Since I found many old updates for Pozland, I figure I would add them again! This one is from October 1, 2004!

Topic: Hello?

Where is everybody? Mandy (Calgary) has vanished off the face of the earth (anyone heard from her???), Brad has been missing in action ever since he got back from Thailand, ElRoy hasn’t been seen in a long time… what gives folks? Where’s everyone vanishing off to?

Oh well, whatcha gonna do? Not sit here & worry, that’s what!

So here I sit at work, day two of the big 42-day long stretch. It’ll be a while before I get any time to go out and relax by myself but in the end, I think it’ll be worth it (gooooood pay!). I’ve been working and doing a whole lotta nothing else other than trying to figure out wether I should buy a car or put a down-payment on a house upon returning. It’s things like that which keep me up at night. Which do I choose? A nice car… it will last me for a few years providing I don’t get sick of it, crash it or ruin it somehow – or a house? It’ll last for years and years but also put me into a state of debt of which I have never known before!

CHOICES!

Now the next question is WHERE! Here are the running ideas thus-far…

Saskatoon – Probably on the East or South-East sides of the city. I don’t want to live on the West-Side unless it’s the FAAARRRR West-Side (same area as Ben as it’s not as slummy). The East & South East sides are pretty nice as well. I’d say the North but I doubt that I could afford a house there.

Vancouver – From what I understand, it’s a nice place to live. Expensive but nice. Not sure WHERE I’d live, possibly in a suburb somewhere but who knows. I’ll need to do more research.

Edmonton – Many very good friends, not a bad city and it’s more like a larger version of Saskatoon without the PST. Most of the folks that I know who currently live there or HAVE lived there enjoy it. I’ve only heard a few complaints. Again though, I don’t know which area or ‘side’ I’d find a place on.

Calgary – Been there, Done That, considering going back again. It’s a great city with lots to do. Now that I’ve made some friends out there, it’s looking more and more appealing but who knows.

Somewhere in the mountain region of B.C. along a lake perhaps – OK, this is a pipe-dream but like so many other folks from Saskatchewan, the Okanogan (sp?) valley or area would be a great place to live. Working is a new story, but to live there might not be all that bad. Perhaps I could even build a house out there. I’ll have to look into that as well.

What do you think? Where would you choose and why? Give me reasons, not just “Saskatoon… cuz it’s better”.

-Poz

Hey Folks. Since my website crashed, I figure I’d use the “Internet Wayback Machine” and recover some of the updates. Here’s one from June 14th, 2004! And for those who don’t know, my birthday is June 15!!! Title.. “One More Day Till” … onto the posting…

OK so I got a comment that the “Airsoft Related” section doesn’t work so that it where this post is going.

Well the last paintball game was a sucess. We didn’t have a lot of people show up but it was almost the perfect number for the size of the field we were playing at (Merrill Dunes). We will be going again on June the 29th if anyone is interested, cost is $32 and that gets you the field time, gun, goggles, a jump-suit if you want to cover what you are wearing, AND 250 paintballs. Compare that to other fields that give you 30 paintballs and charge $8 per 100. This field GIVES you 250 and charges $4/100 paintballs. Not too bad if you ask me.

Now I know what you are saying, “they must be low grade paintalls”. Well who cares? No-one had any breaks in their barrels (and we were all using semi’s), and almost all of the paintballs broke on impact (I took one to the nipple which didn’t break though). So overall it’s a great field, fairly inexpensive and has cheap paint, plus they have an actual 3-story tower. Not the fake 12ft tall type of 3-story, but a 60 foot tower with three levels. Each level could hold about 10 people very easily. It’s freaking amazing! Anyhow, enough paintball talk!

So I’m leaving to Japan real quick, nifty aint it? The folks will be arriving into the city from their vacation tommorow as well so I think I’ll have to hit them up for a free dinner and see if they picked up little ‘ol me anything over in the Medditeranian. Oh, that being said, I’ll probably end up getting them to pay for dinner for me…. seeing as how tommorow (June 15) is my birthday after-all. Betcha didn’t know that! Happy birthday to me, and to all those who have something against me, go suck an egg! This year I was going to have another nice bbq for my buddies, but since the moron Ryan Jones convinced the little group of Dungeons & Dragons players that I stole a stereo of his or something equally stupid, I now have many fewer people to come to the bbq so that isn’t exactly happening.

