Serendipity, Spasms, Sirens and Soreness

The word of the week is OUCH.

Aug 8 – Sprung Hamstrings?

It's amazing that I can somehow hurt myself without even trying…

Yesterday evening, I did my usual 30 min. exercises on my stationary bicycle, not pushing myself hard whatsoever: just an easy ride with a slow buildup and slow down, exactly as I have for months now.

What was different is that I did it at 7:30pm, instead of right after work and didn't do more than sit around for the rest of the evening working on my blog.

Big mistake, apparently.

I awoke at 3 AM this morning with twin lines of fire running down the back of my legs: my hamstrings felt like I'd pull the money have to machine. It was bad enough that I was nauseous a few times and had trouble getting back sleep for more than an hour afterwards. I had trouble walking in the morning and though I managed to stay mobile, it was difficult to sit for good part of my day with any comfort and I had to move around often in order to allay the pain to manageable levels.

Adding insult to injury, when I got home tonight, my desktop computer displayed this message:

Well, f$*k.

It’s been a few years since I’ve last been down the failed-computer-drive road, and while I’ve prepared for such with redundant backups of my data offline and in the cloud, it still means that I’ve got to rebuild my drive to exactly how I had it configured. Meaning a few weeks of installing, tweaking and head-scratching.

Not to mention replacing the dive( a new SSD too, only 9 months old! )which fortunately is still under warranty.

I’ll probably end up investing in a total-image backup software solution this time around, meaning nightly backups of the entire boot drive so I can just reload a copy of the previous day’s drive and go on about my business as if nothing happened. That won’t be as easy if I decide to get a bigger drive; even the current 240gb one means a sizable backup.

Aug 9 – Tent City Gone, Homeless Remain

Yesterday was the deadline for the homeless camp downtown to move out.

Most of its residents had complied with the court order by late yesterday, though there were a few holdouts waiting for room placement elsewhere in the city. Surprisingly, it was quite an orderly resolution to the problem that began late last year, when homeless campers in Victoria discovered that the land next to the city courthouse was owned by the province and so did not fall under the city's jurisdiction: nobody could tell them to leave at 7 AM like they had to in city parks or other city-controlled areas.

Things just went downhill from there; soon dozens of homeless had set up camp on the courthouse lawn, and remain there until yesterday.

It's ongoing issue, homelessness in the city, and there's no one single answer to it. The low vacancy rate and high rental costs mean that many people, even those with jobs, cannot find affordable housing, though $60 million in funding has been allocated for such to begin in a month's time by local government. The easy living in Victoria in terms of weather means that many homeless end up here and never leave, simply existing in the cracks that society leaves for them without really wanting to look too closely.

The fact that Tent City stood in plain sight for everyone to see for almost a year means that at least the issue was out in the open, and because of that, housing was made available for many of its former residents. However, the issue remains that the costs have to be borne by someone and there are many angry taxpayers in the city asking why it has to be them.

On a side note, I went tonight for acupuncture to help deal with my hamstring issue. The soreness is still pretty bad, to where I have to watch my every move lest I ‘twang’ my legs with any movement to cause even more pain.

Happily, the acupuncture tonight succeeded in reducing the soreness to a dull ache. It also resulted in my right leg feeling like the muscles had been pinned together near the knee… as turned out to be the case when I got home to discover the therapist had missed removing a needle – OUCH! Fortunately, the tip was only bent after the short trip home by car and hadn’t broken off INSIDE my leg; I was lucky.

At this point, it’s not so bad that I can’t sleep, but I have to watch it: no way I want to stretch too far without thinking and have things go all widdershins…

Aug 10 – Stomach Spasms

Gah… can’t I even enjoy a simple meal this week without pain?

My lady and I sat outside on a patio at Garrick’s Head Pub after work tonight, enjoying the glorious weather and the good food. I had a chicken burger and 1.5 beers… which I ended up regretting later that night.

As I was going to bed, I still felt… full, oddly so. Laying back down, I had sudden sharp pains in my diaphragm area, as though I’d pulled a muscle – OUCH! I noticed that my stomach felt tight, but not bloated… what the heck was going on?

Since I didn’t feel otherwise inconvenienced, nor nauseous or feverish, I decided to let whatever was going on work itself out, with some help. I propped myself up on the pillows at a 45-degree angle and went to sleep.

Sidenote: the next morning was rather painful for me, with oatmeal barely staying down. From what I could figure, the meal yesterday at Garrick’s had been too large and I'd complicated things by ‘expanding’ due to the more-than-usual volume of liquid I had with it, effectively ‘plugging up’ my intestines – hence the OUCH spasms. Since I don’t have a gall bladder any more, any large meals take much longer to digest, and apparently I crossed that threshold with that burger and beers.

Next time, it’s water with the meal, and beer after.

Or, just beer and snacks.

Or just water…

Aug 11 – Silence, Sirens!

I don't know how urban dwellers can stand the noise.

My apartment where I live right now is about 20 feet from a main north-south road and there is constant traffic during the daylight hours. Apart from the bevy of motorcycles roaring up and down, there are always heavy delivery trucks, transit buses and pickups with lead footed drivers wanting to show off their pricey V8 or V12 engines to every passerby.

Yet I think the most telling noise pollution are the constant sirens.

Every day, at least a dozen emergency vehicles flash by my apartment, sirens wailing. Their proximity is such that I usually have to plug my ears its windows are open, but at least I can hear them coming with enough warning to do so.

If I'm experiencing the stored of siren-noise in a semi-suburban area of the smaller city, I can't imagine what kind of noise people in larger cities must have to deal with.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Whisper noise-canceller system( designed for entire apartments )isn't going to happen, with less than 2% of its 785,000 NZD goal realized and only a week to go:

It's a shame, because I think a device of this type is sorely needed in urban areas, if only to reduce the noise that people experience living so close to one another. I know that I gladly purchase this device if it was less than $500, as the Kickstarter looks to have cost, even with shipping. Yet someone else will have to come up with this and tried in the future, as the Whisper looks to be sounding quite dead at this point.

Aug 12 – Sitrep

In the afternoon, I had my massage appointment I’d been waiting all week for.

It took me about 20 minutes to get there, walking slowly downtown, with the idea of stretching my legs without overdoing it. All the same, I could feel that the sole of my left foot was too tight for comfort still, after days of simple rest and relaxation.

The massage therapist was able to do a fair bit of heavy work on both my legs, though without a definite cause, I couldn't really tell her anything other than the symptoms of the payments feeling. All the same, with that information she worked over my legs pretty thoroughly, to the point where I wondered if she'd managed to mess up some of my other muscles in my legs. It was pretty intense, but at no point did I feel like my hamstrings themselves were made any worse.

Walking home, I was pleased to find I had a greater range of motion than I had walking to my appointment, though again the soreness from the treatment was distracting. I took a bath with some Epsom salts added, in order to help add hydration through the skin to the stretched hamstrings. By the time I went to bed tonight, my legs didn't feel like they were burning on the back any more and I slept fairly well.

Aug 13 – Stay In Saturday

It was quite a busy day for me today.

Despite the gorgeous weather, I ended up staying in for most of the morning and afternoon today, as I have a lot on my plate in addition to regular household doings. One of the things that took the most time was completing the critiques of the two chapters I'm doing for this coming week’s Critique Night. I sort of fell down last month, having had too much on my mind to realize that I reviewed the same chapters as I have the previous month - quite embarrassing and something that took me by surprise, though looking back I obviously had too much on my mind to notice at the time.

Another thing on my plate was updating my website for my novels, which I did in only a few minutes: it's easy enough to tell people what I'm up to a month if there's only one subject. Seeing as I only get about a half-dozen visitors every month to that site, it's not as though I'm provided much fodder for form discussion, though I hope that's the case in spades when I finally finish the trilogy of books in the near future.

As well, I did some research for an article I'm writing for the quarterly Divisional Newsletter for my workplace, about the history of the Ministry, which has been interesting as its current incarnation only came about in late 1997 - barely 20 years ago. I'm pleased to be part of the Editorial Board for the newsletter, and feel that the work I'm doing now will result in something that will continue long after I moved on to other things or other jobs.

In the evening, my girlfriend was gracious enough to sit through three episodes of Star Blazers with me, to my delight. We are already at the point where my re-watch from many years ago stopped and my memories are somewhat vague, so it's almost as though I'm watching the series from a fresh point of view, which is delightful as well.

Much later this evening, we made a short sortie down to the ocean on Dallas Road, in the hopes of catching glimpses some of the Perseid meteor shower which peaked tonight. In normal years, stargazers in less urban areas might be treated to anywhere from 30 to 80 meteors per minute, but this year's shower was more than double that. Even though passing cars and light pollution meant our night eyes were quite strained, we did manage to catch a glimpse of three different white streaks in the sky as meteors burned up, which was thrilling to us both.

Even more amusing where the Pokémon Go players wandering by in the dark, completely oblivious to the short-lived wonder of the heavens taking place above them.

Aug 14 – Serendipity

Why not end the week with a bang?

More like a ‘poof!’ as money disappeared from my wallet this morning.

I always run programs on my computer to tell me of anything going wrong, and today one of them told me that my backup SSD drive( the one running my computer while I wait for the replacement to arrive by mail in a few weeks )was also failing:

Perfect timing – or not, as I don't have another redundant backup to stick in the case this one fails, which would mean that I have only my laptop to work with and that isn't really meant for the daily use that my big computer is, hooked up to my big screen TV.

So, I had to suck it up today and order a new SSD drive, one that would be exactly what I needed and will also arrive in a few days’ time. By a stroke of luck, an SSD on sale I'd been watching on eBay last week came back into stock just this morning and after gritting my teeth, I bought the SSD, to the tune of a cool $250.00 - plus taxes and shipping. OUCH.

I consoled myself with the fact that since it's a 1 terabyte drive( 1000 gigabytes ) it's four times the size of the drive it's replacing and extremely highly-rated. The bottom line was that I paid about $.25 per gigabyte, which is half what usual going rate is for solid-state drives… so I shouldn't run out of capacity anytime soon.

Though I will still be making a redundant backup of the drive as soon as I get it configured under Win10 the way I like it - no sense in tempting fate with my data any further than I have already this month.

/endG33kBlathering

My hamstring still hurt, as I've been alternating sitting down and walking around all day long as I've been home today, working on my blog among other things. I'm hoping that this is in a relapse but just a reflection of things healing, but the fact remains that I still have to discover exactly what's wrong with my everyday physical posture that could be causing such tightness in my hamstrings. More than likely has to do with my office job of the last several years, as I've never had this sort of issue standing up and being on my feet for long periods while working. One more thing to add to my list of Things To Do Now….

Sight Surprises, Superbooks and Senescence

The word of the week is senescence.

Aug 1 – Fan Film? Yes, Please!

Why am I only finding out about this 2 months later?

On June 6th 2016, the amazing fan film below was released on YouTube:

It's really incredible to see what dedicated fans who are passionate about their hobbies can do. I just can't get over how well-made the film was given the low budget and the fact that it's just a bunch of amateurs putting it together: no film professionals or special effects artists, just passionate people who together celebrate their love of G1 Transformers.

I should also note that because of the Internet, people who are passionate about their fandoms can find each other far more easily these days. It makes collaborative projects such as this one possible, and for that I'm quite glad.

More, please!

Aug 2 – Blind Surprise

It's one of my biggest fears, and many others: Losing my sight.

Because we're such visual creatures, the prospect of losing your sight scares most people silly, and I'm not immune to such fears, I admit. As a writer however, I'm somewhat better equipped to cope with losing my site if it happens, as I've learned to use my voice to type rather than my hands using software on my PC. All the same, I don't have any desire to know what it's like to lose my vision, as I've had corrective glasses for most of my life for my vision and I'm quite attuned to ensuring that any changes get looked at immediately by my doctor.

Which is why it was such a shock to find out that one of my favorite writers - JMS, the creator of Babylon 5 - has been nearly blind for the last 10 years. This is what his monitor looked like recently while doing some writing:

Just today, J. Michael Straczynski let the folks who follow him know that after a decade of trying to find the proper combination of surgeries to correct his eyesight, just this year his hope finally came true and he was able to have his eyes operated on, with these results:

Seven days after the first surgery, I was seeing 20/25. The next surgery had similar results, with no side-effects or complications. As I write these words, I’m seeing better than I’ve seen in my entire life: 20/25 in both eyes. I can read license plates, see the leaves on trees…ever day I’m astonished by the new-found beauty of the world.
 Best of all, I was up to full speed behind the keyboard for the first time, writing more and better and faster than I had in almost ten years. Eager to start planning out my workload for the rest of the year, I began to lay out the spec screenplays I wanted to write, and the new television series that I wanted to develop. 

It is astonishing to me that such a prolific writer and creative force could be so handicapped by his vision that his output dropped to the point where he was struggling to keep up with only one or two projects at a time, compared to a dozen or more back in the early 2000s. What's as astonishing is that his horrible experience mirrored my own imagined one where my eyesight begins to go, and I had no idea that one of my favorite writers was going through such an awful time.

I'm glad he's back to full steam now. I can only hope that if and when it ever comes to it, that bionic eyes will be an option and I'll be able to get some really cool cybernetic implants...

Aug 3 – Senescence

Are there really creatures on earth that are immortal?

As a matter-of-fact: yes. Some kinds of fish, invertebrates and even plants like trees all exhibit a total lack of aging, according to studies. They only die due to accidents, disease or predators - not old age.

Among these few lucky creatures are crocodiles, who scientists discovered years ago do not suffer the effects of aging - called senescence - as do almost every other creature on earth. Crocodiles do not suffer any of the effects of old age, but just keep growing as long as their environment provides them enough food to eat: they can grow to monstrous size, as this photo from 1956 shows:

Almost 30 feet long!

It's a fascinating science, the study of aging and I'm interested to see what advances will be making in the next few decades, for obvious reasons: I'd like to keep my body going a lot longer than the average human biological functions will let me. I'm not sure if in another 40 or 50 years if cyborg replacement parts will be up to the point where they'll allow decades or even centuries more life for humans( or if those technologies arrive it totally affordable to the average person )but it gives me hope to see that some of the creatures that share planet already exhibit no signs of being affected by the ravages of age.

I'm sure the crocodiles shed no tears for us, however.

Aug 4 – Eternal Electronics?

Can a phone also be a laptop?

Apparently so, according to a recent Kickstarter called the Superbook, which aims to combine the convenience of a smart phone with the screen and keyboard of a laptop - no small feat, that.

That's a fantastic price, even in USD!

Everything's all about economics these days when it comes to electronics, as smart phones have proven quite capable of replacing multiple categories of devices with just one smart phone. Yet many folks are still using laptops for working with larger amounts of data or typing rather than deal with the tiny screens( and lack of keyboards )that while are the portability strength of smart phones, are also their biggest handicap. Given that most modern smart phones cost as much as a laptop, it only makes sense that any device to add onto a smart phone be as inexpensive as possible, otherwise you'd just buy a laptop if the price point difference was too similar to matter.

The Superbook aims to change this by plugging in an 11-inch screen / keyboard combo to your smart phone and using the powerful hardware of that device to run programs just like you would on a laptop. It's a sound concept and as a bonus, it makes the Andronium device far more portable, as there's no need for much of the internal laptop electronics such as a processor inside nor the cooling for same.

I'm debating signing up before the Superbook Kickstarter ends in two weeks. While I already have a laptop, my sister does not and it would make perfect sense for her to use this kind of device both at home or while out and about other day. She's definitely not one to haul a laptop around for only a few minute's use in a day, however convenient it would be to have a full-size screen and keyboard to do work on.

The best part? Whenever you upgrade to your next smartphone, the more powerful hardware means your portable experience with the Superbook will be even better. It's like having a infinitely upgradable laptop: full of win!

I love ideas such as this one, that leverage one technology's power to make it better without adding significant extra cost. It's exciting to think of what sort of technologies will come along and next five years to improve our mobile information abilities even more.

Aug 5 – Now THAT's a collection...

A laserdisc collection for the Ages!

I follow a few laserdisc groups online, both on websites and on FBook, mainly because that's where collectors like myself go to exchange information, tips and mainly just to hang out with like-minded people. All sorts of interesting things get posted and discussed, and lucky finds are some of the most fun things to see.

Like this one:

No ... words...

Apparently, this was the personal collection of one of the first Pioneer Laserdisc dealers in North America, consisting of thousands of laser disk, most of which were still sealed when the group member came by to make an offer for good portion of the items you see above. It's not for the faint of wallet, however, as even a good deal would probably run around $5000 USD for everything you see, plus some other items that are outside the frame of the photo.

Impressive. Most impressive....

Aug 6 – Gliding In From Crazytown

My work-week ended smoothly today, for which I was quite grateful.

Although this was only a four-day work-week for me because of the holiday on Monday( BC Day! )the entire week was a solid grind from the word go. Being the beginning of the month, we were inundated with calls and e-mails, to the point where I actually lost track of time at several points on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fortunately, we have three new trainees and they really stepped up this week to pick up their share and more of the work that was flooding in. I'm extremely impressed with the calibre of people that have been hired, not only for their skills but for the happy attitude they've all brought to what could've been extremely stressful introduction to our office given how crazy it was this week and last.

While no small part of their introduction was due to the training they've received today( small pat on my own back here )it's only under pressure that we began to see how someone really can perform and these three have been great. Thanks to their help, we managed to finish off the week solidly, with almost everything caught up to the point where we can actually look to do other things such as cross-training. It's gratifying to know that while we were up to our necks in craziness at the start of the week, we all pulled together and ended the rush four days later with a smooth glide into the weekend.

One more reason to like, even love, my current workplace.

Aug 7 – This And That

What to do with an early day...?

Unusually, I woke up at 6 AM this morning, far too early for a Sunday. As everyone else was still sleeping and I couldn't get back to sleep myself, I decided to do update my research on Tiny Homes as it's been about six months since I really dug into what the state of the markets at right now.

In brief: it's grown, and there's a lot more options out there now.

Small, pic: click for BIG details!

I won't bore you with the details( see pic above! )but it's still looking good that I might put a 'total home package' together that the bank will consider funding. I've also come up with a few ideas of my own to help with one of the biggest obstacles, which is collateral versus risk: unlike larger homes, many Tiny Homes are built on trailers and so can be easily moved, something that the banks don't like as you can literally drive away with their investment of many tens of thousands of dollars.

It's still a work in progress, and I'll update you here when I have more to go on.

Weekend-wise, it was pretty relaxed overall around here. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon gaming with a few friends, playing more than a few sessions of SmashUp! and SmallWorld, the latter of which I've not played before but thoroughly enjoyed for both its speed and light-fantasy elements. Good times.

Today, my lady and I took it easy with a relaxed breakfast out at Adrienne's in Cadboro Bay, then visited my mumm for a few hours, which went over well with everyone involved. I'm really pleased that my girlfriend and my family get along so well, just as I do with her parents who visited last weekend: again, good times.

Not surprisingly after an early day, I was feeling tired by the early evening around my usual blog posting time, so after dinner and some exercise-biking, I polished this week's entry up at 8 PM and called it a night, retiring to read a little bit before sleep takes me into its welcome fuzzy embrace.

There's been no sign of Crazy Window Woman this week, but all the same we've requested the property owners to install a security light outside in that area, to deter any such incidents in the future - damned scary, random people banging on your window and yelling, late at night. 

Workweeks, Writing Worth and Window Women

The word of the week is saccharine.

July 25 – Onwards

It's nearing the end of July, and work on my first novel is still going slowly. Like anything worth doing, you have to have perspective on it.

Late in 2015, I set a deadline of August 31 2016 for completing my third draft, not knowing the fun times I would have facing anxiety and financial frustration in the next long while. Not to mention just having recovered from a serious bacterial illness while trying to finish the first draft of my second novel in the trilogy...

Like I said, fun times.

In any case, completing my first novels fourth draft one month from now might still be attainable, though I don't think I'd be happy with the results if I tried to rush things along in order to meet an arbitrary deadline that I've set.

I want the work to be completed, not just finished: there's a distinct difference.

When I finish my fourth draft, it will be the best and most polished version of the book I can produce without professional help, as I've said before. It will be the version that I will be sending out to publishers as well as agents to represent the best of my writing abilities to the world.

You can rush that, and while I realize that I can sit here and polish things until there's nothing left underneath the shine, I can't just bring myself to quickly buff up a fourth draft to send out.

I'll make it the best draft I can, however long that takes in 2016.

July 26 – A Worthy Sequel???

What great timing!

After watching The Rocketeer this past weekend with my girlfriend, I was pleased as punch to hear today that there's asequel in the making - NOT a reboot, which quite frankly I'm getting tired of hearing since NONE of the movies made to date in such manner have been worthy of the originals.

The hero of the new Rocketeer is an African-American woman.This new version will be set six years after the original film. The first Rocketeer has disappeared fighting the Nazis, so an unlikely pilot takes up the mantle and battles the scientists who are trying to mass produce the rocket technology for the enemy.Writers Max Winkler and Matt Spicer are penning the script and it’s being produced by Brigham Taylor (The Jungle Book) and, weirdly, athletes Blake Griffin of the L.A. Clippers and Ryan Kalil of the Carolina Panthers.

Unfortunately, there's not much more to tell than that, but that's okay for now: movie development is like that and will hear more through the grapevine as soon as it's available.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a great Rocketeer crossover: Bobateer!

July 27 – Whew, Work!

This week's been pretty tiring at work, more so than most.

It's because too many people are on vacation right now and it's the end of the month, which is nothing surprising but I'm still working my butt off every minute of every day this week. Today already feels like I've been working five days in a row yet I still have one more day to go before my week is over tomorrow - thank goodness for EDO's.

Essentially, I'm on the incoming phones all day while keeping on top of our e-mail Inbox too, answering questions and requests to try and keep things within a 24-hour window for responses. It's quite tiring and mentally taxing, though generally stress-free, apart from the occasional Silly Person who wonders why they had to wait 20-30 minutes longer than usual for us to get to them. Hmmm: it's BUSY at the end of the month, perhaps?

I'm also training three new people for our team, which is wonderful: we've been operating understaffed for 3 months now and it's going to be great to get some qualified help who will stick around to get better every day under the tutelage of more experienced Admin  staff such as myself. I put a few of them on the phones today and although they only got a few calls here and there, it was enough to make a significant difference in everyone's stress levels, color and staff both.

Next week should be even better with everyone from our team back from vacation and raring to go. The rest of the office has felt fairly empty as various staffers take their vacations during the summer, which is made many people's jobs more difficult when some staff just aren't there to answer questions that we can't.

But that's all part and parcel of my current workplace. At least I can leave it behind at the end of the day and just dive in again in the morning, without anything being on my mind in between.

July 28 – Another B5er Gone

Why? Sixty is WAY too young!

Actor Jerry Doyle passed away today, taking us to a total of FIVE Babylon 5 alumni who passed away far too early in the last 10 years.

This sucks.

Much like the close family of Star Trek, all of the surviving alumni of B5 are reeling from his loss, which was quite unexpected. When Andreas Katsulas passed away in 2006 he at least was able to say goodbye to many of his friends, as his battle with cancer did not take him suddenly, as did the death of Richard Biggs in 2004: another great loss.

The creator the show, J. Michael Straczynski, was eloquence in his words about the passing of Jerry Doyle today:

So dear sweet universe, if you are paying attention in the vastness of interstellar space, take a moment from plotting the trajectory of comets and designing new DNA in farflung cosmos, and spare a thought for those who you have plucked so untimely from our ranks...and knock it off for a while. 

Because this isn't fair. 

And Jerry Doyle would be the first person to tell you that. Right before he put a fist in your face. Which is what I imagine he's doing right now, on the other side of the veil.

Say hello to the others out there Beyond The Rim, Jerry. RIP.

July 29 – Bang, Bang, on the Window!

Tonight, I had to call 911.

I was out with my girlfriend, as well as her parents and grandfather who were visiting from the states. We'd just finished dinner at Vista18 and were walking in Beacon Hill Park, when my sister called me: the Crazy Window Woman was back!

Last night, a woman started searching around in the bushes outside my bedroom, loudly looking for something that she seemed to have lost. She was only there for a minute or two, then wandered off lamenting her loss( ? )and came back again a few minutes later, at which point I called the police nonemergency number, as she seemed to be in some sort of mental distress. I couldn't see her because of the lack of light outside my window, and by the time the police got there she was gone.

Tonight she was here again, banging on my bedroom window hard enough to rattle the glass bottles I keep on my windowsill, so that my sister heard her down the hall and through the door of her own bedroom. My sister went to my bedroom and loudly told the woman through my locked window that she couldn't just walk up to the wrong  people's windows to bang on them and had to go away now. Then my sister called me, remarkably calm but obviously at a loss what to do...?

So I called 911 from the park, as the police had advised me last night if the woman returned. They dispatched a unit, and this time I was able to give them a description of the woman, who had again by this point left to disappear in the dusk of the street. From the ramblings that my sister heard, it appears that this person was looking for someone in another unit, possibly to perform some kind of illegal transaction, but there's no real way to know that as she vanished so quickly. The police were unable to find her, which was no real surprise... I hope that's the last we see of her.

From what I gather, the woman is probably homeless, staying in the Tent City only two blocks away towards the downtown, making for quite a few more homeless people wandering the neighborhoods in downtown Victoria in the last few months. Given the lushly overgrown nature of many of the landscaped gardens around where I live, it's no surprise that some of the homeless are using the cover for their own purposes, and it's unfortunate that my window area is one such.

I'll be writing up the incident officially for my landlord, to see if some security lights might be able to be installed on the cheap. As Tent City is scheduled to be finally shut down in less than two weeks, I'm not sure anything will happen, but I certainly don't want to be jolted out of bed by some crazed woman smashing on my window while mistaking it for another unit.

July 30 – Ancient CGI

As a lifelong fan of Star Wars, I love the original trilogy in its unaltered format, and oddly enough the design of the Death Star is one of my favorite parts - especially the 3D computer graphics that were revolutionary for the time.

Just announced this week: John Knoll, ILM wizard for the upcoming Rogue One Star Wars movie has done some incredible work in re-creating the CGI graphics of the Death Star as shown in the original Star Wars film, faithfully reproducing them with modern technology:

You can see the entire 1-hour panel from Star Wars Celebration Eurpoe 2016 below, where John Knoll discusses an incredible amount of 'Star Wars Archaeology' to some very lucky people earlier this month:

July 31 – The Sounds Of  Summer

It was another beautiful day to be outside.

My lady and I spent a few hours down at the model boat pond, chatting with the other boaters while running our Haulin' Trawler off the space-backup battery, as the backup LiPo cell decided it was having a bad day and cause the boat to drift into the concrete side of the pond - paint scrape, dang it! Then we spent a few hours enjoying ourselves on the patio at Garrick's Head pub downtown, next to the sunday market there which is perfect for people-watching.

It's actually our favorite spot in Victoria, and we had a glorious time there together.

For dinner, we had a double-header, watching 2 episodes of the original Samurai Jack series( still only on the first season )as well as 2 episodes of the first season of Star Blazers, which were further ahead on( about 8 episodes in )and that I love to watch, especially with such appreciative company. Star Blazers takes me right back to my childhood and never fails to put a smile on my face as I watch. It's always a bonus that it's a great story and a healthy inspiration for my own writing.

As we were both feeling pretty tired, we didn't go to the Victoria Symphony Splash this year, down in the inner harbour area. Trying to find a seat in the shade among 40,000 people just didn't appeal to us, to be honest, despite the allure of a live classical symphony orchestra playing. Maybe we'll rent a pair of kayaks next year and float in front of the stage, though again will have to have some sort of some cover to avoid looking like lobsters by the time we're done.

And so I'm now writing my blog, a few hours later than usual. It's actually easier for me now to write just after dinner on Sunday nights, compared to post to my blog closer to midnight as I did for the last nine years previously. The shift in my bedtime has been fairly profound in going from 12am most nights to around 11pm; it doesn't seem like much, but it's all about when I start to get tired...

Well, it's after 10pm and I'm pretty darn beat, though not as tired as I was Thursday night: that was a LONG day after a long week, despite it being only four days long. I still have another day off tomorrow( BC Day! )and I'll be using the opportunity to get some more work done on my draft, plus just plain ol' relaxing. July's done with, I'm a year older and I've a lot of work still to do...