I never expected during our travels I would be standing in the Koh Samui airport waiting to see my parents faces on the arrivals walkway. But there I was, waiting for their delayed plane and feeling quite excited. My mom was in dire need of a vacation and had an idea to come and see us. After many chats on the phone I managed to convince her Thailand was the safest and easiest place for us to meet up and travel together for about a month. Some might cringe at the idea of traveling with their parents for a month, but Scott and I get along very well with my parents. They are great fun to hang out with and even all of our friends agree.

After waiting for an hour with no signal on the arrivals board that their plane was delayed, my parents smiling, sweating faces finally appeared. As a nice gesture they were wearing matching T-Shirts with our cats name on them. Dad was Charlie and Mom was Kerrigan. It sure made us smile! We piled into a taxi and the conversations didn’t stop for days. It was so nice to see some family and I could tell they were quite ecstatic to see us too.

We wanted to stay at the Jungle Club again but alas with high season just beginning it was fully booked. After some searching on hostelbookers.com I found an amazing looking resort that met all my parents prerequisites and more with an amazing deal of stay 2 nights and get the 3rd free. Baan Hin Sai couldn’t of been anymore perfect for my parents first introduction and ease into Thailand. A variety of hotel rooms and private bungalows sit on a steep incline against the ocean. I had no idea it was going to be so steep but luckily they had a golf cart service to take you down and up the hill. Service for Thai standards was spot on. Free buffet breakfast, friendly staff, beautiful comfortable bungalows and delicious food in the restaurant. Don’t forget about the two infinity pools and if you feel like it, the most beautiful location for a spa I’ve ever seen. Needless to say my parents were blown away and found the price hard to believe. A resort like this in the Caribbean would be three times as much per night.

Since Scott and I had already spent a fair amount of time on Koh Samui, we turned into pretty good travel guides. We filled our first 6 days together with a perfect amount of relaxing at the resort, shopping, dinners at great locations, and even a Muay Thai kickboxing match! We also rented a 4 door truck and gave my parents the same self tour we gave ourselves a month ago. However, this time we actually made it to Grandmother and Grandfather Rock in the daylight because we skipped the sucky waterfall. In the shopping area my parents spotted a sign that said “Doctor Fish” and to my surprise they actually gave it a try! Doctor Fish are small fish that will only eat the dead skin from your feet. They are also beleived to massage your feet and increase the blood circulaion, leaving your feet clean and feeling great after a 15-20 minute session. It was quite amusing watching them give this a try, espcially since my Dad has very ticklish feet. There was one sucker about 4 inches long that liked his baby toe! But soon enough, as stated, their feet got use to the sensation and they claimed it became quite relaxing. My Dad’s feet felt so great afterwards he declared any time he sees this again in Thailand he is getting a treatment.

PS: Also to our advantage, their arrival to Thailand was perfect timing with our unfortunate Camera trying to become a fish and boxing week sales. We picked out a camera online at Future Shop and asked my parents to go pick it up and bring it with them. The camera we ended up getting was a fantastic deal on a actual SLR. Olympus 420 with a second telephoto lense 80-300mm. It’ll be fun to try and take some better photos with an sLR.

Here are some of our test shots:

When we were preparing for our year long trip, we looked long and hard for the perfect camera. Something that would take great night and day shots, had good color, and shot in RAW for the best possible effect. We chose the Canon G10 and have been super happy with it, except for a scratch it got on the lens in the first month or so. I think the photos we’ve taken with it are pretty damn good, don’t you?

The only thing it wasn’t was waterproof, which we also had a fix for. We’d bought dicapac’s before when we had our old Sony camera, and they worked pretty good. It’s basically a glorified ziplock bag that you put your camera in and it’s supposed to be waterproof for up to 5 meters.

We were in Koh Tao for Christmas which has some of the best snorkelling and scuba diving in Thailand. We had planned to take a PADI scuba diving certification while we were on Koh Tao, but with Dee’s 2nd degree burn on her leg it was out of the question. Something about pouring salt onto an open wound didn’t appeal to her. I thought that maybe sharks would smell the blood in the water and that would be the end of us, so I agreed.

