It seems the only Comments on this Blog come from spiders... isn't that odd?
Oct 27 - I wanna be ...
As you may have guessed, when I was a wee lad I wanted, like many boys, to be an astronaut... and a cowboy, but at that age I wasn't sure how I'd be able to balance two such involving careers. Now that I have been in the workforce for nigh unto twenty years, no time of which has been spent as either an astronaut or cowboy, I've gained a little perspective. Hard, hard work folks, that's what it takes to get into space, or to mend hundred-mile fences in Wyoming, for that matter. Still, just recently Sir Richard Garriott made a trip into space, which although still a very expensive trip is not entirely beyond the realm of rich civilians... which means that Space Trips for the Common Man are not all that far away, as this concept illustrates.
Oct 28 - Art thou?
I'm always fascinated by new art forms, though some tend to take things to extremes simply for the controversy they generate: remember the meat dress way back in 1987? In any case, I stumbled across this new( is it? )method of illustrating... with water. The way the image appears in moments with an application of ink is stunning, like some kind of CGI effect. I have made a note to pick up a copy of the graphic novel that this technique debuted in, Alan's War. Apparently it is quite a good read!
Not all art is created equal though. Oftentimes, when boredom and office supplies combine, you get this as a result. Somehow, I don't see it resulting in a gallery show, but I have to give credit to the creator of this site, for combining his love of Trek and ASCII... both somewhat dead forms of art, in their way.
Oct 29 - Bacon!
Are you ready for it?
Really ready?
May I present the ultimate sandwich spread: Baconnaise!
Yes. It's true! You can now have the smoky goodness of bacon on ANY sandwich, without the short shelf life and messy preparation that REAL bacon demands! Simply slice and spread, then enjoy... it reminds me of a product I absolutely loved in my teen years: Goober. Yes, it was peanut butter and jelly combined in ONE jar, with alternating stripes of jelly goodness and peanut butter crunch. Only the folks at Smucker's could have thought of such a thing - some of their other products are equally as unique, and delicious too!
Which leads to Unique Foods, a lovely Canadian website that has some great products - my fave is Stewart's Root Beer, which my local Thrifty's carries., along with a few of the many other Stewart's flavours. For which I am quite grateful, though the stuff is as much per bottle as a 2L container of A&W Root Beer. I'm not sure why I like root beer so much; the taste is something that I just don't get tired up. I've tried to like Doctor Pepper, Pepsi, Coca-Cola... well, I was a Coke fiend in high school, drinking a 2L of Coke every few days, but I had to stop when the acid levels started making my stomach react. Now, I can't even touch the stuff; it burns like real acid when I drink it. Not that I mind having root beer as a fave; root beer floats are just so much better than anything else. Dang; I have to go pour myself a glass after writing this!
Oct 30 - Acting Up
Perfect roles. These are what happens when an actor and a character combine to create a role that defines that character forevermore, and oftentimes typecasts the actor as JUST that role for the rest of their career. Examples that spring to mind are Leonard Nimoy and Spock, Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia, and Tom Baker as Doctor Who - read his fascinating bio. Of the many perfect roles out there, my secret fave is Tom Baker... he slipped into the role of The Doctor so perfectly that it was hard for me to imagine anyone else ever playing the character, despite the fact that there have been no less than seven different actors, the latest of whom was Christopher Eccleston. The manic grin, the long knit scarf and the mass of crazy hair all made Baker's Doctor a delight to watch on-screen, despite the low-budget special effects of the time and the oftentimes swiss-cheezy excuses for plots.
Or you could just get Uwe Boll to make another film, which is like asking the Star Wars Kid to be the next Luke Skywalker... it hurts even thinking about it.
Oct 31 - Spook Time!
I love halloween. There is just something about being able to dress up as something or someone OTHER than yourself, and go out into the world for one night when nobody looks twice at a ghoul, ghost goblin or other sight walking brazenly down the street. Well, no more than three looks, anyway.
