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Journal Entries for June 2006
June 2, 2006 - 7:03 AM
They're coming!

It's coming!

I know you've been waiting patiently for the pictures from Florida to appear on the web site, and I just wanted to let you know that they're on their way! I'm sorting the last set of them right now, even as you read this, and am shrinking the ones I've already sorted to they will fit on the web site without taking two minutes to download each! Just to give you an idea though, there are over 5 GIGS of pictures!!! That's partly why this process has taken so long!

Update (9:10 AM)

Take a peek in the photo album under Florida 2006!

(Not for the faint of heart or those on dialup! haha)

June 4, 2006 - 6:24 AM
Yogurt Malfunction...

Last night I had a yogurt malfunction. Essentially, when the lid of the container was removed, the yogurt failed to stay within said container. Instead, it applied itself in a generous manner onto my shirt. Swine yogurt. But anyways, I attended a manference (man-conference) yesterday afternoon and friday night that spoke on the subject of the male heart. And no, it wasn't some sort of cholesterol observing medical recommendation from the Surgeon General (or I suppose Health Canada in the case of this country) - but rather a look at why it is that we, as men, have this built-in longing for an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to save. A key theme of the conference was that in order for anything in life to make sense, you have to understand that we are all part of a much larger story - in fact a battle that wages day and night for the hearts and souls of every man, woman, and child. There was a lot of material covered, and I don't have time to push my thoughts on the matter through the buttons of the keyboard at the moment, but it was an interesting, perspective-setting outlook on all the mysteries of life and of (my own) heart and all the things that go on in there.

In case you haven't noticed already, I've put up my pictures from Florida in the photo album. I still have yet to sort through Barb's images, but hopefully that will happen soon (this week sometime.) It's strange how quickly these three-day weekends have started to fly by! Two people stopped by this weekend and dropped off truckloads of firewood for us to burn, so we'd better start having more fires out there. Bo went camping this weekend at Ribbon Lake but with me working Sundays I couldn't go with him. I'm starting to feel the longing to go visit Pine Lake. I'm scared it will be a big disappointment, but none the less I know I have to go. *sigh* There's something to ponder throughout the day. hehe

June 6, 2006 6:23 AM
6 6 6

Day of the Devil. Today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year - 666. Are you expecting something bad to happen?

Last night Bo and I had a fire. Over the weekend, two truckloads of wood arrived at our back yard, so we are well stocked for the summer and months beyond. I'd love to get a fireplace or a wood burning stove in the house. I'd have our gas bill down to nothing! haha This week so far has been busy! Sunday night I worked until 10:30 and did 19 installs, last night I worked till 9:30 and did 12 installs, and today will undoubtably be just as busy. BUT, I don't mind all this work because tomorrow is my day of phone training and then for the next two weeks I'll be doing ride-alongs with phone guys. What does that mean? Simply put, once I know phones I'll be doing more work for less money. Or at least that's what some of the phone guys have been telling me. It's funny: Because of the fact I haven't had my phone training, I've been less useful to the company - but as such they can only give me cable calls and I've actually been making more money, sometimes even thousands of dollars per month more - than the guys who HAVE the phone training and ARE more useful to the company! Ironic, isn't it. But alas, all that comes to and end tomorrow and everyone will be on equal ground after that. It was good while it lasted.

June 09, 2006 - 10:58 AM
Gecko acting as a stop sign

Isn't he cute? This picture was taken in Florida outside our hotel room the day we left to come home. It's starting to seem like that place is a world away, but the pictures help bridge that gap.

