

We had a suprise four day weekend this week (Thursday was Italy's national holiday, and on Friday, our employer decided to make the bridge to the weekend for the four day vacation for all), so after taking off Thursday morning and heading to Genoa, we hopped a train yesterday to the French Riviera and are now in Nice. The beach was all day yesterday and will be again all day today....we're staying in a small hostel that is adequately priced (with breakfast included) and just lounging around and enjoying things....we stay over again tonight, and then catch a late train tomorrow nite back to Naples (13hrs!) and straight to work monday morning!!....Ciao for now, ...

what were your favorite shows as a child????(pt.2)

2005-05-31T04:59:00.000-05:00

So inspired I was a few days ago that I just blew up with TV nostalgia....this would be the second half to the previous TV story.....and just to let you know Jenn, I did not forget about 'My Secret Identity' (note the reference below), but the Disney Afternoon, I will have to say that that slipped my mind....so sad....but maybe at that point I was too intrigued by Pretzels and Cheese.....

...I guess the best way to truely remember all that time in front of the TV would not be to remember the classics, but to remember the obscure, crappy shows I watched....I don't even think I enjoyed those shows....who could?, they were terrible even when I was a kid....three pop in my mind right away,

The Greatest American Hero: A dufus with curly blond hair becomes a superhero because he finds a book that Aliens from another planet, when on their visit to earth, had forgotten to take with them back home....this book has a whole bunch of 'magic' words or phrases that somehow, the halfwit has learned to invoke in order to give him certain superpowers....lets see, he could make himself invisible, he could run really fast, could he fly? I don't remember...oh, he could also see where people were presently by touching another object that person had come into contact with in the past..a very specific superpower....there were of course the token pretty lady and crazy old man who were the only ones privy to frizzhead's secret.....the shitty thing about this show....well generally, everything about this show was shit, but if I am to pick, I'll say it was the concept of a comedy-action with a fantasy plot (only 'My secret identity' could pull this off) and the fact there was no arch-enemy...blah.

the other two, I can't remember their names (not suprisingly), and they were most truly the worst shows on television....One was with this very strange looking host who always wore suspenders and pink framed glasses....the idea was you'd have a brother and a sister on the show, and they would have to answer questions about eachother in order to get to the prize round, which consisted of each child seperately browsing through a studio of prizes (pink for the girl, blue for the boy). The brother would get to choose three toys that his sister would like most, and vice-versa....then, if they knew eachother super well!!, they would both get all the prizes.....whoa!

...The last is certifiably the worst show of all time. The concept was to play arcade games. You and your teammate would challenge another team, playing really bad conceptualized arcade games while the host rapped about what you were doing in the background.....the final challenge?....you actually get to take part in a real video game!!!...not really...the effects were so poor and such a primitive piece of attempted virtual reality that no one ever won the game....(Where were those sharks and hedgehogs coming from anyway?? you had no way of knowing, all you saw was a blue screen...)....The concept was poor, but salvageable....what left this show with no hope whatsoever was the host, who was the biggest most vivid example of why you shouldn't watch TV in the first place....the debilitating ADD...

I would like some help here....some sympathy; please comfort me and tell me all my wasted hours were not in vain....

Sorrento, sorrento, beautiful sorrento....

2005-05-30T09:11:00.000-05:00

I've doubted myself again. Its really becoming an issue when I try to write something....see, there is a part of me that aspires to lofty desrcription, something which, if not worthy of some of the authors who inhabited this region in antiquity, would at least not incur in the reader an immediate and nausiating revolt of the senses.....but lo!, the muse is silent, and there remains only an uninspired biped....it is this lower part of I, which always is left with a fleeting desire and corrupted, crappy, and overall, 'cheesy' phrases.....take for instance the proposed opening to this piece......

'Sorrento, sorrento, beautiful sorrento....your hills and cliffs are filled with lemons, but nothing is sour here.....'

