Update 25:

More fun at Junior High! I have absolutely no idea where that expression comes from, or why I use it but I do anyway without the foggiest as to it’s meaning.

I’m not a big fan of arguing or having any form of disagreement over a two-way radio. It’s not cool to get berated or berate when the rest of the crew can hear you. I didn’t want to argue with the guy that I got along with the best with everyone else listening in. So when I went to talk to the guy, three seconds in to me opening my mouth, I received the first sucker punch I’ve taken since grade 8. Anthony, buddy thanks for taking that one for me in Gastown a few years back.

It wasn’t a hit worth talking about, no cool scars or broken anythings. Just the actuality of the event is the coolest thing. The last paragraph I mentioned an incident in Gastown, downtown Vancouver. It was my birthday, a bunch of my friends and I were ripping pretty hard all night long at an Irish pub. It was a fun night really, until walking home. An awesome buddy of mine and I (and another guy, won’t mention names here…) were jumped by a bunch of guys. None of us can remember the details. We all remember the after effects. I’ll tell you the full story maybe, later.

Anyway, it was my first fight in which I didn’t even try to fight back. There wasn’t any point, there were probably 6 or so of them, and my buddy was already unconscious in a pool of blood, I was having a hard enough time taking the hits and stay standing (mostly due to it being my birthday). But still I didn’t fight back. The first time in my life! I was pretty proud of myself that night. Well at least until the next morning when I caught heaps of trouble for not taking my concussed friend to the hospital post beatings. Hey, sorry man, I wasn’t in any shape myself.

Well I haven’t been hit since then; I haven’t been in a fight since then. So when I took this last whack to the face I surprised myself by walking away. It made me wonder though. Am I getting too old to brawl? I never even saw it coming, so the answer must be that I just can’t react the way I used to. The Toby Keith country song “Not as good as I once was” seems to relate well to me now. Dammit!

Next item: Friday night roles into town with Saturday bringing nothing but a day off. When I start walking to the bar, I wonder what I would have done if I had known it would end up after hours in a bartenders backyard (that sounds wrong), drinking and smoking with a convicted sexual offender, South Africans and three random girls (wow, reading that again, that sounds terrible). I most probably would still have gone since the night rocked, in between the walk and the after hours party.

It was the second night this summer that I really enjoyed myself. It was awesome. A small town USA bar complete with football paraphernalia, beer girl posters, shuffle board and pool tables. Smoking is still allowed down here, so the bar reeks of beer and stale smoke. There is the typical old guy trying to drown his sorrows at the corner of the bar, uttering profanities indiscriminately. Just as typically, a few larger than life girls are hoping to snare something tonight, and we can’t forget the iconic coolest guy in high school that didn’t go anywhere but this bar on Friday and Saturday nights for the last decade.

And then there was the bartender. Rosanna. From the moment that she served me my first drink I knew that the night was going to be a memory. Rosanna had a Macbook just like mine, she played music from it that definitely was small town USA, hip-hop interspersed with folk and country, almost as eclectic as the mixes you’ll here coming out of my iPod. You know what the best part of being a crush of a cute bartender is? (aside from the obvious being the crush of a cute bartender) Lots and lots of free alcohol and a drinking partner that can keep up like a champion.

Update 24:

I wish that I had my camera with me a couple times in the last few weeks. Put five relatively big guys (for perspective only one other guy weighs less than my 215lbs) in the cab of a pickup. Make sure that these guys have been out in the field all day with no one to talk to, that they have been subject to a deficiency of females for months on end. I know this already sounds like a great combination. But let’s back up a bit.

It would not be a stretch to easily classify theses fellas in the conservative, country lifestyle loving variety who actually on a daily basis check John Deere’s website for the possible unveiling of a new product. So just in case you haven’t yet formed a good picture of these “dudes.” Think 280, 260 and 230 lbs of unharnessed and unrestrained umm… excess.

