Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

After a good night’s sleep I was up relatively early and headed into Charlottetown, which I believe is the only city on Prince Edward Island. After a brief stop at one of the local markets, Sobey’s, for some breakfast fruit, I did some touring of the downtown area and the harbor.

Here’s the obligatory self shot.

I found the downtown area to be quite nice. It reminds me a bit of Portland, Maine and Burlington, Vermont to some to some extent. Everyone seems quite friendly and the sidewalks were busy. There’s all sorts of shops and businesses. There’s a pedestrian mall area with a large selection of restaurants and bars. There was even a brass quintet performing, as they give a free recital twice a day during the week.

Being an island and all, PEI has a lot of marinas.

After touring around a bit, I decided to relax in some air conditioning a little bit, so I went to the local mall which is anchored by a Zellers. Reminicent of K-mart back in the good old days, I was delighted to see that Zellers still has a “K-mart Cafeteria” / Woolworth’s “Harvest House” type restaurant, but I skipped that culinary delight since I was meeting up with my sister Jennifer and her boyfriend David to do some sightseeing this afternoon.

Once I met up with them, our first stop was in Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables. Jennifer insisted I try on Anne’s hat and pigtails, so here’s a photo of the event. It’s a little blurry but there’s no spirit lost.

I also snapped this picture of Jennifer and David as we were getting ready to move on to our next adventure.

We then went onto the beach (there’s a lot of water around here!) where the ocean is clocking in at 17-degrees celsius, which is a chilly 62.6 degrees fahrenheit. We stuck our toes in and found it to be cold. I could swim in it after my body numbed up, I suppose. We opted to walk along the water instead.

Now I’m resting up a bit before meeting with Dave and Jennifer and their friends for a dinner theatre tonight. We might have a few drinks afterward. I don’t think we’ll be out exceedingly late though, since Jennifer is catching a plane home tomorrow morning around 6:30. It’s funny to think that she’ll be home way before I will.

18 July 2007 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 1

Drive. Determination.

Last night I mentioned that I was going to take a long road trip this week. With Earl’s best wishes and encouragement, I hit the road this morning looking forward to exploring parts of the world I’ve never been before. I knew where I was going along, as did Earl, but nosy people read my blog and I wanted to surprise a few folks. So here I am, sitting in an Econo Lodge. I snapped a picture before I reached my intended destination.

PEI

My sister spends a lot of time on Prince Edward Island, as her boyfriend and his family lives here. Tomorrow is her birthday and I thought I’d surprise her and take her out to lunch.

So I’m in Charlottetown, PEI.

She’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia, getting away for a few days.

Oops.

I’ve talked to her and she’s planning on being back on “the island” tomorrow, so this spontaneous plan will work out.

In talking with various family members trying to coax information out of them without giving my intentions away, I’m discovering that some find it odd that Earl and I are not together on this trip. I’ve always said that few “get” us and this is one of the aspects of our relationship that I’m referring to. Earl knows how much I love roadtripping and since our vacation schedules aren’t meshing this time around I embarked on this little adventure alone but with his blessing. It’s probably a good thing he’s not along, as I drove about 950 miles today.

A few quick observations and then I’ll call this is a wrap:

1. Maine becomes very, very, very rural north of Bangor along Interstate 95. It also becomes wildly beautiful and I loved driving along this portion of the roadway.

2. I’ve never been to New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island before as my Canadian experience has been limited to Ontario and Québec. I must say that like Maine, N.B. and PEI both have a rural beauty that is quite rare in our part of the USA. From the little I’ve seen, I absolutely adore it up here. And where else could I get a McLobster Sandwich?

3. I might have to hit Nova Scotia on the way home, just to add another province to the roster.

17 July 2007 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 1

Where In The World Is J.P.?

So we were on our way to Hillside Campgrounds this past Friday when Earl said to me, “Since it looks like you’re going to be working in a week or so, why don’t you take a couple of days next week and go for a little road trip?”

Holy crap.

He knows that I’ve been wanting to take a trip in the Acura and just explore some area of the country that I’ve never been before. I have to admit the thought is quite tempting, though I am a little sad that he can’t join me for the fun. When I mentioned this to him, he reminded me that I would probably drive 15 to 20 hours in one shot and he wouldn’t enjoy that long of a ride.

