Scifi, Shiftings and Syria

The word of the week is perfidy.

September 7 – Refuge

What a world we live in; I say that with mixed feelings.

The plight of Syrian noncombatants has been known for several years now, ever since there country was plunged into civil war. Yet only the recent photos of a small ground Syrian refugee boy galvanize the world unity into paying attention to this huge crisis that too few people know the story behind.

I myself was unaware of exactly why so many Syrians were fleeing their country, people who had jobs and stability no longer. War’s a complicated thing and it's no less the case in Syria, so I was grateful to find this eloquent webcomic that explained the situation simply:

Neil Gaiman has given much of his time in the last year to making the plight of the Syrian refugees known to the world. While I have seen many countries treat the refugees with distain and fear, Gaiman rises above this to show us that such attitudes are selfish in the face of such suffering on a massive scale as it taking place right now:

Fear will always be with us, as it’s natural to the human condition. Not every refugee is a terrorist in disguise; far from it. Millions of people have been driven from their homes, the scale of refugee movement not seen since the Second World War. The world today seems indifferent to suffering, much more inclined to bury their heads in Facebook or Instagram or whatever else makes their world a rosy-tinted color. I have to ask myself as well, knowing my own limitations and finances: what can I do?

Better yet: what will I do?

September 8 – Night Lights!

Talk about all-day anticipation!

After work( and dinner, I might add )today, I prepped our gear for later on this evening, because: Tonight was the night to test our creations: buoys, that is, and we would end up spending about an hour on the water overall tonight.

There was a surprising amount of gear to bring, in addition to the boat, remote control and buoys. Flashlights, the comfy porta-couch, a lantern, bug spray, washcloth for drying the buoys after their immersion, digital camera plus various other odds and ends. We packed all into the back of my lady's car and drove down to the yacht pond at 8:30 PM, well after the sun had set and full dark had settled on the shoreline.

As expected, we were the only ones there and as the pond is unlit, we had to watch our step as we made our way down the slight slope to the water’s edge, which is bordered by an asphalt walkway. Unpacking everything, we laid out the buoys, clipping them to the line and ensuring the lights were lit. We immersed them one by one while ensuring the line wasn't tangled and that each floated properly in the water.

The problem of getting the line across the pond in the dark was quickly solved by my girlfriend, who suggested the Haulin’ Trawler live up to its name by towing the bobbing line of buoys across to the other side. Brilliant – this is how it looked:

Once the line of buoys was secured, we had a grand old time sailing the fully-lit Trawler around in the dark, as it looked magnificent. We had about a half an hour of smooth sailing, then the winds off the ocean picked up, cooling temperatures considerably.

Still, it all worked wonderfully well - here's a brief video of the action:

I should mention that for the last half-hour we had an unforeseen companion: a young  wayward duck! He followed our boat around, quacking, likely unsure as to what exactly the shiny apparition of light was, wandering around on his pond after hours. It was amusing in that we couldn't see him at all and I had to flash the occasional light onto the pond in order to locate the duck so as not to run the boat into him. Silly bird!

All in all, it was a very successful evening. My girlfriend and I had a ton of fun and although we were somewhat chilled once everything was all packed up the car - which by then was covered in dew - it's deftly something that were going to do again, weather permitting.

I've no idea if the duck will be there next time, though.

September 9 – Shiftings

Perfectionism? Not my style – at least, not any more.

It’s a form of ‘Perfectionist Poison’ to want to be in control of everything in your life. While I’m not technically a control freak, I am more like such than I care to admit, sometimes. Knowing what's going on in my life, what I need to do in the short-term versus long-term, how I'm doing on my personal goals, small things like grocery lists… all those and hundred other things are always on my mind, for better or worse.

I realize that I can't being in control of every single detail of my life; that's not how it works. We do what we can with what comes our way, handling it with grace were with heavy-handedness: whatever method suits our style at the time were seems best for the situation.

