Travel Review: Vancouver, BC

Yea buddy! My first international travel review taking place in the beautiful city of Vancouver, BC. There’ll be no rambling intro paragraph this time around; let’s get to it!

After navigating the pure chaos known as LAX, meeting my friend, and waiting inside the Air Canada plane for an hour and a half before it actually took off (stupid delays), we finally got off the ground on our way to Vancouver. The whole way was quite exciting. Sure, it was just a normal flight with nothing to really report on, but all I could think about was the fact that it would be my first time off of American soil. Two hours and thirty minutes later, we finally landed and made our way through the border control and customs. And let me say, for all the travel that people encourage, I don’t think border control got the message. I had to undergo a light interrogation (why are you here, how long are you staying, etc.), so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it seems like they really don’t want anybody coming in or leaving the country. It makes sense though; you don’t want anybody with ill intent coming in to the country I suppose, so I guess I understand. They’re doing their job, but the whole process just annoyed me a little. In any case, we got our rental car and made it back to our hotel in Burnaby, about 30 minutes outside of downtown Vancouver.

The hotel wasn’t anything special, just a Best Western with good beds and good parking, so that was nice. Over the next 3 days, we explore as much as we can. Some of the destinations we hit were Yaletown, Granville Island, Gastown, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Science Center, and Whistler, all which were great places to visit. And on our way to Whistler, we got to drive the Sea Sky Highway, which really has some amazing views to see as you drive there. I didn’t even mention the great food and drinks; they really have great selection. We went to some great brunch places, one of which had the most amazing Belgian waffles and bacon. We also hit up a brewery on Granville Island with some GREAT beer, and a great oyster bar in Yaletown. And of course, I had to get some genuine poutine, which I wanted for about 3 years now. I felt like my life was complete after the poutine, I must say. Oh, and the people are very nice up there. The stereotype seemed to be true; people were willing to talk and are quite friendly. On our first trek to downtown Vancouver, the nicest lady paid for our parking because we had no Canadian currency. Overall, just a great time there. It was great break physically and mentally from the daily grind, and it was MUCH needed after these past couple of months. When I was up there, nothing else really mattered. It was all about having fun and enjoying myself. I have no complaints, other than that I wish we could have stayed just a little longer. But heh, life goes on, and reality kicks back in inevitably, whether you like it or not.

Overall I’m impressed with that city. Needless to say, I highly recommend it for people who like nature, good eats, and great people. The only thing now is planning the next trip. My main issue now is that after traveling international, anything that’s not international just seems underwhelming now. But of course, there’s plenty of things to do within the USA as well, so we’ll see what happens. I can confidently say that I should be done with visiting the Pacific Northwest for some time, but it’s definitely a place where I could see myself living. As far as international places go, maybe London? Who knows, but I’ll come up with something.

Until next time…

Summertime Fine

Well, it happened. After consistently posting once a month for three years, I finally missed a month…two months if you want to get specific. I kind of felt bad for missing the posts. I compare it to ruining your diet or giving up on working out, two things that I also have plenty of experience with. This blogging thing really does take discipline, believe it or not, and this summer heat is not conducive for writing. In any case, it’s only fair to share what’s been going on, so let’s get to it.

I guess I’ll start with the fact that around early June, my apartment flooded. It flooded to the point that my roommate and I had to move out. I pretty much walked into the apartment after work on a Wednesday evening, and I noticed that the ceiling was hemorrhaging water. The best way to picture it is to imagine someone took a water hose and just ran around your bathroom, hallway, closet, and half your bedroom. And then that person pointed and laughed at you because you couldn’t do anything about it. After regaining composure, I pretty much sat on the couch and just watched as the apartment flooded with water. It was quite the experience. Fast forward a couple of weeks and long story short, we’re in a different apartment in the same complex. It’s much cozier, albeit a lot hotter, but it’s nice. The whole process was one hell of a couple of weeks.

I think I may FINALLY be able to start some information security stuff at work. I’ve been trying to go down that career path for some time, and I got some assurance that I’ll be able to start some work for it later this year. The only thing that worries me is if I would disappoint my mentor. Well, I think “disappoint” is the wrong word, but he wants me to go down a path that I’m not sure I want to do. Ultimately, I know he’ll be happy with whatever choice I make, but you can kind of feel when someone wants you to do something, you know? It’ll be all good though. And hopefully there’s a raise involved in there somewhere; I kind of need more money.

Finally, I’ll have a special Travel Review next month: Canada. It’ll be my first international trip. Sure, it’s right next to us, but I’m super excited. Never been through customs and all that other stuff. And I plan on bringing back some Canadian money as well. And more importantly, I’ll be able to get some new pictures. I’ll be going with the same friend that I went to New Orleans with, and I know that we travel well together, so we’ll see what we can get into.