.....holy..!....yes, invoke christ....!....this is crappy....ok, so I'll let the beauty of sorrento speak for itself (though beware, it may utter slight malcontent for being shown in this technological light, far from the truest luminescence of its being.....be sure though that this place indeed lives on in the senses of my mind; and to be sure will do the same for you if you are lucky as I who have visited it......

what were your favorite shows as a child???? (pt.1)

2005-05-27T09:24:00.000-05:00

I watched a lot of television when I was a kid....man, some of those shows were classics....as I sit here, reminiscing 'bout my formative years exposed to the electron scan of the CRD...I realize that ironically, TV ...boring... has been replaced by computer ...FUN... and still I am mezmerized by the same 'ol seisure inducing, eye straining high frequency pulse which I similarly cherished all those years ago. In the vain of nostalgia, I will now list here, in no particular order, those 'special' ones which I loved so much....

mmm, Nickelodeon was tasty.....my favorites were 'Salute your shorts', 'Hey dude', 'Pete and pete' (one of the rare classics that is still watchable), 'Guts' and 'Treasures of the Hidden temple' (both of which are completely nausiating to watch now), 'Double Dare', 'You can't do that on television', 'Ren and Stimpy', etc....

PBS had a few ('Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?, Reading Rainbow), though they were always educational, which may have alienated a few of my peers at the time, but I'd say that the years have proven me right for having gained invaluable knowledge from sticking with that experiment that was called Educational TV...(they would've been better off using the production $$ for these shows to send someone to the house and steal your TV....though not very becoming of a public institution; I expect they would be rather less forthcoming about the whole ordeal and just take your stuff some other way....but, I digress)....

Just then, thinking about someone stealing my TV I had pictured it to be none other than Mr. Wilfurd Brimley (he played Scrooge in a version of A Christmas Carol I once saw at the Palace Theater in Albany...that could be the source of the association...), nevertheless, he is worth mentioning, cause his name alone opens up a whole new area of the classic TV I watched....the sitcoms/dramas.....starting with Mr. Brimley (maybe remember him from Quaker oats commercials?), I'll mention the 'ol favorite 'Our House' where in fact Big Wil did play an old grumpy guy....then there was 'Dougie Howser M.d.', 'Life goes on', 'The Hogan Family', 'Family Matters', 'Wonder years', 'Growing pains', 'Family ties', etc, etc, etc.

....Really if I had to pick a favorite, it would be something like 'Step by step', 'Mr. Belvedere', or 'Whos the Boss', ...but there are just so many to choose from.....

Phew

2005-05-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

Finally these pictures are up in the right spot and the table seems to work...!!...so, there are pictures of me and Manal, with our co-worker Kelly and her friend, Richard, all on Mt. Vesuvio together in varying poses....enjoy!

A new beginning....

2005-05-26T09:31:00.000-05:00

Today, I have spent most of my time rehauling the blog, changing HTML code and such. The reason this took so long is because I am at work, and this means I have had to try and be very sneaky while updating. I've felt paranoid all day long, looking over my shoulder and hitting ALT+TAB back to my 'work' that I have been pretending to accomplish....I have no computer at home though, and hopefully now that these changes are completed, I can rest easy on the blog template for a few months...(its a lot easier to use now!!)....this means, back to work and research tomorrow.

So, a list of what I've changed: Colors, fonts, margins, padding of cells, my profile picture (from Mt. Vesuvio), added some links on the sidebar for other fun blogs (check them out)...etc, etc, etc...

I would of course like to hear some feedback, so feel free to tell me what you think of the new look...

Fire on the Mountain

2005-05-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

A first hand experience with the natural surroundings of this region’s visible and notorious landmark, Mt. Vesuvio

The planning started late last week at work, where, due to a lack thereof, I found myself with a lot of free time to set up an excursion up the side of the only volcano in western europe. Finding information on the National Park of Vesuvius was easy enough…we easily determined that the park was indeed centered on the mountain itself and encompassed most of the surrounding townships…after two weeks in Italy, the image conjured was not one of solitary enjoyment but of a much inhabited and tourist ravaged landscape….despite this, I was certain that there would be found a way up the volcano that would not involve too many of these distractions….so the internet was scoured, and there was found a wonderful website that gave information on the 9 official trails that found their way through the park (http://www.vesuviopark.it/grancono/index.asp#parco); each with distinct characteristics, lengths, difficulties…..upon careful inspection, I decided the best route to take would be an old route which was used in the ‘20s and ‘30s by two brothers in their trips up the mountain which was now converted as park trail no. 6, “La Strada Matrone” (http://www.vesuviopark.it/turismo/matrone.htm). This one would offer the best views of the surrounding areas, and with the high difficulty and long round trip (7hrs!) would most likely deter many of the tourists.

