4 Years

4 Years ago I made what was undoubtedly the best decision of my young life: to marry that gorgeous lady in the picture above. In those 4 years we've traveled and lived in Africa and Asia, moved across Canada, and had our first little munchkin. Through everything she's been there for me and it's pretty hard to imagine that I'd be where I am now without her. It would be pretty hard for anybody to honestly argue that marriage is easy but I can undoubtedly argue from my experience that marriage, despite its difficulty, is totally worth it.

Honey, I love you more now than I did the day I married you and look forward to learning how to love you more over the next 4 years, and then the next 4, and the next four, and on. I love you!

12 and a half

Wow, it has been quite a while since I posted.... guess there hasn't been any real exciting things to post about so I just haven't. Nothing really exciting right now either but in attempt to keep writing I shall become a small white fluffy mammal and post some rather boring and perhaps vaguely interesting things about me for your perusal. Enjoy these 12 and a half facts about me.

1. I would consider myself a beer connoisseur. But the fact that I had to use the spell check to spell connoisseur makes me doubt this fact already. I am currently trying to track down some of the great beers of the world according to Beer Advocate and have had 2 of the Top 100 (which were both downright delicious!) So if you're going to the States and aren't coming back with your allotted amount of alcohol - stop reading this and email me! I'm also tasting some great local brews, so anyone in Victoria should stop by and sample some with me (Yes, I'm thinking of you Bing - I already told Andy to get himself over here too).

2. The Calgary Flames are the greatest sports team in the world. I cannot lie. I vaguely remember watching them win the Stanley Cup in 1989 ( I was six) and I mark this date as the beginning of my love affair with them.

3. While I do not yet consider myself a true globe trotter, someday I hope to be. There are so many places on my to-see list and hopefully as we live abroad I can actually see some of them.

4. In a similar vein, I have a fascination with maps. A large world map hangs in my office. I often just sit and study it. I can name all 53 African countries. I have tried to sit down and name all the countries of the world but I think I could only get around 115 of them. Some day.

5. I have a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature. Who chooses to study literature? Seriously, what was I thinking? If I could have a do-over I would do my degree in History or Sociology or something that translated into a real-life Masters a little easier.

6. I am an avid reader. I also read very fast. These two facts mean I often read in the range of 50-80 books a year, many of them fairly dense history or theory books.

7. I spend way too much online. Most of the time, I really am just wasting time. Reading about beer. Checking the hockey scores. Browsing Facebook. How did people learn before the internet?

8. I like the idea of being a life-long learner. I don't like the idea that life-long learners don't really make too much money.

9. I love and hate conversation. I find small talk generally distasteful. I also find discussions with close-minded people equally un-fun. But few things are finer than conversations with open-minded, interesting individuals. Or chewing the fat with friends. Over coffee or a beer. Ahhh, sweet delights.

10. I enjoy playing games. Card games, board games, sports, fantasy sports, whatever. You get to be social and let out positive competitiveness, while being strategic and devious. And let's not forget the joys of smack talk.

11. I love listening to music. I like it a lot. If there was one thing I could change about me it would be to give me a silky smooth voice and limitless natural musical talent so I could just make my own music to listen to.

12. There is something about Africa that calls to me and yet, due to my skin color, where I was born, etc... I will always be an outsider. Sometimes I just wish I was African.

12 1/2. I enjoy cooking new, interesting, fancy things. Part of the joy is in the creation, the other part is in the good eating. Nolana likes it that I enjoy cooking (see, only half about me!)


Well, I hope that you enjoyed the wasted minutes spent reading this!

Snapshots of our Lives

It’s hot and as I stride down the dusty street I swat the snotty nosed children begging for “one birr, mister” away like they are flies. I don’t stop because if I do I will be surrounded by the horde of them. My long strides are difficult to match and one by one they fall away, realizing that they won’t get that one birr out of me today.

Then, out of nowhere, one of them has the audacity to touch me. I spin around, readying my most withering glare; guaranteed to make whoever it is stop, back away and run for cover. But it is she who stops me. It is not the outstretched hand begging for that birr but the look on her face. It is slightly apologetic. As if to say “I’m sorry, but I had to. If you were in my situation you would do the same.” It’s hesitant as if when I turned around she lost her nerve but can’t back away because she needs the birr more than she needs her pride. It’s a look of awkward desperation.

And yet there is a hint of a smile in her face. Perhaps it is an apologetic smile or maybe it just a smile to charm the ferenj into giving her a birr. But it is purer than that, more revealing. It is the smile of someone who knows something that the other doesn’t, something more. A smile that speaks of the knowledge of her situation and how she knows that if I were born into her family it would be me begging for change and not her. It’s a bemused smile as she wonders to herself at why I think I have the right to spin around so confidently, hands already on the holster. It’s a knowing smile.

I don’t know how to react to her. I stand staring incomprehensibly as if shell-shocked and she continues to smile, hand out and expectant. I turn and slowly walk away, leaving her standing still in her spot beside the pedestrian bridge.

