Shotgun Divorce

I mentioned months ago that my wife was up for one of my old jobs at my old office. We originally thought the interview was going to happen at some point in late-August in order to fill the position in time for September. It didn't happen. Then, I figured they'd be busy in September and push it to an October start. That didn't happen either. It actually became a mid-November interview and a couple more days before they finally decided on a candidate.

And it wasn't my wife. Although she was told it was "close," and I'd felt initial relief knowing that the only person on the hiring committee who actually knew me was a friend of mine, the fact that it was "close" still hurt a bit.

There's a rumour going around now that someone in the human resources office made the connection between my wife & I and that's what actually did her in. I think, by now, there's got to be about a dozen people ther who hate me or dislike me, for whaever reason. I don't really care what they think of me, but if they're going to paint my wife with the same brush, they're even more foolish than I could ever perceive.

I told my wife about the rumour I'd heard and she was rightfully insulted. Her qualifications should matter more than who she's married to and she's not sure she wants to work there anymore. Fine by me. But I also know she likes working there and she should be a benefit to them if they'd just use their frickin' brains for a change.

But there's a quick solution to this as well. Divorce.

No, not a real divorce. A divorce in their simple eyes. See, my wife's credentials, degrees, and diplomas are all in her maiden name, all achieved before we married. It's the reason why she puts her maiden name as well as our last name on her resume.

So, she could easily go back to her maiden name just for the sake of clarity with her credentials. A quick walk into the HR office and have her records show she uses her maiden name and I figure within 30 minutes the rumour of our divorce will have spread through every department. Any association with my name will then have the added "divorce" on it and anyone who doesn't know me would never assume there was any relation between the two of us.

Then, maybe, she could get somewhere there.

Unbelievable

"Mousetrap. I wanted to play Mousetrap. You roll your dice, you move your mice. Nobody gets hurt. Mousetrap."

I have a group project due in 2 weeks. There are 5 of us working on it. Strike that. There are 4 of us working on it and one pain in the ass who's doing an amazing job of sabotaging things. Since he's a pain in the ass, let's refer to him as 'Pita.'

We're designing a boardgame. We came into it wanting to design something that kids and adults could play together with a bit of a 1950s campy sci-fi 'feel' to it.

The basic idea I came up with can be summed up like this: It's a last-man-standing game where the last player to reach "the end" is the winner. It's a game where you move after you roll the dice and depending on cards you might pick up along the way, you could keep on moving if other players gang up on you. Honestly, in a worst-case scenario you could move up to 50 spaces before you roll the die a second time.

So, here comes Pita. He wants to add all sorts of odd rules. Momentum. An alternate way to win by scoring points. Special mathematical calculations to some of the special in-game cards. In his words: "fun."

Not fun. Annoying. So, he gets outvoted 4-1 and the ideas are dropped.

Well, they should be dropped, but somehow make their way into the rulebook, so we tell him it has to be redone. After I spend countless hours in Photoshop on the gameboard, he whips one up quickly (and poorly, missing some of the key items we decided to put in the game) and insists it's the one we're using.

and then he wonders why I go ballistic?

There's a good chance Pita would no longer be with us if it weren't for our instructor stepping in and seperating the two of us. I've been the smart one and kept him "in the loop" by blind-copying him on every email. Covering my own ass and proving what a pain in the ass Pita really is.

2 weeks. And it's all over.

Latin Active

I mentioned earlier in the week that I was getting annoyed with emails going ignored & such. One such "ignorer" was 'Latina Lady,' who used to work for me 2 years ago now. We've kept in touch over the years, but suddenly she stopped replying to emails and disappeared off of MSN. Honestly, I thought she'd put me on 'ignore.' We'd gotten together one day for a drink and I was a little nervous that she was hoping for a little more. She really did herself up for a simple drink.... and, oh, she did look hot.

So, wouldn't you know it. Thursday night (when I finally got some sleep after being awake for 61 hours) she tries to contact me over MSN. Ugh.

We talked yesterday over MSN and it was like nothing negative happened since we last saw each other. Weird, I know. And she really wants to get together again soon.

I don't know.... It was just good to hear from her again. I know she talks on occasion to my old boss (From Hell!) because they both workout at the same gym. She doesn't really like him and she hates the co-workers from Hell, so we always had sometihng to laugh about.

Oh, and yep, there were rumours about us around the office too. When she was graduating with her B.A., I managed to snag an extra half-dozen tickets for her family flying up from Mexico, just so she didn't have to wait overnightin the rain with all the other students desperate for 1 or 2 extra tix for their families. I pulled strings and got away with a good haul. There were hugs and kisses galore as a thank you and I tried to pull her away form the doors when she did it (basically so no one would see, but it's pretty difficult to do). I bring this up because it was brought up by the VP as a long list of excuses on My Last Day.

In some ways, I'd love to have her tell my old boss (From Hell!) that something did happen. That way, he'd go back to the office and wonder if all the other rumors were true as well. People would wonder how I managed to get any work done.

And, of course, how I did it better than them.

I'm a Pimp

The picture is way too "Hasselhoff," but that made this "test" worth doing...

Your Pimp Name Is...

Big Playah Pump

What's Your Pimp Name?

Drunk & Ugly

Since I'm on a roll...

You're A Passed Out Drunk

Drinking gives you that warm fuzzy feeling, until you're thrown in the back of a police car...

What Kind of Drunk Are You?

Unlocked

Taking care of the kids today, so ZERO production on assignments & projects due in the next few weeks. Thanks to Mad, I do have this to add:

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Take It As a Compliment

Super-stressful week. Assignment is stayed home to work on on Tuesday has had its deadline extended to next Tuesday. After several hours' of struggling with it, I was still no further ahead. As always seems to be the case with this friggin program, one extra keystroke was the difference between success and oblivion.

Wednesday's assignment was faring no better as designing anything as a 3D model can be done in such a way that you're only working with half of the model before "mirroring" the image to complete it. Basically, anything functional (cars, planes, ovens, chessboards, etc.) can be designed with only half of the model and then mirriored for the full model.

Only the style of modelling we were using for Wednesday's class wouldn't let us use the "mirrior" command. Nope, instead, we had to (& I only found out 5 minutes before it was due) go into one section of the program and switch a number from '1' to '-1'. Too bad I still had about an hour's work before it would be finished... I handed it in anyway and that was better than 1/3 of the class who ddin't even do that.

The next big challenge was Thursday morning's assignment which took a few hours longer than expected. Having woken up at 9am on Tuesday, I knew I was pushing it Wednesday night when I opted to go out with my wife instead of finishing up the work. I did that when we got home aorund 10pm.

I finished at 5:20am and my alarm clock was set to go off at 5:30. No sleep for this Hoser.

I admitted to my carpool buddy that I'd been awake for nearly 48 hours just before the 90-minute commute to school in a dense fog and with slippery roads. Hehe. I think it's the first time he's stayed awake for the entire commute.

I got it done and apparently it was one of the better texture designs she'd seen. I was happy to hear that, but even more surprised when, later on in class, she came over to compliment me on my painting in Photoshop. I wasn't using texture samples like everyone else in class. They'd take a sample and paint over it to give it an "original" look and feel. Nope. I was painting red clay roof tiles.

And she complimented me. She never compliments me. Or anyone else for that matter. I felt... weird. No matter, she also said she could see me working for one of the major studios very, very soon if I kept this up. ('very, very soon' meaning within the next 4 months, this Hoser could be pulling in $50k a year!) And the compliments kept rolling in. She made mention of me in the next class for both the assignment and for my painting style.

Actually, before I go on, let me dirgess a bit. Apparently she found me quite freaky just becuase as I was painting in Photoshop, I was also writing down notes in my book --at the same time. So, while the right hand was moving the mouse to draw, the left hand was making notes of the colour palette I was using and severity of the dark & lights. I guess it's hard to read people when they're not showing if they're a lefty or a righty... freaked her out.

One instructor last seemster who proved extremely difficulty to please (especially for me) commented on some of my artwork this morning. I'd showed him a few samples of my life drawing, including a few pieces I'm most proud of and a few others to point out "highlights" of the work. "Kicking my ass" was part of his compliment --and more than I ever got from him last year. I've now been invited to Thursday-night sessions in Vancouver to meet with other artists in the industry.

Cool. Networking.

And compliments. To think on Tuesday I was about ready to pack it in...

Absent Without Permission

I didn't go to school today. I couldn't handle it. Assignment's not done, for the second week in a row. Something about Tuesday classes....

That, and the 2+ hours of commuting (there & back) just don't hit me well today.

