June « 2010 « The VeganGeek!

June 30, 2010

Hooks in You

Filed under: Ramblings,Religion — Jason @ 8:31 pm

It’s Wednesday, but not really. Tomorrow is Canada Day, and I have the day off work. I am hoping to spend at least part of it outside on the bike, maybe finish the second book in the Foundation series, and get out with the camera a bit. The weather is supposed to cooperate.

It has been a good week so far. The last few weeks have been quite productive at work. We’ve some new hires, and they are really gelling nicely with the team. The cool thing is that everyone is learning, not just the new folks. To me, that sort of thing is proof that you made a good decision when you hired who you ended up with. I have been writing code, and mostly sticking with a single project, which is what makes me most productive. It’s difficult for me to multitask. The code is flowing, and at this point it’s a question of whether I will have enough time to get everything in a usable state before I head off to Vietnam.

On the subject of Vietnam, I’ve been really getting into the idea of giving Buddhism a serious go. Much of it appeals to me as far as a simplified lifestyle goes, and I figure I may have a head start on some of the fundamental precepts. Some things will have to wait. It’s difficult for me to justify potentially visiting a Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia when one of the tougher precepts is to live a life that requires no money. There is a temple here in town, but it is not anywhere near central to the city and getting out to it with no car is practically impossible. We’ll see.

Anyway, it is dinner time. Time. Always time. How about Somewhere in Time, then? Yes. Agreed.

June 25, 2010

The first pingback

Filed under: Ramblings,Travel — Jason @ 9:00 am

I was a little surprised when I received a pingback from About Gadgets on their blog post titled 8 signs a geek has too much money. While it’s cool that the ping occurred, it gave me an opening for this post. First, I don’t have too much money. I assume that maybe people associate my travel lifestyle with a good job, and while it is true that I have a good job, I don’t get to travel because I make tons of coin. I get to travel because I’ve chosen to spend my money on travel instead of other things that consume financial resources. Not having a car was huge — the cost of keeping a car on the road for a year easily exceeds what an international flight costs. Insurance, maintenance, fuel, car payments if you have one — those are not insignificant.

Anyway, more about the trip. I solved my camera bag dilemma. I had been looking for a better solution when I travelled, and turned to Kata, a company that I’ve purchased from before. I had really wanted a sling bag, but I didn’t like the fact that every other sling bag on the market was geared for a right handed person. Nor did I like the fact that a single sling strap doesn’t lend itself well for long distance carrying. Kata solved both of those issues with their 3N1-22, a sling bag that has a mirrored configuration so it can go either way. The straps can be crossed across your chest, or used as a regular sling, or whatever. And the 22 version has a small sleeve big enough for a netbook, or in my case, a small journal and some charcoal pencils. So, win for me.

I will hopefully do up two recipes this weekend. It’s been a while, and I am due. One is a sunflower/carrot pate, and the other is a variant of a dish my brother showed me last weekend, called revithia me spanaki, a Greek recipe of chickpeas, tomato juice, and spinach. I’ve made it a few time since last weekend and tweak it each time and think I have something that I am happy with.

My track today is classic NWOBHM. Nothing beats Judas Priest doing a live version of Living After Midnight, recorded back in 82.

June 19, 2010

Rolling forward

Filed under: Ramblings,Travel — Jason @ 8:02 pm

A most excellent day. It’s super-hot out, which is great for tiny people like me. I freeze to death in the winter and long for days like this. Spent it mostly outside, watched Unforgiven again, and finished The Quiet American. Now on to Foundation, the first in the Foundation series by Asimov. Well. You probably knew that. I’ll try to finish the trilogy before I leave.

My Vietnam entrance visa arrived a few days ago, so that is done now. I’ve solved my camera memory problem with two more 8Gb cards, bringing my amount of available CF storage to 40 Gb. I am pretty confident that will be enough. If I start getting low, I can always switch the camera to JPEG mode. I’ve been waffling on whether or not to bring the big tripod with me. The Gorillapod I had with me in Morocco worked well, but it can be hard to do landscape photos at sunrise/sunset with it, since it sits so low to the ground. The big tripod fits in my pack, right down inside. I can pack around it.

One of my all time favourite “Bay area” thrash bands is Forbidden. Here they are doing Step by Step, in Oulu, Finland (where I will be in September). As you will hear during the song info, the band is very much anti-drug.

June 15, 2010

From Zero to ZOMG!

Filed under: Travel — Jason @ 9:23 pm

In my last post, I was savouring the prospect of a relatively peaceful summer punctuated with a trip to Finland. Summer breezes on the deck, good reading material, and quiet times. Okay, so that is totally not going to happen now. On Tuesday evening, I found out that I am going to be headed to Vietnam in August for almost three weeks, and this last week has been absolutely crazy busy. Vietnam needs a visa to enter, so there was that. New glasses (my travel pair are substantially banged up and I needed new lenses at the very least), and inoculations a plenty. I am sticking to the mainstream stuff like tetanus, hep A/B, and typhoid, but I may also bring malaria meds with me, just in case. There is gear to get. For a variety of reasons, I need more memory cards for the Nikon. I had a smaller camera body with me in Morocco, so I was able to get by with less storage capacity, but that won’t work this time. I am contemplating a slingpack for my camera gear. Kata has some nice stuff in that regard.

