Friends, Fools and Floppies

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March 30 - MoN-DaY Off

My good friend Mike has created a link to The Jinx Project which he will be covering during its creation in a Production Journal, to culminate in a finished animated short by Christmas 2009. I am thrilled to see Mike finally being able to pursue this project that he has talked about for some time, and will wait with bated breath to see the final glorious production. Check out his website too, at MikeHogue.com... tons of great stuff there!

In case some of you don't already know, Brian has also posted a site containing some of his amazing artistic work - check it out at BrianThomasWoods.com!

Unfortunately, not much went on today as I spent most of my day off installing a railing, several door bolts and some replacement cabinet lights. The lights took up the most time, as the display cabinet I now have used the stupidest style of halogen lights - little bulbs with two fragile metal socket pins that are impossible to get into place without bending or eventually snapping. So I snapped too, went down to Home Depot and came back with a set of replacement under-counter light pucks that went in after I removed the useless old ones. Not perfect, but now at least I can replace the bulbs more easily AND the cabinet is brighter, to better show off my selection of collectibles in a dust-free environment. Argh...

On the bright side, I got a last-minute call from one of my former neighbours: it was her boyfriend's birthday and they would love to have me down at May St. to celebrate. So I headed out into a dark, rainy night to drive the 20 minutes to Victoria, and was rewarded with a light, happy few hours basking in the company of good people. I even managed to work in some speedy YouTube video searches at the end, though my performance could not match my last evening spent at Pierre & Faith's place before I left Niagara in late 2007. A good night - with mini apple pies made from local-grown apples right here on Vancouver Island.

March 31 - Beating Family Cancer

One of my cousins has been battling breast cancer for the last few months, since it was diagnosed by a routine exam. I have been amazed at her strength and positive attitude, for she has gone through a lot in an incredibly short period of time. We are all happy here that she is pulling through, and that the internet has allowed the family to remain constantly updated as to her status, moreso than any phone calls might have done. Kudos to the doctors and their treatments... which in Canada won't put you in debt for the rest of your now-spared life.

My money tree seems to be doing well, even though the light here is not the same intensity as it was getting in the window at May St. The official name is Pachira Aquatica, an asian swamp plant which can apparently grow up to nearly 60ft tall in the wild and has been a popular ornamental plant only since 1986. Who knew I was being trendy? I wonder if anyone grows kite-eating trees...

April 1st - Foolish

April Fool's Day... and I had nobody to enjoy a little joke with at work. Last year, I sent around a tiny hoax about a group of scammers dressed as clowns trying to pass bad cheques. This year? Nada.

I always like to check up on how the world is doing by logging into NewsOfTheWeird.com, where you can get your fill of seeing how people manage to mess up reality, large or small.

Another site for odd happenings is at Canoe.ca here you can satisfy your cravings for odd news from around the world. My favourite one to date is

This idea started out as an April Fool's joke, but apparently there was an overwhelming response of people wanting to buy. Just goes to show that sometimes the joke is on the joker.

April 2 - And you thought I'd forgotten!

No joke here: what would the blog be without bacon? In this case, we're talking Squeez Bacon, an invention from( of all places )Sweden... not somewhere I would have picked for bacon know-how.

Thoughts...

Nope. Not this week. Too tired from work, really. Lots going on and frankly, I spend about 11 hours most days away from home, so just BEING at home is enough to make me want to nap on the nearest couch. Not feeling well most days doesn't help, but I DID get some good news today: my gall bladder operation is a go. I go under the knife( scalpel? )May 29th, and so will finally be able to remove THAT little medical issue from my checklist.

I hope it will take the nausea with it when it goes. I really, really do.

If not, then it's back to trial, error and elimination - in more ways than one.

April 3 - Positive Day

I headed into Victoria early this morning, so I could have breakfast at the Shine Cafe on Fort St( their website appears to be down ). I dug into a half-stack of apple cinnamon pancakes, which were delicious and in such quantity that I couldn't finish them in the time I had before needing to be at work. I ate there today because this will be my second-last day at the branch; I am being moved to the Millstream location, which is going to be interesting as it is a glassless location. Makes my fingers twitch just thinking about it as I type.

However, today turned out to be a really good day at work, for many reasons. It was bright & sunny out, so I think that helped a lot. Also, most of the people who came in were regulars, whom I have been telling about my branch transfer as I see them - the nice ones, anyway, and there's a surprisingly large number of those who said they would miss me or even come out to see me when they were in the Millstream area. It was great day, despite the long hours I have spent this week catching things up to hand over the branch to its new manager this weekend. Tired but happy.

Our head office here also received a spectacularly positive customer comment about me today too... it practically glowed when I read it( more than a few times! )with the phrase "If he were my employee, I have no doubt my business would flourish," standing out. The comment was picked up on by the head honcho for all the BC stores and sent out across Canada, with the notation that "This is the kind of positive feedback we want people to give when they come into MMart as customers." Tickled, I was, really... as it's so rare for such comments to be made; a hundred people will take the time to complain than just one to send in a positive note.

Which are you?

April 4 - Floppy what?

Sometimes I feel a little nostalgic about tech, like when I look at my old PC and see there's still a floppy disk drive in it - newer computers are almost all diskless, with even DVD's eventually going to vanish when some new and better flash medium comes along. Still, some tech ideas refuse to die... and my old favourite is on that list - see if you can figure out which of the 25 it is.

Saturdays... y'know, I cannot recall the last time I had a Saturday off without consulting my work calendar. I just don't seem to do things anymore on Saturdays... not that I did much this last year on Saturdays, but thinking about it now, I am going to browse through my blog and see what stands out.

I know I didn't watch a lot of cartoons, that's for sure.

April 5 - 16 hours of Relaxation!

I started the day out right today: Josh called, and before we knew it 45 mins had ticked by while we caught up on things.

Part of my day was spent outside, sitting on the deck and just enjoying the weather - turned out to be 16 degrees C out there mid-afternoon, plus warmth from lovely sunny skies. I even had my cat wandering around the deck, enjoying the weather in perfect safety with no gaps in the railings for him to try wot wriggle through. A few hummingbirds also stopped by, sounding like giant-size wasps as they buzzed in for a drink from the sugar-water feeders.

Other parts of my day were used up working on this new NWN project with a few people... made possible by today's advances in communication. While one of my friends was remotely accessing my old PC to get things installed, I was conferencing with a few others over MSN about various details. Turns out one of those folk has spent 3 years in university taking Game Design, and I cannot believe our luck that he's willing to spend so much of his time helping to shape the initial Design Document to spell out how this new world will be built. It's just lovely to work on this with such talented, energetic people... I only wish we could all pay ourselves for our time, but I guess that's why it's called a labour of love.

I finished off the day by alternatively working on my blog and finally watching The Dark Knight, where I have to say I was impressed with Heath Ledger's final performance. It was a well-deserved Oscar win, and I am sad that it had to be posthumous.

Ta for now!

Logs, Love, Lighting

Just another week... thankfully though, we are well past the most depressing day of the year. Good news, that... now let me turn my sunlamp back on and bask in the bright light.


Feb 9th - BC is cool, so burn stuff

We used the wood-burning fireplace for the first time today, after the chimney sweep had been by earlier to ensure that everything was in working order. The fireplace is in a shared wall between two living rooms, with double glass doors on either side allowing both rooms to see the flames. A 3-hour fire log( just sawdust and wax )made a cheery blaze that lent a lovely flickering glow to the rooms for the evening, if not adding a whole lot of heat. No fan in the fireplace, kinda odd.

I also picked up some solar accent lights today to place outside, and looking back at them from later in the week, it makes all the difference outdoors. No longer is the front yard a black hole outside the window at night, but instead has lovely low-power lights leading down the front steps to the porch. Since they're solar, they cost nothing to run and come on automatically at dusk; time was, a pack of ten of these things would have run into the hundreds of dollars, but Home Depot had them on clearance for... can you guess? $15.00 a box. Amazing the way some tech advances, when you look at it.

Some odd things about BC: unlike the QEW and 400-series highways in ON, pedestrians and cyclists CAN use the highways( well, the designated shoulders )without penalty. It still makes me start when I see peds or cyclists slogging away at the side of the highway though; this site has some other differences that set BC apart from other provinces. But I must admit, the main routes here are FAR less congested than back in ON, as there is almost a total lack of large truck traffic on Vancouver Island. From what I have read, they mainly travel the roads in the very early mornings after catching the first ferry over from the mainland. They do tend to travel faster than the trucks in ON, which has led to some lively debate in recent years about making speed limiters mandatory - good, I say.

Feb 10th - Talking B-days...

Today was my sister's birthday, which like many in the last few years have had us celebrating it in absentia, as she has lived in AB for the last long while. As with all things, time changes your perceptions, including your perception of time. Where before dinner, presents and hours of celebration dominated with friends and family, later in life it really is the thought that counts, as people get busier and find that both time and space separate them from their loved ones. Be that as it may, modern tech tools like Skype allow family to see and hear each other over vast distances, which has proved a comfort in my life on many special occasions in the past few years. Still, being busy is a problem that means good communication is necessary to co-ordinate chats on special days like birthdays. Miss ya sis!

On the topic of conversations, I've noticed lately that many of mine tend to trail off; having a firm, upbeat conversational closer seems to be something I've lost my touch in the last year or so. Apart from 'getting in the last word' I've noticed that when dealing with customers, the start and middle of things are great, on any topic you choose... but the closer always ends up with 'enjoy the weather' or some other inane comment. How hard is this, really, I wonder? Does anyone else have closing issues?

Feb 11th - Laptop Organ Donors

Today was training day, which for me means getting paid NOT to stand at the counter or answer the phone. Instead, I spent time at another branch, learning how to be a trainer. Training to train, if you like, though I avoided any railway puns... showing unusual restraint for me, as it were.

Nothing exciting really, but there were a few things I learned that I hadn't thought about before, which was nice.

Lately, I've been browsing a textbook from the early 90's on Canadian business. Interestingly, it talks about the economic depression at the time and how it was affecting all aspects of Canadian business. Here it is 15 years later, and we are facing the same issues, where businesses have to become 'lean and mean' in order to survive. Again.

