http://Willis.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/25786
You can have a circleish square, and a triangularish circle, but you can't have a squareish triangle.

Life isn't fair.]]> Mon, 04 Jul 2005 18:37:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/25786 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/25679 Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:17:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/25679 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23852 Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:01:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23852 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23587 game is HUGE!!!!

]]> Thu, 07 Apr 2005 11:14:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23587 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23571

We got soo ripped off! ]]> Wed, 06 Apr 2005 18:46:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23571 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23569
The tooth paste industry has finally broken the 10 hour protection barrier. 12 hours! Truly a great moment in the history of science!

"We are always excited when we can push the envelope, you can do great things with a paste, and we have done some great things at Colgate"
-Tom Harper]]> Wed, 06 Apr 2005 17:20:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23569 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23446

What are you staring at anyhow?

Hello?

Is anyone home in there? Oh geez, you really are a peice of work! What good are you? HELLOOOO!?!? Why do i even bother filling your bowl? Eh? Eh???

Ok, sorry, I still love you Clover.

But,

No wait, what are you looking at?? I can't deal with you! Snap out of it!!!!!! AHHH!!!

Ok, sorry Clover, I know you'll never change.


Oh your soft fur, lemme scratch behind your ears, theres a good boy!

Ok thats it!!!!! What the hell are you looking at??????

]]> Sun, 03 Apr 2005 23:31:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/23446 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/22472


]]> Tue, 22 Feb 2005 18:01:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/22472 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/21934
This weekend has shown me what a cold and heartless girl you can be! I just wanted to go out and have a good time, and you had to ruin it with your insecurities and manifest destiny bullsh*t! It's like you always let outside influences decide how you live your life or something. Why do you care? You can't let other people's expectations govern your actions.

Who are you trying to impress?

If this is about Summer, I told you my feelings for her haven't warmed up in the slightest.

She was a bright girl, but you showed me that there is more to life, i wish things could have worked out between us. But I keep feeling like you are always trying to undermine everything she has done in my life. I can't change the past, and you can't seem to accept it, so where does that leave us? Out in the cold, that's where.

Remember those flowers Summer grew for me? Why couldn't we share them?

Ok I'm going to let it all de-thaw here, so here it is:

Don't think for one minute that i don't know who it was that sabotaged my car, it wouldn't start Winter. It wouldnt start

Oh and be sure to send my regards to Fall, I heard you "blew the leaves off his tree" if you know what I'm saying. COLD, just COLD.

And don't try to tell me things will change, you always fall into the same patterns, remember last year? It's chilling how predicatble you really are!

I'm sure you're proud of yourself after this weekend, but to be honest, your routine has gotten old. I'm sure everyone agrees that you have certain talents, but think about why you are acting this way... does it make you feel like "cool" or something?? I don't understand you! Why chill people to the bone? Why dig into their layers and leave them shaking?

You've hurt so many people, our friends! We can't keep doing this! I can't.

And I've met someone, her Name is Spring, thought I should let you know.]]> Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:03:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/21934 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/20057 Give them sweet names, and put them in relationships.
Strawberry loves Banana, Orange is fond of Mango.
Pulverize them.


]]> Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:14:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/20057 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/19823 Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:56:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/19823 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/18006
…When questioned by media in the press conference, the Nasa scientist was quick to deny rumours that this world is in fact inhabited by a singular “being” know only as "52772". This confused many in listening, as no rumours were known to be circulating. A strange panic soon developed in the crowd as several grown men proceeded to lose their composure. Seeing his folly, the scientist promptly started to use soothing words and statistics in an attempt to calm the crowd. Deeply saddened by the poor job he was doing, the scientist began to realize how alone he had come to feel, maybe 52772 was more than just a number, maybe this “being” was more than a new discovery in outer space, maybe in 52772 he had discovered a part of himself. He then shared a moment with 52772, a beautifully intangible moment that shattered his concepts of time, space and love.

Unfortunately many onlookers would later regard the entire press conference as a horrible waste of an afternoon.
]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2004 02:12:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/18006 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17337


"Huss, reading Doride"]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2004 02:48:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17337 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17230

Photo taken from my balcony]]> Mon, 07 Jun 2004 21:17:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17230 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17180 Sat, 05 Jun 2004 16:19:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/17180 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/16425
LINK]]> Tue, 11 May 2004 11:13:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/16425 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/16306

Oh look at this, so adorable! I think I see a scrunchie photo finish coming up. Oh just look at their little legs. Oh no, don't look sad, you're winning! Don't look back you've done so well! STOP DISAPOINTING ME!!!!]]> Fri, 07 May 2004 00:52:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/16306 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15937


But humans are smarter than bacteria, right? You would think so, but the facts seem to indicate otherwise. The first commercial oil well was drilled in 1859. At that time, the world's population was about 1 billion. Less than 150 years later, our population has exploded to 6.4 billion. In that time, we have used up half the world's recoverable oil. Of the half that's left, most will be very expensive to extract. If the experts are correct, we are less than one generation away from a crash. Yet to most of us, there appears to be no hint of a problem. One generation away from our demise, we are as clueless as bacteria in a Petri dish.


link]]> Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:00:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15937 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15690 Up here I lead an incredibly simple existence, something I reflected upon this evening as I put my tent up and found a particularly nice patch of snow to dig up and melt for drinking water.

