Xave's Xlog

A Day of Firsts

2011-03-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

Every day, you do something you've never done before. But usually it's something like "today I ate three bites of my bagel before taking my first sip of orange juice, which I've done before, but this time I only took a nine-minute shower." Doesn't count. It's just gotta be a judgment call on your part whether something qualifies as new.

With that in mind, even though I didn't do anything particularly amazing yesterday, I did no less than five things I'd never done before, all of which count, according to me. In chronological order:

1. Take the Scarborough RT

The Scarborough RT is the only light-rail system connected to the subway, and it features prominently on the system map, so if you ask me it's part of the subway, which meant taking it for the first time brought me much closer to having been to every stop on the Toronto subway system. Still missing: McCowan (the last stop on the SRT, I got off at the second-last), and maybe Finch. I've probably been to Finch, but I can't specifically remember, so we'll keep it off the list for now.

By the way, I took the SRT to get to Scarborough Town Centre, which is where I was meeting a rideshare to get to Ottawa, where I'm hanging out for March Break, and the site of the next four new things...

2. Go For a Run With a Dog

I met up with my friend Bonnie, who suggested we go for a 5k. I'd been planning on 5king today because I'm training for the Goodlife half-marathon in a couple months, so it wasn't a problem to push the schedule up. Anyway, Bonnie's dog Argo accompanied us and was pretty game. He had to stop to cool off a couple times since he still has his winter coat on and it was relatively warm, which simply meant plunking himself down in the snow for 30 seconds.

3. Drink a Protein Shake

Bonnie is a serious athlete. She's, like, been in the Olympics before or something, I think (for fencing, which is really intimidating). So yeah, she's got her protein situation figured out a lot better than I do. The protein shake was pretty tasty. You might even say it was whey tasty.

4. Play XBox Kinect

XBox Kinect is really cool. I don't really follow video games, so maybe I'm way off-base on this, but it seems like it's been hyped much less than the Wii was when it came out, but based on my limited experience, Kinect is a lot cooler. There's no controller, you just stand in front of the screen and do stuff. FREE FROM THE SHACKLES OF THE CONTROLLER! Finally.

We played the Kinect dancing game, which is something like a cross between Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. It's much better than DDR, though, because you do actual dance moves instead of just stepping on squares. Like, for example, one of the songs is Crank That, and you actually do the Crank That dance moves. Totally sweet.

5. Go to Trivia Night at a Bar

I met with some teacher's college friends and we hit up trivia night at the Lieutenant's Pump, one of my favourite Ottawa bars (and, incidentally, the first I ever went to when I came looking for a place to live before moving here). There were probably seven or eight teams, some of whom were apparently regulars, but when all was said and done, we totally kicked all their asses. The trivia dude was like "usually I tell new teams that it takes a few times to get used to the questions, blah blah blah". Sure, buddy.

We each had different strengths, which is what you want in a trivia team I guess. Total team effort. We really came together. Stayed within ourselves. 110%. Some of my best answers: identifying the "hardest" song (Daniel by Bat For Lashes) (even though I couldn't get most of the "easier" ones), and successfully spelling (Peter) Sarsgaard and (Maggie) Gyllenhaal. I have Saturday Night Live to thank for that one ('their wedding gifts came from Craate and Baarrel').

The prize was $10 of food at the bar, each, which paid for most of my dinner. Sweet deal!

Anyway: such a good day for the old bucket list. I hope you have a bucket-worthy day!

Extreme Engineering

2011-01-27T11:00:00.001-05:00

Use Case: simulate microphone configuration for purposes of practicing guitar/vocals with microphone in front of face.

System Diagram

Component functions to be described in the following section.

Components

Component: Incense stick
Function: Simulate microphone

Component: Pen, tied to golf club with broken, not-being-used headphones

Function: Ability to rotate pen, thus adjusting height and angle of attached incense (see above)

Benefit: Increased customizability; ergonomic advantage

Component: Textbooks ('Physics for Scientists and Engineers'; 'Probability and Statistics for Engineers & Scientists'; 'Operations Research'; '1001 Essential Family Favorites')

Engineering Function: Increase height of music instruction manual

Benefit: Improve operator's ability to read instruction manual

Component: Pitching wedge, Tuck Tape

Engineering Function: Microphone stand

Benefit: Accurate simulation of microphone stand

Component: Swively chair

Engineering Function: Maximization of swiviliness

Benefit: Increased customizability; ergonomic advantage

Component: Hand
Engineering Function: Curling action of phalanges creates force necessary to alter sound frequency
Benefit: Music sound good

Future improvements to include second apparatus at higher level to allow operator to alternate between sitting and standing positions; lighting mechanism on incense stick to improve system odour; replace pitching wedge with 3 iron to increase range of apparatus; bionic hand to decrease hand fatigue.

ENGINEERING

My Favourite Medias of 2010

2011-01-19T03:52:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm a little late to the party of year-end lists, but whatever.

I wanted to take some time to appreciate the things that entertained me in 2010. But I'm not a professional TV critic, or music critic, or Twitter critic (that must be a real job now, right?), so I won't attempt to list the "best" of each category, because it would really be the best of the 0.01% that I know anything about. And even then it would be wrong. (There is in fact a right and wrong in matters of taste, I googled it.)

So I just decided to write about some of my favorite... uh-oh, I know where this is going... it's unavoidable... can't... resist... urge............. things. Things that are delivered to me via some entertainment medium, anyway, hence the not-actually-a-word title.

These are in no particular order, because how do you even put S&M-based Friendster feeds and holographic Pokemon music videos to Nine Inch Nails songs on the same scale? Ha ha, just kidding, those things aren't on my list. At least not both of them.

Paul F. Tompkins

I already wrote about seeing PFT live in Toronto, so go check out that post for more detail if you're interested. Basically, I'd never heard of him before August or so, but I went to see him in October, and it was an incredible show. Since then, I've heard him do characters on a comedy podcast called Comedy Death-Ray, in which he's absolutely hilarious, and he's started his own podcast, which I think is pretty good and improving (I still have to catch up on a couple episodes).

Snarky Puppy

These dudes are a funk/jazz band from Texas who I saw on Hallowe'en. I found out about them from two completely different people (my uncle and a U of T friend) on the same day. It was so weird that it stuck in my memory, prompting me to look them up and discover how ridiculously good they are. Even though I haven't gotten around to buying any of their albums yet, their concert, at which they played a set of originals followed by a set of songs from Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (a tradition, apparently - last year they also played the Hallowe'en show at the Rex and covered Thriller), was the best I saw in 2010, earning them placement on this list.

Videogum

A cursory glance at my Google Reader would probably lead one to suspect that my favourite blog comes from the massive "Baseball" category which takes up about half of my 40 or so subscriptions. On the contrary, the #1 internet destination in my books is this pop culture blog which covers TV, movies, and the internet.

There are a ton of pop culture blogs out there, but the ones that keep you coming back are the ones with consistently excellent writing (courtesy of Gabe Delahaye), and an engaging reader community. Videogum boasts both of these things.

For some of Gabe's funniest writing, check out his Mad Men recaps (yes, even if you don't watch Mad Men).

Scott Pilgrim

I'm not really sure what my favourite movie of the year was, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is definitely in the running. Now, that isn't enough to make Xave's Favourite Medias of 2010, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the source comic book prior to watching the movie.

Harper's Cryptic Crossword

Those who know me well know that I'm a big fan of cryptic crosswords - to the point that one of my personal projects these days is creating them, and, eventually, maybe even trying to sell them. (Maybe I should stop saying that and actually do it.)

I learned how to do cryptic crosswords when I was a kid and have been brought up on Fraser Simpson of the Globe and Mail, but this year I discovered Harper's cryptic and it is simply astounding. The clues are so complex and well-written, and on top of that each puzzle has a crazy twist, like each answer in the grid is missing a letter or something. I can usually finish them, but it takes a couple of weeks and several googles of word definitions I didn't know.

This American Life

The way in which I consume media has shifted recently, and podcasts are rapidly gaining ground on Google Reader. This is mostly because I can do productive stuff while listening to podcasts like cooking, cleaning, biking somewhere, and I'm trying to use the time that I would previously spend clearing my RSS feeds working on projects.

This American Life is, simply, the best podcast. I'd be willing to bet anyone who listens to it would tell you the same.

One of the recent episodes.

Dinosaur Comics/Ryan North

Dinosaur Comics isn't my favourite webcomic (that title goes to xkcd), but it's up there, likely occupying the #2 spot. (If you're not familiar, the conceit is that the panels are the same every day, only the dialogue changes. Clearly it takes a brilliant writer to keep this fresh for something like seven years now.)

What separates DC is its creator, Ryan North. He's consistently one of the most entertaining and affable personalities I've encountered, and through his tweeting and side projects I've come to regard him as more of a "complete entertainer" than anyone else on the internet.

For example: in the fall he and collaborators released a book of short stories. A regular person would advertise in the normal ways. Ryan North decided that everyone who wanted to buy the book should do it on the same day so that it would shoot to #1 on the Amazon rankings. It worked, and in the process ruined the debut of Glenn Beck's book. Glenn Beck subsequently got all huffy that some comic artist he'd never heard of beat him on Amazon. The whole thing was absolutely hilarious, especially through Ryan's commentary.

(Doesn't hurt that he's a Torontonian either.)

Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid

My favourite album of the year is a combination of funk, soul, R&B, sci-fi and cool dance moves (see video below).

Louis C.K.

The comedians category really dominated this year, seeing as two made this list. While Louis C.K. wasn't my favourite comedian of the year (that would be the aforementioned PFT), he is simply one of the funniest guys around these days, and you can't really go wrong with anything he does.

But what got him onto the list was, in addition to his phenomenal stand-up, his new show (Louie), which he writes, directs, edits, stars in, grips, assistant best boys, I dunno, everything? It's a touching look at middle-aged divorced life which is often depressing, occasionally uplifting, and always very funny.

Honourable Mentions

Movies: Kick-Ass, Toy Story 3, Fubar 2, Inception, The Social Network (haven't seen most of the award-season films)

TV Shows: Community, Party Down, Lost, 30 Rock, Bored to Death, Mad Men, Futurama

Songs: "Faster", "Tightrope" (Janelle Monae), "Cousins" (Vampire Weekend), "Fuck You" (Cee-Lo Green), "Good Intentions Paving Company" (Joanna Newsom), "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" (Arcade Fire), "Camel" (Beach House), "Bowls" (Caribou), "All I Want", "Pow Pow" (LCD Soundsystem), "Tell 'Em" (Sleigh Bells)

Albums: "Heartland" (Owen Pallett), "The Suburbs" (Arcade Fire), "Swim" (Caribou)

Podcasts: The Moth, Freakonomics, Comedy Death-Ray

Books: The Big Short (Michael Lewis), Contact (Carl Sagan), UBIK (Philip K. Dick)

Other: Joe Posnanski (Sports Illustrated writer, non-stop blogger), Dirk Hayhurst (baseball player, published author) What's Up With That (recurring Saturday Night Live sketch), xkcd (webcomic), Comixed (webcomic)

Goodbye, Failblog

2011-01-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

Failblog, it's been fun. You've made me laugh on a consistent basis for a long time. You still do! There isn't much more I can ask from a blog based on human screw-ups. Or from any blog, really.

But all good things must come to an end, and Failblog, I'm sorry to tell you that this is our time. I feel like I'm sitting at the breakfast table reading the newspaper while you knit a sweater for that nice boy down the street. We aren't talking. It's not an awkward silence; it's comfortable. But that's kind of the problem, Failblog. I never wanted our relationship to be comfortable. I wanted it to be exciting, dangerous, and surprising.

No, Failblog, don't cry, please. Believe me when I tell you that I'm doing this because I love you. It's better this way - for both of us.

Look, I never want you to change, but in a hypothetical world, if I was forced to change one thing about you, which I never would, I promise, it would be your prolificity. You show up in my Google Reader like 20 times every day, and that's just a little suffocating. I mean, it would be, in this completely hypothetical scenario.

I guess there's one other thing, Failblog. I have to admit, I don't really like your friends. Maybe they're not your friends. Maybe they're just random people who scrawl messages on your walls. I'm not really sure what the situation is, and I don't want to pry. But for the most part, they're immature jerks.

On that note, I have to bring up a sore subject for me. Your friends' jerkness is never more apparent than when it comes to Justin Bieber. I've written about the Biebs before (read that to understand my disdain of your "friends" putting him down), so I'm worried that you'll start thinking I'm a JB fanboy, because I do care what you think of me Failblog, I really do. But I'm not a fanboy. I even enjoy the odd lesbian joke at JB's expense.

But voting him the Failiest Person of the Year, in a landslide, mind you, ahead of such real atrocities of human beings as Mel Gibson and Tiger Woods, is going a little too far. Now I know it wasn't you Failblog, it was those "friends" of yours again, but the fact is you let it happen, and that's a little disappointing. Not unforgivable, just disappointing.

I want to make it clear, though, this isn't why I'm moving on, Failblog. As I said before, it's just our time. I'll still visit every now and then. I still love you, after all. And I'm grateful, Failblog; thank you for all the joy you've brought me.

FREE CATS!

2010-12-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

There are a couple posts I've been meaning to write over the last couple months, and this is the season to do it! Today I present to you: FREE CATS!

I moved back to Toronto at the beginning of September, and one of the first things I noticed upon settling in to my new house were the two cats that frequently wandered through my room and the rest of the two-story part-of-a-duplex apartment. As far as I knew these cats didn't belong to my roommates, so I had no idea where they came from. As it turns out, they jump over the fence from our other-side-of-duplex neighbours, entering our house through the third-floor deck.

To me, this is the perfect pet situation. You get all the cuddliness and meowdowns (meow showdowns - who will stop meowing first), and none of the upkeep costs. Unfortunately, they don't visit so much in the winter, but when I first moved in they were hanging out all the time, and I managed to snap a few photos.

Click "view on slideshare" or whatever the bottom right button says if you want to fullscreen this and optimize your viewing experience.
Free cats

My Justin Bieber Screed

2010-11-20T17:13:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time, and was reminded it of it last night after having another Justin Bieber conversation. If you're reading this, you probably hate Justin Bieber. I say that because it's the general reaction I've been getting from my friends and other people my age and, honestly, I don't get it. I mean, Justin Bieber's music is bad. I'm not here to defend his music. I don't listen to it, and the few times I have, I haven't liked it, but that's beside the point.

Look, there are always going to be Justins Bieber. Pre-teen girls have to be in love with someone, and that someone is always going to make bad music. Pre-teen girls just have terrible taste in music. It doesn't matter how cute the guys from Animal Collective are, they aren't getting a grade 6 fan-base.

(By the way, I'm not trying to be sexist here - pre-teen boys have terrible taste in music too. I was listening to FM 96 (London's The Edge) non-stop at that age, as we all were.)

So yeah, Justin Bieber isn't a new concept. It was the Backstreet Boys and then 'N Sync when I was that age. It was the New Kids on the Block before that. Hanson was in there at some point. Now it's Justin Bieber, who took over for the Jonas Brothers. Justin Bieber is just a fact of life. But he's a fact of life that absolutely doesn't concern people in my generation, so I just don't understand why ADULTS care how good his music is.

Even if you do want to debate the merits JB, I think he stacks up pretty well to his predecessors. Groups like BSB and 'N Sync were money-making monsters created by record labels (same with the Spice Girls - remember when they were created? Something crazy like 10,000 people auditioned, and it was so publicized, the Spice Girls were superstars before we even knew who was in the group).

While J-Biebs is clearly a product at this point, his rise to fame was somewhat more organic - he was discovered through Youtube videos of him singing covers. It may seem like splitting hairs, but I think there's a big difference between being "discovered" and auditioning for a group that would be formed one way or another.

Secondly, I like that he's actually a teenager himself. Somehow it seems disingenuous to market a boy band of 20-year-olds guys to 12-year-old girls. Bieber is 16 now, but he was "discovered" at just 13, having already become popular on Youtube.

Now, some people have pointed me to videos where JB has come off as arrogant, stupid, annoying, whatever. He's not perfect. But at the same time, anything he says or does is magnified quite a bit, and nobody's on their game 100% of the time. And he's so ridiculously popular, I can understand him thinking he's the shit. He basically doesn't know any other way of living! Finally, he's been the victim of a LOT of ridicule and mean-spirited internet "jokes" (4chan is bunch of assholes, I don't care if funny stuff comes out of there occasionally), and, fame and money or not, that can't be easy. On the whole, he doesn't seem like a bad guy to me.

Now, while I'm baffled and disappointed by the hate JB receives from people my age, I fully endorse it coming from anyone under the age of 18. Just as falling in love with teen pop stars is part of growing up for some people, rejecting what's popular is part of growing up for many others. I hated the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync when I was a kid, as most boys did (and some girls too, let's not leave them out of the hate-fest!), and that was part of my childhood identity. So hate on, kids! But the day you turn 18, or graduate from high school, or, well, somewhere around that time anyway, you're not allowed to care anymore.

(Then you can care again when you're a parent and you have to deal with positive and negative influences and all that stuff, but I have to imagine innocent teen pop stars are the least of your concerns when you're worrying about violence and sex and stuff.)

I am a little worried about the Biebs. Where does he go from here? He's going to lose his pre-teen fan-base at some point, and his reputation with non-pre-teen girls has pretty much been forever tainted, no matter if he actually becomes a good musician at some point. There's a little hope, though: did you hear about that crazy band with one of the Hanson dudes, the Smashing Pumpkins guitarist, and a guy from Cheap Trick? I have no idea if they're any good, but that's kinda cool. And, obviously, Justin Timberlake is the gold standard for terrible pre-teen pop musicians becoming amazing artists. Let's hope JB's hilarious SNL sketch with Tina Fey last year is a portent of future success.

Of course, maybe I'm just trying to defend my Hallowe'en costume.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Real-Life Edition

2010-11-17T02:07:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, I heard about a "Real-Life Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" scavenger hunt type thing. It sounded fun, so I texted a few friends, got one interested, and we met at King and Bay in downtown Toronto for the event.

We were given a piece of paper with six locations scrambled using a cipher, which were pretty easy to decipher. It instructed us to find informants in six locations: the Eaton Centre, Commerce Court, Hockey Hall of Fame, the Metro Convention Centre, First Canadian Place, and 32 Dundas East. After finding the informants, we were to receive clues from them, solve some sort of puzzle, and then get a clue regarding CS's final location. Presumably, in the end, we could combine all the informant clues to solve the mystery. Additionally, the instructions revealed that all the informants were stationed in the underground PATH network.

Thinking time was of the essence, I hopped on my bike and sped towards the Eaton Centre while my partner Jimmy ran alongside. We then proceeded to spend about half an hour looking unsuccessfully for the Eaton Centre informant - for one thing, the EC is connected to several branches of PATH, all of which are extremely busy, being connected to the Eaton Centre and a couple of subway stations, and since we hadn't encountered any informants yet, we didn't know what to look for. Eventually, we found tiny stickers on a set of doors saying something like "anywhere but Sears". We decided this was a pretty clear indication to look in and around Sears, but (spoiler alert) we never did find the EC informant, so whether those stickers were even related to the scavenger hunt is unclear.

After giving up on the EC, we went to the next closest location, 32 Dundas East, which, as it turned out, was an address that didn't exist (the correct building was 10 Dundas East). I'm not sure if they had ciphered the numbers 32 in addition to the letters, but if they had, there wouldn't have been enough information to figure that out. Furthermore, the complete location was listed as "32 Dundas East, 5th Floor". There was no 5th floor, so we looked for a while on the 3rd floor, thinking they might be including the two basement levels in their calculation. That failed, but eventually we stumbled upon the agent... on the first basement level (second floor from the bottom).

We should have been annoyed by the misleading instructions, but we were just relieved to finally find our first informant an hour and a half into the event. The agent told us he needed to know the price of a plane ticket to Johannesburg, so I went in search of travel agencies while Jimmy went back to search the Eaton Centre some more. The first travel agency didn't have anything listed, so after a few minutes of fruitless pamphlet-searching, an employee asked me if I needed anything. So I asked her for the price of a ticket to Johannesburg. Obviously, her first question was "when?", because plane tickets are not fixed prices. I had anticipated this ambiguity in the clue, but wanted an answer to bring back to the guy anyway, so I said "tomorrow". She was confused.

After explaining the situation several times, I finally got a quote and went back to the guy. He told me I was wrong, obviously, but after telling him how I got the answer, he straight up told me to go to a different travel agency. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me which one, so I went to a second incorrect agency and wasted 10 or 15 minutes there before meeting up with Jimmy again. Jimmy had a brainwave and remembered a third travel agency nearby, though clearly the third-closest to the location of the informant. That travel agency had a deal to Johannesburg on their window, and this proved to be what the informant was looking for. How we (the solvers) were expected to know to go to this particular travel agency is beyond me, and if it wasn't for Jimmy I would probably have wasted the rest of the day on this search.

At this point it was pretty late in the competition (it was to be three hours long), so I decided it was imperative to split up if we had any hope of contending. I sped down towards Front Street and hit up Commerce Court. That clue was easy; the agents were easy to find, and I just had to decipher a couple of scrambled messages using the same key as before.

Next was the Hockey Hall of Fame and, once again, a quick and easy solution. That agent was an "actor" who had a problem - he couldn't cry on command, and asked me to show him how. So I started pulling out my nose hairs. After fake crying out in pain and faking some tears (I was sweaty from running, it was easy) I started on another nose hair, and the guy was like "dude, okay, that's fine!"

At that point I was feeling good; if Jimmy got one or two we might still solve this thing. Then I went to the Metro Convention Centre and spent 45 minutes looking for the informant. The PATH network doesn't go into the MCC; it just connects via the Skywalk (the passage from Union Station to the CN Tower). So I figured the agent would be in the Skywalk, but I walked up and down several times and didn't see anyone remotely agenty (one thing I will give the group who organized this is that the agents were in costume and in character). I also ventured into the convention centre itself on several occasions, even though the informants were supposed to be firmly in the PATH. Inside the MCC I encountered some sort of bizarre balloon convention. Seriously, there were all these well-dressed people... and then a large number of people carrying classic multi-coloured bunches of balloons. It felt like I was at the premiere for Up or something. Needless to say, my ratty clothes stood out and I was gently asked to leave (even though there had been no security I had to sneak by or anything).

Eventually, I gave up on the convention centre and met up with Jimmy who had given up on the Eaton Centre for a second time and had found the agent in First Canadian Place. That agent sent him to Union Station where a sub-agent was waiting; we found that guy and returned to FCP with the clue answer only to discover the FCP agent had left his location, permanently, about 15 minutes before the end of the competition (and we encountered other groups experiencing the same frustration).

Jimmy had to go, but I was interested in at least getting some closure, so I went to two of the locations where I knew agents had been. They had left, but it was after six at this point, so that was understandable. Less understandable was the lack of people at the starting location. I thought there would at least be someone announcing the end of the competition or the winners or where the after-party was or something, but it was desolate. So I thought to myself: "um, okay, I guess I'll just go home now?" I was pretty disappointed; I was expecting an after-party at some nearby bar, or at least, as I mentioned, some kind of closure. None was to be found.