For me, I'm a planner. I look at facts, add data accumulated over years, things I've accomplished and skills I've developed to help me deal with whatever gets thrown my way. This can be both a blessing and a curse, in that carefully assembled plans can be scattered to the winds when something completely unexpected comes your way - often the case with life. As I've mentioned before, I'm the sort of person who deals well with the big crises that come along but it's bogged down in the details that consequently drive me bonkers week to week. Not to mention it being a big part of my psyche, where I need to be highly knowledgeable about both subjects that I talk of and conversant even in those I don't regularly think about – my self-image is strange that way, but at least I recognize that about myself and have worked to ensure that it's not a pillar of my persona anymore.

I'm getting better at balancing things, however. Having more points of stability in my life now, I can better judge what's important in the short term or the long and adjust accordingly. It sounds simple but you really have to look at the attitude with which you deal with whatever gets tossed out you. Mine, for the most part in the last year, has been positive and progressive towards the goals that I want to achieve.

On a similar note, I realized this week that I still had a recurring daily event on my Google Calendar that has been redundant for nearly a year now: my work-shift for my day job. I’d originally put it into the calendar to remind myself of when I’d be working when there was lots of overtime early in 2015, but now that I’m out of Invoices, it’s no longer necessary.

It’s the first time in my working that I’ve ever had a weekly calendar that didn’t list my work shifts on it… and it’s profoundly pleasing to me. At long last, I’ve realized that I no longer have to check the calendar to plan my week, wondering where I can fit things in depending on what I’m working each day – I know what I’ll be working now, until I decide to change things up.

It’s a wonderful feeling, that.

September 10 – SciFi and Me

After work today, I gave a presentation on science fiction for my writing group.

It’s nights like this that make me glad I’m able to do what I do, writing-wise. I was excited to give the presentation tonight, having prepared all week for it, editing and revising my handout after giving a fair amount of thought as to what I wanted to talk about.

By that, I mean that I can give a presentation to a group of like-minded people( writers! )who not only want to hear what I have to say, but add to the conversation as we go along.

Also, tonight’s topic is near and dear to my heart, so that helped.

In putting together the research for the presentation tonight, I came across a curious discovery: nobody can agree on what exactly science fiction is, not even acknowledged Masters of the genre. Here's a few of the quotations I used from famous sci-fi authors:

It's a curious thing, trying to define something that by its nature is so flexible and often times deliberately obscure in its tenets. Science fiction is to me the genre with the broadest canvas to work with, allowing authors to write practically anything they wish in terms of fiction without any hue and cry being raised by readers as to a story solidity in belonging to the genre.

In any case, it was a splendid night, where I was able to present great amounts of information, relevantly assembled, to a group of attentive writers. Quite a few people expressed their gratitude to me afterwards for putting together such a solid evening and I went home smiling, happy that once again I had not only increase my own knowledge but that of others as well.

September 11 – Thrice Dazed

A few problems reared their head today and well, it kinda made the day off move from pleasant to problematic and stinky. Unexpected expenses tend to do that to me, especially when they throw my carefully-tended hopes of short-term financial solvency all askew.

Bummer.

Still, how one deals with problems is really the key to solving them. I did various tasks all day in a frowning funk, then pulled myself out of it to meet a co-worker for beers after work for a few hours. It’s strange how problems can be: some are better for being shared, and others shrink to their proper, not-so-bad-after-all size when you’re faced with either being a grumpy jerk over beers or just letting things go after a proper day-long think-up.

For the most part, I was over what was eating me by late afternoon. I did so by reminding myself that what had to be done was necessary and that in the current scheme of things, I wasn't any worse off.

That sort of thinking is really what it takes. I was surprised, thinking about things later in the evening, to realize that the one big unexpected problem had attracted all sorts of other negativity along with it - all unintentional. The phrase “misery loves company” applies to one's thoughts and feelings as readily as any other situation and when I was feeling down today, all the other little problems and failures in my life crowded in to keep the new problem company without being asked.

