Stupid Foreigner.

Tomorrow is 2-28, a Taiwanese apology holiday. 50 years ago or something, the Taiwanese government killed a mountain person or something in cold blood and there was a small revolt among the mountain people (Hakka = Native people). So, the governments response was to march their army into the hills and kill all the natives or something (Taiwan was still Communist and stuff). Anyways, as an apology, the government made 2-28 (Feb 28th) a day off to mark the anniversary of this atrocity.

I asked my kids about this holiday and they told me that everyone in Taiwan had to shut the windows and turn off the lights or they could get shot. One of my kids uncles had to hide in the river for a week so he didn't get killed.

Anyways, my plan was do do what I like to do on my days off... go to the mountains. My students thought that was a bad idea, they didn't want me to get shot by the army or something. It was 30 years ago or something, but some things stick.

... don't believe much in this post, my research consisted of rumors and 6 year olds who are still learning English and yet have no concept of our treacherous world.

Owl Eyed.

Last night I took an old friend to dinner. Her name is Candy and she used to work in the cafe in my building before it closed. She's Taiwanese and very cute and sweet. I haven't talked to her for a year, but I remember her being able to speak some English... did I mention I haven't talked to her for about a year?

Anyways, when I called her, she sounded excited to talk to me, so I invited her out for dinner and a movie. We went out for Thai food and it was great! After, she needed to stop at her work to grab something.

We pulled up to her coffee shop and she got off the bike and went in, I got off the bike and took off my helmet only to see her coworkers looking out the window at me. Their eyes went about 4 inches wide (pretty big for Taiwanese women) and I could see one mouth the words, "WaiGuoRen" meaning, "foreigner." She politely explained that I speak Chinese... not so common for foreigners. Anyways, she bought me a mango slush thing and instead of going to a movie, we went to a live concert in the park. There was a band from Hong Kong who sang some pretty western style music... in Chinese, but I could understand the Chinese so I bought the cd to help me with my pronunciation.

We had a good time and the only difficulty was when I was trying to say "again" and couldn't seem to get it across, everything else went smoothly. I don't think there's a better feeling than driving a motorbike in the cool night air with a cute Taiwanese girl's arms wrapped around you as you fly through the neon-lit streets.

The next best part? I make $28/hour and she makes $3/hour, she didn't complain when I bought her our $20 dinner, but she insisted on buying me my mango freezie at her shop and a coke at the concert (I still had my freezie, but we had to buy something to get a table). It's nice to know someone who's genuinely appreciative and not wanting to take advantage.

Wascilly Wabbits

Weeeeeelllll.... too many wascilly wabbits awe wunning in my home. Thems wascilly wabbits wike to wun wehind my couch an wike to wun away fwum my bwoom. Weeeeeelllll, I thinks I'll wet a waccuum weaner to suck up wem wascilly wabbits.

E.Fudd.

Getting itchy

I've been thinking of getting into some hobbies, I want to be able to play some music and I want to take better pictures.

I was looking into a school next to mine about someone being able to teach me the Saxophone. I used to play the saxophone in grade 7 and I liked it. However, the only two instruments I have any interest in playing are the Banjo and the Saxophone, both of these are fairly big, why can't I like harmonicas? But, I like the sax more, so I can get a private teacher for about $24/hour (ouch, but it's only once a week) but I can't rent one, only buy one for about $400... I'm debating, but maybe I'll hold off for a while.

Next, is my camera... I have been looking at some photography sites and I love photography. My camera is pretty top notch, but it's automatic and it can do manual stuff, but it's not really manual friendly. I want a true SLR camera with focus rings, sometimes I have trouble getting it to focus the way I want it and when I finally DO get it to work, it automatically adjusts to give me a "better" picture. I admit, it's a great camera, but... it doesn't do what I like. A new camera is about $1800 Can, maybe too much. Hoepfully I can save up and buy it, I certainly take enough pictures and I think I have played with and actually used every setting on my camera.

I would just steal one of my dad's professional cameras, but they use film and after a couple months, I would have saved far more money on buying my new digital instead of developing all this film. Also, I like being able to put it on my computer right away, look at the picture in my viewfinder after it's taken and I've heard that film cameras don't take very good videos. So, if anyone's looking for an UNETHICAL... I mean SONY DSC-V3 camera, let me know. I can't buy another SONY, due to ethical reasons stemming from them planting viruses in their music cds that have messed up so many people's computers. So, as far as I'm concerned, I will not be buying ANY more SONY products, too bad, they make some great products, my SONY TV is over 20 years old and works great, my camera is pretty good, too, but I'm hungry for more.

Dedicated to Pirates!!! Arrrghhh... Maties!!!

