Installment #7

9:55 PM, Sunday 6 March 2005

Well, a new F1 season is upon us and Schumacher didn’t even finish the first race. Good start, then. Tiger Woods back to number one in the world in golf. Not so good. C’mon, Els!

This weekend has been very constructive for me. Friday night was the Grad Pub Crawl. 47 drunk grads on a bus and sober little me. Scary at times but fun, especially when grad society execs are puking in urinals at elegant English pubs. Now that’s a party! Good deal; $12 got you dinner, appys, a mug and cab fare home. Plus there were door prizes! I won one of those big things that go around your neck that you hook your keychains too. I won’t wear it but it was free so rock on! It all coincided with my buddy Marcel’s 32nd birthday and so we made sure he had a good dose of alcohol poisoning by the end of the night. Saturday was Aussie movie night (one of my friends is here from New South Wales on a work visa) but the highlight was cranking SNL’s best of Will Ferrell DVD. Watching that Robert Goulet sketch makes me shit my pants every time I see it. and, of course, his GWB (‘I’m gonna be on the job 24/7. That’s 24 hours a week, seven months a year.’) Today saw five of us take advantage of all the free things going on in celebration of the city 90th anniversary of incorporation. We even went down to the rail museum just to get free cake and ride the kiddie train. Good weekend, really. Now it’s just holding on for four days until the Lethbridge trip.

Cellucci’s mad! Canada misled him on missile defense, oh no! Let’s all have a nice cry on his behalf. And while we’re at it, poor Condy Rice. We should feel really guilty for making her feel unloved. That’s just too bad, isn’t it? Darn. actually, my favourite Rice clip of late was he statement regarding the situation in Lebanon. I guess she was reading talking points off of cur cards or something because her speech ended abruptly with, ‘Lebanon free.’ No, Condy, you’re supposed to talk about Lebanon being free, not just say the words on the card. Silly Condy. To think she taught at Harvard and that’s considered on of the best schools in the country. I’m glad I’m at here at UNBC if that kind of stuff represents the height of American post-secondary education.

Deane Horning. Nakusp. Brier. Rock on. If you don’t watch curling normally, I guess this would be the week.

Why would anyone buy one of those easy-flip pancake makers? Who makes one pancake?

Looks like there’s a whole bunch of outrage back home over the name change with tons of opposition and now national media coverage. Councillors Hamling and Dahlen (the rational ones) would like to see the people decide, not Council. Bill Cowan said a referendum would cause too big of a rift in the community (because apparently wthat’s going on now isn’t a rift yet), so Council should take it into their own hands. Good to see him stand up for democracy like that. You can read council minutes at nakusp.com.

Kyle

10:00 PM, Monday 7 March 2005

Well Michelson still has more earnings than Tiger this year and I think Vijay is still a better golfer. Plus Tiger is too busy now with his girlfriend to care about golf. Granted he is playing better.

I think you should wear the keychain Kyle, have it hang out of your capenter pants all hip like, maybe even get yourself a all white fitted baseball cap and wear it backwards, now we are talking trendy. Well sounds like you had a more eventful weekend than I did. Like I told you I got sick Friday, actually I think it was more of me just burning out. Too many nights up late, or working too many hours (8 at work then coming home and working on websites for another couple hours). I am feeling better today though, and I think tonight after a good sleep I will be back to normal tomorrow, I hope.

Yeah I don’t know how many times I can keep on calling Cellucci an idiot, but he really is. I love how he is even using the Fox jargon and saying that Paul Martin “Flip Flopped” on missile defense. You know you are talking to an American when they try and simply something down to two words. Flip Flop, I thought they were shoes anyway? the stupid plastic things you wear to the beach that you can buy for 4 bucks at Walmart. Flip Flop, pfffft.

Condolica Rice scares me, she looks like she has been indoctrinated in the neo-liberal ideas for far too long and is completely brainwashed. Whenever I see her I see little red and white pinwheels spinning where her eyes are…

Well the Horning name sounds familiar, I have no idea who he is though. Was there a teacher at Nakusp Secondary School who had the name Horning? I think I remember a blonde teacher by that name. Anyway that is pretty wild this guy is competing for BC at the Brier. Go Nakusp. Do they mention Nakusp when he is playing?