The Pre-Hike Hike
The head of the trail was located just north of the town of Trecase (information gleaned from the park’s website), and it didn’t seem like too much of a task to make it there from the local train station. Then again, we weren’t referring ourselves to a topographical map, and we hadn’t quite grasped the distance from the station nor the change in elevation from the sea to the trailhead. So, it took the better part of two hours to walk through the towns at the foot of Vesuvio, up through the tourist resorts and villas until we finally reached the gate of the park; which was locked….seemingly a common occurance, though, due to the well worn path around the gate and through a hole in the barbed wire fence, and finally onto La Strada Matrone. This may have turned out to be some of our best luck because the trail was nearly empty all day (we only saw two other people walking that day)…..The four of us, (Myself, Manal, our co-worker Kelly and her friend from London, Richard) started out on the journey up the mountain after resting 5 minutes from the journey from the train line….

The Long and Winding Road
I have the slightest memory of recollection from this time. I recall chasing lizards most of the walk up through the pine forests at the foot of the mountain. They were too fast. I spent much intellectual effort to determine how I could outsmart them, because I would obviously not be able to beat them on speed. I concluded that I was a poor hunter, or rather, had been shopping too long to instinctually hunt my prey. The best solution to the problem I found, with all my superior human intellect, and with nearly two hours of contemplation of the task at hand was to throw my shirt at them, hoping that like a bird in a cage, the lizard, with my shirt draped over its head and eyes, would think it was nighttime allowing me to capture it. This plan never panned out, and before I knew it, it was lunchtime. We ate ham sandwiches, already dead, cooked and sliced to our preference. Our shade was sparse, the red dust of the giant loomed, and for the first time I realized how ridiculous a desire it was to climb knowingly towards and struggle up to the lip of a mouth that had smothered and destroyed who knows how many thousands throughout history…..I sat before this living genesis, humbled by its mass and in the waning cool provided by its prehistoric life, and I held it in reverence.

A Race to the Top
The importance of draping meaning in meaningless rhetoric can never be overestimated. However I often find this statement itself a problem, as I know some others may. Even now I am waging a battle with myself and the phrase ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire’…but why?....yes, I remember…..
As the journey contines up Vesuvio, we are now out of the sparse shade of our recent respite, much farther removed from the fragrent peace of the wooded foothills, and fully engulfed in the heat of the midday sun, which is now magnified from the fiery lava rock below foot, itself a loose collection of pebbles that makes it difficult to find your footing and ascend the remaining kilometers….Motivation comes from the surroundings though, in bursts of the high mountain winds and spectacular unobstructed views of the Mediterranian. With our legs pumping we make it up to the final piece of well defined trail before we must find our final ascent to the crater on a obscured footpath, maybe out of regular service for quite some time. Climbing, winding round the side of the cone, following the remnants of a fence bounding the trail on the right, then on the left, we’re offered exhilirating heat, wind and the adrenaline of having climbed this fantasy.
At one point its necessary to traverse a washed out span of the mountainside; the accumulated dust and pebbles make this place very susceptible to erosion. We climb up, then around, pausing in the middle of the washout to admire the very vacant trough which we’ve for that moment decided to settle in….then its around one more bend and there is the cone…..from our first glimpse we can only see the hoard of tourists who took the bus up the opposite side of the mountain, having shaded themselves in the comfort of their vehicles as they ascended, missing out partially, I would say, on the splendor of this mountain……..at a second glance, developing into a glimpse of wonder, we ourselves see the massive crater that leads downward, some 600 meters into the center of the mountain…..
…..but, this big hole in the ground is not what I came for, rather I came for the journey up the face of the legendary volcano….so, I took a look for one last time at those surroundings that had been made so familiar during the last 5 hours, I grabbed myself a glowing piece of the crag, and I took the long, relaxing journey back down the other side…….

I guess its because I said I'm tall, but.....

2005-05-19T05:55:00.000-05:00

Take your chance at the ultra nerd star wars quiz...brought to you by me through Dan Zabbal, my roomate of Montreal, and further, Liquid Generation...

Use the following link:

http://www.liquidgeneration.com/quiz/starwars_quiz.asp

Tell me who you are!
P

Pictures!

2005-05-16T05:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, here are some pictures from Italy.....first, there's the 'Villa' where Manal and I are staying....