I've been trying to find a way for people to relate to my frustrations and this is the list I've come up with:

• If you're trying to change a TV channel on your remote, you'd have to hold down the TV button at the same time as pressing the 'up' or 'down' buttons.
• Typing anything in MS Word requires a special key to be pressed after opening a new document otherwise every word comes out in Pig Latin.
• Imagine the only way you start your car is if you use a key to turn on the engine and a key to turn on the steering wheel. And there's a different key position for each season of the year.

I decided this morning to go out a find a book on the 3D program, but to no avail. The local library has a great selection of Windows 95 books, but nothing from this century. The 2 local book stores no longer carry computer books. The local shops that used to have computer reference sections have also shut them down. S-O-L, unless the book downloads come through sometime soon.

Oh, and why do things like this happen to me?

It was recommended to me yesterday that I read a book published 4 years ago as it has some ideas that might help influence my group for the graduating project. Keep in mind, this book came out 4 years ago. So, off to the library for this book as well:

1. Although there are usually 2 copies available at the local library branch, both copies were signed out.
2. One was signed out yesterday.
3. The other within 30 minutes of me arriving today.
4. 2 other people have requested a hold on the books.
   
5. Meaning the earliest I can get my hands on a copy is early January 2006.
   
6. Getting a copy from another library branch was not available as 3 copies have been discovered missing in the past week and there are hold requests at those libraries for the book as well.

Seriously. Does this happen to anyone else??

On the upside: Needing more movies to watch while I work --something about the pace of movies really helps speed things along (when the program works), I had a cool coupon to rent 6 DVDs at a low price. So:

1. The Italian Job (I've never seen it before)
2. Alien Resurrection (enjoyed it, but haven't seen it since it was in theaters)
3. Daredevil - Director's Cut (gotta see what the difference is.... 30 minutes of additional footage, hopefully with lotsa Jennifer Garner *sigh*)
4. Hero (again, enjoyed it but only saw it in the theater)
5. American Wedding (just watched the 1st two after downloading them, but couldn't find a cohesive version of the final part of the trilogy)
6. Insomnia (locally filmed movie with Robin Williams and Al Pacino. Haven't seen it before)

OK, time to get back to "schoolwork."

Respond/React

Well, it's a bit of a surprise to see 5 emails in the inbox regarding posts on the blog.... yep, just the 2 readers, but a surprise nonetheless.

I know I forgot to mention that I've been trying to get to Washington state to check on an Amazon order that should've shipped to my PO box at the end of October. Well, it's only November 18, so I'm not too far off. Fortunately, the ladies at the post office all know me (& like me?) so they put up with my semi-rgular visits to pick up parcels.... as long as it's gone before Christmas!!

This post is pretty much doing 2 things:
1 - Helping me procrastinate on the first-ever assignment extension I've requested at this school.
2 - Responding to the 5 emails from earlier this morning.

Speaking of earlier this morning.... Dreama, we may now (myself and my 2 major readers --gave you both a promotion!) all be in the same timezone, but that doesn't mean I'm on MSN at fricky 6:30 in the morning! That's 3 hours after I've passed out!!

Onto, the emails:
From Madley:
I have a question about drawing the butts though... are the models different sizes and shapes? Don't butts look different, like some you can't even FIND any musculature?
Models come in different sizes and shapes, but most of ours have had some definition in them. some it's been more difficult to find... Our instructor is looking to see if we grasp the concept of whuch muscles belong where --and why. So when we have a model who doesn't have the definition (usually the legs have the least definition, believe it or not) is in front of us, then I play to the audience's 'wants' and define the muscles. :)

It sounds like you're in a good mode though... actually probably started with your leaving your job last year... it's called DEFINING YOUR LIFE FOR YOURSELF, calling your own damn shots. And people who yak, distract and don't fit... well, the Universe just kinda Calgon's them away. Thank Goodness.

This annoying guy was actually short-listed for our graduating project team. Although we're in charge of the project, we pull students in from at least 3 other programs to work with/for us. He went from the short-list to the un-list in one day. One talented artist has joined another team, but he mentioned he'd like to see their project leader be nothing more than an errand boy (the lead has limited skills, but will fight for his ways to be done) and fetch coffee. Our group is already meeting and discussing what we need to do (months before anything's assigned to us by the faculty) already and we're ahead of other groups with that. We hope to snag him for our group by next week. I'm surrounding myself with talented people so that my weaker areas vanish... Wonder how Dreama's feel if I took that job in Montreal? :D

Don't forget to write on your other blog too... I'd like to see at least SOME of those derrieres.

There were some images added a few weeks back --a drawing I was very proud of. I have a couple more to add as well, but those won't be up for a few more weeks. I need to focus on getting my work done (hehe) before any scanning takes place. Oh, and they're all quality glute's.

Ciao and... you don't have Thanksgiving there, do you?

Thanksgiving in Canada has come and gone. We have it in early October. Although my wife's family celebrates both Thanksgivings as her father is American. Actually, until yesterday. Now he's a fully-fledged... hoser.

From Dreama:
As for the [email list], I think I missed something. If anything, I think the group is just bored and restless right now, but who knows. Haven't seen much chatter going on lately. You weren't the only one who didn't comment on my trek. No one did. Hmph...s'alright, no offense taken.

Swear to God... I will post comments on your new blog.... as soon as I have some actual free frittering time! And you didn't miss anything on the list, I think. I made a comment and braced for the eventual attack. Then, to concede, I posted something give everyone a "I told you so" bit to get me. And no one responded. Then, a congratulatory message flamed my inbox with messages accusing me of calling them ignorant. How a message starting with "I don't know if everyone got this" translates into: "You're all stupid and ignorant."

But it did.

Honestly, I'm sure if I posted a message today, everything would be fine. No one would even remember the issue. I just don't feel up to posting right now...

So you sound a little sour these days. Your program doesn't agree with you? Sounds like you're doing well though, congrats on the butt drawings...wish I could see Matthew McConnaughey's butt right now, particularly since People voted him the sexiest for the year...pant, pant, pant...ok, have to go.

Sour.... stressed. Having a tough time handling some things when I start seeing weaknesses in the school and in myself. We've had 2 teachers fired this semester, one unfairly and the other shouldn't be referred to as a teacher --couldn't teach! The final 5 weeks of the semester is 5 assignments worth 20% each to give us our grade for the course. Everything we toiled through beforehand became meaningless --and 30 precious hours wasted.

I've seen enough butts I could probably fairly accurately describe his butt.... BUT there's no way I'm going there. I'll leave that to you... um, both of you! ;)

OK, am now going to attempt getting to the post office!!

Cheeky Monkey

Busy time.... busy-busy-busy. Lots to talk about too.

Latest life drawing course is over-and-out in 3 more Thursdays. It also means in 3 weeks I basically give up drawing sweet-EFF-all for the remaining 9 months of school. Not really looking forward to it. I'm one of 2 students continuously singled out in class because of the "quality" of my work. In quotes 'cuz the instructor actually uses quality to describe it *blush!*

My comrade-in-quality is also an "older" student at the ripe old age of 28. She's graduated with a degree in fine arts, but is no further ahead in life than me (and I won't warn her it doesn't get any easier). We sit side-by-side in life drawing, but may change it up a bit next week simply because we're getting a little sick of the poses we're seeing.

We're seeing a lot of butts.

OK, seriously, I counted today after the 5th pose where the model was looking away from us and toward other students. 144 cheeks have made their way into my sketchbook since October.

One hundred and forty-four.

Cheeks.

I didn't even bother drawing some of the poses today because I've seen them all before..

[note: never, never, EVER, never did I think I'd ever say I've seen enough of naked butts]

Some classmates thought I was exagerrating, until they watched the model get into a pose (which she held for 15 minutes) -yes, with her back to me-- I looked at the pose once, then proceeded to draw it out, complete with proper musculature (teres major, minor, deltoids, etc.). Never looked at her for the rest of the drawing. No need. I've memorized the bloody back (& butt).

I'm bombing one course so far, but I'm hoping the latest assignment will bring up my mark. I spent 27 hours "tweaking" a 3D model and he only made on correction during the class critique. So, hopefully... Everything else seems to be progressing fine. The 3D computer program & I have a hate/hate relationship and I've managed to stump 2 instructors with problems I've encountered. Great. This could very well be the future I've mapped out for myself...

What else?

I've resigned from my positions in the church. No time and getting less every day. I'll finish out the year and then part ways most likely for a few years.

