travisholt.com

Back from potatoland...

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Here's the route of our recent trip to BC, Idaho, and Washington.

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Time flies when you're makin steam...

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Week 3 for me at SAIT is drawing to a close and I don't know where the time has gone. I've already completed 9 of my 19 competencies and those weren't supposed to start til week 5! The last couple weeks look to be a little less hectic which is always nice.
Tonight part of our group is headed out to Julio's Barrio for some drinks and sunshine on the patio so 5 o'clock can't come soon enough.
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Week 2

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:06:00 +0000

Well I've started to settle into a routine here at SAIT and things are going pretty well. I now know how to operate a watertube boiler, make steam, run a turbine and generate electricity. Someone, somewhere on the SAIT campus is using electricity that I made- pretty cool. I'd say the last week has probably been the most productive week of my life! Now if only I can find someone to pay me to do this when I'm done here!
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Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:35:00 +0000

So it`s day 3 in the big city and things are going really well. My classmates are generally pretty cool, there`s Tracy, Olga, Deanna, Nick, Oscar, Ande, Mike, Jeremy, Quintin, Chris and Kevin. Today we were able to run wild on some of the equipment, so that`s been lots of fun. I`m just on my lunch break (45mins) so this is all I have time for right now.

PS, that`s a pic of my residence tower... nice huh?

My First Day of School

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:23:00 +0000

So today was my first day of Power Engineering at SAIT. What a weekend I`ve had getting moved into my residence (pictured), trying to get a parking pass, finding the parking lot, figuring out how to get to the parking lot and so on. This school thing it tough work!
Anyway, once I got to my class this morning, things went pretty smooth and I`m already learning lots I think. There`s 12 in my class, 3 girls, 9 guys all of different backgrounds and from all over the western provinces.
Well, that`s all for tonight, thanks to Kelly for all her help, but I`m still pretty tired from all this running around, good night.

Computer crash

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:32:00 +0000

A few weeks ago our computer crashed which, in itself is not a big deal since all our documents are stored on the network. In the process of restoring it however, the network storage drive (that houses all our pictures, music, etc.) failed to boot up. Anyone who has lost this type of information can attest to the feeling of, well, loss that results. Ever since I have been in a bit of a computer-related depression and my faith in electronics has been shattered.
I am writing this post as part of my healing though and things are starting to turn around. I was able to recover our pictures and the computer is at the point now where I can begin to re-build our music collection and continue to retrieve more files off the network drive (the drive is fine, just the enclosure has failed). If anyone can help me rebuild the boot-sector of a linux ext3 drive, then recover all the data, please let me know!

CrossFit

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Monday mornings are hard enough to get up and go to work on, but try going to a CrossFit class before work. CrossFit is an intense 20-min workout with many varied skills and is always a challenge. Kelly & I have been going for 7 weeks now and I can tell that I have improved, but as you keep pushing yourself, it does not get any easier. Still, I can't imagine not going... I always feel so good afterwards even if I can't walk or lift my arms.

Our Back Yard

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Here's some house-perspective shots of our concrete work from yesterday and Saturday.

Another new beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:29:00 +0000

Well, it's time to redesign my site again. As always, I hope to keep it up to date this time around and with all that's going on in my life, I think I should have lots to put up here.

Supermarket Sweep

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:46:00 +0000

So I won a trip through work recently. It's an all expenses paid trip to
St. Louis, MO. This, in itself, does not seem that thrilling, but it's
what we get to do in St. Louis that's really cool. On Saturday we get to
participate in a "Run Through the Warehouse" where we get paired up with
an employee from the warehouse and we get 60 seconds to pile boxes of
electronics and other goodies onto our cart. Then, what's even better,
is that we get to keep all this stuff. I have a feeling I won't really
know what i've grabbed until after I'm done, but I'm looking forward to
it.. should be an experience

Legends

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:56:00 +0000

This year I've had the privilege of witnessing two greats on stage. Last month, hours before Kelly and I left for Central America, Eric Clapton took the stage and rocked the house, then last night Clayton and I experienced B.B. King. It was pretty incredible to share the room with someone who has played with people like Elvis, Clapton and Bono just to name a few. And at 81 years this guy has still got it. Very cool.

Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:23:00 +0000

It seems facebook has been hogging all my computer time lately and everything else computer related has fallen by the wayside. At work they have seen fit to block 99.9% of websites so I can't even kill downtime by updating my site. I thank the technology gods, though, for BlackBerry. With my BlackBerry I can post on the go, still check facebook at my desk and not feel like I live in a communist group.
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Pics & Travel Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:36:00 +0000

Central America pics are now online and I'm working on the Travel Journal section. If I feel like it I might even put up some recipes from where we've been.