So I’m leaving tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I’m just going to drive. I’ll post late tomorrow night and then we’ll both know where I ended up for the night.

16 July 2007 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 2

Decisions.

So last week I mentioned that “when it rains, it pours” when it comes to opportunities. I would have never thought that I would be so popular that more than one company would want me to work for them, but today I was presented with a decision. One was to return to the telephone company where I used to work and the other was with another company that I can’t really talk about because it’s a top secret project.

I went with the ringy-dingy route. And what’s most important is that my gut says it’s the right choice.

By working for the telephone company I don’t need to compromise my school schedule (they are very accomodating) and I’ll be working on projects that I’m very familiar with, so I am really jazzed about the opportunity. The other job opportunity was something that I used to do but haven’t done in a long while. The opportunity was quite enticing, but I felt it would have detracted from my educational efforts, and come hell or high water, getting my Civil Engineering degree is something that I am going to accomplish. I screwed up college once, I’m not going to screw it up again.

So come Monday I’m back to work for a while. And I couldn’t be happier.

16 July 2007 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Relaxed.

Sometimes you just can’t put an experience into words. Sometimes you can’t describe the warm feelings, good thoughts and relaxed state of zen one achieves when they follow their bliss.

It was a good weekend.

15 July 2007 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 0

Follow Your Bliss.

Earl and I are situated at camp for the weekend. The awning is up. The picnic table is positioned. The camper is stable. There were no cross words. It just comes together. He’s a good man. I love him.

I let Earl run the new camera for the first time today, and the resulting picture is above. As I begin the next year of my life (can I admit to myself that I’ve started my 40th year as of today, as I turn 39 at 7:30 p.m. this evening?) I’ve adopted a theme as inspired by a great B-52’s song.

Follow Your Bliss.

13 July 2007 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 7

Top Of The World.

Despite my flat tire the other day, I’ve been out on my bike and enjoying the cycling experience to the hilt. I’ve often said that I love the recreational trails along the Erie Canal because they’re quite and peaceful. So naturally I hit the trail this morning ready to listen to nothing but the animals and the wind rushing over my shaved head.

Except today the annual Cycling the Erie Canal Ride is underway and I felt like I had just merged into heavy traffic in downtown Knoxville.

Actually, traffic wasn’t that bad and the folks passing through our area were super nice. Even though I’m pretty much a loner when it comes to cycling, it’s good to ride with others once in a while, even if it’s just for a refresher in cycling manners.

I rode with the group for four miles or so before I left the trail and headed up one of the many hills in our area. I’ve avoided this hill because there’s a gorge across the middle of it. You get halfway up the hill, then you descend into the gorge and then you have to climb up all over again to get to the very top. It was a struggle but I can proudly say that I did not have a heart attack.

I’ve mentioned before (and demonstrated) that we live near several ultra high voltage powerlines. We’re near where many of the major lines in the Northeast come together, so we have several of these dotting the top of our hills.

There’s another one about twice the size of this one at my back, but I couldn’t get a good shot because I would have been pointing the camera directly into the sun. The lines from the substation pictured head to Niagara Falls and the powerplants in Oswego, N.Y. The lines directly over my head are tying this substation with the one behind me. There’s a lot of humming going on. Notice I did not bring a fluorescent bulb with me.

After indulging my geekness a little bit, I proceeded on to the top of our road. I’ve complained that since we’ve moved to the new house I’ve had to ride uphill to get home from a bike ride, well today I decided I was going to ride down to the house for a change. Why wimp out?

Here’s a shot from the intersection of our road and the road that goes along the top of the hill.

Unfortunately, the haze in the picture obscures the windmills in the distance that are about 25 miles away, but you can still see pretty far today.

And here’s the hill that I rode down to get home. It took me 35 minutes to get up this high whereas the ride down, which is about three miles, took no more than five minutes. I topped out at 41 MPH. I start to chicken out if I go faster than that on my bicycle.

13 July 2007 by J.P. Fitness. 2

New Camera.

