Aperte.org » Trips

Crossing the border on eggshells

Jeremy Handcock — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:27:38 +0000

As someone who regularly crosses the Canada-U.S. border by road, I've been closely following the trial of Peter Watts, a Toronto sci-fi writer. He was charged with resisting and obstructing a U.S. border officer following a vehicle search last year. It's worth noting that U.S. officers conducted the search on U.S. soil as Watts was returning to Canada (a so-called "exit search"). Yesterday, a jury in Michigan convicted him.

Photo courtesy Arnold C, Wikimedia Commons

When I first read the story as it was popularized on BoingBoing.net, it scared the crap out of me. According to Watts' version of the events, an officer punched him in the face and maced him during the incident. At some point, the officer apparently ordered Watts to the ground and Watts asked what the problem was instead of immediately laying on the ground. That simple question, according to Watts' account of the trial, was a display of non-compliance and therefore a felony crime. Yikes. He's now awaiting sentencing and facing up to two years in a U.S. prison and a $2,000 fine. However you interpret these accounts and the incident in general, I think there's pointed advice in here for Canadians crossing the border:

The United States is a foreign country. Weird and unexpected things sometimes happen to people visiting foreign lands.
U.S. border officers might stop and search your vehicle before you re-enter Canada. (Personally, I didn't know they did exit searches.) So, don't be freaked out if you see U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicles in your rear-view mirror when approaching the Canadian border.
Whenever interacting with U.S. border officers, comply with their commands immediately without question. This point might seem like common sense to seasoned border crossers, but apparently even the slightest hesitation could land you in the slammer. The American slammer, no less. From what I've read, a U.S. prison ain't a pretty place.

Personally, I've never had any weird things happen at a Canada-U.S. border crossing. I've found the U.S. officers to range in demeanour from cordial to coldly stern, which is pretty much par for the course when crossing any border. After reading this story, however, I think my palms will be a little more sweaty than usual. Here's hoping for friendly future crossings for you and me! Share:

ottawa race weekend

Jeremy Handcock — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:16:19 +0000

I was off to the capital last weekend to cheer on my brother and friends in the Ottawa Race Weekend half marathon. I'm more of the short and fast type and had hoped to tear it up in the 5km race, but alas, I didn't register in time and the event sold out. My bad. Cheering on the team was still a big responsibility, however, and I'm happy to report that my efforts were successful! Jodie, Nicholas, and Jill all crossed the line with finishes that exceeded their expectations (1:48, 1:53, and 2:06). Congrats, team! Apart from some sore knees and Nicholas' Frankenstein-like shuffle for the next couple days, all is well on the recovery side. From there we got down to the business of celebrating and hopped over to Hull, Québec to acquire the materials for our hotel room kegger. Feeling a little cloudy and regretting the drunk dials of the evening before -- my specialty, I might add -- we set out the next morning for a day on Parliament Hill. I've been to Ottawa on a handful of occasions but I've never had time to do the touristy things. It's dorky, but I was actually a bit giddy with excitement. We even managed to score some seats in Question Period! As a Canadian politics junkie it was really fun to see. No surprises, really: Peter MacKay was hot and on it, Stockwell Day was a loser, and Michael Ignatieff carried the Liberals while Stéphane Dion was nowhere to be seen. For once though it was actually an exciting day in Canadian politics: right after the House finished sitting Stephen Harper fired Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier. It's about time. I do lament the loss of one of the Conservative cabinet's better-dressed ministers, though. We also checked out Centre Block, the National Gallery and the Supreme Court. My friend Jill is being called to the Alberta bar in a few months and we're pretty sure that she'll be in that court some day. I forgot how beautiful Ottawa is in the summer and it was great to finally see the insides of Parliament Hill. The buildings are stunning and full of so many lovely relics. I was up at the top of the Peace Tower at sunset and found this little gem from Bruce Hutchison's The Unknown Country mounted on the wall:

No Canadian can stand and look at this cluster of buildings [...] without feeling that somewhere on this Hill, perhaps by a happy accident, architects, masons, and stone carvers have managed to grasp and materialize the beauty of Canada, the vastness of its land, its loneliness, its youth and its hope.

spring trip to seattle

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:19:32 +0000

So I took a trip to Seattle last week as a reward for finishing my coursework. After a somewhat desolate winter in Toronto's concrete jungle, all the greenery and mountains around Seattle were very, very welcoming. Thankfully it looks like Toronto turned a little more green while I was away. Rob and I went for some canoeing on Lake Washington while I was there. Good times! We could use a little work on our stroke coordination but we otherwise made a perfect team. I was also a spectator at one of Rob's tennis matches. Seriously Rob, I had no idea that you're such a fierce tennis player! Hot! That serve is on fire. I was going to paint my chest and hold up a "Rock 'em Rob!" sign at the court side, but since tennis is a sport of civility, I decided against it. Besides, they weren't selling draft beer in plastic cups at the tennis club and that's an essential part of the look. The big news is that I made a firm decision to move back to Seattle in January when I finish up my degree. I always kinda knew it would end up that way. There's still a lot left to be done: write my M.Sc. thesis, find exciting work, and get a U.S. work visa to name a few. Technicalities, really. In local news, I landed in Toronto and received the unfortunate news that my brother, Jodie, and I are being kicked to the curb. Our landlord sold the townhouse we've been renting and the new owners want to take it over and renovate once our lease is up in July. Sigh. Moving again is exactly what I do not need right now. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to calling Seattle home next year. Share:

ski trip

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:28:04 +0000

I took my reading week break in BC last week with the goal to close out my '07-'08 ski season with a big bang. Four days of beautiful weather, bluebird skies, and phenomenal skiing made for a perfect end to my season. I came back to Toronto feeling a little sad to be packing away my skis so soon but I felt glad to have spent my last days on snow in such great conditions. After skiing Silverstar with my family on Sunday and hitting up the airport to pick up my buddy Ryan's delayed gear, we set out for Revelstoke to ski the brand-new development at Mount MacKenzie. Get to this mountain as soon as possible. Insane vertical, beautiful Rockies snow, awesome terrain, and zero lift lines make this mountain a gem. A billion dollars in planned real estate development means that it won't stay an untouched mountain for much longer. Late in the afternoon we hiked up to the summit of Mount MacKenzie and dropped into the North Bowl from the back side. The view from the summit was absolutely incredible that day and the North Bowl was a sweet, sweet ride. Snow Rodeo, a top-to-bottom groomer with fun stuff on the sides, is an absolute dream to ride on. There was no one around, so I used up the whole mountain carving sweet turns with incredible views for all 1500 vertical metres. It'll be over 1800 vertical metres next year when the new gondola from the base opens. We set out for Golden that evening to ski the steeps at Kicking Horse. We had another two days of great weather and crystal blue skies. No fresh snow, but there was enough left over from the last dump to give us lots to play on. We had our best luck over in the Feuz Bowl after a short hike across the ridge from Stairway to Heaven. We saw part of a rather dramatic rescue on Terminator Ridge after a boarder presumably picked the wrong blind chute and ended up clutching to a tree at the top of a sheer cliff. Seriously dude, what were you thinking?! I don't think hanging off a helicopter on a long line harness is for me. It looked really quite terrifying. I like the approach of having a high-speed gondola straight from the base to the summit that both Revelstoke and Kicking Horse have taken. It makes doing laps on some terrain difficult, but the amount of vertical that you can get in with one ride up the lift is hard to beat. More photos from the trip are here. As a side note, I watched Sean Penn's adaptation of Into the Wild while I was flying home to Toronto tonight. It's the best film I've seen in a while and Eddie Vedder's soundtrack for the film is perfect. It's definitely worth checking out. Share:

return to seattle

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:18:02 +0000

I set out for Seattle, WA on New Year's Eve looking to catch up with my Seattle posse, ski the Cascades, and check in on my favorite American. I didn't have to go too far at the airport to find what I was looking for: Rrrrraaaaaabbbb! Oh my gawwwd! Thanks for the awesome t-shirt. I plan to sport it around Toronto and pretend I'm from Wisconsin. It's not so far from the truth, really. I imagine rural Alberta is demographically quite similar to rural Wisconsin. Well, OK... from what I've heard they're maybe a little more wild in Wisconsin. The Seattle crew and I headed out on Capitol Hill and parked ourselves on the sidewalk to watch the fireworks at the Space Needle (photo courtesy of my buddy, M. Yee). The fireworks seem much more spectacular in this photo than I remember. I was most of the way through my brown-bagged bottle of Bollinger at the time, so perhaps my perception was clouded. Yeah, I'm a classy guy. New Year's Day was a recovery day, then the next day I convinced my buddy Dave and his girlfriend to play hooky from work and head to Crystal Mountain. Crystal had a ton of fresh snow. It was Cascades-typical sticky and heavy snow, but there was a lot of it. Crystal has a huge new section of former backcountry that's now accessible via a little double chairlift and it was killer. Untouched and gorgeous. Later on in the week I signed up my co-pilot Rob (call sign "Fruit Loops") to check out the Boeing Museum of Flight with me. They had the cool Blackbird spy plane on exhibit and we snapped a few pics in the cockpit. Unfortunately we were too late to go in the "SkyPark" where they keep all the old planes that you can look inside (ie. a Concorde, a former Air Force One plane). I just snapped a photo of the Concorde from outside the fence. I had a long day of travel today to get back to Toronto. I'm a little burnt out but it was nice to do some pleasure reading and descend into my own little world with my headphones on to reflect on my travels. Well, it's getting late (even on the west coast), so here's me signing off. Happy happy 2008! Share:

back from the west

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:07:31 +0000

I just got back from a sweet two weeks of vacation: 3 days of traveling, 6 days on skis, and lots of great times with my family and friends. Like all great vacations, I was sad to have it end. I'm a west coast boy now and I'll definitely be missing the mountains and the west coast feel. I started out in Kelowna, B.C. and headed for the mountains right after I arrived. The snow was fantastic. Dry, champagne powder at its best. My brother and I got in some pretty fierce skiing at Silverstar over in the Alder Ridge area. Fierce, but tricky. It was a long hike over and a lot of work to get down due to the immense amounts of snow, fallen trees, and hazardous bushy things at face level. A few days later we caught up with a cute pair of ski dogs (I need to get me an alpine rescue dog soon...) and my older brother's family joined us from Hong Kong. My nephews strapped on skis for the first time! Way to go, guys! When we weren't on the mountain, we were all enjoying some delicious winter ales and spiked cappuccinos while cooking up feast after feast. I gained 3 pounds, but who's counting. It probably all went toward muscle mass on my legs after the skiing, right? I'm pretty sure that's the case. Thanks Mom and Dad for hosting a fabulous Xmas holiday! The complete photo collection is here. Next up on the trip is Seattle, WA. Read about it in my next post! Share:

a little sleepy

Jeremy Handcock — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:06:09 +0000

After staying up unnecessarily late this past weekend, I had to be at the le palais des congrÃ¨s bright and early at 7am on Sunday for an OOPSLA volunteer meeting. I was super exhausted and I found a spot to curl up in for a quick nap before I had to go work the info booth. You might see a picture of me somewhere: I woke up sprawled out on a bench to the sound of a camera shutter and the OOPSLA photographer remarking, "what a great photo!". Sigh. Anyway, I caught a glimpse of Martin Fowler yesterday so we're definitely in the presence of royalty. I'm monitoring a tutorial today on "Java Concurrency Utilities in Practice," which I'm thinking will be pretty interesting. Keynotes and presentations start tomorrow and then we'll be in full swing. Ã€ bientÃ´t... Share:

made it to toronto!

Jeremy Handcock — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:47:45 +0000

Well, I've actually been here since Friday night. But ya know. Lots of unpacking going on and no blogging. The last two days of the road trip took us from Fairmont, Minnesota to Benton Harbor, Michigan and then from there on to Toronto. It was pretty uneventful and there were really no interesting places to stop, which explains the sore lack of pictures from the last two days. Here we are checking out the insect grave on the front of our truck on day 4. Tasty! This was right after Nicholas locked the keys inside the truck and we had to call a garage to come get us unlocked. I figured it was inevitable that we'd either lose the keys or lock ourselves out at some point. We stopped for some cheese in Wisconsin and then headed for Chicago. Driving through Chicago was awful. I had to drive through the city in rush hour traffic in the worst thunderstorm I've ever seen. It was the kind where you have the wipers on full but still can't see a thing. On top of that, the freeway was under construction and the detour signage sucked. I think we spent two hours in traffic there. It made me more thoroughly anti-car. Day 5 was border crossing day. I was really nervous that we'd have our truck picked apart and spend the whole day at Canadian Customs unpacking and repacking everything, but it was pleasantly surprising to find that they didn't even want to open the back to take a peek. We could have stuffed that truck full of contraband! There was even enough room for a Rob in there. We arrived in Toronto at rush hour on Friday and got caught in a bit of traffic but we made it here by early evening. Overall I had a great time. Driving through the interior heartland of the United States, while boring at times, offered a glimpse into why things are the way they are right now. I do regret the 1300 liters (343 gallons) of gasoline that I burned through on the way over here. To my own credit, I haven't owned a car for 6 years now so my carbon footprint is still small on average. Our new house is super cute and I can't wait to get settled in here. I'll post some pictures shortly. Share:

day 3 of road tripping

Jeremy Handcock — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 04:32:52 +0000

We hit up Mount Rushmore in the morning outside Rapid City, South Dakota: Along the flat, monotonous drive through South Dakota we ran into a town called Wall that consisted of nothing but a giant drugstore that wasn't really a drugstore. They had western wear (I was really tempted to get a cowboy hat), buffalo burgers (tasty!), and I even found myself in the arms of a nice saloon girl. Nicholas scored some awesome cowboy/cowgirl duckies. It was totally worth the stop. We had a bit of a shorter day today and stopped for the night in Fairmont, Minnesota. Tomorrow we're going to head into Wisconsin (I'll wave to the homeland, Rob!) and then get past Chicago before calling it a day. Share:

2 days of road tripping

Jeremy Handcock — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:41:03 +0000

After a teary goodbye in Seattle on Monday morning, my brother and I set out for Toronto on our cross-continent road trip. It was hard to get excited about leaving Seattle, but so far we've had a lot of fun on our road trip. So far we've covered almost 1200 miles from Seattle to Rapid City, South Dakota. We started out with a stop at the King County dump in Bellevue to dispose of some junk. Nicholas got some great video footage of me throwing junk into the dump, including a zoom-in on the guy operating the crusher yelling at us, "Get that camera outta here!". Pure gold. Just wait for the YouTube edit. We were surprised at how pretty Montana is, especially in the mountains and the foothills. Past central Montana, the land turns pretty flat. It's just like driving in Alberta. In a Hummer. Our UHaul is sucking back fuel like a monster! I think we're getting somewhere around 8 miles per gallon by my rough calculations. Tomorrow we're hitting up Mount Rushmore, "a life-changing patriotic experience," according to the billboard. Good times ahead! Share: