The Passionate Traveler

Australian Medical Internship Crisis

2010-12-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

Just recently in August 2010, the Australian government realizes that they are lacking the number of Internship positions for everyone who graduates from medical school. Canadians and other internationals who funds a huge part of medical schools are realizing that there are no guarantee for them to have a internship position at any public funded hospital. The internship or what we call "residency" in Canada is critical for fresh graduates to decide what specialty of medicine a Doctor is interested in.

This online article is part of my medical research if I want to obtain a MD in Oz land and most likely come back to Canada to complete my residency.

Here is the article from the Australian Medical News today.

Article Date: 26 Aug 2010 - 0:00 PDT

The AMA shares the concerns of Australia's biggest medical schools that the national shortage of medical internships has severe implications for the future medical workforce and its ability to meet the health care needs of a growing and ageing population, with more people suffering chronic and complex conditions.

Dr Pesce said the internship shortage has reached crisis point and all Australian governments, including the next Commonwealth Government, must work together to find solutions.

"The most recent estimate from the former National Health Workforce Taskforce is that Australia has a shortage of around 4500 doctors," Dr Pesce said.

"Since 2004, there has been a strategy in place to increase medical student numbers dramatically.

"By 2012, there will be around 3500 medical school graduates each year.

"This will go a long way towards addressing workforce shortages, although we know that we currently don't have enough supervisors, infrastructure, and other resources to train all these students and continue to train graduates.

"The AMA has been campaigning since 2004 for more support to teach and train these students and graduates.

"We need to invest in infrastructure, fund more supervisors, and utilise settings beyond public hospitals to make sure that students and graduates can get hands-on clinical experience with patients.

"We know that we are fast approaching a crisis in relation to the provision of prevocational and specialist training positions for medical school graduates in hospitals, general practice, and other community and private settings.

"To illustrate the challenge, in 2009 there were 2243 intern positions across the country, which falls well short of the 3500 positions that are needed in 2013.

"Already, NSW, Tasmania and Queensland are looking unable to offer intern places to all applicants.

"Current allocation arrangements give overseas full fee paying medical graduates the lowest level of priority in the system and they will be first cohort to miss out on an intern place.

"But as domestic graduate numbers continue to grow, they too will face the same problem in a year or two.

"Medical training does not stop at the university gate.

"Doctors undergo many years of training once they leave medical school, including prevocational and specialist training.

"They can't go on to get full recognition as a doctor unless they complete an intern year once they leave medical school.

"Unless we devote more resources to medical training after medical school, the reality is that, as graduate numbers grow, more and more graduates will miss out on an intern place and be forced to look overseas to complete their training.

"Given our current workforce shortages, this is an enormous waste of our investment in boosting medical school places.

"The AMA calls for no further increase in student places until the internship and other training issues have been addressed.

"The health system needs to provide enough prevocational and specialist training positions to ensure that all our future graduates can go on to get a comprehensive medical education, and that we fully train enough doctors locally to meet the future health needs of the community."

Dr Pesce said that the AMA has been calling on the Commonwealth to institute benchmarks in its hospital funding arrangements that require the States and Territories to provide sufficient numbers of training places in their public hospitals.

"The Medical Training Review Panel must monitor the performance of the States and Territories against these benchmarks."

Source:
Australian Medical Association

Medical School on the Brain again...

2010-09-30T14:41:00.003-06:00

Oh Lovely...

It's been indeed a lazy and up most quiet day at work and I decided to stumble on some old medical student blogs that I have always read in the past.

With my previous postings about people who I have known have passed away, I am thinking to myself that I am entering make or break mid-thirties and what I am going to do with my life. I got a beautiful girl who I love dearly, marriage and family plans and of course world travel. We agreed to each other that we cannot strive in once place for long as the boredom will extirpate us both.

What will I do with my life-long passion of entering the field of Medicine? These questions have been floating around in my head since my darling has finished her University Degree.

Volunteer in the ER again? Talk to my family Doctor? Plan a road map?

Perhaps being older and more diverse in my personal and professional life will give me the tenacity to reach such ambitions.

Rain, Rain and more Rain

2010-09-13T15:22:00.006-06:00

The summer weather in Calgary has been very interesting this year. It's been a mix of rain, snow (hail) and little sunshine. I been telling people that it's the same as living in Vancouver, Canada during the winter time.

To fuel my curiosity on how bad it has been, I have found this summer's weather statistics:

Check out the average temperature for the month of June, July and August. Now that's cold for summer time....

Is this guy crazy or what?

2010-09-11T21:32:00.002-06:00

For those who are following the anti-Muslim "Koran-Burning" headlines, here is another one that's puts things in perspective. Why do we have people in the world who are making it harder for world peace.

In the corner of Sunday's Oliphant cartoon titled "Pastor Jones goes to New York", a small character quips, "Your 15 minutes are up, Reverend" (Bangkok Post, Sept 12).

Pakistanis thrash an effigy of pastor Terry Jones during a protest in Multan on Sept 10, against the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Centre’s plan to burn copies of Islam’s holy book. Rev Terry Jones (below, right) cancelled the burning in exchange for the New York City mosque’s plans to be relocated to Gainesville, Florida.

That may be true about Terry Jones' personal fame, since a month ago no one on this side of the globe had heard about him or his tiny Protestant church in Gainesville, Florida, nor of his 2010 book, Islam is of the Devil.

But when he announced the "International Burn a Koran Day" from 6pm to 9pm supposedly to be held on Sept 11, the world's attention descended upon him.

The outcry against his proposed act from religious leaders around the world notwithstanding, world leaders from President Barack Obama to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to David Howell Petraeus _ a former professor of international relations who received his PhD from Princeton and is now the commander of US forces in Afghanistan _ all were in unison in appealing to the pastor to call off this act, fearing it would provide some Muslims with justification for "holy anger" that could fuel further violence around the world, and American lives, among others, would be endangered.

After the intervention of Imam Muhammad Musri, who arranged a meeting with another New York imam concerning the construction of an Islamic centre and a mosque near the site of the 9/11 atrocity, Pastor Jones told the press that his Koran burning act would be put on hold for the time being.

If one agrees with Dominique Moisi in his recent book, The Geopolitics of Emotion (2010), that one cannot fully understand the world today without trying to construe the ways in which emotions such as fear, humiliation and hope shape world politics, and that a clash of emotions between fear in "the West" and humiliation in the Muslim world is going on, then I would argue that what Pastor Jones did was to show us how vulnerable to global violence the world has become. More importantly, to live with such vulnerability, a genuine appreciation of such a danger is to understand both the meaning of the Koran in the lives of Muslims, and the dangerous implications of book burning, sacred and otherwise, for freedom and violence.

Koran and the Muslim Mind

I've just read a short Thai novel about a Buddhist teacher who falls in love with the daughter of an imam in a southern province. The man is first captured by the beauty of her voice reciting the sacred Koran.

It is believed that the sound of the holy book being read can soften the human heart. I myself try to read the Koran every day, and in the silence of the night I can feel its power consoling my sometimes restless soul.

To be a Muslim, there are 6 articles of faith one has to believe: in God, in His angels, in His books _ and Koran is not the only one _ in his prophets, in the end of days, and that all good and ill come from God.

The Koran is a book arranged into 114 chapters with more than 6,000 verses. The Koran has many names. Apart from being called "al-huda" or guidance post, it is called "Kalam-ul-lah" or "Words of God". As a revealed religion, similar to Christianity and Judaism and different from Buddhism as an enlightened religion, Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad, who was illiterate, received God's first revelation in a cave in the Mountain of Light in 610 AD. And the first time it came to him, it came in 5 verses:

"Recite in the name of your Lord who created

Man from blood coagulated.

Recite for your Lord is Most Generous,

Who taught by the pen,

Taught what they did not know unto men."

(Chapter 96: verse 1-5)

If he or she is unclean, a Muslim cannot touch the Koran (which literally means "to read" or "to recite"). Only after making ablutions can he or she touch the book. Even when the books are worn out, they must be treated with respect. A Durban magazine, al-Ummah (2008) reports the case of Baker Wahid, a South African farmer who used to collect worn copies of the Koran and respectfully bury them in his own farmland. In the town of Quetta in western Pakistan next to the Afghan border, in 1992 Haji Allan Noor Daavi began digging a cave in his friend's quarry, to create a depot for old, worn copies of the Koran which he packed in linen sacks. Presently his endeavour became a foundation called Jabal-e-Noor al -Qur'an (Koran, Mountain of Light) which continues to collect old and damaged copies of the book to either be restored or buried.

Such reverence for the Koran in the minds of Muslims needs to be understood. So when Pastor Jones, in one of his interviews, points out that he will burn the Koran, and that though he may not like it the Muslims could do the same to the Bible, he misunderstands two important points.

First, as earlier indicated, Muslims have to believe in God's other holy books, which include the Bible and the Torah as well, and therefore to even think about such a possibility should be abominable to the Muslim mind in general. Second, Muslims believe that words in the Koran are "Words from God" written right into the pure heart of an illiterate man untouched by other books. In this sense, from a comparative, theological perspective, the Koran as the word of God cannot be compared to the Bible, but to Jesus as Logos and for Christians in general as the Son.

A proposal, now or in the future, to burn the Koran would therefore be a dangerously easy way to ride the escalation of existing conflict involving Muslims anywhere in the world, into the sphere of deadly violence when the sacred text is violated, and Muslims' humiliation resulting from global politics becomes highly charged with a collective anger.

The Danger of Book Burning

From a secular perspective, the threat to burn the Koran is another episode in the last 45 centuries of book burning. From 259 to 210 BC, the Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti burned so many books and at least 460 Confucian scholars with them. In 640, Caliph Omar burned all the volumes in the library of Alexandria. The Mongols under Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1258 and devastated its centuries-old libraries. The Christian missionaries who accompanied the conquistadors made bonfires of the Aztec and Mayan codices. In 1650, a religious pamphlet by William Pynchon was confiscated by Puritan authorities in Massachusetts, condemned by the General Court and burned by the public executioner in the Boston marketplace _ perhaps the first incident of book-burning in America.

Closer to our time, on May 10, 1933 in most university towns, German university students burned more than 25,000 "un-German" books in ceremonies complete with band-playing and "fire oaths". Among the books burned were those by Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann, and the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. In 1992, a Serbian commander spent three days destroying the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

What is it about books that they get burned and destroyed and desecrated throughout history?

Baez in A Universal History of the Destruction of Books (2010) raises the question why the destruction of books provokes a distinct sense of horror among us. People would rather give away a book than destroy it. Books, unlike any other inanimate object, are extensions of human memory and imagination. They are burned precisely because of this connection to personal or communal identity. Books are made of words, and if it is through words that define who we are, burning them turn part of our identity into fire, and then into ashes.

Perhaps it is also important at this time to be reminded of the wise words of the beloved 19th century German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, whose books were also burned by the Nazis. Heine wrote in his 1820-1821 play Almansor the famous admonition: "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."

Bangkok Post: Published: 14/09/2010 at 12:00 AM

Bush coming to Calgary?

2009-03-11T19:05:00.008-06:00

What?

You got to be kidding... Our beloved most screwed up ex-president from United States of American will be arriving in Calgary next to give a speech about his ups and downs through out his presidency. I really don't expect to see a warm welcome and native Calgarians fork out the money to listen to his ramblings...

Here is a funny article from the CBC website:

Protesters prepare for Bush's Calgary speech

Peace activists in Calgary are preparing a less than warm welcome for George W. Bush, who will be at a private function next week delivering one of his first speeches since leaving the White House.

A coalition calling itself People vs. Bush has planned a week of protest activities, starting Wednesday at noon with a banner display near the downtown Telus Convention Centre, where Bush is set to speak next week "on eight momentous years in the Oval Office" and "the challenges facing the world in the 21st century."

Group spokeswoman Collette Lemieux said the activists will come from as far away as Vancouver and Toronto to participate.

"I think a lot of people are really motivated by the idea that we have to make it really clear to him that he's not off the hook," she said. "I think it's important to people who think that he has committed war crimes to not just let this go by the wayside."

The group plans to hold a mock war crimes trial for Bush this weekend and stage a peaceful rally outside his speech next Tuesday. Lemieux is asking those who can't participate to send their shoes for a symbolic protest echoing the Iraqi journalist who threw his footwear at Bush.

An estimated 1,500 people are expected at the invitation-only, paid event to hear Bush. Organizers Andy McCreath and Christian Darbyshire reportedly paid former U.S. president Bill Clinton $150,000 for a March 2006 speech in Edmonton, and have hired Lance Armstrong and Colin Powell for other high-profile speaking engagements in the past.

Source: CBC.ca

Lindsay Leigh Kimmett - 2 year medical student at University of Calgary

2009-02-15T19:01:00.002-07:00

I have always wanted to blog a note about Lindsay as she was a 2nd year medical student at University of Calgary and a close personal friend of my family. I have met her and her family once or twice in my lifetime and learning about her tragic accident certainly has hit home.

Here is her obituary from last year:

December 31, 1981 - February 17, 2008

With overwhelming sorrow and shattered hearts, we announce the sudden passing of our precious daughter, Lindsay on February 17, 2008. Lindsay was born on December 31, 1981 in Calgary and was completely adored by her parents, Kelly and Dianne, and her brothers, Taylor and Reid. Lindsay was everything we could have asked for in a daughter - beautiful, intelligent, athletic and most of all caring. She was a devoted sister to her brothers and loved to "mother" them from an early age. This ability turned to teaching as they grew older and they both knew who to ask if they needed help with homework. As they all grew older, we tried to make Sunday family dinners a priority - what special times to sit and discuss the events in everyone's life. Lindsay's voracious thirst for knowledge started at a very young age. Each night she wanted to read her books and then would lie on her bed with Mom or Dad and ask "What are we doing tomorrow and what should I dream about?" As she learned to read so young, she also quickly became an accomplished piano player and subsequently learned to play the flute and piccolo. Linds never stopped dreaming and learning, becoming a model student and excellent athlete. She graduated as Cochrane High School's Valedictorian in 1999 and received the Governor General's medal for the highest marks in her graduating class. Lindsay then earned a kinesiology degree with distinction from the University of Calgary in 2004. After taking time off to travel and work Lindsay decided that medicine was her future calling, achieving marks in the 99.7 percentile on her MCAT exams. She entered the Faculty of Medicine at U of C in August 2006 and was currently in her second year of studies. Lindsay had decided that Emergency Medicine was her passion and was preparing to do clerkships in Toronto, Halifax and Kingston in the coming months.

Lindsay was driven in her pursuit of knowledge through her extensive travels. We have learned that one of her favorite quotes was by St. Augustine, "The world is a book and those who don't travel read only a page." We always chose to make our vacations family times and have so many wonderful memories of time shared on beaches at tropical destinations, camping in Yellowstone, summer spent driving across Canada, two European vacations and exploring Disney facilities. As Lindsay grew, so did her sense of adventure. She had traveled extensively in Europe - the latest being a month spent alone in Italy. Between her first and second year of Med school, she chose to do an elective in Tanzania. At the end of her trip, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and to the credit of her character, she reached the summit while suffering from severe bronchitis. She was an avid photographer on her travels and her final gift to Dianne was a framed photograph of zebras in their head to tail stance which she had taken while on African safari. Her final trip was a relaxing week in the Dominican Republic with friends from Med school.

All of her life experiences, studying, reading, working and attending school for twenty-two years made Lindsay what her Dad called "the smartest person I have ever known". You could Google things but it was much better to just ask Linds! Lindsay was the ultimate employee and her Dad was the lucky recipient of her skills. She started as a cashier at Cochrane IDA Drugs at the age of fourteen and became a pharmacy technician working side by side with Kelly. Lindsay also teched and did accounting at Rexall, moved on to Super Drug Mart, United Prescription Service and Calgary Prescription Services where she ran the total operation. Her short time as a personal trainer led her to decide on her path to Medicine. Anyone who worked with Lindsay always knew the job first would be learned accurately and quickly and then fine-tuned and perfected. With her desire to learn, caring attitude, personal confidence and attention to detail Lindsay would have become a wonderful doctor.

Lindsay also loved sports, especially winter pursuits. She started figure skating at age five but quickly told her parents that it was boys skates and ringette that she really wanted. She played ringette until the age of twenty and then switched to her passion - girls hockey. Her main activity was hockey but as she said: "Ice, ball or mini - you name it - I love it - especially the Flames." Lindsay played for several ladies teams over the last seven years and was the leader of the Med school second year Macaques ladies team. Kelly and Dianne attended her final game with the Macaques last Tuesday and she played the finest game we had ever witnessed her play leading her team to a 3 to 2 overtime win over the first year class. It would be the last time her loving parents would see her alive - beaming from ear to ear, rosy cheeked, sweaty and exhausted in her beloved "Monumental" (med school nickname) jersey. Lindsay was also instrumental in organizing the "Ice Cup" inter varsity hockey tournament held last fall. Lindsay died on Sunday morning returning from a hockey game with her regular club team, the Jets. She was a passenger in a car that rolled only seconds from her parents' home.

We were never sure how Lindsay fit volunteer commitments into her hectic schedule - assisting with the PARTY program at Foothills Hospital, organizing multiple fundraisers for teams she was involved with, as treasurer of her Med school class, and a member of the Med School class of 2009 graduation committee.

Besides her parents, Kelly and Dianne and brothers Taylor and Reid, Lindsay is survived by grandparents, Lorraine Kimmett and Merlin and Betty Stauffer; uncles and aunts Drew and Rhonda Wilson, Russ and Angela Kimmett, Dennis and Margaret Nice, George and Brenda Jablonsky, Doug Stauffer, Oscar and Maureen Biasini, and Darren and Pam Stauffer. She is also survived by cousins Kelsey Wilson, Hunter, McConnell and Carly Kimmett, Angie, Christie, Debbie, Josh and Daniel Nice, Brianne and Miles Jablonsky, Aaron and Garrett Biasini and Julie, Peter and Samuel Stauffer. She is also survived by numerous great-aunts and uncles and many, many friends. She was predeceased by her grandpa Bill Kimmett in 1991.

Our family and the world has lost someone who made a difference every day of her life and someone who was going to do great things in the future. We cannot let Lindsay's dreams go unfulfilled and so as a family, we will carry on her legacy with the establishment of the Lindsay Leigh Kimmett Memorial Fund. We will continue to make the world a better place as she most surely would have done. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made at any Royal Bank (Cochrane or Calgary branches). Tax receipts will be issued at a later date. This fund will be used for youth scholarships, facilities and projects in the Cochrane area.

We have been told that Lindsay had never been happier than in the last three months of her life. Her schooling, her hockey, her new friend Ben MacLelland, her anticipation of clerkship and her love of family and friends had Lindsay at her peak. Linds was a chip off the old blocks in so many ways. We discovered a written menu and a shopping list meant for the turkey dinner she was preparing (just like Dianne always does) for many of her med school friends that fateful day. We are sure her party for that day had been carefully arranged just as Kelly would have done. In her birth announcement of December 31, 1981 the following words ended the formalities - "She is you, she is me, and we are one." Nothing has changed with her untimely passing - Lindsay will always be with us - forever in our hearts.

A Celebration of Lindsay's Momentous Life will be held at Cochrane High School Gymnasium (529 - 4 Avenue North) on Saturday, February 23, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. Family Graveside to follow in Cochrane.

Aaron Gerhard Niedergesaess

2008-10-04T15:30:00.004-06:00

A very close friend of my baby brother passed away in a car accident last Tuesday and I personally knew Aaron from the Calgary Hilltopper football days. His funeral was a very sad one as he will be greatly missed by many. I have included his Obituary here for your reading...

March 12, 1987 - September 30, 2008 Aaron Niedergesaess of Calgary passed away suddenly in a motor vehicle accident on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at the age of 21 years. Aaron touched the lives of many with his open, enthusiastic nature and his big heart. He was an avid athlete who excelled in anything he tried. In 2006, he helped the Vancouver Island Raiders win the Canadian Junior Championship. Aaron will be lovingly remembered by his daughter "baby girl" Giselle; soulmate Jenine Gilbertson; parents Margaret and Ernst Niedergesaess; brother Marc (Rachel) Niedergesaess; sisters, Kirsten (Mike) Petersen and Eve Niedergesaess; grandfather Paul Babchishin; nephews, Michael and Jesse; nieces, Kate and Anna; as well as numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends. Funeral Services at Centre Street Church (3900 - 2 Street N.E.) on Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. Graveside Service to follow at Queen's Park Cemetery. Forward condolences through www.mcinnisandholloway.com . Donations can be made for Aaron's daughter, payable to Donna Babchishin and/or Sarah Anderson (in Trust for Giselle Niedergesaess) or at any TD Canada Trust branch. In living memory of Aaron Niedergesaess, a tree will be planted at Fish Creek Provincial Park by McINNIS & HOLLOWAY FUNERAL HOMES, Chapel of the Bells, 2720 CENTRE STREET NORTH. Telephone: 403-276-2296.

Marathon of Hope

2008-09-14T14:46:00.000-06:00

Sunday morning of September 14th, I woke up at 8:00 am ready and was excited to run in the annual Terry fox Marathon of Hope. After jumping out of bed, I had a quick shower and put on my favorite running shorts & shirt and headed into the kitchen for a bowl of rice crispy cereal and a few bananas.

After feeling the energy from breakfast, I quickly called my friend Paul Chan from my work and to see if he was alright from arriving into Calgary from Los Angeles last night. After several calls and Blackberry text messages, he was not up.

I assembled my sports gear, went out to the car and headed downtown as we were required to complete the pre-event registration. On the way, I made another phone call to Paul and could tell that he was still not up. "I wonder what happened... Did he make it back in time?" Questions I asked myself.

Finally I found a great parking spot near the intersection of 4th avenue & third street. I decided to call Paul again to let him know that I was close to Eau Claire and ready to rock and roll. Finally I heard the tired voice answered on the other end. He did not get to sleep until 1:30 am and he realized himself that he better hustle and start driving downtown.

Walking into the Eau Claire Shopping center, I completed my registration and waited for Paul to show up. After 30 minutes later, he arrived and we finalized our pre-event tasks together and went outside to the starting line. A quick glance around the starting gate area, I was surprised at the vast number of participants that were ready to take on the 10 KM challenge raising funds for the Terry Fox Cancer Foundation.