Starting to think about the packing. Different climate, way more rain, much more humidity. My merino handles the heat and humidity just fine, although this time I will definitely bring a rain shell and certainly a cover for my pack. Those were not issues in Africa. Water purification will be an issue — I drank the water in Morocco after filtering it, just fine, but I will bump my efforts up a bit more this time around. It’s not that I think the Vietnamese water is less potable than Morocco (some of the water sources in Morocco were pretty bad), but I still have Finland to contend with once I am back and I really want to make sure I don’t come home feeling sick.

Anyway, expect more on that subject at a later date, for sure. What else? The summer is going by pretty fast, I think. Middle of June already. Riding is going well. I’ve managed to squeeze in two double centuries, and had planned on doing at least two more but now that I’m going to be travelling in August i am not sure if that is still feasible. It really doesn’t matter — if I’m on the bike, it’s win.

The fact that I had started reading The Quiet American before I knew about Vietnam is not lost on me. I am enjoying it, in any case. I should be able to get the first of the Foundation novels stuffed into my head before I leave, but will finish on the plane if that isn’t the case.

Given that this day was so freaking awesome, today’s track is Crushing Day, by Joe Satriani. There is a bit of commentary by Mr. Satriani at the beginning which is worth watching, but the song will amaze. So, enjoy.

June 6, 2010

It’s wet

Filed under: Ramblings — Jason @ 5:26 pm

I don’t normally blog from the couch, but I am this time. It’s been raining all weekend, and so I sit here with a cup of chai tea, my laptop, and a very worn 1955 edition of The Quiet American, the current book in a long line of books that I have been reading over the last few weeks. I know I haven’t updated this site in a bit. To be honest, it has been difficult finding the time or the motivation — summer for me is a time to be outside, not on a computer. I’d rather be enjoying the sun, soaking up the vitamin D, on a bike or something.

But, since it’s wet, here I am. Before The Quiet American, I finished Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It’s a classic, and if you’re a fan of cyberpunk or the sci-fi genre in general, you should read it. As I mentioned before, Ender’s Game was on the list before Neuromancer, and three Kay novels were before that. It has been a good summer for reading. Next, I will probably get into Issac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy again. Just the three books — not the prequel or the later ones. I will be out of reading material at that point, and will probably have to think about what single book to bring with me when I head to Finland. It will definitely have to be something I have not read. Something that will be forever coloured with what ever memories that trip brings. I am open to suggestions at this point.

Still, Finland is a summer away. I am stuck in that mode where I am basically waiting to travel. I keep revising my itinerary, and have decided that I will try to squeeze a side trip to Stockholm in there. I was on the fence about that originally, but figured why the hell not? Until then, though, I need to come up with something to burn through 30 days of vacation. I can carry ten over at work without anyone complaining, but now that I have been with the university for 8 years I receive 4 weeks instead of 3 each year. I dislike taking time simply because I have time to take. Perhaps I will book something off for the middle of winter, and assume that I will be here in Fredericton for the summer. We’ll see.

I was in Montreal this past week, for a few days. Well, two, split over three. One whole day of meetings, and one day worth of travel. Still, I managed to eat well, do a bit of photography (the views of the city from the Mount Royal lookout are stellar), and generally admire the city. There are almost no overweight people in Montreal. Everyone walks or bikes, there is a massive mountain in the middle of the city that you are either walking up or walking down all the time, and I’m sure that all of the smoking helps keep the weight off, too. That last part is obviously not my thing, but I could handle being in a city that offered the opportunity to lead an active life style. The new Bixi bike system is awesome. For a couple of bucks, you can grab a bike from any Bixi bike rack anywhere in the city, ride it all over town (the longer you keep it out, the more you pay, but it’s not much), and then you just leave it at another Bixi rack when you are done. With dedicated bike lanes, it is revolutionary. No need to take a lock with you — you just leave it. it is tied to a credit card, and I’m going to bet that there are probably monthly passes you can buy if you use it often enough.

For a track, I am totally going into the far end of heavy. Decapitated is a Polish death metal band that has been widely hailed as one of the most technically precise, brutally fast, uncompromising metal bands in Europe. Sadly, their drummer, Vitek, (the one featured in this video) was killed in a bus tour accident a few years ago, when the band was on tour in Belarus. Their tour bus hit a logging truck. What is incredibly amazing is how *precise* they are. Notice the lack of weird thrashing and body movement — too busy concentrating on their instruments! Anyway, this is a live version of Spheres of Madness. Fasten your seat belts. It is freaking heavy.