Christmas "Fishing trip" to Maine - thursday Dec. 28, 2007

We decided to brave the potential winter storm and take our Fishing Trip to Maine on Thursday. We loaded up the dogs into the blazer, and, armed with our passports and an empty cooler we headed to St. Stephen bright and early to cross into the US. It was our first time taking the dog across the border, and we were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was... well I guess anything is easy when you are prepared with all the proper documents in order. It was actually impressive to see trucks out on the Maine highways spraying deicer on the roads in preparation for the coming snow.

Our first stop was Maine Pets & Aquariums in Ellsworth, where we found a pretty good selection of fish and corals (Too bad you can't bring corals back to Canada). All we bought on that first visit was a couple pigs ears for the dogs, it was more of a selection and pricing outing.

Then we were off to Bucksport, Maine to Check out Vance's Tropical Fish and Guitars. He had a really unique store setup with some Nice fish as well. He also was very knowledgeable and we took away a lot of great information from our conversation with him. There was a really large Powder Blue Tang there that caught my eye, but he was a little too big for my plans so I passed. There was also a really beautiful angel fish, that is quite rare in the aquarium trade (I wish I had written down what she was called, but she was white and with blue and black markings), but she was more money that I was willing to pay for one fish that day, and I just didn't feel experienced enough to venture into something rare just yet. We did purchase an in tank filter that filters the surface water. One of our problems with our main tank, since it isn't sumped is that film you get on the surface, so this will prove quite handy once we reset the tank for the Eel. The snow started while we were visiting, but we were undeterred from our course, and headed back to Ellsworth, where we picked up a smaller Powder Blue Tang and a fairly large Flame Angel.

Next it was up to Pro Pets, by the Airport in Bangor. This is a fairly new store, owned by the same owner as Maine Pets in Ellsworth. Their salt water selection was much larger and more nicely laid out. Unfortunately we got so carried away talking and shopping that we didn't take any pictures, and by the time we realized it the snow was really piling up. We picked up a really nice foxface rabbitfish and a 20 gallon long tank that will be our permanent quarantine tank once everything is up and running. I like the length because it gives us the ability to section it off easier if we need to quarantine fish that may not be compatible.

Then we started the long and treacherous drive home. I was actually very easy going through Maine, since they had been out all day in prepping the roads and there were plows everywhere. I was really impressed with how well they looked after the roads. We crossed the border into Canada with absolutely no hassles at all, we didn't even get searched,which surprised the hell out of me considering we had the dogs and live tropical fish.

Once we started up the highway from St. Stephen we began to appreciate the Maine Department of Highways even more, because the roads in NB were absolute, complete shit. They had dropped a layer of salt down so underneath the snow was a layer of slush and we didn't see a single plow until quite a ways after St. George. There was an almost constant stream of oncoming traffic, but we were generally the only vehicle on our side of the road for the majority of the way. Needless to say it was slow going and we arrived quite home quite late. We were up even later setting up our new tank and acclimating our new treasures. We are taking no chances this time around since we have a tang of the powder variety, and have the quarantine tank treated with a half dose of cupramine for the next two weeks. We aren't going to do a full dose, since all the fish we got were in copper treated water when we got them, and this is only a buffer measure. By the time these fish are ready to come out of their four - six week quarantine period the new tanks will be set up and cycled so everything will be able to be added at the same time.

I don't have any pics of our new additions yet, but took a few of our little adventure, they are in a photo set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaine16/sets/72157603577682035/

Holidays

We have had a very quiet and subdued Holiday Season so far, which has been quite nice.
X-Mas eve day we did some shopping with our Friend Silvia from next door, afterwards she came by for dinner. I made Fetuccinni Carbonara and a Caesar Salad and we had a very nice time just hanging out while it cooked. She couldn't stay too long since she had a thing going on at the church, so afterward we headed out to our old neighbourhood and visited with George & Loretta and clan. We got to see nearly everyone from out there and it was good catching up, we haven't been out in a fairly long time.

X-Mas day was another quiet and lowkey affair. We didn't do gifts for each other, since we have been going nuts with our reno and aquarium addiction. Instead we planned a trip to Maine to do a little pet store shopping. We had Christmas dinner at Mike and Kathy's place, and called it an early night. Over the course of those two days we managed to get in phone calls to most of our respective family members as well.

We took advantage of the time off to get a lot of work done on the basement. We got the area under the stairs framed in and sheetrocked, and most of the boards for the cabinet top glued together. I hope to get the rest finished today so I can cut the top, sand it and finish it, and get the wall under the stairs painted.

Blah blah blah

We had a pretty productive weekend again. The Bonds popped in for a visit Friday night, and Saturday night was Brian Chisholm's annual Christmas openhouse, which was quite fun.

We got some 2x4s on Sunday during the storm and built a scafholding/support structure in our stairway, so I could reach the ceiling and upper walls to paint. I got most of that finished by Monday night, but still have some touch ups and a second coat to do on the bottom part of the stairwell.

Our little Puffer fish is now officially called Eddie. It's a strange hop how I got there, but the name suits him. He looks like E.T., but for some strange reason whenever I think ET, my brain does a hop to Cheech and Chong's "Still Smokin'" and their Et/ Eddie Torez with the extra (male body part that sounds a lot like Terrestrial)sketch. That coupled with the fact that the puffer fish in Finding Nemo was played by Brad Garrett (Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond) and Brad has a new show out call, 'Til Death, in which he plays a character named...you guessed it... Eddie. So there's the bizzar and convalluted path my fragile little mind took with the name of our puffer fish.

It is now December 19th, and I've done absolutely nothing even remotely Christmas like, and I really have no desire at all to do anything about it. I can't remember a time in my life when I've actually cared less about something, but for some reason this year, the spirit has completely skipped me. I haven't even gotten around to starting on my nephew's PJs yet. I have the fabric, it's washed and ready to go, but I just haven't managed to work up the energy to do anything else with it, not that it would get there on time at this rate anyway. I'm just not feeling it. I am feeling acutely aware of how far away my family is right now, and the more people around me hype up the holidays, the larger that distance feels. To tell the truth I just wish I could hybernate and wake up when the weather's nicer.

