the last spot

Kicking it in Quilalto

2007-11-18T00:22:00.000Z

Our intriped troup of travelers has now reached the Spa town of Baños in Ecuador´s central sierra. Luke, Lura, Andrew and I have made camp in a fantastic hostel-hotely thing on the edge of town and are currently consuming about 20% of the towns daily supply of Pilsner every night.

It was not a direct journey however, and to leave out the details would...well leave this post too short really.

We left Josh and Anya´s place early one morning a few days ago, said our good buys to Gracho, the happiest dog this side of the equator and struck out towards the bus terminal. We hailed the smallest cab in Quito and then promptly got stuck in traffic. Some poor soul had had a close encounter with a bus windshield, but we made it to the bus station and practically walked on to a bus to Latacunga. Our plan was to try to see the Quilalto (pronounced Kill-a-toe-ah) crater, a slight 2-4 hour detour, on the way to Baños.

I had not realized how big Quito was until the bus had been driving for nearly an hour and we had not left the city yet. Sprawl, cliched but true. The bus was pretty relaxing until what I assume was a traveling preacher women boarded and spent about an hour informing us in non-stop Spanish why we should avoid sin, the devil and possibly public buses.

Our first bus ejected us at Latacunga´s bustling bus station. This consisted of a small out door car park with a lovely open air urinal at the far corner and a women manning a small food stand. This women turned out to be a great help, correctly deducing that the three white guys and the tiny red-head were most likely headed for the giant crater near by. She promptly pointed us in the direction of the bus to Zimmbabway (as close as i can remember) which was are next travel leg.

The Zimbabway bus was an adventure in it´s own right. We were strange enough being the only white people on the bus, but having one of the only two confirmed red heads in all of Ecuador, we stood out pretty well. Our giant backpacks did not really endure us to the locals either, on what is so far the most packed bus I have ever bean on. Andrew and I got stuffed into the front near the driver with about 10 other people, all of us sitting on a giant cushion which in turn was perched on the engine cover. A nice old lady, who had a real seat tried to amuse herself buy reading me a Spanish news paper-from what I understand, Ecuador has a serious soft drink problem.

After spent 2 hours trying not to fall into the door´s stair well, we arrived in the tiny cross road of Zimbabway, where we were informed by a local man that the bus we wanted to catch to Quilalto did not in fact exist. By shear coincidence, this man happened to be a taxi driver. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, this piece of advice turned out to be genuine. In fact he ended up saving us a nights accommodation in the end. Our Taxi (read: pick up truck with a tarp over the back) took us to the crater, waited for us for an hour or so, then drove us back to Zimbabaway.

The Quilalto Crater was amazing. It´s volcanic in origin, and contains the highest navigable lake in the world. A small village of the same name is perched on the lip, and the locals are very friendly. One lady in particular was a little excessive. She followed us down a trail on the craters edge, with her horse! I got a good picture of her and the animal, but it cost me a green back. Oh well, 90 cents Canadian aint bad :) We also could not resist mooning the camera for a group shot and almost got busted by some other tourists coming up the path.

Our taxi dropped us back at Zimababbbbwway and we were waiting for the bus until we were spotted by another enterprising truck owner. Lura bargained with him almost by accident until the price dropped to $10 bucks for a nearly two hour ride! It was too good to pass up, and we had our nicest truck bed ride so far all the way back to Latacunga. The Bus to Baños pulled up practically as we paid the taxi, and we had to sprint to get on. I ended up next to a girl from Texas that had been staying in the same hostel as us in Quito!

I was so hungry by this point that I even bought a meat skewer from one of the random vendors that board Ecuadorian buses as soon as they stop in any village or town. I'm still alive.

Next Time: Big Bad Baños

Back from the Galapagos

2007-11-14T19:40:00.000Z

Pro log: Rory is now in Ecuador, where he attended Sam and Dani´s second wedding in Quito. This was followed by 12 crazy days in the Galapagos Islands with an insane Canadian Posse.

I have not been posting much for here for the simple fact that most people that were going to read this were all ready either traveling with me, or were getting updated via Facebook, the latest thing to sweep the western world since the telegraph. Also, I was having too much fun.

Anyway, since the Lambert clan and it´s temporary posse have now begun to fan out across South America, this little thing is relevant again. Weather that means I update regularly is another matter.

I´m currently hiding in an Internet Cafe in the tourist district of Quito. The light it wrong for photos at the moment, so I´m taking the opportunity to organize the eleven or so gigs I have shot all ready.

I´m getting a sweet deal on accommodation: Free. Josh (zee bro) and Anya are renting a place in the city while they sort out getting there Land cruiser shipped down from Costa Rica. Once they get that done the will continue with there crazy adventure, driving around as much of South America as possible. There blog is http://www.wanderinglost.com/ Sorry, it´s Firefox only.

I, on the other hand, will be heading to Banos tomorrow, a small spa town about 4 hours south by bus from Quito. I here it´s a pretty nice place. Braving the Ecuadorian bus system with me will be Andrew Soaper, a School friend of Sam´s from back in the UK.

Speaking of he who is called Spam by those in the know, He and Dani are staying in the Galapagos Islands till late December at least. As for the rest of the posse, Jess is in the Islands till early December, Robert and Cody are staying with her till the 18th, then they are back to Quito where Cody flys home, and Robert un-leashes him self on the continent until around mid December. Timb and Katie were last seen exiting and Airplane in Guayaquil and were planning to head down the coast. Their blog is here. Luke and Lura are in Mindo at the momment, but they should be meeting Andrew and I in Banos tommrow. Carla was asked to leave the country two day ago. Somthing about the CIA and bothering the Salmon. We may never know the true cause.

Well, now that we are all up to speed, I´ll try to find some crazy adventures. Lunch, oh how your siren call beckons me now...

Police pretending to be protesters are stopped from causing violence in Quebec!

2007-08-24T04:53:00.000+01:00

Police pretending to be protesters are toped from causing violence in Quebec!

The protest is against the SPP:

"Without any public consultations or debate in Parliament, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper moved Canada in the wrong direction by encouraging the Security and Prosperity Partnership Security of North America (SPP). The SPP will be the central point of discussion when US President Bush and Mexican President Calderon meet with Stephen Harper in Quebec on August 20th.

Under the SPP, Canada will lose its independence on key issues of national policy from health care to energy. It furthers NAFTA and gives the American government unwarranted control over Canadian energy resources."

More on this once I have done my own research.

Delayed in the 'Dam

2007-05-10T10:58:00.000+01:00

Bear with me here, the spell check is Dutch, so my real spelling skills are about to shine through:

Shannon has become a semi-permanent resident of Paris due to a lovely game of pass the buck involving her inter-rail pass and the fact that the company managed to give us a messed up tracking number.

So I'm booked on the 12:56 to Paris, and I'm sitting in a Ben and Jerry's 'cus they have internet. Your required to buy ice-cream before you can use the 'net, but I didn't complain too much.

Yesterday I spent taking pictures and I walked around and took the tram to random areas of Amsterdam. I came back to the Hostel to check my e-mail, and then got invited tag along to see Anne Frank's house by two girls from Ontario. That night we formed a posse with third girl from New York, and I put my board wandering of the previous day and night to good use by showing them all around the Red Light district and the Coffee shops. We also found the only bar that plays Hip-hop and trace at the same time, which apparently leads to violence, as there were some heated arguments over the play list.

I managed to get the manager to refund my unused nights because I'd helped them fix their internet connection. This is turning it a bit of a trend for me, but it's saving me boat loads of cash, so I don't mind putting my skills to use for good instead of evil. It's kind of like paying Sam to eat Ice-cream.

I'm off to see how bad my French really is, catch you all on the flip side.

Amsterdam: A city of water

2007-05-08T16:21:00.000+01:00

Yup, I'm in the 'Dam. Just checked into a hostel, and it has free internet, w00t!

I was supposed to be meeting up with Shannon here, but she has been held up in Paris for an extra day waiting for her Inter-rail pass to come through. So I'm off to explore the streets, and see if I can find a spot where I don't here American accents every two minutes :)

I'd forgotten the trains were double decker over here, it's disconcerting. I'm glad the public transport is good though, as it's raining out. Fist time I've seen rain in two months, and thats saying something for someone who lives in London.

I feel a bit peckish, I think I'll go find myself a brownie. Oh, wait, I forgot that around here brownie is only going to make me feel more hungry...

The Doughnut Bandit Strikes at Midnight!

2007-03-19T16:42:00.000Z

As I type this it's snowing out. Actually, it’s more of a cross between snow and hail, snailing if you will. Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone. I had a nice relaxing time of doing nothing all day. Shan and I both took the day off work, so it was almost like a long weekend for us, barring Friday. Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, so the entire flat ventured off to an Irish pub in Islington called Filthy McNasty's, where we met up with Hans and some French people that Chris knew from his work. Ireland was playing in the Six Nations rugby against Italy, so the entire pub would erupt every time Ireland scored a try.

The French people left, and so we decided to head to a bigger Irish pub in Piccadilly Circus, but it was too full. So we ducked into a different pub that happened to be handing out free pints of Guinness. It turned out the French people we had been drinking with earlier had also been lured by the offer of cost-free Irish beer. By this time the Irish were getting a little distraught having learned that France had stolen the Six Nations trophy away from them, defeating Scotland by a higher margin then Ireland managed against Italy.

We left for the Maple Leaf pub, but were turned away as it was too crowded. I almost managed to bribe the doorman with mini-doughnuts, but he has just eaten. Since we were in Covent Garden anyway, we chilled out in the square with the buskers for a bit. We almost went home, but Warren received an urgent text message revealing that friends of his were in Belushis pub, which was just the other side of Covent Garden. Belushi’s was also full, and I had run out of Doughnuts, but we still managed to sneak our selves in. We cunningly disguised our one group of four people by breaking up into four separate groups of one person. The pub was stupidly full, and I had a tray of Corona’s dropped on me with in five minutes.

Shannon and I left Chris and Warren at the pub as I wanted to head home so I could watch the first F1 race of the season (since it was in Australia, it was not going to start until 3:00am GMT) and Shannon was happy, as that meant we would get home by train, instead of having to fight our way back on the Night Buses.

I even had time to catch a few hours sleep before the race. I was preparing for a nice quite house when Warren, Chris and co. arrived just as the race was starting. Chris likes to serenade the flat when he has been drinking, so even Shannon ended up watching the race for a bit.

On Sunday we took the Docklands Light Railway down to Greenwich and proceed to summit the hill. It’s not quite the Himalayas, but it’s about as close as you can get to it in London. The altitude (and possibly the effects of the night before) had taken it’s toll on poor Warren, so he headed home. Then we were three.