All in all, I had fun at times, but we spent most of the three hours looking for agents rather than solving clues, and it just sort of petered out at the end. Pretty disappointing, on the whole.

Anatomy of an Unexpectedly Successful Evening

2010-10-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

A couple months ago, I bought tickets for a comedian named Paul F. Tompkins. I barely even knew anything about him: I had recently started following him on Twitter, I think because John Hodgman (the "I'm a PC" guy) often mentioned him on Twitter. So I had read a few of his tweets and was vaguely aware of the fact that he was a stand-up comedian. One day he tweeted that there were only a few tickets left for his Toronto show in October, so I did a little bit more research.

Turns out PFT (which I can call him now because I know so much about him, like we're basically best friends) has this thing called the "Tompkins 300" wherein, if a city can muster 300 residents to pledge attendance at a show, PFT will book a show there. It started one year ago yesterday, the first show being in Toronto (a Toronto comedian named Bob Kerr organized the first Tompkins 300 Facebook pledge group, inspiring the project) and has since expanded all over North America, and even to faraway places like Denmark and Australia (check out the Tompkins 300 Map).

It sounded like a cool concept, so I bought two tickets on spec, figuring "dude, I've got two months, I'll find someone to come to the show with me!" Well, of course, I procrastinated, and when it came time to ask the people I thought most likely to accompany me, they were all busy/not interested.

Not wanting to lose $25, I took to Twitter to try to find a taker for the second ticket. First, I tweeted at PFT himself to see if he could re-tweet my offer to the masses, but he was probably on a flight or something. But while doing this I stumbled onto his Twitter page, which shows all the other people who have tweeted at him, and one such person was desperately looking for tickets. So on Saturday, I tweeted to this guy, Greg, that I had an extra ticket and that he should e-mail me on Sunday to figure things out. He replied that he was looking for two so he could bring his girlfriend, but would take just the one if that's what it came down to.

Upon waking up on Sunday, I had an e-mail about the tickets waiting in my inbox. Partially due to the fact that I wasn't sure what Greg's real name was because his Twitter name didn't make it immediately obvious and partially due to the fact that I was drowsy, having just woken up, I just blindly assumed the e-mail was from Greg. It wasn't - it was from a different guy named Steve, who, apparently, had also been on PFT's Twitter page, and had followed the paper trail to get my e-mail address. So I e-mailed him back confirming that I still had an extra ticket, not realizing that I was now promising him my ticket.

I was in and out of the house throughout the day commuting between three different tutoring appointments, and sometime in the afternoon I called Steve to figure things out. At this point I had decided I was kind of ambivalent to going to the show, and if he wanted the second ticket for his girlfriend, he could have it, but if he didn't, I would happily go to the show. Steve was confused by this since, remember, he wasn't the guy with the girlfriend. So he said he just needed one, and I assumed his girlfriend had dropped out.

Shortly thereafter I got an e-mail from Greg asking about the ticket, and that's when it dawned on me that I was dealing with two different people. I called Greg up and had to apologize for promising my second ticket to a guy I thought was him, when it could have gone to his girlfriend, but told him I'd still get him the one ticket. He was cool about it; I think he was just appreciative to get any ticket.

So I headed down to the Rivoli around 9 to meet the guys. I didn't have physical tickets; I just had my name on a list. So after meeting Steve and while waiting for Greg I went downstairs to make sure these two guys could go in on my reservation. The girl at the door seemed confused by the situation, so I half-heartedly explained ("I accidentally sold both my tickets to two different guys, not realizing they were different people" (in retrospect, my subconscious did a great job of explaining this in the most pitiable way possible even though at this point I was planning on not going to the show and was not especially disappointed about it)), and she was like "dude, I can get you in, no problem". Cool! So it all worked out - Greg and Steve would both get to go to the show, and so would I, though I still felt bad for Greg's girlfriend.

A few minutes later Greg showed up with his girlfriend, which was kind of awkward because I had screwed up when I could have gotten her a ticket, so I tried to mend things by explaining that the girl at the door would sneak me in and maybe we could get the same deal for her. Greg seemed concerned, asking if I still had a ticket for him. After assuring him I did, he was like "ohh, no problem! We scalped a ticket for (his girlfriend)". I guess they had showed up for the early show and found someone selling an extra! Now it had really all worked out.

Well, that's it for the tedious procedural details, which, as you should know by now, make up the bulk of Xave's Xlog. There were a couple short opening acts, which were okay, and then PFT did what seemed like an extremely long set, although I'm not sure because I've never specifically bought tickets for a stand-up comedian before - only "Friday night at Absolute Comedy!" or whatever.

It was great! PFT is hilarious. Aside from 20 or 30 minutes of "riffing", which he made a point to comment on (the act of riffing, I mean - he kept being like "okay, enough riffing, gotta get on to the material", and then not doing it because he was struck by something else to riff on, or something, and it was amazing), he basically told his life story starting from dropping out of college because he knew he wanted to be a comedian, working a couple of terrible jobs at video stores, meeting Paul Thomas Anderson and subsequently all the famous people in Magnolia, getting his scene (but not voice) cut from Magnolia (Magnolia: "a movie where everyone in the phonebook starts talking to each other"), PTA repaying the favour by giving him a tiny part in There Will Be Blood through to his hosting gig on the show Best Week Ever, which ran for four and a half years or so. I thought it was a unique approach; of course comedians talk about their life, but it's usually bits and pieces rather than an hour-long narrative. Of course it was hilarious also.

If you want to check PFT out a little more, he's got a couple albums, and he recently started a podcast, entitled the Pod F. Tompkast, which I think is ingenious, even though it may seem cutesy and somewhat obvious, but it's become one of those phrases that I just keep repeating in my head. Pod F. Tompkast. Pod F. Tompkast. Hilarious. See, you're doing it now.

After the show, the bar gave away promotional posters for free, which were actually really nice, and PFT set up a table to sell CDs and sign stuff, so Greg, his girlfriend, Steve and I got a chance to meet the man, and he even laughed at a couple of my jokes, genuinely or not. (I also discovered his scene in There Will Be Blood is the first scene with dialogue, which if I recall correctly is like 15 or 20 minutes into the movie, in case you want to check it out.)

In case you can't read it, it says "Dave! A good Samaritan!"

Pizzafish

2010-09-08T01:52:00.000-04:00

A couple days ago, I had one of the weirdest dreams of my life. Here's what I remember:

I was with a bunch of people (don't remember who) in the Rocky Mountains
There was a lake nearby populated with a certain kind of (fictional) fish
We ate the fish and it contained both white and red meat. I hazily remember this as similar to the Simpsons (or Family Guy, can't remember) where the pig rolls over and offers some bacon ready to be peeled away from its stomach. The fish wasn't talking to us, but it was like there were strips ready to go and they were labeled with easy-to-pull tabs indicating red or white.
Even more bizarrely, there was a whole pizza inside the stomach of the fish. And somehow I knew (by that particular inexplicable surety unique to dreams) that the pizza was a naturally occurring phenomenon inside the stomach of this fish.

I posted this in less detailed form on Facebook the other day but it's such a fascinating dream that I felt compelled to expand it into its own blog post and examine some of the consequences that would arise from a world in which the Pizzafish existed.

First, I should note that I think the pizza was a plain cheese pizza. This is a detail that I hadn't considered, but after a friend posed the question in response to the aforementioned Facebook post, I searched back through my memory and while said memory is extremely uncertain, doesn't it just seem like, were pizza to be found naturally occurring in the world, it should occur as the classic trio of crust, sauce and cheese?

Anyway, the first post-dream analysis question that popped into my head is whether pizza would be considered meat in this world. The first instinct is to say yes, it would. After all, other animals have stomachs that are edible (and presumably the contents of the stomachs are part of that, I don't really know), and those are certainly not considered to be vegetarian.

However, a friend pointed out pizza could be analogous to eggs in this case. If the fish were to release the pizza from its insides as a chicken does an egg, then clearly it isn't meat, because no animal is killed in order to collect the pizza. But a chicken might not be the best analogy: fish lay eggs too, and humans eat them. Caviar, however, is collected from dead fish. Despite what you may think, there are no caviar trawlers out there, scraping the ocean floor for tiny delicacies. Therefore, according to chickensaysmoo on Yahoo! Answers, caviar is not vegetarian, and accordingly, in our hypothetical Pizzafish dreamworld, neither would pizza be.

Pizza-as-fish-egg raises another large question, though. Are we to assume that in Pizzafishland, as such a world would obviously be called and the name we will use from this point forward, the Pizzafish springs forth from pizza itself? Well, dramatic changes in physiology are not unprecedented: think caterpillar/butterfly. So it does at least seem conceivable that a fish could go through an early life stage as a pizza.

Unfortunately, the dream's timeframe wasn't long enough for me to witness the lifespan of a Pizzafish, so I can't give you an absolute answer. But given that the pizza is a natural phenomenon, it must have served some purpose - that's just straight-up evolution. Animals don't evolve superfluous body parts. What purpose could the pizza have served besides reproduction?

I suppose the pizza could have been useful in order to feed newborn Pizzafish. Perhaps the Pizzafish's offspring would spend the first stage of their life growing inside their creator, mammal style, and would feed themselves on the pizza. This is an unsatisfying answer, however, as it leads to two questions: 1) would this mean the Pizzafish could only reproduce once, or would it be able to re-generate its pizza? and 2) after being raised on a diet of pizza, would the young Pizzafish not struggle to survive upon exiting the womb, only to discover a vast ocean with no pizza?

Another, more esoteric possibility is that the pizza is something like a physical manifestation of the cat-nine-lives principle. Perhaps a Pizzafish has the same number of lives as the number of slices in its pizza, and each lost slice brings it that much closer to death.

This scenario has also led me to speculate about pizza delivery in Pizzafishland. At what stage would the pizza be extracted from the fish? If we are to believe that Pizzafish follow the trend of other fish, the extraction occurs somewhere on land after the Pizzafish has been caught. But this doesn't narrow down the possibilities much. The pizza could be removed immediately upon being caught, by the pizza place, or not until it's delivered to the customer.

I'd imagine that in most cases the pizza would be removed early in the process and pizza delivery would be pretty much the same as it is in our world. However, I would guess that there would be Pizzafish snobs who would insist on a fresh, un-excavated Pizzafish. Naturally, niche businesses would pop up to serve this population.

One of the things I love about science fiction is speculation about how the world would change if it was altered somehow. Clearly the existence of the Pizzafish, a relatively minor existence in the grand scheme of things, would lead to far-reaching consequences that would fundamentally change our world. Don't be surprised if we return to this topic and delve into more detail about the theoretical yet delicious Pizzafishland.

Canada's Wonderland

2010-08-13T16:50:00.001-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I went to Canada's Wonderland a couple days ago - the first time I'd been in about seven years. Last time I went was on a high school jazz band trip, and I distinctly remember it for a few reasons: 1) after having previously been terrified of rollercoasters, I discovered a new love for them and spent the whole day riding every one CW had to offer, 2) in keeping with tradition, I spent every second of every rollercoaster ride screaming and to this day I believe that my falsetto vocal range permanently lost fairly significant range, and 3) a guy in our group got caught sneaking pot into the park.

Seven years later, I was looking forward to rollercoastering it up once again, since not only had I never been back to CW after discovering this aforementioned affinity, I had barely been to any theme park in that time - the only other instance being our family's outing to Disneyworld earlier this summer. Disneyworld, though, only has a couple of rollercoasters, neither of which are really all that intense, so it barely satiated my thirst.

So I guess I'll try to remember the order in which we went on the rides to give you a feel for the day (because you're so heavily invested in my life) and give a quick review of each one.

Behemoth - this is the newest rollercoaster, apparently, and also the one with the highest Terrifying Factor or whatever it's called. It certainly is pretty terrifying, especially that first drop. I couldn't go no-hands the first time, but after we got into the gentler parts of the ride I was able to let go and start air-guitarring and air-drumming for the mid-coaster photo (aside: my friend Ian related a story about a friend who had been on some sort of river-rafting ride somewhere, grabbed the canoe paddle, and air-guitarred at exactly the right place. Obviously he bought the photo, despite its over-pricedness. This story inspired me throughout the day.) Unfortunately, I didn't know where the photo was to be taken and didn't time it right.

The Italian Job - Another one that's new since I was last at the park. It's actually called something else now because Paramount dissociated itself with CW, but I can't remember the name. Anyway, the calling card of this rollercoaster is that it goes 0 to 60 in some crazily short amount of time. Otherwise it's a fairly short and unimpressive-looking ride, but near the end it goes into a seemingly small building only to spend a much longer-than-expected amount of time hurtling through darkness. I enjoyed this one a lot.
The Great Canadian Minebuster - an old standby, one of the two wooden coasters in the park. Not really a great ride, very slow line, but a must-do just to say you've done it, I guess.
Skyrider - gave us a couple of firsts - first stand-up rollercoaster of the day, and first upside-down of the day as well. Short but a fun ride.
Dropzone (now my memory is getting hazy about the order of things) - this was at CW the last time I was, but I didn't attend. It's gotta be the shortest ride in the park, but it's pretty fun. Also, the "Drop Zone Penny Trick" - whereupon a penny placed on one's hand/knee/other body part falls at the same rate as the Drop Zone because gravity - was explained (though unfortunately not demonstrated - they make you show your hands before you go up, not that that prevents you from getting into your pockets at the top) to me. Here's a crappy video of the trick which was at least better than a couple others I looked at.

Dragonfire - I barely remember this one, I think I always get it mixed up with Skyrider... average rollercoaster, probably a loop or two, had been on it before.
Wild Beast - the other wooden coaster in the park, nothing to write home about.
Spongebob Moving Chair Movie - the last time I went in a moving chair movie was also at CW, and I think it was about dinosaurs. I'd also previously been on a couple when I was a kid at Disneyworld, and even though I was six or seven at the time, those were two of the few things I still remember fairly clearly. This was the first moving chair movie I've ever been on, however, that was also in 3-D. It was great! Possibly my favourite ride of the day (and certainly can be classified a "ride" - it was more intense than I was expecting). My favourite part was when Spongebob was trying to make the hamburger and then he lost the pickle! So the pickle flew out and it was like right in front of me! I tried to grab it but it didn't work.
The River Rafting One - I distinctly remember this being my favourite ride before I got into rollercoasters, and it's definitely still up there. It's very relaxing in a couple of ways: it provides some stomach relief from all the violent rollercoaster action, and the various waterfalls and random watersplosions provide some much-needed heat relief. Ironically, though it seemed like I was the only member of our group of six who didn't mind getting wet, I was the only one who didn't.
Behemoth - yeah yeah, I already talked about Behemoth, but we went on it again after dinner, and I really warmed to it. The first time was fun but dizzying, but the second time I loved it, especially since the sun had set while we were in line, the rollercoaster track was lit up, and we got a great view of the surrounding area (woooooo suburbs!)

Conclusions

Were it not for the second ride, I wouldn't have loved Behemoth, but in the end it was up there with Spongebob and River Rafting for my favourite rides.
I tried many variations on the Air Guitar in an effort to get a sweet rollercoaster photo, including Air Harp, Air Clarinet, Air Violin and lots of funny faces, but as it turned out, most rides didn't have the photo thing going on, and I guess I messed it up on the ones that did. Oh well.
I was disappointed we didn't make it to Top Gun, which was my favourite one the last time, but that opportunity was exchanged for the second Behemothing, so it was worth it.
We also didn't make it to Vortex or the Bat, both of which I'd been on before, so no big deal.

Panini

2010-07-15T20:01:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago, I wrote about Gary _____, an interesting character I met while spending five April days in Bogotá with my friends Ben, Fed and Meg. Today's post features something else which unexpectedly became a recurring theme of our five days in Colombia's capital, and with the World Cup ending recently it seemed an appropriate time to finish up this long-delayed post.

Several weeks prior to this mini-vacation, I had started to notice a new fad among my students; they all had these soccer trading cards, which are sort of like traditional baseball cards, and they would bring them into class and, well, trade them. Even though I'm a big sports fan and I also love embracing trends around here, especially among kids, it mostly got on my nerves since it was disrupting my classes. Especially because they're not actually cards; they're stickers, which the kids peel off the backing in order to stick into the Official Album so they can try to complete their collection. This, of course, creates an endless flood of sticker-back garbage on my classroom floor. (Colombians are terrible at waste disposal of any kind, recycling or garbage.)

Although, I have to admit, even though the cards mostly annoyed me, they did look like fun, and when on several occasions my students urged me to get in on the game, I had to admit that if the opportunity presented itself I might be tempted. At first, the opportunity didn't present itself, since as far as I could tell (and according to one of my students), there was only one place to buy the cards in Barranquilla.

Bogotá was different. The cards were available on almost every street corner.

Meg buys a new set of cards

Actually, selling stuff on the streets seems to be generally more common in Bogotá. We constantly had people trying to sell us stuff that looked like it had just been lifted from a store, including flash drives and awesome Spiderman toys that actually climbed down walls on their own. The most hilarious, though, was the guy who tried to sell us a whole thing of laundry detergent. Dude, we're obviously tourists; what are we going to do with laundry detergent???!

Back to the cards. In Bogotá, my friends and I instantly noticed their prevalence, and I immediately recognized them as the same cards that had taken over my classroom. We also recognized the official album, where you stick the stickers, which I had previusly been sort of aware of, but hadn't really understood. And we all agreed that the cards would make for a fun diversion; on our own, merely collecting the cards would be boring, but having three friends with whom to wheel and deal sounded like a good time.

Fed and I lay our collections out on the conference table in order to better assess our strengths and weaknesses

Despite coming to this conclusion early in our trip, we didn't get around to buying any until Saturday, our 4th day. But we were instantly hooked. While none of us know much about soccer, Fed and Ben and I are generally aware of the very top players, as well as which countries are usually the strongest. This meant that Brazilians instantly became the hottest commodity, even though we had no idea who most of the Brazilian players were. Other criteria for card-valuation began to emerge: single-named players (y'know, like Pele) were extremely valuable, as were Italians, since Fed obviously wanted all of them. And Ben was always open to trading anyone on his roster, except for one guy from Ghana we had never heard of, who became known simply as "The Ghanean". Through Ben's constant refusal to even consider trading him, we all started to really want this guy, and he became one of the most valuable commodities in the game.

Ben does a little research to ensure he's getting
fair value for his commodities

I was worried that Meg would get bored by all this sports nerding, and maybe she did, but if so she hid it well behind her hilarious strategy of trying to collect the best-looking player on each of the 32 World Cup teams. Upon opening a new pack of cards, we would instantly submit our five new players for Meg's inspection, and if she liked any of them, we'd start to talk trade. Needless to say, when all was said and done, Meg's team would have run away with the Mr. World Cup crown (and her team was definitely handsomer than this one).

Meg ogles one of her hotties

In the end, while it's tempting to beat oneself up over "wasting" valuable vacation time doing something pointless like trading soccer cards, it was just really fun. Joe Posnanski, superstar of the online baseball community, wrote a blog this morning about how going to the World Cup for the first time made him feel like a kid again, because, over and over, he heard diehard fans speak wistfully of the stories and legends of soccer that every fan learns as a kid and never forgets, the likes of which exist in every sport, from Babe Ruth's called shot to Paul Henderson's goal. Trading cards are part of that too, I think; I'll never be into baseball or hockey cards the way I was as a kid, because I simply know too much, but spending a few hours over a couple days playing General Manager with some friends allowed me to re-live my childhood trading card glory.

Plus, when I got back to Barranquilla, I totally grifted some of my students. Haha, suckers. (And I got a text from Fed claiming he'd done the same in the Bogotá Airport.)

The Boardroom

The End of an Era

2010-07-10T18:50:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I left Colombia for the foreseeable future one week ago today, and several days later I encountered a machine that provided me with an apt bookend to my time across the Caribbean Sea. (I still plan on writing several blog posts about Colombia, specifically about the recent 10-day trip I took with my parents, but non-linearity has always been a hallmark of Xlog Xave's.) No, I'm not talking about a literal bookend-making machine, though that would have given me the great pleasure of being able to apply the word "literally" to a phrase that is almost always figurative.

As a matter of fact, the machine in question is a guitar pick-making machine, the likes of which I had never seen before. A music store near my parents' house here in Palo Alto, California has this do-it-yourself machine sitting out in the public area of the store, with an attached sign giving old credit cards as a suggested use.

I was delighted to realize that I did, in fact, have recently-outdated cards given my time in Colombia. So I took out my Cedula, the Colombian ID card which is kind of like a SIN but with a photo ID, briefly wondered whether I might need it at some point before noticing the expiry date of July 22, 2010, the day before I fly back to Canada, and went to work. The result:

In retrospect, if I had been more efficient (and as an industrial engineer, that should always be the first thing on my mind), I might have been able to get four. Furthermore, it would have been cool to get a fingerprint-pick, though that probably would have ruled out the face-pick, which I was only half-successful in creating anyway.

Nevertheless, three perfectly good guitar picks. And given the presence of most of my name, my year of birth, and part of my face, I might even be able to use this as ID!

If it turns out that I do need this for some reason, like to get back into Canada, I can always re-build.

What I Would Like To See For The Rest Of The World Cup

2010-06-29T20:19:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I´m on vacation with my parents in Colombia right now, and of course the World Cup is everywhere, even though Colombia didn´t make it. Occasionaly, we´ve been able to fit a match into our vacation schedule, including today, when we watched Spain beat Portugal 1-0 in a restaurant at the top of Manizales, a city in the coffee-growing region of Colombia (aka El Cafetero).

The game was the last in the round of 16, and now there´s a bit of a break before the quarter-finals start on Friday. Even though I´ve had favourite teams since the beginning of the tournament, this feeling of temporary finality got me thinking about how I want the rest of the tournament to go down. So, without further ado, my best-case scenario for the remainder of the World Cup. (This is not what I think is going to happen; I wouldn´t presume to know enough about soccer to predict that. It´s just what I want to happen.)

Quarterfinal: Uruguay vs. Ghana

Looking at this game by itself, I´m kind of ambivalent. I would like to see Ghana win because they´re the only African nation left, but at the same time I like Uruguay for equally meaningless reasons; their jerseys, their history as the winner of the first World Cup, and I´m not sure why, but their star Diego Forlan strikes me as a cool guy.

But I can´t look at this match in a vacuum, because What I Want To See For The Rest Of The World Cup includes subsequent rounds, so I must consider the match-ups created by the outcome of this game, and for reasons that will soon become clear I want Uruguay to win this game.

Quarterfinal: Netherlands vs. Brazil

For some reason, the Netherlands are my favourite soccer country. I think I decided that during the last Euro Cup when they looked like the strongest team in the tournament in the preliminary round and then flamed out in the knockout round, as predicted by the English friends of my London-residing cousin with whom I watched said flame-out. I don´t know why; maybe it´s the orange, maybe it´s because I´ve met a lot of cool Dutch people.

Brazil is the favourite in this match, so I want to see them dominate the first half and take a 2-0 lead into the second period, at which point the Netherlands will turn it on and perform one of the great comebacks in World Cup history, winning 3-2 in extra time.