Once I realized that, I could look at things objectively and from there I could see that while I wasn't exactly happy with how my finances would be over the next few months, they were disastrous by any means. So I could get back to enjoying my first-ever 3-day EDO weekend.

It’s also important noting that 14 years ago today, the Twin Towers fell. Nobody alive and aware of the event at the time will ever forget it.

Yet now, almost a decade and a half later, this massive act of terrorism( despite the conspiracy theorists, I’m going with Occam’s Razor on this one )remains a scar on North American psyche. A reminder that the Western World is vulnerable, that there are monsters in the world who will stop at nothing to ensure their ideology prevails, as I mentioned last week with IS and the destruction of world cultural heritage sites.

Evil is out there, waiting for chances to strut its stuff, and it makes my own problems dust in the wind by comparison.

September 12 – Un-a-Musing Visits

After a pleasant patio breakfast with my lady, we parted ways to go about our day. I managed to get a few things done that I hadn’t yesterday, due to my frustrated state.

In the afternoon, I got out of the house. I was determined to enjoy the fantastic weather in some manner that didn’t involve me sweating like crazy or being among a noisy crowd.

So I chose to be in a park.

As it happens, I still lugged a chair, laptop, jacket, water bottle and other minor gear with me on a twenty-minute stroll to Beacon Hill Park. Shorts and sandals were the order of the day, since it was so nice out, with hints of a cool breeze from the ocean drifting now and then through the trees.

I picked a perfect spot by the duck pond, out of the way of most people, right next to the stream and shaded by a tree from the sun.

Nothing came to mind. Nada.

You can’t force the Muse to visit, if it’s not ready.

Once I was back home, I spent a while looking deeper into how to use my copy of Scrivener to plot out the second half of my book. It’s a flexible, capable program, but it’s not for novice users; one has to work at eking the most out of its powerful tools, step by step.

I think that’s got to be the key to making progress on Book 2: using Scrivener’s plot tools. My book’s too complex to properly juggle it all in my head at this point, and I think that’s what’s confusing my Muse, why I get so frustrated trying to set down scene summaries of late.

September 13 – Visits Of Other Sorts

Today was a double-header of fun!

My girlfriend's parents were visiting the Island this weekend, so we met up with them for breakfast this morning over at Willie’s Bakery – somewhat of a misnomer, as the place is a fantastic restaurant with a small bakery inside.

It turned out to be a lovely day today after all, with warnings of rain turning out to be nothing more than that. We enjoyed our breakfast on the patio at Willie's immensely, the food as always more than satisfying and quick to the table.

After that, we walked only a block down the street to see the Victoria International Chalk Art Festival, in its third year here. Government Street was closed for two blocks so that the artists could ply their chalky trade, some of them having been up since the very early hours of the morning at work on the cordoned-off roadway. Here's a few sample pictures:

You can find the rest here - some really good art this year I have to say!

Towards noon, we decided to go and visit Oak Bay, possibly to drive around and see the gardens. We actually ended up just walking around under the sunny blue skies, poking our heads into the shops and seeing what we discovered. I ended up with a boardgame that I hadn't known existed. It’s simple, 2-player and involves castles – sweet! Here it is:

Lunch was a lovely low-key affair at the Penny Farthing Pub, on the back patio that has quickly become one of my favorite spots in Victoria. While the wind blew leaves all around outside, my girlfriend, her parents and I were happily ensconced in the protected( yet still outdoors )patio, enjoying our lunch. Her parents are wonderful people and I enjoy chatting with them whenever we see each other.

Then it was home and blog writing time, with various household tasks interspersed as per usual for Sunday evenings.

Except for the fact that last-minute I was invited out to meet up with my sister’s group of friends at the Beagle, which I hadn't done in probably six months or more. Seeing as I hadn't had dinner yet, it made sense and so after another hour of writing my blog, I headed out down the road for a quick 10-minute walk down Cook St.

It was good to just get out and relax with people I only know someone well, though they're all really nice folks. As it turns out, one of them is a writer who is determined to create her own fantasy trilogy, so we ended up chatting about that for good part of my time there.

Once I was back home after a pleasant few hours, I dove right into the blog and finished it off in record time, well before my now rather-early 11pm bedtime – that being the time when my eyes start drooping and I can’t do much more than read a bit before dozing off.

It's been an odd week, I have to say. Periods of stress interspersed among much longer periods of contentment and bliss: that about sums it up. My shoulders and neck are far tenser than they've been in some time and while I know it's an anomaly, it still uncomfortable to think that it's pure stress that has done that to them so easily. This coming week, I'll be focusing every day on things I can accomplish and not dwelling on those factors that I can't do anything about in the short term. I think that's a pretty healthy mode of thinking to take on for myself this fall.

Nerf, Nimrods and No TV

The word of the week is plenipotent.

August 31 – Evil is Stupid

What is it with humans?

For all the great things that we've accomplished, there always seems to be too many of us willing to toss it all of the window for no good reason.

The destruction this week of the Temple of Palmyra all too clearly illustrates my point. In an exercise of power thinly disguised as the ‘elimination of idolatry’ IS completely destroyed an ancient site, forever erasing it from the planet so that it now exists only in photographs.

They did this to create their own version of the world, physically removing evidence that contradicts their limited worldview. Creating their own history from the rubble of the true.

Top: Before IS - Below: After IS

It is willful acts of destruction like this that make me wonder about our civilization. About future generations knowing nothing about the consequence of the past because of the actions of a few, of history intentionally lost, distorted or even destroyed.

Of stupidity winning, all the name of 'true' belief.

September 1 – Cable’s Cut!

Well, that’s it: no more cable as of today.

A month ago, I finally located an Internet company that can provide service to Victoria BC. Last year, I became extremely frustrated when after searching through every single Internet provider in Canada, not a single one of them could offer their service as an alternative locally here to Shaw or Telus.

However, about three months ago, I learned about a local start up here in Victoria called Juce – finally! Their prices are perfect: $39.99 / month for the same speed as Shaw's mid-range Internet package, with the added benefit of no throttling at peak periods which is an issue with very crowded service providers like Shaw in larger cities.

Considering I've been paying a package price of $138.00 + tax / month with Shaw for phone, Internet and cable TV, it's long past the time when I should have downgraded but the lack of an alternative here in Victoria had stymied that move.

No longer. In giving up cable TV( the phone isn't really an issue, as I have a cell )there's going to be a lot less temptation to simply ‘relax’ in front of the boob tube, as I'll have to go looking for things to watch. It's fascinating how much less I want to watch a show if I have to go searching for episodes rather than simply seeing what's on TV at the moment and deciding if I want to spend the time to watch it.

Time is what it's all about, really. The fact that I'm paying over 70% less per month for Internet service is icing on the cake, but really what it's doing is making my daily choices simpler in terms of what I want to spend my time on.

September 2 – Cosplay Project 2016

I have a new project for the spring: a costume!

Not a Halloween costume, however, but rather a con costume, one that will probably take me at least four months to complete working a few hours here and there every week.

My girlfriend and I have decided that, budget pending, were going to attend Emerald City Con in Seattle in April 2016. As part of that somewhat short trip( Seattle's not that far away )we're going to do a pair of themed costumes from one of our favorite sci-fi movies: Aliens.

I'm going to be a Colonial Marine and she's going to be Ellen Ripley:

Key to both costumes will be the M41A pulse rifle props: the guns that the Marines and Ripley used to battle the aliens in the movie. I've decided that I'm not going to do half-assed flimsy props made out of paper or cardboard, nor am I going to spend many hundreds of dollars on a screen-accurate prop unnecessarily

Instead, I've lucked into a pair of Nerf Elite Retaliator toys on eBay, which according to my research can be fairly easily modified into almost perfect replicas of the M41-a guns. If I do it right, we'll even still shoot Nerf darts! Here's a video of someone who did a rough job of a conversion for almost no money; I'll be doing a much neater job on ours, possibly with working lights and sounds to simulate sound-accurate weapons fire:

In addition to the guns, will each have to work up our costumes. I'm still determining the most cost effective way to do my armor, which will probably involve paper templates and layers of a safe, fiberglass-like substance that I can work with inside the apartment with minimal ventilation. If worse comes to worse, I can simply create a one-use painted cardboard costume, knowing that the guns themselves will be the real stars of the show.

September 3 – MOTU was OK

Sometimes, despite our best effort, things don't work out.

Such was the case in 1987, when the live-action version of Masters of The Universe hit theaters. Having grown up with the animated TV series, I was extremely excited to see what MOTU would turn into on the big screen.

As I discovered, it was mostly a stinky disappointment.

Underwhelmed at the time, I have never bothered to watch the film again in all years since. However, now and again I will run across articles singing the praises of the film in terms of its pieces rather than the overall whole. In particular, Frank Langella as Skeletor and Meg Foster as Evil-Lynn rise above the material to deliver solid, memorable performances:

It's funny, there's quite a few films sire ever seen when I was younger that I wouldn't bother with ever viewing again, but taking about it today, MOTU doesn't fall under this category. As this recent article’s author observes, all the cast in the movie were sincere in their performances and that's came across quite clearly. For that reason alone, I think I'll give it another viewing soon, when I feel the need for some good old-fashioned 80s film love.

September 4 – Weighing In

Are people in BC healthier than other Canadians?

That seems to be the case in recent study that examined the health levels of Canadians living in Vancouver versus other cities in Canada.

The study concluded that if all Canadians were as healthy as those in the larger cities in BC, billions could be saved by the health industry. Interestingly, it appears that declining rates of tobacco use has meant that health problems due to obesity have overtaken those issues caused by smoking for the first time:

While cancers, heart disease and respiratory ailments from smoking once accounted for the biggest single chunk of avoidable costs, falling rates of tobacco use have changed that. Instead, the rising number of overweight Canadians has made diabetes and joint problems a greater burden.
"From an economic perspective, the impact of excess weight in Canada is now more substantial than that of tobacco smoking," says the report. "Our updated model suggests that in 2013, the annual economic burden attributable to excess weight in Canada was 25 per cent higher than that attributable to tobacco smoking ($23.3 billion versus $18.7 billion)."

I find it interesting that the study dovetails into my own long-held impression of the West Coast lifestyle of being more healthy in general than living in the eastern provinces or even the prairies. My few visits to Vancouver also confirm the impression of the city that puts great value on access to healthy lifestyle venues and general exercise. How ironic that my own bike riding days have fallen behind me, in that I can now walk to work in 15 minutes.

Meaning that I have to make more time to exercise in and of itself, rather than having it as a side benefit of simply getting to work and back on a daily basis.

September 5 – Sans Cable, Day 4

I thought I'd provide a short update to my first week.

It's really amusing to me how often in the last few days that I'd be sitting at home, thinking that a need to relax and I immediately reach for the TV remote. Not a book, or my computer, but the television was always the first thing I thought of.

Now that I can't do that, it's kind of scary how often it happened this week.

How much of my time was spent each week watching television that didn't really matter? Shows that, while certainly entertaining, did nothing to help me as a person or two further my desire to create a career for myself as a writer.

I still have a Netflix account, as well as accounts at several different streaming media sites such as Crackle.com, so I can get more than a few shows fairly quickly if I so wish.

More difficult part is finding shows that arch on these services. I may explore using a VPN to surf around the web based in the USA, but that's a bit tricky and to be honest I don't want to spend too much time looking for distractions, which is what watching TV is for me this year. I have a novel and a half left to complete, so whatever time I managed to gain in the day that's not being spent on television needs to go directly into that.

