Christmas Time
Christmas time is here again.
And home again am I.
The lumpiness of my hometown
Is as a mighty sigh.
Hills add texture to the land.
Compared, Ottawa is two demensions
Back home I walk all day long
With no fear or apprehensions.
In the distance is Signal Hill.
A beacon for downtown.
It’s seen from anywhere you stand
Unless the fog comes down.
The fog it made our flight a fright
We landed here quite blind.
Only seconds stood between breakout
Until on hard earth ourselves we did find.
Rain and wind did greet us here.
We left the frozen snow.
It’s nice to find the green green land.
Back there I won’t want to go.
TUESDAY…
--- Had one of those nights when I dream about not being able to sleep. So I have no idea how much sleep I actually got last night… but make it through the day at work alright either way.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Work is a fairly ordinary yet long event.
--- Some evening TV. Up until 3ish.
THURSDAY…
--- Up at 11:00. Last full night’s sleep in a while I think.
--- Work through the night then home for a shower….
FRIDAY…
--- After shower, it’s back to work to meet Paula and Eddie and hit the airport. Fly home… my eyes close as much as remain open but sleep is flighting. In by 4:00 NF time and have been up more than 24 hours.
--- By 8:30, I’m pretty much done. Gone to bed after 28 hours straight up… and 31 of 32 hours.
SATURDAY…
--- Merry Christmas.
--- I do way to well on the gift front, considering I’m typing this on my main gift.
--- Rain and fog and wind means it’s Christmas indoors. Food, drink, food, and people. Wayne, Sylvia, Wince, Brenda, Christine, Rick and family, Marlene and her man… a fine day indeed. Only downside is my inability to figure out hooking mom and dad’s Playstation to their TV. I’m useless.
SUNDAY…
--- A quiet Boxing Day. Up late, brunch with the folks, a visit from cousin Peter and wife Kelly, supper is leftovers, and end the night with A Christmas Carol on DVD. Got the Playstation set up. I almost had it yesterday, just messed up what cable port to use on the TV and Peter figured it out. A second set of eyes can make all the difference.
MONDAY…
--- Lunch and Fred’s Records with Craig. The Ship is good food and good character, Fred’s is Fred’s.
--- Supper at Wayne and Sylvia’s and then a movie on Netflix with mom and dad.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #445
So Close Vancouver, So Close
I had a chance at Vancouver a few weeks ago. A job at the BC office that works in tandem with ours. And I didn’t apply for it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody did… but the surprise around the office is that I didn’t.
It’s been well known by most that I have a real fondness for BC. And even though I didn’t apply, I’d say I like Vancouver as a city better than Ottawa still. So it even surprised myself that, with work prepared to pay for the move, I decided to let the opportunity pass me by.
I guess Ottawa is becoming home after all.
Yes I hate the Ottawa winter. The older I get, the more snow means nothing to me… not in a positive light anyway. Sure, there’s the picturesque aspects of it. The quiet, snow covered, Christmas morning. The Winter Wonderland of a fresh coat of snow atop a forest of pine. But more and more, for me, it’s become an annoyance upon my car… and a trail of slushy dirt upon my boots at work.
And the Ottawa cold has never been something I’ve warmed to. St. John’s gets it’s share of snow… and the wet winds off the sea can chill you to the bone… but the -30s or worse that can be found in Ottawa leaves me considering vacation days, simply so I don’t need to venture out. So the idea of a Vancouver winter is appealing to me.
Another consideration for Vancouver, one I actually did think about, is the hockey factor. I find the Ottawa Senators to be one of the least likable hockey teams in the entire NHL. The organization just doesn’t get it. And I’ve said it before, and continue to stand by it… if the NHL was people, instead of hockey teams, the Ottawa Senators would be the annoying geek that tries to build himself up by creating tall tales… but everyone else knows it’s all a lie. The local crew that cover Senator games whine about referees who miss calls. Opposing goalies were lucky to have beaten the Sens… the Sen players played amazingly, despite the loss… and on and on. The idea of moving to a city with a hockey team to be proud of was appealing to say the least.
And the sea and mountains. I’ve always missed the sea in Ottawa. Rivers and lakes just don’t measure up to the smell of the ocean and the mystic that great creatures may be lurking beneath the surface. While the mountains bring me a similar feeling of wonder. To be able to gaze upon the folds of rock and rising forests. When I’m in a plane, I can look down upon the land, wondering about the world below. Being able to see cars move about, the lights of homes, and the layout of cities. Knowing that people are living regular lives below but not being able to see the finite details of those lives from 35,000 feet above. It leaves the imagination to run.
For me, the same holds true for mountains. Except, instead of being in a plane looking down upon the world, you’re on the ground looking up at the landscape towering above you, or across at the land on the other side of the valley. To be able to look at crevasses from a distance and wonder if there are nesting eagles sitting there. To be able to see a distant meadow just above the tree line, and to wonder if you watched it long enough, if you’d be able to see a bear wander out into the open space. I peer up towards the great mountain forests and wonder if the wondrous Sasquatch could be trudging through there. Hidden from view yet so close.
Yet when it came to deciding where to live my life, for now, Ottawa won out. Many factors played a role.
The roots of the place have begun to take hold. I don’t have a great number of Ottawa friends, but I do have a group now that fill my week. Be it those I play ball with… or those I meet for UFC or movie nights with. There are burger trips across town and lunch buddies at the office. And yes, I’m sure that friends would eventually be made in Vancouver, but the idea of starting fresh in that regard was not an appealing one.
There is also the comfort of knowing your way around a city. It’s taken a while to get that in Ottawa. Only in recent years have people been able to describe a place to me and have me figure out where they’re talking about. To finally feel that comfort and then start over in a new city… again this was not an appealing idea, despite me already knowing parts of Vancouver.
Closeness to home was another big factor. Knowing I can hop a plane to Newfoundland in under three hours. Knowing I now head back there two, sometimes three times a year. And knowing that my parents can make their way here two, sometimes three times a year… it’s nice knowing I’m that close to home.
And then there is my Ottawa home. A few years ago, I was trying to find a new place to call home in Ottawa. And I still don’t expect to stay in my Terrace Home for the rest of my days in this city. But it’s grown on me. Just the perfect size for my needs with the things I need nearby… and a small lake to walk around virtually at my doorstep. The idea of going to Vancouver and having half (or less) of what I have now was a major drawback.
So in Ottawa I stay, working with friends and about to venture home for my Christmas vacation. While praying that global warming, if it must occur, will at least rid me of those -30 degree days in the dead of Ottawa winter.
MONDAY...
--- day shift. It's cold and the car is half full of ice before I can head to work. Work is fine with a nice lunch with Annick and Shannon.
TUESDAY...
--- messy day. Lots of snow makes the drive in not so nice.
--- downtown after work to get the computers synced. Groceries after that, I'm not home and settled until about 8:30.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Back downtown today as the computers are ready. Play around about after that and then get ready for night shift at work. Thai food makes it good.
THURSDAY…
--- Work is slow tonight. And not much going on beforehand.
FRIDAY…
--- Up around noon… some computer organizing until the dentist… to Shannon’s after that for burgers at Dick’s… a bit of TV once I get home.
SATURDAY…
--- Around the house… talk to sis on the phone, hockey and some movies and TV shows… computer time. Spaghetti makes for a fine Saturday supper.
SUNDAY…
--- Win our last game of the fall ball season. So we are the “B” Champions. Get t-shirts for the effort. A fine season under the dome.
--- Final of Survivor tonight is accompanied by pizza. Good stuff.
I had a chance at Vancouver a few weeks ago. A job at the BC office that works in tandem with ours. And I didn’t apply for it. To the best of my knowledge, nobody did… but the surprise around the office is that I didn’t.
It’s been well known by most that I have a real fondness for BC. And even though I didn’t apply, I’d say I like Vancouver as a city better than Ottawa still. So it even surprised myself that, with work prepared to pay for the move, I decided to let the opportunity pass me by.
I guess Ottawa is becoming home after all.
Yes I hate the Ottawa winter. The older I get, the more snow means nothing to me… not in a positive light anyway. Sure, there’s the picturesque aspects of it. The quiet, snow covered, Christmas morning. The Winter Wonderland of a fresh coat of snow atop a forest of pine. But more and more, for me, it’s become an annoyance upon my car… and a trail of slushy dirt upon my boots at work.
And the Ottawa cold has never been something I’ve warmed to. St. John’s gets it’s share of snow… and the wet winds off the sea can chill you to the bone… but the -30s or worse that can be found in Ottawa leaves me considering vacation days, simply so I don’t need to venture out. So the idea of a Vancouver winter is appealing to me.
Another consideration for Vancouver, one I actually did think about, is the hockey factor. I find the Ottawa Senators to be one of the least likable hockey teams in the entire NHL. The organization just doesn’t get it. And I’ve said it before, and continue to stand by it… if the NHL was people, instead of hockey teams, the Ottawa Senators would be the annoying geek that tries to build himself up by creating tall tales… but everyone else knows it’s all a lie. The local crew that cover Senator games whine about referees who miss calls. Opposing goalies were lucky to have beaten the Sens… the Sen players played amazingly, despite the loss… and on and on. The idea of moving to a city with a hockey team to be proud of was appealing to say the least.
And the sea and mountains. I’ve always missed the sea in Ottawa. Rivers and lakes just don’t measure up to the smell of the ocean and the mystic that great creatures may be lurking beneath the surface. While the mountains bring me a similar feeling of wonder. To be able to gaze upon the folds of rock and rising forests. When I’m in a plane, I can look down upon the land, wondering about the world below. Being able to see cars move about, the lights of homes, and the layout of cities. Knowing that people are living regular lives below but not being able to see the finite details of those lives from 35,000 feet above. It leaves the imagination to run.
For me, the same holds true for mountains. Except, instead of being in a plane looking down upon the world, you’re on the ground looking up at the landscape towering above you, or across at the land on the other side of the valley. To be able to look at crevasses from a distance and wonder if there are nesting eagles sitting there. To be able to see a distant meadow just above the tree line, and to wonder if you watched it long enough, if you’d be able to see a bear wander out into the open space. I peer up towards the great mountain forests and wonder if the wondrous Sasquatch could be trudging through there. Hidden from view yet so close.
Yet when it came to deciding where to live my life, for now, Ottawa won out. Many factors played a role.
The roots of the place have begun to take hold. I don’t have a great number of Ottawa friends, but I do have a group now that fill my week. Be it those I play ball with… or those I meet for UFC or movie nights with. There are burger trips across town and lunch buddies at the office. And yes, I’m sure that friends would eventually be made in Vancouver, but the idea of starting fresh in that regard was not an appealing one.
There is also the comfort of knowing your way around a city. It’s taken a while to get that in Ottawa. Only in recent years have people been able to describe a place to me and have me figure out where they’re talking about. To finally feel that comfort and then start over in a new city… again this was not an appealing idea, despite me already knowing parts of Vancouver.
Closeness to home was another big factor. Knowing I can hop a plane to Newfoundland in under three hours. Knowing I now head back there two, sometimes three times a year. And knowing that my parents can make their way here two, sometimes three times a year… it’s nice knowing I’m that close to home.
And then there is my Ottawa home. A few years ago, I was trying to find a new place to call home in Ottawa. And I still don’t expect to stay in my Terrace Home for the rest of my days in this city. But it’s grown on me. Just the perfect size for my needs with the things I need nearby… and a small lake to walk around virtually at my doorstep. The idea of going to Vancouver and having half (or less) of what I have now was a major drawback.
So in Ottawa I stay, working with friends and about to venture home for my Christmas vacation. While praying that global warming, if it must occur, will at least rid me of those -30 degree days in the dead of Ottawa winter.
MONDAY...
--- day shift. It's cold and the car is half full of ice before I can head to work. Work is fine with a nice lunch with Annick and Shannon.
TUESDAY...
--- messy day. Lots of snow makes the drive in not so nice.
--- downtown after work to get the computers synced. Groceries after that, I'm not home and settled until about 8:30.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Back downtown today as the computers are ready. Play around about after that and then get ready for night shift at work. Thai food makes it good.
THURSDAY…
--- Work is slow tonight. And not much going on beforehand.
FRIDAY…
--- Up around noon… some computer organizing until the dentist… to Shannon’s after that for burgers at Dick’s… a bit of TV once I get home.
SATURDAY…
--- Around the house… talk to sis on the phone, hockey and some movies and TV shows… computer time. Spaghetti makes for a fine Saturday supper.
SUNDAY…
--- Win our last game of the fall ball season. So we are the “B” Champions. Get t-shirts for the effort. A fine season under the dome.
--- Final of Survivor tonight is accompanied by pizza. Good stuff.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #444
Dinkie Mountain
Dinkie Mountain lays there still
A land of rock smaller than a hill
In among the back yard grass
There I played in days gone past.
My Grandmother’s house standing there
I’d crouch in the grass, the wind gusting my hair
The rocky folds as driving lanes
I’d stay for hours, until the rains.
Beyond the mountain lay meadows for sheep
I’d dream about them in my sleep
And further still a water pump
Yet my interest lay with this rocky lump.
My grandmother stood near indoors making bread
Yet I could barely be made to lift my head
Cars, trucks and a double decker bus
The first one in Joe Batt’s, but here without fuss.
And now in real car I drive
Imagining the rock, not seeing it live
Perhaps the grass has grown it over
Invisible rock, shrouded in clover.
But I know it’s there upon the land
I remember it’s rough beneath my hand
Just as I remember the bread baking kitchen beyond
With memories of my grandmother so clear and fond.
Sunday...
--- stay home from work due to lack of sleep. I sleep from 11 Sat night to midnight. Up from midnight to 3:30. Would have been work with 2 hours sleep.
--- ball team is crushed. We're tight now.
Monday...
--- slept better last night but not great. Up all but twenty minutes of the 2:30 to 4:30 time frame.
--- lunch with Shannon and Annick.
--- downtown after work to bring computers in for file transfer. Can't do it due to external drive. Home with nothing done.
--- lots of time thinking of the Vancouver job. To apply to go? Or stay? A tougher decision than I'd guess.
TUESDAY...
--- sleep better, some TV and afternoon nap before night shift at work. Pretty quiet night.
--- make my decision... I won't apply for the Vancouver AFIS job. Starting to feel like Ottawa is home, and starting over at this point, in a new city, seems like the wrong thing to do right now.
WEDNESDAY...
--- BC AFIS job deadline goes by without me. It's weird not to apply but I think, with all the factors to consider, I made the right decision. --- Louis' Pizza at work. Good stuff.
--- Cold night. -10 without the wind. Oh dear.
THURSDAY...
--- awaken to Karl's phone call. I'm late for lunch. Go eat with him and head home after for baseball vids. In the 2019 season, I win the World Series!
FRIDAY...
--- quiet day around the house. Movies, computer, hockey on the tube.
SATURDAY...
--- some movies, computer, then out in the evening with Sarah and Phil for UFC and food.
Dinkie Mountain lays there still
A land of rock smaller than a hill
In among the back yard grass
There I played in days gone past.
My Grandmother’s house standing there
I’d crouch in the grass, the wind gusting my hair
The rocky folds as driving lanes
I’d stay for hours, until the rains.
Beyond the mountain lay meadows for sheep
I’d dream about them in my sleep
And further still a water pump
Yet my interest lay with this rocky lump.
My grandmother stood near indoors making bread
Yet I could barely be made to lift my head
Cars, trucks and a double decker bus
The first one in Joe Batt’s, but here without fuss.
And now in real car I drive
Imagining the rock, not seeing it live
Perhaps the grass has grown it over
Invisible rock, shrouded in clover.
But I know it’s there upon the land
I remember it’s rough beneath my hand
Just as I remember the bread baking kitchen beyond
With memories of my grandmother so clear and fond.
Sunday...
--- stay home from work due to lack of sleep. I sleep from 11 Sat night to midnight. Up from midnight to 3:30. Would have been work with 2 hours sleep.
--- ball team is crushed. We're tight now.
Monday...
--- slept better last night but not great. Up all but twenty minutes of the 2:30 to 4:30 time frame.
--- lunch with Shannon and Annick.
--- downtown after work to bring computers in for file transfer. Can't do it due to external drive. Home with nothing done.
--- lots of time thinking of the Vancouver job. To apply to go? Or stay? A tougher decision than I'd guess.
TUESDAY...
--- sleep better, some TV and afternoon nap before night shift at work. Pretty quiet night.
--- make my decision... I won't apply for the Vancouver AFIS job. Starting to feel like Ottawa is home, and starting over at this point, in a new city, seems like the wrong thing to do right now.
WEDNESDAY...
--- BC AFIS job deadline goes by without me. It's weird not to apply but I think, with all the factors to consider, I made the right decision. --- Louis' Pizza at work. Good stuff.
--- Cold night. -10 without the wind. Oh dear.
THURSDAY...
--- awaken to Karl's phone call. I'm late for lunch. Go eat with him and head home after for baseball vids. In the 2019 season, I win the World Series!
FRIDAY...
--- quiet day around the house. Movies, computer, hockey on the tube.
SATURDAY...
--- some movies, computer, then out in the evening with Sarah and Phil for UFC and food.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #443
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Kentucky Fried Chicken. The low end cousin in the world of fast food chains.
McDonald’s is where the cool kids go get first summer jobs. Free Big Macs and Mcnuggets are spoken of with near reverence.
Burger King has those that don’t quite have the social chops to be seen as McDonald’s kids, but they’re in the game. They are the Beta to McDonald’s VHS back when both came about. Cool that you can watch a movie in the comfort of your own home... but... well... not quite there.
Wendy’s is the land of the down to earth teens. They aren’t all caught up in the image of the Big Mac. If I had a teen going to work the fast food chain, I’d hope they’d be at Wendy’s.
A & W is a step below. Let’s face it. The food is fine. Onion rings and root beer that can’t be beat. But the uniform worn by those behind the counter... just not cool.
And below all these fast food joints sit the employees of KFC. If Cleatus, the Slack Jawed Yokel, of Simpson’s fame, were to work a fast food joint... he’d be in the KFC kitchen. This is the last straw of employment for those low on the social list. Yes, there are always some exceptions. Perhaps you’re to be more respected as a manager at KFC than a cashier at Wendy’s. But by in large, KFC is not the place to be.
Greasy teens pedaling greasy chicken. I don’t know if the employees don’t bathe before work... or if it’s that if you spend eight hours in that kitchen, the atmosphere of the place is grease. The rest of the world has an atmosphere of oxygen... KFC kitchens have a grease/oxygen mix.
Still, there’s something about KFC that warms the heart... perhaps it’s the grease coursing through the veins... causing once fluid blood to coagulate... running the human body on a bloodish gravy. But there are KFC memories beyond those of other fast foods.
Where you unwrap and eat a burger in the front seat of the car, sitting there in a parking lot with a cup of fries held between your legs... KFC is a family meal. A summer outing in the park, or a Friday night treat after parents are home from work, and kids have a coming weekend without school.
Buckets are opened with aromas of chicken sifting through every corner of the house. A box of fries is opened on the kitchen counter, left open for the buffet line of family to help themselves... but the opener of the box can’t help but sneak one... as payment... for making ready the family meal.
Then there’s KFC coleslaw. Never a treat to me... neon green and tangy. But my mother would dive in... a little smile upon her face as she scoops out a few spoonfuls onto her plate.
In my own mind, there is a legendary time I think back to where I ate a dozen pieces of KFC chicken while still not into my teenage years. I distinctly remember our family lunch in Gander, where my belly just wouldn’t fill. I’d return to the bucket, scooping out another leg. By piece number six, I was sheepish about it. By number ten, I felt as though I was stealing... asking my father if I can have another and feeling as though I’ve gotten away with something when he allowed it. Surly he mustn’t know the quantity that’s past my lips... or he would put a stop to this madness. It’s the price parents pay, when they don’t pay attention to the quiet one.
In reality, I likely never ate those dozen pieces of chicken. Perhaps it was five... making me on par with a hungry adult for the first time in my young life. Or perhaps I did pick up and bring a dozen pieces to my lips... but ate only the spicy batter, leaving the chicken meat on the bone... there for my parents to pick through my “finished pieces”, having a meal from my left overs.
Either way, the memory of a dozen pieces eaten... so many years ago... remains with me.
Today, I’m more careful about the grease levels within my bloodstream. Kentucky Fried memories bring me back for the occasional meal still... but two, maybe three, per year is all I allow.
Last weekend was one of those times. Grey Cup football brings on the KFC tradition. And so it was last Sunday, coming home from softball, making a pit stop at the local outlet.
The couple of men in front of me at the line felt themselves as stars. At least one of them did. We were all left waiting for a new batch of chicken to cook up, so there was time to overhear the commentary of stranger’s lives. At the counter, the fatter of the two men came straight out and told the clerk that they’re on TV. “Do you recognize us? We’re on Canada’s Worst Driver”.
Shot down by a KFC employee... remember, those at KFC are the lowest end of fast food society, “Oh, no... I don’t watch that show.”
Chubs goes on about the show... hoping to impress his celebrity upon the youth. He thumbs towards his companion. “He’s the driver on the show. He’s an awful driver... the worst!”
His friend, seemingly not thrilled about this conversation, pipes up... “But I’m the one who drove us here!”
Unfazed, the fat man continues. “Hey, we’re going to a staff party after this, when do you get off work? Wanna come?”
Such offers seem strange... and a touch creepy. Is this chubby man trying to pick up the teenage boy, here while ordering supper? The employee chuckles and gives a dismissive “I don’t think so.”
After our wait, I finally get home with my meal. Pulling containers out from the paper bag and filling my kitchen counter with them... the scent of chicken, slowly penetrating my house.
No longer in the bucket... I pull the chicken out of a box much like, only a little larger, than the French fry box. I actually wish it was still in the big round bucket. It’s meant to be there. Not in a fry box.
After digging into three pieces, some fries, potato salad, and maccaroni salad (no need of coleslaw with mom not here) I head back to the kitchen to put away the left overs. Once done, a great splotch of grease glistens upon my counter where the chicken and fry box used to be. It takes several goes with a wet dish rag to remove the evidence of what took place here. I’m as a criminal, cleaning a murder scene.
But despite the grease, and wait in line at the restaurant... and gravy blood. It was an enjoyable reminder of days gone by. Gnawing at chicken bones, licking fingers of seven herbs and spices, and thinking back to pre-teen feats of eating... as modern day football played before me.
SATURDAY...
— Up early for work. The sound of the scraper on the windshield echoed through the neighbourhood at 5:15 in the morning.
— Bit of a sore neck by the end of work... some heat on the neck and hockey on TV to end the day.
SUNDAY...
— Work is alright... ball after that. Lose our first of the fall league but still win the regular season title. Doesn’t mean much but nice all the same. Still, we’re pretty sloppy in the field as a team, and I boot a few that really shouldn’t be booted. Oh well, get it out of the way now... playoffs begin.
— KFC after ball. This means it’s Grey Cup time. My only time for KFC. The chicken’s a bit greasier than last year... but tradition is tradition.
MONDAY...
— Made a big trade in the hockey pool. Within the trade, I get rid of two Habs, including Price, and take back a Senator. Such actions makes me feel dirty. But the overall should make it a good trade... I hope.
— Work is tedious... part of the night. But then ok for the rest. Checking into a job possibility. Could I be on the move again? Hmm.
TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY...
— Work Tuesday night. Goes oddly as systems and computers are mucked up. Oddly, my computer is the only one in the section working fairly normally.
— Tonnes of rain through Tuesday night to Wednesday night.
THURSDAY...
— Go downtown and get a new computer today. Some may be willing to kill me... but I now own a Mac. Did lots of reading on it all and have been saving money pretty good for a while now... and with part of it being an early Christmas gift from the parents... it seems like a reasonable time to give Mac a go. Probably won’t have it fully up, with all my files from the old laptop until the middle of next week. But it’s looking good so far. Also got a new wireless router. The old one is just too old.
FRIDAY...
— Set up a new wireless network. Got rid of the old router and the new one has things running smooth and steady. No dropped signals. Some video games... groceries... and a trip to Staples for a chord for the printer.
Kentucky Fried Chicken. The low end cousin in the world of fast food chains.
McDonald’s is where the cool kids go get first summer jobs. Free Big Macs and Mcnuggets are spoken of with near reverence.
Burger King has those that don’t quite have the social chops to be seen as McDonald’s kids, but they’re in the game. They are the Beta to McDonald’s VHS back when both came about. Cool that you can watch a movie in the comfort of your own home... but... well... not quite there.
Wendy’s is the land of the down to earth teens. They aren’t all caught up in the image of the Big Mac. If I had a teen going to work the fast food chain, I’d hope they’d be at Wendy’s.
A & W is a step below. Let’s face it. The food is fine. Onion rings and root beer that can’t be beat. But the uniform worn by those behind the counter... just not cool.
And below all these fast food joints sit the employees of KFC. If Cleatus, the Slack Jawed Yokel, of Simpson’s fame, were to work a fast food joint... he’d be in the KFC kitchen. This is the last straw of employment for those low on the social list. Yes, there are always some exceptions. Perhaps you’re to be more respected as a manager at KFC than a cashier at Wendy’s. But by in large, KFC is not the place to be.
Greasy teens pedaling greasy chicken. I don’t know if the employees don’t bathe before work... or if it’s that if you spend eight hours in that kitchen, the atmosphere of the place is grease. The rest of the world has an atmosphere of oxygen... KFC kitchens have a grease/oxygen mix.
Still, there’s something about KFC that warms the heart... perhaps it’s the grease coursing through the veins... causing once fluid blood to coagulate... running the human body on a bloodish gravy. But there are KFC memories beyond those of other fast foods.
Where you unwrap and eat a burger in the front seat of the car, sitting there in a parking lot with a cup of fries held between your legs... KFC is a family meal. A summer outing in the park, or a Friday night treat after parents are home from work, and kids have a coming weekend without school.
Buckets are opened with aromas of chicken sifting through every corner of the house. A box of fries is opened on the kitchen counter, left open for the buffet line of family to help themselves... but the opener of the box can’t help but sneak one... as payment... for making ready the family meal.
Then there’s KFC coleslaw. Never a treat to me... neon green and tangy. But my mother would dive in... a little smile upon her face as she scoops out a few spoonfuls onto her plate.
In my own mind, there is a legendary time I think back to where I ate a dozen pieces of KFC chicken while still not into my teenage years. I distinctly remember our family lunch in Gander, where my belly just wouldn’t fill. I’d return to the bucket, scooping out another leg. By piece number six, I was sheepish about it. By number ten, I felt as though I was stealing... asking my father if I can have another and feeling as though I’ve gotten away with something when he allowed it. Surly he mustn’t know the quantity that’s past my lips... or he would put a stop to this madness. It’s the price parents pay, when they don’t pay attention to the quiet one.
In reality, I likely never ate those dozen pieces of chicken. Perhaps it was five... making me on par with a hungry adult for the first time in my young life. Or perhaps I did pick up and bring a dozen pieces to my lips... but ate only the spicy batter, leaving the chicken meat on the bone... there for my parents to pick through my “finished pieces”, having a meal from my left overs.
Either way, the memory of a dozen pieces eaten... so many years ago... remains with me.
Today, I’m more careful about the grease levels within my bloodstream. Kentucky Fried memories bring me back for the occasional meal still... but two, maybe three, per year is all I allow.
Last weekend was one of those times. Grey Cup football brings on the KFC tradition. And so it was last Sunday, coming home from softball, making a pit stop at the local outlet.
The couple of men in front of me at the line felt themselves as stars. At least one of them did. We were all left waiting for a new batch of chicken to cook up, so there was time to overhear the commentary of stranger’s lives. At the counter, the fatter of the two men came straight out and told the clerk that they’re on TV. “Do you recognize us? We’re on Canada’s Worst Driver”.
Shot down by a KFC employee... remember, those at KFC are the lowest end of fast food society, “Oh, no... I don’t watch that show.”
Chubs goes on about the show... hoping to impress his celebrity upon the youth. He thumbs towards his companion. “He’s the driver on the show. He’s an awful driver... the worst!”
His friend, seemingly not thrilled about this conversation, pipes up... “But I’m the one who drove us here!”
Unfazed, the fat man continues. “Hey, we’re going to a staff party after this, when do you get off work? Wanna come?”
Such offers seem strange... and a touch creepy. Is this chubby man trying to pick up the teenage boy, here while ordering supper? The employee chuckles and gives a dismissive “I don’t think so.”
After our wait, I finally get home with my meal. Pulling containers out from the paper bag and filling my kitchen counter with them... the scent of chicken, slowly penetrating my house.
No longer in the bucket... I pull the chicken out of a box much like, only a little larger, than the French fry box. I actually wish it was still in the big round bucket. It’s meant to be there. Not in a fry box.
After digging into three pieces, some fries, potato salad, and maccaroni salad (no need of coleslaw with mom not here) I head back to the kitchen to put away the left overs. Once done, a great splotch of grease glistens upon my counter where the chicken and fry box used to be. It takes several goes with a wet dish rag to remove the evidence of what took place here. I’m as a criminal, cleaning a murder scene.
But despite the grease, and wait in line at the restaurant... and gravy blood. It was an enjoyable reminder of days gone by. Gnawing at chicken bones, licking fingers of seven herbs and spices, and thinking back to pre-teen feats of eating... as modern day football played before me.
SATURDAY...
— Up early for work. The sound of the scraper on the windshield echoed through the neighbourhood at 5:15 in the morning.
— Bit of a sore neck by the end of work... some heat on the neck and hockey on TV to end the day.
SUNDAY...
— Work is alright... ball after that. Lose our first of the fall league but still win the regular season title. Doesn’t mean much but nice all the same. Still, we’re pretty sloppy in the field as a team, and I boot a few that really shouldn’t be booted. Oh well, get it out of the way now... playoffs begin.
— KFC after ball. This means it’s Grey Cup time. My only time for KFC. The chicken’s a bit greasier than last year... but tradition is tradition.
MONDAY...
— Made a big trade in the hockey pool. Within the trade, I get rid of two Habs, including Price, and take back a Senator. Such actions makes me feel dirty. But the overall should make it a good trade... I hope.
— Work is tedious... part of the night. But then ok for the rest. Checking into a job possibility. Could I be on the move again? Hmm.
TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY...
— Work Tuesday night. Goes oddly as systems and computers are mucked up. Oddly, my computer is the only one in the section working fairly normally.
— Tonnes of rain through Tuesday night to Wednesday night.
THURSDAY...
— Go downtown and get a new computer today. Some may be willing to kill me... but I now own a Mac. Did lots of reading on it all and have been saving money pretty good for a while now... and with part of it being an early Christmas gift from the parents... it seems like a reasonable time to give Mac a go. Probably won’t have it fully up, with all my files from the old laptop until the middle of next week. But it’s looking good so far. Also got a new wireless router. The old one is just too old.
FRIDAY...
— Set up a new wireless network. Got rid of the old router and the new one has things running smooth and steady. No dropped signals. Some video games... groceries... and a trip to Staples for a chord for the printer.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #442
In the News
You know when society is crazed with material goods when Canadian newscasters biggest story is of America’s biggest shopping day of the year... the infamous... Black Friday.
We see a woman on the TV... dressed up in fancy coat, with a purse under her arm... she talks about being out, lined up in the middle of the night, so she can be there for sales. She’s looking for... more fancy coats... more purses. And shoes, of course shoes.
And funny enough, none of the people you see on TV make any mention of buying Christmas presents on Black Friday. This is all Me Shopping. And all rationality is lost.
One woman is talked to in Mississauga. She sits on a bus, awaiting the ride to Buffalo. Daylight is hours away and the reporter asks her what she’s going to Buffalo to try to buy.
“An HD TV” she responds... and then the glint fades from her eyes as she follows that up with “But I probably won’t be able to come back to Canada with it.”
The woman realizes the duty that she’d be charged, getting a large TV on a day trip to the States. Yet she’s going anyway. She knows well enough that the goal can’t be met, yet is so caught up in the frenzy that she must go anyway... she must try. My thought... Canada would be a smarter nation if that bus leaves Buffalo minus one TV shopper. Plus she’d be happy... no worry of paying the duty if she never comes back.
Also recently in the news, Danny Williams and his leaving Newfoundland politics.
People on the mainland have very little understanding of Williams. Even smart people who follow politics don’t get it. Case in point, Peter Mansbridge... CBC’s biggest news man... seriously asked the question of the At Issue political panel... “Is Newfoundland better off with or without Danny Williams?” And the panel seemed to consider both sides of the matter.
Even if you don’t believe in Danny Williams, witnessing what has happened to Newfoundland in the last ten years should be enough to know, without any thought, Newfoundland has been a better place with him.
Yet one of the panelists somewhat smugly states that Newfoundland’s fortunes have changed, not because of Danny Williams, but because of the price of oil and nickel on the world market.
This argument completely ignores several things. It ignores history for one. When Newfoundland, thanks to poor leadership, gave away billions of dollars in revenue to Quebec. The Churchill Falls blunder continues to haunt the province generations after the fact. The rising price of oil is meaningless if you don’t have a leader in place who’s ready to look out for the best deal in processing it.
And they also question the idea that Danny Williams was able to raise the self esteem of Newfoundlanders. The panel’s argument being “Haven’t Newfoundlanders always had a good self esteem?” Even Rex Murphy... a Newfoundlander... misses the point. He speaks of the individual self esteem being fine, but collectively, Newfoundland has had issues in this matter.
The collective lack of self esteem may be true. It could be argued so. But the point that was missed by all is that what Williams has done is less about the people of Newfoundland... and more about everybody else in Canada. His goal wasn’t so much to raise our self esteem but to tell those ignorant to Newfoundland that they’ve got it all wrong.
The general attitude of much of Canada... especially in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta... is that Newfoundland is a land of unsophisticated hicks. I’ve seen this attitude first hand... even from friends who don’t seem to know that they’re being prejudice. Newfie jokes still fill e-mail in boxes. Many of these jokes taking the form of funny pictures of the aftermath of stupid people. If a car was driven off a cliff and was stuck in a tree, the caption would be “Newfie do-it-yourself hydraulic lift”. The picture could be of a car in a tree in California... but it’ll still be tagged “Newfie”. I’ve heard people joke about Newfoundland drinking and obesity with the never clever “What else would you do there but eat or drink?”
Many Canadians believe that Newfoundlanders are mostly unemployed and looking for a handout and Danny Williams has been fighting to end this type of idea. The benefit to Newfoundlander self esteem is more of a bi-product. If you make ignorant people see that you are not a lesser person... and they stop treating you as lesser... well of course you’d feel better about yourself.
The At Issue panel sees Danny Williams as a man who has looked for fights. They don’t see that maybe he was looking to fight that which needed to be fought.
