In my previous blog, it seems like people are fighting over who induced me to leave ON in the first place... truth be told guys, I made up my mind years ago, on my own. So there.... but I still wonder every week what my friends are up to back in ON, now that I am not around to bear witness. *grin*
Nov 3 - Square Starts
It's a Monday, and it's been a while since I've written about, well... Mondays. Seems that most anyone you ask has an opinion on the subject of Monday; it seems to elicit a very strong response in most people when asked. One can imagine why ... though I try not to get the image of a cubicle dweller trudging into a corporate office
on a rainy monday for another day of dull meetings and bad coffee. This video seems to sum things up for such folk quite nicely.
This fellow seems to love mondays though: HappyJoblessGuy.com, whose article was written around the same time I arrived in Victoria last year. Since I already had a job waiting for me here on arrival, I was less worried than most about raiding my savings until I managed to land a job.
I wonder what Mondays are like in Second Life, that virtual world where you can design and be anything you want, from a talking fire hydrant to a sentient stapler. I would hope that there is not a single cubicle farm to be found in the whole place, save as dungeons to be navigated by the very brave...
Nov 4 - Flu for Me, Flu for You!
I went to the doctor's office just down the road today and got a free Flu shot, as I both work with the public( ick )and have Thalessemia Minor, so the more help I give my immune system, the better. Now, I have heard several detractors argue that it iss better not to get the Flu shot, to 'build up your defences naturally' or 'It doesn't work, I got sick anyway' or just plain old "I don't want to.' Well, I have to say that these folks are fools. The WHO gets together every year after tracking influenza strains from Asia, to devise countermeasures for this upcoming cold season. Why is it we HAVE a cold and flue season anyway? Two words: world travel. You have a look here for some useful common answers to flu season questions, as well as looking here for the whole reason we HAVE flu shots: The Spanish Flu that killed close to 100 million people( est. )from 1918-1920. Back then, a flu shot would have saved millions of lives, and people would have paid fortunes for a shot, wheras today it's free or cheap.
Continuing the thoughts from yesterday, I had a great conversation with some folks in the doctor's lobby after I had had my flu shot. The one gentleman was in his 80's, and was curious as to 'my generation's' habits towards savings, considering he had lived through the Great Depression where a penny saved WAS a penny earned. I replied that today, most people are living well beyond their means, depending on credit to extend their purchasing power far beyond their actual paycheques. As an example, I mentioned all those gas-guzzling trucks sitting by the roadside 'For Sale by Owner Cheap!' that have been seen in recent months as the gas prices climbed - I bet their former owners are feeling a bit put out now that gas has fallen again, but still, the point remains: they thought the best thing was to sell, rather than try to come up with 50% more operating costs per month.
That's the thing: Monthly Income. I'd wager that most people know exactly what net dollars they pull in, on average, every month. So they juggle, cajole and tweak their budgets to allow food, shelter, transport and such other necessities... then spend all of the rest on cableTV, entertainment and new clothes. Or whatever. Saving part of every paychque seems to be an alien thought to most, though some see the advantage of socking away RRSP's for the far future as well as more immediate tax gains. Happily, I can report that just recently it was revealed that Victoria has the lowest jobless rate in Canada... which is odd, seeing as we also have a very high number of homeless here too, many of which are embroiled in fights over camping in public parks. It's a strange world we live in.
Nov 5 - Woden's Day and Magic Pans
Continuing my thoughts on Days of the Week, we have today: Wednesday, also known popularly as 'Hump Day' ... the middle of the week, and a day nobody really looks forward to at all. Well, I used to, when it was Kilt Day, also Cheap Wings At The Kilt Day, $2.50 Pints Day, and even Cheap Mussels Day.... all of the previous being eat-cheap nights at the Kilt & Clover in Port Dalhousie. Ah, those were the days, all behind me now though I do not regret the undercooked mussels or wings, some of those nights.
Back to the Days of the Week though. This modern calendar we have is rather interesting, in that the names of the days are all descended from various special observances by past cultures. My favourite is Saturday, most obviously because it comes after Friday, and also for the fact that it is named for the Roman god Saturn, and not one of the Anglo-Saxon deities such as Thor, like Thursday / Thor's Day. Those reasons, plus all those great Saturday morning cartoons from my youth... ah, wasted TV time.
Speaking of my youth, does anyone else remember going to a restaurant called The Magic Pan? They had quite a few outlets in the 80's in Hamilton and Toronto, byut had vanished well before the end of the decade. After much searching, I located this great bit of Magic Pan info, by a professor no less. I really loved those Monte Cristo sandwiches from the M.Pan in Sherway Gardens, they were so tasty! Only much later did I come to discover they were not named afer the famous story of the same name.
Nov 6 - What was that word?
Still working nine-hour shifts this month, and to be honest I enjoy them. No need to swap things over to someone else starting their shift at all; just open the store, do the day thing, close the store and go home. Nice and simple, and far less stressful in some ways. Again, I do not have a problem with working alone, which doevetails nicely with my being able to live on my own, in a new city, with only a few contacts after a year on this strange soil. Still Canada though, so that's something... I cannot imagine uprooting myself to a country where English was not the major language, or where I could not find a reasonable fascimile of a Tim Horton's or a Canadian Tire... heck, even a Walmart would do, evil as they are.
Today I discovered this great blog about some one else who has been writing about their experiences in Victoria, and best of all... they have LOTS of pictures! Seeing as I am still working on my own photo projects( that never get too far, of late )then in the interim: I urge you to go have a look!
I also found UnWord.com, a place that I did not know I have been searching for all these years. Now I can finally find a home for all the words I have made up in my head over the years, like Splink, or Tworp( already there, darn it! )and even Guzooloo... me so hapy! Damn... now I'm reegressiinng. Have to breaktake now...
Nov 7 - Focus, people!
I was very disappointed today in my new laptop, more specifically it's 64-bit Vista OS. After enduring a massive 2gb download and a long install procedure to get a program working, a little box popped up with 'Sorry, this product is not designed for a 64-bit operating system' - argh! I was trying to get my rather expensive copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking v9 to work on my laptop, so I can increase my typing speed as well as spare my fingers from my odd typing style.
At the moment, I am foundering a bit for my tech writing, as Cyberwalker has shut down new articles for the forseeable future. Nothing but good news for Andy Walker, but not so good for getting any of my articles out to the public... so understandably, I am a little adrift on that front. I had a great time working with the team though, and hope that I can be on the inside for any future projects they create.
Which just means I have more time to focus my efforts elsewhere, like voice acting and writing novels. Heck, the old 'lemons make lemonade' slogan comes to mind, though of late I have switched to iced tea... which is still too acidic for my poor cola-crippled stomach to handle. Root beer for now, folks.
Nov 8 - Butchart Gardens
The time change has me getting up earlier, for some reason, so I have put the 'extra' time to good use, like today: early laundry! One surefire way to get an empty laundry room is to get there BEFORE anyone else, so I spent the morning running loads of clothes up and down the stairs. Seems folk are reluctant to trade quality weekend sleep-in time for convenice, which worked out well for me.
I was off to Butchart Gardens at 1pm today, in the company of my parents, who have already been to this garden wonderland several times. Never having been before, I envisioned something like a larger version of Niagara's Botanical Gardens - boy, was I wrong! You can see in this video what an amazing place it is, built initially on an old quarry and owned by the same family for over 100 years, it is obvious that generations of hard work have gone into every inch of the grounds. The sun cooperated today too, giving us fair illumination through some cloud cover for most of the day - my first view of the Quarry Garden was in full sunlight, and I have to say it was simply... spectacular.
Yet it was the Japanese gardens that stopped me in my tracks, though for a reason not likely to snap other people out of their reality. The entrance to the gardens was flanked by giant Japanese cedar trees, whose leaves were being gently blown by a light breeze. They were floating to the ground in perfect clusters, filling the air with fluttering continuous motion - tree snow, as I called it. What made me blink was that this was the SAME image that my favourite game, Neverwinter, uses in some of its most perfect animations. I had a sense of deja-vu in seeing those leaves fall, as I experienced the same sense of perfect peace then as I did onscreen - damned strange, and damned delightful, all at once.
Sadly, I have no pictures of the Gardens, as my parents forgot to bring our camera today even with my reminder of the day before. Just goes to show I need one of my own if I am to document my trips!
Nov 9 - The Salmon Run
Just after Rene called me today, I was on the road today again at 11am and heading north and west to Goldstream Park, where the annual Salmon Run was underway. No, it wasn't a marathon( hi Lucas! )but is instead the annual spawning of the pacific salmon, in their many thousands. I drove along the Malahat Highway for a ways, deep under the incredibly tall green trees perched on the sheer cliffs all around. Getting close to the park, we noticed hordes of people doing the same thing - well, maybe not hordes, but quite a few folk were out today. We managed to secure a parking spot fairly quickly at a point well along from the park entrance; the walk was lovely in the absence of rain and a semi-cloudy / semi-sunny noon-hour.
The first thing I noticed was the smell: anyone who has visited a fishery or been down to the docks when the fishing fleet is in would have recognized this distinct stink: dead fish. We took up a viewing spot on the single bridge across the stream, and took in the sight of hundreds of salmon trying to make their way upstream. Dozens of rotting carcasses dotting the stream sides attested to the difficulty of the task, and the shrieks of the many gulls looking for freshly-expired salmon added to the charm. Once we got used to the stink however, we could more easily appreciate the efforts of the fish to make their way through the very shallow water, only inches deep across most parts of the stream.
I would have posted a few nice pictures, but yet again the high-res camera was left behind by my parents, despite my reminders this morning; I was very annoyed for a good part of the day. Even so, the dark mottled colouring of the salmon meant that they were very hard to see against the rocks of the streambed, so the light and angle had to be just right for anyone to get a nice composition.
We had lunch afterwards at the Malahat Mountain Inn, whose spectacular view was very limited initially by the vast cloud bank that had rolled into the area. Fortunately it cleared somewhat after lunch, and we were treated to a misty view of the Finlayson Arm branching northwards.
After an afternoon of reading, chores and video games, I was sitting here at 8:30 when I realized I had spent well over an hour crafting this blog - it's great! Setting down my thoughts like this is far better than a journal, in that I am not trying to document washing socks or what I had for breakfast. Instead, I can let out some of my many interests, as well as filling in folk on the Great Things that I am discovering out here in Victoria every day...
So, do you like... socks? Until next week!
Jen, are you still out there? In all the ninjas, spiders and scheming school chums, your voice was the lone spotlight of reason in an insane Commentary... come back and spin your wondrous words! Aw hell.. now I'm spouting spider-rhetoric! Argh!
Nov 3 - Square Starts
It's a Monday, and it's been a while since I've written about, well... Mondays. Seems that most anyone you ask has an opinion on the subject of Monday; it seems to elicit a very strong response in most people when asked. One can imagine why ... though I try not to get the image of a cubicle dweller trudging into a corporate office
on a rainy monday for another day of dull meetings and bad coffee. This video seems to sum things up for such folk quite nicely.This fellow seems to love mondays though: HappyJoblessGuy.com, whose article was written around the same time I arrived in Victoria last year. Since I already had a job waiting for me here on arrival, I was less worried than most about raiding my savings until I managed to land a job.
I wonder what Mondays are like in Second Life, that virtual world where you can design and be anything you want, from a talking fire hydrant to a sentient stapler. I would hope that there is not a single cubicle farm to be found in the whole place, save as dungeons to be navigated by the very brave...
Nov 4 - Flu for Me, Flu for You!
I went to the doctor's office just down the road today and got a free Flu shot, as I both work with the public( ick )and have Thalessemia Minor, so the more help I give my immune system, the better. Now, I have heard several detractors argue that it iss better not to get the Flu shot, to 'build up your defences naturally' or 'It doesn't work, I got sick anyway' or just plain old "I don't want to.' Well, I have to say that these folks are fools. The WHO gets together every year after tracking influenza strains from Asia, to devise countermeasures for this upcoming cold season. Why is it we HAVE a cold and flue season anyway? Two words: world travel. You have a look here for some useful common answers to flu season questions, as well as looking here for the whole reason we HAVE flu shots: The Spanish Flu that killed close to 100 million people( est. )from 1918-1920. Back then, a flu shot would have saved millions of lives, and people would have paid fortunes for a shot, wheras today it's free or cheap.
Continuing the thoughts from yesterday, I had a great conversation with some folks in the doctor's lobby after I had had my flu shot. The one gentleman was in his 80's, and was curious as to 'my generation's' habits towards savings, considering he had lived through the Great Depression where a penny saved WAS a penny earned. I replied that today, most people are living well beyond their means, depending on credit to extend their purchasing power far beyond their actual paycheques. As an example, I mentioned all those gas-guzzling trucks sitting by the roadside 'For Sale by Owner Cheap!' that have been seen in recent months as the gas prices climbed - I bet their former owners are feeling a bit put out now that gas has fallen again, but still, the point remains: they thought the best thing was to sell, rather than try to come up with 50% more operating costs per month.
That's the thing: Monthly Income. I'd wager that most people know exactly what net dollars they pull in, on average, every month. So they juggle, cajole and tweak their budgets to allow food, shelter, transport and such other necessities... then spend all of the rest on cableTV, entertainment and new clothes. Or whatever. Saving part of every paychque seems to be an alien thought to most, though some see the advantage of socking away RRSP's for the far future as well as more immediate tax gains. Happily, I can report that just recently it was revealed that Victoria has the lowest jobless rate in Canada... which is odd, seeing as we also have a very high number of homeless here too, many of which are embroiled in fights over camping in public parks. It's a strange world we live in.
Nov 5 - Woden's Day and Magic Pans
Continuing my thoughts on Days of the Week, we have today: Wednesday, also known popularly as 'Hump Day' ... the middle of the week, and a day nobody really looks forward to at all. Well, I used to, when it was Kilt Day, also Cheap Wings At The Kilt Day, $2.50 Pints Day, and even Cheap Mussels Day.... all of the previous being eat-cheap nights at the Kilt & Clover in Port Dalhousie. Ah, those were the days, all behind me now though I do not regret the undercooked mussels or wings, some of those nights.
Back to the Days of the Week though. This modern calendar we have is rather interesting, in that the names of the days are all descended from various special observances by past cultures. My favourite is Saturday, most obviously because it comes after Friday, and also for the fact that it is named for the Roman god Saturn, and not one of the Anglo-Saxon deities such as Thor, like Thursday / Thor's Day. Those reasons, plus all those great Saturday morning cartoons from my youth... ah, wasted TV time.
Speaking of my youth, does anyone else remember going to a restaurant called The Magic Pan? They had quite a few outlets in the 80's in Hamilton and Toronto, byut had vanished well before the end of the decade. After much searching, I located this great bit of Magic Pan info, by a professor no less. I really loved those Monte Cristo sandwiches from the M.Pan in Sherway Gardens, they were so tasty! Only much later did I come to discover they were not named afer the famous story of the same name.
Nov 6 - What was that word?
Still working nine-hour shifts this month, and to be honest I enjoy them. No need to swap things over to someone else starting their shift at all; just open the store, do the day thing, close the store and go home. Nice and simple, and far less stressful in some ways. Again, I do not have a problem with working alone, which doevetails nicely with my being able to live on my own, in a new city, with only a few contacts after a year on this strange soil. Still Canada though, so that's something... I cannot imagine uprooting myself to a country where English was not the major language, or where I could not find a reasonable fascimile of a Tim Horton's or a Canadian Tire... heck, even a Walmart would do, evil as they are.
Today I discovered this great blog about some one else who has been writing about their experiences in Victoria, and best of all... they have LOTS of pictures! Seeing as I am still working on my own photo projects( that never get too far, of late )then in the interim: I urge you to go have a look!
I also found UnWord.com, a place that I did not know I have been searching for all these years. Now I can finally find a home for all the words I have made up in my head over the years, like Splink, or Tworp( already there, darn it! )and even Guzooloo... me so hapy! Damn... now I'm reegressiinng. Have to breaktake now...
Nov 7 - Focus, people!
I was very disappointed today in my new laptop, more specifically it's 64-bit Vista OS. After enduring a massive 2gb download and a long install procedure to get a program working, a little box popped up with 'Sorry, this product is not designed for a 64-bit operating system' - argh! I was trying to get my rather expensive copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking v9 to work on my laptop, so I can increase my typing speed as well as spare my fingers from my odd typing style.
At the moment, I am foundering a bit for my tech writing, as Cyberwalker has shut down new articles for the forseeable future. Nothing but good news for Andy Walker, but not so good for getting any of my articles out to the public... so understandably, I am a little adrift on that front. I had a great time working with the team though, and hope that I can be on the inside for any future projects they create.
Which just means I have more time to focus my efforts elsewhere, like voice acting and writing novels. Heck, the old 'lemons make lemonade' slogan comes to mind, though of late I have switched to iced tea... which is still too acidic for my poor cola-crippled stomach to handle. Root beer for now, folks.
Nov 8 - Butchart Gardens
The time change has me getting up earlier, for some reason, so I have put the 'extra' time to good use, like today: early laundry! One surefire way to get an empty laundry room is to get there BEFORE anyone else, so I spent the morning running loads of clothes up and down the stairs. Seems folk are reluctant to trade quality weekend sleep-in time for convenice, which worked out well for me.
I was off to Butchart Gardens at 1pm today, in the company of my parents, who have already been to this garden wonderland several times. Never having been before, I envisioned something like a larger version of Niagara's Botanical Gardens - boy, was I wrong! You can see in this video what an amazing place it is, built initially on an old quarry and owned by the same family for over 100 years, it is obvious that generations of hard work have gone into every inch of the grounds. The sun cooperated today too, giving us fair illumination through some cloud cover for most of the day - my first view of the Quarry Garden was in full sunlight, and I have to say it was simply... spectacular.
Yet it was the Japanese gardens that stopped me in my tracks, though for a reason not likely to snap other people out of their reality. The entrance to the gardens was flanked by giant Japanese cedar trees, whose leaves were being gently blown by a light breeze. They were floating to the ground in perfect clusters, filling the air with fluttering continuous motion - tree snow, as I called it. What made me blink was that this was the SAME image that my favourite game, Neverwinter, uses in some of its most perfect animations. I had a sense of deja-vu in seeing those leaves fall, as I experienced the same sense of perfect peace then as I did onscreen - damned strange, and damned delightful, all at once.
Sadly, I have no pictures of the Gardens, as my parents forgot to bring our camera today even with my reminder of the day before. Just goes to show I need one of my own if I am to document my trips!
Nov 9 - The Salmon Run
Just after Rene called me today, I was on the road today again at 11am and heading north and west to Goldstream Park, where the annual Salmon Run was underway. No, it wasn't a marathon( hi Lucas! )but is instead the annual spawning of the pacific salmon, in their many thousands. I drove along the Malahat Highway for a ways, deep under the incredibly tall green trees perched on the sheer cliffs all around. Getting close to the park, we noticed hordes of people doing the same thing - well, maybe not hordes, but quite a few folk were out today. We managed to secure a parking spot fairly quickly at a point well along from the park entrance; the walk was lovely in the absence of rain and a semi-cloudy / semi-sunny noon-hour.
The first thing I noticed was the smell: anyone who has visited a fishery or been down to the docks when the fishing fleet is in would have recognized this distinct stink: dead fish. We took up a viewing spot on the single bridge across the stream, and took in the sight of hundreds of salmon trying to make their way upstream. Dozens of rotting carcasses dotting the stream sides attested to the difficulty of the task, and the shrieks of the many gulls looking for freshly-expired salmon added to the charm. Once we got used to the stink however, we could more easily appreciate the efforts of the fish to make their way through the very shallow water, only inches deep across most parts of the stream.
I would have posted a few nice pictures, but yet again the high-res camera was left behind by my parents, despite my reminders this morning; I was very annoyed for a good part of the day. Even so, the dark mottled colouring of the salmon meant that they were very hard to see against the rocks of the streambed, so the light and angle had to be just right for anyone to get a nice composition.
We had lunch afterwards at the Malahat Mountain Inn, whose spectacular view was very limited initially by the vast cloud bank that had rolled into the area. Fortunately it cleared somewhat after lunch, and we were treated to a misty view of the Finlayson Arm branching northwards.
After an afternoon of reading, chores and video games, I was sitting here at 8:30 when I realized I had spent well over an hour crafting this blog - it's great! Setting down my thoughts like this is far better than a journal, in that I am not trying to document washing socks or what I had for breakfast. Instead, I can let out some of my many interests, as well as filling in folk on the Great Things that I am discovering out here in Victoria every day...
So, do you like... socks? Until next week!
Jen, are you still out there? In all the ninjas, spiders and scheming school chums, your voice was the lone spotlight of reason in an insane Commentary... come back and spin your wondrous words! Aw hell.. now I'm spouting spider-rhetoric! Argh!
1 comment:
Don't forget Monday night movies with Ethan and Paul! A cod piece with 4 skins is only $7.95 ; )
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