Snow

So yesterday, we went out snowmobiling and it was awesome. We were gone for like 4 or 5 hours, and we just rode and stuff. It was an amazingly clear day, and I felt alright for it being like my 3rd ride ever. But on the way down, there was this dude that went over the side of the road into the forest because he was coming down the mountain too fast. He was barely hurt, with a sore arm/shoulder, and his sled was only slightly damaged. Altogether, it was pretty incredible, because he had shot off the edge and then fell like 30 feet, hitting a tree at the bottom. We stopped and helped him get up the embankment, and then we had like 8 guys pulling and pushing the sled back up to the road. Then his buddies towed his sled back to the parking lot and we went on our way. Then I got a synthesizer for my iPod. Day complete.

My Three-Fold Anecdotal Life

#1. The other day, I was playing Nathan Thomas' guitar in his room. He left to go downstairs, and I was just absently strumming some chords when suddenly I heard a snap. Instantly I knew what happened: I had broken one of the strings. However, that was the least of it. When I looked down to survey the damage I had inflicted, I moved my left hand to get it out of the way. When I moved my hand the string moved with it. At first, I thought that this was merely because the string was resting on my hand. However, I had to do a double take. When I looked closely, I realized that the end of the string was actually embedded in the top knuckle of the index finger on my left hand. This really surprised me, but nonetheless I decided to take action. I grasped the string with my right hand, and ever so gently pulled bit by bit, until a length of guitar string about 1/4" long came out of my hand. It didn't hurt much, but it was definitely a strange feeling. Then I bled a little and Nathan came back and I put the guitar away.

#2. On the night of Sunday, December 13, 2009, I got together a small group of my friends (including two of my sisters) and went to this graveyard to watch what was supposed to be the best Geminid meteor shower since 1996. The only problem was that the sky was extremely overcast, so we ended up just hanging out and eating nachos and drinking cream soda in a cemetery at midnight. However, as it turns out that is what this guy has always dreamed of doing, so I fulfilled his dream in my life. Yay me.

#3. So tonight, I had to go to Publix to pick up 6 packages of Mona's Original Granola for my dad, since we don't have it back in Canada. While I was checking out, the bag boy at the cash register took off a pin on his shirt, threw it to the ground, and told his supervisor that he "wasn't going to wear it anymore." She told him "you're going to pick that up and put it back on right now." He did go and pick it up, but defiantly left it on the counter beside him instead of repinning it to his apron. They didn't say anything else to each other while I was there, but it really just struck me as a very foreign and odd concept for a subordinate to defy their superior like that. Just a random occurrence of my day.

-Tydude

My Other Blog

Hey, if you like music, and you especially like finding out about obscure, new, or just incredibly groovy music, head on over to my other blog, The Next Elvis. When I find out about awesome new music (which happens fairly often), I post as much information as I can. It's a pretty fun time, and you should check it out!

The New Definition of Nations

I recently was thinking about how we define countries, and it occurred to me that, all too often, our North American methodology of understanding nations gets in the way of allowing those nations the opportunity to define themselves. Examples include defining a country by an export, landmark, or event. In order to resolve this to some small degree, I am hereby publishing a small, alternative directory to some unfairly chliched nations, along with a new reason for knowing them. Feel free to add more in the comments, though. Let's begin:

1. Greenland: World's highest internet penetration rate.

2. Niger: World's highest fertility rate.

3. Rwanda: World record for women representation in Parliament at 56.25 percent of contested Parliamentary seats being filled by women, a total of 44 seats.

4. Singapore: World's most innovative nation, according to business.rediff.com

5. Qatar: World's highest GDP at PPP per capita, based on the International Monetary Fund in 2008.

6. China: World's highest account balance, at $426.1 billion in 2008.

7. UK: Acclaimed world's highest television penetration rate.

8. Iceland: World's highest reported crime rate.

9. Canada: World's longest bridge over ice-covered saltwater (Confederation Bridge).

10. And finally, The United States of America: World's highest rate of obesity.

I hope that this short list will help you to re-define your existing views of the importance of the nations of the world, as well as to formulate your own opinions on other countries. Again, feel free to comment on additional ones I may have left out (there are only 195 countries, leaving 185 for you to highlight).