My wife had an interview for one of my old jobs. She didn't get it and the 3 co-workers she would have worked with are all upset about the decision. Why none of them volunteered to be on the hiring committee, I don't know.... Typical.

So much thought into one of my old jobs brought back the nightmares for a few days. Kept dreaming I was getting called into the office to help them find things (it's been a year, you'd think they'd have found the stuff by now!). I also had one dream where I found out my boss had killed his wife (in reality she died of cancer) and he was trying to kill me now that I knew. It was a crazy adventure of a dream and I woke up shaking.

A major mailing list I'm on... how do I put this? I'm *part* of a major mailing list for my old university. We talk virtually daily, but about 2 weeks ago I just stopped. I was good for a few quips every week, but it seems the last few comments were taken the wrong way or just completely ignored and I just haven't bothered to post anything else to anyone. Dreama is a part of that group and I haven't commented on her cross-Canada adventures either. Nothing against Dreama, though. She's still near-and-dear to me, even if she attempts to wear sandals in the Yukon.... I just don't feel up to talking to the rest of them right now.

I've kind of had that "screw you" attitude over a few things in the past few weeks. "Latina Lady" didn't reply to a few emails, so I can't be bothered to try anymore. A couple former co-workers were excited to get in touch with me again, but suddenly stopped emailing as well, so again: screw 'em.

I've even turned on a few classmates recently. Hate doing it, but I'm finding them just plain disruptive and annoying during lectures and a detriment to my education. Shut-up or go away. We've started 2 project groups recently. One for our graduating project (yep, 9 months from now!) and one for a term project. We have one guy who "joined" himself to our term group and everyone else thought I was going to punch him out in the middle of class. He's got some good ideas, he's eager and energetic, he's willing to work. He just can't process a thought and makes the simplest tasks complicated. This guy would make buying property difficult in Monopoly.

I think that's enough to tide everyone over for now. All 2 of you.

I'm still working on a mega-post (it's actually in 'edit' mode!) for the end of 2005 explaining a theme I've had going all year. It's a lot of work as I've had nearly 250 posts.

250 posts and not much happening. Sad.

She Falls Asleep

By late Thursday afternoon, a few of us were getting "punchy" in our life drawing class.

And our model falling asleep while posing did not help matters.

She had the 'Jimmy legs' too.

Seriously, try drawing a woman posing with one knee in the air and her arm wrapped around her head. Within 15 minutes, she had her knees together (I should point out there was nothing sexual about the position) and was sound asleep. It was the 3rd or 4th time she'd dozed off.

The next time she woke up (trust me, no one could figure out how the instructor missed all this), she asked one of the guys to plug the little heater in so she could warm up. And he zapped himself on the cord....

Later, when she woke up again, she asked for some of her music to be played. It was great sleepytime music and off she drifted again.

The music was too quiet, though. You know how annoying it can be when you just barely hear some music playing? It was that annoying. One of the other guys asked for "electro-shock boy" to turn it up so we could at least hear it. ESB said it was pretty loud already. The rest of us just looked at each other and wondered what he was hearing because there's no way it was the stereo! "Maybe the shock gave him super hearing," was all I could say.

Two of us were also called up to the instructor's desk. He'd already let the class know we were the "A students" in the class, and now he wanted to give us a challenge. No more drawing they way we do. It's all shading now. Start out fairly dark, and darken in spots where there's shadows and light erasing for spots where light reflects off the skin.

Not really a challenge, but he thought it was.

The challenge was drawing the model who kept laying down and snoozing away the afternoon.

Karma for the Day

Granted this post should've come out on Wednesday, but I got busy... VERY busy and didn't get to sleep until 2am Thursday morning (with a wakeup time of 5:30am...).

Thursday's my full-day for classes and I had a meeting to go to last night, plus my car went in for servicing today, so I'm finally getting a "break" right now to continue my consistently inconsistent posts...

Where was I?

Oh! Karma.

On Wednesday afternoon, I did my "good karma" deed for the day. Now, I need to go off on a bit of tangent here (I do it all the time, but for some reason I feel obligated to warn anyone reading this today that I'm going to speak tangentially).

Tangentially. My big word for the day. Look it up. Actually, don't --I probably misused it. (if I did, use misuse as my big word instead).

That wasn't my tangent --crap. This is. As a Christian, "karma" isn't supposed to play a part in life. "We" don't believe in "karma," but we believe that every good deed deserves another and what good you do will be repaid in kind.

Karma's a whole lot easier to say.... And I'm feeling lazy.

So, back to my Wednesday and where this whole karma thing comes in to play.

I had class in the afternoon and when I sat down at my station in the lab, there was a set of headphones and a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player sitting there looking quite lonely. I asked the guy at the next station if he saw who'd been sitting there and he didn't know.

So here was a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player in my hands.

I turned it in at the security desk.

And no one came back to the lab to look for it. Hopefully, they checked at the front desk and did get it back. As tempting as it would be to "own" a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player, I know how I'd feel if something like that happened to me. Total bummer, so I did my good karma for the day...

Now don't think I immediately start thinking I'm invincible or anything because I'm going to get what's due to me after my good deed. Oh no! I don't think you actually can or should expect anything. If nothing happens, it means nothing bad happened. If something happens, well..... good?

Not for me on Wednesday.

It had been fairly sunny out when I got to school and parked 'lo those many blocks away. But hey, it was nice out so the walk was good for me. Except that at 5 at night, it was pouring rain very, very hard and it was honestly a difficult walk back to the car.

And, just before the spot where I cross the road, there came a large delivery truck.

Who introduced me to the rather large ocean-like puddle right in front of me.

I was beyond wet in my thin silk jacket. Oh yes, I honestly felt like the back of my neck got splashed from that puddle which no longer seemed to exist.

The girl with the umbrella 10 feet behind me didn't fare much better, except the 'Hoser'-shaped outline where she was blocked from the tsunami effect.

I got to my car, and sat for a while as the de-fogger tried valiantly to "de-fog" the car as my body heat (what little remained) and the liquid layer around me didn't mix with the car interior.

20 minutes later, we pulled out to go home.

"Home" was an understatement as I came in, kissed my wife and children, changed out of my damp clothes, swallowed a few spoonfuls of dinner, and ran out the front door to the honking van. I'd "volunteered" to help paint a friend's new condo. There were 6 of us going in the van and I was supposed to be the 6th one picked up. I wasn't, I was first, so 45 minutes later we finally got to the condo.

It was after 9pm when the pizza finally arrived, giving me my second full meal of the day. (the first being 2 slices of toast 12 hours earlier. Dinner at home didn't count as I didn't make a dent in the food on my plate.)

Before we ate, though, the guy who owns the place wanted to move a few things so we all had somewhere to eat the pizza. As he moved things, he held a full tin of paint.

Which he then accidently dumped on my jacket.

No, it wasn't the same jacket from the tsunami. I'd hung that up to dry at home. Ths was my super-nice rian jacket which in an instant turned from black to some greyish-green mizture matching his kitchen walls.

I laughed. I mean, no one's expecting something like that to happen, so all I could do was... laugh!

He grabbed my jackety and took it to the bathtud to try and wash as much of the paint out as possible. And he did a great job as it actually went back to its original black.

But he hung it up to dry (WHA???) and I didn't realize that until we left a few hours later.

So, no jacket for the couple-block walk back to the van to go home. And it was raining harder than it was before....

I was very, very wet.

Imagine how I'd've felt if I thought my good karma deed meant everything would be going my way...

Except for all that water that went my way, that is.

One Year Later

I have no idea if this message will show... much like the last 6 I've typed out.

2pm this afternoon was the 1 year anniversary of the big goodbye from work.

One whole year.

It feels SO good!

Every Picture Tells A Story

Okay, this has been grabbed from numerous blogs (thanks, Mad!) and it looks interesting enough to try...

Directions:
Go to Google and click on the images link. Type in the following and post the first (or your favorite) picture the search engine finds.

- The name of the town where you grew up
- The name of the town where you live now
- Your name
- Your Grandmother’s name (pick one)
- Your favorite food
- Your favorite drink
- Your favorite song
- Your favorite smell

The town where you grew up:
Well, I've lived in numerous towns, but the majority of my life was spent in one particular hell-hole: Abbotsford.














The name of the town where you live now
Mission.













- Your name
[*snicker!*]













- Your Grandmother’s name (pick one)
[shveeeeet] Her name is Eva...



















- Your favorite food
gotta love lasagna --sorry the picture sucks!!
















- Your favorite drink
Mmmmmm, mocha shake... gotta LOL at the picture, though













- Your favorite song
Peter Gabriel has a song called 'Rhythm of the Heat.' It always gets me going...