A few minutes later after a few leg stretches, the event organizer started his count down and we were off!!!! Since I have not done 10 km for a long time, I decided to take it easy and get myself into a comfortable pace. I was not in this for the time, I was not in this for the competition, I was not in this for attention, I was simply in this because deep inside I wanted to support the ongoing charity and at the same time keep my body in shape. I did one in Vietnam so I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

The run itself was not bad at all, it was a beautiful day with the bright sunshine over us and very little wind coming from the north. We covered the distance along the south side of the Bow River from Eau Claire all the way to Edworthy park and ventured back on the north side of the river pathways. Half way through the run, we ran into my boss from work and hung out for 20 minutes before he had to slow down.

At the end, after running through Price Island we finally passed the finish line taking 50 minutes. We did not have any watches on us however a media crewman filming at the finish line told us the time and we were both shocked that we did it in 50 minutes.

After we waited for my boss to finish the run, the three of us hung out and had a few snacks to eat and listed to the local post-run events. Music, the smell of BBQ hot dogs, Terry Fox souvenirs, and the history of the Marathon of Hope filled the atmosphere. After waving good bye to my boss, Paul and I headed to Chinatown for a big Asian lunch and reflected on the last two hours.

Saying good bye to Paul after our lunch, I walked back to the car and the first thing I did was called someone very special in my life and said:

"Dad, I finished the 10KM run here in Calgary and I want to dedicate this day to you after knowing the hardships you been through"... I could not finish the phone call as my tears and emotions were overwhelming...

Terry Fox Run

2008-09-10T16:12:00.004-06:00

Since I have done one race in Hanoi, Vietnam, I have decided that I will run the 10 KM race in Eau Claire and raise money for the Terry Fox Cancer Foundation. The race will be on Sunday September 14th and it should take no more than a couple of hours.

For those who want to pledge for me, please send me an email and I will put you on the pledge sheet.

Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

2008-09-09T18:43:00.010-06:00

It's been almost a whole year since I have composed a blog so I might as well start again cause it is the only way that you can look back on and review things that have crossed path with yourself...

I finally took upon myself and watch this famous last exuberant lecture given by Randy Pausch. For those who don't know Randy, he has recently passed away with pancreas cancer. He dedicated his last lecture to achieving your childhood dreams which has been a tremendous inspiration to people around the world.

You can watch the lecture online at Youtube or read the online transcript.

So the big question pounders my thoughts... What are my childhood dreams? (in no particular order)

Climb Mount Kilimanjaro - I always wanted to climb one of the world highest summits and looking back to the adversities and accomplishments to make it to the top
Become a Medical Doctor - I remembered the day that a relative came up to me before my grandmother's funeral and asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up because it would be the best time to tell her before she rises to the heavens. During my speech, I told my grandmother that I will become a doctor so I can cure people and ease their pain and suffering.
Travel on every Continent in the World - I am not there yet however I have managed to experience many different cultures already and my task is not done yet.
Give an Inspirational Speech to People that I don't know - I always felt that I was very different and faced many challenges / adversities. I just want to pass on the information to others and let them know that they are not alone.
Trek the West Coast Trail - Canada has lots of mountains and trails however there is this particular one that I want to do because of it's vast landscape views and the history.
Meet Michael Gannotti in Person- Michael is a teacher who converted to IT and has passions and has unbelievable followers located around the world with his Sharepoint position at Microsoft.

Experiencing Mui Ne

2007-07-10T05:22:00.001-06:00

The coast line of Mui Ne is located 30 km east of the provincial capital city of Phan Thiet. Taking a taxi or motorbike ride through the area allows anyone to see endless resorts with unlimited white sand beaches and coconuts trees filling the views. It's like a scene from a hollywood movie with breathtaking landscapes with good looking people in their swimsuits walking the shore lines.

Moon's family and I did many activities during the week as we ventured through the region checking out the local culture and villages in South Vietnam. Some of the activities that we did were:

Took a local bus to the east side of the Mui Nu village to see people taking crazy carpet rides down the red-yellow sand dunes. These sand dunes have developed over many years with the wind collecting the sand and creating it's wonderful mother nature artwork of lines and curves. Of course for a small price, we all did the crazy-carpet ride and took many photos of our actions.
Swimming in both the Ocean and in the man-made swimming pool in the middle of the resort. It was great experience for everyone because the water was clean and fresh. We spent endless hours walking up and down the coast line and often jumping in when the bigger waves putting on a show for the locals and the tourists. If we were tired of the bashings from the waves, we would all settle in the resort swimming pool and relax without having to worry about the waves coming over our heads
We used different modes of transportation to commute through the region. We have walked, ran, piggybacked, taxied, motorbiked and the biggest highlight of all was driving a 1968 American War series Jeep. I kid you not! It the same model where the windshield comes down, the doors removed, a huge back seat for the family members and even better, the original colors of the American War USA Army colors.
Went to the base of a mountain that has Vietnam's biggest budda within the Pagoda there. Upon our arrival, purchasing tickets, the whole family took a Gondola car (Just like Sunshine Village in Canada) to the top of the mountain and visited the Long Son Pagoda.
The budda at the top was a lying down budda which is certainly out of the norm compared to the other budda I seen in South East Asia.

There were plenty of activities to do before we made our way back to HCMC before our flight back to Hanoi.

Off the Coast of Mui Ne

2007-07-07T19:07:00.000-06:00

Before I left for Europe, I promised Moon that we would take Moon's family to the Southern coast of Vietnam in the cities of Phan Thiet and Mui Ne. Between these two cities, they are one of Vietnam un-tapped tourist beach areas as they both show little signs of overcrowding or over commercialized.

Both Moon and I have purchased the Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines family tickets leaving Hanoi on July 8 departing to Ho Chi Minh City and coming back to the capital on July 15th. We would spend the first part of the day in HCMC and taking the late evening train to Phan Thiet City (5 hours) and 30 minute taxi ride to the Hawaii Resort in Mui Ne. Upon our return, we would spend another whole day in HCMC as it was the first time for Moon's mother and sister.

We both chose to return and stay in the Hawaii Resort because we have developed a great personal relationship with the owner who we have met last time in spring of 2006. He is a Viet Kieu (Oversea Vietnamese) who have originally escaped from the South after the fall of Saigon in 1976. He has established family in Southern California and a married son living in Hawaii. Many members of his family have invested into this low profile (word of mouth marketing) hotel resort which we both think it's one of the most beautiful places we been too with nearly 100 percent privacy.

Moon's parents / sister shared one villa and we stayed in another which was a few meters away from them. The resort itself is vastly covered in palm trees and other natural tropical plants gives the place a real Vietnamese green feel. In the middle of the resort, hosts a large swimming pool with a nice shadow end for those who cannot swim well can stand and also can do the water dance. They have made the temperature of the water slightly cooler than the air so it does give a refreshing feeling when swimming there. At the end of the property, leads directly on to the white sand beach and eventually into the Gulf of Tonkin with endless 1-2 meter waves crashing into the shore.

Chasing Documents

2007-07-06T04:29:00.000-06:00

Knowing that I made plans with Moon’s family to take a holiday off the coast of Southern Vietnam starting July 8^th, it was important that Moon and I made a full 100 percent effort to submit the local government outstanding documents required for her Canadian Student Visa Application. We had to venture on my motorbike downtown to the Ministry of Justice to pick up the Vietnamese version of Moon’s criminal Background check document and find a qualified notary to translate it into English for the Canadian immigration officials based in Ho Chi Minh City. Moon has requested the express services for this specific document as normally it would take three weeks for them to prepare it. With some “greasing the wheels” money, we managed to obtain the document in last than one week.

We hit a dead-end when we both found out that the government recently outlawed all the private notary clinics in Vietnam forcing local people to go through the official government channels to have these documents notarized. Once again after some heavy searching, Moon managed to find a place in the city and she requested the “express greasing the wheels service” so we can have it completed as fast as we can. We just don't want to wait for a long time for the visa because every day spent in Vietnam means a day less preparing for school and work in September of 2007.

I hope that the Canadian immigration officials will not be as busy this summer with the applications so hopefully the processing time for Moon's visa will be smooth and we both can leave before the end of this month.

Canada Day

2007-07-01T04:13:00.000-06:00

Knowing that I will be in Hanoi over our once a year national birthday, I decided to celebrate Canada day with my local Hanoian-Canadian peers. Mentally this was important to me because I know that it will be my last Canada Day in Vietnam as both Moon and I have plans to return to Canada for work and studying in the fall.

The Canadian birthday party was held at a private serviced apartment complex overlooking West Lake which was a few minutes away from the house that I am currently looking after. I showed up late because during the party starting time, it was pouring buckets and buckets of rain on the city making it virtually un-drivable until the floods find their way into the main river stream on the far west side of the city.

Arriving at the party after the floods are finished, I was greeted with a Molson Canadian beer served by a fellow Canadian who was wearing his classic Montreal Canadian Hockey jersey. What a hoot that was. Of course with two languages in Canada, it’s important to say "bonjour" and the French Canadian greetings which is very popular in the Canadian community of Hanoi. My two best IT friends finally showed up and we got a chance to catch up and say hi as it’s been a long time since the three of us were in a single place for more than 5 minutes.

After the party, I had to quickly pick up Moon for the big surprise 2 year anniversary. Knowing that we both forgotten our 1^st year anniversary, I felt it would be cool and exciting for both of us to have a nice Candle light dinner follow by a nice relaxing night in town. I brought her a couple of presents from my European holiday that I was planning not to give to her until this night and managed to wrap them up in a pinkish decorative box filled with hundreds of red rose petals. The actual surprise was that I had her blindfolded on the back of my motorbike and drove across town to the Highway 4 restaurant where we first went to after we met for the first time.

The dinner, presents, candles, roses, night in town and the ambience was indeed perfect and we enjoyed every minute of it. It’s is sure nice to celebrate two specials events on July 1^st therefore I am looking forward to next year as we can watch the fireworks overlooking Scotman’s hill in Calgary.

Sarah Toller, February 7, 1977 - June 12, 2007

2007-06-25T09:36:00.000-06:00

This blog entry is dedicated to Sarah Toller who was a funny, strong woman who have been diagnosed with malignant melanoma. After many rounds of oncology treatments, she has passed away on June 12th with her loving husband and her mother at her side. I have found her blog website from the online medical community I often read and it tells about her fighting spirit since her first diagnostic until the very end.

Please join me in wishing Sarah and her loving husband Derek all of your thoughts and prayers.

I hope God is looking after you where ever you are...

Note: Please, wear sunscreen. Don't tan. If you notice a suspicious mole, see your doctor. If there is any suspicion, get the mole removed. It's the only way to know for certain.

Cruising around Hanoi

2007-06-17T21:25:00.000-06:00

Upon my arrival in Hanoi, I was greeted by my wonderful Moony who I have not seen for over two months. We have kept in touch over email, internet phone and finally resorting to Skype as I have figured out how to pay with my credit card online. (Sounds weird for an IT guy with over 12 years of experience on computers)

I spent my first weekend finishing up preparing Moon's Student Visa Application for Canada and at the same time catching up with old friends from the school I used to work at. I have realized that I have arrived at a sensitive time as most of the teachers were suffering from end of year stress and they are seriously ready to leave Vietnam for their annual holidays back home in their own countries. I was also happy enough to see my closest friends who came to my farewell party in April and was more than happy to be at their farewell parties for the last few days. Some of them got new jobs in other countries, and some of them are heading back to home for good and one of them is planning his Hollywood movie script writing career on the beaches of Mexico.

My plan at this time, will be a waiting game for Moon's visa which I expect will take approximately one month and then both of us will be planning to head to Calgary to start our new chapter in our lives. She will be studying at Mount Royal College towards an education degree and I will be heading back to work in the hot Calgary Oil and Gas / IT economy. I also have plans to get back into the Volleyball action with the men's league on Thursday nights so of course there is lots of "getting back into shape" is required as the beer in Germany has made a little bit of a hill on my stomach :)

Enroute to Singapore & Hanoi

2007-06-14T21:47:00.000-06:00

Finally after getting comfortable in Seat 62K (yes at the back of the frigging huge Beoing 747 airplane), I felt relieved that my European tour was over. Over two months of travels through 8 countries with one backpack, camera bag, money belt (A special pocket that I will never tell anyone), best friend since high school, it was time to head back to my second home in the northern city of Hanoi, Vietnam. On a 12 hour flight to Singapore and a 3 hour flight to Hanoi, there is lots of time to reflect on the last few months.

It has been a mind blowing event of my life and I am very grateful that I did this with Andy as it was an old high school promise I made with him. Ever since I have left Canada full time three years ago, I cannot express in words or emotions how much traveling has change my perspective and thoughts about life and most important how and why people live differently no matter what part of the earth you live on. Of course there are many similar things such as greetings, eating, watching football (I kid you not!) and sleeping however every country has a different set of cultural norms, a different set of daily etiquette, a different set of human-to-human interactions that we often find challenges our own mental well being and how we were raised.

I am happy that I managed to update the Passionate Traveler's blogsite as much as I can and in addition take many photographs of the places I went to however I realized that when I sit back and look at everything from the big picture, I wish I have found myself searching for more thirst of deep cultural exchanges and human interactions. I knew this was not possible unless I decided to stay in Europe for a longer period of time as it would facilitate the environment in which I can experience more of the cultures and it's long standing history. Two months backpacking through 8 countries has provided me with lots of stories and experiences however if I wanted to see more of it, I will have to come back and pick up where I left.

For those who don't know, I have quit my more than stressful IT management job from the United Nations International School of Hanoi before this trip as I managed to separate my feelings about my professional career to my personal well being. I was physically sick on a weekly basis and also mentally unstable as I was often caught between providing a strong IT support service for teachers & students and at the same time fighting against the evident bureaucracy of upper management who shown little support. Reflecting on these life events, I realized that they are only chapters of my life and it was time to close the chapter and start a new one. I got the professional experience I need and I know when I return back to Canada, I can continue my ambitions with influential events from my past. Taking this two month trip in Europe was perfect for me to gain back the energy and the mental stability that I have lost and now I can go back to those relationships I care deeply for and start a new chapter in my life.

Morning train to Frankfurt

2007-06-13T22:32:00.000-06:00

Getting no sleep last night perhaps due to my newly excitement of leaving Europe and heading to Asia, I painfully had to get up early in the morning at 5:30 in order to catch my high speed train from Munich to Frankfurt.

I gave Andy and big hug and whispered some advice into his ear making sure he knows how serious my concerns about Africa were and told him to enjoy the new adventures that lies ahead.

As part of our traveling europe package, I used the last day of our 10-day western euro-rail pass to take the first training leaving Munich at 6:47 am in the morning and arriving at the Frankfurt International airport 3 hours later. This was not a problem for me as my flight to Singapore was at 12:30 pm allowing me some time to look around before boarding the 747 aircraft.

I was very surprised that I could plan this morning trip from the bottom of Germany and be able to make a flight in the north. This is what I wish Canada and USA would do as I give lots of credit towards the Europeans for their excellent planning and infrastructure of the train network.

Munich, Germany

2007-06-12T22:13:00.000-06:00

Knowing that I will be leaving from Frankfurt to Hanoi the next morning, Andy and I decided that we would have our last meal together in a friendly Bavarian style restaurant in downtown Munich. The lively atmosphere / ambience with the huge wooden curved tables and 10 people sized benches certainly met our expectations of what this town would be like during the famous "oktoberfest" event. We both could see where millions of liters of local beer everywhere with big breasted women serving big jugs to thirsty locals and foreigners making this town a must do when touring Europe.

We both had a liter of beer each being greeted by a huge locally made traditional barbarian style dinner and we of us talked into the late night before heading back to the hostel a few blocks away. I knew this was an important night for both of us as our friendship of many years was still strong in our hearts. We certainly got a chance to talk about many things about life, and how much we enjoyed the European tour that we both made a promise to do.

The Sound of Music

2007-06-12T21:38:00.000-06:00

After our wonderful day trip to Hitler's Eagle's nest, we took the 1 hour train back to Salzburg which where our Hostel was. North of Berchtesgaden and 150 KM east of Munich, Germany, Salzburg is home to a few main attractions, such as the birthplace and residence of Mozart, Festung Hohensalzburg Castle and numerous places around town used for the famous film "The Sound of Music".

We did not spend much time with the local attractions because both Andy and I needed to prepare to go our separate ways as our 2007 European trip is coming to an end. Andy wants to pursue a deeper cultural shocking experience by going to Africa and I need to head back to Hanoi, Vietnam to see my girlfriend and to help her with the remains of her Canadian Student Visa Application.

Funny, most of our euro dollars were spent on quickly made kabobs and surfing in the Internet cafe as most of the preparation works required access to airline websites, online banking, emails, and using skype to contact the people we needed to contact. Later, at night we would go and check out the local breweries and tried various German-Austrian local made beer and eat bratwurst or Currywurst dinners before heading to bed.

Hitler's Birthday Present

2007-06-11T23:58:00.000-06:00

After our wonderful cultural exchange with Roland's family in the Austrian Alps, Andy and I finally reached one of the places that we wanted to go during our European travels. Berchtesgaden being the home of Adolf Hitler's famous Eagle's nest was a place for the Third Reich leaders for their retreats away from any of the WWII events. Eagle's nest was built by the Nazi party as a 50th birthday present for Adolf in 1939 at the top of the mountain overlooking Berchtesgaden. The views themselves shows endless opportunities to see the larger than life landscapes, clouds, rain, sunshine, and of course breathing the fresh air that the Bavarian mountains have to offer.

The Kehlsteinhaus also known as Hitler's Tea House or the Eagle's Nest, is a chalet-style building, which used to be an extension of the Obersalzberg complex built by the Nazi's in the German Alps near Berchtesgaden.

The Kehlsteinhaus was built as a 50th birthday present for Adolf Hitler. The Eagle's Nest was meant to be a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries. It was commissioned by Martin Bormann, with construction proceeding over a 13-month period prior to its formal presentation to Hitler in 1939. It is situated on a ridge at the top of the Kehlstein mountain (1835 m), reached by a spectacular 6.5 km (3.9 mile) road which cost 30 million Reichsmark to build (~ 150 million euros). The last 124 metres up to the Kehlsteinhaus are served by an elevator bored inside the mountain, reached via a granite tunnel; the elevator itself is surfaced with polished brass. The main reception room is dominated by a fireplace of red Italian marble, presented by Mussolini. Much of the furniture was designed by Paul Laszlo.

Although the site is on the same mountain as the Berghof, Hitler rarely visited the property. It has been suggested he only visited the Kehlsteinhaus around 10 times, and most times for no more than 30 minutes. It was perhaps because of this lack of close association with Hitler, the property was saved from demolition at the end of the war. It was subsequently used by the Allies as a military command post until 1960, when it was handed back to the State of Bavaria.

Source: Wikipedia

Click here to view the Passionate Traveler's photos in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

A weekend of memories...

2007-06-11T01:49:00.000-06:00

After visiting the Austrian capital of Vienna, Andy and I have made promises to visit our police officer friend Roland in the southern region of Villach. Villach is a mountainous town like Canmore, Alberta residing at the base of many of Austria's Bavarian mountains. Roland has gotten a day off from his work on Friday and we have plans to meet him at the local train station from our morning long journey through the whole country and then into Bavaria. We have spent the day catching up and then eventually drove north to see his sister and his parents who live in the hills in a traditional style Austrian Bavarian house.

Their family were excited to meet us and have given us a place to sleep for the weekend. Over the course of the next few days, we had many exciting things to see such as climbing a couple of mountains, taking a tour on the diagonal mountain train which later took us through 1.5 km into a mountain resembling a hotel-cafe mountain house up high on the plateau. This was indeed a fresh air quiet beautiful area in which the three of us had lunch and celebrated peace and great friendships.

Another day we had a chance to take an elevator up on a very high communication tower which lets people see the whole region and the towns / farmland / mountains the filled the valley views. It certainly felt like it was being on the top of the world. Later after suffering from mild reddish sunburns, we found a nice spot on the beach of a huge lake which provided a refreshing swim and a chance to show off from the swimming diving board into the lake.

Roland's family was great as his mother and father provided us with home cook meals with lots of local food such as cheese and sausage meat. We even had the chance to walk and drive around checking out the marvelous landscapes that made Villach a lively beautiful Bavarian place to live.

It was sure a great weekend of memories and I will never forget the times I have spent with everyone there and got a chance to know them on a personal level. I hope one day that I will have free time to visit everyone again.

Click here to view the pictures from Villach and the southern region of Austria...

Street Food in Vietnam

2007-06-07T07:06:00.000-06:00

I have found an interesting comment on the social website facebook with respect to the street food which makes one of biggest Vietnam's charms to the world.

Sadly enough I heard through the social website that all the street food vendors in Hoi An have been eliminated and the other cities are expected to follow:

Health Ministry to get tough on food hygiene

08/06/2007 -- 8:35 PM

Ha Noi (VNA) – The Health Ministry (MoH) is planning a nation-wide crack down on food safety violators and the building of standards for food hygiene in general, said a Health Ministry official.

At the top of the list of a new MoH plan is a public awareness campaign on food safety, to be followed by a system to manage food hygiene, a programme to analyse the risks of food pollution, a system to examine food poisoning and food transmitted diseases, a greater number of food inspections and the doling out of stricter punishments to violators.

The country's medical sector is also expected to become a major contributor to the initiative by boosting scientific research and application of hygiene standards in the area.

The new directives come hard on the heels of the recent detection of carcinogenic found in brands of soy sauce sold in markets across the country.

The culture of Vienna

2007-06-07T04:17:00.000-06:00

Our next stop after Budapest was the lovely cultural capital city of Vienna, Austria. Vienna for many years has been known for it's art and architecture. Andy and I took a local street bike tour around the tourist aspect of the city visiting many landmarks and famous monuments of Mozart and Strausse. During one day we spent a whole day and visited the Museum of Technology which was the home of well known inventions and gadgets throughout history. The coolest gadget that should be noted here was the hearing aid collection showing from previous decades. There was one hearing aid that I should have gotten was the one that was located in a suitcase and the cables ran outside of the box to the ears. Can anyone picture me with this?

Click here to view the Passionate Traveler's photos from the city of Vienna...

For those who don't know much about the city of Vienna, here is a description from Wikipedia:

Art and culture have a long tradition in Vienna, including theatre, opera, classical music and fine arts. The Burgtheater is considered one of the best theatres in the German-speaking world alongside its branch, the Akademietheater. The Volkstheater Wien and the Theater in der Josefstadt also enjoy good reputations. There is also a multitude of smaller theatres, in many cases devoted to less mainstream forms of performing arts, such as modern, experimental plays or cabaret.

