"Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home."
-Bill Cosby






I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this. I've been home three weeks and haven't updated in even longer. Excuses? Oh sure, I have tonnes: Sopranos, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, Survivor, the list goes on and on. I've been logging some serious hours catching up on all the North American culture I've missed out on the last year and a half. Sure, the wonders of the world wide web gave me access to all these things while away (thanks Bit-torrent), but it was never as easy as reclining in a plush chair and hitting a few buttons on the remote.

Need more explanations for my rampant blog-neglect? Enjoying more than a few dishes that have been absent from my diet for far too long: "Welcome back lamb chops and mint sauce!" Also I've been investing some serious time dumping my entire CD and mp3 collection onto my new Ipod (thanks Mum and Dad, oh yeah and you too Steve Jobs). I've got about 700 songs in there now and the sleek little machine is only about 15% full. Not quite bulging at the seams yet. Not even the entire catalogues of U2 and Radiohead, plus more than a few 15 minute long Led Zep guitar fests, have pushed 'Podzilla' anywhere near its 20 gigabyte limit.

After a couple of days in Vancouver, Mum, Dad and I drove up the scenic peninsula and back to Powell River. Home at last. It felt nice. I decided to shed my Khao San road dreadlocks and tidy up my traveling beard. I gave the hefty task to a local barber and he worked wonders. I dropped him a nice tip for his efforts and left the barber shop shaved, shorn, and feeling much better.

Christmas was especially nice after having missed last year's. I picked up all of my gifts on the road and they all looked a lot more valuable than what I actually paid for them (after considerable bargaining of course). New Year's Eve was spent in Victoria with Kerry. We splurged on a couple of bottles of Alize and partied like we were in a rap video (minus the exotic cars, exotic girls, exotic locale, and massive entourage). Then we were off to Sugar where we watched Velvet and ran up a bar tab that still sends shivers down my spine. By fluke we ran into Adam and a joyous, pissed reunion was had. I ended up crashing with Adam at his old place and spending the entirety of the next day watching college football and nursing our hangovers with water and pizza.

A few days later I watched the 6-1 routing of Russia by Canada's world junior team. A nice way to kick off 2005. Good work boys. I stayed a few more days and saw a few more friends: Rob, Paul, J.C., Lauren, Kate, Stu, Nicole. Unfortunately, I missed more people than I saw because not everyone had come back for the new semester yet. Another Victoria visit may be in the cards. I woke up Friday to find Paul skipping classes and snow blanketing the ground outside, a rare phenomenon in Victoria (the snow I mean; I can't really attest to Paul's attendance record but, to be fair, I wouldn't have been going to school in that weather).

I had serious doubts that my bus home would be running but trudged down to the depot anyway. To my surprise, they sold me a ticket and I boarded the bus. With its winding roads straddling sheer drop offs into the water far below, the Malahat can test your nerves at the best of times. With snow already covering the road, and more rushing down from the sky to join it, I was more than a little jittery as I looked out the window at the potential disaster that loomed just a few feet to the side of the bus. I dialed up 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Audiobook' on Podzilla, and let it distract me.

Once we were through the mountains, the bus kept up a surprisingly good pace. The landscape as you drive up Vancouver Island is scenic and was made even more so by the liberal coating of white snow it received that day: The bare branches of millions of trees support more snow than seems physically possible; fields of grass are transformed into vast plains of white snow and grey ice extending to the base of white mountains beyond; in some places the road passes near the ocean and the white ground runs right up to the edge of the dark, choppy, and surely frigid waters.

I got off in Courtney and managed to catch the last bus running out to the ferry. I was the sole passenger on the bus driven by a guy who liked to chat and, when no-one was watching, kick the back end of the bus out sideways in the snow. It was a fun ride and at the end of it I ran off the bus and on to the ferry with only a minute to spare before it departed.

Since then it's been a nice week of relaxing at home in the company of my parents and Marley, our friendly black lab who likes to dig holes and ignore what you tell him to do. I've been spending some time toying around with my new computer, trying to learn some of the programs I've loaded and find illegal cracks for the others. As I edit and arrange some of my beach pictures from Ko Lanta, I can't help but thinking that the resort which I called home for about a week is no longer there. The beachside bar, the pool table, the barbecue, the sitting platforms have all surely been swept away. I left the island no more than a week before it, and numerous other places along the edge of the Indian Ocean, were devastated by the tsunami. Many of the people I met left around the same time as me, but many more stayed, including, of course, the fantastic group of Thai guys and girls that made my stay such a pleasure. I knew them only a few days, but something about the warmth and kindness that is an integral part of the Thai persona, made them feel like good friends. Being a smaller tourist destination, the extent of the devastation on Ko Lanta hasn't been a main focus in Western media. I can only hope everyone was ok and my heart goes out to everyone whose friends or family aren't ok. With the late night, alcohol fueled schedule I kept while there, I can only guess what would have happened to me had I been passed out in my bungalow when the killer wave struck. It certainly puts things in perspective. I'm happy to see Canada and the world being so generous with not only money, but also time and care. Perhaps this is something that can unite those once divided. You have to look for the silver lining I guess.