Día del Padre

My first as a papa. I spent my day hiking to the beautiful waterfalls at Chilasco with my 11-month-old, 23-lb son on my back for 3 hours. Amber made me delicious pancakes for breakfast and a mysterious dessert for this evening.



This was when my papa was the age I am now, back in 1980. I'm the short guy tapping him on the shoulder. We're at a Medieval festival in Florida.

Salto de Chilasco

130 M (426') - the tallest waterfall in Central America. We were there this afternoon. This shot was taken at the bottom of the falls. Very misty.

How to get there from our house: Drive on the highway southeast 41 km. Turn left and drive 14 km on the dirt road. Park and hike 3 km up and down a mountain. I had Blaise on my back, there and back.

Strength and Honour

Hey, I have to post this excitement. After posting a website for my latest and only film (so far) and sending out a mass email to everyone I know, I've received such acclaim that even if it doesn't get into either of the festivals, I'll be happy about making the film. And that's only after people have seen a 2 minute trailer.

The most exciting response has come from the 4 DVD orders I've received so far. The variety of people who have ordered is the coolest: a cousin I haven't seen in 11 years, a grade 12 classmate I've seen once since 1994, a missionary I served with in the Marshall Islands 10 years ago, and my most frequent blog commentator. I'm only allowed to release the DVDs after the film screens at the festivals, so I've chosen November 1. I'll mail them ahead of time so the DVDs arrive as close to November 1 as possible. You too can pre-order your copy today.

Only 999 996 left before I go platinum.

------
Some comments I've received about the trailer:

"the trailer almost made me start crying"
"Very cool! I look forward to seeing the rest."
"I'm definitely getting a copy"
"definitely one of the coolest things any of my friends have ever done. I look forward to seeing it, as well as hearing Jeffery's score!"
"Looks awesome! You are living the dream!"
"What?? Wow, I had no idea...that's shocking."
"Wow! Congratulations on the completion of your film!"
"That was soooo cool. Mightily impressed!"

From the stars of the film:
"Wow! I am very impressed with the trailer, and thankful you took the time to do all this."
"Such a teaser, I can't wait to see the real deal."
"AHHhhhhhh!!!! I loved it! More - more!! I've watched the trailer 5 times"
"lookin good!!!"

Blog Comment Olympics

In the spirit of the Soccer World Cup and NHL Stanley Cup Finals (GO OILERS!), I'd like to award those faithful blog commenters. Before I begin, I would like to say that I thought I should exempt myself, since I respond to many of the comments myself and figured I would naturally have the largest number of comments. Not so. But I'll exempt myself anyhow (I had 36).

GOLD
with 46 comments
Lorne (Sirdar)

SILVER
with 28 comments
Kevin (inspace)

BRONZE
with 23 comments each
Mom (littledeb) and April (Rob the Rocket)


Honourable mention goes to my wife Amber who was the only other blog commenter to comment more than 10 times and to my sisters whose combined efforts left 12 comments.

Thank you to all those who participated and who will participate. Remember, it's not often the quantity that matters, but how often you comment! Remember also that there isn't actually a prize for winning and really not any shame in losing.

;)

Road Improvements

I'm not sure if the road is better than it was. Maybe.

(this is the road in front of my office)

Why post this? Because.

When I woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001 to the radio describing the attack on the Twin Towers, my first vocal response was "Bush is bombing his own country to start a war." Since then, it has only cost $287 billion and nearly 2500 US Soldiers to kill 40,000 Iraqi civilians (yeah, I know they killed a lot of insurgents too, who probably wouldn't have insurged without the great excuse of someone invading their country). While driving home alone one evening last year, as Amber was expecting our first child, I burst into uncontrollable tears thinking about the mothers in Iraq who lost their children - unborn or born - because of the bombings and stressful fears they were experiencing.

Loose Change is an online film that debunks the current accepted version of events from 9/11. They offer documented proof for every claim.

Of course, if they are right, which I think they are, nothing can be done about it anyway. Anyone want to prosecute the president? It was easier to attempt to impeach Clinton over lying about sex acts than it would be to try and impeach Bush over his lies. Why? One exerts more terrifying muscle than the other.

