Craig Neilson

2009-09-12T21:42:00.000+12:00

I left my job on Friday. They got me a card! It was so nice. It was nice especially 'cos I'd gotten each a card, too. Then I sang a song to them. Then I came home and had the best party I've ever had. Then I got up this morning and dressed in my finest, filled a basket with flowers and rode my bike down Ponsonby road with some of my friends.

Canada

2009-08-04T20:14:00.039+12:00

The day started in front of my computer in Auckland, New Zealand re-creating the website for my graphic novel, and ended at Leigh Golby's fold-out couch on Canada's Sunshine Coast. The next morning I was in a canoe on the ocean, eating cream-cheese-and-nuttella sandwiches and steering our vessel in to the round-pebbled bay of a tall-peaked island mountain.

Friday the 12th of June is the longest Friday in my memory. It started at the stroke of midnight, uploading to Wordpress the finishing flourishes and time-set blog entries for Kelp: a year's hard work with a big group of friends. It's a graphic novel, made entirely of photos and featuring some of Auckland's finest young talent! The Creative-Commons license means we can both sell it online AND give it away for free. Finishing it off represents the pay-off for a lot of people's time, care and determination. I won't talk about it too much, except to say that I'm hoping to upload final corrections to the publishers' this week. Then we go to print.

But on Friday the 12th, only two hours in to the day, the web site went down hard. Using a recent-enough database backup and my local cache of the files, I re-created the entire site in about 4 hours. Then I went to bed.

I went to work after a few hours sleep. For me, that's an office: Affinity ID and my sub-company; Jimungo. We make online games and community sites, and I have the general role of producing communication with the visitors. I'm leaving the job soon, but we're on very good terms and that's another story.

Actually, I'll take this chance to say that I lead an incredible life in New Zealand. I wasn't running from anything on this trip. I wasn't looking for something better. For me, the journey was a chance to get among strangers and be myself in a foreign city. One thing about that is that I'm the luckiest little boy in the world.

My 13 hour flight took me from 6pm Friday NZ to 2pm Friday East Canada. On the flight, a couple of kiwis sat in front of me and generally looked painfully cute together. "Excuse me," said the girl to a flight attendant. "I didn't ask for a vegetarian meal but I wonder if there's going to be a spare." I offered to share mine. That girl was Monica Rose Yeoman, and her guy was Dave Henley.

Dave sat in front of me on the canoe, just as he had on the plane. We'd shared a few waka together by that stage - flight NZ83 where we'd figured out that the two of us were spending the next week together. Steve Ingold's car, where we piled in our stuff and pressed our faces against the window to see Canada at ground-level. The bus to Horseshoe Bay. The Langdale ferry to the Sunshine Coast.

That's where I met Leigh Golby, my first ever Couchsurfing host. I'd got an email from Couchsurfing HQ a few days before... June the 12th was to be International Couchsurfing Day! It lined up perfectly for my first experience of being a guest, even though I'd hosted more than 100 passionate, bright-eyed-but-weary travellers in my home.

If you haven't already worked it out, the Couchsurfing Project is a community of people that say something like "hi! If you're coming my way, you should crash on my couch! I'll host you for a few nights and make damn well sure you get yourself the best experience my area has to offer. In fact I'll do it expecting nothing in return." Nothing is right. Leigh and Dale were impossibly nice but they wouldn't even let me buy them dinner.

Dave Henley powered away at his strokes, and Steve Ingold in front of him. Our mutual friend Tiaki was near the front and leading the chant. We were joined by Bob McGregor plus Dylan and Colby Sparks, brothers. Steering the back of the boat was the reason we were there. This meat-and-alcohol free excursion in to the forests and waters was to celebrate Eric Welscher-Bilodeau and his impending marriage to Amy Wyn Blanding. The outing was a stag do.

I met Amy and Eric two years ago in San Francisco. They weren't together officially at the time, but traveling together and that kind of thing. They stuck out for their passion, their charming integrity and reckless dedication to the natural world. I loved them instantly, and took Amy as my long-lost sister. We barely kept in touch, but when the wedding invitation came my attendance was a foregone conclusion.

I wasn't the fittest of the lads. I'm not used to this - being the most physically able in a group is usually something I take for granted. But all these guys, they knew their stuff. In an old growth forest on Gambier Island, we took our first hike on day one. It was hard.

Imagine that the image of a computer screen is still fresh in your mind. The old growth here had erected giant cedar trees taller than the pines and kauri I'm used to. But savage winds had torn through this place, the fallen trunks leaving a twisted wake of destruction. That was our path.

The cedar trees of Gambier Island are so tall, so wide and so thick in their bark, it wasn't hard to imagine that we were in fact very small. The men strode fast over the logs and moss, boots clumping from step to leap and step again. The terrain got steeper and the views were soon too much to pass up.

A rock face awaited us after the density of the forest. Above it, a view over the tree canopy and the last few hundred meters to the Gambier summit. It would be hotter up there, and steeper. Two of the guys turned back. I'm not proud of the risks I took, any mistake would have tested my medical insurance policy. But I'm glad I didn't turn back.

I'm glad the other two did. They'd found our canoe about to sink: millimetres from the water-line and still held down by the same rock we'd tied it to. High tide really came in that day, and after cutting the lines and re-tying up, the guys got a fire going and had us all some hot food about ready when we got back. I don't remember all of it, but I'll never forget the capsicums.

We slept under the stars that night, but we changed islands first. The water was still, reflective skin with starlight freckles. At 3am the yellow moon rose, full over the water. We came ashore and assumed our places, mine by a still-smouldering fire. The stars were unfamiliar, but my bedroll wasn't.

