A Cool Place I Want To Visit, and So Should You.

If you have fantasies of living like the Swiss Family Robinson or even the characters in Lost, this rainforest resort near Quepos, Costa Rica may be just the ticket. Situated on the edge of the Manuel Antonio National Park, the Costa Verde Resort features an incredible hotel suite set inside a 1965 Boeing 727 airplane. In its former life the airplane transported globetrotters on South Africa Air and Avianca Airlines, and it now serves as a two bedroom suite perched on the edge of the rainforest overlooking the beach and ocean.

The airplane was transported piece by piece from the San Jose airport to its current resting place on a pedestal 50 feet above the beach. It looks a bit like a model airplane on a stand, and we can only imagine the spectacular views from the balcony and the airplane windows. Five big trucks were needed to get the plane out to the resort, and while the transportation certainly had a negative ecological impact, the finished project is a stunning example of adaptive reuse.

And hey... it looks alot better than that 747 in The Netherlands... (bad joke)

Will you be here tomorrow?

Scarcity of motivation is caused from lack of direction. Life.

Wednesday April 1, 2009 – 9:00pm
April Fools day.
I write this entry from the home office of Sergey’s house in Chelyabinsk. I thought I’d better recap my week before the weekend begins and I forget everything. I left off writing about my arrival to Chely back on Sunday. I finally had a night’s sleep, on a fold out couch that would have been one of the first fold out couches ever designed. This thing was the most uncomfortable shit I’ve ever bestowed my ass upon. That’s without mention I was staying in the same bedroom as Fred, my dad’s 45 year old Russian employee due to lack of rooms in the house. I shouldn’t complain… I’m not Paris Hilton. Still tired as bones are dry from traveling, I got up at 7:00am to head off to work. Like I mentioned before, it’s nice to wake up to a served breakfast and coffee – makes your day just that much better. I spent the day at the office doing fuck all – the project is finished. I walked around the shop taking photos of all the equipment. Regardless, I was there for 12 hours and to get home to a nice warm dinner was greatness! As I mentioned earlier dinner always includes vodka. Not bottles upon bottles of vodka, but we have a few drinks every evening with dinner.

It was about 9:30 and ten shots later that Sasha, Ivana, and Olga (all about my age) asked me if I wanted to join them on a drive around Kopiesk. I said no… still exhausted and looking forward to going to sleep. Everyone is egging me on to go out with them for a bit because you only live once right? Well these guys had no idea what we were going to do haha. Thanks everyone… I haven’t been peer pressured since I was eleven. So we drive into Kopiesk, a small village just outside of Chelyabinsk and pull up into some war-torn parking lot. It’s dark as night and some dude just hops in the car. I’m in the back seat and have NO idea wtf is going on. This stranger who I reluctantly shake hands with a “Privet”, just busts out a huge bag of weed ready to go haha. I’m tired and half cut the last thing I need is to smoke drugs at 10:30 on a Monday night. I was able to delegate my share to everyone els. Once the smoking was finished we stepped into this building we were parked at and surprise! It’s a Russian/Italian restaurant WTF? I wish I had my camera because this joint was weird! I ate some margarita pizza while they ordered dishes that include fish that still had eyes.
Needless to say, the rest of the week was no more exciting than that. Sleep, eat, work, eat, vodka, sleep; never in excess but always enough to know your doing it.



Monday, April 6, 2009 – 1:00pm
I write this entry from a pizza joint in downtown Chelyabinsk. It seems pizza and otherwise Italian food is a common theme here in western Siberia. I’m with my father and our translator, Tatyana. We just finished purchasing our tickets back to Moscow. Seems odd we are going back to Moscow after only a week, let me explain. The pervious Saturday night we met the guys for drinks at the hotel they were posting up at. Drinks means DRINKS - Capitalization for emphasis. We had seven prostitutes drinking with us at the bar while playing Russian Billiards. Side note; the pool balls are 50% bigger and the holes 75% smaller… a round takes hours after a few Holy Waters. Anyways I realized I had my share of booze for the night and wasn’t staying the night (if you know what I mean), so Sasha and I hit up his buddy to drive us back to town. I guess after I left the drinking continued, and well, let’s be honest drunken speech is sober mentality. I guess the owner of the company we are working with had some words for my father that didn’t sit well. He decided what was best for us is to walk away – being primarily finished our work anyways. The only thing in the air is whether he would be paid commission or not. This is as big of a deal to him as it is to me. That’s a year and a half of bullshit out the window if he isn’t paid. Well, this and that, the other thing, and everything in between. Details aren’t needed but you must especially honor a well-connected man when it comes to Russian business. No fucking around. So we walked away with everyone having the understanding of what needs to be done. Pay your dues and avoid conflict. This is basic human practice regardless. Don’t steal or cheat the fucking promise or you will regret it.