Back in White

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:56:00 +0000

We're back from Central America and let me say, the weather sucks. It snowed/rained the whole way home from the airport. Either way, it is nice to be home and now comes the task of uploading all of our pictures and creating the travel journal for this trip. Stay tuned.

Monteverde the Cloud Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:22:00 +0000

Hey Everyone,

This will probably be our last email b4 we leave for home. We just arrived and ate lunch at Hotel Belmar in Monteverde, the Cloud forest in Costa. This place is really gorgeous, you should google it! We rented a car this morning and it took us about 3 hours or so to drive up here on the worst roads we have ever travelled...glad we are here.

Since our last email we have spent the last 2 nights with the Hamonic Family in Liberia. They are good friends of my parents that moved from Canada 2 years ago to live in Costa. Dennis has worked on drilling rigs in Mexico for the past 6 years and tomorrow he leaves for Columbia. Micehlle stays home and takes care of Marshal 12 and Jesse 10. This family is very giving and alot of fun. We spent the afternoon yesterday on a black sand beach with HUGE swells which are waves that rocked our world! I was worried a few times cause ol' surfer Travis took a few really good skids! I would wait anxiously to see his head appear again. We watched the sunset and heaed back home down the Monkey Trail.

Tomorrow we are going on a Canopy Tour, which is a zip line across the rain forest AIIIIEEEEEH! I am sure that I will whine and cry, but end up doing it anyways. Wish us well and see you all soon. Party at our house!!!!!

Guadalupe and Ricardo

KELLY

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Red hot Magma...

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:14:00 +0000

Hola, Buenos tardes..

Well you would think according to the subject that we saw red hot magma, but we are lying. However, we did go on a 14.5 kn 7 hour hike thru the rainforest yesterday in the Guanacaste National Park.It was pretty intense at time and at one point we were totally drenched, hence it being the Rain Forest. First we hiked a loop that took us to pools of bubbling mud and boiling water, we were yelled at by some type of monkey way up in a tree. When I first heard it I was so scared, turned around and ran with my hands over my mouth, not too sure where I was headed considering we could not see where this grunting/growling sound was coming from. I was stopped and reassured by a Swiss couple that the monkey meant no harm, according to him it was a "cry monkey", we think he meant howler, but I felt better and we carried on. Later Travis was making a joke and asked me where I was going....I guess I was going to run back to the ranger station?!?!

After the monkey incident we carried on to the headlights of the trails and made our basically straight up, 6km hike to the hot springs that were sort of disappointing and super stinky (sulphur). On the way we saw crazy stuff like this huge empty bug shell clutched to a tree with these big gnarly claws, the tail end of a big bright orange bird, massive spider, a snake skin that made Travis jump while he was taking a pic. He was bent down really close to it and a leaf blew up and well, he did too!

Straight up meant straight down,which took us as long to go down as it did to go up. We made it back to be picked up by 4pm to head back to Hotel Liberia where we have been hangin for the past 2 days.

We basically worked on festering in the hammocks today reading and sleeping. I finished The Lovely Bones that Sarah lent me, and started She´s Come Undone. Travis finished a book he bought for Mexico called Christ:Out of Egypt and started the Bourne Ultimatum. It is quite hot today as usual. Tomorrow we hope to take a canopy tour and go on a zip line through the rain forest.

Hope everyone is healthy

Thanks for # mom and dad

Hi Meggy

Get better Barb

Happy Birthday Mamma Holt

Hi Sianna, aunny Kelly and Uncle Travis miss you

Love Kel and Trav

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loco pollo...

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:03:00 +0000

It´s going to be dark soon, by 6pm, so we need to go for a swim in our new place for the night. for $45 per noche has cable tv, ac, a pool, and a hot shower. On the cab ride from San Juan del Sur to the border, we saw a car accident and we pulled over to see if the driver was ok. It turned out that he hit a massive cow (one with big horns) with his car. He was ok though his face was covered with blood and his nose was cut. Kelly checked him over and discharged him from Hospital Holt (the back seat of a dirty kia).

We made it through the border alright, but it was hot and sweaty wating in line. The border is very busy due to Semana Santa (Holy Week, Easter) but we were expecting that. Anyway, this computer is to far from the pool for us to type and swim at the same time so Buenas Tardes for now.

T&K

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Back to Costa Rica tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 20:45:00 +0000

Hey All,

We were hapy to get all of your eamils and...

Jenn I am glad that everything is great with the babe and we hope Liam does not discover the light sockets with his crayons

Yes Pam we are in Nicaragua!