Leslie Hall

I took Friday off work and spent the day catching up on stuff at home. I had to come into town to teach my animation class (the last Friday Class for a few weeks now). Not everyone got finished their projects, but it was becuase they were doing very intricate and detailed things, so I consider it a success. After class I went down into the studio to visit with Kelli and Mark and they were watching this histerical gal on You Tube. Her name is Leslie Hall and you will pee yourself watching her music videos. Leslie Hall - How We Go Out

The Bonds dropped by on Friday night, for a surprise vist. I really like it when people just pop in, it's like an added bonus that you weren't expecting.

Saturday I stopped into Richies and got the rest of the paint for my rec room. There was still quite a bit wall fixing that had to be done with the drywall compound so I didn't get around to actually getting some paint onthe walls until last night.

After Richies it was off to Stephens for a read through of Tuesdays with Morrie. There were a lot of tears by the end of the read, but not all sad tears... it's a very uplifting story, that leaves you feeling like you should go phone your Dad afterwards just to say I love you.

Yesterday I started getting a very sore throat and today I am completely stuffed up. If I hadn't had to go do a shoot with Darrell today I wouldn't have bothered coming in. Then I got here and found out I don't have to do the shoot afterall. Oh well, I'm here now, and I have my last Tuesday class tonight so I will just tuff it out.

New Addition

Wednesday after work we couldn't resist heading to the pet store to pick up this little guy we saw there a couple days before.



Isn't he cool? He's a porcupine puffer fish. Yes he inflates, and did it a couple times in the process of capture and release, but it's not good for them so it's not encouraged. He eats like a little pig, mostly shellfish, and we feed him shrimp and scallops right off a wooden skewer. He's got a pretty powerful beak, that is for breaking through shells in nature, so I wouldn't want to risk getting nipped on the finger, otherwise I might be temped to try feeding him by hand. He's kind of like a little dog, and comes swimming up to the glass when he sees you coming so he can beg for food. I also think he looks a lot like E.T. ... That may become his name.

Looks a lot like Winter

We took a snow day yesterday. It was nice to just stay home and not deal with the snow on the road and the others who may not be so good at driving in it. Darrell actually spent a good part of yesterday driving though. He got his plow hooked up on the truck and drove around our neighborhood digging people out.

Over the weekend we got the ceramic tiles put up on the back wall over the cabinet, so I took the oportunity to grout them yesterday. I have to clean them with vinegar and water tonight when I get home.

The school also shut down due to the snow, so I was able to have a complete day off, with no extra trip in in the evening. This is my last week of classes and then we break for a few weeks. I have classes on Thursday & Friday, and because of cancelling last night I will have to go in next Tuesday to finish off that class as well. So I guess this technically isn't my last week of classes any more, next week is.

It looks like lots of people went by the contest page to help me out with voting... thanks a lot I really appreciate it. Don't stop now though, since it still has a lot longer to go, and I'm still fifty votes away from the top 20. I need to get into that top section in order to qualify to have the picture judged by qualified judges.....so please pleas please keep going to the site and voting for the pic, every day. If you have interent at work and at home, try and hit it twice. The link is in the post below.

Photo Contest

I entered a picture of my clarkii in her Anemone in an on-line magazines photo contest, but now I need your help. Turns out the contest is being decided by people visiting the site, casting votes.... so therefore it's a bit of a popularity thing, and people who have entered have recruited their friends to inlfate their numbers. You can tell by the fact that the leader so far is a blurry picture of a fish behind a dirty galss.... it's bad. Anyway the contest organizers have changed the rules as of today and will take the top 20 and have them judged by professional photographers. I still need your help to get into the top 20 though.

Here's the pic I entered. (I actually entered two but the second one is so far down the list it's a lost cause)




This is the link for the contest

Contest Page

You can vote by selecting vote now at the top of the picture. You can vote three times per day for the next 60 days. So if you could help me out I would really apreciate it.

Hump day

I took yesterday off and got some stuff celaned up at home (mostly dished). The guys were working on a deadline for the OBAs so I decided I would just be in the way and took a day to hang out in my robe and get a little extra sleep.

I popped out to superstore and got some porkchops on sale, so I made a giant stirfry of pork ctrips, mnixed veggies and brown rice. There's enough for lunches all week long, then I headed into town to teach my class. I stopped off at the office with some stirfry for Darrell and dropped the dogs off, then went to the school. One of my kids didn'tmake it, so it was only the two girls and one of them said something very cool, that really didn't occur to me until she said it.

they were talking about the movie Hairspray, because rachel was using You can't stopthe neat in her animation. Then Rachel said something about the movie Grease and Louise said she didn't like the way it ended. I thought that was strange because the ending was thebest part with two huge numbers, and I asked her why she didn't like the end. She said because of the way Sandy changed in the end just to impress Danny... she thought people weren't supposed to change themselves just to impress others. From the mouths of babes.

Scary

We got the tiles for the back wall over the cabinet downstairs, and decided it would be easier to do them, and set the mortar if we finally replaced the baseboard heater that didn't work. Darrell went out and got a new heater, took the old off and was trying to trace the current through the wires. For some reason only one was giving him a reading and both should have. I suggested he check the thermostat to see if everything was hooked up properly, and when he unscrewed it and pulled it away a little, he found all the wires in the box were scorched, and black. Like once upon a time they had been on fire. No wonder the baseboard heater wasn't working. It hasn't worked since we bought the house, but wasn't a high priority fix, since we didn't really use the room a lot. Who knew it was a giant fire hazzard? It now has us wondering if we should maybe go open up a few other things and see what's going on in the walls downstairs, just in case.