...and then there are the folks we're staying with...the first one is of our auntie, 'Dia', and the two grandchildren, Antoinella and Francesco...then there's me with Dia and then with Antoinella with Francesco in the background...

...and here are some random pictures...The large church is in Nola, near where we live, the castle on the water is Castel D'ovo in Naples on the Med., and there's our Italian guides, the wonderfully hilarious Michele and Francesca...

Enjoy,...there are certainly more pics to come....
P

Parlano Italiano?

2005-05-13T02:42:00.000-05:00

..No, in fact little or none. This is maybe an overlooked aspect of my trip to Italy; yes they do actually speak Italian here, and my English language suave is not carrying me the whole way. But, details, details....the good thing about Italy is that these folks are fluent in hand gesture, which I can certainly speak myself.

Now, to get down to it. I came in around 3pm sunday afternoon and was picked up at the airport by a woman who works at our company. We found our way to Saviano, which is where I'm now living. Saviano is a small town that is about a 40 minute train ride from Naples, and it is about 20 minutes by public transport from our workplace. The trains and busses are no where near as good as the system in Canada (for instance, there are no bus schedules or route maps, it just comes when it comes...usually around the same time each day, but this type of variability is something you just have to get used to expecting....). I think Saviano is beautiful, but I guess if you've been living there long enough, like the people I have spoken with, you end up seeing it differently....but for me, four months will probally not taint my image of this wonderful place.

I live in an apartment/villa with my Manal, my coworker from Canadia; the apartment is owned by a family whose house is attached to the place...I would describe the whole deal more accurately as a compound...theres a gate at the front for cars and people, there are three muts who 'guard' the place (loosely using guard because they run away if you yell at them, so they're only really there for barking) and the total of the three apartments/houses is one huge building (one section is lived in by the grandfather/grandmother/greataunt, one is lived in by the daughter, and one by Manal and I). We all share a garden which has orange trees, lemon trees, and a walnut tree. The family is terrific and really old school Italian….by which mean when Manal and I came home one day at 9pm, the whole family was outside wondering where we were and waiting for us…grandma (‘Dia’), pleaded with us that we call next time we’re late…so now we have a cell phone (given to us by our landlord, the son, Antonio) so that we can call when we’re going to be home later……Really, I feel blessed to be in such good, loving hands….even though I can’t understand much that is said, both Manal and I have been accepted wholeheartedly.

I have infact taken some pictures, and I will be sharing them as soon as I get the chance. It will really help to understand where I live. But for now, I’m at work and should get back to doing things. This weekend, I plan to head out to Naples and to see the Mediteranian. I also want to climb up Mt. Vesuvio and travel to Sorrento and Amalfi….but there is still a lot of time left for me here…

Ciao from Italy,
P

The Last Night of Montreal

2005-05-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

Yes things have come to a close for this year, and I'm heading on out tonight to Italy. Just when things start to get beautiful in Montreal, though....I'm not going to suggest I would rather stay here all summer and not be in Europe, but there is something so perfect about a Montreal summer. This is really a city I love and can live in for a long time...as long as I can take some of the winters off to somewhere else..

Last night was fun, right?...right?...well for those of you who were there, you certainly know what I'm talking about, for everyone else, sorry you missed out... :(

We had a dinner at the Ritz Carleton for CIADI (Concordia Institute of Aerospace Design and Innovation...what a mouthful), and then we took off to Newtown on Crescent. As a sidenote, I just realized about a month ago that Newtown is Villeneuve in english, which of course is the owner's last name (Jacques Villeneuve). Newtown just sounds cooler I guess, but I wouldn't recommend to Jacques to change his last name permanently, for fear of being disowned in this province....so, Villeneuve..ahem..Newtown, was fun. There were a bunch of friends there, and hell...just look at these pictures....

Its off with me to Italy then. The next time I write, I will be doing it from work, so it may be shorter, but certainly sweet. For everyone who is staying in Montreal, be sure to enjoy the hell out of the summer for me, and I can do the same for you in Naples. Take care of yourself world, and until the next time.....

You're So Vain

2005-05-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am....But that's OK. There's the picture on the right there which is an old picture of me. I'm looking for a new picture and I just happen to have two potentials sitting right by here. Now, I'd ask you, the public (if there is anyone but me who reads this, again reaffirming my vanity) which one do you prefer. Here are your two options:

Pirate Me:

, or there's Revolutionary Me (conducting serious on the phone business).

