One chapter ends, while another begins.

Dear Brothers,

For the past several months, whether you have been aware of it or not, has been what experts describe as the "summer time". And what a glorious time it was. The heat of the sun came beating down like the heat of the sun. The air so crisp and tasted of alcohol. The sounds of laughter echoed across the land and landed in peoples ears... Alright enough of this shit. But seriously, this summer was decent to say the least. I'll admit I spent more time working for money this summer than I did partying and having fun, but when I did I enjoyed every minute of it. I got work doing landscaping locally which was a typical nine to five/ Monday to Friday type of job allowing me to have the weekend off. Not only that but my boss was a pretty cool guy and always gave me time off if I needed it. I took up hiking on the weekends and tried to at least go out to a bar or somebody's house to live it up. Did some amazing hikes to The Chief in Squamish, Mout Strachan or more commonly known as the top of Cypress Mountain, and my favorite hike was to Garibaldi Lake in the Garibaldi Provincial Park just outside of Whistler. It's so satisfying to bust your ass to the top of a mountain and witness an incredible view with nothing but your legs, will-power and some good friends to come along for the trip. I also went on an adventure (also known as an airplane) to Ontario to visit my relatives and attend my cousin's wedding. I was only gone for nine days but it was an awesome trip. I basically got there the day before the wedding visited with family that I hadn't seen for years and just relaxed. The wedding day was great too, not sure if any of you have been to a wedding but if there is an open bar and a dance floor I am perfectly satisfied. The following day I woke up bright and early and headed over to Canada's Wonderland with my cousins. To my surprise the rides and roller coasters were not only fun but they had no effect on my hangover. By noon I had forgotten that I was wasted the night before. I spent most of the rest of the week relaxing by the lake, fishing and swimming. Before I returned home my cousin found out about a place to bungee jump just outside of Ontario in a small town called Wakefield, Quebec. Until we arrived I was unaware that it was and is the tallest bungee jumping centre in North America. The platform was a giant crane posted on top of an old quarry which dropped down 200 feet until the water which was 150 feet deep. Believe me, it is far more frightening than skydiving. There's something about freefalling really close to the ground that is a lot scarier than being really high up. After returning home I went back to work for a week and went to a few going-away parties which were lots-o-fun. Now here I am, back at school writing about how fun the past few months have been. I'm hoping this semester will be a fun one, so please everyone keep in contact and let's hang out and party when we can.

Lots-O-Love from Brother Jason.

Adios

Deactivated facebook and discontinuing blog. If you feel the need to get ahold of me my email is olio89@gmail.com

Some Recipes

I've come up with some pretty bomb recipes that are easy and delicious, I don't have them written down or anything but I'm sure I can remember. The amounts of ingredients is never the same because I'm usually making food for different numbers of people, I usually eye-ball it but for the reader's sake I'll include some quantity for a decent portion.

Mango Guacamole (wacamole canadiense)
3 ripe avocados
1 clove of garlic minced
a few pinches of salt (just keep adding and tasting, I think it's better to oversalt a little than to undersalt, seasoning is key)
a couple shakes of pepper
2 teaspoons of grated ginger (keep your ginger frozen and it grates like parmesan reggiano)
1 ripe mango cubed (There a few ways to cut these, watch some videos on youtube or some shit)
1 A whole lotta love

Mix the avo, garlic, salt, pepper, ginger and mash the fuck out of it with a fork. Taste the shit constantly as you add more salt and pepper, once you jizz in your pants you know you have the right amount of salt. Once you're happy with the consistency of your guac just add that mango and lovingly fold it in.

My Salsa (Also known as chronic ass salsa)

1 Red Onion finely chopped
4 Italian tomatos chopped
Handful of cilantro/coriander minced to fuck
Juice of 1 large lime
Juice of half an orange
salt
pepper
hot peppers

Another easy ass but delicious recipe, just add all that shit together and salt until it's chronic, salsa takes more salt than you'd think; be generous, use sea salt, be loving and sprinkle it over with your fingers. The type and amount of hot peppers you decide to use depends on your love for spice. If you're a complete pussy use a bell pepper or some dumb shit. If you're sexy as fuck, use habanero, mince that shit finely.

On cooking roasts:

I cooked a mean ass pork roast the other week in LA. I've never done pork roast but this seemed like a logical way to do it:
Covered animal meat with olive oil, minced garlic (also cut some slits where I jammed crushed cloves in that puppy), rosemary, salt, pepper. With the amounts; just do as much as you think looks tasty. Sear it in a pan on high high heat, each side should be brown and crispy. Turn on the grill on one side. Put that animal on the opposite side of the grill. Go swim and get drunk off tequila for a couple hours. Check up on that bitch, if the juice is clear; dig in.

This recipe is flexible, you don't need to use pork, you don't need to use rosemary. It's just showing that with simple, tasty ingredients and the right method you don't need to do a lot of work. Searing meat and then cooking on a low heat is a guaranteed way to obtain amazing texture, moisture and flavour. Cooking is easy, don't be a dummy.

On cooking vegetables:
Olive oil, salt, pepper, fire. Bell peppers, don't even cut them, just chuck em on. Red onions halved or quartered, chuck em on. Eggplant.
Fuck it.
If you're cooking them in a pan, use butter and balsamic vinegar once it's going hot, that shit's delicious.

Just remember to love every step of the way, that is the legit way to make mean ass comida.