Vienna is also home to a number of opera houses, including the Staatsoper and the Volksoper, the latter being devoted to the typical Viennese operetta. Classical concerts are performed at well known venues such as the Wiener Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Wiener Konzerthaus. Many concert venues offer concerts aimed at tourists, featuring popular highlights of Viennese music (particularly the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauss).

In recent years, the Theater an der Wien has become widely known for hosting premieres of musicals, although it has recently devoted itself to the opera again. The most successful musical by far was "Elisabeth", which was later translated into several other languages and performed all over the world. The Haus der Musik ("house of music") opened in 2000.

Many Roman Catholic churches in central Vienna also feature performances of religious or other music, including masses sung with classical music and organ.

A variety of architectural styles can be found in Vienna, such as the Romanesque Ruprechtskirche and the Baroque Karlskirche. Styles range from classicist buildings to modern architecture. Art Nouveau left many architectural traces in Vienna. The Secession, Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station, and the Kirche am Steinhof by Otto Wagner rank among the best known examples of Art Nouveau in the world.

The Hundertwasserhaus by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, designed to counter the clinical look of modern architecture, is one of Vienna's most popular tourist attractions. Another example of unique architecture is the Wotrubakirche by sculptor Fritz Wotruba.

In the 1990s, a number of quarters were adapted and extensive building projects were implemented in the areas around Donaustadt (north of the Danube) and Wienerberg (in southern Vienna). The 202 m-high Millennium Tower located at Handelskai is the highest building in Vienna[citation needed]. In recent years, Vienna has seen numerous architecture projects completed which combine modern architectural elements with old buildings, such as the remodelling and revitalisation of the old Gasometer in 2001.

Most buildings in Vienna are relatively low; there are currently (early 2006) around 100 buildings higher than 40 m. The number of high-rise buildings is kept low by building legislation aimed at preserving green areas and districts designated as world cultural heritage. Strong rules apply to the planning, authorisation and construction of high-rise buildings. Consequently, much of the inner city is a high-rise free zone.

Source: Wikipedia

Communist Terrors

2007-06-04T03:56:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons why Andy and I choose to see Budapest was that the city was under Soviet Communist occupation for numerous years before it broke down into today's democratic rule. As both of us have been born, raised and lived in a democratic country, it was important and carious for us to see the other side of the political spectrum.

There were two famous places within the town that both domestic people and international tourist can visit to remind themselves the horrors and terrors that the Soviet regime did for many years.

House of Terror is a museum located at Andrassy ut 60 in Budapest, Hungary. It contains exhibits related to the two dictatorial regimes in 20th century Hungary, fascism and communism. It is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or even killed in the building.

With regard to communism and fascism, the exhibition contains material on the nation's relationships to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It also contains exhibits related to Hungarian organisations such as the fascist Arrow Cross Party and the communist ÁVH (which is similar to the KGB in the Soviet Union). Part of the exhibition takes visitors to the basement, where they can see examples of the cells that the ÁVH used to break the will of their prisoners.

Much of the information and the exhibits is in Hungarian, although each room has an extensive information sheet in both English and Hungarian. Audio guides in English and German are also available.

The background music to the exhibition was composed by Ákos Kovács. The scoring includes the work of a string orchestra, special stereophonic mixes, and sound effects.

Source: Wikipedia

The last place that we went to was the Lenin Statue park which was located just outside of the City (go figure) and hosted numerous figures & Communist monuments dating back to the Lenin era. Click here to view the Passionate Traveler's photos at the statue park...

Relaxing in Budapest

2007-06-03T03:17:00.000-06:00

Taking the overnight train from Praha to Budapest was fairly quick as Andy and myself were quite tired from the friction and travel tension we experienced on the last day in Czech Republik. Arriving at 8:00 am at the main central station was the perfect time as we were caught in the lively morning traffic of locals heading into work and watching them buy their fresh pastry and coffee on the way. Surprisenly, the metro system in this old communist occupied Budapest was quite efficient and was easy to follow all the way to the hostel.

We stayed at the Green Bridge hostel (ja... next to a Green Bridge!) which was one of the only hostels that we stayed at did not use bunk beds. This certainly gave the perception that we were sleeping and socializing in such high ceiling rooms.

This was the only place on my European circuit that we got a chance to watch new DVD movies on such comfortable pillowed couches with butter popcorn and drank the local brewed beer. There was about 7-8 guys from different countries and we all watched Sin City and the first movie of the Matrix series. It was an awesome kick ass night as it was the only "guys night" we both participated in and that any women who was there or tried to talk with us got shut out very fast!!! It was quite hilarious because half way through the movie, a Canadian woman from Toronto wanted to hang out and drink with one of the guys from England at the end of the couch. She started talking "What sup, how was your day today?" and immediately, the guy grabbed the remote control from the table, pressed "mute" and told the girl to "shut up" and said to her that this is a guy's night only "so bugger off"!!

After she left the room, all of us laugh so hard and continued to watch the gruesome and stomach twisting Sin City which most of us never seen before.

The next day, we did a little walking tour and visited Europe's biggest Jewish Synagogue which was a few minutes away from the hostel. It was a nice building with lots of artifacts and history but the main chamber hall was the most breathtaking spiritual and religious Jewish place I ever been in. It was also my first time wearing the Jewish Yamuka (Spelling?) as it was part of the traditions for all men who are entering the Synagogue.

Other activities such as a rented bike tour (with a fellow Canadian from London, Ontario who is currently studying for his Master's in Philosophy) and visited many landmarks throughout the city. One cool unexpected event was watching a local river moving company moving a frigging huge concrete industrial component up the Danube river. The whole process took 4 tugboats and a crew of more than 100 workers to move this large part through the center of Budapest. During one hot afternoon, the three of us found a cool and refreshing water park in which we just relaxed, swim and drank the local beer until all of us turned into baked red Canadian potatoes.

Click here to view the Passionate Traveler's Photos from the city of Budapest...

České Republiky

2007-05-30T14:24:00.000-06:00

Arriving into our next city after a six hour train ride has brought us into one of the oldest cities in Europe dating back to the Paleolitic age (10,000 BC). Located on the Vltava river, Prague is the home to many historical buildings, bridges, cobberstone roads and one large vast castle sitting on a hill overlooking the city.

The first couple hours in Prague was nuts because we could not find our hostel and ended up walking 2 KM away with our heavy bags and quick developing nasty attitudes toward each other as the time progressed. After talking some locals about directions and using the Metro train station maps (we did not have one ourselves), we found our hostel and also lost 20 pounds in the process.

We have spent a few days here with the biggest high-light having a personalized 3 people (Andrew, Scotty and the guide) tour with a young fellow named Peter who was studying at the University for a master degree in International tourism. He was pretty cool guy and always was making jokes and giving us the "off the beaten path" tour and history that is normally not part of the bigger day to day commerialized city walking tours.

Some the historical landmarks such as the bridges and castles were pleasant to see and we did indeed took lots of photographs. Part of our walking tour, we visited the local policitical statement wall which shows a 3-D face of John Lennon as the locals worshipped him for his contribution for "World Peace" when he was alive. It was an amazing display of work and art and certainly a place for "freedom of speech". Note that GWB had many lines written about him.

Leaving Prague has brought lots of friction between Andrew and myself as we missed the morning train departing to Hungary. We were suspose to be at a different station in which the train has left however the night train was still available and ended up being very bitter and crazy towards each other until the departure time. Thank god we made this train time.

Click here to view the passionate traveler's photos of Praha...

Wieliczka Salt Mines

2007-05-29T03:48:00.000-06:00

This UNESCO registered landmark, the Wieliczka salt mines is located 30 minutes on the outskirts of Krakow, has been in operation for 900 years. It used to be one of the world's biggest and most profitable industrial centers when common salt was commercially a medieval equivalent of today's oil. Always a magnet, since the mid-18th century Krakow's Wieliczka salt mine has become increasingly a tourist attraction in the first place. Both domestic and international tourists can walk underground for about 2,000 m in the oldest part of the salt mine and see it´s subterranean museum, which took us over three hours to move through it.

Over nine centuries of raw salt mining in Wieliczka has produced a total of some 200 kilometers of passages as well as 2,040 caverns of various sizes. The tourist and the safe section starts 64 meters deep and ends 135 meters below the earth surface, where the world's biggest museum of mining is located showing unique centuries-old equipment among it´s exhibits. Below the common area, some 210 meter deep, there is a sanatorium for people who are suffering from asthma and allergy conditions. People will occasionally conduct concerts, weddings and other celebrative events take place in the Wieliczka mine’s biggest chambers.

Click here to view the passionate traveler´s photos of the salt mines...

The Horrors of Auschwitz death camp

2007-05-28T02:30:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons that Andy and I went to Krakow, is that we were interested in seeing the Jewish events and the slave camps that were used in WWII. We decided to see the biggest camp of all, called Auschwitz.

The site of the Nazi's notorious Auschwitz death camp is one hour’s bus ride from the town of Krakow. Between June 1941 and January 1945 about one million men, women and children perished in the three Auschwitz concentration camps. There were called Auschwitz, Birkenau and Monowitz and also showing their forty sub-camps. At its prime, the whole complex was a deadly prison to some 150,000 inmates that were being either murdered outright or starved and worked to death.

History of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp

In 1939, Adolf Hitler destroyed the Polish town of Oswiecim as part of the Third Reich holocaust plans, and a year later the Nazis converted the town’s abandoned barracks into a concentration camp. The first inmates, a group of Polish political prisoners, arrived on June 14, 1940. In addition to Poles there were soon imprisoned Soviet POW’s, Gypsies, and other nationals from the rest of German-occupied Europe to suffer and die in the hellish conditions. In 1942, notably after the construction of the nearby Birkenau (Auschwitz II) concentration camp, trainloads of European Jews start to come. Most of them were immediately put to death in the Birkenau gas chambers.

October 1939: the Nazis annex the ancient Polish town of Oswiecim to the Third Reich and rename it Auschwitz.
November 1939: new German administration installs a German mayor.
1940-1944: Polish peasants are being driven out of the area to make room for German settlers.
1940: on Himmler’s order Jewish slave workers change emptied army barracks into a concentration camp.
June 14, 1940: the Nazis bring political prisoners, all of them Poles, to Auschwitz Concentration Camp as its first inmates.
1941: all Jews are forced out of Oswiecim.
October 1941: construction began of the Birkenau Concentration Camp, i.e. Auschwitz II, starts near Oswiecim.
1942: Creation of Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp.
January 1945: Evacuation of the Auschwitz camps.
January 27, 1945: the Soviets liberated Oswiecim.
1947: new Polish government creates Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of the concentration camps.
1967: erecting of the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism at Birkenau.
1979: UNESCO enters the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Birkenau death camp in its list of World Heritage sites.
1986: launching of the Youth Meeting House in Oswiecim.
1992: opening of the Center Dialogue and Prayer.
2000: opening of the Auschwitz Jewish Center and Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue.

Knowing it's provocative history, it was difficult for me to digest of what happened here over 60 years ago. I was amazed by the preserved structures are still in perfect conditions leaving visitors who roam free through the facility a gut wrenching feeling that the horrors and the committed crimes are still fresh in people's minds. The day tour of this place, was enough for me to take photos and to deeply understand the enormous magnitude that this concentration camp plays a big role in today's society.

Click here to view the passionate traveler's photos of Auschwitz...

Królewskie Stołeczne Miasto Kraków

2007-05-26T11:47:00.000-06:00

Leaving the city of Berlin, Andy and I have taken a 9 hour slow train ride to the southern town of Krakow, Poland. We decided that we would skip the capital of Warsaw as we were looking for the WWII history and also to ensure the student and young vibrant life of Krakow.

We stay for a few days at a funny and strange hostel called Tutti Fruitti which shows an enormous photograph collection of shiny fruits at a close up range. Strawberries, Blueberries, applies, orange, cherries, mango, and you name it...

Apart from our fruit smelling hostel, the town contains Europe's 2nd biggest square playing the host to many restaurants, churches, dance clubs, bars, pubs, street vendors, street entertainers and most importantly the overwhelming flocks of pigeons. In the dead middle of the town, lies a big reddish brick castle with a tall looking cathedral that has been present for hundreds of years providing the inhabitants of the town with medieval protection from it's enemies. Walking beyond the castle, leads to one of Europe well known Jewish quarters which contains the remains of a large WWII ghetto, Oksar Schindler's Factory & office (remember the movie Schindler's List?) and an old Jewish style cemetery which has to be relocated once due to it's shear size and the additions of local Jewish people who were murdered by the Nazi regime in the area.

The feelings certainly very emotional being in a place that had one of the biggest profound events in the history of human kind. Click here to view the photos of the town Krakow.

Achtung!

2007-05-25T08:29:00.000-06:00

Well, here is the surprise...

Both Andy and I decided to fly to Berlin, Germany as we felt that we needed the extra weeks to take advantage of our Western Europe Euro-Rail passes before they expire on June 26, 2007. The reason why we want to do this is that because we have paid 750 CDN dollars and if we use all 10 traveling days, we would exceed our savings by a enormous number making the whole Western Europe traveling a delightful and cost effective experience.

I called my old Hanoian co-worker friend who from Newfoundland (Please insert your newfie joke here) who is teaching elementary music at the International School of Berlin. Kirsty who has been living there since August 2006, was happy to hear from me as it has been a long time. She asked me when I was coming to Berlin and I said: "Tomorrow night". I swore I heard the phone drop through the speaker portion of the phone.

When we arrived, we took a taxi from the International Airport and within 20 minutes we found ourselves in the biggest and most obvious Gay district of Berlin. When Andy and I were walking towards Kirsty's apartment complex, we could feel the pressure that we were being watch or better yet scoped. Oh well, part of the city life here.

We spend the whole week in Berlin as we both know it has many years of history for the WWII battles as part of the Third Reich that Adolf Hitler was part of. Another major aspect of the historical life of Berlin was the famous Berlin Wall that was known as the Iron Curtain.

The first part of the week, we explore the historical landmarks that were related to WWII and where the famous decisions by the Third Reich leadership were made for various major battles between the Axis and Allies, Jewish concentration camps, Air Raid bombing plans and the Air force and of course the U-boat & the Atlantic Navy operations. One big part of the Third Reich tour we did was the exploring of the torture / interrogation building that was the home of the famous SS Police offices. Our Aussie tour guide (Don't ask) was completing his PHD in German history and was an incredible source and knowledgeable about the topic. Click here to view the passionate traveler's photos related to the Third Reich...

The next day, we went back down to the trendy tourist area and investigated the Jewish Holocaust Memorial which was dedicated to millions and millions of people whe perish or affected by the Nazi's destructive regime from the late 1930's up until 1945. I have included some photos of the memorial as the dark black cement colours blocks represent X number of people who were murdered. Click here to view these photos...

The last biggest thing we did in Berlin for Historical purposes was that we explore the history and facts behind the "Iron Curtain". The Berlin Wall was a physical and most clear example of the political and economical seperation between the communist nations centrally controlled by Moscow and the Western nations that was centrally controlled by United States. The horror stories and pictures that both Andy and I saw was a true representation how bad and severe the situation for the people of east Germany who suffered under Stalin's Iron Curtain. Click here to read more about the history behind this well known and documented event. Also here are the passionate traveler's photos of various locations in Berlin showing the famous wall and the remains it has left.

We spent the rest of the time in Berlin eating and drinking beer, and spending time with all my old Hanoian co-workers (Kirsty, Kate and Paula) who used to be elementary school teachers at United Nations International School of Hanoi.

Click here to view the rest of the Berlin Photos...

The Picasso Corner Hospital

2007-05-16T11:51:00.000-06:00

After experiencing pure Spanish cultural activities consisting of Bull Fights and Flamenco Dancing in Sevilla, both Andy and I were required to return our brand new Volkswagen Polo to the Sixt Car Rental Agency in the southern Spanish city of Malaga. We both agreed that we got a real cheap deal with the rental for a week and also giving us the ultimate freedom of driving our own car in Southern Europe.

Needless to say, we were happy that we only filled the gas tank 3 times, paid limited road toll fees only in the north and most importantly and amazely without getting a speeding ticket we drove the car more than 130-140 KM / hour on the highway feeling like we were cruising in the Nevada desert. The only thing that was missing from the car was it's ability to convert into a convertible.

Driving to Malaga was a smooth and easy ride through the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains with the last thirty kilometres being a quiet drive without touching the accelerator on any part of the hill. I had to drive as Andy was feeling sick and also sleeping in the passenger seat, the downward drive was like cruising down the big hill going into the town of Cochrane, Alberta. Steep and curvy were the main feelings however we save lots of gas by putting the stick into neutral and using the brake from here to there made the drive really smooth and peaceful until we reach the outer limits of Malaga.

Once we have reach Malaga, I was not happy that we did not have pack any traveling directions to where the Picasso Corner Hostel, the International airport or the Canada Embassy branch (This is Andy's looooong story in his quest for a Power of Attorny). Being frustrated and driving around the city centre, I told Andy that we should "Screw this S#$%" and agressively drove back out on to the highway and search for our way to the International airport. Reaching the airport, we have returned the car and took a public transportation bus (with a paper map from the airport tourism office) to the Picasso Corner Hostel where we have booked rooms for the next three nights.

Upon our arrival at the Picasso, I immediately began to feel that my body was shutting down, sweating, coughing, sneezing, and feeling nauseous. After eating the local hostel Spanish food, I decided to go downstairs to bed to see if I can fight off this flu-like symptoms. For the next three hours, it progressively gotten worst as I was hacking and dealing with the biggest nose run of my life. Thank god later I have fallen asleep.

The next day I woke up late and decided that the Picasso Corner Hostel would become my Picasso Corner Hospital for the next 3-4 days. I went to the pharmacy that morning to purchase some Anti-Histamine medication and to rest in bed drinking water like a plant starving in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

During my R & R at the Picasso Corner Hospital, I realized that the Hostel's computer systems were badly managed and in need of configuration repairs. One of the client computer's WIFI connection was disabled and also had to reinstall the operating system from scratch. I told the staff that I was an IT manager in Vietnam for three years, allowing them to believe that I can fix their computer system for free or possible exchange for food and possible free night sleep at the Hostel.

We both stayed at the Picasso Hostel Hospital for nearly a week and ended up paying for three nights out of six with free food every day for fixing their computers and also helping with their public website. The had some other small issues in the hostel such as slow Internet and a broken card reader on their fax machine so in the end they were easy tasks for me to repair for them. At the same time, the hostel staff members were sooo nice and took care of me to fight the flu and also treated me as their own. I even got a chance to talk with their cool owner who lives up North and to explain to him that their hostel web domain has expired and he needs to renew it ASAP.

As I stayed in the Hostel, Andy mostly went out to the Beach and met a few new people from the USA. It was good for both of us as sometimes spending too much time with each other can make us ready to kill each other.

The biggest highlight that made my life happy during the week was the chance to talk with Moony over the phone / Internet as we have missed each other's voice for over a month. Thank god for Internet Phone connections. (Cheap too!!)

Also during this time, we also had the time to explore on the Internet and talk with some of our friends in order to decide that we would continue our journies into the country of Morocco or make an 180 degree turn and head Northwest to Germany. Andy was facing decisions to leave for Africa as his novelty of Europe was starting to ware off. For me, I wanted to make sure I got my money's worth of using the Euro-Rail tickets before June 26th for 10 travel days in Western Europe.

It were days of decisions, decisions and decisions...

Bull Fights

2007-05-13T01:05:00.000-06:00

I decide to get a taste of real Spanish culture by visiting a local Bull fight in Sevilla. I was having a hard time deciding if I should go or not as the events is perceieved as a negative immoral issue especially with the death of the Bull at the end however I made my mind as it was something that I will never see again and it's something once in my lifetime. Please note the following text is from the internet and gives you an idea behind the bull fights in Spain.

Above all else, Spain is know for its corridas or bullfights. Viewed by most as a cruel and torturous act, the Spanish believe it to be a highly skilled art form that requires courage, valor, technique, and the ablity to fit into a tight gold suit and wear pink socks. They wear neat hats, too.

The season lasts from early spring until around mid-October. Fights are held in a plaza de toros (bullring). Tickets fall into three categories, and prices are based on your exposure to the sun: sol (sun) is the cheapest; sombra (shade) is the most expensive; and sol y sombra (a mixture of sun and shade) falls in the medium-price range.

Bull cults have existed since the beginning of man. Many civilizations revered them and the bull-cult at the Greek Island Creta is well known. The Bible reports bull sacrifices in honor of the divine justice. Bulls also played an important part in the religious ceremonies of the Iberian tribes during prehistoric times.The origins of the Plaza, or bullring, probably are not the Roman amphitheaters, but the Celt-Iberian temples where those ceremonies were held. In the province of Soria, close to Numancia, one of them is conserved and it is supposed that their bulls were sacrificed to the Gods. While the religious cults to the bull go back to Iberians, it was the Greek and Roman influences that converted them into a spectacle.

Ernest Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon: The bullfight is not a sport in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word; that is, it is not an equal contest or an attempt at an equal contest between a bull and a man. Rather it is a tragedy: the death of the bull, which is played, more or less well, by the bull and the man involved and in which there is danger for the man but certain death for the bull.

The corrida begins with a parade. For many viewers, this may be the high point of the afternoons festivities, as all the bullfighters are clad in their trajes de luces, or very tight gold suits with pink socks.

Bullfights are divided into thirds called tercios. The first is the tercio de capa (cape), where the matador tests the bull with various passes to get acquainted with his opponent. The second, the tercio de varas (sticks), begins with the lance-carrying picadores on horseback, who weaken, or punish, the bull by jabbing him in the shoulder and neck to break muscles. At times the horses are gored, even though they wear protective padding, or the horse and rider might be tossed into the air, like an irritating leprechaun, by the now-infuriated bull. The picadores are followed by the banderilleros, whose job is to decorate the bull by puncturing him with pairs of boldly colored darts.In the final tercio de muleta, the action narrows down to the lone fighter and the bull. Gone are the fancy capes. Instead, the matador uses a small red cloth known as a muleta, which, to be effective, requires a bull with lowered head. (The picadores and banderilleros have stabbed the bull sufficiently to achieve this) Using the muleta as a lure, the matador wraps the bull around himself in various passes, the most dangerous of which is the natural; here, the matador holds the muleta in his left hand, the sword in his right. Right-hand passes pose less of a threat, since the sword can be used to spread out the muleta, making a larger target for the bull. After a number of passes, the time comes for the kill, the moment of truth.