FRIDAY...
— Work. Goes okay. Alone at lunch as I draw the short straw as far as going to a retirement luncheon. Someone must stay behind... it’s me. Some snacks and TV after I get home.
SATURDAY...
— Fairly quiet day at work. I talk some with Tucson Arizona... that’s the biggest thing.
— You know (a) that the pope is out of touch with reality, and (b) that people are desperate to cling to any fact from the pope as a positive. Today, the pope decides it’s okay to use a condom as long as you’re a male prostitute who is looking to stop the spread of HIV. Anyone else... you’re a sinner. With retarded thinking like this, how long will it take for the world to wake up and ignore the pope?
SUNDAY...
— Some TV and naps until ball. We win again... 6-0-1 now... and I’m starting to hit again, finally.
— Work is pretty quiet. With freezing rain outside making the Monday morning drive home a touch iffy.
MONDAY/TUESDAY...
— Work Monday night is alright. Once I get home though, I find my smoke alarm beeping every 30 seconds. Not ideal for sleep. I check online (tired) and find this means the alarm needs to be replaced. The Carbon Monoxide/fire alarms give out after seven years. So I disconnect and get to bed.
— Up before noon. So not a lot of sleep. Some TV... and go get a new alarm... then an evening of video games. Baseball followed by hockey. The thumb feels it by the end... too marathon on the controller.
WEDNESDAY...
— Some TV, some groceries, some sleep. Endured the two hours, forty-five minutes that is the movie Bridge on the River Kwai. Some of it is dated now... I’d rather the officers of my military unit take part in the work of a prison camp... I wouldn’t be admiring them holding out and strong arming the Japanese so they don’t get their hands dirty. But I understand the feeling of that notion. And the movie has several amazing scenes of cinematography. Plus now with that, and Lawrence of Arabia, I can better understand why Alec Guinness wasn’t totally thrilled with being primarily known as Obi Wan Kenobi.
THURSDAY...
— Video games and a little TV. Danny Williams is leaving political life. Too bad for Newfoundland... he’s the best they had.
You know when society is crazed with material goods when Canadian newscasters biggest story is of America’s biggest shopping day of the year... the infamous... Black Friday.
We see a woman on the TV... dressed up in fancy coat, with a purse under her arm... she talks about being out, lined up in the middle of the night, so she can be there for sales. She’s looking for... more fancy coats... more purses. And shoes, of course shoes.
And funny enough, none of the people you see on TV make any mention of buying Christmas presents on Black Friday. This is all Me Shopping. And all rationality is lost.
One woman is talked to in Mississauga. She sits on a bus, awaiting the ride to Buffalo. Daylight is hours away and the reporter asks her what she’s going to Buffalo to try to buy.
“An HD TV” she responds... and then the glint fades from her eyes as she follows that up with “But I probably won’t be able to come back to Canada with it.”
The woman realizes the duty that she’d be charged, getting a large TV on a day trip to the States. Yet she’s going anyway. She knows well enough that the goal can’t be met, yet is so caught up in the frenzy that she must go anyway... she must try. My thought... Canada would be a smarter nation if that bus leaves Buffalo minus one TV shopper. Plus she’d be happy... no worry of paying the duty if she never comes back.
Also recently in the news, Danny Williams and his leaving Newfoundland politics.
People on the mainland have very little understanding of Williams. Even smart people who follow politics don’t get it. Case in point, Peter Mansbridge... CBC’s biggest news man... seriously asked the question of the At Issue political panel... “Is Newfoundland better off with or without Danny Williams?” And the panel seemed to consider both sides of the matter.
Even if you don’t believe in Danny Williams, witnessing what has happened to Newfoundland in the last ten years should be enough to know, without any thought, Newfoundland has been a better place with him.
Yet one of the panelists somewhat smugly states that Newfoundland’s fortunes have changed, not because of Danny Williams, but because of the price of oil and nickel on the world market.
This argument completely ignores several things. It ignores history for one. When Newfoundland, thanks to poor leadership, gave away billions of dollars in revenue to Quebec. The Churchill Falls blunder continues to haunt the province generations after the fact. The rising price of oil is meaningless if you don’t have a leader in place who’s ready to look out for the best deal in processing it.
And they also question the idea that Danny Williams was able to raise the self esteem of Newfoundlanders. The panel’s argument being “Haven’t Newfoundlanders always had a good self esteem?” Even Rex Murphy... a Newfoundlander... misses the point. He speaks of the individual self esteem being fine, but collectively, Newfoundland has had issues in this matter.
The collective lack of self esteem may be true. It could be argued so. But the point that was missed by all is that what Williams has done is less about the people of Newfoundland... and more about everybody else in Canada. His goal wasn’t so much to raise our self esteem but to tell those ignorant to Newfoundland that they’ve got it all wrong.
The general attitude of much of Canada... especially in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta... is that Newfoundland is a land of unsophisticated hicks. I’ve seen this attitude first hand... even from friends who don’t seem to know that they’re being prejudice. Newfie jokes still fill e-mail in boxes. Many of these jokes taking the form of funny pictures of the aftermath of stupid people. If a car was driven off a cliff and was stuck in a tree, the caption would be “Newfie do-it-yourself hydraulic lift”. The picture could be of a car in a tree in California... but it’ll still be tagged “Newfie”. I’ve heard people joke about Newfoundland drinking and obesity with the never clever “What else would you do there but eat or drink?”
Many Canadians believe that Newfoundlanders are mostly unemployed and looking for a handout and Danny Williams has been fighting to end this type of idea. The benefit to Newfoundlander self esteem is more of a bi-product. If you make ignorant people see that you are not a lesser person... and they stop treating you as lesser... well of course you’d feel better about yourself.
The At Issue panel sees Danny Williams as a man who has looked for fights. They don’t see that maybe he was looking to fight that which needed to be fought.
FRIDAY...
— Work. Goes okay. Alone at lunch as I draw the short straw as far as going to a retirement luncheon. Someone must stay behind... it’s me. Some snacks and TV after I get home.
SATURDAY...
— Fairly quiet day at work. I talk some with Tucson Arizona... that’s the biggest thing.
— You know (a) that the pope is out of touch with reality, and (b) that people are desperate to cling to any fact from the pope as a positive. Today, the pope decides it’s okay to use a condom as long as you’re a male prostitute who is looking to stop the spread of HIV. Anyone else... you’re a sinner. With retarded thinking like this, how long will it take for the world to wake up and ignore the pope?
SUNDAY...
— Some TV and naps until ball. We win again... 6-0-1 now... and I’m starting to hit again, finally.
— Work is pretty quiet. With freezing rain outside making the Monday morning drive home a touch iffy.
MONDAY/TUESDAY...
— Work Monday night is alright. Once I get home though, I find my smoke alarm beeping every 30 seconds. Not ideal for sleep. I check online (tired) and find this means the alarm needs to be replaced. The Carbon Monoxide/fire alarms give out after seven years. So I disconnect and get to bed.
— Up before noon. So not a lot of sleep. Some TV... and go get a new alarm... then an evening of video games. Baseball followed by hockey. The thumb feels it by the end... too marathon on the controller.
WEDNESDAY...
— Some TV, some groceries, some sleep. Endured the two hours, forty-five minutes that is the movie Bridge on the River Kwai. Some of it is dated now... I’d rather the officers of my military unit take part in the work of a prison camp... I wouldn’t be admiring them holding out and strong arming the Japanese so they don’t get their hands dirty. But I understand the feeling of that notion. And the movie has several amazing scenes of cinematography. Plus now with that, and Lawrence of Arabia, I can better understand why Alec Guinness wasn’t totally thrilled with being primarily known as Obi Wan Kenobi.
THURSDAY...
— Video games and a little TV. Danny Williams is leaving political life. Too bad for Newfoundland... he’s the best they had.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #441
The Curse of Connection
The more we are connected, the worst the connecting can be. Today I got a phone call. My cell phone erupting into song, proclaiming there to be someone searching for me. But when I answer, there is no wait for my “hello”. No “How are you today?” A robotic voice lets me know that I’m a valued customer at Costco, and I can press “1" to receive a free gift in appreciation of my patronage.
The problem with this call is, officially, I’m not a customer at Costco. I don’t have a Costco card. I’ve bought things there yes, but always under another’s card. Be it mom for half a year’s worth of toilet paper... or dad for a cheap DVD... or aunt Ruby for a load of groceries. As far as Costco is concerned, they’re the customers... not me.
My connectedness to the rest of the world allows much of that world to lie to me. Had I been a Costco customer... and had I been in a moment of weakness, perhaps I would have pressed “1". And who knows where that would have led.
I had a moment of such mentioned weakness recently. My doorbell rang... twice. With knocking in between. I head down to the door, ignoring the peep hole, expecting a frantic parent who’s child has just been hit by a car out front. Such a thing happened in the past... when I was a kid back home... and a frantic person came to my house with a child, just outside, being hit by a car.
My desire to be a good person cost me. As I open the door, it’s a man with a clipboard... wanting to make sure I don’t get screwed with my utilities... signing me up to lock in my prices with his company. He rushes through his spiel and I’m only recently up and preparing for work... I’m weak... and signed up.
Luckily, there is a positive in my connectedness. I’m able to call the company a few days later and tell them I want out of the deal. And out I am, nullifying the sale job of the door to door man. But even then, I have to endure their attempts at making me feel stupid. “Are you sure you want to pay 5 cents per kilowatt more?” “Yes,” I reply, “I’m happy doing it”.
80% of my e-mails are garbage. I remember the happiness of e-mails of years gone by. Checking your computer was like going to the mail box. E-mails were as letters... communication from someone far off.
Today such e-mails are as rare as the letters. Where my Superbox (for the mailbox next to my door is no longer visited by postal carriers, but instead hired carriers of flyers) is now full of menu’s and coupons I’ll never use... my e-mail inbox is full of sales pitches.
My cable company e-mails me a special offer if I’d let them take over my phone service too. My phone company e-mails me a pitch to take over my internet. Someone named Nicole has written me at 4:15 this morning, wishing me a “good evening”. And deals at TopMeds are only a click away.
Facebook used to be different. A place where friends of yours will give a little hint of what’s going on in their day. Now when I visit Facebook, I learn of when any of my friends are playing a game. Because I like Newfoundland, I get a link to an article I have no interest in reading. And even when my “friends” update their status, it’s often telling me to “Like” this... or “Repost” that.
Be it mail, e-mail, the telephone, Facebook, or even the front door... my world has become a sales pitch.
It makes me appreciate the days gone by. When something in the mailbox was often a letter or postcard... a friend or family member who thought of you from away... and wanted to say “hi”.
When a knock on the door came from a loved one who happened to be in the neighbourhood.
When a telephone call was from someone you knew, asking how you’re doing, with no hidden agenda of making a sale.
The world, as connected as we are, is now set up for two choices. You can either be skeptical of 90% of any contact. Expecting a ringing phone to be a telemarketer. Expecting offers from cable and phone companies to come with hidden clauses that will cause you to lose in the long run, as they take a bit more from you... bit by bit, month by month.
Or you can be trusting. Trust is supposed to be a good thing. A characteristic that others appreciate. I have friends that I am happy to say I trust. And I feel good knowing that they can trust me. But trust can break you in this world. Too much trust means you get taken. If you believe every caller is telling you the truth, and every piece of mail is steering you straight, chances are you’ll be even more bombarded by these people... and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars will vanish... all thanks to your trust.
Our daily lives are no more than a walk through a Turkish Bizarre. Where people on either side of you are yelling out, trying to catch your eye, hoping to get noticed... so they can lure you in, and sell you something you never had any intention of owning.
I’d love a day... just one day... when I could take the good of being connected. Of being in touch with people that mean something to me... of learning of their day... without the instruments of our connection trying to sell me something.
It would be a wonderful thing to feel trust and intrigue as I’m about to answer my phone. It’s a sad thing when we have to get our guard up when the telephone rings.
THURSDAY...
— Fairly quiet day at work. I’m alone for eight of the twelve hours as well. Hockey on TV after work.
FRIDAY...
— Computers down most of the day at work. Made for a long day as we were fairly workless for much of the time.
— To Shannon’s after work for burgers and some hanging out.
SATURDAY...
— Some TV around the house before work. Work the night alone. A pretty quiet night... goes pretty well.
SUNDAY...
— Leave work in the early morning to a skunk wandering the grounds around our building. Upon seeing me, it runs... towards me. Time to get to the car.
— Sleep is not long enough. Eyes pop open before noon and that may bite me later... as no nap this afternoon before work. Ball game instead.
MONDAY...
— Got real tired at work. By 3:30, I am on fumes. Straight home after and into bed but, even though tired, I’m up before noon. Groceries... catching up on the PVR’d TV... and a few cat naps through the day.
TUESDAY...
— Some movies, a walk around the pond (two laps). And video game baseball. A relaxing day.
WEDNESDAY...
— Some cleaning up around the house. Preparing to make my kitchen nook more useable. I clean out the spare room closet and the storage room... and by tossing several things, and repacking some boxes, I’m left with four empty boxes to deal with the clutter in the nook.
The more we are connected, the worst the connecting can be. Today I got a phone call. My cell phone erupting into song, proclaiming there to be someone searching for me. But when I answer, there is no wait for my “hello”. No “How are you today?” A robotic voice lets me know that I’m a valued customer at Costco, and I can press “1" to receive a free gift in appreciation of my patronage.
The problem with this call is, officially, I’m not a customer at Costco. I don’t have a Costco card. I’ve bought things there yes, but always under another’s card. Be it mom for half a year’s worth of toilet paper... or dad for a cheap DVD... or aunt Ruby for a load of groceries. As far as Costco is concerned, they’re the customers... not me.
My connectedness to the rest of the world allows much of that world to lie to me. Had I been a Costco customer... and had I been in a moment of weakness, perhaps I would have pressed “1". And who knows where that would have led.
I had a moment of such mentioned weakness recently. My doorbell rang... twice. With knocking in between. I head down to the door, ignoring the peep hole, expecting a frantic parent who’s child has just been hit by a car out front. Such a thing happened in the past... when I was a kid back home... and a frantic person came to my house with a child, just outside, being hit by a car.
My desire to be a good person cost me. As I open the door, it’s a man with a clipboard... wanting to make sure I don’t get screwed with my utilities... signing me up to lock in my prices with his company. He rushes through his spiel and I’m only recently up and preparing for work... I’m weak... and signed up.
Luckily, there is a positive in my connectedness. I’m able to call the company a few days later and tell them I want out of the deal. And out I am, nullifying the sale job of the door to door man. But even then, I have to endure their attempts at making me feel stupid. “Are you sure you want to pay 5 cents per kilowatt more?” “Yes,” I reply, “I’m happy doing it”.
80% of my e-mails are garbage. I remember the happiness of e-mails of years gone by. Checking your computer was like going to the mail box. E-mails were as letters... communication from someone far off.
Today such e-mails are as rare as the letters. Where my Superbox (for the mailbox next to my door is no longer visited by postal carriers, but instead hired carriers of flyers) is now full of menu’s and coupons I’ll never use... my e-mail inbox is full of sales pitches.
My cable company e-mails me a special offer if I’d let them take over my phone service too. My phone company e-mails me a pitch to take over my internet. Someone named Nicole has written me at 4:15 this morning, wishing me a “good evening”. And deals at TopMeds are only a click away.
Facebook used to be different. A place where friends of yours will give a little hint of what’s going on in their day. Now when I visit Facebook, I learn of when any of my friends are playing a game. Because I like Newfoundland, I get a link to an article I have no interest in reading. And even when my “friends” update their status, it’s often telling me to “Like” this... or “Repost” that.
Be it mail, e-mail, the telephone, Facebook, or even the front door... my world has become a sales pitch.
It makes me appreciate the days gone by. When something in the mailbox was often a letter or postcard... a friend or family member who thought of you from away... and wanted to say “hi”.
When a knock on the door came from a loved one who happened to be in the neighbourhood.
When a telephone call was from someone you knew, asking how you’re doing, with no hidden agenda of making a sale.
The world, as connected as we are, is now set up for two choices. You can either be skeptical of 90% of any contact. Expecting a ringing phone to be a telemarketer. Expecting offers from cable and phone companies to come with hidden clauses that will cause you to lose in the long run, as they take a bit more from you... bit by bit, month by month.
Or you can be trusting. Trust is supposed to be a good thing. A characteristic that others appreciate. I have friends that I am happy to say I trust. And I feel good knowing that they can trust me. But trust can break you in this world. Too much trust means you get taken. If you believe every caller is telling you the truth, and every piece of mail is steering you straight, chances are you’ll be even more bombarded by these people... and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars will vanish... all thanks to your trust.
Our daily lives are no more than a walk through a Turkish Bizarre. Where people on either side of you are yelling out, trying to catch your eye, hoping to get noticed... so they can lure you in, and sell you something you never had any intention of owning.
I’d love a day... just one day... when I could take the good of being connected. Of being in touch with people that mean something to me... of learning of their day... without the instruments of our connection trying to sell me something.
It would be a wonderful thing to feel trust and intrigue as I’m about to answer my phone. It’s a sad thing when we have to get our guard up when the telephone rings.
THURSDAY...
— Fairly quiet day at work. I’m alone for eight of the twelve hours as well. Hockey on TV after work.
FRIDAY...
— Computers down most of the day at work. Made for a long day as we were fairly workless for much of the time.
— To Shannon’s after work for burgers and some hanging out.
SATURDAY...
— Some TV around the house before work. Work the night alone. A pretty quiet night... goes pretty well.
SUNDAY...
— Leave work in the early morning to a skunk wandering the grounds around our building. Upon seeing me, it runs... towards me. Time to get to the car.
— Sleep is not long enough. Eyes pop open before noon and that may bite me later... as no nap this afternoon before work. Ball game instead.
MONDAY...
— Got real tired at work. By 3:30, I am on fumes. Straight home after and into bed but, even though tired, I’m up before noon. Groceries... catching up on the PVR’d TV... and a few cat naps through the day.
TUESDAY...
— Some movies, a walk around the pond (two laps). And video game baseball. A relaxing day.
WEDNESDAY...
— Some cleaning up around the house. Preparing to make my kitchen nook more useable. I clean out the spare room closet and the storage room... and by tossing several things, and repacking some boxes, I’m left with four empty boxes to deal with the clutter in the nook.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #440
Driving to Ball
God damn the mighty Greenbank
Running straight to where I go
Yet every hundred yards a yellow
Which makes the journey slow.
Hurry along the pathway
Until yellow turns to red
Bringing me to anger
The halting light shade of my head.
Others travel ‘long the Greenbank
They don’t seem to mind the wait
Yet I sit behind them fuming
This motion stuttering makes me late.
In the distance see the goal
It sits so very near
Though it seems utterly impossible
Will I ever make it there?
WEDNESDAY...
— Work is alright... not too busy.
— Booked for Christmas. Barring bad weather or plane trouble, I will be home Christmas Eve.
THURSDAY...
— Annoying afternoon for a bit. Sometimes I’m just not much of a people person... there are times I’d rather not be around many of them.
— Eddie and Paula booked on the same flight home as me for Christmas. Good times.
FRIDAY...
— Pick up pizza for the office on the way to work. Pretty easy going night at the office.
SATURDAY...
— Work is pretty quiet. And I gain some luck as Debbie comes in to relieve me an hour early. Nice times when the relief forget to roll their clocks back.
SUNDAY...
— Catch up on some lazy TV watching... then to ball. We win again and I have a tonne of balls hit at me at 3rd base. Probably am in on about half of the outs for the entire game. Fun stuff.
MONDAY...
— Lunch with Karl. A nice time out. Some TV and video games after I get back.
TUESDAY...
— Reading much of the afternoon. Some computer work and a movie on the TV get me through the rest of the day. Plus Montreal vs. Vancouver in French on TV.
God damn the mighty Greenbank
Running straight to where I go
Yet every hundred yards a yellow
Which makes the journey slow.
Hurry along the pathway
Until yellow turns to red
Bringing me to anger
The halting light shade of my head.
Others travel ‘long the Greenbank
They don’t seem to mind the wait
Yet I sit behind them fuming
This motion stuttering makes me late.
In the distance see the goal
It sits so very near
Though it seems utterly impossible
Will I ever make it there?
WEDNESDAY...
— Work is alright... not too busy.
— Booked for Christmas. Barring bad weather or plane trouble, I will be home Christmas Eve.
THURSDAY...
— Annoying afternoon for a bit. Sometimes I’m just not much of a people person... there are times I’d rather not be around many of them.
— Eddie and Paula booked on the same flight home as me for Christmas. Good times.
FRIDAY...
— Pick up pizza for the office on the way to work. Pretty easy going night at the office.
SATURDAY...
— Work is pretty quiet. And I gain some luck as Debbie comes in to relieve me an hour early. Nice times when the relief forget to roll their clocks back.
SUNDAY...
— Catch up on some lazy TV watching... then to ball. We win again and I have a tonne of balls hit at me at 3rd base. Probably am in on about half of the outs for the entire game. Fun stuff.
MONDAY...
— Lunch with Karl. A nice time out. Some TV and video games after I get back.
TUESDAY...
— Reading much of the afternoon. Some computer work and a movie on the TV get me through the rest of the day. Plus Montreal vs. Vancouver in French on TV.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #439
The First Snowfall
Drifting into the night
Shaved slivers of ice
So thin they flutter on the breeze
Melting instantly once touched by anything more than air.
The coming of winter
Unseen from inside
Only spotted around lights
As moths to the flame, each flake seen for a moment and then becomes a puddle
A night of culture
The family out for an event
Leaving with dance and song buzzing the mind
And walking out into the night, faces kissed with sloppy flakes of snow.
Walking through the park
A lit up castle in the background
As the softness of snow
quiets the city as father, mother, and son share the show’s memories.
Each year brings a first snowfall.
Most with grumbles
Many screeching cars into each other
Coldly slapping faces on gales.
This one is different.
Gently shared one still evening
As a family makes it’s way home
TUESDAY...
— Work. Day shift goes alright. Fairly busy but alright. Left over ham for lunch... thank’s to mom’s cooking... and chili for supper... again mom... brings goodness to the day.
WEDNESDAY...
— Alone in CPSIC for much of the day (10 to 6). A busy day working the rust off.
THURSDAY/FRIDAY...
— Work the night shift Thursday and sleep much of the time I’m not working... with a little TV in there too. Work is fine on the first night. Not too tired.
— And Friday goes pretty well. Fairly quiet night followed by a few quick groceries before Saturday morning bed.
SATURDAY...
— Up before noon. Some catching up on the TV shows on the PVR.
— Sarah over for movies in the evening. 4th Kind is kind of interesting. Where the Wild Things Are is cool.
SUNDAY...
— Low key around the house until ball. I don’t play very well but the team wins again. Home for Sunday night TV. Only two or three rings of my bell by trick or treaters tonight. Ignored.
MONDAY...
— Quiet day with some TV and time dealing with my hockey pool.
Drifting into the night
Shaved slivers of ice
So thin they flutter on the breeze
Melting instantly once touched by anything more than air.
The coming of winter
Unseen from inside
Only spotted around lights
As moths to the flame, each flake seen for a moment and then becomes a puddle
A night of culture
The family out for an event
Leaving with dance and song buzzing the mind
And walking out into the night, faces kissed with sloppy flakes of snow.
Walking through the park
A lit up castle in the background
As the softness of snow
quiets the city as father, mother, and son share the show’s memories.
Each year brings a first snowfall.
Most with grumbles
Many screeching cars into each other
Coldly slapping faces on gales.
This one is different.
Gently shared one still evening
As a family makes it’s way home
TUESDAY...
— Work. Day shift goes alright. Fairly busy but alright. Left over ham for lunch... thank’s to mom’s cooking... and chili for supper... again mom... brings goodness to the day.
WEDNESDAY...
— Alone in CPSIC for much of the day (10 to 6). A busy day working the rust off.
THURSDAY/FRIDAY...
— Work the night shift Thursday and sleep much of the time I’m not working... with a little TV in there too. Work is fine on the first night. Not too tired.
— And Friday goes pretty well. Fairly quiet night followed by a few quick groceries before Saturday morning bed.
SATURDAY...
— Up before noon. Some catching up on the TV shows on the PVR.
— Sarah over for movies in the evening. 4th Kind is kind of interesting. Where the Wild Things Are is cool.
SUNDAY...
— Low key around the house until ball. I don’t play very well but the team wins again. Home for Sunday night TV. Only two or three rings of my bell by trick or treaters tonight. Ignored.
MONDAY...
— Quiet day with some TV and time dealing with my hockey pool.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #438
One... Two... Three... and Rob Ford is Your Heavyweight Champion!”
Politics.... who will save us from politics?
As the years go on, politicians are getting worse. Or is it that I’m getting more attuned to the game that these people play?
The world celebrates great politicians simply because there are so few of them. Obama has given the appearance to be one. But over the last year and more, his image has been battered and the magic that was Obama has dimmed to what appears to be less the Great Houdini and more the amateur birthday party trickster.
In Obama’s case, it’s hard to tell what’s real. Did Obama fool us with a slick image and preacher on the mound speeches? Or has the right wing of America slandered him to the point that nobody knows what’s right or wrong? It’s almost impossible to know.
In Canada, politicians have become panderers and bullies. Leadership is no longer a word they understand. Nor is it any longer a word that Canadians demand. Lies are told as election promises... mentioned for a few weeks by the press when not kept... and finally forgotten, and accepted, by all. Usually with the brush off phrase that “sometimes politicians promise too much while on the campaign trail.”
It is to the point where I no longer want to see any politician given the title “Right Honourable”. Such title should be earned... not handed out willy nilly.
Today Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto. Ford is a fine example to point to when one makes the claim that municipal politics is the least professional of all. This man belongs in a wrestling ring. He wouldn’t even be considered one of the smart, well spoken wrestlers. This is one of those wrestlers that gets up and shouts incoherently about nothing while plastering his face with a fake, over the top scowl.
But Mayor of Canada’s biggest city he now is... and it all seems about right in our political world. Where you’re left to wonder if anyone in the voting public is actually taking this thing called democracy seriously anymore.
Ottawa’s mayor and city councilors are also decided. And for weeks I’ve seen how democracy works. Pamphlets in the mailbox... short on substance and heavy on picture with name. And no longer do the candidates actually try talking to you as the pamphlets go out. Several times I was home all day, finding the pamphlet deposited without the slightest knock on the door or ring of the bell. And my home phone was spammed with candidate voices. Recorded ones. Automated calls giving automated conversations. While, outside of the house, every intersection a mass of billboard names.
Name recognition and image has overtaken substance and policy in today’s politics. And with the idea that it is our duty to vote ingrained into our brains, we go out with minimal information... voting for the name that best got subliminally implanted into us.
MONDAY...
— Back to work. Still somewhat rusty with CPSIC... still some doubt with some of the work. A year away makes a difference.
TUESDAY...
— Busy day at work. Lots of running around in the afternoon. It was alright actually. Good to be thinking.
— Keg with Geoff after work. Good times.
— Back to my place after that. Hang out and talk a while... watch some stuff on TV.
WEDNESDAY...
— Mom and dad arrive this morning. A bit of shopping with them and lunch at Kelsey’s followed by Chinese food for supper and some TV after that. Nice having them around.
THURSDAY...
— A little shopping with mom and dad... supper at Montana’s... Crazy Heart on Blue Ray to end the night.
FRIDAY...
— Some morning grocery shopping... supper downtown followed by the ballet at the National Arts Centre. Actually turned out alright. The second and third parts were not traditional ballet and were pretty impressive.
— Snow falling on the walk back to the car tonight. Ugh.
SATURDAY...
— Mere Bleue walk... bombarded by chickadees. Paula and Eddie come for supper. Good ham and nice times with family.
SUNDAY...
— Some shopping and over to my ball game. Mom and dad watching me play. Make an error in front of the parents and we tie the game. But oh well.
— Boston Pizza for supper and some quiet TV time.
Politics.... who will save us from politics?
As the years go on, politicians are getting worse. Or is it that I’m getting more attuned to the game that these people play?
The world celebrates great politicians simply because there are so few of them. Obama has given the appearance to be one. But over the last year and more, his image has been battered and the magic that was Obama has dimmed to what appears to be less the Great Houdini and more the amateur birthday party trickster.
In Obama’s case, it’s hard to tell what’s real. Did Obama fool us with a slick image and preacher on the mound speeches? Or has the right wing of America slandered him to the point that nobody knows what’s right or wrong? It’s almost impossible to know.
In Canada, politicians have become panderers and bullies. Leadership is no longer a word they understand. Nor is it any longer a word that Canadians demand. Lies are told as election promises... mentioned for a few weeks by the press when not kept... and finally forgotten, and accepted, by all. Usually with the brush off phrase that “sometimes politicians promise too much while on the campaign trail.”
It is to the point where I no longer want to see any politician given the title “Right Honourable”. Such title should be earned... not handed out willy nilly.
Today Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto. Ford is a fine example to point to when one makes the claim that municipal politics is the least professional of all. This man belongs in a wrestling ring. He wouldn’t even be considered one of the smart, well spoken wrestlers. This is one of those wrestlers that gets up and shouts incoherently about nothing while plastering his face with a fake, over the top scowl.
But Mayor of Canada’s biggest city he now is... and it all seems about right in our political world. Where you’re left to wonder if anyone in the voting public is actually taking this thing called democracy seriously anymore.
Ottawa’s mayor and city councilors are also decided. And for weeks I’ve seen how democracy works. Pamphlets in the mailbox... short on substance and heavy on picture with name. And no longer do the candidates actually try talking to you as the pamphlets go out. Several times I was home all day, finding the pamphlet deposited without the slightest knock on the door or ring of the bell. And my home phone was spammed with candidate voices. Recorded ones. Automated calls giving automated conversations. While, outside of the house, every intersection a mass of billboard names.
Name recognition and image has overtaken substance and policy in today’s politics. And with the idea that it is our duty to vote ingrained into our brains, we go out with minimal information... voting for the name that best got subliminally implanted into us.
MONDAY...
— Back to work. Still somewhat rusty with CPSIC... still some doubt with some of the work. A year away makes a difference.
TUESDAY...
— Busy day at work. Lots of running around in the afternoon. It was alright actually. Good to be thinking.
— Keg with Geoff after work. Good times.
— Back to my place after that. Hang out and talk a while... watch some stuff on TV.
WEDNESDAY...
— Mom and dad arrive this morning. A bit of shopping with them and lunch at Kelsey’s followed by Chinese food for supper and some TV after that. Nice having them around.
THURSDAY...
— A little shopping with mom and dad... supper at Montana’s... Crazy Heart on Blue Ray to end the night.
FRIDAY...
— Some morning grocery shopping... supper downtown followed by the ballet at the National Arts Centre. Actually turned out alright. The second and third parts were not traditional ballet and were pretty impressive.
— Snow falling on the walk back to the car tonight. Ugh.
SATURDAY...
— Mere Bleue walk... bombarded by chickadees. Paula and Eddie come for supper. Good ham and nice times with family.
SUNDAY...
— Some shopping and over to my ball game. Mom and dad watching me play. Make an error in front of the parents and we tie the game. But oh well.
— Boston Pizza for supper and some quiet TV time.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #437
Bombardment of Horribly Annoying Wonderfully Bonding Networking
Social networking. Bringing long distant friends and family closer to each other. With updates on how each of our days are going. With pictures of trips, shared with a loved one on the other side of the continent. With games played between uncle and nephew as if they were there, in the same room, casually arranging tiles on the board, chuckling at the scowl and mutterings of the other.
I have friends that would have drifted away years ago, and other friends who would never have drifted back into my life if not for social networking.
On the other hand, a co-worker’s baby can’t have a bowel movement without me being alerted to it.
So, as you can see, social networking is a two edged sword. Enriching some relationships. And bringing doubts and annoyance about others.
New loves? Oh you better believe that can try the patience of a facebook friend. Reading updates written in the most sacchariny sweet, vomit inducing, Fabio covered romance novel style.
New babies? Near strangers can follow their every step. Profile pictures of adult friends are overrun by bald headed infants. For a single man with over a hundred friends on Facebook, sometimes a look at my news feed makes me feel as though I’m a 38 year old in a world of diapered buddies. It makes me feel out of place... and creepy.
We’re bombarded with advertising... wherever we go. Home phones and mail boxes are now little more than devices for businesses to hope to make a buck off a moment of weakness. Social networking is no different.
Like this, become a fan of that. Everything from musical bands to books recommended by Oprah
And if you cave in, and like one thing, suddenly cyberspace learns a bit more about you, and new things are plastered upon the sides of your computer screen... perhaps you’ll like this other thing now. We now live in a world where your admitting that you like Tom Hanks movies could bring you one step closer to having your credit card information stolen. Innocent socializing opening you up to financial ruin.
Sometimes I miss the 1970s and 80s from a communication point of view. You felt a greater connection to the place you’re in. A television show was an event. If you were interested in it, you had to make not of the time and be home to watch. Many a television negotiation has been made in my youth. A grandmother needing me to give up control on a Friday because Dallas was coming on. A father missing a period of the hockey game so that a son could watch CHiPs... watching Ponch and Jon protecting California’s highways by way of motorcycle. Today it takes thirty seconds to set up a recording, and any show can be watched at any time.
Telephone calls were a hit and miss event. If they weren’t home... tough luck. If a sister was on the phone, a friend would have to wait... unable to get through to you as they stand there in the kitchen, with a great tangled chord, dangling beneath your chin. Today, I actually talk less on the phone. I look suspiciously at my home phone when it rings, expecting a heavy accent as a stranger assures me this is not a sales call, that I’ve been chosen to receive a free trip. Most of my dealings with people I know are done by way of text or e-mail... saving the talking to face to face meetings.
You’d go out with friends and not be distracted by buzzing devices as others check in on you... just to say hi. Those you communicated with were those sitting around the table. Everyone shared a greater connection.
And other times, I’m happy with the present day. If running late, I can easily drop a line to tell the other I’m on my way. Living in a different city from those you’re close to isn’t as lonely a venture. Catching up is just a few mouse clicks away.
Yes it’s a conflicting time we live in. It’s easy to be drawn in and pushed away from the same thing... at the exact same time.
SUNDAY...
— Work. Back to CPSIC on a quiet Sunday. Goes pretty good and I am not even too tired getting up at 4:30.
MONDAY...
— More tired today. Second day back to the 12 hour CPSIC shift and I’m struggling most of the day. Sometimes beds at work would be nice.
— Feeling like a cold is hitting this evening. The back of my throat has that feel to it.
TUESDAY...
— Sick day. That cold hit indeed. Throat, back of nose, sinuses... all felt it. And I even pack it in earlier tonight then I should... going to bed at 1:00, even though if I go to work on Wednesday, I’ll need to be up all night.
WEDNESDAY...
— Off sick again. Can barely talk without breaking into cough. So pretty quiet day around the house... napping, TV, not much else.
THURSDAY...
— Feeling a bit worse today than yesterday. I thought I was improving last night but I suppose not. By the time I’m ready for bed tonight, it feels a bit better again though.
— Still, grocery shopping (I was down to mustard) was tiring and I was breathing heavy for twenty minutes afterwards. Pizza ordered in is a little treat, and I watch some hockey and movies while play some video game baseball.
FRIDAY...
— Out to bring the car to the garage for some maintenance. Take the shuttle home and need to cab it back later to get the thing.
— Still feeling sick. Tired of it.
SATURDAY...
— A movie and laundry. The sickness pattern the last few days has been feel worse from the time I wake to about 3:00 in the afternoon... then things pick up making me think I’m turning a corner as the day goes... only to wake the next day feeling worse again.
Social networking. Bringing long distant friends and family closer to each other. With updates on how each of our days are going. With pictures of trips, shared with a loved one on the other side of the continent. With games played between uncle and nephew as if they were there, in the same room, casually arranging tiles on the board, chuckling at the scowl and mutterings of the other.
I have friends that would have drifted away years ago, and other friends who would never have drifted back into my life if not for social networking.
On the other hand, a co-worker’s baby can’t have a bowel movement without me being alerted to it.
So, as you can see, social networking is a two edged sword. Enriching some relationships. And bringing doubts and annoyance about others.
New loves? Oh you better believe that can try the patience of a facebook friend. Reading updates written in the most sacchariny sweet, vomit inducing, Fabio covered romance novel style.
New babies? Near strangers can follow their every step. Profile pictures of adult friends are overrun by bald headed infants. For a single man with over a hundred friends on Facebook, sometimes a look at my news feed makes me feel as though I’m a 38 year old in a world of diapered buddies. It makes me feel out of place... and creepy.
We’re bombarded with advertising... wherever we go. Home phones and mail boxes are now little more than devices for businesses to hope to make a buck off a moment of weakness. Social networking is no different.
Like this, become a fan of that. Everything from musical bands to books recommended by Oprah
And if you cave in, and like one thing, suddenly cyberspace learns a bit more about you, and new things are plastered upon the sides of your computer screen... perhaps you’ll like this other thing now. We now live in a world where your admitting that you like Tom Hanks movies could bring you one step closer to having your credit card information stolen. Innocent socializing opening you up to financial ruin.
Sometimes I miss the 1970s and 80s from a communication point of view. You felt a greater connection to the place you’re in. A television show was an event. If you were interested in it, you had to make not of the time and be home to watch. Many a television negotiation has been made in my youth. A grandmother needing me to give up control on a Friday because Dallas was coming on. A father missing a period of the hockey game so that a son could watch CHiPs... watching Ponch and Jon protecting California’s highways by way of motorcycle. Today it takes thirty seconds to set up a recording, and any show can be watched at any time.
Telephone calls were a hit and miss event. If they weren’t home... tough luck. If a sister was on the phone, a friend would have to wait... unable to get through to you as they stand there in the kitchen, with a great tangled chord, dangling beneath your chin. Today, I actually talk less on the phone. I look suspiciously at my home phone when it rings, expecting a heavy accent as a stranger assures me this is not a sales call, that I’ve been chosen to receive a free trip. Most of my dealings with people I know are done by way of text or e-mail... saving the talking to face to face meetings.
You’d go out with friends and not be distracted by buzzing devices as others check in on you... just to say hi. Those you communicated with were those sitting around the table. Everyone shared a greater connection.
And other times, I’m happy with the present day. If running late, I can easily drop a line to tell the other I’m on my way. Living in a different city from those you’re close to isn’t as lonely a venture. Catching up is just a few mouse clicks away.
Yes it’s a conflicting time we live in. It’s easy to be drawn in and pushed away from the same thing... at the exact same time.
SUNDAY...
— Work. Back to CPSIC on a quiet Sunday. Goes pretty good and I am not even too tired getting up at 4:30.
MONDAY...
— More tired today. Second day back to the 12 hour CPSIC shift and I’m struggling most of the day. Sometimes beds at work would be nice.
— Feeling like a cold is hitting this evening. The back of my throat has that feel to it.
TUESDAY...
— Sick day. That cold hit indeed. Throat, back of nose, sinuses... all felt it. And I even pack it in earlier tonight then I should... going to bed at 1:00, even though if I go to work on Wednesday, I’ll need to be up all night.
WEDNESDAY...
— Off sick again. Can barely talk without breaking into cough. So pretty quiet day around the house... napping, TV, not much else.
THURSDAY...
— Feeling a bit worse today than yesterday. I thought I was improving last night but I suppose not. By the time I’m ready for bed tonight, it feels a bit better again though.
— Still, grocery shopping (I was down to mustard) was tiring and I was breathing heavy for twenty minutes afterwards. Pizza ordered in is a little treat, and I watch some hockey and movies while play some video game baseball.
FRIDAY...
— Out to bring the car to the garage for some maintenance. Take the shuttle home and need to cab it back later to get the thing.
— Still feeling sick. Tired of it.
SATURDAY...
— A movie and laundry. The sickness pattern the last few days has been feel worse from the time I wake to about 3:00 in the afternoon... then things pick up making me think I’m turning a corner as the day goes... only to wake the next day feeling worse again.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #436
And now we're into the new blog schedule. Next update, in eight days.
Rogers: Lord of Darkness
Rogers... that great big corporation that is enveloping our country... is evil.
Today is a perfect example of the evilness. I open my latest cable/internet bill and see an extra ten dollars charged to my account for a PPV movie.
Yes, I did order the movie. But the thing is, Rogers offered it to me. My God... Rogers isn’t just evil... it’s the devil itself! Offering forbidden candy, picking at our trust and desires... and then slamming the door shut, with us trapped inside.
Some background on my movie situation. In August, I get an e-mail from Rogers. All warm and fuzzy and speaking of how, as a good customer, they’d like to offer me a free movie in September. I just had to register, a step I took and was confirmed as having done. And then I waited.
Late in September, with little to do one evening, I decided to order my free movie. Seeing the fine print on that Rogers e-mail, I know I can order anything up to $13.99 in cost. So no PPV boxing or UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), but it must go beyond a run of the mill movie, as they all go for much less than this price.
I order a $10 history of the UFC and decide right then and there that this has all been too easy. Today, I see the decision then was correct. I’m charged for the movie.
Lured in by the mighty corporation, I just fed the empire an extra $10. I’ve e-mailed them, stating my case. At the end of the e-mail, the screen pops up telling you they’ll respond within 24 hours. Within minutes, I get a confirmation e-mail telling me responses will occur in 48 to 72 hours. I’m sure my response will probably take 4 or 5 days. For you see, it’s all just words with Rogers. They have my money... that’s all that counts.
And I won’t see a return of my $10. The devil will spin it’s words to show me how, if I would have read further on the contract (signed in blood I’m sure) I’d have seen that this offer was only good for new release summer blockbuster movies that had Sandra Bullock staring in them.
Rogers shall one day rule our land. And, like the Skydome in Toronto and GM Place in Vancouver (now known as Rogers Centre and Rogers Arena, respectfully), They’ll rename our nation too. It’ll be a proud moment, brought to you by Rogers, when we watch our Olympic team enter the arena during the opening ceremonies... The great nation of Rogersada.
Rogers is all that is wrong with corporations. Greedily in it to make money for themselves before offering actual customer service. A trip to the Rogers website is a jumbled mess of promotions and redirections. “It’s all so easy” they tell us on TV (brought to you through your Rogers Cable), “just click”.
And it tells you right there on the screen too. You see it on the website. Able to read the words. “Add/remove channels”. It really IS easy! You excitedly click the title with the joy of knowing you’ll soon rid yourself of the 24 hour cooking channel! And with the click, you go to a place. A place where you see packages of TV channels. Filled with a world of garbage, clinging to those two flagship channels you can’t do without. For with Rogers, they go under the assumption that you’ll keep that bath water... only a monster would throw out the baby.
And sometimes, when we’re weak, we don’t care. My bill has ballooned to $3000 a month, I’ll toss the baby of TSN (The Sports Network)... anything to regain some financial control of my life. And you go ahead and click on the “Add/remove channels” title... and you look to remove... and you look... and... remove?... where’s the “remove” part of “Add/remove”???
Redirects to HD channels you can add... and more redirects to a list of channels you already own (with the 24 hour cooking channel spitting in your face... a new, interactive feature created by Rogers). Yet no clear-cut way to clear-cut your channel forest.
Finally you give up and pick up the phone. And there you are in automated telephone land. Press “1" for this and “2" for that. The devil sits back upon his throne, laughing at your tortured soul.
In fact, the devil now mocks you about it these days. New commercials for Rogers (while you watch your Rogers supplied cable). Showing small business owners ripping their hair out at that fantasy land service provider’s automated phone servers. “Billing?” the automated voice cheerily asks. “Business”, the incredibly thin and hip (cause he’s got a collared shirt on with no tie, so you know he’s with it). “Alright, Billing!” the auto voice obliviously proclaims. “BIZ-IN-US!” the frustrated hip thin businessman attempts to spell out.
But all is right for the businessman. Rogers to the rescue. If you own a business, just call this special number, and no more automated service. Bob is there, answering lickety split.
Yet because I’m not owning my own business. Because I haven’t paid some extra fee that surly must exist for the privilege of avoiding the run around and talking directly to Bob. I’m in automated world!
It blows my mind to see Rogers using it’s own shortcomings as a selling tool for itself! That fantasy land service provider is Rogers itself. It is indeed a false prophet dressed in sheep’s clothing.
So why don’t I remove myself from Rogers? I’m not allowed. My other option, Bell, is not an option at all. My condo corporation doesn’t allow satellite dishes. In fact... wait a minute.... could it be? Could it be possible that my condo corporation is owned?... By?... ROGERS!
Yes indeed, I live in the community of Rogersdale... a suburb of Rogerswa... in the country of Rogersada. And when my cable provider offers me a free gift in August, that I can’t watch until September, you better believe I’ll be paying for it in October.
That’s just the way the Devil works.
MONDAY...
— Certification work... yawn.
— Dad is finally published. The book is out.
TUESDAY...
— Mort cert and boredom ensues. Like where I’ve been sitting anyway.
WEDNESDAY...
— Last day of AFIS. I’m in certification again... meh. Breakfast across is nice though.
THURSDAY...
— Thank you Ottawa Sun for making a phone call to me at 9:15 in the morning... seeing if I want to subscribe to your rag. Well, I’m up now.
— Hockey on TV... and video games. I’m improving on the game. Minnesota and Carolina in Helsinki are boring as can be (Versus is a lousy network and I wish TSN didn’t grab their feed). Toronto vs. Montreal was a fun game at the end. And Edmonton look exciting... tonight anyway.
— Baseball playoffs get in there too. San Francisco looking good.
— I’m developing an ever greater appreciation for sweet potato fries.
— Mom and dad book their post Thanksgiving Thanksgiving trip. Less than two weeks!
FRIDAY...
— Walk the pond. A couple of laps is pretty nice. Some hockey and baseball on TV
Rogers: Lord of Darkness
Rogers... that great big corporation that is enveloping our country... is evil.
Today is a perfect example of the evilness. I open my latest cable/internet bill and see an extra ten dollars charged to my account for a PPV movie.
Yes, I did order the movie. But the thing is, Rogers offered it to me. My God... Rogers isn’t just evil... it’s the devil itself! Offering forbidden candy, picking at our trust and desires... and then slamming the door shut, with us trapped inside.
Some background on my movie situation. In August, I get an e-mail from Rogers. All warm and fuzzy and speaking of how, as a good customer, they’d like to offer me a free movie in September. I just had to register, a step I took and was confirmed as having done. And then I waited.
Late in September, with little to do one evening, I decided to order my free movie. Seeing the fine print on that Rogers e-mail, I know I can order anything up to $13.99 in cost. So no PPV boxing or UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), but it must go beyond a run of the mill movie, as they all go for much less than this price.
I order a $10 history of the UFC and decide right then and there that this has all been too easy. Today, I see the decision then was correct. I’m charged for the movie.
Lured in by the mighty corporation, I just fed the empire an extra $10. I’ve e-mailed them, stating my case. At the end of the e-mail, the screen pops up telling you they’ll respond within 24 hours. Within minutes, I get a confirmation e-mail telling me responses will occur in 48 to 72 hours. I’m sure my response will probably take 4 or 5 days. For you see, it’s all just words with Rogers. They have my money... that’s all that counts.
And I won’t see a return of my $10. The devil will spin it’s words to show me how, if I would have read further on the contract (signed in blood I’m sure) I’d have seen that this offer was only good for new release summer blockbuster movies that had Sandra Bullock staring in them.
Rogers shall one day rule our land. And, like the Skydome in Toronto and GM Place in Vancouver (now known as Rogers Centre and Rogers Arena, respectfully), They’ll rename our nation too. It’ll be a proud moment, brought to you by Rogers, when we watch our Olympic team enter the arena during the opening ceremonies... The great nation of Rogersada.
Rogers is all that is wrong with corporations. Greedily in it to make money for themselves before offering actual customer service. A trip to the Rogers website is a jumbled mess of promotions and redirections. “It’s all so easy” they tell us on TV (brought to you through your Rogers Cable), “just click”.
And it tells you right there on the screen too. You see it on the website. Able to read the words. “Add/remove channels”. It really IS easy! You excitedly click the title with the joy of knowing you’ll soon rid yourself of the 24 hour cooking channel! And with the click, you go to a place. A place where you see packages of TV channels. Filled with a world of garbage, clinging to those two flagship channels you can’t do without. For with Rogers, they go under the assumption that you’ll keep that bath water... only a monster would throw out the baby.
And sometimes, when we’re weak, we don’t care. My bill has ballooned to $3000 a month, I’ll toss the baby of TSN (The Sports Network)... anything to regain some financial control of my life. And you go ahead and click on the “Add/remove channels” title... and you look to remove... and you look... and... remove?... where’s the “remove” part of “Add/remove”???
Redirects to HD channels you can add... and more redirects to a list of channels you already own (with the 24 hour cooking channel spitting in your face... a new, interactive feature created by Rogers). Yet no clear-cut way to clear-cut your channel forest.
Finally you give up and pick up the phone. And there you are in automated telephone land. Press “1" for this and “2" for that. The devil sits back upon his throne, laughing at your tortured soul.
In fact, the devil now mocks you about it these days. New commercials for Rogers (while you watch your Rogers supplied cable). Showing small business owners ripping their hair out at that fantasy land service provider’s automated phone servers. “Billing?” the automated voice cheerily asks. “Business”, the incredibly thin and hip (cause he’s got a collared shirt on with no tie, so you know he’s with it). “Alright, Billing!” the auto voice obliviously proclaims. “BIZ-IN-US!” the frustrated hip thin businessman attempts to spell out.
But all is right for the businessman. Rogers to the rescue. If you own a business, just call this special number, and no more automated service. Bob is there, answering lickety split.
Yet because I’m not owning my own business. Because I haven’t paid some extra fee that surly must exist for the privilege of avoiding the run around and talking directly to Bob. I’m in automated world!
It blows my mind to see Rogers using it’s own shortcomings as a selling tool for itself! That fantasy land service provider is Rogers itself. It is indeed a false prophet dressed in sheep’s clothing.
So why don’t I remove myself from Rogers? I’m not allowed. My other option, Bell, is not an option at all. My condo corporation doesn’t allow satellite dishes. In fact... wait a minute.... could it be? Could it be possible that my condo corporation is owned?... By?... ROGERS!
Yes indeed, I live in the community of Rogersdale... a suburb of Rogerswa... in the country of Rogersada. And when my cable provider offers me a free gift in August, that I can’t watch until September, you better believe I’ll be paying for it in October.
That’s just the way the Devil works.
MONDAY...
— Certification work... yawn.
— Dad is finally published. The book is out.
TUESDAY...
— Mort cert and boredom ensues. Like where I’ve been sitting anyway.
WEDNESDAY...
— Last day of AFIS. I’m in certification again... meh. Breakfast across is nice though.
THURSDAY...
— Thank you Ottawa Sun for making a phone call to me at 9:15 in the morning... seeing if I want to subscribe to your rag. Well, I’m up now.
— Hockey on TV... and video games. I’m improving on the game. Minnesota and Carolina in Helsinki are boring as can be (Versus is a lousy network and I wish TSN didn’t grab their feed). Toronto vs. Montreal was a fun game at the end. And Edmonton look exciting... tonight anyway.
— Baseball playoffs get in there too. San Francisco looking good.
— I’m developing an ever greater appreciation for sweet potato fries.
— Mom and dad book their post Thanksgiving Thanksgiving trip. Less than two weeks!
FRIDAY...
— Walk the pond. A couple of laps is pretty nice. Some hockey and baseball on TV
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #435
If Fall was Winter and there was no Winter
If Fall was Winter and there was no Winter
The world would be a marvelous place
Sleeping cozily with window cracked
And quilt atop the bed, hugging you in.
Comfortable walking
No need of dressing for meat lockers
Jeans and a fleece are perfect
And soup makes for a wonderful lunch.