We had fantastic snorkelling just off the beach where we were staying. So one morning I decided to get out there and see what’s up and took the camera and dicapac. It was amazing, there were huge schools of red snapper, hundreds of smaller fish and beautiful coral. It was a mixture of big black spikey coral, huge brain coral that was 3 meters across and all sorts of amazing other coral. This, only 10 meters off of our beach! I was snapping pictures like a paparazzi on MIchael Jackson’s nose, but looking at all of this fish made me pretty hungry so I went in to get some food and drink.

After a quick bite, drink and smoke I headed back out like an excited 5 year old going to the fair. This time I went to the other side of some big rocks and had to swim over coral that was just barely under my chest in 3 feet of water. Suddenly I saw the most beautiful green coral and grabbed the camera to take a picture that could have been submitted to National Geographic. I turned it on and placed the camera in front of me to capture this moment. It was then that I noticed some water inside the dicapac. Face down with my snorkel and mask on I was slightly confused. Wasn’t the dicapac supposed to keep water out? Why was there water inside the fucking bag with the camera? My heart dropped enough to scare the fish away and turn the green coral into a red blur.

Out here in the middle of the ocean I couldn’t stand up as there was sharp coral all around me. I held the camera out of the water and half paddled my way to shore avoiding the sharp edges of coral that threatened to cut me to pieces if I stepped on it – and kill the coral in the process. As I cleared the coral I stood up – only barely swearing, I’m sure people 200M away couldn’t hear me – and assessed the situation. The dicapac was half filled with salt water, the camera had a blurry photo on the screen and it wasn’t looking good. I pretty much knew it was toast as I had seen many a water damaged cell phone in my day at work. If it was clean water there’s a chance it’ll be ok, but salt water corrodes instantly.

I quickly turned it off, pulled out the battery and watched the salt water come out from inside the camera. Pulling out the memory card it was wet as well. It was a good thing we had just downloaded all the pictures. Quickly I went up to the room and put it in the sun to dry out as best as I could, but the damage was clearly done. A day later I tried to turn it on but it was done, our awesome Canon G10 camera was toast.

I’m not sure why the dicapac failed, when I went out snorkelling earlier it was working fine and I captures some awesome pictures. The only thing that I can think happened is that when I took my break, the seal on the ziplock portion came apart a bit as it dried out. You roll it over and lock it down, but there’s no other reason I could see. There weren’t any holes in the plastic or anything. Overall I’m severely disappointed with the Dicapac. Before this I would’ve recommended the dicapac to anyone, but at this time I would never recommend it to anyone again, and if you own one, be bloody careful. That was $600 we literally poured down the drain, which is a big blow when your traveling around the world. And of course there wouldn’t be any warranty for this from Canon or Dicapac.

It’s too bad, because the Canon G10 was a great camera and took wicked photos. Cest le vie G10.

Hiding Beauty?

Living in Vancouver, B.C., a major port city in Canada, it’s common to see all walks of life walking the streets. I have seen practicing Muslim women before, covered head to toe no matter what the weather is. Long pants or skirts, long sleeve top, and a head scarf which is called a hijab. Sometimes they even wear a veiled hijab that only shows the eyes. I’ve never really thought about WHY the women choose to dress this way. I’ve always just made assumptions to myself, thinking it’s because the men in their culture don’t respect them and they are forced to hide themselves in public.

So, I entered Cairo with a very non-educated mind about the Muslim religion and soon found out my assumptions were half correct. Instead, the truth of the hijab is women choose to wear them, and dress they way they do to be treated with respect from men and not only thought as of sex objects. They believe that from the way they dress the men actually meet who they truly are and get to know the person inside first. Doesn’t sound so bad now does it ladies? Almost sounds similar to problems in our western society. How men react to you is, as much as we hate to admit it, a direct result as to how our men treat us. Dress like trash and guess who is treated like trash? Dress sexy and guess what thoughts are going through their minds? Etc, etc.

Muslim girls showing a sense of style paired with their hijabs

All of a sudden, how Muslim women choose to dress makes much more sense and many of them still have their own sense of style by pairing their hijabs with their outfits and wearing unique fashion tops or printed tees over their long sleeve clothing. However I have no idea how they can survive wearing that much clothing! It’s bloody hot in Cairo! Do they ever have some sort of internal stamina! Myself, to respect their culture made sure to get myself a pair of pants and a loose long sleeve top to wear while walking around the streets of Cairo. I had to do this shopping in October in Germany, which resulted in not many options to choose from since all the clothes for sale were made out of thick wools! I ended up with a pair of black yoga pants, and a semi see-through long sleeve top with a black tank top underneath, paired with a scarf to cover my chest. This outfit was still almost unbearable at the most of times and I often found myself rolling my sleeves up and loosening the scarf while sweating buckets.

