Okay I'm back!

Okay I’m back. Geez whatta trip. I had a blast.

Sorry everyone I realize that I didn’t post to the blog but there wasn’t much opportunity. First I was in Canada staying at my brother’s place and he only has a slow dial-up connection. It would take minutes just to load the blogpage let alone post something. Then I was in Vegas for The Amazing Meeting (go to www.randi.org for more info) and I had an ’amazing’ time, mostly up to 3 or 4 am hanging out with people, or drinking, or gambling, or all of the above! No posting in the blog then. Finally I was in London for 4 days and my only access was a nearby internet café on Oxford street, one of those assembly line jobs where 50 terminals are crammed into a tiny area - you had to keep the mouse in front of the keyboard because there was no space at either side of the keyboard, that’s how cramped it was. I was a little suspicious that a place like that would have all sorts of spyware or keystroke loggers so I just surfed and not go to any sites that required passwords.

There is the odd time in my life where, thanks primarily to air travel, I just contemplate for a moment how crazy this are due to modern technology. I recall sitting in a café across the street from the British Museum waiting for it to open and remembered that 24 hours ago I was playing blackjack at the Riviera then eating a buffet dinner at the Wynn in Vegas. Now I’m in a London café having a latte about to enter one of the world’s great museums. Times like this just make me go “Holy ****!”. Seriously. I feel that my life gets surreal at times.

This weekend I’m going to Kuwait for a couple of days, Dubai on business in a couple of weeks, and in a month I’ll be in Oman seeing the sights. To think less than 10 years ago I was working as a retail clerk in a game store in Burnaby and had almost no money, certainly not enough to be travelling all over the place. (That said I miss working at the store - definitely the most fun job I’ve ever had, analogous to an avid golfer getting a job as a golf pro). But I bit the bullet, studied accounting and got one of those ’real jobs’ as it were. I can’t say my work is comparably exciting but I have travelled all over the world now thanks to it so I can’t regret the decision.

Over the next week or so I’ll post details about the trip, especially the Amazing Meeting, since it’s a skeptics convention and really - that’s what this blog is supposed to be about after all.