LA

So we went to LA this past week, and boy am I happy to be not there.

Awesome Name!

nothing like an awesomely appropriate last name to make one laugh while reading an AIDS article.

Read this

heh

iPhone thought

I want to be able to use my iPhone as a touchpad to control a Mac.

I thought I'd seen something like this, but it may only be for jail-broken phones.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Here's something for the old school

holy crap

what a story

Cool stuff for people

This is a nice thing to have, and it's small.

network drives are all the rage - easy access to storage for all the computers in your place.

Port Hawkesbury

Ok, so Port Hawkesbury.  It's a small town to right once you cross over the causeway onto Cape Breton Island.  It appears in no guidebook that I found, as it turns out, for good reason.  

We drove up the hill leading to the town and I was starting to freak.  It looked pretty much like I remembered, at least at first.  There was our neighbourhood, Grant's Pond, on the left.  The big pond that would freeze over in the winter, allowing for lots of hockey and ice skating.  The bank on the corner. The high school/library/pool building right over there, a bright orange.  The Lutheran church at the stoplight.  Then I noticed other buildings gone or changed - the Vocational School building, the municipal building now looking like it should be in the Caribbean somewhere with it's pastel front, the Tim Horton's donuts that must have finally opened. 

As I said, I was freaking. I wasn't totally sure why, but something was going on.  

We drove down into my old neighbourhood, as I pointed out this place and that; my friends lived here and there, we used to knock on that guy's door and run away, there's the next door neighbour who never let us use their pool.  

Wow.  This was all a huge emotional rush.  

We stopped in front of my old house, now blue rather than white.  It took me a good few minutes before I could be convinced to get out of the car for a quick picture.  There was no way I was going to go up to the door and knock.  It was just too weird.  

We drove around the town, just looking at different stuff.  It really seemed to be such a depressing place. The main strip was just a bunch of parking lots and stores - it was particularly ugly. 

Both of the elementary schools (k-4 and 5-6)were torn down to make way for other buildings.  The mall was basically a huge Wal-Mart now, and what had to be hundreds of acres of forest had been cut down to build houses for god-knows-who.  Especially with the trend of out-migration that the whole province has been experiencing for years.  There just aren't jobs. 

We had plans to stay at a B&B in town that night.  However, after driving around and seeing what I saw, there was just no way that I could stay there.  I had a set of memories that were good and I felt that I had no need or desire to make more.   I had left when I was 13 and, as my brother remembers, I was thriving.  I had lots of friends, forests to run around in, and no knowledge or concern about how damn strange my family was and how we didn't fit in at all.  

Now, as an adult, the town was depressing, ugly and frankly, scary.  I was scared to think about who I would have been had we stayed.  My older brother had a terrible time in high school there - fights everyday after school and constantly being picked on for all kinds of things from reading too much, to being Jewish or vegetarian or whatever.  He even took up (and became very good at) Judo in order to be able to protect himself.  That's fucked up.   

It seems I left at the perfect time, looking back.  It was before cool mattered. Before testosterone and girls and clothes and all the things that change when you go from being a kid to being not a kid anymore.  Ever since I left, I had always felt somewhere deep down that I would have been happier there, maybe.  Now, I see that had I stayed just a bit longer, there still would have been drastic changes in my life, but not likely the kind that I've had that have made my life and experiences pretty awesome.  I doubt I would have ended up in the Alberta oil-fields like many of my friends.  It's unlikely I would have ended up working at the paper mill where many others are now working.  I'm sure I would have gotten out at some point, but in the end, I'm glad to have gotten out when I did.  

As J says, it's my old stomping ground, and I could see my footprints everywhere I looked. My feet are bigger these days, though, and trying to stomp around now would have only trampled all over what I had.

wow.

Pics from today

Canso - day 2

Ok, so lots happened and I need to figure out how to put all of this down.

After a nice breakfast, we walked up to try to figure out which house was the one I was born in.  We figured out that it was one of two houses.  After further determination, we decided that it was the one and started taking lots pictures of it and me in front of the house.  After a few minutes, a woman came out of the house next door.  She asked if we were related somehow so I said that my parents had lived there a while back.  "Oh for goodness sake!" she said.  Turns out she totally remembered my parents and that we were taking pictures of the wrong house - it was one next door.

She invited us in and got us in touch with one of the women my mom remembered from back then.  We checked out the hospital that my dad helped open and was the first administrator for and got a quick tour of the old spots - their house again, the old hospital (a house, now a day-care center) and stopped in to see a few more old friends of my parents.   It was really cool to hear how much they not only remembered my parents but all the good things they had to say about them.  The first thing almost everyone we met said that I look just like my dad did then. 

