Not as Cute as Deirdre

The reason that I'm taking so long between posts is that I'm currently working away from my humble home, on the rugged sunshine coast. My mission: checking treeplanters. It was always my dream when small to grow up to be a treeplanter. The legends that surrounded this most noble of professions. The rugged individuality of its dreadlocked participants. The smell of the great unwashed. I was successful in pursuing my dream, and actually had quite the lucrative career planting trees all over the province...For 8 years it was my major source of income...And in those 8 years I did the majority of my traveling to date. I financed over a calendar year abroad off the avails of treeplanting. I still occasionally plant, but in a very limited capacity, although sometimes recreationaly (my friend just bought a 74 acre x-mas tree farm). Somewhere over the years the lusture of the grubbiness rubbed off (probably on any passersby that I brushed against) and a new dream formed in my head: better than planting the trees, how about I become the guy who checks the planters: the "checker". I have also realized this dream, although from my grungy hotel "kitchenette" (don't kitchens traditionally have ovens?) the lusture of this dream is also beginning to fade. This is the first time I'm checking this particular group of planters, but it is not the first time someone from the company I work for has. My former associate Deirdre had this gig last spring. She was very popular with the mostly male crew. Her popularity was confirmed by the comment I received from one planter whence introducing myself: "you're not as cute as Deirdre". How does one respond to such a comment. It was after all good natured and a light-hearted joking sort of banter. "No...I guess I'm not" says I to the grimy, chain-smoking man with the shaved head (dreadlocks sort of went out of style in the planting world around 1998...except for people from Quebec).
Well...I may not be as "cute" to the tree planting brotherhood as she, but if you take the time to carefully examine the above photo, I think you will agree that I am a better driver.

Old Friend Dies Violent Chainsaw Death

Sensationalism is the key to any headline. I am writing today to mourn the loss of a very old and dear friend...my 90-foot high Douglas-fir tree that until Friday February 17th, 2006, graced my front yard. The tree finally succumbed to multiple wounds inflicted by what can only be described as a "fricken huge mother of a chainsaw". The tree was suffering from a terminal illness, and in a plea to die with dignity, started dropping branches, needles and cones into my gutters the summer before last. These last acts, although messy, started the ball rolling for what would eventually lead to the euthanasia of this wonderous (but messy) tree. To put it simply, I put a contract out on it. To my fortune, enough of the tree was located on or near city property that they had it removed for me, which is a good thing as it costs thousands of dollars to have trees snuffed. I was also fortunate that the city also very recently installed a watermain along my front walk, clearly causing irreparable root damage, and precipitating the untimely death of the tree. Or this was my story when I called City Public Works...indignant taxpayer. They did not entirely buy my story..."trees don't die all that quickly ya know" ..says Jake the city Parks foreman ...but rather than fighting my willful wrath, they conceded some responsibility, and the rest is lying on the lawn...but not for long. The redneck dwellers of my town can smell a downed tree 50km's away...I wasn't home ten minutes before a pickup pulled up inquiring about the wood. I'm sure its gone. But I've been (and am still) away...hence the lag in posting this.
I feel conflicted...on the one hand the tree was a major pain in the arse...had to clean the gutters on that side of the house 4 times a year, and the branches it was dropping were huge and dangerous to my roof. On the other hand, losing 90 feet of skyline changes both the look and the ecosystem of ones yard. This corner never really saw sun, and the tree sort of hid the funny looking addition on top of my house...it just looks so naked now.
So I guess the moral of the story is that if your not sure about something, and it is slightly annoying or bothersome...have a disinterested third party kill it for you....Vroom.

Things Go Better with Monks

Things go better with monks. It’s an age old truism...some sound and sage advice passed down through the Buddhist teachings. Actually, monks make travel photos better. One could think of them as some sort of camera fodder as opposed to holy people. It is worthy to note that while on the one hand you are exploiting the Buddhist faith for some sort aesthetic gains on your travel images, that a lot of these youngsters you see swathed in orange robes are not particularly holy people. True the shave their heads and dress in an exciting mono-colour, but for the most part they are only novice monks, young kids who are only men of the cloth for two weeks or so...it’s a right of passage and a means of giving your family face. This should not distract from the art...monks will spice up any scene from a street market shot, to a majestic temple. Take the above, without the monk, this would just be a shot of some pretty laundry and an umbrella, with the monk...well...it's one of my favourite holiday snaps.

Or take this one for instance: If the monk was not there, it would be a picture of a plain white wall. How boring is that? This genera of monk photography is known as action monk, as the picture is usually taken when yourself and the monk in question are both moving. Did I mention there was a minor social taboo about snapping pictures of monks without permission? Well breaking taboos is what makes life fun and exciting.

See how that ugly old falling down building is vastly improved by the muscular boy in orange? Monkification of any photographic image is an improvement, and should never be overlooked.

Even if your not as bold about whipping out the old camera, and you lack a fantastic zoom (10X optical is necessary to inconspicuously photograph monks from the front), you can always wait until they turn their back and forget about you. See how the orange robes complement the gray ruins at Angkor. This same effect cannot be duplicated by placing images of brightly dressed Germans into your photos (believe me I have some of those). Failing real monks you could always swaddled your self in orange towels and shave your head, then set the timer, but this is complicated. The best solution is to get over those nagging feelings that you’re desecrating something or belittling somebody’s faith, and just start blasting away. I have seen the light, and it’s many shades of orange.

Secret Wars

BOMB CRATERS NEAR PHOSAVAN, LAO PDR.