After the bull dies, the highest official at the ring may award the matador an ear from the dead bull, or perhaps both ears, or ears and tail. For a truly extraordinary performance, the hoof is sometimes added. Spectators cheer a superlative performance by waving white handkerchiefs, imploring the judge to award a prize. The bullfighter may be carried away as a hero, or if he has displeased the crowd, he may be jeered and chased out of the ring by an angry mob. At a major fight, usually six bulls are killed by three matadors in one afternoon.

Source: http://www.discoversevilla.com

Please note that I have taken some photos of the bull fights however they are very graphic and unsuitable for younger viewers. If you want to see them, please click on Scot's Photo Album #1 on the left hand side and then proceed to click on the Bull Fights in Sevilla. By doing so, you are viewing these photos at your own risk.

The Royal Kingdom of Naboo

2007-05-13T00:04:00.000-06:00

After completing our journey in Granada, Andy and I continued our week long VW polo driving adventures east towards the City of Sevilla.

Sevilla city is known for their arts, culture, and also known to be southern Spain's biggest financial district. Some of the famous landmarks includes the Sevillian bull fight ring, the world's largest gothic cathedrael and the Plaza de Espana which was used in the first three Star Wars movies.

The cathedral was built from 1401–1519 after the conquess of the former city's mosque. It is the largest of all medieval and Gothic cathedrals, in both area and volume. The interior is the longest hallwaz in Spain, it is lavishly decorated, with a large quantity of gold evident. The Cathedral itself reused some columns and structures from the older mosque, and most famously the Giralda, originally a minaret, was converted into a bell tower. It is topped with a statue, known locally as La Giraldilla, representing Faith. The Giralda is the city's most famous symbol.

Sevilla city is also known for their invention of Tapas food which contains more than a thousand bars where the choices, is virtually unlimited, from seafood to ham and sausage and from vegetable to cheese. The Sevillians actually make a meal of them, moving from one bar to another and trying one dish at a time.

Finally the last biggest thing we did was exploring the Flamenco dance which was known in various bars throughout the city. Unfortunitely, we went to a dance which was tooo touristy as the bar itself was too loud to hear the performance and to enjoy the real richness of the spanish dance.

Click here and here to view the passionate traveler's photos from Sevilla.

Granada sounds like Canada does it?

2007-05-12T02:23:00.000-06:00

After leaving the American Cup City of Velencia, Andy and I have continued our money burning adventures in our little small VW Polo hatchback into the Sierra Nevada mountains of Espanol. The trip itself was indeed very long as both of us had to share the driving time while the other was listening on the black IPOD and sleeping. The Sierra Mountains were indeed very beautiful and at one point (Later we found out that it's the only point) that the snow exist there all year round. The locals do many winter activities in the Sierra Nevada range such as skiing or snowboarding. (Damm, now I knew that I was missing something in my bag) at the end or the base of the mountains, we have now entered into the city of Granada.

The Alhambra, a huge citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is one of the most famous items of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian historical legacy that makes Granada a well known spot for cultural and tourist attractions in Espanol. The city has shown various geographic attractions from the Arabs, Romans and finally the Christians as each religious group has once invaded and settled in the city over time.

The hill facing the Alhambra palace is the old Moorish casbah or "medina", called the Albaicin, a fascinating network of narrow streets and white painted houses with secluded inner gardens, known as "cármenes". The Plaza de San Nicolas, at the highest point of the Albaicin, is famous for its magnificent view of the Moorish palace.

Our Hostel, known as the Oasis is ranked as one of the best Hostel in this region was embedding in the Albaicin as the Oasis’s features shows the true white painted colours and the elaborate growing vine like garden in the middle. We have stayed here for many nights enjoying the historical structures and the hostel night life such as the Paella meals and the Tapas bars.

The Alhambra was more than a day tour as we had to get up very early in the morning to get our tickets. The walk was not a regular walk as we had to hike up the hill which was approx 1 KM in length with a 30-45 degree angle. At the top, Andy and I ended up going into the Alhambra itself and later realized that we went through the back door and found ourselves embedded with the tourist people enjoying the early morning exhibits. After noticing that we were in the wrong place, we separated ourselves from the touring groups and found the ticket booth at the north west end of the Alhambra. This is where we were greeted by a KM long lineup. We waited for 30 minutes in the line and later greeted by a PA message saying that all the tickets were sold for the morning and there were 700 tickets left for the afternoon. We took our chance and continued to wait in the line. Luckily enough we made it through and brought our tickets for the afternoon viewing. Since this early morning exercise and our late night hostel activities, it was time to head back and catch up on breakfast (impossible in Spain) and went back to sleep for a hour or two.

Around 2 PM, we went back to the Alhambra with the same intensive hike as we did in the morning and went on a mad photo shoot (people thought we were professionals) taking pictures and enjoying the historical structures and scenery this palace has to offer.

Click here to enjoy the passionate pictures of the Alhambra Adventures…

East Coast City of Velencia

2007-05-10T06:06:00.001-06:00

After visiting the famous Dali museum, we have drove our brand sparking new Volkswagen Polo south for 450 KM to the city of Velencia. The driving trip itself was indeed very fast as we found the roads to be in very good condition and everyone was driving like they live on the famous german "autobaun" with speeds of 150 -180 KM / hour. We have reached these speeds however we realized what a nasty financial strain on our gas tank so we decided to be conservative and safe and drive as if we were in Canada.

We stayed in a Hostel which has leased some of it´s space from a old church that is not really in service. It had huge 15-20 feet ceilings and it took forever to use the stairs to reach the floors for the kitchen and the bedrooms. We stayed in a room where everyone was from Canada. Too many ehh to be counted.

The local attractions itself was not really exciting however the inner city used to be protected from a huge stone wall perimeter (the gates of these walls still remain today) with various historical landmarks inside. At the port, Velencia is known to host the world wide Louis Vuitton Cup or other words the America Cup. Currently the event is entering it´s 32nd year with 12 teams competing.

Andy decided to visit the beach while I decided to visit Spain´s best art museum the contains various impressionist and historical paints from Spain´s famous artists from previous centuries.

Click here to view some of the pictures in Velencia, Spain.

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech Marquis of Pubol

2007-05-08T04:54:00.000-06:00

After picking up our VW Polo car rental from the Barcelona Airport, Andy and I have continued our travels 1.5 hours to the northern town of Figueres which was the birthplace and location of Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí. Dali was known for his surreal, eccentric, off the wall artwork that has been taugh in art classes around the world.

In the middle of Figueres, contains his museum which host thousands of his artwork along with hundreds of scuptures and other wacky 3-D exhibits.

Click here to see some of the town pictures and of Dali´s work...

Hola Barcelona

2007-05-04T04:34:00.000-06:00

After spending many days in Bordeaux, Andy and I continued our European adventures into the city of Barcelona, Spain.

The second largest city in Spain, the seaport of Barcelona is known for it´s architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which are now current UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

We have stayed in two different hostels as we had trouble booking one of them together for the entire weekend. It was a pure joy to be getting up in the morning, having a quick shower and then heading out the door cross town heading to the next hostel.

We have enjoyed the beach, the rain and of course the vibrant nightlife with lots of attractions as we explored the city.

The most remarkable Barcelonan attraction was Gaudí´s unfinished church of the Sagrada Família, which has been under construction since 1882, and is still financed by tourist dollars; as of today, the church projected completion is planned for 2026.

Click here to see the photos of Barcelona...

Bonjour vin blanc es rouge...

2007-05-02T04:29:00.000-06:00

The port city of Bordeaux, France is an amazing historical town with preserved fasinating architecture since the 18th century. Almost all the old quarter buildings show various time periods of these beautiful detailed 18th century architecture with narrow cobblestone streets filling in the gaps.

Bordeaux is known for three major industries:

It is known to be Europe's main military space and aeronautics research and construction facililty.
It is known to be the World´s wine capital containing thousands of estates for producing some of the world´s best red and white wines.
One of France´s well established university giving the town a young and vibrant feel when walking and enjoying the urban atmosphere

Within the historic town itself, there are a few famous landmarks with one of them being the St. Andre Cathedral which was built when the English settled in the town after the recent marriage of Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine with the French-speaking Count Henri Plantagenet, born in Le Mans, who became, within months of their wedding, King Henry II of England.

Andy and I have done many activities in this town such as walking and enjoying the local scenery, winery tour outside of Bordeaux and of course we both saw the opening of Spiderman III at a local theatre (and yes it was the original version too)

Click here to see the pictures from Bordeaux...

Why babies don't smile in front of the Photo camera?

2007-05-01T05:32:00.000-06:00

One of my longest friends in Hanoi, Ms. Ha who was married last year and now recently gave birth to a baby boy. Both Moon and I had a chance to visit her family and had a goodbye Lau (hotpot) lunch celebration and also to meet her new baby boy Linh. For those who don't know, Ms. Ha is a good friend of Andy and myself and helped us in many ways when we both came to Vietnam for the first time in 2002 dealing with the local customs and culture.

Getting to the point of this blog, tell me, how do you make babies smile on camera?

Moony, Scotty and the un-smiling Linh Jr.

Moony, Scotty, Linh Jr and Linh Sr.

The Turtle crawl to Bordeaux

2007-04-29T09:02:00.000-06:00

What a frigging long day...

It started off with Andy and I enjoying our cereal at the Hostel in Nice, France just about to leave to reach our next desination which is located in Bordeaux, France. Bordeaux is known for the famous French red and white wine serving millions around the world.

To get there we had to take a direct train which would only be 8 hours long. We planned our trip and to use our Euro-rail tickets which is cheap on the 10:00 am train and arriving in Bordeaux at 6:00 pm at night. Just the perfect schedule as we can arrive at our Hotel and then go out for some french food and some good Bordeaux wine.

Guess what?

We arrived at the Train station around 9:30 am and waiting in the line up until 9:50 am to pick up the tickets. The attendent at the station said that we could not use our Euro-rail tickets as the train was already full and we had to wait until the next train which was the 1:30 pm departure. I looked at Andy and decided this was our only option since the cost without the Euro-rail would be 170 Euro dollars (1.6 times as the Canada Dollar) which was waaaaay too expensive for our Worldly tour.

After using our Euro-rail ticket for the 1:30 pm departure, we went and found a grocery store and brought some snacks and waited in a nice Park called Mozart de park (something like that). This is where I had the chance to take some photos of soem pidgeons up close and see how humanly tame there were.

Getting on the Train at 1:30 was no problem and we managed to find the first class seats that came with the Euro-rail tickets. Everything was going well and with full expectations that we will arrive on time at 10:00 pm.

Guess What?

There was a unionized train station strike in the city of Marseilles which has delay trains arriving and departing up to 3-4 hours. So we had to stay in the train on the tracks just outside of the city waiting until the backlog was cleared.

As a result of this unexpected and un-publicized strike, we waited for an additional 2 hours before we could pass through. This delay ended up causing us to miss out on the local Bordeaux tram / buses so we had to rent a taxi to the hotel and then straight into the bed we go.

Wowswers...

St. Paul De Vence

2007-04-27T10:58:00.000-06:00

After doing some research in Nice and on the Internet, Andy and I decided to visit a small village up in the hills called Saint Paul De Vence. With an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, St Paul's climate is suitable for both international and domestic tourism. St Paul contains over 1.700 acres, and has a population of 3.000 inhabitants, 300 of which live within the village itself. At the top of the village contains a small older style Roman Cathatlic Church in which we both saw a local saturday wedding take place. It was quite a beauitful place to be and I took advantage of the camera to capture the mood.

Located 40 minutes transit bus ride from Nice, between the mountains and ocean, this medieval village has 60-feet rocky outcrop, overlooks the surrounding landscape, with the Mediterranean sea and the Cap D'Antibes, the Alps and the Esterel Mountains at it's back.

Both Andy and I took lots of photos and even checked out the local art work. Afterwards we continued our venture to Vence which was located about 20 minutes by bus. This smaller town was higher up in the mountains however did not have the same look and feel as St. Paul medieval style. We did some walking around the town however we found a nice church and found a Jesus Christ stationed on a cross with vibrat reddish and orange colours filling the mood of the church.Stone Step walkways cover the whole village

I swore this was the real "Thinker" Sculpture

Stone Arch welcomes the guest into the Village of St. Paul

Another stone walkway with many of local shops open for business

A running Stone Water Foundation in the middle of the St. Paul medieval Village

An Ant's eye view in St. Paul's Village?

Normandy to Nice

2007-04-26T03:58:00.000-06:00

After experiencing the chronographic, emotional, heart-touching, mind-blowing, illustrative, breathtaking views of the WWII history in northern regions in Normandy France, Andy and I have continued our adventures from the top of the country to the bottom settling in the French Riverian city of Nice, France. Nice is nearby to two known famous cities of Cannes (International Film Festival) and Monaco (The Formula One Circuit and also a big Tax-free Heaven City). We will be staying here for the next few days checking out the sights, cultures in this region before we move on.

I have to admit that Andy's knowledge of French really has helped us break through the language barrier and have gotten us with some great friendly support from the locals on our journey. For me, some of the basic words that I have learned in Elementary school has help break the ice when needed.

Au revoir!

The Gayest Photos ever?

2007-04-25T16:47:00.000-06:00

After my recent humilation from Andy about posting the Gayest picture ever (click here for the picture and story) It was payback time to post picture of Andy and his Gayest picture ever on the west coast of Ireland. After his famous "nude"beach swimming with some member of the Shamrocker tours, I found an opportunity to catch him posing for Sport Illustrated's next swimsuit model of the year...

Click here to view the famous online photo shoot that was completed off the coast of West Ireland...

Little Shop of Horrors

2007-04-25T15:16:00.000-06:00

I finally got a chance to post my photograhy work on the famous Hanoian Musical called "Little Shop of Horrors" that I was working on in Nov of 2006. One of my best friend Melissa was one of the "Urchin" ladies and her smoochie picture was something I caught when I was taking pictures at the dress rehearsal.

I was responsible for the light design of the show as lighting design was my speciality when I study theatre in High School and afterwards.

Click here to see The Passionate Traveler's Little Shop of Horror's pictures..

The Rolling Green Shamrocking Troope

2007-04-21T15:24:00.000-06:00

Monday:

We left Dublin early in the morning around 8:30 am leaving the hostel that we never actually got much sleep out of (Usally full of Rugby players or recent high school graduates who been screaming all night) and headed out into the countryside in our wonderful yellow shamrocking bus called the "shamrocker". The group of people are listed as follows:

Karen (Guide): she was one of two local people who came with us on the bus. She was responsible for organizing, planning and being the all around general tour guide. She was quite funny and always tells good jokes and keeps everyone happy and in line

Patricia: (Driver) She was one of the other local who came with us as she played the co-tour guide when Karen was busy with other task. "Trish" was very known for her great countryside stories and jokes especially about her amazing abilities driving farming equipment around Ireland and growing up a countryside girl.

Izza: (Nurse from Australia She was the liberator and inspires of the entire whole group that came with us on this tour. She had the amazing gift of compassion, caring and making everyone feel like at home. With her partner Stephanie, they were an amazing women couple that everyone love being with as their smiles, humour and compassion were very contagious.

Stephanie: (Nurse from Australia) "Steph" was Izza's partner and she was a great friend I met as she was full of life, compassion, and happiness. She brought energy to the group that was needed by all.

Roland: (Policeman from Austria) Roland was a well built work out dude who I got a chance to know well as we decided to run for an hour together in the countryside area of Doolin. He was much bigger than me however much thinner as perhaps the Gunniess Beer is finally showing on my belly (Ouch) His love for football and a huge MC Hammer Dancer certainly brought some common activities between us.

Carola: (Physical Therpist from Austria) Carola was Roland's older sister and she was busy taking pictures with her little silver camera and was complaining that she did not have enough memory on her camera to take more pictures. Her english was not very strong so it was hard for me and the other to know her well.

Laura: (Teacher from Australia) Laura was taking a break from teaching part time in London from her Grade 2 classes. She will be quiting her job at the end of June to continuing her travels with the other Australians from this group. This was the chick that Andy really likes hanging out with.

Scary: (ER Paramedic) I got a good chance to talk with Scary many times over the trip as we both talked about ER stuff and medicine. We had this wonderful conversation talking about the different categories how ER paramedics work in Australia and Canada. Perhaps a move back into Medicine?

Blaney: (Backpacker from Australia) Blaney had the biggest thickest accent in the whole group. I swore to god that he was talking from the grrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeat highlands of Scotland and he was saying "bloody arse" or "Rack off" or "arvos" or what ever... He was soo difficult to understand that I just smiled and drank beer with him anyways.

Nathan: (Freak from the USA) "Nate" was the biggest anti-social guy I ever met. He would do nothing and when people ask him how he was doing, he would simply say nothing or the word "fine". The most scary part of his is that Laura found him sleeping inside the toilet early in the morning after an extensive night of drinking. Details are still sketchy at this point.

Marla: (unkown occupation from Italy) Marla was another women who came with us but her english was quite broken so it was hard to communicate with her and she had trouble with the rest of the group. All I know that she loves DJ music and Andy's dancing superman body. Sigh...

I know I am missing a couple of others here however I will get them as soon I receive the group email from Shamrock Tours a few days later.

Stay tuned for more from the passionate traveler...

Shamrocking through Ireland

2007-04-15T12:27:00.000-06:00

Andy and I have left on a backpacker's tour across the green country with an young hippy organized event put on by a local company called Shamrock tours. This six day trip will take us all the way to the west coast and then heading south follow by the southern tour and back to Dublin. Later, I have posted some wonderful scenic landscape pictures for everyone to see as the views were spectatular. Click here to see the pictures...

Here is their website: http://www.shamrockeradventures.com/

Pictures Around Dublin

2007-04-15T12:15:00.000-06:00

Visited several landmarks around Dublin including the Dublin Castle, Dublin Spire and went to the Chirstchurch located in the trendy tourist area of Dublin.

Found myself going to Sunday's morning church service and spend some time talking with God and finding some peace.

Inside View of Christ ChurchExterior View of Christ Church

Dublin's Spire "The Needle"

Dublin's Castle

There are more pictures from the passionate traveler of Dublin posted here...

Guinness Beer

2007-04-13T11:58:00.000-06:00

Spending my first few days in Dublin was cool as both Andy and I walked through the town checking out various landmarks and historical structures.

One exciting moment was that we both went to Ireland's famous and number one brewery which was known for producing the dark smooth black shoe polish beer called Guinness.

I had this beer in the past for different occasions especially on St. Patricks day however here in Ireland, St. Patrick's day is everyday and everywhere from north to south and west to east. We can find the beer in almost every pub in a glass or can and it's commonly served to the locals after a hard day in the wheat / grain harvest.

When I tried it for the first time, I was totally "wowsers" as I have never tasted something sooo smooth and good for a beer in my life. Andy and I spend many hours at the brewery learning what make this beer a "stout" and not a lager or an ale. The machinery and the historic timeline of how Guinness became popular today.

Dublin / Belfast

2007-04-13T00:17:00.000-06:00

Wowsers...

My first day in Dublin was pretty cool, green countryside, hay fields, potato Farms, Sheep and Dairy cows roaming in the landscape that fills my visual curiosities.

Andy has rented a car which he had to return to Belfast airport as they would charge us an extra 100 pounds if we returned it in Dublin. So right after my flight have landed, we have taken a drive on the best highway of Ireland heading up to the north.

Belfast has shown itself differently than Dublin due to the old political history and the fighting between the Catholics and the Protestants. There are remains of the car bombing and the security that people have implemented to protect themselves when the conflict was really bad.

The deep message remains through a vast amount of art work and murals located on various brick walls around the city. Click here to view the photos of Belfast here...

We had a Guinness beer and traditional irish stew at a local pub before taking the bus back to Dublin. Indeed my cameron friend was right that you have to drink it at room temperature to enjoy the richness and smoothness of the stout.

Took a bus ride back to Dublin and took a frigging two hours to find the hostel that Andy made reservation at. Instead of crossing the river, we ended up wandering around the shopping area for a hour before we decided to ask a police man where the hell are we.

This was my first time spending a night in a hostel. I did not realize that we were going to sleep in the room with 10 other people in a bunk-dormintory style room. Of the showers and the sinks were unisex as well so everything here is 100 percent shared.

A big sleep is needed as a) I am still on Vietnam Time zone and b) I had not had a sleep since I left Vietnam for 2 days...

Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain

2007-04-12T12:47:00.000-06:00

Found an interesting read this morning from another Blogger's website talking about Socialogy and happiness..

Click here to read the article:

Heathrow Airport

2007-04-12T07:56:00.000-06:00

Wowswers!

What a frigging big airport with sooo many passeningers heading to different lcoations... Once I arrived, I had to staying in two long line ups for security and custom control. The security is really bad as the liquid policies affected everyone and the officers are making everyone take everything out of their bags... What a nice way to see some old gramma's pink underwear or her asthma medication.

The custom officer was kind of a crazy control-freak maniac asking me every question in the book including what my birthday was, what the exact address of my hotel and even better yet, an email corrspondent explaining my route and what my plans were. Guess what? I had none of these so my "yes sir" and "no sir" responses was the successful way out of that airport...

off to ireland and to consume another dread star buck coffee...

No longer in Vietnam...

2007-04-11T09:29:00.000-06:00

Well my professional career has ended in Vietnam after a hostile take over of ill-manner, rude, arogent self-centered butt kissing consultant has stolen my position at the International School in Hanoi. I am not going to comment on what happen or dwell into this as this experience was a chapter in my life and it's time to move on.

I am currently writing this blog entry at the back of a newlink magazine / newspaper shop in the Hong Kong airport waiting for my flight to London, England. I have to admit it's quite tricky to compose this blog since the internet is Cantanonese and I have no clue what i am clicking on. All I know that the Dell keyboard has english letter which allows me to speak my mind as I leave the Asian continent in a few hours.

For those who don't know, I want to apologize for not revealing the truth about my departure from Hanoi and heading back to Canada as I had to find a easy solution to terminate my contract with the International School without any eye-raising from the dreaded management that been controlling my life for the last 6 months.

