New Ideas, Nimby and Now News

The word of the week is compassion.

September 21 – NIMBY

What’s a refugee, exactly? Do you know?

Given the dire situations in many places in the world right now, including Syria, you think more people would be aware of what a refugee is… but they don’t.

Some people just don’t care, but too many others think that refugees are simply people who have decided to mooch off other countries while running away from their problems.

Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss, and some smart people have a lot to say about it:

Myself, I find it shocking how easily people can dismiss the plight of others. How they can assume that many of the refugees are ‘lazy’ or ‘just terrorists pretending to be in need’ to gain entry to other  countries to cause violent mischief.

If you’ve watched the video above, you’ll know that’s a misconception, and a big one.

The world can be( and is, in places, too often )a rotten place. Don’t let it fool you into believing that those in need don’t deserve your compassion, or your help.

September 22 – Childhood

Play is making the imaginary real.

I did a lot of that as a kid, and I've retained the core of my imaginary play time in my creative side as an adult. I'm thrilled that I've managed to do so, as I've seen too many people for whom practicality is a way of life. Where imagination is something that they've sidelined or forgotten altogether under the daily bombardment of the mundane.

Did I mention that I especially liked playing with Star Wars spaceships as a kid?

The video below perfectly captures what it was like for me to imagine amazing worlds in my backyard( or elsewhere )as a child. The professional, high production value video was created as a tribute to a famous filmmaker who is involved in the Star Wars franchise and is a joy to watch:

September 23 – Small Steps

I’d like to stop being a renter one of these days and turn into a homeowner.

The problem is, it's not very practical for me at present, nor do I really need to own a home in terms of just having a place to keep my stuff. The average cost of a detached home in Canada is relatively high, but it does vary significantly from region to region. 

This graphic, based on recent data, shows how much a household has to make in order to afford a home purchase - assuming that the bank will talk you in the first place:

For my own situation, I'm exploring other options.

Mainly, I don't want to be stuck with a house that doesn't suit my needs, which are admittedly modest: I don't have a family to take care of, nor do I have pets that need outdoor space or a hobby that requires a workshop( that part may change, I admit ). There is no vehicle for me to park, eliminating the need for garage and I don't have a whole lot of furniture or other materialistic goods that would require additional storage rooms.

That's why I'm putting together a Tiny House mortgage package to present to the credit union sometime this spring. While I'm a fair way away from being ready to spring for such a shift in finances, the credit union is extremely interested in what I have to say, as it's a new market for them and quite honestly they'd stand to benefit greatly from opening it up here in Victoria( and Vancouver Island in general ). 

My plan is to put together as complete a package as possible, including how local bylaws affect the purchase and placement of a Tiny Home, as well as targeted research from many other Tiny Home projects across Canada and the United States. I want to make it as easy as possible for the credit union to tell me what they can do for me in terms of a smaller mortgage, one that doesn't fit within traditional boundaries of home ownership in Canada but is still extremely feasible to set up.

Wish me luck.

September 24 – Nerf Business?

Nerf has been on my mind all this week, for various reasons.

Apart from the fun factor, I've had an idea rattling around in my brain: could I start up a small business based around ‘Nerf Tag’ and make a go of it, while still having fun with my friends once or twice a month? Given that I can't do a lot of physical activities any more, including my beloved archery, it seems like the perfect fit.

The ideas not as silly as it sounds; there's already a Nerf Gun Rental business right here in Victoria, complete with a website:

NerfGunRentals.com - right here in Victoria!

There's also other similar businesses set up across Canada, including one in Winnipeg, though they seem to be based around the idea of taking the game to birthday parties, corporate events and the like.

That's not for me though; I'd rather not have to transport a whole bunch of gear all over the place all the time, mainly because I don't own a vehicle. That mobile business model is also dependent upon people coming to you and that necessitates advertising in all sorts of places an order to make yourself visible and get the word around that you exist in the first place.

I'd much rather set up games locally in a park, complete with safety signage, waivers and all the necessary details of a small business. I've put some thought into this concept this week and I'll be looking into it further as time permits. I like the idea that it has a low initial outlay for set up and operating costs, with potential for growth into a permanent facility depending on where I locate. The facility would also have the added bonus of not needing much work, unlike a business like laser tag, which has tens of thousands of dollars in upfront costs for equipment and facility modification.

More on this as it develops.

September 25 – 3D Business?

Holy business ideas, Batman!

Continuing my thoughts from above, the other business idea I had this week has to do with laser printing. Well, not exactly: it’s actually laser etching, cutting and engraving.