If Spring were Summer and there was no Summer
The world would be a marvelous place
Those leaves of red, yellow and orange
Falling off and replaced by young green.
Windows remain open
Furnace and AC remain off
A year round comfort zone.
Removed from sweat and freeze.
A planet discovered.
Far off from here
We can learn greater detail of it
two hundred years from now.
It remains fixed in space
Revolving around its sun
Without axis rotation.
Always facing the same.
Imagine life over there
Two hundred years from where we sit.
All day and all night sunshine.
Or all day and all night darkness.
But most of all imagine
Those places in between.
Like Fall and Spring
Constant sunrise, constant sunset.
The sun always on the horizon
Clouds always glowing as fall leaves
Red, yellow and orange tones
Splaying over us all.
Alien tourism
In the land of forever sunset
Honeymooners planning romantic trips
Enjoying walks along lakes
Watching the sunset along a horizon mountain range
Unable to imagine worlds with four seasons.
MONDAY...
— Some morning laundry with a little TV.
— Work in the afternoon/evening. Fairly regular with me not really feeling the groove. Too many distractions around me.
TUESDAY...
— Thai food at work is good stuff.
— Have a better grove working. The stats are better today.
— Some video game baseball both before and after work.
WEDNESDAY...
— Sometimes... people... pfft.
— Nice at work with some quiet times. Hang at breaks with Sarah some... Sanity can be found, when searched for.
THURSDAY...
— Filing tonight. First time doing that in weeks.
— On the drive home, I get a thought for a poem... and then it’s the goal of trying to remember the lines in my head until I get home to write them down. The race against time is won and I do it up and blog the thing there and then.
FRIDAY...
— Trying day at work. Too much silliness to endure. Louis’ Pizza helps ease the pain though... and the last hour or two is nice with just me in an area, plugged in listening to music as I go.
— Lunch with Karl before work was nice.
SATURDAY...
— Out for an hour or two for Anne’s birthday. Then off to the movies with Sarah and Phil. Fun time all around. The movie, The Town, was quite good.
If Fall was Winter and there was no Winter
The world would be a marvelous place
Sleeping cozily with window cracked
And quilt atop the bed, hugging you in.
Comfortable walking
No need of dressing for meat lockers
Jeans and a fleece are perfect
And soup makes for a wonderful lunch.
If Spring were Summer and there was no Summer
The world would be a marvelous place
Those leaves of red, yellow and orange
Falling off and replaced by young green.
Windows remain open
Furnace and AC remain off
A year round comfort zone.
Removed from sweat and freeze.
A planet discovered.
Far off from here
We can learn greater detail of it
two hundred years from now.
It remains fixed in space
Revolving around its sun
Without axis rotation.
Always facing the same.
Imagine life over there
Two hundred years from where we sit.
All day and all night sunshine.
Or all day and all night darkness.
But most of all imagine
Those places in between.
Like Fall and Spring
Constant sunrise, constant sunset.
The sun always on the horizon
Clouds always glowing as fall leaves
Red, yellow and orange tones
Splaying over us all.
Alien tourism
In the land of forever sunset
Honeymooners planning romantic trips
Enjoying walks along lakes
Watching the sunset along a horizon mountain range
Unable to imagine worlds with four seasons.
MONDAY...
— Some morning laundry with a little TV.
— Work in the afternoon/evening. Fairly regular with me not really feeling the groove. Too many distractions around me.
TUESDAY...
— Thai food at work is good stuff.
— Have a better grove working. The stats are better today.
— Some video game baseball both before and after work.
WEDNESDAY...
— Sometimes... people... pfft.
— Nice at work with some quiet times. Hang at breaks with Sarah some... Sanity can be found, when searched for.
THURSDAY...
— Filing tonight. First time doing that in weeks.
— On the drive home, I get a thought for a poem... and then it’s the goal of trying to remember the lines in my head until I get home to write them down. The race against time is won and I do it up and blog the thing there and then.
FRIDAY...
— Trying day at work. Too much silliness to endure. Louis’ Pizza helps ease the pain though... and the last hour or two is nice with just me in an area, plugged in listening to music as I go.
— Lunch with Karl before work was nice.
SATURDAY...
— Out for an hour or two for Anne’s birthday. Then off to the movies with Sarah and Phil. Fun time all around. The movie, The Town, was quite good.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Midnight Making It Up... on a Thursday/Friday.
The Shoreline
Waves shudder cobbles
Stone clinking stone round
Sounding as a million boys in the school yard
Flowing their marbles upon the land
Paired off in half a million matches
To win spherical, glass treasure.
Sandy flats flooded by sea
Receded in moments
Leaving the schwepervesent fizz
Of liquid molecules
Until the next salty lap.
Shale cliffs felled
Bit by knifey bit
Shucked from the land by salt and ice
Displaying trilobite treasures upon stone canvas.
Waves shudder cobbles
Stone clinking stone round
Sounding as a million boys in the school yard
Flowing their marbles upon the land
Paired off in half a million matches
To win spherical, glass treasure.
Sandy flats flooded by sea
Receded in moments
Leaving the schwepervesent fizz
Of liquid molecules
Until the next salty lap.
Shale cliffs felled
Bit by knifey bit
Shucked from the land by salt and ice
Displaying trilobite treasures upon stone canvas.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #434
A change upcoming in my blog writing. My shift at work is changing again. I will post again next Sunday, as normal... but after that I’ll post on the following Saturday and, from that point on, back to how it was done last year (every eight days). So in this case, after I post on Saturday, October 9, the following post will be on Sunday, October 17, then Monday, October 25... and so on.
Adventure of Storms
I was snowbound once. Stuck within my home, unable to venture out. It didn’t last long. The length of a phone call really.
I was in St. John’s then...
This is the winter of all winters. Storm after storm. Literally. Over a two week period, we had seven blizzards. And they actually came every second day. It was the most organized pattern of weather I’ve seen.
Luckily for me this winter, I am not working. So when others have to try to maneuver ever narrowing streets, walled by icy snow... I hunker down in my loft with a lit wood stove and a cozy blanket.
I awake most mornings to the sound of shovels and scrapers. The working class preparing their cars. And after they’re all gone, I venture out to quiet streets. Mounds of snow climb the row houses. There’s nowhere else to go but up our walls. By the end, I go two and a half months with my living room window darkened by snow.
Another storm comes and the forecast is ominous. A winter hurricane they call it. I’m intrigued.
The snow is heavy and the winds high. By the early afternoon, I think about stepping outside for a better feel to it all. And here’s where the problem presents itself. My doors, both front and back, are held closed by snow drifts.
Usually, if such a thing happens, it’s either the front door or the back... the snow will only pile up in these drifts where the wind blows. But on this day, there’s so much snow coming down... and so much wind swirling about... it comes from all sides.
I call my parents and talk to dad. “I’m stuck”. I say. “Snowed in”.
Dad vows to come over when the weather breaks and break the seal to the tomb that is my house.
After I hang up the phone, I give it another try. A bit more force on my end... force being my shoulder against the door and feet planting into the porch mat... gains my freedom. I open the door enough to slip out through the crack.
I climb out as a mountaineer squeezing through a crevice... leaving the warmth of civilization and entering the world of whipping white. Giant globs of snow... the result of hundreds of flakes being mashed together before ever making it to the ground... slap my face.
I stay long enough to do what needs to be done. I shovel out my front door. Forget a walkway. I don’t need to clear room to get anywhere. Just enough to be able to open the door when I want to.
I venture through the lane to my back yard. Trudging through the narrow passage with my head tucked low to the ground, keeping the snow from my eyes. And at the back, I repeat the door clearing process. Just enough to be able to open... nothing more.
The trek back to my front door sees me retracing my steps. Stomping my feet into the holes made less than a half hour before. I could be wandering the Himalayas. It would be no different.
Re-entering my front porch was as an astronaut returning to the shuttle after a space walk. Or as a deep sea explorer, returning to the submarine. My porch has become an airlock. A barrier from the harshness out there... and the life in here.
Stripping off my shell of snow swept protection, I return to the phone and call back to my parents. “I’m free”. I say. Much relief comes from the other end of the line. Perhaps relief in that their only son is not entombed alone any longer. But more likely relief that no more thought need be given to the idea of making the drive from their home to mine. In this weather, such journeys are like space travel. My parents can remain safely on Earth. The emergency on my Mars has been averted.
For the rest of the day, some ten hours or so, I return to the outdoors regularly... to turn back the snow. It becomes a routine. Every hour and a half, I could get out through my doors and remove the buildup of white. Two hours may be too much time to wait. At an hour and a half, the snow has already built up over the bottom inches of the doors... just not enough to get a stranglehold on the house.
The day is an interesting one. Being in row houses on the edge of the downtown core, my life is an urban one. I have a back yard, with large trees. But these are urban trees. Planted in straight lines, making artificial rows. Growing this way for a hundred years.
Yet even with my urban setting, a rural lifestyle is brought on by the weather. Wood stoves and fire places... nearby windows glowing with the flicker of candles... and the sounds of snowmobiles. Yes snowmobiles.
If the wind weren’t blowing so high, they could be heard from blocks away, but as things are, I only hear them when they reach my doorstep. I look out, down upon the street from my loft window, and see the bobbing light of the snowmobile, followed closely by the vehicle itself. A neighbour, making his way down the street, this urban street, on a snowmobile. He bounces over the rolling hills of street snow. And disappears down the road, into the swirling white air.
Later that night, I go out again to clean my doors. And while there, I pause a moment. I wander out into the middle of my street. The snowmobile tracks gone already, blown from existence. A few sets of footprints are all that can be seen. Snowy depressions that show signs of passers by. The prints are out here in the middle of the road. No need for pedestrians to be shy tonight. All cars are now snow mounds, blending in along side that which plows have shoved up along the sides of the road.
And there I stand in my street. Windows flickering on either side of me... candles and lanterns dancing light on drapery. And the sound of the wind above. Too strong for a howl. Winter hurricanes don’t howl. They scream. Screaming down my street. Screaming by my ears. Screaming over the houses and down the hills.
And there, twenty feet from my front door... with my car buried in white some ten feet to my left... and surrounded by people who linger and wait just on the other side of wind swept walls... there I know what it feels like atop Mount Everest. With the snow whipping your face, with fading tracks of those adventurers who passed before me. And with the winds... winds that scream about me.
MONDAY...
— Reasonable day... although it starts rough. 5:30 alarm clocks are jarring.
TUESDAY...
— Work is hard on the back today. Home getting nailed with a hurricane. One place on the island getting more than 230 mm of rain today. Crazy. St. John’s got more than 130 mm and winds up to 150 km/h... mom and dad lose a tree.
— Supper after work with Karl. He buys me the meal and gives me one of his paintings. Quite nice of him. A good time.
WEDNESDAY...
— Last outdoor softball game of 2011. It goes alright... the legs aren’t thrilled with me... but just some groans from knees and calves... nothing serious.
— Watch some hockey on TV tonight. Exhibition hockey stinks... why any fan would pay more than $10 to watch it live, I don’t rightly know. Plenty of suckers out there I guess.
THURSDAY...
— Fairly ordinary work day with grocery shopping to follow and some PVR’d TV after that.
FRIDAY...
— Mixed bag at work. I do three or four different things.
— Hockey pool draft after work. I pick 4th out of 9 teams and, even with that, love the team I got.
— Some evening TV and video game hockey.
SATURDAY...
— Baseball day on the video game front. And I join Netflix. Get a free month to try it out... watched a movie off my Playstation 3. JCVD was good. This also allows me to watch any Netflix movie or TV show on my Touch as well. So we’ll see... maybe I’ll keep it.
— The day after that hockey pool draft I liked, one of my players is injured. Bad sign.
Adventure of Storms
I was snowbound once. Stuck within my home, unable to venture out. It didn’t last long. The length of a phone call really.
I was in St. John’s then...
This is the winter of all winters. Storm after storm. Literally. Over a two week period, we had seven blizzards. And they actually came every second day. It was the most organized pattern of weather I’ve seen.
Luckily for me this winter, I am not working. So when others have to try to maneuver ever narrowing streets, walled by icy snow... I hunker down in my loft with a lit wood stove and a cozy blanket.
I awake most mornings to the sound of shovels and scrapers. The working class preparing their cars. And after they’re all gone, I venture out to quiet streets. Mounds of snow climb the row houses. There’s nowhere else to go but up our walls. By the end, I go two and a half months with my living room window darkened by snow.
Another storm comes and the forecast is ominous. A winter hurricane they call it. I’m intrigued.
The snow is heavy and the winds high. By the early afternoon, I think about stepping outside for a better feel to it all. And here’s where the problem presents itself. My doors, both front and back, are held closed by snow drifts.
Usually, if such a thing happens, it’s either the front door or the back... the snow will only pile up in these drifts where the wind blows. But on this day, there’s so much snow coming down... and so much wind swirling about... it comes from all sides.
I call my parents and talk to dad. “I’m stuck”. I say. “Snowed in”.
Dad vows to come over when the weather breaks and break the seal to the tomb that is my house.
After I hang up the phone, I give it another try. A bit more force on my end... force being my shoulder against the door and feet planting into the porch mat... gains my freedom. I open the door enough to slip out through the crack.
I climb out as a mountaineer squeezing through a crevice... leaving the warmth of civilization and entering the world of whipping white. Giant globs of snow... the result of hundreds of flakes being mashed together before ever making it to the ground... slap my face.
I stay long enough to do what needs to be done. I shovel out my front door. Forget a walkway. I don’t need to clear room to get anywhere. Just enough to be able to open the door when I want to.
I venture through the lane to my back yard. Trudging through the narrow passage with my head tucked low to the ground, keeping the snow from my eyes. And at the back, I repeat the door clearing process. Just enough to be able to open... nothing more.
The trek back to my front door sees me retracing my steps. Stomping my feet into the holes made less than a half hour before. I could be wandering the Himalayas. It would be no different.
Re-entering my front porch was as an astronaut returning to the shuttle after a space walk. Or as a deep sea explorer, returning to the submarine. My porch has become an airlock. A barrier from the harshness out there... and the life in here.
Stripping off my shell of snow swept protection, I return to the phone and call back to my parents. “I’m free”. I say. Much relief comes from the other end of the line. Perhaps relief in that their only son is not entombed alone any longer. But more likely relief that no more thought need be given to the idea of making the drive from their home to mine. In this weather, such journeys are like space travel. My parents can remain safely on Earth. The emergency on my Mars has been averted.
For the rest of the day, some ten hours or so, I return to the outdoors regularly... to turn back the snow. It becomes a routine. Every hour and a half, I could get out through my doors and remove the buildup of white. Two hours may be too much time to wait. At an hour and a half, the snow has already built up over the bottom inches of the doors... just not enough to get a stranglehold on the house.
The day is an interesting one. Being in row houses on the edge of the downtown core, my life is an urban one. I have a back yard, with large trees. But these are urban trees. Planted in straight lines, making artificial rows. Growing this way for a hundred years.
Yet even with my urban setting, a rural lifestyle is brought on by the weather. Wood stoves and fire places... nearby windows glowing with the flicker of candles... and the sounds of snowmobiles. Yes snowmobiles.
If the wind weren’t blowing so high, they could be heard from blocks away, but as things are, I only hear them when they reach my doorstep. I look out, down upon the street from my loft window, and see the bobbing light of the snowmobile, followed closely by the vehicle itself. A neighbour, making his way down the street, this urban street, on a snowmobile. He bounces over the rolling hills of street snow. And disappears down the road, into the swirling white air.
Later that night, I go out again to clean my doors. And while there, I pause a moment. I wander out into the middle of my street. The snowmobile tracks gone already, blown from existence. A few sets of footprints are all that can be seen. Snowy depressions that show signs of passers by. The prints are out here in the middle of the road. No need for pedestrians to be shy tonight. All cars are now snow mounds, blending in along side that which plows have shoved up along the sides of the road.
And there I stand in my street. Windows flickering on either side of me... candles and lanterns dancing light on drapery. And the sound of the wind above. Too strong for a howl. Winter hurricanes don’t howl. They scream. Screaming down my street. Screaming by my ears. Screaming over the houses and down the hills.
And there, twenty feet from my front door... with my car buried in white some ten feet to my left... and surrounded by people who linger and wait just on the other side of wind swept walls... there I know what it feels like atop Mount Everest. With the snow whipping your face, with fading tracks of those adventurers who passed before me. And with the winds... winds that scream about me.
MONDAY...
— Reasonable day... although it starts rough. 5:30 alarm clocks are jarring.
TUESDAY...
— Work is hard on the back today. Home getting nailed with a hurricane. One place on the island getting more than 230 mm of rain today. Crazy. St. John’s got more than 130 mm and winds up to 150 km/h... mom and dad lose a tree.
— Supper after work with Karl. He buys me the meal and gives me one of his paintings. Quite nice of him. A good time.
WEDNESDAY...
— Last outdoor softball game of 2011. It goes alright... the legs aren’t thrilled with me... but just some groans from knees and calves... nothing serious.
— Watch some hockey on TV tonight. Exhibition hockey stinks... why any fan would pay more than $10 to watch it live, I don’t rightly know. Plenty of suckers out there I guess.
THURSDAY...
— Fairly ordinary work day with grocery shopping to follow and some PVR’d TV after that.
FRIDAY...
— Mixed bag at work. I do three or four different things.
— Hockey pool draft after work. I pick 4th out of 9 teams and, even with that, love the team I got.
— Some evening TV and video game hockey.
SATURDAY...