I was reading the Nakusp minutes and someone brought in a petition with 100 signatures in favor of the name change. A whole 100, wow I thought Nakusps population was around 2000. That means that 5% of the population supports this idea, good for you guys. Did you or your parents get any of your letters published? how about a response from any of the council members? The more I think about this issue the more and more I see how stupid it is. Once I get a few free moments I will take the time to write my own letters.

BTW who does the nakusp.com website? it is ugly, and could really need a facelift. Actually Nakusp could really use an informative website about it. If I built one would you do the content for it? Actually I doubt you have the time with school and everything. However it has been something I have been thinking about for a while. Most people before traveling somewhere will look a place up on the internet these days. If all they find is some half ass website about the town, which outdated bad quality scanned images they will be turned off. Maybe in an attempt to get a few more tourist dollars they could think about building an internet presence for themselves rather than put their hope in some pipe dream that changing your name to include hotsprings will make your town prosper. What a load of horse shit.

This week I saw another new ad from the group of concerned teachers of BC. This one showed a bunch of different shots of children with little text titles saying stuff like “103 schools closed”, “5300 teachers laid off” etc etc. Anyway was another excellent ad against Gordon Campbell. It even showed a poor little girl on a school bus who had her school closed in castelgar. I think these ads will work well, they are very powerful.

So what do you think about this 3.5 billion offer to the NHL? I think it is garbage. Yeah lets sell all the teams to one owner, hey then maybe we can start fixing games, or rotate who wins the cup every year, hell whatever boosts the ratings and earns us as a whole more money. You might as well just sell the league to the WWE and calling it XHL.

Stefan

9:42 AM, Tuesday 8 March 2005

Earnings aren’t really a great way to judge player rankings because a crappy player can have one fluke week and take home $1.5 million. For recent play, just look at the ‘points gained’ column on the official world golf ranking. Of course, Mickelson’s ahead of Tiger anyway in that category. But Mickelson would have to be playing at his best for the next eight months or so to take No. 1 because he’s starting from a bit of a disadvantage compared to Woods, Singh and Els. And Tiger’s acdtually more tournament in the past year-and-a-half than he usually does. The Bay Hill Invitational will be one to watch because all four of them will playing and you could see some big changes in the rankings. And Weir’s down to 11 now.

Yeah, and I should end every sentence with ‘Word Life’ or something like that. Does making websites on the side make you good money? If so, then who cares if you’re sick? Seriously, though, everyone needs a break and this might be your opportunity. If it only lasted a few days then it was probably fatigue-induced and not too serious. My break is coming in three days! Lethbridge, MF!

And the implication is that ‘Canada’ flip-flopped. No, we didn’t, we were always against it. Martin realized this, saw it would be the end of his government and made the decision Canadians agreed with. If not being bulllied into a decision is flip-flopping, then let’s all strap on our plastic sandals of sovereignty and have a beach party on Parliament Hill. You may like to check out the article on bctvkootenays.com while it’s up about the ‘wonderful’ MP Jim Gouk’s poll he conducted polling constituents on the issue. One, it sent him the message that most people are opposed to this thing. Two, it shows how retarded that redrawing of electoral boundaries was last election. Gouk himself points out how different the South Okanagan and Similkameen are from the West Kootenay-Boundary. They think with their wallets, we think with our brains.

Neo-liberal, kind of sound like a liberal that glows in the dark, doesn’t it? You know anything with ‘neo’ in front of it can’t be good. In practice there is almost no difference between neo-cons and neo-libs. Republicrats and Demicans all. The only difference is religion in the operation of the state. Other than that, it’s all about liberalization of the market and offloading of social programs to private interests.

You must remember Leslie Horning, the Grad 8-9 PE teacher. Deane is her husband, he’s an accountant at P&T and he actually taught Math 8/9 for a little while back when we were in Grade 12 so we never had him. They have a little box that pops up where they say “So and so, Wherever, BC, occupation, like to say hi to whatever kids I have”. So nakusp gets mentioned quite a bit, even if it’s just to say where he’s from and not anything else.

I sent the letters off last week so if they’re not in this week’s papers then the’ll be in there next week assuming Mom sent them off properly (we’re writing in as a family). I saw one of those petitions hanging around on the desk at NAPA for at least two years so that’s how long it took to get 119 names. As for councillors, it seems Karen Hamling wasn’t even at the meeting where there was ‘unanaimous’ support for the idea, and Janis Dahlen wants to get more feedback from people before she goes one way or the other. Wally Curran and Bill Cowan are totally sold on it. I have no idea where Len Heppner stands.

