Many people have received a long-distance call (from various numbers) advising that they have won a 5-day vacation for only $99. The recorded message asks the winner to dial "9" to speak to an operator.
This is a scam. If you receive such a call, hang up and do not press 9. If you do, others will be able to make long-distance calls from your telephone line and charges will be forwarded to your bill.
I've been called several times but just hung up automatically in disgust as I hate spam. Didn't realize there was more to it until someone forwarded me the following URL: http://www.benedictionblogson.com/archives/001197.php, where the info is represented as coming from the RCMP.
This scam depends on avarice and gullibility. Me, I'm a cynic, having "won" a vacation in the past, sat through a sales spiel having been assured no purchase would be required to get the "free" vacation, and yet still walked away with no vacation after the lying-liar-bad-guys finally admitted (using different words) that they had lied to me. Also, I always hang up on recordings as a general principle. If someone wants to talk to me they can do so directly. This is especially true of telemarketers of any ilk, because I need to be speaking to a person so that I can tell them to remove me from their calling list...
How do you find out if something is true? Once you start doubting, just like you're supposed to doubt - everything is possibly wrong - start out understanding religion by saying "everything is possibly wrong, let us see". As soon as you do that you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from.
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing - I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about such as whether it means anything to ask "why are we here?" But I don't have to know an answer - I don't feel frightened by not knowing things - by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as i can tell possibly -- it doesn't frighten me.
Quotes excerpted from the NOVA video, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
I was listening to The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (which is beautifully read by Dan Cashman, and in which the above was included) and was stunned to hear Feynman crystalize, using very few words, my own religious philosophy.
The timing was excellent, because I was still smarting from Yann Martel's assertion in The Life of Pi:
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
What?
I refuse Martel's base presumption that questions of faith must, or even can be answered, and his logical extraction that agnostics live with doubt because they fear to answer. The above quote from Feynman is the best possible answer I can think of to this presumption.
I think that the iPod, while maybe not taking over the world, is definitely dominating market segments. There weren't really all that many people wearing headphones while snowboarding or skiing at Whistler, but of those that were, ALL, 100%, every single one, was wearing the signature iPod white earbuds. Every one. And not a single one of them had replaced the earbuds with an acoustically superior option, which leads me to believe that advertising one's iPod is part of the point of owning an iPod.
As a side note, I love my iPod, but it'll be a while before I'm confident enough riding my snowboard that I can afford to be distracted by something like Katie Webster's Pussycat Moan
Graeme and I were on our own on Whistler for the last day. Hit blacks at the peak before really warming up and had kind of a frustrating morning. Eased off a bit in the afternoon, though, and had a much better time of it. Did keep getting lost, though. I really learned to appreciate the guides, as the maps don't always, well, map well to what you see in front of you, and things aren't always signed well, or even at all, and may even be signed in what seems in the heat of the moment to be a deliberately misleading fashion. But still, we went out of bounds for one the last routes, and had just a great time flying through very lightly travelled snow. Always end on a high note.
Went back to the hotel to grab our "civilian" clothes from the Jeep and head over to David's to shower, as we'd checked out that morning and stored everything in the Jeep. That was when we learned why it's important to zip pockets while riding a snowboard. JP learned a similar lesson last year when he lost his cell phone. Graeme had no key to unlock the Jeep. Much hilarity ensued, but in the end the tow truck guy the rental company called opened the car for us, we got out stuff out, and I managed to convince a very worried Graeme to walk away and stop watching the driver try to tow the Jeep out of an extremely tight underground parking spot.
It's not really so much that I wasn't worried that he was going to damage the Jeep, because quite frankly I couldn't see a way for the tow truck to pull the Jeep out without maybe taking its doors off. There really was nothing I could do to help, though, and I know nothing about towing and may have been worrying for nothing. The distractingly good-looking tow-truck driver was completely sanguine, and good-looking people are always right, yes?