Costumes are what it is all about, so every year I have a look for the latest, greatest and simply stunning costumes that people come up with. Many are from the worldwife Cosplay community, which draws inspiration from video games, anime and many other types of media, where people dress up like their favourite characters. Some are truly inspired, while others are... less so. Still, when you have fans who come up with almost perfect replicas of characters like Iron Man( here is the movie suit prop ) or Master Chief from Halo, one must recognize the incredible talent, time and hard work that goes into such creations. Too bad you can't really wear them out anywhere other than on Halloween or to conventions... but you could also see real exoskeletal suits sooner than you think!
Pumpkins are a traditional favourite for Halloween, and there are many amazing examples of the pumpkincarver's art online.
As for my day: I worked the evening shift... in costume. Seeing as nobody out here had seen my barbarian outfit( with goatee! )yet, I recycled it again for this year and it proved to be a hit! Many people asked me where I had "bought" it ... they couldn't believe that it was a cobbled-together outfit from different materials I had done myself. So that was nice to hear; makes me wonder what I can put together for next year? After work, I went for a walk with some of my pirate-themed neighbours around the neighbourhood here in Fairfield, which was damned quiet after 10pm; apparently the downtown is quite the zoo, and there are lots of parties all over town, but that wasn't my thing this year. It was enough to check out all the great Halloween decorations on many houses - see this and this as examples of the fine work people put into decorating this year.
We ended up wandering around the edges of the Ross Bay Cemetary, one of Canada's oldest and largest surviving Victorian-era cemetaries. We did not go in, as it was heavily patrolled by security tonight, for obvious reasons, plus they seemed rather heavy-handed and disinclined to allow anyone in at all. Still, it was fairly creepy, as any cemetary is a much different place in the dark and morseo on All Hallows Eve. Not being supersticious myself, I still felt a reluctance to wander amongst the dead on a night when all things supernatural are celebrated, in a tradition that has survived its origins from the Feast of Samhain started by the Celtic Druids over two milennia ago - more on that here.
Nov 1 - One Year in BC !!
Well, what to say? I've been here for a year, and I have to say this place now feels like home to me.
Some people would( and have )moved out here only to find shortly that they could not bear to be away from family, friends and familiar places. Several people I have worked with here in BC have done exactly that; unable to create a new life or reconcile it with their roots, they decided to return home and give up on trying to make something new here.
How am I finding it, my own experience here on the West Coast? Honestly, I would have to say that most days, I have no regrets. I knew moving out here would mean changes for me, in many ways, but I am surprised at how easy it was to settle in here, especially knowing that my parents were nearby enough to both keep an eye on and to help out as needed. Having a support network is vital, especially for one's mental balance; knowing that your nearest family is thousands of miles away would have been very hard on me, given that I have such a close relationship with my parents and sister - something I am extremely grateful for and try never to take for granted, knowing how rare such a thing is.
Personally, I have been pleased my my development outside of work, in that I have managed to well, manage my time better. As odd as it may sound, I am enjoying having more 'me' time to do with as I see fit - I had been annoyed back in ON that I never seemed to get the time I needed each day to get MY projects fully seen to. Indeed, I would not have been able to write this blog back in ON, I think, simply because I lacked both the time and the perspective to put the work INTO it. Having something NEW to say, every week, without retreading old topics, is a challenge I have enjoyed meeting this year.
Having my own place, unshared accommodations, is a change and a challenge as well. Not that I never had my own space, but the fact that I do not have to accommodate other's needs in my daily activities makes a difference in making the most of my time.
I think the hardest thing has been to be so far away from my friends. I've come to realize I have a LOT of friends, which is humbling when I really think about all the fantastic people I know and have known in my life. Listening to a few folk I have worked with and gone to school with, I now understand that most people tend to have a few good friends, some work/sports club/gaming associates, and those peripheral folk you run into in the mall once in a while and ask how their dog is doing. Since I make an ongoing effort never to categorize people as 'peripheral' and instead put everyone into 'friend' it has amazed me the number of fantastic folk I can include in my life. Well, included a little more often when I was back in ON, but you see my point. Not being a social butterfly, as well as being very able to spend quality time for hours with only myself as a conversationalist, I still find myself missing those weekly trips to the Kilt, or Steebs, or any of the innumerable fun things I did in Niagara.
Yet what did it add up to? I have to ask myself this, as I have perspective( yes, that word again )out here after a year now. The urban horror scenario of working at the same job, with no real room for advancement, doing the same things month after month, year after year... I am not sure if you can call it ambition, but perhaps better label it as a need for Change. Some years ago, quite a few in fact, I was struck by a sudden vision: a ten-year veteran of MMart, plugging away at night on a novel, hoping to be published, yet never feeling like I was accomplishing anything or getting any OTHER work or interests covered. Apart for the glow of friends and family support, one year would tend to seem like another.
So that was when I decided I needed a change. My parent's retirement was coming up, and considering all the incredible trials my family had been through up to that point, I was still unsure as to my own direction / habitation / general life plan. Thus, I dug in and started to seriously research places to live in Canada, with an eye towards new careers and / or affordability. After a lot of looking, I had settled on three places: Victoria, Edmonton or Calgary. The latter two were chosen for their rapid economic growth, and Edmonton as the location of BioWare, a game company I would have dearly loved to work for BEFORE they were bought by Electronic Arts - smart choice, not moving there after all!
Then the wheels were set in motion, slowly building up to my move date of Nov 1st 2007. And here I am, writing this blog a long, long way from where I grew up, in many senses of the phrase. Pleased, for all that, to be able to do so as I am.
Nov 2 - The Day After
Some thoughts brought on by another visit from the Crazy Lady... who astonishingly was NOT crazy today, though I thought I saw her head spin around once from the corner of my eye. Stressful? Yep.
After dealing with the public for as long as I have, I feel I have developed a decent understanding and cognant opinions of How People Tick. Apart from the need for food, shelter and emotional satsifaction, I find that many people can be( generally )categorized into either a) Nice people who CAN be nasty or b) Nasty people who can be nice. Nice people have their bad days, and a lot of people have thin skins, enough so that even a modicum of daily stress can make them snappish, rude and prone to bad decisions. Generally, dealing with Nice people is not a problem for me, as my skills are such that I can both improve their day AND get them what they need( maybe even want, too )without too much trouble.
It is the Nasty people that generate 90% of daily stress for others; they do it simply by being themselves. Selfishness is the root cause: what THEY want matters most, so any means justifies that end. In order to facilitate not getting their noses broken by everyone they meet, Nasty people usually hide behind a facade of Nice, just long enough to determine a situation's parameters. In customer service, they can come right out and Be Themselves, as the 'customer is always right' policy of most businesses these days means that Nasty people can walk all over staff within reason, dispensing with common courtesy in favour of Getting What They Want as quickly as possible, so they can move on and bother someone new. Unfortunately, most businesses NEED business to survive, and given that Nasty people spend money as freely as Nice people means that staff members have to grit their teeth and only imagine broken noses shocking some manners into the Nasty people they have to deal with. The fact that many companies make it very easy for Nasty people to file complaints about 'difficult' store staff is another stress factor for customer service employees: if a Nasty person doesn't Get What They Want, then they simply call a company head office, rant for a bit in their natural state, and cause grief for hard-working employees simply because they can... and for some Nasty people, this is a source of enjoyment, much as bullies enjoy being able to attack others with impunity, again and again.
In any case, I got through my day well enough, and the time change meant that I was headed home in the dark... but only for a few more months before winter begins its retreat. Now that our branch is open 11-7 most days, I can sleep in and get home in time for a decent dinner hour. 10pm dinners don't do it for me.
Okay, we have another week down... who knows what lies around the corner? We shall see - after all, Christmas is coming...