Time for me to head off to work. Feel free to send me a gift… or money…. (paypal preffered: redmag@shaw.ca)

Take care for now folks!

-Pozzy

Hi everybody!

I’m sorry for not including an update sooner but I’ve been…. busy. OK, busy is not the correct word. I have been BORED. It is nice to be back home in Canada but there’s not much for me to do these days here in the city of Saskatoon. It’s nice to see my friends and family but I would still much rather be working in Yokohama right now. It’s good money, I have some good friends there and it’s not borring!

Some people have asked me “Poz, what are you doing in Canada?” Well I figured I would include a few photos for you all to see as well! Near the end of last month, I went and played airsoft (Survival Game) and had quite a good time! I’m the guy in the center of the photo (wearing the yellow shirt). It was a good day and I did quite enjoy it. It was nice to be back playing with the boys again… err… that didn’t sound good. The man to the left (my right) at the front is Jeff, a good buddy of mine who has let me stay on his futon twice now. Thanks Jeff!

Shortly after that was Mother’s Day. My family & I went out for breakfast together to one of the hotel’s in the city. It was a very nice breakfast and had quite a bit to choose from! Here’s a little shot of the hotel…

I’m happy, here was the first place where I had chocolate milk since I arrived back from Japan and let me tell you… it was horrible. Here’s a picture of my breakfast.

The other day I saw a friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. His name is Ben, and he’s one of the guy’s who helped me prepare for my trip to Japan. We went out to a few clubs together (along with Chris Cennon & Paulie). The next day Ben & I got together again and decided it would be a good idea to go fishing so we packed our rods, reels, hooks and sunflower seeds and off we went to Lake Blackstrap. Did we catch anything? No… not at all, but we did have a good time and got some nibbles! The only draw-back is that it was very windy that day so we had to drive around the lake for about 25 minutes before we found a nice shaded place to fish from.

Oh, I should mention that I have a new car. Brand spanking new…. at least that is how my brother described it. He said “You need a car right?” I said “yes…” He said “Well, come out to the acerage with me and I’ll hook you up with a car… it’s nothing special but it runs.” He neglected to mention that “It runs… most of the time”. I must agree with him though, it’s not pretty but it DOES run!

Ugly but at least it works… sometimes.

Finally another update!

Im sitting here in my families home in Central-Canada. Why am I not rejoiced to be here? Because I could be back in Japan. That being said, I’m still thrilled that I am with my family again, I get the chance to see them, my friends and familiar faces all around me. But it just doesn’t seem to be the same as Japan.

Why am I a little down-and-out? It’s because Im stuck in Canada. The Japanese consulate will not give me the remainder of my Working-Holiday visa on my new passport, so I need to sit and wait here for UP TO three months before I go back to Japan. That is the estimated time-span in which it will take to get my full working visa (God’s speed Jason!)

Since I came back, I have made my way down to the city of Regina for a game of airsoft (Survival Game), spent time with my family, with friends and did some shopping. Shopping is one thing I needed to do due to the fact that I came back home in such a rush that I didn’t get the chance to pack any extra clothing. I even went so far as to buy a set of golfing shorts while in Detroit!

I’ll update more later, take care everyone & feel free to email me! pozland@gmail.com

-Poz

What a week it has been.

This week was by far the roughest that I have had since I came to Japan. It all started about 6 days ago when I decided it was a good idea to go out for some mexican food at the ‘Taco Time Grill in the city of Futako-Tamakawa. It sounded nice enough… a fake rip-off of Taco Time from North America (and it just might be) except that they use Taco Time napkins and… well… that’s just about the only affiliated they have together. I ended up ordering the nice-looking Taco Set (2 beef Taco’s, Guacamole and… wow… THREE taco-chips), although it was quite delicious, it turned out that it was a little more than I bargained for. NOt only did I get massive food poisoning from it, I also spent the next few days in quite a lot of pain. Imagine the worst gas pains you’ve ever had…. only all day and night.