Now I just have to find the energy that I had from a few months ago…

September 6 – Buoyed By Success!

Today we finally got to test our creations!

Over a month ago, my girlfriend and I decided to create some ‘extras’ to use in the ceiling pond along with our Haulin’ Trawler RC boat. A few weeks ago, I posted pictures of the completed buoys, which were still awaiting our final decisions on how to string them out in the pond - important because we wanted to ensure they didn't foul any propellers while remaining stationary in the water and still allowing easy placement / retrieval.

Heading down to the pond today, we were amused to see that we were the only ones there, likely because of the overcast conditions( which cleared up just as we left several hours later, around noon ). We strung our initial 4-buoy string on plastic weed-whacker refill line( 30m of it, which won’t rot )along with some weights and put them into the water.

Everything worked perfectly!

The buoys floated at exactly the right height, while the line remained submerged well below any propellers thanks to the weights we had tied off to the suspension ropes attaching the buoys to the plastic refill line. The spacing between the buoys was also perfect, which I had judged by eye alone – go me!

We had a great time maneuvering are both around the buoys, which bobbled quite realistically in the ways we made and really stood out against the water in their fluorescent colours. The only downside was when another RC boater showed up with a speed boat and managed to smash directly into one of the boys, knocking off all three of the decorative tops we had glued on. Fortunately, they can be easily reattached with some hot glue, so really no harm done, though the other boater was quite embarrassed about the accident.

My lady and I are having fun being creative like this, enjoying the activities we're discovering together. RC boating is something we both thoroughly enjoy, as it's relaxing and, as a hobby, can be expanded any number of ways. We can even think about getting things like RC planes, though we’d have to drive out to designated RC airfields in the area if we end up getting a serious air vehicle. Myself, I might just pick up this little gem:

All in all, it was a really good day, with lots accomplished. Even the weather cooperated almost to the minute by not raining on us while we were sailing and the sun coming out for most of the afternoon. Even when we were out having dinner on the patio, the sun stayed out of the clouds until almost exactly when we were ready to settle the bill.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Yes indeedy, it was a better week than I'd though. Work was steady to slow, with no stress to speak of and I sailed right into the weekend with a smile. While I'm still working on a regular wake / sleep cycle, things are improving and I hope my energy levels will return to what they were shortly.

Books, Beverages and Being Better

The word of the week is stabilization.

August 24 – Lack Of Zip

It's been a few weeks since I've had any tea to drink.

Since I became ill on August 12, I haven't had any sort of caffeine to drink. This was at first because I simply wasn't sleeping for the first few days after contracting cellulitis: it didn't make any sense for me to try to stay awake when I was doing it anyway and had the potential to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

Once I was back to just resting, not going into work, it also made sense not to drink any tea because I was again falling asleep every few hours - no point in trying to stay up when I badly needed my rest.

There were few ‘withdrawl’ headaches in the first week, coming and going randomly here and there for a few hours as my body adjusted. Seeing as I was going to bed early and waking up late, my body clock naturally adjusted itself to when I needed to fall asleep and when I needed to wake up. While there are indeed some health benefits to drinking tea, overall I believe cutting back on it to minimal levels will do me more good in the long run then keeping up the levels that I've had for the last year or so at my current job.

Once I get back to work, I'll see if I need to have a tea in the morning or the afternoon. My habit of drinking a pot of tea throughout the day is going to be a thing of the past, I think, in that I seem to have adjusted to waking up in plenty of time for work while still getting tired at a reasonable hour well before midnight each night.

As my energy levels formalized in the next week or two, I hope that I won't need more than a cup or two of tea during the day at specific times to counteract my natural mid-afternoon need for a nap.

August 25 – Critique OK

The second time's the charm, I suppose, when it comes to critiques.