Quarterfinal: Argentina vs. Germany

Like the Netherlands, I find myself drawn to Germany and this goes back (at least) to the ´08 Euro Cup. A couple weeks after watching my favourite team lose while visiting my cousin in England, I was in Strasbourg, France, very close to the German border. It just so happened that Germany made it to the final against Spain, so I hopped over the border for about 24 hours, still the only 24 hours I´ve ever spent in Germany, to watch the game. Germany lost, but I had a great time, and now I consider Germany my second favourite team. At least I think so. It´s one of those things: I honestly don´t know who I´d cheer for in a Netherlands/Germany final, and I don´t think I will know until the game starts, if such a situation occurs.

My ideal scenario in this game would involve tons of amazing plays by Messi, because he´s Messi. He would score like 3 or 4 or 17 goals, but the organized German squad would pick apart the Argentinian defense whenever Messi couldn´t get near the ball to squeak out a 4-3 victory.

Quarterfinal: Paraguay vs. Spain

Things have worked out such that I´ve watched a lot of Spain games in this World Cup, but I have no particular attachment to them, other than the fact that I got Xavi Hernandez in Panini trading cards when Fed, Ben and Meg and I got obsessed with them in Bogota. I don´t really have a particular attachment to Paraguay either, but for previously-mentioned but as-yet-undisclosed reasons I want them to win this game, against all odds.

Semifinals: Netherlands vs. Uruguay, Germany vs. Paraguay

I´ve already explained why I like each team, so the rest of this shouldn´t take long. I want the Netherlands and Germany to win their respective semi-finals, which they would be clear favourites for if they faced these opponents. The only caveat here is, as mentioned, I´m not sure who I would cheer for in such a match-up, and it might be more fun to have a clear personal favourite in the World Cup Final.

You´ve probably already figured this out, but I want Paraguay and Uruguay to win their quarterfinals and then lose their semifinals to create the seminal "Battle of the Countries That End in Guay" Third Place Game. It´s just too bad Chadguay isn´t around to create some sort of three-team free-for-all Guay orgy.

Alternate Scenario: Final Four of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay

It´s crazy that four of the final eight teams are South American, and even moreso that they´re all in different quarter-finals. It would be infinitely crazy if they all won to make the All-South-American Final Four, and I would love to see it. And you know what? It totally could happen. Uruguay and Brazil are the favourites in their games, and Argentina and Germany are pretty close. Paraguay is the weak link, facing an excellent Spain team. It would be very cool, but my #1 and 1a teams are standing in the way of hoping this happens.

Americana

2010-06-18T10:32:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

It took me a while to think of a title for this post, because there really isn't a unifying theme; it's just a bunch of observations and occurrences from my last hours in Colombia and first day in an English-speaking country in almost a year. But at some point the above title came to me, and it fits well, especially because it refers to both parts of my journey. Something I've noticed in Colombia is that Americans, upon being asked where they're from, should not answer "America", because South Americans think of themselves as "Americans" as well. Thus, even though there isn't a connecting narrative between parts of this entry, the title is that unifier.

*****

The day started auspiciously.

Actually, it didn't start auspiciously at all, I just think saying it does gives this whole post an awesome sense of expectation that will keep you reading beyond the first paragraph. And you're still reading! Ha, it worked.

Anyway, the day started slowly with me finishing up the packing I hadn't finished the previous night, but it really picked up with my cabbie's music selection on the way to the airport. After 10 minutes of standard Colombian radio (salsa, merengue, etc.), the guy got out a CD, meaning he had very specifically decided on this particular music. Very soon I discovered that "this music" referred to a terrible pan-flute version of "My Heart Will Go On" that sounded a lot like this awesome recorder version. This fantastic piece was followed by similar pan-flute covers of Let it Be, Unchained Melody and (!!!) Africa (by Toto). Incredible.

*****

When I arrived at the Barranquilla airport, I half-expected to run into students from my school, since seemingly every one of my students has relatives in Miami, or regularly goes to Miami for vacation, or has a huge Miami fetish, I dunno. And my students are all fairly well-off, or they wouldn't go to a private school. Well, I was right - there were two girls from grade nine going to Miami to meet a tour group. They weren't my students, but I had substituted in their class a few times. By a twist of fate, we ended up sitting beside each other on the plane, and they were endlessly amused by my Spanish interactions with the stewardesses, especially my use of the colloquial "porfa" (short for por favor).

*****

A week or two ago, Elizabeth asked me if I thought I'd get culture shock upon returning to Canada (or the USA, as the case has turned out to be). I said I didn't really think so; I mean, I've lived in Canada my whole life apart from the last 10 months. Obviously there are things I'll need to re-adjust to, but will anything legitimately shock me? I found that hard to believe. But today, within my first hours back on the continent, I was proven wrong.

*****

When I arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport, I decided to try taking the cheap way to my hotel, since a cab would run me something like 30 bucks. Even though this would involve lugging three heavy bags around, since I'm basically in the process of moving, and taking at least two different buses, I still went for it. I like taking public transit - it's my favourite way to learn a new place, partly because I often get lost and see parts of the city I would never see otherwise. Not that I was hoping to get lost with three huge suitcases.

After asking a few different airport officials, I found myself at a bus stop outside the airport, where an extremely friendly lady in a wheelchair helped me figure out exactly what bus to take. It was only after she got on to the first bus that came and confirmed my instructions with the driver that I realized she didn't need the wheelchair, and it was only after coming to that realization that I noticed the presumably complimentary wheelchair at EVERY bus stop in the airport. Haha, classic Florida.

When my bus eventually came, I asked the driver to let me know when we reached the place where I would eventually have to transfer to another bus in order to get to my hostel. He enthusiastically assured me that he would, and I sat down, re-assured that I would get to the hostel fairly quickly and hassle-free, possibly even in time to get to the Florida Marlins game I was hoping to attend.

The bus gradually filled up as we got further from the airport and further into the city of Fort Lauderdale. One of the passengers who was forced to stand near me because of the fullness of the bus was a middle-aged Spanish-looking guy, and I just didn't get a good feeling about him. He looked angry. Well, I was right. Shortly after getting on the bus, the driver was forced to makhttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3139234229404821775&postID=8152879144482325713e a slightly jolty maneuver for one reason or another. It was barely anything, really. But the dude instantly said "f***ing bus drivers, man", fairly loudly, possibly loudly enough for the driver to hear. Dude, relax!

Eventually we started going past streets I recognized from my previous research, and I started getting worried, but I decided not to say anything because 1) I was sitting right in the front and the driver could see me every time he turned around, so I thought there was no way he could forget and 2) in Colombia, I asked this favour of drivers on many occasions, and it never failed. But when we got to the end of the line and I asked him if this was where I transferred to the other bus and he got all frustrated and yelled at me, I knew that he had forgotten.

Which, okay fine, I was a little exasperated, and I no longer expected to make the baseball game, but I was resolute and determined to make it to the hotel the cheap way, so I asked him what I should do. But before giving me the next set of instructions, he chewed me out for being an idiot and not getting off where I was supposed to and "that's why we have a talking bus!" Dude, I don't even know what the stop was called, how was that supposed to help me? And you SAID you would tell me when to get off. All I wanted was for him to apologize and for me to be on my way, but he had to act like I had personally offended him. Lame. Dude, relax!

Oh, also, the handle on my suitcase completely broke off when I was getting off the bus at the end of the line. This is a bit of foreshadowing - I'm hoping to write a post soon on all the things that are broken in my life.

Later, while watching the NBA finals in the comfort of my hostel common area, a group of people about my age who could accurately be described as white trash came in and got into a dispute with the very friendly and helpful Peruvian manager. These people had some weird story about how one of the girls' grandmas had booked the room with her credit card, so they didn't have a credit card they could use as a deposit to protect against room damages, etc., and her grandma was in the hospital so they couldn't get her credit card (leading one to wonder how and why she made the reservation in the first place). The hotel chick was being very reasonable: all she needed was a credit card that corresponded to one of the people there. Apparently, among the four of them, that was not possible. So they got angry and yelled at her, at one point even spouting "first of all, I don't need your attitude", when she wasn't giving ANY sort of attitude. Dudes, relax!

The reason I've related these anecdotes in succession is because this was my first instance of culture shock. People are assholes here! And now that I think about it, differences in the behaviour and demeanor of people is probably the form that most of my culture shock will take. As I said before, there are a lot of cultural differences that I will need to re-adjust to, but won't come as a shock, like public transportation, available food products, etc. But human interaction is something so deeply ingrained, subtle and less superficially apparent that it sure does take you by surprise when you are completely adjusted to a different culture.

Of course, most of the people I've met are not assholes. And I'm hoping that this forgotten Assholism is less pronounced in Canada than here in the USA. But it will be there, to some extent, and meeting three in the span of a few hours is something that never just happened in ten months in Colombia.

*****

Back to my bus odyssey. When I finally got to the transfer spot, I had a long wait for the next bus, and during this wait something fun happened - I was asked for help and was able to give it! This is one of the best feelings, always, and especially when you're in a new city that you hardly know. It's happened to me before - one time I successfully gave directions in London, England, after being there for just a few days. But this was the first time that it happened in another language. Yep, that's right, I was asked for help in Spanish, in a city I had arrived in hours earlier for the first time in my life, and was able to successfully answer. Awesome!

Another note on language: while waiting for the second bus, a pair of girls sat down beside me and started talking in what I tentatively identified as German, and later confirmed when I heard "ein, zvi, tri". They got on the same bus as me and helped me get to the hostel when it became apparent to them that I was clueless - they were staying at the same hostel anyway. On the walk to the hostel, they asked me where I was from, and I followed by noting "you're from Germany, right?" They were impressed. Boo yeah.

*****

I've been amazed by the amount of Canadian flags in Fort Lauderdale. Seemingly every hotel and some restaurants had two or three flags: American, Canadian, and sometimes a third. I also went by a food stand/permanent food truck type thing that sells... yep, you guessed it, poutine. Incredible! My hostel chick later informed me that Fort Lauderdale typically sees a huge winter influx of Canadians, especially French-Canadians. Weird! I wonder why French Canada in particular is attracted to this city - maybe it's just a self-perpetuating community thing, like now that Fort Lauderdale is known as the French-Canada winter spot, more French-Canadians vacation here.

*****

I had forgotten that it was game seven of the NBA finals, but after dinner I was channel-surfing in the hostel and remembered. When I arrived on the right channel, there came a shout from the neighbouring kitchen: "hey, are you turning it to... oh, yeah, sweet". I was glad to win the approval of my hostel-mate, and after he finished cooking dinner we sat down to watch the game together. Ironically, it was the first NBA game I'd watched in the entire season, having been in Colombia for the whole time.

Unfortunately, the lobby area closes at 11, and this happened to be with about 8 minutes left in the 4th quarter of a very close game. So we were kicked out and had to find a bar on the boardwalk to catch the last few minutes. I lost my watching buddy, since I had to go back to the room for a minute, and I ended up in a bar that could only be described as a hillbilly bar. It was very charming: the southern-accented long-haired dudes and ugly women were busy playing pool and couldn't have given less of a shit about the basketball game, except when one particularly drunk middle-aged woman noticed it and shouted "oh, Boston's playing! Go Boston!" and promptly went back to whatever she was doing (drunking). The bartender was your classic southern belle; tall and beautiful with a thick accent, and while inspecting my ID jokingly shook her head and tsk tsked.

When there were just a couple minutes remaining it became apparent that one of the pool players was interested in the game, and ambled over to the TV to turn the sound up. When this happened, the whole bar (it wasn't that full, about 15 people) tuned in and excitedly watched the last two minutes of the last game of the NBA season. Probably the only two minutes they watched all year. Hey, that's not much less than I watched, I guess. Anyway, it was fun to have company in finishing out the game, even though the team I and the drunk chick were cheering for (Boston) lost.

The game ended, there was a sense of "well, that's that", the hillbillies went back to pool, and I went back to the hotel, my first day back in North America over.

*****

Wow, this might be the longest entry I've ever written. Can't believe you made it all the way!

Math Comics 3 - Number Trouble

2010-06-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Here's part 3 in the Math Comics series, entitled "Number Trouble".

Panel 1: There were numbers and numbers
Panel 2: Everyone had a partner
Panel 3: But not number 2. He was sooo alone...
2: "I'm so alone"
Panel 4: He was very very sad.... He didn't talk with anyone
2: (sad face)
Panel 5: But one day he found someone.
2: (surprised face) "She is so cute!"
Panel 6: He tried and tried to talk to her, but he was too shy."
2: "he he"
Panel 7: When he see her, he break in pieces
2: (heart)
(BOOM - 2 explodes)
Panel 8: He was sad because he couldn't talk to her:
2: "not again"
Panel 9: But one day something amazing happen.
2: (happy face)
Girl 2: "hi 2"
Panel 10: (BOOM - 2 explodes again)
Panel 11: 2: "hi!"
Girl 2: "Wanna hang out?"
Panel 12: 2: "yay"
Panel 13: so they were in love, and hang out
Panel 14: And get in love=
2: "Me (2) + you (2) = for(4)ever"
Panel 15: NOT AVAILABLE FOR KIDS
Panel 16: and had many many kids.
(2 and girl 2 are surrounded by 6 little 2s)

Commentary
This is a sweet love story, but with two completely awesome additions. First, the thing about 2 exploding every time he tries to talk to girl 2 is hilarious. Maybe the girl who wrote this is a big Futurama fan. And second, of course, the last two panels are genius, especially coming from a very sweet and cute little grade 7 girl. I also like the 2+2 thing.

Math Comics 2 - A Farewell

2010-06-01T21:48:00.003-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Here's part 2 in the Math Comics series, entitled "7A A Farewell" (7A refers to the class section that completed this assignment)

Transcript

Panel 1: Students, as numbers, are gathered in the classroom before the teacher's desk.
4: "Mr Dave"
8: "Dave Mr."
6: "Mr. Dave!"
2: "Mr. Dave"
Panel 2: 3 (Mr. Dave): "What are u planning 2 do?"
Panel 3: 1 and 4 (simultaneously, in thought): "2-morrow we are 4teen."
Panel 4: Banner: 7A PARTY
2: "Come dance Dave"
3 (Mr. Dave): "ok... 4 u?"
Panel 5: 1, 4, and 8 (in unison): "we are going 2 miss u Mr. Dave!"
Panel 6: 3 (Mr. Dave): "Ur 2 Gr8 2 be 4gotten"
6: "Thanks!"
4: "We luv u!"

Commentary: I would say this was the only example of blatant sucking up, but since it's the end of the year, there isn't much potential reward for sucking up, so let's just say this one was very sweet. I also like how they totally nailed my speech patterns. A little secret: math teachers are CONSTANTLY trying to use as many words-that-include-numbers as possible. Call it subliminal teaching.

Math Comics 1 - Who is My Value

2010-05-31T22:11:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

This week is exam week at school, and being the last exam week of the year, we won't be learning any new material. So in class today, I had my students make Math Comics. I scanned them because they're totally awesome. Here's the first, along with transcript.

I should note that my example comic on the board involved the number 3 looking for love, so of course all the kids copied my idea and made their comic about numbers (or symbols) as sentient beings.

Transcript:

Title: Who Is My Value??

Panel 1: X (sad): "I want to find a value"

Panel 2: X: "Hi two! are you my value"

2: "No, Im' not. I can help you find one"

Panel 3: (numbers are scattered everywhere) X: "The aren't may value"

2: "let's go to other place"

Panel 4: ONE YEAR LATER

X: "I am tired"

2: "me too"

Panel 5: X: "Nobody's my value"

2: "let's take he last look"

Panel 6: (equation appears: x/4=1/2)

X: "I found were to be"

2: "oh yes it is in the operation"

Panel 7: (equation is solved: 2x=4, x=2)

Panel 8: X: "Solving that equation you will be my value"

2: "what?!? every time looking and I was your value!"

Commentary: we start with one of the best. A great story that is funny and clever and touching and has a well-defined arc. Also, this may come as a surprise, but the level of English is pretty high here. It's all about context - just wait for some of the others.

The Brother Playlist

2010-05-27T01:33:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

There are so many things I want to blog about, but it just isn't happening right now what with exams starting tomorrow - meaning I have to catch up on all the marking before spending all next week marking my own exams and finalizing everything. But here's a quick entry to tide y'all over.

Sometimes I want to listen to a certain song from my iTunes playlist, and the fastest way to access it is to enter the name of the song, or part of the name, into the search function. In some cases, the name of the song is unique enough that it immediately becomes the only result in the open window. Other times, it's the opposite; so common that I'm left with a multitude of results, often including entire albums, necessitating a further paring-down.

But on rare occasions, whatever word I've entered has just the right balance such that it creates a playlist that I never would have created on my own, and I end up listening to the whole playlist, rather than the specific song I was searching for.

There have been times when I've been aware of this phenomenon and specifically tried certain words, but in most cases it's completely accidental, and I really love it. It's one of those little joys in life.

Anyway, tonight I searched for a song with the word "brother" in the title, and was given this playlist:

The Allman Brothers - Jessica
Animal Collective - Brothersport
The Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin' Beats
Grizzly Bear - Little Brother
Marvin Gaye - What's Happening Brother
The Statler Brothers - Flowers on the Wall (from Pulp Fiction soundtrack)
Stevie Wonder - Big Brother
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - For the Sake of Our Brother

Clearly I only have one song in my library by each of the three groups that include "brother" in their name, otherwise this playlist would have been much less fun.

I'll try to post these whenever I come across a good one.

My Googleability

2010-05-13T15:13:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Last Wednesday, I arrived at school to find a student bursting with a piece of juicy information. "Mr. Dave!" she cried, "I saw you on Youtube!" I suppose this wasn't terribly surprising, since the first nine results on Youtube for a search of my name are in fact performances that I was a part of. I guess I'm surprised it took my students this long - several of them found me on Facebook months ago.

What I wasn't prepared for was every. single. one. of my students to say the same thing that day or over the course of the next couple days. Apparently whoever found me had done so in computer class, so of course it spread within seconds to the other students in the class, and it wasn't long before this information found its way to my other three classes.

Though I'm Gonna Fight Chu (the band I was in for a few months last year in Ottawa and the source of most of my Youtube videos) has nine videos up, the vast majority of students who "found" me mentioned this Single Ladies video, presumably because it's by far the most popular song in our repertoire to their (my students') generation. Chateau Laurier and Circle of Life, both performed on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, were also brought up, and I think one of my students even found this low-quality video of the Skule Stage Band, though it took me a while to figure out what he was talking about because he had no idea how to say "Skule".

The other Google result that was frequently brought up in this period of Rapid Mr. Dave Discovery was a picture of "a girl kissing (me) on the cheek". I had no idea what my students were talking about until they started to describe it a little more - when they told me I was wearing a suit, I realized they were talking about an awards ceremony where the resident photographer had my mom and I take this terrible photo. Since my students don't know my age, there's a legitimate chance they thought the "girl" was my girlfriend or wife, and were amused to find out it's my mom.

Okay, I'm mostly joking, but while most students are able to identify me as a 20-something, I've had a few serious guesses in the 40s.

The videos and photo have made the rounds now, meaning my Googleability has been exhausted, and the flood of "Mr. Mr. I saw you on Youtube!" has slowed to a crawl, but it was fun while it lasted. Oh, and my favourite part: one student, upon seeing me in the aforementioned photo, asked me: "Mr. Dave, are you a millionaire?"

Me Being An Idiot #5: Soccer Heartburn

2010-05-09T16:09:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

It's been over a year since we had a new entry in the ever-popular Me Being An Idiot series. Enjoy!

On Friday, the janitors and the gym teacher and I got together to play soccer after school, as we do most Fridays. It was fun and light-hearted like usual, but not everything about our game was usual; namely, near the end of the game, I inflicted a somewhat strange injury upon myself.

Allow me to paint a picture: I had situated myself in front of the opposition's goal, hoping for a ball to come my way so I could attempt to re-direct it into the back of the net. Some sort of collision flung the ball up high in the air behind me, and realizing that I was the closest player to its projected landing spot, I turned around (now facing away from the net) and awaited the ball's descent.

In the seconds I had to think up my next course of action, I started wondering what a star soccer player would do in this situation. The opponents were nearby, and as soon as the ball landed I would be swarmed by defenders, likely not giving me enough time to find a clear space to take a shot, or even to pass to a teammate. Therefore, it looked like the only viable possibility was to perform a Crazy Flying Upside-Down Bicycle Kick, in an attempt to blast the ball into the back of the net before it even touched the ground.

Well, "viable" may have been the wrong choice of words, given the party it is being applied to. I have never successfully pulled off a Crazy Flying Upside-Down Bicycle Kick, in a game or even just for fun.

The good news is that I timed this maneuver reasonably well-enough so as to make contact with the ball, saving myself from total embarrassment. The bad news is that it (the ball) went completely the wrong way. And then I landed with a thud square on my back.

Of course, it must have looked hilarious. Everyone burst out laughing, and I would have too if I wasn't too busy coughing (I wasn't completely winded - more like half-winded I guess).

I shook it off after a couple minutes and got back into the game, and didn't feel any ill-effects for the rest of the day. But the next morning, as so often happens, I woke up in a much worse state. This time, though, was different from the majority of sports-caused injuries. It didn't feel like a physical injury, more of a physiological injury. It was a tightness in my chest, back and even neck, which was magnified when I breathed. It kind of felt like the exercise-induced asthma I sometimes suffer from.

Additionally, every couple minutes I would get a pang of chest-pain which I would describe as, without being totally clear on what heartburn is or if I've ever had it, something like what I imagine heartburn is. This prompted me to joke to Kären last night that I'm suffering from "Soccer Heartburn".

Gary _____

2010-05-07T19:19:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

A couple weeks ago, I took a few days off school to meet my friends Fed, Meg and Ben in Bogota for a mini-vacation. We all arrived on Tuesday night, and got some food and drinks before heading to bed to prepare ourselves for a busy five days.

Upon arising the next morning, I took a few minutes in the outdoor atrium adjacent to our room to wake myself up and stretch out the pillow-caused soreness. It was during this time that I met (or, more accurately, was met by) Gary _____, who would quickly become one of the oft-repeated in-jokes that inevitably develop when a group of people spend days at a time together.

It was apparent from the start that Gary _____ was no ordinary Gary. The first words out of his mouth were "Hi, I don't think we've met, I'm Gary _____, from New York and California." New York and California? Who does this guy think he is, the Dodgers?

Gary _____ proceeded to tell me some of the stuff that he had done and gave some recommendations about Bogota. To be honest, at first I wasn't too put off by him - it did seem like he'd spent a few days there and had some worthwhile suggestions. The conversation wrapped up shortly and I headed off to the bathroom to shower.

While sitting in my room with the door open after the shower, Gary wandered by (his room was just down the hall from ours), and poked his head in to ask me a question - having informed him that I am teaching in Barranquilla, he thought he'd ask whether any of my students' parents are computer programmers. I thought it was a weird question, but I barely know what any of my kids' parents do, so the conversation ended there. I thought maybe he knew a programmer in Barranquilla.

