i had breakfast with jack layton part 1

the following is poorly written account of my trip from saskatoon to mcallen, texas and back.
part 1

it was snowy monday morning in saskatoon, i threw a few things in a bag, mostly a few books on cd, an ipod, a toothbrush and some shorts and hopped on a plane at the airport. after a quick touchdown in regina, we were off too minneapolis. after we landed we had to pass through security as per usual, and as i was putting my shoes back on, i looked behind me to see none other than mr. ochitwa.
now, mr. ochitwa was my grade 7 teacher in white city. i was sure it was him because he had the famous scar on the left side of his mouth where a chainsaw had gotten the better of him. (true story. or at least thats what he told us in grade 7 and i still believe it). we visited briefly and headed off to find or connecting flights. the minneapolis airport loves mcdonalds. everywhere i looked, people were packing away a quarter pounder and fries. awesome.
a few hours past quickly by listening to people on CNN talk about some financial crisis at AIG in the states. i caught only parts of it.
we loaded up the next plane and headed to los angeles. LAX. the airport is like a city. i asked how to find my next flight and proceeded on 20 minute walk outside. it was 10pm and must have been 25C. gorgeous. on my flight from LA to houston, i sat beside chase. chase was living in venice california and was on his way to SXSW (a music festival) in austin, tx. he told me stories of how after buying a 150$ licence you could carry a lot of marijuana on you in california and could even grow your own. apparently i look like someone who would be excited by this. i wasnt. he was a great guy though and even gave me a set of earplugs to use for the red-eye to houston.
i landed in houston, and slept in awkward positions that made my legs numb for the next two hours. my flight to harlingen, texas was late due to the heavy fog that had set. finally we made it to harlingen (look it up on a map-its basically on the mexican border) where bob picked me up to drive to the dealership. bob was a former pro-wrestler. no lies. and in a few weeks he would be having some of his old wrestling buddies come to the dealership to sign autographs and such. wrestlers like doink the clown, rikishi and others i cant remember. he told me the hollywood lifestyle he lived as a wrestler and how in mexico when they recognized him they let him drink on the streets and would even bring him tequila. great guy. good stories.
i was finally in texas.. almost 24 hours after i left saskatoon.
the only problem was i was in texas. i dont love texas. but i do love tacos. and i found some great ones.
it scares me that i could cut someone off while driving, and make them mad. its not good to make people carrying firearms in their vehicles angry.
now i had about 2198 miles to drive. thats like 3500km for those of you like me who dont know what a mile is.

Propagandhi-Supporting Caste

on tuesday, one of my all time favorite bands put out a brand new album after almost 4 years since their last one. i saw them play about a year and half ago here in saskatoon and it was one of the best shows ive ever seen. so i felt like i was about 15 years old waiting for march 10th to come when i could run down to the record store and pick up the newest release.
i remember in high school my dad read some of their lyrics or essays they had on their website and wasn't very impressed, so my old band wrote a song about it called "my dad hates propagandhi". it had nothing to do with my dad hating propagandhi at all. it was probably about some lame girl stealing one of our friends or something. anyway, back to the matter at hand...
you may not agree with everything these guys say, and you dont have too. but they have done a lot to make this world a better place. one cool idea they had was instead of leaking their songs around the internet before they were released (which probably still happened) they set up a site where you could download two, for a small donation to your choice of humanitarian effort.
anyway, their music is incredible, and their lyrics make you think and give you insight into some things that are going on in the world around you which you likely wont hear about on CNN or CTV.
if you are bored at work, go check out their website, they have a good list of books to read that may give you a different spin on things.
anyway. this record is great. i cant wait till they drive through my city.

CBC Radio3

Hey. I finally figured out how to add some songs to our profile on CBC Radio 3, New Music Canada!
Check it out HERE,
these are new songs that are not on our myspace page, so check them out if you get a chance.

tell your friends? i would

looking for a job

i confess, i dont know much about how to set up the ideal budget to run a country in the midst of this "economic downturn". or even in the midst of a positive economy for that matter. but here is an interesting quote from someone at the globe and mail

"In this budget, the government looks to have taken every demand placed on it and given almost everyone a partial loaf. Not enough to make a fundamental difference in economic terms, but a political difference that will buy them time in office."

you can read his whole article HERE if you want. he makes some interesting points. ill save my commentary. most of you can probably guess what i think. anyway

it is a strange time to be looking for employment/a means of income.

Mike Milbury actually has rational thoughts

I admit Mr. Milbury is not my favorite guy around. But I would rather listen to him than 98% of the crew on TSN. Read THIS
short article about why Don Cherry should be in the Hall of Fame...the guy is a beauty.

nickelback

if you love nickelback, or hate them. or even if youve only heard of them...go read
THIS article from calgarys "ffwd" newspaper.
its hilarious.
also...
go check out kris's blog. he wrote something for the first time in 2 years.
not bad. but its a decent read.

and because of my previous post

check out THISlink and sign your name.

actually?

did you see Stephen harpers speech today?
If you didn't google it or something. It must be on there somewhere.
I haven't seen anything so artificial in my life.
Seriously it was brutal.

