I've been meaning to blog about my trip up north for a while now, but I've just been too overrun to do so until now. As it is, I'm not presently in the most literary of moods, so I'm afraid this entry, while full of detail will be sparse.

While Paula and Poesy had managed to convince me to attend The Gathering over August long weekend, the massive rock slide on the Sea to Sky Highway pretty much decimated plans for the event and it was cancelled. I wasn't too keen on attending in the first place though (I'm not a fan of mixing other people with my faith) so I wasn't too heartbroken.

Chris had other plans for me anyway and was pleased to hear that I was suddenly free. He was going camping with some friends up at Lake Nahatlatch and was hoping that I'd come along. He even provided a tent and sleeping bag, since as the title says, I'd not been camping in a very long time.

Some ups and downs from the weekend:

• Ups
  • The view at night. I'd forgotten what the night sky looked like without all the pollution. It's amazing how many stars you can see when there's no interference.
  • The cool, clean water. We setup camp next to a glacier fed river with fast-moving rapids and beautiful (drinkable?) water. It made for nice background noise at night and a nice wading area during the day.
  • A helicopter! One of the rapid-riders fell off the boat, hit his head and needed to be air-lifted to hospital. The chopper set down just a few dozen meters from our site.
  • Singing Tenacious D's "Fuck Her Gently" with drunken friends Mark and Mark at 3am around a camp fire.
  • The view. British Columbia is so beautiful.
• Downs
  • Drunk people are not more fun while camping. In fact they are much worse.
  • Dirt. I like being clean. This is very hard to do while camping. I didn't shower for 4days and while the first thing I did when I got home was peel off the dirty clothes and shower for 30minutes, I emerged from the tub still feeling dirty. It may take a few days to get back to normal.
  • Bugs. While there weren't as many as I expected (I was barely consumed at all), there were still way too many. One big ugly beetle even hitched a ride home in my bag. He's gone now.
  • The temperature change. 30°C+ during the day, and single-digit temperatures at night make for a rough couple of days. I didn't have an air mattress and my loner sleeping bag had a hole in it the size of my foot... The first night was tough. Nights #2 and #3 however were spent in the back seat of Chris' Jeep which was far more comfortable (and warm) than it sounds.
  • Other people. Blasting rap music from your truck at the beach (thankfully, not where we were camped, just where we were visiting) is Not Cool. Neither is stealing firewood. Sadly, some people are unaware of this fact and made our trip less fun as a result.
  • More bugs. I think I may have run across an Asian Longhorned Beetle though I can't be sure. There were a bunch of them there, but I didn't having anything in which to capture them, so I only have a crappy cellphone picture. I'll send what I have to the forestry folks and let them figure it out.

Overall, I had a very nice trip and would like to go again, though next time I think I'll make sure I come better prepared. Also, non-drinking co-campers might also be nice. Next time :-)

Regardless, Chris gets big points for getting me out there. Thanks Chris! Oh, and for those of you who are interested, I have a few shots in my Snapshots section as the only camera I remembered to bring was my cellphone.

Update: 2008-08-07 07:59:50

I talked to Jessica, my old TEV director back in Ontario and she pointed me to an informational site on the Asian Longhorn Beetle. I poked around there for a bit and eventually found this page describing the qualities of the bug as well as a list of commonly confused bugs. It looks like what I saw was the "Oregon Fir Sawyer" which looks just like the ALB but one of its dots appears near its head and its shell is matte while the ALB shell is shiny.

Lately, I've come to dread my weekends, which is odd, because I'm so very busy during the week, but nonetheless it's happening. It took me a while to deduce from where this sense of desperation was coming, but it finally donned on me: it's the suburbs.

I don't think that I can accurately explain my discomfort with suburbia. Sure, it's completely wasteful and unsustainable, but my political reaons for hating that way of life are separate. No, it's the... emptiness. Standing in a field of parked cars in blistering heat, surrounded by pickup trucks and SUVs all humming along with their heat-generating A/C units. The acres of big box stores, parking lots and big box stores, all separated by pointless little medians and mock "nature" in the form of a tree in a concrete box or a wood bench facing yet another parking stall. It makes my nerves itch just thinking about it.

