Blog of the Little Bonsai

Personal Blog of Steve Baumber

I suppose that I've blogged enough about returning from our trip. At some point you have to let it go and get on with things and people start to wonder if you have anything else to talk about. So rather than talking about returning from our trip I'll talk about someone else returning from their trip. They actually got back just before we did, but last night we were able to see the fruits of their travels.

Colin Angus (he's coming to a town near you) is the first fellow to circumnavigate the globe using only human powered conveyance (i.e. he hiked, skied, biked and rowed). His wife-to-be Julie accompanied him for two thirds of the journey, and last night they were in Vancouver to do a slide show and talk, followed by a 50 minute video of their expedition.

In the true nature of Canada we don't know him personally but we know somebody who knows him, so we were there two years ago when he was raising funds to begin his world-encircling jaunt. He's done other trips to explore rivers from their trickling start to their spilling finish and he's quite a genuine, maybe a little crazy in a born-in-Port-Alberni-been-alone-a-little-too-much way, but really a very nice guy. How Canadian. So it's not hard to give him his due to have accomplished (with Julie) such an amazing test of fortitude. I'd say "endurance", but endurance only gets you through two years of effort. It's the steel in your gut that keeps you going for five months of rowing in a row boat eating Dorado, deslinated water, and whey protein.

His shots are amazing, but their slide show and talk was worth the ticket to see them more than the film. We loved the films of his previous journeys, all pieced together from video he shoots himself along the way, but last night was a bit of a let down. The film was just not up to his previous efforts in quality, and Rosemary missed the story lines that the other films weaved in and out of the incredible footage he captures. I'm hoping he takes another stab at it if he's ready to retackle the 100+ hours of footage - now that would be fortitude. We just want him to produce something more "Colin Angus-y".

A big shout out to The Chappells (who reward me for blogging) and the successful rearing of Pipsqueak, the little kitten who could! Plus to Pete teaching emergency medicine skills to those seeking freedom for Myanmar, and to Dad doing his own expedition through the wild bureaucracy of the WHO and Vietnamese government in Hanoi. Could developing world medicine be in better hands?

posted by Steve @ 9:04 AM

10.19.2006

Nothing kills off your readership like not posting. Whoops. Sorry. Welcome back to the real world where blogging becomes one more chore.

One year ago we left our home, our jobs, our friends and our language to get out and about for a while, trading it all in for the worst room of our entire trip. Standing in front of the doors to the airport it seemed like we were jumping off the pages of our lives into the big Sea of the Unknown with a backpack raft and a guitar for a paddle (good thing Rosemary can steer). Who knew what monsters and adventures we'd encounter! I dropped a friend off at the airport this morning and it was fairly bittersweet to find myself at those doors again one year later. Traveling is like a relationship - sometimes when you're in it you wonder how long you can last, but as soon as you're out of it you can't stop wishing to get back in. I miss the newness each day brought, the simplicity of our possessions, the challenge of eating, sleeping and experiencing. We've stepped right back into a carbon copy of the book we hopped out of, we just get to colour in the pictures differently. Ah, to do it again... and again... and again...

Which requires a big shout out to Pete, who is off on the trail again - travel safely, see you in January, bring pictures.

All of my communicating, email, phone calls etc., has suffered. The coursework for my Masters has sucked up a lot of my time and if I'm not reading, attending class, marking assignments or working on my own assignments I must be sleeping. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What's happened in the last two months?

The little Civic came home, shinier on one side, and not much the worse for for wear. Dave H says now our car has a real street rep.

Rosemary celebrated another year of life, adventures and friends. We had a few folks over and everyone enjoyed what we've done with our new place (it almost looks like someone else lives here).

School started and I'm TA'ing a course which involves long bouts of grading assignments or discussing them with the students. And yes, I am a hard marker but only because I love them.

Mark and Brenda finally left for Bangladesh, but with one more package they didn't originally factor in - tiny 6wk-old Clara. Safe and sound and adjusting to the heat, so we hear.

I applied for a job, I interviewed for a job, and I did not get the job. I was second choice though, and they hired a good person, and I'm not actually sure where I would have fit it in anyway. Friday mornings perhaps.

Rosemary started her CMA program, which is like the Apprentice at times except without the music, beautiful people, and a fast forward button. And it's real life and a lot of work and nobody's putting her up in a hotel in New York. Just a hotel downtown.

We had a place lined up at UBC, we lost the place lined up at UBC (thanks to an act of stupidity on their part), we got back the place we lined at UBC (thanks to an act of God and real estate). So we should move in November sometime. Whenever the building's finished.

And that's about it. I'm sure I've missed one or two major events, but really today was a day where we thought about where we were a year ago. Is that visions of Nepal dancing in someone's eyes...

posted by Steve @ 4:02 PM

10.04.2006