Time well spent

I just spent a good hour and a half building the Sleepquote box in the sidebar with my stunning trial-and-error HTML skills.

She's been pretty quiet lately, so I've had to mine the back-catalog. Enjoy!

Habit

We came home last night from work to find the internet was out, cable modem all aglow with warning lights. 10 years ago, just out of high school, I was still working off the World Book and had heard rumours of this "In-Ter-Net" thing. Now the cable goes out and it's like someone's thrown a bag over my head. How will I check movie listings? How will Nazma check her email 10 times a day? Etcetera, etcetera.

Well, now it's back. Whoops of exultation all around, and back to scandalous amounts of time squandered online looking up random facts on Wikipedia.

I hear the secrets that you keep

So my wife says funny things in her sleep. This is well-documented, with a long history that predates my involvement (at least as far back as a trip to Spain where her lung-shattering convo with figments-unknown woke everyone in the hotel). I've been fortunate enough to have been awake during some of these glittering utterances, and have started keeping a book. I'll share more gems periodically, in the sidebar.

Last night she dreamt of Skeletor. From what I could gather, he was in some kind of contest (beauty pageant?). She sounded really happy for him.




Nazma's Sleepquote-of-the-Day Archive:
"Goodnight, cheesy beef pizza."
"Skeletor number one! Number one... Skeletor!"
"Only one round of Genesis he's doing! One round!"
"It's too light out! Bye seven! Bye seven! Just stay eleven!"
"Get the warm millet! Blargh." [drool]
"I talk in my sleep too much. I really have to stop."
"Feel free to partially control. I mean, I'm drafting court documents for them. I'm not talking in my sleep - it's true. Why are you laughing? What's so funny? Zzzzz..."
"They used to give out fake flower petals and you'd make jeans or outfits out of them."
"Oohh, that's gotta be expensive. I don't know how it's produced, but it's got a crane."
"I'm just gonna put my zip-ups there, baby. Yeah, baby, yeah!"
"Why are we pushing this up to Christmas Eve? Don't make me grumpy!"
"I'm totally awake; I'm NOT sleeptalking, so you can stop laughing. I keep drooling. Why? WHY?"
"I'm sorry I have to overestimate things a bit." (Then she rolled over and took all the sheets)
"I'm going to flip over now and enjoy my passages."
"Goodnight, bubble."
"I'm not stupid! Don't call me dumb! Zzzz."
"Oh, drool again! I'm such a buddi!" (I think that means "old woman")
"I'm a weirdo. I keep imagining all the fancy fixtures in the boat."
"I think I know what I'm NOT doing with my $3000. If I even get it."
"I think we double-counted the money for the eggplant. You know, aubergine. I think it's a code name, like 'Project Eggplant'."

Gang aft agley

Okay, so the real reason for starting this blog was to have someplace to post journal entries from the road. See, my wife and I were planning a long trip later on this year. We've travelled quite a bit before and have been totally truant when it comes to keeping a journal. This is fine when you're young: everything is so damned profound (how could I ever forget the name of that bloke I roomed with in Brighton for 2 days who taught me what a bottle toke was?). I was young, and my memory was indomitable. Journals were inadequate; I was too busy taking it all in and, anyways, I was lazy.

Well, now, with these once-profundities slipping out of my slowly aging brain and into the ether, I realise how vital it is to make at least some notes. 50 years from now, sitting somewhere in a cottage and finally getting down to writing my memoirs, I'd better have something to look back at, cuz by then I won't remember a bloody thing.

Anyways, the trip. Vancouver to Hong Kong. Then, 3 months in SE Asia, hitting everything save Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, then from Bangkok or KL to Kampala, Uganda. This would be the pitstop for this leg of the race. 6 weeks there to rest up with family (with excursions to Tanzania), then off to Tashkent. 3 months split between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Punjab in India, and northern Pakistan, before bussing the Karakorum into western China. Then back through China slowly till we hit Hong Kong again. Laden with cheap electronic goods and all the road dirt and grime of Asia, we return home.

We've both been in the workforce for a couple years now, and before we get too crusty and cynical (working in an office can do that to you), or too bogged down with mortgages and babies, we thought we'd quit our jobs and hit the road. Anyways, that was the plan.

Where's this all going? For reasons profound and unforeseeable (but which, thankfully, don't include babies), our plans are now on the brink of total cancellation. This was to be the Great Escape... the one last exert of Adventure! before we settled into Suburban Mundanity. But now we're stuck in Vancouver for the next few years.

So that's what life has turned into -- for now. I'll write more about the planned trip -- post some pretty ideas about adventures that were to come. Who knows, maybe -- just maybe -- things will work out and we'll be posting pics from Samarkand after all. You never know.

Snappy Title

Well, my first foray into blogging. I always wondered why anyone would want to read about someone else's mundane life, but here I am, hypocrite and all, soapbox underfoot and heart on my sleeve.

Hi.