Shannon had the fantastic idea to go and see Hot Fuzz, so that’s exactly what we did. It Is Fantastic! One of my favourite films this year, and it was made by the same people who did Shaun of the Dead. I even bought popcorn.

I thought that was pretty good for one weekend, but then Warren’s phone rang again. People had seen his ad on the Gumtree and wanted to see the flat. In ten minutes time. We were in no state to show people round, let alone discuss such complex issues as rent, bills and deposit. And, as they say, much hilarity ensued. In the end, they seemed pretty interested, so I don’t think I came across as demented as I feared. Little do they know.

Film making on a budget

2007-03-12T17:23:00.000Z

Well the impromptu winter blog hiatus has ended. I apologize to all those who had developed what I will politely refer to as a "dependency".

I wish I had really good story to start back up with, but I have not been keeping notes lately, and my mind has never been up to the task of remembering things. A task that a simple pencil and a piece of paper seems to have no trouble with. I'm going to try to remember some of the stuff that goes on at work, as it tends to be hilarious. Just last week I was asked to be on a panel to judge student film proposals. As part of his budget requirements, one student listed Â£10 for Drugs (under the props category).

I'm also in the process of deploying some new computers. The media department isallowedd to replace one third of it's computer hardware every year. This means that the students never have to use anything that's over three years old. Lucky bastard's.

Weekend wise on Saturday Shannon and I and our fellow Canadians visited the Science Museum in South Kensington. The Flight Collection has the original harrier Jump-Jet proto-type! On Sunday Shan and I went to Hyde Park as it has been really sunny outside. We emerged from the Underground right into the middle of a Muslim religious march, which was heading straight up Park Lane. One of the little kids on the march got so excited he ran straight into a police officers’ legs and bounced off.

The world has lost a great leader....

2007-01-06T20:05:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6237013.stm

I'm going to make some in his honour right now.

A tour of our flat

2006-12-15T12:38:00.000Z

Just a quick update to post a very special eddtion to thelastspot: Video!

A quick tour of the flat! The audio is out of sync a bit, sorry

Futon addiction: won't anyone think of the children?

2006-12-12T15:45:00.000Z

Friday night was one of the longest of my life.

Snap shot: It's 10pm, I am on a bus in Edmonton, North London, with two guys from Edmonton, Alberta. Between us we are carrying a double Futon, 24 cans of Strongbow, and 2 washing-up brushes.

Shannon an I needed to move all her stuff, plus half of my stuff, from the house we were sitting in London's Tornado Zone (North West), to Forrest Gate (East). Normal Journey time: 1 hour, 20 mins.

I did not even get to Tornado Ally until 11pm as I had to find us a bed first. I have a rare, but still crippling futon addiction. I don't really talk about it much. As soon as I finished work I Shang-highed Chris and Warren into joining my bed location and supply mission to darkest Ikea. I think Chris only came along was so he could visit the "other" Edmonton. As it turns out, I think the only thing both places have in common, is an Ikea.

And what an Ikea it is: As the bus drew round the last bend in the motorway, it suddenly loomed into view. Like a vast, dark, retail iceberg, floating in an industrial park. It even had a sister Tesco-berg floating near by. I don't remember ever being inside one before, but years of looking through Ikea catalogs while growing up means that seeing it all for real, for first time, was a very surreal experience. I was half expecting Edward Norton to stroll past, and to have all the prices float next to the various bits of furniture.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on me: Futons are a gateway drug. Not content with a normal sleeping experience, I had sought out a certain kind of bed, some of Japan's finest if you will. I know that soon, Japanese bedding may lead to low cost Swedish shelving, and from there to the heroin of the consumer world: Designer Furniture.

To Be Continued...

Tornado Update (What a title!)

2006-12-08T09:30:00.000Z

It turns out that the tornado struck less then a block from where we are house sitting. Shannon and I ran in to each other on the way back last night, even though I had come all the way from east London. Since Chamberlayne Road was cordoned off, the buses were not running the entire length of the street, so Shan had to walk the whole way. It turned out OK as she saw me just as I was coming out of Kensal Rise station.

Two city blocks were (and still are) cordoned off by the emergency services. There were police and fire personal everywhere. Most of the damage occurred on and between Chamberlayne Road and Crediton Road. We are staying on Hanover road, which is basically just Crediton road, but a block down from us. There was no damage to the house we were in, and the Cats are all fine. Meow. We could see massive flood lights set up about half way down each of the effected streets. It looks like at least four to six of the houses will need to be demolished. Around ten have lost all or, part of there roof. Around 24 houses in total were un-inhabitable last night.

On my way to work this morning I walked past about three major news crews, all with satellite trucks, and one with a rented cherry picker to get high angle shots. There were also four police cordons, and tons of danger tape. There are still roof tiles littering the streets all around us.

It has been a strange week to say the least, and I still need to find a bed for Shannon and I tonight, as we are moving into the house we are renting in Forrest Gate tonight. The guys have been there all week, but we have barely stepped foot in the place since we have been house sitting the entire time in London's answer to tornado ally.

Tune in next week when we report on the predicted East London combined heat-wave and Ice-storm. It's like Hawaii, but with hail and Cockney accents.

Ok, this is crazy!

2006-12-07T16:22:00.000Z

A Tornado hit Kensal Rise, in North West London today. Guess where Shannon and I have been house sitting for the past week? Kensal Rise!

The street we are house sitting on is the one right behind where the tornado touched down. In fact, we don't even know if there is damage to the place yet, 'cus both of us are still at work.

If you think I'm crazy, just have a look here and here. See?

I'll update this when I know more.

We have a flat now...

2006-12-06T15:31:00.000Z

Our own house, a real house!

As requested: a typical day or two

2006-11-30T16:39:00.000Z

I'm going to do something strange, I'm going to mix two days up a bit.

Day 1
I when to bed early last night after we watched the latest episode of Lost, which may or may not have been a factor in me getting up on time this morning. I was at was at the tube station by 7:31 am, and Hans happened to be waiting for the overland train already. I jumped on the same train so we could chat for about 90 seconds, then I switched at Queens Park for the Bakerloo line. The one benefit to living far out is it's easy to get a seat. Around 8 stops or so, then I switch to the Jubilee line at Baker street. It's easy, 'cus both Southbound lines run next to each other. I've timed it as a 18 second walk from train to train. The down side is that I normally don't get a seat on the Jubilee. I was luck today, and I grabbed one two stops later! From that point it's about 35 mins till I get to Westham station, where I change to either the District Line, or the Hammersmith and City line for a one stopper to Palistow. The bus just across the road as I came out of the station, so I raced on, and I got a seat on the top deck 'cus a student recognized me.

School wise the workload was not too bad, most of the classes took care of themselves and I had a really good curry for lunch from the school canteen. I was filling in a bit for the Video tech, as he had a doctors appointment. I had to leave late 'cus of it, but I stopped at Bayswater, and picked up Sherma's (Like a Kebab, only better) for Shannon and Warren since I was going to be late anyway.

Day 2

The commute sucked! The Bakerloo line was late, o seat on the Jubilee line, and the bus was too packed to sit down as well. I forgot my ID card for work, the first time so far, but it's still a pain in the ass. I'm the only tech working today, so I am doing two jobs at once. Booking both video and still cameras for students on ten different courses while keeping one eye on the six FCP video editing bays. I am also trouble shooting / instructing on a first year video project, and first years need lots of help. Fun. Oh ya, and I've been asked to get two new quotes for upgrading most of our media lab computers.

on the bright side though, I just confirmed that we got the flat we wanted in East London, so no more one hour and twenty minute commutes.

After I post this I am going...Oh wait, just to add to my fun I just had to brush off some TV people trying to get students in to film a show. The collage is kind of famous for the fact that it's in the most ethnically diverse part of England. Anyway, I must not forget to fill out my time sheet...

Big Bad Update

2006-11-23T11:10:00.000Z

This post was started weeks ago, and as you may have guessed, I have been too busy with the new job to finish it:
-------------------------------
Today is the National Trust's (the UK equivalent of Canadian Heritage) ONE DAY IN HISTORY campaign, an attempt to have as many people as possible to record their day and submit it one giant searchable blog. The idea is to end up with a massive blog-like time capsule of one day, as told by as many people as possible. October 17th was picked as it's a "Normal day" in history, with no major anniversaries. So:

My alarm woke me up for once this morning, which was lucky as we were up late shooting the shit. Shannon and I woke up at the same time, and one of the guys in the room sneaked into the shower before her. I can't wait till my first paycheck come though and we can get our own place again. Just trying to leave the room was a mission, as a massive Dutch school group was checking out of the hostel this morning, and decided the best place for all their stuff would be the hallway.

Kensel Rise station is only across the street, so I was really surprised when I ran into a friend of mine I met back in Canada. I'd known Hans (full name: Hans Christian Anderson, yes, he is related) was in London, but my procrastinating was preventing me from contacting him. We exchanged contact info and made plans for drinking on the weekend. The tube was packed as usual, but I get a seat as far as Waterloo, where I switch from the Bakerloo line to the Jubilee line. The Jubilee line is always packed to the brim with office workers. Standing room only till you get to Canary Wharf, then it's just you and a really confused looking tourist with the entire carriage to your selves. One more change for to a one stopper on the District line form west ham to Plaistow, then 7 mins on a bus to the school.

I only started my job a week and a half ago, so I'm trying to get everything in order for when the guy I am replacing leaves tomorrow. It takes me all day just to get the admin passwords for the computers and all the door and cupboard keys I need. Other then that I got to sit in on classes and do a bit of teaching. I spent lunchtime eating in the cafeteria, which is nearly deserted due to Ramadan. With at least 40% of the students being from a Muslim background I'm not surprised.

-----------------------------

Ya, that's as far as I got, then the guy I was replacing left. I should be "back" and in full posting form in a day or so.

Education is Booming

2006-10-12T17:21:00.000+01:00

Note: This was written on Monday night:

As they say, everything happens at once. I start my new job, and suddenly North Korea goes Nuclear. I maintain that my employment status can't really be the lynch pin on which world events pivots, but coincidence is a strange beast. At least my new job as a multi-media tech at Newham Sixth From Collage has propelled Japanese-Chinese relations to previously un-imaginable states of cooperation. Apparently all it takes for two nation states, at logger-heads for centuries, to turn over a new leaf is a one hour, fifteen minute commute and the threat of Nuclear capability.

