Something to smile about

What’s the secret to looking great, reducing stress and living long? Smile!

Take me to the riot

Yesterday, I fairly spontaneously ventured down to Van to experience the madness of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. I went down with a friend who I actually met at the Guatemala border when traveling in Central America last month. She was a UVic student and happened to be spending the summer working in Squamish. Small world. Anyway, we met up at the Brew Pub the other night and tossed around the idea of heading down. So, off we went. With the bars packed out, we opted to watch the game at her friend’s place in Yaletown. The loss was disappointing, but it is what it is. Then, the city went up in smoke.

Amidst the chaos in the distance, we ventured to a nearby park for some bocce ball. Definitely an interesting mood was in the air in the city.

Adding to the deafening surge of online noise, here’s my two cents. I don’t think it’s fair to compare these riots with the G20. Those had some political basis. This Walrus article suggests that maybe G20 protesters had a point. On the other hand, I think the hockey riots were a symptom of something more going on. I love this slightly cynical Georgia Strait piece that suggests just that. The riots should be a wake-up call. Why do we care more about a hockey game than democratic freedom, such as the right to vote?

Backlog coming soon

As it turns out, I’m a terrible blogger. My posts are highly irregular and way too long when they do come…with the exception of this one. I am in San José, Costa Rica. More details to come when I find the time to catch up. As it turns out, solitude is harder to come by than one might think. Or maybe I have been looking in the wrong places!?!

This is my last night in the city and I have never been more excited about a bus ride to Buenos Aires that could be anywhere from 3 – 5 hours. I’m preparing for the worst…just in case. Costa Rican transport has been decent and cheap, but hasn’t fully earned my full trust yet. The jury’s still out on that one, but maybe they’ll come back in tomorrow.

Anyway, better posts to come…including a backlog of material that I’ve pressed “Save Draft” on because I wasn’t ready for the level of commitment that “Publish” entails. My travels and the people I’ve met give me an unfamiliar yearning to become a writer. This is a new desire for me, perhaps attributed to interesting conversations with a wide variety of people, from Orange County, California to San José, Costa Rica to…all over the world really. Or more simply, it might have been inspired by unemployment or the used bookstore I was in today. Who knows? Anyway, no intentions of following through on this spontaneous passion, or at least not yet. Enough spontaneity in my life for now. Or I’ll at least wait until I come up with a storyline more intriguing than an autobiographical one.

Okay, I guess that was longer than I had anticipated…