Thursday, September 22, 2011

How to hang a mirror in 1489 steps!

After three weeks of attempting and procrastinating, I have, finally, hung the hallway mirror! Who would have thought that such a simple thing to become such an endeavor.

The journey began when the parents decided to paint the hallway. On condition of their return, I had requested the condo be repainted. Like any good painters, they removed all hangings from the walls prior to painting. Afterwards, the paint had to dry and cure so the hangings were left for a time. Time passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was time for them to return to Korea, leaving said hangings unhung. Assuring them that, as I was university educated and not completely unhandy with a hammer and screwdriver, I was more than capable of hanging up the hangings, Mom and Dad returned to Korea.

Being a procrastinator by nature, I left the hanging of The Mirror until a couple of days before Amy and Jaclyn were to arrive. Feeling that I should be prepared for their arrival, and have the house in tip-top order, I made my first endeavor to hang The Mirror. This endeavor ended in frustration. While the holes had been painted over, they were still visible. This cheered me greatly as it meant that I did not have to measure and fuss with the screw placement (or so I thought). With this taken care of, I next turned my attention to finding the correct screws to use. Considering the weight of The Mirror (I do believe that it is made out of leaded glass - it is excruciatingly heavy), I needed screws of sufficient width and length. Finding two longish screws I believed that I had everything in order. Screwing in the first screw was as easy as slicing butter with a hot knife (well maybe not that easy, but certainly easier then the next). The second screw proved to be past my strength. Yet I did not despair, for I knew that Dad had an electric screwdriver. But the screwdiver proved my undoing. I could not, for the life of me, determine how to change the tip. I tried and I tried. I thought that I understood how it was to loosen, but I could not loosen it. Tired, frustrated and more than a little annoyed that a piece of equipment could out-smart me, I attempted to screw in the nail a little over. This only resulted in increasing the size of the hole (no duh, I know, but I wasn't thinking clearly at this time). Now, not only was The Mirror not hung, but now I had a hole which was too big for a screw to hold the thing. I emailed Mom and Dad to gain instruction on how to loosen the screwdriver, and determine which screws to use (of which they promptly responded) and proceeded to procrastinate (I had an exam to study for after all).

Considering the size of the hole, I needed to fix it before I could even consider hanging the mirror. After about a week of procrastinating, I purchased the required polyfill, and the next day (pretty good for me), I filled the hole. Now of course, one must wait for the polyfill to dry before screwing anything into it. So I happily put off hanging The Mirror, until the next week.

Monday, September 12th, Amy asked what I was planning to do for the evening, and I admitted that the plan was to hang The Mirror. If ever you have a problem with procrastinating, tell someone that you plan to do the thing you are procrastinating, and when they ask about it, you'll feel guilty and, finally, get around to doing it. (This was Amy for me). So after cleaning the supper dishes, and checking my email, I finally dragged myself into the hall and prepared for battle. Armed with the knowledge of how to change the drill bit on the drill, I quickly measured the distance between the two hooks on the mirror and drilled two holes. I then screwed in the two screws (which I believed to be the ones required). Hoisting The Mirror (did I mention that the things weighs a tonne!), I attempted to hook the hooks onto the screws. After struggling for a couple of minutes, I requested help from a passing roommate (Jaclyn). With her supporting the mirror I attempted to line up the hooks, to no avail. Believing that perhaps the screws had been screwed in too far, I placed The Mirror on the floor, and unscrewed the screws a touch. Again I attempted to hook the hooks, after struggling for a few more minutes, I enlisted Jaclyn's help a second time, with me supporting the thing, and she directing. But again to no avail. Beginning to feel a bit frustrated, I placed The Mirror on the floor and stood staring at the screws, using my superior mental abilites to convince them to work. I tired a third time. This time, Amy passed by and offered her support. As I supported The Mirror (which seemed to grow heavier by the second), Amy directed. After a little bit, Amy asked if I had measured the distance between the hooks, to which I answered YES, but she shyly suggested that the distance was maybe not quite accurate, as one of the hooks appeared to miss the screw alltogether. At this point I switched positions with her to determine that she was indeed correct and my measuring abilities were sucky at best. In a moment of insanity, I drilled another hole right next to the first hole, which only succeeded in making the hole bigger resulting in the same problem as my first attempt (it was a moment of insanity . . . frustration does that to me). So I put The Mirror back on the floor, out of the way, put the drill and everything else away, and taking out the polyfill, filled the stupid hole for a second time.