Think old man worn out cowboy boots with the jeans not tucked in, but not outside the boot either, of wife beaters (by wife beater I mean the type of shirt, since only one guy actually has a wife, let alone a significant other) that haven’t been washed in weeks, shoes that have actually been worn through not only the sides and laces but the soles as well. Add this to a day spent in the fields of dust and dirt and their maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, put deodorant on this morning. Well, hopefully this is enough illumination.

Lets get back to the pickup; it’s midnight or close to it. We’re in a 2009 Dodge ¾ ton crew cab (the smallest cab of the big 3). The guy up front changes the satellite radio to one of the retro stations. To the extreme I rock a mike like a vandal, light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle… Yes. That is correct; Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby is pumping through the speakers. Now back to the “dudes”, these four guys with ages of 54, 36, 29, 28 & 22 all start immaculately rapping the verses. You just can’t paint a picture with this much contrast.

Two days later, today, driving back home early, same guys but in a much more sombre mood, maybe the same radio station but that’s not relevant; 1st batter up: Billy Joel’s Piano Man. Two of the guys start singing, hounding the rest of us to get our “A” game on. Three of us are not “feeling it”; 2nd batter up: Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis, 4 out of 5 are bringing our “A” game. I’m not feeling the vibe. The radio station is feeling that I’m not feeling and pulls out I’m as serious as cancer when I say that Rhythm is a Dancer. Snap is the deal closer. Once again all 5 overweight, partial (if not full) rednecks are pretending not to be as white as we are in the safety of full privacy tinted windows. Yeah, my future is so bright I HAVE to wear shades.

Update 23:

America. The United States. What a juxtaposition of people, of attitudes, of beliefs, of scenery and of food.

I have by now probably been in more than 40 of these states, most likely about 39 more than most Americans. It must be interesting to be less than 100kms from the nearby state and never have been there.

It reminds me of growing up in New Brunswick and having neighbours that had never seen a traffic light. Or when in Saint John the mall got the escalator and people actually drove hours to ride on it. Is that normal?

I have to say that I am in the mid-west, an area of the US of A that is well known as having somewhat of a more conservative belief system. It is a far cry from the hippies in North Cali and Oregon, or from the yuppies in the affluent northeast, or from the local yokel rednecks of the deep south.

America cannot, similarly to Canada, be summarized as one unified or united group, people so different from each other yet only miles apart. It’s a beautiful country, full of regular people, great people, not so great people, a country of diversity, and what I have learnt after living here for only two months, a very unhealthy country.

I was at my heaviest weight when I left Vancouver, bound for the prairies. Two months of eating in diners, in all-you-can eat restaurants, eating the only “food” that can be found in a truck stop in Nebraska, or Kansas, or Oklahoma, yields high cholesterol, high fat content, low nutrition value food. Almost every restaurant in Oklahoma and Kansas was an all-you-can eat, something I (and the majority I have seen down here) mistakenly took as a personal challenge. Needless to say, I haven’t weighed myself since Van and am pretty sure I have another 10-15lbs on my dept. weight.

It’s also rather bizarre how financially strapped the population is here. I remember first noticing this on last years motorbike trip, but it’s really hitting home here. I’ve driven through neighbourhoods that would be envious of some developing countries (I’ve also driven through hoods that give West Van a run for her money). The majority though are surprisingly destitute.

Workwise, I’m coming to the end here. Our manager has some issues that he takes out on us, in a lot of ways my conflict with him stems from certain similarities to me, to the way I used to be, from the way I am today. It’s a huge lesson to be learnt, to see how I have managed in the past, how I have grown since then, how much I still have to grow.

Update 22:

I’m not too sure where to start here. There have been a number of reasons why I have chosen not to be writing that much anymore. I won’t discredit being lazy as one of them. Today I’ll talk about one of them that is actually self-imposed.

I put pressure on myself to write these. I don’t want to write about some of the more negative experiences, mostly because I can’t really imagine anyone being interested in coming back to read more posts. Perhaps more importantly I don’t want to write about anything boring. I value my readers; I appreciate the comments, the feedback, and like the thought that you like to read about me since I’m not currently in your neighbourhood.