On day 2 as a woman awoke me with her apologies (for how messy her party had left our crashpad campsite), I realised that I wouldn't get online again for several days.

Next we recovered. We made a pretty awesome fire. I swam in the ocean, and again in the exquisitely perfect Pools of Possibility. That night we sang and drummed and chanted and cooked. We made our first of many offerings to a higher being, and we burnt it with our blessings. We planted a flag to signify that we are indigenous beings of the Earth. I won't go in to this stuff.

On Monday we paddled to Anvil Island. Anville's rock peak looks like the sharp part of an anvil and bursts straight from the top of a lusciously forested island. When we came to view it, carrying our water and everything else with us, my body (especially my legs) wanted me to turn back. But I also saw such a curious challenge, a sight like a lost challenge of the Chinese monkey-king, or some impossible battleground. Fueled on only the finest rolled oats and fire-roasted caramel-apples, we all pressed on. But I handed off the water.

This time we had a track. We'd paddled out past the dark-eyed seal colonies, picked wild berries and snuck quietly through some Christian campground. The track was beaten, but hard. Devil's staircases cut in to rocks. Tagged trees in dense forest. An episode stalking a grouse. The last thing we expected when we got to the top was a full pack of bottled water. But that's what we got.

Along with an out-house, a helicopter landing pad and the beginings of a brand new weather station. The view was so remarkable that we stayed till sunset. Then a bit longer in silence.

We camped near the peak that night, and I was the first to retire from the fireside tales. The moss here was as thick as a pillow, despite the elevation. I slept fast and long, and in the morning when the helicopter rang in Tuesday, we made our way down.

Our last full day of adventure. I put a new bandage on the cuts on my palm. They were improving. We stayed, despite the protests, at an impeccably dressed (the sandy tent-sites were rake-combed, the fire-pits were permanant structures and the toilet had an actual seat) campsite. I'm obligated not to talk about the campfire that night, our tallest yet, except to say that we honoured Eric: as we knew him and as we were to know him with Amy. And to say that at one point Eric's shoes caught on fire, and we all thought that was pretty funny. It was beautiful. It was masculine. It was wild.

Sleep featured strongly. In the morning, we found that we were hopelessly out of cream cheese. It was time to go back.

I'm not sure what the girls would have thought, down on the rocks to meet us blokes. We paddled shirtless this time (but just to show off), chanting in Maori and counting the power-strokes for precision and speed. When we got close a few guys bailed to meet the women dripping wet, and when we landed the wahine commandeered the ship to have their own paddle and dip.

The lot of us got in and packed up. We ferried in squashed cars to Molly's Reach, a well known cafe for yachties and, well, us. I met up later, when the dust had settled, with Leigh Golby. She took me straight back to her place, then out to an eating and watering spot that sees sea planes taking off and pulling in. A sea-plane airport and an American-sized serving of fresh veges.

The thing about Couchsurfing is that people don't live in hotels. They live in residences, which like smooth-edged stone staircases in thousand-year-old Turkish offices, just can't be faked. "We have a jacuzzi, you know" says Leigh. "Feel like a soak?" Hell yeah.

Wow. The Neilson family owes the Golby's big time. Leigh and Dale were exceptional hosts for my arrival in a terrific area. They lead full but idyllic lives and yet took every chance to go the extra mile in sharing with me their wealth of comforts and experiences. Staying with them for two days was an unforgettable gift, a truly wild example of two generous souls out to share their kindness and high spirits with trustworthy couchsurfin' folk. Thank you for being my first hosts, for your boundless love and the warmest welcome BC has to offer.
-- Reference I left for Leigh and Dale

I left around noon the next day, heading for downtown Vancouver. I had a shopping list to wipe, including a shirt for the wedding, a Canadian-numbered cellphone and some place to stay.

Downtown Vancouver is awesome. Busy streets crowd a vibrant shopping scene of pricey designer fashionware, technology centers, hip cafes and thrift stores are all mashed in together. Wifi nearly everywhere. I ate a "Facon-Lettuce-Tomato" sandwich and tweeted about how being a vegetarian in Vancouver was such a treat. A local mag spotted the tags and hooked me up with their vege eating guide.

That hotel was easily the worst place I stayed. It was noisy like an untuned fridge, hot like a summer day indoors, impersonal like a reluctant part-time job. I didn't mind, but I didn't sleep much either. I didn't love downtown for the Granville Grand, but I did love downtown.

How to run a wedding. First, get yourself an island. At 2pm I met Tyler Sparks (another of the brothers) on a wharf. His car, a mini van, was loaded to the brim with great big packs of the greatest food you've ever seen. Great big boxes of beans. Countless heads of lettuce and ears of corn. Local apple cider, lots of broc, pasta and sauces. I'd learn later that this stuff had been sourced organically, locally, with love over countless hours on the phone to producers. Ty had gone way out of his way to bring only the best, and the best we were sure to eat.

We traveled with the food on the roof of a high speed water taxi, waving at neighbouring boats and holding out hats as we bounced through the swell. Young men and women were coming out early to set up; to take charge and get the campsite welcoming for wedding guests. On that day I met the amazing sound system I'd later captain, and the incredible room I'd be asked to shake.

I wouldn't have imagined this kind of ideal night. The party n' dancing room was a log cabin, but open plan and half the size of a basketball court. Its high ceiling, hard floor and actual logs for walls had an accoustic resonance you won't find elsewhere. Softer parts of the notes sung or played would bounce back full and rich and dripping with sunshine. A dreamlike soundscape from every corner. The room sung back.

The geni cut out at 1 and the setup crew hit the sack. Throughout the next day, guests arrived barefoot in their finest, empty bellied and carrying instruments. Just the way we wanted them.