Please, Make your vote count.

Born in the USA

2005-05-04T23:41:00.000-05:00

New York is a funny thing. I don't know any other place in the world quite like this one. There is real beauty here. The land is fertile, we're surrounded by water, the nights are quiet and the woods are deep. Beyond its natural beauty, this capital region has some terrific architectural design and rich history. The Dutch settled the area and had it called New Amsterdam back in the 1600s, and during their stay here had built some impressive structures; some of which survive until today. Then, during the birth of America, during the revolutionary war, many battles were fought on this land. It was a highly contested area, because of the hudson river and the connecting waterways: to the north there was lake george (Fort William Henry), Lake Champlain (Fort Ticonderoga) and further up, the St. Lawrence river which of course filters out into the Atlantic, and itself an area of rich history for Quebec and the colonial battles fought there. To the south the hudson filters into the Atlantic at New York City, and from the west, you can follow the mohawk river all the way to lake erie. George Washington stayed in the colonial house of the Van Schaick family, one of the original Dutch settlers of this area, right down the road from where I stay now, battles for independence may have taken place right on my land.

And then, after the birth of America, there was great industrialization of this area. The Cohoes Harmony Mills, at one time the largest textile mills in America were powered by the falls of the Mohawk river and brought many workers (mostly French Canadian) to the area near the end of the 19th Century. Troy NY was named the Collar City for its great 'Collar' industry, I guess...thems the times before they learned stitching the Collar and cuffs onto the shirt and marketing it as one big package made more sense. These industrialists left behind a bunch of terrific Victorian Mansions, many now stand dilapidated near the riverfront of the valley. And Uncle Sam. The real Uncle Sam was born and is buried in Troy NY. I guess during one of the big wars, he had sent care packages to many of the soldiers overseas and had received the moniker 'Uncle Sam', his image later being used as a marketing tool for the US armed forces.

And on and on and on. But the most impressive thing about this area is that I feel everyone takes this rich history and natural beauty for granted. There are those who do find the time to experience our history and travel outside their homes to enjoy nature, but I think they are a minority. I feel it is greatly important for the people of this area to embrace this culture, history, beauty. We have all let ourselves become slaves to a history that is not our own, one that is an ideal and not a reality. The pace of our lives is too quick to allow us our respite; reverence of our forefathers. That is the true revolutionary spirit that created the nation, the battles fought on our soil, places that we have now come to pave over with road and parking lot. Ideas we have buried under the ground that we now build our luxurious homes on. There is hope for you yet New York, and America. If your time has indeed come, though, let it be known to all that your history was rich and your people hardy.

Pictures Again

2005-05-02T11:22:00.000-05:00

In an ever continuous effort of improvement, I have moved on with the picture hosting to a hopefully better site. This is officially my first trial of photobucket.com, so if they work out, I'll be pretty psyched. Also, just got a fancy digicam, so now I can document every useless occurance and post it online in no time. Fancy indeed!

Here's some pictures of Albany.

P

Things are different

2005-04-24T22:34:00.000-05:00

Was supposed to be going on a crazy five day whirlwind road-trip of Quebec and eastern provinces this week, but it comes sunday nite and the scheduled departure of tomorrow morning is no longer scheduled. The group and I will end up heading to Quebec city in a few days time on a much appended tour of our greater eastern provinces, but too bad, its just how these things go. Now there will be more time to stay in MTL and relax....all good, just the same....

And this reminds me of a thing which I wrote while bored a few months ago....

January 19, 2005:

A MANIFESTO FOR COMPLACENCY

1. Do not look up.
2. Be positive about your ability to find things NOT to do.
3. If you identify an important problem, bury it where it belongs.
4. Let your in-action rot your mind, it makes things acceptable
5. Invite doubt to consume your actions
6. Understand the real foundation for getting active is immersing yourself in-action.
7. Saturate your mind and body with starch and embrace lethargy
8. Thinking is the one and only requisite action
9. Do not participate in events called "Shake up the System"
10. Listen to David Bowie

In the process of re-writing this list, I have felt compelled to edit and append my original thoughts...but thats not really an original thought, now is it...?...and plus, this manifesto of in-action and complacency really sucks the way it should. Original, Brutal, Naive and thoughtless.....perfect.

Comments?

P

We are the Champions!!!

2005-04-21T16:10:00.000-05:00

.......