Of course all this happened on Sunday and nothing was open to change out the dead thermostat, so no work got done on the tiling. It's not that big a deal anyway, since I have to wait two weeks for the wood for the top of the cabinet. Hunter Lake Lumber didn't have any lengths long enough, so I am waiting for the next batch to come out of the kiln. I could have bought shorter lengths and joined them, but it's not a big panic so why not just wait? Besides, now that I have the tiles it seems to make more sense to put them on first anyway.

DVDs

DVDs...I still have them.... Please come get them. I'm begging here, I've had these ready for over a month now..... you said you wanted them, come and get them... bring cash!

If they're still here when we take time off for X-Mas, I'm sending them all to friends out west and you will be SOL (stands for "Shit Out of Luck" in case it's a BC saying that people out here aren't experienced with.)

Another Monday

I'm feeling kind of blah lately. Just from the weather and the time change I guess. It was weird having it later this year, there was really no gradual darkening of the skies that way. One day it's getting dark by 6:30, the next it's dark when you're driving home from work. Didn't help that it snowed that night as well. It felt like a punch in the gut, and my system hasn't really recovered yet.

I didn't get a chance to see Dracula, which I'm kind of bummed about. The week was just too busy and I was working late too many nights to get out to it, then Saturday just got completely away from me with stuff to do at home. Heard good things about it from everyone who did see it though, and judging from the people in the cast I know I really missed a good one. Sorry guys.

I took the day off Thursday to get some stuff done around the house. I had to teach that night, so it wasn't a total day off. I went out to Hunter Lake lumber and got the boards I need for the moulding on my cabinet. It was a pretty cool trip. The guy was all by himself so I got to help him get the stuff I needed, and got to watch him reset the planer. He was nice enough to plane all the rough lumber to the width and thickness I needed at no extra charge, it just meant I had to hang around and visit for a half hour while he set up the machine, which didn't bother me. Plus it was interesting to see the inner working of the big industrial planer, makes our little delta planer look like a tinker toy.

I got my wood home and used the weekend to router the edges, sand, and urithane. Tonight when I get home I'll be able to put the moulding on. The only thing left that has to be done before the tanks can go on the cabinet now, it the very top. Hopefully I can afford the wood this week. I still have to build the doors, but the cabinet doesn't need to have doors for the tanks to be set up. I have to do the top and tile the back wall, and then the tanks can be put in place and the plumbing done, and the whole thing can be started up.

We're battling a parasite in our quarantine tank that is killing the fish. It came on the Powder Brown Tang we bought. We lost that fish first, then yesterday our racoon butterfly died. We're treating the tank with copper to kill the parasite, but I'm afraid it may be too late for the fish that remain. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because it really makes me sad. I get way too attached to these fish. I'm just glad that we didn't do something stupid like put the fish in the main tank to have everything get infected. It's a hard lesson about the importance of quarantining new livestock, and we're lucky that we're learning it in the quarantine tank, not the main display. Even so it still makes me really really sad.

Fairly Productive

The extra long weekend was good for helping us get a little bit more caught up on things that we have fallen behind on at home. Being so busy with deadlines and home projects, simple little chores like dishes have taken on monsterous lives of their own in the past week and a half, so cleaning the kitchen and the general living area took priority this weekend. We also got alot of stuff done in the basement. I had enough money to get my oak for the trim on the stand, but when we called Hunter Lake Lumber all we ever got was a recording from Thursday, so we didn't know if they were open. Instead I opted to finish the ceiling and get it painted. It's still not quite done, because I didn't tape out the seams quite right (it's the first time I've ever done it so there were bound to be mistakes) There were a couple places where I didn't get enough or any compound under the drywall tape and so it bubbled. I had to cut those out and re-crack fill them. There's no heat on in that room so it's taking alittle while to dry. Aside from that I got the rest of the ceiling painted in 90's beige (taupe). We also painted the backs of both the tanks in a super bright blue called Jamaican Sea.. I have to throw a coat of urithane over it so it won't chip off easily.
We also got the canopy extension finished and the metal halide light installed on our main tank. The extra light is fantastic, and it creates that shimmer effect you see under water. So far we only have it on for a few hours each day so the corals can get used to it gradually, but evntually it will be on most of the day. I'm mourning the loss of one of my new fish. My powder Brown tang died unexpectedly on Monday. They are really delicate and hard to keep fish so his survival was far from a guarantee when I got him, but he seemed to be doing well for a while and I had high hopes. I don't think I'll be trying that kind of fish again they're just not very hardy and should probably be left out in the ocean (they may be just fish but you get attached them).
Since I had a little extra money left over that I hadn't planned on I decided it would ba a good time to renew my prescription. I was expecting a big hit financially sinec the last time I actually bought the stuff it cost me $180 (that's with 80% of it covered by my health plan). I had been making special trips to the hospital in Halifax and getting it there until they cut me off, and I finally got to a point where I'm starting to run out. My dose has been cut considerably since the last time I bought it, and has actually been cut in half since I put the prescrition in to be filled, so I asked if I could take half of it instead of the full dose, since (fingers crossed) in three months I may actually be completely off the stuff, and they said yes. It only cost me $46 for three months worth, significant difference from $180. I did the math and I'm paying 50 cents per 250mg pill, which means the full hit on it without a drug plan is $2.50 per 250mg pill.... still pretty expensive... especially when you consider that once upon a time I was taking 750 mg (3 pills) twice a day, every day.....$15 per day ($3 per day with my drug plan, but still quite a hit)

Another Long Weekend

We are coming on yet another long weekend, and a very important one at that. Sunday is Rememberance Day. WW1 & 2 were a very long time ago, and the farther into history they go, the more important it is to remember what happened and why, so we don't repeat it. My Great Grandfather was a veteran of the First world war, two of my great uncles were vets of the second, and I'm pretty sure all of us can climb down our respective family trees a little ways and find someone who was a vet... so treat the day with the respect it deserves.

