Happy Canada Day... and pics for my buddy Jay.

What is it about vehicles and guys loving them? Beats me. But when I see a kick ass ride I wish it was me that gets to drive it. When I see a 'for sale' sign on a barely drivable classic, I think, "I can fix it up," when I'm lucky enough to complete a cabinet from Ikea.

Guys are like that... we see a rusting bucket of bolts and think we can fix it up, while women see a problem guy and think I can fix him up. We're built that way to always see the possibilities of what could be. I think that if we didn't think that way, we'd still be trying to make fire in a cave someway.

My buddy Jason can fix up old vehicles. And he's shown me some of the projects he's worked on including a $200,000 car. He's proud of the work that he's done, and I can say that I'm proud of him as well.

I always tell him that I saw an awesome truck and I thought of him. Or I saw a fixer-upper for sale and I think I could buy that and bring it to Jay.

We've been buddies since high school and he lives in Prince George, British Columbia, while I live in top of the world, Hay River, Northwest Territories. We see each other when we can, usually in Grande Prairie or Fort St. John. But it only amounts to a couple of times a year.

Anyways, I put these pics on the blog for Jason.

BTW (By the way), someone here in Hay River has a Ferrari. This person, who used to be my neighbour, has a '91 Ferrari. I approached him today at the Canada Day Celebrations and told him that he had to let me sit in his car... he said that maybe he'd take me for a drive... in this case, maybe is good enough. I've never been in a Ferrari, and me sitting in one would be like a Penguin at the North Pole... it just doesn't happen.

Anyways, Happy Canada Day Everyone!

Thanks...

Thanks to James for turning me on to Rooster Teeth comics... just my style of humour. It doesn't say much for me, does it?

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

Another Part of Me died yesterday. Say, Say, Say, what you want about Michael Jackson, his behaviour may have been Off The Wall, but his music could Heal The World. Do you Remember The Time when Thriller came out? He may not have been happy with the Man In The Mirror, but he was hoping to have One More Chance with his fifty city world tour. Clearly his death is not Black Or White, whether he had a Bad heart and it couldn’t Beat It. All we know is Michael Jackson is Gone Too Soon.

Seriously though, we'll miss Michael and I give my sincere condolences to the Jackson family. He will be missed.

I Want to be a Ghost Hunter

I’ve been interested in the paranormal forever. I guess it started out as the normal youthful curiosity after watching some scary movies. Psychic phenomenon fascinates me. Stories of hauntings have always interested me. Even stories of monsters I’ve found intriguing. It doesn’t mean I believe it all, but I do find them interesting.

For a long time I’ve seen movies with ghosts and found them grossly entertaining. I really don’t expect a real ghostly experience to be like the Amityville Horror or The Entity. I should expect that they are more likely to be like The 6th Sense. Some of my friends said they didn’t find the movie scary, but I think that the events in the movie would be closer to a paranormal experience than others.

I’ve also praised A&E’s paranormal show Paranormal State, for a more ‘realistic’ view of the paranormal. They don’t film something and say, “Look! It’s a ghost!” But they’ll say they captured a misty phenomenon on film, and it could be explained by humidity levels from the entrance. The subject group of the show, the Paranormal Research Society (PRS), would be hesitant to jump to the conclusion that they have definitive proof of paranormal activities, but some of the cases they’ve documented have captured convincing paranormal activities. In almost every episode that I’ve seen the PRS has had some convincing experiences. For Father’s Day, my wife and kids got me the first two seasons on DVD… and I watched the first episode of season one on my lunch break.

I’ve also heard great reviews of a show called Ghost Hunters. I’ve never seen the show because for some reason my satellite provider doesn’t get it… Damn You ExpressVu! Although the personal reviews I’ve heard of the show have been favourable, the website Wikipedia notes some not so kind reviews of the show. That being said, I like Paranormal State and Wikipedia also has some bad reviews for that show too.

I think that the evidence caught on audio/video (AV) have always interested me as well. We’ll never know completely whether AV from these shows is not tampered with in any way.

Audio recordings have been used by ‘professional’ and amateurs alike for years. EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) is very popular and featured in movies and television. I saw an episode of a show called Sightings in the early 1990’s with a supposed expert in EVP. She walked through an old Civil War Prison and recorded some pretty creepy recordings. She had the entire fort to herself and captured some recordings like:

“Make it stop.”

“The pain…”

“That’ll do.”

There were other recordings that she captured, but I can’t recall what was said. She only caught those on her recorder after the audio signal was boosted and subtitled for the viewers to understand.

EVP has been so convincing and scary, that people are more likely to believe the phenomenon. However it can be easily debunked as pranksters, voices carried on the wind, etc.