I've been out to the suburbs (yes, that includes Kelowna) every weekend without exception for at least 5 weeks now. Obviously, it's not out of a sense of masochism, but rather because I have friends out there. I guess, part of me secretly hoped that they'd all get the hell out of Langley and Surrey before I returned from Toronto and that I wouldn't have to endure a personal hell just to be with them, but it would seem that Fate is a sadist: rather than leave, they've entrenched themselves.

Jeanie and Ruth have moved into a pretty house in White Rock, and Chris and Trish have bought a house out in Langley. Quinn and Michelle seem to like it there and my parents moved to Kelowna because of the lifestyle. The truth is though, I don't begrudge any of them for their choices. They've chosen that life for themselves and barring the inevitable major financial collapse hinging on oil scarcity, they'll probably continue to enjoy it for years to come. I just hate having to go there to see them -- and by hate, I mean hate. The mere thought breeds contempt in my veins, I get bitter just boarding the Skytrain.

It's probably all a mix of the horrible memories I have of that place and my knowledge of the socio-economic-environmental implications of such a lifestyle that does this, but knowing this doesn't make it any better. I miss my friends. I'll continue to see them. But I just need to vent.

I hate it so much.

Edit: 2008-05-28

It's been brought to my attention that this post might be construed as bitterness toward my friends for making me come out to the burbs all the time without them making the same sacrifice for me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chris Rhodes and Trish especially have made the trip on many occasions and I've appreciated the visit every time. This post was, more than anything, about how much I hate the suburbs.

I just had a dream about Dave and thought it a good idea to keep it here:

I was walking down a Vancouver street at night carrying a few rolls of network cable when a guy passed me and mumbled something about how I didn't recognise him. I turned around just as he said it and was met with an older, more mature version of David Alexander, my former best friend from way back.

Dave was "eaten by the church" when we were 17 and we lost (or cut?) contact not long after that. From my end, I felt as though the Dave I knew had gone away and been replaced by a bible on legs. He made new (good Christian) friends and started ignoring the rest of us. It would seem that his inner circle of Atheists and Pagans were no longer welcome in his life, and so we obliged him by ignoring him right back.

Getting back to the dream, I apologised for not recognising him and he explained that he'd lost some of his network cable, to which I offered to take him back to my place so we could go through my collection and I could give him what he needed.

Back at my apartment, while I sifted through my various cables, offering one length and colour after another, a group of people playing poker back by the kitchen spoke up and asked if it'd be alright if they asked us some questions 'cause they were in need of smart people. I laughed a little and replied, "Sure, don't you know who this is? This is my old friend Dave, he's really sma--".

I couldn't finish the sentence. I was suddenly reminded of how the well-thought, sceptical friend I knew had died and been replaced by this new Christian form. These people were interested in knowledge and what could he offer now? Would he consult that book of his for the "answers"? Would he promote Intelligent Design and talk about how dinosaurs co-existed with humans 6000years ago? Or would we be treated to a lecture on how homosexuality is a choice and how the great flood carved out the Grand Canyon?

I turned to him then, looked him square in the eye and said: "I'm sorry, but I don't think that I can be friends with non-thinking people."

And with that, I woke up. I woke without a feeling of loss or pity. I think I finally said goodbye to my old friend.

I meant to post about this earlier, but the last few days have been kinda crazy. I just wanted to mention something kinda cool that happened the other day.

Our story begins roughly a week ago, as I was talking to Melanie on my phone about the package I'd just sent her for her birthday. I was complaining about how I seem to have misplaced most of the pens I'd acquired in Toronto and was left with only a crappy one which I was forced to use to address the package.

What I didn't know was that the following morning, she went to work, stole a bunch of those free swag pens from the office that you get at conventions and stuffed them into an envelope and mailed them my way. I received the package a couple days ago. In it, a bunch of really cool pens (including one that contains a series of mini adhesive flags!) and a note:

Now write me a letter

Melanie is awesome.

If it's at all possible, I think that I get more private emails and phone calls as a result of my No Comments Please posts than I do actual comments on my normal blog posts. I appreciate it though, I really do, and thanks for the words of support from all of my friends. I have some problems of my own that I need to look at and solve and knowing that I have that kind of support can only be a good thing.