Of course, we believe what we want to believe, right? 1 Billion Muslims, Catholics, Hindus, and Atheists can't be wrong. So who am I trying to convince anyway?

When we give a small group of people absolute, unchallenged power, look out! Even more so when that power you've given them affects people that have no vote. I'm not an American, but...

"A big part of our lives has to do with America. In our country it is overwhelming. I feel there could just as well be an American military presence in Denmark. We are a nation under a very bad influence, because I think Bush is an a**h*le and doing a lot of really stupid things. America is sitting on the world and therefore I am making films about it. I'd say 60% of the things I have experienced in my life are American, so in fact I am an American. But I can't go there and vote. That's why I am making films about America."
-Lars von Trier
Director of Dogville, Manderlay and other super films

Last week I met an American woman who teaches in New Mexico. She said there were teachers in Albuquerque that were imprisoned and lost their jobs for speaking out against the war - Patriot Act. I'm a teacher and I understand the implications of speaking your opinion in a public classroom of children. But I also have a philosophy of education that permits discussion.

I'm not expecting much discussion here. People avoid my political statements. Oh well, I got to make that nifty Home Despot logo and I haven't preached a sermon in a long time. I do promise to be diplomatic though.



Bought Neil Young's Living with War album. I love it!

Happy Kurtday

This was 1 year ago at Kurt's birthday party.

Cheers Bro!

My ISP

When I got home this evening from our 4 days on the road, there was a wonderful surprise waiting for me. Stretched over from the roof of my neighbour's house is a bright yellow ethernet cable. The cable descends over my roof and down to my window. You can see the splice that was done to either extend the cable the last 2 feet I needed or to get the clip onto the cable. The point is: I now have internet at home!!!

This has been a 2 month service in the making. My Internet Service Provider is my neighbour. He's not just sharing his internet with me, he's selling it to me. Yeah, it's actually his line of work. He has a fix-up-old-computers-and-sell-them shop in town and along with that, he sells satellite internet to 6 clients in town (I'm # 6). So far, I'm quite pleased with the speed and consistency. The internet is relayed from outerspace to a dish in the center of Tactic and then to an antenna on my neighbour's house and then wire to our guest room. The antenna on my neighbour's house is what took months to get working - I think Cesar tried 4 different ones before it finally worked.

Cheers to Cesar my ISP!

Wife, Son

Really like these 2 shots so I share them with you.





I also really like these 2 people.

The Horror

Mom and I eating at a really nice restaurant on June 2, '06 in Santa Catarina de Palopó

Severe headache in the afternoon followed by violent vomiting in the evening followed by dire diarrhea the next morning. I can definitely attribute the last two symptoms to the meal I'm naïvely enjoying in this photo. I know this because my poor mother suffered as well. It was made worse by the fact that the four of us (me, mom, Amber, and Blaise) shared a room that night - and thus the bathroom.

We have narrowed it down to either the raw spinach, the shredded beef, or the water.

Amber did not get sick.

The Oiler Fan

Amazing. Absolutely Astonishing. Awesome.


Oiler flag flying from my car in Antigua, Guatemala on May 28, '06.

I'll be listening to the game tomorrow night online.

You can see Oiler fans all over the world here.

The Grandmother and Grandson Reunion

My mum flew down for an 8 day visit to visit her grandson (Amber and I were an added bonus). It was great to have an extra person to look after the little gamin*. It was really good to hear baby stories about me and my sisters too. Moms love talking about babies.



I know now that in part, Blaise's superhero powers come from his paternal grandmother. Perhaps not the best known superpower, but certainly a very useful one, is to tread fearlessly and to do it without comment (or shrieks) when one is afraid of A: riding in a fast car through winding mountain switchbacks B: eating food that was prepared out of eyesight C: changing Blaise's diapers. My mom accomplished all three with admiral dignity - thanks.



We carted mom all over the country: Guatemala City, Antigua, Tactic, Tamahú, San Antonio AV, Cobán, Panajachel, Santa Catarina de Palopó, and San Antonio de Palopó. I hadn't been to 3 of these beautiful spots before, so it was a blessing to have the opportunity.

