Category: Trips

I am constant as the northern star

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Fatblogging, ho:

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 224.5
  • Weight this week: 223.5

Another week, another pound. At this rate I should be 67.5 pounds in just three years.

.:.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was messy, intricate and very funny. It’s a film about a film about an essentially unfilmable novel, and I think I may have missed one or more “a film about…”s. Michael Winterbottom is quickly becoming one of my favourite directors.

.:.

There’s an excellent piece in Esquire this month entitled “God’s Not Watching Baghdad” that you should read if you have 15 minutes.

I was back in Iraq to see the president’s surge, to see if pushing more troops into Baghdad had made a difference. I had last been in Iraq two years before as a sergeant in an infantry company, patrolling its farm fields and city streets. On a good day, the country looks the same as it did during my deployments. Usually it looks much worse. Being back in Iraq, I hoped, would be a brief sojourn to reality, a break from America’s version of the war, where the battle lines had been drawn by fearless sloganeers: “Cut ‘n’ Run” or “Bring ‘Em Home,” depending. Where the debate no longer has much to do with Iraq and its people — other than the shitty smorgasbord of daily violence touted as evidence of either the mission’s futility or the dangers of quitting. Mostly, I wanted to make sense of why this had gone on so long with so little progress and see how the war looked to those tasked with the salvage operation.

Read the full article.

.:.

An article popped up in my feeds this week that resonated on a couple of levels. The Coast, the Halifax alternative weekly paper I used to read all the time in university, recently ripped off Passive-Aggressive Notes, a blog I quite enjoy. P.A.N. reposted the article, including this picture, which made me laugh my ass off. Ha ha ha ha. Soyfucker.

It also reminded me of an east-coast delicacy: donair pizza. I never liked donairs themselves (that sauce always made me sick) and I couldn’t eat the pizzas, but I used to loooooove eating the donair meat. I don’t even know what kind of meat it was (ostensibly I think it was meant to be lamb) but I still crave it every time I’m in Halifax.

.:.

Finally, after my brain being rendered mush by work and school for many months, it has sunk in: I’m going on vacation in two weeks. My thought priorities now seem to be as follows:

  1. Vacation
  2. The film festival, even though I’m missing it this year
  3. Work
  4. Scarlett Johansson
  5. Rehabbing my wrist
  6. Losing weight
  7. Keeping my fingernails tidy and well-clipped
  8. School

[tags]fatblogging, tristram shandy, the coast, passive aggressive notes, donair, france, scarlett johansson[/tags]

Everything be broken

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The recent radio silence is due to a couple of things:

  1. Our den (aka, the BlogCave*) is being painted and my computer is piled in the middle of the room under a tarp. Because of my broken wrist I’m trying to avoid shlepping my laptop home at night, which means I’m forced to use Nellie’s laptop now, and I’m trying not to hog it too much.
  2. The TIFF bible came out yesterday, so I spent most of the night going through to see which films catch my eye, even though I can’t go to any this year. This essentially becomes half of my wishlist for the upcoming few years. After two hours I was only halfway through the book so I have another night’s work ahead of me yet. There’s no rush, really; I’d just much rather read about movies than study.

.:.

It occurred to me this morning that I am not at all prepared for my trip in a couple of weeks. I’m not talking prepared-but-not-up-to-my-usual-clinical-standards. I mean I’m not ready at all. I should get on that.

* note: I don’t really call it that. But I might, starting right now.

[tags]painting, tiff07, trip planning[/tags]

Can one glamp in Central Park?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

This is my favourite time of night. Not day, but not night yet either. That’s St. James Cathedral, by the way. It’s the structure that inspired my building.

.:.

Apparently I’m even further behind the time than JR, ’cause I’d never heard of glamping either. But I like the sound of it. Someone needs to make a canoe with a Bang & Olufsen stereo in it. I’m also in the market for an inflatable 5-star bathroom.

.:.

Porter is now cleared to fly to New York. Well, Newark airport, but close enough.

Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, and now New York; I may never fly from Pearson again. Uh, until September when I got to Europe.

[tags]st james cathedral, glamping, porter air[/tags]

Richard Thompson = White Bear

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A few days ago I talked about how certain songs have particular — and often irrational — connections to certain places in my mind.  Another one just came to me as my Zen is on random: “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” by Richard Thompson, for some reason, makes me think of an English pub called The White Bear. My brother, his girlfriend, Nellie and I stopped there as we drove north to Scotland, and they had amazing food, a stunning view, great ambience and charm…none of which have anything to do with Richard Thompson or vintage motorcycles.

I have no idea why my brain makes that connection, but hearing the song just puts me back in that seat, eating a huge feast of duck in black cherry sauce, sipping whisky, ducking low ceiling beams, laughing with my family, surrounded by misty English hills as we started our European adventure two years ago.

I am a puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside a music-and-food-associating enigma.