Good stuff about how he was a great administrator.  Just cool.

It was funny to hear them also talk about how I was born at home.  This was totally bizarre at the time and quite a big deal in town.  No one could believe that my mom was actually choosing to have a baby at home. 

We made a quick stop at the building where the main Trans-Atlantic cable hit North America.  It's a cool old run-down brick building that was built in the 1800s sometime.   When they first moved to the area, my parents lived in the apartment building originally built for the telecom workers.

After a couple hour drive, we crossed the Canso Causeway into Cape Breton and on to Port Hawkesbury.

More soon.

pics posted

Halifax pt.3/Canso pt.1

We got up early for breakfast at 9. We walk downstairs and into the dining room to be greeted by our dining partners - a pregnant priest and her husband, a priest. That's what they called themselves, by the way, though I thought that Anglican wo/men of the cloth called themselves ministers. Yeah, so they were these two Episcopalian priests, one with child. I don't believe her to be a virgin, but if the baby is Jesus, I'll have a sick story.
Turns out they were in town for the election of a new bishop for the region. We talked about the obvious connection of election-election and it was only slightly awkward until we were all sure that the other crew was in sync politically. Good thing we didn't have to kick some pregnant priest ass.
I'm happy to have had the opportunity to write that.

After breakfast, we got our stuff together and drove a few blocks to the Citadel to actually go inside. Turns out a lot of history has been commemorated there. It mostly has a lot to do with how stoked they are to have never revolted against the British.
They shoot a canon off at noon, and that was loud.
Walked around, ate pub food at an Irish pub, got in the car and on the road.
The whole time, it's raining on and off, by the way. We are prepared, however, and have yet to be daunted.
Got started and were immediately saved by the wonders of GPS. As we were getting on the highway to go over the bridge (remember the bridges? the two matching ones with the orange stripes? right?), I see terrible traffic ahead and cross two lanes to take the other tine. It was a true demonstration of my faith in a higher power - satellites.
The next few hours were spent flying along the highway at 110, which in kilometers is slower than a person might think. It was raining and blowing wind the whole way, so that was exciting. It's a lot of driving through farmland and past trees.
We got to Antigonish and tried to get in touch with old friends of the family but failed. Some planning could have helped.  

We pushed on to Canso to get in before dark.
Ah, Canso. The place of my birth and first two years.
Canso is the smallest place ever. The population these days is about 900 and looks it.
We're staying in a lovely B&B right on the pier, about 100 feet away from where the fish processing plant is being demolished. Turns out, thanks to poor fishing policies, there isn't any more fish. Hm.
There was a great dinner ready for us, which we totally didn't expect and it was delicious. The owners of the place are this lovely english couple - she's a PhD in something and came out here as a life-changer five years ago. Not sure about him, but he's nice. After dinner - with wine! - we went for a walk around to see if we could find the my parent's house. Based on what they told me, I think we did, but we'll take pictures to be sure. Walked around more in the strong winds and rain coming off of the open Atlantic Ocean.
The only things open, of the five or so businesses in town were the Kwik-Mart and this other thing. Outside of the Kwik-Mart were a bunch of kids hanging out. Can't be much else to do on a Friday night in Canso. Either that or hang out in front of the high school. Which they then did, right across the street.
The other thing open looked like a cool old brick building on the outside, but is all these cubicles on the inside with what looked like telemarketers sitting in them. Maybe just way to create jobs for people now that the fish are all gone.
Walk, walk, walk then back home.
The internet works so I write, she reads.
All is good.

Halifax pt.2: last night

Oh wow, what a day - but first, last night. 

We walked to downtown, about 15 minutes away.  Downtown is pretty small.  It doesn't seem like it's as big as a city should be.  Obviously, coming from NYC, I'm totally skewed.  I was saying to my dad that when I was there last, it seemed like a really really big city.  

Goes to show. 

We saw tons of bars, but they were all spilling college kids out into the streets.  We headed to one that we had read about, but it was a 5 buck cover charge, had bouncers and getting near the bar looked impossible.  So we found a cool looking quiet place and had a few drinks.  Turns out the place opened only a week earlier.  It was totally nice, a nice enough guy kept talking to us and in the end we reserved tickets for a concert on Monday night when we'll be back in Halifax.

Back to the room, crashed. After we moved the creepy doll from the bed. Yep.