My daily outfit in Cairo, as you can see amongst a heavy tourist site filled with westerners I have resorted to taking off my scarf and rolling up my sleeves the best I can

However, even with this respectful outfit I still felt a huge disrespect from most men in Cairo. They would never talk to me, only Scott, and if I said something it fell on deaf ears. It was always up to Scott to get the touts to go away as my comments like “We need to get back to our hotel to catch our plane” never worked in Cairo. Also, the further from the main core we went, especially while walking through the back lanes of the bazaar, I felt very perverted stares in my direction to the point that Scott could feel them as-well and told me to wrap my head up in my scarf. The moment I did that I instantly felt less stares. I only felt respect from men that worked in the tourist industry; the guides, hotel staff, personal drivers, and security. They would talk to me, make sure I was comfortable, ask my opinions, and I never caught them looking at my chest.

After my experience in Cairo, I feel I have more in common with Muslim women. Men across the world are the same and thus women have to dress in result of that. If you want to be respected you need to dress respectfully, and even though they cover themselves head to toe they are still very conscious about their beauty and style.

We had heard from friends that Utrecht was a cool place to check out. Lesser known than Amsterdam, Utrecht still has the same liberal attitudes but a less crazy vibe. And being home to a major university was a plus, as they should have some neat shops and some sort of scene. Plus I needed a new day bag, the small attach-on bags that we have for our backpacks have been considered useless. You can fit 1 thing in them, and then it’s full. It makes me look like I stole a kindergarten kids schoolbag when I wear it.

Looking online at hostels, I couldn’t really find anything in a hostel. Either poorly rated or super expensive, there were only 6 available on the hostel websites. Luckily we pulled up HRS.com and searched for any cheap hotels available. We had heard about HRS from Dee’s cousins Andy and Judith, and used it a couple times. It’s like expedia or hotels.com, but the local cheaper version.

Look how fluffy this bed is!!

We managed to find a special rate at a Carleton Hotel, and decided it was time to splurge a bit. We’ve been spending some time in a lot of mediocre beds, some crap beds and a very few good beds and pillows over the last couple months. Checking in I was sure we looked pretty travel weary and out of place as we made our way down the plush carpets and gold trim décor to our room. The sheets were soft, comforter and pillows extremely fluffy and instantly lured us in to flump down onto the bed for a quick nap.

We had to get up again later that night, and it took a while to get out of that bed. But we had a great reason to. Dee had found out about a monthly club night that DJ/Producers Black Sun Empire throw, and to our luck it was happening just as we were in town! It also had Goldie and Noisia on the bill, which helped with making it worth it to get out of bed. The night was great, though we only saw Nosia and Goldie play. Goldie was not playing anything that made our feet groove and then Noisia came on and played same set we heard a couple weeks ago, and a couple weeks before that! We were really only there to see Black Sun Empire who were on last but there was no where to sit and chill to let some time pass. Tired legs and boring music made us feel the need to leave back to our comfy bed. And once we felt the softness of our bed enveloped us again we knew that was the right decision. Guess we will have to see Black Sun Empire again some other day….

Looking like a princess

We knew that a day of travel and a night of partying would make it hard for us to get up on Sunday, and we may have missed the entire day sleeping in. So it was an easy decision to order room service and have it delivered at 10:00am the next morning. This would wake us up, put food in our stomach and caffeine into our system. And the Carleton didn’t disappoint with their spread! They even delivered the second pot of coffee we asked for! This picture may be the happiest I have seen Dee in a while, with her extra pillows and breakfast in bed!
Taking our time eating and waking up, we finally had to go into town on our mission. Being in a University town in Holland I felt we had a pretty good chance of finding myself a cool replacement day bag, especially since we had already seen a bunch of closed shops with bags in the window the night before.

Time for some shopping!