Amy and Eric got married in the afternoon shade. Rung in by deft guitarists, moving words and a smiling crowd, their vows were heart-stunningly beautiul, mesmerisingly loving and said with the couple's rare blend of passion and integrity. Hot shit, that's going to be one damn unforgetable partnership and a very fine marriage. The emotional momentum was building up. Us guys at the front took off our shirts.

Kia rite! Kia rite! Kia mau!

The uniting call for a haka. The Maori people use this kind of warrior dance to show unity, to pay respect and to identify a challenge. In the forests and the corridors, our groom's party had met in secret to learn and practice the chants, the postures and the movements throughout.

Torono titaha
TIHAHA
Ki waho
HII!

The full performance probably took four or five minutes, but in a haka things become timeless. At once you are confronted with the noise and silence of the forest, thrust in full contact with your emotions of love and fear. The words of our haka say that we will come together, and we will shake the forest. We did.

Camp Artaban was our place for feasting. There were speeches, videos, songs. Eric and Amy are the most fabulous people, and the wedding reflected that. Guests were an inspiring flock of environmentalists, adventurers, leaders, locals, lovers, dreamers and me. Feast we did, then it was time to party.

I bought this little computer a few weeks before I went away. A netbook by Toshiba, vastly improved by Linux and racing along with its feisty little batteries and child-size keys. Meet my DJing box!

That plugged in through some borrowed AV cables to a 12 channel mixer, output to a couple of distinct and active boxed 15's. It was honestly so loud I kept the volume at quarter-way, and if you've done music with me before you know that must have been pretty loud.

The tracklist was pretty good. It was pop, but quirky and tasteful pop, and we all understood the irony. It feels good to play songs you guiltily like and have a whole crowd enjoy it. The fun opened doors to spin some stuff I really enjoy, wacky souped up breakbeats with strong groovy lead-lines and phat, camp bass. We shook those logs from sun-down till the geni's cut out, but the fire still burned and we gathered around it to sing ourselves to sleep. That was a good and fulfilling night.

So was the morning. The wedding campsite chill day was to play games, eat food and make use of the excellent company we were in. We cleaned as we went, packing down and telling tales in high spirits. I got some names, some tips for Van City and some time to catch up on emails. After packing up the last of the cables, mic stands and speakers I came back to the mainland by sailboat, speedboat and ferry. I had my instructions; take the skytrain to Vancouver's funky East side, walk to the poetry slam and meet up with Kim, my next Couchsurfing host.

The wonderhost, Couchsurfing Vancouver's self-appointed and unchallenged Empress simply won't allow a dull moment on the funked up east side of town. Thanks Kim for the rigorous, playful and fabulous time we spent together. This girl is well connected, she knows it, and she deserves her popularity too. See you at the show!
CS reference I left for Kim

Poetry slams are my favourite. Live on stage someone spills their creative passion into words for three minutes, the crowd goes wild and the poet is judged Olympics-style by random members of the audience, read live by the host. "A seven-point-three, an eight-point-one, and eight-point-one and an eight-point-six, give it up for Thomas Knoll". The whole thing happens at high volume and with live music to break up the verse. There's alcohol involved, and often screaming.

Vancouver's slam is no exception and it takes place at Cafe Deux Soleil, where I was quite happy to be, and only got my head around the awesomeness of on my third visit. It's a grey concrete-floored, fully vegetarian coffee shop with a wealth of interesting regulars, a small stage lit by fairy lights and more temptation on the blackboard menu than I could actually eat. I went three times, once for the poetry slam, once for the superb open mic and once just to check that shit out. Five stars.

At Kim's place I met her friend Leora, flatmates and fellow Couchsurfer Matthias Ranner. I quickly introduced myself as the happiest and luckiest little boy in the world, and began to recount my adventures of the past few days. After a few minutes they invited me to take my pack off. I had forgotten.

Kim's place in East Van is trendy, mystical, imaginative. Plants and Siamese fighting fish make themselves at home all over the rooms and windowsills, a wooden porch overlooks the back yard's small but sprawling garden. Kim's fiery red hair and oversize devil-smile grin from pictures on the walls at the assorted musical instruments and crafting equipment.

The heart of East Van, Commercial Drive, explains Kim and everything about her. We explored it together that Tuesday while urban hippies, fellow nannies and grinning artists lined up to hug her. Kim looks after two really neat kids, and after school we all burnt our energy at the neighbourhood playground. I'm a dab hand at tag and pushing swings, but these guys put the pressure on high.

For dinner we had pie. Kim makes a mean, legendary vegan sheppard's pie with smooth mashed potatoes topping the most juicy tomato and chewy TVP mix. I cleaned my plate, and to follow we had pumpkin pie. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest.

I hung out a few days in East Van and central, eating well and having fun. On one of the nights I went to Dayton's Well bar and played the drums in Kim's band performing live. I'd only heard the song we were playing once before - on laptop speakers - but the guitars were pretty rhythmic and I rocked out my favourite beats. Heads bobbed in the crowd and hands patted me on the back afterwards. Playing live is so nice! This video is the band doing a cover a few months ago.

I went to Science World the next day. Touristy, childish, but I didn't care too much. What better place to play relentlessly with science than somewhere nobody recognises you? That night, I was back to Cafe deux Soleil to meet Lawrence Silcox and check out the open mic.

Lawrence was to be my new host. A cycling advocate, clothing designer and treasure trove of stories, I'd eventually leave him the following reference on Couchsurfing:

Lawrence is one of those amazing guys that can live a life both elegant and exciting. The stories he tells of his many experiences are entrancing, insightful and diabolically funny (Lawrence's trademark sense of shock humour is cheeky, twisted and contagious). I can't thank you enough for the couch, for the bike (that was such an adventure!) and for fitting me in to your very enjoyable life. Keep in touch!