...here's a picture of the Timbits enjoying the victory over their Div. II intramural rivals, W. Caribooze....Go Boys!

Sunny observation

2005-04-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

Reading Thoreau and discussing with a friend today I had a few thoughts.....Thoreau, speaking about removing yourself from the context of your society and defining your individualism through solitude and harmony with the natural world. The question is; is it a sign of the times or my generation or who I keep as company now that the world has taken on such transience and removal from rigid societal roles....?.,...the first thing that comes to mind is that i'm crazy and its just that i'm finishing school and going out to Italy this summer. That could certainly explain my postion. But I feel that there's a lot of people out there, in my generation and of my age that feel the same way, which I can explain for the generation through our luxuries and therefore ability to pass through pre-constructed societal roles.....like farmer or blacksmith or baker like Thoreau has spoken about; how many are born into and take on with pride the work of their heritage? Is this a necessity to our existance and is this generation moving away from those roles? Hmm...

P

There's a quote about relativity...

2005-04-18T02:07:00.000-05:00

Einstein was a smart and wise man. He once said about relativity that an hour on a park bench with a lady seems like a minute and a minute on a hot stove seems like an hour. I've spent the last three days sitting on a park bench (almost) with a lady and it does really ring true in my ears now; the dilation of time......Friday nite after my exam, met up with Taz at the VA doing her last minute thing and ran down the road drinking a bomber in the cool spring air. Hit up the bus, which I have to say I just found out you can transfer from one bus to another using the same transfer!!, and went to Cafe Perk for a fundraising/benefit party.....now here's where the night takes on a life of its own...walking to the bank, a lady and I get further aquainted by playing the red-light/green-light game, something which I was introduced to right on the spot. Red light=big kiss, green light=walk. After kissing through many green lights (in the new world order, the cops will ticket you for this), we make it back to the cafe with money to spend and good feelings to blend.,

Now, the atmosphere at Cafe Perk is quite a fun one, and it goes real well with making out in public. So, I do that for a while. Sort of felt from time to time like such a middle of the resto display of affection would get us in trouble, but no trouble came from it right then,...of course, yesterday I was told that the lovely Lucia who owns the place thought I was 'going with' our mutual friend Anastasia or something and now because of my public display of debochary I may be blacklisted. Well, she needs customers, and I can't seem to stop myself from doing anything these days, so we'll see how it manifests itself......back to the rest of the weekend..., so yea, going to a party after cafe perk over near the Little Italy didn't work so well because we were one hundred off on the address ringing someone's doorbell and THEY never answered so there were no parties anywhere.....a little farther and the night ends with drinking sake at the lady's place.

Saturday starts with drinking sake at the lady's place. Really, once you find something you like, you have to stick with it. Its then off for a walk in the Beautiful weather back down to my home in the porteguese neighborhood. Sat with the roomates and some friends on the balcony all day, then met Taz at her place of work, bought some ice cream and ate it in the park. We slid down slides and monkeyed bars till it was time for my hockey game.....Championship Division 2 Intramurals.....we really smoked the other team, and for the first time all season, we had a respectable contingence of fans...we really won it for them. Did the whole trophy presentation thing with the team and then took the fans out to a bar on Monkland and partied it up. Was a really fun time with the boys....almost got into a hockey brawl with the 'Pub' team that was also celebrating their hockey victory that night in the bar....put a bunch of drunk players in a room together; shit. Ok, then it was off to the SCP party where we all got in touch with our spiritual and artistic selves. Met a lot of eccentrics and climed some ladders. Good times done, we made it back to my place and had some pie and ice cream before conking out for the nite.......

Which brings us to today, where I did nothing but walk around and appreciate the sun. Now, its back to study time for another few hours before the 9am exam. With all this talk, i hope to get some visual reference up.....i'm still working on posting pictures, and getting some readers of course, which for now I expect I have none....a project for another day.

Enjoy yourself; P.

First Post...

2005-04-14T08:31:00.000-05:00

Yes, I have a blog. I don't even like messenger, and I have a blog. It may take me a few days/weeks to get over the enormity of this move.....So this is basically a result of me being up all night at school, studying, and now procrastinating. I hope this can move up the ladder of things that waste my time from its current postion of bottom rung to an exemplory no. 1. That way, all you cyber worlders (myself now included, i guess) can join and revel in my break time......which can be a lot of time......

Fun.