One neat bit of techno-fiddling today: I managed to network my Xbox and my new laptop. Not the easiest thing in the world to do, but after some trial and error they are now on speaking terms. Which means I can use the Xbox to access media from my laptop's somewhat-generous drive and display it on the big-screen TV... neat stuff. Sometime in the future I will get around to replacing my old Blue Frankenstein with a modern Vista( or Windows 7 by that point )machine as a media server, but not just yet - things still aren't at the "Wow, that's so cheap I can't afford NOT to get it!" stage of hardware. Though I do have an unused license for Vista Home Ultimate sitting on the shelf, unused since my parent's old laptop bit the biscuit at Xmas 2007 - I've been donating / using parts from it for some time time since, including giving the downstairs neighbour's old laptop a much-needed RAM boost and overhaul. Glad to see the old parts making such a difference for someone after the fact.

Feb 12th - Sneeze on a Groundhog!

Since our group yesterday was so on the ball, I have today off: we got through 2 days worth of material, which I put down to all of us being managers, as well as the motivated, intelligent people that we were. Also that we didn't want to spend a second day cooped up inside; reminded me too much of a classroom.

After going out for a few things, I spent most of my day in my living room organizing. I went through my massive VHS tape piles and got rid of anything that I now had on DVD, which still left at least 2/3 of the pile to sort onto the shelves. I also swapped books around, loaded a lot of useful-but-unsightly gear into the cupboards and generally made the place tidy to look at - again.

A bit of news about the common cold: scientists have taken the first steps towards eliminating it from circulation. There IS hope for a cure after all... check back with this blog in 20 years for an update.

In the evening I finally managed to watch Groundhog Day - I picked up the Special Edition last year, and the extras have some great insights into the making of the film.

Feb 13th - Unlucky? Naaahhhh....

Sometimes events happen on a Friday the 13th, which makes them memorable and lends credence to the moniker of the date as unlucky. One such was only 3 years ago, when a massive snowstorm socked in Buffalo NY, causing then-president Bush to declare the area a 'major disaster' zone.

There is also the massive gathering of bikers in Port Dover annually on the first summer Friday the 13th of each year. Last June, over 150,000 bikers showed up, presumably behaving themselves enough to be welcome back next year. This is a similar event to the much bigger Daytona Beach Bike Week, which draws nearly half a million bikers every March to the FL city, and almost always results in a dozen deaths and many injuries from such a huge crowd. Ten years ago, my family visited Daytona during the equally crowded NASCAR race season, and it was an eye opener. Ten-lane-wide main city streets were so jammed with cars that people were driving on shoulders and sidewalks just to get anywhere, much like Marge Simpson did with her Canyonero super 4WD in one episode. Crazy, crazy times that the locals say they leave town every year to avoid the incredible noise and riot-like conditions. Yeesh.

Feb 14th - Love Your Day

I wore a red shirt to work today, totally oblivious( on a conscious level )to the colour significance... but many people were amused to see red, so to speak, given today's date. I even received some chocolate from one of the regulars, which was nice: the candies were even in the shape of little hearts. Cute.

Valentine's Day is celebrated( or not )in various ways around the world. One interpretation I liked is from Sweden, where it is called Ystävänpäivä or "Friend's Day" where the idea is to celebrate friendship in addition to your family and loved ones. Some places like Saudi Arabia have banned the holiday, which has only led to a thriving black market in roses and chocolates. Candy heart smuggling, anyone?

While surfing around today for various Valentines-related sites( rejecting the sappy, stupid and commercial dropped the total substantially )there was a site that caught my eye: The Experience Project. This is a site where people share, well, their life experiences. It was interesting to browse the various groups, though you may be wondering by now how it relates to Valentine's Day.

Feb 15th - Not a minivan...

I went over to the local Winner's today to pick up a table I had reserved, one that will fit perfectly overtop my massively unsightly colour laser printer. Sadly, the darn thing is of such a size that it would not fit into my car: despite my best efforts, I had to admit defeat or risk damaging the vehicle. So I hauled it back into the store and decided to come back on Tuesday, with either a rental van or my two-wheeled hand truck to haul it the 1.2 km back to my place... out of spite. I really hate it when my spatial skills don't do the trick, as I can almost always eyeball something and tell if it would fit into my car. Well, I could with the old '94 Grand Am, but it had bigger doors and more space inside. I'll put this one down to my inexperience with the newer '08 Mazda 3, for which today counts as a big xp dollop. We had company over today too, which was fun.

Aside: For lack of a physical paper, I've taken to reading up on events with The Toronto Star online. For years, we used to get the paper in the morning, which resulted in having to clean the table of rubbed ink every few weeks. Having a physical paper in hand, reading it over breakfast, was always both relaxing and informative... not to mention looking forward to the comics section each day.

For now though, I will leave you with a picture from our back deck here in Langford, one that I think expresses how much I hope that this new place will help greatly reduce my stress levels and improve my health. Enjoy.



Since I've not ended on a quote before, it's about time: "In the end, it is the person you become, not the things you have achieved, that is the most important." -Les Brown