The two of us and his partner Patricia talked rabidly and ate excitedly, then who should turn up but Dave and Monica from the plane, the forest and the wedding. Our party of five bonded merrily till the open mic started up.

Open mics are great for travelers. You're guaranteed a bunch of people who want to get heard, a crowd of the artists' friends, breaks between the acts and an un-judgemental vibe. Some of the acts will be great - and you'll remember them forever as a nugget of treasure you found on your own steam. Some of them will be awful and you'll remember what a fun time you had.

Cafe deux Soleil was heavily weighted in the direction of talented, original and mesmerising acts, and included one such act I'll introduce here. Jaimie and her accoustic guitar had the whole place in hysterics, cutting their cheers and laughter short only to hear the next line of her spellbinding song. The words? "Jesus was a fag! But that's ok, 'cos god loved him anyway" and more. She was also really cute.

Lawrence gave me a bike to ride around Vancouver while I stayed with him.

Oh my god, Vancouver for cycling just might be the best. Cycling usually feels like a "hack" in cities - like a cheat move in a computer game that doesn't quite work but achieves something better than the designers intended. Vancouver has noticed the cow-paths - curbs that cyclists jump, streets they can't quite cross, shortcuts through residential zones - but the city has paved them and stuck signs to encourage the behavior. Imagine cycle-strips that cut through the ends of "dead end" streets to cross arterial highways with ample road islands. Bridges with two cycle-lanes in each direction, quiet streets with pictures of bikes marked right in the middle of the road. There was lots to learn here, and learn I did.

But before I could plan my day fully, from an internet hotspot in Gastown, my friend AJ Kutchaw from WAY BACK online pops up on my screen and announces she's in North Vancouver. I'm about a kilometre from the ferry building.

And then I'm on the ferry - AJ and I have been chatting on the web since that was a new thing to do - we've followed each other's story from high school to uni and through travels and relationships and jobs - and now we're both in the same place? This is too good to miss.

I love the look of a city from the water, Vancouver looks amazing. North Van is marked by tall frosty mountains, a city where mountains mean north! And close up, they're just as impressive. Plus they have a food court. We met by a fountain.

Meeting AJ was amazing, we instantly hit it off and had a whole lot to talk about. For a short time. I needed to get back exploring and AJ needed to do some chores, so we downed a few wheatgrass shots after lunch and got back to our separate ways for the afternoon.

I hit the beaten tracks - as well as nice bike lanes for transport, Vancouver has wicked paved cycle tracks through forest and along the coast, leading you to the area's best beaches. AJ texted me the places to go to see the hottest girls and she was right.

I met Betty Keller on the beach and told her I was exploring for the afternoon. We hung out in the sand and she told me about her visit to Canada - she's a Swiss traveller and learning English as she goes. A stunner and an entertaining mind. I'm glad we talked.

By 5pm I needed to be back at Lawrence's work. This is not because he needed the bike back, in fact he'd brought in the other spare for Monica or Dave. It's because a few blocks away, the crowds were preparing for the bike ride that happens on the last Friday of every month, in every major city in the world.

June is Bike Month, or something, in Canada, and historically the biggest Critical Mass of the year. 2009 was no exception: five thousand cyclists of all shapes and sizes prepared for a record-breaker at the city's central courthouse. Try and picture five thousand bikes. You can't.

The mass moved off just after six. Music bikes with bright colours and flashing lights gave us all a groove, tandems and baby-trailers and dogs riding in handlebar baskets broke the one-soul-to-a-seat rule everywhere you looked. Three girls rode past me with helmets that look like hair. Canadian flags aplenty, singing cyclists and lots of sweet cruisers. A celebration, a gathering, a movement. Everywhere we went, normal road usage was fucked.

And we covered some good ground! Urban downtown flowed to Stanley Park, where the Lions Gate Bridge felt our mighty presence. The Lions Gate is one of the most stunning places there is. The suspension bridge crosses a formiddable piece of ocean, cliffs plummet to the sea on either end. Boats cruise or meander below and sea planes take off up above with impressively narrow headroom to spare. We took over that bridge entirely.

Following the bridge, and on some beautiful and berry-tree filled road in Stanley park, I caught up with a beautiful girl in a multi-coloured helmet. I had my camera around my neck and was taking the chances to snap photos at high speed. Who else was this cyclist but Jaime from last night's open mic.

I introduced myself, as best I could at high speed. She seemed happy to get recognised, and didn't mind me taking pictures. She said, though, that I should tag them on Facebook and with that I made a friend.

She also said she'd make me an inner-tube belt if I visited her at the bike shop! The deal was on.

After the ride I sampled Kitsilano's sushi with Emily Payne. I'd met her at the wedding, a wide-eyed and sunny-smiled lass with an outlook I had to explore. She'd come out for Critical Mass - bless her - and then somehow found me in the crowd. Wow! I'm so glad we went out for dinner, the kind of person everyone should know one of.

By Saturday I was pretty tired. I'd arranged to stay with Leora and her flatmates, who I'd met at Kim's on the first night, and who lived further East in the quiet part of town. But this was no quiet flat! I managed to arrive the night AFTER the party, and was welcomed by bright coloured walls, vintage video game controls, funky lights and a really bright vibe. My (own) room and bed were downstairs, a place I'd later collapse from delighted exhaustion. But I took one chance for a simple last adventure in to town and to something called the Saturday circus.