I am leaving Vietnam to spend 3-4 months with my best friend from Canada to do a worldly tour starting in Ireland and making my way through Europe and traveling back into Asia. We have plans to do WWII history, touch africa, visit the middle east (not Iraq) and climb in the Himalayas and visit the forbidden city of Lhasa, Tibet.

Please do come back and check this blog as many pictures and compositions will be posted for everyone to see.

Here we go!!... time to grab a star bucks now... it's been 6 months.

Wowsers!

Return to Canada

2006-10-26T05:27:00.000-06:00

The trip to Canada was long as the airplane flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver was over 14 hours long. Moon was thrilled at the fact that she never been off the Asia Continent so it was nice to see her joyful face as she looks into the unknown.

Arriving into Vancouver was pleasant for me as it was like my second home. I been flying for a long time so the Vancouver Airport has become a common place for me to pass through. The buildings, the Queen Charlotte Island architecture, and the fresh brew of Starbucks fills the atmosphere. For Moon, it was like another world to her as the speed of life, industrialization and the sounds of english language greeted her as she stepped off the Cathay Pacific 747.

Meeting the Canadian Immigration officer was an interesting story and nervous threat to our welcoming into Canada. I made the mistake of adding Moon to my arrival immigration card as I thought she can be labeled on the same card as we are staying together in the same household in Calgary. Officer Chris (remembered from the name tag) drilled us with questions in a direct rude like matter:

"Where are you from sir?"
"Where are you from Madam?"
"What are you guys doing here?"
"How did you guys meet?"
"How long are you planning to stay in Canada?"

After dealing with these questions, I quietly let Moon know that they are just doing their job and they are SOOOO much more nicer than their American Counterparts.

After our quick 1.5 hour flight from Vancouver to Calgary, we had to wait for about 45 minutes until my mother arrived at the Airport. When I saw her, I began to cry as I have not seen her for years. The last time I went to Canada was in July of 2005 which makes it almost 1 1/2 years since I step in my own country. Such a long time indeed! We cried for a long time and eventually Moon and my mother's best friend joined us for a 4 way welcoming greeting hug!

It's so nice to be home again...

Coming Home...

2006-10-17T09:22:00.000-06:00

After many struggles in the last month, being sick, short staffed, stressed, I finally convince my boss that I really needed a break from work and return home to Canada.

It has been long over due with me missing many milestones and dates of friends, family and loved ones.

The excitement has not hit me yet but deep inside it's sure nice to know that I am going home...

The Crocodile Hunter became hunted...

2006-09-04T00:28:00.000-06:00

Crikey!!

The naturalist worked to protect Australian wildlife

Australian environmentalist and television personality Steve Irwin has died during a diving accident.

Mr Irwin, 44, was killed by a stingray barb to the chest while he was filming an underwater documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.

Paramedics from the nearby city of Cairns rushed to treat him at the scene but were unable to save him.

Mr Irwin was known for his television show The Crocodile Hunter and his work with native Australian wildlife.

Police in Queensland confirmed the naturalist's death and said his family had been notified. Mr Irwin was married with two young children.

"It is believed that Mr Irwin collapsed after being stung by a stingray at Batt Reef off Port Douglas at about 11:00 am (0100 GMT)," a police statement quoted by AFP news agency said.

"His crew called for medical treatment and the Queensland medical helicopter responded, however Mr Irwin had died."

Documentaries

Mr Irwin had built up what was a small reptile park in Queensland into what is now Australia Zoo, a major centre for Australian wildlife.

Mr Irwin's documentaries were shown around the world

He was famous for handling dangerous creatures such as crocodiles, snakes and spiders, and his documentaries on his work with crocodiles drew a worldwide audience.

But he also courted controversy with a series of stunts.

He sparked outrage across Australia after cradling his one-month-old son a metre away from the reptile during a show at Australia Zoo.

A probe was also launched to investigate whether Mr Irwin and his team interacted too closely with penguins and whales while filming in the Antarctic, but no action was taken.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer praised Mr Irwin for his work to promote Australia.

"The minister knew him, was fond of him and was very, very appreciative of all the work he'd done to promote Australia overseas," Mr Downer's spokesman said.

Article from BBC International News...

Employee Sick days?

2006-08-23T08:10:00.000-06:00

My continuing bitching about employee productivity has taken another hit this week when my other IT techie has called in sick for 5 days because of a high fever.

WHAT!!!!

5 days for a fever? Oh come on... I had fevers, limping legs, cough, sputum in my saliva, 3 hour sleeps, pink eyes, deaf. etc... AND I still go to work and suffer from my illness...

Some how I am learning that something here are fabricated because they don't want to show up to work on the first day of school. The stress of new students and teachers asking for IT support can be difficult but CERTAINLY not worth skipping because you have a fever.

Unfortunately this Vietnamese employee is known to have lots of money and it's easy to identify that he is capable of doing such tasks to fabricate any situation. Honestly I want to ask for a second opinion but the days have passed and there is not much I can do about it.

As a rookie manager, this is the reality I am facing of working with employees who are not capable, who are not supportive, who are just there from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Punch your time sheet in and punch your time sheet out.

Does this mean aggression comes into play? Does this mean micro-management is needed?

Employee Turnover?

2006-08-18T08:02:00.000-06:00

What a wacked up day I went through. I have been fighting the insults from upper management and juggling to complete the IT department's tasks before the weekend. The biggest challenge was that the new IT techie that I hired at the end of June will be quiting from UNIS Hanoi because he could not work with me. WHAT!!!!!

Who cannot possible work with me? Am I a crazy psyco manic who snort coke and smoke up weed all day turn into a raving lunatic boss who think he the best?

BUZZ... " Questions about Scot" for 100 ... Alex"

Anyway, to keep a long story short, I am without a strong hard working IT techie for the first day of school and leaving me without any help for when the students arrive back into campus.

mmm... time to dig out the resumes from the 1.5 month old dust...

Wonders of management...

Patient Care...

2006-08-02T04:43:00.000-06:00

While I am working in the trenches of Information Technology ER department at Unis Hanoi, I am indeed pulling 12-14 hours shift like hours, 7 days a week making sure that all my computer-patients are stable, on their medications and completing their treatment program before the school's opening on August 21, 2006.

In the real medical industry, an article in the LA times has shown me a big need for medical doctors as patient care is becoming more in demand. Click here to read the article.

mmm (scratching the hairs of wisdom).... I was studying pre-medicine... perhaps a time to think about finishing it.

Death

2006-07-29T21:39:00.000-06:00

The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.

My family back home in Canada has recently suffered the loss of a young family friend who recently passed on after his endless & continuous struggle against Drugs and Alcohol. I have known him on a personal level as well as a family level. The relations among all of us has brought us closer to the battlefronts of the disease and now God has him ensured that he is now living in a safer and better life.

This is not the first time my family has felt the shockwaves of death in the last 6 years of Drugs and Alcohol recovery as many young and older people from the program has entered God's sanctuary of happiness and peace.

I certainly hoped that every event has brought to us the harsh reality of the adversities and the depressions that we all suffer from and be able to take it what is granted and to make our lives better than what it is.

God has a plan for all of us. Sometimes this plan is to allow us to see the adversities first before finding that peace and happiness. God put us together with different people in different events because they are the ones who have messages to deliver. We must accept those people and events because if we don't, we have lost our will to fulfill our own destinies.

may chu hong loi... AKA the dead @#$!ing server

2006-07-15T09:15:00.000-06:00

What a crazy ass week of repairing servers. Every day this week I been working with the local hardware technician trying to trouble shoot my main server for the school. Replacing memory chips, motherboards, cables, hard drives has been the hourly diagnostic tool but nothing is working to recover this server that the school desperately needs when it starts on August 21st.

Finally on friday night at 5:30 after living in the sever room for 50 hours this week, we have no failures after 30 mintues of uptime and it's been going strong since. This is a cruical time to have this working because I got lots of work on my project list and teachers / management will return to the campus starting the first week of August.

Me wish the IT gods will be with me for the next two weeks. (the sound of biting nails)

Webcams at their finest...

2006-07-08T19:38:00.000-06:00

Click on the link and learn what NOT to do when talking with your boyfriend on the webcam...

Dating a Techie...

2006-07-08T19:15:00.000-06:00

This morning, I found an amusing article about women dating techie guys:

Written by: Emily Hambidge (Editor of Maczealots)

I like to think that behind every good developer there is a good woman. No. A great woman. It takes a special breed to put up with the stuff that comes along with dating a computer nerd. Those of you who have ever been with a hard core geek know what I’m talking about. Some day I think it would be easier to date one of those guys who hangs out at the golf course all day with his buddies drinking beer.

This weekend I drove up from Nashville to see Justin. I knew he was busy with a Web development project, but I have dealt with that stuff before so it was no big deal. This particular project was for the Rails Day contest. This contest went from midnight on Friday to midnight on Saturday. While he was working I did some MacZealots work, caught up on sleep, cleaned the apartment and did the laundry. While I was folding some shirts I got to thinking about what life with a developer is like. I thought I would share my thoughts with you.

I started pondering this while I was doing the laundry because I noticed that 9 out of the 10 t-shirts I was folding were development or Mac related. Just to give you a general idea of what I’m talking about (and the embarrassment I have to deal with when we go out in public) let me describe a few of them. First, I ran across one that read “Steve Jobs is my homeboy.” Then there was the one that said “I am blogging this.” Next was a WWDC 2004 polo and an Apple Developer Connection shirt. And my personal favorite was the one that said “Code Different.” I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

I am used to all this stuff, and I adore Justin because of it, but what about girls who aren’t used to this sort of thing? What about the poor innocent souls who think they are getting a normal guy and then come to find out he has been sucked into the chaotic world of development? What about the little girls who dream of Prince Charming and end up with Steve Ballmer? What about the girls who never even dreamed they would know who Steve Ballmer is? I think someone needs to offer them a little advice. Seeing that I am a seasoned professional who has been dating a developer since I was 15, I think there is no one better than me to show them the way.

Following are 10 things you need to know when dating a developer (or any kind of techie.)

1. **When projects have a deadline approaching, all plans are tentative.**

I don’t care if you sister is getting married or your grandmother dies. If your man has a project with a quickly approaching deadline forget about him being there. This has nothing to do with lack of support, and it is by no means a jab at the guys. It is simply a matter of dedication. I have tried setting alarms, e-mail alerts, etc. Don’t even waste your time. And try to be understanding when situations like this arise. If you’re supportive and that application or piece of software takes off chances are you’ll get a nice date for all your patience.

2. **Your body/sex appeal are nothing compared to the power of a processor.**

The nice thing about most computer boys is that they don’t typically check out other women. The downside of this is that they don’t notice the other women because they are too busy checking out people’s cell phones and iPods. When it comes to boys and their toys your short mini skirt just can’t compare. Trust me - I have learned this the hard way. Anytime Justin and I set foot in the Apple Store I see the way his eyes light up when he sees a shiny new G5. I see his jaw hit the ground when new operating systems are released. I run after him in my sexy heels as he sprints to be the first one in line to buy a new piece of software. It’s sick and twisted really, but it comes with the territory. I know what you are thinking. Sex. That will turn any guys head, right? Nope! Sorry ladies, it just isn’t going to work. Unless you are sporting a lacy black teddy with an Apple logo on the crotch you really don’t have a chance if there is a project in the works. The plus side of this is that you could probably roll around in his sheets with Brad Pitt and he wouldn’t notice. Seriously, though, this doesn’t mean you aren’t sexy or desirable. I don’t know what it does mean - I’m still trying to figure that out for myself - but rest assured he still loves you.

3. **You will NEVER be the Apple of his eye.**

Ha! Get it? Apple. I’m so funny.

4. **Profanity is his friend.**

You have to learn to put on your earmuffs when it comes to watching him work. I know. You want to be supportive and sit in his office offering kind words of encouragement. Go right ahead! Just be prepared for his response to be something about the $4000 piece of shit computer that isn’t going fast enough or the mother f’ing code that doesn’t work right.

5. **If you love him you will be standing by with a lot of caffeine.**

Red Bull. Bawls. Mountain Dew. Whatever it takes. He is going to need it. The late night brainstorming sessions and all-night coding marathons require some fuel. Nothing would mean more than you showing up on his doorstep with 64 ounces of goodness.

6. **There is no rest for the weary.**

Plan on going to bed alone and waking up alone. Well, unless your bed is right next to the computer, I guess. I have occasionally found Justin in the wee hours of the morning with his head resting on the computer, but that’s the most sleep he’ll get when he is working on something. To be a developer I think you also have to be a perfectionist. This means until every bit of code is complete and flawless he’ll be staring at the computer screen.

7. **Rubies and Pearls are not what you think.**

I once overheard Justin having a conversation with a friend of ours. He made mention of a ruby and a pearl. Seeing as how it was almost my birthday I immediately thought I was in for a great gift. Little did I know they were talking about Ruby on Rails and Perl. Later that week we went out for a Sunday afternoon drive. There is a jewelry store just across the street from the local Barnes and Noble. I, of course, thought we were pulling in to buy some bling. 30 minutes and two O’Reilly books later I figured out that my “birthday gift” was actually how-to manuals for programming languages.

8. **One screen is never enough.**

When Justin first told me he thought he needed not one but two flat-screen monitors I thought he had finally started drinking. What on earth would require two screens? Now he is talking about getting a third! Oddly enough, when I glance over at him grinding away he has both 17 inches covered. So when he says he needs bigger this or better that, just go with it. At least you know he won’t be cheap when it comes to other things.

9. **if (loveBoyfriend = 1 ) {learn();}**

I always thought this coding, development stuff was just nonsense. Then I learned a little bit about it and realized it’s actually very cool. Sometimes I can even offer a little help. The other day Justin spent hours working on something for work. He just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t coming together. In a spat of frustration he showed me what he was working on. Miraculously, I was able to find the problem. I think it was the proudest he had ever been of me.

10. **There is nothing like being the one there when he completes something new.**

I can honestly say it’s the greatest feeling in the world to be the one there when Justin gets out of the chair (for the first time in weeks) and is beaming at me (through red, puffy eyes) and dying to show me his newest creation. Somewhere between the annoying profanity and the lack of sleep he created something wonderful. So when you get frustrated with him just remember that maybe he’s working on the next Movable Type-ish phenomenon. Wouldn’t you love to be the girl behind the guy on the cover of Macworld?

It looks like Justin is about done with his Rails project. I’m gonna go curl up on the couch and watch a movie with him. And as I fall asleep tonight I’ll thank my lucky stars that my boyfriend is a crazy Apple Developer - the greatest guys in the world. I love you, sweetie.

Ladies, next time you go looking for a man, don’t check out the local bar scene. Think Different.

A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt...

2006-07-07T21:41:00.000-06:00

What is criticism? What is change? What is challenges? What is good? What is bad?

I have just finished reading a controversial blog article written by Mark Cuban who is a major IT geek like me turned into a leader of several companies including the Dallas Mavericks. He is also the IT guy behind HDnet and HDTV which is making headways in the Tech industry.

Although criticism is typically perceived as a negative, it can be one of the most positive and motivating forces any of us can experience. The key to turning criticism into a positive is understanding the nature of the criticism.

Daily, I face tremendous amount of criticism in my work as Information Technology is about radicial change and also using technology as a tool for students and teachers. Every time I make a change on the file server, email server or website, there will always been someone who is critical and rather place blame instead of accepting the situation and work around it. As Mark states in his article "People criticized where, when and how I did things. Not a single person criticized or challenged why" which brings to my next topic to the reason why we initate change, why we initate challenges and why we initate criticism.

My school, my culture, my environment is too conservative to obey the changes that come to them. I am living in a culture that very close, people living on the surface, people taking advantage of others, lack of emotional support and leaving little room for peace and patience. I also work in an environment with other foreigners from different wakes of life bringing in different experience of how things should be done. Yes I admit, this is good experience but at the same time with the large range of diversity, it's easily for someone to fall into the negative criticism trap and choose to place irrational blame when something breaks through the status quo or the situational norms.

Here is one of my favorite comments from his web-blog:

I've been thinking about emailing you for a little bit, but I think this is the best chance. I don't wanna harp on you because I think you've been amazing for the Mavericks, but recently you've been under attack for your NBA Finals activity and I think I have a positive solution.

Dealing with the NBA and its refs should be no different than training a dog or raising your children. If you're always telling your kid they are fat, ugly, stupid, etc., they start to believe it (unless that kid has the strength of mind to ignore it--but those kids are rare). If your dog does something good and you reward that behavior, after time, your dog will continue to do that positive behavior.

So, may I advocate for the "positive reinforcement" concept as applied to the NBA's refs. Be public and appreciative about those refs that do good. Mention the bad, but accentuate the positive. These guys are people, and they have to go home at night and explain why Cuban called daddy a bad name. A little positive treatment will go the distance in getting the benefit of the doubt when the benefit is really necessary.

Take it as a suggestion, but I think a different stance could pay dividends later on down the road. And this is my criticism--keep making us proud Mark!!!

I could not agree more. "Positive Reinforcement" is what should make the new breed of criticism because it allows us to feel comfortable with the acceptance of the situation and more or less does not degrade us "human into animals" with no respect for its feelings or existance. That should be how criticism be constructed because its allows us and fellow people like Mark Cuban to initiate healthy change to the masses who follow us.

Click here to read his article and comments from others regarding criticism.

Google Rankings

2006-07-06T21:03:00.000-06:00

Wow...

This morning, I googled the word "passionate traveler" and found out that my blog website is ranked 2nd in the searches... WOOT WOOT...

As most of you already know that my wallet was stolen in April leaving me without credit cards, insurance cards, UNIS ID card (the same card to prove I am a United Nations diplomat) and endless peices of yellow post it notes that we keep in our wallets. The sad thing is that I could not renew my www.velox.ca domain in time and later found out that I lost the domain registration to an a@#h@le in Toronto who is holding the name for selling purposes. GRRRRR... Time to register for a new domain.

Other interesting google rankings I found out this morning:

Did a search of my uncle gene's name and of course he is ranked #1 with Golf associated with his name. Indeed, I am not surprised of course.

Did a search of my father and step mother's name and my father's name is more popular with another man in vancouver who has been in the securities and brokage business for 30 years with endless years of service for board of directors, charities, etc... has he been that busy and not tell me? On the other hand, my step mother has endless credits for her work in the Library industry in B.C. Her google name produces 2 full pages of results.. WOW...

Sadly, my mother and my baby brother does not exist on the internet. I have to speak with them about this...

My aunts Susan and Carol are not in the searches but their names come up as judges and lawyer which gave me an amusing smile.

My other uncle Jim has nearly 2 pages of google searches but all of them are related to his retirement from the City of Calgary. That will be a party that I do not want to miss.

All my baby cuzs are not listed at all in any google searches except actors, lawyers, a U-boat captain and a house cleaner... certainly not the occupations that they are doing today.

And the number one family member with the most searches goes to my step father with over 15 pages including websites in japanese as part of his wonderful music career. I hope that he is reading this as it might inspire him to go to each page to check it out. ;)

Why don't you do a search on your own name to see what results may come up and write me a comment.

When the referee becomes the center of the match...

2006-07-01T19:56:00.000-06:00

Watching world cup football has really provided the drama and flair of how much a referee can influence the game. Last night, England was denied to reach the semi finals vs. France (Who later beat Brazil in a 1-0 match) lost to Portugal in a dramatic penalty kick shoot out.

The South American based official change the outcome /flow of the match when he issued a red card to Wayne Rooney for supposely "stamping" on the opponent's testicles. How is this possible? I honestly don't know. Everyone was yelling a foul but the official took in account his own emotions of the result afterwards and brought out the danger colour that no one (fan, players , coaches) wants to see in the playoff finals.

Why did this happen? Was it an intentional hit? Was the referee influence by the moaning and groaning of the Portugal players? If you were watching the match, it was very clear the referee let his decision to be influence by the players and the anger came out rejecting Rooney leaving England to fight with only 10 players left on the field.

You know what they say that World Cup football is the battle of countries, the events where political people watch, events where millions of dollars flow through the air like the wind passing over farmer's fields there is bound to be a level of bribery and corruption behind the people who run the matches, officiate the matches and even though who play the matches.

It stinks and knowing the reality of sports; it occurs everywhere!

Communist KFC...

2006-06-21T23:35:00.000-06:00

The ongoing fierce and brutal boxing match of communism vs. Market economy has traveled from South Vietnam to the north where Hanoi opens its first foreign franchise restaurant. A historic day in the capital where Ho Chi Minh continues to provide the reality of communism and the collectively of Vietnamese people must change it's attitude and learn to co-exist with economic influence of non-Vietnamese companies. We are all seeing that Vietnam's young population is a large potential market share for social and economical image of American / North American vibrant lifestyle.

KFC open their first restaurant today about two blocks from my apartment building attracting the attention of thousands who lined up outside to get a taste of the deep friend chicken and French fries. Motorbike parking attendants were busy throughout looking after the hundreds of motorbikes of people who been inching their way in to even get a view of Colonel Sanders himself. Watching the foundation pop being pouring into large plastic containers, French fries in the deep fryer and chicken sandwiches being wrapped up in the waxy paper which has been powering the fast food business for many years all over the world.

Despite the dynamic changes that continue to occur in north Vietnam and the corruption that continues to show in various areas, KFC is making a headway in bring the image and the reality of what ÂwesternÂ culture is about. Young people who are used to eating rice and veggies now have change their diet including the bread, mayo, and deep fried chicken are leaving the corner side house style businesses searching for other places to generate their income.

It has been indeed a historical day and I am lucky to be part of this by ordering a medium coke with little ice, French fries and chicken popcorn. Mc-Dicks, may you soon enter the growing market economy in a socialist Vietnam.

The Interview Chronicles

2006-06-19T18:37:00.000-06:00

I finished my first day of hour-long interviews at Unis in hoping to headhunt and secure a new young IT trained person to assume the role of the vacant IT Technician position. The interviews went from 8:30 am all the way to 5:30 pm with two short breaks for a lunch and a meeting with senior level management.

The first few morning interviews were really good with the Vietnamese candidates who can understand my level of English, (Phil / Andy - no jokes here!!) tell me a joke, say the word "cool" and of course can complete the IT technical test that I had waiting for them.

