odd-balling

Karin and I started our Sunday with a tour of the city, planning to do a whole thwack of chores and errands. We wound up at Brett and Lenore's house (after most of the errands were complete) and while Karin and Lenore debated the intracacies of craft supplies, Brett pulled out a borrowed copy of Katamari Damacy and shoved it into his Playstation. Six hours later we pulled ourselves away from the game to eat a late dinner and watch the Simpsons.

Karin made it a point to insist that buying our own copy of the game would be seriously hazardous to both our time and our sanity.

07:17 AM on 21/02/2005 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

omen

I was out for a short walk. It was yesterday, around lunchtime. The strangest thing happened: not ten feet directly ahead of me a pigeon fell from the sky without any sort of visible explanation.

Thunk!

Dead.

True story.

08:54 AM on 19/02/2005 | comments (1) | trackbacks (0)

cartoon crush

With very little remorse and plenty of gurgling humour, I crushed a meme within the skull of my six-year-old cousin this past weekend.

Kids have stacks of those weird concepts, anyhow. I suppose, ultimately, it's better that they lose them slowly and from a variety of sources than all at once. It would be akin to telling them that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are all figments of their wee little imaginations nutured by a pragmatic society.. and then handing them an ice cream cone and sending them on their way.

Travis and I watched Shark Tale this weekend. And as the credits rolled, captioned images of the characters appeared on the screen the names of their voice-actors appearing boldly below. Travis, who is in first grade and is just learning to read, seemed confused that the phonetics that are still just a liquid slurry of miscomprehension in his little brain didn't seem to jive with the words that were appearing on the screen under the pictures of the characters. Another way to explain: "Oscar" the fishy main character, as he seemed to perceptively understand, is not spelled W-I-L-L-S-M-I-T-H. He confessed, at least so much in that six-year-old-A-D-D kind-of-way, and I innocently explained that Will Smith was the actor who did the voice of Oscar the fish.

"Huh?"

A few minutes later, with the help of Internet Movie Database and Google Image Search, Travis was the proud owner of a new thought process. As an example, some mental constructs (obviously taken for granted by you and I and other balanced individuals) that can literally blow the mind of a six-year-old include:

+ Donkey and Mushu are one and the same.
+ The voice of Gill in Finding Nemo is done by the same actor who plays the Green Goblin.
+ Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is actually an attractive young woman

To you and I, well, hopefully, these things are of only passing curiosity. To Travis they were worthy of a full half-hour (in six-year-old time, that's like, months) of devoted thought and interest (which, of course included such exaggerated expressions as grabbing his face with both hands and flopping in sheer wondered exasperation against the back of his chair).

Someone later suggested it might have been funny to let him in on another secret at the same time: "Oh, by the way Travis. Remember when Santa showed up on your doorstep? Well, that was... uh... well... me."

12:50 PM on 14/02/2005 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

green christmas

But only because we spent so much money last night.

One might wonder why there is the sudden upsurge of entries on these chilly December mornings. This being the shortest day of the year, I thought perhaps it might need to be the shortest entry, as well. No such luck. So why the sudden verbosity? Three reasons:

1) It's pre-holiday. The office is dead. On any given day I'd spend a few minutes wandering and venting to my coworkers. They are few and far between. This is almost as good.

2) This is a primer. I'm due to spend the whole day writing articles for our newsletter. It's what I've been doing for about two weeks now, as odd as that may seem... but with interuptions, and other tasks sewn inbetwixt, well... As a result, it helps to loosen up the typing fingers, grease the ol' brain, and get that sass out of my system somewhere mildy constructive before I settle down and get serious for the day.

3) I've been writing too much about our house lately. And while that may amuse some of you, I'm sure it's killing my ratings elsewhere. And believe me -- they're on thin ice already.

09:02 AM on 21/12/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

white christmas

We spent the weekend in Red Deer, pre-harmonizing for the holiday season, preparing mind, body, and soul for the inevitable crush of party days that are to come.

