Happiness, Hubris and Humble Holidays

The word of the week is continuum.

Dec 8 – A Few More Weeks

What’s everyone up to for the holidays?

I wonder sometimes, because of my own experiences growing up, what other families did during the holiday season. I'm of course presupposing that most of the people I knew when I was younger were generally of the same culture as I, though I have to admit I knew people from all sorts of places and that curiosity about their own practices has never really left me.

This is a BIG Picture of the Big Picture of Christmas

That's it, I think: simple curiosity about the rest of the world. Being blissfully buried for so long in the North American psycho-associative material whirlwind that is what Christmas has become over the last few decades, I really don't know what the rest the world does this time of year.

I could find out, I suppose: research using Internet and learned something new, which is always a good thing. But I think I'd much rather experience at, at least to some small degree, on my own. To go out into the world and see how my own preconceptions look from the outside in.

Yet if that means traveling during the holiday season, I might have to think about this a little more.

Dec 9 – Flexing For Friends

Hooray, it was my flex day off today!

So naturally, I worked… but only to help a friend. I got a call in the afternoon that a well-like co-worker from Staples was quite sick, so could I cover? Seeing as I didn’t have any major evening plans save to perhaps catch a movie, I acquiesced and was soon there well before dinnertime.

It was a relaxed evening at the same time, somewhat annoying.

Not for the reasons you might think: it wasn't busy, all the customers were nice and all of my coworkers are actually rather nice as well. No, what bothered me was the fact that I'm being paid very close to minimum wage while doing a ton of extra work, all of which is related to sales tracking.

Now, I understand that a retail business is all about sales, but I think that Staples has gone a little overboard in trying to track every single nuance of every sale that takes place… or might have taken place, or could have been done better, or might happen in the future so best prepare for. There’s Goal Sheets, tracking sheets for various departments, tag-team sheets for sales reps and cashiers, monthly / weekly / daily sales targets, associate contest goals, checklists for sales opening and closings and a half a hundred other things to keep track of that quite honestly are making my head hurt when I think about them as I write this.

Perhaps it's the fact that this isn't my primary job, anymore, but I don't think that that's it. If I was still working 40 hours a week there, it's still be far too much for me to handle and I'd be stressing out about it far too much. As it is, I find the massive amount of paperwork stifling and considered a sign of over-analysis, maybe even of the beginning of the end of retail.

I say that because if you start analyzing every aspect of every sale and reducing everything to numbers, then you're going to lose any hope of connecting with your customers. When everything's a number to be slotted into a matrix of Goals, Targets and the like, then you’re going to perhaps see your sales rise, if all goes right… But you're going to drive your employees crazy trying to keep track of and make sense of it all.

It was enough night that I told myself that before the end of December, I'm probably going to have to give my notice. I don't want to, at least not until I figure out if I can keep my benefits going until my government position’s benefits kick in, but I simply can't deal with the flood of numbers and checkmarks and lists and deranged expectations for a position that pays so very little.

In any case, I'll simply smile and keep enjoying myself, as I know it's not what I'll be doing for living for the rest of my life. Which, if you asked me a year ago, I wouldn't have answered with any certainty.

Dec 10 – Wearing

It's been a tiring week; heck, a tiring month, all told.

Looking at my calendar today, I realized that by the time Christmas arrives, I'll have worked every day( between my two jobs )for over three weeks in a row with only one partial day off. That's quite a lot for me these days; there's a lot of overtime in there, true – that’s my own choice. I'm hoping to end the year on a high note financially, which is comforting to me because my family hasn't really spent much on each other for the holidays in the last three years or so.

That's actually quite nice, as we've shifted the focus from material gains and gifts to spending time with each other, which we all feel is far more precious… especially given what we've all been through as a family over the last few decades.

I'm just grateful that I don't have to find a way to fly out to Ontario during the holidays to see my parents or my sister; all three are here and quite happily so. For those people that I know that do travel for the holidays, I wish them all the best; it's a stressful time to be traveling for anyone.

We're just keeping it close to home these days. The years of flitting busily from family function to friend’s places and back again are long behind us all: small, quiet holiday seasons are the norm now.

Which is fine by everyone, I know.

Dec 11 – Tick, Tock, Time

Can you give your time a value? Should you?

I'm sure we've all heard the old adage about how much Bill Gates makes every time he answers the call of nature, but that's perhaps an extreme( and somewhat gross )analogy to make to illustrate a point.

Which is: a lot of people undervalue their time.

For me, having worked at my new government position for six months now, I've come to realize that perhaps I should've tried even harder to find a better job, sooner rather than later in years past. While I won't say that I'm not getting any younger, I do find it somewhat irksome that I have such long lists of things to do, books to read, films to see and so on yet I have to budget my time around the focus on writing my fiction books if I ever want to get them finished this decade.