In the past when I’ve had food poisoning (thrice befoere), it wasn’t too bad. I was still able to function (for the most part) and ended up ‘purging’ my body of the toxic food within one or two days of becoming ill. This time, there was nothing to purge which wasn’t helping me get any better. Damn you Taco-Time Grill! Damn you to hell!

As many of you know, I am going home to Canada for a short trip. I am going back to my home and also taking a little time to go to a family funeral (which I just found out about) and also to get another plane ticket (my round-trip ticket expires on the 20th of April…. it’s currently the 19th). So that’s great except for the fact that I lost my passport. That’s NOT a good thing. Now I get to run-around Canada to get a new pass-port, then drive to Edmonton and wait for the consulate to get me another visa. Good lord…. gambaru! I went to the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo this morning at about 7am (after getting to sleep at 5:30) and was reamed out by the Canadian Consulate. That wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Only after he signed my Emergency Passport did he mention to me that my original passport was found in late January.

Funny… I always thought that they would attempt to contact me if it (my passport) got lost, especially since I registered with the consulate and such. Well that wasn’t the last of my problems. The third problem happened only this morning. I walked to the area where the Embassy was located and looked down and noticed that my pants zipper was open. OK, mild embarassment but I can deal with that. I reach down to zip it up…. and the zipper-pull (the entire peice) came right off my pants….

OK, to make a long story short, I’m currently sitting on a plane, it’s 10:44pm and I am sitting on the air-plane with no zipper. I’m not too happy about that, but worse things could happen. And they did.

Since I don’t have a real full pass-port, only an emergency pass-port (a glorified peice of paper with my picture on it), it constantly causes delays and hassles for me. What should have taken a 30-second pass-port check took 45 minutes causing me to get on my plane in the nick of time. Now I am sitting here with no zipper on my pants and worrying about my upcoming entry in the United States. United States!? Why am I going to the united states you ask? To connect to another flight. My flights look like this: Narita (Japan) > Detroit (USA) > Minneapolis (USA) > Saskatoon (Canada). That means that I need to get hassled by customs THREE MORE TIMES if not more! Let’s count them, shall we?

1. Arrive at Detroit – Add another 40 minutes for the confusion as to why I have an emergency passport
2. Depart from Detroiet – Add another 20 minutes for the gate people to figure out just WHAT an emergency passport is.
3. Arrive in Minneapolis – Add another 30 minutes at the gate
4. Depart from Minneapolis – Add another 20 minutes at the departure gate
5. Arrive in Saskatoon – Add another 50 minutes at the Immigration Office

OK, my mistake. That’s five, not three. If you add them all together, it works out to 2 hours & 40 minutes of delays between here and home. That’s not to mention my lovely adventures while tracking down a replacement passport and new work visa. This sucks.

As I said, I’m sitting on the plane now so my transit isn’t going too badly except… (oh yes, there is an ‘except’). The flight itself isn’t full which is nice, I snagged an isle row which means I have an extra seat all to myself and all the leg-room I’ll ever need. To my right is the emergency exit and to my left is a row of three, followed by another double row. I am now being annoyed by some guy who must have some sort of mental problem. He’s trying to joke with me about taking Japanese mushrooms since I’m working on my computer and ignoring him, plus he seems to enjoy stroking random men’s thighs that sit next to him while they watch the movie. Yea, I never considered it a good thing if you talk about doing drugs while on an airplane. This guy obviously doesn’t fly much, plus he was bragging about how he’s bringing home a Chinese bride… sorry pal, but the blow-up kind don’t count. I’m not sure though if he is drunk or if he’s just mentally chalelenged, either way he’s annoying me when I want to get work done. If this guy get’s out of hand, I do hope the Air Marshall isn’t closer to him than I am as I would gladly take him down first.

Let’s put that training to some good use, shall we?

Well that’s the update for now, I’ll be sure to add more later on and keep you updated as to what is going on with regards to the visa and passport status. To get evertying again isn’t a LOT of trouble, it’s more-so of a hassle and a lot of worrying on my behalf since I don’t know how long it will take for everything to arrive. I might end up prolonging my ‘vacation’.

Take care everyone and wish me luck.

-Poz