September Weekends in Vancouver

More and more I start enjoying the downtown of Vancouver. Intensive hiking and road trip months of the summer are coming to the end with the appearance of warm colors of maple trees. At this point I realize that I've done enough exploration of the West Coast to satisfy my adventure seeking soul for now and let the other side of myself to develop at a professional and personal levels.

It is the second weekend since July of me staying in the city enjoying the calm life of Vancouver. Last weekend Alex S. came down from Seattle, which of course called for all you can eat sushi and rich in calories breakfasts with coffee. I love them as much as I love the days beginning and ending with those. In most of the cases it means that there are friends out of town that I haven’t seen for a while. It also means conversations with them will be much enjoyed as we’ve missed each other’s presence.

This Sunday while I was enjoying Internet browsing in downtown's Blenz Coffee place with Dasha at Robson and Bute, there was a man sitting right beside us in huge headphones listening to music from his laptop and non-distractively tapping with his fingers on the table from time to time. When he was about to leave I asked him whether he was a musician. The man appeared to be a composer, also multimedia artist and a poet.

Roland Bastien started his career in Avan-Garde scene in 1979. He collaborated with numerous artists and wrote over 70 chamber music scores and 100 piano solo scores. As a composer, was the finalist at Elisabeth Schneider Foundation in Germany in 2000. He performed as a pianist. He won the overall prize at The Fourth International Poetry Competition in 2006. Some of his poems that he wrote after 90's are greatly influenced by his interesting life experience during Buddhist Monastery journey.

Here are some of Roland's Haiku and poems ( poems section).
Perhaps, an empty taught

For now,
Revenons a nos moutons (come back to what we were doing),
As French would say,
And I am back to codes and antennas

Cyber Camping

All of my technical related posts can be found at Cybercamping.blogspot.com. I separated them not to bore folks out, as most the information is specific to certain topics of my interest.

Explore it!

A week ago I woke up in the morning and realized that it’s been 14 months since I moved to Vancouver from Toronto last year. For a moment I stared into the ceiling remembering what I have done to learn about Vancouver, British Columbia the West Coast overall.

I pleasant smile appeared on my face. Good memories of road trips, hikes and discovery of West Coast with friends came back to me. I felt satisfied.

Over the last year, at least partially I was able to capture the natural beauty of British Columbia; its calm mood; its great adventurous outdoors; its mountains with snow peaks and the oceans full of sea life as sea stars visible right from Horseshoe Bay’s pier; harbor seals and sea lions; Orca whales, Humpback whales and Grey whales swimming in the waters of Vancouver Island – all of them within the driving distance from the city where I spent over a year of my life!

British Columbia made a significant impact on my life's outlook. I am passionate about nature. BC allowed me to explore it. I learned a lot. I learned about myself.

I would like to encourage everyone of you to go out there and explore the place you live in, whether it is West or East Coast, Northern Territories or US. And for those living in BC, I would like to encourage to discover the Beautiful British Columbia, the Best Place on Earth (as BC license plates shamelessly point it out to the rest of the world).

Skookumchuk Hot Springs

Skookumchuck - Saint Agnes' Well (Hot Springs) is something I really want to visit in the near future. I've heard the temperature can be regulated to very hot, meaning this place will be worth going even during a light snowfall, as long as the car would be able to take 45 km of logging roads.

The location for the hot springs is East South of Pemberton. It's a close to 3 hours trip via Sea to Sky highway, which is still under construction for 2010 Olympics. I expect it will take at least 9 hours to enjoy the road trip fully, or overnight trip with BBQ, beer and bear spray.

Another hot springs option in the area is Meager Hot springs. That's the one we wanted to reach in March with Alex K. during our cross-country ski trip. The latest BC Forestry Ministry's report from September 12 states that the road to the springs is closed at 37'th km. Even if you pass that point, and cross the first bridge, the second bridge was washed away. There are no plans to rebuild it yet.

There is still hope, as I've heard there are more smaller hot pools past 40'th km, but since I've learned about Skookumchuk's Well, Meager hot springs have been pushed down as a secondary task.

[BC hotsprings]

When rain hits Vancouver...

