Operations, Overhaul and Observation

I'm off ALL week, just at home recuperating. Feel free to call... that's why I've kept my local 935 Niagara number. :-)

May 25 - Cutaway Coolness

I found a great interview with one of my more favourite actors, Greg Grunberg of Heroes and Alias fame. While he's no Brando, I find his likable everyman personality very fresh in today's overly media-savvy acting world, and it is evidenced in the online interview. Still, cool is as cool does, and that guy's cool.

A week today, the second season of Tank Overhaul starts on The History Channel, which I enjoyed watching last year. When I was younger, I loved cutaway-style drawings of any kind of vehicle, especially military or of course, SciFi. One of these hard-to-find posters has been hanging on my wall for over a decade now, taking pride of place. I kind of like this one too... and this site has a ton of blueprints, some of which I still own. I even drew a cutaway of the Jupiter2 from Lost in Space way back in the day, but this version is the one I wish I'd been able to draw.

One of my projects this coming vacation week is to scan in some of the drawings I've saved from my youth, preserving them digitally in case something should happen to the originals. Along with scanning in some family photos, plus other things... I may even get to some writing, if I feel up to it. Neil Gaiman shared some great insight on the writing process in this blog entry recently, similar to the Four Myths of Writing.

May 26 - Wedding Magazines?

I used to collect certain magazines years ago( no, not those kind! )but things tapered off once the internet really got going: more timely information, fewer ads and no searching for articles among dozens of look-alike back issues. The modern magazine is changing too: more and more and going online, releasing themselves in a variety of formats, most often using the ubiquitous PDF format. One such mag is Up!Magazine, whose May issue has a section on Niagara - interesting, as it portrays the area from a new perspective that you don't get as a resident. It is a large-ish download though, so wait for the link to load fully.

Things are on track for my upcoming visit to Niagara in early August for Shawna & Nigel's wedding - I officially have the time booked off work, I have a place to snooze and the tickets are in the works. Now all I have to do is wait for my final ticket costs and plan on details like a car, meals and What To Do while I am there. Though I have a feeling that this time, like last time, is going to be very, very busy!

May 27 - Squirrel Trailers

These days, anyone with some talent and time can create the most amazing things - many of them posted to YouTube. Fan trailers have proven especially popular for upcoming films, a trend started back in 1998 when someone edited together scenes from Braveheart and previous Star Wars films, popped in some lightsabers and presto: an instant 'trailer' for the upcoming Phantom Menace film. Things have come a long, long way since, as evidenced by this fantastic fan-made trailer for Green Lantern, which features Nathan Filion of Firefly fame and fan fanaticism frolicking in fine form fighting foes. Fhew!

Oh, for some few millions in cash just laying around, waiting to be spent: for those of you with such funds, then you may be thrilled to learn that the house from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Cameron Frye's home, is up for sale. The famous glass-and-steel garage that housed Cameron's father's Ferrari before it was launched in reverse out the window can be yours for less than $2.5 million USD.

And I wonder if this squirrel was thinking 'Bacon!' when it went to all that trouble? Maybe he got it confused with Squirrel Bacon...

May 28 - The Night Before

While I am not a fan, I do find The Day After Tomorrow a re-watchable film - the SFX are decent, as is the acting, and the premise is plausible enough for a film, if not real life. It IS entertainment, after all. There was a recent listing on io9.com of the Top 10 Eco-Catastrophes from early SF, which I found enlightening, being the fan of apocalyptic stories that I am. Emptyworld.com is a cool place to go for All Things Apocalyptic, though it hasn't been updated in 2 years... perhaps a sign that it too, has fallen victim to the GEC - maybe you'd best get a copy of Apocalypse How, now.

In case there is a disaster, a new program from Microsoft may save your hide - it surprised me to learn about it too. Called VINE, it is based on the premised that in an emergency, your message HAS to get through. By text, email, phone call or other means, it would allow people to have vital information communicated to friends, colleagues and family members in case of disaster - when the lines are busy or down, VINE may prove its worth and save some lives. Much as Google Earth and Craigslist did for victims of Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

I spent a good portion of the later hours of the evening writing down some important things, as I had been doing for the last few months. As most of you will already know, I like being prepared, so I prepped notes to various people in case the worst happened. Not that I expected such, but then I never expected to need this surgery in the first place... and I hate loose ends, in both my stories and in real life. How many of you out there reading this have life insurance? What about a will? Letters to family and friends? Any of that recently updated with changes in your life?

May 29 - Operation Day

Up and out the day early today - I had to be at the Sannich Peninsula Hospital for a 9am check-in before my operation. The hospital was a lovely low-slung affair in a country setting: green fields, trees and sunshine surrounded the place and were visible from most every room in the place. It was a bit confusing at the main entrance though; a lack of signage made getting around confusing until we found a nurse to point the way. After that, it was easy - who needs signs, anyway?

Prep for the operation was practically painless too. The nurse who put in my IV line had been doing it for 30 years, and it showed in the fact I didn't feel a thing as she plunked in the needle. I passed the time before the operation talking with a fellow by the name of Gabe in the next bed, who was in for the same gall bladder removal operation, referred to as Laparoscopic surgey or a cholecystectomy. There is an informative 3D CGI video about the procedure here... which I found after the surgery, naturally.

I was surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing, right up to being wheeled into the surgical area. The doctors and nurses were all very cheerful and talkative as I lay on the gurney in the waiting room and outside the surgical area, and again as I was lifted onto the operating table. A few short sentences exchanged with the anesthetist and I was out - I woke up after 1pm in the recovery room with a store throat from the breathing tube plus( obviously )a sore stomach.

From there, I dozed on and off until about 3pm, when I felt clear-headed enough and strong enough to get dressed and get myself discharged. I must admit I felt better than Gabe, who was still woozy in the bed next to me but conscious enough to wish me a speedy recovery, which I returned right back at him. Apparently his wife was in hospital the same day for some complicated oral surgery, so they would both need rides home. I wobbled out to the car and endured the rough(-er)roads until we made it to the smooth highway. We were quickly home and I was settled onto the couch, where I again dozed on and off until dinner, when some soup brought me back some energy. T'bed early, with no pain to speak of, just discomfort like I'd over-exercised my stomach.

May 30 - Recovery Day One

Today went as well as I thought, considering I only managed about 4-5 hours of sleep at a 45-degree angle favouring my stomach. I always know when I have had enough sleep: I come awake straight away, not groggy as when one is awakened BY an alarm clock. With the sun coming up earlier around 6am, the rising light tends to pull me out of bed against my will. The surgery has left me with 4 bandages on my stomach covering the small incisions, and my whole belly feels... tight. Like the feeling you get when you've eaten too much, but without the accompanying bloated pressure - odd. I have to be careful not to move using my abdominal muscles, so sitting up is a measure of leverage using my arms and a cane - tricky but manageable.

Being housebound, I had a fun time just relaxing - the weather here has been perfect so far. Sunny, with a cooling breeze blowing off the lake to the north has made the deck out back the perfect place to recuperate. I've also enjoyed looking at tech alternatives to home care: this photo gallery of robotic helpers was fascinating, as all of them are currently available on today's market. Reminds me a bit of the Omnibot2000 robot from Hasbro from the 80's, which was really just a glorified remote control toy... but I really, really wanted one anyway. Perhaps an early sign of geekdom, for some.

Last Saturday I saw the new Star Trek film at a matinee, but this week there was no way I was going anywhere today. I did run across this interesting piece with some movie concept art for the new Trek film though - some really cool images there. Sadly, there are none of Uhura or Orion dancing girls.

May 31 - Recovery Day Two

I spent a good few hours on the deck again today, where it was quite sunny and warm - so much so that I had to find some shade fairly soon or overheat. A few hours went by rather peacefully reading and typing on the laptop before I had to retreat inside - the park next door struck again with some loud people arriving to fish. I didn't expect they caught anything; they yammered on and on at full volume about the most inane things imaginable, though I had to give them credit for not being vulgar. They were well-practiced at speaking every thought in their heads though... what happened to a quiet Sunday afternoon fishing?

