Finally, a time to sit down and write my thoughts. Well, lets start with FRIDAY, when i totally skipped Urban planning and Specs and my wonderful shift at the architecture cafe and hopped on the plane at 6:30 am in the morning. I got to San Diego at 11:25 am PST to be greeted by sunshine and palm trees. It's definitely a far cry from what Montreal has been for the past few months. Of course, as many of you know, I have a lot of stereotypes and biases of Americans that I find more reinforced everytime I come to the wonderful U S of A. Sitting next to me on my flight from Pittsburgh to San Diego were two rednecks who were discussing the latest stag hunting technology. "Oh man, look at this XT 3003 Effortless Crossbow... It's pretty nice except for the fact that its grip seems to be too small for me... Oh check out the antlers on this... you see this and this how it curves up... oooo look at the symmetry on that..." Meanwhile, I just snicker and in hopes that they didn't hear me or else they would have probably made me their next hunting target. The irony of the situation was that I was deeply engrossed in my book "fast food nation" by Eric Scholloser, a look at the dark side of the fast food industry that has monopolized the North American way of life and in turn, monopolized the way the world looks at food and other social issues.

TANGENT. ok back to arriving in California. Well, i discovered that my bag was selected and I didn't know that one wasn't supposed to lock the baggage. Hence, I realized my lock had been broken off and I somewhat felt violated that someone had gone through the trouble of looking through my giordano t-shirts and joe boxers. Despite that happening, I was greeted by my buddy Cindy who so graciously picked me up ditching her work that day to hang out with me despite her being fatigued. We dropped off my stuff and got her roomate Pam who was sitting at home and went to La Jolla cliffs (pronounced LAHOYA not la JoLL-Ah) and later discovered that I could have gone to the Salk Institute (By Louis KAhn for you architecturally inclined friends ... ahem... Latimer) on a sunny day but in the end i only ended up goin on Sunday to discover that it was locked. :(

So I'm thinking, I could live in California.

Did I mention that I was wandering the downtown of LA by myself (well the CBD to be exact- thats the Central Business District for those of you who didn't know that is actually a term) for about 5 hours until my buddy Pete came to get me ... that guy is awesome... he drove 3 hours to come hang out for a few hours :*) Thanks Pete for the tour of Santa Monica and the good Korean food.
But during those 5 hours, I got to see some architectural gems that I discovered by accident including Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady Peace. I spent a good hour inside just admiring the architecture and also noticed another guy was inside who was also taking sketches and looked like a well distinguished architect. I wonder if he was someone famous except i didn't talk to him because by the time i wanted to, he already got up and left. So maybe I could have gotten a good job this summer. Not.

Anyway, I think we're supposed to go to Mexico today. Another friend Bonnie (from my missions team as well... Note:oh yeah, cindy and pete were all on my missions team together; Cindy and Bonnie were on my team and were my cantonese speaking friends who kept me sane during those strenuous times in Guatemala. hahahhaa.) also came in last night for some conference.

Anyway, two more days in Cali and off to Boston to see Jas get married. YES! I have a huge list of cheesey music for the wedding!! mu hahahahaha.
read Tom's page about Tingles

OMIGOSH, cAlifornia is awesome ....well, its the nice weather and the people here. Although today is a little cloudy.
I am in LA waiting for my buddy Pete to get in (he's coming in from like the north just to see me :*) )
For you Montrealers who know Susanna, she sez hi and she's doing really well.
ok. gotta keep this short cuz i think i am supposed to sign in for this comp. and i didnt. :)

quick notes: Jon discovered the Rafael Moneo church by accident and was in tears and shock.
- Jon also discovered the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn in San Diego.
- Jon saw the Disney Concert Hall by Gehry being constructed.

Wow. I've hit a 1000 hits. thanks to all of you who have read my senseless dribble .....

I feel so special that a 1000 hits have been done on this site ... most are which are redundant :) Thanks for reading ... you guys make this happen!! ( ok did that sound so ever horribly cheesy)

I must say that I am not rascist against white american folk. I have a good amount of friends who are descendants of the great Plymouth Rock Settlers who are scattered in the South. I just am annoyed at the ignorance of the majority of folk who have no idea what the rest of the world is like. Sorry for this remark. My friends that I have aren't (cuz I usually end up enlightening them). I just want to tell those of you who have no idea what Canada is like that Chinese people are very different from the Inuit (to you, the Eskimos), and very different from the Aboriginals (to you americans, the red indians.) and we do not live in igloos nor do we drive our dog sleds. We do have televisions that keep us very well informed of the propagandous view of the world through the eyes of Americans.

I'd like to say once again, i am not rascist, just dislike very very strongly the american mindset. Although I must say, I like the lil' green sheets you carry around in your pocket especially the one with the picture of Ben Franklin. Seriously though, you guys should have a distinction between your money. Its very easy to give away a 5 dollar bill instead of a 1 dollar. Maybe thats why people get such good tips in bars as a bartender in the States. You get a guy drunk enough, he won't be able to decipher the difference between a 20 and a 5.

I'll be spending spring break in California. The irony of it all.