Yesterday I finally decided to do something I've known I've needed to do for a long time. Some unanswered challenge perhaps you say? Some moral correction long delayed? No, and I appologize for the disappointment if your thoughts were along those lines. How many of us have ever had a computer crash on us where we lost important files? It's kind of like cancer; Even if it hasn't happened to you, you probably know someone whose had it happen to them. It can be absolutely devastating to lose one's important data files, be them documents, personal information, a journal, pictures, projects you've devoted hundreds of hours to. Whatever the case, as computers daily become a larger part of our lives, we tend to rely on them more and more, trusting that because they've been there yesterday and the day before - they'll still be there tomorrow. But the fact is, computers wear out. Particularly the part of a computer that actually holds all your files. The disk inside your hard drive typically rotate between 5,400 and 7,200 times per minute! Unless you've got a high performance engine in your car (or a motorcycle) - that's about twice as fast as the enging in your car CAN turn - and it's spinning like this all the while your comptuer is on. Then there's the read/write head that skims across the disks themselves, or platters as they're called moving to and fro so quickly it would make your eyes sore just watching them - reading bits of data here and there, then moving elsewhere and reading bits of data from there. The circuitry on the hard drive takes these chunks of data and puts them back together, feeding them to the processor or directly into RAM (if DMA transfers are enabled) - all these things taking place quietly under the hood until one day we go to use the computer or turn it on and find in the place of our valuable and until-now-taken-for-granted files, we see an error. What do you do now?

June 10, 2006 - 10:12 AM
In response to yesterday's ponderings on the subject of losing one's important data, the unanswered question that was left hanging could be summed up like this: What can you or I do to prevent the inevitable loss of one's important data files? And really, data loss is inevitable. The computer you are sitting on reading this right now will some day fail to operate. The hard drive will crash, the CPU fan will get clogged with dirt or sieze up, overheating the processor or it may get stuck by a merciless power surge. It is not going to last forever. Are there files on that computer that you'd rather keep than lose? I know my answer to that same question. So what can we do?

Someone once said, "If you don't have a file in two places, you don't have it." Huh? If I have an orange in one place but do not have it in another, I still have an orange, right? Of course I do. But unlike objects in the physical world, objects in the computer world, essentially files and folders are very much akin to ideas. If I have an apple and I give you that apple, I no longer have that apple. We could cut it in half and share it, but then you and I are both only getting half an apple. Conversely, if I have an idea and I tell you my idea, now we both have that same idea. I didn't forget my idea by passing it on to you, nor did I have to divide it up and only retain a part of it in order that I might share it. Files, folders, and ideas can all be duplicated infinitely without loss, so long as the transfer medium is reliable. If I told Madisson about my idea about rocket science and space travel, right down to the nitty gritty details, she might rememebr that I have an idea of how to fly to the moon but that's about it. The rest of those details would be lost.

Look, a blue thing

Allright, apples and oranges and space travel. It's a great little story but how does this help me secure my important files? I'm glad you asked. Since I mentioned that data must exist in two or more places to be considered safe, we must first devise a way of getting our data in two places. Essentially, there are many ways of doing this.

One of the most common methods of transferring files from computer A in one building to computer B in another building is by E-mail. You could E-mail all your important files from your office computer to your home computer and vice versa. Now, depending on how many files you have and the rules in place on your E-mail servers concerning large E-Mail attachments. Drawbacks to this method: VERY time consuming. Even if you only had as few as 100 important files, you might have to send as many as a hundred E-Mails! The second drawback to this is space. E-Mail attachments take up to as much as 2x as much space on your hard drive as the files themselves. E-Mail, when initially concieved, was intended to transfer messages to and fro, and no provisions were made for sending binary files in the messages. Over time as this functionality became necessary, methods of converting binary files into plain text were developed (Google terms like uuencoding and base64 for more information on these) but because there are fewer characters in 'plain text', it takes 'more letters' to transfer the same amount of information. The result? E-Mail is not a practical method for backing up large quantities of files.

Another common method of transferring large amounts of files between two computers is by storing those files on removable media. Years ago it was the floppy disk, then came Zip disks and Jazz disks. Then one day CD-Burners became affordable and the average joe now had the ability to place large amounts of data on compact discs. Several days ago I bought a couple of DVD burners for $49.95 each. So now we also have DVD's onto which MORE information can be stored. Another trend growing immensely in popularity is the USB flash drive. By simply inserting it into any USB slot on a computer, it becomes a trivial matter to store as much as 2 gigs of information on a device that easily attaches to one's keychain or slips into a shirt pocket. They're fast, reliable, and the price decreases daily. Drawbacks to using these removable media for transferring files? These are to computer backups what gym memberships are to New Year's resolutions. At first, everyone is gung ho for it, they get used extensively for a maximum of three months and then they are abandoned. You could do most, if not all of your backups using CD/DVD burners if you took the time on a regular basis to maintain the regime, but let's face it. We are lazy and forgetful - and even if we posess superhuman resolve, life can still get in the way of even our best intentions.