Some Xbox360 time today was spent on Civilization: Revolutions, where I again learned the old video game mantra: Save Early, Save Often. Also, if you've played the game for a while, it may help you to browse through a strategy guide or two to see if there may be things you've missed discovering. Myself, I prefer to save looking at walkthroughs until the very last, when you've hit a wall in a game and it's either shelve it or solve it. Which doesn't often happen in shooter-style games like COD4 or the very popular Grand Theft Auto series - I have no intention of playing the latter, as neither gang violence nor urban speed racing appeal to me.

In the evening, I watched Hero Ships on The History Channel, profiling the battleship New Jersey. I must confess, I've always loved battleships, ever since I first saw them on television - I think that is why I also loved Star Blazers, which featured the Space Battleship Yamato. A recent web-only monthly series is now available online free from the StarBlazers.com website, and captures a good deal of the initial excitement I felt when I saw the original on TV as a kid.


Thanks for everyone for their well-wishes!! Sleep is a little easier now that I can lay flatter for longer periods, though I still seem to be overheating somewhat

Space, Sweepstakes and Sickness

Another late Monday update... my apologies, but I have been VERY preoccupied this week with my health and being damned busy besides. Still, this blog is important to me, so here we are...


Dec 1 - Overtime by the Dozen

Oi, what a day... and to think it was my day OFF too!

My first mistake was to volunteer to "help out for a few hours" at another branch in the morning. You know me, always willing to trade in my time for some O/T and help out my co-workers in the process - I hate having a day off knowing others are suffering for my lack of willingness to work.

So... that started the ball rolling. Things were going well, I worked from 10am to 2pm and decided to stay until 4pm to ensure the morning opener finished her shift on time.

Big mistake.

The computers went down at 3:55pm... hard. So hard that they were off for three hours... and this as the day suddenly got busier, which was totally unexpected.

So it was me and three other tellers, including the hapless opener, who had to deal with things. We had to do all of our transactions manually, while trying to ensure that the folks waiting to be served did not break into frenzies of impatience. Fortunately, only one customer of the whole lot had the smarm to remark "If your computers are down, why didn't you put a sign on the door?" ... at 4:30pm. I won't dignify his idiocy by recording my response here, as what I said summed up everyone's feelings remarkably well without being rude. Though it did cause the customer to roll his eyes.

After the horror show was said and done, I had worked 12 hours solid... on my day off. Most of it spent cursing our Internet provider, whose swiss-cheese service had taken even our helpdesk by surprise... and making it impossible to fix from their end of things. Yet after all that, the branch closed up and had no unusual errors in the transactions after all was said and done. Even the staff's attitude was positive, if exhausted - we'd all managed to keep each other smiling despite the stress.

Which is why I am still with this company - the people it hires are just incredible, most days, though all of us are human. Days like today show that we can all rise to the occasion by relying on each other. Though I relied on my bed to draw me quickly into a semi-coma as soon as I got home. Argh... as a sop to all those out there who hate tech support, I offer this questionnaire.

Dec 2 - Managing Things

I was rather bleary-eyed today for my 9-hour shift, no wonder given yesterday's excesses of energy-draining excitement( if you can call it that ). Still, some good news cometh:

Today I accepted the position of manager for my branch, which comes with a raise both in pay and responsibility. Given that the the corporate climate( ick, I feel dirty now )here in Victoria is MUCH more to my liking in several key ways compared to Niagara, I decided a few weeks ago to take the plunge. Our branch has been without a manager since late summer, so stepping into that role has been on my mind to take some of the stress off other managerial staff in the area. Considering that I have almost nine years experience with the company, it was an easier decision for me in some ways, though as always there is training to be done with any new position. I hope I can be as good a leader as I have been in other roles, but you can only find out these things by doing - like a weekly blog, fr'instance.

Once I fell onto the couch at home, I discovered a bit of good news: looks like the video game adaptation of Ghostbusters is finally a go! I have wanted to play a game-version of the movie ever since it game out, and have never been satisfied with all the low-budget pretenders that have shown up over the years. Considering that the entire original cast has signed on for the voice work, I have high hopes for this one to hit most of the marks... really. I do!

