Blessings From the Great North American Hamburger

Yesterday, we (Ami, Jess, Jimmy K, Nicole, and I) went out for hamburgers. It was as much for an evening meal as it was a reward. Reward for what, you ask? Well, for one thing Ami and I started a new budget this month, and while I could fill whole megabytes worth of blog space with details, I'll just tell you it's forced us to reduce many of our favorite luxuries to a minimum (vodka, shoes, records) while completely culling other luxuries (lettuce, blankets, electricity). Furthermore, Ami has enjoyed a successful month at work, and I've been training for a marathon. All in all, we deserved a reward; a reward that came in the form of 1/3 lb of organic beef, sauerkraut, onions, cheddar cheese, and bacon.

Glory--oh, meaty fist from heaven. Oh, blessed beef chunk, how cradled between the loving, toasted hands of sesame'd bun. What god or goddess do we thank for this juicy grilled glob? Vicious hunger: be vanquished by this mighty meat of valor!

And it was so.

Camping at Greendrop Lake

Hike time: 3 hours from the road

Climb: 365 meters

Wildlife: Bears x 1 (heard, not seen), Hummingbirds x 2, Marmot x 1, Chipmunks x 50, Ducks x (aw, who cares about ducks)

Injuries: Ami got a splinter that, five days later, I'm still hearing about


Have a look at the photos.

Zombies Are Dead. Long Live Zombies!

I love zombies. Well, I love zombie stories. Loving real zombies, even in a Platonic manner, would inevitably lead to heart break (and head break, and leg break, and intestine break). And while the books and graphic novels are arguably more entertaining than the movies (I still think the Dawn of the Dead remake and the 28 * Later movies are the best to date, regardless of the "zombies don't run" arguments), I will always grab a zombie flick when we go to the video store, much to Ami's annoyance. But even Ami has to agree that my zombie outfit for Halloween last year was top notch--complete with blood-squirting severed arm (red silly string can wrapped in a shredded dish glove).

So when I find people playing with the genre, it fills me with glee. Here are two videos I've found over the past couple of weeks. One is Zombies reading Haiku poetry whilst in the background carnage unfolds. The other is Zombie puppets singing Dust in the Wind. I'm still giggling.

Zombies reading Haiku

Zombie Puppets Sing Dust in the Wind

When God Doesn't Want You to Go Camping . . .

. . . she destroys the roads.

This weekend, Ami and I were planning to go hiking and camping in Garibaldi lakes, about an hour north of Vancouver. We bought a new tent, new sleeping rolls, new bags; Ami bought new boots--we were set. The weather was going to be perfect: warm and sunny. It was a three-day weekend.

And then the mountain collapses. Typical.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway (aka hwy 99) is the fastest road north from Vancouver. There is another way, but it detours one hour east, and three hours north; thus turning a 1.5 hour drive into a 4 hour drive.

The miracle is that nobody was hurt. Nobody. On a road that just one day previous was backed up with 40,000 people going to an outdoor festival, 24 hours later there simply happened to be nobody around. When 16,000 cubic meters of rock crushed the road and piled up 10 meters, there was one bus carrying one passenger that was hit with one rock.

So today and tomorrow we'll be revising our plans and looking for a new place to break in our camping gear.