Ryan spent the weekend hung-over on the couch. He anticipated a little too much and surely waxed illusions of a simpler life. I tried to explain to him the consequences of dabbling in the triad of pleasures (wine, women, and song) and suggested that he might have better success with the outcomes of each were he to try them in the maximums of "duets" -- but his insistence to the contrary didn't instill much confidence that he'd take that advice.

Saturday, I pulled my alto from the dust of nine-months of silence, and wailed a few tunes sans musik at the family sing-along night. I could have blamed the alcohol for my lack of skill, but there was none in the coca-cola I was sipping earlier. Perhaps I am just out of practice. Even so, the ability to marginally carry a tune on the old sax even after such a long absence is one of those vague encouragements to try and pursue that practice with a little more regularity.

Plausably, everyone must go through the doubting phase of the holidays. I've reached that (for a day, week, year, or decade -- I can't tell yet) place when one wonders what might be the point of all the spending and the buying. I used the example of the el-cheapo brand DVD players that everyone got for the holidays last year. You know: the forty-dollar specials that no one could resist. It was the ultimate great super-selfish present for you and your loved ones. Never mind the local cost of buying a product that was so shoddy many -- if not most -- of them now live at the local landfill wasting money, space, and resources. Never mind the enviromental cost of manufacturing and shipping hundreds of thousands of useless toys across the oceans and countries, burning oil, polluting the air, and generally wasting energy. And, never mind the human cost of the (proven) third-world sweatshops used to manufacture said products, thus making them so cheap that, well, we should have bought two! Never mind all that. It's Christmas, and who cares what the price is for eight minutes of focussed joy. We are at the top of the resource pyramid after all, right???

Karin and I tried to buy most of our presents from the pool of local industry. We don't know if we completely succeeded, but we tried. Mostly. And it's sad, because if someone like stick-in-the mud me can't succeed at that, there's not much hope for the rest of the populous.

I tried iTunes for the first time last week. Yes. My money was where my mouth was gabbing just about a year ago. I said, if they ever sell it for a reasonable price, I'd kick in and buy some. Pay. Legal-like. And considering that the levy is no longer on blank media (as of last week) there is no more little plastic shield to protect folks and their illegal music collections from the local record industry's lawyers. I took a double whammy, and actually bought -- yes, paid for -- the Band Aid Do They Know it's Christmas singles "for a good cause" and all. It wasn't so painful. And the quality is stellar. (Well, the encryption quality. We're still not sure about the new version of the song.)

And yes, it snowed last night. Stormed and snowed. I've tried to avoid mentioning this, but they poured some cement in our basement last Friday. Footings, or something. They were pretty much dry (and thus safe) yesterday afternoon when we stopped by to look -- but I don't think the weather is going to cooperate for a pre-holiday wall raising.

So what now? Holidays? Soon.

I mean, for the last three years we've had the Lord of the Rings to distract us from our troubles. And even last year we got a heaping dose of Mad Cow nearly just in time for the holidays -- at least the media was hyping the impact of it all by then. This year? Well. We still have nearly a week, I suppose.

09:54 AM on 20/12/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

pitiful kind of effort

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.

11:31 PM on 30/11/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

things I learned in california

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...

03:20 PM on 22/11/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

back...

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...

11:57 AM on 21/11/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

friday facts...

... 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.

01:08 PM on 05/11/2004 | comments (1) | trackbacks (0)

a swift kick in the sack

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.

08:32 AM on 03/11/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

Truk Rogers: From Year 300,000

That little red truck lurched past a modest milestone last night. For a vehicle that has been around the countyside as much and as long as that faithful beast, one might have expected a little more fanfare. No, I didn't -- as mom suggested -- hop out and run around the truck. I did pull off to the side of the road and introduce "old tech" to "new tech" in the form of a couple brief-focus digital images. I thought since a large portion of the readers of this blog have either (a) owned or (b) driven or (c) at least ridden in the micro-rouge-creature, there might be some stories to share. Or at leasts some interest in the topic. Perhaps.

I'm not holding my breath.