Considering that I had to allow the polyfill to dry, I happily ignored The Mirror for the rest of the week. On Thursday night, Amy asked if I had any plans for the weekend, to which I replied "Hang The Mirror". I succeeded to ignore The Mirror, Friday night and all day Saturday, but as Sunday dawned I knew that I had to put up that Mirror, or die trying. I refused to allow a piece of furniture to defeat me (also I had told Amy that I was going to hang it, and my pride refused to allow that not to happen)!

So I began my third attempt. I decided that it would be best to make two new holes as I no longer trusted the previous holes being able to support anything. Measuring the distance between the hooks (three times), I carefully drilled two holes below the previous attempt. I then pounded in two screw support thingys (those plastic things which help support screws when they are drilled into drywall and not a 2x4), and drilled in my screws. Calling upon Rachel to help I attempted to hook The Mirror onto the screws. But it was not to be. It was as if The Mirror had decided that its residence on the floor was a much more comfortable existence than the wall, and it refused to catch the screws. I unscrewed the screws, believeing that maybe they were too far in, so the hooks could not catch. But even this seemed not to work. Frustration was mounting, but my pride was on the line. It appeared that one of the screws could catch the hook, but not the other. So unscrewing them I searched for a screw that more closely resembled the one that did catch. I found one screw which had the sharp edge which seemed to be required, but it was too thin and did not fit snuggly in the hole. I was beginning to believe that The Mirror would never hang, when I found it . . . The exact match to the good screw. With abated breath I screwed in the screws, called for Rachel, and hoisted The Mirror. The thing refused to catch, we wiggled one way than the other . . . until suddenly, Rachel cried that one screw had caught, but would the other. I had believed that they would both need to be caught at the same time to work (because of their size), and so it was with little faith that we attempted to wiggle the mirror back and forth. It was really kind of anti-climatic when the hook finally caught. It did it without much fanfare. I must admit, I was kind of hoping for trumpets or something of the like. The thing was hung! The wall was a mess - scrapped and scratched from attempting to catch the screws, and The Mirror was covered in figures, nose and forehead smudges, but it was hung. I thanked Rachel most graciously for her assistance, then went to gather paint and cleaner to cover the scratches and remove the smudges.

The next day as I was walking past The Mirror, I noticed that the stupid thing had gotten the better of me. Though it was hanging, it had the last laugh . . . for I had hung it crooked! But to tell the truth, I don't care. The thing is hung and that's good enough for me. If the fact that its crooked bothers you, just tilt your head and all will be well!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Life without a computer

Hi all

I have recently came across a realization about myself that I am not sure how I feel about.  I think that I may be addicted to technology.  It all started a few days ago when I was watching a movie on my computer (alas I can not say I was watching the news being intelligent, but rather the new X-Man movie).  Anyways, everything was going well and then all of a sudden in the middle of the movie my computer just turned off.  Well, I wish I could say that I was surprised but given that I have heard my hard drive becoming increasingly louder I figured that the hard drive had finally given out and that it was time for a new one. Even thought I am planning on returning to Canada (BOO) shortly I decided that I couldn't bare the thought of going without a computer for that long so it was off to fix the problem.  I headed to the nearest media store and set about to buy a hard drive; however, I was dismayed to learn that there was no hard drive to be had which would be Mac compatible so I was given a name of another computer store on the opposite end of Amsterdam that could probably help me.  Now I know what you are thinking, "Amsterdam is not that big" and you would be right however anytime you have to traverse an entire city, especially when you have time constraints (Eric was leaving for a few days and I needed to be back to get the keys) so it felt that the trip was taking forever.  Well needless to say upon arriving at the store which was to have the hard drive I learned that I had been hoodwinked and that there was no hard drive there but rather at another store quite some distance away.  Being that I was down a laptop and I was desperately wanting to finish my movie I did the only sensible thing (phoned eric and told him to hid the key and headed off to the next shop).  Well the next store did in fact have what I needed and I was able to get a really good deal on the hard drive but the problem was that they were unwilling to install the hard drive (perhaps it was because it was a mac or perhaps it was because when asked why I didn't want to install it myself I replied that I would rather have someone that I could blame if things went wrong).  Well anyways I made my way back to the original media store to get the hard drive installed only to be told that the technicians were done for the day.  This left me in a difficult position as it was only 5 in the afternoon and I couldn't really go to bed waiting for the next day so I headed off to the library for my computer fix (I was desperate to check my email) and then after a while I headed home.  Upon arriving back home I was confused as to what to do as generally the first thing I do when walking in the front door is open my computer.  I ended up reading the book the Urban Saint (great book by the way, not particularly well written but the content is very compelling).