- Your favorite smell
Awapuhi. My wife used to use a shampoo that had some in it. I love the smell...

A Little Unfair

Got some sad, annoying, unfair news on Thursday. One of my favorite instructors has been put on suspension after a sexual harrassment complaint. The latest email says he's most likely going to be fired on Monday morning.

OK, now to explain the harrassment thing. This guy's an artist. A talented artist. And he's always looking to improve his work. So, what better than to ask if people would be willing to sit and have their portrait painted and/or to model. And, as we've been taught at the art school, if the request is denied, thank them for their time and move on --no pressure.

But a student in a different program took offense to the request and was seemingly blinded to anything that then happened afterward. But, it was enough to complain, and now the poor guy's probably gone as of Monday.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the administration's POV on this. Yeah, it probably wasn't the best thing to do: asking a student to pose. Now, the choice is do they get of the guy for making the mistake, or can they just slap his wrist and say "No. Don't ask students!" I know which one is sensible to me, but I also know that sensible and insitutional adminisation do not go hand-in-hand! Been there. For 7 years.

To make matters even worse, this guy's father died this past Sunday. So, while he's already down, he gets another kick: out.

And what makes me mad is that this guy has a major talent that I've seen lacking in several other instructors during this program.

He has a talent for teaching. And he goes above and beyond in his teaching ability. There was more than one late Saturday night, that I could count on an encouraging email from him when I was having issues with an assignment.

So which is more important? Losing a talented instructor over what others perceive as an error (but no one else has complained about in the 30 years he's been doing it) or feeling that the only way to "save face" on this issue is to fire the guy.

Dammit, I hate being the only one smart enough to know the right thing to do.

I'm going to miss him.

The Tuesday Effect

Quote for the day [from my 4-hour class instructor]:
"Okay, we only have 20 minutes left, so let's get started!"

Seriously. We started our "lesson" 3 hours and 40 minutes after class started...

Kinda sad, really. This morning while showering I realized that Tuesdays in this program of mine just aren't a good thing. I was thinking about how annoying my current class is when I suddenly thought about the previous 2 semesters.

So here's a rundown of the 3 Tuesday classes in this program:
In my first semester, my Tuesday class was:
1 - My lowest mark for the semester.
2 - The one instructor I didn't like.
3 - The one instructor who didn't like me.

In my second semester, my Tuesday class:
1 - Was my lowest mark overall in the entire program.
2 - Was the one where the instructor ran out of things to say every week.
3 - Was the one where we got all our assignments back on the last day of the semester.

This, my third semester, my Tuesday class is:
1 - The one where the instructor showed up 90 minutes' late the first day.
2 - The one where he shows us something "new" every hour which we should've known before we started our project.
3 - The one where 3 hours after we should've handed in our assignment, he says, "Didn't I show you how to do this?"
4 - The one where, 3 hours later, we still haven't submitted our assignments because he's till showing us stuff.
5 - The one where he was going to show us our next project an hour ago, but he got distracted and is doing something else entirely instead.

Thus, leading to 3 hours and 40 minutes of time wasted. Overall in this one class, we've wasted over 5 hours of class time. Disgusting.

If I have any Tuesday classes scheduled next semester, I'm changing them ASAP.

Mental Decay

2 weeks into this semester and I already have a taken a weekend for a mental break.

Kinda sad, since last weekend was a 4-day weekend....

This is going to be a difficult semester. I've had clashes (both in person and ones I've kept bottled up) with all of my instructors for this semester and already talked to the Dean about one of my problems. No, it wasn't like I was called into his office for causing trouble, I just needed to talk to him about a problem our entire class is having.

We've been split up something fierce this semester and some of us aren't getting the same level of education as others. In my life drawing course, we averted a near-disaster after I had a "talk" with the instructor. He wanted to teach us the same anatomy lessons as last semester when he discovered half the pupils in the class weren't taught any anatomy the first time around! As one who doesn't want to spend 22 weeks studying the torso and arms, I convinced him that a week or two of that is more than enough when some of us (and we're the ones who got the A's last semester anyway) would like to know the musculature of the legs, neck and face! My carpool guy is in a different class and he'll get lessons in shading and "emotion," but he's not getting any more anatomy lessons.

On Thursday, our instructor gave us an entire page listing how many ways we can lose marks in class. Even things we're not allowed to do when the class takes a break! Feels like I'm in kindergarten again...

My blog could be quiet over the next few months. I have a feeling this semester's really going to eat into my time. Fortunately, I've managed to get the right software at home, so that I can work on this stuff any and every day.

If I could just break out of this mental break....

In Motion

I was struck last week with kind of a philosophical debate. It's truly sad when you're alone in the car and you have a good debate, yes?

Anyway, I was on my way home from school and this Cadillac was coming up behind me fairly quickly. My first thought was (having parent who owned a Caddy recently, but smartly sold it because of the cost of *everything* for it) "how much does this guy pay for gas these days?" It's one of those moments that make you think about people who constantly speed, even when the price of gas is so high. Speed does NOT equal fuel efficiency!!

I digress.

I'd taken a quick glance at the guy as I stopped for the red light and as I waited for the green, I was suddenly aware f quite a bit of movement from behind me. Looking in the rearview mirror again, I saw this guy was really really into the music he was playing in his car.

We're not talking air guitar here, people. This guy had the entire band going on his dashboard!

So, it got me thinking....

This guy, bit of a comb-over, thicker-than-normal glasses (basically, a little on the homely looking side), was in a position that people can think one of two things about him:
1 - This guy's high on life and he doesn't care who knows it.
2 - The guy's a freak.

Now, depending on your own view of life at the time... if you were to see him (or someone like him), which person would you view? The freak? Or the happy-go-lucky guy?

I, Madman

Today was day #2 of semester #3 (of 6 total semesters) for my classes.

My carpool partner & I have 2 classes together out of 5. We're in the same program in the same semester, but can't take classes at the same frickin' time.

Today was a solo drive in (fortunately for an afternoon class), but good ol' professional dump truck driver (AKA Asswipe Boy) managed to hit the shoulder of the road just before I was about to pass him in the fast lane.

I now have a nasty rockchip on my windshield. It'll cost me $100+ to have it fixed. I felt like taking my "The Club" and beating the guy at the next stoplight. That was 30 minutes into the 90-minute commute.

Parking, as usual, was atrocious at school and I went to the 2-mile-away supplementary lot only to find a lone car circling the lot waiting for a spot to open. He eventually left (I just pulled my car off to the side and waited) and as he left some kid walked up and got in his car. So, I moved my car to his lane and put my turn signal on to indicate "this is now my spot."

Well, freaky boy who'd been circling earlier all of a sudden cuts in front of my car to take the spot! So, out I get and walk over to his window, rap on the glass and say:
"If you even try to take this spot when I'm sitting here signalling for it, I will kill you. Back your car up and wait your damn turn." He backed up and I got back in mine in time to pull in. I wasn't wearing my photo ID card yet, but was just in a black jacket, black shirt, and jeans. Imagine him complaining to security "he had a goatee, black shirt and blue jeans." Yeah, one-of-a-kind at art school...

I get to class for 1:00 and the damn instructor doesn't show until 2:30. His schedule had the class slotted for a 6:30pm start time. Well, nope, it's one and he decides that since we're starting late "we'll just push on through 'til 6:30." My hand goes up and I inform him I'm leaving at 5. I have a meeting at 7pm and have a 90-minute commute ahead of me. I don't care that his schedule was wrong, mine was right and I was there on time. Didn't go over well with him, but the associate Dean (who'd come to the class to figure out where the instructor was) just shrugged her shoulders and left the room.

As it was, the course is a heavy one on 3D animation using Maya (which I've never used before). It has a prerequisite course (Introduction to Maya, dontcha-know?) that I'm apparently scheduled to take starting tomorrow. Nice program schedule, people! By tomorrow night, all the stuff I "learned" today will probably make a lot more sense.

Y'know, you'd think an art school would realize that the students are their best marketing tool. When teachers don't show up, we're scheduled in prerequisite classes AFTER major classes, and our program students are sent flying in numerous different directions (I've seen now 10 different schedules for the same 5 courses... there's only 25 of us) instead of building the "network" that could carry us through the next decade after graduating... does anyone REALLY think I'd recommend this place to anyone?

Rrrrgggg. Annoying pissy little friggy things today...

Oh, 2 more things. Prof. Lateasiwannabe also spent over an hour reading us the course syllabus. Um, hello? It's in front of us and you were frigging 90 minutes late, move on already!!

Secondly, my carpool partner had his second semester of life drawing start on Monday night. The instructor there spent 10 minutes griping about people using MSN Messenger and how he'll ask anyone doing it in class to leave.... There's no computers in that room. There isn't even a network connection from the school into that room. How the Hell does he expect people to be using MSN Messenger???

Oh, and apparently the class is going on a field trip to the Granville Island Market one night in order to draw the pigeons.

At night?

Fortunately, I have the same instructor for my second semester of life drawing as I had for the first semester, and not this dude. So there. We'll spend an hour each Thursday afternoon discussing anatomy before the model arrives and we draw for 3 hours. Sounds great.

Later this week: Prepare for a philosophical piece on whether performing air guitar(drums, piano, whatever) casts positive or negative emotions in other... drivers. Seriously.

Mr Lonely

Okay, no new posts in weeks isn't really a *new* thing for me, but utter silence usually is.

Let's just say I've started to consider my daughter a primary plague carrier --especially in this family. With her starting kindergarten in September and me being particularly defenseless after staking so many hours into projects leading up to September 15th...

By September 17th I was down and out and am still recovering on October 5. In the meantime, I've had:

• an eye infection
• an earache
• a cold
• bronchitis

There were a few days where if someone had pointed a gun at my head, I would have said "thank you" if they put me out of my misery, but I could see the phlegm and sinus fluid overpowering my body and absorbing anyone who got near to me.

So I pretty much slept on my 2 weeks off. And had very little contact with the outside world.

I know, plenty of time for blogging, right? No, actually. Typing made me sweat too much. I was only good to sleep on the couch.

Wrong's What I do Best

I've had quite the string of expletives today... my son slept for 30 minutes, which gave me enough time to write out a single eBay item --and then lose it.

The boy's screaming. Again. My daughter insists on watching Sleeping Beauty for the 3rd time this week.

I've changed my email address connected to Blogger becuase Google's too busy taking over the world to help me access my email account again. Bastards.

And now my fish has died.

Geez... is it Saturday yet?

Angry Today

I have had very, VERY little sleep since I got up Tuesday morning to head into my last week of school.... 136 hours of work into my 4 final projects for the semester. A lot of damn, hard, friggin' work. the one class I saw as a "breeze" netted me a C+ after I received all my assignments AFTER submitting my final project. What's that mean? Any mistakes I'd unwittingly made on previous assignments were all present on my final becuase I didn't KNOW I'd made any mistakes.

Jerk.

I tried sleeping at campus on Wednesday night/Thursday morning atfer already being up for an all-nighter Tuesday into Wednesday. Got almost 90 minutes' sleep in my car before all the shipping trucks showed up (and drove over the series of double-speedbumps set up in the lot. So, I just got back to work and somehow made it through Thursday and came home. I was supposed to go to a meeting last night, but... no way was I going. They usually go to 11pm or later and I wasn't putting up with that. I'd rather go home and sleep.

Only I had to pick up the kids and take care of them until they fell asleep. My daughter at 9 and my son at 10:30. So, I got into the Coca Cola to keep me awake until the kids were asleep.

Only that kept me up 'til about 1am.... From 9am Tuesday to 1am Friday: 90 minutes' sleep. At least my wife's home all day today to take care of the kids.

Except she forgot to write down she's working again today. At least that means I'm only taking care of my son until 2pm when we got to pick my daughter from school.

Except she's sick today. And my son's screaming for his Mommy. (I feel so loved).

So, hopefully my son goes for a nap this afternoon. Then maybe I can get to work on eBay stuff downstairs. and check my email.

Except suddenly my gmail account was in Russian, so I reset the language and now I can't login anymore.

And my son is still screaming 45 minutes later. And I barely had any sleep because of the screaming.

And I can't get help from Google for my f-cking gmail account because I used my old work email address as a secondary address (shit!).

AND I can't do any eBay stuff today because I'm using our upstairs ancient computer (a Celeron 300) which seems to be more vegetative on a daily basis. My typing may be horrendous in this message simply becuase the keys are getting tight on the keyboard.

AND it won't recognize the optical mouse so I have an old mouse attached which literally bounces aroundthe screen when you move it.

AND I need to get in touch with my parents as we need a co-signor for a home-equity loan in order to survive the next 12 months.

AND I really, really need this kid to stop screaming!

And, Dreama, what is it that everyone on the planet is doing at the same time? The optimists (you saw the messages) say 'breathing.'

I say dying.

Hello Time Bomb

Had another long bout with the kids today/tonight. It's coming on 10:30 and I'm finally getting away from them.

Phew!

I'm also drinking. Have I mentioned the drinking? Not only back on coffee, but tonight's mug also has a bit of Kahlua and Bailey's mixed in for good (goooood) measure.

I feel warm.

The bottle of Kahlua (to give you an idea how often I drink it) is the leftovers from my 27th birthday (good thing I'm only 29, dammit!). It was an office cake. Yep, with Kahlua. There were only 5 of us in the department that summer. There had been 30+, but most people had been laid off in the springtime and somehow we'd survived. Most of us were on temporary contracts and they couldn't be bothered buying us out. So, we screwed around instead. I think 1 person from that party still works at the university. My friend Bean was one of the ones laid off, but she had enough seniority to stick around until last week. Anyway, the guy who does all the bad news stuff (there's always one and I can pick 'em out faster than I can with my oddly built in gaydar) decided to drop by the office that day tos ee how we were coping. I'm sure the bottlew of Kahlua at the reception desk was pretty much a dead giveaway.

And, yes, he's the one I had my meeting with back in October...

I'm really digressing right now, you have no idea.

Anyway, to sum up: Drinking.

Don't know if you've had a chance to play Sims 2, but I noticed something the other day on my "mental break" from my projects. I haven't played in quite some time, but it's the type of game where I can sit down and play for just a few minutes and then move on. Even though I'm going through a majorly complicated plot with all my characters --one guy's impregnating the entire female population.

Hehe.

Anyway, one of the women who is really showing right now was dealing with her other 3 kids and was looking pretty weak and tired. As I was playing, I thought something had happened with my speakers as there was a weird noise continually humming along. Within moments, I noticed that the woman had just laid down on the floor like Sims do when they're so exhausted and can no longer hike to their beds (the timing's off in sims games and if your house is too big, it could literally take all morning for your Sim to wake up, shower, and cook breakfast --the walk to the kitchen being in excess of 1 hour).

And then Death walked into the house and claimed her soul.

Aside from the one really bad housefire, it was my first experience with Sim-death. I'm not sure if the noise was part of it or not, but it definitely added a level of spookiness to it.

Even worse, as I tried desperately last night to get some sleep, I found myself both awake --and hearing a similar noise.

Finally fell asleep just before 5 this morning. And then up and helping take care of my little terrorist by 8:30.

Yes, my son's definitely a terrorist. Screw this "terrible two's" B.S. Nope, it's the "terrorist two's." Think of it this way: "Terrible" means 'bad.' Therefore, to be "terrible" means to be bad, or misbehave. Name a 2-year old who merely misbehaves.

Now, can you think of a 2-year old who creates havoc wherever he goes, lays down senseless and utter destruction anywhere at anytime and AND has no regard for his own life or anyone else's?

I can. He's in his crib sleeping peacefully right now. He's kind of a cute terrorist too.

College Town

Tuesday was the first day of school for the 2005-06 academic year.

It's also coming up on the 1-year anniversary since I left my job. And I don't think I ever made it official in these posts that I worked at a university. There, now I have. And, yes, I've gone from full-time university employee to full-time student in the past year.

Not really sure if I have a point to this post, just reflecting on the thought that Tuesday was the first "first day of school" I've missed at the university since 1990.

And that feels pretty damn strange right now. I was in high school in 1990.

I have time to reflect because I'm taking care of the kids right now. My wife's at work and while I'd like to be downstairs hard at work on my final projects (my semester ends September 15th), I'm taking care of the children. So, they're fully distracted by toys & cartoons (God bless Saturday mornings), and I have time to surf the 'Net a bit more than I should be able to right now.

So, to the "fans" I know are reading this:
Mad, I get the feeling your blog has become an intimate part of your life. You're sharing, venting, and healing all at once. I think I've learned more about you in the past month or so of posts than I have through your lists of 100 things...
Jules, good to hear from you again. Miss your blog, but it's somewhat totally understandable why you stopped.
Dreama, congrats on the job! Don't know if you've posted it yet on your own blog, but I saw your IM byline. And, no, I wasn't still up at 5am when you sent that note. I had long since gone to sleep (around 3:30...)