Sunday, April 12, 2009 – 12:00pm
I write this entry from a Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurant in the upper level of MEGA-mall just north of Moscow. One of the largely overlooked aspects of travel is the inspiration that all the different restaurants give. I’m sitting under a wooden frame structure that would go perfectly in a modern-minimalist/Chinese themed kitchen. I’m eating sweet sour shrimp, cali rolls, fired rice, and some fried chicken that’s impossible to pick up with chop sticks – but oh sooo good. I flew Chelyabinsk > Moscow on Wednesday without a problem. I’m starting to trust these post-WWII warplanes more than all the Boeings and Airbus planes that keep falling out of the sky. To be totally honest other than eating in different restaurants, shopping, getting the Bimm repaired and spending time with the family I haven’t done anything real insightful this past week. Any point in an individual’s life where they feel any sort of boredom, effortlessly passing their days through should be in a reflective position. I haven’t figured out if the idea is to plan things to all exhausted possibilities, or let ‘fate’ take control. Everyone is different without a doubt. Personally my next step in life will have three variable positions and for each position there are three outcomes. How can you go wrong with relentless life organizing? One could argue that planning to the point of an estimated outcome removes the flavor of LIFE. You know what will happen in every aspect – but life always throws me curves or speed bumps that keep it exciting. The idea of a progressive lifestyle is to figure out exactly WHAT you want first, because ‘getting there’ will smoothly flow once the inevitable motivation kicks in. Let me try and reiterate without digressing. You need to figure out exactly the outcome you WANT, in what manner this is PRACTICLE and slowly play out the actions needed to make that happen. If you know what you want in life, the stimulus and incentives will help you reach those ideal goals. Knowing that 90% of people reading this are in University without any cause of direction maybe this could be the best thing you hear all week. Why are you working towards something without knowing what you want? I don’t hit up the kitchen with a fridge full of food and start cooking – I know exactly what and how much of each ingredient I will need with the required preparations for each individual aspect of that dish.
You don’t aimlessly shoot at something you think is the target, you use the sight finder, red dot your target, steady, FIRE. If you miss the target, step back and look at the reasons why! The wind, the sight finder is un-calibrated, the target moved. Whatever the reason is you take this into consideration and try it again. It’s cliché but you get the idea.

I’m being as insightful as I can. “Make your future better than your past” in any aspect. For 90% of the human population this is a no brainer… you are a starving student or a no body who feels like one. Reflect, target, achieve. The most successful person you know uses this idea – and is probably so successful because they DO use the idea. No single person can tell you they are ‘happy’ in life and don’t need to grow. You will continue to grow your entire life – so grow with direction and purpose!

“It’s impossible to lack motivation, not knowing precisely what you need motivation for.”
-Brett Garneau 2009

If you are further interested in what I've been yabbering about check this out
http://tinyurl.com/cyouao

Culinary = CLUTCH

Let's not kid ourselves. I am the international Iron Chef








Including:
Chicken Tenders - from scratch, basted in flour+Cajun and fried
Pasta - Rotini pasta and Parmesan Vodka sauce
Steamed Broccoli and Australian Red Wine.

Trip to Russia. Life

Saturday April 28, 2009 – 9:00am
I write this entry from a train in Holland. It’s pissing and cold outside. I spent the night packing my suitcase and ridding any final items remaining in my apartment. I’ve sold all my furniture, made everything I own fit into a large suitcase I have in storage and am leaving to Russia. I’ve spent the past year of my life (to this weekend exactly) in this small village in The Netherlands. I can honestly say I enjoyed it. I’ve had many memorable nights and not-so memorable nights, but in no way do I consider this past episode of my life a waste. I’ve learned management skills that entirely increase my understanding of personal and business relations and the nature of coordination. My initial plan, 1 year ago, was to cross the ocean with prospective ideas of meeting and establishing a relationship with my father, earning enough lump income to be the stepping stone of my career, and 1-up my understanding of life. I can honestly say that to some degree all of this is relevant. I could come up with 1,000 things that I wanted to go otherwise, but my main goals have been achieved. Not to mention the LIFE experience you get for traveling and living in an entirely different world for a year.

Packing up the apartment

Now it’s time for part two of this adventure. It wasn’t until I began writing this entry that it came to me. I’m essentially at the same point I am now, as I was at the beginning of part 1, one year ago. I have no idea what the future lies, I cannot even estimate what my short term plans have and I don’t even have a scope of target to achieve. Goals will be set as my life progresses. In my opinion this is the riskiest aspect to how you structure your life. I’ve essentially mastered the art of planning and practical execution to avoid flaw of outcome. I’m in unknown territory by entering my hazy future.