This month sees the debut of an amazing step forward in small-scale laser technology that anyone can use. It’s best explained by this short, fascinating video:

In a nutshell: until now, 3D laser printers have cost upwards of $10,000 and are complicated to use, though the results can be amazing. Yet, if you don't know exactly what you're doing, it's often a continuous exercise in frustration and wasted materials, not to mention the huge cost of the purchase in the first place. Hence not many people knowing about the potential of what 3D laser printing can accomplish( here's some examples )or even that it exists.

Enter Glowforge.

Designed to be as easy to use as possible, the Glowforge can print on all sorts of flat materials, up to 12" x 20" wide in the base model and much more in the upgraded Pro version. The printer comes with everything that you need to get up and running immediately, as all the complicated software is run over the web, helping to lower the printer’s initial cost significantly.

Now, don't get me wrong: this is not a cheap purchase, nor is it something the average person will have in their home or office. It's a machine meant to create things for other people, or for someone with specific needs… like cosplayers, or others who need its services.

I'll be researching local 3D-laser businesses in the next few weeks, to better understand how a Glowforge might provide me with advantage over other businesses in both market and cost. The initial outlay for the printer may be offset fairly quickly, depending on the demand for what it can do and how easily I can provide such services.

Who knows? I may end up opening an Etsy store, given the opportunity to provide Internet orders for projects such as this… 3D-cut gaming system tiles, custom-sized and low cost:

The possibilities are almost limitless and to be honest, I am more excited this point than anything else. Which means I have to sit down and have a good think about what exactly this sort of thing would do to make my life better financially, while not sucking up all my time that could go towards other things, like writing.

We'll see what the next few weeks bring, in that regard.

September 26 – The Eyes Have it?

My vision isn't great.

All the same, I'm glad that I can see - in general - without my glasses and that I don't need a heavier prescription, but many are the days I wish I had 20/20 vision. Having needed glasses since the seventh grade( and likely earlier, at that )it's really been frustrating sometimes to know that other people see far better than I do far more easily. Sure, I could wear contact lenses, but those raise their own issues that I don't want to have in regards to eye health.

Which is why laser eye surgery has always been on my mind.

However, the unknown long-term effects, coupled with the high cost, have meant that I've never seriously considered going down that route and ditching glasses altogether.

Enter the Ocumetrics Bionic Lens implant.

Developed right here in BC, the lens replaces the defective one in a person's eye in a procedure that takes less than 10 minutes and grants them perfect 20/20 vision once again. As an added bonus, the artificial cornea means that users will never develop cataracts! I also imagine that the lens would be replaceable if a persons prescription changes, and it opens the possibility of additional optical functions, depending on how fast implantable technology develops in the next few years.

Much better than surgery, in my opinion. The creators of the Ocumetrics Lens hope to have Canadian regulatory approval by 2017, which means that surgeries( and their medical results )will happen within the next five years or so - exciting times for people like myself, who tire of glasses and one just to see properly again day to day.

I'll be keeping my eye on this one.

September 27 – Going Well

How are things going overall of late, you ask?

That's both hard and easy to answer for me right now.

My work's going well, for as I've said before, I can leave it all behind at the end of the day and I'm neither physically nor mentally exhausted when that happens. While there's obviously some busy days at times, having a solid team around me as I do right now makes it so much easier to get through the more challenging workdays than at any previous job.

My personal life is doing happy cartwheels of late. I spent a good deal of quality time with my girlfriend every day this weekend, enjoying the good weather outside and watching Babylon 5 when the sun had set. Today we spent a few hours in the morning down at the Yacht Pond, which was fairly crowded with RC boaters, given the sunny skies and warmer temperatures. We chatted up more than a few folks, who admired our buoys and generally made us feel welcome – the president of the local model boat club, the VMSS, even invited us down to the Christmas club dinner, which was again extremely friendly and indicative of the relaxed air that we've noticed whenever we've sailed our Trawler on the Pond.

Financially, well… I'd like to be making more money, but as I said before: I'm holding my own right now and for the foreseeable future. The business ideas that I have above are to try and get ahead, while still keeping my own interests in mind for what I can do in terms of hobbies and other projects… bearing in mind that costs are costs and would come out of my own pocket.

Writing-wise, things are a bit stalled. I'm still struggling with the middle of Book 2, where the plot lines all tangle; getting those sorted out has been quite frustrating these last few months. I've taken it upon myself to focus just on getting the plot sorted for now and once that's done, the words will flow once more.

There are other frustrations, for the most part they're fairly minor. As lives go, mine's doing pretty well of late. I just have to discover the right balance of time spent on work, rest and play, finding out what's really important to me for the next few months and budgeting what's needed on a day-to-day basis.

