Journal Entries for January 2001 January 28, 2001 Boy, January is passing by quickly, I noted the count down on the main page of the site which states that there are 107 days until Pine Lake opens. It really doesn't seem like that long of a time, I believe everything officially opens May 15th. So really that is all of three and a half months! And with this winter we've been having it will probably pass in no time. I have to admit though, this mild winter has me concerned that the summer might not be that great either. Usually really cold winters yield really hot summers, and this winter has been anything but cold. Even as we're almost in February now, it still doesn't even hit negative double-digit temperatures at night... Only time will tell though, and I sure hope its a beautiful summer. Recently I have been having a lot of trouble finding time to sit down at the computer and write. During the day I usually put down some thoughts in my organizer, just because I have nothing else to do at the moment, but it's been almost a month since I've even touched this page, not to mention write a journal entry. And its not as though this has been a dull month either. Basically, here's a summary of what's happened to date. Last Wednesday, Jessica broke up with me and says she wants to be friends now. The day before that, (Tuesday) Shauntelle came over with a number of friends, (Tyler, Travis, and Shannon) which was the first time I'de seen Shauntelle (for more than just in passing) since the last weekend I was at Pine Lake. There were several notable birthdays this month, Jessica's on the 11th, Becky's on the 18th, and Jason's is just around the corner, the 31st I believe. I don't know what I am going to do for his birthday, not a clue just yet, but I'm confident something will spring to mind. He is dating a new girl now, one by the name of Maeve. They've hit it off really good, she's quite an interesting person. She asked, (or demanded I suppose) that he write up a resume, applying for the position of boyfriend, and then her and her friend are going to interview him to see if he qualifies for the job. So today I helped him write up a relationship resume. It was quite fun, we had a blast during its conception, and I am pretty curious to see how it turned out. Personally though, I think he'll get the job. Other things that have happened this month: At work my brother was hired to help us with the Safeways, we renovated the basement which gave me a lot more room in my room and even my closet (where I sleep. Some have doubted this fact, thought I was "not serious" when I told them but that rumor has since been put to rest in the confirmed state... Thanks for believing me, Shauntelle... And, I learned more about dating and relationships than I have in at least the last two years, probably more. So yes, like I said, it hasn't been a dull month, I've just been seriously too busy to detail all of it. But there's a bit of a summary for any of you who actually read these things. Sometimes I wonder. But I enjoy venting once in a while, so they will continue. Goodnight all. January 2, 2001 I saw an interesting thing this morning, on the way to work we passed a car by the side of the road that was on fire. You sure don't see that every morning... Its a new year. This past holiday, I had a total of 8 days off, 4 at Christmas, 4 at New Years, and although my Christmas holiday was spent racing from family celebration to family celebration, this New Years holiday I found a bit more time to relax and ponder some things that required consideration. Christmas, it seems, approaches faster and faster every year, and I find that for me I notice a progressive decrease in the anticipation each time around. I suppose that as a kid, going to a Christian school, there was always a Christmas play that was rehearsed a month or so before the actual day, and that early seasonal exposure made the anticipation more the greater. This year I didn't even buy one of those chocolate calendars. The ones with 24 doors on them and behind each a chocolate, each to be opened one a day for every day in December leading up to Christmas. And even then, with the season so quickly upon me, the 4 days off work, two of which were the weekend, were spent last minute shopping, and then attending 3 solid days of family do's. And I really struggled trying to keep the real meaning of Christmas in the forefront of my mind. Every year I am noticing a trend, a push towards this huge commercialization of the holiday. Still, I could not help but feel the warmth of family as we gathered together and exchanged gifts. And while I don't mean to suggest that the value of any other gifts given to me this year is any less than the ones I am about to mention, I feel I must say a bit about two presents I recieved this year. Its not so much even the gifts themelves, but the giver. This year, my brother bought me the Grinch on DVD. I don't mean the new Jim Carey movie, but the classic Seuss animated version. I'm not sure if I mentined this in the journal before, but my old DVD player had given up about a month ago. So here if in the Grinch DVD package, there was a rolled up wad of $5 bills, amounting to the cost of a new DVD player! I couldn't believe it! So the next business day, I went to my friend and bought a new DVD player. It works great! That really amazed me that he would do that for me. The other present I felt I should note is a pair of speakers my parents bought for me. Several days before Christmas I mentioned to them that the ones I was using in my room at the time were failing, so here if they didn't go out and buy a pair of name brand, (Cerwin Vega) almost top-of-the-line speakers! Another present of great value and usefulness. Their generosity made me feel bad that I couldn't have afforded to give them more than I did. I gave what I could though, but sometimes its hard not to feel like its not enough. New Years was something different for me. This year I went to Bo's house here in Calgary and had my new years party with his family and their friends. Jessica and I got there around 7:30 and ended up crashing there. Although it wasn't the funnest new years party I've ever been to, I did have a good time, and the next morning Bo and I made our Brain MegaMix. It was really good to see Bo again, he's going to school in Lethbridge so I don't get to see him that often. After our Brain MegaMix, Brittany came over and then I went to her house to fix her computer. She had so many problems with it and wanted Windows 2000 put on. After several challenges during the installation, we got it installed only to find that the Shaw disc that came with their cable modem did not contain drivers for her network card under Windows 2000, therefore she could not get internet yet. There were several other drivers that we could not find (especially without the internet) and I ended up making a list of things to find and leaving her with a mostly disabled machine. So tonight I am going over there to finish the job and get it set up to her liking, and then I'm comming home and watching Maverick, which I bought today on DVD. Our TV is still in Jason's room as we have been renovating the basement. The last couple of movies I've watched were on my tiny, spare VGA monitor, which hardly does DVD justice. My good monitor finally died, so I've been making due with that one. But back to what I was talking about earlier, when I was at Brittany's, her best friend came over and imagine this: This girl has a child of her own from a previous relationship, her boyfriend has one of his own from another relationship, and she is now 13 weeks pregnant with a child of her current relationship. I was there with her about two hours in the basement, and in that time she filled an ash tray with her cigarette butts. It was so smokey in the open rec room that you could see the smoke in the air! She told us some stories of her boyfriend, imature things he does, arguments they have, tales of him squandering money on sports pedals for their car that they don't drive in the winter when they don't have money to pay for necessities, things like that. From what she told me of him, I would conclude that this guy is a jerk. Oh, and one last point to mention, this girl is 17. So that was a real eye opener for me. She seems like a nice girl, and its easy to say that she could do better. But another thing I've learned is that some people will do anything to feel loved. With all the broken homes, missing parents, step-parents and so on, kids often grow up in a world of confusion, misconception, and mis-trust. And they want to be loved by somebody, sometimes anybody. Here endeth the lesson... BACK to Journal Index