Plans, People and Pain

The word of the week is quotidian. Because it sounds cooler than it is.

March 14 -Taxez

It used to be that I was afraid of tax time, or at least very wary - it's like that for a lot of people, as many don't understand how taxes work. Having dealt with filing taxes with people for six years now at work, I can say that the majority of people have no clue and simply expect large sums of money back with no aforethought or preparation... then get annoyed when they owe $$. I'll leave it for another blog entry to explain the ins and outs of ensuring you are likely to GET a return - there's lots you can do. Myself, I just make sure I pay as little as possible to DO my own taxes... like using Turbotax, formerly QuickTax. I've already filed my own this year for less than twenty bucks, and I didn't pay a cent to figure it all out beforehand - love that website. It's worked for me for five years now, lets me plug in all sorts of numbers and save everything to my PC drive when I'm done. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to see how their tax numbers work as you enter the info, and see if you can make your return better by playing with your options - for free all the way!

March 15 - Painful Cars

Looks like it's time for a new vehicle... but not for me. Today my mom revealed that she's in a LOT more pain than she's been letting on due to her knee joints, so much so that it's excruciating for her to get in and out of the current Mazda3. Which means we now have to search for a deal on a Mazda5, which she has no trouble with as the seat is much higher-set. Which also means my carefully-laid plans for financial parity are going out the window again for another five years or so, give or take. Makes me want to go buy a nice solid bench-vice and stick my head into it to see how much more pressure I can take before my head implodes. Solve one problem and another is right there waiting to jump you for your wallet. Maybe I should just sell off everything I own and go find a nice mountain to become a hermit on... I'm already halfway there where I'm living now.

March 16 - Prisoners of Gravity

Oh joy! After years of going without, now millions can enjoy Prisoners Of Gravity directly from the source on TV Ontario! Up until now, only a few low-quality episodes of this landmark sci-fi talk show were available on YouTube and pained the eye to watch. Now TVO has put dozens of episodes up on the web on their homepage, all of them in excellent quality that will suck you in and spit you out a happier, wiser person... or at least entertain you. I loved Prisoners Of Gravity when it came out, not only because it used the then-cutting-edge Amiga computer for the graphical touches, but because it had ALL the coolest sci-fi / fantasy authors of the day on there. Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock and Spider Robinson were all recurring guests, as was Robert. J. Sawyer and many others. Go. Watch. Now!

March 17 - Scammy Bracelets

At work, I often deal with fraudsters, scam artists, petty criminals and the results that these scum have on regular people. For every heart-warming story you see about people giving back to the world, there's a dozen( or more )untold ones where people were bilked by others with no moral or conscience. Take, for example, the makers of the Q-Ray 'pain relief' bracelet - a total placebo product that made millions for its creators while doing nothing for the purchasers. Thankfully, the makers of the Q-Ray were taken to court and fined heftily - read through the article and you'll laugh in delight at what the presiding judge had to say about it concerning the effectiveness of the bracelet( hint: it involves aliens! ).

March 18 - Half the day at work

Ack! Another example of why being a manager stinks: one of my CSR's had an allergic reaction to some medication yesterday night, and as they were scheduled to open today... you get the picture. Instead of sleeping in( slightly )after my 2 days off( luxurious! )I rushed into work to open the store( late )and spent a total of 12 hours there with an hour off for lunch( unpaid )and a few sanity breaks interspersed. Mercifully it wasn't an insanely busy day, but I was still beat at the end. It's also a good example of corporate doubletalk: I catch flack for every hour of O/T paid out, but when someone's sick it becomes VERY apparent that we don't have ENOUGH staff to cover. In effect, the company is squeezing all it can by reducing payroll costs to the bare minimum to serve customers, and this has its fallout when things go loopy. In comparison, the Tim Horton's next door has TWENTY people working some days... makes me wonder what their monthly revenues are - I should have paid more attention when I worked there last.

March 19 -  Moons

Tonight was the 'Supermoon' - where the moon was 30,000km closer to the earth at apogee. Many astronomers( but not astrologers )went gaga( not Lady )over this. Me, not so much - I've seen the moon on many a clear cold night through a telescope, and it's pretty... but dead. How much more interesting would it be to have a moon with clouds, or ice, or anything but a stark white face that never changes? I've a fondness for a scifi series by David Weber  that started with a book called Mutineer's Moon, as it postulates that our moon is not really a moon, but a gigantic spaceship trapped in orbit for millennia... and no, it has nothing to do with the Death Star. Grab a copy if you can, it's a very worthy read, or just read the first 24 chapters right at Baen Books online!

March 20 -  Spring... springs.

Today is the first official day of Spring, and for the most part it lived up to it here in Victoria - and I was stuck inside, of course! The sun was out and the clouds were few until very late in the afternoon, so I saw rafts of people moving around outside with their jackets open or just in shirtsleeves; glorious. Many people commented that it 'smelled like Spring' outside, and my brain kicked up a little factoid: Spring smells like it does because of bacteria in the soil - don't believe me? Have a look here and wonder at the, er, wonders of science. Search that same site for answers to all sorts of pithy questions you may have about the world around you, without having to travel to your local science centre; score one for the 'net.

So that's it for another week here in BC - I'm really looking forward to the good weather to get out on my cycle, as well as do some foot exploration hereabouts. Maybe even some trails?

Grief, Gaming and Michel Gagné

The word of the week is meandering.

March 7 -Fading Details

Tristan has been gone a week now, and I'm still not sure of how I'm feeling. On the one hand, I KNOW that he's gone... I can leave my bedroom door closed, and don't have to watch underfoot for him unexpectedly. It's damn hard though, knowing that he's gone; he's not there to greet me at the door, or compete for space on my lap with the keyboard, or wake me up in the morning with a purr and a spattering of happy drool. I have to fight to remember these things, even so soon after his passing, as he's NOT THERE to do them anymore. This is what it means to lose a part of your life: remembering the details that fade so fast with time, and realizing that the hole they've left can be painfully ignored, but never forgotten... because to forget means that all the richness Tristan brought to my life will have faded.