A little while later, I had moved into the hostel's main common area where coffee was available. I grabbed a cup and started browsing some tourist pamphlets, the likes of which are always strewn about hostel common areas. Gary _____ showed up and started talking to me, and by this point he was starting to get on my nerves, but I didn't want to let it show, so I asked him what he was up to in Bogota. It turns out he runs an internet start-up that runs couples counseling for couples who can't afford it (meaning, according to him, the vast majority of couples who need it), and he was in Bogota to recruit programmers. Fair enough, I guess. I didn't get around to asking him Why Bogota, but presumably labour is cheaper? I dunno. Anyway, it was then that it dawned on me why he had asked me about my students' parents, and after being talked at by Gary _____ three times now, including a question to which a positive response could have resulted in a fair amount of work on my part, I decided that the thing that rubbed me the wrong way about Gary _____ was that he was nosy.

Ben soon joined me, and in a moment of Gary _____ reprieve, I elicited this newly-formed opinion to him. Ben had only had passing contact with Gary _____, having been present when the parent-programmer query had been posed, but was now aware of what to watch for.

He did not have to wait long. After a brief conversation with an Italian guy who turned out to be a barber (PERFECT) in which Gary _____ of course introduced himself once again as "Gary _____ from New York and California" to this guy who could barely speak English, we were joined by Meg and Fed, and having been given this audience of four young adults, Gary _____ decided to drop some of his best information.

First, after re-hashing his internet start-up and current search for programmers, Gary _____ told us that "you can look me up. I'm Googleable." Haha. Googleable. What a jerk. Obviously we Googled him later. (And since I don't want to cause any ill will or have this traced back to me, now you know why I'm blanking out his last name. But I'm leaving the blank in there because his last name was such an important part of his identity, and we could really never talk about him without saying both names. I'm sure you've encountered similar situations. Oh, one more thing: if we're being totally accurate, it's not "Gary _____" but "Gary _____ with a _".)

Shortly thereafter, upon mentioning that we would be leaving soon for our first day of fun and excitement, Gary _____ asked if we were going to the tienda (corner store), and if so could we pick up a loaf of bread for him. Ben and I shared a knowing glance - nosiness at its finest. I totally called it.

And finally, Gary _____'s coup de grace came when we let it slip that we would be moving to a different hotel down the street. Gary asked us if we could check out the hotel for him and let him know if it met his standards, because he wouldn't mind switching also. He gave us his phone number. Jeez, dude. We JUST met. The programmers, the bread, and now this? By this point we were all really starting to despise Gary _____.

Oh yeah, and his "standards"? He wanted a hotel with an older crowd (Gary _____ was about 55 himself), because he was sick of talking with "people who don't know what they're doing with their lives". Bear in mind, he had just said this sentence to a bunch of 20-somethings. What had started as a light "haha, this guy, what a jerk" situation had turned into a full-on "this guy is a jerk". Of course, after ridding ourselves of Gary _____ and thankfully not seeing him again for the remainder of our trip, we probably got more entertainment out of making him the butt of all our jokes than the annoyance we felt on that first morning.

I'm glad we met Gary _____.

The Belt Situation

2010-05-05T20:46:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

On the weekend, my friend Ben was visiting from Canada, so I took him to a Junior game (Junior is Barranquilla's team in Colombia's premier soccer league). Kären came along too, and snapped some photos, so I'll link to those if she puts them up. It was a great time, and I look forward to the next couple of weeks as Junior plays its two remaining games, currently battling for a playoff spot (they're in 4th, with the top 4 teams making it).

But I'm not here to write about the game; instead, I'll be talking about a quirk of large-scale events in Colombia which I've actually written about before (edit: actually, I haven't written about it, but it also happened at the event in that link); namely, the requirement that you check your belt before entering the stadium. Now, the dudes who keep your belt for the duration are just that: dudes. They're not in any sort of Official Belt Check Room in the stadium, nor do they even have a make-shift stand outside, or even a sign. You just give the dude your belt, he scrawls a number on a tiny square of paper, and you hope that you can find him after the game.

So when the time came, we started searching. After starting to worry when we couldn't find the dudes (Ben and I had stupidly checked our belts with different dudes), we realized that we had exited via a different gate than we had entered, and after hiking back to the entrance point Ben's dude was quickly found. The same could not be said for mine. So I asked Ben's dude if he knew where to look, and I was pointed in the direction of a park across the street. So I headed over, looking for a dude in a yellow shirt (that was all I remembered about him), and quickly began to lose hope when I couldn't find him.

However, within about a minute, Ben's dude, having returned his last belt to its owner (Ben), joined me in the search and led me quickly through the park and beyond. We walked pretty far, all the way across the park to a major street and bus route where I finally decided the search was fruitless. I thanked Ben's dude and started to head back.

Just then, Ben's dude spotted my dude hurrying in our direction and yelled to him, catching his attention. I first recognized his yellow shirt, then kinda recognized his face too. But I noticed something else. Something else yellow. He was peeing, as he was walking toward us. Luckily, he stopped moving for the majority of his session, but he didn't turn away, and he didn't stop talking to us.

When he finished, he told me something which I didn't understand, asked me to pay the 1000 peso (50 cent) holding fee, and pointed me back (with his hand, luckily) toward the stadium. Being clueless and not wanting to deal with a guy who had just been peeing while walking, I just went with it as he hurried off in the other direction. When I returned to where Ben's dude was waiting, he yelled at me to run and catch the guy because obviously.

So I ran after him, to the confusion of a group of young guys who had just come from the game. They asked me what was going on and I yelled "my belt but in Spanish!" and continued running. When I caught up with yellow shirt guy just before he escaped across the busy street, I realized the young guys had followed me and were now yelling at the dude for being a jerk (at least I think so, maybe they were yelling at him for peeing while walking, because WHO DOES THAT?!).

So we headed back to where my belt was now being held, with an escort of about 7 strapping young lads berating yellow shirt (and pants?) dude the whole way. We eventually found another dude sitting by the side of the road with, yep, you guessed it, my belt, wrapped around his neck. So the dude was probably telling the truth the whole time. He was just in a hurry cause he had to pee.

Anyway, for the second time using the Colombian Belt System, I eventually got my belt back, against all odds. When the belt was safely in my hands the dude offered up his hand for a shake as token of apology, or something, and I really didn't want to touch it, because you know, but I also didn't want to not shake his hand, so I just went for it.

Before I headed back to Ben and Kären, who were probably really getting nervous by this point, the strapping young lads told me to come with them so I wouldn't get mugged or peed on, until I told them I had friends waiting, so they just settled for lecturing me not to be a dumb Gringo. And to avoid dudes in yellow shirts, because, well, who knows how it got that colour in the first place.

Colombian Cola

2010-04-03T19:02:00.001-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Yesterday I came home from a week-long vacation including a 5-day trek to and from a Lost (but now Found) City in the coastal mountains of Colombia. Of course I'll tell you more about that, but another time. Today I'll return to one of my favourite blog topics since coming to Colombia: Crazy Transportation Stories.

Because of Easter and the extreme Catholocism of Colombia (extreme as in extremely-high-levels-of, not extreme as in orthodox-to-the-point-of-existing-solely-on-a-diet-of-mass-wafers-and-baptism-water), many people had the whole week off, while everybody else had Thursday and Friday off. This meant the bus station was pure chaos when Karen and I tried to return from Santa Marta to Barranquilla last night. The bus station has multiple desks for different companies, so we checked a couple of near-deserted ones before resigning ourselves to the extremely long line emanating from the only bus company that seemed to be operating. We soon discovered that in addition to its length, the ticket line for "Brasilia" buses was one of the slower moving lines I've seen.

On a couple of occasions, there appeared to be some sort of announcement that caused people to rush outside to the bus area. Of course, these were not official announcements, and if I were to guess I would venture that most were caused by some idiot screaming "OH MY GOD THERE'S A BUS BUT IN SPANISH!!!" In Canada, people would be like "WTF?", but things are just a little different here, so people who had been patiently waiting in line were willing to lose their place at the drop of a hat just in case this crazy proclamation was somehow true.

(A brief diversion: I wonder if this mis-match of behaviours is indicative of a transition period in the Colombian way of life. One of the things that is said about Colombia, as with many non-Western countries, is that there are no lines, and you just have to force your way to the front to do whatever you're trying to do. Well, in some cases that's true here, but then in some cases it's totally the opposite, so I wonder if it's only relatively recently that bus companies have made people stand in line to buy tickets.)

Anyway, I usually wandered out to see what the deal was while leaving Karen to guard the bags, but the mad rush never seemed to be based in fact, so once again we resigned ourselves to standing in what now looked like about an hour's wait.

At some point I headed to the bathroom, but stopped when I noticed a still-small-but-a-little-bigger-than-before crowd around the ticket window of a different bus company which had previously told us their next bus would be at 4AM. It seemed like the regular dude talking to the bus company dude was getting the same story we had already heard, but he seemed to be more persistent, and maybe because of the ever-growing crowd, the bus company dude got on the phone, presumably to find out if they could in fact scratch together another bus. As the rumour of the possibility of another bus bubbled and swirled through the station, another deluge of hopefuls descended on the scene, and fairly quickly the torrent had formed into a half-circle pressing up against the ticket window with three distinct queues emanating from it in different directions. As one of the early arrivals, and also as a Master of Sneakiness, I had got myself near the front of what I believed would eventually be the champion of the Great Battle of the Three Queues.

After about 10 minutes consulting on the phone, the bus dude announced that there would be more buses, at which point there was a great cheer from the crowd and even more re-shuffling of bodies than there had constantly been for the previous 10 minutes. Even though there were no station officials present to regulate the process, it eventually became clear that the line was self-regulating: first, as the longest and most centrally located, my line was, in fact, selected as the line of choice, after which point anyone who tried to beat the system was given the Crowd Treatment: a densely-packed mob of loud, impatient Colombians yelling "La cola, la cola!" (the line, the line!) It was so loud that I'm not exaggerating when I say it sounded like every single person was yelling during these moments. The guy behind me was one of the most active proponents, which I was grateful for, because he was likely one of the reasons our line eventually became the golden standard. Even I got into it eventually.

Then there were those who, rather than stubbornly going for it and drawing the crowd's ire, tried the sneakier tactic of paying someone in the line to buy tickets for them. In the situation's formative minutes, while things were still somewhat chaotic, I saw this tactic work on a couple of occasions including, hilariously, with the guy behind me, previously mentioned as one of the crowd's most active policemen. But after the queue had firmly established itself, these people were treated with just as much if not more derision from the crowd.

I got the tickets, and even though we had to wait more than an hour, at least we knew we would make it home that night, and playing Crazy Eight Countdown was more fun than waiting in a line not sure if there even would be buses when we finally got to the front.

This has been another installment of Crazy Colombian Bus Adventures!

Seeya Later

2010-03-27T02:50:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Ooh, Blogger has a new template for writing posts! I hope this fixes the thing that was really annoying before. I can't remember what that is, but I'm pretty sure there was something that really bothered me.

Anyway, I just wrote to say "bye", because tomorrow I'm leaving for a week-long vacation. Next week is "Semana Santa", or Holy Week, and I'm going on a trek to a Lost City that was only discovered about 30 years ago! Crazy. I'll be sleeping in hammocks and wading through rivers. I've already written a song for the trek: "Jungle Frisbee" to the tune of "Jungle Boogie", because Elizabeth is going to bring her frisbee.

I haven't been blogging this week because I've actually been blogging for another site - with the baseball season fast approaching, I had some season previews to write for Batter's Box, a Blue Jays fan-site. My preview of the National League East Division went up on Thursday, my Boston Red Sox preview will go up on Tuesday, and the Record Prediction Contest I run will arrive on April 4th. Keep an eye out!

Okay, bye.

The (Separate) Rise and Fall of Colombian Sports

2010-03-19T14:58:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Over the last two months, I've been playing two sports on a regular basis. Every Friday, the teachers and janitors (at this point, mostly janitors) play soccer after school (this has been going on since the beginning of the year, actually). And since school started up after Christmas, I've been playing school-yard baseball with a bunch of my grade 7 boys at lunch, which I started doing because I was assigned to lunch-time duty in the outdoor gym area. Needless to say, duty is way more fun than it was before.

These two activities have evolved over time, and in the very recent past, both have taken a dramatic turn for the worse/better, respectively. Actually, better isn't the right word. More like hilariouser.

Sometime in January, we played our second match against a rival school, and the first since the famous pants incident linked to above. During the match, one of our players, who is not a soccer player at all, and was only there because he was the one who set it up because he used to work there or something, suffered a serious ankle (+/- one bone away) sprain (+/- one degree of seriousness) (the uncertainty factors are given because his lack of English prevents me from knowing exactly what his injury was), and had to miss a couple weeks of school. Then, last week, at a regular Friday intra-squad scrimmage (somehow I doubt anyone else refers to it this way), one of the tech guys broke his wrist/hand (bad injury for a computer guy).

So now it seems soccer is over for the rest of the year. (Except today, for some reason. I never really know what's going on, but I think the deal is this: the director was upset because of all the injuries, so now we can't play anymore, but the director, the high school principal and the dean of discipline are all away right now for various reasons, so we're gonna play in about an hour and shhhhhh.) Which is too bad, because it's really fun, and I was planning on bringing my friend Ben to play a game when he comes to visit in April. It's definitely one of the most Colombian things in my normal routine.

On the other hand, lunchtime baseball has really kept me on my toes in the last few days. I mentioned in the last paragraph that the head honchos of the school are away; well, one of the reasons is that there's a big sports tournament all week in Cartagena, a city about 2 hours from here. One of the effects is that the phys. ed hut is locked at lunchtime (because there are no phys. ed teachers), meaning the boys can't access the baseball equipment. So they've had to make do with what they have. Which means, basically, coconuts and pylons.

The game that has become the default game this week is basically soccer baseball with a coconut. The most entertaining aspect unique to cocosoccerbaseball is that when the pitcher rolls the "ball", it has the potential to veer wildly off-course, resulting in some idiotic-looking kick-flails. (The other most entertaining thing is when the boys forget to save the coconut from the last recess, they get a new one by standing on a ledge and throwing their shoes at the coconut tree until one drops.)

One day they had a tennis ball for some reason, so it became a slightly more civilized version of the previous game, tenniscocosoccerbaseball. But that ball mysteriously disappeared, and today it was back to the coconut version.

But the best game came a couple days ago when I arrived to find the boys each holding a pylon, chasing after the coconut, and trying to score on the basketball net. Though initially confounded, I eventually figured out the rules: it was coconut-basketball, but you could only pass the ball by throwing and having your teammate catch it in their (mini) pylon. And when the coconut was not caught, there was a mad scramble until somebody trapped it under their pylon, giving them the coconut-rights.

Even though I often join their game, this time I decided to be a neutral play-disturber (major team sports should have more of these). So I picked up the one huge pylon, and meandered through the game, randomly lowering the pylon over kids' heads while they were trying to shoot, and trapping any coconut that came my way in my huge "glove".

I'm sure that regularly-scheduled-baseball-programming will resume next week, which will be fun, but it's no CocoPylonSketball. What a week.

The Most Amazing Barber

2010-03-15T21:25:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I got a haircut last week, and it marked the second consecutive Colombian (oops, check that, South American, the last one was in Peru) haircut that I've really liked. I wasn't a fan of the first one I got here, but 2/3 is pretty good, especially considering I can't remember the last one I liked in Canada - it's been years. (Aside from Mom haircuts.)

I think part of the reason I can't get a good haircut in Canada is that I don't know how to describe what I want, which is a problem because North American barbers just do exactly what you tell them. That's not really the way things work here - in many ways the culture is more about taking care of the customer. I noticed this particularly when I was on vacation in Peru and travel agents did basically everything for me, including picking me up in cabs from my hotel to take me to whatever tour I had booked, and then reserving me a bus ticket for the next day, etc etc.... And of course, there's the fact that everybody has a maid. This isn't necessarily better - in some cases, people might prefer having control over these sorts of things - but sometimes it's nice to be taken care of, to walk into a barbershop and respond to the question "so, what'll it be?" with "a haircut, please".

That was the right choice, in this case. Now, the "amazing" mentioned in the title didn't refer to the haircut itself. It's good, but not earth-shattering. Rather, I'm referring to a couple of observations the barber (Gati) made while doing his thing.

First, he figured out fairly accurately how long it had been since I had had my hair cut. He actually underestimated by a couple weeks, but as a matter of fact he left my hair longer than the last cut, so an underestimate makes sense. I wouldn't be at all surprised, given what's coming next, if he in fact left it two weeks longer than the last one.

A few minutes later, he said something which I didn't quite understand. When he saw the confused look on my face, he dug into his little knowledge of English and came up with a word that I sort of understood, but I couldn't figure out if he was saying "blonde" or "born". Turns out, he was saying both, and was asking if I was blonde when I was younger.

Well, I was. When I was about 5. How in the world did he know that?

I love when people in the service industry appear to truly be experts in their field, and this was the most impressive example of that I've ever seen. Comparable incidents which I hope to experience someday:

supermarket cashier remembering that last time I bought tortilla chips, tomatoes, cheese, peppers, onions, refried beans, and jalapeno peppers, and asking how my nachos were
bartender using my skin complexion to serve me the beer my mom drank when she was pregnant
bus driver studying my pattern of eye movements to determine where I was headed, and taking me door to door even if it isn't on the route
same as the last one but on the subway

New Look

2010-03-12T14:44:00.003-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, because let's face it, my previous design was uglissimo (which is the Spanglish word that literally translates to "ugly to the max"), but never found anything I really liked among the Blogger templates. But they just released some new design tools, which are much more customizable than what was previously available, so I just spent one of my Friday afternoon prep periods playing around until I got this. The part that took the most time was deciding on a background image - I went with laundry machines because, honestly, who CAN'T relate???!

Hope you like it! And watch for upcoming posts about prophetic barbers, racist currencies, and so much more!

Opposite Movies

2010-03-05T23:00:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

One of my favourite blogs, Videogum, did a post today where readers were challenged to come up with opposite movie titles. I spent the bus ride home thinking up a bunch - feel free to add your own. By the way, some of these are not at all opposites, but whatever, it's fun.

Casanegra
Lord of the Uneven Bars
8 km (opposite of both 8 mm and 8 mile... boo yeah)
Mr. The Netherlands' Opus
Mr. Holland's Xpus
Donnie Dpizzikato
(1/pi)rates of the Caribbean
Close Encounters of the 3rd Selfish
I Have No Idea What You Did Last Summer
I Still Can't Figure Out What You Did Last Summer
A Clockwork Purple
South By Southeast
Sapphire: Based on the novel "Precious" by Push

Block Creations

2010-03-03T18:29:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

So, the blogging has been a little light lately, and I think I figured out why: school has just been totally consuming. The trimester ended last week, so every day the students came to school, wrote an exam, had 2 regular classes, then went home at 11. The end of the trimester meant I was furiously finishing marking tests from before, then finishing up all my pre-exam marks, making the exams, then marking the exams, and now finalizing the marks and doing report cards, and (still to be done) making 3rd trimester plans.

I don't mean to say I haven't had time to blog, it's more that I've had nothing to tell you about that isn't school. So, my solution: maybe I will start to write about school a little more. I have a lot of thoughts about education, if you're into that kinda thing, and of course I always have all kinds of crazy stories about my students saying ridiculous things. Unfortunately, I usually forget to write them down, but if even 10% makes it through the sieve that should provide frequent content.

Anyway, the last few days I've done an activity where I gave my students, in groups of 4, a set of math manipulatives like cubilinks, those different-shaped tiles like yellow hexagons, green triangles, white diamonds, etc., and different-coloured squares, and challenged them to create various things which I wrote on the board (spaceship, robot, Mr. Dave, Colombia, any animal, soccer match, Chavez). It has nothing to do with what we're studying, but I still think it has a lot of value.

Anyway, here are some of the things that impressed/entertained me the most:

one group made a candle, and used the multi-coloured squares as "solar panels". I don't know why you would need a candle when there's sunlight, but whatever.
Most of the spaceships were pretty generic and 2-dimensional, but one grade 7 who is rarely an impressive student made a sweet 3-D one, and then even drew it pretty well (which was part of the assignment).
On the topic of spaceships, a group of grade 8 boys made a pretty amazing replica of the space shuttle launch system, with the launching tower separate from the rocket. There was also a second launching pad, which they told me was actually a Pokeball, because of the colours I guess.
The same group of boys, when unveiling their soccer match, brought out a blackberry and played a clip of a soccer goal (it was the "stadium scoreboard") while simultaneously acting out the goal with their block players.
Pretty much all the groups elected to make a model of me (which I always included as an option, of course), and they all found it hilarious when I tried to emulate the pose my geometric counterpart was striking, which usually involved pointing my toes straight sideways and folding my arms into my body while sticking my hands straight out, but my favourite was the group that didn't know what to do with their last few pieces and so made "Mr. Dave with Sombrero"

Makin' Converts

2010-02-28T12:36:00.003-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

On Wednesday, I found a bar with many large TVs and many channels, including 3 different Olympic channels, so when it came time for the Canada/Slovakia semi-final on Friday night, I knew where I was headed. I told a few people about it, and the event snowballed until a whole whack of us showed up for the game ("whack" being a scientific term meaning between 10-20 people, composed of 1-4 Canadians, 5-12 Americans, and 3-9 Colombians).

After finding a corner of the bar to settle ourselves, the waiter turned the channel to the women's gold medal curling match, which I had been watching while waiting for the others to arrive. This was instantly met with groans from the Americans, who requested a change to hockey. I didn't really want to argue with them, so I held my tongue, but eventually they realized there was no hockey on - the USA/Finland semi-final had been played in the afternoon, and Canada/Slovakia wasn't until 9:30. So eventually, when it became clear that nobody was paying attention to the TV, I sneakily got it changed back to curling.

At first, nobody except me was paying attention, but after a while one of the Colombianos got curious and started asking me questions. This led to the Americans tuning in a bit more, and making jokes about how weird/dumb curling is. Many of these jokes, while derisive, were actually in the form of genuine questions, and by being able to answer them, I was able to get the Americans truly interested in the game. By the end, they were fully invested and even sort of understood it, and since it was such an exciting game (by curling standards), I think I may have made some converts.

After the curling match ended, we had a short break before the hockey game started, but when it did, everyone was rapt, since that was what we had all come for. Once again, I was the focus of many questions about the game, though this time the questions came exclusively from the Colombians. And once again I was able to make a convert, my co-worker Mario, who was hooked by the physicality of the game. He didn't really follow the puck movement and didn't understand many of the strategies, but every time there was a bone-crunching body-check against the boards, Mario was on his feet cheering.

I'll be heading back in 2 hours for the final. GO CANADA GO!

The Canada Placemat

2010-02-24T23:13:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

On Wednesday, I went out for a couple beers, something I haven't done on a Wednesday night since... well, probably since I've been in Colombia. I went because there's a bar that I like that supposedly has live music on Wednesdays, and I was hoping in the back of my mind that it was an open-mic sort of situation and I could get up there and entertain the crowd by speaking self-deprecatingly terrible Spanish, regardless of whether they liked the songs or not.

