Designer & bike rider in British Columbia, Canada

Travel

  • Tools and Modification

    How far can we modify an object before it becomes unrecognizable or permanently altered? How many mistakes must be made to determine that limit? At what point do modifications become useful enough to become adopted as the norm? When a modification doesn’t quite meet needs, how much time and investment and additions must be made…

  • Puerto Princesa 1

    Recorded May 19, 2007 walking around a central market in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. Sequence includes the dominant public transportation (tricycles i.e. motorbikes with sidecars and bodies), a mobile phone repair and accessory shop, a cashew dehusking stall and the local ferry dock. 0:34 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0, Final Cut…

  • Bacon Sandwich

    Recorded May 16, 2007. 1:01 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0 and Final Cut Pro. Of note: the music sampled is by OPM (Original Pinoy Music) band BrownBeat and their track Romantikong Bastos. Download the QuickTime movie [5.8 MB].

  • Philippines Nagtabon

    Recorded May 13, 2007. 0:25 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0 and Final Cut Pro.

  • Philippines Underground River

    Recorded May 9, 2007, Sabang, Palawan, Philippines. 2:40 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0, Final Cut Pro and QuickTime Pro. Text from the video: The Underground River Palawan, Philippines A protected national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site At 8.2 km under a mountain It’s the second longest in the world Home…

  • Security, Use and Packaging

    Security and indications thereof: cashiers bag and then tie your groceries closed before exiting the store. SM Hypermart, Mall of Asia, Manila, Philippines. Security and legitimacy: a cashier rings you through while another employee bags and then seals your purchase shut, then the cashier affixes your receipt before exiting the line. A floor security guard…

  • Philippines Mall

    Video from Manila, April 28, 2007. Or download the higher quality QuickTime version, 00:56 sec., 13.5MB. Created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro. Text from video: Henry “Retail King” Sy a taipan (tycoon) of Asia richest man in the Philippines and head of SM Prime Holdings, Inc started the Philippine “malling”…

  • Philippines Traffic

    Video from Manila, Philippines, April 27, 2007 – or –Download the better quality QuickTime video, 00:39 at 5MB. Created with a Fuji F30 camera, a MacBook Pro 15″ computer and Final Cut Pro video editing software. Incidentally, this was my first time in FCP and it is hella complicated. How do I take two 640×480…

  • Out of / In Place

    Why a chair, sideways, at the head of the bed? Answer above: the AC without remote. Accommodating legacy hardware systems. Choice and needs according to environment. Not accommodating legacy hardware systems. Expectation, aesthetics and… Purpose. Observations of a guest room at a family home in Manila, Philippines.

  • Lachine Machines

    Lachine is a suburb on the island of Montreal and also the largest weekly bicycle club race I’ve ever seen. But I should watch my terminology while I’m here. As a number of participants adamantly impressed upon me, Tuesday night Lachine is NOT a club race. It’s a full-blown, no-holds-bar, anaerobic pain-fest of the highest…

  • Cycling Trip: Shawn’s Photos

    Shawn recently posted photos to his Flickr account of our August bike trip from Victoria to San Diego. See the complete set. A small sampling:

  • Cycling Trip: Jeff and Nix

    . Paul Nixon, designer and Apple employee, met up with Shawn and I as we passed through Santa Cruz yesterday. Great lunch at a real restaurant, and we even got a little ride in together. Inspirational that guy.

  • Cycling Trip: Routine

    Generally Shawn and I wake up around 6:30-7:00am. If my little watch alarm doesn’t do it, then the many calls of nature (ground hogs burrowing under the tent, racoons, bladder) do. If we’re efficient we’ll have the tent collapsed and our gear packed in under an hour and be on the road by 8am. We…

  • Cycling Trip: Oregon

    Just a quick update from Astoria, Oregon: Sunburned. Camping. Roadkill. Some of the best riding. Clearcuts. Drafting. Fog. Up at 6am, bed at 8pm. 450km down, 2400km to go. Shawn and I are doing great.

  • Postcards in 2004

    A sampling of postcards I received last year. The backs can be clicked to enlarge the image.

  • A Year Ago Today

    A good friend of mine recently embarked on his first backpacking trip. Got me thinking about my trip, which I started exactly a year ago and took me to England, Greece and the Middle East. My first travel entry from Sept. 4, 2003.