March 8 - Writing

Self-publishing my stories has never seemed like a viable way to make a living to me - until now. A friend sent me a link to a young author who has managed to sell several hundred thousand copies of her books in less than a year - an amazing record and allowing her to become fairly well-off in a short period of time solely from the scratching of her pen, albeit a digital one. A writer always wonders how and where people will pick up their work; you wonder if you'll stick in a reader's mind for a long time, or be relegated to their 'read later if I find time' shelf, so to speak. Either classification doesn't guarantee a decent income for the author, either.

March 9 -Shadow Puppets

A friend of a friend of mine, Michel Gagne, has released a gameplay trailer based on his amazing Shadow Puppet animations . It's called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, and it's incredibly cool! Have a look:

If that didn't make your brain spin around in giddy happiness, please seek professional help ASAP...

March 10 - Ultimate Bedroom

I had a fairly small and mundane bedroom growing up - albeit one with superhero wallpaper and toys covering every usable surface. I didn't spend a whole lot of time in there anyway; the world outside was my playground and I made a lot of use of the nearby ravine for many an adventure with my friends. However, if I HAD had my wish granted for an 'ultimate bedroom' then THIS would be it - I mean, seriously, who wouldn't want to live like a pirate in your own home? So cool!

March 11 - Quakes!

Living on the coast of BC, I was reminded again that unlike solid ol' ON, they have earthquakes here. Today Japan felt the same tectonic plate that I'm on shift - in a massive way. It really brought home the face that we live on a thin crust of solid matter floating ever so slowly over a molten ball of rock that is the core of this planet, and at any time it can shrug us around. A site that you might want to visit to prepare yourself and your family for such a quake( or other disasters )is 72hours.org - you can find sensible lists of supplies and disaster advice to ensure you know what to do when the lights are out and the world is not in a happy place.

March 12 - YADO( Yet Another Day Off )

I'm still feeling very blah, prone to bouts of 'meh' and the like, so I've been treating myself to long sessions with my sunlamp and finding time for naps on my days off - usually more than one, but not TOO long or it really messes with your energy levels. Today was a case in point: I spent some time online playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and not doing TOO badly... but I did it on and off all day, interspersed with a few naps, housework, moving the laundry machines around( don't ask )and some time at the Bean. Which has definitely been sold, and has its power turned back on again - it wasn't on either of my days off earlier in the week, which was very, very annoying. Especially when there's not much else in the way of places to go here on top of Bear Mountain when it's raining down and you've got cabin fever.

March 13 -  NWN bliss!

I took a half-day at work today, mainly to get the payroll done( yay! Money! )and to catch up on a few things. I was home by early afternoon, still feeling tired. I puttered a bit online, playing BF:BC2 on the Xbox for a bit with Dave and Simon but my heart wasn't in it. After dinner though, was NWN quest time! I fell into a gaming heaven for nigh onto 5 hours, running through a DM-led quest that had us travel back in time and NOT DIE once though we fought several fierce battles. The major turning point though, took place when my Nich character talked an evil emperor out of killing us all... and did it so well that said evil Bad guy let us go with a pat on the head. It was lovely, the people I gamed with were fantastic, and I didn't want the night to end, as it must... times like that make me yearn for the days when I could game at that level several times a week, years ago. Now, sessions like those are rarer and commensurately more precious for their rarity - all good reasons to work hard at keeping the Primordia gaming group alive!

There you have it... a week I thought dragged at points, but ended on an incredible high note. Hard to believe, but then again the best things tend to surprise you!

Love, Loss and Lamentation

The word of the week is sorrowful. In spades - don't read the blog this week if you're sensitive to the loss of a pet...

Feb 28 – The Downhill Journey

For a few weeks now our amazing pet cat Tristan has been showing his age, not being able to jump up onto things as he used to. We thought it was that, anyway, until today when he stopped eating his food - totally, not a bite. He tried, but then pawed at his mouth like it pained him... totally unlike any behavior we've seen from him - he even refused bacon! We took him into a local vet's right away, who though they were remarkably nice were fairly unhelpful in a diagnosis apart from dismissing a bad tooth. We made an appointment with another vet for tomorrow afternoon and spent much of the evening trying to get Tristan to eat near-liquid food, with limited success - he was best able to clean up a dish of fresh tuna water, which seemed to give him more energy. He seems happy but quite tired and he is cooler to the touch than normal, a sure sign that his body is shutting down. We're all in shock at the sudden downturn he has taken; less than a week ago he was chasing little rubber balls around and jumping onto beds as usual. Frightening.

March 1 – Before Loss

Before I had to work today, we took Tristan into a much more helpful veterinarian, getting him a complete checkout and determining that he most likely had something wrong with his throat . Blood work showed him to be failing rapidly and suddenly, with all signs pointing to a cancer of some kind centered in his throat that was preventing him from swallowing. I left work early that evening to rush back to the vet's to pick up Tristan to bring him home again; we had decided against putting him down just as the vet's was closing for the day as he wasn't in any pain. He had little energy and was content to snooze quietly with one of us nearby at home; getting him to drink even a little fresh tuna water was a triumph at this point. As the day drew to a close, I decided to stay up for the entire night to ensure he was comfortable; he was generating so little body heat due to his lack of energy that we weren't sure he'd make it through the night unattended. Thankfully all he needed was a fleecy comforter and a loving presence to keep him with us; a couple of assisted trips for a few sips of tuna water and the litterbox were all he had the energy for. I lay awake watching TV and just spending the time with my friend until dawn.

