Base Camp

Why hello there, ladies and gentiles.
       Well I'm still in Calgary, and I have two jobs now. By day, I am working with a small company, playing sewer/stormwater cleaner's assistant. Basically I drive around in a truck, inspect manholes and walk/stand around. It's a pretty cruisy job and I don't mind it at all.
       By nights and on the weekends, I'm working at a Best Western doing some catering and bartending and whatnot for minimum wage. The pay is pretty lousy, but the hours are reasonable and the work pretty easy. Late nights though, considering I have to get out of bed at 5 every day. But it's money for jam, and as soon as I start getting these fortnightly pay cheques, I'll be on the way up good and proper. Plus I get to wear a bow-tie to work. Ridiculous how dapper I look at minimum wage.
       I have been through a pretty hectic period: breaking laptops, losing (and finding, thank Christ) passports, driver's license and banking fuckarounds, being broke, lounge-sleeping and worrying too much; but I have been killing it. Taking care of business and getting shit done. Constantly on the move, constantly busy. It's taking a bit of a toll no doubt, seeing as I'm always tired and cannot stop thinking, thinking, but I am taking some pretty good form into the Christmas period.
       The general plan I have right now is that I stay in Calgary until Christmas, stick it out with these jobs and pay off my car's rego and insurance and get it on the road. Still waiting on a license from QLD Transport, but I can't afford it yet, anyway -- I spent way too much money in Edmonton and BC. I should start getting decent cheques in a week's time, but until then I am still pretty skint. All the money in my Commonwealth account is now gone! Haha pretty standard Jimbo, but at least it has gotten me to the point where I am now making financial plans and budgeting myself and actually learning to watch my money. Valuable lessons here.
       After the New Year ticks over, I'm going back to Edmonton; I'm going to run around in a frenzy until I get an oil rig job and stick to that until April. This is where the big money is, and I'm really banking on it to work out if I'm to be a shot at the drive down south. Consequentially, it'll do me a bit of good to learn about the oil industry. There's some pretty tight parallels to the industry up here and coal in Queensland. All good knowledge for a journalist, eh.
       Back in Oz, Mikie is working like a bastard and looks like having a solid amount of money in the bank when he gets here at the end of february, so things are looking up for this trip. We are both going through all that unpleasant hard-working real-life shit that we have to to climb that metaphorical mountain and make this trip happen. We're going to make it. No doubt.
       Also I'm trying to fit in some snowboarding and San Francisco, but who knows when that will happen. Not before Christmas, but as far as I'm concerned still both definite. As far as the weather goes, it has been snowing from time to time, but it is an unusually warm start to winter. Minus 21 has come around a couple of times though (plus a bonus windchill to take it down to -28). Not really that fun. I don't mind the could though... acclimatising. So many layers and thermal pants. Huzzah. Snow is awesome.

Stairway to Heaven...

Bizarre times, the last few weeks. No doubt about it. Sad times, scared times, standard batshit-crazy times. On the same day that Zain gave me that van, now dubbed "The Grey Goose", Kylen went missing. She worked at the hostel in Edmonton, and over the two weeks or so prior, we had become pretty close. She was beautiful, smart, free and loved. An amazing artist. A bright spark burning at both ends. She told no-one of her sadness, hid it well. Not even those closest to her could tell. Many are those who will never forget her, but now she wanders free. I know that she will be looked after, and I wish her better luck in the next.
         In the week or so that has passed since that time, this ol' life o' mine's been a pretty mixed bag. Some really good times, three really awesome Halloween nights, some moments of real motivation and inspiration. Times of reflection, introspection. Depression, Faith and Fear. Always, always good, good friends. The constant stream of incredible people that is my life seems to have no end in sight, thank God, touch wood.
         I had to get out of Edmonton, escape the craziness and Armidale-meets-Hotel-California vibrations in the walls there. So, I said goodbye to all the remaining people and the Goose for a while for a shot at Calgary. The plan being to stay with my mate Isaac for a couple of weeks, get a couple of jobs and make some cash to get the car on the road by Christmas, before returning to Edmonton most likely in January to get into some of that oil rig big money dolla dolla bill to finance the impending spirit quest towards a Texan-style Independence Day, Ecuadorian Yage ceremonies 12/12, jungles beaches and fat cigars and all the rest.
         Problem is, as most of you know, for all of my Fidiculous/Rantastic ideas and, seemingly, blind fucking faith... I am more often than not the unknowing architect of my own demise. As I sat here tonight coughing up the phlegm and snot I earned through my stubborn refusal to let my thongs go until the day before the snow, it slowly dawned on me. Every little bit of "bad luck", every frustration and stick in the mud that seem to plague me half the time like a curse or a plague of annoying bees is, and pretty well has always been, MY OWN FAULT, the direct consequence of my own dumb actions. Particularly now, as I sit here jobless (though with two interviews pending, I have been flat out lately, mind), and dipping fingers into my last thousand dollars.  I've been pointing fingers and getting all down and dejected and pulling my hair out and wondering "why, why, why". Now I know why.
         Ahhhh... The first step is Acceptance, right? ...Ah-Hem.. I now hereby Accept that it is My Fault that I am in this rather absurd position right now, 5 months left in Canada with the following Mountain to ascend: as follows;
* Driver's License/Commbank seemingly endless bullshit, * Paying for, Registering, Insuring and fixing The Grey Goose, * Securing at least three (3) jobs * Visiting San Francisco * Snowboard trips and Benjamin Jeffree * ....Annnnd saving a cheeky 12 grand or so to get me down to South America.

        5 months to become a man. A man Takes Care of Business. I have some serious Resposibilities now. To Zain, to The Mayor, hell, to fucking Everybody who has gotten me this far. I do happen have a good plan though, and I'm sticking to it. All I gotta do is get in amongst it, get to work and make it happen. I've got this, people. No doubt.

Kylen Groenveld

1991 - 2011

R.I.P.
I'm sorry.