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        <title>Crimson Cannonball: The Non-Blog of Jason Brink</title>
        <description><![CDATA[The online home of globe-trotting writer Jason Brink.]]></description>
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            <title>CrimsonCannonball.com - The Blog of Jason Brink</title>
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            <description><![CDATA[CrimsonCannonball.com - The Blog of Jason Brink]]></description>
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            <title>Coming Soon</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=120:coming-soon&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[ 
Hey Guys,
Look for lots of updates coming soon.  I have been working on a ton of new material, and will be posting all sorts of interesting things coming up in the next several weeks.  In the meantime, here is me with a Giant Mekong Catfish.  ~ Jason
http://www.bungsamran.com/en/ (http://www.bungsamran.com/en/)
 ]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:24:34 GMT</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Deep Waters</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=119:deep-waters&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[
I remember the feel of the springs in the pew through the thin weird burnt-orange-colored super-velvet upholstery.  In front of me were the hymnals full of songs I hated to hear sung and the Bibles full of texts I felt were constantly being tortured to make stupid points for stupid people.  I remember the way I used to slouch in the pew, allowing the corner of the book-holder to dig into my knee to keep me awake.  Sometimes I would take the pen from the pen-holder, gummy with months of leaked ink, and scribble subversive nonsense onto the back of the tithe envelopes, or draw rebellious little figures holding swords and shields or fire-breathing dragons.  Sometimes, I would draw maps of places that existed only in my mind, cobbling them together over Sabbath after Sabbath while cowering behind one of the massive slanted wooden pillars – escape maps to the countries in my mind.  Anytime I listened, I would feel frustration boil up in me when I heard Pastor Strunk drone on about some pointless legality or whistle one of his incredibly self-important songs.  I would see everyone sitting securely smug in the pew wearing their Sabbath-best and
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119:deep-waters&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:50:43 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>Musings of a Wondering Wanderer</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=118:musings-of-a-wondering-wanderer&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[
Note: I am starting to get e-mails from friends, family, and even a few strangers, all telling me they miss my writing and posting.  I figured I should probably put something up before people start showing up and looking for my body or something.  To those who have written, I am sorry I have not responded, I have been INCREDIBLY busy here lately.  This entry is cobbled together out of a bunch of half-starts, so sorry if it seems disjointed. 
 
Words flash before my eyes, burned into my memory.  Pictures built upon the pages from the minds of men who have long since turned to dust.  I have always read books, but in the past year I have upped the consumption of literature to an almost frightful level.  My entire library and more I had in the States has been rebuilt in PDF format upon the spinning magnetic disc of my hard drive.  Instead of turning pages, I let the PDF reader scroll the words of the book past my dancing eyes.  I have learned to consume the pages and soak up information like a
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=118:musings-of-a-wondering-wanderer&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:56:04 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>A Little Bit More About Rossini</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=117:a-little-bit-more-about-rossini&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This post isn't so much biographical or really about me in any way, shape, or form.  However, I do feel the need to share information I have stumbled across in my online meanderings in response to the rather tremendous interest one of my earlier posts generated.  You can find the original post, Painting By Rossini, here. (index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=71:painting-by-rossini&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4)
 
I have received dozens and dozens of emails and comments regarding this post, from people all over the world.  Everybody seems to have a similar painting, the signature is always the same, everybody seems to have purchased the paintings over the last fifty years or so (frequently at garage sales) and nobody seems to know anything.
 
In my initial research, I stumbled across Nicolas Rossini.  Very very little can be found about him, except that he was a polish painter who spent time in Italy (his father's homeland) painting.  During WWII he helped Jewish orphans escape Poland, and it was for this that he was executed by the Third Reich at the Kraków-P?aszów concentration camp in Poland...a particularly nasty camp, and
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117:a-little-bit-more-about-rossini&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2011 01:55:54 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>The Litany Against Fear</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=116:the-litany-against-fear&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[ 
“It is not power that corrupts, but fear,” writes Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize winner from Burma. This mirrors something I have been thinking of writing for some time, and have gone back and forth as to whether or not it is a good idea. It may very well be inadvisable socially, but I feel the need to say something, and so I shall. This was initially intended to be a daily book update on Freedom from Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi, but it spiraled out of control and became stratospherically disconnected from the initial point I was making – or rather the point itself moved from being a simple observation about a piece of literature and its relevance to education to a wholesale indictment of western apathy.
 