The next day I was up and at it early as I was wanting to get this computer thing figured out as soon as possible (and because my running shorts had blown away in a storm the previous day (they smelled so bad that I had left them outside on the balcony to air out and i guess they managed to get a little too much air and took off).  Anyways, I got to the computer store bright and early and presented my precious mac and they promptly replaced the hard drive.  With this new hard drive in place I headed home to start the monotonous task of reinstalling all my precious programs, podcasts, music etc.  I arrived home, stuck the startup DVD in my computer and waited... Nothing.  I pulled out the disk and tried again and again and again (you know what they said if at first you don't succeed keep doing the same thing over and over again and you may get different results).  After trying this approach for a while I got frustrated and decided that I needed some help, now generally at this point I hit the internet but given that Eric had taken his computer I was internet less so I was stuck with the problem of how to get this figured out.  To make matters worse I couldn't really phone apple or a computer store as I didn't have the internet to look up any phone numbers.  I ended up phoning a friend at work and begging him to help me out with looking up Apples dutch number.  As much as I like Macs I am not a huge fan of their customer service ( I would imaging that it is even worse here in the Netherlands as dutch people seem to lack a filter for their comments sometimes).  After a frustrating 15 minutes on the phone which got me no where and cost me .1 a minute I still had no answers.  So I packed everything up and headed back to the store to try to get some answers, the original store I went to was clueless as to how to proceed so I ended up going to the Mac store for some expert advise.  I was told that they could install my operating system but it would cost me 80 euros or I could buy an external dvd drive for 30 euros and do it myself.  Well being truly cheap I jumped at the chance to save some money and headed off to buy an external dvd player (took me the rest of the day but I was the proud owner of a cheap dvd player which would play my installation dvd so I could install my software and get back to business).  Back home I went with the DVD player and a smile.  About 2 hours later after my computer turned off suddenly for the 4 time my smile was gone and I was again annoyed.  Back to the city I went (perhaps I should say that where I am currently living I am about 20 minutes outside the city, may not sound much but when you are making this trip about 6 times a day it becomes annoying).  Well as things go by the time I returned to the Mac Store they had closed for the night so again I returned to the library to get my computer fix.  Upon returning home that night I started to read another book (Megatrends 2010) not near as good as the Urban Saint.

Once again the next day started off bright and early as I took my laptop back into the city (I was also worried as I feared that it may be something seriously wrong and I would have to end up buying a new laptop and I was weighing the pros and cons of waiting until I returned to Canada for this).  A quick trip to the Mac Store once again proved to be fruitful as they turned it on and there was no problem loading the software and after a brief conversation I was on my way (the repair didn't cost me a cent, WOOHOO).  I returned home happy with a song in my heart as it appeared that my laptop was good to go and would continue to live, my happiness was very shorted lived as upon returning home my computer worked long enough for me to get everything set up and then turned itself off.  "Not good", I thought as I tried to restart my computer hoping that it was just some kind of fluke which would not repeat itself but true to form my computer lived for about 2 minutes (enough time for me to look at my email) and then it turned off again.  Well by this point I was once again worried and once again I packed up everything and headed back into the city to the mac store.  HAHAHA the same mac guy helped me out again and upon inspection told me that my system was overheating at first but seemed to be alright, "The stupid computer is working here for everyone else so I appear as a fool but not a home", I silently thought to myself but after 5 minutes of the computer not crashing I conceded defeat and once again took my computer home for me to try to figure out.  After playing around with it all day I have finally figured out that my computer is over heating for some reason and I can only do one or two things at once but I figure that it will be good enough to get me though to returning back to Canada and will help me be more productive as it will not let me watch videos (I can only surf the net, listen to podcasts and use my the different applications like word).

Anyways, I have learned two things from this ordeal.  First, I am addicted to my computer and am willing to go to great lengths and frustration to get it working again.  Second, my computer hates me.

Well i hope that everyone is doing well, mom and dad I hope that you have managed to dry off after your attempts to best nature.  Also, to let you all know I have booked my flight back to Canada for Oct 1st and I fly into Calgary.

I will talk to you all later.

Love

Wes

P.S Mom and Dad where are your camping (or rather rain pictures)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!!

