Take him to see the Oracle

I may have been an Oracle in a past life.

Unexplained.

What happened?! What did I miss?!

I feel ambushed.

Febrile Hallucinations

I've been battling bug lately. It manifested as a brutal fever which, I'm quite convinced, gave me febrile hallucinations. I've never had such an experience. I was sick in bed trying to sleep when this horrible dream began. I dreamed that I was in a bureaucratic vicious circle, and that I was in charge of 'fixing the phones and making sure the wheelchairs worked.' I would wake up often because of the fever and felt my blankets becoming more and more drenched in sweat. Too weak and chilled to get up for water or a pill, I shut my eyes and tried to slip back to sleep.

Phones. Wheelchairs. Wake up. Sweaty blankets. Repeat. It was exhausting. I felt as though I had been working hard, physically and mentally, when I should have been resting. This made me frustrated on top of everything else. My heart rate was 90 bpm, racing as though I was doing heavy physical labour.




In my dream I began to construct an elaborate structure out of phone cables and wheelchair parts. It looked like junkyard art and was extremely complex. If my brain was a computer, the amount of detail going into this fruitless activity would have maxed out my RAM. I climbed up atop the structure and lay upon it, and then woke up. I couldn't tell where I was. Was I still atop the junk pile? I spread my hands out over my mattress to convince myself that I was awake and only suffering a bad dream. A drip of sweat dropped off my earlobe.

I was suddenly overtaken with an urgency to get back into my dream to continue the futile work I was assigned to. Part of me knew that it was just a dream and that I was not accomplishing anything, but the other was OBSESSING about getting the job done. The line separating reality and fantasy was becoming blurred. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, becoming more and more frustrated in and out of the dream of the exhausting and repetitive nature of what was happening to me, while at the same time becoming more obsessed with completing the task.

I finally had enough at 5 AM. I said out loud 'this is not real.' The psychotic sense of urgency wouldn't go away, so I began to repeat 'no. no. no!' I eventually gathered enough courage to get out of bed and get some water. I wore my housecoat and winter jacket to brave the 20C (68F) temperatures that my body deemed were frigid. After this, the problem was over.

I washed all my linens today and it cost me $6.

Dafoe Library: Retched Blessing

I had a fairly productive study session yesterday in Dafoe Library, the largest library on the University of Manitoba campus. I typed up three sets of textbook notes complimenting three lecture units, approximately 4 hours of work. It was for my human geography course and the subject matter was invigorating: a bonus. There's nothing better than finishing work worth doing, I say.

As you may have read in posts previous, I have been feeling ill for the past week and a half. I began to feel a reprieve from the flu on Monday and thought that the worst of it was behind me. Lately, in my world, everything I thought was true has instead been re-labled "work in progress." The really important questions of life have been dogging me, and I need time to figure them out.

A quick taste, a preview if you will, of what I'm talking about: It became quickly apparent that I was wrong about overcoming my illness when I began vomiting, without expectation, on the second floor of Dafoe. I had coughed and tasted bile in the back of my throat, and with a precious three seconds before eruption had managed to perch over a tiny garbage pail. I remained in this state for five minutes, fielding looks from concerned (read "horrified) fellow peers who were probably not expecting this, either. No one tried to help me, much to my then thankfulness and now dismay. Thanks a lot, no-hearts!




After the 'event' I noticed a large pile of clean Starbucks napkins just sitting on an empty table one meter from where I blew it.

Seriously now. If you have to throw up unexpectedly in public, it can't get any better than having a garbage can at your feet and a pile of napkins just sitting there waiting for some night janitor to come throw them out.

And to add even more blessing to injury: After I managed to clean myself up sufficiently I called my friend, Milena, to tell her what happened. If anyone would understand, it would be her. She just happened to be on campus and wanted to see me to give me a hug. I freshened up in my dorm and we talked about the really important questions of life for two hours.

All things considered equal, this was one of the most retched blessings I have ever had.

Old men followed by fevers

I saw No Country For Old Men yesterday with Tim P. It was a really fantastic movie, though not one that I'd ever like to see again due to its graphic nature. There were moments in the movie where the emotion was so thick that I wanted to clamp down on Tim's thigh, just above the knee, and squeeze as hard as I could to relieve the tension.

This was followed by a gastronomical gastric attack from a free chocolate bar I had been offered. It is a low carb diet chocolate bar made with maltitol, a sugar alcohol that doesn't rot teeth. As I was munching on the bar and noting its unique flavor I thought I should look up maltitol as I had never heard of it before. I immediatly gravitated to an article titled "Malitol, just say NO" and it is there that my bathroom doom was prophesied over me. It apparently makes the bowels irate.

