Niagara...oh man.

It's beautiful, all that majestic water falling, think of the largest waterfall you may have seen, multiplied by 100 and lined up side to side in a horseshoe bowl. And the fact that the water never, ever stops falling, when no one is there to see it and when the lights all fall dark. It's enough to just make you want to go there at night and sit on a brick wall next to it all, and have the falls to yourself.


And you would have them to yourself, because everyone else would be at the Hard Rock Cafe, Guinness Book of World Records, Rainforest Cafe, Planet Hollywood, the Hershey place, the casinos, Ripley's Believe it or Not, the Marvel Comics adventure ride and one of a few mega arcades, riding the the ferris wheel or the exciting carnival barf-o-rama's, perusing the several badly-drawn haunted houses, eating quick at Wendy's, PizzaPizza,
maybe the ten Starbucks around here, and shopping at the Harley Davidson, HipHop or Hemp store or a bucketload of cheesy souvenir shops complete with Native American artifacts, just to name a FREAKING FEW crammed into the several Vegas-like strips that artery out and within a 1/2 mile from the very Falls themselves.




It is truly amazing, you know, the um... Falls...but uh, just a question: how did all this happen and get so out of control, or is this the point? Niagara, look at you! You are lovely, and you disgusting! Period. Yet, after you've seen the water falling for a few hours or so, what are you supposed to do next? Leave, sure. Or maybe, stay and hit a casino, or an arcade, and check the falls out again later in a different light, which may bring you some great existential moment, so why not have these attractions....but Ahhhh! And, I'm at the Sheraton, so what am I thumbing my nose at - though I get to have an interesting view of the natural and the commercial slammed into one another, where I can oggle the falls below me, then sigh at the giant Frankenstein eating a Burger King Whopper up the street and check my email on the wireless service before heading down for nickel poker and a Molson (I mean a Canadian). The whole plot of earth here is just truly unbelievable, on a few levels. And sadly, all of this makes Niagara Falls simply not very impressive, interesting, or captivating once you have stood in front of them a spell. Honestly, in this jury's opinion (and I regret to say this really), your life won't be lived less if you only get to hold a beautiful photo of Niagara in your hands or see it posted on your fridge rather than make the traffic-filled & expense-ridden trek out here to see it. So, if you haven't been here to Niagara Falls, don't bother really, let me send you my photos and you can save the cash.

There are other waterfalls on this continent and around the world, crashing endlessly in the middle of nature with nothing but restrooms next to them and a place to get a cup of hot chocolate. Just you and a handful of amazed people. Here is Gulfoss in Iceland. Be there, and you are somewhere, except you are truly in the middle of nowhere. Dorothy and I couldn't stop taking photos of this...



So, I'll end this reflection with another reflection, from our hotel room. Home James!

Ejector Seat

It could be worse, I might be writing you from a prison cell on P.E.I....no, not I.M. Pei. As far as I know, Prince Edward Island is not Canada's answer to Alcatraz, but I have much to learn about this land up north of the USA, where I landed on Thursday June 22 with enough baggage to move here, a suspicion that got me in trouble at the border.

Nice Border Agent: "So, 173 days in Canada, what brings you here for so long, eh?"
Me: "To visit my girlfriend for a very long time...eh?!"
Perhaps Nice B.A.: "Do you have a job?"
Me: "I just quit one."
Rigid B.A.: "So, are you moving here?"
Me: (yes, but I know I need a job first, but I will do that while I am here, but do I tell YOU that, or just lie, can't lie, what IS the truth at this point?...need water...) "Oh nooooo."
Scowling B.A.: "Then why does it say here that you are sending two boxes of personal items?"
Me with massive drymouth: "Well, 173 dayth ith a long thime, I wanted to have my perthonal affecth....(oh boy)..."

The Border Agent then took my customs card and scribbled numbers in red, my eyes grew wider as he highlighted a few lines in fluorescent yellow, and the final mark of a huge diagonal line across both sides of the card in hot pink made my stomach turn. I had never seen so much writing on ANY customs card, ever. The dagger came as he pointed me down a long hallway and to a set of empty cublicles, in the complete opposite direction of where everyone else was walking. I had, indeed, not passed through customs.

After a lengthy interview with a pair of nice guys who asked me all the right rhetorical questions about work, how to get it, what I can and can't do while here, what I was going to do and had been doing before, and also at the end if I knew if Siemens sold its German phones here in the west or were they just sold 'over there,' I made it into a taxi and found my way to the Toronto doorstep of Dorothy.

So Canada, I have nothing to hide, but I can't answer all your questions without sitting down. You don't know that I shipped my "personal items" so I could fill my suitcases with my work, credentials, books, and notes on everything I know about getting here and staying here. I know what I want, and where I want to be and with whom. But thinking about all of it while alone in California provided me my own answers to my own questions. Finally, here I am to face real answers from real people, and to ask far more real questions in real-time. So yeah, am I moving here, you ask? I just did, buddy.