The Epic Voyage

So now I'm finally going to tell you about my amazing journey down to Southern. I drove all by myself for two and a half days with no food or music, just to see if I could. It was really fun and a great experience. I went through; British Columbia, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Tennessee again. It was sweet, but I was really super glad to get to school finally. Here's a documentary I made of my trip:

Looking Back Over My Squandered Summer

In the past four months, I:
-Went to like three national parks.
-Took an entire week to drive back from school, instead of the typical three days.
-Ripped up sand dunes in an ATV.
-Failed to unpack from college.
-Went to what is probably the biggest woodworking/forestry show in the World.
-Watched as 30 grown men got hopelessly drunk.
-Went to Poland for lunch.
-Purchased a synthesizer.
-Took advanced kitchen design software training.
-Re-discovered/visited Apni Haweli, undoubtedly the best Indian restaurant this side of Asia.
-Deferred to Joe Clark on the train.
-Saw my awesome Pakistani sister twice.
-Finally received my synthesizer.
-Discovered how to NOT be an idiot when purchasing for a corporation.
-Fell in love with a lot of new music.
-Learned disturbing facts about people, facts I would have been better off not knowing.
-Took close-ups of the moon.
-Fell hopelessly behind on my reading through of the Bible in one year.
-Posted my best demo so far to my music site.
-Got up early to watch the Sun rise.
-Got a tiny new camera.
-Sat on a train for 2 days straight.
-Found out-but didn't really care-that Michael Jackson died.
-Realized my dog died.
-Learned how to REALLY drive a boat.
-Made friends.
-Watched a forest fire spring up within 5 kilometers of my house.
-Watched the aforementioned fire be put out by a water bomber that flew directly over my house.
-Resolved to be in about four bands.
-Became an officer of a university club.
-Pieced together a personal, cloud-driven online library of instantly-accessible PDFs.
-Learned how to somewhat play the guitar (more).
-Discovered that I'm still quite happy being single.
-Became a grammar Nazi.
-Caught my first fish, and then 3 more.
-Bought the biggest slurpee of my life.
-Went to the dentist 6 times.
-Missed many of my friends.
-Blogged seven times, including this post.
-Learned a crapload about everything.
-Loved life.

I always come to a full and complete stop.

I always come to a full and complete stop.
I keep my tray table up, and my seat back in the full upright position.
I don't speed.
I have never been in a fight.
I always wear a seatbelt.
I have never been arrested.
I shoplifted once, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a freebie anyway.
I go to the eye doctor once a year.
I always drink plenty of water.
I have never punched someone in the face.
I get good grades.
I always look both ways before crossing the street.
And I love it.
And I hate it.

The Death of a Titan

The world needs to be rid of Microsoft. Microsoft's products reflect mere minor innovations in the thought processes of old, and our advancing world needs to be able to say no to this giant when we want to, instead of having its bloated and insecure products always shoved in our faces in a proprietary fashion. In addition, there remains an intense desire in the world for free and open software that is secure and well-maintained, and sadly Microsoft does not adhere to any of these standards. However, freedom may never be found, as developers and publishers the world over merely adhere to Microsoft's reign of terror, churning out new Microsoft-dependent software year after year. This makes it nearly impossible for Microsoft's users to escape their icy grasp of death, as the tangle of a downward spiral of proprietary dependency gets tighter and tighter. The reason that we may never be free is this: Everyone is too scared. Users are too scared to use something different, because of the unfamiliarity and the fact that the software they are accustomed to is not present on other platforms. Their fears are well-founded, because application developers and publishers are scared as well. They are fearful that if they make the jump to open solutions, their fearful customers won't be able to follow them. Their fears have a fair basis as well. Lastly, open platform developers are scared as well. They are scared that, should they overreach their boundaries, they will be left with no market share and no users to support them. Thus, they continue moving forward at snail paces to ensure that they always remain safe. And yes, the fears of open platform developers are just as legitimate as those of end users and application developers and publishers. The key to breaking this chain of imprisonment is, obviously, for everyone to just stop being scared and take the plunge. I know it sounds crazy, but users, developers, and publishers need to make choices based on their true wants and intentions, not completely on a comfort and cash basis. If we all just do our best to contribute to the global cause for open systems and software, and involve ourselves in them, we may attain freedom one day. Oh, and by the way, I actually like Microsoft Office (I can stand XP too), but that is it.
Thrive on some links:
SourceForge
Ubuntu
OpenOffice
How to Kill Microsoft
Wine
It's a start: Paint.net
Getting warmer: GIMP
Mozilla
Open Video
VLC
Pidgin
AbiWord
Audacity
Ardour
HandBrake
Android
And my favorite (even though, ironically, it's only for Windows at the current time): Chrome

Oweee...