As South Korea is only too aware, my job hunt has ended, I have landed a job. At a school. Hey, I herd that. Yes I know this sounds like the time Sam was put in charge of an internet cafe, but It's not like I'm going to be teaching spelling and grammar. Instead, I have been tasked with helping to teach various media packages (the job title makes sense now, doesn't it?) to the school students of east London. I will also be maintaining the various computers, and ordering new ones as needed.

When I first went to the school for an interview there were posters all over the walls for knife amnesty that was in progress. The security is a bit more full on then I'm used to. Just to get in the front door you have to go through turnstiles that can only be opened by your ID card. Once inside, you can only enter most rooms if your ID card is authorized for that space. Since I am staff, I get access to all staff only areas and the locked multimedia zones.

I have not been inside a school for any "official reasons" since I left high school. So here I am, back in an educational facility, and I'm now a staff member. I keep thinking that someone is going to storm in at any second and yell: "Hay you, give that pass back and get your ass to class." As it is, I have been mistaken for a student twice, but it's worth it just for the sudden hurried apologies I get when they realize that my ID card has a pink boarder, just like the one they have.

Well, off to bed with me. I have a long day ahead of me, furthering education and decreasing world stability.

some light reading

2006-10-06T18:30:00.000+01:00

If you have nothing better to do:

Read This

Natalie Portman: Menace 2 society or How to chat up Natalie Portman

2006-09-30T23:40:00.000+01:00

Natalie Portman ruined one of my photos today.

A spot of rain decided to grace sunny old London today, so Shannon and I decided to visit the British Museum. The collection is quite impressive, as it should be for a large museum, but the highlight has to be the new addition by Norman Foster. Anyway, after wandering through the Egyptian collection for hours, I spotted a great potential photo. There was some fantastic light streaming through a window and spot lighting a huge Egyptian statue. There was a lot of people in the hall, and every one of 'em seemed intent on being in my photo. The crow cleared and I was about to take the picture when Shannon grabs my shoulder:

"She's here! The Portman!" She was really excited, her eyes were sticking out.

"Who? What?" I could not believe I had lost the shot, so I was not really paying attention for a few seconds.

"Natalie Portman is in the museum!" Shannon dragged me round the comer and sure enough, Natalie Portman is standing next to an exhibit case with a tall guy about the same age as her.

"Are you going to take a picture?" Shannon asked, practically squeaking with excitement. I thought about it for a second. A picture like that would have earned me the kind of money I really need right now, but for some reason I suddenly had an attack of the conscience. "No, she's just trying to have a nice normal Saturday, just like us. I'd rather just go and talk to her, but even then, what would I say?" I guess that was why really. I mean Natalie Portman must have so many people say the same thing to her every time they meet her. Nothing original came to mind, and I didn't want to just say something stupid like: "I Loved you in Star wars!" or something creepy like "Your head was really bald in V for Vendetta."

I was so vexed by the "Ultimate Question" (What does one say to Natalie Portman?) that I decided to do a little online sleuthing to see if I could find any really unique facts about La Portman. Like millions of people before me, I checked out her IMDB profile first, but nothing jumped out at me. From there it was your basic Google search, but that just throws up a bunch of scary cult-like worship sites. So I turned to good old Wikipedia, and I of course struck pay dirt. Not only did I find the most unique fact about Ms. Natalie so far, I found the coolest personal achievement metric ever: It turns out that Natalie Portman is one of the few people in the world to have a finite Erdős-Bacon number.

What is an Erdős-Bacon number you ask? Well the second part helps to explain the first part. The Bacon in Erdős-Bacon stands for Kevin Bacon, the Hollywood star who's career famously inspired the game "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon". The Erdős is for Paul Erdős, a Hungarian mathematician who is sort of the academic worlds answer to Mr. Bacon. Much like ones bacon number is calculated by figuring out how many actors it takes to link any other given actor to bacon through there involvement in films, Erdős numbers are derived from linking academics to Erdős via published scientific papers.

In order to qualify for an Erdős-Bacon number you must first have a Bacon number and an Erdős number, meaning you have both appeared in a film (giving you a Bacon number) and co-authored at least one academic paper (giving you an Erdős number). Natalie's Bacon number is 2 as both her and Kevin Bacon have worked with Matt Dillon. Portmans's Erdős number, a 7, is due to the fact that she co-authored two published research papers (under her real name, Natalie Hershlag) while she was a University student. Once you combine these numbers, you get a finite Erdős-Bacon number of 9.

Of course, what this all boils down to is that I now know what to say the next time I run in to Natalie Portman: "Ms. Hershlag, I loved your paper on Frontal lobe activation during object permanence."

The hunt continues

2006-09-23T00:37:00.000+01:00

Well the Job hunt is still on as the management at the Teck are idiots. I aced my training shift, turned up a few hours later and they accused me of being a half hour late! I believed them at first until I checked my phone and realized they were lying through there teeth.

It matters not however as I have two high-end job interviews lined up, plus a couple of other pub tests.

I spent some time shooting a few of the really modern London Underground stations on the Jubilee line extension. I posted some on my Flickr page already as I spent all my spare time today re-organizing my photos.

Live from the Apple Store, London

2006-09-19T16:33:00.000+01:00

I'm standing in the middle of Apple's brand new retail space on regent St. I'm nearly broke, so I'm using one of the demo MacBooks to check my e-mail.

I had a test shift at a bar in Earls Court called the Prince of Tek. It sounds futuristic, but I think the name means something in old English. The shift must have gone well, as I'm working on probation for the rest of the week there. Sweet, I kind of have a job.

Shannon has picked up a temporary gig working as a psycho guniapig, I'm not kidding. At the least this will prevent my over draft from kicking in too soon.

This store is so full, people are watching me as I type this.

Exusted..is that even spelled right?

2006-09-17T01:09:00.000+01:00

I am too tired to really write anything as I have just:

- Updated my links

- Uploaded a ton of photos to my new favorite site: flickr

- Created Shannon a mini-site from scratch: Shan's

Shan's site is to help with the job hunt, while the flickr thing resulted from a online chat, and wow, it is powerfull now. Coupled with Google's picaso, the power is now mine for uploading photos!

I just had a shower in Bath

2006-09-13T15:50:00.000+01:00

The title says it all really :)

I'm staying with cousins in Bath at the moment as I left stuff with them before Shannon and I went to Greece and my Mom is here too, as she just returned from a week in Ireland. Tomorrow it's back to London and the Job hunt, and to poor Shannon, who has been abandoned in heart of the former British empire. I think she is stalking employers as I type, so she's prolly as happy as a clam. How happy are clams when they take the London Underground? Happier if they have an Oyster card anyway. An entire post will be written about Oyster card, as it's like crack for geeks like me. For now, I'll just mention that it's a contact-less smart card that stores your tickets on it, but works like those key-less security fobs that some office buildings use. Just waving the card over the yellow pad at the gate lets you through. Some people just leave them in their wallets, bags and pockets, so it's funny to see people waving various random belongings at the gates.

THIS JUST IN: Just this second I got a call back from a recruitment agency, who tried to sell me a training course. Lucky for me I nipped that in the bud, and talked my way on to the recruitment list.

I've also been playing around with the blog settings a bit. I now have a separate, but inter-linked blog for posting my photos to and I'm testing a third one on the beta system that has lots of high tech geeky bells and whistles.

Comments wise, I've turned off comment moderation, as it was preventing peoples comments from showing up instantly. Which brings me to a little request I'd like to make: Please Comment! Even if it's just a quick hello, one or two words ect, I'd still like to here it. I have herd from a few people that they are reading the blog, but I had no idea, as they had never commented before. For ages I only thought the family's of Shannon and I read it, but if the reader ship is more varied, I'd love to know. In return, I promise more photos in the future :) Also, if anyone of you reading this has their own Blog or website, I'd be happy to link to it.

Flat hunting, one of life's few real joys...

2006-09-10T22:09:00.000+01:00

Hi,

I saw your ad on the gumtree about the double room for let in Crickelwood. My Girlfriend and I are interested having a look at the
place. We are a Canadian couple looking to set ourselves up in London after having spent six months in Edinburgh, and the room sounds just like what we are looking for.

A bit of background to Shannon and Rory: Shannon has a degree in fine arts, and is looking to put said degree to work in the London area, but is not adverse to falling back on here extensive retail experience in order to fund her search for art-related employment. She also likes dogs and long walks in the park.

I (Rory) have a dual professional background that consists of IT and Photography/Video with a dash of bar tending on the side, all cooked in a white wine sauce. I have lived in London previously for a two year period, and I prefer cats and short walks in to the Surf (when I can find some).

As you may have gathered, we are both in the Job Hunt, so the temporary thing works for us, and once employment becomes more solid, then we might be interested in extending our stay in your wonderful household.

My Mobile number is 07960453459, please feel free to call at anytime.

-Rory

So we have returned to London after a fantastic two weeks in Greece! I'm still sorting through all the photos. We have only been back in London since Tuesday, and yet it's all blended together in my head, so I'm going to revert to the ultimate writers crutch: Point Form.

- We found the worlds best Pita gyros shop ever! It was a family run place, and the I have just been interrupted by a 17 year old who needs help picking up a German girl sitting next to him, we are trying various online translators, to a somewhat humorous but useless effect. whole family runs it at once, mom, dad, the kids, all of 'em. The walls are covered with notes thanking them for the good food. We signed the guestbook.

- I convinced Shannon to let me rent a little 4x4 quad bike for two days. Everyone, and there dog was riding around on scooters and quads, tourists and locals alike. The dogs ride in the foot wells of the scooters, it's pretty neat.

- The quad let us explore the two near by resorts, which are Hersonissos and Mali, not Harakilon as I said before. We also found a fantastic little town called Sisi. It's off the beaten-track, down the road from Malia. Sisi has a little harbor that is quite deep, and is really clear, so the swimming was fantastic.

- We spent took the bus to Agios Nikolaos, a Venetian port town about 45 mins east by bus. It has quite a skyline, as the town faces some desert mountains across a large inlet. The harbour is "bottom-less" as it's so deep that the true depth has never been established.

- Shannon was accosted by a small child at one point, and wowed tourists and locals on at least two occasions with her Karaoke skills.

London wise, we spent the day watching the F1 race at lunch time, then we went to the Camden markets, as Shan had never been before. Just the shear ammount of shoes alone almost blew her mind.

Anyway, I better get back to Hunting for a new life on the Gumtree...

EDIT: Some photos from Greece are Here

It's all Greek to me...

2006-08-29T09:07:00.000+01:00

As you may guess from my cliché title, Shannon and I are currently in the middle of a fourteen day holiday on the Greek island of Crete. Due to Crete being the most southern (and largest) of the Greek islands, it is stupidly hot here. The Beaches are not only fantastic; they are a necessity with so much cheap and tasty food hiding in all the restaurants.

I've broken the mould as it were, and this particular excursion is a...package...holiday. Yes, I know that goes against the Lambert family motto of "Thou shall not book in advance", but the deal we got was too good to pass up. Since the Kids in the UK are going back to school, it was the same price to go for two weeks as it was for one week. It's not even an all-inclusive; thank bob, but having Flights, bus transfer, and accommodation all sorted in one go is like the backpacking equivalent of heroin.

Anyway, the Accommodation turned out great. Our Hotel-ish thing is in Stalis, a smaller town in between the party resorts of Malia and Harkelion on the north coast of the island. Most of the time we have spent the day swimming and then hunted for the different food at night. There are also tons of bars along the main strip, and the drink specials are super cheap, every thing comes with two free shots. We also found a Karaoke bar, and I watched yesterdays F1 race (The Turkish GP, with commentary in German) in an outdoor bar.

We have ventured out of town to Crete's Capital, Harakilon, to visit the archeological museum there. We also wandered down to the docks, which has a 15 century Venation fort as part of the break water. In the rocks on the breakwater, there is a colony of wild cats that like to sun themselves on the rocks.

Anyway, off to the beach...

PS: This is the first dial-up connection I've used in years!

A long time in the making...

2006-08-08T12:11:00.000+01:00

What a month, and it's not even over yet.

As I type this, I'm sitting on a train bound for Wool, in Dorset, with all my possessions. I checked out of Budget Backpackers this morning, ending my six month occupation of Edinburgh's best hostel. I can't believe all my stuff managed to fit into my three bags, and I'm even more amazed that I can carry it all.

LOCATION: Ten minutes outside Edinburgh. This post is being written while travel, these blurbs should help explain my state of mind from paragraph to paragraph.

Since there is quite gap in the blog since my last update, I'm going to be filling in the last four weeks from memory. A memory I might add, that has experienced those very same weeks, and thus may not be 100% accurate.

We begin our tale today with our fearlessly dyslexic hero out of work, but looking forward to Canada day, and the two parties ahead:

The first of July was a very hot Saturday in Edinburgh, and so we started off with a very nice backyard BBQ at a No-Knee's place, the girlfriend of fellow hosteler Mitch, and also an ex-hosteler herself. Half of the people at the BBQ were Canadian, with most of us being from BC, and four Islanders! Canadian pins and stickers were every ware, in what we saw as quite a show of patriotism.

As the party began to wind down, Shannon and I set off by bus for our second gathering of the night, a house warming for Kat, another ex-budget backpackers resident (anyone starting to see a pattern here?). The apartment was in the new town, just a five minute walk from Edinburgh's botanical Gardens.

LOCATION: thirty five minutes outside Edinburgh, and the train is passing through some scenic Scottish Lowlands. I have two seats to myself.

With in ten minutes of our arrival it become quite clear that Kat was a little inebriated, the plumbing burst and a three way patriotic debate had broken out. The argument was discussion about whether Ireland, or Scotland had been more oppressed by the English, and to what extent the "Irish troubles" had affected everyone in the kitchen. I played the Canadian card, acting as the house party's one man UN peace keeper, while Shannon had the thankless job of minding Kat. Kat's major contribution to the conversation I might add, was to drop a bottle of wine in the middle of The kitchen floor.

The sad truth was, the entire argument was my fault: a member of the Sottish contingent had noticed the Canadian flag pin I had acquired at the previous BBQ. Remarking that he too was quite patriotic, he enthusiastically started removing various articles of clothing to reveal all his Historically linked tattoos. Stupidly, and with only a passing thought that I was, at this moment, the envy of Japanese tourists through out Scotland, I revealed that it was Canada day. He paused as if slapped, then asked and I quote "Ya meens ta tella me that allya dooin for your nash-y nal day is wear'in that wee pin??!??!?!"

From that point on everyone in the room fell over themselves to inform me as to what they would be doing if they were Canadian and 8-10 thousand kilometers from home on their national day. It was like a bad parody of the Monty Python skit in which the three old rich men try to out-so each other with stories of whoa from their child hoods:

"I'd knit the Largest Canadian flag in history and break into Edinburgh Castle to fly it from the roof!"
"Well I would kidnap a member of every Canadian NHL team and force them to play an Exhibition game on the Scottish Parliament Lawn, which I would have frozen over for the Occasion!"
"Ha! I would hire a crack team of demolition experts to blow up Arthur's seat in order to leave it's face scared with the worlds largest Tim Horten's sign!"
"That's nothing: First I would import as many breeding pairs of Canadian beavers as possible, thus providing me with an unlimited labour pool with which to dam the Forth river..."

LOCATION: Carisle, and the train has just suddenly filled up to the brim! No Seats!

We were all saved full contact hostilities when Nelly Foutatado's "Man Eater" came on in the living room, and half the potential combatants were dragged off by their respective partners. All I can say is that Canada's peace keepers sometimes move in mysterious ways. I had no idea that Ms. Furtado was a sleeper agent.

We ended up walking home at four am, and the streets were packed with more people then I've ever seen past midnight! The air temperature must have been nearly 30 degrees and insanely humid, which explained why we walk up too torrential rain the following mourning....well, all right the following afternoon.

We spent Sunday shopping at H and M and thus when I checked my bank accounts on Monday, it turned out I was broke.

LOCATION: Penrith train station. Welcome to the lake district. Nice guy sits down next to me and appoints himself my tour guide for next two and a half hours. He is only thwarted in this endeavor by the train breaking down, at his own stop, and I am then loaded onto two connecting trains for Southampton. I am now going to have to wait for an hour in Southampton for the next train to Wool, and I was meant to arrive at Wool 30 mins ago. Oh, and it's been over seven hours since I started this location blurb at Penrith.

I was sitting in the dining room with Warren, bemoaning my lack of employment:

Warren: "Did Sodexho ever call you back?"

Me: "The temp agency you worked for? No they..."

Warrens face contorted in the way ones face does when you have set your phone on vibrate and you receive a text message.

Warren: "Dude, Sodexho just sent my this weeks shift list, ah, sorry..."

Then my Phone rang:

Phone: "Rory?"

Me: "Errrrr...yaaa?

Phone: "This is Susanne at Sodexho, would you be willing to do training tonight at Murryfield stadium?"

Me: "Yes!"

Susanne: "Great, Gate [mangled member of the alphabet], 6pm, don't be late.

So that very same afternoon I ended up orbiting the spiritual home of Scottish Rugby searching for the staff gate. I guessed wrong, and walked nearly the entire perimeter until I found the guard house and they took pity on me. Despite my lateness, I was welcomed with open arms and I set to work learning how to box tables, and perform snake service. The guy doing the training even managed to work a reference to Vulcans into a lesson on how to carry plates.

As soon as training was finished, I was offered a shift at the Perth Horse races for that Thursday.

The next day was a Tuesday, and so I was again invited to the Line clearing session at Halo, Warren's pub. It was also Warren's last shift ever before he and Chris was leaving for Ireland. The night was crazy, we did not make it home till 4:30am, Wednesday morning. Warren was in state to say the least. The boy ended up With his hoddie on backwards while we were in The taxi home. It took two of us to get him up the stairs.

Of course, because I had to work the next day at 7:00am, Chris and Warren (two of Team Canada's founding members) chose Wednesday night as their leaving party. Dropkick Murphy's is an Irish theme bar located in one of the arches of the George IV Bridge. The manager is actually from Ireland and there are three huge horse shoe shaped booths that seat 15+ people. I think Dropkicks two best attributes are the 2 pound drinks with a Hostel pass (and thus they have the cheapest Magners* in town), and the 3am late license.

LOCATION: Luworth Cove, Dorest. It's been four days since this post began, and it's going to take two more posts to bring you all up to speed as to where I am now. I have spent 8 hours in a car, attended a wedding, taken two more trains, the London Underground, and had a Sunday Roast near Waterloo train station. back to the past:

Anyway, all the things that made Dropkick Murphy's such a fantastic venue for a leaving party made catching a 7am bus to Perth a less then inspiring experience. Temporary catering work, to me, is like a strange combination of a School field trip and a marine battalion deployment. The people in charge have all done this before but for about 20% of us this was our first job. We all gathered like sheep in our black and whites at the far end of George St., woolly brained to match our appearance. It was 6:30am and it was already so hot that we were all fighting for The shady patches. Finally we were herded onto the bus, after receiving our assignments on a bit of paper with our name, job and a little map telling us what area we were in. Once we got to the race track, after hour and a half bus ride that I don't really recall, we were all given uniform shirts and asked to sign for our valuables so they could be kept in a storage room.

Since I was bar tending in the VIP marquee in the center of the race course, we were stuck where we where while the horses were on the track. I was completely winging it, as I had not really tended any sort of bar for over a year, and knew almost nothing about horse racing. Luckily I was assigned to work with an Irish guy who knew what he was doing, and who also turned out to be staying at the same hostel as me. By the end of the day I drifted into the role of relief bar tender, watching other people's bars while they were on their breaks. I got to watch the actual races too, as the bar is quiet while all the horses are thundering around the track. Out of the four sections in the marquee tent, our client won the most on betting and then tried to take the most expensive bottle of Scotch home with them at the end of the day. I fell asleep on the bus home and was very confused when I woke up in Edinburgh, as I had been dreaming that I was back in Canada, on the bus home from school.

I had most of the day free on Friday, but I had been hired through a separate company to work all weekend at T in the Park. Situated 45 mins north of Edinburgh, in the town of Kinross, T in The Park is a huge music festival that is held almost every year. So it was back on a bus Friday evening for the Journey up to Kinross. Just like Perth we all got our assignments on little bits of paper. The T in the Park compound was a huge sprawling temporary town surrounded by 15ft high metal barricades. If you have seen the movie Starship Troopers then you might remember the base in which the troops get over-run in. Imagine that base, only ten times bigger and with a giant ferris wheel in the center. We were all given colored wrist bands and then ushered through security to the Staff camping area. The staff camping was far superior to the one for the punters*, we had flat ground and a giant marquee tent in the middle, which was about to come in handy. While setting up the tent I had borrowed from my brother, I discovered that he had not been trying to mislead me when he said it lacked a fly sheet: it did. Lucky for me a Scottish guy called Ewan took pity on me since his tent had lots of extra space. As soon as I finished switching my stuff to a remarkably complete tent, the rain began to fall. I thanked Ewan profusely as we all (we had made friends with some Irish students by this point) moved into the safety of the marquee tent.