  • Raw Meat

    In Holland, raw pork products are popular. You buy regular-looking bacon, but keep it in its super-market state from checkout to sandwich to stomach. Tastes surpisingly good and a little like cheese. Speaking of which, Holland is where Edam and Gouda comes from, by the towns of the same name. I also had some blood…

  • Something completley diff

    In Amstydam now, full of stoned, under-educated English and Canadian and Oz 20-somethings, and people with piercings and fancy sweaters. Everyone getting pissed every night, and stoned. Pretty town though, only explored it for 3 hours today having no sleep in the last 24. More later. Staying at Flying Pig Hostel in really nice area…

  • End of the line (almost)

    Went to the desert oasis of Siwa after 4 days in Cairo. We weren’t able to get a lift to Bahariya, which meant a whole day of travelling back to Cairo, then a train south to Luxor, tout capital of the world. They must have a university in Luxor dedicated to the higher pursuit of…

  • Cairo

    Crossed Sinai two days ago thinking I was gonna be late to me Graham, but am in fact two days early. As it happened, my very expensive and extremely delayed ferry from Aqaba, Jordan, didn’t arrive in Neuweba until 2am, so I caught a service van with 14 other young Arab guys across Sinai at…

  • Baghdad

    The 15-hour, overnight bus ride from Amman to Baghdad was silent except for the odd horn from a passing oil tanker and cling of the good-luck bells hanging from our driver’s rearview mirror. For 350 km to the border none of the 15 or so passengers, from an Iraqi expat living in the States to…

  • Dead Sea and more desert

    Spent 6 days at a monestary in the desert, washing dishes and sweeping for my keep, attending morning mass and evening meditation followed by communion. Amazing full moons and no car horns. Fresh goat cheese with every meal from the goats next to my 12th century room. Didn’t even know about the Isreal attack on…

  • My typical Syrian day

    Wake up to the first call to prayer at 5 am, mournfully wailing across the city from the half dozen mosque minarets. Still dark out, but already the honk of a thousand car horns begins two stories below. Fall back asleep, slightly chilly under my cotton sleeping sheet. 7am crawl out of bed with the…

  • Syria headlines

    Will right more later, too tired and this internet time is costing as much as a night in a hostel plus dinner and an ice cream. Basically, I can go to the bathroom again after 5 days and I am returning to the desert of Syria, land of extreme hospitality. precious TV remote controls, filthy…

  • Random Observations of Turkey

    Transport: Turkey has an amazing bus system, if somewhat chaotic-looking on the surface. Over a hundred companies run buses everywhere at all times. And we’re not talking old school buses with wodden seats and baggage mushrooming above the roof. Most of the buses are very modern Mercedes behemouths (some are double-deckers) with air conditioning, moderatley…

  • Cappadocia and Smokia

    Truly one of the most amazing landscapes I’ve ever seen. Miles of valleys filled with fantastical phallic rock formations, thousands of which have homes and churches carved into them by the early christians over 1500 years ago. Many of the dwellings are perched metres above the ground and are still occupied by farmers who tend…

  • Off to see the fairies

    In a rush

  • Hagia Sophia and Toilets

    Saw the inside of 1,500 year=old Hagia Sophia today. The dome was higher than I thought, very nice. As was the 1000-year-old graffitti on the marble banisters. As usual, scafholding to the extreme. Skipped the 32,000,000TL Topkapiand instead had a much needed nap. Also realized every single tolet I’ve used on this trip locates its…

  • Greece to Istanbul

    Here I go on a Turkısh keyboard: Graham and I flew from Cambrıdge to Athens. Were sıttıng aboard the bus from the aırport to somewhere else when we get pıcked up by Katerına and Arne whose weddıng we were to attend. Spent the next 60 mınutes at 120km/hr wıth an Irısh gırlfrıend, a Greek bride,…

  • ME Update #1

    Day 1 – 3 Vancouver – Amsterdam – Cambridge International flight is at once a marvelous, awe-inspiring thing, whilst giving a minor headache. It felt like I was in a space capsul, looking over the clouds at the curvature of the earth, seeing nothing but stars at night, as the jet turbines carried me and…