I had problems sleeping last night because a) I had just watched countless people be murdered on the silver screen and the images were dancing around my head and b) my bowels were vibrating. Then my neck started to hurt, followed by the chills which turned into a sweaty fever. My whole body began to ache and my lungs felt fatigued. I thought I was coming down with the flu. I prayed and asked the Lord to heal me, and made it easier on Him by downing three tylenol at once.

I woke up 92% my usual self this morning. Knock on wood, I think I have beat whatever is ailing me.

Update, 11:44 PM: I'm feeling soo ill and I'm getting the shakes again. Time for another Tylenol cocktail.

In Vain

Montage of the various speeches of the 2008 Academy Awards.


I watched the Oscars last night with 'the Tims'. One provided cocktail wieners: the other, beer. I provided nothing and apparently my company was useless as I had seen less than 10% of the contenders. I only guessed a few categories correctly, and guesses they were. Why do I love crappy movies?

But while my savvy friends were swallowing scrumptious fare I was noticing a fresh trend in the speeches this year. Nobody was thanking God.

I don't think this is bad news, either. The latest trend in the church over the past decade has been a call for a more authentic relationship with the Lord. I'm not proposing that the Oscar winners who didn't thank God publicly feel that God had nothing do do with their big win. I can relate in this way. When I get an A on an exam I say "I got an A on my exam and I'd like to thank myself for studying so hard and Amanda for lifting my spirits when I was feeling down." I know that God is in the mix, in his mysterious ways. I do not sense his direct contribution. Thus I feel it would be disingenuous to express my thanks to the Lord out loud for the world to hear.

It's not a stretch to conclude that when the Lord commanded us not to use his name in vain, it applied to overuse and half hearted attribution. So that's why I'm not concerned that God's name wasn't mud slung across the Oscars this year. You can be sure that the next time you hear me thank the Lord, it's coming from a direct connection with the creator. Think of how often you thank God publicly. Are you overusing his name?

Earth to Michael

I was totally out of it yesterday! My sense of place forgot to show up for it's daytime shift. I missed breakfast and nearly missed my first class in the morning. Then I somehow convinced myself that I had no more classes for the day. The logic looked like this:

I have two classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Today is Friday.
Thus, I have only one class today.

Perhaps I should have stayed in critical thinking! (That is called a logical contradiction, by the way)

While I was eating my lunch, I couldn't shake an underlying feeling of being entirely uncool and alone. Am I depressed? Is this animal, vegetable, or mineral? I napped for two hours in the afternoon.

--Update--
Amanda just called. She's the only person with a special ring tone on my cell phone. Not even my BOYFRIEND gets that privilege. I lamented my day's woes to her. She responded, "uncool? Michael, you are not uncool. I am calling YOU. ME. Calling YOU. Debate settled!

She's got a point. She is pretty awesome.

Timo's Lightning

Click To Play

More on the thunder storms I've been squawking about for the past few days. My German roommate Timo and I stood outside and watched the storm drift across the big prairie sky. Then we realized that the lightening was right above us and ran back to the house, screaming like school children. This storm system created an F4 torndao 45 km west of Winnipeg.

And then I said:

We're getting tornadoes like mad! I'm telling you, the tornadoes are coming for me! I've been telling everyone this for a month. Manitoba has had 5 tornado watches in 7 days. Everyone in this province is skinning their teeth and wondering who they must throw overboard. They're about to cast lots. I'm doomed!

This is some amateur footage, the best I've seen so far, of the Elie twister.

Bolt!

Bolt!
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas

My on the spot attempt at capturing lightening during a storm this evening. Note to self: TRI POD.

The main storm is drifting past the southern end of the city far away. It was safe, however once I noticed there was a little bit of activity in the sky above me and I connected the fact that I was standing in the middle of a school field like a human lightening rod I scampered back home.

Worms Worms Everywhere

April Showers have finally found their way to Winnipeg (a month late) and, quite frankly, I'm enjoying the lush greens and clean sidewalks. The leaves are finally filled in and large deciduous tree-lined boulevards and quiet neighbourhood streets are shaded by the overlapping foliage. It's really a lovely time of the year. The temperature has still remained balmy since I arrived, although the long-range weather forecast is completely unreliable. And the mosquitoes haven't attacked in full force yet. In fact, I've only seen two since I arrived, and haven't been bitten once. I don't know what everyone was warning me about. Winnipeg the evil? Far from it!

But let me warn you about the worms.

