          
|
September 6, 2005 - 10:52 AM  All work and no play Is the reason for Labour Day! Well let's see. I had an awesome Labour Day Long Weekend. Saturday afternoon a friend and I went out to Ghost Lake where we met up with Pat from Sylvania, his wife and a couple of their friends. Despite gail force winds at the lake when we got there, the weather did eventually subside and we were able to go out on the water for a few hours. I think it is time to buy a new battery for the Seadoo though. It just does not seem to want to hold a charge anymore. I started it on the trailer, no problem. Pat and I launched it and he drove it to the dock, no problem. My friend and I got on it, untied from the dock, pushed off and went to start it - problem. The battery was now dead. So after drifting away powerless to affect the situation Pat returned on his watercraft, towed us to shore and gave us a boost. After some time in the water and everyone had become thoroughly chilled, we pulled the watercraft (plural) back onto their trailers and returned to Pat's trailer where a fire had been started and broke out the game of washers. Essentially it's like Horseshoes except you toss large metal washers into a 3" ABS coupling mounted inside a foot-square box spaced 20 feet apart. I was glad to see Pat again and to spend some time hanging out with him. If I had to say I miss anything about working at Sylvania I'd have to say that I miss working with him (and Al too.) It was always interesting. I'm glad he's finally bought a JetSki of his own now because it will probably mean we'll go camping more often. (It's also appropriate since he was the one who talked me into buying mine some five years ago...) We were working in Red Deer at the time and decided to stop into Turple Brothers while they were still in that shack downtown on Gaetz. We went in, looked at some Seadoos they had in the store at the time and talked with one of the sales reps. Jane Weir was her name if I'm not mistaken. Then Turple Brothers moved to their present location on Gasoline Alley and it turned out that Pat and I were working in Red Deer the week my Seadoo was ready to be picked up. So one night after work we rented a truck, hitched up my brand new Seadoo, drove it out to Pine Lake and tried it out for the first time. What a rush!!! Hahaha Within five minutes I had separated myself from it by a good 50 feet. It's hard to imagine how different my life would have been had I not made the decision to purchase that Seadoo. No seasonal tenting at Sandy Cove, no lake friends, I would have never met Barb and Ed, I wouldn't be working here... All these things are a direct result of the Seadoo. *sigh* Then on Sunday we went out to the warm lake, but given the colder weather the water wasn't nearly as warm as it had been on previous days. It only registered as high as 28 degrees where a few weeks ago it had been 35. It was really windy that night and I had to tie the side of my tent to a tree because the wind was so strong it kept buckling the tent. I thought I had lost a good many pegs somewhere and only had enough to hit the four courners and the front of the fly. With the side tied to a tree it held up remarkably well, but the next day when I was taking the tent down, here if I didn't discover a pile of pegs that had somehow made their way under the tent while it was being set up. Apparantly I hadn't lost as many pegs as I thought I had. Oops. Oh well. We still had a good time. One thing that did become increasingly apparant was the chill in the air, especially in the evenings and at night. Fall is definitely coming, and all the joys of winter are not far behind. I've just about got the furnace in the garage all hooked up, a lot of the electrical is done but we still need to make some holes in some walls to put some conduit through. I'd really like to get that done this week, but the week is already a short one since yesterday was a holiday. Being paid weekly means that I get 5 pay cheques this month too! Woo hoo! That always helps. Anyway, back to work I go. September 9, 2005 - 9:25 AM  Beware the wrath of a bored bylaw officer having a bad day... As I was leaving for work the other day, Paul - our neighbour across the back alley - called my attention to a vehicle seizure notice that had been affixed to my trailer which has been parked in the back alley behind my house for several weeks with our raft on it. The plan was to bring the raft home, fix it up and try it out but as plans change, the raft never got off the trailer and it has sat behind the house since then. Apparantly you can't have a detached trailer parked on a street (or alley). So I unhitched the Seadoo, parked it in my garage and hitched up the trailer (and raft on it) to the van and parked it out front. Hopefully you can't get a ticket for that... Kind of annoying.  