Dec 3 - Pick your Disease

After my usual 9-hour day, which went remarkably quickly, I headed out to another branch to help their newly-hired closer to, well, close the place up. Another few hours of O/T, which is always nice - seems to be a trend this week and for December in general. Once more thing I LOVE about B.C. is that after 8 hours of work, O/T is automatic - back in Niagara, O/T was only paid after jumping through flaming hoops while slathered in gasoline gel and while carrying road flares between your teeth. As in, not likely. Here, if the Need Is Dire, then people can actually HELP OUT and not leave their co-workers stranded knee-deep, especially during the double-whammy of busy December and Cold Season. Huzzah!

Towards the end of the evening, a middle-aged couple came in and began dealing with my co-worker. After a few minutes, she asked me to take over for her, as things got... complicated.

Turns out that the lady was in with her husband to set up an account for him again... as he was on disability for a mental condition I'd never heard of: frontio-temporal dementia, also referred to as 'Picks Disease' used to describe the common pathology.

Things like this scare the willies out of me, as they constitute some of the many blindside-horrors that life can toss at you, like cancer, car crashes or randomly falling meteorites. There is no way to prepare oneself against the random, so listening to this woman's tale sent some shivers down my back, especially the part about how her husband's friends had all abandoned him over the last few years, unable to cope with his changing personality. They could no longer see the man they knew when dealing with him, even when informed about the way the disease was affecting his brain.

I hope I never have to experience that sort of situation. What would it be like, seeing someone you've known all your life turn into someone else, and have no way of knowing if the original person was still in there somewhere? Horror, folks... it takes many forms, and that is one of them for me.

For those of you with a little time on your hands, this site is chock-full of quizzes. Perhaps you may find some in there that challenge your sense of reality, morals, or just your spelling skills. Go see.

Dec 4 - Space Sickness

I've been watching the original Star Blazers animated series this last week, one episode in the morning during breakfast before work. I have to say I am enjoying it almost as much as I did when I was a kid, back when I was six years old and would run home from school so I could catch the last ten minutes of Star Blazers... it was grossly unfair that it showed every day at 3:30pm, I thought; why couldn't they bump The Smurfs and make it so I could see ALL of this amazing program? This was in the days before VCR's, so I actually had my dad rig a cassette recorder to catch the show while leaving the TV on, just so I could hear what had happened.

I think this helped develop my imagination / mind's eye, as I would sit there and listen with my eyes closed, creating the images in my head of the episode as the tape played. I still have one or two tapes as keepsakes... that's how much I loved Star Blazers, and it has stayed with me ever since. Now that I have the series( just the first of three, and none of the movies )on DVD, I am experiencing the show in a whole new way: visually. It's been thrilling, and I catch the odd flashback from those after-school days as scenes from thirty years ago flash past my eyes...

Today started out all right physically, but by mid-afternoon I was feeling the effects of the week catching up to me: lethargy and slight dizziness crept up on me so that by shift-end I was ready to go home. You know that feeling you get after one too many beers, when you turn and it takes a half-second for the rest of the room to catch up to you? That was me by the end of today's normal 9-hour shift... ick. Not that it helped that I was feeling nauseous too... my malfunctioning gall bladder does interesting things to my digestion sometimes, enough so that things don't always go smoothly - 'nuff said on that, save that when things go awry, it makes me wish all over again that I didn't have to eat at all. Yeah.

While at home tonight, after a small dinner that thankfully decided to co-operated with the plumbing and move along quietly, I StumbledUpon a few online sweepstakes sites. While I am not one to promote what amounts to blatant advertising grabs, I am not above perusing a few search results to find the most "bang for the buck" contests out there. Seems there are plenty of places doling out prizes online, though most require you to play various time-wasting Flash-based games and the like. I'll be trying out the other variety, where you enter your info but once a day towards larger prizes of several thousand dollars( or more ). I figure in those cases, I can spend a few minutes a day typing towards a prize... and not have to spend money every week on lottery tickets at all. Not that I do anyway... and we shall see how long it takes for the first junk mail to reach my mailbox.