Also, I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll post on a monthly basis. I had a good run, but I expect the posts to be more sporadic. Not that I won’t try to be consistent, I just can’t say for sure. In any case, I’ll be back next month!

Spec Ops: The Line

I’ve played a lot of games over the past 22 years. Platformers, action, sports, RPGs…you name the genre, I’ve probably played a game falling under it at least once. Unfortunately, playing games doesn’t give me the same sense of wonder as it did years ago. You tend to see patterns in the gaming industry after playing so many games, and I’m tired of the same things over and over, so I’m more of a YouTube watcher of games these days. I follow plenty of gaming channels, so I happened to come across this one shooter, Spec Ops: The Line, while browsing yesterday. Shooters completely dominate the market these days, therefore I tend to avoid them. I’ve heard interesting things about this one, however, so I decided to give a playthrough of the game a watch. I was not disappointed.

Spec Ops: The Line starts as a generic third person shooter, with all the things you expect out of a shooter: ridiculous scenes, good banter between your teammates, and relentless killing of enemies. A couple of hours in, however, the tone of the game changes drastically. He loses his sense of self, and begins to kill both civilians and military alike, all while under the impression what he’s doing is for the greater good. Ultimately, your character loses the trust of his teammates, his purpose for being there, and his overall sanity.

The most interesting part of the game is that it makes everything your fault. Not your character’s, but yours. The game leaves very poignant messages in both the voice acting and the loading screens. As your character delves deeper into darkness, you share his pain. You start feeling remorse for all the actions that you’ve performed, all the killing that you had to do. It does this all while taunting you. But you may ask yourself: that’s what shooters are, right? You’re the good guy in the shooter, right? I’m the hero. Right? The game questions these very premises. It makes you wonder why shooters are so glorified in today’s market. Maybe it’s something to do with our culture itself. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a game hit me like this, hence why I’m writing about it. I’ll leave this post with two quotes from the game that haunt me:

To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.

No matter what happens next, don’t be too hard on yourself. Even now, after all you’ve done, you can still go home. Lucky you.

Loss for Words: How to Become Pope

As you all have experienced some time before, some months are just slower than others. Either nothing monumental happens during that time frame, you don’t feel like writing, or you just have nothing really interesting to talk about. I’d say I’m feeling a combination of those things right now. For moments like these, I’m starting a new title line Loss for Words where I’ll just use that month to post something interesting I found on the internet. And in honor of Easter this coming Sunday, here’s an instructional video from one of my favorite YouTubers, CGP Grey, on how to become pope. Be back next month!

Alchemist Gaiden Pt. 2 (The High School Years)

I’ve waited some time write about high school, mainly because I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. Like many people have experienced, high school wasn’t necessarily the most enjoyable four years of life for me. Of the people I’ve asked, including both people who went to my high school and other schools, the consensus was that it was OK. It had its high and low points like anything else, but it was overall pretty decent. These people look back fondly on the four years. I respectfully disagree with the consensus. Although I agree that it was decent to a point, it also left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, and I still have no idea why. I figure that writing it out would help me figure out the reason(s), so bear with me.

Moving from my predominantly black elementary/junior high school of 9 years to a predominantly white school in a new city was not easy. The fact that it was an all boy school didn’t exactly help either. Parents laud the concept of same sex schools because they think it helps the students focus solely on studies. This is true to a point; but little do they know that all it does is prevent the opposite sex from physically being there. This does not change the fact that a horny high school boy will do what it takes to get his. One can argue that this drive can actually hinder him because the boy is taking time out of his studies to find girls to associate with, much to the detriment of his grades.

But lucky me, the high school was one of the best in the city (with tuition higher than some four year colleges; f**k me was it high), so this wasn’t too big of an issue. Imagine being the smartest kid in your school to being near the bottom in another. When you’re surrounded by overachievers with college aspirations by the time they were in 6th grade, this is what happens. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s just different. Now picture being one of maybe three black guys in a class. Again, this isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I’m coming from a place where I’m the majority, so this was an adjustment. What was interesting is that all the black people hung out together, so I self-segregated myself in a sense. It’s what I knew, it’s what I was comfortable with.

So to sum it up, I was a black guy used to a certain way of schooling for 9 years that moved to an all boy school in a new environment where almost everybody was different and smarter than you, all while dealing with normal teenage hormonal issues. I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t horrible. In fact, all of it is good. I’ll also admit that I did make some good friends during my time there. And being around people that smart makes you smarter as well (I can confidently say I worked harder in high school than I did in college). But even after writing this out, my strong dislike of high school remains. However, I think I have an idea why.

Maybe it was the fact my experience was what I made it to be. Maybe I hated it because I know that I could place as much blame on myself as I do the school. I definitely could have made more friends, experienced other things, and generally just enjoyed it more, but there was no way in hell I would’ve chosen to do that those years of my life. I can say, however, that I’m content with the way things turned out. I made sure that I wouldn’t make those same mistakes again.

Not again, not during the college years…

Alchemist Gaiden

I was born in a suburb of Los Angeles on July 12, 19XX. As a kid growing up in a middle class family, I was fortunate enough to have a pretty easy life. Both my parents were there to raise me, put food on the table, and generally be there to perform their parental duties. We lived in a pretty good area as well. My city got a bad rap in the 80s and 90s due to songs on the radio, and I’ll admit that some of the stereotypes were warranted, but I was never really exposed to much of that. Anyway, as the middle child from about age 5 onwards, I pretty much kept to myself. I’ve always appreciated having my own space, and I never really looked for too much attention. As long as you left me alone and didn’t bother me, I was quite happy. Unfortunately, the concept of “space” is not always there when you’re living in a 5 person household and sharing a bedroom with your brother. Fortunately, I learned early on that if you did what you were told, people pretty much left you alone. So for the most part, with anger outbursts here and there, I did just that. I did my chores, tried not to be too big of an asshole to my family (this was quite the challenge), and did well in school.

Ahh, school. Elementary and junior high school were some of the happiest years of my life. Schoolwork was quite easy. I’m sure there were times where I had to try, but I can’t remember very many moments off the top of my head. I always had time after school to finish my homework, hang out with friends, and play sports afterwards. I was never a huge sports guy when I was younger, but the fact that it was an activity that let us do something together made me want to play. Football, basketball, and track were my go to sports. But what was most important for me at that time was just being able to hang out with friends. I guess that was the point where I realized that having friends is as important to me as having my own space. And the most unique part of my early school experience was that I went to the same school for 9 years, so I got to bond with my friends for almost a decade of my life. I’ll always look back on these years fondly. They all have their own lives now, obviously, but I like to think that some of my classmates think about those years from time to time as well.

I don’t think a look back would be complete without talking about my love of video games and computers. The thing that I loved about them is that they allowed you to escape from your world, even if just for a little while. And the fact that they did what you told them to do. You never had to worry about a computer saying no. They did as you instructed. They give me a sense of control, a sense of peace. I can dedicate a post to games (which I may have already done) alone, so I’ll just say that I owe a lot to computers and video games to making me the person I am today.

Things really changed in high school, for better and for worse. But I think I’ll go into this next time…

Year End Reflection 2014

Another year almost completed, another reflection post. Make no mistake about it: reflection posts are hard. They require you to pinpoint certain events over the past year that you deem meaningful. And quite frankly, I’m not sure where exactly to begin. I suppose the most meaningful things would be the travel, the new experiences, and the changes that could be coming ahead.

Seattle, Santa Barbara, the Bay Area, New Orleans, Boston, Providence, and in a couple of days, Lake Tahoe. Excluding the Bay Area, these are all places that I’ve had and will have the pleasure of visiting for the first time this year. If I remember correctly, I wrote in last year’s reflection post that my plan was to travel more. And I must say, after getting on 10 planes in total this year (the 10 include going to and from destinations), I feel that I’ve met my goal in spades. And there’s still so much more out there to see. Portland, Chicago, Denver, and Vancouver, BC are all on my list of desired destinations. And yes, I typed Vancouver, BC. With my newly acquired passport, I’m no longer bound to the continental United States. Canada, Europe, and wherever the hell else are all within reach now. I’m not saying that I’ll see them within the next year, but it’s an amazing feeling to know that they’re within the horizon now. It’s an exciting time.

I’ve had a number of experiences this year too. Excluding the traveling, bungee jumping and dating are probably the most notable experiences this year. Bungee jumping is easily the most out there activity that I’ve done. I most likely won’t do it again, but I’m definitely happy to cross it off my bucket list. The next “extreme” activity on the bucket list would have to be skydiving. And from what I understand, it’s actually less scary than bungee jumping, so look out for that. As for dating, it’s easily the hardest thing I’ve done. It’s frustrating, it’s tiring, it frequently yields little to no rewards, and yet there’s something about the newness of meeting a new person that somehow makes it worth it. It forces you to become more confident, more sociable, and it exposes you to people outside your “home” friend group, which is something I needed. And without it, I would have never went bungee jumping, so there’s that. It also lets you learn more about what you’re looking for in a person, and consequently makes you learn more about yourself. It’s interesting, so I’m curious how the next year will go in terms of it.

Now let’s talk about the next year. Obviously I want to keep traveling, dating, and keep experiencing new things. But for some reason, the whole moving to a new city thing never quite goes away. The feeling comes and goes, and is quite satiated when I travel or am doing something new at work. I’m not saying that I’ll move next year, but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility. When it comes down to it, you never really know.

