Oh Fate, why hast thou forsaken me? Why must I be torn between going to see Louis CK, or going to a Marilyn Manson concert?!

NOT FAIR!

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I’m going sailing for three days this long weekend. We’ll be four guys taking one of their boats to Summerside and back from Shediac. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain too much (it probably will).

I’ll be on a hiatus from tomorrow morning till Monday evening. I’ll have loads to write by then, I have no doubt.

I guess someone forgot their geography lesson. It makes me wonder if Fox ‘embedded’ it’s reporters in Cairo.

Garrett Reynolds and Dylan White are biking from Victoria BC to St John’s, Nfld., filming a documentary on Canadian watersheds along their route (see their website).

Garrett just completed his masters in systems and control engineering, and Dylan just finished his undergraduate studies in environmental science. We had a grand time, and great chats over beer last night at St James’ Gate. These guys are really smart, have insightful life experience and were an all around pleasure to have around. Good luck for the last leg of your trip, gents.

So far, I’ve learned loads from almost every hosting experience I’ve had. I’ve hosted about 20 surfers so far(?). I’ve been getting a huge number of couch surfing requests lately—I’ve refused 5 surfers this weekend alone. It’s a busy time of the year to be traveling, I guess.

I have a lot of friends who find I trust these strangers too much. I understand what they mean, but the type of people who are willing to just crash at people’s houses during a trip, instead of booking hotels, are usually the more friendly, trustworthy, and interesting strangers. I would argue that Couchsurfing is a great way to filter out the weirdos, especially with a referral-based system.

I’m telling you, try this shit out. You’ll have a h00t.

BIRDY NAM NAM – THE PARACHUTE ENDING from Steve Scott on Vimeo.

Tip of the hat to this man for conducting an awesome interview with Bill Kristol. You can’t miss it.

In this case I can’t just disagree with people, I have to find them incredibly stupid as well.

My favorite parts of online articles usually lie within the thread dedicated to readers’ comments. Sometimes, you’ll get a very insightful compliment to the article, either challenging or supporting the thesis from a different angle. The norm, however, is no different than reading YouTube comments.

Case in point: The Globe and Mail runs an essay about a man who took his wife’s last name at marriage, and there is a flood of incredibly stupid and chauvinistic comments. I feel that there could be many popular reasons to do this, but I don’t think he should need one. He doesn’t need to have an ugly “pre-marriage” name to justify his choice. I know of a man who took his wife’s name because she had no brothers to pass on her name, whilst he had 5 brothers. My point is that I think it’s his own damned choice, name and life. No need for justification.

Here are the views of some who disagree with me:

what a wimp,
did you also take her dress collection and stilleto heels,

maybe dabble in her make-up collection as well,
next stop visectomy

The author of this article has lost any self-respect as a man. He should just accept the truth and get his sex change now.

Since your name first appeared it was passed down from father to son, dozens and doznes of times, over literally thousands of years. A “name” comes from the father, life from the mother. I respect your choice, but would never do such a thing myself. For me, lineage is sacred – I would feel I was dishonouring my forefathers if I ended the line by changing my name.

Et. cetera. Yes, to a certain degree one’s name is an identifier to their lineage. But to be blunt, I think it’s all horseshit—when it comes to lineage, I care solely about my DNA. Calling me Andrew Yamagata wouldn’t change in any way who I am.

I was wondering if any of the readers had a particular topic that they’d like me to write about. I would love for someone to ask my opinion on something I do not know about, so that I’ll dig around, learn, and form one.

It can be anything. Would you like me to write a post about the art of making balloon animals? How about rubber boots, or the history of toilet paper? It can be something technical too; if you’re an arts major, I will do my best to analyse any piece you would like.

Go on, help me learn something I have no idea about. You can either tell me via a comment, Facebook, or an email to andrew(at)andrewshouts.com.

This weekend, I had two people sitting at different tables at the same bar tell me they read this website, and really enjoy learning about various topics covered in the posts. This is unlike what I usually get—people who compliment me on my website, but are probably bullshitting to be polite, and that’s fine.

I analyse this site’s hits regularly. In May I had an average of 25 different people hitting per day, June saw an increase to 35 people per day, and this month has an average of 40 different people per day checking out my site per. In the past three months alone, I have had 2,679 visits, and over 6,000 page views (accounting for the same people who return more than once per day). Traffic is mostly from Canada.

For a personal side-project, a place where I can just vent and put my thoughts down somewhere else, it’s nice to hear the meaningful feedback like I heard at the pub that night. I enjoy writing, but what I enjoy more is having people challenge my ideas, hopefully so that I may always make my opinions more founded. I want people to call bull on me more often; but alas, that’s not so easy to get people to do.

Anyway, I really appreciate it when people give feedback. Not nearly as much because it slightly boosts my ego (it doesn’t really anymore, I’ll still have this site even if nobody even read it), but hearing that they have new interests or have had discussions because of something they read on Andrewshouts.com, is the metaphorical cherry on my sundae.

Because in a few hours, I’m going to run my very first set of 20 km. I’m feeling pretty pumped, and I’m trying to pull it off without wearing one of those tacky little belts that hold my bottle. I’ll be blasting Daft Punk and Deftones on my iPood (not a typo, I just like saying it that way), Powerade in hand.

I’m not trying to impress anyone here, it’s just a personal milestone that I’ll be really happy to pull off. I was the chubby kid growing up, and now I think I’m in the best shape of in my life; and it feels good. I’m hardly stopping there though. I’m hoping to hit the 30 km mark by the end of August.

Let’s hope I don’t croak today.