Monday, May 31, 2010

Upload Picture. Umm, which one?


I'm Back...

By this I mean that access to internet at my house has been restored. Cyber-life can now continue, however, I will attempt to restrict it as I find it is addicting. Very addicting. I was playing for an hour on Poker Stars today; instead of doing something productive, (I have argued this point however, and I firmly believe Poker is more productive than homework; perhaps poker it will become a future source of income).

Look at me now, rambling on and on. My writing muscles - or typing phylanges in this case - have been dormant for quite some time now, but that does not mean that life has been as empty as my blog. In fact, life has been quite exhilarating lately. Today is the first day since the rainbow cloud that I have had a couple of hours to myself. I will attempt to tell you of all that I ever so vaguely write about, but it will be vague itself, as it will take a tonne of writing to fully exemplify all the experiences I have had lately, and unfortunately I don't have the time.

Starting with the Rainbow Cloud, otherwise known as a circumhorizontal arc, I was quite fortunate to see it. It appears only in certain months of the year, and its rarity is directly proportional to the latitude along which you lie. The cloud itself has to be a cirrus cloud and hovering at a certain level in the sky, at which the sun refracts light through it's ice strands from its 58 degree angle. I didn't know any of this at the time, but the sight itself was certainly enough to keep me at the beach where I was playing football on a sand bar with my Comunity Recreation class, and skip History; a "felony" I've oddly never commited until then.

Since then, I've been incredibly busy with a few main things, namely (in no particular order, I don't choose favourites over these) : longboarding, photography, canoeing, camping, hanging with my friends and girlfriend, partying, exploring, working, and school - although, my mind hasn't particularly been attending school.

The picture I've uploaded was taken at a parking lot in Campbell River, en route to Sayward Lakes. As you may see, it was a bit rainy and mucky, and it escalated up to the point where we finally pitched our tents 20 km's down a stretch of lakes. The toughest part of the day was not actually the 2.5 km portage, but the super-rare steak I specially flame grilled. Now I warned my food buddies that they should check the center of it with a knife, but at that point I'm sure we would all eat through our arms for any form of fleshy sustenance.

Canoeing 46 odd km's in three days was quite a great experience, even though I princessed the 3-man canoe most of the time. We engaged in race walks, wrote messages in the sky (over-exposed photographs and flashlights), dodged killer hacky sacks, bonded, sang german rowing songs, yarrrred the passing canoes and started playing the pen-15 game across the mighty Campbell Lake (where the winner was decided by the contender with the most competant diaphragm when it comes to belting a certain word for "male genitalia" louder then the previous person, until a decibal is reached piercing the ears more so than the silence of the abyssal lakes we traversed). [[I'm too lazy to edit that mouthful... deal with it]]

With regards to any new additions or alterations to my life, I had my orientation at Butchart Gardens and have somewhat "officially" stopped working at Redbarn until the summer is over. I stepped into a uniform for the first time since my Crawford College era in South Africa, sporting two items I haven't worn since I was a wee boy of 11 - a peak hat and vest. I will find a way to make myself unique in the somewhat conformist ideals of a uniform - perhaps a double popped collar, or vest-under-sweater-combo.

With 13 school days left before exams and graduation, I've thought much about the freedom I will be experiencing soon after that with no obligations but the obligations I force upon myself. Come this summer a few things, new and old, will occupy my time more so than they do at the moment: guitar, gaining some muscle (wow - did I just say that?... soon I will be blogging about protein shakes... my valid excuse is that I need some extra toning if I do land the tree planting gig for next year may/june) and a new skill which I haven't yet decided upon. It could be tap dancing or a martial art, specifically Kendo, or even something as simple as cooking as I now have access to Butchart Garden's lend library and their array of cooking books. Soon I wish to get into the poetry slam scene of victoria, even though it dies down in the summer.

Ah, a busy life requires sleep. I need sleep. Right now.
(My next few blogs will be more to one subject, as opposed to a major blab... Let's hope)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Untitled, for now.

Unfortunately,
my iPod does not allow me to post blogs. :(
This means my blogging life is now hell, because we have no internet for the time being.
-life in other active areas has doubled up though,
considering I do not use the computer anymore-
I've just managed to grab my dad's Laptop for a second,
Stick my SD card into it,
Rip some photo's off...
And click upload,
and now I have to go, until I can edit this post,
Or perhaps I will leave it...
There is definitely a LOT to talk about with regards to the RAINBOW CLOUD...
I haven't in fact figured out what it is yet.
As for this speed blogging, I must be off...

(It has just come to my attention, that I was pressing the enter button far too much, perhaps I want it to read like a poem; I have been to too many poetry events lately.)


Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Matcha




I am coming to you from a strange place... Serious coffee... STRANGE you might ask, well, strange because I'm not drinking coffee at Starbucks like every other person in canada (Let's forget that the alternative to Starbucks is Serious Coffee for now). In fact, I'm not even drinking coffee, or tea, or Matcha - which is a drink you must try - I'm just soaking up the free WiFi on a mac belonging to Carolyn, who is taunting me with the scent of Matcha. So, this blog seems to have mentioned Matcha twice, and now I have found the point of this blog; Matcha (with a capital letter, yes, it's that good).

Matcha is ground up green tea leaves that have been "latte-fied" - for lack of a better word to describe it. It is green. (My mind seems to resound the word FULLSTOP after that statement).
Let's get serious [HA!] here, I'm using their WiFi because I have no internet. A recent wind surge seems to have destroyed the server, so now I'm sitting here in Serious Coffee writing a stupid blog about Matcha because I have no pictures to upload and nothing interesting to say.

Soon I will have internet; perhaps I will blog from a strange place again.

Pun Cred: Carolyn [seriously...]
Photo: Google Images Upload... TEMPORARY!

[Edit: The photo has been changed to one of mine - 1st June 2010]


Sunday, May 2, 2010

Conquered.

Recently, or as of the past year or so, I've adopted a sort of... "DO IT!" mentality. Where in many cases I'd just shun an idea away on the thoughts of it being just too much of a schlep, or with regards to my procrastination, I have been forcing myself to do things for the hell of it. It spured me into trying new things, like longboarding, and actually getting around to attempting things that have interested me for years, such as photography. In many ways these experiences turn out great, and some of them bad - atleast then you have experienced the sour.

Now, I have never traversed more then a couple of km's on a bike, also, the last time I actually rode a bike was about 6 years ago. Today, I took part in the cc350; a fundraiser targeted at installing solar panels on top of my school. The aim was to have teams of 5 and complete 350 laps around a 400m track collectively. So that equals out to 70 laps per person, or 28 km's each. Unfortunately not all the members could show up immediately, and one at all, so it was up to me and another Red Barn boy to keep up with the crowd.

At the end of the day, I completed more laps then I thought was possible for me - not knowing how easy 28 km's actually was. Our team finished a total of 312 laps, second to a team who completed the 350 laps - the supercharged, superhuman, Vikes on Dikes. I totalled 110 laps throughout the day, which allots to 44 km's. A crazy experience for myself. My legs are not feeling it, but that's not to say they won't feel it tomorrow.

On another note, today was also the first time I succesfully got a proper panned image, as you can see. Also, "today," in this context, is actually yesterday, as it is already 01:06 am... I'm too scared to sleep and let the lactic acid go rampant on my legs.
Today was definitely a sweet experience, as opposed to sour.

Word of the day: Sizzle.
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