Hello people. For those of you who do not know, I went to Boston over the weekend where everything that could have happened, happened. I hate cold sores on my tongue and having a horrible sore throat all at once which often develops into a full blown out case of the cold. Oh did I mention that I loathe with a fury of a thousand nest-less wasps the US border guards? Ah, so here the tale begins with four asians in a rented malibu (note: an american car) crossing the border with our luggage for the weekend and some coveted ketchup flavored chips for my good friend Tom in the trunk.
"Do you have any goods in you are carrying with you into the States?" asks the border guard.
"Nope, just some chips and our bags for hte weekend" says pikka our lovely driver (and often very overtly sincere which is a great quality to have sometimes)
" Ok can you just open the trunk for a second?. Ok. seems like....everything is ok... "
"Hey Billy Bob, they got a lot of commodities in the trunk, better pull them over."

Meanwhile, I'm getting quite pissed off because i really had to use the bathroom and we had to get interrogated by the customs officers. So we parked and got out of the car. 4 asians at the US Border.
Inside the 'office' which was some weird circular shape (yes, great architecture GUYS!) we proceeded to fill out customs declaration forms while they checked out our passports. The guy who was telling us to fill out the forms, was a pretty nice guy while his buddy CHAD ( i think that was his name, if not, it sounds like a typical american name. Note: I really have nothing against americans other than their complete cultural ignorance at times but thats just me being bitter about being held against my will especially my will to pee freely in a latrine) was checking out our passports to see if we had forged these passports revealing our terrorist identities. They were also probably hoping that they'd have some experience of Chuck Norris in an action movie fighting off chinese terrorists at a US Border Crossing in Hightree, vermont (Wherever we were). Unfortunately, none of us had bare knowledge of kungfu except from what I know from my experience training in Muay Thai and Lat's ever so graceful Tai Chi Moves and Joe's deadly art of the Phoenix Claw and Pikka's.... well, lets just say she's well versed in the arts of guil-fu (i'm sorry i'm razzin' on ya piks.. i still love ya ) We'd still give those guards a run for their money although by the end of it, the US border guards would have lived the american dream by shooting us with their guns and getting a movie made about them.

Anyway, so we finished our customs forms and waited while they verified our backgrounds i.e. our passports, and I noticed that they took extra long with my passport. I'd wished they'd seen that my passport had been replaced because it was stolen before and that perhaps SOME one did assume my identity. Anyway, by this time, my bladder was screaming with pain and wanting to overflow but i just sat quietly with my grim expression and muttering that I needed to go to the bathroom. In the meantime, Joe and Lat wandered away from the customs desk and went to look at the poster on the far end of the room that said "Resident Green Card: REgister if You are an Alien." We found out later that there was a chinese lady's name on the poster "CHow, Lai Ping." yeah, chinese . we're all illegal aliens.... that and the fact we look closely related to extra terrestials too.. you know, the slit eyes and the hairlessness.... In the meantime, CHAD whistles at Joe and LAt like whistling for his collie, yelling at them to tell them not wander off. Yeah, they were gonna wander off and run into the other side which was full of custom officers. Brilliant Chad. He was just itching to pistol whip some chinese guys I swear just cuz his life at the border crossing was so boring.

I was still muttering to Pikka who was trying her very best to console me and cheer me up. So then Lat wanders off again to look at the intriguing poster of Chow Lai Ping and this old blonde lady yells at him. Her name was probably Sally Beth or something... "GET BACK HERE SO I CAN SEE YOU!" of course, LAtimer went off on a rant about how he had no where to run but Lat has a way of putting things into such an edifying manner that I felt like I had learned the entire periodical table in 5 minutes and that the mysteries of Pavlovian Conditioning made sense. ANyway, FINALLY, we get called over to Immigration where some guy named Andy. I think that was his name started doing MORE background checks and did I mention that my bladder was about to burst and all i could think of were flushing toilets, niagra falls and vast bodies of water. I get called up first " Jonathan. Have you gone by any other aliases ? Have you been finger printed? Are you sure? HAve you gone by ANY other name? HAve you been arrested?" and on and on while the same answer was like , "NO, look my passport was stolen before... READ my passport"... and finally, somewhat convinced, Andy let me go and proceeded to interrogate the rest of my cohorts. Latimer got in trouble for keeping a working visa that was EXPIRED; Joe got asked to make his passport "legal" (He forgot to sign it); Pikka was using a minor's ID to enter the country and had to show proof that she was actually the 4 year old in the picture. I had warned her, "look, I don't think they'll believe you... you're like 22 years older than this picture!!!... umm... "
FINALLY, they let us go. I'd like to say they tried to give me an extensive cavity search because they thought I was some international man of mystery like Jet Li and that I fought them off with their own anal probes and left the US Customs office at Highsweet, Vermont burning in flames behind me while I walked into the night. But no. I just left with a very bitter view of US Customs/Immigration and a cynical view of the United States because of the border crossing and a still very full bladder which I emptied at the rest stop right outside the US Crossing. There was no way i was going to give them the pleasure of having my urine bless their urinals.


Other than that, my weekend was a blast. Congratulations Jas and Jonathan. I'll see you at your wedding!
Tom, Justis, Katie, Esther, Matt and other friends in the Boston area, you guys rock.