Last night Bo and I did some more work on our garage, trying to get it ready for the upcoming cold weather when having a place to work on projects and vehicles in warmth is highly advantageous. Bo has almost all of the wiring done in the garage and I knocked a few holes through the outer garage wall where our electricity, gas, and data lines are going to come through. I got one hole put through the foundation of the house but by the time that was done it was quite dark. We were using my camping lantern in the garage to do the work in there (and Bo found out how hot it can get when he grabbed the handle and went to move it...) It's really starting to come together in there but there is still a lot of work to do at the same time. We're making progress. That's the best way to put it. It will be awesome when it's done. September 14, 2005 - 11:52 PM  Wow. The web site has really been put on the back burner lately. I haven't had a real update to it in quite a while. I've found a new (and surprising) cheap, quick, culinary delight - Kraft Alfredo. You make it exactly like KD only's it's kind of a fettuccini alfredo and it's surprisingly tasty! Work is keeping me ever busy, I've had to work late a few nights this week now that my program is doing all of the invoicing for all of our route customers... Just a little bit of stress there but it's working quite well considering the amount of testing I had time to do on it... And now it's story time. Once upon a time there was a man who had spent many years wandering the streets outside. Rain, shine, wet, cold, hot, dry - he had experienced it all. But for several years this man had wandered the streets of one particularly cold city. The sun shone during the day but he never really felt it's warmth. Then one day this man came across a roaring bon-fire. It's flames emitted such a wonderfully warm heat that he immediately staggered towards the fire. As he got closer to the inferno, he suddenly remembered what it was like to be warm, and overcome with desire to experience warmth to the fullest, he jumped right into the heart of the blaze. You can imagine what happened next. His clothes caught fire and moments later his very skin began to burn. Suddenly, in a panic - he leapt from the fire and tried to put out the scraps of fiery clothing that were still clinging to his searing skin. Another man who had been watching these events take place ran and got some water to help him put out the flames, and the man survived - but he barely escaped with his life and would be forever scared from this life's lesson - too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Song of the day: Black Eyed Peas - Don't Lie I think I'm getting strept throat or something. The back of my throat has been very sore the past couple of days. It seems worse at night and first thing in the morning. I caught a kid egging my van the other night... Got a picture of his truck so the guy came back and cleaned my van off for me. Never a dull moment these days... I built a Pentium 4 computer out of spare parts for Bo tonight since his computer died. It's funny too, my fastest computer is a Pentium III - 600 Mhz system. It gets done what I need though. One of these days I'll get a nice computer. Time to go to bed. I'm probably in trouble. September 16, 2005 - 5:00 PM Plans Change  Today I was supposed to leave for Rocky Mountain House to go on a kick-off retreat with a group from church to signify the beginning of a new year of Focus 3, an extensive, intensive leadership course I had been asked to join. I was all set to go, had figured out the details and was very much looking forward to it. But sometimes life has a way of getting in the way of your plans. Last night Syrena and I went over to Sean's house because both he and Tom had been asking me for some time to come look at their computers. Knowing I'd be busy in the coming weeks and gone for the weekend, it was one of those "now or not for a long time" situations. On the way there, Syrena started complaining about a sore stomach - like she had some sharp pains in her tummy. At first she said it wasn't too bad, but half-way through Survivor she asked if we could leave so I said goodnight and we went in search of a medicentre that would be open. When we got to the one at Horizon Square it had just closed (closes at 10, we were there about 10:04) so I drove her to the Peter Lougheed hospital and took her into Emergency. We ended up staying at the hospital until 3:30 this morning, but she had to come back at 9:30 for more tests to determine exactly what was causing the pain - which by now, had become considerably worse. The night seemed very short and before you could say, "wheelchair" we were back at the hospital. They say that the sweetest sound to a person's ears is that of their own name being spoken. I don't know how true that is but I can tell you that when you're waiting to get into a health care facility, hearing your name over the intercom is a very welcome sound. This morning she had some more tests done and was sent back to Emergency. By this time, I was absolutely exhausted and was trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in the waiting room chairs. My conclusion: There is none. The wheelchairs are pretty comfortable though...  hehe So anyway, the long and the short of it is that now
Syrena is being admitted to the hospital to have the problem fixed. I've decided not to go on the retreat - I just can't leave here there by herself
all weekend. Her mom is at a funeral in Nova Scotia so she doesn't really have any family here. I'm going to have a bit of a nap and then I'll go back
and visit her at the hospital tonight. I need a shower and some rest. This has been one LONG day!But then, on the way home from the hospital I saw a Sylvania truck working at the Petrocan right across from the Rundle station so I pulled in and ended up talking to Pat and Paul for about two and a half hours. I (finally) gave him back his wet suit which Syrena had borrowed the weekend we went to Ghost Lake, and also one of his Seadoo tie down straps. We chatted and caught up, and strangely enough while I was standing there with them, I saw two familiar looking Suburban's drive by - one which was Purple and the other which was mostly black. Small world. Bo's having some steaks tonight. I really have