LOCATION: County Cornwall, the village of Tintagel, reputed birthplace of King Arthur. My parents and I are staying in an on-suite room above a pub. The crowd downstairs are yelling for an encore from the cover band playing directly bellow our room. The pub is of course called the King Arthur's Arms. This post is long enough now, part two will appear when I find some free wireless, or I travel at least 2000 miles. See ya in a few days. Ok..next month :)

Free Beer and the Sporrans of the apocalypse!

2006-06-28T18:14:00.000+01:00

As of yesterday I'm the proud owner of a City of Edinburgh Library card. Tired of my endless job search I decided to do something different for a day, so I, ah, went and got a Library card. The poor guy at the membership desk didn't know what hit 'em. I had it all, proof of address, proof of signature, the lot. Oh, I know what he thought, this hippy kid with a foreign accent is not getting his hands on my books. Ha! His face was a picture of defeat once he saw my little red UK passport.

I've already finished the book I took out, but I still think that my Library card beats any souvenir you can by on the royal mile. It just screams: I came! I saw! I beat a librarian at his own game! As for your "I went to Edinburgh, but all I got was this Lousy T-Shirt" T-Shirts, well you can stick them in your sporran and smoke 'em.

But the my nerdly powers don't end their gentle readers:

Last night I got drunk for free and ended up in a conversation in which we discussed the portability of Mac 68k Pascal code to x86 C++ via a PPC based cross compiler. Wow, nerd alert.

It all began when with a call from Warren, one of the other Canadians who lives in the hostel.

"Hey Buddy! What are you doing at 1 am tonight?

"Ummmm..."

"Can I interest you in some free beer?"

It turns out that the pub that Warren works at was going to be clearing their beer tap lines for cleaning. Fortunately for me, that means 2-3 pints of beer per line, times four lines, must be poured all at once. Since the bar is closed while this happens, around 10 pints of beer were on offer at the end of Warren's shift.

Halo, Warren's bar and the designated site for the nights de-bachery, is at the ass end of Princes street, so after tucking Shannon in for the night (the poor thing had an early shift in the mourning, plus she was tired out from turning twenty-three that day) I trekked my way around the castle and dodged the occasional maradering Hen-Night (Canadian: Stag'et) on my way to meet my beer.

I almost walked past the place, as their sign was broken, luckily Warren saw me before I drifted all the way to Leith in an iPod induced haze. Only one guy was left at the bar, a regular named Duncan I later learned. He ignored me while Warren and his supervisor finished cleaning the bar. After a while spent shooting the shit with Warren, I mentioned that I have sailed a bit and Duncan lit up like a Christmas tree. Well, a Christmas tree that has had at least two to three drinks anyway.

By this point around twelve to fourteen pints had collected on the bar. There had been a mix up with the Carling, so we got a few more then expected. We relocated all the beer and ourselves to a table and began the serious busyness of making sure non of this beer would go to waste. After 3 pints we were all marveling at the sheer genius, from a business standpoint, that is Guinness Extra Cold. The same beer keg feeds both taps, but it costs more for the slightly colder one! We had Duncan in hysterics when we told him of the existence of Miller Ice, a "colder beer" that comes in a bottle. It turned out that Duncan worked as the in-house Software manager for a major bank and the conversation suddenly veered towards Microsoft bashing, as it always does when two people discover that the other guy is a Mac fan two. And from their it was only a hop, skip and a jump and I wound up talking about cross compiling old Pascal code while drinking free beer at 4 am in the Capital of Scotland.

On a side note, Mom you can find my mailing address here.

Norwich and Back Part 1

2006-06-09T22:19:00.000+01:00

Well, I survived hagfest, and it was a blast. I'd like to claim that my lack of productivity this week has been for recovery purposes, but I would be lying. In fact the night out before I even left for Norwich left me in a sorrier state then the actual party itself. For some stupid reason, Thursday night turned into quite a drinking session, so I was mildly hung over on Friday morning for my short flight (in a Canadian made dash 8) from Edinburgh to Norwich. Tom's car broke down on the way to get me from the airport, so I took a taxi to his house instead. Tom himself was not there, so after carefully weighing the pros and cons I walked two streets over to the nearest by pub for lunch and pint. Tom and company showed up in the English equivalent of a pick-up truck which they were using move all the stuff for the following day's party. A lack of seats led to me lying in the back of the truck bed, wearing a construction hard-hat while clutching some giant cardboard flowers.

After spending an exhausting few hours we retired to the same pub I had lunch in for a few more pints, then moved on to The Fat-Cat until the rest of the guests arrived. The Fat-Cat has 86 different kinds of Organic beer, plus 6 kinds of cider. At one point some one who had been giving me strange looks for a few minutes gathered up the courage to ask me if he had indeed seen me riding in the back of a truck with giant card board flowers, posing like a porn star.

End of part 1

Short Canadian seeks employment as full time Blog writer...

2006-05-30T19:26:00.000+01:00

As of 6 pm tomorrow I'm going back out on the job hunt. It turns out my upbeat predictions about the steps being closed were a little off base. A combination of the loss of business and the fact that the railway company offered the owners a really good compensation package means that Bytes and Slices will be closing for the foreseeable future. The idea is that the whole shop will be re-located to a busy pedestrian only street near by, but it could take up to six months. Word on the street is that the staff might even get a bit of compensation. I'm not one to turn down free money, so I'm all for it. The job market is still pretty good right now, so if all things go as planed I should be able to pick up some bar work with in a week or so.

The timing is almost perfect for me too, as I am heading down to England's forgotten metropolis of Norwich for my Cousin's stag/hen party. This was all booked holidays wise, but now that I'm "pro-actively un-employed", I was able to take advantage of cheaper flights.

Another un-expected benefit has been to win a small comedy war that had been brewing between myself and the new girl at work. Sarah, as she is known, thought the funniest thing on the planet was to tell me "Your fired!" at inappropriate moments during the day. I found out about work shutting down on a day she was not working. I think you can see where this is going :) As soon as she showed up for her shift I told her that she was fired with the real closing date of the store as her final shift. She was did not believe me of course, until that is, Benoit came over and started to explain that the store was closing soon, and that her position really would be non-existent. The look on her face once she figured out what was really going on was worth at least three weeks job hunting in my book :)

Anyway, I'm about to go drown my sorrows by heading out to see X-Men 3 with Team Canada.

Hunting the Jet Lagged

2006-05-22T18:29:00.000+01:00

It's Monday, and the highlight of my work day has to be the point when a small child projectile vomited just inside the front door. Lucky for me I'm handy with a mop, and in less then a minute the toxic spill was removed from site, much to everyone's relief. There is a strange twist to this tale however, as the mother of the child in question is a regular customer who suffered an epileptic fit our bathroom the first time she visited. Apparently anytime her, or a member of her family comes in to use the internet "something" occurs.

It's been a strange week of work really. Just after I finished yesterday's post, our 'net connection went offline. An internet cafe with out internet is a little pathetic. Trying to explain to customers that we don't actually have the internet available is almost fun, the expressions on people's faces are priceless.

At the start of the week, Waverly Steps was finally blocked off on the train station side, forcing everyone through the mall instead. We are located exactly half way down the steps in question, with Princess Street (Edinburghs main road) at the top and Waverly Train Station at the bottom. We get no end of enjoyment watching people get half way down before they notice the MASSIVE blue plywood barriers across the entrance to the train station. To even get this far, one has to have ignored two giant signs telling people to go through the mall, and two railway employees that stand there all day telling people where to go. Lucky for us, the alternate entrance to the station, i.e. the mall doors, is exactly opposite Bytes and Slices. Thus any business we would have lost due to the steps being half closed, is off-set by fifty percent of the remaining traffic being routed directly at our cafe, instead of past it. In fact some people end up inside our cafe wearing expressions that indicate they have no idea how they left the mall and ended up inside some 'net cafe. Easy prey :)

Bits and Bytes

2006-05-21T14:25:00.000+01:00

I'm sneaking this post in while I'm at work again.

I don't have time to write about all the crazy goings on as it were, but a short summary is as follows: We have been hanging out with a core group of Long-Stay residents that is made up from a majority of Canadians, with some Australians and a grab bag of Europeans. Some one started referring to us all as Team-Canada and the name has stuck. T-Shirts are being made.

As Team Canada, we have been researching various pubs and clubs in the Cowgate Area. Last week the weather was quite nice for a few days, so we all spent as much time as possible in the Meadows that are only five minutes walk from the Hostel.

What else have I missed, ah yes, The Beltane Festival. Fire and Nakedness, always a good combination in my opinion. I'll try to put some photos up with some descriptions when I get time.

On Wednesday Mitch (Aus) and I went to see a Scottish Bluegrass band play at a near by Jazz club. Now that I write it, it sounds a little strange, but the band was very good. So good in fact that with only a few pints of cider between us, Mitch and I ended up offering to do a website for them.

Overtime Live!

2006-04-28T18:06:00.000+01:00

I've got one eye on the keyboard and the other on customers as all the two are busy at the moment. As you can read, we are a little short staffed at the moment (and I'm not referring to my height), and we are in the process of hiring a temporary employee for six weeks. I was going to offer the job to Josh, but he got himself hired as a layout tech/manager at a T-Shirt factory. Yes, I thought the same thing, sounds pretty fun. Charlotte, AKA "Le Dead Thing", has managed to get hired at the shoe store across the street from Shannon's shoe store. In fact, both stores are owned by the same company and Charlotte is being sent across the street from time to time as Shannon's store is short staffed too.

Ninjas have struck, I must go!

Box Wars! Fight or be Recycled!

2006-04-25T18:52:00.000+01:00

On Saturday Josh and i and the one now know as "The Dead thing" attend a lovely little gathering called "Box Wars!", Box Rac edtion. The object was for a crowd of people to go to Edinbrughs famous Arthur's seat, in Holyrod park and watch a smaller group of people ride Cardboard creations down a steep hill. The term getting there is half the fun has never been more true. Parading the Corrragated wonders from their birth place to the fields of dissmemberment took almost an hour and gethered a large following. The tourists were confused and the locals loved it.

As we arrived at Aurthers seat the park service swarmed in with jeeps and told us we did not have the correct permissions to perform such brutal acts on recycling in a protected park. We pointed out thet thir jeeps has just chewed up the very same protected landscape just to inform us that we were harming the enviroment, but it was to no avail. Evidently packing tape is not match for red tape.