As I write this, I sit on the balcony outside my apartment in Saphan Khwai in the Bangkok. I have been here for some time now, and in this period of time I have begun to realize that while living on the Central Coast I was blinded in so many ways. I could not only not see the forest
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116:the-litany-against-fear&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:25:44 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>In the Shadow of the Field Marshal</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=112:in-the-shadow-of-the-field-marshal&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The first thing I noticed was the massive tropical-flower wreathes on easels surrounding the base of the monolithic statue of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat.  The statue stood on a small hill surrounded by the elaborate memorial wreathes and line after line of smartly dressed cadets and officers at the center of the Thai Army’s “Camp Thanarat.”  We walked in procession up to the base of the hill.  This procession was intended for the guests of honor at this occasion: one of Sarit’s sons, a few other relatives, and four of his grandchildren.  These grandchildren are good friends of mine, and I was honored to be invited to attend this event.  Somehow I ended up in this procession I had intended to dart off to the side as soon as we stopped, but when the  doors of the van opened there was no way for me to escape.  Hedged in on all sides by wreaths, soldiers, and other metal-bedecked people, I had no choice but to take a place in the
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112:in-the-shadow-of-the-field-marshal&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>Life on the Farm - A Visit With Old Mc'Brucey</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=109:life-on-the-farm-a-visit-with-old-mcbrucey&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[     “You know, its enough.  We don't have a lot, but its enough.” Bruce says as he mops his brow with his ever-present pink towel.  We sit on his front porch in bamboo chairs, watching the lightning crash down around us, our conversation dying out each time a bolt comes down nearby as we wait to feel the soul-shaking clap of the thunder inside out chests.  “Its not much, but by god, I am happy.  This country saved my life.”  Bruce said as he mops his dripping brow again, the tropical heat bearing down on all of us...sometimes life in Thailand is like being in a sweat lodge, only without the lodge and clear mountain lake with a rim of ice to jump into when we are done sweating.  The sweat part we have covered though.     “When I first came to Thailand I was miserable.  I had too much money for my own good but I hated my life.  Then I met Nitnoi,” Bruce reminisces.  “She had nothing, but she had everything I wanted,” he says, his eyes and voice heavy with emotion.  “If you ever find a
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=109:life-on-the-farm-a-visit-with-old-mcbrucey&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:10:14 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>The Land Where the Naga Sleeps</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=107:the-land-where-the-naga-sleeps&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Beneath the city, the seven-headed dragon slumbers.  Deep within its cave, curled around the heart of the earth, the primordial hero of the Lao people rests, waiting for the day it is needed again.  The last time the Naga slithered out from its subterranean lair was in 1828, when according to local legend it repulsed the invading Siamese army and helped the Lao people maintain their independence.Marking the age old entrance of this cave is a stupa rising out of the earth like a needle.  It is old, at least 500 years or so.  Its local name is “That Dam” (pronounced Tawt Dahm).  It is located in a lonely roundabout near the center of Vientiane.  While the road surrounding The Black Stupa is in good shape, the second you step onto the grounds surrounding the stupa you can see how into disrepair it has fallen.  It was originally covered in gold, but that was carted off back to Siam during the Siam-Lao war in the 1820s.  The dragon rose to protect the Lao people, but didn't have enough motivation to protect
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=107:the-land-where-the-naga-sleeps&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:06:50 GMT</pubDate>
            <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=107:the-land-where-the-naga-sleeps&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</guid>
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            <title>Force of Nature</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=106:force-of-nature&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Note: I wrote this about a week ago but have not had any sort of internet worthy of the name to post it...so its a big late, but here it is!  Ok...maybe the internet isn't quite worth the name, because I can't upload pictures...so use your imagination!The small wings of the finches beat furiously at the inside of their red cage.  Tiny clawed feet cling to the thin bamboo bars, a scrap of ribbon tied to the top as a handle.  The three cages were stacked one on top of one another on a small stool outside the Erawan shrine on Ratchadamri in Bangkok.  When I inquired of the woman sitting next to them, she told me I could buy a cage of birds for 400 THB....I did.  As I stood at the entrance to the shrine with my feet placed firmly on the smooth cobbles, holding in my hands the birdcage with the furious and frantic finches inside, I drew in a deep breath of the air; heavy with the smell of incense and thick with the prayers of penitents.   Slowly, I whisper my own personal meditations and slide the small red bamboo
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106:force-of-nature&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Sun, 29 Aug 2010 02:21:46 GMT</pubDate>
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            <title>Aman Iman</title>
            <link>http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=104:aman-iman&amp;catid=1:blog&amp;Itemid=4</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There is a certain amount of introspection that comes with watching the quiet rains fall, this is something I have felt throughout my entire life.  I remember being a child and playing in the backyard at my parents house...splashing through the puddles on the concrete shaped by my grandfathers hands...smooth and red-painted...watching the ripples spread from each minuscule droplet to race across the surface of the tiny puddles.  I remember standing in the rain at my parents house, watching the rainwater pool in the driveway and begin to race down the small ditch my father dug to the massive puddle at the end of the driveway.  I would make small boats out of popsicle sticks, drawing racing numbers on them and racing stripes with sharpies before sending then bobbing down the tiny flow towards the puddle at the end.  I remember standing in the gazebo in the Paso Robles City Park with a compilation CD I had so carefully made for my girlfriend at the time, standing there watching the rain drip from the eves.
Read more... (http://www.crimsoncannonball.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104:aman-iman&catid=1:blog&Itemid=4)]]></description>
            <author> info@crimsoncannonball.com (Jason Brink)</author>
            <pubDate>Sat, 07 Aug 2010 02:02:48 GMT</pubDate>
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