Well, I was all revved up to fire off my mom's visa number to a software company so that I could retrieve all my files in a huge mess of unnamed files with no folders or dates. Take all of your university textbooks, rip the page numbers from all the pages, then rip each page out, shuffle, dump all the pages on the floor and then try to put your books back together. That was my plan... except the pages and numbers had already been ripped.

I found one last program that did everything for me, it was pirated and consisted of 5 programs plus a program to make them all work without paying any money. One of the programs managed to find and fix all my files just the way they were before "Black Saturday." I went to got to the pirate's website, but it had been shut down.

Short of the long, my computer is back on track and I have backed my files onto my NEW hard drive, which is much quieter, and I am putting my backups on my old hard drive, so I figure ONE of them should keep, I'll also put my photos on DVD.

Back from the brink.

My 100th post.

Well, I've been taxing myself a lot for the last couple weeks. I've been showing signs of stress but I hope it's finished now. In the last week, I have developed insomnia, a messy apartment and terrible sleeping habits.

Been having some trouble with my friend Jam, she wants more than friends and I simply want to find someone who is right for me... feel kind of bad. My hard drive has been stressing me out.

I listen to my iPod when I travel, and when I drive my bike (not loudly), it can really destroy a really long trip or a stopover in the airport, I depend on it. Also, in the last 2 years, I have been to 7 countries, Korea twice. I have been to the Great wall and Ankor Wat, I have many pictures. My hard drive holds my music and pictures and when it crashed... well, it sucked.

Wednesday night, I dreamt that Canadian weather had come and iced the roads in Kaohsiung, so all the cars were sliding around and I slid my motorbike under a bus but managed to come out the other end, I woke up in a sweat after my frantic fishtailing drive home. Last night, I dreamt that I was SCUBA diving and I couldn't get air and had ruptured my lungs and that blood was coming out of my mouth and my lungs were full of blood and I couldn't get to the surface and stuff, also, I showed up for work at the competitors school by mistake and that the secretary kept coming into my classes trying to give me things for students that weren't in my class. I also woke up in a sweat after the diving incident. Computer work, Jam's issues and stress have given me some serious insomnia that I hope will be gone this weekend.

Seems like everything's cool, I now have more students than most teachers and teach about 4 hours a week less than them. My boss doesn't seem to be a part of my job anymore, he talked to me today, but he was just asking about me and for some advice. The girls from the front say that parents are pleased and my students seem to still love English. School seems to be fine.

Family, Work, Money and Health are ok... Love is nowhere to be found. This weekend, I hope to go on a motorcycle tour to somewhere far away, maybe in the mountains, trying to find someone with a bike as Paul's bike ran out of oil and blew up... I told him a week before about his faint ticking and that he's out of oil probably... nah, he had had it changed 200km before, he didn't believe me. By the way, sorry Dad, sooo sorry for all the times you were "wrong."

Well, I'm going on blind faith.

Well, after 14 emails back and forth between the guy who wrote the program to save my computer... he said I'm screwed and that I should try for the 130,000 unnamed files option. I still think he's wrong and that his program can save me... but it's kind of like telling the doctor that your broken leg X-ray is wrong as your leg bends in both directions. Tuesday, I'm going over to a buddy's house after work to see if he can fix it... he knows more than I do about computers, and he has Linnux. Oh, I bought a second hard drive to back this one up onto hopefully before we fix it so that if we screw up, we may have a possible second chance.

I really don't know what to do, the jungle is looking pretty green right about now.

Which wire do I cut? Red or blue? RED OR BLUE???

I have done many things short of actually changing anything on my drive, it seems to be ok, but the Partition is missing... other words, the Table Of Contents is missing, the file that knows everything about my drive. It knows exactlty where everything is, how big, what date and what name. But, there is data there. Imagine dropping the Bible into a woodchipper and then trying to put it back together... yep, I'm blindly trying to part the Red Sea.

Ok, well, I'm still very frustrated and have no idea what I'm doing... it's never stopped me before. I found a program that can find all my files and save them as files on a new hard drive that I must buy... however, all the names and dates will be gone, so they will be called "File07.mp3", what a nightmare for sifting through the rubble. On a 200Gb hard drive, that's about 130,000 files with serial numbers for names, I don't feel like manually renaming 130,000 pictures, songs and crap.

My other option is to give it to a data company who will charge $400 and up and I still might end up with option A.

My last option, is to use a program that restores the Partition, or the index of where everything is, how big it is and what it's called. I think this is the best one, it won't cost me anything and even if it screws up, I should still be able to recover 90% or more of the drive with option A. I sent an email to the creator of the program because I have no concept of what I'm doing, but the program DID say it can see my partition. Now, I don't know what it means, because it's a DOS based program and I'm not that familiar with drive settings and what they should be. I have an idea on which button to press, but I'd hate to resort to option A.