Massey & The Fergusons

for any of you who are interested in some country tunes that ive been playing out here in saskatoon with some buddies... go check out THIS link for music and some pictures. and tell your friends.

leave it to tsn to ruin a good thing...

so yeah. TSN ruined it. They ruined the hockey night theme song. They overplayed it. And it's not even 20 games into the season.
Once a week was perfect. Every commercial break is too much.
Way to go boys.
You are brutal

the morning after

yep. the morning after the big election.
we ended up with exactly what we had before...so basically the last 6 weeks plus, have been nothing but a huge waste of money.
good call stephen.
and it appears 37% of the 50% of eligible voters that actually showed up
voted for the conservatives. lame, i know.

and due to a brutal electoral system, we end up with similar results
to our neighbours in the south.
less than 19% of canadians actually voted for your mr. harper.
how can you say that "they have done so with confidence" ?
if i scored 19% on an exam, i likely would not use confidence in the same sentence when discussing my results.
so now we wait and watch.
hopefully we dont follow a certain other country to the brink of a recession.
hopefully we dont send more soldiers to fight meaningless wars.
hopefully we dont scrap social programs so we can give tax breaks to big business.
deficit here we come?

update

yes. its been a while.
no i dont have a good excuse.
time is quickly running out on my attempt to put life on hold by being a grad student. its been a good 21 months. great even.
so why dont i stick around and make it a few more years of delaying real life?
now that is a good question.
one ive wrestled with, changed my mind on and second guessed an infinite amount of times.
especially with the task of writing a thesis approaching more rapidly by the minute, the easy thing to do would have been to transfer into the phd program and not have to worry about that for another 24 or 36 months. i think thats why im getting out now.
ive enjoyed the last few years, but im ready for a new challenge. something fresh and different. maybe a new city. and hopefully a job. something that will sort of change my views, give me a new perspective and open new doors.

final game. yankee stadium

Go HERE for a brief story on the final game at yankee stadium which used a few of my pictures...

the end of the war for oil?

I saw this guy speak in philadelphia. very good speaker and pretty interesting stuff.
its short, so check it out.

"

the champ

rocky balboa
Originally uploaded by .jerms.

yeah, ive been back for over a week already. but its been a busy week. if you didnt know, i spent a week in philadelphia for the american chemical society national meeting and then spent a week in nyc hanging out with my parents and watching the first 3 days of the US Open.
heading into finals weekend at the open there is a good set of mens semifinals on the go. i got 30$ riding on the fact that nadal is not going to win this tournament...

Aug 12, 1994

do you know what happened on this date? no, it wasnt anything earth shattering, and although it had implications, they were not felt worldwide such as a tsunami, or earthquake or some crazy disease.
but that doesnt make me feel any better.
14 years ago today, the montreal expos were leading all of major league baseball with the best record. they were clearly going to win the world series and then it all ended in a strike. the players wanted more money. that was it. the year that could have kept an historical team in an historical city saw it move to washington a few years later. if you even care, you can go HERE to see a CBC story about it.

on china, from australia

Kori Jones left a comment on the ten things the chinese government tried to change for the olympics. its just as good as the article on the cbc. and so good that i had to give it its own post... so read it below


**********************
This is hilarious.

Smelly cabbies. Give the guys a break they eat, sleep and other… in the car as the have to work insane hours to get by. Their fragrance is unique.
Your visit to China would not be complete with out some old lady hocking a lugey while elbowing you where the sun doesn’t shine to get in front of you at the metro ticket office. Good luck enforcing that no spitting, pushing and budging. It would feel weird if there were orderly lines every where.
Dog meat ban… an animal raised as stock to be eaten is just that, food. It is a weird texture but will probably be better than a Chinese version of beef stroganoff. I know we butchered there food over here. Us Westerners wear cat fur on a lot of the clothing.. what they don’t know won’t hurt them right. Meow or woof. A little terrier stir fry won’t hurt.
I am pretty sure we didn’t ban beef in Canada, for any international event, to keep the 1.3 billion strong Hindu nation at ease.
Cigarettes. The have pro smoking protests going on, where patrons will take over a newly stated no smoking restaurant and kick out all the employees and light up for the press. And there was definitely smoking allowed in the men’s room.

I think this it the best Olympics ever.

I see China as an old man trying to be cool with the grand kids who are coming from over seas for a long visit. He wants to lay down some rules, but keep it cool with the kids. Be the hip and happening crotchety old man. He has purchased an ipod which listens to the latest Mandarin pop top ten while wearing his locally made slippers and sitting under his large than life Mao poster. This old man is letting their parents know what is expected of the kids, and the parents in return letting him know about a few promises he made. All this has made him confused about what it means to clean up his act, to be responsible on his part…chemically changing the weather patterns and sweeping human right violations under the rug mat not be the best solution…
We all hope the visit goes well, as long as the old man doesn’t snap…
I better stop this is too much fun. China is awesome.
Sorry for hogging your comment space Jeremy.

Kori

top ten

i found THIS short little picture article pretty interesting.
it talks about ten things that you wont be able to find in beijing during the olympics that start in a couple weeks.
i think its too bad that the government there is trying to westernize and "clean up" the city. it seems they are hiding some of the culture and the 'real life' china that you might experience if youve been there before the olympics and the culture that will likely return after all the visitors leave.
ive read reports about forcing cab drivers to learn english and british etiquette and even forcing them to brush their teeth after they eat garlic. what?

sure some of these things might be good things, if the people themselves were choosing to do them. anyway. pretty interesting. check it out

jericho road

so steve earle came through town last night. this was one of my favorite songs he played (this video is not from last night). he had a little more hair and way more of a beard last night. super nice guy. some great stories. and his wife, alison moorer can sing. wow! definitely one of the cooler shows ive seen for a while.

north sask river

one of the pictures i took last september long weekend on one of my camping trips was chosen to be the background for the website for the NSRBC (North Saskatchewan River Basin Council. go check it out by clicking the link or going to www.nsrbc.ca. They have some interesting ideas and goals so check those out too if you have the time.