That said, as with any and all long weekends, we will of course be taking the holiday Monday as well as Friday, so today is my Friday.... very happy about that (but only in the most serious and respectful of ways of course). I have my classes tonight, and an hour long class on Friday, but other than that I'm off til Tuesday. I am taking a few copies of the DVD home with me, so if you want to get in touch with me and arrange to meet somewhere, I don't mind bringing it to you.... basically I just want these things gone now. I believe Mike will be in on Friday for a little while working on something, so if he happens to be here, you can get your copy from him. Anyway, enjoy your long weekend, and sometime during it, take a few moments to think about the brave young men and women who laid down their lives for our freedom to do so.

ow my face!

I've been feeling like I slumped into a negative space lately. Not enough sleep and too much to do are taking a toll.

That said, we've got alot accomplished lately. The weekend was very busy with lots and lots to do. Mostly trying to catch up on the stuff that we've fallen behind on. There were a few late nights at work during the week to meet a deadline, so the rest of our life took a back seat.

We ventured out in the "Great Storm" on Saturday (was that really only on Saturday... it seems like longer.) and drove up to Moncton to pick up our 65 gallon tall aquarium. It is the same width and height as the 130 but half the length, both will sit side by side on the stand and have one big canopy across the top, giving the impression of one long 9 foot tank. (I know the fish obsession is getting out of hand) I also started building an extension for the canopy on our existing setup, so we can add the new metal hallide light and start acclimating the corals to the different light intensity they will be receiving once we finally get this big set up finish. The new eel is doing well and is eating. I made a blunder and got a mandarin Dragonet from Pets Unlimited. Basically because I thought it was a female (already have a male) and because the salt water section at PU is still too new to have any kind of copod population so the poor little thing would've starved there. Turns out once the little thing got some pods in it's belly and was feeling better it flashed up it's back fin and was a male.... can't have two males in a tank... they'll kill each other.... so he's now living in the quarantine tank (which doesn't have a super healthy pod population, so I'm looking at some suppliments and other things I can do inthe mean time. If I can find him a good home I will, if not he will live in the 65 tasll with my little nemos when we upgrade...i just have to keep him healthy until then. There's a few things I can do and I'm starting to figure out how to do them with some help from the people on the ARRG forum.

Darrell ended up having to work on Sunday, late into the night. So we came in quite late on Monday.

Tuesday was the setting the stage press release for the SJTC so we both went to that to see how work onthe building is coming along. It looks like the skeleton of a building right now, but you can really see how it's going to be pretty awsome when it's all done.

I got the the gym for the first time in a couple weeks yesterday as well, and instead of making me feel good like it normally does, I just felt like a creaky old man by the end of it. I hate it when I miss time there, and have to start over. It doesn't take to long to get back into the swing of things, but you feel like you're constantly starting over at the bottom of a long hill. The up side is I know whithin a week i'll be back to where I left off.

Last night I had my animation class. I have one boy who is a huge handful and very disruptive. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with him the most effectively. One of the parents sat in last night and watched his daughter work, his son was with him as well, so I gave him a quick lesson and left him working away on a computer so he wouldn't be bored. Then at the end of the class in a mad rush to get out of the building because it was Jim's wife's birthday and he was already late, the lights in the hallway got turned out while I was still in the computer room shutting stuff down. I guess he thought I was right behind him but I wasn't. The door to the room wasn't open all the way or closed, it was on an angle facing into the room and when I turned to go out I smashed right into the edge of it face firt and got a pretty good gash on my eyebrow and bruised my cheek. Luckily I didn't hit nose first (mine is big enough as it is hahahah). Oh well, it hurt like hell but it was an accident. I wonder if karma is trying to tell me something? Like maybe take a day off and get a little rest.

Oh ... here's little progress picture on the work downstairs..... I know there are people who are going to say, that colour is so dark, but it's only that wall, and the rest of the room is going to be in much lighter browns so it will look really great when it's done. i also plan to redo the stairway in oak, but that's a project for thefuture not right now.

Friday!!!!!!!

I took most of Wednesday off, and I didn't go to work yesterday either....woooohooo!! I managed to get my two walls painted a really deep rich brown that looks like dark chocolate!! It looks amazing, and when the room downstairs is finally all finished and the tanks are up and running, we will be able to go down, snuggle up on the couch I'm going to redesign and reupholster, turn off the lights, and just relax watching the fish swim around. With the lights off the wall and the dark slate tiles will just disappear and all that will be left will be 9 feet of lit up coral reef to watch. Can't wait!!! It really is a very theraputic experience to just sit and watch an aquarium.

Yesterday we also struck gold at Pets Unlimited. Their new shipment came in and it had a snowflake eel in it. This is number one on Darrell's wish list, so we got it, plus a really pretty little Powder Brown Tang. I think we're pretty much stocked up on the fish we're looking for... well... mostly.

We had no little weeners come by for all our candy on Wednesday, so now I am stuck with a supurlus of chocolate..... oh well... life's hard sometimes.

Down Time

I finally got everything for my animations all done. At least everything I can do, now it's up to the computer and the powers that be to render out beautiful and (fingers crossed) perfectly times animation to cover the sultry voice over of one Tim Turnell.
As a result of life being up to the computer, I decided to take the rest of the day off, and de-stress at home with my roller and gallon of chocolate coloured paint. Darrell, will unfortunately be working late to finish up his portion of the project which is significantly larger than mine.

I don't know why I've been so frustrated over the Cabaret DVD really, it has only been two weeks after, and I did take nearly six months to finish it. At any rate, if I haven't heard from you, and you know who you are, get in touch with me to at least acknowledge whether or not you want it. I'm really very easy to find and extremely accommodating.

I can't wait to see if we get any little weeners at the door tonight... the chances are slim being that there's only two little kids on this road and they live at the other end of it... but you never know. We didn't get any last year, and ended up eating all that junk food ourselves. This year we didn't go over the top for candy, just got two of those boxes of little chocolate bars, and bulk bag of little potatoe chip bags.....hehehehehehe.

Happy Halloween!