March 2 – Tristan Passes

Once my parents were up, I gave over Tristan's care to them and caught several hour's grudging sleep, no more - today was Tristan's last day with us. We all three spent the time as close to him as we could, letting him enjoy our affection and seeing it returned in turn from him - he was truly a special animal, able to sense our distress and doing his best to try to keep us comforted with paws and purring. The sun came out quite a few times considering it was a rainy day, allowing Tristan to bask in its warmth easily. By late afternoon, it was time to leave for the vet's... the sun stayed with us for the whole trip, and there were several memorable moments in the car that will stay with my parents and I forever. Tragically, the trip had to end at the vet's and with Tristan's passing; I'll not go into detail save to say we all three were completely devastated for the rest of the evening and will remain so for long afterward. Of the 19 cats we've had over the years, Tristan was far and away the sweetest, most loving and most intelligent - I can truly say that he was one in a billion and we shall never, ever see his like again. A tragedy today,  his loss is... and I also feel sorry that so few people reading this will ever know the thousand ways that Tristan made our lives brighter and better.

Rest well, my little buddy.

March 3 – After Loss

The day after a devastating loss is always a grey blur for me; being short-staffed meant I had to work today, but while writing this blog I can't recall a single thing I said or did that day - it was all on automatic. I was much the same with the loss of another pet, Tetley, some six years past... his was also a unique personality, full of spunk and quite different from the quiet love that Tristan possessed. I have been lucky in many ways, I know, in that I haven't lost a close loved one or friend during my many years and that only two truly special pets have passed. All the things you associate with death do come into play: wishing for more time, to take back lost moments or unkind words or deeds... realizing that all you have after they are gone are the memories of the good times and the lessons they taught you while they were with you. Nothing lasts forever( sorry about that cliche )and sometimes you're just motoring along through life, not realizing you can slow down to enjoy the breeze and roll down the window a little more. Heck, stop and get out for a walk... or whatever tickles your fancy, especially if you're with someone you really care about. It sounds hokey, I know... but you may never get the chance again.

March 4 - Sorry we forgot to pay you for that...

I'm not sure what else to write in the blog this week that can really hold my interest... minor things all, they seem to me right now. Even the fact that my work managed to miss paying me for the 18 hours I spent covering Millstream last week seems rather dull and unimportant, as does the unfortunate firing of a co-worker... which I suspected was inevitable, sadly. My company pays lip service to 'developing the best people' but always seems ready to dismiss someone at the drop of a hat if they can find a good reason; it blows my mind sometimes. There's no sense of family, of loyalty or sometimes even common ethical decency - if you don't perform well enough, despite your other qualifications, you're gone. Makes the phrase 'job security' meaningless the way I see it; they're just waiting for an excuse to boot you for someone cheaper and less troublesome, for the most part. Kind of like contract workers at casinos.

March 5 - Take two tablets...

All right, I have to get a bit of technology into the blog this week... otherwise it's just a well-deserved lament for the loss we've experienced, and that's depressing me again. On to the Motorola Xoom: there's a solid in-depth no-holds-barred review by ArsTechnica.com, who go into a lot of the problems that another review, while also balanced, doesn't really touch on. For now, I'm really, really interested in the Xoom, but I hope that by the end of 2011 the $800 USD price tag drops quite a few notches. Interestingly, that's still LESS than I paid for my GatewayFX laptop two years ago... and I SOLD it this week for about half the cost of the Xoom - huzzah! An ex-Canadian in California bought it as-is, to try to repair if possible and use for parts otherwise; made me happy to both get some $$ for it and that it's going to somewhere other than a tech recycling bin. Which is where my iPhone replacement battery is going; I had to remove it today and replace IT with the OLD battery, as the 'new' battery was charging randomly and growing VERY hot... no thanks to eBay, I'm back to square one. At least the phone still works fine.

March 6 - Memories of Sundays Past

One of these years I'll be able to get every Sunday off, but for now the way staffing constraints are I'll be working most every Sunday albeit a shorter shift every other one. A few years ago that would have been very painful, as Sundays were the only day that ALL my friends were online on Xbox Live to game together; before that, it was Halo LAN-party day and before that D&D gaming day. Now, it's down to "Whoever's around on Sunday might get in a game or two on Xbox if we all feel like it" - which is fine, as I don't think my friends now want to spent ALL day on a Sunday gaming... weird how things change. Scarfing chips and beer while yelling insults at your buddies just isn't as fun online as it was all packed into one house together...

It's been devastating losing Tristan this week... he was a source of joy and love for 12 years, so to lose his familiar presence so suddenly really does leave a hole in our lives. But we have pictures and memories to fall back on, so the sense of loss will fade.... slowly and with pain, to be sure. He will be sorely missed all my days.

Signals, Senses and Serenity

The word of the week is ambivalent. Not that I really care, mind you...

Feb 21 - Summaries
 
Of late, I've been starting out the weekly blog's first entry with somewhat of a personal summary - my thoughts or observations of where I am and where I'm going, more than what I'm doing. I'm not sure if this is more for me than for other people, but it does provide some consistency, if I want to go back and look over my blog for the past 3 years or so. It's all there, getting briefer as time progresses, perhaps because I'm spending less time recording and more time doing - or so I like to think. One thing I've tried to do more of is to record my ideas / observations during the day, so that I have a selection of noted thoughts to fall back on and collate when I'm drumming up writing ideas. The blog doesn't really help with that... the ideas should be there when you have the time to turn them into something larger.
 
Feb 22 - Paper Computing
 
I try to keep my nose in the tech world's leading advances, as I love seeing how people can come up with new ways to make tech work for us. I was surprised therefore, that I had missed any mention of the  SixthSense  technology concept that was demoed in India over a year ago. Have a look at the presentation below and tell me you're not amazed at the possibilities that are discussed within:
 




Tech keeps advancing quickly, bringing costs down to levels that make your eyes pop when compared to previous years. Cell phones are an example; what an iPhone does down could not be duplicated ten years ago even given tech costing ten times as much, yet people take it all for granted today. I just purchased a replacement all-in-one full-colour scanner / copier / printer for my parents for $27.00 ... yes, that's right, less than THIRTY dollars got them something that ten years ago would easily have cost close to a thousand and probably not in colour printing. Unbelievable, the way tech just keeps advancing...
 