It’s been a great year. I’ll be in Tahoe enjoying good friends (who are honestly my other family now), drinks, and cold weather. Happy New Year everybody. Until next time…

Travel Review – Providence and Boston

I’ve never had a good impression of the East Coast. My view of it was completely jaded after my one trip to Washington D.C. years ago with my family. It’s unfair to generalize the whole east coast off one experience, I know, the trip was just that bad in my eyes. The dislike I have could be attributed to a number of factors, ranging from the unpredictable weather, the boring (at the time) historical sites to visit, and the fact that I was an adolescent on a family trip. Yeah, I was a little shit (and probably still am), but who wasn’t around that time? I’m happy to say that after this trip, I can say that I was completely off base on my views of the east coast.

Providence is quite the college town. Some of my family and I stayed at a hotel in the downtown area, and I was amazed by how clean it was. It’s almost pristine relative to the LA or San Francisco downtown areas. We managed to visit Providence College and Brown University. I even got the opportunity to visit Thayer Street, the street where all the college students go to the bars. If you know how much I like to try new beers, you’ll understand how happy I was to visit. All in all, it’s a great town.

Boston is quite a town as well. We took a little city tour where we got a history of the town, which took a good amount of the day. I had to get some Dunkin Doughnuts after the tour, which actually wasn’t good at all, but it was there, and I was hungry. We went back on another day to go to Cambridge to visit Harvard and MIT. I must say though, Harvard is quite magical. It’s pretty much what I would imagine Hogwarts to be if it was real. Let me end this little overview of Boston by saying to NEVER DRIVE THERE. It’s horrible. Do yourself a favor and find another means of transportation when you’re out there.

The east coast has its own beauty that really can’t be found on the west coast. The fact that you can actually differentiate the seasons over there makes it that much different. The roads are narrow, and the buildings are very traditional, almost colonial, even (although this makes sense). The overall vibe I get over there is “traditional”, if that makes sense. I’m sure I’ll be back over there sometime in the future, but until then, I can bask in the fact that it was a good trip.

Next month will mark the end of the year, and that means it’s time for another year’s reflection post. Not only that, but I’ll be doing another New Year’s celebration with the destination being Lake Tahoe, a place I’ve heard so much about, but never had the pleasure of visiting. I look forward to it.

Until next time…

Sherlock Holmes Archetype

I’ve been on a crime and intrigue kick in terms of my television watching interests as of late. I tend to mix in lighthearted shows between the darker ones, so after finishing the dark crime thriller The Killing and watching the comedy Louie (which I HIGHLY recommend), I figured it was about that time to get back into the darker side of things. The problem is, after Louie, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to a pure dark show like The Killing. To find a medium, I thought, why not go back to the crime procedural space of shows? I satisfied this criteria by starting the show Elementary, the modern day rendition of Sherlock Holmes in New York. I must say, I’m quite satisfied with it. It has the crime, the humor, and the hilarious troubled genius. After catching up with it (the new season starts this week), I realized that I may be quite fond of this type of formula. Here’s a list of shows that I’ve watched which follow similar themes of Elementary:

House (Sherlock Holmes in a medical setting)
Sherlock (Sherlock Holmes in a Sherlock Holmes setting made by the BBC)
Psych (A hilarious detective with hyper-vigilance who solves crimes with an equally hilarious sidekick, similar to Sherlock Holmes and Watson)
Leverage (not Sherlock Holmes, but f**k it, it’s a procedural crime show with an African American hacker who handles the computer side of things, so here’s my way of promoting it, apropos of nothing)

Not counting Leverage or Psych (at least not in the “troubled” since for Psych), I noticed that I have an affinity to the troubled genius who solves puzzles and/or crimes. Networks and studios have put the same Sherlock formula out there in both TV show and movie form in different ways, and I’m a sucker for it every time. I can’t explain my draw to Sherlock; maybe it’s because I want to identify with the troubled genius of his character. Let me now say that I’m NO where near a genius and I’m not exactly troubled. However, there’s something about their methods to solving puzzles that no one else can that makes me envious of them. Maybe it’s the fact that I envy their genius. Maybe it’s the fact that they follow the beats of their own drums, regardless of what people may think of them. Whatever it is, you can count on the fact that I’ll be there week after week to see their adventures and vicariously live through their experiences.

P.S. Yes, I love television.

P.P.S. Expect a travel review next month about my time in Boston

If

As I sit here watching the 49ers vs the Eagles game, I have no clue what to write for this post. This isn’t exactly news, as I tend to never know what I’m going to write until I write it. But in all honesty, I don’t feel like writing today, nor will I feel like it tomorrow or the next day. So I’m going to leave you with a video from one of my favorite YouTubers: Vsauce. His channel contains videos answering all the weird questions that people may have thought of at one point or another. This video is one of my personal favorites, as it discusses the repercussions of the conditional statement ‘if’. Give it a watch, maybe check out some of his other videos, and I’ll be back with original content from yours truly next month. I promise. 🙂