BNJMN

I'm at the airport in Ottawa, about to depart on the longest, farthest trip from home I have ever experienced! The exciting part is seeing a couple of small pockets of the Earth that promise to be very, very diffent from what I know. The downside... I won't have Internet at my fingertips the whole time. I may have access while in Japan, but in Nepal, I wouldn't expect anythin mgore than intermittent access, and certainly no access when I get out into the village side. to make quick, easy posts in one easy-to-find locale, I set up http://bnjmnwood.tumblr.com . Here, I'll post pictures and impressions when I can. I'll probably blog here as well, just not nearly as often, and maybe not until I get back. So yes, please keep an eye on Tumblr, which should also send tweets when I post to @bnjmnwood . Also, iPad should stop autocorrecting Tumblr as "tumble"!

I'm traveling to Nepal! After being involved with the Nepalese Canadian Association of Ottawa (NCAO) and Canada Foundation for Nepal (CFFN) throughout the past decade, and getting to know many of the Nepalese families who have moved to Ottawa, I finally have the opportunity to see Nepal for itself. While I'm there, I will get to see some of the capital city, Kathmandu, as well as the countryside where the best way to get from one village to another is to trek. It all started about a month ago when a friend of mine wanted me to go to Japan to visit a mutual friend. This trip was feasable - and how often will I get an invite to Japan? Just as I was about to make that happen, it was brought to my attention that the Non-Resident Nepali Assocation is holding their every-other-year conference around the same time as the Japan trip. At this confence, I would be able to present an update to a project that I'm leading on behalf of CFFN. Also, I could see CFFN's Community ChildCa...

Cars 2 opens this weekend and I'm not even excited. In fact, my excitement level hasn't been this low for a Pixar movie since Ratatouille (important note, Ratatouille was the last Pixar movie released before I started working at The Disney Store), and I think that's because I wasn't a fan of Cars. Don't get me wrong, it was a decent film, but it was certainly my least favourite of Pixar's roster. It's no Up or Wall•E or Finding Nemo. That the Cars universe has explosions and choppers and international locales (I think the Mater's Tales shorts had all these, actually) hasn't really swayed me, and seeing the main billing as Owen Wilson and Larry the Cable Guy doesn't help either. That said, I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what I'm sure will be a high octane sequel. The near Abramsian secrecy around the content of the movie, which Pixar has shown on their projects of late, will hopefully ensure many surprises. Since the first Ca...

I bought an iPad. I hadn't wanted one until fairly recently when it just clicked that i would use one as more than an oversized iPod. I could use it to write and read comfortably in the couch or out and about. Up until now, my iPhone has been indispensable, and the iPad would allow me to do even more in an easier fashion. So far, i've been right. It's a much more comfortable platform for iBooks, which allows you to add PDF documents. I haven't checked my Google home page, which is crammed with rss feeds I read, with my computer because I've moved (most of) them to an app called Pulse, which simplifies reading via RSS while making it a more visually appealing experience. Also, browsing the Internet really is a better, more intimate experience on a touch screen device. I thought that was all hype and spin. It isn't. Pages was the first app I downloaded, and used it to rewrite an entry in a brand new blog series I will hopefully one day soon start. I also use...

I got a new camera! It's amazing! All the pictures above were taken with it. Whenever I get a new camera (which has only happened three times, including this one), I suddenly see the world differently. Now, I see footprints in mud, and sneakers hanging from phone wires, and unusual pipes that don't seem to be doing anything other than look important. One thing I miss with my previous camera is its zoom though. I'm going to need to go and get a lens soon. And those are pricey. I just need time to go out and play with it. Mysteriously, I have a family of small mannequins that I really want to use for a set of photos... I can not wait! But they are heavy. If you want to help, let me know. This Canon T3i (ESO 600D) purchase is just one (albeit the biggest) of many purchases that I think has made this March a crazy expensive month it seems. But, thanks to me doing my taxes very early, I can afford it for the moment! Of course, the next big thing, also coming this month: Ninte...

Three of these four pictures were taken waiting at bus stops. The last one was taken walking to a bus stop where I had to wait. I'm not happy that my local bus is on the list being considered to be downgraded from a regular black route to a red peak period route, going from available morning to night everyday to rush hour-only route for school kids at 8 and 3. The city has the idea that they can ave money by taking the 98.6% of Ottawa that live within 5 minutes of a bus stop and shrinking it to 95% within 5 minutes... some of the time [ article ]! It's bad enough that I have to wait so long at night between connections, but at least there is a connection. It doesn't make any sense to make it hard for people to get home, especially at night. Aren't buses supposed to be an alternative to keep people from driving after drinking? How about the parents who can't always pick up their kids after going out with friends? Or all the older people who need buses to kneel for th...