Spoke too Soon

I haven't posted since this time last week, and at the time I felt like I had just come off the longest week ever... I was wrong. It was just getting warmed up. We worked late every evening last week, plus I had my classes. Then we worked both Saturday and Sunday as well, and are working late most of this week to boot. We have a deadline looming on Thursday and a lot of work to get done before it comes, which translates into working late and weekends.

I got some nice paint for the walls in the recroom that border my cabinet, but spent most of my free time on the weekend (what little there was of it) patching the drywall. I'm itching to get painting, but don't know when that will happen. We also popped out to Hunter Lake Lumber and picked up some nice oak to build an extension on our existing canopy for the 77 gallon. We want to hook up one of the Metal hallide lights to acclimate the corals to the higher light intensity they will recive when the 130 is up and running... I just wish I could squeeze out some time to get that done. I'd also like to be able to squeeze out 20 minutes a day to practice my guitar. I got some practicing done on Saturday, but that's the last time I was able to pick it up. Taking lessons doesn't do anyone any good if they can't practice between them.

It wasn't all hectic, work work work, on the weekend though. We had a nice little shopping trip to Richies where we found some nice tile for the back wall over the cabinet. We didn't buy it yet, but at least we've finally settled on something. That was how I was able to get a paint colour for the walls.

I had a really nice visit with June Garnett on Saturday, when she dropped by the house to pick up her Cabaret DVD. She's one busy lady. She's singing in just about everything that going on right now. She's got a pretty strong voice so I can see why she's in such demand.

I'm starting to get pretty seriously frustrated with the whole Cabaret DVD thing. I have 17 people still left on the list that said they wanted them, but haven't heard back from most of them. It's starting to feel like Guys & Dolls all over again, when I ended up out of pocket for the supplies with a whole bunch of copies left over. I mean come on, the very least you can do is send me a bloody e-mail. I know some people are out of town, but here's the kicker....I've heard from all of them. In fact Alex, who is traveling around the country at the moment somehow managed to make arrangements to have his copy picked up.... so why is it so hard for people who live right uptown, or work just two blocks away? I'm not saying people should rush in here tripping all over themselves, but at least call or send an e-mail....acknowledge the fact that you ordered it and still intend to get it... cause I'm sick of chasing people around... I mean hell, I've even offered to arrange to drop it off to people or meet them here in the evening, if they'd bother to get in touch me. I don't think this is something I'll be doing again. I gave up too much of my free time, and spent too much of my own money on it, and frankly it doesn't feel worth it. I could've used the weekends and evenings I spent in here editing my pilot, which could actually make this company quite a bit of money if it flies, instead I did Cabaret, and it's looking more and more like I'm going to be left with a bunch of copies and a big expense... it hardly seems worth it.

Longest week ever

Last week felt like the longest ever. Not sleeping well, combined with a few drinks on Monday night, a busy work week, and something to do every evening, made for a week from hell.

I did the Board of Trade Mixer on Wednesday, and was actually quite surprised how much I managed to paint in just an hour and a half. I got my entire picture blocked out. I haven't had a chance to sit down and finish it yet, but maybe this weekend.

Thursdays classes were fine. I wish I could have found some time to get a little guitar practice in before my lesson though. I am going to work extra hard the next three days to squeeze out 20 minutes a day to practice.... oh to be a kid again and have nothing but school and homework to take up my time.

Friday after my class ended at 7, Darrell and I headed up to Fredericton, to see a guy who was selling off all his salt water gear. He's in the military and heading to Italy to learn to inspect container ships so he can't maintain his tank. We got a computerized aquacontroller, which will pretty much run your entire house if you set it up right it seems. You can program it to turn lights on and off, you can log on from work and checkout your aquarium stats, you can even program it to e-mail you if your tank gets too many degrees over your desired temperature....pretty cool thing, and seemingly very complicated to figure out at the moment. I'm sure by the end of the week Darrell will have it purring like a kitten. We also got his very large, very expensive skimmer, and a large rock with a nice coral and some xenias on it. He had a maroon clownfish, named Atlantis, that no one wanted (maybe because he described it as the spawn of Satan) and he just gave her to us. We have her in our little 20 gallon quarantine tank at the moment because he said she was quite agressive. We're going to put her in the 77 gallon that will have the snowflake eel, when everything else if finally done. She's a really beautiful fish. We can't put her in our main tank or the 25 tall though, because the main has our clarkii clowns and the 25 has our nemo clowns, and you just can't mix them.

Saturday morning I taught animation for a birthday party at the school from 10 - 12. It was a party of 9 eleven year old girls, and it was suposed to be an hour of animation and an hour of painting, but after the first hour on the computers the girls didn't want to stop, so it turned into two hours of animation. When we were in Fredericton the night before the guy had two really nice pieces of live rock that I wanted, but he had promised them to someone else. The guy he promised them two flaked out, and he called me to tell me he was coming into Saint John for a party, and asked if I still wanted the rock, so I said yes. I met him in the parking lot of the Colonial Inn, and I'm sure to the casual observer it would have looked like quite the deal was going down. I handed him some cash, he put a package in my trunk, I drove away... it looked alot like a drug deal, although I'm beginning to think drugs would be a cheaper hobby hehehe. When I got the rock home it was a lot bigger than I remembered it, and we had to take apart and rebuild an entire section of the reef to fit it all in, but it looks great now. There is lots and lot of really great stuff growing on the new rocks, which is part of the reason I wanted them. There are tonnes of xenias, a few spots of some as yet unidentified coral, and some blue mushrooms.

Once we got the tank put back together we were off to Brian and Helen's to hang out with them and Bertis and Colin, and Chad and Michelle. We had a good time sitting around talking and having a few drinks.

Sunday I got some work done on my cabinet. I got the pieces of plywood for the top cut and the first coat of urithane on them. This is only the first top, then a solid oak top goes on top of that. We also did a little cleaning, and then spent the evening in with Brothers & Sisters, Kyle XY, and Desperate Housewives.

Tonight I will be spending the evening on the couch with my must see TV.... Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, How I met your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and of course..... Heroes!!!!!

Wednesday

It really feels like hump day today. Drinking at Monday's party was a bad idea. I've been pretty dragged out all week.

Tonight there is a Board of Trade Open house at Atlantica and I've been asked to come in and paint while it's happening. As with all events at the school, we are always looking toward enrollment in the next session of classes. There will be displays of the services offered and instructors on hand to explaint heir courses. If you're interested in popping in, I believe it starts at 6.

Tomorrow will be a fairly late evening since I have my painting classes until 9. Friday a have an evening class until 7, and then Saturday there is a birthday party from 10 until 12. I'll have 9 eleven year old girls for two hours. No rest for this guy.

Construction in the basement has been coming along fine. I now have the actual front on the cabinet....yay. There's still lots to do and I don't have the time nor money to do any of it at the moment.

Work is super busy and I have three things on the go at the moment aside from my other pet project... my pilot. I had to get my first pet project "Cabaret" out of the way, before I could even think about starting my pilot, and I have a feeling it is going to be another of those, edit a bit... move it to storage... edit a bit.. move it to storage... stay late a few evenings... come in on a few weekends....etc etc etc. It's kind of sad when you think of it, since the pilot is designed to sell a series that will be a big money maker for the company, but the actual pilot itself isn't paying us anything so it has to come last in line.

The weekend

I feel like there was lot of stuff crammed into the weekend, but I can't think of what it was.
Friday I taught my class. I have four boys, all roughly the same age and they are all very gung ho students. I have a lot of fun teaching them, because they are so excited about animation. I was showing them how to do keyframing and build a walking loop, and told them that sometimes, when you're doing character animation it just helps if you get up and do the action you're trying to animate and break it down into parts to identify the key frames, so of course by the end of the class I had four boys all getting up and moving around and really studying the way they were moving... honestly, it's the first time the students in my class have actually followed through on that, in my previous class, they had already been with a different instructor and been taught different methods, so it was hard to bring them around to what I was trying to show them, because we had to go backwards a bit. These new classes, I'm starting them off fresh and it's cool to watch them go along with me... it's also cool to see that what I'm doing is working.

Friday night Bertis and the Bonds were over. I haven't seen Bertis in what seems like a very long time, because he's been very busy working. We had a private screening of the Cabaret DVD, because I had to test it and make sure everything worked on it and it played in our DVD player which is a few years old. Today I am labelling the boxes... the final step in the final product to be shown tonight at the Sommerset. We are starting at 7. Act one is 1:40 minutes long, and act 2 is about 40 minutes long. The show starts at 7:30 so it should be finishing up around 10. I know there are lots of people who can't make it because of rehearsals, but if you are wrapping up around 9:30 or 10 and want to stop in at the Sommerset to get your DVD after let me know, and I'll stick around a little while. If not, I'll see you throughout the week, I'm sure, as you drop by the office. For those of you in the Rothesay area, if it's easier for you to drop by the house let me know and I'll take some home with me.

Saturday, I got some work done on my cabinet in the basement, and also did some work on an animation of a penguin, I'm working on, for an educational website. We popped out to the pet store and picked up some aquarium substrate so we'll have it when it's time to set up the new system, and I finally managed to talk the guy at vilage Pets into giving me the Neon Goby they had there for $30. It was listed at $39.99 which is insane for a fish that lists at J&L in Vancouver for $15. We are doing a fish order in the near future, because we have to get our livestock before the winter comes and J&L stops shipping. It is a really sad, that we can order fish from Vancouver, have them sent here on aircanada, and it still works out a lot cheaper than buying them from our local pet store. It's hard to not feel completely ripped off. As a comparison, at Village Pets they are selling a Yellow tang for $79.99. The same fish at J&L is $24, granted their minimum shipping rate is $54 to Saint John, but that is for five bags of livestock, so you can have five fish shipped to you for that. Even if it was just that one fish, it still works out to a dollar cheaper, spread that shipping cost over five fish. Plus if you don't have five fish you want, you can do a group order, and someone else in Saint John can phone up and add to your order, then you split the shipping. There's a reef aquarium forum for the Atlantic and they're doing group orders all the time. I try very hard to support local business, but when you're getting screwed by them, why bother? I didn't mind paying $30 for the Goby, considering they had it there for a month so I knew it was healthy, and I could chalk the extra $15 up to shipping, but I certainly wasn't going to pay $40 for it...... end rant.

The Goby now resides in our smaller tank with the Nemos, Regal Tang, and Racoon Butterfly. The Racoon has been harrassing it to clean him ever since the fish was put in.... (they're a cleaner species, but unlike cleaner wrasses, Neon Gobys don't live solely by cleaning other fish, and eat other food, plus they will reproduce in captivity.)

Sunday I got the front put on the cabinet. Now I need to get a piece of plywood for the top, some oak 1x4s for the molding, and some oak 1x6s for the actual top. I'm doing the plywood top first and screwing that down into the support walls, then gluing the solid oak top on top of that. That way there is a solid inch and a half top surface, to support the over 200 gallons of water that will be sitting on top of it. The cabinet itself is over nine feet long, and our 130 gallon tank is only 6 feet long, so we have ordered another 65 gallon tall tank, that is three feet long, with the same depth and height dimensions as the 130. This way I can run one big long canopy over both of them, and it will seem like there's one giant 9 foot tank up there..... It's gonna be awsome!!!!

Almost off the drugs!!!!!

Yesterday's trip to Moncton almost felt wasted at first. I got to the hospital and parked a block away in the two hour residential parking. I can't imagine anyone would bother with the pay lot when you can walk an extra block and park for free, but there are some lazy lazy people out there. Granted some people can't walk that far, which is why they're at the hospital to begin with, but they shouldn't have to pay for parking on principle alone. I think it's insane that patients have to pay to park their cars at the hospital... it's criminal really. Anyway.....