If I started writing about the less pleasant times, the troublesome times, or the downright boring times, I could easily see my “readership” decreasing. Not that this is about numbers or trying to get the biggest audience. Rather I have over the past 21 posts, received some tremendously humbling comments and emails, and in a way don’t want to disappoint.

Self-pressure comes in when I want to start writing but don’t really believe that what I can write today will be up to the standards that I have put on myself. Yeah, I know, it’s another hang-up and I have to get over. I just wanted to give you a bit of explanation for one of the reasons I haven’t written much.

On to other matters:

Some interesting facts that I forgot to mention about Tisdale, Saskatchewan, not only is it the home of rape and honey. It is the town that Corner Gas is based on. The dude (Brent Butt I think his name is, Buttsy as known locally) is from there. Most of the characters are also based on people that were in the town when Buttsy was growing up. Best portrayal is the lady cop that was based loosely on the actual cop that would, when pulling over young men, would either give them a ticket or force intimate relations. I never speed in Tisdale, just in case.

The other interesting titbit on Tisdale, there was a German reality TV show that was about living in Tisdale (since is it so far from anything Germans can relate to). The show was such a hit, and out of this world (and probably only to a select audience), that there was at least one German family that just had to move there. The guy works on the farm that I work for. All of this information comes from Tisdale natives, and well, could be subject to embellishment, but I like to think not.

I’m in Flagler, Colorado at the moment. We are waiting for the wheat to ripen. We finished the harvests in Oklahoma and Kansas, despite all of the problems we had with our completely brand new equipment. Anyway, some numbers, my combine has harvested about 2500 acres and almost 3 million pounds of wheat in about a month. Cumulatively, between the 4 combines we’ve hacked off about 10,000 acres or 12 million pounds.

Harvesting is pretty fun, I get to listen to audio books, do my Spanish lessons (although driving and reading is pretty hard), and think about my next plans. I never had any idea how big the custom-harvesting scene is. Not many farmers actually own their own combines down here. So when we rolled into Oklahoma a couple days before most of the other harvesters we were greeted by parking lots jammed pack of semi-s, trailers, combines and grain carts. I was quite surprised by how many harvesting companies there were.

Then when the harvests started and the rest of the show came to town I was blown away. Companies with 6o plus combines, 60 plus truck and trailer units, and 20 or so tractor and grain carts, not to mention the trailer parks jammed pack with RV trailers, probably all tallied up the equipment assets alone would be up in the 50 million dollar mark for that one crew. So being on a 4 combine, 4 truck, 1 tractor & grain cart crew that I had thought was a decent size when I started, I realized that in the grand scheme our crew is not so big.

So far no tornado’s despite the broadcasted warnings. When it rains or when we are waiting for the wheat to turn, the crew spends it’s time watching movies, playing video games, playing on the internet looking at the grossest stuff ever. Ahhh, after the all female expat staff in Juba, Sudan, living with 9 other guys is surprisingly very refreshing. Perhaps a bit crude at times, thank God for the tinted windows in the pick-ups, nothing better than 4 or 5 guys rubbernecking for the one girl that was foolish enough to walk downtown while the harvesters are in town.

As I mentioned before I have been thinking about my next steps. So far I have a bunch pretty ok options if I can’t find work. In no particular order;

1. Finish the harvest in November, go do a Masters in Engineering.
2. Find work before the harvest is over and get my P.Eng.
3. Finish the harvest in November, get on a motorbike and head down to Panama and back up in time for the Olympics.
4. Finish the harvest in November, go do another short mission with MSF and be back in time for the Olympics.

Unfortunately internet comes only at hotspots, ie some poor neighbour or house that has unsecured wireless, so looking for work, or at schools for Masters is a bit tricky. Hopefully we’ll find some at our next stop in Montana towards the end of July. That’s all for now folks. I think I should start writing smaller and more frequent posts, judging by the size of this one in particular.