The music didn't happen - apparently it's going to happen Friday, so this is just another example of "Colombia Time", when things start extremely late, sometimes days late - but the other reason I went out was because it was the quarter-finals in the Olympic hockey tournament, and I thought maybe the bar would get the right channel. Turns out they did! So my friend José and I sat down with a couple of Hoogardens (yeah, this is a very different bar from the usual places around here) and watched the 3rd period.

Our waiter, who was the guy who spent about 10 minutes trying to find the right channel, was great. Really friendly, constantly making jokes which I sometimes understood, and one of those people who physically can't stop smiling. After explaining how important the hockey tournament is to Canadians (comparing to Colombia playing in the World Cup really drove the point home), he disappeared into the back of the bar and returned with a placemat which was, yes, a Canadian flag. I was ecstatic, obviously. (He also pointed out the 2 "Canadian" dishes on the menu - this menu specifies the origins of each of its dishes - Canada is apparently home of the Turkey Sandwich (okay, I guess) and the "Picnic Sandwich" (what?). I told him that the picnic sandwich doesn't actually exist, which he thought was hilarious.)

Anyway, the game was 7-3 when we arrived, and 7-3 when the 3rd period ended. It's too bad we didn't see any goals, but Canada won, so I'm not complaining. Of course, nobody else in the bar was watching (except our waiter, whose interest had apparently been sparked by this Crazy Canuck, and every time I looked over he was fixed on the game, likely having no idea what was going on), but José and I had a good little celebration at the end.

The game put me in a great mood (that, or the beer), and on the walk home I decided that tomorrow in class I'm going to enlist my kids into making Maple Leafs to plaster all over the place. Semis on Friday, Finals (fingers crossed) on Sunday. And I now have a place to watch it. Can't wait.

Aside: José, whose English isn't very good, was telling me a story about some girl from Turkey who added him on Facebook. I don't remember his exact wording, but it was something like: "so a girl added me on my face".

Inca Trail Part 1: The Suspects

2010-02-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Last time, I mentioned that I was late for my night-before mandatory meeting with the 16 other travelers and 2 guides I would be spending the next 4 days with on the Inca Trail, and I was worried they would judge me based on my lateness and the fact that I was carrying a tiny guitar. So, you're asking yourself, what happened, Dave? Were you completely ostracized from the group?

Well, no. But what followed was much more sinister than I feared or could even have imagined. Over the next few days I will take you through the mystifying events of my time on the Inca Trail, and it is my sincere hope that after all the facts are collected, we will get to the bottom of.... The Mystery of the Inca Trail!

(Also, I should note that it is almost definitely a coincidence that I read a Sherlock Holmes book during this journey.)

Anyway, the first step that must be taken by any detective worth his salt is to introduce the suspects, and this is what follows in today's entry.

Names: Oscar and Virgilio (Bill)
Age: early 30s
Relationship: co-workers
Nationality: Peruvian
Occupations: Inca Trail tour guides
Reason for travel: job

Names: Christy and Paul
Age: early 30s
Relationship: couple, unmarried
Nationality: Australian (Melbourne)
Occupations: travel industry, environmental scientist
Reason for travel: 12-month paid vacation due to economy

Names: Andrea and Mike
Age: late 20s
Relationship: couple, unmarried
Nationality: Canadian (Edmonton)
Occupations: event planner, Spanish teacher
Reason for travel: Christmas vacation

Names: Amelia and Lee
Age: Late 20s
Relationship: Couple, unmarried
Nationality: Australian (Sydney)
Occupations: Interior designer and plumber
Reason for travel: Extended vacation

Names: Jenny and Gino
Age: early 30s
Relationship: married
Nationality: American (New York)
Occupations: Financial stuff
Reason for travel: Christmas vacation

Names: Ronny and Bart
Age: early 30s
Relationship: buds
Nationality: Dutch
Occupations: Construction and re-selling
Reason for travel: Christmas vacation

Names: Jessica, Eli and Sequoia
Age: 40ish, 11, 14
Relationship: Mother, offspring
Nationality: American (Hawaii)
Occupations: Owner of natural food store, kid, kid
Reason for travel: Christmas vacation

Names: Richard, James, Geoffrey
Age: early 20s, late 20s, old
Relationship: Father, sons
Nationality: English
Occupations: English teacher, soldier, retired engineer
Reason for travel: Christmas vacation

Well, there you have it. 18 suspects, 16 travelers, 2 tour guides, and as of this writing, 0 motives. This is going to be a tough one to untangle - I can feel it in my bones. I think I'll have to sign off for the night - burning the midnight oil is never a good way to keep your head clear. Tomorrow we'll try to make some sense of all this.

Signing off,
Xerlock Xolmes

Peruvacation: More Stories From Days 3-5

2010-01-25T22:10:00.006-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Today we'll wrap up everything I remember that's worth telling about days 3-5 of my trip, which were all spent in famous Cuzco.

I mentioned yesterday that I took a 21-hour bus ride from Lima to Cuzco, but I didn't elaborate on it. The bus was actually quite good. There were 2 meals (and I think other snacks were for sale), and there were movies constantly playing in the non-nighttime parts of the trip that were accessed headphonely in case you didn't want them to bother you. (The movie list, from what I can remember: Seven Pounds, Taken, Lassie, Nanny McPhee, Underdog. A bizarre mix.) Furthermore, the seats were very comfortable: roomy, with a high degree of leanbackness, and a leg thing that came down from the seat in front of you so that your legs were inclined at about the same angle as your torso. Like the Z-pattern, where ∠head-balls-knee = ∠balls-knee-foot. My grade 7s know what I'm talking about. I still couldn't sleep, of course, but they definitely did almost everything they could to ensure that sleeping was possible.

Well, except for the geography. Of course there's nothing they can do about that, but the fact that the bus meandered lazily down the coast from the time of departure (2PM) until 8 or 9 in the evening before turning inland and winding stomachchurningly twistyturnily, right when it was time to start getting to sleep, didn't help.

The Sechura Desert, seen before the turn into the mountains, and which I would encounter again at the end of the trip.

On day 4 I decided I needed a haircut. It was the first time I've ever decided such a thing while on vacation, but it turned out to be the first haircut I've been completely satisfied with (except when I get my mom to cut my hair) in years. The place was difficult to find; it was in a courtyard in the middle of a block (which were actually quite common in Cuzco), but it was worth it.

Here's a quick description of a meal I thoroughly enjoyed. I found a German cafe in the course of my wandering (which just meant it was owned by a German guy), and the menu looked pretty good, so I checked it out for lunch on day 4. The dish I got consisted of 6 or 7 different kinds of potatoes (Peru is known for its potatoes), as you can see below: the ones in the middle top and bottom are particularly weird. The sauces in the middle are guacamole and a sweet creamy herb sauce. Delicious.

On day 5 I went white-water rafting with the tour company that was soon to lead me on the Inca Trail. It was just one little raft, with 4 of "us" and one guide. The other adventurers were a British couple who were on an extremely extended honeymoon because they were forced to have like 9 months off because of how law school works in Britain, and a Brazilian guy. The Brazilian guy was supposed to send me pictures, but I lost his e-mail address. Oh well.

Anyway, it was great! I'd never been rafting before, so the whole class system didn't mean anything to me, and still doesn't really, because somehow I doubt the classification of rapids is consistent everywhere you go, but apparently it was mostly craftsmen and got up to merchant once or twice. Um, I mean it was mostly class 3 and got up to class 4 once or twice. Whether that means anything to you or not, I can attest to the fact that it was pretty intense. Nobody fell in, but it was not a gentle ride. And man, the others were in over their heads - luckily, not literally - but none of them had any idea how to use a paddle (when I say "others", fortunately that doesn't include the guide). The British guy (Ollie... of course) did have one redeeming quality, and that was his idea of how to approach the most intense rapids. In order to channel as much energy as possible into the furious flurry of strokes that were required each time we crested a big rapid, Ollie combined his strokes with a torrent of curses. Soon we all caught on, and I think it was pretty effective.

At some point, I asked the guide if he ever went swimming in the rapids, to which he replied: "sure, you can swim in the rapids!" Not really feeling like correcting him, I just said screw it and went for it. It was fun, but it was also really friggin' cold, because the day on the whole was cool and wet, and I spent the second half of the voyage regaining feeling in my hands and making excellent use of Ollie's strategy (and discovering that it works for channeling both energy and heat. This guy should be a physicist, not a lawyer).

The last thing I can remember that's story-worthy is the souvenir I bought myself.

This is a Charango, a common instrument in Peruvian folklore music. It has 10 strings (5 doubled), and the traditional way to play it is the well-known technique INFASTNITY. I haven't mastered this technique yet, though I've improved a bit from when I first bought it, and at the moment would probably put myself at the level of FASTNITY.

Charango Charlie with big brother Wally the Waldorf. Regular guitars are part of the typical Folklorica ensemble as well, as a matter of fact, so along with singing I could probably rig up a 0.6 man band. Wait, I don't think that math works. Here's a better way of expressing what I'm trying to say: a 1 man 0.6 band. Got it? Got it.

It actually took me quite a while to buy this thing, because I was an extremely conscientious and comparative shopper, something I usually am not. And because it was Christmas Eve when I bought it, the main square of Cuzco was wall-to-wall, so hopping between the two finalists, which were really not that far apart, took like 15 minutes each way. All this shopping resulted in me being 30 minutes late for my mandatory pre-Inca Trail meeting. I'm not sure if anyone else had been late, but either way I was the latest, and I felt like an idiot showing up so late, especially carrying a pretentious tiny guitar, kind of like when people carry annoying tiny dogs in their annoying tiny clothes. Personally, I hate when people are late for that sort of thing, and in that situation I'm the first to jump to conclusions. I thought that the other 16 travelers in my group would instantly judge me and I would be ostracized from the group for the next 4 days.

So, what happened in the end? Did I overcome my bad initial impression and win their hearts, or was it the most miserable 4-day-hike-ending-at-one-of-the-seven-modern-wonders-of-the-world in my entire life? Keep tuning in to Xave's Xlog to find out!

We'll leave you with some pictures of Cuzco to cap off tonight's entry. Click to embiggen.

The "Chocolatada" on Christmas Eve. Kids lined up and got chocolate.

Previously:

The Preface

Day 1: Travel

Day 2: Miraflores Slideshow

Stories from Days 3-5

Peruvacation: Stories From Days 3-5

2010-01-25T00:25:00.005-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I'm not going to do a full re-cap tonight, but I thought I'd just share a couple stories from the second destination on my trip. After spending a day in Miraflores (a touristy suburb of Lima), I took a 21-hour bus to Cuzco, a city of about 300,000, the nearest city to Machu Picchu, and the former capital of the Incan Empire.

Arriving in Cuzco

Upon staggering off the bus around 11 AM after predictably not being able to sleep, a cab driver recognized my exhaustion and gringo-induced cluelessness, and I had no chance. He had me at "hotel?".

When I got to the hotel and was shown to my room on the 3rd floor, the altitude really hit me for the first time in my life. My apartment here in Barranquilla is on the 5th floor, and even when I walk home with a ton of groceries I'm not nearly as out-of-breath as I was climbing a mere 3 stories at 3000 meters. I acclimatized quickly, but that first stair-climb was definitely a shock.

Shortly thereafter, I headed out with the intention of finding Plaza de Armas, the city's main square, for some lunch and as a launching pad to the city's attractions. But the map I was using was just a little corner of a pamphlet from my hotel, and I ended up going the wrong way and quickly finding myself off-map. I walked around for about half an hour, taking wild guesses at streets that looked like they were about to become touristy. But none of them ever did, and this wandering around gave me the impression that Cuzco was much less touristy than I had originally thought, since I hadn't seen a single other tourist the whole time.

Eventually I found a little mall where I settled in for some lunch, which I'll describe in a moment, but first let me conclude my discussion of getting lost in Cuzco's nether-regions. After lunch I got lost for a little while longer, but finally I turned a corner and there it was: the Cuzco that all the guidebooks talk about. (It really was as abrupt as that - I couldn't believe the change when I turned that one corner. It sounds cliche, but it was the most extreme version of this phenomenon I've ever seen.)

When I discovered where that part of Cuzco was, I realized I must have gone the complete wrong way when I left my hotel in the morning and ended up much farther from Plaza de Armas than when I started. OR SO I THOUGHT. More exploration eventually revealed that the mall I ate lunch in was actually like half a block from my hotel. So I walked in a giant circle for half an hour, thinking I was going in the direction of the center of town. So much for my innate sense of direction.

Anyway, I wanted to describe lunch. I was in, as mentioned, a little mall type place which had a bunch of food-stands on one side. I didn't really know what anything was, so I just ordered something called "Chaufa con Tortilla", because I like tortillas, no matter if they were talking about soft tortillas or tortilla chips. Well, turns out tortilla means doesn't actually mean tortilla in Spanish! (Um, what?) But that's okay, because it means omelette, and I like those too. I figured out Chaufa refers to little tiny slivers of some kind of meat, and the dish named after it is basically fried rice with some veggies thrown in. And the omelette goes on top. But what made this meal unique was its sheer immensity. Look at this thing.

That is a veritable mountain of food. Or, to be regionally specific, that is a veritable Andes of food. I ate until I was fuller than I had been in years, and I only got about 2/3 of the way done. It could have fed 3 people, easily. And I think it cost something like $1.70.

Oh yeah, and I got a drink, too. Banana juice with milk. (That's what it's called in Spanish, but it's really just your standard banana and milk smoothie.) And, continuing the tradition, check out the size of this thing:

That's gotta be like a liter of drink. I honestly think this is the biggest meal I've ever attempted to eat (aside from things like buffets).

Okay, fast forward 8 hours or maybe 32 hours. On either day 3 or 4 I had dinner at a touristy place near the Plaza, and while sitting there bored I noticed another dude looking bored and invited him to join me. He was some sort of secret engineer who couldn't talk about his work (or maybe he could but just didn't want to, I forget), but he did tell me some other stuff, and this is the best story he had (and the only one I remember):

So I guess there are people in India who are considered gods. I didn't know this... maybe this was a serious gap in my knowledge, and if so, I apologize profusely for my ignorance. But I didn't know this until he told me. I guess the idea is that they're re-incarnations of Hindu gods. Anyway, this guy's secret engineer work takes him all over, including to India, and he went to check out a god's house, where 20,000 people regularly pray simultaneously. It turns out one of the guy's co-workers knew the God, so they got to hang out. Apparently he's "a pretty cool guy".

Okay, one more story before I go to bed. There's more to tell from days 3-5 in Cuzco, hopefully I'll wrap it up tomorrow. Anyway, on day 5 I had to get some things in preparation for my 4-day hike to Machu Picchu which was to commence the following morning, so I went to the mall which I now knew was only a few doors down from my hotel. Now, this was Christmas Eve, so the mall was packed. Especially with shoes. Look at all the shoes!

One of the things I needed was a sweater. I checked out a bunch of different stalls, inquiring whenever I found one I liked. One of the stalls was run by a kid of about 12, and he seemed nice, so after wandering a bit more I went back to his stand. But I wasn't just going to pay the 30 soles ($10) he was asking. Oh no. This is a bargaining culture, and I wasn't paying a dime more than 25 soles. So I told him that, and he said 28. So I said "okay, see ya later!", and walked off. I had only gone a few steps when I heard him call after me "okay, 25 is fine!" I returned, triumphantly paid my 25 soles, thanked him, and left. I haggled the #$@% out of that kid.

And this got me thinking: does this make me a bad person? I mean, anytime you say "I ____ed the #$@% out of that kid", that doesn't sound good. I think I'm going to hell.

Christmas Eve at the mall

Peruvacation Day 2: Miraflores

2010-01-21T16:00:00.001-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I know I said I'd keep this updated daily, but I really do have a good excuse - I wanted to make a slideshow for day 2, something I'll probably do for many days of the trip when I don't have stories to tell, and it took me a while to figure out how to embed a slideshow exactly the way I wanted.

After arriving in Lima, I got a cab to the suburb of Miraflores, the most touristy part of Lima. My plan was to go to Cuzco ASAP, but after realizing that Miraflores is pretty nice, I decided to stay for a day, and here's some of the stuff I saw.

Instructions for watching: actually, this turned out to be pretty easy. The video is embedded in HD quality, so just full-screen it for the optimal viewing experience (that's the button with outward diagonal-facing arrows in the bottom right). You might also want to let it fully load before watching for maximum smoothness. And turn the sound up, there's music!

Previously:

The Preface

Day 1: Travel

Peruvacation Day 1: Travel

2010-01-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Day 1 was mostly spent traveling - from Barranquilla to Bogota in the late morning (1.5 hour flight), followed by a several hour layover, and then a 3 hour flight from Bogota to Lima. After a mostly boring day, I got on the 2nd plane of the day, and discovered my seat was somehow in first class.

I have no idea how that happened - my first suspicion was that the check-in lady had bumped me up because I was a clueless gringo and she felt bad. But that story falls flat because I wasn't actually that clueless, since I've been living in South America for 5 months now, and my Spanish is actually kind of decent, but also, and more importantly, because when I booked my ticket I reserved the specific seat, so the seat I ended up in was the same one on the itinerary I had printed off ahead of time. But my ticket (and itinerary) said economy class, so I don't think I was paying for first class.

Anyway, it happened somehow. And it was great. The seats were big and comfy. There was some sort of buffer seat between me and the other guy in our row of 3. And there was, contrary to what the itinerary said (and probably contrary to what the lowly peasants got), dinner. And dinner was amazing. Here's what it looked like:

I wrote the exact description from the in-flight menu in my journal, but as you all know I lost it, but here's what I can remember: Lomo Saltado, a Peruvian dish of strips of marinated beef mixed with sauteed onions and peppers (which I would eventually decide is one of the best Peruvian dishes), accompanied by rice and potatoes, a truly delicious salad (from what I remember the deliciousness came from the dressing and those little cubes of cheese), fresh (well, okay, not fresh) fruit for dessert, a dinner roll, a personal oil bottle AND vinegar bottle for the salad, and a little chocolate at the end. Oh, and you might have noticed the FIVE pieces of cutlery. And finally, if you squint, you can see the glass of wine in the shadows on the right. This was on LAN, a Chilean airline, so of course the meal came with wine, and there was a choice of three, each one matched to one of the three meal options. These matches were made, according to the in-flight menu, but LAN's Master Sommelier, who was also referred to, I've just remembered, as "The Only Master Sommelier in South America". I don't know what it means to be a Master Sommelier, and how there can possibly be only one in all of South America, but it sounds impressive. (And the wine was delicious too, so I guess he nose what he's doing!!!!)

The other great thing about the flight was the music selection. There were around 10 radio stations, and the playlist for each one was printed in the in-flight magazine. Nothing particularly special there. But one radio station really stood out. "Radio Horizonte Chile" featured about 30 songs, and approximately half were from Indy Pitchfork-type bands. I wrote down the whole list in my journal, but again... okay, I'll shut up about the journal. Anyway, from what I remember, there was Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective, two Camera Obscura songs, Arcade Fire, and even Junior Boys, a fairly obscure Canadian band who I saw in Ottawa last summer at a show with about 200 people. In their HOME PROVINCE. What they were doing on a Chilean radio station, I have no idea. But it was great.

Arrival in Lima

Well, thanks for reading about day 1. I will really, truly, try to keep the trip journal updated on a daily basis from here on out, and if you want to read previous days' entries, you can always check down here at the bottom.

Previously:

The Preface

Peruvacation: The Preface

2010-01-13T13:58:00.003-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Hey guys! Long time no see! I got back from my 3-week vacation in Peru on Friday, and I've been pretty busy since then with school starting again, and buying/assembling a desk (which took about 3 times longer than the equivalent Ikea desk would have), not having any way to get cash (coming soon to a blog entry near you), almost flooding my apartment, seeing Avatar, etc, etc....

Anyway, we're gonna start with some bad news. I forgot my trip journal, which I had been about 75% faithful about keeping, at the LAST hotel I stayed at. Now, of course I remember all the stuff I did, but telling you about my life straight up has never really been what this Xlog is about. It's about finding the tiniest, boringest details, and making stories out of them, and it's been about taking the big, obvious stuff and approaching them in a different way than most would, because, for example, I could never satisfactorily describe my experience visiting Machu Picchu to you guys, so some would say what's the point of even writing about it, but I want to write about it, so I try to find a different way to tackle the topic.

(By the way, I admire Ian's take on writing about Christmas vacation - and Ian's blog is my favourite friend-written travel blog, so go check it out now - and I thought about going his way and just posting a few pics and mostly keeping stuff to myself, but you know what? That's just not me. My long-windedness is a result of that affinity for searching for narratives in the obscure, and looking at events through weird-coloured glasses. Or, more directly, I just like to write.)

Right, but as I was saying, I lost the journal, which sucks, because there was some writing in there I was really happy with. On the other hand, the simple act of writing stuff down serves as a memory reinforcement technique; it's not like that stuff is totally lost, and I remember it better now for having recorded it.

Also, I had been writing my journal in a completely sporadic, out-of-order way, and I really wasn't sure how I would schedule the blog postings, but now that problem is solved. So there's that.

Anyway, there's your preface! Over the next few weeks I'll be posting pictures and telling stories about my time in Peru - I'll try to update daily to give a bit of a feel for the ebb and flow of the trip. I hope to whip off the first one tonight, so stay tuned.

(P.S. Avatar was great. Make sure you see it at the theater while it's still there. Oh and who knew 3-D glasses weren't 1 red and 1 blue and made of paper anymore??!)

Happy Birthday, Xave's Xlog!

2010-01-02T00:16:00.001-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Right now, I'm in Peru, probably somewhere between Lake Titicaca and Arequipa. Actually, right now, it's December 14th and I just finished making study guides for my students for their upcoming tests. No, just kidding, right now it's the year 2183 and I just woke up from my cryogenic nap to re-calibrate my omega-level cyber-spleen.

Right, well whenever it is, the day on which this blog post is published happens to be the first birthday of Xave's Xlog. Even though I won't be (or wasn't (or am not)) available to publish this in real-time, the magic of the internet gives me the ability to write this ahead of time and set it to publish at the correct time in the future. Or the past. Or the meta-futurepresent.

It's been a great first year! In case you missed out on the early days, the blog was sort of a New Year's Resolution whose inception was inspired by the events of last New Year's Eve. By now I've celebrated at least 1 (and possibly hundreds) more New Year's Eves, and hopefully those stories will be coming soon.

The blog has seen over 100 posts, spanning a diverse range of topics including poop, dumpsters, and farts. Okay, seriously, it does get more diverse than that. Also, the blog has inspired a few recurring series', including Me Being An Idiot, excerpts from my Europe journal from a couple years ago, and (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things.

Overall, I'm very proud of the blog, and never honestly thought it would last this long. I think calling it "not really a New Year's Resolution" was the key. Anyway, in 2010, the 4th decade in which I've been alive (isn't it weird how that works?), Xave's Xlog promises to be bigger and better than ever! I don't know what it means for a blog to be bigger.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-19T10:30:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Hey guys,

In a few minutes I'll be catching a cab to the airport for my flight to Peru, where I'll be spending most of the 3 weeks of Christmas vacation. There won't be any blogging, but I bought a journal with like a werewolf or something on the cover, and January will be Journal Transcription Month.