Feb 23 - Full Signal Joy
 
The benefits of being cheap AND a tech-head sometimes pans out. Take, for example, the problem of a poor cell signal in my bedroom – so poor I can't even get text msgs, let alone make a phone call. Enter the Cell Ranger, which for just $40.00 shipped on eBay promises to add 2 bars to your cell signal – and it works! It's NOT one of those 'Amazing' decal antennas, but rather a power-lighter plug-in powered antenna booster. Problem is, it's for a car... and I can't keep a car in my bedroom just for the cigarette-lighter power plug. Ebay to the rescue again; a $7.00 adaptor on  the cheap and I can now plug in the 'car-only' Cell Ranger at home, for perfect performance! The combo works like a charm, and my cell signal from the VERY close-by Telus tower is now 4-5 full bars – huzzah! Now all I have to do is find a few local friends to call me once in a while...
 
Feb 24 - Firefly
 
I may not be a Browncoat, but I do love the short-lived TV series Firefly... as well as cutaway posters. So when I saw that ThinkGeek had put up a set of posters that detailed the inner workings of the primary ship of the series, Serenity, I had to order it. On my shelf are various cutaway books from years past, including almost all of the Star Wars series - I'd always wondered just how BIG the Death Star was and how the internals were all laid out. And who hasn't wondered about what was where inside the Milennium Falcon, at some point? I'll admit that the idea of a 3D-flythrough has a lot of appeal, but until those arrive( if they ever do )then I'll be content to gaze at the cutaway posters on my wall, and dream the dreams of a younger boy who didn't yet know that nearby space wasn't filled with zooming spaceships...


Feb 25 - Funding Dreams
 
An example of money wasted, or a cool idea being made into reality? Funding has reached its goal already for a RoboCop statue in Detriot, but there's always the question of whether the $60K USD could be better spent on social programs for that city rather than idolizing a fictional robotic enforcer. Myself, I think it's very cool and another excellent example of social sites like Kickstarter.com catching people's imaginations to fund projects that otherwise may never see the light of day. Heck, if I had  to plan a trip out that way I'd be sure to include the statue on my itinerary - what g33k wouldn't, really? I just hope the final design is cooler than the image showing a cross-legged RoboCop - that's just plain silly. 

Feb 26 - Snow, winds and COLD !
 
We received more snow today, but people were well-prepared for it – all the main roads were clear, and the cold air was bracing instead of biting. I expected some problems coming home up the mountain, but the road was heavily-salted and perfectly clear – something the person driving in front of me couldn't grasp, as they did 30K the entire 4.5K drive up... in an SUV. Obviously they had little winter-driving experience; I can thank my years in ON for being able to judge a winter road as to being icy, salted, clear or slippery... as well as the various levels of snow-covered. Nothing wrong with being cautious however, especially on roads where the only crash barriers are the trees that slope away into the dark down the hillside... anyway. I was out for a while after work( which was insanely busy so I finished 2hrs late )and just crashed for the evening, sleeping, watching parts of TV shows and ending up in a lovely hours-long chat with Mike up until the witching hour, which tried the patience of Skype( it crashed and complained )and my bluetooth headset.
 
Feb 27 - Catching up on daytime sleep
 
Finally: my first full day off in 12 days in a row of working, and MAN I was tired; I woke to breakfast at 9am and then fell back asleep until noon, something totally uncharacteristic for me – I had NO energy and I think the heavy rain outside just sapped any attempts to leave the warm bed. I'm glad to see the rain though, as it's quickly reducing the piles of snow outside to puddles at a rate that makes my heart glad. I went out to the Bean after lunch, perhaps for the last time, as the staff there said they will receive news about the sale tomorrow - I'm hoping hard that it will be business as usual under the new owners. I dozed on and off fitfully for the rest of the afternoon, as I was still exhausted. After dinner I participated in a great NWN, session which saw two of my longtime friends appear( Gwen & Nab )though one just stayed on to shop... but otherwise much fun was had by all. I barely paid any attention to the Oscars, apart from Sandra Bullock's presentation, and just finished the day with some low-energy blog puttering.

Looks like the winter weather here is abating - it rained buckets today, alternating with slushy snowfall, so the piles of the white stuff were greatly reduced. Given the coming week's forecast, I'd be surprised to see anything resembling snow left on the ground by the weekend - another win for BC winters!

Hearts, Hope and Half-Days Off

The word of the week is quixotic. Because we all need to hope.

Feb 14 - Love and Mondays

T'was another Hallmark Holiday today, when people are reminded that they should love one another... sad that we have to commercialize the one day a year that should be about emotion, not graphic expenditures of cash to 'prove' one's devotion / love / affection to another. While I don't have( nor have had )a significant other right now, I do give thanks that I have such a loving, easy-to-get-along-with family that is supportive of me and has never felt the need to pressure me into doing what they want... it's been all me. Which, given where I am today, is somewhat troubling to think on levels other than personal ones... but then I don't let the silly stuff bother me for too long. Yeah, thanks St. Valentine; I hope you never learned what 'your' holiday has become.

Feb 15 - Tick Tok

Is Time really Perception? I've been having that odd thought all week, as I contemplate where I've been and where I'm going on a scale of an average lifetime. Putting the ramifications of 'success' aside for the moment, I can say that I'm not on any particular track, nor aimless: I've had to make some choices years ago and those are finally coming to a close. Now, I have to look at where I want to be in another five to ten years – personally, professionally and financially. I'll likely still be in BC, but I'm not sure if I want to go the home ownership route towards traditional wealth-asset earnings... or if I want to create a comfy little pad to live in / rent whilst I sock away savings towards some as-yet indefinable focus. I like the fact that I'm closing in on this freedom of choice, as much as it means I'll probably be at a new job by year's end, if not sooner – stress reduction is right on top of my priorities now.

Feb 16 -It's Google... Art?

While I don't pretend to be an art snob, I do appreciate talented work, and history is full of masterworks by such artists. Most of which I won't see anytime soon, as they're locked away in museums a world away. Google has done something to free those works of art for everyone to see: The Google Art Project. It aims to allow anyone to scrutinize thousands of works of art, from anywhere in the world, at incredible detail levels – more than you'd get even if you were standing right in front of said artworks. Galleries from across the globe have opened their doors to Google's Art Project, letting their collections be viewed by potential millions who otherwise can't make the journey through their distant doors. Bravo, Google... you may be evil, but it's in a guise of creative generosity sometimes too.