Earl surprised me this evening by buying me a new digital camera for my birthday (which is tomorrow). Technology is amazing in that it does twice as much stuff as my old camera for half the price. It’s a Sony Cybershot DSC-W55. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy an inexpensive digital camera, as it’s small and thin yet packs a lot of punch.

Frankly I think I look like hell in this video, but then again I’m winding down from several beers this evening, as well as hanging out with friends at the local brewery.

[MEDIA=14]

Can I just say I must give credit to everyone that uses Microsoft Windows Vista. I’ve had it installed on my HP laptop for the past week and already Internet Explorer 7 has crapped out to the point that I can’t upload anything to my blog nor reliably open websites without it freezing. Mozilla Firefox, on the other hand, purrs along like a happy cat. I’ve been having problems with IE 7 since I got a blue screen of death on Vista yesterday and I wasn’t even near the computer when it happened. I must give kudos to Windows users, you must know what you’re doing to keep your computers usable. I’m sticking to my PowerBook G4. Oh, the reason for Vista is because I have flash converting software (my videos are done in Flash, like YouTube videos) for Windows that is 10 times faster than the same software on my old PowerBook. That’s the only reason I’m using it these days.

12 July 2007 by J.P. Geek 2

Opportunity.

When it rains, it pours. That’s what I’ve always heard and that’s what I’ve always believed. It’s proving to be true once again.

I’ve been checking out job opportunities to carry through until school starts up again. I’ve chatted with folks I haven’t talked with in a while, hoping that my conscious effort to not burn any bridges when I left a position really meant that I didn’t burn any bridges. It’s funny, when I leave a job I swear that I’ll keep in touch but I’m not as good at it as I hope to be. I guess I think of the whole experience as closing a chapter and moving on in the book of life.

I’ve had several good meetings this week with several people. And now I have several opportunities to choose from. What to do, what to do.

I feel like I’ve been kissed by opportunity.

12 July 2007 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Fried.

What does one do when it’s 80 degrees at 11:00 at night and there’s no hope of sleeping due to the heat and humidity? You do a science experiment, of course!

Earl and I live near where many of the main power lines for the entire state come together. From here, large towers carrying lots and lots of volts can be seen headed off in all directions. In fact,some of the only UHF (Ultra High Voltage) lines in the United States, clocking in at 765kV, are a couple of miles down the road from our home as they march off to Massena, which borders the province of Quebec, connecting the Empire State (and the eastern seaboard) to HydroQuebec.

Tonight I decided to park the car under one of the towers and jump out to see if I could get a fluorescent tube to light up like the urban legend says. I didn’t expect the tube to light up to it’s full potential, and it didn’t, since I stood to the left of the lines when I filmed this. I had a creepy feeling about standing directly under the lines, as I could hear them sizzling a little bit from the humidity and dampness in the air.

This video is very dark because the use of any light would have negated the effect of the tube. I hope you can make out what I saw, which was a fluorescent tube lighting up in my hands. When held vertically and pointed at one of the lines, it glowed blue. When held horizontally, it glowed red. I don’t know the cause of the color change. Adjacent to the 765kV towers is a set of two lower voltage lines, I believe they’re 345kV each. The 765kV lines are three lines, one for each phase of electricity, and each “strand” is a bundle of four wires. The 345kV lines, two sets of a group of three are single strands. There’s another set of 765kV lines on nearly identical towers nearby that head off to Oswego and they’re accompanied by one set of 345kV lines that are one group of three strands made up of two wires. Anyways, perhaps the color change is due to the fact that I was standing between the 765kV and the 345kV lines. In addition, I was standing about 1/3 of the way between the 765kV towers. I didn’t want to stand directly beneath the lowest point where the wires sagged as they’re only 30 feet about the ground and since I’m 5′ 10″ and holding an 8′ bulb, I would have been running around waving a metal object 14 feet in the air, nearly halfway to the sagging lines.

I have to give lots of credit to Ben Franklin and his kite and key setup.

Again, the video is very dark. I might do this again to see if I can improve the lighting somehow, and the next time drag Earl along with me to run the camera.

[MEDIA=13]

11 July 2007 by J.P. Geek 5

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Drive. Determination.

Where In The World Is J.P.?

Decisions.

Relaxed.

Follow Your Bliss.

Top Of The World.

New Camera.

Opportunity.

Fried.

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