Dear readers

Hey folks,

Thanks for reading my blog. Every extra page view feeds another lump of coal into the fire of my dirtbag soul. And now, if it's not too much hassle, I'd like to ask you to do me a favour.

I recently had an article published in Vertical Life magazine, a climbing rag based in Melbourne, about my trip to the Bugaboos. The editors saw this blog through the facebook page of a mutual friend and liked it enough to ask me to write for them. The magazine is available online, so it won't cost you anything to download and read (it's also pretty cool, making it excellent value for money). If you download it, that will increase their circulation and help their business and it will make me look good for writing a witty and informative article. Maybe they will ask me to write again. You don't even have to read it, just downloading the mag is enough.

You can get it here: www.verticallifemag.com.au

The article has photos and words and stories about catching chipmunks in pots and climbing things and a detailed explanation of The Snafflehound. It's great (or at least mediocre).

Thanks.

The Problem With Having Money

This trip is the first time I've taken time off work to go somewhere. Every other time I've gone away to do fun stuff I've either been a student or quit my job before I left. Stictly speaking, I'm unemployed now because my last contract with the ACT Government ended the day before I flew out, but they have said they'll give me more work when I get back, so for all intents and purposes I'm just taking time off work.

I think most people would be happy with this arrangement. Indeed, many people do their travelling like this - fitting trips in around work. In reality, I am fitting my trip in around frisbee, and work aligns fairly well with frisbee, but the effect is the same. And the knowledge that I'm returning to a job in Canberra has completely eroded my capacity to not spend money.

For example, when I arrived in Rossland my old boss offered me a very good deal on some skis that I have been coveting for a year or so. Skis that I absolutely don't need. So I bought them. And a new helmet. And goggles. I would have bought gloves too if he'd had anything in my size. On my last two flights, I had bought and eaten so much food before the flight departed that I forgot to eat the complimentary snack they gave us. I didn't even surrepticiously stuff the tiny bag of weird nibbles into my pack - unthinkable under normal monetary conditions. On the way over here, when my instincts were still sharp, I ended up walking off the plane with my snack roll and the roll that was supposed to go to the person sitting next to me. She was asleep and didn't seem like the type to eat the roll and then I didn't want to be all "Here's the roll the air hostess brought you while you were asleep (p.s. I'm really creepy and have been saving this roll for you)" and it was awkward and basically it was better just to hide the roll and pretend the whole thing never happened and then eat it later on. Anyway how I got the roll is beside the point. The point is that on one flight I saved 200% of the normally available rolls and then on the other flight I saved 0% of the available snack thingys. That's a pretty big drop (in percentage terms).

Then it occurred to me that I would need bindings for the new skis. Normally I'm protected from impulse purchases of bindings because the ones I like are hard to find. But not in Bozeman. There are three stores in town that sell them, which is three more than I've ever seen anywhere else in the world. I'm just going to walk into the store, hand over the skis and get them to mount new bindings. I won't even have to dodgy up a drill bit with duct tape. It feels like cheating.

The problem with having money is that it makes it way too easy to buy things. I've had money before, but always with the caveat that I might never find a job again. But with my newfound confidence in future paycheques I've had an astounding insight into the world of stable long-term employment. Has it really been like this for you people all along? Why didn't someone warn me?

I'm not sure I can survive this new arrangement. For a start I'm swiftly being overwhelmed with stuff. Admittedly, some of it I didn't buy (or at least not recently) - I've also gained two towels and a painting. I'm also struggling with food. This morning I went to a bakery (it was gluten free - huge mistake) and when confronted with two ostensibly tasty options (that were actually gluten free) I briefly lost control and bought both of them. Which turned out to be OK because I ended up missing lunch. But if I had stumbled across somewhere to buy lunch later in the day I probably would have bought several of those too.

I can only hope that I return to safe, predictable unemployment soon, before any permanent damage is done and/or I buy furniture, at which point all will be lost.

Details

The people have asked for details, and here they are (although a bit late - the full update is to follow). This is the message I sent Marie on Facebook to commence "Operation Date Maud's Hot Sister 2: The Date That Would Not End Even Though Both Parties Wanted It To".

"Ola Marie,

Every night I lie awake, tossing and turning, thinking of our night together in Whistler. Of our meal, or our drive around the town - the lake, the ski area car park. Or later, at your house, when I lay waiting for you, ready for romance.