to get off this computer and get at least a few hours of sleep though.Song of the day: Lemon Jelly - Space Walk September 19, 2005 - 12:25 AM Ok, it's been a while since I've added anything to the site, so tonight I thought I'd dump some pictures on here for those die hards. Actually, on Friday I was talking with Kristin and Syrena and we came up with a great new idea for this site. I don't want to give anything away at this point, but it will definitely be interesting. You will have to look carefully.  Fish Face  The other night I was at my parents' house. My puppy learned a new trick - It took many months of training, but the results speak for themselves - he can turn himself invisible.  Ok. This is a PIECE of a splinter I pulled out of my dad's finger. It went straight in and was stopped by the bone. He broke off several pieces trying to pull it before we finally got it out but I took this picture with some household objects to put things into perspective. It was a huge splinter.  Another first in my house - my first cup of tea. I think this warranted a few pictures. My kitchen counter has become the background for many a picture.   Whenever I'm at my parents' house eating, my friend is always near. The poor fellow is getting old, and in his old age he is becomming increasingly blind and deaf. But it is kind of funny too, because as blind and as deaf as he is becomming, his nose hasn't lost it's scent. The other day I went over and he was sleeping on the deck. Because he's getting quite deaf it was fairly easy to sneak up on him without waking him up I crept quite close and then hid behind a rain barrel. The puppy did not wake up, so I tossed a pebble on the deck in front of him. He stirred, then got up and walked to the door on the deck, looked in to see if someone was coming and then whimpered a bit before sitting down to watch from a more relaxed position. Then he sat there for a few moments, looking longingly into the kitchen through the deck door. I was watching him the whole time from behind this rain barrel, and what happened next was simply priceless. All of a sudden, his nose perked up, and when it did - his whole face - his whole demeanor suddenly lifted. With wagging tail in tow, he got up and came straight towards the rain barrel where I'd been hiding. I'd been found - not by sight or sound but by smell. I suppose one could read into that and draw some aromatic conclusions, but we won't address the implications of being found by one's fragrence.  Syrena is still in the hospital. I went to visit her this evening after church, and although she was still in considerable pain, they seemed to have nailed down her nausea finally. The pain killers they'd been giving her before were causing her to be so sick she couldn't keep anything down. She's probably going to be there for a few more days until either the situation heals itself on it's own or gets worse and forces them to perform surgery to try to fix the problem. They're trying to avoid surgery except as a last resort and if all goes well it shouldn't be necessary - please continue to pray that this will be the case. She would really like to get out of the hospital and I don't blame her at all. That's a glimpse of my world tonight. Tomorrow it's back to work for me. Never a dull moment it seems. Plans continue to change without notice... I'm sure I've said it before on here somewhere, but it's become a fact of my life a long time ago that plans change. What I've been learning lately is that the difference between success and failure depends on how quickly one can adapt to that change. You see some people (and even myself at times since I hate change) who simply stop and stare at the change - criticize it, complain about it, moan and groan and reminisce about the good old days before the change took place. Some people try to ignore it, continue as though nothing had changed and actively avoid doing anything that might in some way validate the fact that the change has taken place. Other people, usually the ones who tend to find success in life - adapt quickly to the change. They make the best of whatever the situation has become and find a way to excel in it. They look for the pro's of the change, instead of the con's and strive to move forward. Sometimes it's necessary to analyze the past, to learn from the old way of things, figure out what was different, perhaps what was wrong, and use that information constructively to improve the present. But there's a difference between dwelling on the past in a sentimental loop and studying it productively. And yes, there is a balance in there somewhere too. Everything in life has a balance (or should, if it doesn't.) And now, on that note, I shall balance myself off to sleep. September 20, 2005 - 11:59 PM  Well, I've got bad news and I've got good news. The bad news is that Syrena had to go for surgery today after all. Her condition was not getting better on it's own as the doctors had hoped, so they opted to go in and fix it themselves. So, today around noon-ish, she went under the knife. Three small incisions later, the problem was fixed and she finally began