Happy Anniversary to you!!!!
Happy Anniversary to you!!!!!
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary to YOU!!!!!!
(Please sing as off-key as possible to the tune of Happy Birthday!)

I LOVE YOU LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!

HEY PARENTS!!!

HAPPY HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!! And may God bless you with more than 29 more! Just minus another set of 3 kids.... That'd be awkward... Love you lots!
Lynne

Happy Anniversary

Hi Mom and Dad

Congratulations on your 29th Wedding Anniversary!  I hope that the camping trip went well and that the rain was not a problem.  How is the car?!?

Love

Wes

Monday, August 22, 2011

Spain (part 3 of my adventure)



Day 4

After leaving Morocco the last part of our adventure takes place in Spain.  The flight from Tanger to Madrid only took about a hour and because I was unable to get a good sleep on the overnight train and my sunburn I slept the entire flight.  We arrived in Madrid in the early evening and by the time we found our hotel it was pretty late and after eating we only had a little time to explore the city (also interestingly was that it was World Youth Day meaning that there were 1 million catholic youth hanging out in the city).  HAHAHA so we went from celebrating Ramadan in Morocco to celebrating Cathothicism in Spain.

Day 5

I ended up sleeping late as I was not feeling very well because of the sun burn and we ended up leaving the hotel at about 2 in the afternoon, which was great as the weather was clear and hot (it was about 37 degrees, sunny and no wind).  We spent part of the day exploring the city.

This was the castle in Madrid, the castle was seriously huge and try as I must I was unable to get a good picture showing the size of the castle.


This was a picture of downtown Madrid







As we were wandering around the city we came across a Mariachi band who were amazing but only played one song before the cops ushered them away.

This is the stadium of the Real Madrid football team (they won the world cup in 2010).
After seeing the football stadium we returned to the hotel and I ended up taking an epic nap (about three hours) because I was feeling pretty rough.  After I finally woke up at about 10 or so Eric and I made our way into the city center where we hung out and had a few drinks (juice for me) before heading back to our hotel as our flight was pretty early the next morning.  I must say that spain is a beautiful place and I feel that I should get back there to better explore the city as I feel that I certainly could have used a few more days in Madrid alone. The trip back to the netherlands was pretty unexciting with nothing worth mentioning or any pictures worth taking.

So now you have seen pictures from my trip and heard my adventures and I expect the same from all of you.  Hope to see your blog posts soon.

Love

Wes

Morocco (part 2 of my adventure)

Part 2 of my adventure takes place in Morocco

After a quick flight from Brussels (the flight took about 2 1/2 hours) we arrived in Tanger at about 5 local time (we lost 2 hours going from Brussels to Tanger).  We quickly realized that we were no longer in the Netherlands given that the temperature was about 30 degrees and there was SUN!!! (we have not seen sun for so long!).  We made our way out of the airport and found a dusty old cab to drive us into the city (the airport is about 20 km outside of town and there is really no public transportation to the airport) and got a quick lesson in how life goes in Morocco as we were defiantly taken advantage of (tourists are ripe for the cheating) and paid a premium for the cab ride but that being said it was still pretty cheap (about 15 euros) for a 30 minute cab ride.  We were in Morocco for 3 days and I must say that during that time I feel that we had a pretty good look at Morocco.

Day 1

This is a picture from our balcony in Tanger



A picture of our hotel room (it was interesting as it had a very Moroccan feel to it)

After arriving we set out to find a bit to eat as we had not really eaten all day.  Now I realized that we would be arriving during Ramadan however I didn't think that it would be that difficult to find something to eat but I was wrong.  We literally walked walked up and down the street looking for a place to eat and were unable to find some place to eat until the sun went down (at 7:30) and then the city became alive.  HAHAHA not only was finding food difficult but finding a cold beer was next to impossible because during Ramadan muslims don't drink, there were actually signs in restaurants which did serve alcohol saying that they would not sell alcohol to muslims.  After a bit of searching we found a local hotel were we could grab a beer in the hotel bar and after a little bit I decided that I was exhausted from all the excitement of the day and decided to call it a early night.

Day 2

The next day we were up early but not early enough for breakfast as during Ramadan everyone eats before sun up (at about 4 in the morning) so we ended up fasting for most of the day.  

A picture of the beach in Tanger, Morocco has many thousands of km of beautiful beaches.

While trying to figure out how to get to the cave of Hercules we found a cab driver who was willing to take us to all the best places in the city for 30 euros (so we rented the cab for 3 hours for 30 euros and were driven to all the best places and given information on tanger).  This is a picture of part of Tanger, the city contains about 1.2 million people and spreads across two hills, this is just one of those two hills.