I also realize that some people might find the idea of me sitting at the side of the road taking pictures of my odometer -- regardless of the number of kilometers displayed -- odd and boring. For those, you can imagine the effort involved in taking this image while driving through the busy city streets, instead.

09:03 AM on 15/10/2004 | comments (0) | trackbacks (0)

how cheap was that...

I drove across the highlevel bridge in commuter traffic yesterday. I was to meet Karin at Sharyl's digs, and trek out for another blog-worthy event. The assorted vehicles crawled impatiently across the black, steel behemoth, and I -- in the little red truck -- thanked the mighty zarquon that my own commute does not include such traffic anymore.

Climbing to the south side of the river valley, Strathcona awaited. In all it's glory. In all it's weirdness.

Five students, garbed in bright orange shirts, disturbing wigs, and with undercoatings of the latest in neo-gothic fashions wandered stoicly down the centre median, large posterboard signs heralding the downtrodden message:

www.whatisbeauty.ca

Simple. Clean. And by their "alternative" appearance, one's first assumption is a call to action. "Visit our site." "Read our literature." "Feel our pain." "We are outcast and sick of it." "Please do not adjust your set: we have a message to slap in your face."

For some reason, it stuck in my mind. Sort of. It lingered there, nearly forgotten until I saw a very similar message in this morning's newspaper. Different, but similar.

So I checked.

I dared. I opened my web browser, and type in the mysterious URL.

And I was saddened. Disappointed. Slapped, rudely, in the face by yet another cheap attempt at advertisement. Go there. Visit. Whatever.

And the world takes another step down the ladder of good taste.

10:50 AM on 29/09/2004 | comments (0)

sequence of things

Sometimes I like to look for the patterns of things. I think it might just be some primal evolutionary remnant of some larger geek-path chromosomal marker.

For example, and admittedly it's not a very good one, I'm drawing convolutions from people-thoughts: I finally got in touch with Gene last night. Gene, never introduced here previous, was my über-studious university roomie for a couple years. I called him, because he called me, because, well, who knows. I called him back because I had recieved an email from Doug, the very nearly Dr. Doug, Phd in astrophysics, who I had written an email to just last week.

The connection there is that we are all mutual aquaintances -- and that's as far as I'll push that line... Also, I would lament on the emotional pain involved in having super-successful (academically, at least) friends... but, well...

I had written Doug last week, mostly, not entirely but mostly, because I had just fired up my new gmail account and wanted to send it for a whirl, and I had fired up a gmail account because another totally disconnected group of people made mild-mannered contact and aided that process in itself.

(See any patterns, yet?)

The ultimate stretch here is -- and ultimately there is no weighted significance to this whatsoever -- is that group A has indirectly resulted in the contact with group B by party C (or, your's truly)...

Bing, bong, boing! But whatever...

Patterns, right? And patterns are what shape this silly life. Or maybe, I'm just drawing conclusions where there are vague, unimportant references to my quasi-reality. It could also be that I'm stressed, overworked, and have nothing interesting to write about in that state...

More likely.

12:17 PM on 28/09/2004 | comments (0)

forty-two

Because that's what number this is, and because that's approximately how many new pics I uploaded (give or take a dozen) to the gallery, randomly scattered, or even in THIS ONE.

Mentally, I'm strained. Pardon the edge.

10:14 PM on 07/09/2004 | comments (0)

the hitchhiker's guide to the perseids

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at some staggeringly complex and varying distance every one-hundred and twenty years or so, is a sizable conglomeration of dust, ice, and (quite possibly) highly intellegent aliens who have disguised themselves as a large and unweilding comet so they can observe our little blue-green planet without fear of reprisal.

This comet has -- or had -- a problem, which was this: most of the dust and ice particles living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the casual lolling about the sun that had already been going on with the comet for a very long time, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the comet who was unhappy.

So it happened: revolution, rotation, and quite possibly even gravity, and then some of the ice and dust particles found themselves unceremoniously dumped from the back side of the comet as it continued to loll casually around the sun and they were left to float helplessly in space.