It seems everywhere I go; there’s been a secret or “covert” war run by some arm or branch of the American industrial/military complex. Most recently, I travelled to Lao (often, and quite inexplicably spelled Laos on American made maps). Lao has the distinction of being the most heavily bombed (on a per capita basis) country on the planet. These bombs fell in a steady stream for 9 years between 1964 and 1973, despite the 1962 Geneva accord that pronounced Lao a neutral country. The “secret” air force that bombed Lao (comprised of Hmong and Vietnamese pilots trained by the CIA) dropped an average of one payload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. This is not counting the huge number of bombs that were jettisoned by American pilots who could not achieve their targets in Vietnam. Note that the bombing of Vietnam officially stopped in 1968, while Lao was bombed for another 5 years. Many of the bombs dropped did not explode. There is probably enough UXO in Lao to fight another war. Many of the bombs dropped were also cluster bombs, designed to explode and then send hundreds of little shrapnel bombs through the air until they hit something solid. Flooded rice paddies are soft, and thousands of these things are still blowing up farmers and children to this day. All this happened in “secret”. It was, of course, no big secret to the Lao people, many of whom were forced to live in caves for most of those nine years. It was also a war without a purpose. The only thing that bombing Lao changed was the life expectancy of Lao farmers and their children. Lao is still, to this day, a proudly communist country, despite all these corrective efforts. They were aiding the movement of North Vietnamese troops and artillery, as Ho Chi Minh was clever enough to route a great deal of his famous trail through eastern Lao. But this was clearly aid under duress, and if it was a legitimate reason to attack Lao, how come Nixion and LBJ kept it a secret from Americans. To this day there is still no chapter on American strong arm tactics in neutral South East Asian countries in any American history text book.

So far as I’ve experienced, it has been the same the world over. Che Guevera is a speed bump at the end of a runway near Samipata in Bolivia, an airport improvement sponsored by the CIA. Chiles democratically elected but somewhat socialist president was thrown from an airplane without a parachute, and replaced by a genocidal maniac. There is a generation of men missing in Honduras, thanks to the CIA sponsored “Contra” army. Similar fingers in the pie can be found in Guatemala, Columbia, Peru, Cambodia…just about anywhere I’ve ever been.

I would like to believe that things are getting better, but they are not. The USA is the only country in the UN that did not ratify the Ottawa convention on landmines, and is one of the only countries that still manufactures and sells them, and the USA still produces a whole line of nasty cluster bombs designed to kill civilians.

America, live free and die!

I Fall Down A Lot (Gravity Cannot be Beaten)

(This fell down too)

I fall down a lot. Far more than most people. I have fallen down more times to date than most people would in four life times. This is not because I am clumsy, although clumsiness or “clutziness” as some would refer to it does run in my family. My mother is, how should we say, prone to falling. But falling down isn’t something you get from your mother. The falling down gene is passed through the father, and my father never falls down. Of course, he never really gets up either, so my sampling of the genetic pool may be flawed. However, my particular problem with falling down is a direct consequence of my line of employment. I’m a forest technologist. A “registered” forest technologist as a matter of fact. I belong to a professional association and everything. I have a framed piece of paper that says so ( although to my understanding, professional associations are just groups of people who collect $321 per year from you, and grant you the privilege of being able to say that you “belong”….I used to have friends with similar values…I weeded them out). Anyway, I spend my days walking around in the forest, or rather, where the forest used to be, counting little trees. This may seem like a mindless task, but I assure you that it requires most of my attention, as the terrain in these parts is rather perilous. And my work is important…do not dismiss the counting of trees…if no one counted the trees, our society would fall into anarchy and collapse, quite possibly disappearing like the Mayans did. Getting back to the subject at hand, the aforementioned framed piece of paper does not protect against the overbearing, and unjust law of gravity. The upshot is that after over a decade working in the former forests of this province, I have become a “good” faller. I can fall with the best of them. I can fall with the ranks of skydivers or Olympic platform diver, or those Mexicans that huck themselves off cliffs at resorts in Aculpoco. The only difference is that it is hard to look graceful, or indeed direct a fall of less than three feet. But my reflexes are sharp….sharper than one of those sharp things fencers jab at each other with. Falling down is such a part of my life now that I think I would miss it if I couldn’t do it daily.

Introduction, and Cast of Characters

I'm really new to the world of computers, beyond buying toasters on Ebay...I mainly thought the internet was about pictures of slightly out of focus nude people. My sister enlightened me on the more practical applications of E technology, and I would like to thank her. She has a Blog
http://bathtubspider.blogspot.com/
and is a source of great knowledge and sage advice (must be her advanced age). Excuse me if I don't use geek speak like lol or smiley faces :), but I haven't the time to learn a new language other than possibly Khmer.
Anyway, as my profile states I collect toasters of the vintage variety, I have about 82 of them now, and to answer your question, no, I'm not a toast freak, in fact, my tastes run more to the english muffin side of breakfast carbs. But I really admire the aesthetic impracticality and beauty of what are considered practical objects. We really lack this in the modern world. Function does not have to be ugly or boring, it can be beautiful and unique. The toaster above was manufactured in 1929 and is regarded as the first truly automatic "pop-up" toaster. But as beautiful as it is, it has a few impractical "flaws". Firstly, it only toasts one slice (this may have been due to its creation at the start of the great depression when two slices may have been an pipe dream for most people), but the quirk I love the most about this shiny machine is that the light/dark controls are in increments of A to K. Perfect toast is about a G and a half??? I don't really have a toaster fetish, I don't want cute little knick-knacks that look like toasters, nor am I impotent in a kitchen with a modern toaster oven (ugh!), but to paraphrase the immortal (but quite dead) Frank Zappa "...we are all latent appliance fetishists...).
Toasters aside my life involves a flatulent but lovable 85 pound dog nammed Sasha, whom my life revolves around, and my girlfriend of 13 years (yes, we;re still at the friend stage) Kira who lives far, far away. You will be introduced to them in later posts.