Many of the royalty of the middle east have palaces here in Tanger because the weather is really beautiful (the temp gets down to about 15 in the winter and goes as high as 33 in summer and there is always a cool breeze).  This is the front door of the king of Morocco (the king has two palaces in Tanger and in most cities in Morocco).  The King of Morocco has 45 hectors which reaches back to the sea and 84 full time gardeners and a ton of guards.

Our taxi driver had a lot of connections and for a small tip we were allowed into some of the palaces to see certain things.  This is a picture of a 1964 Rolls Royce Phantom (there are only 3 of these cars in the world) and this one belonged to some saudi business man.

This is a picture of Eric and I in the palace of some Spanish wealthy merchant.

This is the point where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic (the straight of Gibraltar), you can see streaks where dark water and light water meet.  


This beach is one of the most famous beaches for surfing in Morocco.

As we were driving our cab driver spins around and asks if we would like to ride a camel for about 10 euros and we were delighted to say yes.  This is me on my camel, the camel ride was quite something and I must say I really enjoyed it.




After the camel ride we then went to the cave of Hercules this was our guide Mufassa (who did a terrible job at giving us our tour but did a great job of extorting a few euros from us) HAHAHA thus is Morocco.




The Hercules cave was created by cutting mill stones and this is one of the mill stones which were being cut.


After the cave our cab driver took us to some Moroccan stores so Eric could buy some souvenirs and I ended up seeing these great moroccan rugs.  This rug was hand made from silk and could have been had for about 220 euros but could have probably been had for less depending on your negotiation skills.

Other Moroccan rugs, notice the beautiful colours

At one of the places we found a ton of lamps, I tried rubbing them to find a genie but I only ended up with a dirty hand.

After our cab tour we headed to the bus station to make the trip to Casablanca and since we had a few hours to kill we ended up checking out a local market.  

This was a picture of one of the ladies begging at the market for food or money

The Moroccans love olives and this is a picture of one of the many stands in the market where you could buy Olives.

One of the more interesting stores we saw was this one, you had your option between very fresh eggs or very fresh chicken.

A picture of children selling things on the street.

We had a few options to get to Casablanca but we opted to go with the bus as we were assured that it would be air conditioned and the trip would only take about 5 hours.  The trip was pretty unexciting and I must say certain areas of the country side look like parts of the Canadian prairies.

This is a picture from our hotel room in Casablanca


Eric and I stumbled across a great little restaurant which provided us with some great Moroccan food


After our dinner we headed out for a little entertainment and ended up in a few Moroccan night clubs.  I wish I could give you a better idea of the environment as there was great Moroccan music, lots of dancing and hooka smoke but I guess these pictures will have to do.


Day 3

The next day after a night out we saw the largest mosque in the world.




Following checking out the mosque we decided to wander the streets in the old part of Casablance.  I must admit I was surprised with the city I was expecting it to be much more modern however it kind of felt like a shell of a city (the city has over 8 million people) which missed its hay day in the 40s.


After a bit of wandering we found Rick's Cafe from the movie Casablanca


And proceeded to have a few drinks

A pot of moroccan tea (mint tea) that I had at Rick's Cafe.  Seriously you have never had mint tea until you have moroccan mint tea it is sooo good!





This was a picture of one of the beautiful parks in Casablanca (note how dry the trees look)

This was picture of a synagogue that we saw (about 10% of the moroccan population is Jewish)


After a bit of wandering we came across a beach where we found tones of people playing football on the beach so we hung out there a bit and caught some sun.  We had decided earlier on that we would be returning to Tanger by night train (leaving at 12:45) so after a bit to eat we headed off to the hotel to  collect our things.  On our way to our Hotel we got pretty lost and ended up getting a helping hand from a Moroccan family who showed us to our hotel and invited us out for a cup of tea after.  During my time in Morocco I found that Moroccans are very friendly and easy to get along with.

Day 4

After we arrived back in Tanger we decided to go to the hamam (this is a bath house) as we had heard that this was something that needed to be experienced.  We were unable to find a hamam open on Firday (given that Fridays are a holy day and it was Ramadan)
Seeing as we were unable to go to the bath house and our flight was at 2 we ended up hanging out at the beach (I ended up getting a sunburn) and then left for the airport at about 12 or so.  Next stop Madrid!