Meg, you are welcome to stay at our place, but it is past when you wanted to, so...sorry

Mom and Dad Holt, thanks for the weather update and the nice email.

As for us we just returned back to San Juan to stay one night on our way back to Costa tomorrow. We have 8 days left, it feels like we have been here forever, which is great.

Seriously, the friggen buses around here are crazy, we have been flyng and taking buses and taxis since we got here.

Corn Island was paradise, literally. We had a great time there. Hooked up with some of the folks from the Scuba Shack and hung for some Tona´s with the locals one night. Our place was so amazing. It was on the beach and cost us 18 bucks per night! It has hot water and a monkey that I liked to mess with every morning and night if it would give me the satisfaction. Travis and I would snorkel everyday just off of the beach at our place. It was so beautiful, and MEG, we saw 2 SNAKES!! oh, yeah, water snakes! Tons of tropical fish and in the harbor there were turtles and 3 nurse sharks.

Today we came back to San Juan del Sur and apparently Easter (Samana Santa) is quite a big deal. We hope Colin will let us shack up with him or else we need to find a spot of beach to sleep on....

The degree of sweatiness that we have been experiencing is crazy, we are basically soaked for the majority of the day and night if the room does not have AC.

Tomorrow we are going back to Costa and we plan to call up Dennis and depending on where he lives we want to hook up with him. We also plan to do some jungle exploring, hot springs and volcanoe hiking!!!

We are having an insane time and loving the culture and experience of not knowing what we are doing or where we are staying...

Love you all,

Kel and Trav

KELLY

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San Juan del Sur

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:14:00 +0000

Hey ALL!

We are now in San Juan Del Sur hanging out wih Colin Pope at the Scuba Shack Nicaragua! We stayed at a place on the beach last night and are plannning a trip to Corn Island tomorow, where we will fly out of Managua to Big Corn Island for as long as we like... We love it here, the heat is insane! How is the weather up there?

At the dive shop we have met some great people and 2 dogs named Ted and Barney, Barney is kinda old and grumpy, but he means well. The crew is actually leaving shortly for a long road trip to Corn Island to open up their dive shop there. We hope to hook up there with Georgina and Rami.

We are planning on heading back to Costa at some point, but for now we are just hangin...ya know! hope everyone is healthy and happy. Any baby yet Jenn?

Talk to you all soon,

Tons of love

Holt & Holt-to-be

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Wine Club: take 2

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:53:00 +0000

Last night was our second wine night and the theme was white wine. Where do I start? Apparently white wine brings out the dark side of our group as the conversation went from politics and revolution to freckles and inappropriate baby names. Even so, a great time was had by all. John still has the best skills for identifying mystery wines and the Sav Blanc was the overall favorite even though I preferred the Wolf Blass Chardonnay.
Next time its our turn to host and our theme will be Wines of the World. I think we'll stick to reds.

History in the making...

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:59:00 +0000

It's not quite the Berlin Wall, but we finally tore down the wall in our basement and man does it open the area up. Have a look at the drama in the house journal.

Drywall

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:37:00 +0000

My dad, Kelly's dad and I spent the weekend drywalling. Here's pics.

Blood Diamond

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:14:00 +0000

Saturday Trevor and I went and finally saw Blood Diamond. I was blown away. What an excellent movie, definitely the best I've seen this year (narrowly beating out The Departed and, by a slightly larger margin, Babel)
First of all, on a superficial level, the movie had a great story, good action, and amazing visuals.
Looking deeper, I thought Leo DiCaprio's performance was incredible. Me not knowing any different, I thought his accent was very good. At times I found myself remembering that this guy was a famous actor, I had forgotten. I think that's a pretty good indication of a convincing performance.

Finally, all the supporting characters were all excellent as well. For a story with so much going on, it held together quite well.

If I had to make a negative comment (which i feel I do, just because I can) it's that the phone call between Danny and Maddy near the end was kinda sappy. That's all.

Pursuit of Happyness

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:32:00 +0000

Saturday night Meg and I went and saw Pursuit of Happyness. Maybe I'm just cold and heartless, but I didn't think it was as sensational as everyone says it was. I mean it was really good and made me thankful for all I have and so on, but it didn't really stand out for any reason. Will Smith's son was pretty cute I guess...

Babel

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:17:00 +0000

Kelly and I went to see Babel on Monday night and here's what i think. It was definitely a great movie, very interesting, very moving, and very powerful. It was a revealing look at different cultures and how they are often misunderstood. I don't know if I would give it any Oscars, but I guess they're lucky that that's not my decision. Anyway, great movie, go see it.