Also, today's post is the 100th published post of Xave's Xlog, but I don't want to make a big deal of it, because there's a more important birthday coming up. Anyway, hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Year, and I'll see you later!

Xave

Sunday Smorgasbord

2009-12-13T20:54:00.001-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

It's 8:55 PM on Sunday night. I haven't thought out a blog post, but I didn't want to leave you guys in the dark, so I'm just going to write whatever comes to mind until 9:10, at which I'm going to drop everything and hit the publish button. Expect discontinuity and choppy grammar.

this is the last week of school before Christmas. The schedule is kind of weird: on Tuesday we have an early dismissal and then, I think, staff meetings all day.
On Wednesday we have another early dismissal, this time for a special event called Christmas Blaze. Last week, my boss, the secondary school principal Omar, asked me if I wanted to "participate" in Christmas Blaze. I enthusiastically replied that of course I would. Later, I found out "participate" actually meant "be one of the teachers kids pay money to throw pies at". Talk about lost in translation.
After Christmas Blaze, there is a secondary staff party or something.
I wanted to have parties in all my classes on Friday, but someone told me not to plan anything for Friday, cause there will probably be a whole school something. Or something. I dunno, nobody has mentioned even the first thing about it. Typical.
In addition to all these events, I scheduled tests for all my classes this week. I still haven't made the tests.
Also, I'm leaving for Peru on Saturday.
So this means, these are the things I have to do this week. 1) make 2 tests, actually probably more than that because I want the tests to be slightly different for each section. 2) make study guides for both grades. 3) mark the tests before the end of the week (2 of them are on Thursday). 4) mark all the other stuff I have to catch up on. 5) enter all my grades from the beginning of the trimester into Excel. 6) export all those marks on to Engrade, a website I use to show my students their grades online. 7) I'm sure I'm forgetting like 8 hundred million things.
And that's just the school stuff. Also: 8) plan/pack for Peru. I'll probably end up buying anything I need in Peru. 9) a secret project that I can't talk about but despite my inability to talk about it will nevertheless take up at least a couple hours. 10) once again, robably forgetting a lot and I just spelled probably robably but I don't have time to go back and change it even though it probably took more time to write this explanation and also look it's not that i'm complaining that i don't have any time, it's just that i imposed this deadline of 9:10 to write this blog post! what am i talkinga bout?
ok, 5 minutes left. Here's what I did this weekend:
Yesterday, I went with a co-worker, Karen (not the Karen I usually mention, Karen #2), to a music studio where her boyfriend's band was rehearsing. Their drummer was late so I got to sit in for a while, and it was a lot of fun. They play classic rock, a lot of Eric Clapton, and originals as well. I was very impressed - they're an excellent band. Apparently they won the Miche Rock Festival in 2008, and as a result went to a huge rock festival in Bogota. I went to the Miche Festival this year, which you can find in the blog archives, but the 15 minute nature of this post prevents me from linking to it cause it takes too long!
After that we went to a bar to see a friend-band of theirs, which was pretty good.
Oh man, 2 minutes left.
Today I went tot he beach with Karen and Elizabeth. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch, which wasn't actually all that leisurely, because the wind was seriously some of the most intense wind I've ever seen, and the entire second floor restaurant we were in was literally swaying. Karen's half full beer bottle fell over, knocking over her other bottle, which rolled to the edge and fell to the first floor (okay, I'm breaking my time limit for this one correction: by Karen's "other" beer bottle I mean her already empty one. We had a very long wait for our food. Karen is not an alcoholic.) . Also, later on I was sitting in our cabana while the ladies swam when I was surprised by a wave that not only made its way all the way up to the cabanas, but was KNEE DEEP, and swept all our shoes away. OH MAN 10 SECONDS LEFT OKAY PUBLISH POST NOW BLOG! SEEYA GUYS LA

Candle Day

2009-12-08T22:57:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Today is a holiday here in Colombia, the purpose of which is to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. The actual name of the holiday is something that I probably can't spell in Spanish, but it translates to Candle Day (it sounds better in Spanish).

Yesterday, in expectation of the upcoming day off, I asked people about the traditions of Candle Day, and heard varying things. Among the alleged traditions:

lighting candles
fireworks
getting up at 3 or 4AM for candles and fireworks
getting up at dawn for candles and fireworks
partying
drinking, specifically rum

Karen and I decided to wander around the neighborhood last night to check out the festivities, but I don't think anything had really started, aside from a couple of small apartment-building-front-yard parties. We saw a lot of lights, but most of those were probably just Christmas lights. And we went to dinner and then headed across the street for a beer, but neither location seemed unusually busy or celebratory.

At 3AM I was awakened by noise. I looked out my window and sure enough, there were some fireworks. I don't know why it's a middle of the night thing, but yep, people really do get up in the middle of the night to celebrate.

Now, in order for you to fully realize my observation of the celebrations, I need to describe my state a little more. Obviously I was drowsy, having just been woken up. And I only watched the fireworks for about 20 seconds, because that's when they ended. So I didn't have enough time to shake myself into full consciousness, and coupled with the fact that I was watching something fairly out of the ordinary, this brief fireworks viewing was perhaps the most dreamlike thing I've ever witnessed that actually happened. And this next part is the sort of thing that makes me believe it really was just a dream, but I'm pretty sure they were shooting the fireworks, inadvertently or not, at the walls of the apartment building, where they bounced off before eventually finding a patch of air to explode in.

There you have it: a foreigner's semi-conscious account of the festivities of a holiday he doesn't fully understand. If that's not classic travel blog material, I don't know what is.

Nitrogen is a Common Xave Element

2009-12-07T12:28:00.000-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Let me be upfront. This post is about farting. (I'm not sure if farts actually contain nitrogen, but whatever.) Specifically, my farting habits. So if you don't want to hear about that, just close the tab now. (And if you don't use tabs, get off the internet, cause you internetsuck.)

Ha ha, I knew you wouldn't leave. Who doesn't want to hear about farts?

Anyway, I wasn't always a farter. Actually, that's not true: I've always engaged in my share of flatulation, but it (my flatulation) used to be mostly odorless. I don't know what changed, but in the last couple years, all my farts, without fail, smell awful.

I've noticed it particularly in school. It's a constant struggle to keep it in. It started last year when I did my two practica at Ottawa schools, and as far as I can remember I was 100% successful at holding it in, or at least confining it to my teacher area where it couldn't spread. But this year the teacher area is much less well-defined; just a small desk instead of a big lab bench. The lab bench, completely befitting of a physics classroom, was very effective at Fart Diffraction Prevention. Also, I have students coming up to me all the time, a big difference from last year when I would mostly visit them at their desk, when if there was an incident, I could pretend to be busy with something for a minute until the air cleared.

Consequently, my stifling success rate has dipped below 100%. There have been several times when I've dropped a serious bomb right in the student area, and in most cases they definitely knew where it came from. A couple were so bad they I totally cleared out the area, with the students dashing for cover on the other side of the classroom. Unfortunately, I didn't make any jokes about it the first couple times, and now I can't bring it up because it's awkward. But they definitely know me as the farter.

Fortunately, it's not quite as bad as it sounds. For one thing, as far as I can remember, all the really bad incidents luckily happened with the same class (I have 4 different classes). Secondly, my fart prevention has improved quite a bit. I can smell it coming a mile away now (not literally, thank god), giving me enough warning to prepare my butt muscles accordingly, and it hasn't happened for quite a while.

Hopefully my reputation as the farty teacher will start to diminish as the time since the last incident grows. But I must always be on the lookout, for a single infraction could ruin all my hard work, and I will once again be known as Dave Butt.

Joke's on Me

2009-12-05T15:42:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Yesterday, I wrote about a colleague's newly-formed blog that I helped name. The name is kind of ridiculous, but she went with it anyway, so in yesterday's entry I wrote (only half-jokingly) "joke's on her".

Well, even though I was kidding (kind of), what went around came around, and I was the butt of not one but two running jokes yesterday, which I will now elaborate on.

After school yesterday, the regular crew of Friday soccer players, which includes a mix of teachers and maintenance workers, headed off to another school to play our first match against a different team. Upon arrival, I discovered that I didn't have my shorts. I could've sworn I had packed them in the morning, so I was somewhat baffled. Just when I was about to go ask a colleague if he had an extra pair, the affable (and non-English speaking) phys. ed teacher Jairo held up a pair of shorts that looked suspiciously like mine.

Before I go on, allow me to describe these shorts. I've had them for a very long time, more than 5 years for sure. They're just a regular pair of athletic shorts, and really the only ones I've had for, probably, the entire time I've had them. I've just never needed another pair, because they're good enough. A year or two ago, the drawstring broke, and now they look kind of ridiculous, because the waistband is kind of frayed upwards, but as long as I cover it with a shirt it's okay, and despite the lack of drawstring they still stay up.

That is, they did until yesterday. When Jairo found them, the lack of drawstring led him to believe they were the property of a very large person, and so he held them up and stretched them out for all to see, while joking that they must belong to Ivan, the large English teacher. Soon I recognized them as mine and was relieved that I wouldn't have to scrounge for an extra pair of shorts.

But when I got out on to the field to warm up, I realized that Jairo's stretching had made them a little too big, and I could only run for a few seconds before they started to fall down. By the time the game started, I hadn't yet devised a system for keeping them up, because I wasn't sure how big a deal it would be. But I quickly discovered it was, in fact, a big deal, when on my first ball possession I had to basically run while holding my shorts. Soon after I figured out that I could tuck my shorts into my boxers to hold them up, but not before my teammates had a good laugh.

The game was pretty good; the other team was better than us, but we kept it close, and trailed 3-1 at half-time. The second half was a more lackadaisical affair, especially on our part, since it was pretty hot (like usual) and we were playing on an actual-size soccer field, much bigger than what we're used to. Despite our lack of effort, though, we kept the score at 3-1 and it looked like it would stay there.

But then, somehow, we ended up on a 3 on 1 attack, with me being one of the three. Aldrin, one of the janitors, passed across to me, and I shot... right into the goalkeeper's stomach. But he couldn't hold on, the rebound came right back to me, and I tapped it into the open net.

This led to what could have been a great moment. Upon scoring a goal, a common celebration for soccer players is to take off their shirt and run around. It occurred to me that I could perform the same type of celebration, except instead of taking off my shirt I could pull my shorts down and run around with them around my ankles. It would have been hilarious. But I chickened out. Such a missed opportunity.

Anyway, the game ended 3-2, but we were all in good spirits afterward. The conversation inevitably turned to my shorts, and the joke became that I should be on the receiving end of the charity clothing drive that is currently happening at school for the holidays. Actually, that might be a good thing to do with my newly-gigantic shorts...

Linky Friday

2009-12-04T14:25:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

My Seattleite (is that the right word for someone from Seattle? I hope it is, because it's great, and if it is and I've heard it before I never realized it until now. It should be spelled Seatellite) colleague Karen blogged about a concert-show thing we went to. In the interest of efficiency, I won't be blogging about it, so just check hers out. Also, I already told you about our Thanksgiving dinner, but Karen's entry adds a couple of details and a couple more pictures.

Another colleague, Fathima the art teacher, started her own blog, and she's going to blog about art stuff she does in school, which sounds super-great! If that weren't incentive enough to check it out, I came up with the name for her blog, and even though she didn't get it at first (not being a native English speaker), and also even though it's ridiculous, she went with it! Joke's on her.

A few quick notes:

Last night I attended a choral competition that my co-worker Mario is participating in. It's a week-long contest - there was an opening show on Monday, I forget on Tuesday, then semi-finals on Wednesday and last night. There are 2 categories: little choir and big choir. Mario's group is in the little category, and it's a group of 8 guys who do all kinds of stuff - from baroque to barbershop. And they're really, really good. Like, this is purportedly a contest for best choir in Colombia, and I can believe it based on the level of the groups. Tonight is the final, which Mario's group is in, and I'll surely be in the audience.

Before that, though, there's a much-hyped soccer match between our school's staff and some sort of police school? Or... Police Academy? I'm not really sure. But hilarity could ensue. Also, apparently students are coming to watch it. I'm not sure how they found out about it, I thought it was just a low-key match between 2 schools. I better be on my A-game though.

Finally... I booked my Christmas ticket to Peru! I'll be there for 3 weeks, including a 5 day hike on the Inca Trail which ends in Macchu Pichu. Needless to say, There Will Be Blog.

Technology in the Classroom

2009-11-30T14:02:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I have decided that there are 6 ascending levels of technology in the classroom. They go as follows:

1. Blackboard (if you can really call it technology)

2. Whiteboard (hm, guess boards are racist)

3. Overhead projector

4. Powerpoint projector

5. Smartboard (guess boards are intelligencist also)

6. Laptops

A blackboard is the most basic. I consider whiteboards an upgrade primarily because of the ability to write in different colours - even though I was never the type to take notes in multiple colours, in any level of my education, I've firmly adopted the practice as a teacher, and many students follow my lead (or already possessed that habit), making their notes that much more organized and insightful.

Overhead projectors are the next level, and in public education, is probably the level most schools are at, and are attempting to transition to level 4, Powerpoint projectors. By the way, when I talk about schools being "at" a certain level, that means the technology exists in every classroom. In most cases, technology is in either all or just a few classrooms. There are few schools that have, for example, Powerpoint projectors in half their classrooms. It's usually everywhere, or one for each department, for example.

Smart Boards are the new hot thing, and the 1:1 laptop program (where every student has a laptop) is clearly a step up from even that.

Okay, now a bit of context. Ontario public schools are generally at level 3, and almost all schools have bits of level 4, while many have a few level 5s and 6s (by "a few level 6s" I mean computers in the classroom - computer labs are not part of this discussion because they're not in the average classroom). International/private schools have a much broader range - my first practicum was at a fully level 6 school, while many others are 4 or 5, some with a partial 6.

And then there's the low end of the international school spectrum, which brings us to the impetus for today's post. My school is a level 2, with a very few 3s and 4s available for occasional use, and no 5s or 6s whatsoever (there is a computer lab, but it's almost always in use for computer class, and there are no computers in classrooms). I can honestly say that, less than a year ago, I never would have thought I'd be teaching in a classroom without at least an overhead projector.

You might be thinking my whining is a little extreme; of course there are thousands of classrooms far more ill-equipped than mine. But this is an international school, a school for the elite, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't at least be on par with the public school system in Canada. It can't be for lack of money, I don't think.

Look, technology is not a gimmick. It is a teaching tool, and if you ask me, an essential part of the classroom. Here's how technology would improve my classroom:

Level 3: I would be able to prepare all my lessons ahead of time, so that when the students enter, it's already sitting up there. This forces them to get to work immediately. I would also never have to turn my back on the students, which makes a big difference. They grab onto those moments and it's difficult to wrest the class back.

Level 4: It's cleaner and nicer-looking than overheads, and has many more capabilities. Specifically, it's great to be able to create shapes and insert them into the class slides - which is certainly possible on overheads - but the big difference is, you can animate the shapes with PowerPoint. This is incredibly powerful in math, as you can show shapes changing size, rotating, flipping, etc. Another advantage of PowerPoint is being able to e-mail the notes to the class at the click of a button.

Level 5: SmartBoards may seem like a small step up from PowerPoint, and in many ways they are - many of the main advantages are extensions of PowerPoint capabilities, such as the ability to manipulate shapes and other stuff. I will readily admit I'm no SmartBoard expert, but I've seen some amazing stuff they can do, and I hope to soon be in a classroom with one so I can learn a thing or 2. But I think in 10 years or so SmartBoards could really start to explode - computers are moving towards touch screens, and as more and more people start to use things like iPhones and touchscreen computers, the population will get much more comfortable with this type of interaction, making the SmartBoard a more intuitive and useful tool.

Level 6: I'm sure many teachers would dread 1:1 laptop programs, since they'd assume the students would just be on Facebook the whole time. It's a legitimate concern, and I'm not sure it would be a great idea at my school, but in my first practicum last year, it was amazing. There are huge advantages when this type of program works: the teacher e-mails out the notes ahead of time, so students never have to spend any time writing notes down, and the entire lesson can be spent actively learning.

These aren't just minimal improvements. Each level of technology is a major step up that adds quite a bit of value from an educational standpoint. Except for maybe the jump between level 1 and 2, for which the main advantage is the ability to use colours. Not really that big a deal. And yet it's the only leap my school has taken.

My First American Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T19:24:00.003-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

My first American Thanksgiving also happened to be my first Colombian Thanksgiving. Now, Colombians don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving, but because my school is kind of American, we got the day off. Only they don't really "get" Thanksgiving, so we got Friday off instead of Thursday.

Anyway, my colleague Karen had previously made noise about trying to make some pumpkin pie when Thanksgiving rolled around, so about a week ago I reminded her of this promise, since I love pumpkin pie. Well, we eventually decided to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner, so on Thursday we headed to the local supermarket for supplies.

The biggest question was what we would use for pumpkin, since there are no pumpkins here, and there certainly isn't canned pumpkin. In fact, I haven't seen any pies here (that's sort of a lie, I think there are frozen Sara Lee or whatever ones, but I haven't seen any at bakeries), and after asking a couple of Colombians, we discovered they don't even have a word for pie.

Anyway, we found what we decided was the closest thing to pumpkin, which became known as "The Thing", because we forgot its name. Here's what it looked like:

Yeah, I dunno, some kind of hybrid squash/pumpkin/green thing. It actually smelled/tasted more like pumpkin than anything else. Upon the recommendation of Karen's relatives, we baked The Thing for a few hours to soften it up for the pie. When we took it out of the oven, we really had no idea if it was good to go, but Karen decided to live by the tenet "as long as you can stick a fork in it". I decided this was a lesson that should be applied to many facets of life.

The other challenge with the pie was that we didn't have a pie pan, so we ended up making something more like pumpkin pie squares, but in the end it turned out pretty well.

The rest of dinner consisted of a chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato carrot purée, a Rooke/Rutt family tradition (with The Thing substituting for sweet potatoes), and a salad (Karen took pictures, if and when she puts them up I'll let you know). Pretty traditional Thanksgiving stuff. We had briefly considered the fact that, since Colombians don't celebrate Thanksgiving and don't have any expectations, we could really make anything we wanted and claim its place in the Thanksgiving canon, thus enabling us to include dishes such as nachos or pizza or whatever. In the end, though, we went traditional for our own sake, even if we were celebrating on the wrong day (and in the wrong month).

While dinner was distinctly North American, the guest list was distinctly South American: by which I mean, highly subject to change. When my mom asked how many people were coming I said "somewhere between 5 and 12". When the designated time rolled around, it looked like we weren't even going to fit into that overly broad range; there were only 3 people, Karen and I and one guest, our co-worker Cecilia. Fortunately, Elizabeth, who had been feeling very sick, mustered enough energy to join us, and brought her boyfriend Yoyi. And continuing in the Colombian tradition, 2 more guests wandered in at various points. Though this meant they got cold food, it also facilitated another Thanksgiving tradition: seconds (and beyond). Each time a new guest arrived, everyone (or, at least, I) went for a new round of food, partly to keep the new arrival eating-company, and partly (okay, fully) because Thanksgiving dinner is great.

After dinner, the traditions continued with the traditional loosening of the belts and the traditional almost falling asleep on the couch (despite the lack of triptyphan (I'm sure I'm engaging in yet another Thanksgiving tradition of misspelling that word)). We finished off the wine Cecilia had brought, and soon we were all snugly in bed, full and happy. A very successful Thanksgiving.

The Science Fair

2009-11-24T20:17:00.003-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

So, I bet you're wondering what that picture is all about.

Well, it came about as a result of the science fair my school had yesterday. Let me tell you about said science fair.

But first, I should say that as far as I can remember, I've never been to a science fair. I vaguely remember doing a science fair project in grade 7 or 8, and my topic was optical illusions; you know, the old/young lady, vase/face, straight/diagonal lines, etc. But I barely remember how all these projects were displayed; it might have just been a little in-class fair. And that was the only event I remember attending even coming close to a science fair. In high school, science fairs were an extra-curricular activity that only a few people partook in, and I didn't come across any during teachers college last year.

HAVING SAID THAT, I knew what to expect, since the science fair is a pretty well-known phenomenon. I had even crossed 1 or 2 projects in their preliminary stages, so I was ready.

I arrived at Combarranquilla, the location of the science fair, which is also some sort of cross between a country club and a rec center? That I got a membership to as part of my contract but I don't actually know what the membership does since apparently I still have to pay to go there? Anyway, there were 2 big rooms: one for grade 2-6, the other for grade 7-12. Shortly I was tracked down by Gilberto, the chemistry teacher, who thrust 3 projects into my arms to evaluate, because another teacher had called in sick. This suited me fine, because it would be more interesting than the alternative, being on duty, and would also be considerably less work, since 3 projects really isn't very many. Others were evaluating up to 10 and were busy all day. Oh, and when I went to evaluate the third, for some reason it had already been judged by the specified number of 2 adjudicators, so I really only had to grade 2. On top of that, the remaining 2 were almost the exact same project. And they were about music. I think it's safe to say I got off easy.

So, I totally just used that crazy picture to draw you in so you'd have to read my boring stories. Suckers!

Just kidding, the explanation is coming. Hold on to your horses.

So, naturally, I took advantage of all that free time in a couple of ways. First, a co-worker and I took a leisurely 1.5 hour lunch (who am I, an investment banker?) and walked around the club, checking out their facilities, which included 2 cafés of different fancinesses, a bar, a restaurant, a gym, a pool, a couple of party rooms, and a small cinema, which is currently playing Gone With the Wind, and which I tried to find a schedule for, only to discover the theater opened literally a week ago and they haven't figured out any sort of schedule system yet. (The whole place was only 4 months old, someone told me.)

The other thing I did with all my free time was check out most of my kids' projects. Here are some anecdotes:

one group of grade 7 boys studied the effect of cell phones on muscles. In order to do this, they had me hold out my arm without my cell phone in it, and then pushed down on it, instructing me to resist. Then they repeated this trial while I was holding my cell phone, attempting to prove that I was weaker while holding my phone, because of the electromagnetism or whatever. Except that they pushed down WAY harder when I was holding my phone. Haha. I don't know if this was their methodology for the whole project, but, um, guys?
another group of grade 7 boys made things out of banana peels for their project. It was pretty sweet, actually - they made soap, air freshener, and one other thing that I can't remember.

So what about that picture?!?!?!?!!? RELAX YOU WILL FIND OUT SOON.