Talk of revolution and arrest floated in the air until we decided to switch to a park that was thought to be un-pratroled by our enviromentaly challenged park wardens. The entire crowd trekked over to Calton Hill (45 more mins) and then the festivites commenced! Gravity, Potatos and People, oh my!

2006-04-10T10:52:00.000+01:00

I was going to wait until I had time to reveal the full story, but "somebody" has tipped my hand as it were.

Yes, Josh is here. He showed up on Friday night with no Warning what-so-ever.

Details to follow, hopefully before someone tells Leah about my trip to Aber....

2006-04-03T23:19:00.000+01:00

I did it again, I fixed yet another hostel's internet connection. Guess what I got in return? More free internet. I already work in a dam 'net cafe, there are kids in Alabama with not even a sniff of a dial-up connection and yet people are throwing broad band at me like it grows on trees. I feel like using theta saying non-nerds use when mocking technically inclined persons: "Mega-bytes!".

Other then fending off bandwidth all week, we have been out on a pub crawl or two and hence met another Canadian called Rory. In fact in the last week Canadians have invaded the city. Tons have come into work, lots have been staying at the Hostel. Budget backpackers even hired a Canadian last week.

The weather has even been dry over the last few days. Dry weather means dry roads, and dry roads means Longboarding! If you think people in Canada look at you funny when riding a over sized skateboard, try riding one through the Capital of Scotland at lunch time. Besides the rain, Scotland has a little extra obstacle that is almost as bad as Urban polar Bears (retired drivers) cobble stones! Iiiiitttttsssss aaa llliitttlllleee bumpy. On my way to work, I bombed (as in road) Edinburgh's north bridge two days in a row. The Bus lanes are my friend. With a little careful observation of Edinburgh's public transport network and by following those roads blocked by road construction, I can ride almost all to way to work on my board.

I'm running low on my free internet minutes so I have just enough time to mention we saw "V for Vendetta" tonight, and it was not too bad.

2006-03-31T00:45:00.000+01:00

All work and less play makes Rory a boring boy...

In the last ten days Scotland has banned smoking in all enclosed public places. The pubs and clubs are now smoke free! Now when you pass any pub in Edinburgh there is a small crowd of people outside having a smoke. Even the train station is clear of smoke. Since the ban is brand new and the amount of smokers in Scotland is much higher then North America, it's quite startling how many people are gathered outside in the rain for a little "break". In Canada the only time you get that many people gathered outside the front of a building in such weather is if there is a fire drill or power cut.

Also during my bloggy black out, Graham Robertson, a friend of mine from High School turned up to terrorize Edinburgh. He's on one of those "see everyone I know in X" tours with X being the UK. In a few weeks Graham is getting himself loaded onto a cruise ship as a member of staff for Six-Eight months, so he's making the best of dry land while he can. Graham, I, and some Scots he met while in New Zealand got up to some serious mischief while visiting a few pubs and going on a "Ghost Tour" whose only scary element was the group of Canadians and Scots that kept getting lost and then finding the tour again while ridding ourselves of all the beer we had drunk before the tour.

At some point I managed to win my weeks laundry tokens in a Pool tournament in which I sank two balls off the break, sank two more in a row, and then my opponent sank the eight ball on his first shot of the game.

I'm sure a lot more then that has happened over the last ten days, but the only thing that comes to mind is that some guy walked into work who looked just like Chuck Norris. If you don't know why that's relevant then go here.

PS: Jess if you read this thing, Happy Birthday. Don't worry, the Hunt for Red Oct-Toby continues.

2006-03-30T18:26:00.000+01:00

Sorry about my ten days of silence. For me it's been ten days of noise :)

I'll cook something up soon.

Lazy Sunday

2006-03-20T23:34:00.000Z

St. Patricks day was not crazy enough to explain my lack of keyboard use over the weekend, but it was a lot of fun. In fact, it was almost mellow in a "wow, I've had a few pints but everyone else is WAY drunker then me.." kind of way. We bar hoped for a bit until we found the hostel crew at the Black Bull pub. The Bull is a pretty fun place 'cus it's such a generic pub that you have to make your own fun.

Oh, and I had a "the world is a small place" encounters. It turns out that Mark, our kilted Spanish hero, well his girlfriend is Canadian, and her previous boyfriend was Adam Schnarr, a guy who I went to highscool with. That's right, I've met someone in Edinburgh who not only has herd of Sooke, She's been there!

Speaking of Mark, he's asked me to shoot a picture for the cover of his song "Aberdeen", which he half seriously intends to sell to Aberdeens city council and/or tourist board. I have a few vague ideas of shooting the letter "A" made up from stupid objects, or a bunch of people holding up the letters Aberdeen.

Sunday was a strange day, but it requires a little back story, or at least, a confession:

I have become addicted to F1 racing recently.

It all started when I was living in London, working five days a week, and partying over the weekend. Sunday was recovery day, and the effects of the previous two to three nights antics meant that all one felt like doing was lying on the couch and watching TV. Guess what is on TV on a Sunday at midday? F1 racing. F1, like cricket, is very very complex, and also, like cricket, appears completely boring unless you know what's going on. I'd say it takes about half a season, roughly six or seven races for one to even care who wins. At about race eight interest swings in the other direction. Observations like "Oh, the red car won again", turns into excitement that Rikion was fourth in qualifying with a heavy full load. By race ten or eleven the post race press conference is required viewing. After that watching just the race is not an option, the hour long pre-race show (this, for a nearly two hour long race) is part of the gospel, with highly paid commentators dissecting even the smallest "pit lane rumors" for possibly usefull info. I know the tactical reasons for a one stop vs a two stop strategy's, I hate engine penalties and I still think of Team Honda as B.A.R

I tell you all this in the hope that it may help you understand the reason why I even thought about getting up at seven a.m. on Sunday morning to watch a car race. Which I did. I was even happy that the race was four hours early (due to the fact that it was the Malaysian GP, i.e time difference between Europe and Asia) 'cus I was supposed to work at midday and otherwise would have missed it.

After the race was finished I started to get ready for work, only to discover all my work shirts were still wet. I was running late, underdressed, and out of breath when I reached work. Or the front door anyway. The windows were still shuttered! The door was locked, and no one was there! Little did I know that my boss had been detained by UK Customs due to "issues" with his VISA. I waited twenty mins. until I decided that I had the day off.

I spent most of it split between taking pictures and hanging out in bookstores.

When I got back to the hostel they offered Shannon and I a better room, so we spent part of the evening moving all are stuff. Shan felt a little un-well, so crashed while I tried to watch a British horror movie in the dining room. Five minutes before the end, The Soccer locusts appeared. The Soccer Locusts are eighteen strong troop of 15-18 year olds from Alabama, USA. As you may have guessed, they are over here for a Soccer tournament, and they travel in packs. The older girls have taken full advantage of the UK's more relaxed liquor laws, and thus most of the girls are drunk and are trying to avoid their chaperones at all costs. It was funny to watch the first night, but by day four the sight America's youth running into walls is no longer the highlight of my Sunday. I's rather watch F1.

Wow, if you got this far I'm impressed.

St. Patrick's Day black out

2006-03-17T18:35:00.000Z

As in media black out, not the drinking kind :)

Just a quick note to thank everyone that sent my a Happy birthday e-mail, I'll reply to you all as soon as the ekffects of tonights festivites were off.

iPod is the new garlic!

2006-03-16T17:18:00.000Z

Guess what I got for my birthday? Thanks to my Parental Units I am now the proud owner of an iPod Nano!

Despite being a tech addict since I was very young (family lore has it that my first word was not mommy or daddy, but "Radio!"), I don't think that I've ever been this close to the cutting edge before. The Nano is so small I'm afraid of loosing it constently. Despite black being the new black, I'm glad I got a white one. I think this is the real reason Apple now makes a black version as well, so that they will get repeat sales from everyone who misplaces their tiny black music player, in their stylishly black apartment. On the other hand ninjas have not been able to carry iPods while on a missions for fear of thier glaring white apperance revealing their position to the Enemy. Probelme solved. Conversely, I wonder if the original iPods are disportionally popular with the Inuit?

Following this line of logic, I have hit a upon a market that Apple is needlessly ignoring, dare I say rejecting. If anyone from apple is reading this, I, as someone with more then a keen interest in photography, have in mind a demographic that hangs in the neutral zone between the White Pod and the Black Pod: The Grey Pod. To be more specific, the 18% Grey Pod. Not only will this bring all the fence sitters, and those with aversions to extreme expression into the Apple fold, it will finally allow all photographers (myself included) to stop compensating for the effects of either iPod on ones exposure calculations. If you think I'm a little off the mark, I'd like to advance another little theory of mine: iPods fight the paparazzi.

Have you noticed how celebrities were very quick at adopting the original iPod? For the same reason the iPod is mirrored on the back: To screw up exposures! Wearing a super white chunk of reflective plastic has the same effect on photographers as garlic does on vampires. All that reflected light or super deep black from the iPod screws up the auto-exposure systems that paparazzi are forced to use since they only have seconds in which to snap their victims. Upon checking their "take" after ambushing Ms. Hilton and co., zee paparazi would find all their valuable photos with either massive halo reflections, or a mix of really bright and really dark exposures.

So Apple, for the sake of tabloid readers everywhere, I beg you for an 18% grey iPod! However my favorite sudo fruit company, don't be too hasty in ordering those extra shifts in the factory, I'm not going to be this close to the cutting edge again for a very long time.

Beware the ides of March...

2006-03-15T23:16:00.000Z

Sorry I have not posted in a while, I've been a busy with my new job. I had my coffee training last week. A dude from Illy Coffee came in to teach me how to make cappuccinos and Lattes, oh my! As you can tell, the place is a little serious about their coffee when they insist on teaching everyone how to make it themselves.

Coffee Master: "So how much experience have you had making cappuccinos and such?
Me: "None."
Coffee Master: "Ok,but how do you like your coffee?"
Me: "I can't stand the stuff, I don't even drink tea."
Coffee Master: (with a little too much glee) "Ah, a blank slate then."

He then proceeded to give me a whirlwind course in Coffee and all it's various forms. Nothing was left out, water temperature, bean selection, grinding, and the evils of Starbucks (or in his words "Those who we shall not name.") Having a guy dressed in all black with a Scottish accent explaining the intricacies of a complex Italian bedvradge was almost like having Sean Connery teaching me how to make Martinis. I was constantly waiting for the next sentence to be "Shaken, not stirred." This guy new everything about beans, oil and trade practices. His pure excitement for coffee was only briefly threatened when I burnt the milk during my first attempt at frothing. With in an hour I had produced a few decent Lattes and such which passed muster. With that, The Coffee Master left, muttering something about his parking meter running out. I however was not fooled, I knew he was off to fight against his one true enemy, Fliter Coffee.

