As you can see here, the Sagrada Familia really towers over the surrounding neighborhoods.

Tags:   Sagrada Familia Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia Catholic Roman Catholic Church place of worship construction under construction landmark window spire tower Barcelona city Spain Canon Canon Rebel XSi 450D

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Here's my dad, balancing a beer mug on his head. I don't know how he did it!

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This evening I looked at my report card from Grade 3. That's about 16 years ago. I noticed a couple of "needs improvement" marks on it...and those two areas are areas where I still need improvement. It's funny how some things never change!

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I was also thinking about identity tonight...how do you determine what you are? This is an idea that my TA in my Anthropology class introduced to me about 5 years ago...Obviously, each one of us is made up of many parts and lots of ancestry and many stories and lots of experiences...the example I'm thinking of is your ethnic/national/regional/cultural identity.

For example, I call myself a Newfoundlander, and I believe this is an accurate claim because I was born there and raised there. Simple as that. That's how I define my identity as a member of a people.

(I also identify myself as a Canadian, because I was born here and have lived here my whole life. However, I'm a Newfoundlander first and a Canadian second.)

But other people define themselves differently. For example, I was listening to a George Carlin routine where he says that he's Irish, and fully Irish because all 4 of his grandparents were born there. Another example of this type of definition is when a friend said a couple of years ago that I wasn't fully Newfoundlander because my parents weren't both born there. Obviously I took offense to that, and that brings us to today :)

So, how do you define yourself?

Tags:   Dad man beer mug balancing act glasses goatee shirt La Rambla Barcelona Spain outside umbrella vacation Canon Rebel XSi 450D

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WARNING: Short political rant ahead. Those who view Flickr as a sterile environment for photos only, devoid of opinions, are asked to click "back". I see Flickr as a friendly environment most of the time, and its users are more mature than on some of the other community sites I've frequented over the years; at least in the places where I go on the website. But since I barely use Facebook anymore, and haven't used that other journal/forum/community website actively since 2005, Flickr is often where I voice my observations and thoughts. So if you're cool with that, keep reading, and if you're not...well, I'm going to post my final Europe picture soon, so you might want to wait for that one instead of scrolling down any further.
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When we got to the airport, we went to a lounge. We got a few snacks and I noticed a door leading outside, to an observation deck, but it was locked, so I went an asked an employee about it, and they told me that people aren't allowed out there anymore. Yet another instance where the fear of Osama bin Laden has frightened us into destroying the freedoms we once enjoyed. Perhaps that was his mission; to have the rest of the world restrict itself back to the dinosaur age. In any case, it's extremely stupid that we've let paranoia prevent people from taking pictures. I curse my fellow Westerners for their fear-mongering, over-reactive security policies. When we restrict our own freedoms, the terrorists win. Sure, metal detectors are fine, and I understand not using your cell phone during take-off and landing, but photography prevention? Get bent.

Anyway, I remember my family had been talking about how the Spanair flight had crashed at this airport just two weeks before we were sitting there, waiting for our own flight to leave. I noticed this 747 sitting outside, so I took a picture of it through the glass.

Tags:   747 airplane aeroplane Boeing 747 jumbo jet airliner passenger jet airport Madrid Spain Barajas Pullmantur Air stairs trucks crates DHL city urban Summer Canon Rebel XSi 450D vacation travel plane KQC

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My mom in a crowd.

I haven't been on Flickr as much in the past week...I've been uninterested I guess...doing other things. Actually, that explains a lot of it; my time has been a lot more occupied by other things this week.

I started reading Ozzy Osbourne's new autobiography, I Am Ozzy, and it's pretty good. It's nice to read someone's story in their own words. I've actually read and finished 4 or 5 books in the past year or so, and I'm proud of myself for that. In the previous 12 years or so, the only books I read to completion were for school, and all the reading-for-pleasure I did was either in magazines or on the Internet...although in my defence, when you spend hours a day on the Internet, reading about Presidents and airplanes and photography and music and fish and old cars and World War 2 and Vietnam and all sorts of other things you've been curious about, that still counts as reading. Books are great, but they're not all that is reading. I've read probably 20 million words on Wikipedia in the past few years.

Anyway, more pics from Barcelona are on the way!

Tags:   People crowd tourists man woman men women mom sunglasses blue red green brown homo sapiens mammal bald brown hair blonde hair grey hair vacation Canon Rebel XSi 450D

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On the way back down the hill from Parc Güell, we stopped in a couple of stores...one was a clothing store and the other had a bunch of random stuff...carvings and knives and arts and crafts. Anyway, this glass-thing was on the wall outside one of the stores. I took this pic with the kit lens, since I didn't have a macro lens at that time.

Tags:   Glass art Gaudi tiles mosaic red circle amber orange Barcelona Spain vacation Canon Rebel XSi 450D

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