Sweet Mother. This year, the ' Cankerworms' as they're called have amassed into a formidable foliage feasting frenzy. They eat deciduous tree leaves, leaving entire canopy's tattered. This not only makes trees susceptible to disease, but looks pretty darned ugly. The worst part about Cankerworms is the silk spinning abilities they've developed to drop out of danger and 'hang out' in a hoard of tangled web and worminess underneath tree limbs. Imagine* yourself enjoying a walk outside after a light rain. The air smells fresh, and you're jamming to the latest podcast downloaded to your iPod. Without warning, you walk through an invisibly icky web of disgustingess. You panic because you believe it to be a spider's web, and in thrashing at your face you knock the ear buds out of your ears and into a puddle. You look at your hands and notice a greenly smear across your fingertips. You quickly realize that you have just smeared approximately 22 caterpillars across your face and the sleeves of your nice new sweater. You pivot around and quickly trot back to the house. A worm is dangerously close to your earhole. A worm is on your iPod. A worm is on the back of your hand. The wind shifts, and you find yourself in another tangled web. You curse yourself for taking a shortcut across the front yard: underneath the oak tree with it's dastardly low hanging branches. You flail your arms in a twin turbine motion out in front of your body and flee to the front door. Exhausted, you change all your clothes, burn them, and vow never to venture outside ever again.

Yes...I am enjoying myself in Winnipeg.

Train derailment, Delays

Click to play

Formats available: Windows Media (.wmv)

Toni's surprise

Click to play

Toni comes home from work with a surprise.

Formats available: Windows Media (.wmv)

Environmental Renaissance

Moneyshot
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas.

Early in January 2007, while sitting at my desk that overlooked an unusually green backyard, I was listening to CBC's 'Cross Country Checkup.' That day the show was about the unusually mild and/or devastating weather Canada had been experiencing from east to west this winter. I stopped my homework to record some notes from the news I overheard:

• Robins, the herald of spring, have been spotted in a park on Lake Ontario.
• Buds are trying to pop up on trees and bushes.
• Major ski resorts which are the bread and butter for small communities right across Ontario have laid off thousands of seasonal workers overnight.
• Heavy snow and high winds ripped a hole in B.C. Place's cloth roof.

As a lover of nature, this news disappoints me. As a human being whose existence relies entirely on a delicate balance between the sun's radiation and the wispy protection of the atmosphere, I am mortified and shaken! For decades, scientists have warned the world that, if left unchecked, greenhouse gases would ultimately cause irreversible climate change. The fact of the matter is that the temperature has been rising slowly, incrementally, over the past 100 years. The vast majority of us have simply failed to take notice until now, since the threshold between freezing and melting 0^C, like a floodgate, has been breached. Climate change left unchecked will cause torrential devastation.

I thought for a month about what must be done, now that we are stuck in the mire of obvious climate change. The old mantra "think globally, act locally" came to mind (although it has been around for years. It hasn't worked). Our government and our nation does not support or value enough an individuals sacrifice of convenience and modernity to spare the environment, so this motto does not register with the citizens. Suddenly a new phrase came to mind. "Think globally, act nationally." According to research, the Canadian public has shifted their number one concern from health care to the environment in the past six months, but I'd venture with an educated guess (and a gut feeling) that this shift occurred much more recently due to the mysterious weather all Canadians experienced in the winter of 2006. It was unavoidable and took us totally by surprise.

And so with the environment on our minds, and an exciting federal election looming later in 2007, the Canadian public can for the first time ever buy this issue at the ballot box. Put the budget where their vote is! And what's more, if the analysts are correct (and I'm sure they are) and the elections are won based on an environmental platform, you can be sure that Canadians will be encouraged-- motivated to action even. For us as individuals to discover, altogether, that an overwhelming majority of the nation is ready to take the hard steps necessary for achieving results is a thrilling dream! Can you perceive it? The vision of an environmental renaissance bursting forth from Canada in 2007 and affecting our science, culture, and world perspective for generations to come!

Are you ready for it? Are you willing to make the sacrifices necessary to accommodate a sustainable lifestyle? I want to be, but without the safetynet of Canada's government, its people, its identity under me, taking a leap for the environment would be all for naught, a drop in the ocean. Today, let's think about the Earth, our home, and unite as a nation to 'keep it strong and free' from climate change.

"Oh, Planet Earth, we stand on guard for thee."

The Extraordinarily Mild Winter

This January will go down in history as a landmark for the environmental movement in Canada.

I can sense something is different when I'm walking to work without gloves on. In January. In Canada. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE UNBEARABLE THIS TIME OF YEAR. Robins, the herald of spring, have been spotted in a park on Lake Ontario. Buds are trying to pop up on the rose bush in my front yard. Major ski resorts which are the bread and butter for small communities right across Ontario have laid off thousands of seasonal workers overnight.