From Coffee we now move to the death of Julius Caesar. How you ask? Read and learn (please forgive the 24 style narration):

"Happy birthday to me! Twenty Three. Yipee."

I was born on March the 15th, 1983. Julius Caesar was Murdered on this date in 44 BC, after being warned by a Soothsayer: "Beware the Ides of March."

For said birthday, we went to the movie Lucky Number Slevin. Not bad really, but a little too aware of itself as a movie in my opinion.

Royal Flush

2006-03-07T21:46:00.000Z

Well I finely got a job. Despite my lack of phone number typing skills, I am now working in an Internet Cafe in the center of downtown Edinburgh. I'm going to keep the exact name and location a little vague, just so I can write about work with a little plausible deniability, to take a page from the US Government.

What I can reveal is that it's run by a guy who is, drum roll please, from Quebec and an insanely good businessmen. The shop is a little "different" from other 'net cafes, as in high class. I'm still getting to grips with a till that everyone claims is "normal", but since I've only used strange custom bar tills before, it's taking some getting used to. At least all my previous cash handling experience is with British money, so making change ect. is the easy part.

In my so far brief time with the company, I've already had an "incident" or two. On my first full day, I received a frantic phone call from Michele, a friend from the hostel. Michele, who had dropped her mobile phone in the toilet the night before, had tracked me down at work because she had lost all her phone numbers in her phones aquatic adventure, and was begging me to pick up a replacement phone from the store across the street from my work. My boss (who during my first training shift nipped out to fix a fellow entrepreneurs plumbing, and who would be the sort of guy to take charge during a disaster or a reality TV show) was momentarily confused when the phone was for me. "Rory...Rory who?...Oh the guy I just hired?!"

It has been a busy few days: Saturday was my first training/test shift and my ex-flatmate (as in apartment, not vertically challenged) from London came up to Edinburgh for the weekend with two friends from Oz. Shan and I showed them what we knew of the town, before we left them to dance it up at "The World Famous Frankinstines", as we had been out the night before with the Hostel's new group pub crawl. Sunday was training shift two. Monday was my first normal shift plus Open Mic night at Whistle Binkies! Spanish Mark, the guy who runs both the free tours and the free pub crawl for the hostel, went up. Our kilted hero from Barcelona played two songs, and managed to have the entire place in stitches the whole time. Quote of the night (in a thick Spanish accent): "I am not a good singer, but I enjoy singing, so your going to enjoy it too!"

Snow, with a chance of photos.

2006-03-03T17:23:00.000Z

It's snowing! It has been since I got up and saw the flakes floating to the ground in their happy kamikaze spirals. The Australians working in the hostel ran around like little kids for the first hour, grinning in the same way most tourists do when seeing kangaroos for the first time. With in a few minutes a snow ball fight started, INSIDE the hostel! After being kicked back outside, one of the ozzys almost got hit by a double decker bus trying to avoid one of my snowballs.

With the snow day and all I've decided to take a day off from the job hunt. I have a trial shift at a Internet cafe on Saturday anyway. Oh, and I discovered that all the resumes I've been handing out so far have had the wrong phone number! Classic Rory maneuver. I'm now camped out in the dining room on my laptop, as the library 'net connections were messed up, and not allowing me to post to my blog. With full control of the CD player and central heating it is going to take some very tasty food to lure me out of my new den.

In other developments, Shan and I finally did the free walking tour yesterday, even though we have been here close to three weeks already, and know must of the stuff on it. The guy who dose the tour is from Barcelona, and the chance to go on a tour through the Scottish capital led by a Spanish guy in a kilt was too good to pass up :) We still learned some interesting facts as well, such as Greyfriers Bobby, a dog who upon his masters death, stood on his grave for fourteen years! There is a statue to him, and his grave site is now the most popular one in the whole cemetery. A cemetery, I should point out, that has the most poulterygist (sounds like a Latin word for intelligent chicken, doesn't it?) activity in all of Europe. What else...ummmm...A yes, the free way to get drunk. On the royal mile their are a lot of whisky shops, all of them will let you have two free shots if you seem genuinely interested in buying their wares. The trick is to stay sober enough to be convincing buy the third or fourth shop. No one knows what the record is, as they are too drunk by that point.

Well I need some brunch and then I'm going to take some pictures of all the snow before it melts. To use a cliche, Edinburgh castle looks as if it's been dusted with icing sugar. Or dandruff.

UPDATE: I've posted a bunch of photos from the whole trip so far. Just click HERE or on the photo at the top of the post. All the photos are captioned as well, it's amazing what I get done when the weather gets crappy.

Not in my Hostel!

2006-02-27T14:51:00.000Z

HAVE MET OTHER CANADIANS. STOP. FORGOTEN HOW CRAZY THEY CAN BE. STOP. NOT TO MENTION THEY ARE FROM SASKATCHWAN. STOP. NO MORE TIME. STOP. ALL THE OZZYS THINK WERE NUTS. STOP.

ALL MONTY PYTHON SKETCHES EVER. STOP.

"Freeeeeddddoooooom!"

2006-02-26T13:43:00.000Z

That famous Mel Gibson quote from the movie Braveheart was appropriate for the fist time ever last night: Scotland won the Calcutta Cup back from England during their Six Nations match last night.

We were lucky enough to be in a pub packed full of Scottish Rugby fans. To give you an idea how unexpected Scotland's victory was, I had tried to find a pub full of English fans, so as to join in the celebrations with the "winning team". So I was a little nervous when we could only find room in a pub ninety percent colonized with Scottish fans.

I was not sure who to cheer for at first, England maybe where I was born, but England's style of rugby lacks just that: Style. By half time, with the score tied, and Scotland having lead so far, I was considering where I could get my own kilt on very short notice. In the final ten minutes of the match, the whole pub was singing the Scottish national ruby team's un-official theme song, The Flower of Scotland, with more energy then any national anthem I've ever herd (of course, Canadians tend to consider it a matter of national pride to slur most of the words to O'Canada).

Once the final whistle blown the streets were filled with thousands of very happy Scottish men and women. The sheer celebratory potential of drunken men in kilts has to be seen to be believed. Our hostel is on the main street for all the city's clubs and pubs, with about four times the amount of bars and clubs in all of Victoria packed into one street. The streets were FULL of people until 4am.

Many Scottish fans were wearing hats with a Loch-Ness Monster on top, I want one!

I have been inspired to figure out a way to get Canada to start some sort of a domestic rugby league. Of course with way things our going, my plan for an English Ice Hockey Team is not only my only possible avenue to Olympic athlete hood, we just might beat Canada at it's own game. Just like everyone else :)

Back in Action!

2006-02-24T16:11:00.000Z

The Job hunt has been pretty full-on over the last week so I have not had much free time to post.

Shannon has already secured a job with a High Class shoe store in the very center of the city. It's a bit of a relief really, as the limits imposed by her work VISA might have scared employers off a bit. It would have been hell trying to get employed in Victoria with that sort of thing. Lucky for us the job market here is totally different. Companies in Victoria act like they might report you to the police if you even suggest in an interview that you might not be able to make more then a two year commitment. During my first interview at quite a nice hotel/bar/restaurant combo the lady paused like she was delivering a deal-breaker before telling me that: " We really ask that you stay for at least...four months..". She even winced as she said it. She nearly leaped with joy when I said I was thinking that five months would work for me.

Me: "..Six or seven would work also."

Her: "Oh excellent! We don't really keep people past six, as we don't want anyone getting to board of the job. It's not like we expect something ridiculous like two years!" At this point she collapsed into a fit of giggles at the very thought.

Yes, looking for work here is slightly easier. Potential employers even use the three word that would strike fear into the hearts of companies back home: No experience necessary.

It seems that employers here actually intend to teach their staff a few things, instead of looking for worker drones with "..at least ten years experience in the field of sandwich preparation." Or want ads that read: "The ideal candidate will have been raised since birth in a retail sales environment, with at least one parent having held a similar position for a minimum of fifteen years.

Once I return to Canada I think I'll be turning to alternate sources of income :)

As Predicted...

2006-02-19T19:00:00.000Z

Our Hostel lies in the shadow of Edinbrugh castle, which is perched on a rocky outcropping of the hill in front of us. With it's stony exterior looming at us, lit up for the tourists, it was an obvious choice for a place to go for a walk the other night after dinner.

It was around ten at night by the time we summited the hill, so the Castle was closed. We walked across the short drawbridge, now fixed permently in place, and admired the plaques set into the main arch way. One for Sir. Robert the Bruce and the other for William Wallace, of braveheart fame (Freeeeeddddom!).

Suddenly a crashing sound echoed out from the huge doors in front of us. Shannon sqeaked in fear and surprise, and I prepeard myslef for the type of hand to hand combat that years of hollywood movies had tough me always ocured outside of Scotish castles and New York pizza places.

Instead of the expected hordes of Ninjas in full Scottish kilts, a voice from behind the door said: "Hello!."

Then I spotted the face pearing out from a small barred window. The voice and the face turned out to belong to a young british soldiar assigned to guard the castle at night. He informed us that teams of six spent a week guarding the castle at night in five hour shifts. The noise we herd was him throwing the dead bolt on the door back and forth, he had been waiting pationently for us to enter his "strike Zone". Capt. Castle (we never did get his name)happily told us tales of the many people who he had frighted over the week. One lady from Texas holds the current alltitude record ater shooting ten ft. in the air at the sound of the bolt.

The conversation soon turned into the tradtional swapping of drinking stories, and before long we had killed over an hour for the greatfull Castle guard.

Next time on thelastspot: The Great Buskers Riot of 2006

Happy Belated Greeting Card Industry day!

2006-02-14T15:05:00.000Z

The job hunt continues...

New resumes have been edited, printed, edited again, printed yet again ect, ect. I did the classic beard trim and hair cut, and Scotland now seems almost as cold as people said it would be:)

Our room is fantastically emtpy since the French guys left. Someone even vacuumed it this morning.

Last night we got fed-up with the hostel's crappy pool table, so off we trekked, two doors down to what else but "The Oz Bar". Yes, I can hear your laughter from here. It all turned out OK in the end however, as we ended up playing doubles against a Scottish photography student and his mate (sorry, their names escape me, one of 'em had a fro' though). Anyway turns out his mate mountain bikes, and he is a LONGBOARDER! I've now been offered a tour of Edinburgh's best Longboarding terrain by a local. Swift.