There was a ton of selection, and anyone looking for a bag should go to Utrecht. I finally found the perfect bag by Crumpler. It’s a messenger style bag, waterproof fabric with a lifetime warranty on it. It has great loud Velcro straps so anyone trying to get into my bag would get noticed, and buckles for extra security. I’m pretty happy finding it, as Dee’s Mangler (her small green purse made of hemp) has done too much damage to my precious personal items… I can’t even talk about it…. *hangs head in somberness*

Now that I had a victory bag, we needed to get some dinner and drinks in celebration. We walked around until finding an awesome Rock’n’Roll restaurant. Like a Planet Hollywood except not part of a big chain, cheaper, better value and better artwork on the walls with a good Dutch flair.

Bit blurry but you can see it’s a typical religious heaven scene with all the dead rock stars consider to be going straight to hell because of their life styles

It was a great but way too short couple of days in Utrecht, and a perfect way to start winding down our European vacation. We have some serious planning to do ahead of us on our way to Asia for the next half of a year.

I’ve been using computers since the early 90’s, and other than learning to type on a Mac II with B&W screen, I was always a Windows man. When my wife bought her first Apple computer while in school for Graphic Design 5 years ago, the seed was planted in our household. Upgrading from a desktop to a MacBook, she slowly started to convert me with the ease of use. After her second MacBook and showing family how easy it was to make photo albums, more of my family converted. And when I bought a MacBook Aluminum in January of 2009, I went all in. This MacBook is the single best computing machine I have ever used, and I am happy to be part of the Apple family. It’s so well designed, easy to use and just simply always works, much like all Apple products these days.

We love your Apple Store downtown Vancouver, and have been to the stylish store in New York. Conveniently located with the newest products, it’s such a great experience going into the stores to see what’s new. So when I lost my power adapter while traveling and found myself in Rome wanting to write on my blog, I didn’t hesitate to lookup the official Apple Store in the city.

Quickly going to Apple.com and doing a quick search, I was happy to see that there was an official store located in Rome. Called RomaEst, I didn’t recognize the address but luckily there was a Google map. Not knowing the location I plugged the information into Google and saw that I had to take a train and walk a short distance to the mall that it was at. I was so glad that you provided great directions that my wife Deidra and I went out right away to get the missing charger with our train stop in mind.

Taking the subway and then having to transfer to a train, we thought it was a bit odd but hopped on. As the train drove along through many stops, we anticipated the location shortly coming up and a little under an hour our location was called. Stepping off the train onto a platform, it almost felt like we were getting off a train in the old Wild West, with a road leading from the train station and a small store/bar at the station but nothing else around. I walked up to this store and asked them if they knew where the Apple Store was, sure that it must be close and conveniently located.

When the nice lady pointed at Apple Juice, I knew my little grasp of the Italian language wasn’t going to cut it. We’d have to figure it out ourselves, with nothing more than the memory of what the map looked like from your website. It didn’t look too far from what I remember, and we grabbed a couple quick espressos and a bottle of water. Walking out of the store past the five old Italians gambling on a game of poker, I felt confident we’d find the plug and be back downtown Rome in no time. Out on the road we came to a junction with a choice to go either left or right. Left led us into an area with signs of civilization and right led us to the entrance of a busy highway with no sidewalk. So, using our common sense we headed towards civilization with a spring in our step.

Unfortunately the spring in our step only lasted for half an hour due to the extreme heat, and finally came onto some streets with older looking homes and barking dogs. As we continued to walk through this area I couldn’t image an ultra-modern Apple store being located here. But on we went walking until it was obvious the store wouldn’t be this way – we were bound by the far curve of the highway and hills with forest and agriculture on them. We now had no other decision but to turn around and walk back the hour to the train station.

Oh Glorious Commercialized Civilization!

On our way back I decided to climb a hill that was adjacent to the road to get a better idea of where in Rome we even were. From the top of the hill I could see a giant glowing sign in the distance – down the hill I was on, across a farmers field, across what looked like a dirt-bike track, then the highway and finally, the largest building in the entire area, a supersized mall. With doubt in Deidra’s eyes I made the executive decision to cross this expanse so we could savor the sweet juicy power of Apple.