The official tourism website is nakusparrowlakes.com. It’s actually pretty decent compared to most other sites. It gets a lot of traffic via government tourism publications and so luckily most people go there. For others who just look at Nakusp on a map and instinctively type in nakusp.com, they’re in for a major dissapointment. There are no graphics, little info other than council minutes and it basically looks like those first sites we built back in grade 11, it’s really awful looking. I think the Village does it in house which would explain a lot. A crappy site is a really good way to turn people off. The Village didn’t even buy nakusp.com unti last year which shows you how savvy they are with these things. Of course, this is the same village that thought they would make a killing by only letting people using official Village of Nakusp garbage bags get garbage pickup at two bucks a shot. Naturally, everyone just started drving to the dump instead. Not only was it cheaper instead to do so, it meant the RDCK got all the money off garbage and not the Village. Brilliant.

I hope those ads work. BC’s government wants us to be exactly like Alberta so that means paying off the debt is the first priority instead of servicing the people. I like how even that Alberta is out of debt they’re still not returning services to previous levels or going through with even little things like taking over ambulance service as in BC like they hinted at. Dumb.

You sound really mad about that $3.5 billion as though you actually take it seriously. This isn’t an individual sport where one guy can be in charge. No matter how good anyone’s intentions are, you cannot have a sports dictatorship. Basically you wind up with things like SlamBall or IROC that just look like a joke compared to mainstream sports. The XFL is just that latest example of that.

Kyle

10:58 PM, Tuesday 8 March 2005

I can’t believe we are talking golf. How far we have progressed. Have you ever played golf Kyle? I know your dad always goes out, do you ever go with him, or your grandpa?

Sweet off to Lethbridge with a bunch of married woman doing masters in geography WOO. I think by the time you get to Lethbridge your hairs going to be braided, nails painted, and your going to have makeup on. Word Life indeed!

Heaven forbid our Prime Minister works in the interests of the Canadian people. I find it funny how American journalists and polititions say Canada is doing a mis-justice to it’s population by not signing up to protect them. Last I heard most Canadians were against this. Oh but I guess the politions know better than the people and should act accordingly. BAH “Had there been a vote on this subject, I would have voted against Canada’s participation — in keeping with the results of this poll,” looks like everyone plays the polls.

Yeah I have always wondered what the difference was between the two neo’s. They both seem to like big cuts, smaller government, and less social programs. Can you picture Stockwell Day and Steven Harper in hot pink biker shorts? ohh yeah neo-conservative convention here we come…

Yeah I totally remember Mrs Horning. That is very cool. Who has been the most famous Nakuspian would you say Kyle? and I mean real Nakuspian, not just someone who has Nakusp on their birth certificate…

nakusparrowlakes.com seems a little better but still could be so much more. It is very… static. Granted they do have a Fauquier sections, so I give them full marks for that, even with the corny: “Folks are folkier in Fauquier” I have never heard anyone say that before, maybe it is what they say behind our backs.

I don’t take the offer seriously, just a little angry that they are even entertaining the offer. Obviously too many teams would put in a resounding no to the offer, however even the thought of the full league being owned by one group would be stupid.

So when are they going to legalize dope so our officers can spend their time better than being shot and our tax dollars don’t have to be wasted on inforcing a rediculous law? It really makes no sense to me at all why they would not legalize marijauna. Hell tax the fuck out of it, put it out there, let the US deal with it. Actually I imagine that is the problem, what our southern friends think on the issue.

Stefan

10:52 AM, Wednesday 9 March 2005

I have never golfed. Mini-golfed, even putting coursed, but never did an honest-to-God round. Never really wanted to. Always more fun to watch. I’d get so frustrated with it, what would be the fun?

Don’t worry about the estrogen content, the faculty coming on the trip are both guys who I know decently (one of them is one my supervisory committee) so I’ll get my sports in. YEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHH BOYYYYYYYYYYYY

I love how politicians, whenever they don’t get a vote on something, immediately say, “Had I had a vote on the subject, I would have voted according to my constituents’ wishes. Bad, bad government for not letting us vote.” Ha! ‘Ha!’ to you, Jim Gouk. When the government falls and we have another election I can’t wait for Alex Atamenenko to take your job.

For some reason I can picture Stock Day in a hot pink wetsuit…try erasing that image out of your head! Stupid, sexy Flanders!