Dropped mom at the airport this afternoon.


* gamin (fr) = patojo (sp) = young feller (en)

To Antigua

Tactic to Antigua: 225 KM
Tactic to Antigua yesterday: 5 Hours, 14 minutes
Thats 43 km/hr.

Before leaving, I changed a flat and bought a new tire at the pinchazo in San Julian. Listened to some Ron Sexsmith, Arcade Fire, and a mix CD from Salomé.



I passed some trucks in the passing lane of oncoming traffic (there was no one on the road - at the same time someone passed me in the furthest lane to the left - that was a new experience for me.



At one point this white bus ahead of us appeared to be on fire.



Blaise is a little traveling champion.

Then we met up with Cosme, a Guatemalan baby being adopted by a couple from New Mexico. We met him and his new mom last weekend when we were waiting for my mom's luggage to show up (Continental Airlines).

'84 '85 '87 '88 '90 '06?

Oh man! This is too much to handle as the only Edmonton Oiler fan that I know for thousands of miles. I can't wait to check the scores online every second day to see if Edmonton won or not. I was blown away after they beat out first place Detroit, then beating out 5th place San Jose, now ahead 2 games to none against 6th place Anaheim. Yikes! They are getting really close to the Cup. And I can't watch any of the games!!!

All this without Fuhr, Tikkanen, Kurri, Messier, Muni, Anderson,Coffey, Gretzky, and Ranford. They've still got MacTavish, Lowe and Huddy in management and coaching though.

They could be the first Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup in 13 years. I recognized that all the American teams have huge Canadian player representation. But the Canadian teams have been underdogs for the past 15 years (except for Ottawa, who always chokes in the playoffs). It's so great to see Edmonton going so far.

I've been an Oiler fan since grade 5 when they won their 3rd Cup. I followed them heavily until grade 9, then I lost a lot of interest because money took over the NHL and the game got boring as far as I'm concerned (very defensive playing). I wish I could have watched more games since the NHL has changed.



I want to thank Dean for taking me to my last hockey game back in September. He got us primo tickets to an Oilers exhibition game against the Dallas Stars. It was a great time - though Edmonton lost in overtime.

They're not losing now!

Mercy

Yesterday, I drove a little seven-year-old girl home from the hospital where she will probably die.

I was in the Cobán hospital with a short-term mission team from Canmore, AB. We take all the teams there to pray for the kids and give gifts to the new mothers in the maternity ward. When a few of the team arrived at one bed, the parents were dressing their daughter to take her home to die. Aleyda has advanced meningitis and a tumor in her head, along with several infections. Her eyesight is failing too, as a result. A nurse commanded us to take them home as they live nearly an hour away, practically guilting us into it. I had my car along, so I was a natural choice to go, and I'm glad for it.

I took a couple men from the team with me - Walter, a programmer from Edmonton who grew up in Bolivia with his missionary parents and Trevor, a pastor from Canmore of Japanese descent. Aleyda lay in the back seat with her head on Trevor's lap. He cooled her forehead with a wet clothe the whole trip. Her body and legs where held by her parents. Her older sister stood up in front of her father in the backseat and held on to my headrest. Her father looked like a very nice man, devoted to his family, hard worker, wild hair and very defined Mayan features. They hardly spoke Spanish, in fact they spoke an indigenous language I had never heard of. I could hear Aleyda moaning in the humid air.

The drive took us north of Coban on the highway toward Chisec. We journeyed 40 km (45 minutes) over 2 mountain passes and through a thunderstorm. We took an exit for Playa Grande where the road was gravel, and then another turn onto a dirt road. I had to stop half way on this road (about 2 kms short of Aleyda's house) because my car couldn't manage the ruts. Some people had received a phone call that we were coming and they met us on this road with a hammock. Aleyda was placed in the hammock and we bid our farewells. We gave them some money as the father was at the hospital for 10 days and those 10 days went without pay.

We drove the 90 minutes back to Tactic with a quick stop in Cobán for bathrooms and ice cream. I washed my hands when I got home. Blaise was already sleeping.

