I’m flying to Houston once again.
Due to recent events in the political sphere, I am less trusting of American customs. So before I left, I removed all traces of Facebook from any electronic devices i was bringing. Technically, I can only access it from my home computer. I have no need to use it on the trip so I felt it would be better to be safer that way. I probably should have disabled my phone’s fingerprint reader as well. In reality, I didn’t need to do any of that. I do not fit the profile of someone looking to make trouble. And I breezed through immigration and security.
It probably helped that I did the immigration while still in Canada. Maybe they have more Canadian sensibilities there.
I worry about the police force in America, particularly the ones in the northern states forced to arrest illegal immigrants. There was that news report where they stopped these people trying to flee the states into Canada. He was doing his job, and the refugees conveniently escaped him to sprint across the border. What must it do to his soul to suddenly be in a country that people feel the need to flee from him? I don’t see a scenario where he is the “good guy” in his story.
I do not seem to have those issues.
My flight is going well so far. The plane has not needed to make any emergency landings anywhere. (My bar for a good flight is pretty low.)
I get a good joy from being in window seats. I get to see the topography going below me. I like to try and remember interesting geography and then try and find it later on a map. On a previous trip from California I was thrilled to notice that a lake didn’t seem to have any outlets, and when I found it on Wikipedia, I was proven right.
Unfortunately/fortunately things are different now. Cell phones are no longer considered unclean, so I can take a picture and the GPS will tell me where I was. It takes some of the thrill out, but it beats drawing pictures on cocktail napkins.
Monthly Archives: February 2017
Man Up
When I was in Edmonton, I had a regular Monday movie night. In Vancouver I don’t have that luxury. Even if I did start having one, I wouldn’t have any regular attendees. I don’t know many people here, and even if I did, downtown is not a place that is easy to do a quick commute to. Either you have to take a train, or the parking is expensive or you already live there. In any case, I don’t have a regular movie night.
There have been consequences of this: Without the threat of incipient guests, there is less pressure to keep the place clean and tidy; Since I can no longer rely on people to eat excess chocolate I am not buying any for myself.
The most immediate factor is that I don’t have an outlet for decompressing after watching the film. It’s nice to discuss a movie. If it is a good one, you want to commiserate with people about it. So, now I have to do it via my blog.
On Monday, I watched the movie Man Up. I liked it. The premise is that a woman steals another person’s blind date. There is only one point where I felt that the idiot ball had appeared. Surprisingly it wasn’t when the woman steals the date; that part flowed logically and I could understand how it happened without disliking her for her actions. It was more when she was being blackmailed awkwardly but it was over quickly enough. The “villain” in the piece was more stupidly selfish than anything else, which is a trait I can plausibly believe. I even liked the person who had the date stolen; she handled it in an a way that helped the movie.
And I always like a movie where a single person has a crowd of strangers help him achieve something wonderful. Simon Pegg did it in Run Fatboy Run and he does it again here.