さようなら

Today was departure date for JETs leaving from Calgary, and alas I was not one of them. Can't help but feel disappointed, it was quite important to me and I based some major decisions around that. It's hard enough for me to even define a goal/objective/plan for the future. Anyways, to those friends I met in preparing for JET (classes and orientation), がんばって!

Two crazy ideas

Here are two ideas that I have that will probably shock you to know that I am seriously considering:

1) Motorbike
A couple people I know are actually selling their motorbikes. I'm considering buying one. One guy is selling it simply because he's had it for a year: He specifically decided that he would have a motorbike for a year only, have some fun but not do it long-term. I'm thinking of doing the same sort of thing. The main concern is the initial start up cost for a motorbike, you can easily spend a lot getting a decent helmet, gloves, jacket, etc.

2) Mohawk
I'm thinking of bringing back the beard, and when it is well underway, shaving parts of my head to have some kind of mohawk. I think it's funny for one thing, but would also be interesting to see how differently people would interact with me. That's both for people I know, and for new people I meet. The main concern is if it would cause any problem for work. Although I think my manager has an earring, if he says anything about it being improper, I'll say something like "yes I should have perhaps done something much more civilized like punch a hole in my head and stick a piece of metal through it." See how he likes that!

Admittedly probably I won't go through with either of these ideas, but just maybe...

My street

I drove DOWN my street yesterday for the first time in over a year! No 3-point or 5-point turn required! Apparently operation 'useless inconvenience' is drawing to a close and the enemy is beginning to withdraw troops.

Geoff and Evelyn's Wedding

The whole day went really well, it was great! For me it started not-too-early, I was actually searching for things to do in the morning prior to heading down to the wedding. Ended up arriving a few minutes late because of traffic, but i was still there before most. Didn't have much to do prior to the ceremony. The ceremony was pretty short, with a couple tension-breaking minor mistakes. Evelyn got a bit emotional but Liya had some tissue stashed away somewhere :)

After the ceremony the photos began. First were the family photos in a shady area behind the fort, while most of the wedding party stayed in the air-con. Eventually it was our turn, but it took a bit to track down everyone. For the photos, I'm glad we had some umbrellas to provide some shade, cause boy was it hot. Black tuxedos are great for 30 degree sunny weather! Got a few photos then walked to the Deanne House for some more. The photographer was quite good, at least his manner and style seemed to be (don't know about the photos until later!). Overall it was pretty fun, esp the bridesmaids (maybe cause I don't know them as well? Actually there was a big difference between the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, they seemed to see everything as a joke, while we seemed maybe a bit serious. It was good though.).

Geoff and Evelyn went off to take some other photos in different places, while the rest of us returned to set up the reception. I didn't pay attention to what everyone else was doing, but apparently it went pretty well cause people were finished pretty soon. The A/V equipment took a little longer, partly cause I was checking and double checking things. Got some more time to just hang out while waiting for everyone to arrive.

Most of the guests arrived before G&E returned, so there was no formal receiving line. I think the make-up touch up was a little late too, so we were all hanging out in the coat room, (which I liked to call "the bridesmaids' secret lair"), deciding on how to rearrange the schedule a bit. Cause people looked hungry, didn't want to make them wait through many speeches. So food was put out, and a trivia game played to determine which tables got to go up first. Being at the head table, we had priority! I piled my plate kindof high, and enjoyed the food. I'm no connoisseur though, so I can't say if it was truly good food or not. But I went for seconds. I felt a little guilty that I seemed to eat more by far than anyone else at the table. Some speeches were fit in after dinner but before dessert, and some were later. After all food, and some mingling, we got the photo slideshow media presentation thing going. It was really good, I think Geoff did it all himself. I'm sure it brought a tear of happiness to many people's eyes. Oh we got the shoe game in there before that too. During the dinner, instead of clinking glasses, people had to say romantic phrases in different languages. This worked okay overall, but it was definitely quieter. I was most impressed with someone who thought to use sign language.

Then along came the dancing. Geoff and Evelyn performed a nicely choreographed waltz, after which the parent-child rumbas were also good (the parents seemed to know what they were doing!) Got the bouquet and garter toss out of the way, and started up the general dancing. Early in the dance was a break for cake cutting, earlier than expected since we seemed to be losing people. It was really good cake though, I went to that table a couple times that evening. The dance went quite well in my opinion, had a fair number of people out there throughout the night. The "adults" seeemed to leave pretty quickly without dancing much unfortunately. As for the rest of us, there was a bit of a division between the ballroom group and the freestyle group, but it wasn't a harsh division by any means. I was very impressed with people like Justin who were very 'versatile', appearing to excel at both sides of things and going all night long. I don't seem to be able to go out and be crazy fun on the dance floor like some people. I did do more dancing than I had expected, considering I'd only been dancing twice in the previous year, I was able to remember a reasonable amount. I kindof miss it, maybe I will return to dance sometime. It'd feel pretty weird to return to it though. I think I got into dance at just the right time, circumstances were ideal, had tons of fun and came away from it with several valuable friends. Somehow being older and having more experience, I don't think I could get that same experience again.