So I get up to the Oncology clinic to see my doctor and he wasn't there, it was one of the other doctors from Halifax who doesn't know me from a hole in the ground. I was starting to feel like I had totally wasted my time and money on this trip when I talked to nurse and discovered that my doctor was no longer going to be coming to the Moncton clinics and this new doctor was who I would be seeing fro now on. Anyway, it was a long discussion. I saw the doctor and she looked over my skin etc and decided to lower my dose once again. I've been off my cyclosporin for three months now with no problems, and now I'm down to the lowest possible dose of Celcept. In three months when all is well, I will go off that as well. I actually coule have gone right off it uesterday, but my doctor has been doing everything extremely gradually, and I made the call that I wanted to go from taking the pill twice a day to once a day before going off completely. It only took a month for my skin to tighten up tot he point I couldn't stretch my arms out completely straight and it's taken a few years for it to heal to the point it has gotten to so far, so I'm in no rush to potentially relapse.

Being in Moncton, of crouse I couldn't help myself and stopped at Noble Aquariums. They are right by the hospital so not stopping would just be rude. I ended up buying a new fish... surprise. I got a little Mandarin Dragonet. He's beautiful. According to my fish book he produces a toxic slime coat that protects him from predator, but won't protect him from anemones. I have six anemones in the tank, so I'm hoping that , like other fish he instinctively avoids them. He would make for a very expensive anemone snack. I'm not going to worry about it too much, though. If he suddenly disapears I'll know what hapened, but I'm going to be optimistic that won't happen.

When I got home from Moncton Darrell and I came into town to get some errands done, had a couple whoppers for dinner, and stopped at Starbucks for a hazelnut mocha. I've been to MacAllister Mall more times inthe past month than I think I have the entire nine years I've lived in Saint John.... Oh Starbucks, How I have missed ye.

Long Week, Longer Weekend!

Last week went generally quite well. I haven't been sleeping too well lately so I've been kind of dragged out. I'm almost finished my last feature for the Cabaret disk 2. Hopefully that is done today and I can start authoring it. Then get down to the business of duplication. Having an actaul deadline now, is going to help. Of course now that I do have ad eadline and stoll have some work to do n it, a bunch of stuff is flooding through the door to hinder my progress. But, no fear I will finish on time.

Things at Atlantica are going well. My classes are running smoothly and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and making good progress. One hour painting classes aren't long enough though. It's so relaxing and fun to paint that the our blows by to quickly. I started them on their first full scene last week, and they got the sky and distant mountains all done, which is quite a bit for an hour, where everyone is learning how to do stuff. In my kids class it's quite a mix, From a grade 12 student who just got an art scholarship, to a 10 year old girl, to a young chinese student who speaks no English, yet still everyone is keeping up and doing fine.

Being a long weekend, we took Friday off as well and streched it into four days. I still had to come in for my 6 O'clock animation class, but that was no big deal. I got a lot done on my cabinet downstairs this weekend. We went to Hunter lake lumber and bought some rough oak for the front. They even planed it down to the exact width and thickness I wanted for no extra charge. Saved me a lot of time and mess ahving to do it at home. They have an industrial planer that does all four side at the same time....I WANT ONE!

Saturday we went to on of our neighbour's houses for a Turkey Fry. They deep fried three turkeys over the course of the day. I've never had deep fried turkey before, but it was really good. Of course you miss out on the stuffing and the gravy that way, but it was still really good. After that we went to another nieghbour's house for a bon fire that lasted until the wee hours.

Sunday We went to Brian and Helen's for a really great dinner, and stayed quite late there as well, just hanging out watching Sunday night TV.

Monday I worked all day downstairs on the cabinet. I got the last of the inside back panels urithaned, and most of the rails glued for the front. tonight I will glue the last fo them, then Wednesday I'll put that baby together!!!!

I'm in Moncton tomorrow for a doctor's appointment.

Premiers

There have been some really good premiers in the past couple weeks. Heroes of course tops my list. I love that show so much it is probably sad. How i met your Mother, Two and a Hals Men, and Rules of Engagment have all started off really good. The new show grouped with them, the Big Bang Theary, so far has been quite funny. I wonder what happened to cancel The Class though, it was really good. Brothers & Sisters, and Desperate Housewives are both looking good this season, although the plot line with Justin on Brothers and Sisters is pretty predictable. He's been recalled by the Army and sent to Iraq, his contract with the show hasn't expired, they can't show him in a different country all the time, and since the tours of duty are being extending in unfathomable ways over there, there's only really two ways soldiers are coming back from there lately; either injured or in body bags, so obviously he is going to be injured and sent home......duh. Unless they have the Senator (Rob Lowe) pull some strings behind the scenes, which won't happen because he has designs on running for president.

New Shows: Have caught three episodes of Gossip Girl, it's okay, I may might stick with it. Although I think if I start getting busy it will be one of the first to go, and certainly won't make the "must see" list. That's basically reserved for Sunday and Monday anyway. New Bionic Woman.... Jury's still out on that one. Interesting idea, but I'm a fan of the original, so.... I'll give it a chance to win me over. Pushing Daisies, very interesting and quirky so far. It's kind of a mix of Dead Like Me and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.... I think I like it. If they can keep up the quirky I'll keep up with it.

There is one show I've been watching alot of lately and it's really nothing short of spectacular. It hasn't come out yet, but I've had the privledge of private advance screenings and I can't wait for you to see it. In fact I believe the premier will be Monday the 15th, right here in Saint John at the Sommerset Pub... time to be annouced later. Here's a couple previews:

So What


Don't Tell Mama

October 1

Been lazy about posting lately. There hasn't been a whole lot going on. I'm working on the DVD still. I have gotten to the program and bio section and am just waiting for a picture and a bio that weren't in the program before that part can be finished. I also have to edit the photo section which will take a little time, but hopefully I can get this thing put to bed soon.

My classes have been going well. The kids for the animation classes are very keep so it's been quite easy to get them on track. This week they will be recording their voice overs for their projects. My painting classes are also going really well. I have five kids in my kids class and nine adults in the my adults class, and so far no one has quit or fled the room in tears, so all is going well.