I'm ok though, so you can stop worrying. Moving to a new place can be really tough and returning to a life that I ran away from isn't making it any easier. I'll be fine. Don't worry.

Check it out. That's why I'm here. Sure, it's not as noble as the reasons behind my exodus from this place, but it's a hell of a thing to come back to... and this is the wintertime. I can't wait 'till summer.

I had a bit of a crisis of faith this morning. For a moment, I wondered if I'd made a mistake in returning. Actually, it was considerably more than just a moment. I'm different from who I was when I left, and it would seem that the longer I'm here, the less I feel that this is the case. I'm not sure if I can remember how to be the person I want to be. The habits and connections I developed in Toronto are gone and I find myself falling into the same negative patterns I wallowed in 7 years ago -- behaviour I tried to beat out of myself in my self-imposed exile.

I can't explain it any better than I this and the people I would usually talk to about this are just too far away, either physically or socially. I miss my friends. I miss bike rides to High Park and cake at Future Bakery. I miss gyros at 2am and Farscape on Melanie's couch. I miss my friends.

It'll get better though. It has to.

I was talking to Susan tonight and throughout the conversation, I proceeded to take screenshots -- capturing her face in its many expressions. She really is a very pretty girl. I told her that after we finished for the night, I'd put together a collage of my favourites and so, here they are. First the original, and then some photoshoppings just for kicks:

The original, just a stacking of the images and resizing to fit the 500x500 grid

Black and white, done with an extra layer playing with the hue

Playing with the colour some, I used a Render » Clouds filter and then changed the blending to "Colour something"... It's late, I can't remember.

Using the same trick from above, only setting the blending to "Light something"

I need to take a moment to take stock of the friends I've hurt or alienated in the past few months:

• Pavel: He calls all the time, and I never call him back.
• Colin: I call to talk about computer stuff 'cause I need his help, but we never see each other outside of that.
• Chris Rhodes: Forgot to call him on his birthday... again
• Emily Jane: I book a trip to South Korea and don't bother to tell her.
• Melanie: I put a countdown on my blog marking the days 'till I move to Vancouver, not bothering to consider her feelings.
• Annie: Forgot to talk to her about how I can't make it to her wedding, instead she has to find out about it here.

There are most likely others, but as we've already seen, I'm not very good at remembering much of anything, especially these days.

I won't try to justify any of this -- I can't and I shouldn't try. I'm trying to do too many things, to be too many things to too many people and I'm failing miserably. I'm so sorry that you all are bearing the brunt of it. I will endeavour to do better, and I will make it up to all of you.

This past Saturday I experienced the joys of having my wisdom teeth removed. The NO2 freaked me out, so the process was predominantly gas-free, which didn't really bother me since the local anaesthetic was more than enough to get me through the process.

Melanie has since been taking care of me at her place and I've been floating between fever, jaw pain, and cold sweats since then. As I was just telling Suzan, I'm pretty much ok so long as I don't move or talk.. which is why I'm not at work yet.

I've been using this time to do some of the stuff I've been putting off, like re-coding this site and finding the various professionals I need in town to get my trip ready. Starting with an accountant and another photographer for my passport photos. I'll probably see if I can get that stuff out of the way on my way to work on Thursday or Wednesday.

That is all for now. Big thanks goes to Melanie for her usual super-awesomeness in taking care of me (I can be a really bitchy sick person) and to all of my friends who have been sending me "get well" messages here and there. Here's hoping I recover quickly.

I had a lovely night tonight out with a good cross-section of my friends here in The Big Smoke. People I know from the real world, or meatspace activities like TEV or The TPSC were there, as well as a bunch of the people I've met online. And most importantly, they all got along (and even mingled!) very well. It's a nice social experiment I like to do every year and I'm all warm and fuzzy-like on the results of this evening. Thank you to everyone who could come out.

As the title says, this will be my last June 25th in this city -- unless for some reason I decide to do a birthday on a Toronto vacation in the future. I'm not sure how I feel about it all really. It's a hell of a thing to partition your social life on opposite sides of a country this size... There's not one way you can put it all together in the end. Somehow, regardless of what you do, you'll be away from people you care about... forever. I just hope lots of them come to visit (or move!) out West.