Lost In Translation

Films these days tend to miss that sense of taking you to another place, forgetting about your own routine and anxieties and enabling you to travel along with the movie.

I watched Lost in Trasnlation last night. It took me on that ride.

I enjoyed the atmosphere that it involved me in. It's that feeling of being an outsider in a far away place. While everybody goes on living their lives around you, you can't help but notice how different their concept of living is than yours.

I get that feeling every time I travel. Being able to get me there while sitting on my couch is telling of the success of Sophia Coppola's Oscar winning screenplay and the portrayal of the characters by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson.

I didn't see Murry and Johanson as actors. They were the characters.

I've been yerning for a good movie like that. In the middle of all the over produced commercial crap being regurgitated into theatres, a movie like Lost in Translation is a welcome respite.

From the Group Up

So the learning begins.

Folllowing my thrilling introductory flight over Toronto's beautiful downtown skyline one week ago, my ground school manual has arrived. The journey towards earning my pilot wings starts here.

In a year, I'll live and breath aviation. I'll know this book front to back, back to front.

With this manual tattered and crackled, highlighted and note ridden, thrown in the back seat of single engine flying machine, I'll transition from theory to practice... and I will know then: this is what makes life worth living:

Goals and ambition to achieve them.

Once you're devoid of goals, you are no longer alive regardless of what your beating heart tells you. I've got plenty of them to go around for many Pedro's.



Gallery here.

Man On Wire

Inspirational. Uplifting.

A brilliant documentary on how Philippe Petit and his group of friends were able to string a cable across the two towers of the World Trade Centre ending in the inevitable climax of Philippe in his element, euphoric, walking in the sky, putting a smile on the face of New York City.

This film breaths of nostalgia of an era prior to the now acceptable hyper-security, where every one is a suspect, every one a potential terrorist. Those were simpler times.

It was no easy accomplishment however, and the tension is palpable throughout the film: this dream may be impossible after all.

Man on Wire is a historic record of the towers lost and a reminder of the subtle gradient that has led us to this day where such a feat would be impossible.

Watch it. It certainly is worthy of the 2009 Academy Award for Feature Documentary.

Bravo Philippe Petit! Vous avez conquis votre rêve!

That piece of the pie chart

I'm 29 and discarding women like rounds on a semi-automatic. I'm not proud of it, but I'm proud of my decision to not settle for less than what I know I want in a partner.

I'm driven by the belief that there are intelligent, independently minded, ambitious and creative women out there. Surely some of them come wrapped in a physical package that tick off the Face-Boobs-Bum side of my chemistry checklist to the tee...

Perhaps I'll turn into a 40 something, expert dater focused completely on myself and what I enjoy doing in life with women coming in and out of it to fill in the sex section on the "How to Be Happy" pie chart.

I've already had a taste of wanting to be with one woman forever, but it turned out that this female mirror of me demonstrated that the exact qualities I want in a woman – namely "independently minded" – contradicted the picture of us being together.

I still have this belief that having children is a form of immortality. Your genes and your knowledge live on in another body. I also feel that a substantial sliver of the previously mentioned pie chart is dedicated to raising a family.

So my journey continues, not quite giving up, yet preparing to become the next "Bachelor" on ABC.

Debbie makes a "strong pull"

Random Education: Lecture hall on Day 1

The hall sits empty, the projector Vrooming on, a lecture seems
immenent.

Random Education: Day 1

This afternoon I felt the urge to mingle with university students if only to satisfy that desparate desire to experience a conglomeration of high IQ - an exposure which I feel will throw a rock in my pond, lately beginning to settle into an eerie quiet.

I first made my trek over to the ROM, in the hope that all the science and history around me would jump start my brain and thus, my motivation to learn.

Later, I headed to the University of Toronto campus, randomly choosing a building. I smile as I read: "Medical Faculty". Great! My favorite subject.

As I wander the halls in search of a lecture room where I can ease into, I'm deterred at every door with a sign reading "no drinks permitted". I'm carrying my distinctive Starbucks, Cinnamon Dolce Soy Awake Tea Misto.

I become aware that I may not somehow quite blend in. Does a medical student look any different than a creative person, an arts student? I'm leaning towards saying "Yes" to that.

I'm quickly reminded of that as I walk into an empty lecture hall when I pull out my Mac. Dead giveaway! Medical students carry the standard issue IBM/Lenovo or Dell. This is a Windows crowd.

Still, I'm insisting: I'm going to attend a lecture here today. This afternoon I begin my long postponed socio-academic experiment.

People are slowly beginning to pour into the lecture hall and if the size of the class is sufficient, I'll probably be comfortable to merge in.

I enter after feeling a sudden infusion of testicular fortitude. I sit near the centre if the hall, only 2 girls sitting down below and no professor here yet.

The projector is on. It seems that a class is immenent.

What will the lecture be about? I don't know. This is what this experiment will be about: learning bits and pieces of accumulated knowledge, and at some point in the future gluing it all together to form a comprehensible tapestry of Random Education.

New Mineral Gallery @ TheROM

Lunar rock @ TheROM

New mineral gallery @ TheROM