I spent this weekend in Vancouver enjoying city life and in the meanwhile learning Ruby on Rails, the popular language used in many Web 2.0 websites. The original plan was to check out hot springs near Pemberton on Sunday (see next post) with a friend from Seattle, but the rainy weather affected our plans. We ended up staying in the city, drinking lattes, playing with Ruby and checking out Korean Sauna and Spa located close to Coquitlam mall with a group of friends.

On Saturday, my friend from work threw a house warming party at his newly bought place. The theme was "Hats" with mandatory compliance or no beer. I saw vikings, witches, monks and even a disco fro--it was like Halloween without blood painted faces, but still with beers, wines and flaming sambuka. To be fair not all rainy weekends end up being that flaming warm.

Last.fm

Check out the newly found wigit from Last.fm on the right of the page. I've added a few of my favorites by Rene Gruss, including The Red Room and Bellatrix.

Last.fm is a free online service that seamlessly creates a personalized internet radio that streams the songs that you want or similar to the ones you selected. The radio learns your preferences. One can "love" the track or "hate" it, so it never appears again.

It's one of the sites of Music Genome Project.

Unfortunately, Pandora is not accessible from Canada without a proxy.

Aikido in Irkutsk

My friend Alex K just came back form Irkutsk, one the Far East cities of Russia. Apparently, there is Aikido Dojo there as well. Most likely Aikikai. Here is the picture.I’ve been training Aikido Yoshinkan for several years, first, under Nick Mills Sensei (Sendokan Dojo), and then under Robert Mustard Sensei (Aikido Burnaby). This weekend I am going to Seattle for demonstration of at 10th Annual Matsuri (Japanese Festival) 2007. We’ll be performing a 30-40 minute demo there. Check out the website: http://www.enma.org/.

In the memory of my Grandfather

I still remember the night before I found out the news of my grandfather’s passing away. It was the last night before my final exam. I spent it studying, thinking about wireless concepts taught by Stanford’s professor. Inconspicuous classical music was playing in the background. In the breaks I was thinking about the upcoming summer, adventures and guests that I would show around Vancouver and BC. One of the guests was supposed to be my grandfather who had his university summer vacation from July 20 to September 20. He was waiting for visa that would allow him to visit his daughter and granddaughter in Toronto and grandson in Vancouver.

It was his dream. We talked a lot about it over the phone. We tried not to build big plans, but I knew I would show him everything I found out about the West Coast during my last year living here – more than I ever showed to everyone else who visited me here so far! We would have talked and talked, and felt each other’s presence. Conversed about anything, on any topic! He was a cool grandfather. Being a professor for many years, he knew how to talk with young guys, joked all the time and created a wonderful aura during the conversation. He was an optimistic guy, and a noble man. There are so many great memories associated with him that now it is impossible to think of “Deda” and not to either smile or feel sorrow.

I will remember him positively. There will be more smiles reflecting from memories of him than grief and tears. He emphasized bright mindset and hard work, generosity to people and warm friendships. It was him who has made a great impact on shaping my character both, during my childhood and beyond, for which I am truly grateful.

The night before the news inconspicuous classical music was playing in the background. It was Rene Gruss’ Bellatrix that I still remember. It almost felt as I wanted to change something there in the speed of his notes and accents. Something that my mind wanted to make more melodic in this already beautiful composition full of emotions. It seemed as I did not agree with something, yet listened to it and could not resist. I only realize it now, months after.

Bellatrix stayed in my mind for the rest of the following day while I was searching for last minute tickets to Ottawa, Toronto and Belarus. It still comes up in my memory as a soundtrack of the peaceful yet tiring night of fighting with my body to keep myself awake while learning as much material as possible before the exam – a peaceful summer night without higher worries. I remember sitting outside on a balcony during my break drinking coffee few hours before the sunset, looking at the dark blue sky, and trying to remember that night positively, enjoying what I was doing – just like my grandfather taught me! I am grateful that I am your grandson!

My grandfather, also Victor, died at the age of 75. He will forever stay in my heart as a man, who managed to show me great examples of life and optimism, and inspire for hard work. I keep his photograph in my album that he sent me a year ago. On the back, he wrote: “To my dear grandson for a good memory (of him). Be commendable, at least in most things”.