There never need be longing in your eyes

A few observations from the latest/ greatest gathering of radicals...

Our kids develop greater freedom of movement with each passing conference. Their independence grows and shines. Strange then that somehow this year we spent the majority of our time playing, eating and conversing together in the hallway outside our room with the neighbours! Best funshop ever!

The rain kept washing away our vehicle’s window paint. On two occasions, “The Sun Shines Out Of Our Behinds” was reduced to mere splotches of green and yellow paint forcing further contemplation of the meaning of this curious quotation.

Fergus seemed to be continuously “next” in line for a video game controller each time I checked in with him. He does like to observe and he was particularly enthralled with watching “Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts” - a cool vehicle building game (only available on xbox of course!).

I’m replacing our “Schools Are For Fish” bumper sticker with the less negative, though possibly equally radical, “Grades are for Meat and Eggs... not Children”. Best bumper sticker that I saw recently that I won’t be putting on the vehicle: “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries”.

Kids never seem to tire of vending machines!?!

Kimya Dawson is an excellent performer with a beautifully distinct voice and an arsenal of quirky tunes. I’m a fan. But she could have sung about flying zebras bombing China with blue bananas and the crowd would have gobbled it up and made mighty linkages between her words and de-schooling, such was the level of sycophancy on display. Me included.

Shockingly, sixty guys in a room trying to discuss sixty perspectives on unschooling doesn’t work. It forever leaves me cold. Time to change the formula. I may have ideas.

What happened to the egg-man? Did his beard consume him?

I love how teens congregate, loiter, form cuddle puddles and skilfully make some people falsely believe they are not doing anything worthwhile. I also love how they cannot be pigeon-holed because for every teen socializing with “the group”, another is off talking to an adult about college and travelling or helping a seven year old set up their sales counter. Teens still make me a little nervous however.

What do Americans have against root beer and ginger ale?

Could Vancouver, Washington possibly change its name? It’s too confusing for us BC’ers. May I suggest “George”.

The day we drove home we barely managed to squeak on the 7 pm, Victoria-bound boat despite arriving at the terminal an hour and a half in advance of the sailing. The high volume for a Tuesday confused us, as did the half hour wait at the border. Until, that is, we started noticing a likeness amongst many of the ferry passengers and deduced that multitudes of young people were returning from the Sasquatch Music Festival held in The Gorge, Washington. It was on the car deck in our vehicle, watching Avatar and hiding from the bees which had escaped from a transport truck (“you should get out there and take some photos of bee swarms for the blog”, Gillian offered) when I flippantly uttered “the great unwashed”, in reference to that seemingly similar look that embodies today’s music festival goer (that was a long sentence). I enjoy being flippant and I do tend to mock others, however, I also believe that people in dotted-up station wagons with radical bumper stickers shouldn’t throw such stones (not to mention the fact that I’m a huge fan of many of the bands these people were returning from seeing). So, although in this instance I wasn’t really disparaging them as much as pre-judging, my level of tolerance could stand to be raised a notch or two.

Ruckus:

iPad:

"Just sittin'"

Buddies - Gillian & Lebron:

A man and his wife: