This term has turned out to be one of the most hellish experiences of my life, however… some 13 days from now (one prof willing,) I’ll be free of school forever. Hopefully with some of those fancypants letters next to my name too.
If all goes as planned this will subsequently become my travel blog.
I’ll be moving home in the next week or so (including a 2500km-ish drive) so updates will likely be non-existant. Twitter updates if anything, but international data charges are beyond stupid so I’ll probably have the phone off. Hopefully I’ll have some fun pics once I’m home at least.
I’ve been in school a long time. A really long time. Even when you consider that I took some time off it’s been way too long. At long last, it is coming to an end (cross your fingers) this December. Exactly four months from today marks the end of the December exam period and the last possible day that I can have an exam. In celebration of the momentous moment (and since I can’t actually go to my convocation until May) I’m planning a bit of an epic trip post-grad. My question is… where should I go?
First: A few guidelines
1. Nowhere in North America: I’ve covered the continent pretty exhaustively, and the bits I’ve missed would be fairly easy to do in an one or two week trip over the next couple years.
2. I’d prefer to stay away from places I’ve been before, again… most of North America, Mexico and the route from Paris to Barcelona. I’ve got lots of new places to see.
3. I have no massive desire to go to Japan.
4. I’m planning to get SCUBA certified this fall and plan to do some diving.
Second: Current Ideas
1. China: My cousin is living in Shanghai at the moment, if they’re able to put me up for a week or two I’d love to use it as a base. Not really close, but I’d love to go to Xi’an in person and see Qin’s tomb.
2. Thailand: Food = awesome, political instability less so.
3. Australia/NZ: If I do the asia thing, these will be on the list. Friends just returned from 8 months or so in Australia and will hit them up for tips.
4. Likewise various islands, Chuk, Fiji etc…
5. Bhutan/Nepal: Probably too high a financial commitment for one place
6. India: Some interest in going, but I’m not sold. If I could avoid the big cities for the most part I’d be more convinced.
7. Kenya: I’d love to do the Safari thing
8. Egypt: Recent Art History class has only made me want to go here more.
9. South Africa: Not the most fun country security wise for travelling on the cheap (or so I hear from a recent visitor, correct me if I’m wrong)
10. Brazil: See #9
11. Peru: If I go near South America at all, this will be top of the list. Macchu Pichu and Nazca would be amazing.
12. Europe in general seems to demand the mega Eurail pass and do whatever.
13. England/Scotland/Wales/Ireland: No brainer, trip has been put off twice… I’m going
14. France: not entirely convinced I need to go again, if I did I’d want to check out the north and east regions, maybe a quick Riviera visit if it wouldn’t bleed me dry.
15. Spain: I’d definitely enjoy visiting Barcelona again, maybe making it to Gibraltar. I’d really enjoy hitting the Canary islands as well, but that may not be feasible this trip.
16. Holland: Absolutely, I’d like to see more than just Amsterdam however.
17. Prague: Architecture along would make this a must do.
18. Italy: I’d like to visit rome for a bit, Tuscany maybe elsewhere
19. Greece: An Aegean cruise of some sort followed by a stay in Athens would be wicked.
20. Germany: Not entirely sold on Germany, but not against it either.
And that’s just 20 off the top of my head… any thoughts?
Is there anything worse than being on a 1-lane highway? Up until now you’ve been cruising down a two lane divided, people are moving at a decent pace. Maybe you’re in a hurry, maybe you’re not, but you’ll get there reasonably close to when you expected. Then you lose a lane…
Instantly, every 5th driver around you turns into a moron and an annoyance. We’ve all been there, and you know any kind of predictability for arrival time goes out the window. This isn’t the biggest issue if you’re heading out just to take a sightseeing drive, but when (like me) you’re trying to catch a ferry it becomes problematic.
Know Your Obstacles:
1. The Sunday Driver: Only drives their car over to town a couple times a week. Doesn’t understand that the car can go faster than 50km/h (31ish mph) despite being in an 80 or 100 zone.
2. Old Man in a Hat: Similar to the Sunday driver but will often go a bit faster. Unfortunately he brakes for almost anything (including sunshine) and takes forever to get back up to that speed. Also changes lanes at a pace more appropriate to an oil tanker.