Oct 27 - I wanna be ...
As you may have guessed, when I was a wee lad I wanted, like many boys, to be an astronaut... and a cowboy, but at that age I wasn't sure how I'd be able to balance two such involving careers. Now that I have been in the workforce for nigh unto twenty years, no time of which has been spent as either an astronaut or cowboy, I've gained a little perspective. Hard, hard work folks, that's what it takes to get into space, or to mend hundred-mile fences in Wyoming, for that matter. Still, just recently Sir Richard Garriott made a trip into space, which although still a very expensive trip is not entirely beyond the realm of rich civilians... which means that Space Trips for the Common Man are not all that far away, as this concept illustrates.
Oct 28 - Art thou?
I'm always fascinated by new art forms, though some tend to take things to extremes simply for the controversy they generate: remember the meat dress way back in 1987? In any case, I stumbled across this new( is it? )method of illustrating... with water. The way the image appears in moments with an application of ink is stunning, like some kind of CGI effect. I have made a note to pick up a copy of the graphic novel that this technique debuted in, Alan's War. Apparently it is quite a good read!
Not all art is created equal though. Oftentimes, when boredom and office supplies combine, you get this as a result. Somehow, I don't see it resulting in a gallery show, but I have to give credit to the creator of this site, for combining his love of Trek and ASCII... both somewhat dead forms of art, in their way.
Oct 29 - Bacon!
Are you ready for it?
Really ready?
May I present the ultimate sandwich spread: Baconnaise!
Yes. It's true! You can now have the smoky goodness of bacon on ANY sandwich, without the short shelf life and messy preparation that REAL bacon demands! Simply slice and spread, then enjoy... it reminds me of a product I absolutely loved in my teen years: Goober. Yes, it was peanut butter and jelly combined in ONE jar, with alternating stripes of jelly goodness and peanut butter crunch. Only the folks at Smucker's could have thought of such a thing - some of their other products are equally as unique, and delicious too!
Which leads to Unique Foods, a lovely Canadian website that has some great products - my fave is Stewart's Root Beer, which my local Thrifty's carries., along with a few of the many other Stewart's flavours. For which I am quite grateful, though the stuff is as much per bottle as a 2L container of A&W Root Beer. I'm not sure why I like root beer so much; the taste is something that I just don't get tired up. I've tried to like Doctor Pepper, Pepsi, Coca-Cola... well, I was a Coke fiend in high school, drinking a 2L of Coke every few days, but I had to stop when the acid levels started making my stomach react. Now, I can't even touch the stuff; it burns like real acid when I drink it. Not that I mind having root beer as a fave; root beer floats are just so much better than anything else. Dang; I have to go pour myself a glass after writing this!
Oct 30 - Acting Up
Perfect roles. These are what happens when an actor and a character combine to create a role that defines that character forevermore, and oftentimes typecasts the actor as JUST that role for the rest of their career. Examples that spring to mind are Leonard Nimoy and Spock, Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia, and Tom Baker as Doctor Who - read his fascinating bio. Of the many perfect roles out there, my secret fave is Tom Baker... he slipped into the role of The Doctor so perfectly that it was hard for me to imagine anyone else ever playing the character, despite the fact that there have been no less than seven different actors, the latest of whom was Christopher Eccleston. The manic grin, the long knit scarf and the mass of crazy hair all made Baker's Doctor a delight to watch on-screen, despite the low-budget special effects of the time and the oftentimes swiss-cheezy excuses for plots.
Or you could just get Uwe Boll to make another film, which is like asking the Star Wars Kid to be the next Luke Skywalker... it hurts even thinking about it.
Oct 31 - Spook Time!
I love halloween. There is just something about being able to dress up as something or someone OTHER than yourself, and go out into the world for one night when nobody looks twice at a ghoul, ghost goblin or other sight walking brazenly down the street. Well, no more than three looks, anyway.