Vapors

Nearly four years ago, I visited Tikal with Amber, Saison, Dean, and Mariah. Very little has changed since that time. Most noticeably, more areas are restricted to the public - not to be considered a deterrent however as none of the signs are obeyed by anyone (well, I obeyed them) (mostly). The other thing that was different was that there were almost no animals this time.



The greatest sensation I felt when visiting Tikal was the heat and humidity. I drank tons of water. We brought a 5 gallon jug from Tactic, so we had lots of 25 degree water to drink.

The second greatest sensation I felt was the power of nature to destroy. Here were palaces and temples and altars and commemorative markers all made of stone - but all of them have lost their functionality due to the power of roots and decaying plants and wind/water erosion. Huge trees dwarf some of the buildings that used to stand majestically on a paved street 1000 years ago.

The third greatest sensation I felt was very strong curiosity - every guide you talk to in the park tells a different story about the history of this Mayan city. No one knows for sure what life was like or why it ended so quickly or what the buildings were used for exactly.



My papa visited us the week prior to our trip to Tikal. We decided to make the trip to shorten his bus ride to Cancún, Mexico where he caught a plane. My family strolled around the ruins without any pressing agenda. It was really good to have that with my wife, son, and father.

The second day, only my father went to the park with me. We had nearly the whole day to visit the portion of the park we hadn't seen the first afternoon. We spent a good portion of the time visiting with people we met - a computer programmer from Poland and his New Zealander wife (a teacher), a nurse from Vancouver, a retired couple from Nantes, France, a Guatemalan photographer. The rest of the time, we climbed, took photos, ate melted chocolate andtrail mixx, and enjoyed eachother's company among the jungle vapors.

Look out for the tapir!

Driving to the World Heritage Site of Tikal in the Peten of Guatemala,
one must be exceedingly cautious.

(though I only saw 4 of the pictured animals the entire trip)

Blaise and his Pepere

Pépère has arrived in Tactic and is now almost fully rested from his 6 weeks of hard work, building a school in Belize. Blaise is about 8 months older than he was when he first met his Pépère. The spend some good quality time together - walking, reading, eating. Pépère offered to slaughter a goat with him, but Blaise politely declined.

I'm enjoying having Papa here - lots of good discussions. He's checking his email right now at my office, as I blog. We plan on climbing one of the mountains behind my house just to look upon the other side of the valley where they speak Keqchí, on this side, they speak Poqomchí. We'll also hit the gorgeous park at Rey Marcos, about 45 minutes away and enjoy the little waterfalls and the world renown caves too.

In a perfect world, a place I spend a lot of time in (in my head), family would live together, at least on the same farm or land. Blaise would go fishing and canoeing with his Pépère, get kissed all the time by his grandmas, and spoiled by his many aunties. Oh for that day.

My First Feature

3 things are lacking now.

Audio Mixing: engineered by Zaak Robichaud, Canadian in Guatemala.
Soundtrack: currently being composed, recorded and compressed by Justin Jeffery, Canadian in Michigan.
Subtitling: French translation of the transcript by Kevin Bourque, Canadian in Montreal.



So far, it has been previewed by myself, Amber, Saison, and my Papa. Positive comments all around.



Looking forward to submitting it to the Montreal International Film Festival and the Edmonton Film Festival for competition in the Documentary category.

Flies and Frogs

Houseflies now populate our house. I am not prepared to make concessions on their attempt to squat in my house. Therefore, we have turned to the power of the Fliegenfänger.



Frogs (or perhaps they are toads - I never audited speciation or zoology in Univ.) now populate our yard. I kind of like them. They are quite dextrous (unless a car drives over them) and I have to watch my step if I get in later in the evening.

Revoking Independence

Sirdar Inc. posted a copy of John Cleese's Letter to the United States. I remember reading it a few years ago. Brilliant. You can read it on Sirdar's site or here.

Jesus is my Crossing Guard

Jesús Chavarria that is. This guy is awesome. He doesn't stop traffic for you, but there is no way anyone is crossing the road if any vehicle is within a km from the crossing area. He's at roadside from 6:50 am - 7:40 am and 12:20 pm - 12:50 pm every school day - just waiting for you to try and cross the road without his permission.