Most famous Nakuspian? Slam dunk, Bert Herridge. Long time CCF/NDP Member of Parliament, was the NDP house leader for eight years under Tommy Douglas back in the ’60’s. Did a lot for the area, his family is still huge in town, and he built Shoreholme! The only Nakuspian in the Encyclopedia of British Columbia.

Stefan, if you saw our old website we had to work with at the Chamber you would kill for nakusparrowlakes.com. It’s not outstanding but it does the job (just like the Chamber). You’ve never heard that ‘folks are folkier in Fauquier’? That’s an old one, I guess people don’t use it too much anymore but that’s how lots of people I know remember how to pronounce the place’s name properly. Less common puns are oldtimers’ laments about the ‘Needless’ ferry (the old campaign for a Needles bridge forty years ago). Did you guys down there always call it the Needles ferry or the Fauquier ferry? It always called the Needles ferry in Nakusp (probably a cultural relic from before the flood when Needles was a sizeable town).

Klopp, if someone threw $3.5 billion on a table, no matter how stupid the offer was, you’d at least look at it.

That’s totally what the issue is. The US government is paranoid that legalization of pot will mean Canada becomes this giant drug haven and we will be exporting all of this new legal pot to the States and create more crime down there. If I was a potgrower in Canada I’d be against legalization, too. The corporation would just in and take over. How many independent tobacco companies do you see? Just legalize it, tax the fuck out of it and only sell it in government liquor stores or agencies.

Why do you have so many problems spelling ‘ridiculous?’

Kyle

10:04 PM, Wednesday 9 March 2005

So lots of talk recently about when people are going back home. I talked to Joern and he is worried that everyone is falling out of touch and that hockey is going to start fading (at least for the original crew) to a once a year event. Bernie is contemplating doing the May days as the hockey action, you are thinking April. I myself am still unsure. It is obviously easier for me to get back over (notice how I don’t say down, Fauquier is not DOWN from Vancouver) to Fauquier over a long weekend, as I don’t have to take any time off work. Granted I could also work a long weekend and simply take the day off another time. Is there any holidays in April? From my Calendar it doesn’t look like it. Also what date range were you think of heading back?

Some farmer today douced himself in gasoline and then lite himself on fire in Ontario today at a protest. Those farmers are crazy folk it seems.
Link

Actually I do remember the chambers website before the remake. Compared to that this new site is miles ahead. Your right it is nothing fancy but it gets the job done, usually what you want out of a website anyway. Definitly a lot nicer than nakusp.com, that site is so ugly I can’t bear to go there anymore… So the BB website is finally done, you can check it out at: http://www.aldercreekfarm.ca. It is also simple, but hopefully clean and concise. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.

In Fauquier we usually just call it the ferry, or otherwise the Fauquier Ferry, I think only the really oldtimers call it the Needles Ferry. Plus being in Fauquier there is a bit of pride thing too, since the ferry is just as equally ours as it is Needles we would much rather call it Fauquier Ferry. I don’t know about others from Fauquier but I have always had a lot of pride for my town, something about a town being so small yet having so much to offer.

Are there even any Canadian Tobacco companies? I don’t think so, they have all been bought up by British or US interests. While there is a strong oposition against marijuana in the US there is also a strong movement there to legalize it. Hell in the last election they even had it on the ballot for several states. I think in Alaska it was a close vote, something like 60/40. In California don’t they have medicinal marijuana? Times are a changing…

Why can’t I spell ridiculous? I don’t know, probably the same reason I never used to use apostrophes, or the same reason I can’t spell beautiful. I blame it all on spell check actually.

“there’s a thousand points of light for the homeless man”

Stefan

12:03, Thursday 10 March 2005

I have to be here at least until the 18th because that’s when the course I teach writes its final, so I would probably come during the middle of that week and stay until the 25th or so. If there was enough interest in May long then I could try to move it ahead one month. The poblem is that grad school is a very tight ship and I’m not sure how hot my supervisor would be on taking a week off in May right in the middle of field work season. We’ll see how my defense goes in a couple of weeks. I would love to have people come back in April but that’s completely unrealistic, I know. Easter is March this year so there are no holidays. Not to be cynical but I thought hockey had already faded to once or twice a year for the ‘originals’. But it’s always important to keep in touch and hang out so if there’s enough people interested in May then I will try. But no guarantees.

Farmers aren’t crazy, it’s just one nutjob who happens to be a farmer.

