yeah

February 27, 2008 kd 1 Comment

Sooooo yeah. Random things going on:

Canucks traded Matt Cooke to the Capitals for Matt Pettinger, someone I know very little about but hopefully he fits in with the team and can contribute right away. With Burrows playing so well and Cooke being a UFA after this season – was somewhat expected. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t make a bigger splash to be honest. So here is my honest opinion on things (no sports radio or articles influencing my opinion)..we all know a Canuck fan who can pinpoint a time in Canuck history where they lost some of their enthusiasm due to a certain game or play that ended the Canucks playoff run. For me it was game 4 of the Anaheim series last year, I believe they were either up 2-1 or 3-1 going into the 3rd, Anaheim leading the series 2-1 so it was a huge game for us, losing means basically losing the series being down 3-1 with no real chance of coming back from that deficit. We let Anaheim win the game and went on to lose the series. So I was hoping the Canucks would end up making a bigger splash then they did, I have no problem letting go Bourdon, Schneider and even Kesler. Edler was the one player I was hoping we wouldn’t trade. I understand our GM’s reasoning for not pulling the trigger, but you wonder how much longer we’ll truly have at a shot to make a serious run for the cup. I guess with Naslunds and Mo’s contracts being up at seasons end, we can sign some players that are actually worth paying as much as we do for those two.

What else…today I’ve been vibing to some Bebel Gilberto, a Brazilian singer with a great voice. Oh No (madlibs bro) from Stones Throw Records, his “Dr.No’s Oxperiment” instrumental album is excellent.

I’ve got a lot of projects at work going on right now, too many it seems. Off to Dallas next week for 2 days of vehicle installtions. I got a ticket for a Stars game, they’re playing the Coyotes so it should be a decent game.

I watched Taxi to the Darkside the other day, it won best documentary at the Oscars. Another great documentary regarding all the screwed up shit with the current U.S. administration, in particular the way they authorized torture techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’ve got my first Tai-Chi class on Saturday morning, looking forward to it.

Anyways, I’m writing this while eating my lunch and I’m done, later.

general

this week

February 18, 2008 kd Leave a comment

My cousin Amanda and I went out and visited my mom on the weekend, she lives out in Hope B.C., about 2hours from Vancouver. We took her two dogs for a walk along the bank of the Fraser river and went for dinner. It was a beautiful day for the drive and we didn’t have much traffic.Â Sumeet was at her cousins Robyns for her sweet 16th birthday party so she didn’t make it.Â They had a bunch of gourmet food at the party and Sumeet brought back a lot of butter chicken for me.Â She’s away in Ottawa this week for work so I’ll be eating it ALL!

I plan on posting a follow-up about our last trip to Cuba, the first post was just a brief description without any real feeling but I think I have a few more things to share.

politics

Afghanistan

February 18, 2008 kd Leave a comment

It’s something that has been on my mind quite a bit these days. I’ve been meaning to post something on it for a couple of weeks now and I just came across the news that 140 Afghans have been killed in 2 days of bombing by insurgents targeting the Canadian army.

I’ve heard a lot of people say we should extend the mission their so we can ‘finish the job’ etc and I’m not quite sure what this means. I thought the job was to help rid the country of the Al Qaeda and train the Afghans on how to do this themselves at some point, not to occupy their country for years and years and leave them with no sense of sovereignty. I know the taliban are bad people but they should not be the reason why Canadians want to extend the mission there. I believe we should be training & supplying the Afghans so they can empower themselves to fight the war on terror in their own home land.

I truly believe by occupying the country with military troops in these “holy lands” with the “infidel”, it will do more harm then good, more suicide bombings, more deaths and it will give the Afghans a false sense of hope all at the same time.

I came across Stephane Dion’s open letter to Stephen Harper on Afghanistan and I couldn’t agree more with the 3 main points:

â€¢ The mission must change â€“ NATO must ensure the rotation of new troops into Kandahar so that Canadian troops can shift in February 2009 to training of the Afghan National Army and police, and protection of reconstruction efforts;

â€¢ The mission must end â€“ we must have a clear end date of February 2011, not a further review date that will lead us down the path of a never-ending mission; and

â€¢ The mission must be about more than the military â€“ there is no exclusively military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan so our efforts must be balanced between defence, diplomacy and development.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

cuba, general

tanned

February 13, 2008 kd Leave a comment

Back from vacation, my batteries are re-charged ready for another year of the rat-race. Sumeet and I went back to Cuba again, this time Varadero all-inclusive style.

We spent a week at Brisas Del Caribe in Varadero, typical all-inclusive package including your flight, hotel, unlimited drinks and buffet/a la carte restaurants. The flight was decent, it was an economy flight run by SunWing, small and cramped 737 with crappy service, particularly hard ass seats. For whatever reason they would bring our food then leave us with it for about 1.5hrs after you were finished eating, so you’d have your tray down the whole time which was a joke.

Food was typical Cuban food – bland. Having been many times before (2nd resort style trip) I knew what to expect. Hotel was decent, we had ants in our room, we complained but was told the hotel was full and they would spray the room – yay. I knew if I complained harder they’d move us to another hotel but we couldn’t be bothered, just made sure we didn’t walk around on our bare feet. Staff were great for the most part, Julio, William, Juan were particularly nice. We’d typically wake up around 11am, get an espresso, hit the beach and the beach grill for a burger and drinks. Good times and we had great weather until our last day.

The highlight of our trip was seeing the Buena Vista Social Club LIVE!! YES!! We had no idea they were performing at the time and at 30$ for a 2hour show – it was a no brainer.

Manuel Galban performing “quizas,quizas,quizas”.

And a pic from the beach 😛