her journey down the road to recovery. When I went to see her tonight, she was still in quite a bit of pain - but the pain was different. Instead of it being the squeezing, nausiating pain, it was now the pain from the surgery that bothered her and just knowing that the problem was gone makes bearing this new pain much better. It will pass. So that brings me to the good news, we were talking to her doctor tonight and if all goes well she should be able to come home tomorrow. So thank-you to everyone who's been praying for her. I know my parents have been and the entire Focus 3 group did over the weekend. She was in the best spirits I've seen her in tonight that I've seen her in since she went into the hospital. She was even laughing so hard that it hurt. I felt a little bad for making her laugh when her stomach had three holes in it, but I couldn't help it and neither could she. In other news, my bedroom got a whole lot smaller today as Bo gave me his old bed. Mike brought him a nicer one from his mom's house, so Bo passed his old one on to me, which was considerably larger than the one I'd had before. It even has bedposts! When I saw that I immediately thought of that song Does your chewing gum lose it's flavour on the bedpost overnight? that we used to listen to and sing repetitively when I was younger. We had it on an old record and I don't know who it's by but I'm sure I could probably find out.  September 22, 2005 - 10:41 PM  Syrena's surgery was a success, and all she has to show for it is three small scars on her tummy, one of which is in her belly button so it won't even be noticable. I drove her to the Foothills Hospital (well actually, the Rockyview Hospital first, mistakenly thinking it WAS the Foothills. In my defense, I've never been to the Foothills Hospital in my life that I can recall... I thought Calgary only had two hospitals and I knew there was one on 14th Street SW. My bad.) where she underwent some more tests for an un-related matter. We then went out for breakfast and after that I went in to work. Her stomach is still sore but she is doing considerably better. (And now for something completely different) We Have Ignition!  It's always nice when plans go ... well, according to plan. This evening I lit up our new garage furnace I bought off of Lorne, the maintenance manager where I work, for 24 bottles of beer. He had it sitting in his garage for several years after buying it from a retired furnace service technician who rebuilt them in his spare time. Although Lorne intended to use it in his own garage, after 3 or 4 years he decided that it was just taking up space and would rather have the beer. I brought it home, installed a gas line and hooked it up - apparantly not a moment too soon as I gaze at my thermometer which reads 1 degree outside. Of course, our garage is anything but air tight as there are 2 to 3 inch spaces beneath each of the garage doors and a 2x5 window which is missing completely... But even with these horrible inefficiencies, within 5 minutes of engaging the main burner in the furnace, the garage was warm! What a difference it will make to have a warm place to park vehicles, work on them, work on projects, and 'tinker' during the winter months! Bo and I were thinking too, with the garage being one big open space, it probably won't take very much energy to warm it up during the winter - so even if we leave the furnace off most of the time, when we want to work in the garage, we simply turn the furnace on for a few minutes and voila. It really does put off a LOT of heat. I'm probably going to get a duct made up so that the hot air it produces will be more evenly distributed throughout the garage, making it take that much less time to heat up. Just about every day since I picked up that furnace Lorne has been asking me if I've got it hooked up yet. Finally I'll be able to go into work tomorrow and say "Yes! And it works awesome!" Did you know? When I was a little boy, I used to have this repeating nightmare where I was at K-Mart or a similar kind of department store, and I was looking at the typewriters (remember those things before computers?) on the shelves. Inside each typewriter there was a hole you could peek into and if you looked inside the hole you could see a blazing fire! The only thing was, if you looked at the fire, it would suddenly flare up, come out of the typewriter and chase you! I remember having this exact dream a number of times, and it used to scare the digestive bi-products out of me! This picture below kind of reminds me of that dream a little bit. I am no longer afraid of typewriters, but the vividness of that dream remains to this day.  