Feb 17 - Old Gets New

Today I finally put my iPhone back together, after replacing its 4-year-old battery with a new one from an eBay seller. Total cost? Ten bucks Canadian... vs. God knows what that Apple would have charged. The phone DID lay open for 3 days while I searched for a Phillips-head screwdriver small / precise enough to get four stubborn ThreadLocked screws out. Thanks to Wal-Mart Optical, for being such sports – I don't think they get many half-open cell phones walk in the door for service. The new battery looks to give me a full day from one charge, which is all one can really ask these days... my old Sanyo phone used to go two weeks between charges, but then it had a monochrome screen and was no smarter than your average politician. I'm pleased that I was able to do the change myself, and it looks like the phone is working just fine despite its intermittent reception issues at home; I checked the antenna when it was open and everything was in order. Ah well – technology... at least there are more than a few online iPhone repair guides I was able to use.

Feb 18 - Moodz

This week a very good old friend cared enough to let me know that the moods and situations I've been in the last long while are very similar to what they went through some time ago... and needed someone to tell them so. While I've striven NOT to be a Nasty, Moody Guy because Life Has Sucked( somewhat )recently, it's obviously still bothering me though I try to deal with it as best I can – talking with my family helps, but by and large the only person who can deal with it is me. Expecting someone else to fix your own problems is stupid, and I've never thought that way – appealing as it is, it's an empty road. I've dealt with all the problems that have come my way so far, for the most part successfully and without losing my sanity. My family's now stable financially and I can look to my own self again for the first time in over a decade... so I'll probably take a nap for 6 months and then a good stretch to begin.

Feb 19 - Not a Day Off

So much for sleeping in... well, I wasn't sleeping, but I received a call in the early morning that nobody had shown up to open the store. The life of a manager; I threw on some professional clothes and headed out to the branch while dialing the CSR who was supposed to open, without any answer, which was worrying. Thankfully they answered as I pulled into the branch lot: they had slept in. As I was opening the store I received another call from my other CSR; the sleepy one had crashed their car on the way into work! Thankfully they said it was only a minor accident, but it meant that they were likely going to be off work for a few days. My other CSR came in early and I managed( argh... )to leave by noon to enjoy my day off. Over to the Bean, of course, then I passed out for some few hours in the lovely sunshine coming in through my room's windows. The evening managed to disappear with various projects( none of them writing )as I culled more Stuff for eBay sale, fiddled with the PC and generally tried to de-stress... for the most part successfully.

Feb 20 -See Above, With Ice

Sunday I expected to have to open the branch, but my other CSR graciously offered to open the store if I would come in to close it – thanks! Good crew I have. The sun was shining, so I spent a few blissful hours at the Bean writing up this very blog, sitting in my usual window seat facing the clock tower with Mt. Finlayson looming green to the right. I'm pleased to say that it looks like the Bean has been bought, so my fears of the place closing due to money woes have receeded somewhat. I can't tell you how great it is to have a place like the Bean literally outside my front door, where I can go to relax. I hope that the new owners are able to get things going again, so that the place will be open longer and I'll be able to go more than once every few weeks due to their shorter hours. Getting a spot by the fireplace would be nice too. After a half-shift I headed home, to dinner and NWN( icy adventure! )then blog and bed. Zzz.

This little afterword is something I save for bits that don’t really warrant a full blog entry. Kind of like this pair of sentences, wouldn’t you say?

Creativity, Comics and Computerz

The word of the week is apocryphal. Uh-huh!

Feb 7 – Silicon Comics

Back when I used to get a daily paper delivered, before the internet came along, it was the best medium for getting news and new information. As time passed and information exploded into the information age, papers for me became quaint tools, useful for really only one thing: the comics section. For all it’s vast uses, I’d been disappointed with how difficult it’s been to get all my favourite daily comics in one place. Up until recently, that is – it seems that technology has finally conquered the daily comic, as you can now see almost all your fave strips in one place at most major papers. I now surf over to TheStar.com a few times a week to catch up – Hagar The Horrible is timeless!

Feb 8 – Kindle, not kindling

Despite its lack of signal in my room, I’ve been really enjoying certain aspects of my iPhone, not the least of which is the Kindle eBook reader app - for PC too. The books on Kindle are VERY inexpensive, usually less than $5.00 each, which easily approaches used-book store prices and take up no physical room at all. I’ve downloaded about a dozen titles so far, including both of the newest Robert Jordan novels as well as some story collections. Quite a few titles are about Zombies and apocalyptic books, I’ve noticed... seems to be my taste of late. Mmmm.... braiiins. Good reads all, though.

Feb 9 - Prelude to Eden

I wonder sometimes what path I would have taken had my talents evolved along the more visual arts, rather than the written word. I tried my hand at drawing and didn’t like the results... so much so that I veered away from the visual and gave free reign to my mental imagery instead. There are quite a number of visual artists whose work I am thunderstruck by, one of whom was introduced to me( not personally )by my good friend Mike H. That is, of course, the renowned Michel Gagne, whose work is mind-bogglingly creative. Have a gander and then find some more of his work to blow your mind again:



Feb 10 – Happy B-day Sis!

Today was my sister’s birthday, which has in the past sometimes been a hit-and-miss thing. Usually hit, with the occasional miss. I like to think I’ve made up for a few low points before with the recent gifting of said laptop to said sister, which I’ve come to understand has been a BIG life-changer for her. Having a laptop, for me, means I can write / surf / game wherever I want to, within reason – usually it means a coffee shop or local Wifi point, as I’m too cheap to spring for a mobile ‘net-stick. Back to my sister though: it’s difficult to be close to your siblings yet not BE close to them, so for all of you out there with a bro or sis far away, remember to think of them more often than not, and call / Skype them more often than that. Keep those family ties strong.

Feb 11 – It’s a UPS, via UPS!