That got me to thinking: when will I ever have time to do those things, and will they still be relevant to me?

I can wait until I'm retired, perhaps 25 years from now, which means those lists will be even larger, but I just can't see myself spending 20 years on top of that time to wait just to catch up on things that I didn't have time for now or until then.

It's a bit of a quandary, and I'll have to think about. But I won't spend too much time on it…

Dec 12 – Dollhouse Part Three

I couldn't wait to get home tonight from work.

It was Friday once again and time for an evening of Dollhouse with my friend. It was delayed by nearly an hour however, as the Chinese food I'd ordered from the restaurant literally only half a block away took forever to prepare. I had placed the order before 6 PM and didn't have it in hand until nearly 7:45, waiting in the restaurant itself after arriving at 7 PM; lucky I had my phone with me to amuse myself with while the other patrons ate their dinners.

Fortunately that was the only glitch of the night and Dollhouse was a treat. We ended up seeing four episodes, which brought us to the end of the first season. I have to say that the final episode was extraordinarily well done and left me eager to see more of the second season. The writing is fantastic, the actors extremely versatile and the characters interesting: all a vastly viable combination that I am truly enjoying along with my friend.

Bonus: the season finale had Felicia Day in it!

Dec 13 – Interview and a Dragon

Today I gave my first ever interview about my books!

A friend and former co-worker asked me if I’d like to help him out in gaining valuable experience with journalism skills, mainly conducting a video interview. He’s looking to get into the field and needs to build a portfolio; I’m looking for material to showcase my writing work it, so it’s a perfect fit.

It went much more smoothly than I had hoped this afternoon. I did the interview at my friend’s place, using some excellent video equipment and even a shiny-new Macbook Pro( not mine, sadly ). I had spiffy myself up, even wearing a tie and had prepared answers to a dozen well-phrased leading questions that would give viewers an excellent overview of who I was as well is what my work was about.

The actual interview took less than an hour, from start to finish and only had two minor interruptions for technical reasons, neither which stopped the interview in any meaningful way. I did my very best to ensure my passion for my writing came through clearly, without going out on tangents, muddling my points or simply rambling. My friend’s reaction at the end of the interview was extremely positive: he was quite pleased with how the entire thing had flowed and is confident that he'll be able to edit it into several different versions, each of which will be a wonderful piece unto itself. Once I get a look at some of those edits, I'll see to posting them on my website and FBook. All in all, I think it was a fantastic experience of my first video interview ever as an author.

I'll leave you with this other wonderful interview: Stephen Colbert interviewing Smaug!

I attended my fourth party of the month in the evening tonight, celebrating the season with a half-dozen members of my writing group at another member's house. It was a quiet affair, but one with lively conversation, which is the type of party I really love: a number of extremely bright people gathered in a room to toss topics in the air and see where they might land.

For the most part, we kept the party-killing religious and political discussions to a minimum, though there were inevitable tangents that occurred. We all shared funny stories at various times and I myself related one from high school that involved a coat hanger that I've enjoyed telling over the years. The party ended on an odd note, in that the hostess tried to show the rest of us the difference between French-Canadian humor and Anglophone humour. She half-succeeded, in that most of us got half the jokes and the other half simply escaped us, but the ones that we did get we laughed just as hard at, so it wasn't wasted effort by any means.

We were all there to have fun and we did, going home at a late hour with smiles on our faces.

Dec 14 – No Rest, Yet

Oops.

It looks like I'll be working Sundays at Staples for the next few weeks. My bad, that: in booking my time off there, I neglected to list Sundays as unavailable. Sure, my Saturdays are nicely tied up, but it looks like my Sundays are spoken for, which is a change, I guess.

It used to be that Sundays were sacrosanct for me, to be spent with friends and sometimes relatives, depending on the time of year. When I was younger, I would most likely be gaining over at one of my friends places if I wasn't visiting family. In my teenage years, heading into University, Sundays were spent again gaming with my friends, though we'd graduated by the time of our post-secondary educations to playing video games instead of boardgames, more or less. Then I moved out here to BC and for the longest time didn't have any gaming groups, which wouldn't really have mattered as I was working such crazy hours that a Sunday off was a rare treat for me.

Apart from the recent holiday overtime and my scheduling error this month, Sundays are back to the semi-sacrosanct in my mind. While Saturdays are busy days where I tend to catch up on things and go places that I couldn't during the week, Sundays are held apart, to be used for things that will relax the body and grow the mind. At least, that’s how I plan for them, for now.

There’s also the blog writing, which is always been a comfort to me these last seven years, knowing that every Sunday night I'd be posting a little collection of stories of my weeks adventures. Sometimes only a few people drop by to read it that week, but that was - and still is - just fine. I'm writing these weekly entries as much for myself as other people and where it goes, I don't pretend to know.

See you next week?

That about sums it up, really. It's a steady slow slog through the seasonal crazy, of which I'm experiencing very little, save the occasional second-job shift. No malls, endless lineups or crazy Christmas music playing endlessly. It's actually been rather nice, I think, though most likely I'll miss some aspects of it enough by next year that I may wander into a mall - briefly - to feel the seasonal spirit. We'll see how that goes when I get there...

Boardgames, Buses and Being Better Because of Bacon

The word of the week is observation.

Dec 1 - Stabilizing

I'm doing better health-wise this week, and I now know why:

I'm not as smart as I thought, in a few regards.

Let me rephrase that: I'm not as observant about my eating habits as I should be.

For the last few months, for various reasons my eating habits have gone out of whack and for the most part, those were supposed to be positive changes. I was eating less sugar, eating out far less often and in general having more vegetables in my diet. This was supposed to make me healthy and less dependent on buying meals as opposed to making my own on very regular basis.

What I forgot about was protein.

In changing my habits, I ended up neglecting a vital part of my diet, which meant meat and eggs. I'd usually have bacon for breakfast at least once or twice a week, along with eggs and I'd have a few sandwiches a week as well for lunch with meat in them, plus a dinner meat once or twice a month.

Cutting most of that out meant my body was being starved of a vital component, giving me symptoms of weakness, fatigue, dizziness and is also related to blood sugar instability – all Not Good Things.

Thankfully, I've figured out the problem after carefully looking at my lifestyle when I was feeling fine and what had changed in the last six weeks. Now that I know I need at least 50 to 60 g of protein a day, I can up my intake through sources such as beans, nuts, quinoa( which I eat regularly ) and of course meat protein.

Because I can't really cut bacon out of my life now, can I?

Dec 2 - HOLY FLIGHT SIM

I know what I want for Christmas, one of these years coming up…

Markus Boesen’s video game setup - I don't know the guy, but now I want to!

Below is pictured his PC gaming setup as featured in an article this week on Kotaku.com, which he's currently using to play Elite: Dangerous. Though "play" doesn't seem to do it justice. He's projecting onto three panels (displaying the game at 5760 x 1080), an array of touchscreen inputs, voice recognition, head-tracking and some expensive Saitek joystick.

There's probably about $10,000 worth of hardware involved, not including the cost of the computer itself. The hardware includes custom touchscreen displays on his instrument panel as well as the three overhead projectors that are creating the screen and the head tracking instrumentation. Really, the only thing I would add would be a curved screen to cut out the ‘borders’ between the three separate displays.

The really neat thing though is that the upcoming Oculus Rift VR headgear will do away with the need for displays like this, necessitating only a decent computer plus the cost of the headgear. Since the Oculus is pegged to run about $500, that's chump change compared to the cost of a set up like the one above, plus you don't have to set aside an entire room to play one type again.

But it sure does look nice.

Dec 3 – Labyrinth

Since I’ve been working a lot of overtime this week, I need some serious downtime to balance it.

So tonight I took up a friend's invitation, heading over to their place for dinner and a movie. As their wife had to study up for test in the morning, we ended up watching the movie ourselves.

The choice? Labyrinth.

Fantastic Fantasy Fanart

Yes, that one with David Bowie from 1986, the one with all the Muppets as well as Jennifer Connelly. I had forgotten just how zany the movie was, how packed every moment is with incredible detail and action that doesn't overwhelm you as much as pull you right into the fantasy.

Re-watching the film again( which I haven't seen in probably 15 years or longer )was a delightful experience, which surprised me. I can remember when the film came out that I wasn't all that impressed with it, but that's perhaps because the idea of more singing and dancing Muppets didn't quite hold any appeal to me at the time. Looking back at the film now with eyes that are more critically informed, I can see how the Muppets were used as performers to push the theme of the movie and not just be entertaining all by themselves.

My belated thanks to Jim Henson: I'll be re-watching this film more often in the future.

Dec 4 - Just A Sprinkling

The first snow has come and gone here in Victoria.

While it lasted for only a couple days, it seemed rather important to quite a few people around here that it stick around longer, in order to make the city feels seasonal. We even had this random little guy show up:

This little guy walked all that way just to see us... then he melted.

Personally, I don't mind that it's all melted, as I've had my fill over the years. For the most part, I don't miss a whole lot of things about winter, not the least of which it being cold. 

I do like ice though! There's something magical about things covered in ice, with the sunlight shining through them; the phrase Winter Wonderland easily comes to mind.

Ice is also cool( pardon the pun ) when it's completely transparent, and there's a lake in central Sweden that has transparent ice like no other. Have a look:

Located near near Östersund in Jämtland, Lake Blanktjärn’s water is so clear that you can easily see fish swimming on the bottom 20 feet below. While I'm not a skater in any sense of the word, I think I would love to just be towed along( by a dog, as in the video )and experience the sensation of flying above the perfectly smooth water of the lake below.

Magical.

Dec 5 - Improving

I’m definitely feeling better this week. Not quite normal, but close enough.

With more protein in my meals the last few days, I’m no longer dizzy, even sitting down; it’d reached a point where I had to concentrate to walk straight and I had to stop every so often to lean on whatever was handy nearby so as not to fall over. Now that my body’s getting most of what it needs again, I’m back to being just plain ol’ tired here and there, which I can deal with.

Also last week, I made a nostalgic mention about Underoos.

Little did I suspect that a friend would Photoshop me into the photo I’d gleaned from the depths of the internet:

I don’t think my moustache was quite as well developed back then, though…

Dec 6 – Xmas Party, Party and Party

I attended three parties today!

Spending the day at work for 6 hours overtime was nice, but I was a bit tired from working three other overtime shifts during the week. However, there was little time to rest as this evening's dance card was full, so I rushed home in the late afternoon to give myself a little time before I had to head out.

This would be a party worth attending, I think...

 

My first stop was the company party, being held this year at Uvic, of all places. Not having taken the bus in that direction before( I’ve never needed to visit the university ) it was a bit daunting, but I managed to find the right bus and get on it at the right time.

Unfortunately, I got off the bus far too early, thanks to Google, which didn't indicate that the bus actually continued into the university itself – too bad for me. I ended up walking an extra kilometer or so through the university grounds on the main ring road, grinding my teeth as I was passed by no less than five separate buses, none of which I could board because there were no stops between where I left my bus and the main transfer station for the University. For all that, I arrived at the party in good spirits, having enjoyed my walk in the dark by admiring the lovely layout and architecture of the University of Victoria.

The party itself was fairly standard fare: free appetizers and desserts, plus a cash bar. I grabbed a table with a few friends and spent an hour socializing, then excused myself, having felt that I had Made An Appearance and could now take my leave: I had another party to attend!

The bus I wanted was easier to find this time around and I made it to my destination on the other side of the city from Uvic. in a timely fashion: it was a friend’s small Christmas party. There were about a half-dozen people in attendance and we quickly dove into playing Tokaido, which is a different kind of boardgame: you play a traveler in ancient Japan, collecting experiences.

It was quite enjoyable and I didn’t start to feel tired until I'd left after a few hours spent in good company. Another bus whisked me downtown, where he joined some of my coworkers at the Yates St Taphouse, where they had been for those same few hours, enjoying themselves. I arrived just in time to see most people heading down to another location, but as I was feeling quite tuckered by then I bowed out of the party crowd to get some sleep, as I had to work again in the morning. Sure, I had volunteered for the overtime, but given my lack of energy of late, I really shouldn't try burning the candle at more than one end.

I did enjoy myself tonight, even given that I’d managed to ‘lose’ an hour’s time from missed bus stops and poor timing. All in all, it was definitely a successful seasonal Saturday night!

Dec 7 – Small Things

On my way to work for a second day, something felt the ground right in front of me.

Fluttered, actually, from the street-level window ledge of a building I pass every day. Curiously, it wasn’t a leaf or anything I recognize, so I stopped to investigate. Here’s what I picked up:

Guess which side landed facing up?

This random act of kindness brought a smile instantly to my face. Looking around the area, I couldn't see any more of these little gifts, either on the ground or poised on other ledges elsewhere. There was just the one I was holding in my hand, which had fallen before me just as I arrived at that exact spot, perhaps pushed by a tiny gust of wind.

The funny thing is, I was running a bit late and was fretting( unnecessarily so, I might add ) about the fact. If I'd been on time for work, I would have missed this little random gift and the smile it had engendered, which wasn't lost on me.

In effect, I was in the right place at the right time and perhaps, I was the right person, too.

Who knows? Maybe the next time that I’m not really paying attention to the world, something wonderful will fall into my lap and bring another smile to my face that I had been expecting. It may even be love. 

Wouldn't that be a wonderful gift to give?

It’s a four-day work week for me coming up and I confess I’m really looking forward to my day off. I’ve little planned save catching up on a few things during the course of the day… plus having a well-deserved afternoon nap, which have been in short supply of late. Maybe I'll ask Santa for a year's supply of naps!