When the movie “White Noise,” came out, I saw the preview of the movie and even before I said I wanted to see the movie, my wife said that I was not to bring that movie into our house. I saw the movie anyway, and I didn’t think it was that creepy.

Because of my interest in ghosts, I have a huge interest in old and historical buildings. I love to explore abandoned derelict buildings and see evidence of things that haven’t been touched in years. I took the picture in a storage building that used to be for the Residential School in Hay River, it was creepy and I couldn’t go to the basement of that building. Felt some bad mojo from there.

In the Northwest Territories we have the Naka (I’ve heard it pronounced Nuh-Guh) or better known as the Boogeyman. I’ve been told that the Naka’s origins actually started in before the Europeans arrived to Western Canada. I was told by elders that Naka literally meant stranger. And in olden times, when someone appeared near their village that was not known, they referred to them as Naka. Their appearance was usually indicative that someone from their village was going to be taken. Further stories have also indicated that this would be one tribe’s measures to prevent inbreeding. Someone would go to another village to steal away one of their boys or girls to be married off in their village.

The Naka has a fairy tale story feel to it, with historical origins, so I found it interesting. There’s been stories of Sasquatch, Yeti, Okopogo, Loch Ness Monster, and the Mothman all over the world. Some specified to certain geographical areas, such as the Okopogo in the Okanagan of British Columbia and the Lake Ness Monster in Scotland. Some evidence presented has been clearly debunked in the past.

Don’t you love hearing stories of people who had premonitions of things to happen and then proven correct later? Even I’ve incredible experiences with Déjà vu that have freaked me out. There have been shows produced about psychics like Medium and The Listener and countless movies and novels. There are different kinds of psychics with different kinds of abilities. There are different claims to different abilities and many skeptics have loved debunking claimed psychics. The most famous skeptic that I can think of was Harry Houdini. To him he took psychic claims and would disprove them because he felt people were being taken advantage of.

All this being said, I wish I was a ghost hunter or paranormal investigator. Just to be there to experience it and give an opinion of yes or no to the phenomenon. Got any ghosts? How about a demon possessing your daughter? Instead of calling the Ghostbusters, give me a call first.

Internet Security

I mentioned before that we just came back from Grande Prairie, Alberta. Spent the weekend shopping, going for nice meals, shopping, and going for coffee at the Church of the Mighty Tim (for those non-Canadians reading my blog, I'm referring to Tim Horton's, which is a coffee and donut chain in Canada and in some American States. The coffee truly is the nectar of the gods).

I just thought that I'd mention that I didn't mention in my blog, or on my Facebook account that I was indeed travelling to Grande Prairie. Why? A new breed of internet criminal.

It seems that internet opportunists are now using Facebook and Twitter accounts to their benefits when people are saying they are "vacationing in Mexico" or "Lost in Las Vegas." It seems that burglars then know which house to hit. You can check out this article here. So, think twice to calling in sick and having your pic of you partying on a friend's profile, or announcing you're going to be tanning in the Bahamas (I can understand wanting your ex to be jealous, but you might be letting burglars know to pay your place a visit).

Shout out!

Hey, I recently went to Grande Prairie, Alberta this weekend and got to visit with my Dad who lives in Fort St. John, British Columbia. He drove the two hours from FSJ and we got to meet his wife, Tess, who in turn got to meet my wife and kids for the first time. It was a nice visit even though Tess was feeling a little under the weather.

My dad asked me about my blog, having heard from one of his dispatchers at Teco Taxi. Turns out Keith has been checking out my blog every once in awhile and told my dad about it. So, here's a shout out to you, Keith. I hope you're not checking out my blog at work... just kidding, I won't tell.

Amendment to Up Here

Yeah, okay, no one mentioned to me that the map was in German... at least my buddy Shawn would appreciate it. That is what happens when you get lazy and look for a map of the NWT on the internet and don't use MapQuest.

And Kara was kind to remind me that Wolverine is from the Northwest Territories. In the comics, he originated from Wood Buffalo National Park and appeared in Fort Smith. In the movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there is no mention of Wood Buffalo or Fort Smith, but it starts off set in 1840 (I'm guessing) in the Northwest Territories. In the shots there are some pretty big trees and it looks like it's in Ontario or something, when some young kid behind me makes a smart alec remark, "That looks nothing like the Northwest Territories."

I guess history lessons are really bad in Canada. Does anybody remember Rupert's Land, Upper Canada and the Northwest Territories? In 1840'sh, the Northwest Territories was across a large portion of Canada... not just the NWT today. I actually turned around and told him, "Back then, the Northwest Territories was half the size of Canada." I don't think it was that big, but it shut him up anyway.