Then, one quiet August evening shortly after midnight, this little blue-green planet passed (with the great interest of its inhabitants) through a lonely cloud of dust and ice, casually picking up a few hundred-thousand stranded dust and ice hitchhikers as if to thumb its nose at the long-past comet, an already strained relationship, the comet having, itself, occasionally threatened to hitch a ride on that same planet in an event comparable to an ape being hit with a baseball bat.

Coincidentally, five ape-decended life forms on the aforementoined blue-green planet found themselves escaping a completely different problem. This problem went something like this: Being a human lends itself to the general evolutionary conclusion that bad things come from dark places. This conclusion has itself lead to the development of some of mankind's most interesting inventions. One human, a man by the name of Edison, was so concerned with the growing issue of scary-dark places that he invented a way of harnessing the residual energy of the aforementioned sun and releasing it in the form of a small, nearly self-contained, vacuum sealed bulb. Consequently, anywhere large collections of human beings gather -- cities, football games, or even odd little campgrounds in the wilderness of Northern Saskatchewan -- they bring these little bulbs and create a comfortable glow called light-pollution which protects them from the dark, much like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. Unfortunately, light pollution has a way of causing great bother to those folks, specifically the five (aforementioned) ape-decended life forms who, showing great interest in the grand galactic affairs and complex relationships of planets and comets, would rather look into the sky than look at each other.

And so the five humans found themselves inside of yet another of mankind's great polluting devices -- a car -- travelling as quickly as possible away from their big, glowing, light-polluting city.

Yet another great human invention: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels: "A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." It goes on like this for some pages, listing the various practical applications of towels in everyday life. In short, if you ever meet a computer programmer in everyday life and ask him about his towel, he will grin wickedly and wink knowingly in your general direction.

Unfortunately, had that same work of fiction ever bothered to mention the massive utility of a cellular phone while driving on a dark, unlit, country road at two o'clock in the morning, those same computer programmers would probably have been much better off.

Incedentally, our five protagonists had neither a towel nor a cell phone.

Also incedentally, the practical mechanical knowledge required to diagnose the unholy screeching sound emitting from the (yes, aforementioned) car when one of the unsuspectingly jealous rocks on the road wedges itself into the brake pad of a load of five humans going deep into the late-night darkness of the countryside to look at some much prettier rocks falling from the sky -- that knowledge would also, very much likey, have been more useful than knowing about the comedic-value of towels.

Our five protagonists found themselves in just such a situation, and having conclusively decided that forty kilometers was just simply too far to push a car back into the percieved safety of the city's light pollution, much more effort was mustered to envision a way to solve the growing problem of being nearly alone on a dark country road with an undrivable car when all anyone really wanted to do was look up at the mysterious glowing lights in the dark sky. This solution inevitably involved a whole bunch of walking, and another whole bunch of recruiting of the assistance of other happenstance human beings who, on the whole, were probably much less concerned about towels than the rest of us and who were practical enough to have brought both a cell phone and some basic mechanical knowledge into the dark countryside late at night.

Somewhere, far out in space, is a sizable conglomeration of dust, ice, and (quite possibly) highly intellegent aliens who have disguised themselves as a large and unweilding comet so they can observe our little blue-green planet and our efforts to spy on their galactic politics -- and last night, even as we crawled into the relative safety of our beds, they were all laughing us.

10:20 AM on 12/08/2004 | comments (0)

welcome to the land of the bludsUkerz

The city, in all it's long-weekend splendour, was insuffient to hold us inside. Karin had been planning the adventure for a week, calling the kiosk inside the park to confirm trails and availablity, plotting routes from poory scanned, pixelated maps she had downloaded from the net, and generally envisioning a grand adventure some forty-five kilometers east of the city's edge.

I was game, though relatively indifferent.

We slept in. Showered, Dressed, ensuring to dig our most outdoor-ish gear from the piles of workwear in our closet. I found my Tilly. Karin donned her red cap. And on the way out of town we grabbed some healthy snacks at Save-On and gassed Bel for her mini-adventure. The sun flirted with us from behind a sky of broken clouds, and just out of reach that elusive pattern of something grander lurked with an air of impatience among the soles of our hikers. Even the bison wandering patiently along the roadside seemed blissfully unaware of the epics that loomed.

We paid, we parked, we gently coated our arms with a conservative burst of deet-laced aerosol. It seemed fashionable, the whisping bursts of clouds hiding behind the tree-line, to leave our long pants wrapped securely around our legs. The cold seemed our biggest enemy, and even that an idle threat on the wind.

Four kilometers we walked. The road was not exactly the trail we had envisioned, twin tire-scars stretching around meandering corners. But it was peaceful, wildflowers dressing the tall grasses that saluted us as we wandered past. The flora stood still while I photographed it, the hymenoptera were busy, but patient as the shutter clicked, and a lone lepidoptera unfurled its wings and sat long enough to endure a well focused pixel-map.

Everything seemed peachy.

We stopped at the rest, snacking on fresh nectarines, a modified mix of nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and chocolate. Karin napped on a bench, while I photographed the local wilderness. A solid thirty minutes passed, and as rushed as we seemed to be, it fit that the time had come to complete the remaining eight kilometers of the hike.

Trails have a way of being either less or more than expected. When we hike in the wilds of British Columbia we found ourselves either scaling heights where it seemed no one had ever gone before, or counting steps on a wooden staircase up the side of a busy mountain. There was rarely any middle-ground.

When we stepped onto this trail, the first thing that struck my consciousness is that it more resembled a lawnmower's path through the scrub, than any path I had recently encountered. The tall grasses crept into vegetative waves over and around a meandering course. Mushrooms of all shapes, colours, and sizes dotted the greenery. Hundreds of bewildered amphibians leaped impatiently underfoot. And, in an astounding display of insect fecundity, the mosquitos swarmed like an evil cloud of doom, filling the air with the threat of annoyance, itching, and looming questions about tropical diseases which have found their way across the Prairie landscape in their six-legged hosts.

Our patient and leisurely walk had turned into an eight kilometer sprint back to the car, pausing only briefly (on numerous occasions) to apply yet another generous dose of bug repellant to our exposed skin. We dashed over lolling hills, barely glancing over our shoulders at the magnificent vistas that spread out before us. Our only thoughts were wrapped in the awareness that with a concerted effort, the insects (outnumbering us by a factor of possibly millions) could have easily carried us off to a more suitable feeding location. As it was, sprinting through the deep grass that weaved over our path, chaos among the swarm was our only saviour.

Sweat beading our brows, perspiration wringing from our grubbed clothing, we arrived in record time at the car, and with barely a hesitation retreated back into the city. It seems there are still some places in this world where we humans are more welcome than we'd like to be.

08:44 PM on 31/07/2004 | comments (0)

forgivable absense

The city takes it's toll. Both Karin and myself have had our turns with a nasty head-cold over the past week. How much fun is that?

Whining aside, Ryan showed up yesterday and we-two stormed the stadium for the Eskimos vs Hamilton blowout. We were two of the thirty-five thousand people in the stands, with the caveat that our seats were first row. The sun was hot. The beer was warm. The game dwindled off in the second half when it became evident that the visiting team probably would never catch up and we were forced to simply watch our team burn off the clock. The final score of 51-30, favouring the locals, meant a peaceful retreat back into the city, Ryan and I walking it back to the apartment in a little under forty-five minutes.

The hot day resulted in a crazy-storm evening. Two massive thunder and lightning storms struck the city, spanning a four hour period. Of that four hour period, Ryan and I were perched on our east-facing balcony for about three snapping a total of two hundred and eleven photos of the city-alight attempting to capture a stray bolt in mexapixel bliss. While we didn't quite time it right to image the lightning that struck about three and a half blocks in front of us, creating the need for a half dozen fire trucks to arrive at the nearby intersection to clean up the mess, we did randommly snap a few nice shots of the night sky.

And now here we sit. Deep breath....

11:54 AM on 18/07/2004 | comments (1)

twenty-three

This is the twenty-third entry on this blog. That means we're picking up steam, chugging along, and heading into the deep unknown...

The city disappeared for a while. We drove out west for the weekend to go camping. Three and a half hours in the car, each way, led to a variety of stimulating activites including hiking, fishing, and eating.

It should come as no surprise that I'm tired now. And early -- early -- tomorrow morning I leave for Toronto. It is the life we lead. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

08:44 AM on 05/07/2004 | comments (0)

vote

I voted this morning. Anyone who has spoken to me in the last month with event the slightest political taint to the conversation, doesn't even need to ask where I marked my X. Go vote. Unless you're going to vote against me and cancel out my effort. Then stay home. Watch TV. Eat some french fries.

Karin and I arrived safely home from our weekend jaunt to Saskatoon. There are photos in my gallery. I'll try not to be too vague about that matter.

08:36 AM on 28/06/2004 | comments (0)

vagueness is my... middle name...

We would strongly recommend checking out "Supersize Me" if you have not already. It will shift your mentality on food. Well, fast food.

We skated on down to the theatre last night, despite the threat of rain. It didn't. And considering the nature of the beast -- and the fact we were trying to be health-conscious with a generous slice of cheesecake in our bellies -- we skipped the popcorn.

Even so, I'm really quite thristy these days.

The city has a way of dropping people and things out of it's sheltered cracks: case in point... Skating home we were followed by two bicyclists. And I emphasize the distinction between what you think and what I think. I noted to Karin that their aura projected a feeling of dutchness, reminding me gently more of two commuters from the Polder than of local fitness geeks.

She didn't see it, but then, why should she?

I'm sore now. My shoulder aches. I think I need to stretch more.

Good advice. Stretch.

I repotted some baby tears last weekend. The pot in my office is almost out of control. It's wonderful. I need more plants here, though. It's so barren sometimes.

08:47 AM on 23/06/2004 | comments (0)

eight wheels or up

In the brash trend: there is something primal between the cracks in the sidewalk, smooth patches broken by regular grooves of shaped cement that rattle underfoot as we glaze by faster than intended by the city's engineers. Clip, clip, clip... at metronomic repetition, paced almost too quickly to count.

I bladed to work this morning, the sun shining at my back as I paced through the rough sidewalks and fragmented pathways that don't exactly lead where I need them to go. There are still too many rocks, too much, and too little experience with that thin layer of connection between the asphalt and the rounded, spinning edges of my wheels.

Speed is a factor in the city. Either one walks, drives, skates, cycles, trains, planes, or finds some means on conveyance: but speed is always a factor. Things get lost with speed. And even when we're sitting still, thinking that we are patiently letting the day pass us by, we truly are not. There is always speeding involved. Our minds are racing, our words are bolting, and our lives are spinning wildly, often beyond our means to control their every movement. In this way, some fractured and fragile way, bolting from place to place, from home to office, office to home, or from somewhere to nowhere and back, these are all symbolic of something larger.

I used to wonder what would happen if we were able to completely stop moving. I used to ponder if there was something odd that would happen if by some chance every spacial vector became zero: from the gentle swaying of our bodies in our chairs, our heads bobbing imperceptably from side to side, to the grand flux of ourselves, our cities, our planet, our massive orbit around a vast star cruising through a galaxy, itself tracing a path through the universe which may not be sitting still in whatever vast plane of existence shapes it's outer reality. What if we could cancel all those things out, and just stop?

What would happen?

Something interesting? Or would we be so busy trying to fling our frail little bodies in the right direction and at the right speed that we wouldn't notice that none of it was really worth it?

I suppose if I skate REALLY hard home...

09:27 AM on 26/05/2004 | comments (0)

adventures in barbequing

One would almost think that grilling, as a summer activity, should be simple and enjoyable. Building a fire in one's own space, sizzling raw foods to smokey, charred perfection in the confines of a small bite of open air, and savouring that sizzling smell wafting from an elegant steel barbeque should be something that is elegant and enjoyable.

But I suppose, like all activities that bring leisure, one must pass the rigours and trials that entitle one to such points.

Karin and I went BBQ shopping yesterday afternoon. Shortly after four-thirty we took the elevator to the basement, found our car, and ventured west to tour the stores where comfortable living and good prices meet. After a bit of driving, a bit of walking, and a lot of shopping we found ourselves passing a decision and waiting for the lad and his red shirt to bring us the big box with our new toy wrapped snuggly inside.

That's right: two-hundred and forty square inches of natural gas grilling power, packed in styrofoam and cardboard and sailing through the aisles of Canadian Tire to meet us and begin a grand adventure.

We paid, and then found ourselves with a little bit of a problem: The rather large and unweilding box, obeying the strict laws of physics, decided it didn't want to fit in our little car. What's Sunfire to do? Bel's trunk is only so big. Three teenagers, a few box-cutters, and a lot of grunting later and the pieces of the new BBQ were splayed out the parking lot around our car like so many failed games of Tetris. It was a sight, and oh, how I longed for my camera. First the grill in the back seat, then the stand. Then the grill in the front, and the stand in the trunk. Finally, Karin gripping fiercely to both the stand and the grill from the rear, while I drove, the blunt corner of the grill rammed painfully into my thigh. It was a sight.

We got the thing home, hauling it piecemeal up the elevator, and spread the disaster on the floor of our living room.

And then the assembly began. Nuts, bolts, washers, and little unexplained bits of metal and plastic: most all of them found their place in the grand ensemble that emerged on our patio in the evening light. It was fantastic. The grill was smooth and shiney. The polished black metal of the frame was elegant and bold. The knobs were spry and alive. The igniter, it's single battery cell clicked furiously waiting for the gas to flare the beast to life.

I attached the hose, pulled the end towards the supply line emerging from the wall of the building, and...

Now, I don't claim to be the smartest guy in the world, but it doesn't take a high IQ to recognize that it's pretty much impossibly stupid to try and fit a 3/8th inch gas coupler to a 1/2 inch supply valve. I mean, logically -- literally -- you're playing with fire. And most people, faced with this dilemma at eight o'clock on a holiday Monday evening would have sat back, regretfully put the steaks back in the fridge, and waited for a professional. Most people would have given up. But what fun is that?

Back in the car we went. And back to the Home Depot, where we hadn't bought the beast, but where we knew they would have an adequate supply of gas fittings, couplers, hoses, and tools -- and at least a vague knowledge of how NOT to blow ourselves to kingdom-come installing them.

It was well past nine when I wrenched one last time on the teflon coated connectors, pulling on the spanner with enough leverage to ensure that I didn't peel the metal to shards, but so that we wouldn't have a nasty visit from the gas-leak fairy. It was well past nine, when I finally lit the beast, it's grill roaring to life, heating, burning-in, and at last, cooking our dinner to medium-rare perfection. It was well past nine when I realized that barbequing my dinner tonight is going to be a heck of a lot easier than this little adventure.

11:01 AM on 25/05/2004 | comments (0)

snow is just an illusion: take the red pill

I was driving to work this morning pondering the idea that about half the cars travelling in the opposite direction were covered in a loose layer of snow. Haven't seen that in a while.

Last night, I wandered over to the video store where I had earlier spotted a cheap previously viewed copy of the Matrix Revolutions on DVD. I bought it, walked it home, unwrapped, openned, and plopped the disc into my computer to watch it on my widescreen laptop. Double-take. It was the wrong movie.

It may seem like a trivial point, but they had put a copy of Reloaded (as opposed to Revolutions) into the case (which clearly stated Revolutions on the outside and even inside pamphlet).

I took it back to the store, explained the error, and the girl told me to grab another copy and check it, promptly passing me off to another teller. She, in classic-stupid fashion, scolded me for opening up another two cases to discover the same sort of issue: right case, wrong movie.

Eventually, we found a copy that matched, I drove home a little frustrated, and we decided to look at some of the special features as opposed to staying up too late to watch the long feature.

So how is that, then?

At least Jess contributed to order of my life last night, picking up a healthy stack of moving boxes, and helping to reduce the bothersome clutter of our apartment.

08:53 AM on 13/05/2004 | comments (0)