There are three Interviews:

Meeting with myself to screen out the level of listening & speaking, pronunciation and vocabulary, and hopefully the honesty behind their answers and their resumes.
Technical interview with two computers. One is the server and one is the client. Their job is to configure network connectivity between the two and detailed configurations that non-technical people do not know how to do. Creating a group of usernames on the server and testing one of those usernames on the client was worth many marks in this interview.
Meeting with myself and the head of the school to determine who would be offered the position in this brutal and grueling interview process.

A special note to this blog was that the last candidate who I interviewed at 4:30 pm last night was the bigger loser and cheater I ever met! During his technical interview, I was in my office and I heard some voices coming from outside the room where the candidate was finishing up his examination. I took a peek around the corner trying not to be noticed and saw that he was talking on his mobifone asking questions in Vietnamese and then clicking on the mouse in a fast fashion as if he understood the answers from his mobifone conversation.

I am sorry to say that this person will not have any jobs working at Unis... ;)

Last day of school...

2006-06-15T19:59:00.000-06:00

I am writing this blog after completing most of my technical requests for the friday morning... I am sitting at my desk feeling numb and tired after a long exhausting and stressful year. Most of my friend teachers are leaving tomorrow or the next day for the unknown as they get their 2 months holidays from teaching. Its going to be a sad but also happy day knowing teachers / friends are leaving but at least its good to know the year is coming to an end.

I will be conducting IT technican interviews on monday and tuesday in hoping to get extra help for the school's IT department and finally have the hope that I will leave this place for the holidays I been longing for.

My last words of wisdom for the students:

As Confucius says: "Wherever you go, go with all your heart"

The Key that Unlocks the Door to Happiness

2006-06-14T03:34:00.000-06:00

It seems almost too simple to be true, but acceptance -- accepting things exactly as they are -- can be the key that unlocks the door to happiness. After John 3:16, it may be one of the most referenced passages in literature. It's from Page 449 of Alcoholics Anonymous or The Big Book as it is widely known:

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

For me, serenity began when I learned to distinguish between those things that I could change and those I could not. When I admitted that there were people, places, things, and situations over which I was totally powerless, those things began to lose their power over me. I learned that everyone has the right to make their own mistakes, and learn from them, without my interference, judgement, or assistance!

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change
the things I can,
and the wisdom
to know the difference.

The key to my serenity is acceptance. But "acceptance" does not mean that I have to like it, condone it, or even ignore it. What it does mean is I am powerless to do anything about it... and I have to accept that fact.

Nor does it mean that I have to accept "unacceptable behavoir." Today I have choices. I no longer have to accept abuse in any form. I can choose to walk away, even if it means stepping out into the unknown. I no longer have to fear "change" or the unknown. I can merely accept it as part of the journey.

I spent years trying to change things in my life over which I was powerless, but did not know it. I threatened, scolded, manipulated, coerced, pleaded, begged, pouted, bribed and generally tried everything I could to make the situation better -- only watch as things always got progressively worse.

I spent so much time trying to change the things I could not change, it never once occurred to me to simply accept them as they were.

Now when things in my life are not going the way I planned them, or downright bad things happen, I can remind myself that whatever is going on is not happening by accident. There's a reason for it and it is not always meant for me to know what that reason is.

That change in attitude has been the key to happiness for me. I know I am not the only who has found that serenity.

Written by: Al Anon Member

Expectations...

2006-06-11T08:15:00.000-06:00

I expect nothing, I fear no one.... I am free --Nikos Kazantzakis

Would it surprise you to know that many times the expectations we have of others are born out of our own psyche, and have little to do with the person we have them about?

Expectations in relationships can begin when take our own ideals, standards, and views of things, and project them onto other people. We then anticipate that they will live in accordance with these standards.

Have you ever expected someone to be happy, sad, mad, afraid, or in some other emotional state, and have been surprised when they weren't? After all, that is how you would feel in the same situation. Or maybe you have been confused when you did something nice for someone that you expected them to like, but they weren't showing the enthusiasm about it that you thought they might? It was something you would have appreciated someone doing for you, so why didn't they like it you'd wondered.

As we project our life view onto others, we are assuming that they think and feel in a similar way that we would in the same situation, and we expect them to behave accordingly.

So, when someone close to us eventually does something that appears in deep contrast with the standards we have associated with them, we often feel hurt, betrayed, angry and confused. Our disappointment gets expressed in the kinds phrases we've all heard, or have even spoken ourselves... "I expected more from you", "You are the last person I'd ever have expected to do that", "You really let me down", "This is not like you at all" etc.

We profess this, however, having turned a blind eye to blunt behavioral evidence to the contrary on numerous occasions. We cleverly develop a tunnel vision where we only allow through, information that supports the view we have of who we want that person to be.

The truth is that people show us exactly who they are through their everyday behaviors. We are aware of who they are at a deeper level within us. We need to stop fantasizing and pretending things are not as they are. To stop filtering and begin to pay attention to the reality of what others think and feel, and how they behave. We must acknowledge to ourselves, the truth of who they are as individuals. When we do this we let down the illusory veil we've kept around them, and can thereafter stop the futile behaviors of projecting and expecting.

Take a moment to think about someone for whom you have developed a set of expectations for. How accurate are the assumptions you have made about this person's feelings and behaviors? Can you see that many of your expectations of them really revolve around you and your own feelings, beliefs, hopes, needs, and desires related to the relationship? That these things have been projected onto them? Have you tuned out obvious clues to their authentic personality?

Of course, looking at relationships with others in a more truthful light might reveal a need for making some changes within them, and it can be in human nature to fear and resist change. It usually seems safer and easier to stay in the secure cocoon of our fantasies. But if we remain there we are guaranteeing ourselves more pain from the inevitable let downs of unmet expectations, as how could anyone ever live up to someone else's illusions of them?

When we choose to break the illusion and replace our assumptions and projections with a truthful evaluation, freedom from expectations is carried with it, and the opportunity to begin a more clear and honest relationship is born.

On the flip side, we might sense that we are part of other's illusions at times, and that they have made assumptions, and projections, and have formed expectations of us. There is no way you can be true to yourself while trying to conform to someone else's agenda of course. What could be more of a waste of your authentic self expression than spending time acting out someone else's fantasy!

We hold some responsibility here, not to begin to conform to others manufactured images of ourselves. Sometimes we behave in ways that others think we should out of guilt, fear of not being liked, fear of abandonment (i.e. the relationship ending) or uncertainty ourselves in who we really are.

Might you be contributing to the reinforcement of illusions and projections that others have related to you, that have led them to develop unrealistic expectations of you?

Be real with the people in your life. Let them know who you really are, and how you really feel. As you begin to see and accept them for who they authentically are, gently help them to see through to their own mistaken assumptions and illusory identities they have built around you, to the real you as well.

When we demonstrate the insight and courage to embrace the truth, along with finally putting an end to the pain of constantly being disappointed by unmet expectations of one another, our relationships have the opportunity to become rich in authenticity, trust, and deep emotional bonding.

The day of days...

2006-06-08T08:32:00.000-06:00

The days of stress...
The days of defeat...
The days of exhaustion...
The days of destruction...
The days of Anger...
The days of downward spiral...
The days of Hate...
The days of pain and suffering...
The days of devastation...
The day of days...

The thoughts of confusion, hatred, agonize, struggles, and emptiness consumes my mind and soul. The peace and serenity has left my body for greener pastures. I can feel the dark side of life creep along the side of my body looking for swift passage to enter my body making its way to my heart for annihilation.

The anger and hate towards Muslims residing in many countries after the continuous obliteration of life who use terror as means to destroy humanity.

The International financial markets take a plunge on uncertainties of oil which commands our daily lives no matter where we live, where we come from and what we do.

The most beautiful and nonviolent country in the world has been devoted to promote world peace has its dreams and passion shattered by recent world wide intimidation and terrorism leaving the country in doubts about its long standing repetition.

My dearest sibling whose life I treasure and miss dearly finds himself ridden with defeat, exhaustion, confusion, betrayal, fear and lack of self – confidence is moving far away from his family into un-charted waters.

My dearest mother bed ridden from a recent foot surgery giving her the immobility to move around to do what life demands for her for months to come.

My wants to be committed co-worker who wife recently had a baby daughter and knowing that I made the decision his contract is not to be renewed for the next academic school year.

My dearest girlfriend who I really care about is mutually in agreement that we need to break apart from each other as the silly resentments and selfish blames consumes our daily lives that we cannot resolve.

This is what I call the day of days…

The Connotation of Stress...

2006-05-24T05:35:00.000-06:00

Ongoing stress creates an energetic environment, affecting town and country, spreading from nation to nation, causing disharmony, disease, storms and wars. The heart's intelligence can help to dissipate these negative stressful energies, giving people a fresh start in learning how to get along and live stress free. As enough people learn about emotional fitness, it will cause a global shift into new consciousness that many are talking about, and then quality of life has a chance of becoming better for the whole.

My new toy...

2006-05-19T17:07:00.000-06:00

I did a little shopping on the internet and I have spent 8.8 Billion Euro dollars on my new A380-800 toy. It's not exactly going to be ready yet but I do have an order in place and I expect it to land in Hanoi within the end of this year.My initial layout plans was to seat 20 people and have a large indoor street hockey rink so we can play while traveling from Hanoi to Healthrow. After our long exhausting game at 10,000 meters' high, we can watch the NHL finals on the big screen T.V with our specially imported Molson Canadain beverages and a BBQ with a specially designed smoke ventilation system. What do you think? Anyone want in?

"Welcome to Scotty's Airlines, please fasten your seat belt and a sexy flight attendant will shortly come and assist you in making your flight a passionate event you will never forget."

The Metro Sexual adventures continues...

2006-05-15T10:54:00.000-06:00

Took the weekend off from any IT devices (Does an I-pod count?) and did absolutely nothing except that Minh Nguyet and I went for a massage at a local high end massage parlor. The experience was amazing and I decided for my readers that I would describe my whole ordeal that happened from 8:00 pm to 10:30 pm.

There are two different kinds of saunas (Dry and Wet)... Pretty weird actually... I would recommend doing the wet experience first before going into the dry. Honestly don't ask me why...

After the sauna, I had this soothing peaceful bath with a Vietnamese male staff (don’t ask questions ok Phil?) wash my back with a wet towel. Vicariously going up and down to the point I was ready to pass out. Once again, I will remind you of the fact I am not gay or metro sexual ok?

Long hot steamy shower where the water comes directly above you instead of mounted on the wall angled towards your head and face. It was sort of something of the scene of survivor with palm trees & coconuts and the scenic ocean in the distance but you know you are not getting voted of the island.

Then the interested Vietnamese male wet towel back rubber asked me to put on a towel and follow him to the elevator. Yes, this place has 10 floors with each floor specialize in a specific function of the treatment cycle. I have to admit I feel like a mad cow going through many examination-test workstations with a Hawaiian Pina Colada in one hand and sun tan lotion in the other. I was greeted by a young Vietnamese women with big hands (I had to do the handshake) as I hoped into the elevator.

On the 6^th floor, there were many massage tables with candles, incense, soft music and white towels everywhere. The Vietnamese women asked me to enter this room where she asked me to take off my towel and lie down on the bed head into the massage table hole. At that time, I was sooo sleepy and relaxed (see above) to know that I was standing there naked in front of the massage therapist ready to be beaten softly to death. She placed a blanket on top of me and started working on various body parts (no funny ideas ok Phil?) with massage oil that smells like I feel down a hole full of flowers petals soft and full of flavor. At this point, I have already passed out.

I woke up to a tap on my shoulder and she already asked me to turn around. Once again I passed out while she was working on the front sections (once again no funny ideas ok Phil?)

Finally everything was done and I took a nice warm soothing shower to wash the oil and went back upstairs to visit my newly wanted to be gay Vietnamese male assistance and put back my clothes on before I went downstairs to pay for the bill. Once again, I am not gay or metro sexual.

So yeah… my whole passionate, gay-want to be loving, aroma smelling, calming, relaxing, soothing, gentle massage after a long stressful week, only cost me a merely 20 US dollars. Honestly where can you beat this price? Huh? Well at least I already convince my friends to join me next time to verify that this story is indeed a chronological event that was experienced by the Passionate traveler.

You were there all the time...

2006-05-13T16:35:00.000-06:00

How I feel about my mother is deeper than words can say
I think of courage, beauty, faith, and the kindest person in every way
She helped me feel beautiful and talented when others said I was not
She carried many of my childhood heartaches so a lot of the pain I have now forgot
Unselfishly she concealed her own personal problems so much that to all of us children she always seemed glad
showering color into my life is what she does, especially on days that I am sad
I don't understand how she was able to raise two children all on her own
My mom is truly a queen just minus the throne
There is no word that can define the way I feel about a lady so fine
My mother has taught me about unconditional love, faith and hope
This amazing woman is my mother, my greatest friend, my hero, and I am forever grateful that she is mine

Happy Mother's day!!!!

With Love....
--Scotty
xxoo

The day of agony…

2006-05-11T17:33:00.000-06:00

My rookie manager year has taken another hit leaving me with chaos and questionable repercussions from the management of the school. I was privately asked to investigate one of my members of the IT department for a serious matter that can acutely affect the confidence of users in their usage of IT within the workforce. Keeping a long story short, we had to release the employee for overly abusing his administrative rights on the computer systems and reading other people’s emails.

Initially, I was asked if the system was technically competent of producing an error from our limited email server software that maybe perceived as a hic-up. After three days of my cyber-detective skills, I manage to rule-out the technical glitches and found out that one of my own employees did in fact read email transmissions between two senior managers and my communications between myself and my boss. I can visualize the long hours sitting in the Building 7 conference room with older members of the administration who know nothing about technical cyber investigation relying on me to show them the facts in a non-technical way. After proving and securing the hard evidence (yes we did put a tape around the crime scene and dusted for finger prints) I was asked to bring him over to the Head of the School’s office for questioning. After a long two hours, he still denied how he was technically able to read the email messages but finally confessed to opening emails that were not intended to be delivered to him. His final answer was that he was looking for information in regards to the school’s pension plan for the local staff.

My feelings of this event have completely traumatized me where I am trying my best to build and maintain a 300 computer network and protect the data from un-authorized access. It is my responsibility as a manager to be accountable for what happened and to effectively deal with the issues and set the school’s IT systems into a better position. I am currently down one person who was very technically knowledgeable and educated leaving me to perform two job positions until we hire another IT staff member. I have already drafted a re-organization document with more comprehensive job descriptions which hopefully bring more structure into the young IT department. I know it’s something that the school has been loathing for months.

This situation has brought more inspiration and enthusiasm into my job because I am no longer setting up a school’s infrastructure but merely to secure and bring in the policies needed to maintain the infrastructure that gets heavily used by nearly 1000 people per school day.

I am very disappointed of the loss but relieve of the self mental gain in my management skills and realize what is needed to further my career and education in this volatile and dynamic information technology world.

Remembering Tiger's Dad...

2006-05-05T11:04:00.000-06:00

The following interview appeared in the February, 2004 issue of Golf Digest.

Clubs like Augusta National don't discriminate. They just don't want you. There's a difference. It's a bitch not being wanted by something or someone, which is why divorces are so difficult. But I've learned to handle rejection very well. If you love yourself enough, you won't give a damn if they want you or not.

Tiger's birthday is Dec. 30, which meant he got presents at Christmas and another batch five days later. When he was 5, he started claiming he got only half a Christmas and half a birthday. He thought we bought one batch of presents and split them. I never could convince him otherwise. He left Santa Claus out of the debate and focused on Tida and me. He did get more presents. Smart kid.

When we Green Berets were in Alaska on maneuvers for a long time, nothing tasted better than hobo coffee. We'd fill a can with water, boil it, pour in some coffee and let it brew. When it was done, we'd throw a little snow in the can, which made the grounds instantly settle to the bottom. At that point we'd dip our cups. Then we'd pour in more water and brew the same grounds. We'd do this over and over. None of the grounds got in the cup, and we'd get 10 batches of coffee from a handful of grounds.

I was in the recovery room after my heart operation, with my wife and Tiger by my side. Suddenly I was in this tunnel with a bright light at the end. It got brighter, but there was no sense of moving toward it. I felt better than I ever did my entire life. Then a voice says, "Are you all right?" and it jarred me back to this Earth. Next thing I know the nurse -- it was her voice; she'd rushed in -- was jacking me full of adrenaline. My blood pressure had gone almost to zero, and I had, in fact, died for a second. It scared the hell out of Tiger. Me, all I felt was a momentary pang of regret that I was back in the hospital. That tunnel was so peaceful, just like people describe. I haven't feared death since.

At age 6, Tiger signed for a wrong scorecard. It was at the Junior World in San Diego, on the par-3 Presidio Hills course. He made a par on a hole, but the scorekeeper for the group put down a birdie. Tiger signed his card and was disqualified. Afterward, making sure Tiger was standing right there, I lectured the scorekeeper. Tiger stood there scowling, like, You tell 'em, Dad. But the lecture was for show; I winked at the scorekeeper as I talked. I wheeled on Tiger, and in a stern tone asked, "Did you sign this?" Tiger said, "Yes." I said, "Did you check it?" Now Tiger looked nervous. "No, Daddy." I told him to never trust anyone else with your scorecard. Never. Tiger's little eyes were as big as teacups. That was the end of it. He hasn't signed a wrong scorecard since.

Tiger was 4. I'd say, "Why are you hitting your ball over there, Tiger?" And he'd say, "Because there's a sand twap." "Why are you going that way?" "Because there's wawa." It was course management. To this day, it may be his greatest strength.

Tiger had a stuttering problem in the first grade. Tida and I couldn't figure out why. Even the speech therapist was stumped. Then it dawned on us: Tida talked to him in Thai, and I talked to him in English. When Tiger spoke, he talked in English. The thing was, he didn't want to listen or speak in Thai. His mind was rebelling. We stopped talking in Thai, and his stuttering ceased.

Here's how you teach a child to putt. Place a ball in their right hand and have them stand sideways, like you do at address. Ask them to swivel their head sideways and look at the hole. Ask them, "Do you see the picture?" Have them look down and back up at the target two more times, allowing them to ingrain that picture in their minds. Now say, "Toss the ball across your body to the picture." It works. It makes putting intuitive. The first time I tried it with Tiger, he tossed the ball to within six inches of the hole. When I eventually handed him a putter, he did even better. He used this technique to make the crucial putt on the third playoff hole against Ernie Els in the Presidents Cup.

When Venus Williams won Wimbledon, there was her father, standing up with a sign that read, "It's Venus' party, and no one's invited." I couldn't imagine doing something like that. It would embarrass Tiger, and it would embarrass me. It infuriates me when people compare me to Richard Williams, because I don't respect him.

If you're seven-eighths Irish and one-eighth Indian, you're Irish. If you're seven-eighths Irish and one-eighth black, you're black. Why is that?

Years ago the Army sent me to Germany. My first wife came with me. A landlord took us downtown to show us an apartment. And we caused a traffic jam. I mean gridlock. People got out of their cars, pointing at us as though we were aliens. I asked the landlord what they were talking about. "They're looking for your tails," he said. "When the white soldiers came through here in World War II, they told us black people had tails." Now, you can't blame the Germans for thinking we had tails. But it bothered me that American soldiers would perpetuate such a thing.

I could quit smoking if I wanted to. I have tremendous willpower. A while back I quit for 18 months. But then I went to my daughter's college graduation. Got stuck in my ex-wife's house with all her relatives. I snapped and lit up. Been smoking ever since.

Lying about your score or cheating at golf is really stealing. They constitute the worst kind of stealing, which is stealing from yourself. There is no end to the misery this brings on a person. I taught this to Tiger at a very young age, and to this day he's incapable of lying. He may not give you a full answer, but he never lies. The one time Tiger lied as a boy, he got physically ill.

When you get angry, you give up power. You allow outside influences to harm your greatest asset -- yourself. That's why I've gotten angry at someone only twice in my life. The subject of my anger I'll keep to myself. But that person said it was very frightening.

My mother told me I was as good as anybody else, but to have an equal chance, I'd have to do better than the next person. She told me never to judge anybody, to devote myself to being proactive, positive and constructive. That's how I've run my life, and as a result I haven't had time to feel bitter or hostile about the inequities associated with being a black man in America.

Race consciousness and prejudice will never disappear in America. It can't, because it's embedded in our language. A minute ago you referred to "little white lies." Why isn't it a "little black lie?" Why is it blackmail and not "whitemail?" Why do good guys wear the white hats? Invariably, the word black is used to refer to something derogatory, dangerous or inferior. It creates a stigma, and so long as it exists -- and I can't imagine it ever changing -- there will be a separation between black and white.

I was watching a documentary about the famine in Ethiopia. Tiger, who was 4, saw the distended bellies and the inability of the children to even swat flies off their faces. Tiger disappeared into his bedroom and came back with his gold-coin collection. "Daddy, can we give this to help those little kids?" I accepted it, and sent the cash equivalent to a doctor friend who was serving in Ethiopia. Tiger doesn't know it, but I still have those gold coins. One day, when the time is right, I'll give them back to him and recall that moment, which brought tears to my eyes.

Food has to taste good, look good and smell good to be good. Collard greens, contrary to what Fuzzy Zoeller said, don't fit the bill.

I love golf, but my first love was baseball. I was a catcher. When I was 12, Roy Campanella and Satchel Paige came through town on a barnstorming tour. They let me be the bat boy because my dad was the scorekeeper. While they were warming up, I asked Roy if I could catch Satchel. He handed me his mitt and said, "Don't hurt yourself, boy." I said, "Don't worry. I've got a major-league arm." Campanella giggled at that. I said, "By the way, tell Satch that after he throws his last pitch, he'd better duck, because I'm gonna throw the ball right through his chest. Roy just shook his head. Satch's first pitch came in real easy. I threw it back harder than he threw it to me. Satch threw the next one harder. So did I. By the time he threw his last warm-up pitch, he was really bringing it. And when I caught it, I sprang out of my crouch and threw it right where Satchel's chest was. You better believe he got out of the way. The second baseman caught the ball ankle-high, on the right-hand side of the bag. Roy said, "Boy, you really do have a major-league arm." I did have a good arm. And I can say that I caught the great Satchel Paige.

My mother insisted that I speak in good, clear English. No sloughing off on my e's, f's and t's. Learn good grammar. If I had said "ax" when I meant "ask," she would have been all over my case. Today, I concur with Thurgood Marshall -- there is nothing wrong with speaking the language of your culture when you're within that culture. But to be upwardly mobile in society, one must learn to speak the best English that one can.