September 25, 2005 - 9:20 AM  Everyone loves a good fight ... And last night we got to see plenty! Bo, Clayton, Mike, Jessie, and I went to watch King of the Cage last night at the Stampede Corral. Essentially one level below the UFC, King of the Cage packed no less excitement into it's entertainment dollar. In fact, numerous UFC stars were in attendance last night, including Chuck Liddell, Herb Dean, and Rich Franklin - not to mention several Calgary Flames players, (including Kippersof) who recieved a hearty round of GO FLAMES GO from the croud. Despite the enthusiasm for the home town players, it was definitely a tough croud in the building last night, with loud choruses of booing for some of the American fighters. Some of the fights were over in as little as 5 seconds, others went the full 10 minutes in the two-round matches, and some even went longer in the three-round matches. There were fireworks, there were bloopers, there was a guy who blasted his fog horn every time a mistake was made, there were turnovers, there was even a draw! In one match, both fighters punched each other in the face at exactly the same time - and both fell backwards to the ground at exactly the same time! There was ground fighting, there was standup fighting, there was guys getting their faces made into goo. It was well worth the ticket price for the entertainment inside the ring. But what we didn't expect to see was the amount of entertainment OUTSIDE the ring! It started innocently enough, this very attractive young lady sitting about 15 rows beneath us was getting a rise out of the croud below her by drawing some fans' attention away from the cage fights. There was much cheering, much oogling, and I have to say, the female form is a beautiful thing. So that was all fine and dandy, we all sat back down and continued watching the fight when suddenly a loud BOOOOO began to erupt from the croud. Not seeing anything particularly worthy of such a loud sign of dicontentment from the croud, we began to look around outside the ring to see what was causing this widespread disapproval. Well here if 4 or 5 uniformed Police officers weren't escorting the flasher from the stands! The croud obviously did not like this as several people threw popcorn and beer at the Police, who, after removing the ladies out into the hall, returned and removed the beer-tosser as well. I think he actually put up a bit of a struggle because there was something of a scuffle as they were trying to get him out of his seat. Even so, while they were taking him out, another fellow sitting much farther away tossed a half-full cup of pop at the officers, only he missed and struck an unsuspecting spectator in the lap. All VERY entertaining. It pretty much went down hill from there. Fights began to break out all over the stands. Uri, one of our fighting buddies had some floor seats right next to the site of one of the brawls, and he told us afterwards that it was about 8 guys going at it in the middle, fists a' flying and one guy got hit over the head with a chair! As soon as the main event was over, we all got up to leave. We didn't even wait to hear the official proclaimation of winner, but decided it would be better to get out of there before we got sucked into a fight somewhere ourselves. On the way out though, we passed by several brawls in progress, there were security guards running, fans running, people fighting, people watching the fighting, and people cheering the fighting. Bo and I stopped to watch one of the fights and noticed that even the security guards did not jump in to try to separate the scrappers, but waited until they sort of finished on their own before pulling the guys apart.  Fortunately, we all made it out safely. Mike and Clayton ended up going out a different route and saw numerous other fights break out where they were. I counted five separate fights that I saw myself last night. Although entertaining, such activities really do not speak well towards our city and the future of events like this one being hosted here. From the booing of the croud to the brawling of the fans, I really wouldn't blame King of the Cage for cancelling future shows in the city. Now with all the excitement of last night behind me, I must return to the mundane tasks of housework and laundry. Man I have a lot of clothes! You relly don't realize this until it's time to do your laundry! September 29, 2005 - 11:55 PM  Life is a journey. There are many roads you can take. Some of them are obvious, other paths are not so clear. Sometimes you walk the road in good company. Sometimes you're alone. Sometimes you get lost. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get a break. Sometimes you get broken. Sometimes you do things you 'ought not because they feel good. Sometimes you feel bad when you do the things you know you have to. Sometimes you speak clearly. Sometimes you stutter. Sometimes you have no words to say at all. Sometimes life just disgusts you. Sometimes you can do nothing but stare at the ground with your head between your knees. Sometimes life repeats itself. Sometimes you lose a friend. Sometimes you gain one. Sometimes. There, was that hypothetically vague enough for you? I broke up with Syrena tonight and it's given me a lot to think about. That's the gist of what that whole thing is talking about. Re-read it in that context and you'll see what I mean. You know a funny thing that happened to me tonight? (This is totally off topic) Bo and I went shopping and I meant to pick up some toilet paper. I put my last roll in the holder today and thought, "I need to buy some more TP" So I go to Wal-Mart, bought almost a hundred dollars of groceries - milk, bread, cheese slices, yogurt, French Vanilla for my Tea, a whole whack of stuff. I also bought some personal hygene items - I was out of razors, my conditioner bottle was empty, and this morning I was scraping my pits on the plastic liner of my deoderant stick... I even bought an electric razor so I can shave my own head instead of having to go to my parents' all the time! I had a great night of shopping. All was well until I got home and realized - I forgot to buy toilet paper! Ahh, such is life. BACK to Journal Index |