Game Day

Today's the gold medal game, and I'm sad that I can't be in Vancouver for it. I remember the last time we played for gold in 2002 and I was on the train from Montreal to Halifax, and I arrived back at King's just in time for the end of the game. Everyone on the train was so excited, and it seemed like one of the most Canadian moments of my life, driving through rural Nova Scotia with a load of uni students itching to watch the game, and following it on the radio.

I'm sure Vancouver (and all of Canada) will be crazy today, and it's something that probably won't come again, at least not until I'm an old man. But at least they're holding it at a reasonable time for Europeans for a change. We are heading out to a sports bar tonight, and hopefully there'll be a few Americans and Canadians there. It could be fun.

nasty brutish and short?

I'm a sucker for these articles, so here it goes. I think they appeal to my overdeveloped northern sense of rationality.

"Nobody was considered "old" at 30 in prehistory, just as 30 year-olds aren't considered "old" among modern day hunter-gatherers, or in the Old Testament, where humans were allotted 70 years (three score and ten). People who lived beyond childhood often–even typically–lived into their 60s and 70s in prehistory. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and well known to specialists in anthropology, primatology, and archaeology."

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

I think it's a bit more original than the average pic a day videos... plus it's pretty crazy that he walked that far in rural China. And in winter too...

The internet, writing, and the future of the world

Here's an interesting piece from Clive Thompson. It'll be interesting to see how this phenomenon plays itself out over time.

It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it's over something as quotidian as what movie to go see.

Ypres

In Flanders Fields routes




old scooter




Memorial gate




canada!



cemetary



essex regiment



museum




trenches




memorial



inside the trench



trenches



craters



left over shells



the view from Mont Noir



more signs



Mont Noir, but in dutch



belgian border



Sunday market



And crossing the border into France...



Two of the locations.


The most famous site in Ypres, the Cloth Hall, rebuilt after the war (finished in 1967!!)



Town square in Ypres.

Turen går til Danmark

J1 and J2 really pulled it out as models on this most recent trip... Here is a brief review of my trip to Easter Sjælland.

Denmark is the world's most orderly country. Hat tip, Julia.



We decided to enjoy the summer. J1 & J2 were super lazy and didn't go in the water.





Ma bringing the culture.

The young ones were super excited about their treat in Dragør.






The jaded and world weary, less so.





Inevitably the sugar overstimulated them and it ended in tears.





In the meantime the weather deteriorated.






Thor and Odin threatening us on the way through Køge boatworks.




J1 and J2 decided to supplicate the gods. I guess it worked, since the real downpour only started after we got back to the car.


A trip into the idyllic pastoral goodness that is a Danish garden in summer.

A quaint local farmer — to provide some colour.




J1 and J2 enjoying the local produce.




Arrival at Frilandsmuseet. And boy were we PUMPED! you can tell by the animated poses.




Julia contemplating the changes that urbanization and industrialization has wrought in Danish society, and whether the shift from a largely pastoral society has entailed a loss of community or identity. Outside the "20th century" section in Frilandsmuseet. Most of our kitchenware was represented in the quaint turn of the century store keepers house.



Obligatory bicycle shot.



Jonas's picture for a dating website.




J1's glasses made for endless photographic opportunities.



Nice day for a swim, or visit to the overlord?



New cover pic for the Climate Change Sceptic's Handbook.


After our escape from the overlord!




Everyone really de-stressed then.







J1's favourite pic. Notice J2!!






Chillin'.

Settling bets: How tall are we now?

Julia encounters Denmark's largest hill.




Lingering summer light.




Valby nights.




A quiet moment in a Danish woodshed. Somehow I find this pic to be extraordinarily Danish.

Accredited "Frederiksberg Expert"





Obligatory marching of the teenager around town, in order that he might acquire the skills and knowledge that will serve him in later life, when he does the same thing.



Some other members of the family joined us later. Ha... oh, good one...


The teenager continued to be impressed by everything, especially on the day we threatened to look for cheap jeans in the used clothing stores.



NOSTALGIA TRIP!!! to Solrød. Pretty much nothing has changed... honestly. Well the Prima was re-named "Super Best" which is probably the worst name for a grocery store I've ever heard. Honestly, it's worse than something Koreans would come up with.







Julia on "our" old bridge, observing the children of "our" ducks' childrens' children.



Some shifty guy doing the driving.



The whole family doing the family tourist thing, this time in Køge.



Julia... freakishly excited by the "oldest house in Denmark"



Jonas looking shifty.




Jonas "finds" Julia knocked out in front of the oldest house in Denmark.




Køge remains picturesque. And it still has the classiest cinema in the world.








J1 and 2 doing their thing at the cliffs at Stevns.





What's left of the church at Stevns, which fell into the sea one misty morn in the twenties.





In the end, ice cream for all!




Kronborg, (as I'm informed, thanks B) world's most unoriginally named castle: translation = Crown Castle



For some reason I was later consigned to the back seat.



I saw this suspicious looking character on my way back to Belgium.