You’d think this was a g33k / tech blog from all the technology I mention here, but hey: it’s what I like. F’rinstance, UPS arrived at my door today, with a UPS that I’d got on super –sale not a few days back. The thing weighed 11kg yet the shipping was $4.99 – bargain! This was to replace the old UPS that failed earlier this week during a brief power outage; I’ve had that one since the mid-90’s and despite a battery change a few years ago, it’s just not doing its job any more, a decade in. Good that it’s lasted this long though – the replacement is another Cyberpower, though this one has a ton of features the other lacked and is more powerful to boot. So my new PC will be much safer, even unattended. I originally bought a UPS from when I lived in Fonthill, where the power would fail once a week during the summer given the nasty thunderstorms that lash ON every year. No such storms here, but the winds that kick up do tend to knock down a LOT of trees onto power lines, so the same result happens, just less often. Hence the UPS and my peace of mind.

Feb 12 – Me vs. Seagate

So far, the Seagate Debacle seems to be working out. I’ve been using the laptop drive as my main drive for 2 weeks now in my server tower, and it seems quite happy – cool too, for that matter. I’m going to see if I can’t tweak it some to dual-boot Vista and maybe even Ubuntu Linux; there’s lots of room on it as I’ve got plans to put most of my data on other drives for safe-keeping. It’s an interesting and challenging hobby some days; as long as you’re careful about what you do it can have good results. What irks me about operating systems and the like is that it takes SO long to install things; when something goes wrong it can be days or a week before things are back as they were. I’ll be taking things slow for a bit as I work out what I want to do, but so far I’m really pleased with my computer setup that will only get better, despite the almost total loss of my rather expensive laptop. Which I will likely end up selling on eBay soon to try and recoup some of my costs.... darn it.

Feb 13 – No Spring In My Step

It’s been a quiet week; I’ve worked right through until today, with tomorrow off – finally. I’ve been tired but thankfully flu-free, despite a lot of it going around as usual this time of year. Now that the days are getting longer again, I think I’ll have more energy, especially if I get up the gumption to get out and trundle around a bit doing some exercise. Been woefully short on that, of late, which has likely contributed greatly to my lack of excess energy – no real surprise there. I think that given the incredible stress I’ve been under up until the end of 2010, I’ve had somewhat of a snap-back, where the sudden lack of stress in a few areas has left me mentally reeling a bit – in a good way, though. As I’ve said before, I’m going into 2011 trying to be positive and to set up some goals for things I’ve put off due to necessity for some time now. Healthy head and healthy body make for improvement in All Things Me, so I’ll be planning things as I always do and trying my best not to overstep myself. I need sleep - I was too tired to even continue a NWN adventure for more than an hour after work tonight, so there you are.

Not a lot going on this week; it’s February and taxes are starting up at work, so that’s a pain. At least it looks like I’ll be getting a return this year, which is always good. Plan for it early and it might work out!

Signals, Shadows and Snowpocalypse

The word of the week is obsequious - something I will never, ever be. 

Jan 31 – No Signal

The foibles of modern technology never cease to amaze me, cell phones especially. Given the rapid rise of the modern cell phone that has seen them move from convenient accessory to lifestyle necessity, you think that cell signal coverage would have advanced as rapidly. Not so, friends, for my home seems to be distinctly lacking in signal, at least one that my iPhone can detect. After much research on my part, I’ve ordered several inexpensive solutions that when combined should make the lack of signal more bearable. As it stands, I don’t do a whole lot of calling from home anyway that’s on my personal cell, so it’s not a big deal... but still frustrating nonetheless. As are the eye-popping prices of ‘cell boosters’ you can get to help your signal along – yikes! Sometimes living on a mountaintop has it’s downfalls, if you’ll pardon the pun...

Feb 1 – Green Lawns, Grey Skies

We’re now into our second month of 2011 and while Spring isn’t quite in the air, it’s certainly not feeling like winter out this way. While the Snowpocalypse of 2011 rages our east( helped by media hype )I have to say I’m damned glad I’m living out here on the West Coast. Weeks of rain with the occasional glimpse of sun are just fine-dandy by me, as I have no desire to go back to ice underfoot, knee-high snowbanks and more white stuff accumulating on my head as I walk. Sure, a sunny day makes the snow pretty but the bone-chilling cold is no fun to wander around in if you don’t have to, especially given how damp Southern Ontario winters can be thanks to the Lake Effect. Or you could have... this:

Feb 2 – No Shadows Seen

Yep, you guessed it: It’s Groundhog Day today... when a furry rodent eyes the sky and predicts if winter will stay or depart early. I happen to love the movie Groundhog Day, which is odd since I’ve never BEEN to a Groundhog Day celebration. I’ll not wax wondrous about the movie o’ermuch here, save to say that it’s one of the few movies that speaks to me and that I can watch more than a few times a year without disappointment or finding it getting stale. There’s not many movies out there like that, frankly. At least not that I’ve seen, and boy do I have a backlog of movies I’ve been meaning to see all these years... not a few of them with Bill Murray in them, at that.

By the way: the groundhogs predicted an early spring!

Feb 3 – Change A-Comin’

I’ve been feeling better lately, overall – moreso than say a few months ago or this time last year. Not to be selfish, but this blog is about what’s going on with me... and I’ve not seen a whole lot of similar things from other folks I know out there. Which is frustrating in some ways, as FBook seems to be the best way for me to keep up to date with their goings-on. When things are updated, that is – one should not live on FBook or for it, but perhaps through it. Like an old-fashioned bulletin board you can check out in passing as you go about your daily activities. As for me, we’ll see what the Spring brings in a few month’s time and the Summer after that – change is in the air, and I’m not talking about ducking pennies tossed from on high either.

Feb 4 – Baby Vader

All right, I admit sometimes I’m a sucker for cute commercials( except Minipops – they BUG me! )so when I saw this Volkswagon Vader promo... I laughed. I mean, I like most things Star Wars and growing up Vader was always a cool villan( until George Lucas killed off his cool in the new movies ). What’s not to like about a pint-sized Vader running around a suburban home trying to use his Force powers? Since I saw the video today, it’s gone viral from 60K hits to over 13 million. Gotta Love The ‘Net!

Feb 5 – Saturday Off Means Busy Moi

My first day off in a bit, which I decided to spend productively doing a bunch of small things over the course of the day. A lot of time was spent installing things, as I’ve deicided to make the best of a bad situation with my defectively-designed Seagate laptop drive... by installing it in my server. Yep, it’s going to speed things up considerably as the boot drive, and since I’ll never be shutting the thing down, it neatly bypasses the ‘go to sleep and never wake up’ design flaw. Aren’t I smrt? So that took a good part of the day there; along with that I rifled through my vast collection of original software, tossing a lot of ancient disks and setting the rest( along with a lot of other knickknacks )aside for sale at a near-future date. I tossed in a few hours at the Bean, a nap, and some much-needed TV time and before I knew it midnight had passed... and so had my day off.

Feb 6 – Football? Fah and Meh.

It was all about support today, on Superbowl Sunday – not that I cared a lick about football, mind you. No, I covered today for a very sick co-worker, who’s been down all week with the nasty bug that’s going around – she sounded as though she needed to be in a hospital, so I gave her the day off. Which put me working at the downtown Douglas St. Branch, my old stomping ground from when I started here in Victoria. It was a solid, busy day which kept me hopping and fortunately was jackass-free; the downtown store tends to collect the more vocally anti-social members of the customer pack that roams the region. After work, I briefly attended an online NWN event at our new server, which unfortunately didn’t get off the ground due to a wonky ‘net connection on the DM’s end – still happens in this day and age. It was good to see some folk able to get together again, and I hope it bodes well for more regular events to take place in the near future.

A better week – it seemed to go by right quick, with few pauses and not a stumble amongst them. Always a good sign!

Guys, Green and Gaming

The word of the week is funtastic. Which isn't a word.

Jan 24 - Nice Guys and Gorillas

A few days ago Yahoo put up an article( via LavaLife )about Nice Guys Finishing Last. An alternate title might have been ‘Men With No Spine Don’t Score’ which may or may not be true. What are your thoughts on this? Seems to be several hundred comments on the article since it was posted; some poignant, some just poisonous. Being what I consider to be a Nice Guy myself, I have to wonder if perhaps some folk lack a life outside of looking for a life... for when you take away the daily details, is there anything to you, sometime defining, outside of your work and family? Or is it a blank? Maybe we should leave it up to the animals of the planet; they’re evolving faster than you think:

Jan 25 – It’s a Green Winter

All the snow’s gone here in Victoria, even here in the ‘northern’ climes outside of the city. Rain’s moved in, along with some fairly foggy days at times... but with the temperatures hovering in the high single-digits, it’s fairly bearable. Joggers are out in light jackets (or less in some cases) and people consider ‘bundled up’ to be wearing a scarf AND gloves with a fall jacket. The lack of snow and the tons of green plant life around (mosses and coniferous trees, mostly) means that it feels like fall here, not winter, though the short days and lack of sunlight do take their toll. Still, not shoveling the white stuff or slipping on ice every other step is something I’ve still got to get used to every year, compared to Ontario’s knee-deep brown-and-grey winters. I’ve even got the heat OFF in my room; it’s 25 degrees and being heated by the new PC – another bonus.

Jan 26 - Best Times to Buy Stuff

Every year, you see sales come and go for seasonal items. A lot of things are seasonal, when it comes down to it – prices vary over the course of a year. So when IS the best time of year to buy things, like winter clothes, TV’s or other things? LifeHacker has a great chart that spells out precisely that – go have a look and save yourself some dough by buying off-season... and if it’s on sale, even better!

Jan 27 – On Gaming

On my day off today, the first thing I did was sell my copy of COD: Black Ops. I’d noticed I was becoming more and more frustrated while playing it solo, which is the exact opposite concept behind playing games: they should be entertaining ways to relieve stress, not add to it. So I made the decision to can the game, as I came away from more sessions angry than not, which sucked after a long day. I think what’s so frustrating to me is that in certain games like COD, you’d think you’d get better with practice( and I did, to a point )but most every game has hardcore players in it that hand you your ass in a sling over and over. That gets old fast; nobody likes to lose or come in at the low end of the scoreboard too many times before tossing in the towel and trying something else. The rest of my day was a mix of things, mainly going through mountains of old bills and papers, something I’ve put off doing for a while. It was somewhat cathartic to shred piles of them; like removing old worries in a way.

Jan 28 – Humming Media

The new PC is humming along nicely, even with Windows Vista forced upon it... Win7 is still being reserved in case I can fix my laptop. Sadly, I’ve come to realize that if I go through with my plan to copy most of my DVD TV series onto the box, I’ll need about 15TB( Terabytes )of storage space. Yikes! There go my plans... the largest drives available right now are 2TB in size, and I can fit a max of 8 in my system if I condense things – and at $80.00 a pop for a ‘cheap’ drive of that size, we’re talking some serious cash outlay. So for now I’ll put on the series that I’m most likely to want to watch at the drop of a hat( Babylon 5, Stargate, Robotech )and leave the rest for when I can afford to expand. It’s a good setup though, routing things perfectly to the big screen – nice to have planned ahead and have it work out, for once.

Jan 29 - Robert Jordan and Beer

I zoomed through the first few chapters of The Towers Of Midnight today, the second-last book in the Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan, being finished by Brandon Sanderson. A lot of loose ends are being tied up rather neatly, but I want to go back and re-read the entire series from the beginning before the final book comes out next year. There’s a few sites on the net( somewhere )that have threads following the dozen or so major plot-lines of the series - the details are foggy to me now after all these years, so I’d like to brush up on it to enhance my reading experience before the final book. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday night, as escapism really tucks you into those other worlds and insulates you( for a time )from the lackluster stress-filled days of one’s ugly reality some weeks. Well, so does beer, but a book is much more cost effective and far less likely to give you a hangover. Plus there’s a much faster way to pour beer that’s been developed: from the bottom UP!

Jan 30 – Numbed

Another busy, busy day at work, enough so that again I got little done except daily tasks. I like to keep track of the busier day’s numbers to put things in perspective – today, for example, I served 1 customer an average of every 6.5 minutes, for 7 hours. Not counting answering phones, of course. Anything more than 1 per 10 minutes is Busy in my book, as it leaves little time for aught else. I came home tired and in a crappy mood, despite my best efforts to stave it off. A good meal and some time spent online with an old friend gaming in NWN improved that mood, despite the fact that we both ended up dying stupidly in a random encounter – it happens when you’re tired and still angry. Making mistakes is apparently what I’m best at, which is a terrible skill to put on your resume` - and don’t give me that crap about you have to make a mistake in order to learn from it. If that were the case, I’d be the Albert Einstein of Mistakes already at my age. Good night.

Feels like Spring here and next week is all sunshine! Hope it helps to improve my mood...

Vacations, Vista and Vexations

The word of the week is family. Specifically: sister!

Jan 17 - Not Working Week

Ahhh, vacation! Not something that you want to take lightly, as you only get so much time every year. For me, the last few years have been split between regular and ‘working’ vacations – where I spent my time moving my family and sundry stuff around. Now that we’re settled for a bit, I’m thinking my next few vacations will be ‘me’ time – really, just me, as I don’t have anyone to take a vacation with out here. Going back to Niagara is always an option, but Lucas mentioned a Cuba trip some time ago and that’s stuck in my head since – never been, kinda want to. It’s deplorable that two out of three people never end up using their vacation days each year and I fall into that category; by the end of 2011 I’ll have four weeks of vacation to use up, so I’d better start planning now. I hear that Bhutan is the new Shangri-La, with lots of great mountains...and they’ve just banned smoking entirely!

Jan 18 - New Computer!

Talk about good timing; the motherboard for my new PC arrived today, allowing me to start putting everything together. I’ve been ‘frankensteining’ my computers for years, but this time the only parts  I’ve kept for re-use are the giant blue case and a few hard drives – I’ll add some serious storage next year, I think, as it just keeps getting cheaper the longer you wait. So most of today was spent happily unpacking boxes of tech and plugging it all together... but really most of it was spent waiting for Windows Vista to update itself. Argh – I’ve decided for now to use my old Vista licence to run the media PC, as I still hold out some slim hope of getting my Win7 laptop to run. For now, I’m going to enjoy my first all-new PC in about 10 years, something I’ve really been looking forward to for a long, long time. Hello, reliability and hello using the big-screen TV as a primary monitor – sweet!

Jan 19 - On a beach in January in Canada

Today my sister and I took the time to go down to Esquimalt Lagoon to take advantage of the sudden sunshine that showed up this morning. The wind had died off too, so by 10am it was perfect weather to trot down the sand at the ocean’s edge; we barely needed jackets it was so nice. Near the end of our san sojourn we came across a huge redwood tree washed up on the beach; the wood was the colour of blood and the thing was easily fifty feet long. Hard to believe something that big had been taken by the sea and washed ashore so easily. The beaches here are just covered in washed-up wood; it’s quite a sight to see if you’re used to beaches from elsewhere in the world, especially on inland lakes. Here's the tree - it looks like really rare steak, to me:




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Jan 20 - So long for now, sis!

I saw my sister off at noon today for her flight at the Victoria Airport; it’s nice having a ‘small’ International Airport here on the Island. Much like Hamilton’s airport, it’s big enough to get the job done but not so massive that you feel lost in the place half the time( both have exactly one Timmy’s too )/ I remember all too well the confusion of Pearson International in Toronto, which even with the demolition of the old Terminal One still makes my head spin to try and navigate around the spiralling motorways that surround the place. I’m not an inveterate traveller, so airports will as like always freak me out a little; Calgary’s was like that, but that’s because their toilets were possessed... sheesh! In any case, it was fabulous to have my sister her for so long and I hope to do so again sooner rather than later. Miss ya, sis!

Jan 21 - Paper Cuts

Ack... paper, lots of it, all over the place here. I’d meant to do something about that this week( along with a lot of other things )but the paper really stymies me. I tend to keep things longer than I should, especially bills – weird, when I have a scanner and could just digitize things. But who has the time to spend hours a week doing that? I seem to recall more than a few ‘Digital Organization’ programs over the years that purported to be able to make your life paper-free, but they never mention the time it takes to get all that stuff into your computer. Scanners still aren’t instant, as they take about a minute to run down a document into digital form, then you have to name and file it. More work to make time for...

Jan 22 - BOINC!

What to do with my last day of vacation? Well, a whole lot of nothing, as it turns out. I’ve been very tired of late, so I spent the day doing various activities including some Xbox time and cleaning house on the new PC – lots of stuff on various drives that needed tidying / deleting / finding a home for. I also set up BOINC again on the system, as I have the twin advantages now of a 4-core CPU that is also a low-power design. So I can run BOINC 24/7 again without using a ton of power or generating a ton of heat; that was always a problem in the summer to keep the PC cool, even with 7 fans on the tower total. I still hope for that ‘eureka!’ discovery after running SETI@Home for over a decade now; possibly being a co-discoverer of alien life still makes me ponder some days. Damn cool stuff we can do now.

Jan 23 – Stories are better than people?

My first day back at work after my vacation... it wasn’t horrible, but there’s always that one person who manages to ruin the good feeling the other twenty people engendered. As usual, it had to do with misconceptions and attitude; misconceptions both. I learned a valuable lesson, he didn’t and will likely continue to view the world as out to get him – I feel sorry for him in a way, as he’ll continue to be that way. No loss to me – check out NotAlwaysRight.com for some more amusing anecdotes. Reminds me of why I need to change jobs this year; the sooner I get to a better job, the better, as my stress levels continue to ratchet ever-higher week to week at work. Too many straws and too weak a camel’s back.

Sunday evening was spent rather pleasantly; after a so-so day I spent hours chatting with three of my good friends online, helping one flesh out a story idea of hers. The wonders of internet chat... and a good way to close out the week.