Yes, Tiger is known to swear on the course. You can't have it both ways. You can't have the fire, intensity, competitiveness and aggressiveness if you don't blow off steam. Profanity is the language of youth. I don't say it's right, I just say that's the way it is.

Before I left for my second tour of Vietnam, the Army assigned a demolitions expert to me. This man was an expert at hurting people, and he loved his work. He was a genius at creating special booby traps and tripwires, all sorts of custom-made devices designed to inflict maximum pain and damage. It's all he talked about. We'd send him out to prepare a perimeter, and in an hour he'd come back with a look of great satisfaction on his face. "Nobody's coming through there, sir," he'd say, and I knew he meant it. I was glad he was on our side, but eventually I was glad to get away from him. He scared the hell out of me.

The secret to being a good player is balance. I don't mean keeping your equilibrium. I mean placing an equal emphasis on driving, iron play, short game and putting. It's the most obvious thing, but very few players have balance. And almost nobody works to correct it.

Most people cannot or will not discuss their combat experiences. It's too traumatic and painful for them. I saw all the things you see in war -- dead bodies, brains all over the place, friends dying -- and I can talk about it. I had a mind-set that this was war, and that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I had a job to do. I didn't overanalyze it. I loved myself too much to let it take something away from me.

Many times I've been in bed and it's 1 a.m. and I'm tired but don't want to go to sleep because I don't want the day to end. My goal is to enjoy every minute of every day, squeeze every bit out of it that I can. I have a hard time looking ahead because I'm so involved with what's going on right now. I love living life.

To a golfer at Tiger's level, a good caddie is as important as a good wife. There has to be a chemistry between the two, and the caddie must have great technical ability. There cannot be one shred of doubt in the player's mind that what the caddie is suggesting is correct. Some people think the caddie is overrated. I see it just the opposite.

Many years ago I attended a self-help seminar. One of the exercises concerned money. They asked us to write down on a piece of paper the material things we desired to have in a two-week period. Then we wrote down what we wanted in a month, three months, six months, a year and five years down the road. I forgot about the seminar, and 10 years later I accidentally came across my lists. I laughed, because I had everything I'd wanted. On the list was a sports car. Well, I had two. I also put down that I wanted $10,000 in the bank. I had a lot more than that. These things seemed as far away as the moon when I wrote them down. They in fact were right around the corner.

The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil, but I'm not so sure. There are a lot of poor countries with all the evil you'd want. The desire for power is much more corruptive.

The worst part of getting older is realizing what you could have accomplished if you'd known then what you know now. Every old person, no matter how content they seem, feels that sense of regret. It's a bitch, but it's part of life. So be nice to me.

I acquired some knowledge of geopolitics through my two tours of Vietnam. I can unequivocally say that as hairy as things are in Iraq, the situation would be apocalyptic if we pulled out. Civil war, reprisals and bloodshed like you can't imagine. I support our involvement there totally, for humanitarian reasons. At a minimum.

Listen to Tiger when he loses. He does it graciously. He acknowledges that the other guy was the better golfer that day. The one thing he doesn't say is that the other guy was better over all.

Tiger has tried all kinds of creative ways to get me to give up cigarettes. I appreciate that, but he might as well be talking to a tree. We have an understanding. When our plane lands in Hong Kong, Tiger gets the baggage. I go to the curb and smoke.

Tiger and I were in our motel at a junior tournament. He was 11. Out of the blue he asked, "What's male menopause?" We talked about it for an hour. Then he asked, "What's the immigration policy of Australia?" That took another hour. Tiger then said, "Dad, what's ... " I didn't let him finish. I put his butt in bed.

There's one thing about my smoking that Tiger has either forgotten or never listened to in the first place. I don't inhale.

Kindred: Remembering Earl Woods as caring, not carried away

2006-05-03T10:39:00.000-06:00

He once predicted his famous golfing son would “do more than any other human in history to change the course of humanity.” He compared Tiger Woods to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, telling TV Guide that meeting Mandela “was the first time Tiger met a human being who was equal to him … who was as powerful as he is.”

Clearly, Earl Woods could get carried away. That was never much of a secret, even to those of us in the farm belt. So when he came to Bloomington in June 2001, as guest speaker for a BroMenn Foundation event at Illinois Wesleyan, a question begged: Was Woods’ perspective only occasionally missing in action, or lost altogether?

The answer came during an interview hours before Woods’ Shirk Center appearance. A few minutes in, it was apparent this was not a delusional maniac, but a loving father who shared far more than golf with his superstar son.

Earl Woods spoke of a Tiger only he knew on that Thursday afternoon, revealing that beneath the sweet swing and major championships was a guy with vices and flaws, just like you and me.

He told of a Tiger who at 9 years old reveled in playing tackle football with friends on a school parking lot, com-ing home with a broad smile and bloodied elbows and knees. Once, he returned to the doorstep in his friends’ arms, having run into a tree while chasing a punt.

Earl Woods admitted being embarrassed at Tiger’s childhood Christmas programs, saying, “He can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” The elder Woods added his son “has very little rhythm,” and that he grew up loving cartoons, video games, junk food and rap music.

This was a father who groomed his son for greatness on greens and fairways throughout the country, yet also played Nintendo with him (and lost) back at the hotel.

Likely, those moments are foremost in Tiger Woods’ mind today as he deals with his father’s death. Earl Woods died of cancer Wednesday at age 74, having seen his son evolve from a kid who feasted on tacos and McDonald’s hamburgers into the best golfer on the planet.

Earl Woods played a huge role in that development, supplying training, love and support. Tiger Woods was a natural from the beginning, appearing on the “Mike Douglas Show” at age 2 and shooting a 48 on the back nine of a public course as a 3-year-old.

Yet, his father provided the tools to hone those skills and feed Tiger’s passion, part of Earl Woods’ “game plan” for his son. They were in the car and in hotels a lot together, traveling to and from amateur tournaments from their California home.

Eventually, trophies and medals won in relative obscurity were replaced by multimillion-dollar paychecks and titles on a world stage. Earl Woods said in 2001 he saw it coming all along, and was determined to “prepare Tiger for responsibility.”

“I knew what Tiger was going to be … how good he was going to be and what he would do to the game of golf,” Earl Woods said that day. “The plan was for up close and personal support, and then as he matured and was able to handle the responsibility, to turn things over to him and pull back.”

The elder Woods did so in 2000, and Tiger won three of the four major championships. He was ready for what-ever pressures the game and his celebrity status could throw at him, just as Dad envisioned.

Earl Woods also looked forward to the day Tiger, through his charitable Tiger Woods Foundation, could have “an impact on children’s lives throughout the world,” and thus help “change the course of humanity.”

He did not live to realize that dream, and now must oversee its progress from heaven. He earned his place there, not by producing a sports legend, but joining Kultida Woods in raising a respectful and responsible son.

Earl Woods wasn’t crazy … just crazy about his child and what they gave one another.

There is no sweeter victory, even for Tiger Woods...

My baby brother...

2006-04-29T20:13:00.000-06:00

It has been a hard week swallowing the news that my baby brother of 19 years has seriously relapsed in his hard fighting sober years of drug using. Hearing the news over the phone and reading the late night emails has brought emotions and thoughts of the horrors that ravage my intermediate and extended family in the last 6 years.

Naturally and for a long time, I was used to these little relapsed as if they were "hic-ups" and a few weeks later, everything would turn out well without much attention or shock to the world that surrounds him. But this relapse incident is no longer an incident, it was bang, a climax, a scene from a big action movie where the audience was unsure what the consequences or what will happen next.

I hated the fact that I heard that we may lose him. He may be going down a short path like Anakin Skywalker when he was seduced to the "Dark Side of the Force". Yes, I know that Darth Vader is the biggest villian ever to be selected in the world of movies but having thoughts of my baby brother turning into such person? It was the hardest feeling I have to take in thinking that I may actually lose my baby brother who I spent most of my dear life being a big brother and his best friend who always cared about him.

I was a big brother who wanted him to be in all the sports teams.I was a big brother who want him to be the best. I was a big brother who had the motivation and compassion to be there like Earl Woods watching his son "Tiger" swing golf balls beating out the competition. Sports such as Basketball, football, hockey, baseball, wrestling, golf, boxing, and every other sport that he could try and excel to the best of his ability.

The thought of failure consumes me like a windy Kansas tornado cloud rapidly covers me from head to toe thinking "What could I have done?"

I love him sooo much that writing this blog entry does brings soft tears running down my cheeks and sliding down my neck while my shaky hands tremble on the keyboard. The emotions and thoughts of the great life that we both used to share flashes back into your mind tries to overcome the reality of the dark side that steered our course in the last 6 years.

Living in Vietnam has not help my situation as I am suffering from an open wound that I expected that sometime would be fully closed and I could return to the days of peace and tranquility that was the driving force of a brotherhood relationship.

My initial reaction was to take a leave of absence from my work and depart for Canada to offer my big brother love to tell him that I am still there in your heart as Scotty who always, always, always will be your big brother regardless. Fighting with the reality of powerless and mental health, this event may not happen for many days to come.

The streets of Mui Ne...

2006-04-29T04:18:00.000-06:00

Tonight Minh Nguyet and I will travel down to HCMC and spend one night in the hotel before we head out to the east coast. We will be taking the Train in the morning from HCMC to a small town called Phan Thiet which is an economical and logistic hub for one of the famous beaches in Vietnam. Within a 20 minute drive we will be relaxing and reading books on a beach called Mui Ne watching the ocean and the waves crashing into the shore living its mark in mother nature. Mui Ne beach is known to be a tourist area for the American GI who took a break from the fighting against the the Northern Communist Viet Cong Army. I just found out today that Tiger Woods's father who was an Army commander spend some of his luxious holidays in Mui Ne so we hope to enjoy what it has to offer.

Another key note for this blog is that Happy Liberation day for Vietnam in their success against the Americans in 1975.

Why the f@#$ am I out here guarding this truck full of cheesecake?

2006-04-28T19:56:00.000-06:00

The best war journalism puts its audience in close proximity to combat. It's hard to imagine getting closer than The War Tapes does.

Shot by soldiers on consumer-grade digital video cameras, the documentary offers an immersive, sobering and often shocking slice of life (and death) in Iraq. It premieres this week at the Tribeca Film Festival and opens in select cities this summer.

Director Deborah Scranton described War Tapes as the result of a "virtual embed." She gave cameras to 10 Iraq-bound soldiers, and then used e-mail and instant messaging to provide them with advice on technique and technical issues.

By the end of their yearlong tour of duty, the soldiers, all from New Hampshire's National Guard, had sent Scranton 800 hours of what she considered thoughtful, often beautifully shot, footage.

"They became journalists," Scranton said. "This isn't like soldiers making home movies. This was a process, a conscious effort for us to together tell the experience of what it means to go to war."

Most of the footage, including hours of road shots, was mundane. But with their cameras constantly rolling, the soldiers captured plenty of revealing and terrifying moments of the kind a drop-in journalist couldn't.

In one scene, soldiers are caught in a firefight. The camera spins wildly while we hear the harrowing cries of "Man down! Man down!" In another, GIs are ambushed during the siege of Fallujah. They chase down and kill the insurgents, then photograph and film the corpses.

And upon arriving on the scene of a vicious car bombing in Taji, an obviously shaken Steve Pink, one of the film's three main subjects, continued to film.

"We made the news," said Pink while watching CNN footage of the bombing later that night. "I feel exploited and proud at the same time."

Frontline producer Martin Smith said TV coverage of Iraq has been severely constrained by war's danger and unpredictability.

"It's so unlike any other war, and I've heard this from people who covered Vietnam," said Smith, who has been to Iraq four times since the U.S. invasion and is preparing for a trip to Afghanistan. "There is no place you can retreat from the danger. Print journalists and photojournalists are relying heavily on Iraqi and Arab stringers to do the work."

The film is another example of participatory journalism, Smith said, made possible by cheap cameras and the growing number of people who know how to use them.

With the Pentagon shutting down unauthorized blogs, it's no surprise that some of the footage shot for the film didn't survive the military's vetting process. One confiscated tape included a graphic scene from the Fallujah firefight.

But plenty of mind-blowing content did find its way into War Tapes, thanks mostly to its filmmakers' unprecedented access.

"I'm not supposed to talk to the media," one soldier said when Pink tried to interview him. "I'm not the media, dammit!" Pink replied.

Sgt. Zack Bazzi, another of the film's three main subjects, paid little mind to the camera while on patrol. In an interview with Wired News, he said he'd strap Scranton's Sony PC109 camera onto the dash of his Humvee and then go about his business.

"Sooner or later you forget about it," he said. "Especially in a combat situation, when there are many different things you worry about -- the soldiers I'm in charge of, possible bad guys out there on the road.

"I'd be crossing the ethical boundaries if I acted a certain way in front of the camera instead of focusing my full attention on leading my men and accomplishing my mission. The behavior you see is genuine."

As a result, War Tapes feels far more raw and political than network coverage. One of its main targets is KBR, a Halliburton-owned military contractor that the soldiers suspect of war profiteering.

"Why the fuck am I out here guarding this truck full of cheesecake?" asked Mike Moriarty, another of the film's central subjects. "The priority of KBR making money outweighs the priority of our safety."

But War Tapes is no Michael Moore rant. Scranton said one of her main goals was to deepen and complicate our conception of the war, not politicize it.

Bazzi thinks the film succeeds in providing a more nuanced portrait of Iraq and of the soldiers fighting there.

"Are things rosy? Are there butterflies flying around little squirrels and people hugging us?" he said. "No. But are we killing babies and destroying the whole country? Absolutely not.

The Silence Protest

2006-04-28T19:36:00.000-06:00

Something caught my eye this morning... I will let your eyes decipher it's connotation.

Manifestación pública de protesta por la exterminación de animales para la fabricación de prendas de piel.

Barcelona, 01.21.2006

Flames Burn Ducks With Three-Goal Barrage To Take Series Lead

2006-04-25T13:30:00.000-06:00

(Sports Network) - Kristian Huselius registered a goal and two assists as the Calgary Flames defeated the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 5-2, at the Pond to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal. Game 4 will be played Thursday in Anaheim.

Robyn Regehr tallied a goal and an assist and Miikka Kiprusoff made 27 saves for Calgary, which won in Anaheim for just the second time in its last 14 tries. Daymond Langkow, Chuck Kobasew and Darren McCarty added goals for the Flames.

"The first couple of games we were a little tight," said Flames captain Jarome Iginla. "Tonight we were more relaxed, more determined and enjoying the playoffs. This is what it's all about."

Francois Beauchemin scored both of the Ducks' goals and Scott Niedermayer added two assists but Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 19 shots for Anaheim, which gave up three power-play goals.

"We have no room for mistakes next game or throughout the rest of the series," said Giguere. "We have nothing to lose. We have overcome challenges before during the season and this will be no different."

Calgary drew first blood with 5:59 left in the opening frame while on the man advantage when Langkow beat Giguere top shelf with a wrister from the left circle for a 1-0 lead.

Anaheim answered with 2:34 left in the first period while on the power play after Beauchemin beat Kiprusoff top shelf with a one-timer from the right point to make it 1-1.

Calgary regained the lead 1:25 into the second period while on the man advantage when Huselius poked a rebound past Giguere's glove side for a 2-1 lead.

The Ducks netted the equalizer 8:16 into the middle stanza after Beauchemin beat Kiprusoff glove side with a one-timer from the high slot to make it 2-2.

Calgary, however, scored the next three goals to establish a commanding lead.

The Flames took the lead for good with 4:26 left in the second period when Kobasew's wrister squirted through Giguere's five hole for a 3-2 advantage.

Calgary upped its lead 4:59 into the final frame when McCarty stuffed the disc past Giguere glove side along the ice for a 4-2 lead. The Flames capped the scoring less than a minute later while on the power play after Regehr beat Giguere stick side with a wrister from the left circle to make it 5-2.

Game Notes

For the first time in its eight playoff series, Anaheim played Game 3 with the series tied...The home club had won all four meetings during the regular season...Giguere fell to 16-7 in 23 career playoff outings...Calgary finished 3-for-7 on the power play, while Anaheim went 2-for-9.

Someone got to die before action is taken...

2006-04-15T23:26:00.000-06:00

"April 6 2003. I have been shot at, gassed, chased by soldiers, had sound grenades thrown within metres of me, been hit by falling debris and been in the way of a 10-tonne D-9 that didn't stop. As we approached, I kept expecting a part of my body to be hit by an 'invisible' force and shot of pain. It took a huge amoung of will to continue. I wondered what it would be like to be shot, and strangely I wasn't too scared. It is strange to know that each night people are shot and killed for breaking military curfew, and in the darkness on the north west side there is an Israeli settlement and a few hundred metres away with military snipers in between and any one of the four of us could be being watched through a sniper's sights at this moment. The certainty is that they are watching, and it is in the decision of any one Israeli soldier or settler that my life depends. I know that I'd probably never know what hit me, but it's part of the job to be as visible as possible." Five days after he wrote these words, Tom Hurndall was shot by Israeli forces and later died.

Click here to read the rest of this article...

It's not always about the locals...

2006-04-06T22:04:00.000-06:00

Just a few days ago I had my wallet stolen. It was my fault as I thought I was not careful enough to protect it from being picked pocketed.

Minh Nguyet and I went shopping for some jeans that I wanted to get for my baby brother in my upcoming trip to Canada. While I was trying on some jeans, I came out with my wallet in my hand and show her that the jeans fit. I then went back and tried on the second pair and this time left my wallet in the first new pair that I wanted to buy. Went I went back in to change into my original pair of jeans, I realized that my wallet was gone.

I told Minh Nguyet what happened and it was too late because the Vietnamese people in the store are not going to help. After talking with the manager about what happened, they flipped the blame on us for accusing them for not taking care of the customer.

This incident certainly hurts lots because part of my salary from March was in there along with my UNIS ID card, credit card, debit card, receipts from Singapore, etc... Indeed not a good day for me. Even now, I refuse to go on that street because of that incident.

Just the other day, we were driving on the highway out to the countryside to visit Minh Nguyet's grandfather's grave we had to slow down in the traffic as a fatality just happened 100 meters of us. Well guess what? Out of my own eyes, I saw two pickpockers working in between the motorbike traffic stealing wallets and purses from drivers as they slowly move around the accident scene. They were slowly opening personal bags, grabbing the money and then throwing them into a big garbage container next to the road. I saw one in action, and I screamed what the F@#$ are you doing? The one pick pocketer stopped his action and started screaming at me in Vietnamese and walked off. We then later drove up to a victim and told her that she been picked pocketed and her wallet already in the garbage cleaned out. She was shocked!!!

A good thing that Minh Nguyet stopped me from getting off the motorbike to confront the pick pocketer because I would have ended up in more trouble because people will lie and if you don't know the language, it will not help to resolve the situation.

I took a day or two to reflect on these incidents because it was the third pick pocketing within weeks of each other that was involved or close to. I had to ask myself why these events are spreading like wild fire and you are so hopeless or powerless to do something about it.

I can easily blame the pick pockets and label them as common criminals who are in desperation for money. The local Vietnamese people residing in these dangerous areas are lurking on the streets in broad daylight taking advantage of others because of their desperation for money. The question of why has crossed my mind and it is clear that their background has been unstable and rough that they have to turn to crime to fulfill their poor lifestyle or drug habits.

On the other hand, why was no one doing anything about it? It was sooo clear that 20 other motorbike people saw what was happening but no one did a thing about it? Why Why Why? What happen to the principles of respect, kindness, caring, and good heart for one another? After all you are the same race, come from the same background, same countryside and even perhaps from the same family.

Why did someone not contact the police? Why did someone not scream that your neighbor's wallet getting picked pocketed? Why did anyone not do anything?

I just realized that I am living in a culture that is very closed and its about keeping everything inside and restricting the amount of information to others. When it comes to helping someone else, it has no relevant value to do so. Just simply continue with your unhappy and hopeless lives knowing sooner or later someone going to take advantage of you when you least expect it.

Everyone is poor, the gap between the rich and the poor is very big, the police don't care because they are getting paid s@$% wages and they turn to corruption to increase their salaries. The government claims they are fighting corruption but in reality they are fighting with themselves protecting their corrupted investments and salaries.

I said to Minh Nguyet, it going to be a long time before Vietnam stabilize and become an attractive country to do business with. Yes, everyday something changes but until the government acts for their people instead of themselves, both locals and foreigners will still have to suffer from such day to day crimes and dishonesty until non-corrupted law enforcement enters the society.

Another strong thought that brought me tears is that I have met many good Vietnamese people who are optimistic and are motivated for something better in their lives. They have realized that their country is in chaos and want out because there is no hope and faith in their own government for them to have a protected and prosperous future. While we have ambitious people in one side of the world, Its not fair that people in my own country who are complete slackers and take advantage of the western culture system not realizing that there are people who are suffering from corruption, lack of food, lack of shelter, lack of clean water and importantly the lack of hope that their lives will improve despite their impoverish conditions.

Streaming Eagle Web Cam

2006-04-05T22:48:00.000-06:00

A family relative email me a streaming Eagle Web Cam that is open 24 hours. Click here to check it out.

If you think you are having a bad day...

2006-04-04T21:14:00.000-06:00

Check out this hilarious video from the internet. Click here.

Havana Nights...

2006-03-26T02:13:00.000-07:00

Win a date?

2006-03-25T17:41:00.000-07:00

What shocks and amazes me is that fact how far people are willing to go for publicity or for in need of cash or to end up on the local newspapers for a day... oh come why why why?

check this ebay link out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6045981906

The up and down week...

2006-03-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well lots of things happened this week...

Let's start with Monday:

Went to school in the morning expecting the Vietnamese Police shooting squad ordered by my boss to have me shot for the results of the Audit report that was done on the IT department during my birthday week. Well it was not soo bad as I thought it was going to be. There was not squad and he did not have to say much at all. In fact said nothing at all. Life is normal.. Time to continue. Went to play street Hockey outside my building at the UNIS Gym. It was nice and my co-worker friend Justin was there as he got Canadian ties to Hockey. Went to Jafa afterwards and watch HNIC where Toronto played against Ottawa. Good to see Don Cherry unleash hell again.

Tuesday morning, I get an email message from Justin telling me that his wife is in the hospital after she fainted and could not see. After a series of medical tests, it was confirmed that his 24 year old wife suffered a celebral stroke which cause pressure and bleeding in her brain. She was operated on and medically induced into a coma. Not a good day for everyone in the IT department.