Researchers have concluded that within the past 6 months the environment has become THE number one issue for Canadians, topping even health care and the war in Afghanistan. I'd take an educated guess and propose that the dramatic shift has accelerated in much less time between December and now; strange storms on the west coast, the green Christmas, the green new year, this balmy first week of January. It is now undeniably obvious that change is afoot on the climate scene.

Which means that change has been afoot all along. But why the sudden shift in public support for saving the environment and adopting sustainable practices? It's tangible, stupid! We can see it. You can feel record breaking storms beating across your cringed face week after week in Vancouver. You can tell by your Christmas pics that something is wrong when the grass is growing out the window. Experts have declared that climate change, this global warming, has been happening for decades. Now that this change is finally tipping the thermometer from freezing to not, zero Celsius to one, we're all affected.

Who can you trust to take the necessary precautions, cutbacks, kick ass measures to begin and turn this around? By who, I am referring to the Government because that's the way we do it in Canada, passing off major responsibilities and incentives starters (tax back!) to the people we elect.

Who? Who who who?

Let me spell it out.

Stephen Dion was elected as the new Liberal Leader, on a green platform right off the bat, in the first few days of December. Right before our green Christmas. Right before the news began blazing across our screens and newspaper headlines with dire warnings about the arctic loosing all it's ice in the next 50 years.

Stephen Harper, last year, cut 90% of environmental and climate change programs. He sent our environment minister to the international stage with a 'made in Canada' solution for climate change and emissions. She was ridiculed, flamed, booed, hexed, and any number of other cultural gestures of outrage. Canada became the hypocritical laughing stock of the international environmental scientific community.

Prime Minister Harper announced a few days ago, outside, in Ottawa, in a flimsy suit jacket, in OTTAWA, IN JANUARY, OUTSIDE, that he was electing a new environment minister named John Baird. John said, "I left the house without even a winter coat this morning. So that's obviously a huge concern." John Baird has been called Mr. Fix It. I call him a political goon.

Which of these two bolded men above do you think deserves the right to do the right thing? The guy who stuck his neck out before anybody was really concerned, yet still managed to come in first place? Or the guy who's reacting to it just like the rest of us? God DAMN it! The Conservative website doesn't even have the words 'environment', 'climate', or 'weather' on their home page at the time of this posting. Go check out the websites for yourself. Go, now!

I've had it with climate change. Let's vote for a political warming and heat up a societal change. Vote Liberal in the next election.

Dark Art

I've noticed a trend. As the earth slowly tilts Canada away from the precious sun, I find that I pick up my camera less. Without light, I've got no story to show.

Trendy

passionless observation

?

No photos to take. My favorite, most motivated time of the day to take photos or videoblog is in the late afternoon, but these days 5:30 P.M. might as well mean midnight.

44 Days. That's how long it will take Earth to tilt me back on it's respective angle towards the sun to be even with today's glumness. Unbelievably, it's going to become even DARKER between now and the winter solstice (a contradictory title indeed) and afterwards must recover for all that lost tilt. Winter is so anticlimactic.

My camera has a two second shutter. I'm going to play around with that.


(two second shutters require you to remain absolutely still)

Spring Fog

Spring Fog

Watch the video

While driving home from work on Tuesday I came across a unique phenomenon. Fog was billowing off the snow and sweeping across the road with the wind. It was so beautiful that I had to stop and capture it for you!

I also tried to win a Toyota Rav4 on my Tim Hortons "Roll Up The Rim To Win" cup.

This post has been tagged with 'vlog tim hortons' and 'vlog roll up the rim to win' on del.icio.us.

British Columbia

This is an older post, from back yonder in the days when my hair was shorter and I was unhappy in Los Angeles, and not as good at vlogging as I am now. But I like to bring back the golden oldies every once in while.

The video is pretty self explanitory. Kid friendly. And fun.

Roadtrips rock!

Bigger and Better

Bigger and Better

Watch the video

Remember that crummy video about wind turbines I made last week? Let's try this again.

My dad came home after some deliveries and told me to grab my camera and get in the car. I hadn't even showered yet.

No hair was cut in the making of this video.

Winter Lightning Storm

Winter Lightning Storm

Watch the video

It rarely happens and we're always freaked out when it does.

What's next, winter tornadoes?

My mom contradicts me, I don't think she believes there is a storm happening at all.

I also have an argument on the proper way to throw out things.

My hair is still disgraceful.

I didn't go to school on Saturday because of a freak snow storm. I went to the dump.