In today's case, I mustered the energy to attend my regular monthly critique group, a week late I have to admit. As far as exertion went, all I had to do was ride in the backseat out to Sooke and back in the evening, which turned out to be exactly how much energy I had left in me for the day.

One thing that I love about my critique group is the invigorating energy that gives me as a writer. The people that I meet with are wonderful, one and all, which makes critiquing their work all the simpler given that we have giving feedback to each other for a few years now and can relax when it comes to wondering if someone's being critical or just opinionated.

The energy comes from having someone critique my work who knows it very well, to the point where their questions are extremely specific to things like character motivation, plot details, history points and all the other things that you hope readers will pick up on and ask about. I can't emphasize enough how important getting critical feedback on this sort of thing is, so that my revisions can jump to the next level instead of circling around small edits and tiny fixes. Regularly adding big bricks to the structure makes all the difference.

So again tonight I got back home tired but energized: a bit of a contradiction but that's how it usually is when it comes to my critique group. Every month I can't wait to hear what they have to say about my latest passages for my second book, so that I can sit down and make my work even better for my readers in the next draft.

August 26 – Changing Times

Today’s my last day ‘free’ before I return to work.

It's been wonderful to be able to just rest for a few weeks. Not doing much of the day means that I felt no pressure to accomplish anything other than getting better, resting both my body and my mind to recover my equilibrium.

It is odd to have just been resting, reading and thinking of the day, with interruptions for meals and socializing with my parents. Heading out for small errands this week has been a nice change, getting back into the habit of doing instead of dawdling, so to speak.

Oddly, I've felt little urge to socialize electronically with anyone, in the main I think because I just want to rest and not exert any more energy than I have to. Years ago, I would have spent a good deal of my recovery time chatting with people online, back in the day when IRC( Internet Relay Chat )was king. Nothing like shooting the breeze with a bunch of people you've known for a while but never met to make you feel better when you're sick.

Nowadays, you can chat to strangers instantly with video on your device of choice.

One of the most popular services in use today is Chatroulette, where you’re paired up with random people the world over. While the potential for abuse in such a system is obvious, there’s also tremendous creative potential that is often overlooked, where users can randomly find wondrous and novel things when they log in… like a zombie shooter:

Such a project goes to show that the internet is an endlessly inventive place, where creative minds can go to both play and present their newest brainchild to the world. Neat stuff!

August 27 – Return To Work

After almost 3 weeks off, I returned to work today.

My coworkers were one and all glad to see me, commenting that while they had managed to keep things running decently enough without me, they had quickly come to appreciate how much I accomplished every day when I suddenly wasn't there to do the work.

It was gratifying to know that while my coworkers could pick up my workload during my absence, they were now fully aware of is actually how hard I work every day at my job. Each of them is a dedicated, bright and energetic employee as well, so hearing them uniformly praising my abilities was extraordinarily welcome during my return to the job.

Easing back into the daily routine today, I was quite grateful that for whatever reason it wasn't busy at all. There were quite a few lulls during my shift with very few calls, enabling myself and the team to easily accomplish our daily tasks by late afternoon. There were no problems to speak of and while I felt tired heading home, I wasn't exhausted.

According to my coworkers, I actually picked the perfect time to be sick( not that I had a choice ): things are slow as to the middle of the month and by returning to work now, I can help with the end of month rush that we always get and which can be overwhelming even for a full, experienced team like we have.

Next time, I'll try to be sick while not on my vacation.

August 28 – Two Good Days

I made it through my second day at work just fine.

Again, I was fortunate in that we weren't all that busy overall. By noon I had settled back into the swing of things, enjoying the flow of the familiar and the fact that I was doing something with my day that was both productive and payroll-effective.

It also helps that my workplace is much more efficient of late. We've added quite a few new staff in the last few months, growing by almost a third in total staff size. This is meant fewer irate callers, as our turnaround times have shrunk dramatically from late spring due to the diligent and dedicated hard work of everyone in our branch. This has the effect of reducing everyone's stress levels, as we're not having to deal with problems of the major kind but rather only the small gaffes that always occur due to communication or human error.