Wednesday morning, nothing changed much except many were asking where Justin was and what was going on. Life continues...

Thursday was a hectic day because I had to prepare documents and technical facts for the IT committee meeting we had in the late afternoon. Once again, I expected the shooting squad on standby for my execution as we discussed the Audit report in detail. Well luckily I survived the meeting without a single bullet being fired. Perhaps it had to do with a last minute phone call from the hospital with the operation update on Justin's wife.

A bomb went off in the IT department Friday morning when I discovered that the school's connection to the Internet was down as a result of construction or repairs by the state-owned telecommunications ministry. It went down at 1:00 AM and came back up and running after school at 3:45 PM. During this time, everyone was calling in and inquiring what is going on. I had to communicate this information with management which took additional time out of my workaholic day in addition to my day to day duties with the school.

Minh Nguyet and I decided to try and visit Justin's wife in the hospital but the visitation hours were limited and also the family wishes for privacy while she is heavily sedated in the ICU department at the French Hospital.

Time to Invest in Tim Horton's ??

2006-03-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Pretty much every day for the past 35 years, Carl Long's routine has included at least one visit to Tim Hortons. That's more than 12,000 cups of coffee, maybe half as many doughnuts and, he figures, an investment of close to $20,000. After all that caffeine and sugar, the retired Ottawa tool salesman doesn't even want to think about the cost to his health.

This week, though, Mr. Long will be looking for a little payback.
Shares of Tim Hortons, Canada's iconic and wildly successful fast-food chain, are expected to go on sale this Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

It's a complicated stock offering, and, ironically, one not easily available to Canadians. But that's not likely to keep Mr. Long and thousands of others from trying to get in on what some financial analysts are already calling the country's investment event of 2006.

"It's time to make my money count for something that gives me more than a few minutes of pleasure," says Mr. Long, a double-double drinker who gets his fix at one of several Tim's outlets in west Ottawa. His anticipation is easy to understand. In addition to its near-astonishing status as a Canadian cultural institution, Tim Hortons remains one of the country's most amazing business growth stories.

In the past five years, the number of Tim's outlets has jumped by nearly 50 per cent to more than 2,600 in Canada and nearly 300 in the U.S. Over the same period, sales increased 62 per cent, so that by last year Tim's generated a staggering $1.2 billion U.S. in revenue for its American owner, Wendy's International.

"It's a gold mine, pure and simple," says Peter Oakes, a New York food industry analyst. "It just keeps humming along."
Not everyone is quite so optimistic about Tim Hortons' worth as a stock investment. Some analysts believe its growth has peaked, that the Canadian market is saturated and that the company will never achieve a high level of success in the U.S., where Tim's is just another fast-food chain and not a national symbol.

But such talk is unlikely to deter those Canadians who consider an investment in Tim Hortons to be a show of patriotism, says Adrian Mastracci, president of KCM Wealth Management in Vancouver.

"I think there will be a lot more heart, a lot more more emotional attachment, than usual involved in people's decisions regarding Tim Hortons," he says. "I'd never say it's a bad investment, but I'd advise people to have a coffee and doughnut and think things over before jumping."

Even so, it's easy to understand why owning a chunk of Tim's has a magnetic, almost mythological appeal for many Canadians.

"In so many ways the story of Tim Hortons is the essential Canadian story," the late writer Pierre Berton, whose annual garden parties were known to feature buckets of Timbits, once said. "It is a story of success and tragedy, of big dreams and small towns, of old-fashioned values and tough-fisted business, of hard work and of hockey."

It also a story of marketing genius, one that seemed even to seduce Mr. Berton, a Canadian legend himself, with its nostalgic appeal.

Tim Hortons, which is after all simply a fast-food chain that offers safe and reliable fare, achieved its iconic status in large measure through a careful application of down-home, folksy branding.

It's difficult to say which came first, the reality or the market image, but the company's "True Stories" ad campaign probably resonates with Canadians because the tales it tells contain the ring of, well, truth.

Given that Tim's kiosks were set up in Turin for Canadian Olympians, and that Canadian soldiers have been promised an outlet in Afghanistan, it's not difficult to buy into the TV spot featuring the young Canadian travelling through Europe with the Tim's mug attached to his backpack.

Or considering Mr. Long's 35-year-long pilgrimage to Tim's, nor is it hard to believe the ad featuring Lillian, the gentle grandmother who trudges up a hill every day, rain or shine, to visit the Tim's outlet in Lunenberg, N.S.

Then there are the hockey ads.
"You look around the arena some mornings and every parent is holding a Tim's coffee," says Leigh-Anne Bifolchi, a Barrhaven hockey mom and a Tim Hortons regular (she takes a single cream). And, adds her husband, Grant (a double-double guy), "they're all stamping their feet to stay warm. It's so Canadian."

The down-home image goes beyond mere marketing, though.
Tim Hortons insists its franchise operators get involved at the grassroots level, supporting community recreation and sports activities, including the hugely popular Timbits hockey tournaments. One day every June, franchisees are required to donate the proceeds from their coffee sales to the Tim Hortons foundation that operates six camps for underprivileged kids in Canada and the U.S. Last year that amounted to a $5.5-million infusion for the camps.

"It's not an accident that this huge company makes people feel at home," says Tommy Chi, another double-double customer at the Barrhaven Tim's on Strandherd Road. "They work hard at cultivating an image and then they deliver."

Even some people who don't much care for the coffee and doughnuts are regulars. Middle-aged sisters Betty Anderson and Jean Dagenais meet two or three times a week at the Tim's outlet in the Greenbank Mall for a chat over bottled water, a muffin and an occasional coffee.

"It's convenient, it's clean, it's quick and it's inexpensive," says Ms. Dagenais. "There's really no other place you can go that gives you those things. I guess I'd say we feel comfortable here."

Marketing hominess might be a business strategy these days, but when Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Horton open his first outlet in Hamilton in 1964, the ambience was naturally folksy and modest.

So were Mr. Horton's ambitions. Although he played on four Stanley Cup-winning teams and was an NHL all-star six times, Mr. Horton was not especially well paid, like most players of the era. He was looking for a way to make a few extra dollars after his hockey days were over.

In the mid-'50s, before he became a fan favourite for his "heads-up" puck-rushing style, Mr. Horton had tried the fast-food business. His Toronto hamburger joint went bankrupt after a year, but he developed a taste for selling food and was open to the idea of a doughnut shop when approached by three friends in 1964.

They chose Hamilton for their first outlet because a potential competitor, Mister Donut, had no stores there. With Mr. Horton's name emblazoned on a yellow sign outside, the new outlet received a encouraging welcome from residents of the blue-collar city, who spent about $35,000 on coffee and doughnuts in the first year.

In fact, that's all they could buy. The first Tim Hortons offered only coffee and a few types of doughnuts. Everything cost 10 cents. Right from the start, the outlet's most popular baked goods were the apple fritter and the Dutchie, two of Mr. Horton's personal favourites and still among the biggest sellers 42 years later.

Although Mr. Horton left the business to others -- his role was to be a figurehead and help bankroll the enterprise -- he readily agreed in 1965 that franchising was the answer to some cash flow problems.

It was a brilliant, and lucky, stroke.
The first franchisee was Ron Joyce, a ruggedly handsome Hamilton policeman whose relationship with the doughnut would turn out to be much more than the stereotype.

A high-school dropout who left Nova Scotia at 15, Mr. Joyce possessed a powerful instinct for business. Within two years, he opened two more outlets and by 1967 had become Mr. Horton's full partner.

As Mr. Joyce began to develop Tim's corporate culture -- carefully screened franchisees, clean outlets, food products and coffee of consistent quality -- Mr. Horton continued his NHL career.

He had agreed to play one last year for the expansion Buffalo Sabres in 1974 when his exotic Italian-built Pantera spun out of control at 160 kilometres an hour on his way home from a game in Toronto. He was killed instantly at 44.

By then, the chain had grown to 40 outlets and was already something of an institution in southern Ontario. Mr. Joyce decided it was time for a big national push.

In 1975, he became full owner after paying Mr. Horton's widow Lori, a former Ice Capades star, $1 million and a Cadillac for her shares. (She later sued Mr. Joyce to regain her half of the chain, claiming her decision to sell was affected by prolonged drug and alcohol abuse. The suit was denied.)

As he expanded throughout Ontario, Mr. Joyce introduced the chain's first major menu change, the Timbit. Although similar bite-sized doughnuts -- they are not actually the holes, as many people believe -- were already being offered by some U.S. doughnut chains, Timbits became an instant sensation in Canada.

"There's nothing better than a box of Timbits for the kids in the back of the car," Toronto philosopher Mark Kingwell wrote a few years ago. "Nothing better to pick up spirits during a grim winter morning at the office, either."

The 1980s brought bigger change. In 1983, Tim's became the first national chain to introduce, albeit gradually, no-smoking outlets. The company's expansion was broadened to include smaller outlets and kiosks in gas stations, highrises, hospitals and shopping malls. For convenience, drive-through lanes were added to many outlets and dozens of car service-only sites were established.

There were also major menu additions, starting with soup in 1985, followed over the next decade by chili, sandwiches and bagels. As the chain evolved from a coffeeshop to a restaurant, the word "donuts" was quietly removed from signs outside the stores.

In the early '90s, with Tim's amid its most extensive expansion ever, Mr. Joyce authored a surprising new chapter in the Tim's story. While vacationing at his winter home in Florida, he became a golfing buddy of Dave Thomas, the Wendy's founder who had transformed his aw-shucks personality into an advertising coup.

It turned out the two men had something in common besides golf and their passion for the food industry: children's charities. In 1975, Mr. Joyce had established the Tim Hortons Children's Foundation in memory of his former partner. Mr. Thomas, adopted as a child, had contributed millions to children's causes in the U.S.

"It's amazing how our attachment to working with children blended with our attachment to working with the restaurants," Mr. Thomas, who died in 2002, once said.

They started modestly by opening 13 combination Wendy's-Tim Hortons restaurants in Canada. In 1995, they stunned the business world with a $620-million merger that made Mr. Joyce the biggest shareholder in the third-largest hamburger chain in the U.S. and made Canada's largest coffee-and-doughnut chain, and a national icon, a division of a U.S.-based company.

If anything, though, the move seemed to enhance the essential Canadianness of Tim's at home.
"While Canadians are normally sensitive to the threat of American-owned companies, the sale of this 'national institution' to an American hamburger company did not seem to affect Tim Hortons' link to national mythology at all," says Toronto historian Steve Penfold.

In his essay Eddie Shack Was No Tim Horton: Donuts And The Folklore Of Mass Culture In Canada, Mr. Penfold argues our national obsession with doughnuts in general, and Tim Hortons in particular, is "curiously disconnected" from the product's American origins.

But the answer to that conundrum is simple, says Mr. Mastracci: It's not just the doughnut, but the entire Tim Hortons experience that is Canadian.

"I think we feel a certain pride that we are exporting a bit of our culture to the U.S," he says. "It's the reverse of the usual."

For Mr. Joyce, the deal was his chance to make it big in the U.S. Tim's move south of the border actually began in the 1980s with a few stores around Buffalo. Although growth was steady if modest, the outlets never caught on in the U.S. in the same way as Canada.

But inside Wendy's itself, Tim's soon emerged as a white knight.
"I don't think it gets nearly enough credit for giving Wendy's whatever lustre it has," says Mr. Oakes, the food industry analyst.

Although the Ohio-based hamburger chain has 21/2 times more outlets, its revenue was barely twice that of Tim's in 2005. Even more significantly, in pure dollars, Tim's profits actually outstripped Wendy's by more than $50 million.

Some of that gap can be explained by the hit Wendy's took after a California woman claimed she was served a severed finger in a bowl of chili. By the time the hoax was uncovered, several carnivorous American hedge funds had scooped up shares at shrunken value and began to lean on Wendy's to spin off its doughnut sidekick as a separate entity on the stock market.

After some resistance, Wendy's eventually agreed last summer to put 18 per cent of Tim Hortons on the market by this spring. The remaining shares are to be distributed over the next few months, first to Wendy's shareholders, and what's left later into the open market.

Only 35 per cent of the shares have been set aside for Canadian dealers. By the time the big institutional clients get a first-crack look at the offering, there's not expected to be much more than slim pickings left for ordinary investors.

But Mr. Long has already primed his investment dealer. He doesn't expect the shares to reap big dividends. In fact, he thinks all the hype means the shares will be fully valued when they come on the market, leaving little room for profit.

All the same, he wants a piece of the action. "I'm a Tim's regular and a Canadian. We fit together."
- - -
Tim Hortons: A chronology
1964: Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Horton, opens first store in Hamilton with partner Jim Charade. Ron Joyce, a former policeman, buys the franchise a year later as Horton and Charade begin to expand into southwestern Ontario.

1967: Joyce becomes full partner in Tim Donut Ltd.
1974: Horton, now playing with the Buffalo Sabres, is killed in a car crash. In 1975, Joyce buys Horton's share of the business from Horton's widow, Lori, for $1 million and a Cadillac.

1985: First first U.S. franchise opens in Amherstburg, New York.
1986: Tim's introduces its now-famous "Roll Up the Rim to Win" contest.
1988: Tim Hortons takes "doughnuts" off its signage as it evolves from bakery to fast-food restaurant.
1993: Tim Hortons expands its menu and moves heavily into lunch business with soups, sandwiches and chili. Bagels are added in 1996.

1996: Joyce sells Tim Hortons to American hamburger chain Wendy's International Inc. in a $620-million deal. Joyce joins Wendy's management. As part of the deal, he gets about 16 million shares in the firm.

2001: U.S. doughnut giant Krispy Kreme challenges Tim's on its home turf with plans to open 32 stores in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.

2002: Recently retired from Wendy's, Joyce sells his Wendy's shares saying he is frustrated by the company's poor performance.

2004: The Canadian Oxford Dictionary is amended to included the phrase "double double" -- the way two-cream, two-sugar coffee is ordered at Tim Hortons.

April 2005: Krispy Kreme admits defeat, declaring bankruptcy for its Canadian operations and putting its assets on the market.

July 2005: Wendy's gives in to activist American investors and announces plans to take Tim Hortons public in March 2006. The initial share offering is expected Friday.

--National Post--

To be Audited or not to be Audited...

2006-03-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

I am getting Audited...

Well what a hectic week it has been still not finished yet. First of all it was my birthday on Monday night where my best friends tricked me in a surprise where I went into my apartment full of people that I don't know and they were hired Nha Quay!! (country-side) people who came for the free Beer Hanoi and cake goodies. Of course I am kidding but mmmm the thought of such reality would be interesting would it? Anyway, back to the surprised birthday party of my close friends and people from my work, we celebrated my last crazy up and down 3 decades and a beer toast to the next 3 up and down decades which I am not really looking forward to.

I am getting Audited...

Yes, I do have wrinkles forming on my face and a hair line starting to look like the Bow River where the erosion is taking place near Prince's Island and my sleep hours are becoming shorter that I do see the sun come up everyday instead of waking up where the sun goes down.

I am getting Audited...

Well guess what? What can possible be happening on your birthday? You get audited at work!!! Wow huh? So yeah this American living in Bangkok married a beautiful Thai wife who is a IT consultant that knows exactly every byte or bit coming inside out of my school's network is watching over my shoulder making sure I am doing what I am suppose to be doing.

I am getting Audited...

So monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday all day, I have a dude who following me around taking notes with his super duper WIFI, bluetooth, 3 GHZ, 2 GIG RAM, 17 inch monitor, Tablet laptop computer inspecting my keystrokes and asking very uncomfortable questions (not about my sex life you fool) about the network that I built at our school.

I am getting Audited...

Exactly 2 hours from now, I will be sitting down, legs crossed next to my boss while my verdict (Perhaps I am on trial for my technical and managerial expertise) is being read out to the senior managers and the members of the IT team. I am sure everyone in the room is thinking is this Scot guy know what he doing and we want him to continue working at the school for a long time or it time to get some old fart who experienced in IT management to come and take over the fort.

I am getting Audited...

Did I not forget to mentioned that at 4:15 PM I am playing on a teacher's football team playing against the number one student team? I could consider that this is my only opportunity to find some useful excercise (Step #1 -> After turning 30, look after your body) out of the entire long week of stress to de-stress myself and return to the happy Scotty he once used to be. Well, here is to my crossing fingers that I don't have an appointment to hear my verdict at 4:15 PM today in my boss's office.

I am getting Audited...

Where will life take me now?

2006-03-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well for those who don't know, I am officially 30 today. Yes I was born and arrived on this earth 3 decades ago out of my mother's tummy and now I am writing a journal entry on the other side of the world in a country that not my own listening to a relaxing piano solo to fill the ambiance around me.

Today was good, very busy day at work living the life of a manager trying to meet everyone's expectations but finally at the end of the day mission accomplished. My co-worker was trying to get me out of work and leave the firewall in pieces in the IT office and go home and then go out for a coffee or drink as part of my birthday celebrations.

When we arrived at the apartment building, he said he had to go and get something while I wait for Minh Nguyet to arrive at the lobby so we can go and get some dinner. Later we arrive at the apartment and there was everyone from work and my friends to throw a mini surprise birthday party for me. Food, fruit, candy and a few beers to fill up my belly and finally to finish the party with a home made black forest cake from Melissa.

Now just heading into bed wishing everyone thanks for the emails, Kraft dinner and their love from all over the world.

God bless you all!

Love Scotty

P.S - now where did Phil leave the ham again?

The night before the big 3-0!!!

2006-03-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well today been interesting because its sunday and its suppose to be a day of relaxing and taking chill pills. Work is hectic but managable. I guess that's why they call it managment. Spent the whole day yesterday doing some film work with another canadian teacher friend who making a school project movie about a psycho teacher who takes over the world and implements communist ideologies with Choco pies as the energy that powers him in his world taking adventures. Today I played baseball once again with the canada team and we kick the crap out of the Teipei team with our beloved auzzie girl and her new bat. Two out, bottem of the fourth, bases loaded and she belts the software over the right fielder's head and scores the improbable grand slam.

Went for beer afterwards and we all got slammed celebrating our first win of the year. Came home and passed out for 3-4 hours and now writing this journal entry with a nasty headache. What a way to prepare for the next decade of my life. I cannot believe it... it is hitting me that I am no longer a twenties.... oh groan...

Anyway, I found a cool photo website and I really like this picture...

Mine...Mine...Mine... (AKA Finding Nemo)

Hong Kong at night...

2006-02-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

We have arrived back into Hong Kong after spending two days shopping and visiting in Shenzhen. Geoff, Rob and I took the opportunity to visit the Hong Kong Harbour at night and I did some photo shooting of the nightly community the city has to offer...

Living in Shenzhen

2006-02-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Well Shenzhen city has lots to offer for those who never been to China. It is a major and most busiest export city in China because all the goods and products that are produced in China make their way down and eventually over the border into Hong Kong and then shipped via international waters. Any goods you can think of can be found in Shenzhen. We found watches, suits, ties, underwear ( don't ask), socks, golf clubs, pearls ( yes pearls your vool!), memory sticks, golf shirts, jeans, shirts, handcrafts, and the most important thing for me is North Face jackets. The prices are so low that we nearly got a bargin that we all know that we cannot beat in Canada or the rest of the world. My favorite gift of all of them are two northface jackets that I like wearing when I am outside in the woods...

Not to mention my new calaway golf clubs that I have been swinging with at the local driving range near my house. Indeed a good shopping trip.

The one thing I wished I wanted was new bigger lenses for my digital camera because I am getting tired of the basic lens that comes with the package.

Here some more pictures...

Shenzhen, here we come...

2006-02-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

After waking up early in the morning at the crack of dawn, yes I have to confirm that my two Canada friends are fighting jet lag and I was the victim of their early up and "aboot" wake up calls. We all gathered up our clothes, belongings, hotel gifts ( yes the toothbrush and the toliet mints from the bathroom) and we headed out the 250 dollar a night hotel room to take a ferry across the Hong Kong Harbour to take a train north into China to a export city called Shenzhen.

Geoff's Personal Moment...

2006-02-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

Well now that I have entered Hong Kong after my idoitatical adventures telling everyone that I work for the UN and they MUST let me on the airplane because of a SERIOUS UN conference that I am going to. Yes I was wearing blue jeans, converse shoes, t-shirt and wearing my hair out like Chad Kroeger from Nickleback. No wonder it is an amusement that the women at the Cathy Pacific counter were working hard to let this quote on quote "UN dipomat" who works at the international school in Hanoi looking like a rock star from Hanna, Alberta to get him on the airplane 10 minutes before it leaves.

Anyway, getting straight to the blog purpose, I have to decicate this blog to my little brother friend Geoff because he was obsess with my olympus digital camera and decided to make an world class, spectatular, breath taking, exciting, never seen before photograph that bound to leave people with their wet mouths full of saliva drolling on their monitors.... are you ready?.... here we go:

Got to love his thinking ehh?

In transit to Hong Kong...

2006-02-18T03:17:00.000-07:00

Well safely arrived in Hong Kong from my hectic lighting speed airplane ride from Hanoi. I was fortunate and very lucky to catch my flight as I was very late getting to the airport. When I arrived at Noi Boi, they infomed me that the gate was closed and they were not checking in anymore people into the plane. I was shocked but also upset at myself because of being late so I had to think how I was going to make the plane trip. I told them that I work for the United Nations and it was very important that I make this flight because it was a matter of life or death. The Cathy Pacific Airlines staff was very helpful and allowed me to check in and make a run for the gate. I ran like hell through the checkin counter, immigration, security and down the plane ramp into the aircraft. When I arrived, I shoutedin Vietnamese "sorry and I was from the countryside" and the airline staff laughed hard at me... Perhaps this was the onboard entertainment everyone is looking for. I quick rushed over to my seat as I was the last one to be seated. I said hi and of course sorry for the twentiest time and buckled my seatbelt and closed my eyes.

One hour and a half later, going through strong turbulence and winds this was the most fastest flight I ever been on in my life. It was suppose to take 2 hours but it was reduced to1:30 hours which surprised a few people on the flight. Oh well!! It was nice to arrive early.

Took the skytrain to Hong Kong side and the mini airport bus and arrived at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel to meet my canadain friends who arrived earlier in the day. Went straight to sleep after a light scotch on the rocks.