As we made our way across the fields, I wondered how much like the Wild West this area really was. We obviously weren’t anywhere near anything, and would a farmer shoot us out here for trespassing? Our questions were answered as we walked by a shantytown on the edge of the dirt-bike field, complete with burning garbage, stolen shopping carts and some scrap metal makeshift homes. Deciding to avoid this area we quickly made our way across the barbed wire covered ditch after being charged by a Ram protecting 8 other sheep. Never being so happy to set foot on the pavement of a highway before, we used our childhood Froger skills to cross the eight lanes to the urban miracle of a shopping mall. Looking back at our feat of an adventure through the Wild West we noticed the hill we climbed down was now filled with a giant herd of sheep. Wondering to ourselves while we entered the mall doors what would have happen if we were still on that hill as all those sheep arrived with the farmer and his dogs…

Getting our power adapter at your store was uneventful, and with our purchase we then ran into our next problem of this adventure. It seemed that this mall was so far out of town that to get a cab to the train station ended up costing us as much as the power adapter. Not that we were that far away from the train station – probably only 5km’s down the major highway with no sidewalk – but that they had to call the cab in from downtown Rome which took just under an hour. There were no other cabs around, and by this time we were just happy to be done with it all as it was now getting late. As the cab dropped us off at the train station, we were up for our next surprise.

Walking to the entrance there was a Police officer and four armed military personnel with him. It was around 9:00pm and there was a train going to Roma in half an hour. With an odd look and quick nod to the contingent of military at the entrance we sat down to wait for our train. Around us we were gated in with 10-foot high metal bars and the only entrance was where they stood. Looking over at the military and police sizing us up, we started to wonder what was going on. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long as the policeman walked over to us and struck up a conversation. We chatted about where we were from in Canada and he mentioned while he was in the army, positioned in the U.N., he had a commander from Ottawa and liked Canadians. A little bit more small talk and then the question came out;

“Just out of curiosity, what are you two doing here? You don’t look like you belong…”

I’m glad he asked because I was wondering why a platoon of soldiers was guarding a tiny train station, so telling him our story of the afternoons adventures gave me a perfect setting. While he was laughing at what happened, I asked him,

“Why are you and the army here?”

His face got serious and said, “For your protection. This is a very dangerous area.”

Just then a military van drove up and he excused himself, saying he’d be back in a few minutes and that he had to check in. Unfortunately a moment later our train came and I wasn’t able to continue the conversation and find out more about what was going on. Taking his words to heart we hopped on the train and were off back to Rome, feeling lucky and wondering to ourselves the many different ways our day could of ended up.

Steve, as I mentioned earlier, there are a of couple things that I’ve come to expect with Apple products and stores. These things are: Easy to use products, modern stylish stores and safety knowing that things just work. I don’t expect to need to pack for a field expedition to purchase a simple power adapter, or need an army platoon for personal security. To say that your Apple Store is in Rome is akin to saying Cupertino is in San Francisco. It may be in the bay area, but hardly in San Francisco city.

May I suggest you update your website with better directions and a warning of distance and danger? Or better yet use one of the thousands of buildings in the City of Rome and design something that better upholds the Apple style. I’m sure you can do a hell of a lot better than this.

Thank you for your time,

Scott

Shared accommodation in the mountains of BC

We have shared many vacations with our friends Steve and Karen. From enjoying all inclusive treatments in the Dominican, multi-day stag parties away from home, (Scott went to Las Vegas, USA, I went house-boating in Sicamous, B.C.), renting winter cabins, and even camping together in the same tent trailer or even smaller then that, the same tent!

So you could say we are pretty adapt to each other’s ways and handle small areas for multi days without a breeze! Well, we thought so too until we had to share hostel dorm rooms for 4 in Europe.

Scott has a super power, he can fall asleep like he has narcolepsy but actually doesn’t. Which is fantastic for him, but the rest of us are insanely jealous of it. The other problem is Scott has the capability to snore like a lumberjack and this snoring commences within minutes of him falling asleep. This basically leaves the small dorm room for 4 about 5 minutes to fall asleep otherwise you will be bothered by Scott’s snoring. Best part of this all… he snores louder when he is tired and has been drinking/partying lots. Well Europe has been quite the party and Scott has been snoring the loudest I’ve ever heard him.

For some strange reason Karen and Steve never learned this from sleeping in tents together. But they learned it enough in our Europe travels that we have started to book 2 double private rooms rather then a room for 4. Scott feels bad for keeping everyone awake all night, and Karen and Steve want to get more sleep, so we are all okay with paying a bit extra to have our own spaces. Only problem is what about me?? I still have to sleep with the snoring beast, and earplugs don’t drown it out!