I was kindof sad to see members of the wedding party dropping off throughout the night, since I'd had fun with them throughout the day. It was understandable that some of them would be tired, but I still kindof imagined being around to the end and then going out for bubble tea or Sun Chiu Kee or something despite extreme tiredness. Geoff and Evelyn headed off shortly after midnight. I of course stayed to the very end. I say 'of course' for a couple reasons... a) I felt a little responsible for some of the A/V stuff, but more b) that's just the way I am. Just like being out with people in a fun setting as long as possible, much more valuable than things like sleep. I remember the early days of dance, staying to the end of U of C ballroom dances, then heading out with people to places like Banana Jaks (I don't think that place still exists unfortunately) (I think U&Me was the first place I ever went to with dance people).

Anyways, back to the wedding... It actually ended a little early. There were just a few people around after Geoff and Evelyn left, and eventually they too decided to head off. When Bernard saw everyone seemed to be heading out, he called last dance, but by that point, it was just Matthew and Marianne left to dance. If there'd been a girl there, I'd have asked her, but there was only Bernard and Justin, and they're not quite my type. I should have called for last dance when the final group of people started talking about leaving, there were a few couples and even an extra pretty girl for me to ask. Oh well. I helped pack up equipment and take away centerpieces, gave Justin a ride, and continued on home. Well, I stopped somewhere with a nice city view and hung out for a while, would've been nice to go for a walk with someone, then went home and slept. Showered first of course, just spent the previous 12 hours sweating :) But still such a wonderful day!

Pants

I was also realising the other day the amazing frequency of me wearing pants this summer! I remember some previous years where I'd go several weeks without pants (I wore shorts!) and pants would feel so weird after that. I guess work seems a little less free than before... sandals and t-shirts etc are ok, but shorts may be pushing it. Hmmm, I think I'll try pushing it.

Bike

After a few weeks of riding while feeling something wasn't quite right, and a week of not riding while looking for time to look into the problem, I finally got a chance to take a look. Front wheel involved just tightening something, but for the back wheel the axel was actually broken! Just being held there by a bent-up quick release skewer! So it's gonna be another week to get that fixed, I wish I had spent the 30 seconds it took to discover that earier.

decided

not to take the surveyor job.

now

They want a decision on the surveyor position by tomorrow afternoon. Kindof sudden, being offered a job you didn't even apply for and having one day to decide.

however

I could be a survey technician if I wanted... drive around the US to set up GPS ground stations, and radar reflectors, but most importantly talking to farmers to convince them to let me set up equipment on their land for a while for free, convincing them I'm not a government agent doing evil secret things, etc. Not quite what I want to be doing, but may be interesting for a while.

no

Just heard at work that despite previous information, there are actually no field data processor positions currently available. Will try to confirm straight from the source.

Yet another nighthike

This one was the most ambitious of them all, Castle Mountain. We headed out to the base early, then rested there for a bit before the hike. That was the stupid part of the whole excursion, cause none of us actually got any sleep there, me in the less than comfortable car, Jon and David in the mosquitoful outside. Started the actual hike at midnight, and it was 11 am before we were at the parking lot again. Overall it's about 28 km hoizontal, 1.4 km vertical. Though only a couple steep parts overall, so it's long but not difficult. We did almost get lost a couple times in the dark, but managed to find the right way again. The weirdest part was when we saw another group of headlamps heading our way. But we couldn't hear them, and it was hard to tell how far away they were. But how incredibly unusual would it be for there to be another crazy group of nighthikers choosing to do the same mountain as us on the same day?! Eventually, someone realised that the lights were actually car headlamps from the very distant road, but there were enough trees and distance that it just seemed like a small group of headlamps slowly moving around. I guess that explained why they were all halogen, none LED. The worst part of the hike was that when stopping to take some photos, I put down the hiking pole I'd borrowed from David, and forgot to pick it up again. Figured we'd find it on the way back, but that was a really big rocky plateau, and even with 3 of us looking for 45 minutes or more, didn't come across it. That makes it a kindof expensive hike. It answers my debate as to whether the poles are really worthwhile... with the losability factor, I'd say no! :) We'd been going fairly liesurely, and the sun was almost up with us still a ways from the summit, but we poured on some last minute power and made it up there just before the sun crested the mountain! There were a few interesting things at the summit, see the photos for details. The hike down was okay, but Jon and David were fairly exhausted by that point. I had discovered about 2/3 of the way up that I was almost done my 3 litres of water, so I had to go conservative and still ran out with a long ways to go. The last part before reaching the car seemed to drag on and on. And boy were we sleepy for the trip home, I'm not going to drive in such a state again. Though we had a good 'breakfast' around noon in Banff. I had really planned on being home a few hours earlier than that (Kane said 7-11 hours, and we're usually on the early side of that, I think he messed up, someone said the old version of his book said 7 hours one way!), had planned on having a few hours sleep in the afternoon, but alas, got home, showered, last-minute prepped for Geoff's bachelor party, and headed right out again. But managed to maintain conciousness just fine all evening! Who needs sleep anyways!