Better Off

It was around our 4th month in Ethiopia and I was starting to run out of reading material. We had packed up and moved everything we might need within Lufthansa's weight restriction of 60kg each. While that might seem like a lot of weight to some we had to have everything for a year's worth of living in there and had to make some sacrifices. So out went my extra pairs of underwear, my extra deodorant (they use must have that there right?) and in went as many books as my wife would allow.

Books are heavy though and by the fourth month I was nearing the end of my stash. I had bought and read everything of interest from the only bookstore in Addis that carried English books. I had even ordered some books from Amazon, delivered to Ethiopia: those books were done. I had borrowed books from students; those were also done. I was heading for some hard times.

And then one day my compatriot Rob invited me to check out the new (and only) modern cinema in Addis. I believe Will Smith's I am Legend was playing. I hadn't heard of it and am not a big movie goer to begin with but I gladly accepted. ANYTHING for a taste of home. And it was next to that shiny new cinema I found the greatest thing aside from my wife: a new bookstore.

It was stocked with leftovers from who-knows-where. In English. Everything from medical texts to cook books to sudoku to steamy Harlequins. Piles of books, all over the place. And they were cheap. Way cheap. The price on the back said 10. We were both sure it meant ten dollars but were curious why an Ethiopian shop would sell in dollars (though it obviously catered to foreigners). So I asked the clerk, "Is this in dollars?" She assured me it was in birr. 10 birr = 1 dollar. Hallelujah choruses rang through my head as I tried to reason in my head how many books I could carry home with me.

One of the books that grabbed my eye was this one: Better Off. Since I was a kid I dreamed of living off the land; fed by those rugged Canadian pioneer stories and Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Robinson Crusoe was a favorite as was Swiss Family Robinson. I wanted to be abandoned on an island or to run away from home and have to fend for myself.

As I matured this passed but I have always been interested in the idea of "walking away from it all". Leaving the traps of society for a simpler life. Walden Pond called to me in Thoreau's work. In Vietnam, on a small deserted island I was bewitched and told Nolana I wanted to buy a hut on the beach and grow a garden and fish for a while and I read about a guy who did just that in the Philippines. "Into the Wild" was great right up until the second he dies.

This book was an excellent, thought provoking read. Eric (what a GREAT name!) realizes the limitations of doing this within today's technological society and works to find ways to around what we think is 'necessary'.

And the flame was rekindled. Nolana told me I would have to wait until she passes to move to a deserted island because she's not so keen on desertion.

So I thought of other things. This month I wrote up a proposal for Nolana that outlined why and how we should sell our car and live without electric heat. She threatened to call social services for intended abuse of a not-yet-born baby. Needless to say, we still have our car (though when it looked like it needed repairs she softened for second...)

The point of this rambling story is not to paint my wife as the ruiner of my hopes and dreams. Far from it. In fact she in rather normal and had already followed me to Ethiopia and no running water for 8 months. Rather, it is to point out how ludicrous it sounds to leave it all behind, to make 'serious changes' beyond recycling milk cartons and energy efficient lights. But WHY? I hear of people who did it and the hardships they had and I desire them rather than scoff. I swear life was different not so long ago and people were at least as happy as now. People could be farmers AND scholars. They built their own house AND preached in church. We're so one dimensional these days.

And so I was reawaken by the latest edition of GEEZ magazine in which there was a call of lifestyle experiments for their Spring 2009 edition. In it, someone who I knew a long time ago, shares of how he and his wife and his kids took off and lived for a year in a cabin in the Canadian woods. Wood fires. Cast Iron Pots. Outhouses at -60. And again, I wanted it.

There's something about moderation in this instance that seems dirty. I turn my lights off but who cares. We're going to use cloth diapers but we're still going to buy them at a store. We buy local produce. It just seems so vulgar in light of what could be.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. I want to find a place in the middle of nowhere. Miles from a town but close enough for emergencies. A garden to work. Maybe a lake to fish in. And not much more. Am I crazy?

Instructions Of A Chariot

As your typical guy typically goes I believe that instructions are simple and as the typical instructions goes, they are simply not understandable.

I recently got this dashing bar cart for my birthday from the in-laws and this weekend put it together... all by myself! lol It went well....
Let me tell you, those instructions are devious! They make it seem all simple, "Put it together in 5 easy steps". And then when you look each of those 5 steps has more than 5 steps in it. Really! This is step one.
That's more like 5 steps! And then of course it's all in language not even an English major could decipher. It's mental gymnastics to figure it out. But once I did I quickly rolled along and here is my fancy-schmancy new bar chariot (which is so more cool sounding than cart, kinda brings up images of Ben-Hur or Gladiator!)

I am now, officially, part of the upper class. I shall stock it with the finest wines $10 can buy me and when company comes over make a show of debating which one would best go with Kraft Dinner. Then with a sniff (so that they think none of them are really up to my level) I will pull a bottle out, turn the twist cap and pour everyone a plastic glass of wine. Ahhhh, perfection!

Actually I kinda like it and it's gonna get used this weekend... keep your eyes peeled!