Dec 5 - ReBarf

I made myself a nice breakfast today: eggs, pancakes, bacon, toast. Not too much of each, but definitely a feel good meal before what promised to be another long day at work. Big mistake... as an hour after eating, things got confused in the plumbing and wanted out again, the wrong way. It was as bad as my reactions earlier in the year, but I managed to hang tough until the feeling passed, if you'll pardon the pun - considering how I felt, I wasn't laughing. I meandered through work, trying to fight the urge to go cross-eyed at various times as things... bubbled. The after-lunch nausea wasn't so bad, but I ate my meal slowly over the course of an hour, so it slipped past unnoticed perhaps. Not an easy thing, dealing with customers while trying not to turn green and run away. Which, I suppose, is not an uncommon reaction in customer service...

At home, I checked in at ReBoot.com to see how things are progressing; the latest WebComic was up, and it's tight - since the creators of ReBoot are taking a strong hand in bringing the show back, the site's production values are stellar. I am excited to see what current CGI technology can do for a new series set in the Reboot universe, given that huge value for production dollars can now be had by combining today's CGI systems with the ReBoot visual style.

Dec 6 - Immortal Puns

Up early, did my laundry before work, which was great... ate a small breakfast too, just some cereal. Which caused only a small amount of nausea, but enough things aren't working per my manual's specs that I am looking forward to a doctor's appointment on Monday. I have a feeling that it is related to my gallstone condition, I hope - I don't need news that my intestines have decided to throw me for another loop.

Home and hungry, but considering my nausea I settled for a PBJ and crackers. I watched the clock, paying attention to my internal mutterings, and was relieved that after a few discontented gurgles, my offering of food was grudgingly accepted.

I relaxed before zzzz-time by re-reading part of an old favourite series by Piers Anthony, a favourite author of mine from.... well, as far back as I can recall. He wrote the many wonderful Xanth novels, which are famous for the puns included in each book that are sent in by fans; Anthony keeps careful track of each usage and credits them in the back of the book they appear in. How cool is that? So, back to what I was reading: Wielding A Red Sword, part of the Incarnations of Immortality series that Anthony wrote, which included the more famous On A Pale Horse, which of course dealt with Death - who had really only ever been looked at originally at the time by Terry Pratchett... but I digress.

The reason I bring up Wielding A Red Sword is that in the back of the book, Piers Anthony uses quite a few pages to catch up his fans on what has happened to him, the author, since his last book... and since this is in the days before even BBS systems, long before websites, I found it fascinating. Because really, what is it other than a blog? That thought really spun my brain, because twenty years ago there was nothing really available about authors save autobiographies... but here was an author who willingly took the time to catch his readers up on events in his and his family's life in every book! Amazing!

Dec 7 - Still Sickening Sunday

Damn.... I was hoping today would track close to the forecast, but the dratted clouds skittered away to leave a bright, sunny day. Not warm by any stretch of the imagination, but still lovely as long as one did not tarry in the shade. I saw several folk who were waiting for the bus just outside the branch window think better of doing it in the building's shadow and quickly walk back into the light. Sun-day!

Dinner was a larger one, as an experiment to tell the doctor about tomorrow: turkey with gravy, squash, peas and Brussels sprouts. Not too much of each, but the largest meal I have had this week. Sure enough, about 1.6 hours after I had eaten, I got the awful feeling that things were not progressing smoothly downstairs... and that things wanted to come back up for a second opinion. After another hour of will-vs-body, the feeling of nausea went away... but I'm still quite worried. It doesn't feeling like what I am used to concerning my usual digestive ticks, especially since I pay close attention to what my body tells me after the gallstone incident four years ago.

We will see what the doctor has to say in the morning; hopefully his diagnosis is that it is not a major problem... and that he actually knows WHAT the problem IS. And that it does not require any sort of medical treatment requiring a look inside; I hate the thought of sharp skin-slicing thingies.

Just to leave things on a not-so-dreary note, we have: the Elvish Name Generator... go on, give it a try. Apparently my name is 'Golradir Fëfalas' which means nothing to me, as I do not speak Tolkien's Sindarin. Which according to the site's FAQ, this isn't really based on. Which makes me like it all the more... in addition to the fact you can generate your Hobbit Name on the site too. Cute, t'is. Indeed.


I was saddened this week to learn that Jen has put her real estate career on hold; I hope it's a temporary thing. What with all the doom and gloom nowadays, I know I am tightening my own belt while looking towards the future... not that my RRSP's will be in any decent shape anytime soon FOR that future, but one has to hope. Comments?