word of the day: gymnosophy (deep contemplation performed while naked- no really, i'm serious, i got it from one of my all-time favorite web sites.
song of the day: extrovert (XTC)

it's hot in colorado. but dry. sorry everyone in the midwest, but it's pretty much never, never humid in colorado. that means it just doesn't bug you much when it gets hot. i like it, kinda, and i'm scandinavian descent.

my wife and i were talking about all the places we'd want to travel in this lifetime (that we haven't already been to), and Iceland was high on my list. she wanted to know what was it about Iceland- "Well, dear..." i started in 1, i've read that Icelandic hasn't changed significantly in over 1,000. written or spoken. now, i haven't confirmed that with an Icelandic linguistic professional, but my friend who speaks 14 languages fluently (including Icelandic) says its true, so i believe it. i'm guessing it might have something to do with the fact that it's an island, and the population is small with not a lot of immigration going on. 2, while the Icelandic language has remain unchanged (very unusual in linguistics), they are paradoxically one of the most technologically advanced nations in the World. 3, it's tiny. what is it, a half million people? and 80% of the island is glacier? COOL!!! and 4, they really drink hard core hard core (i've read and heard). i don't drink or do drugs or anything, but i'd like to see what it's like when they do. i have this fantasy that's it's kind of like Poland meets Alaska in the lower left quadrant, and Norway meets Japan in the lower right quadrant. just a guess.

i'd also love to go to Ireland, Scottland, Wales, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Crete, South Africa, Japan, Bhutan, Morocco, and India. I've been to Holland, Czech Republic, Germany, and Belgium, loved them all. And of course I'm counting the days till I can return to Canada (gazes out window pensively...).

strangely i have no desire to go to any South American countries, except perhaps Brazil. Central America: Costa Rica. But not Columbia. According to www.humanrights.de:

"The newest numbers show that the unemployment rate is between 25% and 30%. The distribution of wealth reaches only 3% of the population. The economic growth rate barely reaches 2%, inflation and devaluation are in the double-digit numbers. Columbia’s foreign debt is at 24 billion which equals 37.5% of the GNP. The murder rate of 30.000 deaths per year is the highest in the world and the number of people fleeing from the violence is higher than 2 million."

Yikes. Let's do some tonglen for our Columbian brothers and sisters...