3. Nervous Nellie: Possibly a new driver, but just as likely not, they’re nervous about everything. Likely a city driver that doesn’t often get on the highway. The key symptom on a 1 lane each way undivided is that they flinch every time a car comes the other way. This often leads to them slowing down, or even more dangerously actively slamming on the brakes anytime an opposite direction car passes. Particularly annoying (and dangerous) at night when their nervousness climbs into panic and no matter how far back you stay you’ll still risk hitting them.
4. Captain Curvaphobic: Some of the most frustrating people to try to pass, this type is absolutely terrified of even the slightest bend or curve in the road. The moment the road turns from a straight line he’ll drop his speed by 15-20 km/h. Those of us who like to use our cruise control find them absolutely infuriating. What’s worse is the moment you’re back on a straight section of road where you can actually pass, he’ll accelerate again and make it difficult.
5. Shepherd and his Sheep: The Shepherd is likely one of the above types who has gathered 5-10 sheep who are too nervous to try to pass him, but are sticking so close together than someone who comes up from behind needs to pass the entire herd at once or becomes part of it and exacerbates the problem. Most of the time periodic passing lanes can break this up, but this part of Ontario doesn’t seem to believe in them.
a. Likely Driving: Everything under the sun.
6. Trailer Tom: Usually a pretty similar situation as the shepherd. Often slow because they’re pulling a large trailer with a ridiculously underpowered light SUV or Minivan or even worse a car (enjoy the yearly transmission replacement morons.) The sheep in this case find it harder to pass since the two vehicle train is longer to pass. I’m not as anti-caravan as the Top Gear guys (I quite enjoy camping) but come on, if you’re planning to pull one buy something with the power train that can handle it.
7. The Explorer: We’ve all seen this guy in town too, usually a tourist trying to find a specific street and slowing/stopping at every intersection trying to read street signs. On this kind of highway he’s the guy who either can’t read a map or simply can’t remember a road number. Everytime you pass a sign indicating an upcoming turnoff or split he’ll be slowing and swerving as he tries to read a map and drive at the same time. In some cases he’ll do this for hours, apparently so bad at reading maps that he can’t even tell that he’s not even in the ballpark of his exit yet. Why people can’t print off a google map or make a quick sequential list of the Highways/Roads/Exits they’ll before I they leave on a trip to an unfamiliar area I’ll never understand.
8. The Big Heavy Truck: You’re driving down one of these roads and off in the distance is a farmyard or gas station with a soul crushing sight. Waiting to exit: a massive double load tractor trailer. You hope and pray that it’s either turning left, or that the traffic flow is constant enough in front of you to not let it in. Of course it won’t be, and you’ll find yourself slowed to a crawl as this behemoth struggles to make it up to 50 then takes another five minutes to get to 85. God help you if this is a hilly road, because this truck is so full of anvils, tungsten or cows that it has to slip into a crawler gear and put on blinkers to climb. Soon there will be a train of 30 cars behind you, but none of you will be able to pass because a stadium parking lot worth of cars will suddenly be travelling the other way at perfect intervals, except when there’s a double yellow line.
9. The “I have an expensive car that obviously has cruise control but I’m not using it and driving you to madness”: Maybe it’s just me, but I see these guys all the time. You’ll be driving down the road at 105km/h or whatever and come up behind one of these guys. Prepping to pass, you’ll suddenly find them pulling away from you, so you re-engage cruise and relax again. Suddenly around the next bend you’ll be up near their bumper again, whatever cell phone call they’re on having distracted them into slowing down. This time you decide, screw it I’ll pass them so I can just stay cruising. No luck, they’ll pass you back a few minutes later.
I don’t understand why it’s so much to ask for me to be able to put on my cruise control and enjoy the drive. If you aren’t comfortable driving on the highway, take a bus… the greyhound network here in Southern Ontario is reasonably good and likely wouldn’t put you into a stress induced early grave. My personal pet peeve though is the last type, mostly because there often seems to be active malice behind their actions as opposed to the just general stupidity of the other offenders. I’m not actively pushing for a death race 200 style combat/point system…or maybe I am?
How about?
We can of course add on the pedestrian scoring system from DR2000
Hmmm, I think we’re on to something here. Now I just need to come up with a terrible nickname, a fun modding/paint scheme for my Mazda3 along with an alluring female navigator for the nude group massage scene.