Update 21:

Ever heard of writers block? Well, without trying to claim that I am any kind of writer, I have to admit I have been suffering from either it or lazyness, or perhaps something else. I haven’t wanted to post in a while for a bunch of reasons that I don’t want to get into right now.

Mostly I just want to put up a post saying that I had a great time on a big boat. A cruise actually, that toured the Aegean Sea in somewhat Eastern Europe. It was a cruise masterminded by my Uncle Malcolm who partly wanted to have a family reunion and partly wanted to have a bunch of rowdies help him celebrate his 60th milestone.

So 18 of us, Aunts, Uncles, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, Ma’s & Pa’s ripped up Costa Serena, complete with the younger generation decked out in black tuxedo t-shirts in the tune of neon green faux shirt and neon pink faux bow tie for the gents, reversed colours for the ladies. I’ll post pic’s & relay some stories later hopefully, but haven’t yet gone thru the 1000’s of photo’s. But don’t worry when we weren’t wandering around lost in Italy, Greece, Turkey or Croatia we were well hydrated.

I am currently in Tisdale, northern Saskatchewan. I drove out here a few days after returning back from the boat & the UK. What can I tell you about it so far? The equipment is gynormous, and more or less newish. We start driving to Oklahoma on Tuesday, something like a 2-3 day drive.

Remember the re-rednecktification that I talked about last time. Well, I can’t imagine a better spot (check out the picture of the sign on the photosite). I am in the heart of Canadian redneckdome. It’s not so bad. I also realized how much I have changed since last time I was on a farm.

I got very upset (internally, not vocally) one night when one of the guys went off on homosexual dudes. I guess I’ve become pretty accepting of just about everything in the past few years. I once probably would have joked along with him, times change. Most of you know that I am not the most kosher, or PC guy out there. Well, I don’t hold a candle in the wind out here.

That’s it for now, I hope you enjoy the photo’s, none of me, sorry or you’re welcome depending on what suits yer fancy. I’ll put a real post out once I have a few things all settled.

Oh Yeah, rape seed is another word for Canola. Just thought it would be an interesting photo. ☺

Update 20:

I woke up thinking about the Tragically Hip song, 38 Years Old. Until a few seconds ago when I turned on my computer I thought that it was 28 Years Old. 28 years old, never kissed a girl. For those of you that read this and aren’t familiar with one of the most popular (within Canada) Canadian bands this reference is lost on you. I apologize for that.

Regardless, I turned 28 years old today; I can’t say that I haven’t kissed a girl. In fact as far as that song goes I have nothing in common with it. My 28th year was a stark opposite, being a whirlwind tour of 3 continents, a pile of countries, close to half a million km’s travelled, friends made, unfriendly’s left behind….

From the way things are looking at this point in time, my life, as a transient will continue. The first month of my 29th year takes me back to Vancouver after being in New Brunswick with family, off to Europe (UK, Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey) to help celebrate one of my uncle’s milestone birthdays. Then back to North America for a little while.

I had a completely different idea of how my return to Vancouver would be. I had assumed that I had more than enough skills that would help me find employment even if I couldn’t find something in the engineering domain. I hadn’t counted on this little thing called a recession, hopefully not to become a depression.

After sending out about 40 or 50 job applications to everything from engineering, to driving truck, to operating equipment, to carpentry I had to give up on Vancouver and look for work in another domain, another local. That’s when I decided to go back to “farming,” and back to the prairies.

70-80 years ago Eastern Canadians, many from my community and surrounding areas had to leave home to earn a living to support their families, they headed west to Motown, Detroit City to work in the American motor plants. They headed further west to the prairies to find temp work on the wheat and barley grain threshers. 70-80 years ago.
I don’t think that it is accurate to say that today is anywhere even close to the dirty thirties. I think it is accurate to say that it set off some alarm bells in my head when I couldn’t find work in a once booming economy such as Vancouver. But, I am sure that there could be some similarities made.