The blue thing

I have highlighted these methods of backing up to show you the importance of having a backup plan that really does not require human intervention. To that end, what I developped this weekend was a backup server, built out of spare parts I've been collecting over time, that does all the work of backing up my important files itself. I don't have to do anything! And, because it has a RAID 1 array, even if one of it's hard drives crashes, I won't lose a single file. Having this second copy of offline files also makes burning them onto discs very easy, because none of the files in the backup set are in use (and therefore locked) and it won't interrupt any of my production computers at all! Another nice thing about it is that although it is connected directly to my local network, it could also be configured to backup remote computers over the Internet. This creates what's called an off-site backup - the best kind of backup to have because even if you've got a hundred copies of a file on CD, if they're all in the same building and a fire broke out, you could still lose all 100 copies.

Granted, this type of backup - also called mirroring because it is essentially maintaining an exact copy of the files on another computer - does not protect me against my own mistakes. If I accidently made a huge mistake in one of my spreadsheets but didn't catch it until a week later, that mistake would have been copied to the backup server very quickly after it was made and the backup would be of no use to me. To address this sort of issue, one must configure a periodic backup of his or her files, that takes a snapshot of those files on a regular basis and keeps those snapshots for a period of time until the owner is sure they are no longer needed. That way, if a file became corrupt or you made changes you later decided to reverse, you could just look at the snapshot of that file from a few weeks ago, before those changes had been made.

I've slept a lot easier knowing that my files are not in danger of a hard drive crash. There are some things that simply could never be replaced, and by combining the backup server with DVD-sets of my information which are stored off-site, you have no idea the peace of mind that comes from having that nagging worry removed from the back of my mind. Several years ago I bought a brand new hard drive for my laptop, and three months later - full of pictures I'd taken from my camera but not yet copied to my servers - it crashed one evening. I can only guess at how many hundreds of pictures and video clips I lost - one of such clips I know was a video collage I made of Bo, Clayton, and I down in Lethbridge. We had a video, but now all we have are fading memories. I really have left this project too long, but now that it's done, it's such a relief.

And now, on with the day and the task of making more memories!

June 11, 2006 - 12:09 AM
I love watching inkjet image formation

Look, a printer!

Maddy made this picture for one of her teachers Just a couple of quick notes to post tonight - Number one, I finally brought my birds back home. It's so nice to hear their little sounds again, and I won't have to stop myself anymore from blurting out little bits of news to them in the morning because I've temporarily forgotten that they're not here. It's a good thing I live alone or I'd look like a blooming loonatic talking to imaginary birds. Second, the picture you see is a picture of a picture Maddy glued together for one of her teachers. She was very proud of it (and I mean, look at it! I'd be proud of it too!!) We went swimming at Southland today which was fun, as usual. Quite a step back from the pools at Disney World, but home will always have it's place in my heart.

OHH!! OHH!! Small world incident! So as I was driving home from Tanya's tonight, I stopped at the corner and happened to glance to the right, only to see Mike - Bo's brother unloading his trailer. Suddenly, a light went on (this after several years) and I put all the pieces together. I finally figured out where he lives! And get this - if one were to stand on Mike's front lawn, one could see Tanya's house, and by turning one's head slightly to the right, one could also see Kerri's house! How's that for small world?!? I haven't really talked to Kerri in a few months, but I'm assuming she still lives there.

Shay invited me to come play paintball with her for her birthday this next weekend, so that should be a blast (huh huh) - although I feel I may be a little more than rusty at paintball since it's been at least a few years since my last bout. It will still be fun. Shay's never been to paintball, so I was asking her if she's ever gone to Laser Tag. "It's like that except it hurts more."

Well, I am now off to bed. I've got more training this week and the next. On another (actually unrelated) note, I signed up for a correspondance class that Shaw pays for if I get a passing grade that will give me certification in various technical fields on subjects ranging from cable systems to fiber optics! I was thrilled at the opportunity to persue something of an education WHILE working AND on a subject I'm sure I'll enjoy learning about. Then make it free for me and it's a no-brainer! (Well, actually it IS a brainer because you have to study. I'm told there's a LOT of material to cover but they've never had anyone fail it yet, and I don't intend to be the first.)

Goodnight!

June 11, 2006 8:39 PM
Plant Life

Allright, at long last, Barb's Florida pictures have been posted! Horray! Now I just need to find a way to post all my video clips! :P

I'm thinking about calling it an early night. I had one of the easiest days today doing my first ride-along as a Shaw Digital Phone installer... The pace of doing phone installs and the pace of doing cable & Internet installations are very, VERY different! Wow. I might actually like doing phone's! It is actually quite a lot of fun. In many ways, easier and simpler than doing cable. *sigh* I sure feel tired tonight though! An early sleep will probably do me good. My birds are chattering away in the background. Awwww it was so cute, this morning when we all got up, my blue one was calling for his girlfriend. Apparantly he fell in love with one of Tanya's birds during his stay with them, and he sounded quite love-sick this morning beckoning for her reply... I think Tanya was onto something when she suggested that not only should we bring the kids over but also our birdies from now on. Too bad Maddy will be gone for the next four weeks... That's right, we won't be seeing Maddison for a whole month! :( It's a whole different house when she is here.

June 12, 2006 - 6:56 AM
Vans

You don't have to be a space-efficiency expert to tell me that there is LOTS of room on this street. We have three vans parked against the curb there in the background and you can see there is easily room for three, maybe even four more lanes of slow-moving traffic (since, after all - we live inside a playground zone where the speed is 30 km/h during the day and 50 km/h at night) It's not like we're parking on 17th Avenue SW!

So imagine my distraught-ness yesterday morning when, as I walked out to my van to go to work - I noticed broken glass on the road. I looked around and it didn't take me long to find out where this glass had come from. Some idiot had clipped my mirror, completely destroying it!

Is it still bad luck if someone
ELSE breaks your mirror?

Bent it back

They hit it so hard it snapped back and bent the whole mirror body. I was not impressed. Luckily I'm in training for the next two weeks and don't even have to drive that van if I don't want to. But still, I have to replace the mirror now. Stupid mirror-clipping drivers!

Not to code

One of the houses we installed Shaw Digital Phone into yesterday had a very old electrical panel - so old that it's main breaker was not a breaker but a pair of bus fuses, mounted externally, with no form of insulation over the exposed, high current, electrical contacts. The entire house had only 8 circuit breakers, and the gauge of wire feeding the panel couldn't have been more than 10 gauge. It was crazy. So crazy that I had to take a picture!

June 14, 2006 - 6:52 AM
Shadow and Light

A couple of wierd things have happened around here recently. Normally I dismiss such things almost instantly as insignificant, but there have been too many to ignore. Sunday night I went through my usual evening routine of getting prepared for sleep. One of the things I normally do just before crawling into bed is setting the alarm on the clock. I have a fairly large digital clock radio that sits on the end table beside my pullout-couch style bed, and turning the alarm on is a simple matter of sliding a switch from OFF to BOTH. The unit itself actually has two alarms of different tones which can be set to go off at different times. I set them both an hour apart so that when the first alarm goes off in the morning, I can wake up and enjoy the comfort of my warm, cozy bed. (Everyone knows the bed is the most comfortable and cozy in the morning, right? So years ago I decided to wake myself up an hour early so I could actually enjoy this state of my bed! It seemed like a good idea at the time.) Anyways, Sunday night I set my alarm and crawled into bed. I reached over and turned the light off before snuggling myself up underneath the heavy covers and drifting soundly off to sleepy land.

Suddenly

I sprang up from my sleep. It was dark outside, no light from the window. All was calm. What time was it? I glanced over towards the end table. Where was my clock? I leaned over the side of the bed and looked around the floor. Had it fallen off in the night? No, I couldn't see it anywhere. Look back on top. It's definitely not there. Check the plug. Looks like a black cord is still plugged in, where does it lead? I began to get an eerie feeling as I started following the black cord from the outlet to it's other end. Inch by inch the cord seemed to lead back to the bed. It wasn't going underneath it, but on top of it. Surely I must be near the end by now... It seemed to be going UNDER MY PILLOW! I lifted it up and sure enough, it's bright red letters blaring out into the night. How on EARTH did my alarm clock get underneath the pillow I'd been sleeping on all night? Particularly without waking me up! Kind of creepy!

So then, yesterday I went to bed at a pretty decent hour. I had the light off by about quarter after 10:00 and was lying on my back, recalling the events of the day. I'd mowed the lawn that evening, and boy did it ever need it. With all this rain (plus the fertilizer I put on it last Saturday) it had grown nearly three inches in some places! When I had picked up the lawnmower from my parents' house, the front left wheel was nearly falling off again. Not a problem I thought, I'll just get my tools out and fix it. Some magic with a wrench and a vice grips later, four firmly attached lawnmower wheels guided the craft over the surface of the yard, removing all grass above a certain level. The yard looked good, but as I lay in bed I suddenly realized that my tool belt was still outside! I whipped off the covers and nimbly bounded up the stairs, walked outside to where they had been set and recovered them, dusting off a layer of nearly dried crass clippings that has blown atop them. As I entered the house, I thought I saw some lightning and the clouds looked like there could have been a few bolts inside them but there was no rain at that time. I locked the door, came back downstairs, set the tools in their usual place, looked at the time and crawled back into bed. It was 11:08.

This morning when I woke up, I stepped out of my suite to go for my morning bathroom waste product purges when I noticed the air in the hallway seemed cool and crisp. Glancing up the stairs, I couldn't believe what I saw - the back door, the one I'd closed and locked at 11:08 the night before, stood wide open. I went upstairs and asked Bo if he'd gone out this morning, showing him in the process how it presently stood. He denied any such door-opening, but told of a horrendous thunder and lightning storm that robbed him of all sleep through the night. Pretty strange if you ask me...

Lit Candles

June 16, 2006 - 8:43 AM
That's like, the Easy-Bake of Dutch Ovens!

Check out my new mixing console!

Busy day today... But yesterday was a lot of fun. What do you do when it's pouring rain outside? You go shopping!! haha (Never thought I'd say that in a million years) BUT, having said that, I'm not talking about shopping for a new pair of shoes, but for the good stuff - Man Toys!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Denon DN-D9000 CD Player, which is absolutely freaking sweet, but in order to properly utilize it's features, you need to have the proper mixer for it. Since it can actually play four separate songs at a time, (including two different songs from the same CD simultaneously) without the proper mixer it can be nearly impossible (and highly impractical) to mix properly. So after reading dozens of reviews and articles on the Internet, I decided to go with the Pioneer DJM-3000. And of course, when you're spending that much money on equipment, you need to have a good solid case to mount it in, so I picked up a road case for the gear as well. I've still got to get some bolts so I can properly mount it all together, but when it's done I'll have a completely self-contained DJ system. The road case has room for even my huge Dynaco amp, but I'm considering another case for the amps that has wheels (because together they're over 110 pounds!) That way I could mount all the crossovers and an EQ in the DJ rack which will simplify the connections between the two racks. It's going to be sweet. I want to have a party now! haha

I also met this really cute girl at Battery World yesterday (well actually, I'd seen her a couple of times before but yesterday was the first time I got to talk to her.) There's a strange problem with one of the laptop batteries I bought from them a few months ago in that it doesn't tell the laptop when it's out of power! Normally when the battery is low, the laptop will beep and flash some lights at you so you know you've got about 15 - 20 minutes left. As it gets more critical, the beeping and flashing get more intense until finally it forces a shutdown. Well with this new battery, it doesn't do that. It just shuts down without ANY warning! And I've tried it in both Thinkpads, fully charged it, discharged it, tried everything I could think of but it just does not want to notify the machine that it's power is low. So anyways, this girl's name is Christy and she was helping me with this problem, but during the transaction she had to wait to get back to me with some information from their other store so she asked me for my number. It's not very often a pretty girl asks me for MY number! I said. She smiled. As it turns out, they're going to replace it for me but they have to order a new one in - which means (can you guess?) Christy is going to call me when it's in! Hahaha I know, I'm pretty lame. But hey, one can always hope!

Allright, by now you're probably wondering about the Easy-Bake comment above, right? Well I was over at Robyn Lee's yesterday helping Rob with his Suburban. The rear differential is shot and the gears in it grind something awful even when it's disconnected. But after we'd finished up on the truck for the day we were sitting around in the living room telling stories when Rob farted on this baby blanket. He bundled it up and threw it across the room at Shay and I was like, That's like, the Easy-Bake of Dutch Ovens! It was funny. You had to be there. And now you know The Rest Of The Story!



June 18, 2006 - 12:44 AM
Happy Birthday Shay

Sweet Sixteen

Today Shay celebrated her Sweet Sixteen in true girlish fashion - by going to outdoor paintball in Bragg Creek. For Shay and many of her friends, this was their first paintball experience, and I dare say everyone had a good time judging by the story-telling in the van on the way home! Everyone also brought back souveniers from the day's activities in the form of welts and bruises. The birthday girl even caught me in the face just under my mask on the right side of my jaw, bursting paint and blood across my cheek. Nice shot, Shay... That actually hurt more than I let on. :P

Shay's Birthday Crew

The rest of the pictures are in the Photo Album under Birthdays. June 20, 2006
How about that rain?

Ominous Streetlight

Sunday I was doing a ride-along with this guy named Kris and we were getting some stock from his van. Suddenly there were three large drops from above that landed VERY close to the two of us. We looked up and there in the tree above us were three black crows, poised directly above both of us. We took some metal cable connectors and threw them at the birds, even hitting them a couple of times, but they barely shook out their feathers. Instead, they walked along the branches of the tree until they were more directly above us and dropped a second round of ammunition on is. We couldn't believe it. They were obviously and intentionally aiming! Swine crows

I have to say, I love the sunsets in this city. They are so colorful most evenings, tonight particularly after all those storms we had this afternoon. I was working up in Royal Oak today and was outside when the storm blew in and began to hail like crazy for 5 minutes or so. Then, within minutes it had subsided to the state of light rain, and shortly after that - sunshine under a clearing sky! It was crazy.

New song I've been digging: Fort Minor - Where'd You go?

Where'd you go?
I miss you so!
Seems like it's been forever
Since you've been gone...

Where'd you go?
I miss you so!
Seems like it's been forever
Please come back home...

Precious Cargo

Today when I came home from work Maddy came running over to me, gave me a big hug and told me she missed me today. I can't imagine even the worst possible day holding an ounce of gloom after a greeting like that...

June 21, 2006 - 11:11 PM
Quite the hail storm today

That was quite the hail storm this afternoon! Dark, ominous clouds crept lazily across the sky, silently and subtly making their way over the northern ridges of Calgary's outskirts. Then, in a violent wave of wind and chill, it seemed to build up it's fury as it quickly blocked out the sun while breathing cold blasts of air over the earth. No sooner had the sky turned dark and the temperature dropped than the rain did start, a precursor to a hail storm that would pelt the ground and all things upon it with furious pellets of ice.

Hail stones plopping in the river created by the rain running down this alley

Everything looks so fresh and clean after the rain

Everything looks so fresh and clean after the rain

... And washed the hailstones out ...

... And washed the hailstones out ...



Prices Subject to Change...

Prices Subject to Change

So I went into Burger King this afternoon to grab a quick bite to eat. I picked up a nine-pack of their chicken fries, which are very good by the way. As I was standing at the counter, waiting for my order to be completed, I noticed on the menu sign that they had Apple Turnovers for $0.99. I fumbled around in my pocket for change, found a dollar ten, and asked the girl at the till if I could also have an Apple Turnover. She rang it in and requested payment in the amount of $1.49. "I'm sorry," I said, "I want one of those guys right there" as I pointed to the 99 cent apple turnover on the menu. "Yes, those are $1.49" "Well the price on your sign says that they are ninety nine cents." "I'm sorry, they're not ninety nine cents, they're a dollar fourty nine." "Well I'll tell you what, you can either give me an apple turnover for the price advertised on your sign or you can get me your manager." "One moment please." The girl went and got the manager while I pulled out my camera and took a picture of their sign. I very politely explained the situation again to the manager, who then conferred with the girl from the till, and proceeded to REMOVE the sign from the fixture. I couldn't believe it. By this time my chicken fries were up so I collected them and left, disgusted. I know you can't believe everything you read, but it's pretty sad when you can't even believe the price advertised on the menu. The least she could have done would be to sell me an apple turnover for their advertised price and then remove the sign to avoid such confusion in the future. I know it's such a silly little point and really, only fifty cents - but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing! I was not impressed.

An example of my cabling craftmanship

I had to toss this one in there, and I wish I hadn't temporarily forgotten that I had a camera in my pocket so as that I might have taken a before picture as well as this after picture of my cable craftsmanship. The wiring you see here provides the correct amount of signal to the customer's Shaw Digital Phone system, their Shaw High Speed Internet modem, and to six television units in the house by utilizing a boost of signal through a multimedia amplifier. This is what I do for a living. hehe

June 23, 2006 - 10:55 AM
Happy Birthday Lee!

Blurry and the Beast

We don't care if it's true
when we lay the money down...
We don't believe the words,
We just love the way they sound.
If you're in the car turn up the track,
give your whole neighbourhood some second hand rap.
June 24, 2006 - 2:11 AM
Midnight Mixing

Midnight Mixing

It's just like a cigarette
It's something that I do
Once in a while but
between me and you
it's just like a cigarette
Nobody's really fooled
I don't want the truth
I wanna feel *#$!'n cool

---

Sometimes it feels like I'm looking through a pane of glass
I can see your mouth move but can't hear the words.

Tonight's mood is a reflection of song. Melodies, harmonies, philosophies, it's all a blur of notes and beats. How many friends have walked out of my life? A place, a time, a sound, a smell will sometimes remind me of them and force the ponderable I wonder where they went? I don't know which is more disturbing - that they left or that I didn't notice. Efficient though I try to be, time will always escape my grasp. There will always be more to see and do than will ever fit my daytimer. I need to express. I crave an escape. My music offers a glimpse of a world I'd like to live in. Once in a while I'll spot an image from a scene in my other life. There is light and shadows, haze and halo's - Hearts and hazzards. I'll almost be there but then a car horn will pull me back to reality. My mind releases the dream and re-embraces reality with a greater sense of longing. I want more than this. There has to be more than this!

June 25, 2006 - 12:40 AM
The PonderRock

Pat and I rode our bikes out to Kananaskis this afternoon with a friend of his. It was breathtaking, and the smell of Kananaskis brought back countless memories from my youth of yearly camping trips to Elkwood campground with the family. It was a great way to spend the day and I've got some pictures to show for it. I'm too tired to write more than that tonight, so here are the pictures:



Oh ya, this one requires some explanation. We stopped at Ghost Lake on the way out, and when we arrived we found this group of tourists had capsized and inverted this rental fishing boat. Had to take a picture. Apparantly they neglected to read the label that says, This Side Up.















June 27, 2006 - 11:47 PM
Budget Air Conditioning

Flying Hand

It was far too nice to be working today. Today would have been a perfect lake day. Notice my necklace? It's that time again... Hopefully Pat and I can get a trip off this weekend to the warm lake. He's still never been there but I know once he feels that hot water he'll be hooked too. It's too bad I don't get the long weekend off. Speaking of which, I need to submit my vacation request for the annual family Pine Lake trip...





I spent a good part of my day pondering many things. I've heard it said that there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself. It's a good way to find out what you think. Actually, if you watch anybody walking by themselves when they aren't being self conscious, you'll see that they're carrying on an imaginary conversation! Look for it! Sometimes it's hilarious. I've even seen people get hand gestures in there as they're walking down the street. One afternoon this Oriental guy was having quite an excited discussion with somebody who must have only understood sign language! He was gesturing like an Italian! It was awesome. I've always wondered what (or who) people are talking to, but then again I catch myself doing the same thing all the time. Actually, a lot of these imaginary conversations are with the same person.

And now for some cute kitty pictures. I have a lot of cute puppy pictures but my parent's cat is also very photogenic. I printed one of these and it turned out amazing! The eyes are dazzling!









I had a double-whammy today. I went to this gas station as I my gas gauge needle was exploring the left-hand side of the E. They were out of regular but were selling premium for the same price. Suckers! I thought as I proceeded to pump 140 litres of premium gas into my van at a rate of 99.9 cents / litre. That was the first part of the double-whammy. As I was standing there pumping the gas, I looked across the street at the other gas stations which had both already raised the price of their sign prices to 108.9 cents / litre for regular! Talk about getting a good deal. AND, within minutes I could feel the good gas light up the engine. It really does make a difference. So that worked out well.


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