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December 3, 2004 - 1:27 AM  Master Chef Rebecca and Master Chef John This evening Becka and I set out to bake something, and after flipping through several holiday cooking magazines her mom had, we settled on this: I don't remember what it was called but they are basically chocolate chip cookies baked on top of chocolate brownies. Oh my goodness! There is a lot of chocolate in them! Becky and I make a good team, and the cookie brownies turned out great. Very tasty but OHHHHH so 
thick and heavy! I think the pan weighed at least 5 pounds going into the oven... They are thick. I'm going to bring them
to work to help distribute my half because there's no WAY I could eat the whole (half) pan! I'd die of chocolate overdose
if I were to try I am sure! But still, it was a lot of fun and this success has given us the confidence to attempt something
else in the future. (The last time we baked together was years ago. We made some sugar cookies but decided to skip the step
where you put the dough in the freezer. Apparantly that is a necessary step...) While we were shopping we came across some
really cool sprinkles so I think whatever we do decide to make next time will involve sprinkles. 
While we were waiting for the brownie cookies to cool, we pulled out Becky's old Nintendo and played Mario 3 all the way
through to level 7 without warping. She actually showed me a few things I had never seen before, and I showed her some
things she had never seen before. Which really makes me wonder how much stuff there is in that game that I still don't know
about... It was fun though, I've been craving some good old original Mario with Becka for a few weeks now. Becky's neck brace comes off in 20 days, just in time for Christmas. She is doing leaps and bounds better than she was two months ago, but her neck and back still get pretty sore sometimes, and she seems to be getting a lot of headaches lately but that could just be due to the changing weather we're about to experience. She'll still have the brace on for the Christmas party but so far it hasn't stopped her from doing anything else and I am sure this will be no exception. I'm really looking forward to it, I'm sure we will have an awesome time. I have long enjoyed studying people, and so naturally such a persuit often causes me to put myself on the examining table. Lately I've been seeing a lot of my friends in a lot of unique relationships and trying to learn as much from them as I can. I had to chuckle the other night though... Jason and I went out to the Sunset and Vine and sat down to talk about the people in our lives right now... Who would have ever thought he and Carmen would hook up? This is the second time he has gotten together with one of my friends! First it was Kaylee, now it's Carmen. Well I suppose Christel too but that was quite short lived... Why is it the shoemaker's children go barefoot, the electrician's house has no power, the plumber's toilets do not flush and the matchmaker always winds up being alone? December 6, 2004 - 2:11 AM ![-[ Frost ]-](/cube/img/pics/journal/2004dec/frosty_window.jpg) There is nothing more comforting than the feeling of warm air blowing on your face through a register on a cold, winter's night. Has winter actually arrived? It feels pretty chilly out there... Which made this a perfect day to sit inside and work on PENG2, my new photo album software package. I got a lot done on it too, in fact it took it's first "breath" tonight and is currently churning away adding all 1,047 images to the Grenada web site. So yes, that means that pretty soon you will be able to see all my pictures from Grenada. Thank you for your patience, a LOT of people have been asking to see them! Wes has uploaded his pictures too, and I'll have them available for everyone to see as well. The new photo album package will eventually have a lot of cool features too... I've been mulling the idea over for almost a year now and it is finally starting to take form. Things such as the ability to post comments on any pictures, even create your own photo album on the site. It will also include the capability for an unlimited number of sub-chapters. I've found on many occasions that the "Album -> Chapter" format my current program uses just doesn't offer enough flexability when it comes to sorting the images. Speaking of sorting, it will also be possible to have multiple indexes and sort the images when viewing them on different criteria (such as filename, date/time, size(?) etc.) which may be useful, might not be. From a logistical standpoint it will also have the ability to gather images from multiple folders and have them all in the same chapter - that is, it is no longer limited by the layout of the files on the hard drives. There are lots of cool things planned for it. One of the other significant advantages of PENG2 over PENG1 is the way it handles resizing images. With my current system, I have to use the "Web Photo Gallery" feature in Adobe Photoshop to resize every image that goes on the web site, since most of the original images from my digital cameras (ok, ALL of the original images) are too large to fit nicely on the web page. Then there is another process of converting the outputted files to the expected format and layout that peng1 needs to work properly, so adding pictures is a bit of a process. With PENG2, the php script actually does all the resizing itself, and I've found that it's resampling quality is actually BETTER than that of Adobe Photoshop! The files it produces are smaller and I think they look better too! So that means that it will be MUCH easier to add pictures, and I can do it from any computer with internet access for that matter, not just at home or at work. I'm quite excited, in case you can't tell, about the development of this new program. Anyhow, I'm going to keep working on it for a bit and then go to bed. Man it's been a long day but the time has just flown! December 10, 2004 - 5:30 PM  Still Hanging In There... I haven't even opened up my laptop in a couple of days because the last time I did, I was getting all sorts of unexpected errors and problems, and I was worried the hard drive might have crashed. But tonight, as I was trying to find a picture to put in the journal it occured to me that most of my pictures are on the laptop and that if the drive had crashed or was starting to fail, I had better get as many of them off it as I could. Well, would you believe it? The laptop is fine. (I mean, aside from all the usual problems.) This recent string of errors was caused by nothing more than the root partition of my Linux filesystem being full. 0 bytes free. Once I cleared up a few hundred megs, it was back in business, good as old. So that was a relief. I've still backed up all my pictures though, as it would not be the first time I would have lost some important images if the drive had crashed. Three months after I bought a new hard drive for this thing, the drive stopped working one day. I am sure I lost several hundred pictures, but the ones I know I lost for sure and miss the most are the video clips of when Bo and I were in Lethbridge at Clayton's house one time, (this was way back when I still had my first digital camera, the A40) and we were doing beer shots (?) Basically you shake up a can of beer, and with a can opener burst a hole in the side of the can near the bottom and simultaneously crack the can. Then you've got to drink from the hole in the side as fast as you can. Well, we had a few video clips of those initial bursts that were just awesome but are gone. They were pretty funny. I had even put together a collection of all the clips into one file, but even that was gone. What made me sick about that whole situation was that only after I had opened the hard drive and contaminated the disks did I realize that simply tapping the drive on one side would have solved the problem with ZERO data loss! Live and learn, I guess... The death of a dream - It looks like my project, my baby - albertarooms.com will be scrapped. It was a good idea, and with literally hundreds of hours of work I won't pretend I'm not sad to see it go, but I have the feeling it's going to go. Ironically, the number of hits on the site grows almost daily, already in december it's averaging 11 unique visitors a day and that number is steadily increasing. But we're having problems on the logistical side of things, apparantly the bank doesn't like our idea as much as we do and we're going through all sorts of silly steps to get the online credit card transactions approved again... It just seems like the site has been taking hit after hit (and not in the good website hit sort of way). I suppose on the bright side of it though, this will free me up to concentrate more on the plant operations aspect of my job... Just this morning I completed the touches on a brand new PO system for the company, and already it's logged over $50,000 worth of purchasing. Everyone who's used it has been very pleased... It's simple yet powerful, two characteristics of any well-written program. This is the first Friday in some time where I'm sitting back and really feeling good about an accomplishment. It's a great feeling. But hunger is not, and presently I am experiencing both. I've been craving a KFC poutine now all day, and come to think of it I haven't eaten anything all day either, which could explain that sensation. I fixed the microprocessor control circuit board in one of our 'small' dryers in the plant today, so they'll have one more dryer to work with over the weekend. The maintenance manager was very pleased about that, because it's one less thing he has to concern himself with. I've been putting out little fires here and there all day and tonight I'm leaving work pumped. *sigh* It's been a good day. December 10, 2004 - 9:14 AM  Maddy playing X-Box She's so cute! I was over at Bo's last weekend and his dad had some friends over. Clayton and Jeff were up from Lethbridge and we were all playing games on the X-Box. Of course, Maddison wanted to play too, so we let her have a few games (even though she had no idea what she was doing) but still got right into it and burst out laughing when everyone else did and had a great time. Well Bo when went and grabbed one of Dexton's PS2 controllers for her, 'plugged it into' the X-Box and gave it to her to 'play' with. To her, it made no difference. About an hour later, Madisson had long since gone to bed and Mark had consumed half a bottle of Tequila. Somehow everyone had the same idea at the same time and we gave him the PS2 controller and convinced him to play. Bo had the real controller for the character Mark was supposedly playing, and was hiding it behind Sean where Mark couldn't see it and playing for him. The result was hilarious, Mark thought he was playing, and everyone else was going along and letting him win, even though in reality his controller was not even plugged in. Well, this went on for over an hour, Mark thought he was getting better and better and as such, became more and more cocky over his increasing number of wins... Which of course only got funnier and funnier because everyone knew he wasn't even playing, hadn't played all night and really should not be bragging at ALL. "I'm really starting to get the feel for these controls," he says. "Don't tell me what to do Sean, I have a strategy." In the photo album, look up December 4, 2004 under Home at the Hills and you'll see some pictures from that night. December 11, 2004 - 11:36 PM  What a cute kitty! I spent the afternoon at my parent's house today, FINALLY got the Seadoo cleared of snow and put the cover on it... (How's that for an example of procrastination in action?  ) I took a whole bunch of "Light and Shadow" pictures which you can
find in My Life -> December 11, 2004 for those so interested... Some of them are
pretty cool, others you might ask yourself, "What was he thinking?!?" But you
know me and my pictures! hehehe Anyhow, got to get to bed! Tomorrow is our big
Christmas Concert at Grace. It starts at 10:30 AM if anyone is interested in
going... A lot of work has gone into it and I'm sure you wouldn't be
disappointed. Tis the season...  "You are only as busy as you allow yourself to become." - Me December 15, 2004 - 4:14 PM I ran into some Sylvania guys this morning working at the Safeway near my office when I went to buy some groceries, so I stopped and talked with Pat for a while. There was three of them and two trucks to change the lights in one sign! I never thought it was very amusing before (when I worked for Sylvania) but now I have to admit, I was very tempted to call out, (Actually, I did!) "How many guys does it take to change a light bulb?!?!" hehehe Tonight is our company Christmas party at Jubilations Dinner Theatre. I'm just about to leave work, go get ready and pick up my date for the evening. Earlier in the year when Barb was looking for a place to have this year's Christmas party, after going to Jubilations she decided right then and there that this would be where our Christmas party would be. So I will let you know how it goes! I am looking forward to it anyways, if for nothing else than the company I will have the privilege of being in. December 16, 2004 - 9:03 AM Last ride of the year...  Well it looks like my bike riding will be coming to an end for the year today... I think it's finally time to put the bike away for the season. But I had a great ride to work this morning, one last time... The fact that it's December and I'm still riding is just awesome. I'm telling you, by the time my generation retires, Canada will be a tropical country, there will be palm trees everywhere, lows of 26 and California will become a frozen wasteland! Last night the Christmas party went really well. The show we saw was called Canadian Disco Idol and it was very funny. The acting was great and all the music was sung live by the actors throughout the night as they pranced around the stage. There was lots of audience participation and I was amazed at how many people it seats. There was probably 200 people there at least! Somehow Becky and I ended up getting a table to ourselves so we had four extra drink tickets...  The venue didn't offer the same opportunity to interact with the people I work with as our Christmas party in Canmore
did last year, but it was very entertaining none the less and I don't think anyone left disappointed.Now for some Christmas shopping this weekend and hopefully I'll be set! Can you believe there are only 9 days left till Christmas? December 17, 2004 - 10:27 PM  It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas... I say feel because it sure doesn't look like Christmas. But the forecast for next week looks like it's calling for a lot of snow so maybe we will get a white Christmas after all. We had a Christmas gettogether over at the sewing department this afternoon, and Bibi, who loves to cook, put together a wonderful meal for everyone. I'm trying to come up with some way to dye my beard white for our staff Christmas party on Tuesday. Not quite sure how that's going to work but we'll see. I think a red Santa Toque and white beard would look pretty festive, don't you? December 20, 2004 - 1:32 AM So I had another one of those mixed compliments tonight... You know, one of those ones where you're not sure quite how to take it - a positive mixed in with a negative. We were sitting in Jason's room watching Total Recall, and I was making various timely, humorous comments on various aspects of the film and everyone was laughing. After one such comment Carmen says, "See that's what I admire about you John... You're so lame." I scratched my head. How exactly does one take a comment like that? I'm sitting there (and I said this too) going, "Ok, so she admires me but she also thinks I'm lame. Hmm." It was pretty funny though. DID YOU KNOW, I have been looking over the ingredient list on every sort of holiday treats, and thus far, 100% of the time Sugar is listed as the first (and therefore the substance found in highest quantity) component of the treat. Something to think about as you're eating those Toffifee or Ferro Rocket moresals... THEY AREN'T GOOD FOR YOU! But then again that further
provides evidence to my theory that how good food tastes is directly but
inversely related to how good it is for you... (Allright, perhaps that's not
my own theory but it's one I'm finding more and more true...) Wow. December
20th already. This friday is Christmas Eve. Better get to the shopping!
Fortunately my list this year is not very big. Becky showed me her presents
for me tonight. I have two for her so far but I need to buy one more thing.
She gets her neck brace off tomorrow (if all the tests turn out well) so
she's excited but nervous about that. Three months without having to use
any muscles in her neck has likely caused them to weaken so she will probably
have to do a whole whack of physiotherapy to get her neck back into shape...
(That sounds kind of strange, doesn't it?) Did anyone else see the rain today?
A week before Christmas and we're getting RAIN of all things! Crazy. Anyhow,
the bed is calling and I really should answer. GoodnightDecember 21, 2004 - 12:07 AM Here I am sitting at work again. Yet another night I'll be sleeping over here... I've got another couple of hours of work to do tonight, but tomorrow should be a pretty good day since we are having our staff Christmas Party beginning at 4:00. Becky got her neck brace off today, and in another month she has to go back and get it checked again to see how she's doing. I slipped away for an hour this evening to go buy her last Christmas present, and I am very pleased with the purchase. We're supposed to go Christmas shopping together on Thursday but I think I'll be all done by then and hoping we can just go for a drive and look at Christmas lights instead. Right now I'm sitting in my cozy office working by the light of my monitor and my tiny Christmas tree Cheese-cutter made for me several years ago, and I'm listening to a song I never thought I'd ever find myself listening to, let alone enjoying! At the hopes of saving myself at least some of the embarassment, I won't mention the artist or the title, but here are the words to the chorus: Nobody wants to be lonely, Nobody wants to cry... My body's longing to hold you so bad it hurts inside Time is precious and it's slipping away, and I've been waiting for you all my life Nobody wants to be lonely, so why don't you let me love you? Can't say that I care for either performing artist, but this is a really good song. December 21, 2004 - 11:48 AM I spent yet another night at work last night, worked till 3:00 am this morning and then had a liesurely snooze till 11. Fortunately the way I set up my bed is such that when the bed is out, the door to my room cannot be opened, because I learned after getting up that Diana had a wet towel ready to rouse me from my slumber had it not been for the impassible door. Crime never pays! Remember that, Diana... heheheCustom Linen Daycare Today is our company Christmas party, and it seems that already a number of employees have dropped their kids off at work here where they're busy helping put together treat bags to be handed out this afternoon. The Air Zooka is already a big hit, -[ Literally ]- but I'm waiting for the word on my lunch situation - I'm supposed to meet Frizz at BP's for Pasta Tuesday but I haven't been able to reach either him OR Tony. I hope that doesn't mean they're sitting at Boston Pizza already waiting for me... But we'll see. Hee hee. Christmas tree? Shout with glee! December 24, 2004 - 5:39 PM Merry Christmas!!! December 28, 2004 - 1:05 AM  Another Christmas come and past, Funny how it never lasts, So much waiting, patiently... Ever building joy and glee... The lights outside, glowing in the snow, Winter winds wisping to and fro, Mitts and scarves and toques on heads, Children tucked tightly in their beds. Candles burning, sweet the smell... In the houses where we dwell. Turkey, ham, and stuffing cooking... Delighting those through kitchen, looking. Frosty glass shows warmth inside, Under trees the presents hide. Family, friends all safe together, Mindless of the outdoor weather. Carols sung from hymnals, old... Once again the story's told. "Even those who know it best, Hunger for it like the rest." Jesus came to earth 'today' For our sins, the price to pay. Now we can live, forever more The gift of life, not from a store. Peace and hope and life from Him Are waiting if you'll let Him in. He stands and knocks at your heart's door And'll change your life, forever more. How quickly the time does go. Another Christmas has come and gone. Another year seems near to the closing. What have we learned? What have we forgotten? What have we gained? What have we lost? I can't help but feel extra introspective as I sit here and write. I added quite a few pictures to the photo album today, and as I looked through them many images came to the forefront of my memory, many memories were renewed and caused me to ponder. I've long ago learned the danger of 'thinking too loudly', especially where my journal is concerned, but Christmas has always been a very warm time of year for me. Obviously not in the physical sense, for it happens to fall in the near-dead of winter. But growing up I always remember a feeling of warmth around Christmas. We always used to have a big get-together at my grandparents' house at Christmas. All the relatives within driving distance would make the trek out to Three Hills regardless of the weather, and one way or another we'd all find a place to stay in town. My grandparents' house was always warm and my grandma seemed always to be cooking or baking something. There would be a large tree set up in the living room, richly decorated with real Christmas lights, you know the ones - those big bulbs long before the days of the mini Christmas lights... There'd be colored streamers, countless glass balls and intricatly detailed ornaments... Some of which were older than I was! There was no fireplace in my grandparents house, but one year I remember my dad, brother and I "making" a fireplace out of cardboard, drawing a fireplace on it and red bricks all around, so we'd have somewhere to hang our stockings. Every year my Grandpa would read the Christmas story from his King James Bible, and he would then hand out the presents, one at a time waiting for each person to open their present and show it off so that everyone could see what they got. Everyone would "ooh" and "ahh" after the opening of every present, and no matter what anyone got they always seemed grateful. Christmas was a happy time, so care free and fun. It's funny how growing up seemed to change that somehow. Christmas became stressful and complicated. After my grandpa died a few years ago and my grandma moved out of the house, our Christmas venue changed. Now it varys from year to year, alternating among the houses of my grandparents' children and grandchildren now. Other family factors have further shadowed the carefree Christmas I once enjoyed as a youngin, and now Christmas seems to sneak up on me every year and then vanish just as quickly, like a gust of Airzooka air that smacks you in the side of the head but leaves you wondering, "What was that?!?" Now before you get the wrong idea, I had a wonderful Christmas this year. Spending time with family and friends is still and will always be a highlight of this time of year. I guess my intention when I sat down to write tonight was to paint something of a picture of my Christmas memories. Things such as hearing the crunch of snow under my feet as we walked along the quiet streets of Three Hills and having a pillowfight in the Prairie Bible Institute dorms with the Charter girls and one of them getting the biggest goose-egg on her forehead I have ever seen to this day! - These things I will forever treasure and associate with Christmas. I hope some day I will be able to pass on my love of this season to my own family, so that they too can cherrish warm memories at Christmas time. Now it is getting late. I have so much more to tell, but where is the time?? Ever my life is in search of more time. December 29, 2004 - 12:24 AM How are your hands? What? Are they dry? Are your hands dry? Not at the moment, no... (Reaches into pocket and produces a small white container) But should they become dry, I have some Cortisone cream, just in case. You carry that around with you? Apparantly... *sigh* Good times December 29, 2004 - 3:11 PM Merry Christmas To Me!!  You know how my laptop has been dying for quite some time now - the headphone connector is barely hanging in there with the help of some tube patching rubber stuff, one of the RAM sockets only works intermittently, two one-inch bars across the LCD panel don't work (one stays white, the other picks some randomly colored lines to display), the top PCMCIA slot will not accept my Wireless Ethernet card but works fine with my card reader... The battery only lasts till about 50-60% and then drops to 0% and shuts off the laptop... The list goes on and on. Well here if I didn't find another Thinkpad 600E for sale in EXCELLENT condition. Not only that, but you won't believe the price! To give you an idea, I've spent $250 on a new hard drive for this laptop (and then that much again when the first one died and I lost a whole whack of stuff) this battery which is now failing cost me $275 a few years ago - and that was an OEM one. The IBM Replacement would have cost $450!!! Is that not INSANE?!?! I bought a new CD-Rom for it a few months ago, that only cost $25, and I put another 64 Meg SIMM in (which only works half the time because of the faulty ram socket) and that cost $50. Well here if this newer looking, perfectly working laptop, which includes another power adapter (so now I have FOUR! One I keep at work, one at home and another one I can now keep in my bag with me. The fourth one has a bad connector but if push comes to shove it does work still) It also has another working CD-Rom, another PCMCIA network card, another battery, another WORKING LCD panel, a perfect headphone jack... And all this only cost $100!!! Merry Christmas to ME! haha I was thrilled. What I think I will do now is keep using this one until it absolutely FALLS APART, and then swap out my extra ram, bigger hard drive and wireless card into the other one. Theoretically it should be a seamless exchange since the hardware is identical. I'm amazed at how well this old beast has lasted though, it's done a good amount of service (and I am still typing on it as you read) so it's not dead just yet. So then today I went to Pizza Hut because I was craving Pizza Bread with extra cheese. Now normally I dread it when a computer crashes, but every so often it can work to your advantage. When I went to pick up my order I asked for some more ranch dip. (Pizza bread just doesn't taste the same without ranch.) Well here if their computer was down so they couldn't charge me extra for the ranch!! It's those simple things in life that make one's day just a little bit brighter sometimes... heheNow Monday of this week, the first day after the Christmas weekend I decided to take the day off. I needed to do some cleaning at home, and I slept till about 11 so two and two just equalled staying home. 
I was talking to Diana throughout
the day though and mentioned that I had stayed home to clean my room. WELL. Tuesday morning I walked into my office,
only to find it had been messified and a note was attached to my monitor that read, "Stay home and clean THIS mess!"
It was pretty funny. Let me tell you I took NO small amount of pleasure that afternoon. Diana had been craving Baked Spagetti for days and here if it wasn't Pasta Tuesday and I was going to BP's with my parents. Diana had already eaten and was way too full to tackle a plate of baked spagetti, but was jealous of my lunch location none the less so I even phoned her from BP's just to tell her how good the food was. Not quite the same as messing up her office, but what can you do? hehehTonight I'm going bowling with the Miller family for their second annual Family Bowling night. I think one of their relatives or a friend of the family knows the owner of a bowling alley in Okotoks, so for the second time now, they've all gone out there and bowled. Considering I haven't really seen Barb's family this Christmas, it should be a fun night. Some of the relatives I don't think I've seen since last years' bowling night, right around this same time! (Come to think of it, I haven't been BOWLING since the last time either. Hmm.) Speaking of festivities, it sounds like I'll be spending New Years at Bo's place this year. Back at Haloween Lee had "booked" me for New Years, but with everything that's happened since then I haven't heard of any other plans for New Years yet, and with it being two days away I'm not counting on it either.
Normally I'd be in Lethbridge for New Years, but everyone is so broke this year we're going to get together in Calgary.
Anyways, lunch break is over. Time to get back to work. Chow BACK to Journal Index |