Vancouver

Spent less than 24 hours in vancouver, spent almost $400 on transportation to do it, but it was worthwhile.

Got there nice and early in the morning, and after getting screwed over by the car rental company (from past experience, this appears to be standard practice) headed out. Didn't really know where I wanted to go, so I went to UBC for old-times sake. It's really beautiful around there, especially the trail down to wreck beach. Wandered around UBC a bit, some of the old places, and missed last year's Explore program so much, I probably shouldn't have gone there. But one justification is that I couldn't find the wedding location on a map, and knew Google maps could, so I needed somewhere with internet. And what a coincidence, I was able to get into one of the computer labs in Buchannan that I used to use last year, and look it up there!

After UBC, I headed through downtown, and parked on Davie, cause I remembered a place when Janet and I were walking around one night that served soft-serve ice cream mixed with slurpee, called a 'screamer'. Found that place pretty easily, and enjoyed one. Next off to drive around stanley park, stopping once ina while but not straying far from the car since it was pay parking. After the park, I had planned on getting some good and hopefully weird Japanese food, but i wasn't sure if there was time (I know how long it can sometimes take to get across Vancouver!) and was fairly full from the screamer, so I headed directly to the wedding. Had over an hour to kill, so I wandered a bit, then got changed into my suit. It's neat, and maybe pathetic, but it's the same suit that I got for high school grad, almost a decade ago. The ticket for high school grad has even lived in the pocket that whole time. "Dreams for a new tomorrow". At the wedding, the only people I knew (besides the bride and groom) were a couple people from high school, Justin and Anil, who I hadn't been in contact with for several years. It was neat being around them again. I met a guy named Anthony who also hardly knew anyone, and hung out with him for the rest of the day. The wedding was pretty long, some parts in english, some in cantonese. After the ceremony, they had people wait around to be in group photos, which I thought was fairly uncommon. But it looked like they had done the wedding photos of themselves sometime before, since there was a big book of wedding photos. They were extremely good, I was really impressed. With so many people in so many categories, it took a long time to get through the group photos. Then there was the cake cutting, while still at the church. And some snacks. But Anthony and I were pretty hungry so we went out for food. Crazy traffic prevented access towards downtown and some japanese restaurants unfortunately. After eating and driving around richmond (which must be the least scenic part of vancouver... though it hosts some of my favorite scenery if you know what I mean) we rested at anthony's hotel for a bit then went to the restaurant.

If you've been to chinese weddings, you'll know what this is like... many course meal spread out over the entire evening. I was sitting with Anthony and one of the guys from high school, but I liked meeting the other people at our table, who were also from Calgary. Many of the speeches and such were in cantonese, and those that weren't generally had someone translating. There were a few games too, like the bride and groom holding up the bride's or groom's shoe to answer the questions, seeing if they picked the same answer. And trying to make them do some other embarrassing stuff. No dance. Overall I really enjoyed it. Not to sound bad, but it was really nice to be surrounded by hong-kong (and some other SE asian) people again, I don't seem to get that as much these days. It's just kindof different. At the end of the day, as with all such times, I didn't really want it to be over, so I was among the later people to leave. Said goodbye to people, and headed out with Anthony, since i had a vehicle, and he had a hotel room with two queen sized beds (he got a great deal, US$50 using priceline.com (another person at the same place payed over $100), gotta try that sometime) but i wanted to just cruise the town for a while, and he didn't mind, so we headed down through downtown, it was so alive, then around stanley park, it was so peaceful, got out a couple times. Visited kits beach, but by then it was pretty late so we headed home. It was a good 23 hour day for me. Showered and slept for a couple hours before heading back to the airport to conclude my vancouver trip.