A group of grade 8 girls studied contraceptives, asking whether we should use them or not. Their conclusion was that we shouldn't, instead we should use abstinence. Sounds like a sex ed. video. I really have no idea what their methodology was to get to this conclusion, but that's not what I wanted to mention. On their poster, they had a series of 6 pictures of the effects of STDs. While examining the poster, one of them (the girls, not the pictures) asked me if I knew what the second picture was. It was a guy with some sort of rash on his face. I was like "um, I dunno", to which she replied "c'mon Mr., you know what it is." and I was like "um, some kind of rash?" Her response: "No Mr., it's a penis!" to myself: "okay, that is clearly a man's face, not a penis. What?" Then she pointed to the picture, which was a different one from the one I was looking at. It was the 2nd picture in the bottom row (2 rows of 3), so it really could only have been referred to as the 4th or 5th, depending on the order in which you count. I dunno where she got 2nd from. Anyway, regardless of the fact that it was her fault I was looking at the wrong picture, it's definitely embarrassing.
Speaking of embarrassing situations, I was checking out the project of 2 grade 8s, a boy and a girl. The girl was really enthusiastic to show me the project, and at the end gave the boy a big hug and said something like "I love (name), we're such a good team!" to which I replied "Great! Good luck!" She misinterpreted this strictly science fair-related sentiment and quickly clarified "oh no Mr., we're not dating!" I told her I was talking about the science fair, which in retrospect was a mistake, because she was embarrassed and probably wouldn't have been if I had just been like "oh, okay."

The day wrapped up around 2:30, and I was hanging out in the judges room waiting for some peeps to be ready to go. It was at this point that someone brought in a cage of 4 hamsters, and announced that the kid who had acquired them for their project had decided at the last minute not to use them, and was going to just throw them away! So the grade 9-10 biology teacher humanitarianly decided to adopt them. Naturally, she was showered with compliments about her generosity, and also one warning from the grade 7/8 English teacher: "be careful, you might get rabbis!"

(Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 5

2009-11-12T22:40:00.005-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Before you read this, check out (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4!

Unlike the other entries in this series, this isn't a collection of little darndest things; it's one big, amazing darndest thing.

The set-up: my grade 8s did a project on probability. The first part was some pretty plain mathy stuff, but part 2 involved researching something in real-life in which probability is useful. This actually wasn't very well done, including the one I'm going to relate to you; most kids just made something up that is completely unrealistic. It was mostly my fault for not giving detailed examples of what I was looking for, though.

Anyway, here is one full response:

Keith is totally in love with Annie Jane, and they have been dating since they met four years ago. They both think they make a great couple, but Julien, Keiths best friends thinks they are not meant for each other. So Keith is gonna have two blind dates to see wether he stays with Annie Jane or with one of the new girls Julien have selected for him.

If Keith feels bad, imagine how Annie Jane is gonna feel while she stays at home waiting for Keith to come back from his blind dates.

At the end, he needs to choose who he wants to keep seing his girlfriend of four years or the new girl, Julien have selected for him.

The probability that Keith selects or chooses Annie Jane is

97/100

and that he selects one of the others is

1/100 1/100

and that he stays alone is

1/100

because he is totally in love with Annie Jane and he doesn't even know the other girls.

Brilliant.

Steves

2009-11-10T22:33:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

One night last week, I met a former co-worker for drinks. She now works at a different international school, and she was with a few of her current co-workers, and even though I'm trying to avoid hanging out only with other gringos, it was nice to relax and not have to concentrate really really really hard on every word being said.

Anyway, one of these new friends, Tom, told me that he plays basketball regularly with some other teachers. I asked him if I could join in, and he wasn't sure, because it's actually a league, rather than just regular pick-up ball, as I had originally assumed.

On Saturday, I went to a party hosted by another teacher at this other school, which is called Karl C. Parrish. I met a lot more gringos (the teaching staff of Parrish is nearly half North American, as opposed to my school, which has 3 of us), including a couple more members of the basketball team. They told me a bit about the league, and related some fun basketball stories, including one about an interesting character named Steve. Steve, I gleaned, is your traditional nicest-guy-ever-but-incredibly-intense-when-playing-sports. Not to the point of being a jerk, just hyper-competitive. Apparently, you can't tell Steve to calm down, because his response will be (with crazy eyes): "I am calm."

Anyway, I got to experience the legend of Steve first-hand last night, because one of the bball party-goers had been the captain, and he got me onto the team no problem. The descriptions of Steve proved accurate. The best Steve moment was when he was on the bench and an opposing team member was standing close by, waiting for the play to start, and Steve remarked very calmly: "what, are you gonna shoot? you could build a chimney with all the bricks you're putting up" despite the fact that the other team was all Colombian and didn't speak English. Just the Steve way, I guess.

Later on, I was chatting with another team member, Joe. Joe told me he was from Minnesota, and then asked me something like "so, where are you from, Steve?" It threw me off for a second, but then I remembered: in order to get me on the team, they had to claim I was someone else, someone who works at Parrish, I guess. So, on the team, I'm Steve #2. We'll see if I inherit any of the traditional Steve traits.

The Number Two

2009-11-04T23:19:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

The end of the trimester is approaching rapidly at school. Trimester exams start on Friday and run through next Friday. The math exams are on Monday, so I spent the weekend making the two that I had to make (grade 7 and 8). And then, yesterday, I made the study guides for my classes. I printed them off today, and before lunch, during one of my breaks, I looked around for each of my 4 classes to get the study guides in their hands as soon as possible. In the last class I visited, I asked one of my students to bring me the extra copies. She did just that - she found me in the hall right after lunch started as I was on my way to the bathroom and handed a few extra copies to me.

Wow, today's blog entry is just fascinating, ain't it?

Anyway, then I was in the bathroom. (this is only getting better.) I did my business, which in this case was of the prolonged type, as the title suggests. I looked around. There was no toilet paper. I checked the paper towel dispenser - there was nothing there either. So I panicked. This was a single bathroom - no other stalls I could quickly move to. I thought about the possibility of walking extremely carefully to the closest bathroom, but it was a floor down, and a bit of a hike, and I really didn't want to go that route.

Then, I looked behind me and saw the study guides that I had just been given.

Right, so you fill in the rest of the details.

Minca in 10 Pictures

2009-11-03T23:40:00.001-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

So I never really got around to blogging about my trip to Minka a couple weekends ago, even though I wrote a whole preview about it. I dunno, I think it was just a little daunting after setting the precedent of a whole week of blogging from my first weekend getaway to Taganga. Anyway, I thought I'd just pick 10 of my favourite pictures to semi-illustrate the story.

(for more on the Minka trip, check out K's coverage!)

We met a Colombian family at a coffee shop in Minca, and they offered us a ride much higher up into the mountains. I had a huge ass-bruise the next day.

I got a lot of great animal shots on the Taganga trip, but this was the only really good one this time around.

High up in the mountains there was a bird reserve. We saw this guy right after entering, which seemed promising, and then barely saw any more for the next 2 hours.

For mom and dad.

Cool mountain house.

Cool mountain mist.

A domesticated monkey. The funniest was when the father of the family we met was playing with it, the little girl of 2 or 3 was delighted, except when it came to close to her, and she burst into tears. This happened on an alternating basis for quite a while.

Cool mountain river.

Dude we found hanging out in our cabana the first night we stayed in Minca.

This is Chuzo, a popular dish around here. What you see are tiny crispy potato shavings, kind of like hickory sticks, covered with a couple of mayo-y sauces. Underneath lies pieces of yuca, a root that's kind of bland on its own, but provides a nice comic foil to the chorizo sausage (it can also come with chicken, beef or any combination of those 3 meats), lettuce and a ton of grated cheese. I actually think it's too much cheese, and next time I stop by my local food stand I'll ask them to hold back. (this picture has nothing to do with Minca, just thought I'd throw it up. The picture, not the food)

Watching the World Series

2009-11-01T22:01:00.002-05:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

So, yeah, I know, I haven't posted anything in about 2 weeks. It's not that I haven't written anything - I've started several posts only to get stuck about halfway through. I think maybe I'll start posting shorter entries to keep myself motivated, since 2 or 3 paragraph snippets are much easier to whip off in a few minutes. I'm sure you guys won't mind losing some of my long-windedness.

Anyway, something that occurred to me as I'm sitting here watching the World Series: there are many ways to follow a baseball game. You can watch on TV, listen on the radio, or follow on the Internet by following someone's live-blog, or using one of the real-time graphical interfaces like the one on mlb.com. You can combine media to make it more complicated, too - personally, I've watched the game on TV, muted the sound, and turned on the radio, since the Blue Jays' radio broadcasters are great. I've also listened to radio broadcasts over the web while loading up one of the real-time GUIs to get a bit of a visual. Here's another one: I've followed games by constantly texting friends who were watching the games. (it's also possible to text a service that sends you an automated update.) The possibilities are endless.

But I think I've hit upon a new one. I'm following the World Series in a way that baseball might never have been followed before. Here's how it works: I'm watching on TV, but the broadcast is in Spanish, so in order to get some analysis, I'm constantly checking Twitter for updates from the 4 or 5 baseball writers I follow who are tweeting about the game. I call it: "twatching". No, never mind, that's not what I call it, that's terrible, sorry.

(Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 4

2009-10-22T22:14:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Before you read this, check out (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things Parts 1, 2 and 3!

-----

One day, my class entered while I was listening to music. Specifically, I was listening to Stevie Wonder, so, predictably, the grade 7 boys told me that "this music sucks mister, you should listen to Guns n Roses and ACDC and Green Day and" etc. I told them that I do, in fact, have some Green Day on my computer, to which one of them began to guess which songs I have. "Do you have American Idiot?" "No." "Do you have Holiday?" "No."

And then came this gem:

"Do you have Basketball Case?"

-----

There's a school science fair coming up, and one day as I was wandering through the hall I encountered 2 of my grade 8's surrounded by a stack of papers, furiously working away on laptops. Wondering what they were doing in the hall during class, I approached and asked what was up. They told me they were working on their science fair project, which was studying the effect of listening to music on concentration. This involved having other students do short math tests while listening to different types of music. Straightforward enough.

Except that one of the types of music they mentioned was death metal, and the student who was finishing up as I approached was a cute little grade 4 girl. I found this hilarious.

-----

I need to tell you about S. He's a student in grade 8, and I think the best way to describe him is that he seems like he's high all the time, in a dazed, forgetful sort of way. It's not that he seems dumb - and he's not - he just seems like he's having one of those days. All the time. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he forgets his glasses at LEAST 50% of the time, and when this happens, he moves his desk to be about 3 feet in front of the board, so that I'm basically running into him when I try to teach. His notebook is incredibly disorganized, he's always finding stuff he thought he had lost 2 months ago, etc. etc. But somehow his disorganization isn't frustrating, just kind of hilarious.

Anyway, suffice it to say he's one of my more entertaining students. Never was this more evident than during our most recent test, when he inexplicably started dancing in his seat about 5 minutes into the test, and basically didn't stop for the whole hour and a half (sometimes out of his seat too). He kept raising his hand as if he had a test question, and then asked me if I liked his dancing. And then when he really did have a question, he sang it, and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

-----

I've started to really enjoy tests in this particular class. Not because I don't have to expend all kinds of energy explaining stuff and keeping the class focused (though I like that part too), but because both times we've had a test, I dunno, I just feel like we've really come together as a family! For example: during the first test, this annoying bird kept buhkawing or whatever sound it made, and we couldn't close the window because that was one of the days the school lost power. So I went over to the window and gave a curt "ssh!", which apparently worked. The class uniformly thought this was the funniest thing in the world, and was a welcome break in the 90 minute long test (that's a friggin' long test for grade 8s).

A similar thing happened during our recent test. I guess there's a virus going around, because a lot of people were sniffling, and about halfway through the test, the collective sniffling got so frequent that it prompted one non-sniffler to address the class out loud, begging with everyone else to shut up. Of course, this only made things worse, as a number of non-snifflers decided to join in to make it more of a thing. A low murmur began to permeate the room as the chorus of snifflers grew ever louder and sillier. Finally, the dam burst with its logical conclusion - a full-on sneeze, precisely timed to cause the class to erupt in raucous laughter the likes of which hadn't been heard since the bird incident.

It was bound to happen - it had to happen. The sneeze was the only way it could have gone. I had even considered throwing a sneeze out there myself. But it became obvious soon after, when the sneezer followed up with 2 or 3 more, that these were real sneezes. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe the escalating Sounds of Sickness had triggered something. Whatever the cause, it was perfect. And hilarious.

And the sneezer? S, of course.

An Unexpected Consequence of Moving to Colombia

2009-10-19T13:24:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Before, I tell you, got any guesses? Could it be that I can no longer say the word "bucket" without winking with my left eye? Or that I forgot how to use shampoo? Or maybe, I've suddenly gained the capability to naturally excrete pure iron?

No, none of those is the correct answer, though if it was the 3rd thing you can bet I'd be getting in touch with Canadian engineering schools. Actually, the unexpected consequence I wish to tell you about today is that I've become substantially clumsier.

At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but after 2 months of data, the sample size is becoming undeniably meaningful. I broke another glass last night, which brings me up to approximately 5 dishes on the year. I can specifically remember a mug, a pot and last night's glass, but I know there have been a couple others.

And I'm just spilling stuff all over the place. You should see my kitchen floor! Actually, it's pretty clean, but only because I mop it out of necessity basically every day. It's not just food, either - 2 days ago I knocked an entire frying pan, complete with frying sausage, onto the floor, where it landed perfectly upside down, covering the sausage.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've put my hand on something hot, or forgotten that a pot of water had just been boiling, or gotten off a moto-taxi and badly burned my leg on the exhaust pipe. Okay, that last one only happened once, but it definitely scabbed up and I still have a mark a week and a half later.

I've even near-electrocuted myself a couple times. Most recently, I had a huge stack of dishes in the sink, waiting to be cleaned. Because of this mess, water wasn't getting through to the drain, so as I was cleaning, the sink began to fill with water. Suddenly, I got a shock and instinctively jerked my hand out of the water. Confused, I examined the scene and discovered that my new electric orange juicer was one of the dishes in the sink, and was not only still plugged in, but had somehow turned itself on. Smooth, Dave. (it happened another time with my razor)

And of course, there's the physical trauma. I've probably walked into walls, or quickly gotten up in a low ceiling areas, and even managed to get kicked in the nuts harder than I ever have been before, but the most infamous (if you're a regular reader, anyway) incident was when I stubbed my toe. Oh, and I haven't blogged about this since immediately after it happened, but I think there's a pretty good chance I broke it. It hurt for a solid 3 weeks, but I never got it checked out, partially because I'm lazy, and partially because a friend told me there's almost nothing you can do about broken toes.

The question is: what's the reason for this sudden increase in clumsiness? Is it the heat? Maybe it's the language barrier? Like, I haven't learned how to cook in Spanish yet? Or something?

I dunno man, it's pretty weird. I do have one plausible theory, though. Here in Barranquilla, almost everyone has a maid, and it has been recommended to me multiple times. Most of the instances in which I've engaged in clumsiness were during menial tasks that a maid would likely be doing. I guess the universe is trying to tell me something.

Antenna Yoga

2009-10-16T21:50:00.001-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

You know when people go to such extremes to get a good TV signal (with an antenna, you know those things from the not future?) that they're standing there balancing on one foot while tangled up in the curtains and holding the antenna in precisely the manner that gives a clear picture? I've got that going on right now.

Allow me to elaborate. I'm trying to watch playoff baseball, which I apparently get on one of the 3 channels that is at all watchable on my TV. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy about this, even if it is in Spanish, despite the reception horror story that follows.

Anyway, first I moved over to the lounge area of my living room, taking my computer with me so I could look up Spanish baseball terms. This caused the reception to go all staticy. I eventually discovered that if I held my wireless USB internet device in a precise spot it would work, but unfortunately that spot was about a a meter and a half off the ground. I would have to, I dunno, suspend it from the ceiling or something.

Okay, can we talk about this for a second? Really, TV? Holding a small USB wireless internet receiver in one particular cubic decimeter of air improves the TV signal that by that much? I always thought those one leg standers were fooling themselves. Apparently not.

It gets more ridiculous, though.

Since I couldn't figure out a way to sit on the comfy loungy chair and have my computer at the same time (you can't sit on your comfortable loungy chair and eat your computer too!) I moved back to the deskal area, turning the TV to face said area. I plugged the computer power cord back in, and.... yep. There goes the static.

Okay, so the TV is 8 feet away from me and plugging in a little power cord to my laptop makes it freak out. They are coming from the same power bar, though, maybe this one makes a little sense.

So I left the power cord out, planning on plugging it in between innings to keep the computer juiced (not unlike A-Rod... zing!), and went back to my business of whatever I was doing. Whatever it was, it involved scrolling up and down. So I formed my right middle and ring finger into the shape necessary to engage in Apple™ 2-Finger-Trackpad-Scrolling or whatever it's called. Following this, I picked up the aforementioned fingers (with what? Usually the fingers are the ones doing the picking up) Right, um, the fingers picked themselves up from their positions hovering over (I'm guessing, it's not like I recorded this moment) the J and K keys, sauntered over to the trackpad, and commenced the familiar motion.

You may be wondering why I'm describing the tediously inconsequential physiological processes of my computer habits in such excruciating detail. You're probably not, though, because you're probably completely uninterested, and failing that, you probably already know what's coming: the 2 finger swipe caused the TV to static it up once again. Not a 1 finger swipe. Not a click. Not typing. The 2 finger swipe.

Don't believe me? Here, I'll film it to prove it. Oh wait, now it's not doing it, of course.

I swear, it was doing it before!

Minka: The Preview

2009-10-14T00:19:00.003-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

If this seems oddly familiar, it's because several weeks ago I embarked on a weekend trip to a nearby town called Taganga and spent an entire week blogging about it, starting with a post called Taganga: The Trailer. I just had a 4-day weekend, surprisingly unrelated to Canadian Thanksgiving, and took a trip to another nearby town, this one a mountain village in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. I don't think I have a week of blog entries in me this time, but at least a couple of days.

Anyway, one of the first things that happened on the trip was mosquitoes. Tonight, I decided to count all the bites I was left with. Below is photo documentation of my methodology.

I counted 147.

Octobarch Break D. Day and Other Notes From Nowhere

2009-10-06T22:47:00.007-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I lied, they're notes from Barranquilla, Colombia.

-----

I don't think I've mentioned this yet - currently, my school is on a week-long break. The students, anyway. The teachers have professional development all week, except Friday, which we're getting off in addition to Monday's holiday. Given the similarity of this week to Canada's March Break and also P.D. Days, I've termed the week "Octobarch Break D. Day". Hopefully it plays out more like your typical Octobarch Break than your typical D. Day.

-----

Since we have a 4-day weekend coming up, I'm probably gonna take off somewhere. Originally, K and E and I had planned to go to La Guajira, a coastal desert (oxymoron?) region not too far from here. However, one of the main draws of La Guajira at this time of year - flocks of thousands of pink flamingos - is being decimated by an unexpected shark attack. The regions where the flamingos can typically be viewed are shut down, and this really is an unexpected attack - apparently it's never happened before, or at least not on this scale. It's definitely disappointing, but also kind of hilarious, and ironically not the first time this blog has featured animals unexpectedly eating other animals.

-----

Today, for the first time, my iPod application that's just a pure white screen (i.e. a flashlight) came in handy when the power went out around 10PM. Stupidly, the first thing I did was use it to find my one candle before realizing that lighting said candle had become superfluous with the re-discovery of the App.

Also: this power outage illustrates another reason the wireless USB internet device I get my internet from is useful. I can't turn on a light, listen to the radio, or watch TV, but I can be on the internet. For about 10 minutes, anyway. My battery sucks so much. Sorry if this entry seems hastily thrown together, my impetus for writing it was the aforementioned lack of power, preventing me from doing what I was doing before (marking), and I'm trying to squeeze this in before my computer randomly shuts down at 56% battery, which actually only takes about 13 minutes to get to (I just calculated based on what's left).

The Colombian Frat Party

2009-10-04T16:06:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Last night, I went to a party. When I walked in, it immediately struck me as similar to the North American frat party, so one of the things I spent my evening doing was analyzing the similarities and differences.

(Another thing I spent my evening doing was inventing a new dance, called the beer dance. This is used when you're dancing and you want to take a sip of beer - you don't want to keep dancing normally, because it looks stupid, so you have to invent a special dance that you only use when taking said sip. There isn't one universal beer dance, so feel free to invent your own - it's just important that it's distinct from your regular dancing.)

Anyway, frat party comparison chart:

Similarities

it was in a huge house. well, actually in the huge backyard of the huge house
there was constant loud music played by a live DJ and, eventually, a live band
girls got in free, guys did not
upon entering, I got one of those annoying paper wristbands that always gets stuck to my arm hair
there was an ever-present cloud hovering over the party area. though i've listed this as a similarity, the smell was stronger than any i've ever encountered before, and was remarkably constant throughout the whole party, which is especially impressive considering it was an outdoor area
there was a distinct lack of shirts
there was a pool outside, but it was empty, so it became an empty beer bottle receptacle

Differences

there were no kegs
(related to the previous) there were no keg stands
the host of the party was the family who lived in the house, not a frat. (i'm not even sure if the concept of frats exists here, i don't think universities have on-campus housing - almost everybody lives with their parents through and well past university age) also, the mom, who coincidentally works at my school (this really is a coincidence, i found out about the party from someone else), was taking tickets at the door rather than being out of town and having no idea about the existence of the party
there weren't any douchebags (then again, I haven't encountered any in 2 months of being here, so maybe I just don't know what to look for yet)
(related to the previous) there weren't any fights and/or ridiculous pranks

(Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things, Part 3

2009-10-01T14:02:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Check out (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things Part 1 and 2!

In my grade 8s' first test of the year, I asked the question: "Think of two real life situations when the Pythagorean Theorem might be useful. Explain why it would be useful, and how you would use it." The question was generally very poorly done; even the best answers were things like "if i want to find the shortest route from my house to the mall", which is full of holes: am I to assume you know the lengths of the perpendicular sides of such a triangle? How did you measure them? Won't finding the shortest path involve physically walking through buildings?

Also, most of the answers were boring, like the one described above.

One student, however, gave me not one but two answers that were both well thought out and creative. I should mention that, before this, this student had not stood out at all; I thought she was fairly average. Well, she was the only student in 2 classes to ace the test. Anyway, here are her 2 responses:

"Let's say you work back stage in a theator. in actor has to roll under a later leaning twords a prop the actor is 1 meter long (ha ha) and the prop is 3 meters high. You would use the P.T. to see how long the later has to be." (this was accompanied by a picture of a stick figure rolling between the base of the ladder and the prop)
"Your decorating your room with a math theam you want to do a triangle out of pencils on pencil is 10 cm and an other is 15 cm you would youse the PT to find out how long the other one has to be."

Just awesome. Although, unfortunately, she missed out on the brilliant touch that once you find the 3rd side you could simply sharpen the pencil until it reaches desired length.

One time we were playing a game in class because the A/C was broken and there was no way those kids were doing anything productive. Even though I had told them they didn't have to play if they didn't want and could simply sit in the desks outside the circle of the game, one of my students felt it necessary to tell me that another student wasn't going to play because he had a problem with his - at this point he leaned close to whisper in my ear - testicles. Ironically, this was the day that I would later be kicked in the nuts.