Getting six hours of sleep a night, with a few interruptions, isn't conducive towards feeling rested. Thankfully, the next month will see a big reduction of interruptions, especially after my sister spends a few weeks vacationing in Europe, which she definitely deserves - she's been dreaming of going to Paris for years and finally, she's getting her heart's desire..

Purity, Politics and Perfection

The word of the week is assuage.

September 14 – Pure FBook!

At last: I can customize my FBook experience safely!

Ever since I first started using FBook in the mid-2000’s, the interface has bothered me, in that there’s many ‘features’ that I’d like to just turn off… but can’t: FBook won’t let you.

Heck, you can’t even change the colour of the titlebar!

Before you say anything: yes, I know there are various apps / software scripts that will purportedly allow you to do what you want with the way FBook is presented over the web, but almost every one of those is malware or spyware some kind.

The only one that isn't is FBook Purity.

Now, I am as skeptical as the next person, but I've thoroughly checked out FBook Purity and it's legit, safe as houses, etc. I downloaded and installed it as a plug-in today on my web browser, which is how FBook Purity was designed from the outset: it doesn’t operate in any malicious way, just works as a small plugin in your browser that takes all the annoying things about FBook’s website and lets you customize them as you see fit.

You can read user reviews of the product - which is free – here, as well as check out forums discussing its safety rating. Better yet: go find out for yourself.

Me, I'm just going to bask in the novelty of a green FBook title bar for a while…

September 15 – Scifi Air Show!

Well, colour me embarrassed.

Last week, I showed my girlfriend this image of a life-sized Tie Fighter cockpit:

This isn't real, sadly

… which turned out to be a Photoshopped image, albeit a damn good one.

It was an image from ScifiAirshow.com, a small and lovely site which houses all sorts of wondrous pictures of ships that don't actually exist in the real world, presented as though they were on tour at your standard airshow where the public can poke and prod them or even kicked the tires, so to speak.

Pretty cool idea, eh?

Sadly, this is real - most ppl can't visit it. Hence: sad.

An interesting note is that while most of the images on the site are completely digital fabrications, one section is not. The Space 1999 ships housed at the Eagle Boneyard are completely real, castoffs from the show after it was canceled in the late 1970s. All the ships shown are full-sized mockups, built for filming the TV series from all angles.

This is a similar idea to the Hollywood Scifi Museum, a Kickstarter project whose initial phase should open in 2016 - it's assuredly someplace that I want to go sooner rather than later and I'll talk more about it in detail in another blog post.

For now I just want to think about climing into an X-wing’s cockpit…

September 16 – Caffeine

Cutting back on caffeine seems to be doing me some good, in odd ways.

In the last month, I've reduced my daily intake of tea from the equivalent of three XL cups at Tim Horton’s to less than one. Even that isn't quite true, as I'm not even finishing the single thermos mug of tea I bring with me in a day.

I think that's a good thing.

My stomach has certainly decided it doesn't like more than one moderately sized cup of tea in a day. When I was working midnights at MMart, I would drink up to two full pots of tea in order to keep myself awake and that did not do my stomach any good whatsoever. For several years after I had returned to the day shift, I developed an acidic stomach if I drank any more than a single XL cup of tea from Timmy’s – yuck and ouchie.

I'm no longer as groggy in the mornings when I wake up, I get tired of the same time in the afternoon every day( about 2pm ) and again around 10pm at night. Not bad at all.

However, I am waking up around 6 AM, whether I like it or not and that's proving to be a bit of the bugaboo: while I'm tired, I'm not actually falling asleep until nearly midnight most nights.

I think in the short term all just have to go to bed earlier, whether I feel like it or not and see if sleep finds me more easily. My nights in the last few weeks have been interrupted by various noises and the dark circles under my eyes - which completely vanished while I was recuperating in August - have returned with a vengeance.

Ironically, one cure for those is to hold used tea bags under your eyes for a few minutes a day…

September 17 – Voting Tools

Are you certain you want to vote for this coming federal election in Canada?

Before I go, I make sure that I know where all the parties stand on major issues and who their candidates are, in terms of political history. I'll be the first to say that I don't know nearly enough about politics in Canada to make a perfect choice, but I do know enough not to just vote blindly based on hearsay or because I liked a particular party previously.

I've often wished for some kind of tool to help this process, and this year my wish has been granted!

Isidewith.com is a free, anonymous Canadian site that quizzes you on all the current political issues, asking you to weight your answers in order of priority. The site then tells you which Canadian political party your views most lean towards. So useful!