I've found a free wireless hotspot at a near by cafe, so I promise some pictures as soon as track down a few job leads.

Till then, if your board, watch this six part interview with Star Trek's Cpt. Sulu

Est. Feb 2006

2006-02-12T13:30:00.000Z

We have switched hostels to a more long term hostel, the aptly named Budget Backpackers. Location wise it's still pretty much in the center of town. It turns out that I actually stayed here before when I visited Edinburgh back when I was living and working in London. It's a lot bigger now, split over two buildings. Longterm rooms (us) in the "old" hostel, with a massive building just across the roundabout for the short term dorms.

Our rooms mates are a pair of guys from France that have been here for five months, but by sheer coincidence are planning on moving out in a few days. This means a four bed room for the price of two, which at this place is already super cheap:) So far this place seems pretty chilled out, despite one of our nabiours did what sounded like attepted vacuuming this morning. This lasted for about two mins until there was a scream, the vacuum shut off and then about five minutes of coughing.

The weather has been a lot better then we were lead to believe as well. Despite my Gradparents prediction of freezing to our backpacks after thirty seconds exposed to the Scottish air, the first day was really sunny, if a little cold. A few hours of drizzle in the days since, but other then that, pretty mild really.

Oh ya, we are right down the street from one of the coolest buildings I've ever been in: The Museum of Scotland.

I caved already.

2006-02-10T13:16:00.000Z

The internet "broke" at the hostel we are staying at. I offered to fix it just 'cus I could not bear the pained expresions on the managers face as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

The CMOS batter was dead, and the router's DHCP server was broken. Done and Done.

I had lots of interesting things to tell you all, but buy the time I fixed the internet connection, I forgot them all.

Oh well, I'll remember latert today.

Funny Title

2006-02-09T16:22:00.000Z

We arrived in Scotland's capital at around lunch time and were promptely ambushed by a survey taker for the British Airport Authority, inquiring as opinion of the airport. After rating our joy on a scale from 1 to 10 (about an 8), we headed for a hostel at breakneak speed before anyone tried to sell us any kilts, or tartan socks.

I tried to convince Shannon that Scotland's national currency was the sporren, but she has learned to ignore any facts that I seem to certin of. I can't imagen how one would make change for a sporren anyway.

The basic plan now is to look for work and a place for us to live. Yes, it looks like we will settle down here for a bit. I've always wanted to live in a city with a castle right in the middle of down town. London dosen't count, the whole place is too much like a demmented theme park in the first place. A huge ferris wheel, a Royal Family, Tower Bridge, Abby Road, Picadilly Cirus, it's hard to belive they don't charge admission just to get in. Hell, what am I saying, they do.

Anyway, back in Edinbrugh the weather has changed three times since I started writing this, like real weather should. Shannon has spotted Justin Timberlake, or his Doppleganger (a Poppelganer, as it were :) . And, while we were having lunch, formmer Member of Parliment, Boris Johnson walked by doing an interveiw. He even gave me "The Nod." I think I'll stay.

On the way to the Big E!

2006-02-08T18:59:00.000Z

UK POLICE OFFICIAL BULLETIN:

TIME: 18:58
DATE: 08.02.2006
SUSPECT DISC: 1 Male, 3 ft tall, Wearing small Green Hat and carrying a small blue ironing board.
1 Female, Normal height, Dressed as Yellow distress beacon.

NOTICE READS:
Attention all police forces tracking the fugitives known as "The Crazy Cunnucks".

Suspects last seen heading north on the 12:02 First GreatWestern train to London Padington. Intelligence indicates the fugitives are heading towards Edinburgh in order to steal highland Cattle.

WARNING: Suspects are hungry, and may deploy Bad Puns in order to evade capture.

Car Crashes and Rugby, oh my!

2006-02-07T12:09:00.000Z

I think I've worked out the bugs on the comment moderation system, so you should all be able to comment now. Also, if anyone wants me to add them to the auto-matic e-mail list (every time I post to the blog, that post will be automatic e-mailed to you.) just send my an email saying so.

The last post was called Test, as my internet connection crashed on me while posting. Arrrrg! I was un able to add, that while we were on our way to Falmouth the other day, A car had spun off and hit a wall, blocking the road in front of the bus for 10 mins. It was only a small car, but the roads here are so narrow, that this blocked BOTH lanes of traffic.

As you may have summarized, driving here is a little different. People here drive 40% faster then in Canada and 30% closer to each other on roads that are 20% smaller. Large Grey-Hound style busses happily zip through narrow village roads that I would be too scared to drive my mom's Mini down. Transit style busses will pass each other at full speed, on the same size road, while the drivers cheerily wave at each other. It goes with out saying that the sidewalks are fare game.

Having said all that, the drivers here have one skill a lot of Canadian drivers do not: They can drive. Not to insult anyone back home, but 90% of the drivers in Victoria would be wiped out the first time they let there car perform such standard Canadian practices such as not signaling, driving 10km/h in the fast lane, or my personal favorite: Not using the indicators WHILE TURNING. A traffic circle/round-about in Victoria would confuse people to no end. We might even have to do a special course on those strange triangle shaped signs, the ones everyone in Canada assumes are stop signs that were not cooked properly.

Ok, Sorry about that, rant over.

England won it's Six Nations tournament rugby match against Wales ( The country, NOT the mammals). Yay! Scotland also won against favorites France. Yay two!

Yesterday we again braved the British rail network, and headed off to the Eden Project (or here) for the day. The Eden Project is a massive set of Bucky-Ball shaped green houses in a huge abandoned China Clay mine near St. Austel, Cornwall. The biomes, as they are called, are filled with different plants and lots of information on how each plant affects the global economy and/or world history. The architecture itself is mind-blowing, and the whole site is only five years old, so it's still be added on to.

And day before that was St. Michael's Mount, an island that you can walk out to when the tide is low. It also has a Castle and a small fishing village on it, as all British Islands over a certain size are required to have, for tourist reasons.

test

2006-02-03T11:35:00.000Z

Yesterday we took the bus over to Falmouth, a small port town about an hour and half from Penzance. Besides being located in the worlds third largest natural harbour, it is also home to a fantastic National Maritime Museum, and some huge drydocks.

Starting in the 1680's and running for over 130 years, Falmoth was home to the "The Falmouth Packet", the British Empire's first ocean going mail service, with dedicated saling ships called "packets" which carried almost nothing but a few bags of mail on trips lasting longer then 100 days.

No pirates so far.

2006-01-31T14:21:00.000Z

On Friday, after failing to get national Insurance Numbers, we spent most of the day in the Tate Modern, a MASSIVE modern art gallery in the center of London. Suffering from Jet Lag, and in my case, a head-cold / flu, we escaped London on Saturday, heading for penguin's, Cornwall.

Penzance is located on the very southern tip of the English south coast, the "Boot of England" if you will. My Grandparents on my Dad's side have a house near the sea front here, and they are always very welcoming to visitors and parasites like myself. To add to the list of strange things that have occurred so far this Journey*, the train arrived on time after it's five hour journey from London.

The day after we arrived, my grandparents drove us all over to St. Ives, a small town on the north coast of "Das Boot". Ninety percent of the buildings, and the entire town as a whole is "really cute", according to Shan. A lot of the houses were built before Canada was even founded. In between admiring the town, and the Ocean views, I was able to locate a Chicken and Mushroom Pie. Mission successfully.

As of today (Tuesday) I've mostly fought off the Jett Lag, but the tail end of the Flu is still curtailing any "true adventures". Or in other words, I have not felt well enough to go to the Pub yet so far.

beeeer....

Live from London:

2006-01-27T11:45:00.000Z

We made it to the UK! Ya ya!

Day 2 and we are both still Jet lagged.

Shannon's best quote of the trip so far: "Look at all the brick..."

Off to get National Insurance numbers (if we can) and have quick peek at the city (i.e. the Tate Modern for Shannon and some random food source for me).

Time is scarce, so as they say here, Ta Ta for now!

I'm leaving on a...

2006-01-25T09:00:00.000Z

One more sleep till England!

Well, that's how I used to measure the time till Christmas day arrived, and it still seems more accurate then those more grown up "day" things I keep hearing about.

Shannons method of actually packing in a timely fashion has led to 99% of both Shannon and my packing being done (Yes Col, that 1% left over IS the smoked salmon, at the least it can help prove my Canadian citizenship if I ever loose all my I.D.). Already. So done in fact that I'm a little worried. As I said before, packing is not my strong point. I not happy unless I'm looking for my passport 2 mins after we were supposed to leave for the ferry. Being done the night before...well it just fills me with uneasiness.

The only thing left now is the journey itself. I am left wondering what sort of disaster's this omen of early packing might signal: The Ferry, Bus, or airport could break down/explode/defect to the Liberals.

My money is on catastrophic Luggage failure. I can just imagine fellow passengers fleeing as my undergarments are propelled towards them at high speed. A poor Germen tourist being air-lifted off the boat after failing to avoid a pair of airborne jeans.

Or our fellow ferry passengers might revolt in a similar manner as those currently aboard the QM2. Only this time seizing the ship in order to follow yet another pod of majestic killer whales.

Our largest bone of contention among the members of E.S.E.T.P.C (The East Sooke European Trip Planning committee) is which ferry to catch. The 9am or the 11am? It's too close to call.

So I guess we should make it to the plane, as long as the Whales keep a low profile.

Of course, something could happen to the plane itself. Crash on a tropical island, or with our flight plan, an Iceberg. At least those guys on Lost earn a decent salary. And the smoked Salmon will keep us alive until we learn to hunt the Penguins. Or they learn to eat us.

T -2 days and counting. Moral: hungry but happy

2006-01-24T06:26:00.000Z

I have not even started to pack yet. Today is Monday, "The Flight" is on Wednesday, you do the math.

"Not packing" is my normal method of preparing for just about any journey, and in most cases is due to pure procrastination on my part.

Not this time. This time fate handed me a list that looks like it was written by a group of reality TV show producers on a drinking binge:

Head to Victoria Law courts to explain that the jury duty summons I received two days ago will conflict with the fact that I Wont Be In the Country.
Vote in Canada's version of Survivor: The Federal Election (as of this writing the Conservative tribe has won the food, but I don't think they will survive the immunity challenge).
Visit UPS to get my skateboard and camera released from customs hold, fail.
Phone UPS and explain travel plans, times. UPS agrees to waive brokerage fee, but package still delayed for 24 hours.

Now it's time for me to figure what I want to "not pack".

2006-01-24T06:21:00.000Z

First post....testing blog...