Oh, and one more thing. The coffee embargo stopped today. 36 days without a drop. I've been up since 8:30 and I'm on my 3rd cup and getting up now for my 4th.

And now I'm onto #4.

On September 22nd I have a lunch date with Bean, one of my first friends from working at the university. She & I worked together from August 1997 - June 2002. I had a couple of stops along the way, but somehow continued to work in the same department with her at the same time. She's moving north in October and I have to admit I'm still shocked to see her go. I thought she'd be there 'til the day she died (and knowing that place, it could be soon). Actually, she'd acknowledge that too and that's probably one of the reasons she's going. She was smart enough to request a 1-year leave of absence, "just in case," but most people don't come back after that year. I know one person who did and she lasted 6 weeks before she told everyone in her department to burn in Hell. And she was the director!

Bean was the one who owned a horse who shared my name. She's also the one who started the whole womanizer title for me. She'd talk about having sore thighs from "riding [the horse] all night" and a few people never clued in she wasn't referring to me. She stopped even trying to explain that it was actually a horse because people assumed she referred to me as the horse.

My horse noises in the hallways weren't helping with that either.

Ah, the good memories. Thet seem few and far between with the bad ones, but I'm starting to block those out on purpose. I might explain in a later post just where each co-worker (from Hell and not from Hell) fit in to my old university life.

Just not quite yet.

All Kinds of Time

Oh-kay, it's 11:31pm and I've finally *finally* had 30 minutes to myself.

It's coming up on deadline time --scratch that, it is deadline time right now. I have one project due on Tuesday and 3 more within a week.

The first assignment is to be between 10 and 25 pages of storyboard art. Right now, I'm sitting at 8 pages, but may end up redoing the entire thing.

Well, CLOSE to the entire thing. It's a Sesame Street piece based on the letter 'S' and I've been doing a beach scene (sailboat, surfer, shark, shells, sand castle, sunset, starfish... Snuffalufagus).

Y'know... even a Google search doesn't really tell you how it's spelled. Hmm.

Anyway, my other assignments include a dozen Photoshop manipulation images (could actually be difficult to finish --I've only done one so far); a entire video game concept right down to the product box itself; and a character design from geometric construction to product presentation (public speaking, yay!).

Naturally, since this is my busiest time of the semester, you know what happens in the home...

Yep, my wife's schedule changed so drastically that now she only has 4 days off in September.

What happened? Faith is a fickle thing....

Anyway, I'm Captain Childcare on my "days off" which basically means over the next 2 weeks I'm taking care of kids, eating, stressing, and doing my schoolwork when the kids are sleeping...

Notice I didn't mention sleeping. I've invested in energy drinks to get me throught the next few weeks.

All kinds of time...

Just Stop

By far, this morning’s class is the most annoying I’ve taken in 14+ years of my post-secondary career. It’s a computer lab for PhotoShop and there’s about a half-dozen people that would rather play a LAN-based war game.

Loudly.

I’ve gotten a major headache in each class for about a month now and it’s getting friggin’ annoying having to be in this room.

I usually leave for about an hour or so every week because of the noise.

Including today, 3 weeks to go… just please stop the noise already!!

Worry

Today was an official 'worry day' for me. To start, my daughter was going to a party at a local lake this afternoon.

Yeah, I know. I could worry a little bit about my daughter goofing around by the lakeside, but she's 5 years old and hasn't learned how to swim yet.

So I worried.

My wife, working today, also called home to let me know her shifts were cut drastically for September. She has 4 shifts for the entire month. She's been working a minimum of 2 shifts a week for about 4 months now, so this comes as a bit of a surprise.

I mentioned briefly in a previous post that my wife is in line for one of my old jobs. She still is, but now I worry that "higher ups" have talked and have decided to ostracize her because of how they feel (felt?) about me. Her other semi-regular on-call work hasn't materialized yet either and she usually knows about it by mid-August.

So I worry.

Tomorrow marks my final payment from the government since I left work. I thought it was being paid until October, but it turns out my eligibility runs out in October --the money goes bye-bye tomorrow.

And I worry.

We had a meeting at the bank over a week ago. We were looking for a student line of credit or something along those lines as we head into very lean months ahead. I was hoping for a home equity loan, but so far everything's fallen through because of our lack of income.

So I'm worried.

What I need to do now is find that level of faith I had back in November. I need to remember that everything's going to turn out fine as long as I continue to believe.

Can I be faithful and worry too?

Size Matters

Thursday afternoon erupted into another geek-fest.

The debate this time? Which is the best joystick ever made for game consoles.

Some debated that the latest "dual-shox" pad with rotator ball, mini-wheel, 12-button capabilities is THE best (which is it's THE latest), I argued that it's been a downhill snowball for years.

The Atari 2600 joystick was the best, bar none. You could jumpy out of a plane, drive a car, grab a gun and shoot a Nazi with it all by doing one thing:

Push a button.

As the debate raged, we then discussed one classmates latest "joystick acquisition" and how big and manly it is. The one woman in class, all alone against the tyranny of 17 guys, quickly responded:

"It's not that big."

Quote of the year, that.

Heart Attack Man

So I got a bill form school today: $4,236.00.


After I picked myself off the floor I was in contact immediately to figure out how I could possibly owe this much by September 1st when my student loan covers all my tuition.

It took a little while, but I finally got an answer back.

It's for NEXT semester. They just want the tuition paid a month before the semester begins...

I knew there was an October due date for tuition, but hadn't heard anything about a September date. Maybe they should let people know about that so they're a bit more on the ball with getting their loan applications submitted on time.

I have mine in, but good God, it would've been nice to know about this due date ahead of time!!!

And this, right after I had a visit with the doctor --annual check-up, nothing to worry about (yet).

Cry Me A River

Here's post #3...

I may have mentioned this before, but I tend to get emotional when I'm ill.

I'm sick right now, but it's not like I'm throwing up. It's like the illness I had at the beginning of July. I'm wiped out, sweaty (bad, bad sweaty) and dehydrated.

Whatever the reason, I cry at the easiest things when I feel like this. So, tonight I refused to watch Cold Case (I knew that would do it), but my wife put on Extreme Makeover Home Edition instead. Yup, I was a goner.

Even worse, I just finished watching all I could stand of 'Deep Impact.' I've felt like blubbering about half a dozen times already.

So sad...

Where Have You Gone

Crap. That was my first post for August.

What happened?

Well, busy with school and busy with other distractions, the blog has ended up in a low-priority state for the past few months.

Hopefully inspiration strikes soon.

But today you get 3 posts....

Doctor Doctor

Report on the news last night... my old doctor is now officially a fugitive: wanted by the police in regard to the death of one his patients. It's believed he's in Scotland and still practising medicine.

He hasn't been my doctor since 1990. I was sick and tired of his "diagnosis" of my mystery illness and convinced a urologist I had Lupus.

I was severely dehydrated.

Throw up for 2-3 days and then not drink or eat anything for a week and see how you do.

Lupus.

Y'know, when a 17 year-old male wants to switch doctors there's a sign as to how bad the doctor is.

I like it when I'm right. Even if it took 15 years.

Way Out West

Although it's a civic holiday across Canada today, in BC we refer to it as "BC Day." British Columbians, even in Canada, are a unique breed. Some might see as "more American" --especially West Coast Americans, but I believe we've taken it even further --we're a special bunch, indeed!

With that in mind, I've 'borrowed' the following from the Vancouver Province...

You're Not a Real B.C.er unless...

You're not a real B.C.er unless you picked Terry Fox as the Greatest Canadian... but secretly, you wished it was Pamela Anderson... and you realize you don't know a single thing about David Suzuki.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've gone up the Grouse Grind and... come down with the help of North Shore Search and Rescue.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've been to the PNE and... eaten those little doughnuts and... returned them in an unorthodox manner from the top of the Coaster.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've been to White Spot and... you've lied about your age to remain eligible for a Pirate Pak.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've chanted "Leafs suck!"... alone in front of your TV.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've spent 10 minute battling a dogfish you thought was a Coho... and cut yourself trying to release it.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've switched allegiances from the Grizzlies to the Mavericks to the Suns.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've slammed the Vancouver Olympics organizers for picking the inukshuk as their logo and... don't have a clue what an inukshuk is.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you love going to the Vancouver Aquarium but... wonder about the plight of animals in captivity... and wish Vancouver had a world-class zoo.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've scoffed down a Sunshine Breakfast on the Queen of Esquimalt and... can only stomach it because you haven't eaten for 12 hours... because you failed to realize there'd be a four-sailing wait.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've been to B.C. Place stadium and bitched about the Lions playing indoors on a hot summer night... but wouldn't be caught dead going to an outdoor stadium in the rain.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've visited the Okanagan and taken a wine tour... but still think that Kokanee is for the sophisticated palate.

