Yesterday Christine and I took the ferry to Wolfe Island and rode our bikes out to the beach. It was 10km each way, and maybe a couple more kilometers of hiking along the path to the water. We had a really nice afternoon of swimming and relaxing in the sand. The water level was much higher than I’ve ever seen it there. I took lots of movies instead of pictures with my camera, but they didn’t turn out very well. Maybe I’ll edit some of the better ones and make a short one or two minute montage.
After work today I bought myself a guitar. I got the cheapest one at the store that wasn’t made of plywood. It cost me a couple hundred dollars and I’m not sure if I can afford it with my student loan payments starting this month, but I figured I’ve got more money now than I will after I start making my payments. I’ve been feeling pretty restless lately and really wanted to start playing an instrument again. I was considering buying a keyboard, but I think I’d rather start with a stringed instrument. Maybe all those years of playing violin will make it easier to learn. I also bought book of guitar lessons and worked my way through the first one. Now I can play three notes and I have a blister on my finger!
Peter and Gina decided on a name: Alexander Victor Raymond Lehotay. I think it’s a very good one. There are some more pictures on Peter’s web page too. Wow. I’m so emotional right now.
Peter made a web page with some pictures of Little Angus. It’s weird how looking at those photos makes me feel. I’ve seen lots of baby pictures and always thought they were pretty boring, but I really like these. When I look at Angus I wonder what he’s thinking and how he feels. He must feel happy when he sees Peter and Gina, and maybe he doesn’t like the nurses so much. I’m sure they’re nice to him, but they probably also do some things he doesn’t like. I wonder how his little mind works. How much does he understand about the world around him? What does he think about his stuffed animal? I can’t wait to meet him.
I need to stop spending so much time on my computer.
My nephew Angus (not his real name) was born at 11:30 this morning and weighs 7 lbs 2 oz. It’s very exciting, since he’s the first baby in our family in 36 years. Peter and Gina are sleeping now, but when they wake up they’ll try to choose a new name for him. I’ve grown to like the name Angus, but they probably won’t pick that one. Peter thought it would be cool to give his baby the same initials as a computer acronym, like XML or SQL. I’m hoping for Samuel Quincy.
I can’t seem to get enough of Chelsea Peretti. I laughed for five minutes straight when I read this post on her blog. The Variety Shac really makes me laugh too.
I’ve decided to stop drinking until I get my body fat down to 15%. I figure that means losing 27 pounds. I think I’ll start running again too. And cycling. In fact, I’m going to go for a bike ride right now!
Stephen Hawking asked a question on Yahoo Answers the other day: How can the human race survive the next hundred years? I already submitted my answer, along with 17000 other people. I wonder which one will be selected as the “best answer.”
I’ve been watching Ze Frank’s the show for the past three or four weeks and can’t wait for the episodes to come out every day. I especially like the ones with songs in them, and when he talks about ethics and technology. If I had way more time, maybe my blog would be as good as Ze’s. Actually, no it wouldn’t. He’s pretty good.
I just finished watching Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner and don’t know how to put my reaction to this film into words. It was the most powerful movie I’ve seen in a very long time.
The movie was set in the arctic in a time before any modern influence. All the dialogue is in Inuktitut. There are no trees or buildings in the entire movie and every scene is set either on the tundra or ice, or inside an igloo or animal skin tent. The movie seems to be very accurate with respect to Inuit customs and artifacts. I can’t say for certain how accurate, but from the two trips I took to visit Mom in Iqaluit, I think it must be pretty close. There are a lot of gruesome scenes where the actors are up carving seal carcasses or scraping the bloody parts off of animal skins. I think many of the animals must have been killed just for the movie which bothered me quite a bit at the beginning, but after a while I got so immersed in the story that I started to accept it as just part of the Inuit way of life.
The story revolves around a small community of about 20 people, a few of which are bad people. The back of the DVD case describes this movie as an action thriller, but I would probably call it a character drama. (I recommend you don’t read the DVD case since it gives away a major part of the story.) I was amazed by the depth of emotion conveyed in so many scenes just by a facial expression or a single sentence in a language I don’t understand. This movie really makes you feel for the characters, but not in the normal way that most movies do. It also has the best sex scene I can remember. I’ll probably edit out that last sentence in the morning.