Looks like a pretty good site there, Klopp. Good work. I always love the ‘This fine website has been brought to you by Kloppmagic Design.’ As opposed to ‘This adequate website’ or ‘This utilitarian website’. Has anyone ever asked you what ‘Kloppmagic’ means, anyway? I guess if they weren’t around NSS in Grade 11 they would just get confused!

Very few people in Nakusp call it the Fauquier ferry. I always found that funny, especially seeing as how Needles isn’t even a town anymore. That would be like calling the highway to Revelstoke the Shoreholme road. granted there a still a couple of houses and a campground in Needles, but you know what I mean. But you should have pride in Fauquier because it’s a pretty nice place. Much nicer than stinky old Burton, ha ha ha. Burton’s nice, too. Just not Fauquier nice.

There are no Canadian tobacco companies, and that’s the point. We’d lose control pretty quick, I bet. But this issue of getting rid of crime is more important, and that’s why it should be legalized. Restricted, but legalized. as for those referendums in the States, they all got crushed except in Alaska. Ten years from now maybe one or two states will legalize it but for now don’t bet on it. And medical marijuana is a far cry from total legalization.

Watched the ‘Shake Hands With The Devil’ documentary on Tuesday. Reading about what happened in Rwanda doesn’t prepare you for the actual pictures of what happened. And then to watch 90 minutes of it. Very powerful and taxing to watch. And just looking at Dallaire and how he shouldered this whole thing, and the clip of that Belgian senator assaulting him for not visiting ten soldiers’ widows (there’s about 800,000 widows he hasn’t visited, sorry if you’re not the priority, there). And the shot of people begging to Belgian shoulders for help as they evacuated their compound and the Belgian shoulder yelling back ‘It’s up to you to solve your own problems.’ And the soldiers cutting their green berets apart as a rejection of the UN. And the dead bodies. Everywhere. Wow. What I couldn’t believe was two girls in the back row talking and laughing throughout the movie. There’s people in the audience fucking crying and these two are gabbing away in background. Dumb.

Well, you’ll have to finish it off early this week with one more reply as I leave for Lethbridge and won’t be back until Sunday night. It’s also your turn to start next week. Good tidings.

Kyle

9:30 PM, Thursday 10 March 2005
Yeah hockey has fading to a once or twice a year for the originals. Actually I think Joerns comments were even more skeptical saying that the original friends are even fading to 1 or 2 visits a year. While the interent keeps us in contact (you and me even moreso) it still is hard to keep things up. There needs to be an effort, but after time it is hard to write emails/etc when it has been so long, and really you are living a different life. Hell I haven’t seen or heard from Watson in almost a year, Joey I can’t even count. Lorne and Bernie living here in town is a bit different as I usually see them at least once a week at poker, but everyone else, I don’t know… Maybe everyone just needs to move to Vancouver.

As for May, while I am not the biggest May Days fan (I usually end up staying up all night hoping something exciting will happen yet end up sleeping in the back of the blazer in disapointment) the chance of getting some hockey action is definitly enticing. Plus it wasn’t THAT bad last May Days. Was the first time I had seen Lorne drunk in a LONG time at that point. Plus I as getting pretty jolly myself, likely why you begged drunk Seamus to drive you home. I can’t see why you didn’t stay though, there was a bunch of people there you knew, myself included. Plus we really hadn’t hung out much for a while then… Anyway I still say the beach was better than up in Nakusp… Nakusp was simply too puntastic to handle.

I am about 3/5 done now with Shake Hands With the Devil (the book). I still haven’t seen the documentary, but will seek it out once I am finished reading the book. From reading this much of the book I really realize how fucked up the UN really is. I always had this wonderful vision of all the good it does, but after reading this book I have realized how bad it really is. I had read a book called A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (or something like that) by this reporter from Quebec. In his book he totally blasted Dalliare for his lack of action and help provided to Rwandans. He was so wrong, I realize that now, Dalliare made it his mission to try and do everything he could for the Rwandans, but the UN shut him down at every turn along the way. It would have only taken a minimum of around 5000 well equiped soldiers to stop the massacres, but the UN diddled and doddled, asked for one report after another, sat back and made impossible preconditions, and then doddled some more. What was even worse was that a Rwandan was on the security council at the time and he was a total hardliner, he would send the UN security information back to the extremists in Rwanda. Dallaire was saying that the UN was probably the least informed group in Rwanda…

Anyway have a great trip tomorrow, and do go too crazy in Alberta….

Stefan