If you drop your keys...

...in a river of molten lava, let 'em go, cause man, they're gone!



I climbed Volcano Pacaya with my sister, Saison a couple weeks ago. The hike lasted 2 hours to cover 4 kms (2.5 miles). The vertical increase was 800 m (about 2600 feet), the last 400 m was very steep and over volcanic ash.

For half of the hike, there were boys and men with horses antagonizing the people at the back of our 45 adventurer group. They basically intermittently shouted "Taxi!" or "Horse" as you struggled for your breath. Clever. I think almost every horse was rented. I used my feet.



It was quite a team effort some people to make it to the summit of this active volcano (1 of 3 in Guatemala). One 10 year old Danish boy made it up in sandals while a retired Québecoise struggled a few steps behind him. One of our guides has climbed this volcano over 2000 times.

An actual river of molten lava was present flowing from a smoldering sulphur heap. All this, a stones throw from where we tourists were allowed to stand and take photos. Nothing really prevented us from actually rushing down to the river to take a dip, aside from common sense I suppose.



Pacaya displayed some fireworks as we stood 15 m from the recently formed crater. In some of the debris it spewed, you could see the red. The smell of the volcano reminded me of my unventilated chemistry lab in Montreal - dropping pieces of magnesium in hydrochloric acid - burns the inside of your nose quite effectively.

Thirty-Trente-Treinta

I turned 30 on the day after the Ides of March and the day before St. Patrick's Day. The only real difference I can see is that my gotee seems to be thicker, but it could just be soup...

I spent my birthday morning teaching English and Music to grades 8-10. I then abruptly packed and I set out with my wife Amber, my son Blaise, my sister Saison (who was visiting us for a week), and my friend Michelle (who works with us here in Guatemala) on a very hot journey to El Salvador. It's March, dry and hot March. Blaise is a fantastic traveller fortunately. Cool, refreshing licuados were welcomed at the 100 km mark in El Rancho. Then we drove through Zacapa and Esquipulas before arriving at the El Salvadorean border.

We drove by about 35 tractor trailer trucks at the border to get to immigration. Not organized. I had to park the car in two different places on the El Salvador side after being told to move each time. It costs US$10/each (at least it cost us that much) to enter the country. This means we had to exchange money with the only money changer around - at an aweful rate (1.3 when it should have been closer to 1.2). After an hour at the border, we drove a pleasantly double lane highway to Santa Ana, the recommended tourist city. I do not recommend Santa Ana to tourists. There is nothing there. We wandered around the streets after sunset in our sweaty blue car for half an hour until we arrived at the Hotel International. There were maps on the wall leather couches in the lobby. There was also no water and no lights in our bathroom. Saison and Michelle's room didn't have a toilet seat. The rooms were US$20 each.

We set out to find some food, and after the ladies made me feel bad for wanting to eat in the modern mall food court, I gave in and we went to Pizza Hut. We enjoyed some classic music and watching a very enthusiastic table washer. A strange little girl rested her head on our table while I blew out my candles. Balloons fascinated Blaise, until he popped one - did he every scream!

I managed to use the birthday guilt thing with the girls and so, though we were all really tired (especially me), I beat them all at Settlers of Catan.

Thanks to for all the birthday wishes on email and the 2 phone calls. Cheers!

A week of sorrows

Saturday - I accidentally delete a scene from the film I'm working on. This just means redoing about 4 hours of work.

Sunday - I have a headache. Then while we're at church in the evening, our house is robbed of more than $8000 worth of stuff.

Monday - I'm in a daze because I couldn't sleep the night before because of the theft.

Tuesday - I move to a new house. The house is great, but in order to continue this thread of misery - I don't like moving.

Wednesday - Wednesday wasn't half bad. We bought a bed and a couch set in Coban and they delivered it the same day. Ah! I checked out a pawn shop and my stuff wasn't there that was stolen. That was disappointing.

Thursday - My markers don't work while I'm teaching that morning. That really bugs me.

Friday - I get my brand new Canon GL2 digital video camera - the one I've been wanting for 3 years. It malfunctions. I phone Canon and they say I need to send it to Calgary for servicing.