Took the bus to YVR, finishing the last of the bourbon to quiet our jangly nerves, and found a quiet bench for Graeme to sleep on, as his flight wasn't until morning and it cost a testicle to stay at the Faimont at the airport.
All's well that ends well.
Pics are here.
Woke up today to a snowy village! 28cm reported alpine snowfall. At last Whistler feels like a ski resort. Graeme and I headed up Blackcomb only to discover that the guides were on Whistler. Grumble grumble. We had been told that they alternated mountains every day. More big fat lies. Ah well. Alain, one of the snowboard guides, guided in the morning, and then we boarded with some of that group (because we weren't the only ones caught by the "switch") for the rest of the day. It was all good. Sid and John were great guys, and there was a ton of new snow, not that I always really knew how to cope with it. This was wha tI was in Whistler for.
Went back over to David's group's condo to soak away the day in their hot tub. Or should I say acid bath. We admittedly stayed in a long time, but my brand new navy swim trunks got bleached out to a rust brown colour, and Graeme broke out all in a rash. Nothing a little tequila couldn't fix, though.
Baked salmon with a lemon-butter-dill sauce for dinner with yams and green beans with red peppers. Did I mention that having a kitchen on vacation is great?
Pics are here.
Today was Lesson Day with the charming Ollie. I learned:
It all works fine on easy, cruisy runs, but still all falls apart when it gets too steep and I panic, oversteer, straighten my legs and bend too far into the hill (ie: do everything wrong). Eventualy, though, I'm sure it'll all be terribly useful information (which is why I wrote it down).
Went to the Après Ski at the Conference Centre. Felt ripped off for $30, but they were giving "free" massages, so at least I got something for my money. David also gave me his ticket to the Comedy Night at the Fairmont, which was great for the price (free). I might have felt less enthusiastic had I paid $65, though. The headlining comic, Suzanne Westenhoefer, was very funny, but not $65 funny. I mean really, I can go see Cirque du Soleil for that kind of money. These exhorbitant entry fees stagger me, and everyone else seems to cough them up without even blinking. Clearly they're seeing value where I don't, but I can't see what it might be.
Pics are here.
Day off today. Drove back down the Sea-to-Sky Highway (or is it the Sky-to-Sea Highway heading south?) . Stopped in Squamish to take a look at the Chief. It's, um, really, REALLY big. There are lots of big mountains around, but the Chief is a really huge rockface. We stumbled around through the underbrush trying to find the path to the face (oh, that's why guidebooks exist!) before smart Graeme found a map. Not a great map, so we stumbled around for a bit 'til we (okay Graeme) figured out what it was hinting at. Must go back when warm.
Vancouver was much more cool than I remember it being last time I was there, but I was distracted by a beautiful boy the whole weekend I was there and didn't venture very far afield. Much more varied architecture than Toronto, which made it seem quite interesting. I do have to say, though, that W Hastings was terrifyingly ghetto, and that I feared for my life as we passed through, trying to remember not to make eye contact with anyone. Really, unless you're looking for some smack (do they still call it smack?) or something, give it a miss.
Do take a peek at the Marine Building, though. Truly a showpiece.
Vij's for dinner. Go there.
Pics are here.
Whistler mountain was the place to be. Was still feeling marginal in the morning, so I re-joined easy blue group. Blair had hurt his knee the day before, so took it really easy. Graeme was more adventurous, and joined the "advanced blue" group. The morning went really well, and it all felt too easy, so I was feeling pretty confident when I joined Tim's advanced blue group in the afternoon.
Tim's a great guy, and a great rider, having ridden for Burton for two years. He's also, clearly, colour blind So the advanced blue became the easy black group. Luckily I was still feeling highly confident after the easy morning, so even the blacks (while still terrifying) weren't completety futile, and it was amazing how completely REAL it all felt. Way cool day.
Natchos and a massage for dinner, at the Garibaldi Lift Co. Seriously, GLC was the place to be. $1 a minute for a massage, and we got to watch gross National Geographic videos while eating. Can't be beat.
Pics are here.