Reflecting: 1 Month Back

It is really hard for me to beleive that it has been a full month since I left Taiwan. A lot has happened to keep me busy and occupied during this time, which may be why I feel it hasn't been as long as it has been.

This past month has been split up with a nice 3000 mile roadtrip from here to Canada and back. Seeing family in some of the spots (some family just meeting for the first time) was definitly nice, but the traveling experience was just plain exhausting.

The time with friends back here in Columbia has been a breath of fresh air. Some of the people I knew before leaving aren't in the area anymore, which is kind of weird for me, but it has been nice to hang out with a lot of the same group of people I spent a lot of time with before leaving.

But there are some things that do change - and not necessarily for the good. There's an old saying: "There's no going home again" and although I wouldn't take that to an extreme, it does seem somewhat true. Seeing "far distant lands" at a pace that I set, working a pretty chill schedule and being able to hang out with a solid set of people over yonder every night definitly makes it strange to be back home - where people have moved on with what they do at a pace I had forgotten about.

The hardest part of adjusting for me comes from the effects of reverse culture shock. Going over to Taiwan I had built myself up for several months. I had put myself together mentally to be able to go into a new place where I would know noone and be fine. I made myself understand that I would have to let others do things for me that were basic - such as order food for me or tell me how to get to places - and it was fine.

Coming home, it's back to the world I know and am familiar with - but my outlook and perceptions on things are not the same. How I see issues, whether political, economic, even moral are definitly not the same as when I left. I think the hardest part of coming home is just that - coming back to a place where people remember and know you for who you were, but not necessarily who are are.

It's just a thought at least. I purposely made this more of a reflection on my perceptions.

But some promising things are occuring now for me. Biomagine looks to be on its final stages of development and we are setting a timeline to have it ready to go by January. The development of the commercial site (being the website we have up for it now is just a retainer) is coming together on paper and we are looking to have some RFP's sent out to some local development companies in the next week or two.

On the job front, I have a couple decent job interviews coming up in the next 2 weeks. Nothing that I would say are fantastic, but decent. The only problem is honestly I am not looking for that "career starting job" at the moment - I want to be able to devote time and have available time for Biomagine and all the things that will be associated with that over the next 4 months. So it's possible I might take (as made famous on The Sims video game) the "Slacker career track" for the remainder of the year - or at least at nights. I guess a real day job and a slacker job at night wouldn't be a bad thing...

Anyhow, I am still deciding if I have the time/moolah to go to Mexico. I am tempted to do it whatever the cost and THIS doesn't make it any easier for me not to go.

Decisions, decisions....

Until next time...

The Biggest Sporting Event in the World...

Mark your calendars. Circle August 27 (it's a Friday) on your calendar in red! What major sporting event will be performed that day? What trophy will be raised in the air?

The Air Guitar World Championship.

In fact, this will be the 15th year that the Air Guitar World Championship has been held. This year it is in Oulu, Finland and it appears that they are in short supply of tight fitting, bright, sparkly pants. Makes me wonder why Axel Rose doesn't decide to make his real comeback in Finland.

Don't forget to bring your hairspray.

Air Guitar World Championships 2010 from OMVF on Vimeo.

But if you are going to Finland, you might want to decide and stay for the Mobile Phone Throwing Contest. Especially for you iPhone users (with the fantastic AT&T dropped call network) this is where you can finally vent out some of your frustrations (and in at least my case, dreams) of letting that phone fly into the air. The rules are simple:

You'll either throw the cell phone backwards over your shoulder and count the distance of the best of three attempts. Alternatively, and even more fun, you can do a freestyle throw for creativity points.

Finally, the Wife Carrying World Championships has entered it's 13th year of existence. Some of the rules are as follows:

•The length of the official track is 253.5 meters, and the surface of the track is partially sand, partially grass and partially gravel.
•The track has two dry obstacles and a water obstacle, about one meter deep.
•The only equipment allowed is a belt worn by the carrier.
•There is only one category in the World Championships and the winner is the couple who completes the course in the shortest time.
•Also the most entertaining couple, the best costume and the strongest carrier will be awarded a special prize.

And a video from the 2010 Wife Carrying World Championships:

Roadtrip: Days 3 - 11; No Internet Days

Toronto, Canandaigua, Schroon Lake, Ocean City, Columbia and a few other stops along the way. Almost 3000 miles in total covered in this latest trip. No McDonald stops.

Toronto we went on some kind of sailboat that went along Lake Ontario. It was nice and hot. We were sailing on a ship built in Germany in the early 1930's, was bought and sold a few times and a few years ago ended up being purchased and refitted to its original specifications to take tourists on a 90 minute ride along the Toronto/Lake Ontario coast.

After that my brother and mom went on to go to the top of the CN Tower. Being that I have already done that (see here) I decided to just find a nice park bench and people watch.

I must say that there are a lot of interesting people in Toronto. Canada being a bit different in their social norms than America is, it is a lot more common to see very open gay couples. Not being unacoustomed to this fact of life, it did catch my attention on how many gay couples there were in Toronto.

The next day we headed back for America (but not before hitting up Tim Hortons at least 3 times in the span of 24 hours). Expecting a repeat of the last time I crossed (in short, I was taken into a holding area as they searched the car and my cousin was yelled at because he used his phone while we were waiting to get back on the road - not to mention the hour-plus line it took to even get to the boarder guard) I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice American boarder agent and a line no longer than 10 minutes. I guess things do even out eventually...