Costumes are what it is all about, so every year I have a look for the latest, greatest and simply stunning costumes that people come up with. Many are from the worldwife Cosplay community, which draws inspiration from video games, anime and many other types of media, where people dress up like their favourite characters. Some are truly inspired, while others are... less so. Still, when you have fans who come up with almost perfect replicas of characters like Iron Man( here is the movie suit prop ) or Master Chief from Halo, one must recognize the incredible talent, time and hard work that goes into such creations. Too bad you can't really wear them out anywhere other than on Halloween or to conventions... but you could also see real exoskeletal suits sooner than you think!
Pumpkins are a traditional favourite for Halloween, and there are many amazing examples of the pumpkincarver's art online.
As for my day: I worked the evening shift... in costume. Seeing as nobody out here had seen my barbarian outfit( with goatee! )yet, I recycled it again for this year and it proved to be a hit! Many people asked me where I had "bought" it ... they couldn't believe that it was a cobbled-together outfit from different materials I had done myself. So that was nice to hear; makes me wonder what I can put together for next year? After work, I went for a walk with some of my pirate-themed neighbours around the neighbourhood here in Fairfield, which was damned quiet after 10pm; apparently the downtown is quite the zoo, and there are lots of parties all over town, but that wasn't my thing this year. It was enough to check out all the great Halloween decorations on many houses - see this and this as examples of the fine work people put into decorating this year.
We ended up wandering around the edges of the Ross Bay Cemetary, one of Canada's oldest and largest surviving Victorian-era cemetaries. We did not go in, as it was heavily patrolled by security tonight, for obvious reasons, plus they seemed rather heavy-handed and disinclined to allow anyone in at all. Still, it was fairly creepy, as any cemetary is a much different place in the dark and morseo on All Hallows Eve. Not being supersticious myself, I still felt a reluctance to wander amongst the dead on a night when all things supernatural are celebrated, in a tradition that has survived its origins from the Feast of Samhain started by the Celtic Druids over two milennia ago - more on that here.
Nov 1 - One Year in BC !!
Well, what to say? I've been here for a year, and I have to say this place now feels like home to me.
Some people would( and have )moved out here only to find shortly that they could not bear to be away from family, friends and familiar places. Several people I have worked with here in BC have done exactly that; unable to create a new life or reconcile it with their roots, they decided to return home and give up on trying to make something new here.
How am I finding it, my own experience here on the West Coast? Honestly, I would have to say that most days, I have no regrets. I knew moving out here would mean changes for me, in many ways, but I am surprised at how easy it was to settle in here, especially knowing that my parents were nearby enough to both keep an eye on and to help out as needed. Having a support network is vital, especially for one's mental balance; knowing that your nearest family is thousands of miles away would have been very hard on me, given that I have such a close relationship with my parents and sister - something I am extremely grateful for and try never to take for granted, knowing how rare such a thing is.
Personally, I have been pleased my my development outside of work, in that I have managed to well, manage my time better. As odd as it may sound, I am enjoying having more 'me' time to do with as I see fit - I had been annoyed back in ON that I never seemed to get the time I needed each day to get MY projects fully seen to. Indeed, I would not have been able to write this blog back in ON, I think, simply because I lacked both the time and the perspective to put the work INTO it. Having something NEW to say, every week, without retreading old topics, is a challenge I have enjoyed meeting this year.
Having my own place, unshared accommodations, is a change and a challenge as well. Not that I never had my own space, but the fact that I do not have to accommodate other's needs in my daily activities makes a difference in making the most of my time.
I think the hardest thing has been to be so far away from my friends. I've come to realize I have a LOT of friends, which is humbling when I really think about all the fantastic people I know and have known in my life. Listening to a few folk I have worked with and gone to school with, I now understand that most people tend to have a few good friends, some work/sports club/gaming associates, and those peripheral folk you run into in the mall once in a while and ask how their dog is doing. Since I make an ongoing effort never to categorize people as 'peripheral' and instead put everyone into 'friend' it has amazed me the number of fantastic folk I can include in my life. Well, included a little more often when I was back in ON, but you see my point. Not being a social butterfly, as well as being very able to spend quality time for hours with only myself as a conversationalist, I still find myself missing those weekly trips to the Kilt, or Steebs, or any of the innumerable fun things I did in Niagara.