My train should arrive at the Amsterdam Schipol airport in about two hours. I was able to decrease my belongings to 1 suitcase in storage, and 1 medium size bag. This 1 suitcase will represent my next stage of life, figuratively of course. I can open this bag in part 3 and see how my life has adapted to the new lifestyle and recollect a year’s worth of progress in my mind. I think aside from a toothbrush it has 5 black tee shirts/changes of underpants and a laptop. Considering this is my current worth of personal assets I only have more to look forward to. I’d like to say that by the end of the next 52 weeks I have a vehicle, sizeable bank account for peace of mind among other material goods that every normal person obtains in their life – not to mention an even wider view of how the world works – how life goes and what it means. After that I can worry about larger ticket items in my life such as a home and business. The important thing is to have SOME SORT of target in scope. Without the mindset of personal progression, human nature is to simply coast, and “live their life”. Possibly a reason why 95% of the human population is living some sort of rat race? I cannot be the judge of that right now.




Saturday April 28, 2009 – 2:00pm
I write this entry from an Airbus A330 35,000 feet high. The lady at check in was nice enough to offer me a window seat. The messages being reported and demonstrated are in Dutch and Russian, hopefully if someone wants to cause havoc I am able to understand what is going on without anyone telling me. My extra baggage was 600 euros, approx $1000 CAD. I had to carry a suitcase full of tools and parts for the project I’m going to in Russia. The little shit weighed 100lbs, and thankfully I won’t have to lug it around until I arrive in Chelyabinsk at 6am. I’m going to throw on the tunes and try to catch some shuteye for the remainder of this four-hour flight. I think I’m going to go through the Black Label Society discography again.




Saturday April 28, 2009 – 6:00pm
I write this entry from a TGIFriday’s bar in the Sherimetveo Termal 2 Airport in Moscow. My flight was all right, but I will mention I had those arm rests on GRIP during decent. It got a little bit bumpy and I was uneasy about looking out the window. Once we hit approx 3500ft altitude I randomly looked out the windows. The clouds were above us and the sun was setting. I looked at amass of large apartment complexes bordering Moscow’s edge. I was able to identify my father’s apartment in relation to the IKEA and MEGA-mall… I thought this was kinda of cool. It’s convenient, his location, because it’s directly between the airport and the Center of Moscow- both about 20 min drive.
Anyways, I’m drinking a Corona and eating chicken strips. My next flight is in about 6 hours and I’m meeting my dad here since he will be joining me. Not sure if we will go to his pad prior, but I’d like to see my little sisters for a min before heading out. I should mention my experience with entering the airport. I was surprised to see that this is even mentioned on the Wikipedia article of the Sheremetevo Aiport. You walk into the building from your Terminal and step into a room full of people waiting to get their passports stamped. There must have been 200 in the hour lines of passport control. Lucky for me a booth opened up just as I walked in so I smoothly continued to take the 5th or 6th place in line. I filled out my entrance form, had my visa and passport ready and hoped they didn’t have anything to question me about. I don’t speak a word of Russian and don’t know what to say if they query my entrance to Russia. I held my breath as she stamped my passport and opened the gate for me. Next I had to “declare” about 500 euros worth of tools. I didn’t have any documents and took everything out of it’s packaging to make it seem personal and not business. These parts were detrimental to our project and we needed them there a month ago so I couldn’t let these get stuck in Customs. Held my breath and she gave me the go ahead to continue. I did it all with ease. Am I lucky I had no conflict, or am I just that good? Getting into Russia is no easy task for your average traveler.




Sunday April 29, 2009 – 12:35 am
I write this entry from 25,000 feet above the crispy cold Ural Mountains. It’s nighttime and everyone is sleeping. The food on these airplanes is shit, but I shouldn’t complain. I met up with my dad at the airport and his girls had lunch with us. Ira (his wife) was telling me that they went to the circus the other day and Sophia (she is 2) took a picture with an orangutan. We showed Sophia this picture and she says “PAPA”. Haha, cute kid… Polia (who is 4) is in total love with me. She’s always begging me to pick her up and carry her like a little princess. She’s really funny the way she talks to other people like the waitress although I don’t know what she is saying. She doesn’t speak English yet.
The airport we left in was super grimy and I was really tired. The system they have for ground level airports (no upstairs) is that you take a bus to the actual plane on the tarmac and have to climb up the stairs as they de-ice the 1947 warplane. Taking a buss crammed like sardines with 100 dirty stinking sliming Russians who also happen to be traveling to Chelyabinsk. I shouldn’t complain, let’s just home landing is as smooth as take off was.