A man can dream…
-Toast
p.s. What about the Toaster (main weapon: flamethrower?) painted in chrome and restyled to look like an old school Toaster. Hell we could even put a cylon eye on the front and mix that joke in.
Check out the shirt here
p.p.s. If you haven’t seen the original Death Race 2000 you really should, it’s amazing.
I won’t be in Winnipeg for about 80% of Fringe so sadly the review tradition on this site is likely to be on hold for this year. Hopefully I can do some post-game for the Edmonton types since I will be in Winnipeg to catch the last weekend.
We are in the middle of a global economic recession. Though I certainly wasn’t in any doubt about it before, I had it systematically reinforced during my recent visit to Las Vegas. Things are bad in Sin City… and getting worse.
…more after the break…
Day 4:
I love Glacier Park in Montana it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth and features the “Going to the Sun” highway. This wild trip up to the top of the mountain is a bit rough on the old transmission but it’s worth it for views like this.
Day 1:
The unending crap storm that has been summer 08 has seemed to continue into this trip. Having finally finished our first drive across the unending boredom of western Manitoba and Saskatchewan we pulled in to the bustling metropolis of Swift Current. After 12 hours or so on the road I have to admit I was dying to hit the hot tub. What does the summer of fun have for us next? An ice cold whirlpool and swimming pool that have apparently been freshly filled with water from Lake Superior. Shitty shitty finish to a long boring day.
It’s finally here!
While nowhere near as fun or blog-worthy as my original plan, starting tomorrow I’m still getting out of this godforsaken city til at least the 20th of August. School doesn’t start until the 4th so I really don’t care when I get back.
As a result updates will likely be sporadic since I have no way of knowing if our hotel(s) in nowhere Wyoming and bumfuck Montana will have reliable wifi. I’m hoping our actual destination resort will, but you never know. In any case I’m planning to spend more time white water rafting than on the net but given the total lack of nightlife I imagine I’ll still be online fairly often when I can.
I really hope so anyway as I’ve been having a crazy run at P-stars lately cashing in most of the (admittedly low stakes) tourneys I’ve played in the past week. Made a solid few bucks at the cheapo PLO tables last night too. Probably my best play last night was check raising a guy all in after I flopped a boat.
I was in the bb with a Patrick Roy (3x 3x) to those who aren’t hockey fans. Blind got doubled at 1st position and about half the table called. I matched and we saw the flop. 3x 9x 9x came out (w/ no flush possibilities) and I inwardly smiled. I had to think I was tops. I checked and it went around most of the table before we saw a bet and a double. I pretended to hem and haw for a second then called and the rest of the table folded leaving just me and the raiser. The turn came out with a Jd (and again no flush help) I played it slow and checked to him.
Now this guy had been really aggressive all night, the moment he sensed weakness he pushed hard and never seemed to consider the possibility of someone slowplaying him. I was counting on this and sure enough when I quickly checked to him he put about 1/4 of his (then cheapleading) stack into the pot. I put him on a 9 with a nice kicker as he hadn’t seemed too aggressive until the flop hit (I also suspected the guy that bet on the flop initially had held the other 9 as he’d been playing any suited connectors all tourney. It was possible however that he had a straight draw so I decided to go hard. All-in (to take me to about 2/3 of his total stack. I imagine he suspected he’d been had but he called anyway and we flipped. Sure enough he had Ad 9d and I ended up just short of being the new chipleader.
It was a nice run, as in the next few hands I saw a QQ and Rockets but got no action both times. My cards ran a bit dry after that, but I still managed to hold on til heads up when another pocket pair ran into a low set and I finished in second. Still a respectable payday though.
Here’s hoping I can keep the run going while on holidays and maybe even play some live poker. There’s got to be an indian casino or two in wyoming/montana right?
Shittiest thing about the trip? Having to watch incredibly annoying and biased American Olympic coverage, not an event where a yank has a chance to medal? Good luck seeing even 5 minutes of it, and if one didn’t medal you’re never going to see the podium. Missing CBC’s final olympic broadcast and getting that silly little shiver when I first hear the music will suck too. CTV/TSN’s coverage will never be as good. I can only hope our resort in the mountains gets satellite with CBC, it happened once in the past on a trip there and my fingers are crossed.
Now dear readers, in closing I leave you with the cutest Darth Vader ever.
Happy Canada Day Weekend everyone!