I think I blew my speakers... :(

Hotels

So, a funny story from yesterday:
Me and my dad had reserved a Montrealean hotel a few days before we left. However, when we got to the hotel, the clerk seemed to have a very hard time looking us up. He could see us in the system, but there was no reservation intact. We all stood there bewildered for awhile, until he looked at our confirmation papers. He looked concerned and told us that we had registered at a completely different hotel. However, he said that he had some rooms empty so we could change our previous reservation for one at this hotel. Unfortunately, his only rooms were smoking, and we would have to change rooms in the morning. Seeing this as the only option, we continued with the registration process until me and my dad looked at the papers one more time and realized that the hotel we had signed up for was in the town of Laval. Now, the airport we fly into is in Dorval, a suburb of Montreal. However, the company where we are conducting our training is in Laval. The initial problem had arisen when we mixed up the city names and signed up for a hotel in the town of Laval, which was familiar to us because of where our training takes place. We had stayed in the hotel at Dorval before so that's where we expected we had booked this time, which is why we were initially disappointed to have registered at the hotel in Laval. However, we were tickled to find out that the hotel we had actually made a reservation at was a mere five minutes from our daily destination. So, upon learning this, we told the clerk at the Dorval hotel that we would just go stay at Laval, and thus were able to wake up about 30 minutes later than we would have had to otherwise. Hurrah for life!
Tyler

Haroooo!

I know this probably sounds redundant/deja vu-ish, but I am in Montreal again, for another bout of training in 2020 Technologies' Catalog Tools, Catalog Creation Level 201. I guess this week is going to be pretty tough, so if I never blog again, don't be alarmed. Anyways, some people asked me to post about Germany. If you don't know anything about my Germany trip, just check me out on facebook and look up my Germany pics. If you aren't affiliated with my facebook self, do so now. My name is Tyler Quiring. Anyways, perhaps later I will provide an interesting and in-depth synopsis and synthesis of the information pertaining to my excellent Germany (and Poland) trip.
Tyler

Well, humanity...

I want one:

The End.

Summer at Southern

I like staying at Southern in the summer. It's fun, peaceful, and quite eye-opening. It was really interesting to stay beyond the day or two when everyone felt they had to leave right away, because I got a new perspective. I've realized that I don't always need to hurry to go where I want to, but instead can enjoy the current stage I am in anytime. Southern is not nearly as dead in the summer as I had thought, except perhaps for the dorm, which is quite empty. But if you even just go to the lobby to hang out, there are still plenty of people around. The food options aren't nearly as good as during the year, but who eats at college anyway? At any rate, I never knew what it was like here during the summer before, but now I think I really like it.
Bye,
Ty

Our Group

Yo!
Last semester, my sisters and I started the best musical group ever, TAB. We haven't had that much time to record this year here at school, so we plan to do more over the summer and stuff. I did just upload a song five minutes ago, though. But at any rate, check us out:
TAB
Peace,
Ty

My keyboard keeps falling.

I sprained my knee. I am now an ordained minister. There was open house in the boy's dorm yesterday. I have a junkload of things to practice before my cello lesson. My sister got a new camera. My other sister got a new phone. My Grandma's birthday was two days ago. I really really need to do laundry. Its about time for me to renew my license and registration. Wind woke me up last night. 2+2=5. The showers are being cleaned with chemicals right now so I can't use them. I'm going to have a cook-off in my friends' apartment tonight. I have to go make a video this afternoon for my human sexuality class. Today is one of the first days I can ever remember where both of my nostrils are generally unplugged. I had a picnic the other day. And, best of all, you are reading this blog post.
1. The Black Hole
2. My Ordination
3. Cool Photo
4. Obama in 3D
5. Port Blue
Peace,
Tyler

How awesome can life get?

This hereby marks my first blog post from my phone. I got a data plan for like a month and am using it greatly! Now us three kids are going out to eat for once! We are super stoked and are having a great time. I just played my first soccer game and we lost 2-0. Oh well, I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. Today I went to the photo lab to develop and knocked out two prints in like 20 mins! I did a picture of a few trees overlapping in the frame. It was for the 'lines of composition' assignment. My picture shows zigzag composition. Maybe I'll post some of my best pics when the class is over. Well I'd better go chat it up with the sibs now!
Sincerely,
Tydog

My Comic

Check out my new comic that I just started. I plan to continue it, even though this first one is lame.

Knight at Night:

That's it.

Ty

He's Baaaaack!

Yo,
Tyler Quiring, actually blogging again after a long lapse caused by laziness and inherent apathy, in conjunction with extraneous busyness and basic lack of care? Unheard of! Well, its happening again, after the continued prompting (whining) of my somewhere between 3 and 5 subscribers/readers. Anyways, lets get to the good stuff:
1. Spring break: Starting on Thursday, we (sisters and me) are going to Rhode Island and 4 other New England states that we have never been to. Fun.
2. I am reading through the entire Bible in one year (starting in January (I have previously read through the New Testament, but extra reading doesn't hurt)).
3. Today's video: Batman Piderman
4. Today's super awesome music pic for the rest of my life: Owl City
5. And always remember, the elephant is the only animal with four knees.
Well, that's it for this time. I'll blog from time to time in the next two weeks to cover our New England trip. Good for me.
God bless,
Ty