Not our photo, but this our small room at the Generator Hostel in London

One of the smallest spaces we have shared with Karen and Steve was a private dorm for 4 with shared bathroom at the Generator hostel in London. It even seemed smaller then a tent trailer! Our small room in the generator had 2 bunk beds and a sink with about 2 meters wide x 1.5 meters long floor space. Needless to say we all took turns getting ready, one person gets ready and grabs their stuff while the rest sit on their bed and wait their turn.

We are thankful we never encountered a room this small: (however I can’t help but laugh at this random youtube video!)

Anyways, I thank the powers that be for melatonin! It’s my saving grace to get a good night’s sleep. Helps me fall asleep faster and helps me stay asleep until rested, with no groggy side effect the next day. I highly suggest all backpackers to travel with melatonin.  It doesn’t knock you out like a regular sleeping pill does. Makes the next day easier or if you take it on a train or something like that you will wake up quite easily if you need to and/or fall back asleep again if you get disturbed.

What do you do when you travel? What happens if you end up in a dorm with a snorer?

Why is there no Skype application for iPhone in Canada?

Staying in touch while we’re on the road is something that we’ve been putting a lot of thought into. Obviously we have our blog here, email and facebook, but sometimes we’re going to want to hear peoples voices and see their faces. We’re going to be traveling with our MacBook and have iChat, but we don’t want to be carrying it with us everywhere we go.

I have an iPhone that I’m in the process of getting unlocked, but paying international rates on the cellular network will get real expensive very fast. Great if we need to make a call, but there had to be something better. Last month Skype announced that they were bringing out an iPhone application, this was exciting news! The ability to use Skye on the iPhone would give us $0.02 per minute international phone rates anywhere we could get WiFi.

It was released everywhere, except Canada. That’s right – the iPhone SKYPE application was cancelled in Canada, for rather questionable reasons that they refused to elaborate. You can’t download the application with a Canadian iTunes account, which is B.S. I had written it off but I just read about Skype again over at Eurocheapo, where Matt from Nomadic Matt was doing a guest post.

Inspired I started to search for iPhone hacks that would let me install it, and there were a ton of complicated workarounds including random credit card numbers. But what if you just created a new account and said your in the United States? What would stop you from doing this and downloading the app? Surely Apple in it’s hipster genius wouldn’t make it that easy, would they?

Apparently Apple hipsters are easy. In iTunes simply log out of your iTunes account, select create new account. There’s a box that says “click here if you are not in Canada”, select US and create an account. Put a US address and postal code found on google… and voila. When the credit card information comes up, simply put “none”, and your good to go.

No third party software, hacking or anything like that. Once you’ve downloaded the app, sync your iPhone and logout. Works with an iPod Touch version 2 if you have a microphone attachment.

Are you currently using Skype? I’d like to hear about your experiences using Skype while traveling and the voice call quality from overseas.

Sometimes in Vancouver it’s better to buy your event tickets from an individual who is actually throwing the party or has some part in it rather then the stores. Cheaper, avoid extra fees, meet a new face. Thus why Scott was meeting a girl in an alley. Although he still thought it was an odd choice of a meet up location.

Wednesday on facebook this same girl put up a message about a friends and family sale for Icebreaker and to message her for details. Curious, I looked up what Icebreaker was and low and behold it’s a great line of merino wool products! PERFECT! Exactly what we were hoping to get for the trip. Get the details and find out the sale is located right by said alley. “Oh! She must work there!”

The sale was awesome. One of the best sales I have ever attended. We got free beer at the door, our ticket provider friend was spinning some wicked tunes, people on the sales floor were friendly and full of information, and the prices were amazing. Scott and I got 2 long sleeve shirts (his with zip neck, mine is just a base layer) and 2 pairs of awesome socks all for under $100!! Which is amazing considering it’s high grade merino wool.

Thank you Marie-Paule for the information about this sale! 

If you don’t have or know what merino wool is I suggest you check it out for your own travels.  Natural fibre, Super breathable (good for hot and cold climates), anti-bacterial, odor resistant, doesn’t wrinkle, folds up small, the list goes on! 

what form of matter is in the darkness?

I used to drink out of a semi clear Blue BPA bottle that had an excellent lid, stopping me from spilling my water on things such as laptops, contracts and cellphones. But when I heard that #7 plastic was out to kill me, I tossed ‘ol Blue like a molotov cocktail.