You're not a real B.C.er unless if you know how to spell Tsawassen (or is it Tsawwasen? Oh never mind). (for the record, it's Tsawwassen.)

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've gone to the Merritt Mountain Music Festival... and not actually seen one single musical act... and returned home with a cowboy hat and a concert t-shirt... but not a single pair of pants you took with you.

You're not a real B.C.er unless if you haven't been to a Vancouver Canucks game... and cursed the day the Clapper was born.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've visited Point Roberts, enjoyed a pint at The Breakers, filled up on cheap gas... and been strip-searched at Customs for bringing in too much cheap American cheese.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've laughed at people who believe in Ogopogo... but are too scared to swim in Lake Okanagan.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you are spending 90 per cent of your wages to live in a nice neighbourhood... and had your nice neighbour on one side busted for a grow op... and the cool neighbour on the other side busted for a meth lab.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've passed Ben Affleck on Robson Street... and thought it cool that he's making yet another movie here... and realized you can't remember one single thing he's done.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you have ordered a large pizza at 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning and... it does not contain at least two of the following toppings: barbecued chicken, pine nuts, shallots, duck l'orange or tofu.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've been to Nat Bailey Stadium on a warm summer evening... got into your car and realized you have no idea whether the C's just won or lost... can't recall the opponent and don't really care.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you have had a movie or TV show shoot in your neighbourhood... and you haven't cursed under your breath at the latte-holding wannabes standing on the street looking important and waving you away from your regular parking spot.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've been to a Chinatown night market and bought a Gucci purse for $5... and wondered, afterward, if Gucci is supposed to be spelled with four c's.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you realize what an institution Tony Parsons is.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you really are sick of the rain... but still won't let that whole David Duchovny thing go.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've waved a white towel and... actually understood why you did.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you're curious how much those AirCare guys make.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you can drink a venti strong blend on you mountain bike, crossing a bridge during morning ruch hour while also eating an organic millet muffin and checking your e-mail on your Blackberry.

You're not a real B.C.er unless you've innocently asked your dad, "Why is everyone booing the goalie?"

Birthday Boy

This is the 4th year in a row I've turned 29... That means I can officially add 'dammit' to the end of "I'm 29."

I'm 29, dammit.

See?

It works.

I realize some of you are now doing the math and thinking "33?" Nope. I turned 29. Then I turned 29 again, then again, and then one more time (at least) just to make sure I have the right age.

29.

Dammit.

My birthday started out with the usual traffic reporter on the radio giving the "all clear on all routes" announcement, which somehow automatically adds 25-30 minutes to the commute.

Sure enough, I didn't get another 10 blocks before coming across a 20-minute wait as a motorhome had managed to block 2 lanes of commuter traffic at 7am. NOT the best way for tourists to be introduced to the city, eh?

Today was life drawing in the morning and is it too much to ask for a female model on my birthday?

Yes. It was the same guy we had a few weeks ago, but before I had a chance to blurt out "Seen it!", one classmate waited until the model had stripped down to the bare essentials to announce it was my birthday and everyone should sing for me.

Why the naked guy in the middle of the room felt compelled to sing-a-long, I have no idea. He must be really comfortable around us....

I've ranted before about people asking me for gift ideas and when I give them an idea in their price range and everything, they go out and get me something either:
a - crappy
or
b - useless

Sure, it's the thought that counts. But when they give it to me and say "You're hard to buy for!", then I get annoyed because I know they were in the store and thought "Screw it. He'll like these pot holders!"

I remember when I was a pre-teen, people would usually buy me clothes because they couldn't think of a good toy (what!?!) for me, or --once they heard I was interested in comics, they'd got ot the store and buy a copy of A-Team #3 or Prince Namor #4 and give those to me.

"You're hard to buy for!"

Years ago, I told my wife that a really cool Christmas present would be the Beatles Anthology. It was (at the time) in our price range for gifts, so I thought I'd take the chance. I guess she got confused (that lower IQ score on the test...) and instead of music by John Lennon, I got music by:
1. John Madgett
2. John McDermott.

I have no idea what John Madgett plays --his is still in the original plastic. McDermott plays Celtic music and his version of 'Danny Boy' can make you weepy.

But then, so can John Madgett's entire CD when you're expecting the Beatles....

My in-laws are famous for buying me strange things. An axe (they wrapped it). A Canadian Tire semi-truck model. A $25 gift card to Linens 'n Things... don't ask.

My wife's brother and his wife aren't much better. One year they asked me what my favorite movies were out of a list and they checked off all my favorites and left 'Planet of the Apes' blank. So, they sent me Planet of the Apes and Fellowship of the Ring (which I'd just told them we'd purchased the big-box collector's set...). The next year, when I said "send me a gift certificate!", they instead sent me a Scooby Doo t-shirt.

Size small.

So, this year, I'm looking through a flyer and see a store has the Simpson's season 1 DVD set on sale for (get this!) $17!! "Ooh!" I exclaim, "What a great price! I'd love to have that!" My wife looks at me and asks, "Is that a good birthday present for you?" It's a great present, I tell her, but I also scoff and let her know I won't hold my breath --still waiting for that Beatles Anthology from, what? Ten years ago, now?

More on that in sec.

My mother, bless her heart, learned many years ago (when I was 19, dammit) that the ideal gift for me is some cash and an opportunity to spend it. How did she learn this lesson?



Oh yes! Go-go-go Joseph! 3rd row, baby. Ninety-seven bucks to sit and watch Donny Osmond with his sweet mullet dance for a "salivating" crowd.

Donny? Ever wonder who the guy was with major scowl on his face from curtain rise to the second encore when he finally just gave you the finger and stormed out?

Yep, that was me.

So, Mom's learned. This year, initially, it was going to be a copy of "Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas," but the game was pulled from shelves before I --or she-- picked it up. I did get a copy eventually, but I still had $100 to spend on my own.

So, what to get the guy who's so difficult to shop for? With $100 from Mom:
1. Ice Age DVD --great for me and the kids. They can watch it and not scream at each other for 90 minutes (greatest gift ever!). I can also use it for school purposes by studying the animation techniques and storyboards.
2. A $5 computer game to distract the kids.
3. A box of cookies. Happy kids = happy Daddy.
4. Lunch for my wife & I.
5. A used copy (they do exist!) of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.
6. A haircut.
7. A new set of pencils for school.

So, too difficult to buy for... Imagine my shock as I open my first gift from my wife. Feels like a book. Weighs more like a book than a DVD... but maybe a DVD box set?

I tear off a strip of wrapping paper.

Matt Groening characters strike out from the gift inside!

Excitedly, I can't wait!

I tear off the wrapping paper with so much anticipation!

she did it!

She did it!!

She...



DAMMIT!!!

One of these years.... one of these years, she'll finally get it! She'll finally understand my frustration!

ONE!
OF!
THESE!
YEARS!!!!!

Maybe when I'm 29.

Dammit.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Just a quick Top 10:

Things that hopefully over the weekend I can extrapolate for my loyal readers (all 2 of you!):

1. Still addicted to the one game, but also managed to grab a copy of Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas and have a few comments to make about it.

2. Slightly over 2 days to go to my birthday --and with it comes the traditional rant about gift-giving on birthdays (and any gift-giving time of year).

3. My mother gave me my birthday present early. $100 cash. I'll explain during my rant how this is the best gift ever!

4. Every job position I held at my old office has become vacant in the last 2 months. I'm still pondering what that means...

5. Also, my wife is a favorite as a replacement in one of those jobs. Weird, eh?

6. My wife's a little annoyed with me right now because she took an IQ test that I'd scored 153 on a few years back. She scored 129. Hehe.

7. The woman who replaced me (and now might be replaced by my wife) scored 91.

8. I actually had someone refer to me as a 'genius' the other day.

9. The local library had a copy of Da Vinci Code available. It's got pictures.

10. The mental debate rages regarding same sex marriages and what it means to me. Debating whether or not to share my opinion...

Me Like Hockey

We're maybe 16 minutes away from the NHL 2005 entry draft and highly-touted pick Sidney Crosby is up for the taking.

Technically, any team could land him in the lottery (that's what happens instead of a normal draft order when there's no hockey for an entire year). He's expected to eventually beat Gretzky's records. All of them? Hard to say, but some of them is enough promise for some hapless teams...