That night we made it Syracuse. I think the south gets unfair attention for having a high population of uneducated rednecks. That's all I'm going to say about Syracuse.

The next day we went to some fort/mission place in the morning and headed on to Canandaigua for the afternoon. The pigeons in Canandaigua seem very well fed and willing to eat shark outlined Cheeze-Its.

Somewhere along the way between Syracuse and Schroon Lake we stopped at some Williamsburg type model 19th century town. It included an octagon house, the nations only authentic 19th century brewery, and more 19th century townness than you will find even in Columbia.

After that we spent the next 2 days at Schroon Lake in New York, where we have some family. It was a nice relaxing time once we were there. Got to ride on a really nice boat, do some water sports and do an authentic firepit cookout. Unfortunatley New York being that it is New York, I couldn't LEGALLY fish in the lake because I didn't have a license. And those DNR people are as pesky as those kids in the green van with a dog.

The last stop before heading back to Columbia was to Ocean City. More of our family lives there and we spent the first 24 hours battling it out with the neighbors. Now these friendly neighbors of ours were early/mid 20 kids that just recently moved in. They also liked to play their music REALLY loud on the outside porch - at all hours of the day and night (not to mention a few other things that would make Cheech and Chong proud).

In short, the war raged (pretty good) for about 24 hours but for the next 3 days I think we can claim victory. During the time there I went to the beach and walked the boardwalk. I think Venice Beach is nicer, but Ocean City has a bit of uniqueness that you can't find in a lot of other places.

Oh and I found out that you can buy one of those small floaties made for 3 year olds at Wal-Mart, cut out the bottom (where the kids legs would go) and use it as a body board. Just keep the animals head that is popping out of the side of the float in front of you. It works pretty well.

Finally, yesterday I arrived back to Columbia. To the heat, rain and thunderstorms. In upstate New York it was at most in the mid-70'a. In Ocean City it was only hot one day and the rest of the time was in the mid-70's to low-80's. Once we hit the South Carolina line it was 95.

It's good to be home...

North of the Border - Roadtrip Day 2 - Niagara Falls and (almost) Toronto

It's "aboot" time I made it to Canada again. As fun as America was for the 7 days I've been there since returning from Taiwan, it's time to leave the motherland once again for new adventures.

This morning while leaving the hotel, not even 5 minutes up the road, I see a bunch of Amish with their straw hats and matching blue shirts putting up a building. Gotta love PA. But that was about as interesting as the trip got.

Getting to the Canada-US border was fairly uneventful - besides the by now expected god-complex crossing guard. Just pray that your cell phone doesn't ring when they are asking you if you are bringing guns, explosives or liquor across the border.

While in Niagara Falls we did the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Now for the cool experience that it is, it doesn't cost much to do it - under $16. You even get a free rain poncho to wear while on the boat (I guess too many people complained about smelling like fish for a week from the rainjackets they use to give out).

As an FYI, food places north of the border are priced like the Canadian dollar is still cheap. Lame. But Tim Hortons does have some good doughnuts. Which brings me to my next ramble: Using the greenback 30 minutes outside of Toronto.

Now it didn't surprise me too much when in Niagara Falls I could use American currency. But just 20 miles outside of Toronto (about a hour northeast of Niagara) I would not expect that you would be able to use a foreign currency. For dinner tonight, we went to Tim Hortons. Now I was cocksure that we would not be able to use American cash but to my surprise, they accept it. Since 97 cents American buys 1 dollar Canadian, the exchange rate is practically 1:1, so I guess having a currency on par with the Canadian dollar does have one upside.

Anyhow, we will be hitting up Toronto tomorrow. More than likely the things on deck for tomorrow will be the CN Tower, a boat ride of some sort and crusing around the city. Then we should be heading back to the US and go to the Fingerlakes in New York. A lot of miles we're covering but it's been a fairly enjoyable trip so far.

I have decided that I will consider to grow and document my growing of a Fu Manchu. Maybe not the greatest idea in case I do decide to venture out into the job searching market, but it's something I'm considering doing.

Until next time...

Video from Taiwan

This kid was a putz. His name was Dennis and of all the kids we had to put up with, he deserved this more than anyone else. So please, enjoy this video:



Thank you Sam for posting this.

Roadtrip, Day 1 - Columbia to Pittsburgh

Today was a day of travel for me. Originally we had planned on going to Williamsburg for a couple days to start with but we decided this morning to cut a few days off the trip and head staight to Pittsburgh.

Most of the day was spent driving on I-77 and I-79. Now, I think this is the longest time I've spent in West Virginia in recent memory, driving through for about 4 hours. You hear all the stories about West Virginia and I must say...all of those stories are true!

Today I must have seen about 8 really fat guys wearing sleeveless shirts with big ole tatoos on their arms driving those long vans with the windows down, a camo hat on, and a cigarette in their mouth. I can only imagine how many Cameros they own...

Anyhow. Today we went to the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh. We got there around sunset and were able to see the sun setting over the hills beyond the city. The incline overlooks the river and all of the city - which is a pretty cool view. I was able to see Heinz Field and a few other cool buildings. The thing that surprised me though is the size of Pittsburgh - it's a bit smaller than I would have imagined. Not Columbia small, but I'm pretty sure Atlanta is a lot larger than Pittsburgh.

Anyhow, tomorrow I will be in Canada (if they let me in...) and should be taking a boat ride into Niagara Falls. I hope I don't drown.

Until next time...