— Baseball day on the video game front. And I join Netflix. Get a free month to try it out... watched a movie off my Playstation 3. JCVD was good. This also allows me to watch any Netflix movie or TV show on my Touch as well. So we’ll see... maybe I’ll keep it.
— The day after that hockey pool draft I liked, one of my players is injured. Bad sign.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #433
Fortresses of Solitude
I’ve always enjoyed tucking away in small spaces. As a kid, a blanket or two tucked here and there made my bunk bed’s lower bunk a chamber of solitude.
The old love seat, in the living room was propped on an angle and leaving a triangular space where the corner of the room makes two sides, and the love seat back makes the third. I’d push the love seat out on one side of the wall... just enough for an eight year old to squeeze by. And just enough for a Sparky dog to be coaxed in behind him. Me and the dog sitting there, in secret... until the dog got bored. Back scratching could hold him there no more, and he click click clicks down the hardwood hall to see what else is going on.
Linen closets, both at home and in my grandmother’s house, where fine places to tuck away in. A unique quietness where the normalness of the rest of the house can be heard beyond the door. Where a line of that normalness can be viewed through the crack in the closet door. But there, on the dark side of the door, a stillness.
A crawl space in a friend’s basement. As a room for a tiny species of people. Boxes of old kitchen cutlery, worn out Christmas decorations, and old suitcases of old cloths... all as ancient relics to be explored as you crawl along the maze. While parents drank coffee in the living room, we were explorers of ancient Egyptian tombs.
Toys and a flashlight under a bed. A little fort within the house. Sometimes curiosity would get the best of the dog... and Sparky would shuffle in... clawing along the hardwood... making his way towards the light... my flashlight. It was a sad point of childhood when under the bed was outgrown. The last few ventures there being a claustrophobic journey. Unable to turn my head... needing to leave it turned to either my left or right. Such trips were short and depressing. A little world that was just for me and the dog... cut off.
With our second dog, came a travel crate. The crate was her home within our home. Sometimes, I’d crawl in with her... and being a sweet little dog, she never reacted as if I’d infringed upon her territory. Her reaction was more that of host. Smiling dog eyes, a little lick of the tongue, and she’d lay down next to me, nuzzle through her blanket, and happily produce a tennis ball from within it’s folds... giving it a squeeze or two... daring me to try and take it.
As an adult, the small spaces to tuck in to aren’t as easily available. Storage closets, which once could have been explored for the treasures that may lay within, are just storage closets. When you’re the one who put it there, the treasures are just stored items. Yet even now, after a few years of storage, items become forgotten and a cleaning of the closet produces a moment of treasure discovery. There’s that old baseball glove!
But there are still cozy spaces. The seat at the dinning room table where the kitchen counter blocks off one end, and the wall is at your back. It’s why booths are always better than tables at restaurants. Little tuck aways where people bring you food.
My kitchen nook has the potential. From the rest of the house, it could be assumed the nook doesn’t exist. An entire room that opens up beyond the refrigerator. But, for now it’s a mess of papers and small things to store... and the place where my bike sits.
Soon I’ll have to get to work in that nook. Throw out some things and buy a cabinet to hold others. So that I can put a chair over there... and have a little reading nook. A place to sit in secret. A little fortress of solitude.
MONDAY...
— Lately it’s felt like the laptop is on it’s last legs. Very slow at start up much of the time... and often getting pop ups about scripts not running and such. Need to go computer shopping soon. Five years and the laptop is near retirement.
— Groceries after work. Would have got them yesterday and even drove to the store, but it was crazy busy and I didn’t even stop the car, returning home again. Today was fine.
TUESDAY...
— Wake early with my head swimming... it doesn’t go away. Sick day from work results. Not sure if it’s sinus issues or what.
— Around the house with the TV and computer and rest. Feel better in the late afternoon but start to decrease again in the evening. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
WEDNESDAY...
— Still feeling unwell. Go to work and am draining as the morning goes... decide to do lunch and see about maybe leaving in the afternoon. But lunch peps me up and I stay. By the night, I’m feeling better... but still got a feeling where it’s like my strength reserves aren’t high... it wouldn’t take much.
— This new Survivor show... this may be bad. Old against young... Jeff calling them the Younger Tribe and the Older Tribe rather than the names given them... Jimmy Johnson, the old football coach... the medal of power. Oh boy, could be the beginning of the end of this franchise.
THURSDAY...
— Staff barbeque on the coldest day of the summer. I think it tops off at about 11 today and rains in the afternoon. I get my dogs and drink and get back inside quick.
— Feeling pretty much better now. Tired... but that’s likely more to do with day shift than being under the weather. Always tired on day shift.
FRIDAY...
— Good to get the week over with. Tired. Call home after work to chat with the parents... and then watch some TV in the evening.
SATURDAY...
— Lots of laundry and lots of video game baseball today. Make spaghetti for supper too. A relaxing day.
I’ve always enjoyed tucking away in small spaces. As a kid, a blanket or two tucked here and there made my bunk bed’s lower bunk a chamber of solitude.
The old love seat, in the living room was propped on an angle and leaving a triangular space where the corner of the room makes two sides, and the love seat back makes the third. I’d push the love seat out on one side of the wall... just enough for an eight year old to squeeze by. And just enough for a Sparky dog to be coaxed in behind him. Me and the dog sitting there, in secret... until the dog got bored. Back scratching could hold him there no more, and he click click clicks down the hardwood hall to see what else is going on.
Linen closets, both at home and in my grandmother’s house, where fine places to tuck away in. A unique quietness where the normalness of the rest of the house can be heard beyond the door. Where a line of that normalness can be viewed through the crack in the closet door. But there, on the dark side of the door, a stillness.
A crawl space in a friend’s basement. As a room for a tiny species of people. Boxes of old kitchen cutlery, worn out Christmas decorations, and old suitcases of old cloths... all as ancient relics to be explored as you crawl along the maze. While parents drank coffee in the living room, we were explorers of ancient Egyptian tombs.
Toys and a flashlight under a bed. A little fort within the house. Sometimes curiosity would get the best of the dog... and Sparky would shuffle in... clawing along the hardwood... making his way towards the light... my flashlight. It was a sad point of childhood when under the bed was outgrown. The last few ventures there being a claustrophobic journey. Unable to turn my head... needing to leave it turned to either my left or right. Such trips were short and depressing. A little world that was just for me and the dog... cut off.
With our second dog, came a travel crate. The crate was her home within our home. Sometimes, I’d crawl in with her... and being a sweet little dog, she never reacted as if I’d infringed upon her territory. Her reaction was more that of host. Smiling dog eyes, a little lick of the tongue, and she’d lay down next to me, nuzzle through her blanket, and happily produce a tennis ball from within it’s folds... giving it a squeeze or two... daring me to try and take it.
As an adult, the small spaces to tuck in to aren’t as easily available. Storage closets, which once could have been explored for the treasures that may lay within, are just storage closets. When you’re the one who put it there, the treasures are just stored items. Yet even now, after a few years of storage, items become forgotten and a cleaning of the closet produces a moment of treasure discovery. There’s that old baseball glove!
But there are still cozy spaces. The seat at the dinning room table where the kitchen counter blocks off one end, and the wall is at your back. It’s why booths are always better than tables at restaurants. Little tuck aways where people bring you food.
My kitchen nook has the potential. From the rest of the house, it could be assumed the nook doesn’t exist. An entire room that opens up beyond the refrigerator. But, for now it’s a mess of papers and small things to store... and the place where my bike sits.
Soon I’ll have to get to work in that nook. Throw out some things and buy a cabinet to hold others. So that I can put a chair over there... and have a little reading nook. A place to sit in secret. A little fortress of solitude.
MONDAY...
— Lately it’s felt like the laptop is on it’s last legs. Very slow at start up much of the time... and often getting pop ups about scripts not running and such. Need to go computer shopping soon. Five years and the laptop is near retirement.
— Groceries after work. Would have got them yesterday and even drove to the store, but it was crazy busy and I didn’t even stop the car, returning home again. Today was fine.
TUESDAY...
— Wake early with my head swimming... it doesn’t go away. Sick day from work results. Not sure if it’s sinus issues or what.
— Around the house with the TV and computer and rest. Feel better in the late afternoon but start to decrease again in the evening. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
WEDNESDAY...
— Still feeling unwell. Go to work and am draining as the morning goes... decide to do lunch and see about maybe leaving in the afternoon. But lunch peps me up and I stay. By the night, I’m feeling better... but still got a feeling where it’s like my strength reserves aren’t high... it wouldn’t take much.
— This new Survivor show... this may be bad. Old against young... Jeff calling them the Younger Tribe and the Older Tribe rather than the names given them... Jimmy Johnson, the old football coach... the medal of power. Oh boy, could be the beginning of the end of this franchise.
THURSDAY...
— Staff barbeque on the coldest day of the summer. I think it tops off at about 11 today and rains in the afternoon. I get my dogs and drink and get back inside quick.
— Feeling pretty much better now. Tired... but that’s likely more to do with day shift than being under the weather. Always tired on day shift.
FRIDAY...
— Good to get the week over with. Tired. Call home after work to chat with the parents... and then watch some TV in the evening.
SATURDAY...
— Lots of laundry and lots of video game baseball today. Make spaghetti for supper too. A relaxing day.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #432
My End Shall Be a Dreadmill
Some will go with violence.
The price of war
Or being in a convenience store
When drug habit cash
Is taken
At gunpoint.
Some will go quietly.
Asleep in bed
Breathing in sync with a love
As has been for decades before
When one breath ends with a shutter
And the love goes on alone.
Some will be lightning struck.
On a golf course
With three friends
A few distant rumbles
Ignored in hopes of a birdie
KaBlam!
Some will drive into another.
Going too fast on the highway
While the rain falls at night
A deer wishes to cross
The steering wheel shall meet face
And a roadside grave follows.
I shall go by dreadmill.
The device that allows running inside
Spelt with a T and not that D
But for me it’s a dread
Causing lungs to malfunction
My corpse shall slide out the back
While the dread continues it’s revolving journey
My end met with a computer’s beep
As a fitness program ends
Prematurely.
THURSDAY...
— From working evenings to straight to bed... Friday will be an early start.
FRIDAY...
— Up at 5:00... Sarah and Bana pick me up at 5:40... Work for 6:00.
— Breakfast at work with my team and by 9:15, we’re off to golf.
— Golf is fun but the marshalls on the course are pains... hassling our team four or five times for slow play.
— Supper there and back home by six or so... tired and relaxing.
SATURDAY...
— House day. Video game baseball and hockey (bought the hockey yesterday). It’ll take some getting used to, I’m not very good, but fun to have.
— A pizza comes in to make Saturday what Saturday is supposed to be.
Some will go with violence.
The price of war
Or being in a convenience store
When drug habit cash
Is taken
At gunpoint.
Some will go quietly.
Asleep in bed
Breathing in sync with a love
As has been for decades before
When one breath ends with a shutter
And the love goes on alone.
Some will be lightning struck.
On a golf course
With three friends
A few distant rumbles
Ignored in hopes of a birdie
KaBlam!
Some will drive into another.
Going too fast on the highway
While the rain falls at night
A deer wishes to cross
The steering wheel shall meet face
And a roadside grave follows.
I shall go by dreadmill.
The device that allows running inside
Spelt with a T and not that D
But for me it’s a dread
Causing lungs to malfunction
My corpse shall slide out the back
While the dread continues it’s revolving journey
My end met with a computer’s beep
As a fitness program ends
Prematurely.
THURSDAY...
— From working evenings to straight to bed... Friday will be an early start.
FRIDAY...
— Up at 5:00... Sarah and Bana pick me up at 5:40... Work for 6:00.
— Breakfast at work with my team and by 9:15, we’re off to golf.
— Golf is fun but the marshalls on the course are pains... hassling our team four or five times for slow play.
— Supper there and back home by six or so... tired and relaxing.
SATURDAY...
— House day. Video game baseball and hockey (bought the hockey yesterday). It’ll take some getting used to, I’m not very good, but fun to have.
— A pizza comes in to make Saturday what Saturday is supposed to be.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #431
The Washed Up Boot on Sandy Cove
Dad looking out to sea at Back Western Shore (or as dad would say (Backwester shore)
Brimstone Head at Sunset
Things I learned in a Week.
Sports
Softball is a great game when people actually work together... Standing around, wishing for it to hurry up and end, ruins it for all.
There is something magical about a lit ball field at night. Softball or baseball. Seeing adults or kids running around, catching lazy fly balls, picking up one hoppers and throwing them in on a rope, or just flicking the ball around the infield at the end of a play... it’s all amplified and theatrical under the lights.
The only thing that could make me wish I was 16 again is a lit up softball field.
Movies
Guilty pleasure movies are unexplainable. How someone could prefer Drop Zone over Gone With the Wind defies all logic... but it happens. Good ol’ Drop Zone.
Alan Doyle (of Great Big Sea)... will not become a full time actor... and Robin Hood (of great Hollywood Blockbuster material) is average.
The Air Up There really is a good movie. And it’s okay for men to think George Clooney is cool.
There are moments in Chariots of Fire that still give me cold shivers.
Fogo Island
The ferry to Fogo would give tourists, going for a first time, fits.
No Ferry terminal should be placed in the middle of a gravel pit.
No recycling sign should say “Please remove all bottle caps... We do not accept crushed cans... Please wash bottles and cans before recycling”.... when they could instead say “No Stoppers... Not Squat... Fairly Clean”.
The term, Newfie, should never proudly be displayed on a t-shirt.
A washed up boot on the beach holds greater impact than a washed up sneaker. One appears as a tombstone for a lost fisherman... the other as a tossed overboard prank by American tourists.
Sunsets at Brimstone Head qualify as one of the wonders of the natural world.
There are trees on Fogo Island... but my memory of the place always happily leaves them out.
Anytime Back Western Shore is in sight, it must be visited.
Scaffolding can be as holy as any church choir.
Travel
Ottawa is a horrible city to drive in at 4:15 on a Thursday afternoon.
Long Term Parking at the start of a trip makes you feel just a little bit more alone.
Looking out an airplane window at night is still mesmerizing. Who’d ever think one could get more interest from a window to blackness than to a touch screen of multi-media choices.
Sometimes, in arrival sections of airports, mothers can walk right on by you.
Flying with only carry on baggage is incredibly freeing to the soul.
A pot of soup is always a nice thing to find at the end of a day of travel.
Sometimes mechanical malfunctions on planes bring the greatest of opportunities... an unexpected lunch with your dad... and an unexpected upgrade to luxury.
Halifax airport is best when you’re asked to remain onboard your plane.
Long Term Parking at the end of a trip makes you feel very alone.
Five days away allows you to see first hand exactly how much garbage gets jammed into your mailbox.
MONDAY...
— An old cheesy movie before work. Drop Zone, with Wesley Snipes, is on Movie Pix.
— Work is ok... not much out of the ordinary.
TUESDAY...
— Not a fun game of RCMP softball. Don’t like it to much when people quit before the game is actually over.
— Work until 12:45... Hardly seems worth being at work so late for ball when people don’t try at ball.
WEDNESDAY...
— Sleep in until 11:00. Pack and laundry before work. Supper with Annick and Janice... sort of... takes a half hour to go get the food and bring it back.... so eat while I work. Home early to prepare for days tomorrow.
THURSDAY...
--- woke at 3:50. Work from 7 to 4 makes for a long and tiring day.
--- hour to drive the 15 km to the airport. --- fly home. Basically get in, have soup, go to bed.
FRIDAY...
--- up early and on the road. Drive to the Fogo ferry terminal. Get there by 2:00. But between delays and missing a run due to crowds, don't get on the way to Fogo until around 6:00. Supper is about all we do on the island today.
SATURDAY...
--- start early. Joe Batt's, Tilting, Sandy Cove, lunch at Nicole's Restaurant, walk to a studio being built (where the wind through the scaffolding sounds as lonely music), little break at the room, hike the Lion's Den trail, shower, back to Nicole's for supper, rain and wind pick up once we get back. Just beat the rain while the wind has been a gradual increase from nothing this morning to 40 km/h tonight.
SUNDAY...
--- up early again. To the ferry and then to uncle Bert's for lunch. Back to St. John's from there. Home by 7:00 and to the Riggs family house by 8:30.
MONDAY...
--- dead most of the day. Just dragged out from the running around of the last week. Lounge around the house... Supper is turkey and the fixings with mom, dad, Wince, Brenda, Wayne, and Sylvia. Stuffed. Cards after that.
--- Del pops by, as does Dave, for an hour of catch up in the late evening/night. To bed after that.
TUESDAY...
— Up early for flight back to Ottawa. Alarm went off at 5:00. About to board plane at 6:30... and delay. Maintenance. And more delay... and more. By 7:45, they tell us it’ll be 1:30... so I get my stuff back and dad picks me up. While home, cancelled flight. Ends up ok as the phone call to Air Canada gets me on a 2:30 flight quickly. Dad and I eat lunch at the airport, and then I try it again.
— Bumped up to Business Class... Del appears to be my good luck charm... he works on the ground crew for the flight, and I get a good seat. Need to get him working all my flights... keep the good luck rolling.
— Home by 6:20. A bit off the 8:20 AM that was originally scheduled. Forget work on this day.
— Unpack and clear up stuff like computer... digital pictures... iPod Touch.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #430
(For those getting e-mails, pictures for this update are at my blog)
Bug Paparazzi
An evening out minding his own business.