Granted I won’t be swinging a pitchfork of barley stems into a thresher, instead I will be sitting in the air conditioned and 6 speaker stereo comfort of one of the most technologically advanced combines yet produced, a 9770 STS John Deere. When I am not harvesting the grains I will be hauling them in an equally luxurious 379 or 378 Peterbuilt semi. No, a comparison between now and then is not accurate at all.

The job is essentially that. I drive to Northern Saskatchewan following my return from Europe. There I will help to finish the spring planting on the farmers 18,000 acre grain farm, then load up a two trailer semi with a combine on the first and a grain trailer behind along with 6 or so other truck-combine combos and head to Oklahoma or Texas.

Basically from June until September I will be combining my way through the Midwest, South to North. Post-Canadian harvest I will be heading back down to South Dakota and Kansas for the corn, with the season ending in November. I will be taking my computer to keep looking for work, with the hope that the recession will be over, with the hope that I can return to an engineering job.

I guess that after spending the last year working for a humanitarian organization I needed to get back some balance in my life, a process that I call re-rednecktifying. I was too hippie and not enough redneck, to still be a rippie. So I’ll redneck it up for a while to restore that fine balance...

I have to admit that I am a bit tired of the transient lifestyle. Meeting awesome people and knowing that we will be saying goodbye shortly is not something that I especially like. And although I have been super fortunate to have met some absolutely fantastic ladies and been able to spend some time getting to know them, the transiency has built a wall between us that I am not yet prepared to scale again.

On the other hand, like I mentioned earlier in this post, I turned 28 years old today. I don’t feel different than I did when I was 27. Other than I am not in the Congo and am with my family for the first time in many years. But I turned 28 years old. It’s not old, but it isn’t exactly too young to be thinking about thinking about settling down a bit, whatever that means...

Update 19:

I’ve been meaning to write this for a couple of weeks. So here goes…

If you can remember Update 11: you’ll know what I am talking about. If you don’t remember, the tabs on the left will help you do so; in short that update talks about the sadness that accompanies leaving a place. So this update is about as polar opposite as I can get.

Leaving Sudan was an interesting experience. Either my experience at leaving locations and people has built up to a point where sadness is no longer an emotion that I feel, or perhaps I have become so callous that my heart is immune to the toils that leaving takes on your soul, or something else.

The worst part of leaving Sudan was that on boarding the flight I felt nothing but elation, relief, pure happiness. I feel quite rotten about saying/thinking/feeling this. It is an absolutely crushing feeling to be so happy to be leaving that place behind.

It sounds appalling, I grant you that. But it pales in comparison to most of what I have written (but not posted) during my time there. I will start by saying that Sudan was a completely unforgettable and wholly worthwhile experience, one that will be cherished for the rest of my life. I want to end by saying that I will not willingly or without serious contemplation ever return.

I am not/do not feel free to explain all of the things that made it such a difficult challenge. I also have not yet decompressed, evaluated, analyzed, absorbed or fully appreciated this period, so to say more than what I have already said is a bit presumptuous. I’ll try and get back to you on this.

On the new notes: I am back in Vancouver. I spent a week in North Germany with a friend that used to work with me in North Van. It was great to hang out with him. To chill out, literally, it was a bit of a shock to the system going from 40 deg to -6 deg, but still lots of fun. I got to meet his family and friends, went to clubs and bars, ate well, saw the North Sea, landmarks and monuments, etc.

I bought a new car a few days ago, well not new, but a car, actually nice little BMW. Without the help of my Uncle Ron this really wouldn’t have been possible, it is absolutely wonderful to have family to spend time with and an added bonus that he’s a great mechanic and has his own shop where I/we can work on the car.

There is no snow, so I haven’t been skiing. I am hoping that will change in the next little bit. I have no real plans though. I don’t really want to be traveling or working abroad for a bit of time. I need to decompress, recuperate, recover and most of all rest.