It's more like a meetup and practice group for the hula hoop crowd (which actually, is really thriving in this part of the world). I even had a go, and spun a hoop on my hips for the first time since primary school, probably. It's fun! It's tricky, it's groovy and strangely natural.

So a couple of days later when I met Molly, my hips and I were already practiced. Molly had a travel hoop, it folded up and tucked in to her bag. She spun it down at the wharf on Granville Island, pale skinned and brightly dressed, her hair a precisely orange bustle tied back with a bandanna. I caught myself staring.

Earlier that day I'd left East Van for a new pad just off Kitsilano beach. I carried both my backpacks, which started out as quite a haul and ended as a comfy load as I grew stronger from abundant vegan food. I moved them closer to Molly and waited for a chance to butt in on the conversation.

I spun the hoop, which was memorable, and got Molly's number before she left. We txted.

The previous day I'd met up with AJ again, and she'd taken me where I apparantly needed to go. Wreck Beach is a nude beach at the University of Van and the beautiful West coast. To get there from the uni, you take a steep and beautiful forest walk down wooden stairs and beaten-down undergrowth. When you get there, everybody's naked.

But it's not in the slightest bit seedy or dodgy or even sexual, it's just people on a beach and usually being quite friendly. AJ and I got our kit off and soaked up sun for a few hours, then she went home and I stayed on roastin'.

My couch that night - for one night only was recent French migrant Sofiane from Couchsurfing. We ate out and chatted long, then she was out of my life and I was out of hers. Couchsurfing is so great for that fleeting, generous and wonderful kind of person. We didn't have to be best friends forever, so we just made friends for one evening, then I slept on her couch. There's honestly nothing like it to feel like you have a vast network of wonderful friends. You do.

Before leaving East Van I went to a bike shop on Commercial Drive. Jaime met me there and on-the-spot made me a belt out of a bike tube, a spoke, and a chain link. She didn't charge.

And the reason I was on Granville Island when I met Molly was because I'd arranged to have lunch with a Couchsurfing contact, Heike who had lived in New Zealand. I recounted my awesome adventures and got a few tips on who to meet next.

In Kitsilano I met my host Nada, a massage therapist who worked in the hood. She lives with her best friend who's also a massage therapist, and the two of them talk in a rapidfire and totally engrossing self-styled dialect. It's hard - impossible! - to talk as cool as these two, whose speedy repartee just cannot be matched. I tried, always feeling less cool than them, and they didn't mind that I wasn't.

But they were also my yo-yo hosts, dealing with my comings and goings with unexplained grace. On the first night, after a dinner out at the deservedly world-famous 24 hour vegetarian Naam restaurant I trotted out to Central Van's Railway Club and caught Kim's band Sneetch live with their real drummer. They're a good band, with big hairy balls and an arresting personality. I'm waiting for the CD, to make a sweltering car ride that extra bit sweaty.

Tuesday was a computer day. Revisions had come back from the publishers of Kelp, and I got to work on adjusting the border trims for each of the 112 pages. After bagels for brekkie, I was sat on the sofa for all of the day.

Or I could have been. Flirting with Molly with lots of txts, I suddenly realised the actual situation. You see, Molly's not from Vancouver and neither am I. She's from Calgary, North-East of Vancouver by no small distance. And that sunny Tuesday I was spending indoors was the day she was leaving.

While she lugged her bags in to Vancouver central to catch a bus to the airport, I sat inside just a few clicks away. Six weeks later we'd both be home, and that meant six thousand times the distance.

I ran over the bridge and we met for coffee. She pulled a big wheelie-bag with another on top of it, and we holed up in some coffee shop to rave endlessly about many shared loves. She was one of those people that got cooler with each word, until I couldn't wait to hear what she said next. But eventually the talking turned to the bus stop, and I realised that putting her on a bus was the last thing I wanted to do. My only choice.

I hoped that my leaving wouldn't feel like hers. Longing, unfinished, necessary. But I'm really glad that I spent some time while I could, it's much harder now.

I grabbed a late lunch at Planet Veg on my way back. Then I hit the computer and kept working on Kelp.

Work had finished around 10pm, and I uploaded files on the neighbour's borrowed wireless. Something of a dinner party had erupted with Nada's friends over to eat ice cream and flirt recklessly with the quick-witted locals. Howcome everyone here was so snappy? I slipped in a few words to the conversation, took the chance to eat stirfry and ice cream, then bidded adieu to get down to central's Library Square. I needed some Drum n' Bass.

Danny Byrd was performing that night to a small but captive audience on a sound system that tripped power outages in the club. An entertaining line up warmed the crowd of about 200 in the embellished but tidy setting. Then Danny Byrd sprinted through a jaw-dropping set list from his very own Hospital Records.

After the gig I had a drunk but beautiful Tracey introduce herself. Her friends Lindsay and Adam took me back to their place, a stunningly hip and musical pad with big speakers and lots of computing power. We had a quiet afterparty, but I was fading, and when they moved on at around 4, I took another cab to Nada's couch. The new day was Canada Day, and I watched the sun rise.

Canada Day is a day off for all Canadians. They do what they want, like go to the beach, get naked and smoke pot. I didn't smoke pot, but I joined an awful lot of Canadians back down at Wreck for the national day's festivities.

I got there before the people I was meeting, so I hung out with Jaime (a different one), Dusty and Emily (also a different one). We talked summer and played frisbee and did the Canadian version of swimming, which is kind of like swimming but lasts about two minutes.

Eventually I met up with Kim and hung out near some muso's with her and Matthias. Drum circles and guitar strummers turned eventually into sandy dance parties and combined as the sun drifted closer to the mountains. The locals rugged up with only the most dedicated nudists sticking to their guns, then as the sun met horizon I started to howl. It caught on.