I'm watching the sports news right now and chuckling at the text messages coming in from all over Canada. These people, save one from what I saw, have no clue. They're al hoping Crosby goes to their team. It's not going to happen.

Sidney Crosby is going to the New York Rangers for several reasons.
1. Despite the lottery, it will be fixed to have the Rangers win it all.
2. They're the biggest hockey market on the continent.
3. They're losing fans because they haven't made the playoffs with their gigantic salaries in 7 seasons.
4. Personally, I hate the New York Rangers, which means I have to suffer years of watching Crosby play for them. Ugh!

If any other team gets him, I'll be shocked.

I'm hoping if he ends up with another team, it isn't:
*New York Rangers
*Calgary Flames
*St. Louis Blues
*Florida Panthers
*Buffalo Sabres
*Toronto Maple Leafs (they already think they're at the center of the universe)
*Detroit Red Wings
*Dallas Stars
*Philadelphia Flyers
Oh, and whichever teams end up with Brett Hull and/or Jeremy Roenick. Can't stand to listen to either of those guys...

9 minutes to go...

Updated: Well, phew!!

VERY happy to see Pittsburgh get the chance to draft Crosby! I cheered when the Rangers ended up 16th instead of in the top 5. I rubbed my hands in greedy anticipation when my beloved Canucks were in the top 10 (and really didn't deserve to be in the top 25 after the success they've had recently). And then I got worried when I realized there were 2 teams left and the Mighty Ducks were one of them.

Although it would serve Disney right for selling the team and then the team gets one of the best general managers in the league followed by a franchise player in the very next entry draft. Didn't *quite* work out, but GM Brian Burke's still in a beautiful place. I'm sure he's not moping about with the near-win with Crosby. He still has a good pick at #2 and also picks #31 (1st pick in round 2).

And now I've officially bored my regular readers.... :)

Ain't Nothing

With my 3-day work week and ideas buzzing about all the time, you'd think there'd be a plethora of posts, right?

Well, obviously --no.

Even the crappy weather we've had (one super-hot and humid day followed by a week of rain)

In fact, I think my posts of late have been more about rambling thoughts and basically getting down any thought that crosses my mindbefore it goes away again. I do have one post I want to do, but I'm finding it difficult to write as it's emotional --and really has nothing to do with me directly.

Sometimes those ideas don't come back.

I think I mentioned my super-high marks for the script I had to write last semester. One of my plans was to expand on the idea further over my "summer" break. It was an idea I had about a comic book and I'd never really put any of it in writing before, but just kept the ideas bouncing back and forth in my head. It's been about 10 years since I've had to do any serious creative writing. I'd written two 1-act plays in college and received high marks for both.

Of course, now the question entering my train of thought is: What have I been doing for the past 10 years???

Getting sidetracked again. I didn't expand on the script or even try to work it out logically as a comic book. I think part of the problem right now is that I have a general plot laid out. I have my characters all together (although some still don't have a backstory) and I know who's doing what and when.

But I also have 3, 4, maybe even 5 beginnings to the story. I'm wondering if it's overkill to fit them into a single issue, basically looking at the event from various points of view. I could do it, but then I'm also missing another vital part of the story. I have the beginning(s), I have the end (actually 2, which means I can make a choice as to where the story goes), but I have nothing in between. I'm thinking that the story would be played out in 12 parts --a year-long story, which fits the plot. But with several points to start from, I could possibly have enough material to begin up to 5 parts of the 12-part story. I know one "beginning" definitely starts quite some time after another. One other start easily can be hinted at in the first part and then expanded into part 2.

Well, like I said: rambling thoughts and one more distraction should do me in for the day. The kids are screaming, so I have to cut this short.

Again.

He's A Very Good Leader

This semester, I'm taking one 'design project' course with 10 of my "classmates" in the program and 5 or 6 other guys apparently in the same program, but at a different campus. They're the entire program and it was easier on the schedule to make them come to us instead of hiring another instructor. As long as they have the commute --fine.

On our first day, we split into small groups to come up with a semester-long project. We'd voice our ideas and then relay them to everyone before voting "Survivor-style" until we had one project remaining.

They picked mine.

No, I hadn't thought it through or anything, it was just off the top of my head, so there's plenty of work to be done. Fortunately, I have 16 people working on it with me.

In the second class, we sat down and met off-and-on for 4 hours to expand on the project and split it into sections so that all 17 of us have something to do. That's when they decided since I'd come up with the original idea, then I'd be the one to make the decisions.

And at that point the instructor said I was to take over the class for the day. So, for a few hours, I was in charge of every little bit --basically meaning I wasn't getting any work done as 16 people had questions as to how they were going to do their part of this project. Not much of a problem. We're all working collectively and I'm there to give direction.

But more than one person noted that I had presence in that room the moment I wanted it.

You know, I really wonder why some people see that in me and others don't. I'm not trying to sound egotistical, because I've been told for years that I have skills pertaining to leadership (I was even elected to lead office in my youth group 4 times which was never done before --or since) In university, I was told by classmates and a couple profs that I was good standing at the front of the room. More than one classmate thought for sure I'd be a teacher some day.

But all I think about is where I last worked and they way I was treated there. When I thought I could 'help' I was shot down. I can recall quite clearly the attitude of one guy when I suggested he make a slight change on the website to reflect software necessary to view some parts of it. I got chided for suggesting such a thing as it had already been implemented.

Bull. He did it right after I suggested it.

I had that a lot where I'd suggest something, get a reprimand for interfering, and then they'd do it anyway.

That sucked. But, I am for the most part over it. I'm not there anymore and never have to deal with them anymore.

Too bad my wife's insisting on working there all the time now.

One Week

Fine, it's been a week since I last posted but the illness did me in during my first week back at school. My "break" seemed to be over in a blink and suddenly I'm back at it.

Apologies for the rambling thoughts below...

The workload for the second quarter of my program is definitely lighter. I've had 2 hours' homework from the first week. Last quarter, after the first week, I had 20+ hours... I also managed (yay!) to condense my schedule into 3 days a week instead of 4 or more. I had 3 half-days and one full day. I now have 2 full days and one half day (can't be avoided). Basically, it means one more day at home to work on eBay stuff (yay?) and even more important: 120km (80 miles for my American friends) are now knocked OFF my weekly commute. Between stop-start traffic and the distance, that's the equivalent of half a tank of gas too!

I applied for work at school too. I scheduled a sit-down with the employment advisor to see my option for finding work around my school schedule and she misunderstood me to mean "finding work AROUND THE SCHOOL." No matter, there's 2 jobs available that I'd be happy to do on the days I'm there already for class. It would be great if everything worked out. More money = always good!

One of my classes is 'Life Drawing' which basically means staring at a naked body for 3-4 hours. And, yeah, we had a guy on the first day. Not really an issue (the benefits of being "mature") until I saw him one moment in shorts and grabbed my supplies to draw and looked up to see.... well, you know. The instructor did ask where my training in life drawing had been before (thinking maybe I'd gone to an art school beforehand like one of my classmates) and I admitted I'd never had any formal training (no training at all actually) in life drawing. These teachers are very skilled at stroking the ego, that's for sure!!

I just finished posting a message on another list and it stirred up quite a few memories from senior high. Kinda strange, because it's been nearly 15 years since I graduated from high shool and some of my friends I haven't thought if in... nearly 15 years!!

It's July 11 and we've had more than the average July rainfall already. It's looking like a sucky July to be sure. It's sunny at the moment, but a closer look also shows the light rain falling at the same time. Crap. Wrote "sunny" and now it's disappeared behind more rainclouds.... It's the mix of sun and rain that makes the veggies in our garden either die or -like our celery and rhubarb- grow to over six feet in height.

There's a rabbit eating the taller grass in our front lawn. He's definitely wild... he's got that look in his eyes.

STILL playing the addicting online game. My skills haven't improved much, but there's definite progress everytime I play. I'd be playing right now, but I'm watching my darling children instead. So, instead, while I'm "watching" them (they're transfixed with cartoons at the moment) I'm researching different aspects of the game and... writing about really useless stuff.

Yay me.

OK, I've run out of useless things to talk about.

Terrorist Threats

REALLY not feeling great today (too much sun yesterday? Ah, the irony), but I had to type this 'cuz I have to get it out of my system.

I finally figured out how to get Osama Bin Laden out of hiding.

I'm going to send him my son.

Osama won't last the day with the little terrorist.

I have to go. He's screaming again.

My son, not Osama....