Sunday April 29, 2009 – 12:35pm
I write this entry from my office in the Work Shop 6 of ChTPZ in Chelyabinsk. I’ve been awake for over 26 hours and don’t plan to get sleep until tonight. I successfully arrived in Chely with all our parts we needed. We got to the Chely airport at about 6:00am and Sergey, my father’s homie, picked us up. Sergey is a Russian Special Forces top official. This dude is serious business but the nicest guy. It’s nice to know the man who considers me his nephew and is protecting me happens to be one of the most powerful men in the area. No one will ever consider harming me in any manner due to my connection with Sergey. As long as I don’t cause any trouble I will be totally safe in an otherwise risky environment. His son has recently arrived back from the Georgian war. Sasha is about 23 and is an officer at war. Totally humble dude with minimal English. The other day he was killing people and today we will have a round of darts. It’s a funny world we live in.
I must admit I had a short nap before heading to the office. I’m not superman. 2 or 3 hours of snooze, had some lunch and headed to the shop. I really like this set up we have actually. I wake up in the morning to a hot breakfast, coffee and yogurt. I have lunch fully prepared for me and it’s nothing but the most nutritious food. I arrive home from work and see that my room has been cleaned, bed made, clothes cleaned, and dinner is already waiting for me. It’s great that Sergey’s wife takes care of all this for everyone. Any time I need something it is served to me like I am royalty. It’s Russian culture. Russian culture also means vodka at dinner. Your plate setup will include a glass of juice, fork and knife like normal, but also a shot glass. We have shots of cold Parliament vodka with our dinner and usually continue the toasting until it’s time to head to bed. I should mention the food here. Russian soup… I had a bowl of soup for lunch that included beef, chicken, ham, potatoes, and carrots, among other veggies I was unable to identify. Healthy? Yes. Lekker? I can’t complain… it is the same every lunch and dinner everyday. Huge bowl of soup and a plate of meat+______. Always.




This week I have a lot of life – things I’d like to determine and will be working mainly from the home office with my translator Tatyana (who is baaaaaaad :hat). I’m sure I will have some stories soon!

"this n_ is buggin'"

It would be so much fun to be a celebrity. I'd pull shit like this all the time.



"What are we doing???? What are we doing????"

Fuck Fox News

I'm not eve going to post the youtube clip of the RedEye show.




edit, okay I am going to post the clip. Beware....

Breakfast.

My culinary skills are crucial as of late.
The best pickup line is along the lines of "Can I cook you breakfast in the morning?"
-Just Kidding

(8) It's beeeen A whiiillleeeee (8)

It's been a REAL while since I actually WROTE something.
I pride myself in my amateur-uneducated writing abilities.

A quick update for friends, family, etc.
I'm still in Holland. I am selling all my furniture, packing my bags and moving to Moscow next week. I drove 3 hour to apply for my Russian visa last week and almost didn;t make the registration time. That would have sucked, but I made it, and I will get my Visa on wed.
Once I get to Moscow I have alot of LIFE talk I need to discuss w/ my dad. What is next in my life. Always a question I love to entertain.

I've been using Twitter alot lately. With the promotion of his new album Scream, Chris Cornell is using his twitter half as much as Shaq (that's a compliment). He responded to me twice via Direct Message and has sent me two @ replies. That;s pretty big shit.... he gets 100s of @replies a day!!! With that said I've started listening to Ultramega OK and Louder Than Love... pre-commcerial success Sound Garden Albums. I like to think of Chris Cornell as my position when he did those albums. He was >23 when those were written, and they are unrecognized beauty.

Random thought.
I sang "Alive" by Pearl Jam today in my car. It sounded perfect... but is that simply myself hearing my own voice (never on point) or is Alive just an easy song to sing? I notice as my confidence rises in singing, my singing ABILITY rises..... I'm studying more music in the next few weeks but I may be onto something.

Anyways... My life is really boring in Holland lately. I try to stay enthused with facebook, niketalk, twitter, and studying music. It's been working for me lately. Typically someone in my position would be drinking [more than I am] and thinking real sad shit.... but my chin is up. I hit the gym 5 nights a week and try to cook things I've never even eaten before.


In other Brett news....this is my epitome of style:


I don't know what it is... but for some reason that resembles exactly how I dress lately and I want to dress that way every day. that is Chris Cornell btw.... no homo!!!

Cheers....and look out for a lengthly read by me soon

One Trillion Dollars.

In my recent times I've had dinner with business figures who are worth 1+ Billion dollars. A Billion is a nice mark, for the super optomistic. More realistically the average person will shoot for $1million...specifically being their point of retirement. Everyone should have that target figure once they hit early 20's.

Would anyone REALLY target $1 Trillion? That's twelve zeros. $1,000,000,000,000.00 I could retire off that no problemo!!

I found an interesting post made by Wadewilson on Niketalk. You can view the original post here

Let's put One Trillion Dollars into perspective.

We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.





While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros.

You ready for this?

It's pretty surprising.

Go ahead...
Scroll down...

Keep saving, kids