The word of the week is beneficence.
November 26 - Ears and birthdays
Today was a milestone… a little early. As my sister was
leaving for Calgary tomorrow, my family went out today to celebrate my father's
65th birthday. It's been a long road getting to this point, to where both my
parents have reached retirement age and their pensions have kicked in… which
means I no longer really have to worry about them and can fully focus on my own
life, such as it is.
So it was a happy day; we went out to John's Place for lunch
and had a great time sitting in one of the rear booths, chatting happily about
the past and looking forward to the future. Even though it's very uncertain as
to what my sister and I will be doing job-wise right now, we both feel very
blessed to still have our two wonderful parents around and to have them both now come fully
into their retirement years.
But I almost missed the lunch: for the first time in my
life, I managed to get water stuck in both of my ears during my shower this morning.
How weird is that? I managed to clear my left
ear, but my right remained stubbornly plugged… and it was bad enough that I spent
most of my morning sitting at the walk-in clinic down the street. Fortunately
the doctor there was able to clear it up easily( if noisily )and said that I
was right to come in, as I'd never have been able to unplug it on my own.
I was all ears after that.
November 27 - The Hobbit Production Videos
Only a little over two weeks until December 14th, when the
first part of the Hobbit Trilogy( wow! )premieres!
I've started re-reading The Hobbit this week; it's been
years since I last sat down with the book and the feeling of wonder I had when
I first read it as a child is still fresh as I let the words run past on the
page.
The movie looks to be utterly fantastic, as it should: Peter
Jackson has applied all he learned on the LOTR movies to The Hobbit and I
expect to sit in blissful enchantment throughout each of the films. I've been
following along on the production videos since they first appeared and what's
on the screen looks truly incredible:
November 28 - Illusionary cough?
Somehow this week, I've developed a nervous cough. I've
never had one before.
My dad did as well, on and off, a few years ago. I firmly believe
it's due to stress, which is unsurprising given the lack of success I've had in
landing a job for the last half of this year.
My research so far has told me that it's psychosomatic more than anything else; if I don't think about the cough, I generally don’t. The tightness in my chest only appears when I'm thinking about things like jobs or money or suchlike that causes my breathing to constrict.
It's frustrating and embarrassing as it makes talking to people a halting process as I try not to wheeze and cough in their faces… just ordering a tea at Moka House today, I sounded like I was asthmatic. I've been concentrating on breathing exercises, staying calm and trying hard to maintain a positive perspective as I plug away at getting an employer to notice me. Just one will do, at this point and I hope that when I do get a call for an interview that this blasted wheeze will be a distant memory of yet another fading source of stress.
To distract myself, I found this neat video of illusory
anamorphic drawings - the very same type as those used in forced-perspective
chalk sidewalk drawings. Watch the video and be amazed as your eyes are fooled
by the simple interplay of colour and light:
November 29 - Giant Robots, for sale?
Robotech was my undoing; ever since I first saw a Veritech
fighter transform into a giant mecha, I've wanted a giant robot of my very own.
Heck, I'd have settled for one of the destroids, the non-transformable Macross
battle units - stomping around in something that big would have been just fine
in my adolescent books. But Robotech was fiction, trapped on the screen and in
people's imaginations.
But the dreams inspired more than a few people to think
about making giant robots a reality. Some of them actually came through with
it, albeit twenty-five years after the fact and on a much smaller scale. Kogoro
Kurata, Japanese maker of strange machines, is selling ride-in mechanical monsters starting at $1.3 million USD, but you'll need to pay extra for the
weapons and cup holder:
Also pretty neat: you can even custom-design a unit in 3D using their website too! If it could get up to a decent top speed with legs and do a
few cool diving moves like it was dodging missiles, I'd find a way to come up
with the $1.3 million as fast as I could. One can just imagine what an airsoft
or paintball tourney with a few of these things would be like!
November 30 - Joy in my life?
While I was ruminating on a lot of things this week, a
thought struck me that I'd not had before:
What about joy? Do I have any in my life?
It's not as easy an answer as you think. Happiness is not
joy, nor is it anywhere near contentment. When I think about the things I like
to do and that make me happy… there's not an abundance of them. Writing,
obviously, is up there, as is spending time with my family and friends. But beyond
that, things get a little murky… I don't get all sparkly walking on a beach, or
admiring artwork, or even watching the sun come out from behind the clouds.
It's astonishing to think about it, because the nearest thing I can come up
with, feelings-wise, is contentment or amusement.
Not joy, though.
I believe it's because I do a lot of thinking, all the time,
and tend to analyze things without regard for their innate nature. Sun on the
water, the dance of flowers in the wind… it's a rare thing that makes me break
out in a smile and to be honest, I haven't really tried to catalogue them; that
seems petty, somehow. All the same, it's a blind spot of mine that bears
watching, if only because I'd like to be blindsided by joy one of these days
and delight in the unexpected feeling as it happens.
Soon, I hope.
December 1 - Treehouses
If I could just find the perfect piece of land around here
with a solid tree on it, I'd build a treehouse in a heartbeat. A nice, solid
place to live with insulation, windows and hopefully a good view.
It's not too much to ask, really. Conventional homes aren't
nearly as fun as a treehouse, right?
But it's more than nailing a few boards in a tree and
putting a tarp over them; that looks like crap and is dangerous in so many
ways. Not to mention illegal. Where does one start, though?
Why not check out How To Build A Treehouse?
It's a tidy little site and reminds me a lot of the books I
found on treehouses when I was a kid, decades ago: simple and straightforward.
Perhaps it won't let you build a 1,000 sq-ft condo in the nearest Redwood tree,
but it's as good a place as I've seen to nail down some of the facts about
treehouses - pun intended. Oh, to dream…
December 2 - Adios, Amiga?
After years of hauling it around and barely using it, I
decided today to put my Amiga 2000 up for sale… and boy, there's a LOT of stuff
that goes along with it! Hundreds of diskettes, dozens of boxed games, manuals…
I hope that someone out there will appreciate what a bargain the lot really is.
 |
| You can't hear the floppy drives click in this picture... |
As painful as it is for me to admit, there's no point in
keeping the Amiga any longer. Technology has moved on in leaps and bounds since
the early 1990's and the games no longer appeal to me in any way save the
faintest tinge of nostalgia. In point of fact, I know that I can install an
emulator on my PC or even my Android tablet and run any one of hundreds of
Amiga games, if I wished. Emulators like Amiga Forever can give me my fix if I
so desire, for a nominal fee. But right now, I simply desire to clear some
space, hopefully make a little cash and let someone else bask in the ceaseless
click of the floppy drives as the beige beast of the Amiga spins up its 200mb
hard drive and Workbench kicks into operation. The feeling of nostalgia was
strong as I fiddled around with the system today and got it ready for auction…
knowing that the days when it was my primary computer were far less complicated
than the life I am living now, in many ways. Still, change is inevitable and
twenty years ago, my Amiga was in its glory.
We'll see by this time next week if anyone out there wants to get a little of that back again.
Last week of November: not one to remember. First days of
December: more memorable, I hope. Less waiting for a call and more being
proactive, hunting down companies I'd like to work for and presenting myself to
them in person, instead of on paper. Will Santa bring me the one thing I wish
for this year: a job? We shall see!