I was quite amused to find how much I agreed with my chosen political party. After asking me dozens of questions, the site stated that I had a 94% match with one of the major political parties, not unsurprisingly the one that I plan to vote for.

One can only hope that a majority of Canadians decide to show up this year to oust Harper, to stop the sweeping stupidity and greed he has shown in his time in office.

September 18 – Nerf!

My Nerf arrived today!

A few weeks ago, I found a pair of Nerf guns on eBay that were exactly what I needed for the cosplay my girlfriend and I are planning for spring of the coming year. Today I picked up the package from the post office and this is what I found inside:

As you can see, the guns disassemble quite handily, meaning that their components can be easily adjusted to fit our cosplay needs. While I still had to order several components from other guns from eBay this week in order to fully flesh out the required parts list, I anticipate that the overall cost will be far less than buying a pair of resin kits of the pulse rifles. Here’s what I hope our end result will resemble:

After the guns had arrived, I took a little time to check out various Nerf auctions both locally and across Canada. Toronto and Vancouver had a fair bit, but overall very few Nerf guns are for sale currently, which I find puzzling as they are quite popular.

However, that popularity also means that there's a steady supply of cheap Nerf guns out there and that put the bug in my head about perhaps starting a local Nerf gaming league here. I spent a while thinking about that as I browsed this wonderful Best Of Nerf Guns list...

But, more on all that in a later post!

September 19 – Discoveries!

Today was pretty productive: I sorted, organized and condensed a whole lot of things in the apartment over the course of the afternoon, tossing out a lot of boxes and…

Wait, what's that I’ve found here?

*unrolls the poster from the back of his closet*

Whoa! I had totally forgotten that I have this:

After I had carefully unrolled the poster, I realized that it was an original theatrical print and not a reproduction! While not exceedingly rare, vintage posters of The Dark Crystal are not easy to come by nowadays, 30 years after its release. This one, if you look at the picture closely, has a release number in the bottom right corner, indicating its one of a series printed for the natural release. As well, the colors on the poster are still quite vivid, indicating that it's is likely a product of the stone lithography method of poster printing, which gives lasting results and would explain why the colors are vibrant after all these years.

I'm quite excited to have found this sitting in my closet and I do believe I recall some of the details where I got it from before moving to BC. At the time I didn't fully appreciate what a find it was, as I do now, and I'll be thinking of how best to display it here inside a protective frame.

Now I just have to find some wall space…

September 20 – DVD Captures!

At last, it works! It works!!!

For years now, I've been trying to find a digitizing solution for my somewhat sizable collection of movies and TV series on DVD and Blu-ray. It's a pain to haul out the DVD case, pop it into the player and navigate the menus, as well as fact that you can't take those same movies or TV episodes on the road to watch them wherever or whenever you want to. Given my current time restraints, it would be nice to be able to watch something in stages from both home and work. I do have that capability with my Plex media software package, but it can only play media that has already been digitized onto my home server.

Enter the result of one last Google search for a solution...

Having given up trying to find a solution for my main computer, I had the brilliant idea( if I do say so myself )of putting my somewhat-idle Windows Home Server( WHS, used mainly for backing up my other computers )to use. And… presto! A solution!

As you can see, I've been BUSY today...!

Using MyMovies on my WHS, as well as an external DVD drive, I can simply pop in a desk and walk away: the software will cleanly rip the entire disc in the space of about 30 minutes. When it's done, the disc is ejected automatically, I load another and the process repeats, saving all the data onto my WHS server neat-as-you-please and allowing me to use my main PC without interruption.

I can't emphasize enough what an incredible time-saver this is!

Seeing as I have approximately 4TB( 4,000 gigabytes ) of free space on my WHS, there's enough  for me to digitize my entire video collection with room to spare, not to mention any future additions that I might wish to make available from my server. The video quality isn't superb, but it's eminently watchable and I can always do a few things to compress the file size further or otherwise modify the video data to clean it up, if necessary.

For now, I have 21 days in the no-limit Free Trial of MyMovies to digitize much my collection as possible. Seeing as it's a completely hands-off process, I can do whatever else I like or need to while waiting for the disc to eject.

Perfection.

In spending most of my Saturday afternoon tidying things up, I managed to make both my arms ache abominably, which matched the headache which has dogged me since Friday due to the weather change. Thankfully, both problems will abate with time, so I'm hoping that by the end of the workday tomorrow - if I don't abuse my wrists, that is - I'll be back to my normal don’t-pick-up-heavy-objects-or-strain-your-arms self again. I am inordinately pleased with all the things I did get accomplished this week and while not a lot of them were writing related, enough added up to bring me a feeling of satisfaction by the time the weekend was finished.

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.