[tags]richard thompson, vincent black lightning, white bear pub[/tags]

"To do less would have added moral shame to humiliation."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Colin sent me a link to this New Yorker article today about Iraqis who joined up with the invading American forces to become translators and civil servants. It’s long, but very interesting.

The Arabic for “collaborator” is aameel—literally, “agent.” Early in the occupation, the Baathists in Ali’s neighborhood, who at first had been cowed by the Americans’ arrival, began a shrewd whispering campaign. They told their neighbors that the Iraqi interpreters who went along on raids were feeding the Americans false information, urging the abuse of Iraqis, stealing houses, and raping women. In the market, a Baathist would point at an Iraqi riding in the back of a Humvee and say, “He’s a traitor, a thug.” Such rumors were repeated often enough that people began to believe them, especially as the promised benefits of the American occupation failed to materialize. Before long, Ali told me, the Baathists “made the reputation of the interpreter very, very low—worse than the Americans’.”

The article laments the American administration’s treatment of these Iraqis, and rightly so, but I thought it ignored the historical parallel of how such people have been viewed by the occupied citizenry in past conflicts. For example, while officials in the Vichy French government may have felt they were doing the best thing for their country by siding with the Nazis, that didn’t stop the French resistance from hating them. Obviously American foreign policy in Iraq is markedly different than Germany’s in 1940, though the average Iraqi might not appreciate the nuance. I just think the article should have gotten some reaction directly from Iraqis opposed to the occupation, to get a balance.

.:.

Ever since Flickr’s map view of images was launched I’ve had fun playing around with it, but it comes in really handy when you’re looking at travel options. Is that town pretty? Let’s see…yup. Very. I think I’ll go there.

[tags]iraqi translators, vichy, flickr[/tags]

Bring the sked

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Travel plans for the fall* are coming together. We’re very excited.

.:.

Our schedule for the next little while is becoming very clear. I actually don’t like having this many plans; I prefer to stumble into each day and do whatever, but that’s not in the cards right now. This weekend I have a paper to write for my course. Next week we have a busy social calendar and then I’ll finish off as much of my course as I can before we take possession of our condo on the 9th. Around this time the NHL & NBA playoffs begin. We’ll be cleaning, painting, etc. for the next two weeks (and ignoring most of the Hot Docs festival) until our actual move-in; a few days after the move I go away on course for a week. No sooner do I return than the social activities of May (the Santé wine festival, a reunion in Niagara-on-the-Lake with some Dal alumni friends, Victoria day, GB’s birthday) begin. June is fairly light, though I disappear for another course toward the end, and nothing’s really planned for July or August. I suppose I should be using that time to do the giant integrative paper that’s due in the fall, since September (between an abbreviated film festival, another week away on course and two weeks of vacation) is a write-off.

*Yes, we plan this far in advance. Make fun of us all you want; it was taking our time with planning and research that made the Rockies trip our best vacation ever.

[tags]vacation, sante festival, dalhousie university[/tags]

Final thoughts on our holiday trip

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It seemed like we were gone longer than nine days. Some parting notes & elaborations:

  • First of all, travel: flying on WestJet kicked ass. Both legs of the trip were on time, smooth, entertaining (seriously…the staff is actually friendly and quite funny at times) and free of incident. Our rental car and hotel room were the same, a claim my brother could not make.
  • Spending time with my family is, as always, the thing I look forward to the most. I only get to see my family once or twice a year at most, and wish it were more, so the visit — especially over the holidays — is always rewarding. Endless games of crib with my dad, silly laughter with my brothers, delicious treats prepared by my mom, gentle ribbing with my sister-in-law and SWMNBN and lots of playtime with my fantastic nephew and two nieces.
  • Speaking of my nephew and nieces, my oldest brother and I agree: my other brother and his wife have raised the three best kids we’ve ever seen. I saw plenty of not-so-good kids on this trip, and it made me appreciate even more the job their parents have done.
  • The time Nellie and I spent with my brothers and their lady friends for dinner a few days ago was especially memorable as we had yet another great meal at Da Maurizio and found a new wine bar (which I’m pretty sure was called Mosaic wine bar, though I can find no trace of it online).
  • Halifax now feels so different than when I lived there…perhaps it’s because I now have money and can afford to visit nice places, or perhaps it’s because those nice places have sprung up in recent years. Perhaps it’s because friends like MLS live there now. I don’t know…for the first time since I moved to Toronto I felt like I could live in Halifax again.
  • Finally, according to my siblings, I apparently still come across as surly. I’m a little surprised at that; I’m genuinely very happy. Sarcastic and introverted, sure, but I love every minute I’m awake. I just don’t want people — especially my family — thinking I’m depressed or despising everyone. My life, compared to most of the planet, is remarkably easy; to paraphrase David Cronenberg, the reason I can be so dark is because I’m so well grounded in what’s light.

And that’s it. I’m glad to be back home after nine days away, but already I’m trying to figure out how to see my family next year.

Here’s the flickr picture set.
[tags]westjet, family, halifax, da maurizio, surly[/tags]