Standing, near naked on the beach and howling at the setting sun, a chorus backed up by a thousand Canadians, I'd finally clocked Vancouver. At last I was ready to leave.

I'd had a remarkable time. The sun, sinking in to the hills was the truth sinking in that my journey had only just begun. I'd smiled at a lot of Canadians. They'd smiled a lot at me. The USA was a meagre hour away and in a few days I'd be hitting it.

I guess that'll be part two.

A life filled with wonder

2009-05-20T17:18:00.009+12:00

Today I went in to the Auckland University to touch base with their Eco-Fest people and talk on 95bFM about Sunday's mass demonstration of support for walking and cycling options on the Harbour Bridge organised by GetAcross. What a great afternoon!

You can listen to the interview (mp3) on the bFM website: GetAcross interview. I thought I did ok but I could stand to lose the mumble.

I certainly did better than Melissa Lee did in the political debate - boy oh boy. Melissa Lee is toast - a disaster for the National party to stand such a weak candidate. She had a pretty hard welcome (video) but struck back quite personally (see the vid) a number of times.

It's tempting (and easy) to turn this in to a Lee-hating campaign, but I think it's more important to get Russel Norman's talking points across. He's talking utter sense, but he needs, er, more muscle. He and his informers are cutting-edge and very well read green politicians and they choose very likable and adoptable positions. Deserves more attention than he takes for himself.

I can't believe I've never mentioned Kelp here before. It's a photograhic novel I've been working on with some friends for about a year and a half. It was meant to be a quick summer project, but it quickly became so much else.

Kelp is about a chap named Kosti who is an imaginative young Auckland man struggling to stay on the right side of insanity. The book is about the interesting people he meets, real and imaginary, in the few days after a breakup with his beloved wife.

I'm currently rushing the second draft past the people involved and I'll soon be printing a "release candidate". It's just over 100 pages and will be printed and available on Amazon as well as through me directly - should be ready around mid June if I work really hard!

The site on photographicnovel.com (which is also mine! Want to help run it?) is not live yet, but you can become a fan of Kelp on Facebook and I'll let you know when it's ready.

By the way, it's going to published with a Creative Commons license, so it'll be all set for remixing and free downloading too.

Today I had 12 pairs of socks arrive in the mail. If they're any good, I'll get more. On Trademe, 12 pairs of socks can be yours delivered for $26.

Jimungo's alive!

2009-01-30T09:31:00.003+13:00

I get to do awesome projects at work, and we've just gone live with a brand new site. Two, actually!

Check out www.jimungo.com - the big one - a brand new online community. This is an open space and anything could happen here. It's seeded with a few hundred thousand people - mostly New Zealanders, who have already begun to create content and invite other participants.

If you played Pulse of the Nation, you're one of these people and can log in with the same details you used for the game. Of course, you haven't joined the site until you do this so you're not about to get email you don't want.

The other site is skysport.co.nz Virtual Rugby for the Rebel Sport Super 14 season. This is our biggest game, and we're hoping to get a lot of people playing this year.

The two sites are woven together - Jimungo is the community that powers the games. It's all here - my username is "Craig" if you want to add me.

2008

2009-01-28T16:41:00.002+13:00

Found a list I made in December of my 5 favourite achievements of 2008, so I thought I'd put it here.

1. CausingNew Zealand's participation in Pangea Day, a global/simulcast collection of short films. http://www.pangeaday.org/program.php

2. Creating, launching and running an election simulator: www.pulseofthenation.co.nz (now offline)

3. Completing the Landmark Advanced course, a complete ontological do-over of normal life, creating myself from nothing as Aroha, Abundance and Gratitude.

4. Joining Couchsurfing, a network of people who offer their spare bed (or couch) to travellers for free, just because they love everyone.

5. Co-creating the 350 Climate Day of Action activity for Auckland (and Frocks on Bikes) in six days. http://350.org.nz/auckland.html

It was quite a year.

FIRE ENGINES

2009-01-16T00:13:00.002+13:00

Just now - or maybe 20 minutes ago now, I heard a crackling sound in my music

And I ruined some speakers last weekend practicing with my band, and they made a similar sound

So I paused the music... and the crackling kept going!

I looked outside and looked around and ... I saw flames!

I live in a central part of Auckland that is mostly commercial, so I knew I must be the only person that could see. I called 111 IMMEDIATELY!

They were really good, I told them THERE'S A FIRE! and they came running with sirens blazing. Four fire engines!

They put out the fire before long (those hoses are incredible!)

And then they shook my hand and thanked me and said "good on ya mate." I am the luckiest little boy ever!

And a helicopter flew over with a spotlight to look for damage. Wow, I like living in an expensive part of town.

And now they're all packing up and going home.

And that's the end of my story.

On to the hard stuff

2008-12-01T15:15:00.003+13:00

You know how in the movies they have guys that sit down and pour themselves some straight spirits then proceed to drink them? You know how they can't swallow the liquids without scrunching up their faces and making that "nnfph!" sound?

I've found the non-alcoholic hard stuff.

This is Arano lemon juice. Here is the ingredients list:

lemons

This is nothing but lemons in a bottle. God has arrived and he's $5 a litre.

I can't take a mouthful of this and keep my neck still. I'm keeping it in the fridge, drinking it from the bottle and coming face-to-face with death every time. It's like a party in my mouth and someone's smashing bottles I love it.

Anyway that's it.

Life's a riot.

2008-08-26T18:23:00.009+12:00

I spent Sunday doing a spot of tidying, which felt great, then partying it up with the Hare Krishnas at the loft.

