One more cheesy photo for today and we're done for the time being. Why, who is that darkly handsome flâneur on the corner? How continental he is, that winsome devil with his jacket tied so jauntily about his neck. Feel that joie de vivre, that certain je ne sais quoi...oh brother.
You know, I can't believe what a goof I was. The CD-ROM with that Vimy photo on it has a whole bunch of these also; cheesy photos of me thinking "...well...when am I going to be here again?" and hamming it up for the camera. Oh, what a silly, silly boy I was. I have less hair now, my vision is steadily going by the day, and I have known both the touch and the betrayal of a woman, so this goof here almost seems like a complete stranger. Apart from the jacket, I can't even think of where these clothes are now...ah, good times.
Today, April 9 is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a defining moment in Canada's history and national identity. I have been to Vimy Ridge twice, in 2001 and 2002 so I thought I'd post this up here. This is my brother and I in front of the memorial at Vimy designed by Walter Allward. This is actually one of the nicer photos as the memorial had been cleaned since the first time I went. It's actually been under renovations recently, set to reopen today for the anniversary, so I'm actually a little curious as to any changes. Vimy was the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, and it was a resounding success as the Canadians achieved most of their objectives in hours; objectives that had stymied many others for years prior. However, thanks to some very innovative tactics and a good dose of Canadian ingenuity, we carried the day. This area is, in fact, part of Canada, donated in perpetuity by the grateful French people. It's really a very solemn place; I may be biased being Canadian and a lover of history, but I think you can really feel the weight of memory in places like this. To this day, just behind us around the memorial here large areas of the surrounding countryside are not open to the public due to unexploded munitions, a grim testament to the sheer scale of carnage and destruction nearly a century past now.
Day seven (I think)...food and water running low...I can hear them out there, closing in...I can still hear Bobby's screams in the night...ok, I'm really just sitting in one of Longwood Gardens' greenhouses amongst some exotic flora, but the jungle story sounded more compelling.
On the way back from Pennsylvania, we ran out of money and were forced to take entry level jobs on the Hershey product line to earn our keep home. Actually, not really, but this is an interesting part of the Hershey factory tour. The entire town of Hershey lives, breathes, and (I would imagine) eats chocolate. There's even a Hershey theme park, where this little section of the Hershey's Kisses assembly line is. It's actually kind of hard to pack those Kisses with any degree of accuracy and efficiency, so I can't imagine how you'd do this on a daily basis. The Kisses just keep coming, and you've got to be on your toes to keep up. But you do get to keep what you pack, so that's always a plus.
Civil wars are one of the worst kinds of war (not that any degree of war is good per se) but when brother turns against brother families, homes, entire states can be torn right down the middle. Those kinds of scars can takes years, even decades, to heal if at all. You can see this kind of representation all over the grounds of Gettysburg National Military Park. Each state involved has erected various memorials to their respective fallen sons, although there are also plenty of collective monuments as well. This particular one is courtesy of Ohio, I believe.
Sadly, this is the one of the better photos that survive my grad. The rest are all muddled crowd shots with far too many people in them or blurry, indistinct images. At any rate, my time at this fine institution took me through some of the best and the worst times of my life. I am rightfully proud of the many achievements I accomplished while there, even if many of them were in fields not directly related to what I am actually doing now. I am also glad that I met so many wonderful people while I was there, even if we do not keep in touch so much now. This is something that I should rectify. The circles in which we travel are not so large as one might think, and life's roads can lead to strange convergence.
This photo doesn't have the best composition, but what's important is the sign and the information it conveys, not me. I know that history lies all around us and so much of it lies forgotten when no one is left who cares to remember, but there is definitely an air of gravitas around the places that we do choose to remember. There is a palpable aura of memory around these places, and I felt it at Gettysburg. I've also felt it in Europe, and I don't usually sense it so much in North America. I did feel it here on this day.
I stayed home my last semester at university because I was just putting some finishing touches on the last few courses, but I did go back to march for convocation. It was definitely a bittersweet return for a variety of reasons, since I spent a sizable chunk of my life at this place. I have a lot of memories here, not all of which are pleasant. Well, some of the most pleasant ones used to be and aren't anymore, more's the pity. At any rate, I like this photo. I think it sums up all the melancholy and introspection of moments wasted, of roads not taken, and bittersweet regrets all in one neat little pictorial package.