Yet what did it add up to? I have to ask myself this, as I have perspective( yes, that word again )out here after a year now. The urban horror scenario of working at the same job, with no real room for advancement, doing the same things month after month, year after year... I am not sure if you can call it ambition, but perhaps better label it as a need for Change. Some years ago, quite a few in fact, I was struck by a sudden vision: a ten-year veteran of MMart, plugging away at night on a novel, hoping to be published, yet never feeling like I was accomplishing anything or getting any OTHER work or interests covered. Apart for the glow of friends and family support, one year would tend to seem like another.
So that was when I decided I needed a change. My parent's retirement was coming up, and considering all the incredible trials my family had been through up to that point, I was still unsure as to my own direction / habitation / general life plan. Thus, I dug in and started to seriously research places to live in Canada, with an eye towards new careers and / or affordability. After a lot of looking, I had settled on three places: Victoria, Edmonton or Calgary. The latter two were chosen for their rapid economic growth, and Edmonton as the location of BioWare, a game company I would have dearly loved to work for BEFORE they were bought by Electronic Arts - smart choice, not moving there after all!
Then the wheels were set in motion, slowly building up to my move date of Nov 1st 2007. And here I am, writing this blog a long, long way from where I grew up, in many senses of the phrase. Pleased, for all that, to be able to do so as I am.
Nov 2 - The Day After
Some thoughts brought on by another visit from the Crazy Lady... who astonishingly was NOT crazy today, though I thought I saw her head spin around once from the corner of my eye. Stressful? Yep.
After dealing with the public for as long as I have, I feel I have developed a decent understanding and cognant opinions of How People Tick. Apart from the need for food, shelter and emotional satsifaction, I find that many people can be( generally )categorized into either a) Nice people who CAN be nasty or b) Nasty people who can be nice. Nice people have their bad days, and a lot of people have thin skins, enough so that even a modicum of daily stress can make them snappish, rude and prone to bad decisions. Generally, dealing with Nice people is not a problem for me, as my skills are such that I can both improve their day AND get them what they need( maybe even want, too )without too much trouble.
It is the Nasty people that generate 90% of daily stress for others; they do it simply by being themselves. Selfishness is the root cause: what THEY want matters most, so any means justifies that end. In order to facilitate not getting their noses broken by everyone they meet, Nasty people usually hide behind a facade of Nice, just long enough to determine a situation's parameters. In customer service, they can come right out and Be Themselves, as the 'customer is always right' policy of most businesses these days means that Nasty people can walk all over staff within reason, dispensing with common courtesy in favour of Getting What They Want as quickly as possible, so they can move on and bother someone new. Unfortunately, most businesses NEED business to survive, and given that Nasty people spend money as freely as Nice people means that staff members have to grit their teeth and only imagine broken noses shocking some manners into the Nasty people they have to deal with. The fact that many companies make it very easy for Nasty people to file complaints about 'difficult' store staff is another stress factor for customer service employees: if a Nasty person doesn't Get What They Want, then they simply call a company head office, rant for a bit in their natural state, and cause grief for hard-working employees simply because they can... and for some Nasty people, this is a source of enjoyment, much as bullies enjoy being able to attack others with impunity, again and again.
In any case, I got through my day well enough, and the time change meant that I was headed home in the dark... but only for a few more months before winter begins its retreat. Now that our branch is open 11-7 most days, I can sleep in and get home in time for a decent dinner hour. 10pm dinners don't do it for me.
Okay, we have another week down... who knows what lies around the corner? We shall see - after all, Christmas is coming...