As I filled up my bag with blocks of snow, I felt a tinge of sadness that it won't be long before I'm home, where water comes instantly out of a tap and it takes more than just nice snow, the direction of the wind or the colour of the sky to make me happy. You see, here I'm away from the clutches of the marketing people. I don't worry about what clothes to wear, because I only have one set. I don't cleanse, tone or moisturise, yet my skin has never been better. I don't feel left out because I don't have a widescreen tv or a DVD player.

One of the things I love about the Arctic is the way it strips away all the superficiality we surround ourselves with, all the layers of aftershave and pretence, and what you're left with is life stripped to the bare essentials. Even up here, it's amazing how little you need to live in relative comfort. What's that great line in the film Fight Club? Something about people wasting their lives working in jobs they hate just to buy things they don't even need...

What I'm realising is that it's the people that are close to me that I miss, not the things that I own. Here endeth today's rambling.

I nearly forgot - I had some decent ice for a change this morning (see pic). Happy days!

Today is dedicated to a few people I haven't heard from in years - Russell Witcher, Aaron Haynes, Oliver Restorick and my dad. It'd make my day to hear from any of you.

www.bensaunders/dispatches

]]> Wed, 14 Apr 2004 19:14:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15690 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15452
Ignore the photo.

I was working at a lumberyard in the town of Oshawa, Ontario, earning money in the summer of 99. It would be a summer of stacking wood in the sun, and listening to the words of a veteran lumber lifter, the best, some would say.

André was about 50 years old, a slim and tall man, the kind that could squat into a ball on the ground and have his legs look like 2 long sticks of french bread. Incidentally, he was French, or at least he had been at one time, now only his accent remained. He had a thin face that had long ago forged itself into a permanent wince, yet his stock of ill-favoured teeth could sometimes recruit his lips to produce a smile that, in my opinion, was beautifully childlike. He was a child after all.

Everyday he would eat lunch, alone, in the back of his Volkswagen Jetta. It was a great looking car, silver, new. It was probably the best thing in his life. “It’s nice to have a car,” he would say, “If you want to go somewhere”. He ate alone in his car because he had trouble relating to the other men in the lunchroom, or he had never bothered to try. It seemed to me that his life had taught him that there is safety in being alone.

He had loved a woman once, and she left him for his brother.

What I learned of André came to me in random bits and pieces, stories of his life and the lessons that he noticed he had learned. “Be gentle with women,” he once said. Wise advice of course, but I will never really know where it came from or what it cost him. His lessons were like that, learned the hard way, learned and left like safety pins that would never let him move to triumph the second time around.



Apparently when André was young man he was able to jump and fall from heights of over 50 feet and land safely using a “crouch into a ball and roll” technique. This was his skill, a gift that he would use it to impress his friends, and I could tell he was still quite proud of it. He demonstrated the procedure to me, perfectly executed at a falling distance of zero. André doesn’t jump anymore.


Maybe in Peru André might have had a monkey.]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2004 03:21:00 EDT http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15452 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15230 ]]> Sat, 27 Mar 2004 19:03:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15230 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15056

Distance: 1,240 miles (1,996km)
Duration: 3 months
Temperature: as low as -45°C. (-70° windchill)
Sledge weight at start: 180kg (396lbs)
Hazards: polar bear attack, falling through thin ice, frostbite, hypothermia


He posts daily updates and photos with his digital camera, iPAQ and satellite platform.

www.bensaunders.com]]> Sun, 21 Mar 2004 00:00:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/15056 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14723
I know I've pushed you away, kept myself bundled up and shut you out, but those were times of confusion for me. I was feeling cold in your presence, as if our love had frozen over, and I didn't know if I could take it. I covered up and hoped it would pass. I ended up forgetting how amazing you are, how you truly possess my thoughts, as if I could look into the sky and see your eyes in the falling snow.

You have to understand, a lot of my friends told me they couldn't stand you and that they couldn't wait for things to end between us. They said that they preferred "you know who". This had an effect on me for a time, until I realized that I was a fool. Hell with my friends! Who needs fair weather friends like them anyhow?

I know you've had a rough time lately; you've had lots of ups and downs. What amazes me is that you've managed to give me so much. Those days we spent together, the walks, the beautiful sights, just thinking of those times makes my heart steam up like a cup of hot chocolate.

Thank you for always giving me a soft place to land when I just needed to fall.

Thank you for letting those little things slide.

Thank you for the fun times.

Thank you for showing me your beauty.

I love you Winter.
]]> Wed, 10 Mar 2004 01:13:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14723 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14531 ]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2004 16:55:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14531 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14257 www.buseyworld.com

My love for Gary helps me look past the crappy site. I guess that's how it is.
]]> Wed, 18 Feb 2004 01:41:00 EST http://Willis.tigblog.org/post/14257 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667