The Praying Mantis has always been a star in the bug world.
A magnetism others just don’t have.
Beatles scurry, ants swarm, carpenters hide under rocks, and ear wigs are nothing short of evil.
The Praying Mantis has a sophistication others lack.
A calmness, taking his time, surveying the scene.
Thinking before acting.
On this night, he’s out for a stroll.
Perhaps he’ll come across a centipede, and dinner will be served.
I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure the Mantis has a napkin tucked away somewhere
Mantis’ don’t just chow down. Such brutishness is beneath them.
Crossing a stone walk, the Mantis sees movement.
With a sigh, he freezes... people.
Brutish, classless paparazzi.
They stop and lean in, flashing pictures.
The camera comes within inches.
Mantis raises a leg and leans back defensively.
Is it too much to ask for an evening without these leeches?
All he wants is to be left alone.
The people paparazzi move on.
Talking excitedly about their celebrity sighting.
Leaving Mantis alone.
With great globs of blue in front of his eyes, the after effects of camera flashes.
A centipede scampers by, unseen by flash blindness.
Mantis moves on.
Stumbling against rocks as he slowly regains sight.
And strolls into the hedges.
One of the paparazzi returns.
The photographer.
Returning with another to point and show the insect star.
But Mantis is gone. Sitting in the bushes, mere feet away.
Watching the vultures.
As he dabs the side of his mouth.
With a cloth napkin.
Taking a break from snacking on an earwig.
MONDAY...
— Fire in the building next to ours causes our power to go out. We’re doing work in the dim until supper time... then power comes back on. But systems are down so it’s a night of set-ups. Blah.
TUESDAY...
— Thai food for supper at work is great. Energizing even. Go to softball but it’s a default. Stick for an inning of play and the team that gets the win (not us) then decides that’s enough. So I head back to work about an hour sooner than expected.
— See a Praying Mantis tonight while walking around the complex at break. Cool stuff. It was just standing their on the walkway and when I bent down to take it’s picture, it turned it’s head to look at me with a “hey, what do you want” way about it.
WEDNESDAY...
— Typical day at work. Slept in until nearly 11:00 this morning so the work day came a bit too soon after bedtime ended.
THURSDAY...
— Thai again. Too good last time and had to have some more. And left overs will mean tomorrow as well. Thai goodness.
FRIDAY...
— Just Sarah and me today at AFIS work. Pretty quiet time... but nice.
SATURDAY...
— Quiet house day. A bit of laundry and some video game baseball with some movies mixed in.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Making It Up As I Go Along #429
Fall Traditions
One tradition still goes on... while the other is in jeopardy.
Since my move to Ottawa, Thanksgiving has become a different type of holiday for me. For my parents as well. Every Thanksgiving since 2003 has occurred in Ottawa. My parents flying here to join me and the Ontario Thanksgiving has taken hold over the Newfoundland one.
My memories of Newfoundland Thanksgiving is of cool drizzly days... perhaps a continuous drizzle for the entire weekend. In younger days, it would be time for a street hockey tournament. Sometimes with a group of teams, gathered in a closed business’s parking lot, running through the drizzle... eternally damp in the game. Other times, it would just be our team from Wedgewood Park taking on the guys from a mile away... meeting at a neutral site lot to do battle in a best of seven series. The turkey of Thanksgiving awaited us. And if overtime came about in the deciding game, family would have to wait a little longer.
In later years, the hockey ended. And Thanksgiving became more of a family weekend. Sitting about the house watching a movie or football on TV while turkey smells drifted from room to room.
A game of yahtzee with mom, interrupted when basting time came about.
After my move, Thanksgiving came with me. Mom and dad flying to Ottawa to bring the family time to me. And drizzly days have given way to bright, cloudless ones. And where the conifers of St. John’s did little in the way of the changing foliage of Fall, the maples, birch and ash of Ottawa glow red, yellow and orange. I imagine mom and dad’s view from the plane, looking down as they descend and seeing the colours as a patchwork quilt of landscape.
We’d go to the market, downtown most years and one in the west end once as we explored the city. But either way, we’d sort through local vegetables and get a local turkey, and fill my kitchen with the food that will last us all the long weekend... and me, by way of frozen soup, much of the winter.
A trip to Quebec... either in Gatineau Park or on to Wakefield by way of steam train. A venture to Upper Canada Village, complete with a side trip to an orchard for cider and a variety of apples. Thanksgiving has been a highlight of my Ottawa occupation.
This year, the plan is for no Thanksgiving get together. Mom’s work makes their coming to me difficult, and uncertainty at my work means a return to Newfoundland would be a roll of the dice that could result in insufficient leave at work... leave needed for a Christmas trip.
But another tradition shall continue.
Over the last four or five years, I’ve taken to short trips home in early September. The September trip being less about a visit to my home city and more about a visit to my father’s home island.
It’s becoming the annual Fogo Island trip. A flight in to St. John’s followed by a car trip the next day. We’ll drive the three or four hours it will take to reach Gander. Complete with a probable stop for lunch at the Irving gas station in Clarenville. This is a statement that must sound silly to those who know nothing about Clarenville. But that gas station has great bowls of home made soup or, as I’m often finding myself ordering, home made hamburgers like no other.
From Clarenville, it’s only a short drive until we reach Terra Nova Park. And here is the broadleaf trees that St. John’s misses. And the orange, red and yellow glow of the world that Ottawa Thanksgiving offers is seen here as well. Only, for my September trip, it’s too early to catch the spectacle of it.
None-the-less, it’s a fine drive through the park and only a short while further to reach Gander. From there, we leave the highway and drive towards the coast. Through small communities that perch along the shore. Communities no wider than a few hundred yards. Those homes on the coast side of the road... and those on the forest side, making up for the lack of seaside real estate with a hundred yards with of forest, there supplying winter firewood.
A stop at Uncle Bert’s for a bite to eat and a visit with family. Depending on the rush, we may leave Bert’s that day or may stay overnight. Sometimes a bonfire on the beach highlights the evening.
From Bert’s, we go to the ferry terminal in the middle of nowhere. Little more than a gravel pit along the side of the sea. But a nice place to be due to the anticipation for where it leads us.
When the ferry arrives, a long line of traffic piles off. Driving as a caravan of cars for miles of road... slowly dissipating as this pick up turns off here and that transport truck pulls over there.
And we drive on. Waved on board by the same people year after year. Easily recognized but I have no idea who they are. They’re as much a part of the trip as the ferry itself. As permanent a piece as those tiny islands we pass by on the way to Fogo.
A stop at Change Islands drops a few cars off and adds fewer more. And we continue to the biggest island of the area. To Fogo.
Fogo Island is my first visual image of Newfoundland when someone asks me about my home. A mass of cold rock sitting within the cold northern sea... yet bringing a warmth to those that go.
Bays and inlets with homes dotting the soil depleted land. And fishing stages venturing out into those bays and inlets. One of the few places one can still see traditional Newfoundland.
Fogo, the largest community on the island, has become the place to sleep each night. A community I barely saw in my childhood has become the Fogo Island home base each September. There with Brimstone Head acting as more of a community sign than any on the road entering town. A mass of rock in the sea, towering above all else... one of the Four Corners of the Earth.
The island’s centre offers gas, food and the school for Fogo Island’s children. An intersection here brings you to the other side of the island. Where trees are virtually extinct. Shrubs and rock dominate... a landscape like no other. Here is where Joe Batt’s Arm sits. Where my father was born and where I’d go each summer to visit my grandmother in her old outport home. Where I’d carry beef buckets with my father as we’d go to the old pump in a community field where sheep may wander and water was pumped from the ground. I was too small to work the pump then. Barely able to life and drop the great metal handle.
Today the pump is no longer in use and homes have water running through them just like in the rest of our homes. And Joe Batt’s is little more than a place to drive through now. There’s no longer a home to go to. But my grandmother’s house is still there... only owned by another. And the stage my family used remains as well. Where I fished for sculpin at high tide... and wandered around the base of it’s pillars at low tide, search for crab to pull from the sea and interact with... me staring at them within my grasp... they with pincer claws held out wide, hoping for a slip on my part... so they could nip a finger.
We still go to the cemetery. Where my grandparents are buried in the back and old, weathered headstones tilt within the sods along the way. Some small headstones, complete with lamb carved within it and marking the resting place of an infant from sixty years ago... these are almost disappearing within the shrubs and sods... blueberries growing up in the shadow of that weathered stone lamb.
And we go Back Western Shore. Where great slabs of rock lead down to the sea. And dad once waded in tidal pools during the summers of his youth. And where I explored the same pool, looking for sea creatures trapped by the tides. Dad and I remember the time we saw a trapped caplin, swimming about it’s pool... waiting for high tide to free it.
The Fogo Island tradition shall go on this year. I’ll fly home in two weeks and head back to Fogo the day after I arrive. Traditional meals and treeless landscapes await... in two weeks, I return to one of the corners of the Earth.
MONDAY...
— Work days. Starts early too as I wake between 4:30 and 5:00 due to heavy thunder.
— Lunch with Shannon and show Stephanie how to do set-ups in quality control. All fairly uneventful.
TUESDAY...
— Ball after work. Goes ok. My knee is a bit tired today... not sore but not much energy in it either.
WEDNESDAY...
— Bless that Columbia House. They gave me some issues yesterday over orders and payments. I e-mailed them last night. This morning I get a reply saying it’s all taken care of and in good standing... and then I get home this evening with my order in the mailbox. Good times.
— Some more training this week at work. I show Melissa how to do the Latent Hit Board. Kind of nice having to share stuff with people this week. Almost like they value me or something... almost.
THURSDAY...
— Work in the old section today... CNI... where I started and then later supervised. Not a bad change.
— Book a flight home this evening. Heading home September 2 and will do a trip to Fogo with the parents on the 3rd. Fly back to Ottawa again on the 7th... so a quick in and out really.
FRIDAY...
— After work drinks and supper with Karl. A nice time at Paddy’s Pub, sitting by the open window.
SATURDAY...
— Home watching movies and playing video game baseball most of the day. Rainy one.
One tradition still goes on... while the other is in jeopardy.
Since my move to Ottawa, Thanksgiving has become a different type of holiday for me. For my parents as well. Every Thanksgiving since 2003 has occurred in Ottawa. My parents flying here to join me and the Ontario Thanksgiving has taken hold over the Newfoundland one.
My memories of Newfoundland Thanksgiving is of cool drizzly days... perhaps a continuous drizzle for the entire weekend. In younger days, it would be time for a street hockey tournament. Sometimes with a group of teams, gathered in a closed business’s parking lot, running through the drizzle... eternally damp in the game. Other times, it would just be our team from Wedgewood Park taking on the guys from a mile away... meeting at a neutral site lot to do battle in a best of seven series. The turkey of Thanksgiving awaited us. And if overtime came about in the deciding game, family would have to wait a little longer.
In later years, the hockey ended. And Thanksgiving became more of a family weekend. Sitting about the house watching a movie or football on TV while turkey smells drifted from room to room.
A game of yahtzee with mom, interrupted when basting time came about.
After my move, Thanksgiving came with me. Mom and dad flying to Ottawa to bring the family time to me. And drizzly days have given way to bright, cloudless ones. And where the conifers of St. John’s did little in the way of the changing foliage of Fall, the maples, birch and ash of Ottawa glow red, yellow and orange. I imagine mom and dad’s view from the plane, looking down as they descend and seeing the colours as a patchwork quilt of landscape.
We’d go to the market, downtown most years and one in the west end once as we explored the city. But either way, we’d sort through local vegetables and get a local turkey, and fill my kitchen with the food that will last us all the long weekend... and me, by way of frozen soup, much of the winter.
A trip to Quebec... either in Gatineau Park or on to Wakefield by way of steam train. A venture to Upper Canada Village, complete with a side trip to an orchard for cider and a variety of apples. Thanksgiving has been a highlight of my Ottawa occupation.
This year, the plan is for no Thanksgiving get together. Mom’s work makes their coming to me difficult, and uncertainty at my work means a return to Newfoundland would be a roll of the dice that could result in insufficient leave at work... leave needed for a Christmas trip.
But another tradition shall continue.
Over the last four or five years, I’ve taken to short trips home in early September. The September trip being less about a visit to my home city and more about a visit to my father’s home island.
It’s becoming the annual Fogo Island trip. A flight in to St. John’s followed by a car trip the next day. We’ll drive the three or four hours it will take to reach Gander. Complete with a probable stop for lunch at the Irving gas station in Clarenville. This is a statement that must sound silly to those who know nothing about Clarenville. But that gas station has great bowls of home made soup or, as I’m often finding myself ordering, home made hamburgers like no other.
From Clarenville, it’s only a short drive until we reach Terra Nova Park. And here is the broadleaf trees that St. John’s misses. And the orange, red and yellow glow of the world that Ottawa Thanksgiving offers is seen here as well. Only, for my September trip, it’s too early to catch the spectacle of it.
None-the-less, it’s a fine drive through the park and only a short while further to reach Gander. From there, we leave the highway and drive towards the coast. Through small communities that perch along the shore. Communities no wider than a few hundred yards. Those homes on the coast side of the road... and those on the forest side, making up for the lack of seaside real estate with a hundred yards with of forest, there supplying winter firewood.
A stop at Uncle Bert’s for a bite to eat and a visit with family. Depending on the rush, we may leave Bert’s that day or may stay overnight. Sometimes a bonfire on the beach highlights the evening.
From Bert’s, we go to the ferry terminal in the middle of nowhere. Little more than a gravel pit along the side of the sea. But a nice place to be due to the anticipation for where it leads us.
When the ferry arrives, a long line of traffic piles off. Driving as a caravan of cars for miles of road... slowly dissipating as this pick up turns off here and that transport truck pulls over there.
And we drive on. Waved on board by the same people year after year. Easily recognized but I have no idea who they are. They’re as much a part of the trip as the ferry itself. As permanent a piece as those tiny islands we pass by on the way to Fogo.
A stop at Change Islands drops a few cars off and adds fewer more. And we continue to the biggest island of the area. To Fogo.
Fogo Island is my first visual image of Newfoundland when someone asks me about my home. A mass of cold rock sitting within the cold northern sea... yet bringing a warmth to those that go.
Bays and inlets with homes dotting the soil depleted land. And fishing stages venturing out into those bays and inlets. One of the few places one can still see traditional Newfoundland.
Fogo, the largest community on the island, has become the place to sleep each night. A community I barely saw in my childhood has become the Fogo Island home base each September. There with Brimstone Head acting as more of a community sign than any on the road entering town. A mass of rock in the sea, towering above all else... one of the Four Corners of the Earth.
The island’s centre offers gas, food and the school for Fogo Island’s children. An intersection here brings you to the other side of the island. Where trees are virtually extinct. Shrubs and rock dominate... a landscape like no other. Here is where Joe Batt’s Arm sits. Where my father was born and where I’d go each summer to visit my grandmother in her old outport home. Where I’d carry beef buckets with my father as we’d go to the old pump in a community field where sheep may wander and water was pumped from the ground. I was too small to work the pump then. Barely able to life and drop the great metal handle.
Today the pump is no longer in use and homes have water running through them just like in the rest of our homes. And Joe Batt’s is little more than a place to drive through now. There’s no longer a home to go to. But my grandmother’s house is still there... only owned by another. And the stage my family used remains as well. Where I fished for sculpin at high tide... and wandered around the base of it’s pillars at low tide, search for crab to pull from the sea and interact with... me staring at them within my grasp... they with pincer claws held out wide, hoping for a slip on my part... so they could nip a finger.
We still go to the cemetery. Where my grandparents are buried in the back and old, weathered headstones tilt within the sods along the way. Some small headstones, complete with lamb carved within it and marking the resting place of an infant from sixty years ago... these are almost disappearing within the shrubs and sods... blueberries growing up in the shadow of that weathered stone lamb.
And we go Back Western Shore. Where great slabs of rock lead down to the sea. And dad once waded in tidal pools during the summers of his youth. And where I explored the same pool, looking for sea creatures trapped by the tides. Dad and I remember the time we saw a trapped caplin, swimming about it’s pool... waiting for high tide to free it.
The Fogo Island tradition shall go on this year. I’ll fly home in two weeks and head back to Fogo the day after I arrive. Traditional meals and treeless landscapes await... in two weeks, I return to one of the corners of the Earth.
MONDAY...
— Work days. Starts early too as I wake between 4:30 and 5:00 due to heavy thunder.
— Lunch with Shannon and show Stephanie how to do set-ups in quality control. All fairly uneventful.
TUESDAY...
— Ball after work. Goes ok. My knee is a bit tired today... not sore but not much energy in it either.
WEDNESDAY...
— Bless that Columbia House. They gave me some issues yesterday over orders and payments. I e-mailed them last night. This morning I get a reply saying it’s all taken care of and in good standing... and then I get home this evening with my order in the mailbox. Good times.
— Some more training this week at work. I show Melissa how to do the Latent Hit Board. Kind of nice having to share stuff with people this week. Almost like they value me or something... almost.
THURSDAY...
— Work in the old section today... CNI... where I started and then later supervised. Not a bad change.
— Book a flight home this evening. Heading home September 2 and will do a trip to Fogo with the parents on the 3rd. Fly back to Ottawa again on the 7th... so a quick in and out really.
FRIDAY...
— After work drinks and supper with Karl. A nice time at Paddy’s Pub, sitting by the open window.
SATURDAY...
— Home watching movies and playing video game baseball most of the day. Rainy one.
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