The inner historian in me has a particular passion for military history, although I pay homage to all facets of history in general. In that vein, I like to visit famous battlefields when I can. I'm slowly checking off a "greatest hits list", if you will. While I was down in Pennsylvania, I finally managed to cross Gettysburg off of my list. Joseph Stalin once referred to artillery as the god of war, and he wasn't wrong. No other arm of service can deliver the sheer amount of firepower to a given location in as short a period of time as artillery can. Granted, we've come a long way since the earliest black powder bombards and crude arquebuses, and here I'm standing by a few prime Civil War-era examples. I want to say 12-pounder Napoleons, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this is a pretty typical battery (there's a few more guns behind us). They're positioned around the battlefield as they were on the days of the battle.
One summer my inner humanitarian led me to help my parents cook at a health camp in Pennsylvania (in the vicinity of Philadelphia) for a couple of weeks. It was an interesting road trip, and I got to visit some places that I'd been meaning to for a while (I promised the inner historian in me, you see). They took day trips with the campers on the weekends, and one of them was to Longwood Gardens,one of the premier botanical gardens in the United States. The grounds were absolutely beautiful, with all sorts of exotic and interesting plants both indoors in these great neoclassical buildings and outside, such as this one. This funny little tree's canopy is so thick it's like night inside, although it's high noon outside. It also took some doing to get in here, let me tell you. I didn't quite catch the species on the sign, but until someone tells me otherwise I'm calling it a baobab tree. It's just my prerogative.
This is Ronald, a close personal friend of mine. It's such a small world that we bumped into each other halfway around the world in the Philippines. Oh, Ronald, we have history. I don't know how much of your strangely addictive mutant chicken I've consumed over the years, but it's a lot. Just one thing, though: bring back those old greasy McNuggets! Probably not as good for you, but you gotta live a little...hmm, now I have the strongest craving for In-N-Out burgers.
This is the French Riviera; I believe that is part of Monaco in the distance. You can just feel the joie de vivre in the air, that certain je ne sais quoi. Monaco was pretty in a postcard kind of way, especially the famous casino where any number of James Bonds have gone all in for the highest stakes in the free world. I went in there just to say that I'd peed in their bathroom. Hmm, urinal tour of Europe, wonder if that'd catch on...
I used to be something of a dilettante, and I've dabbled in any number of professions and hobbies; you name it, I've tried my hand at it. When I wandered the earth like Kwai Chang Caine, I tried my hand at goat ranching, among other things. I had a small flock in Baguio, Philippines that wound up turning a nice profit but goats being goats, well they needed herding. So here is me keeping an ever vigilant eye out for varmints on my goat ranch in Baguio.
Here's me in that bunker again, although I think it's technically a pillbox. It's a beach fortification of some sort on Juno Beach in Normandy, at any rate. It's all quiet on the western front, though...for now. Come to think of it, I don't think we were even allowed to be inside this thing.
This is me in Mont-Saint-Michel. I just like the composition and the contrast in this one. This one feels all brooding and pensive, like Batman. I believe there may be a permanent bridge out to this monastery now, but when I was there the causeway was underwater at high tide. If you weren't back on the mainland in time, you were staying. That kind of natural security is exactly why this place never fell to an enemy while it was defended. Hey, I worked Batman and Mont-Saint-Michel into the same paragraph. I rock.
Ah, this one is one of my favourites. I actually think I look kind of good in this one. This was taken a lifetime ago in happier days on the Montmartre in Paris. The Moulin Rouge is somewhere close by in this same neighbourhood, but as you can see it's very hilly, hence the name. "Mont" means "mount", and your calves will certainly confirm that after any time spent in this area. This area used to be a separate little village on the outskirts of Paris proper, and it was very bohemian to say the least. Rich fancypants types would come down to slum with the immigrants and poor people, and to a certain extent some of that hasn't really changed. They're still pretty edgy up on that butte, but I can't really show you those pictures. Heh. A butte is an isolated hill with steep sides and a small flat top, smaller than mesas and plateaus. Butte, as in Butte County. How ironic.
This is the Pyramid entrance to the Louvre in Paris, designed by I.M. Pei. It has always been somewhat controversial; you either love it or you hate it. You may have seen it in the Da Vinci Code. I checked underneath, and there's nothing there, sorry. Or is there?
This is the mascot for Jollibee, some local Filipino fast food franchise. On a local or even national level, I'd say they manage to hold their own against McDonald's and their ilk, and a large part of that has got to be this snazzy mascot. I mean, he just looks so happy to be giving you food, plus he's just presenting the wealth of options available with a little flourish. Real classy, that bee is. On that note, did I mention that I once spent a good part of one summer helping keep bees in northern California? Yep, the biblical patriarch Jacob herded livestock (camels, sheep and such); I kept bees. That worked out a little better for him than it did for me though, unfortunately. That's a sly allusion there, isn't it?