Maybe we went too fast, maybe we wanted too much. Maybe we looked for too many answers, when the power of love comes only from questions.

And so I find myself in Whistler once more, wondering if there is a second chance for us. For love.

My phone is broken, but my heart beats strong. Tell me when you are free. I cannot wait to see you again.

Love always,
Juan"

To which I received a mixed response. She accepted my friend request (which I would have advised against), but she did not reply.

More details to come.

Our Love Does Not Need A Second Chance

I was going to write about how I ended up in Rossland and all the things I've done since landing in Canada (don't worry, it's a short list), but let's be honest. Pretty much everyone reading this blog is only interested in my abortive romance with Maud's Hot Sister.

I will be honest. Things are not going well on the Maud's Hot Sister front. And not for want of trying. In Whistler, it took no time at all to assemble all the necessary elements for wooing: A rudimentary knowledge of Mr Big's seminal romantic-rock classic I'm The One Who Wants To Be With You, a collection of friends to provide alternating moral support and coercive social pressure according to my somewhat variable motivation, a sweater vest, Maud's Hot Sister's address, the complicitude of Maud's Hot Sister's Sister (Maud) and, perhaps most importantly, a backup singer with a voice of pure gold to hide in a bush and sing the harmony/backup parts that make Mr Big's hit so loin stirring good.

Indeed, all of the pieces of the puzzle were in place to provide a surprise rendition of one of modern music's greatest songs to Maud's Hot Sister while she listened from the balcony of her own house. Short of turning up in her bed scantily clad and surrounded by candles and rose petals it was the most romantic thing I could think of that was free, and I've already tried the other option.

The only piece missing was Maud's Hot Sister. Who was in Vancouver THE WHOLE TIME. I can't help but think that someone should have alerted me to this possibility. I don't take this dating business lightly - I could have gone to a lot of trouble and considerable expense for nothing.

The apparent up-side of Maud's Hot Sister being in Vancouver was that she was heading to Rossland a few days after I arrived and it synched up pretty well with my plans. And so, on Wednesday, rather than candles and bubble baths and sustained self loathing, I met Maud's Hot Sister at a Starbucks in Vancouver and the two of us set out on the 9-ish hour drive to Rossland.

In the uplifting feel-good comedy that will eventually be made about my life, this car trip will be represented as a montage with some kind of folksy adult contemporary soundtrack and gently shifting images of the two of us smiling at each other, looking at the the beautiful scenery, maybe sharing a stack of pancakes that later generations will look back on as an example of poor role-modelling for healthy food choices.

But none of those things happened. Oh God how I yearned for pancakes. For the sweet release of ice cream and maple syrup. For diabetes.

In reality, it was a long, tiring and inefficient journey with innumerable small stops and some super sketchy driving over a mountain pass in a snow storm. In keeping with the tradition of me driving terrible vehicles in Canada, our ride had bald all season tyres (which means not winter tyres, which means terrifying) and headlights that didn't have either high-beam or low-beam. I couldn't work out which was missing, which in itself is something of a worry. Also, the driver's side seat belt didn't really work.

Anyway, we left late so we slept the night in the back of the car near the top of the sketchy mountain pass. The next morning the storm had cleared out and we stopped in Princeton, then Keremeos, then Oosoyous, and then again in Oosoyous in a different place. Look it up on Google Maps people, there pretty much aren't two distinct places in Oosoyous you can stop, and yet...

The romance between Maud's Hot Sister and I has survived many setbacks. It thrived despite being conducted for most of its life through second-degree text messaging. It persisted in spite of my obviously spurious claims to be half-Costa Rican, my flat out lies about dancing or speaking Spanish, my terrible haircut, my lack of a white suit. Most significantly, it survived in spite of the mutual disinterest of both parties and the fact that it was completely fictional in every important respect. But it could not survive the drive from Vancouver to Rossland. In our 20 hour approximation of a 9 hour journey we went straight from the thrill and excitement of new love and dating to the grim, jaded habit of infatuation held too fast for too long.

And so, dear friends, I announce to you the end of my first great attempt at wooing. Yes, perhaps there is time for love to flourish again. Maybe we can arrange a romantic interlude the All-U-Can-Eat Spaghetti night at the local diner. But really, I think that it's time to move on. There's a whole world of people with hot sisters out there. It's time to make another lucky girl extremely confused and uncomfortable.