By days end today, I was again tired but content with how things have gone. I think I could become used to this sort of feeling, of doing my job properly without feeling rushed or overwhelmed by factors far beyond my control. Having a skilled, supportive and solid team around me means that we all that benefit - I know how rare a thing this is to combine with an overall office attitude that can only be described as happy and healthy.

Now that I’m almost back to being healthy, I can get right back to happy, too.

August 29 – Rain and Lego

It’s wet here again!

The clouds rolled in last night, accompanied by some rather high winds( 90+ kph! ) and drenched Vancouver Island. Since we badly needed it, nobody really minded. We’re due for another rainy evening tonight, so hopefully that will resuscitate some of the drought-stricken trees and other plants here that have been pushed to the edge for lack of water.

Speaking of droughts, I finally got around to seeing The Lego Movie tonight with my girlfriend, who couldn’t say enough good things about it, having already seen it. Talk about anticipation: I’ve only heard good things about the movie but never managed to make the time to see it, until today.

Everything was awesome!

Just like the movie’s theme song: the movie was fantastic fun, all the better because the quality of the CGI meant that it looked like the entire movie was hand-made using Lego bricks. The voice cast was excellent( with many big-name stars )perfectly cast, a solid if unremarkable storyline and a decent twist at the end that tied everything together.

But what really made the film special was that it was jam-packed with parody and satire. The g33k in me reveled in the continual parade of wonderful winks and nods at everything from historical figures to modern pop culture. I especially liked the regular references to all the different Lego toy lines over the decades, of which I owned more than a few and instantly recognized as they popped up on the screen.

My girlfriend and I had a great time watching the film, laughing together at all the amazingly awesome things packed into each minute of screen time. It was refreshing to be able to watch the film with someone who recognized just as many, if not more, of the references that proceeded to parade full-tilt over the course of those most enjoyable few hours.

August 30 – Satisfaction

Have I mentioned I own more than a few books?

By my estimate, I have around 2000 books altogether, counting fiction, non-fiction and sundry miscellaneous tomes stored both in my apartment and that my parents place. Of those books, I started several years ago to inventory them using the GoodReads app on my smart phone, but I stopped after about 300 or so because the app wasn't as well developed as I'd hoped: I had to manually enter quite a few covers and that slowed down the process.

Fast forward to this month and things have changed quite a bit.

While I was recuperating at my parents, I took a little time each day to continue to inventory the remainder of the books that I have stored there. By the time I was done, I had managed to get my count up to well over 500 books, all of which were properly accounted for in terms of title and cover using the most recent GoodReads app.

Why am I bothering to do this, you might ask?

The simple answer: I don't want to buy the same book twice and this is the easiest way for me to accomplish that goal. At least half a dozen times since moving to Vancouver Island, I walked into a used bookstore, seen a book that looked interesting and have it end up that I owned it in my collection already.

With the GoodReads app, it’s simplicity itself to scan a book into my Shelves using the camera on my smart phone. The app has a built-in barcode reader and can scan up to 100 books at a time in a batch, making it quite easy to add many books in one go. Apart from the time it takes for organizing the books into various categories, I've been quite pleased with my progress in inventory my collection and I should have it all completed in the next month or so without having to spend hours at a time laboriously entering ISBN code by hand.

Goodreads has many reasons to join, good ones especially for authors. For now, I'm working on the book ownership angle and I'll get to the rest as soon as I can...

I’d say I’m just about back to normal operations: I’m waking and falling asleep normally at my usual times, eating regularly and feeling generally able to get through my days as I would previous to my illness. The next 3 weeks are all 4-day weeks, thanks to Labour Day and my EDO days falling fortuitously on the calendar, so it should be status-quo as things go from now on.