During the course of my wanderings over the past few years, I went halfway across the world trying to forget someone and wound up in the motherland. It didn't work (I didn't forget that is), and it seems the motherland is as foreign to me as India, Europe, or Africa are. For what it's worth, I suppose that I would be Canadian to my mind, whatever that means in this day and age. Notwithstanding, the Philippines does have its charms, like this pharmacy. No, I have not altered this image in any way and yes, it says "Holy House of Drugs".
On the way back from Pennsylvania, we ran out of money and were forced to take entry level jobs on the Hershey product line to earn our keep home. Actually, not really, but this is an interesting part of the Hershey factory tour. The entire town of Hershey lives, breathes, and (I would imagine) eats chocolate. There's even a Hershey theme park, where this little section of the Hershey's Kisses assembly line is. It's actually kind of hard to pack those Kisses with any degree of accuracy and efficiency, so I can't imagine how you'd do this on a daily basis. The Kisses just keep coming, and you've got to be on your toes to keep up. But you do get to keep what you pack, so that's always a plus.
Civil wars are one of the worst kinds of war (not that any degree of war is good per se) but when brother turns against brother families, homes, entire states can be torn right down the middle. Those kinds of scars can takes years, even decades, to heal if at all. You can see this kind of representation all over the grounds of Gettysburg National Military Park. Each state involved has erected various memorials to their respective fallen sons, although there are also plenty of collective monuments as well. This particular one is courtesy of Ohio, I believe.
I stayed home my last semester at university because I was just putting some finishing touches on the last few courses, but I did go back to march for convocation. It was definitely a bittersweet return for a variety of reasons, since I spent a sizable chunk of my life at this place. I have a lot of memories here, not all of which are pleasant. Well, some of the most pleasant ones used to be and aren't anymore, more's the pity. At any rate, I like this photo. I think it sums up all the melancholy and introspection of moments wasted, of roads not taken, and bittersweet regrets all in one neat little pictorial package.
The inner historian in me has a particular passion for military history, although I pay homage to all facets of history in general. In that vein, I like to visit famous battlefields when I can. I'm slowly checking off a "greatest hits list", if you will. While I was down in Pennsylvania, I finally managed to cross Gettysburg off of my list. Joseph Stalin once referred to artillery as the god of war, and he wasn't wrong. No other arm of service can deliver the sheer amount of firepower to a given location in as short a period of time as artillery can. Granted, we've come a long way since the earliest black powder bombards and crude arquebuses, and here I'm standing by a few prime Civil War-era examples. I want to say 12-pounder Napoleons, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this is a pretty typical battery (there's a few more guns behind us). They're positioned around the battlefield as they were on the days of the battle.
One summer my inner humanitarian led me to help my parents cook at a health camp in Pennsylvania (in the vicinity of Philadelphia) for a couple of weeks. It was an interesting road trip, and I got to visit some places that I'd been meaning to for a while (I promised the inner historian in me, you see). They took day trips with the campers on the weekends, and one of them was to Longwood Gardens,one of the premier botanical gardens in the United States. The grounds were absolutely beautiful, with all sorts of exotic and interesting plants both indoors in these great neoclassical buildings and outside, such as this one. This funny little tree's canopy is so thick it's like night inside, although it's high noon outside. It also took some doing to get in here, let me tell you. I didn't quite catch the species on the sign, but until someone tells me otherwise I'm calling it a baobab tree. It's just my prerogative.
This is me in Mont-Saint-Michel. I just like the composition and the contrast in this one. This one feels all brooding and pensive, like Batman. I believe there may be a permanent bridge out to this monastery now, but when I was there the causeway was underwater at high tide. If you weren't back on the mainland in time, you were staying. That kind of natural security is exactly why this place never fell to an enemy while it was defended. Hey, I worked Batman and Mont-Saint-Michel into the same paragraph. I rock.
This is the mascot for Jollibee, some local Filipino fast food franchise. On a local or even national level, I'd say they manage to hold their own against McDonald's and their ilk, and a large part of that has got to be this snazzy mascot. I mean, he just looks so happy to be giving you food, plus he's just presenting the wealth of options available with a little flourish. Real classy, that bee is. On that note, did I mention that I once spent a good part of one summer helping keep bees in northern California? Yep, the biblical patriarch Jacob herded livestock (camels, sheep and such); I kept bees. That worked out a little better for him than it did for me though, unfortunately. That's a sly allusion there, isn't it?
