It seems like the evening for pitiful efforts:

(1) Karin and I visited Vertically Inclined, the local rock gym, this evening. After a seven month hiatus from the sport I should have expected sore arms, bruised fingertips, and that guilty feeling of knowing I should have been able to climb better. But alas, the truth hurts.

(2) Everyone's favorite geek hero, Mr. Ken Jennings lost out on the final questions and ended his legendary and epic winning streak. It was due, but it is truly the end of an era. Well. Maybe not an era. A season? A drawn-out monotony of ratings-grabbing television? Whatever.

(3) Five-fingered salute? What the heck is that? I'll give GWB a five-fingered salute. One finger at a time.

November 30, 2004 after 11PM | fitness , life , politics | maybe more»

It had been just over two weeks since we dropped by to check out our future home: perhaps a long wait, but what's there to look at, really? An empty lot and a showhome we'd perused over two-hundred times. But it was all good: the papers were ready for a signature and a cheque, and we giddily supplied both. The next step: hole-ness.

Dad and Mom even showed up with a birthday/consolidation present -- a laser-guided circular power saw that will come in super-handy when I start constructing things in and around the house next summer: fences, decks, workbenches for the garage, rooms in the basement, a studio... hmm... all the potential.

But then... now and again... we wait. It seems I'm always just eager to jump to the next step. And then once it has leaped past, anticipation for continuance. I thought I'd be gleed when we paid and that was done: now I want to see ground broken. Break ground! Break it! AHHHHH!

November 29, 2004 after 2PM | house | maybe more»

So the house thing is temporarily stalled. In a way... but then again, not really. That little jaunt we took out of the country sped some things up at the front end, pushing some paperwork forward. Unfortunately, some other paperwork couldn't keep up. It's still lagging. Hopefully, we'll be making an appointment to go do the last final big ol'signing tonight. That would be cool.

And speaking of cool, guess what is holding up the whole works: our refridgerator. It turns out that the cost of our new house includes a stack of brand new appliances. There was just one catch: some of the upgrades are not neccessarily "upgrades" in the eyes of fickle people like us. The default refridgerator, as much as it sounds like a meandering moot point, was a side-by-side model, the kind where the doors to the freezer and the fridge-proper are side-by-side instead of top bottom. Karin didn't want that: something about too much maintenance, and too narrow of freezer. No big deal: they will do the switch, adjusting the price up or down based on our alternative selection.

But now the blueprints are done and signed. The city has approved our build. The colors are picked. The lot is ready. A big ol'cheque is sitting in my wallet (unsigned of course) and nearly ready to be passed over to the proper authorities. But one thing is missing: the price of our fridge.

So we hang. And wait. And nothing really exciting will happen until GE tells Jayman an exacting value for modern cold storage. Strange as that sounds, our fridge is slowing us down. Sigh.

But maybe -- fingers crossed -- today will be the BIG day. Maybe. And then I'll have something more interesting to take photos of than an empty lot.

November 25, 2004 after 11AM | house , stress | maybe more»

1 :: From the dude in the shuttle bringing his daughters to Disneyland: Canadian military IDs are not a valid form of international identification. If they were, he would have been on a different plane, in say, September.

2 :: From the jerk on the Pirates Ride: when they say no flash photgraphy, it's usually because the scenery loses its mystery when you can actually see it, you know, repeatedly illuminated by the light from your camera. Besides, who needs forty pictures of animatronic buccaneers?

3 :: From the family of noisy tourists who checked into our hotel at 5AM: hotel walls are good conductors of sound and slamming doors, shutting cupboards, calling reception, and stealing your neighbor's paper is no way to make friends.

4 :: From the trucker in the hot-tub: roller-coasters are not for fat people, and the number of consecutive times they let you ride is directly proportional to how long it takes the attendants to get you strapped in and buckled up.

5 :: From the overtly-rude Yank on the roadside at the Electrical Parade telling his kids why it was okay to steal some other kid's spot: "This is a free country. This AIN'T Poland!"

6 :: From the shuttle-bus driver while navigating the streets of Los Angeles: "Gas? GAS! Won't nobody show up at your bAH-beque if you cookin' with gas! Charcoal is the only way to BAH-beque."

7 :: From the trigger-happy attendant running the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios: The rides may be cheezy, but even that fragile little illusion is burst if you shut the simulator ride down four seconds too soon just to get the next group of tourists on board.

8 :: From some random local standing in line to the Haunted Mansion on Friday night: One's perception of a "busy night at Disneyland" is in some way inversely dependent on the number of times you've visited in the past. I'd been there once, and it was a crazy zoo. He'd been countless times, and he couldn't believe how quiet it was.

9 :: From numerous vendors on numerous streets selling numerous useless souvenirs: People will pretty much buy anything provided you intoxicate them to saturation with sugar-coated memories of family-fun. That doesn't mean I was immune, myself, but I can still afford that house...

November 22, 2004 after 3PM | opinions , travel , weird | maybe more»

Wondering where we've been? It was our week in California, and we just got home last night. I spent the morning and uploaded about 150 photos in the gallery. Check them out. I might write more later, but I think the pics speak for themselves...

November 21, 2004 after 11AM | photography , travel | maybe more»

It had been about eight or nine days since we visited the lot slash neighborhood slash showhome slash builder, so we dropped by on Saturday for a push-things-along visit.

Progress is fleeting, though only from our anxious perspective.

Apparently much is going on behind the scenes. Our blueprints are complete and in transit to the showhome, those last few papers are being polished for our signature and the staple for our big cheque, and the last few dabs of color, wood, and light are being orchestrated in the fragments of conceptual imagination.

Things are coming together. Then what? This week we sign. Next week they approve, and then soon, ideas start to become reality: stakes will be planted, holes will be dug, forms will be built, concrete will be poured -- and most certainly photos will be snapped.

I just thought you might like to know.

November 8, 2004 after 12PM | house | maybe more»

... because life's too short to write a long winded explanation of the little joys of today.

a) I broke the ten-thousand word-mark last night. (I guess I'd better buy some glue on the way home.)

b) Amazon delivered. I bought that new "Planet Simpson" book that came out, and it arrived in the mail at my office this morning. Woo-hoo!

c) It is friday after all.

d) Karin and I are going to another play tonight. Some might say it's sappy to lament on things romantic, but I finally managed to get a second date with my wife.

e) Next week is a short short short week. Three days. Perhaps. Yet to be confirmed, but probably three days.

f) I had spicy chili for lunch. It was tay-stee-yes-sir-ee!

g) Blue is watching me work. And he's figured out that the big shape moving around outside his bowl is the one who brings food. I'd feed him, but he's getting fat.

h) If I had some money I'd buy a guitar. Or maybe a pickle. No, definitely a guitar. It's just a fun thing to think about.

i) I only have one more art class left. Well, two, if you count the one I miss while I'm on vacation. Neither of those are joys in particular, but I'm actually improving, I think.

j) I got a poppy-quarter from Tim Hortons this morning. And, not for the first time, they upgraded me by accident. Nice, but waaaay too much coffee.

k) Back to the books, as its November I've started the Second Annual New Years Booklist Flush, wherein I actually FINISH all those books I've started over the past year. Time to build a pile.

l) Very little blogspam lately. That's been nice.

m) I've worked through setting up a new auction system for our Annual Staff Holiday Online National Auction this year. It's 97 percent ready to roll next week.

n) Only 50ish days 'til Christmas.

o) The house, while little has been done, really, seems like something should be happening with the final little details soon. Maybe this weekend. Maybe we'll have a hole by the end of the month.

p) I found out that they (the mysterious, non-specific "they", in case you were wondering) are releasing the box-set of The Matrix Trilogy on DVD soon.

q) I think I'm living next door to an Eskimo. Yes, a real, live Eskimo. There has been a little detective work attributed to that.

r) I'm running out of things to write in this entry. That's not MY joy. It should be yours.

s) With this morning's book delivery also arrived the new BNL Holiday CD. Nice. For Karin, really, but whatever. Still nice.

t) I've managed to moderately sedate my mind from the impact of Tuesday.

u) This is the second entry in a row comprised almost entirely of a list. You'd almost think I was in the middle of writing a novel or something and didn't feel like forming complete paragraph-style thoughts any more than I needed to.

v) Sharyl might be visiting this weekend. At the very least she's staying in the city for the duration. And she hasn't figured out it was me yet, leaving strange and cryptic messages on her webpage.

w) Just because the phone has barely rung today.

x) Deadlines have been re-arranged. That's always nice. For the moment. Temporarily. Okay, maybe not, but I'm not deleting this one.

y) Why not?

z) Michael Moore sent me a personal email. Well, okay maybe it was a form letter to everyone on his junk-mail list. But whatever... he still cares.

November 5, 2004 after 1PM | food , life , play , reading , scatter , writing | maybe more»

Not that I'm overly impressed with last night's election, but the best medicine for bad news is a little bit of sunshine. If America hands you lemons, you gotta make lemonade, right?

8R4D's Top Ten Reasons Why the Inevitable Result Might (possibly) Be Okay:

10. Michael Moore now has a good reason to make a couple more movies.

9. Global warming means less snow to shovel.

8. There's enough fodder to give CBC something to talk about besides the hockey strike.

7. Ralph Klein is now the "lesser of evils" that the media always talks about.

6. All my investments are in Canadian Dollars.

5. No need to remove the Canadian flag patches on my luggage.

4. Even more George Orwell references on Slashdot.

3. I've already got www.gwbush.com bookmarked.

2. I have an excuse to finish reading all those Noam Chomsky books I bought or downloaded.

1. Increased housing demand from draft-dodging Americans will positively advantage the property value of my new house.

November 3, 2004 after 8AM | opinions , politics | maybe more»

I would comment on the election, but I'm supposed to got o California in a couple weeks and, well, you know that ol' saying about Big Brother.

What November 2nd usually means is that NaNoWriMo is once again in full swing. And correlating to that, my faithful readers may notice a minor drop in my posting here. (I always say that, but it never really happens.) Yesterday, I kicked off the process with good start, round off the evening with nearly 8000 words. And having spent my lunch break burning up the keyboard I can now say that I'm gently toeing past 8500.

I'm also being a little bit more liberal with the whole reading thing this year. As promised. (I've even let Karin read the first wind.) I might even post it some time. If I have time. If I feel like it. Yeah.

November 2, 2004 after 1PM | opinions , politics , travel , writing | maybe more»