From the department of Crazy Things Mr. Dave Says: I've gotten into the habit of calling quizzes "Quizzitos" - in Spanish, the "ito" suffix denotes a smaller/younger version of the thing, like perro = dog, perrito = puppy, also known as the diminutive. Anyway, my grade 7s are having a Quest this week - halfway between a quiz and a test. They asked me if it was a Quizzito, and I said "no, more of a Testito". Fortunately, even though Sex Ed. starts around grade 6 (in Canada, at least), the language barrier saved me.

After returning a quiz to one of my classes, a student repeatedly asked me if she had "won" or "lost" the quiz. She had lost, but I told her if she corrected her mistakes she could win it.

Sweaty Wednesday

2009-09-30T11:13:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

So, I just looked down at my shirt and noticed something I've never seen before (on me, anyway): boob stains.

I'm skeptical they're real (they might be implants?). I mean, I'm not very sweaty in general, and today hasn't been a sweaty day - I mean, every day is hot here, but I haven't been playing sports or anything, and I've spent most of the morning in my air conditioned room. Also, even in times of extreme sweatiness, I can't recall ever seeing isolated boob stains. Maybe a whole chest drench, but never the twins.

I just had a snack, so I suppose it's possible I somehow spilled in a very precise manner without noticing. But I dunno man, that's quite a coincidence. Maybe I'm just lactating.

Or maybe this is a turning point in my teaching career. Maybe this is the moment I become the stereotypical sweaty math teacher. Mr. Boobstain. Hey, it sounds better than Mr. Rutt.

Days of the Week

2009-09-29T23:56:00.005-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Just a short post tonight, because it's 10:56 and I gotta sleep dudes and ladies! Anyway, I just thought up this post in the shower. Enjoy!

Oh, hey guys, one thing I just noticed: I messed up publishing yesterday's post - even though I hit the publish button yesterday, it appeared on the blog as if I had published on Sunday, before Sunday's entry. It's too bad, because I think a lot of you missed out on it, especially since it was the thrilling conclusion of a two-part story arc! So check it out!

The schedule at school is pretty bizarre. Here are the many ways in which it is bizarre:

1) periods are 45 minutes long, but sometimes they're double periods (i.e. 90 minutes). I have 2 short classes and 2 long classes per week with each of my 4 classes.

2) also, sometimes periods are 50 minutes and long ones are 100. I forget when that's the case.

3) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there are mandatory extra-curriculars for the first hour, so school goes an hour longer than usual, so the periods are all out of wack.

4) there is absolutely no pattern from day to day, just an overall weekly schedule that is (fortunately) constant from week to week - that is a recent development.

5) "period" in Spanish must be "hora", because students refer to classes as hours. This is an Abbott and Costello-inspired conversation I have every day: "do we have 1 or 2 hours today?" "We have 1 and a half." You can fill in the rest.

This results in at least 3 students wandering up to the front to check the schedule every 2.3 seconds, so most of the words I say are "sidownchekschedlatr", a combination of many words I'm trying to say all at once, which I am forced to do because of the extremely high rate at which said students are approaching the board. It doesn't deter them.

Another result of this crazy schedule is the fact that every day is different for me. Now that I'm starting to get a feel for it, I've started to anticipate/dread certain days, and just now I came up with a ranking for how strenuous each of my days is.

Now, there are 2 factors that go into ranking the days. First, how many classes I have, and second, how many minutes of class do I have - because, remember, some classes are half as long as others. So, to combine these 2 factors, I decided the final quantitative ranking would be s = c • m, where:

s = stress level

c = number of classes

m = number of minutes

The results, ranked from most to least stressful:

1. Wednesday, 900 (4 classes, 1 long, 225 minutes)

2. Tuesday, 810 (3 classes, 3 long, 270 minutes)

3. Monday, 720 (4 classes, 0 long, 180 minutes)

4. Friday, 675 (3 classes, 2 long, 225 minutes)

5. Thursday, 360 (2 classes, 2 long, 180 minutes)

Now, there are other things I could take into account, like the 20 minutes of homeroom on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the extra hour I have to stay on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the math club I have to run for an hour every other Tuesday, but I think I'm starting to nod off here. But one thing is clear: Thursday is the best day by a mile. And this Thursday is the best by an even milier mile, because for some reason the school hired a masseuse, and I'm getting a free massage at 8AM.

My First Riot, Part II

2009-09-28T19:28:00.002-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Pre-requisite: My First Riot, Part I

So Doris Vespa was a little underwhelming, but still enjoyable. Hopefully I'll be blogging about them again, from a show not filled with metal-heads.

Speaking of which, the next band was the second metal band of the evening, and this time the cops were prepared. I guess a lot of people had decided not to jump the fence during the first band (or had jumped back over? I didn't see it, but that would have been hilarious, especially since it would have been way harder than jumping into the VIP section), but the cops mostly shut them down this time. They were relentless, though, and a few got through here and there.

Also, even though it didn't seem like the mosh pit was any more violent than it had been during Existential Hate, the organizers apparently thought so, and Vicious Circle was interrupted mid-set several times so that the attractive TV-personality-host-girls, with presumably-organizer-frumpy-old-dude leering over their shoulders, could tell the crowd to tone it down or things wouldn't end well. This is when things started to look like they wouldn't, in fact, end well (brilliant deduction, Inspector Xave) - chants broke out at various points in time throughout the breaks between songs, and it seemed like the chiding had antagonized the crowd even more. Nevertheless, Vicious Circle made it to the end of the set, and with no more metal bands on the horizon, things were looking up.

The next band, Rioba, was the one my co-worker MC works with, and they were billed as (i.e. she described them as) a reggae/ska band. On this night, they definitely leaned a bit more toward the ska end of the spectrum, perhaps learning from Doris Vespa's mistake, and it was definitely to their benefit. They were great. Fun music, high energy - they got the crowd into it just as much as the metal bands had. By far the best band of the night. Here's a picture of their 2 lead singers (aside: when I met MC before the show, she was carrying a broom. I asked her why, and she said she didn't know, the band had asked her to bring it. You can figure it out)

Ultimately, this ability to get the crowd into it proved to be their undoing. Or, not really their undoing, as they were able to finish their set, but the festival's undoing. At some point shortly after their set, critical mass was reached. I'm not sure how or why (I mean, I do, but I'm not sure why it didn't happen after Vicious Circle), but soon the fence between the VIP area and the ultra-VIP area (only for bands and those associated with the bands, like MC) was torn down.

Before

After

Astute readers will note that the "before" picture was taken from the Ultra-VIP side. I was one of the first ones through. Good rioting, Dave! Mad props.

Anyway, it wasn't a terribly violent riot. After the wall came down, there was a brief period of beer cans (it's a very good thing they weren't selling beer bottles) and other garbage being thrown at the hosts and organizers on stage, who were trying to calm everyone down to no avail. I don't think anyone was hurt, but I did see one of the host girls get beaned with someone that looked a little heavier than a beer can - luckily, she appeared to be fine.

After that, the concert was over, obviously, even though there was still one competitor left to play, and also the headlining act, a famous band from Bogotá called Aterciopelados who are too accomplished (seriously - look how long their english Wikipedia entry is!) to be eligible for the competition.

So, even though I've said a couple times I don't want to pass judgment on these kids (who am I, someone's dad?) for their musical taste, I will whole-heartedly pass judgment on them now. The riot was beyond stupid. You are willing to ruin a great event because you're not allowed to punch other people in the face? Get a grip. If you think you were somehow "sticking it to the man" by rebelling against the stodgy, middle-aged bigwigs of the event, think again. They're the ones sponsoring a music competition that is FREE TO ATTEND, which features bands who play THE KIND OF MUSIC THAT YOU LIKE, and all they were trying to do was ensure everyone's safety. Now, this is going to happen: 1) nobody will win the competition, because not every band got to play, so it would be unfair to declare a winner. 2) Maybe the prize money will be divided evenly, but who knows if anyone will get anything. And these are local, low-profile bands, and they could really use the prize money. 3) in all likelihood, this competition won't happen again, at least not for a couple years.

In the less immediate picture, this is a blow to the general music scene of Barranquilla. Local bands are the backbone of a great music city, and this festival was the kind of event that could bring a lot of positive exposure to Barranquilla bands. So much for that.

Anyway, after things settled down, people started to calmly (!) file out. I wandered around, and eventually found MC behind the stage with Rioba. We waited around for a while, and then decided it was time to call it a night. MC and her brother hopped in a cab and suggested I do the same, but I had one order of business remaining.

I had to get my belt back.

Despite the excitement of the music, the mosh pit and eventually the riot, the discomfort of my pants almost falling down for 5 hours (how did we do it in grade 4?!) had been at the forefront of my mind all night. MC had all but told me there was no way I was getting it back, but I was less hopeless. And sure enough: within 5 minutes of walking around the stadium I found a belt lady returning belts to their rightful owners. Each one had been tagged, so I found my belt quickly, and was soon in a cab on my way home, comfortable for the first time all night.

My First Riot, Part I

2009-09-27T19:32:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

I know what you're thinking, but this is not a children's story about an Irish lad going to his first soccer game. Nor is it a terrible memoir about the life-changing night when I met my heroes Quiet Riot.

No, My First Riot started out innocently enough. After attending a preliminary round of the Miche Rock Festival several weeks ago, I went to the finals on Friday night with some co-workers. There had been several preliminary rounds, with the top 2 bands from each making it to the final. I had enjoyed the one round I went to, so I thought the finals would be great! Well, they were great... they just didn't go as long as they were supposed to. But we'll get to that part later.

Before I take you inside, I have to tell you about the coat check. Coat check? What are you talking about, Xave? Isn't it like 32˚ every day? Why yes, Xave-pretending-to-be-a-reader, that is true. There wasn't a coat check - instead, there was a mandatory belt check! I had to give my belt to a chick, not at a station or anything, just a chick who walked around collecting all belts. Seemed like a scam, but she had lots of belts already, so I relented, even though I was wearing unfortunately-too-big-around-the-waste-or-maybe-I've-just-lost-weight? pants.

It was a pretty good sized crowd, as you can see. The grandstand was separated from the ground floor by a fence - both areas were free, but you needed a VIP pass to get onto the ground. A co-worker of mine does media work for one of the bands, so I had the good fortune of being in said VIP area.

The first couple bands were solid, if somewhat generic. They each had their moments, and I enjoyed both, and with the knowledge that a couple of awesome bands were coming later, I knew I was in for a great evening of music.

The stage

The third band was the first metal band of the evening, and obviously their name was Existential Hate.

I have to go off on a bit of a tangent here. Metal is extremely popular here, and clearly this came as a huge surprise to me. I think I've figured out why it's so popular, though: there are those who like the popular music of the region, which includes salsa, reggaeton, merengue, latin pop, and a couple of regional styles of music called vallenato and cumbia, and then there are those who reject the pop music. I'm sure this is not an unfamiliar concept. However, it seems like there is only one acceptable way to reject pop music, and that is to listen to anything hard: hard rock (lots of my students love AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, Metallica, etc.), metal, death metal.

It's ironic, of course, that the very people who claim to reject conformity are so conformy themselves, but once again, this is nothing new, and I don't want to get into a whole commentary about it, because I really don't care that much - it's just an observation. The point is simply to paint you a picture of the crowd at this event - almost uniformly metal-heads. As someone who preferred the straight-up rock, reggae and ska bands, I felt like a bit of an outsider, despite the fact that these bands made up the majority of the show.

So anyway, as soon as Existential Hate was announced, people started teeming over the fence like despair over a German comedian in Israel. This is the best picture I got, but it was certainly not taken at the peak of the deluge.

There were too many people, and too few unprepared cops, for anything to be done, and soon there was a full-blown hockey-style mosh pit (where people just run and body-check each other - maybe this is just regular mosh pit? I don't know, I don't go to a lot of mosh pits). I didn't mind - it was easy to avoid by staying around the fringes, and it actually gave me some entertainment, since the band sucked.

Tangent time again: I don't listen to a lot of hard rock/metal, and I don't listen to any death metal, but I try to stay open - some of those bands are pretty good. I like Metallica, I like Dream Theater, I've liked other bands that I've heard here and there but couldn't name. But this band (and the one that came later, which was obviously called Vicious Circle (actually Circulo Vicioso, but you know)), just wasn't very good, and it really reinforced the notion that the whole metal thing around here is just another clique. Once again, I'm not passing judgment - I just think it's interesting.

After another straight-up rock band played (and played a pretty impressive cover of Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll, with an amazing female singer), it was time for the band I was most excited about - the one K, E and I had all agreed was the best of the preliminary round we saw. They're a reggae band called Doris Vespa (you should click on that link just to look at their MySpace page - it's by far the most beautifully designed MySpace page I've ever seen) who are from right here, Barranquilla.

Doris Vespa was pretty good on Friday, but they didn't really live up to my expectations. After a number of high-energy acts, the laid back groove of their opening song didn't capture the crowd until about mid-way through, when they displayed a picture of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez with an X through it, and repeated the line "we don't need no Chavez" or something to that effect several times. (that was awesome, though)

Even though they didn't impressa me much, I remain a fan. They have a great guitar player (shown below), and really cool instrumentation: drums, bass, auxiliary percussion, guitar, trumpet, flute, 2 back-up singer chicks. Also: their lead singer is the Colombian Patrick. (see the MySpace page for further evidence, as this isn't a great pic)

Eschuchen, señoras!

the guitarist - hmm, he's skinny, plays guitar and has a lot of hair... Colombian Adam?
I don't see any bacon though...

When the next band came on, things got a little rougher. But you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out about it! Stay tuned - tomorrow, Xave's Xlog presents My First Riot, Part II.

Kicked in the Nuts

2009-09-26T02:09:00.005-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

Most Fridays, the teachers at school get a soccer game going after school. I've participated three times so far - the first time was just teachers, 5 on 5, the second time was a bigger game, teachers vs. janitors, 7 on 7 on an expanded "pitch" (more of a court), and today was the third match, this time teachers vs. students from grades 10 and 12, 6 on 6.

(Today's match also happened to be much earlier than usual, because of a school-wide power outage (not the first time this year) which started around 8:30, and by the time it was back on at 12:30, the students had gone home early.)

I look forward to these matches every week - as most of you probably know, I love to play sports, and this is the only regularly scheduled sport I've got going on right now. One week I even stayed like half an hour after school in expectation, only to discover everyone else had left.

Now, in week 1 I was pretty bad. I mean, I'm a decent athlete, but I don't play soccer very often - I don't think I had played in 2 or 3 years, and when I have played it's usually been smaller games, like 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, with friends who are equally inexperienced.

Let me tell you, Colombians are great at soccer! I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise, but it really is amazing how every single kid here (I am not exaggerating, at least with respect to the boys in my grade 8 classes, all of whom I've seen play) knows the game quite well, and even though you're always bound to find a spectrum of athleticism and coordination, every kid somehow makes it work and is pretty darn good.

So when it came time to lace 'em up in game 1, I quickly discovered that being able to run fast and kick the ball hard have almost nothing to do with playing soccer. I lacked that inate sense of the game that one only gains through experience.

By game 3 (today), though, I made some progress. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement - of our team's 10 goals, I scored 4 and assisted 2. Of course, what that actually means is that, on four separate occasions, I happened to be standing in front of the net when the ball magically appeared at my foot, and two other times I accidentally tripped over the ball, causing it to somehow ricochet in the general direction of a teammate, who made some amazing play and scored.

I really do notice the improvement, though. Especially in the area of not making idiotic mistakes and losing the ball because of accidentally kicking the air instead of the ball and then pulling a cartoon-feet-up-in-the-air fall.

I still have a long way to go, though. There are lots of skills I can't perform, and instincts I haven't developed. For example, today there was a ball that found its way into the air and was coming down near where I was. Taking the ball on the body and then subsequently gaining control of it is one skill I've developed somewhat reasonably, so this is what I attempted to do.

Unfortunately, the choice of what part of the body to block the ball with is not an instinct I have, apparently. You know what's coming. I went to stop the ball's flight with my crotchal region, while an opponent simultaneously went for the mid-air kick. The good news: I got to the ball before he did. The bad news: He got to the balls before I did. It was hard, and it was not in the least off-center. Kicked in the nuts!

This kid knows what I'm talking about.

You Know What's the Worst?

2009-09-25T02:03:00.004-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

When the phone rings in the other room and then you have to run to grab it because it's on silent mode and you only barely heard it meaning it might already have been ringing for a while and so because you're running you stub your baby toe and it hurts for a couple minutes but it's actually not that bad but then a week later you realize it still hurts so maybe you should get it looked at so then the school nurse wraps it up the result of which is that it hurts much more than it did before it got treated and then you have to walk with a limp for the rest of the day and because walking with a limp is an unnatural motion you wake up the next day with a pulled muscle in your leg because of the limping.

Man, it happens to me ALL THE TIME.

Today is a Good Day I Think For Some Blogging

2009-09-23T22:25:00.006-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

...to paraphrase the immortal T-Rex.

In reality, today is just a good day in general, not only for blogging. For existing, I guess!

Why, you ask? Well, there are several reasons.

First, today I got a battery! No, I don't have an Energizer Bunny fetish. It wasn't just any battery; it was a battery for the pick-up in my new guitar! Now I can plug it in to the speakers that K graciously gave me, and I basically have an amp. In fact, I was so happy that I could amplify that I made up a song! Have a listen!

Sorry if you were expecting something different based on the photos.

The second thing that is great about today is very similar to the first! In the same shopping trip in which I bought the aforementioned battery, I also finally got around to buying a cord that can connect my computer/iPod to the speakers. Only, I got the wrong cord, and had to run back on a second trip, but it all worked out, and I am now the proud owner of a brand new headphone jack -> stereo converter, as well as a brand new completely superfluous other cord.

Check out all my new technology!

The next piece of good news is probably the one I'd been waiting the longest for. On the night I moved into my apartment, I had a terrible sleep, for 2 reasons: first, my pillow was very thick (I'm a thin pillow guy) - I've since fixed that problem by cutting open my pillow and ripping out about half the fluff. Second, my mattress was way too soft - unsleepably soft. Since that first night, I've been sleeping on a tiny mattress that was under the main mattress of my guest room bed, placed on the floor beside my actual bed frame.

Well, today I finally got a new mattress! Check it out, with my old sleeping arrangement beside:

Lastly, today I played baseball for the first time in like 2 months! It wasn't exactly what I'm used to when I go out for some ball - among the people I was playing with was a 5 year old, so I wasn't exactly dialing my fastball up to 65 or launching moonshots over the infield, but it was something. And it felt great.

Today wasn't all great, though. I went to the school nurse because my baby toe was in pain - about a week ago I stubbed it, and though it hurt a lot for a couple minutes, I didn't think much of it until I realized today that it still hurt despite being a week later. The nurse wrapped it and the toddler toe in a bandage and told me to shower with a bag on my foot (let's be honest, that's gonna be fun) while keeping it on for 3 days. Hopefully it heals - but while it's healing, it hurts a lot more than it did before. When she first wrapped it I had to walk with a noticeable limp for a couple hours, and though it's somewhat better now, it's still a lot more painful than it was before the treatment.

Also: the nurse did a great job of wrapping the toes in skin-coloured bandage, so it looks like I have some sort of weird, huge hybrid toe on my right foot. Look:

I was concerned about wearing my sandals when I went shopping for the cords, since I assumed people wouldn't be able to stop staring at my freak four-toed foot, and then would assume that all Canadians had this deformity, and I didn't want to give you guys that unfair reputation! But never fear, it turns out my baby toe doesn't come out at the top of the sandal.

Oh yeah, one other not as great thing that happened today: I picked up some food from the local corner store, and upon arriving in my kitchen, discovered the hard way that one bag of pasta was already open.

Yes, that's 3 different vertical layers of pasta spillage. Oh well. Pasta Mañana, blog readers! chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle

Colombiana Part I

2009-09-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

This was one of my first ideas for a blog post when I started Colombia Blogging, and I thought it would become a frequent feature - a random collection of little differences I've noticed. It's not that there aren't tons of them, I guess I just a) keep forgetting to write them down, b) incorporate them into other posts or c) in certain area, like public transportation and technology, there are so many little differences that I'm going to eventually make them their own posts. Anyway, on a Monday after 7 days of intense Taganga Blogging, I didn't feel like putting much thought into the old Xlog, so I turned to a half-finished post. Here's hoping I can think of enough to finish the rest.

Without further ado, 10 peculiarities of Colombia! Or, at least, 10 things that seem peculiar after living in Canada for 22 years.

In baseball broadcasts, they write a player's game-record backwards! I just saw "Melky Cabrera - Esta Noche - 3-0". 3 hits in no at bats... nice work, Melky.

The website of the Colombian soccer league (which is called Copa Mustang, or Mustang Cup, sponsored by Mustang cigarettes - there are a couple interesting differences here, first that a major sports championship is named after a corporate sponsor, as opposed to the World Series or Stanley Cup, though I guess golf has the whole corporate sponsor thing going too, so it's not a huge difference, but secondly that the corporate sponsor is a tobacco company) requires you to enter your age. Apparently, you must be 18+ to view the standings, stats, etc... I have no idea why.

The 2-L coke bottles are bigger! That sentence doesn't make any sense. The 2-L coke bottles are not bigger. There aren't any 2-L coke bottles. There are 2.5-L coke bottles though.

Speaking of pop, apple pop is pretty common (it's red... other than that, no word on what type of apple is used). I've had apple pop before, it's just a lot more common here.

There are a lot of mimes here. Or maybe there's just one who I see every day because he's always at the same intersection between my house and the bus stop. Also, there was one at school day for World Peace Day (umm, because if you can't talk, you can't fight?). But they're not really mimes: they have this weird little squeaky thing that sounds like a super fast forwarded voice, so they pretend to talk and then squeak instead. I've had a couple of squeaking conversations which have probably been better understood by both parties than most of my actual conversations around here.

As I've blogged about before, there is no shortage of huge Wal-Mart like superstores (there are 2 in the mall 3 blocks from my apartment), and this is where I did most of my initial shopping, but as I've gotten to know the city better, I've discovered that there are smaller general stores, called tiendas, everywhere. And the great thing about tiendas (not that I've taken advantage of it) is that you can order anything for delivery, for about 3 bucks.

The question of whether Colombia is significantly cheaper than Canada is trickier than you might think. Certain things, like rent (in my part of the city at least), utilities, fast food restaurants, and some groceries, are about the same, while others, like transportation, other groceries, and street food, are way cheaper.

E already blogged about this, but you can pay bills at supermarkets.

I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to you, but there is a most definite lack of recycling. You see it every now and then in modern-ish buildings, but there isn't any at my building, at the school, and certainly not on the street.

Related to the last one, there is definitely no garbage limit (at my building, when you have garbage to rid yourself of, you just take it out to a huge dumpster outside which isn't even part of the building - just a public dumpster I guess), but despite this ability to put as much as you want in the designated garbage bins, there's still trash lying everywhere.

Okay, that's 10 I think! Sorry for the lack of witty commentary on most of these. I used my entire wit quota for the day during class today when I turned my triangle-shaped ruler into a gun and pretend-shot all my kids as they came in. It was awesome.