Baaaaaaaaahhhh!!! Maybe I should just toss everything I own over the balcony and go live in the jungle... it was a good idea when I was 5 years old, so why not now?

Bitter Irony

As I was backing up my stuff onto DVD, one file couldn't be backed up because it was in use, so I rebooted my computer and then the hard drive went corrupt and now it shows that it's empty... not even formatted.

So, I've lost everything maybe... again. I don't know what to do and I'm scared to try. If I bring it into the shops in Kaohsiung, they might not understand the whole, "If you screw this up, I WILL kill you." If I send it to Canada... I can not make this threat in person, if I send it to the people who are used to the threats and are still in retention of all limbs, then they will charge me greatly for this service. On the good side, the hard drive still works, so, it will probably be someone who charges me $500 to use a $20 computer program they found on eBay. They won't have to take it apart like the one I dropped on the marble floor because there's nothing mechanically broken. Damn it! I was actually backing stuff up so that this stuff wouldn't matter. If I had it all backed up, I could have it completely fixed within the hour!

I think I may have given my parents a copy of my Thailand pictures, and I still have my Cambodia pictures. So, I will have lost some of my pictures and all my music... gonna miss my music.

I'm completely heartbroken and for once, can't wait till Monday.

Speak of the Devil and he will appear.

On Friday, I was "teaching" my evening class of 9 year olds and I had given them some writing to do and when they were finished, they could have break time. One of my girls had brought her unicycle to class 'cause I had asked her to show us how it's done. I tooke her to the next class (Maureen's) to show her students. She did ok and then I sent her back to class to finish her work, a few minutes later one of the students came to take the unicycle, "Ok, but don't play with it please," I said. Ii was telling MAureen how it's my favorite class and how well they behave and that I never have to worry. I walk into class and they are laughing hysterically, one of the girls has the unicycle and one of the boys has red tissue under his nose...

How did this happen?!?! Ahhhhhhh!!! I leave for a couple minutes and they are trying to put on a bloody circus! Actually, he was writing in his book and it just started to bleed, he's not a picker, and Nancy was just putting the unicycle beside the bookcase so it was out of the way and the kids has just built their Jenga tower one block too high and were laughing at it's demise... their work was all finished perfectly. Yep, I'm a great teacher... *sigh of relief.

I'm having picture issues, I think I need to reduce my pictures before I can upload them, I'll try to do that.

Anyways, last night, I was organising my external hard drive and I was out of space so I cleaned it up a bit and allowed compression on the files I haven't opened for a while. I let it buzz all night, cleaning, squishing and moving and this morning... it couldn't open anything. I was pissed, so before I chucked my computer and storage off my balcony, I rebooted it and things came up fine. Well, every time my computer screws up, I swear I'll back it all up and stuff. I'm halfway finished backing up my pictures onto DVD. History: Dropped spinning hard drive on marble floor in June = dead, lost almost all my music (17Gb); Came back from Canada and bothe hard drives wouldn't spin in January, the connection box was defunct, so new box, no problem; last night, compressed my drive, rebooted. Now, it's time to back up my pictures and music, my Simpsons episodes are on permanent backup through all the fine pirates lurking the internet.

A Leap of Fate.

Well, the world has one less tiger in it, I found out tonight that LaoHu (Chinese for Tiger) has passed. LaoHu was our cat when I lived with Paul and Nick, he was an awesome cat could shadowbox and chase down rogue houseflies. He would crawl around the outside of the apartment jumping from air conditioner to air conditioner in search of neibhours open windows as the ground leaped by 9 floors below.

He was missing for 3 days which is usual as he likes to visit others and do his own thing, but finally, security asked about him and told Paul that he was found under our balcony three nights before... 9 floors below our balcony.

Rollin' Thunder.

Well, I'm used to the locals wanting me to be in their pictures, but things just went one step further... I was whipping home from downtown on Tuesday night at about 2am and was with a group of people, I was trying to catch up to the first group and was flying along the river on my bike (95km in a 50). I was driving in the car lane and really leaning into the curve when a lightning storm started... not a cloud in the sky. I am now expecting a postcard from the city government.

I guess there is some equal justice in this city after all.

P.S. I don't actually know what the speed limit is in the city, 50km was just a guess.

A Blast of another kind.

Well, I think I now have my honorary Al Quieda diploma, my clothes from last night are probably so infested with explosive residue that I will not be able to get anywhere close to the airport. I am black and blue all over and I guess I have a few burns on me. My jacket has more than 50 holes and probably a couple hundred scortch marks, my jeans have a few holes and dozens of scorches, my belt is even missing a chunk and the towel that was protecting my neck has a big burn hole from when it must have caught fire.

For those who do not know...