Fresh Mangoz

So the other day we jumped a ditch and picked some fresh mangos from a tree. The difference between those and store-bought is huge! Like a new fruit, prime for mango guac. Or as they called it here guacamole canadience! Probably the bombest way to fill your gut ever invented.
I watched the movie "Precious" today.
Probably one of the darker comedies I've seen, I was actually surprised how well it did considering the dark sense of humor usually found in cult classics. Martin Lawrence did an amazing job though and I was really impressed by the special effects.

After the boat trip I was red as a lobster and just as I got off the boat I asked the first dude I see "Hey do you know where to find some aloe vera?" and he did, it took him like 2 minutes, it had some red ribbons on it so I paid him $10.
I'm really glad I got that aloe vera because I decided to sunbathe in the nude at the beachfront. I think this is the worse burn I've ever had, but for some reason my dick didn't get burned at all. I've learned that the penis is very resistant to sun, I'm guessing that as caveman one of our primary purposes on a daily basis was to reproduce and a hindrance like sunburndick could greatly hinder this process. So my thighs and hip area are beet-red and scabbing now but the aloe' is helping loads. Also the cleaning lady came into the room as I was lying in bed with a fan blowing on my nude midsection. I was also given a lot of weed for free.

So my days have consisted of just chilling by the beach, smoking joints, watching epic lightning storms (apparently this place gets some of the best in the world) and eating good food.

Pretty glad I quit my landscaping job right now.

Apparently there's also a ghost in this house.

Get the fuck up, this boat is real.

If you are not part of couchsurfing.org right now, you should re-evaluate the way you've been living. The website is basically like facebook except the people on it either have their couches available for "surfers" or are "surfing" themselves. There's no payment, just people doing good deeds for others. I've met some of the coolest people I've ever known in my life through couchsurfing and it's basically a guarantee that they'll be empathetic, cool, sociable, trust-worthy just because of the fact that they open themselves up to strangers. I've noticed the type of people who are involved in couchsurfing are very similar to the ones involved in picking up hitch hikers and being good in general.
I totally neglected couchsurfing for the first segment of this trip and I'm very happy that I remembered it. Mexico was cool when I was on my own but it definitely got frustrating not being able to communicate with anyone and not really making any solid friends. Couchsurfing makes traveling so easy because you're immediately introduced to all the local secrets and tricks to manage in a new environment, not just tour-guide bullshit but cool stuff like good bars, where to get drugs, secret beaches etc.

Yesterday was spent on a sailboat in the Mexican pacific, completely awesome day, basically what you'd expect from a day on a boat. Flips and shit off the boat, swimming, chilling on deck, booze, weed, good music, good people. I'm still blown away by how many awesome people I've been meeting on a daily basis.
Today I went surfing for the first time in ages, I think I'm hooked now, definitely going to try to find a surf town in Nicaragua or Panama or El Salvador or something and just get a board.

I've been making mango guacamole for pretty much everyone who has let me live with them so far. It's blowing minds.

La Cruz

So I didn't end up meeting up with Marco's friend, but I found some cool dude running a little burger stand who sold me some really bad weed, well not too bad but you have to dome a J if you want to get high. But it was $3 for a 1/4 so I can't complain. So I roamed the quiet streets of Mazatlan and got high off of Mexican weed. I saw a man with his face painted as a clown engaged in a serious conversation with a girl, I've never seen a clown look so somber, I couldn't help but laugh. The next day I had a course planned out on how I was going to get to La Cruz and everything worked perfectly and I no longer fear death for I have experienced far worse than anything possible; Big Momma's house en Espanol. No one should be subjected to such a heinous form of torture. After a couple smooth tranfers I ended up in a town called Bucerias and used some dude's cell phone. People have been so helpful in Mexico, whenever I ask for help they really always try their best to understand what I'm trying to convey in my broken spanish and if they do succeed in helping me they let me know how appreciative they are to have the chance to help me out, this is how it should be!
So I got picked up by my new awesome amiga, Abi and we cruised to hit the clubs in Puerto Vallarta for her cousin's 22nd Birthday. The clubs were pretty much like clubs everywhere, loud, bad music, drunk people and the rest of the nonsense. It was fun though, I danced like a madman just for the hell of it then spent the day today lazing by the pool, playing in the surf with Abi's dog and eating fruit. Abi's house is literally located right on the beach, it's really gorgeous here. I'm missing all my friends back home but meeting new ones on the road is just as fun!
Remember, helping others feels just as good, if not better than receiving help from others, it's just a really awesome cycle of positivity. Doing things like hitch-hiking, couchsurfing and just traveling in general really makes it obvious.

More Mexican Confusion!

So today I hit up couchsurfing.org to try and find some people to meet up with in Puerto Vallarta. Luckily an awesome girl named Abi messaged me back almost immediately with a place to stay in a town just north of Puerto Vallarta. So with my limited Spanish I set off to try and find a small fishing town called La Cruz. After getting about 5 random people together to try and understand what I was trying to say they finally settled on me catching a bus to a larger bus stop and taking one of the AC busses from there. It was the wrong station, after much more confusing broken-conversation I was directed to another bus stop. When I got there I was told the bus to La Cruz was leaving immediately so I just paid the 6 bucks and got on. I was kind of confused by the price and by the fact that they had a bus running to such a small town. Turns out there are multiple La Cruz´s in Mexico and I was headed back North. Not such a bad thing, chilled out in a park for a bit during siesta, watched a funeral procession and ate some bomb Guacamole, back in Mazatlan for the night and I think my awesome hombre Marco (from CS, stayed with him in Calgary) has hooked me up with a place to stay, just waiting for her to call me back. On the bright side, the sun is doing that thing where as it sets it shoots rays of light through the clouds, over the ocean and some distance islands mountains. Life is truly a gift, dont forget it yo!