I got a new musical instrument on Friday, which I took along and played live.

It's a Korg Kaossilator; a synthesiser controlled by a dial, a few buttons and a touch-pad not unlike a laptop mouse. It's bright yellow and sounds very phat - just the sound Korg is famous for. Check out this thing in action.

I'm sick of instruments that are totally inaccessible to most people, and I've decided not to learn any. I'm talking about trumpets, violins, and all those other famously difficult instruments, but also keyboards and guitars too.

Don't get me wrong - I love the sound of all these instruments in the hands of a master. But learning them takes years and years. I just want to make music, man!

The Kaossilator serves me here; I was playing such great sounds 5 minutes after walking in to DMC that the guys outside re-paving High Street were giving me big smiles and nodding their heads in time. I've become heaps better since then - in the few days I've spent the first batteries on - but right from the get-go I was ready to make great music. Now that's an instrument.

The plan is to add it to the rig for Doctor Fonk and his Amazing Fantasmagoria, the remix band my brother and I play in, so we can put finger to pad and rock out live.

I spent yesterday on the film set of Life's a Riot, a made-for-TV docu-drama directed by Ian Mune. The movie tells the story of the 1930's Queen Street riots, quite un-documented as yet. Hopefully it ends up online.

Film crews start early, I had to be there at 6. I was an extra, I came in a black suit and mostly walked around yelling when the cameras rolled. My experience with 48 Hour Film fest production made the contrast interesting - every shot took a painfully long time for three big trucks worth of film crew to create and all the shots were done against a green screen. About two or three minutes of footage from the day will actually be used.

On the way in I had to sign a waiver for a whole lot of different rights, particularly around copyright. Don't know exactly what it said, but I'm gonna do this anyway:

That guy in the last picture is my friend Cameron, who I was pleased to see on the day. Since we're both keen on dress-ups, we'd mostly brought our own clothes from home and only changed the little that wardrobe required. One of the first things the shouty people did with all the extras was split off an "A Team" - the best dressed bunch to feature at the front of the camera. We didn't make it.

That didn't stop us. While the other lot were separated in to Railways Union, Fisheries and so on, the two of us spotted an opportunity. "NZ Seaman's Union" was going to cause a distraction, and with it we could join the Unemployed Workers Union - clearly troublemakers - and doubtlessly be reclassified as the A Team because of it. That worked and the two of us got a tonne of screentime (and hung out with the best-dressed extras).

I've spent today catching up on yesterday's work - funny how that happens - and doing a spot of planning.

I bought a pair of pants from Tarocash three weeks ago, and they arrived today. I don't suggest their tailoring service, it's slow. Indian for dinner tonight.

Gershwin

2008-08-24T12:52:00.007+12:00

On Friday evening after work some friends and I got together and made a soap-opera.

It was a larp game played in the Scandinavian jeepform style - like a col laboratory storytelling event where we acted out character's interactions to commit them to the story. Our soap had three zany episodes, ad breaks, cliffhangers, the works.

It was called Lunar, and followed the Lunar family in their paleo-futuristic lives on the moon. Pill meals, video-phones, family robots and that kind of thing. I hadn't met the guy playing the robot before (properly), but he was side-splittingly funny.

There won't be any video sorry, we don't record these events. Larp is all about having it occur in the imagination of the participants. It's a lot of fun, but it doesn't translate unless you were there.

Which really makes me hope that the pictures I'm in from last night's Flight of the Hindenburg aren't the ones with the prominent swastikas in the background!

My brother and I created a multimedia environment with which to try and convince 60 people we were aboard a zeppelin floating above New York City in 1934. We set up a flight simulator with hardware controls, projected the video output up high and drove the engine noises through some grunty hidden speakers. He spent the night piloting (superbly), and I got on the decks to provide some musical entertainment.

My main source of repertoire as George Gershwin (playing a special broadcast of his radio show, Music by Gershwin), was the online museum of such arts, Archive.org.

Archive.org is an amazing source of many things, my favourite of which is material with expired copyright. I had such an abundance of genuine music from the 20's and 30's that I only played around one fifth on the night. This is top stuff, totally entertaining - a highlight for me perhaps the original recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (p1, p2) recorded in 1924. I've loved this song for exactly eight years and hearing the original is exquisite.

To cue all this music, I used a hidden laptop (and a hidden mixer, and a visible microphone), and I put it in Windows' "High contrast mode" with large fonts to make things easy.

When you put Windows in to high contrast mode, it forgets your original display settings. How frustrating is this? Ultra. But there's an upshot.

On the way back to a style I can work with (those blue gradients are out of the question), I thought for the first time about changing my standard Windows font. Microsoft sans-serif is awful boring after all these years, and I have plenty of yummy fonts.

Without being too adventurous, I've changed mine now to Tahoma, similar to Verdana with a narrower body. This is much more readable, I can feel my life improving already. Here's a guide on how to do it (I hope you don't follow their example and choose Comic Sans).

I live with a Belgian girl, Sara Lembrechts, who's in Auckland on a four month internship with Amnesty International. Part of the deal is that I'm furnishing her room (I manage a living space in Freemans Bay). So, next on the list is taking the car over to Grafton to pick it up. Sunny now. Seeya!

Kootchy

2008-08-21T22:21:00.011+12:00

It was one of those "Leap out of bed" days. Usain Bolt, sure enough, did what he does best, again - but this time in the 200 metres.

What a dude. On a sleep-in and a breakfast of chicken nuggets, this guy is jogging down the Olympic sprint track, blowing kisses and taking naps, and still decimating world records... with his shoelace untied. At the start of the Olympics this year I was thinking "who are the audience for this? Seriously?" By now I was considering the stay up to watch it, but his race was on at 2:20am, NZ broadband is a bit wanting, and I have this job I go to every day.

So I went to the job after watching the race over and over, and it was a fairly good day of progress, interesting design discussions and a good bit of Photoshoppin'.

I met my friend Gitavali at lunch time. She's a Hare Krishna devotee that lives at the Loft yoga lounge. They're having a big party on Sunday (5pm, koha entry if you wanna come!) and I've been helping out a little bit with music editing for a performance piece.

At some point in the day, check out what I had arrive:
It's a classic Grundig condensor mic', Bakelite and hard plastic. The round part is bigger than my palm, and this thing was made to last. I'm going to get it working again (how hard can it be?), hopefully by this Saturday night. Bid-sniped for $31 on Trademe.

I worked late and went straight to my local Chinese take-aways (Golden Bridge, Jervois Road) to pick up some vege-chow-mein and fried rice. Ian, my brother, and his girlfriend Mel joined me for a rushed dinner before heading to town for the Hootchy Kootchy Girls Burlesque dance performance at the Classic basement (if these links are NSFW, you need a new work).

Tonight was amateur night and a friend of mine had invited me to see her perform, so begrudgingly (ha!) I accepted. She was a star, caused an uproar, a born master of broad comedy (see what I did there?)

This is like the opposite of Boobs on Bikes, by the way. It's all class and mostly hilarious - the sleaze is just to make it funnier. There's striptease, sure, but it's down to some very conservative underwear. I would take feminist friends and still scream as loud as I did tonight for the Silver Sirens.

The three of us arrived late, and only just made it in. We had to split up to find seats, until the MC announced there was a big fat cushion waiting for us at the front. I'll say it: we arrived last and got the best seats.

It turned out I knew I few more people in the show than I'd expected, quite a thrill, and that the dancers themselves were a blast. Burlesque in 2008 is a bit of a social commentary - entertainment of such a bygone era that it puts in perspective what living today is really like. If you get a chance to see them live, hurry along, laugh at everything and scream your loudest for me.

And then I got home. Oh! What's this on my right cheek?

First post

2008-08-20T22:50:00.008+12:00

I got up early, yesterday. I was off to Westmere Primary school to do one of the things I do best.

Dress up as a pukeko and walk to school.

Maxx Pukeko is the Auckland Regional Transport Authority's mascot for the Walking School Bus program (Travelwise). I've been given the enthralling task of donning the suit and channelling my inner pukeko for occasional schoolyard appearances.

Maxx is an instant hit with everyone 5-9 years of age. He's a great big bird - blue and orange - with a big smile and even bigger feet. He's cuddly as can be, cheeky as a kea and a funky dancer too. If I were a five year old, I'd want him to come to my school.

Westmere's WSB is really great - plenty of parents and visibility, with totally enthusiastic kids enjoying each other's company. I dropped them off at the school, posed for some photos and trotted off to my day-job at Proximity iD.

I really like my day-job, I work with great people and on great projects. For the past few months I've been part of the Jimungo team making Virtual Games and exploring online communities. We make money from selling ad space and doing clever things with data (but not selling contact information).

I sent a lot of email yesterday - part of my work includes writing, designing, testing and deploying stuff to go to the people participating in our sites - numbering in the tens of thousands. But I went about it all quick enough to get along to the week's recording of Media 7, which is Russell Brown's quite excellent panel-based media commentary show. The panel is always so well informed that it's difficult at first to tell what their views are. But when a disagreement comes up, the game is on and the discussion becomes a fruit salad of insightful conflict.

It helps that the topic is always fairly specialised - in this case, the closing of the Levin daily Chronical - and that it's always something that involves the media somehow.

And it's nice to meet the kind of people that attend such an event, generally also well-informed and full of good opinions, happy to talk them out at the bar afterwards. I was lucky enough to meet Jafa Pete and we had a good old chat about the blogosphere.

But I couldn't stay for long, I had a friend to meet outside the library to talk old-time big-band swing. I've been amassing a collection of the stuff for an event this Saturday - simulating the environment of the Hindenberg (pre-crash, obviously) for a star-studded cruise over 1930's Manhattan. The improv-like larp game, Flight of the Hindenberg, is part of the larp convention Chimera organised by Anna Klein for the NZ larp society.

Last night at 11pm I finally ate the lasagne mum had sent me, via my brother, when I couldn't make it for dinner on Sunday. Back when I first went vegetarian, mum got experimental and dreamed up a lasagne recipe that's hard to beat. Thing is, Ian had told my flatmate Fraser (a medical student with a heart of gold) that if I hadn't eaten it by Wednesday, he could have it. Made it by an hour.

I slept in, today. It was planned - I wanted to be prepared for whatever the news was when I ran the Virtual Election at mid-day.

Pulse of the Nation is one of the Jimungo titles, and has been my pet project for about a year and a half. I'm a politics nut, and having access to this kind of data first-hand is a bit of a dream-come-true. Participants come by at least once per fortnight, place a Virtual Vote and predict the outcome of the Virtual Election on a party by party basis. We award points for accurate predictions and publish the results every second Wednesday.

What we've seen so far is that we're generally one step ahead of other political indicators, which is pretty exciting. This round had some big changes including a (nearly) four point swing away from National. Something tells me it's a November election.

On Virtual Election days, that's usually pretty much it for me. The afternoon is spent in analysis, getting the word out, and gloating about my score (93.2 this week, enough to put me 42nd in the Hall of Fame). Playing these games and doing well is really exciting!

I'd have been at Greenpeace's preview screening of Earth if it wasn't sold out.

Instead, I set up this blog. Nighty!