I went to an annual fireworks festival in Yenshuei, Taiwan. Last year, they spent US$6,000,000 on bottle rockets, and these things are cheap. They place them horizontally on large racks and light 'em up. The crowd is required to wear motorcycle helmets, gloves, a jacket and a towel around the neck. The crowd stands in front of the "bee hives" of bottle rockets and hope like hell they don't receive anything permanent. Last year, I got some serious burns on my right hand after one firework blew up on my hand, this year, I wore leather gloves. I am still black and blue in many places from bruising from fireworks exploding against me, and I have a few burns but all minor ones that should be gone in a week. I wore an undershirt, a Tshirt, jacket, undies, boxer shorts, jeans leather gloves, a helmet, a towel and safety glasses just incase one gets inside my face shield and blows up inside my helmet (VERY rare). My jacket is trash, my blue jeans aren't all that blue, huge black streaks all over and the cuffs are also all burnt. My Tshirt's a little messed up, but it was old anyways, my undershirt is fine though, though a little charred, but no holes. My leather belt is missing a chunk, my towel is burnt as well as my jeans, they also have holes in them. My helmet seems to be ok, though it smells of gun powder... love it.

This has got to be the most dangerous and exciting thing I have ever done and I have done many things. I almost didn't go, but I'm so glad I did. I took a train and a taxi to get there and then I found some foreigners to hitch a ride home with as the trains don't run at 4am. I cannot explain how awesome this was, and if there's any way to go again next year, I will.



When I get my Cambodia pictures off my iPod, I'll post 'em somewhere as weel as my trip.

Deja-post.

I swear I posted that I made it back home. Maybe not... whatever, I've been home for a couple days and I really enjoyed work today, but I'd rather be "Tomb Raidering" it in ancient temples. I guess getting paid has it's perks.

Good news, I have a long weekend at the end of February, I think I have four days or so, any ideas for places I should fly to? I'm thinking the Phillipines or Hong Kong, it should be somewhere "close" to Taiwan as my travel time is limited and want to keep it fairly cheap. I think the Phillipenes might be cool. My alternate plan is Peng Hu, some Taiwanese islands off the west coast close to China... but not as much fun... cause I'm still in Taiwan.

Colin.

P.S. The poster with the best suggestion gets to come with me.

In Phonm Pen or something like that.

Well, I took the bus back to Phonm Pen but I made sure it was the V.I.P. bus... $9 rather than US$6. It was alright, the A/C worked, seats padded and no blowing dust, a far better experience, the boat just didn't pan out as it only left at 7am with a 5am pickup, I wanted to do some things in the morning and didn't want to arrive in Phonm Pen in the afternoon, so I took the noon bus.

I went to the war/landmine museum today, I have to say, land mines have got to be some of the scariest things I have ever seen, they had tanks, Howittzers and Rocket LAunchers, but the "mine field" was by far one of the scariest things I have seen. Something so little can be so big, especially when you leasst expect it. I don't think it helps that "One household in 20 reported a land mine victim, a third of them dying in the blast; one in 10 of the 2100 victims was a child." "In Cambodia 22% of households (1359/6090) said that they had been forced to leave because of land mines." Here's a ling to more stuff.

I'm having a blast and I looked at a hotel for $2 that had a room with a 5 foot ceiling and another room with a 4 foot door and a 15 foot high ceiling, what the heck? Having a driver is cool, they just drive you around all day and sit outside your hotel, restaraunt, temple, or wherever you may be, and it's $10 for the day. Also, the police open car doors for foreigners here and often shop doors and stuff, many places have security guards who do that also and keep the tuk-tuk drivers and the beggars away from the foreigners. I just noticed that I said I was having a blast, that was purely accidental.

Tomorrow, I will go to Prison 49 (Detention center converted from an old highschool) and to the Kings palace and stuff. Then... off to the Russain market to buy dirt cheap goodies, my trip has been pretty cheap, so it will be nice to come home with some money.

One more thing, this place is so strange, on the highway, our state of the art tour bus was weaving around oxen pulling far overloaded carts loaded with straw to build someone a new house.

Also, I have figured out how families can live on $5 a week, they have no utilities and nothing to steal. Most houses are built on stilts with a slough below sometimes, there are no power lines or phone lines, they pump well water and the schools send children to the dugouts with buckets. The houses are made out of bamboo and dried palm leaves, the only thing woirth stealing is a motorbike. They harvest thier crops using oxen and carts and those "long stickey things with the curvey swordy things at the bottom" and then they pile it and load it into carts, no tractors, no threshing machines, just good old fasioned labour that is not vulnurable to breakdowns.

I know my blog's a mess, but I will do it up right, after I'm back in the land of the smoggy children.

Still here

Well, tomorrow I will go to Phonm Penn... on a bus... I think.

Not really sure, but my plane leaves Phonm Penn at 1:30ish PM on Saturday for Taiwan.

Having a blast, and no mines.