For all the trouble that winter causes, it really does have it's fun side. Skiing, skating, snowmen, snow forts, ice hotels, ice sculptures. Winterlude combines a few of these into a really fun festival just when people usually start tiring of the cold season. I love going down and seeing the exhibits and sculptures and people out enjoying themselves (and Beavertails)! Fortunately I managed to make my way downtown this year (it's been three or four years since I last went - even longer since I made it to the Quebec side of the festivities). There were some very nice sculptures this year. Perhaps my favourite was this interactive domino-like sculpture that had windows that were perfectly aligned. It gave you the tunneling effect of looking in a reflection of a reflection of a mirror, without seeing yourself. Very cool! Perhaps it's because I'm more aware of these kinds of things, but the event seems to get increasingly more branded by sponsors. Rogers and Samsung were on...

There's so much waiting done each and every day. It's so easy to become annoyed and pace while waiting for the waiting to end. I do most of my waiting at bus stops (and increasingly, O-Train stops), and for a while, I took a fair number of pictures for those 5- or 12- or 30-minute waits. Then DS games, books, and eventually the iPhone got in the way, demanding my full attention not only at stops, but for the whole commute. Yet lately, a sudden reversal. Perhaps I should apologize now! Speaking of iPhone, the Google Translate app is available, free, and pretty much the most amazing tool ever. Just speak into it, and it can speak your phrase back in another language! Hoshi Sato might even be impressed. I want to go to a non-English-speaking area and see if I can really get by using it to communicate. Would anyone like to take a trip to India, China, or Mexico? In fact, Google if you're listening, I would blog and Youtube the whole experience! Photos: I love the view of the O-...

Perhaps the best thing about Winter is snow. It's amazing how it can completely change the look of the land- and cityscapes. Unfortunately, in order to be able to get anywhere, it needs to be put somewhere. Often, it's in a corner of a parking lot, which creates a sizable mountain that, as a kid, I loved to climb. Because there were no nearby hills to slide down (that I knew about, but I have since discovered a few...) these mountains of unwanted snow were where I would toboggan and slide and dig out forts. They were canvases where a young Ben could let his imagination go. I haven't climbed any this year. Yet. The flip side of winter is the cold. When you aren't playing, when you have to go from point A to B (or when I'm commuting home, A to B to C to D), the cold is a nuisance. Salt stains everything an undesirable grey, and waiting 10 minutes feels like an hour. Seeing your bus pull away as you run to the platform is the most depressing sight, because it means wai...

One of the small things in life that I truly enjoy is the calm after a storm. One moment, it's thundering and lightning bolts touching down all around, and the next, the sky is clear and the sun is beaming, as if it's happy to be back. Maybe it's the quick reversal of weather that intensifies the beauty that's all around that makes me not take it, at least for a short while, for granted. Last week, I had a moment when I was waiting for a bus, after the big "snowmageddon" (and I use that term in quotes, because it wasn't a bad storm at all, at least not by Ottawa's standards) where, yes, it wasn't the best weather to be commuting through, but the next morning had a certain crispness to it. It was calming, despite the traffic zooming by. It's that feeling that, if it could be bottled, I could make a fortune. I took a picture instead. And yesterday, it had started snowing in the afternoon. Seemingly out of nowhere, huge flakes began to fall slow...

More pictures here: Flickr Vancouver Set Ignore the fact for a moment that I went to Vancouver in November and it's now the following February. Time passes quickly, and everything you want to do always seems to get bypassed for all the things you have to do. That makes making the time for the important things in life that much more of a priority. It's for this reason that I'm finally sitting down to write about my trip. It's also for this reason that I was extremely excited that my friend Cat invited me all the way to the other end of the country for a week mostly to hang out and see and do a bunch of the things that I've only heard about. Granville Island, Stanley Park, Cypress Mountain, ferry, Mickey's cache, Skytrain. Before this trip, the farthest West I had travelled was a weekend camping trip to Banff, on a month-long french program in Saskatoon (interestingly, where I met Cat to begin with). Travelling to both Saskatoon and Banff was all done by bus. Slow...