I must have pissed off a cosmic being, because my next bottle was out to get me!

My next instrument of life was a bottle sent to me by Rogers in a marketing package. The package contained chap stick, pens and an aluminum water bottle. Red Gold I thought!  I tossed everything else and started using the Red bottle, but there was always something wrong… the lid was a pain to screw on, it always got lost.. when I was skiing New Years in Windermere I dented it and my hip bone… water spilt on my laptop (twice) .. I was cursed by this Red Devil!

One day curiosity got a hold of me and I decided to look inside my water bottle.  I usually rinse my bottle out and throw it in the dish washer every now and again, but it’s only water going into it so how dirty can it get?

When I looked inside it was like looking into the mouth of madness. An unknown universe of bumps, growths and things that probably only grow in the deepest part of the oceans where no sunlight hits.

The picture above is after washing it twice in the dishwasher, trying to clean out with salt and shaking water in it.  And it still has shit growing!

So this little Red Devil is getting recycled as nicely as possible, and hopefully the next reincarnation will be a happy one!

I suggest everyone go grab a flashlight and look inside their water bottle…. but be prepared for what you find!

• CONTINUE TO SAVE MONEY! -
• Write out our “The Trip” page
• Sell stuff on ebay & craigslist:
  -Go through storage locker and bring up everything to sell
  -Clean, take photo, and organize all items
  -Post items up on ebay and craigslist
• Do our taxes
• Call Visa about balance transfer
• Contact condo board about turning our place into a rental unit
  -write hardship clause to submit to condo board
• Figure out the mortgage thing
• Do some last tweaks to the website -always working on and adding new things
  -Create pages for “Terms / Conditions”, “Stuff”, “Sponsor Info” and “Media”
  – Create address bar icon
  -Fix any other broken links
  -Figure the Post Author Problem -support email sent
  -Pages comments are not working correctly
  -Start country details
  -Create a Tag Cloud Page
• Create email signatures
• Do renovations to condo
  -Touch up all white trim, doors and ceilings
  -Touch up walls where needed once everything is moved out
  -Fix baseboards in closet
  -Get a new dishwasher
  -install new dishwasher
  -Fix tile in front of closet and dishwasher
• Detail Scott’s car
• Sell Scott’s car
• Prepare Dee’s car for storage
  -research best methods
  -get oil change
  -clean car
• -Buy car cover
• Print extra passport photos
• Obtain international drivers licenses
• Figure out international banking
• Rent out Condo.
• Photocopy all required ID
• Talk to Chad about our Calgary loft and if he plans to still rent it for the next year
• Post ads and rent out Calgary loft.
• Create packing list
• Buy any needed travel gear & clothes
• Get Travel Insurance
• Make appointments for: Travel Doctor, Dentist, Regular Doctor
• Start taking any shots/medication
• Book plane tickets
• Go get some hair cuts
• Research destinations more - always working on
• Get any Visa’s we need in advance
• Unlock iphone (ordered a rebel sim card and it didn’t work… bah!)
• Exchange Scott’s ipod
• Design and Print business cards
• Contact companies about advertising
• Download new music, movies, and TV shows to store on laptop
• Transfer any required files from Dee’s laptop to Scott’s (currently using our mimobots to do this)
• Pack up our place
• Move our stuff to Dee’s parents place
• Find temporary home for cats
• Take the cats to the vet for annual check up
• Buy a huge stock of cat food and litter to give to whoever ends up watching our cats
• Take cats to their new temporary home
• Figure out what kind of insurance we need to just park K-Rad for a year
• Cancel anything that needs to be canceled
  -Canflix
  -Newspaper
  -Cellphone
  -Internet
  -BC Hydro
  -Bank Accounts
• Re-direct mail
• Advise our jobs of departure
• Contact family/friends we will be visiting on the road with final arrival dates
• Buy advance tickets for any festivals and events in Europe we want to attend
• Book advance accommodations for certain things like Sun & Bass
• Eat up all the food in our fridge, freezer & cupboards
• Drink our liquor stock rather then buying new stuff. Gets rid of stuff and saves money!
• Get new glasses for Scott
• Give items we can’t sell to Scott’s mom
• PACK OUR BAGS AND GET ON A PLANE!

This post will be continued to be updated and modified almost daily. Check back to it to see our progress. You can find a quick link to it in our STUFF section.