I've been busy workng on the new cabinet downstairs. It's been slow going because I've been doing it in pieces as we can afford it.

The anemone that split is still doing fine. All the pieces formed up and they were fed for the first time this weekend. All of them grabbed the food and ate, so we are hopeful that they will all survive and thrive.

Went to a wrap party at Greg's on Friday. It was a really good time. Unfortunately Darrell had to work Saturday so we couldn't stick around long, otherwise we probably would've watched the usn come up with the rest. Saturday night we went to Trish and Mike's for Ramoli, and Sunday we stayed home and caught up on some house hold chores. I got some more panels cut, sanded, and the first coats of urithane on each, for the cabinet. I am now at the point of needing some rough Oak to do the front.

My workouts have been going really well lately. I've managed to get back into the swing of things int he past couple weeks, after missing a bunch over the summer. I'm back to being able to run the entire 20 minutes on the treadmill. Not ready for any 10K s or anything like that, but still doing pretty good none the less.

So that's the long and short of it I guess...same old same old.

Busy Busy

Last night was the first of my new classes. I have one new girl, a returning Girl whose quite advanced, and a returning boy who came to few classes in the spring, so it's a nice small class with lots of oportunity to spend one on one time with everyone. I wouldn't mind a couple more kids though, because once they get the hang of what they're doing and get into their projects I'll be mostly pacing around, plus it's better for the school if we have a couple more to fill the class out.

Last night was animation and tomorrow is painting night. I'm very excited to start the painting classes, partly because I never seem to find time to paint anymore, and partly because I already know some of the students who will be attending and have a pretty good idea of what they're capable of, so I can't wait to see what they start turning out.

I don'thave a as many classes as originally planned out in the flyer, but that may be a blessing in disgise. I don't want to suddenly find myself overwhelmed by an unruley schedule. Four classes spread over three nights should be a good start, and hopefully in the spring once word has spread and some results are in from the fall, we'll fill out those other classes.

My animation project at work is going quite well, and seems to be on pace. I actually have some character animation in it which excites me. Doing mostly corporate work doesn't call for much character stuff, so it's nice to get something that lets me play. I may have to come in and work another weekend if I ever want to finish Cabaret. So that's what I may end up doing this weekend if I get the time.

Back to School

Tonight I start back to teaching in the evenings. Not all the classes that were planned are going to materialize, because there wasn't enough interest in all of them, but that's actually a bit of a blessing in disguise, since I don't want to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of classes I have on top of my full time job. All my painting classes are full which I'm really happy about, and my animation for kids classes are a go, but I think we're breaking it into just two classes, one for beginners and one for intermediate, instead of the age group breakdown, I'll know for sure when I talk to Kelli tonight. Tonight's class is beginner animation, so I have to print off some poems and in preparation. The number of hours in the 12 week programs actually works out to less than the number of hours in the summer camp, but I'm planning to do the same thing with the beginners as I did with the summer camp. The intermediate class is another story, because it is filled with kids who have already been coming regularly and many of them have stuff on the go already. I'm going to have to structure what they're working on a little better, because they're all at different levels and places, but I think I can streamline that and get them all in the same ballpark. To tell the truth, once you get the basics of animation the higher level is really just about adding more detail, and making things more complex and professional looking.

When I got off work and got home yesterday Darrell, pointed out that the anemone didn't split into four. It split into five. There are three that are quite small and then two that are larger. The largest of the two is still not formed up together and is strung along the rock still, so it may actually rip in half again. I'm hoping it doesn't. I've heard when they break into just three the mortallity rate for the little third one is usually pretty high, so breaking into five can't be a good thing. We are keeping our fingers crossed and our breath held that they all form up properly and are healthy and happy.

Monday Monday... baah daah, baah dah dah dah

We had a pretty kicked back weekend. I got another couple panels done on my stand downstairs, it is taking a long time because we are trying to do this one without busting the bank.

Sunday we spent the day watching one of the coolest things ever. Our Bubble Tip Anemone decided to split. I don't know if it was just time for it to do it, or if there was a water quality issue or what, butover the course of the day and last night it divided into four. So now there are four little anemones where one used to be. It was really quite amazing to watch, because we were watching a living creature quite literally rip itself in half, which is probably why it took so long. I know if I were going to rip myself in half, well quarters actually, I would take my time and make sure I got that right. I only wish we had known what it was doing when it first started happening so we could've set up the video camera and done a time lapse on it. At first we just thought it was stressed from the change in water flow and the new filter and moving to a new location. Then Darrell thought it was dying for a little while, although I figured it would take more than just one day of wonky water levels to kill an anemone. Then before we knew it it was inthe process of ripping apart and we missed our oportunity to film. It would've made a great feature in my pilot. Oh well, live and learn. We will be prepared next time.

Last Week before School

So this is the last week I have left before my classes start at Atlantica. I am excited to get going, and if the open house last week is any indication I will have really good students who are excited and interested, so my job is going to be super easy.

I spent the weekend at work, editing. It is very hard to get a pet project finished when it is continually pushed to the back of the line by company business so I took the oportunity this weekend to finally edit Cabaret. Don't cheer too loudly yet...I'm not completely finished. I have the play edited, but I realized Sunday that I didn't have two programs installed that I really needed, and they're things Darrell had to install so they didn't get put on until Monday. I still have alot to do for the DVD, including making all the menus etc, but the heavy lifting is finshed so (fingers crossed) you'll be getting a call in the near future. At the moment I am burried beneath and animation project that will take up my week, but hopfully I can find a little spare time to squeak out some stuff.

Update

It's been a little while since I've posted anything here. Not that there's been much to post about really. The long weekend was really good. As usual we took the extra day and stretched it into a four day weekend. It kind of screwed Darrell though, since he was already taking a week off, and it having a four day weekend in the middle of it meant he only really got three days holiday instead of a full week.

The editor is finally back up and running (I hope I didn't jinx it by saying that) and I've finally got all the programs reinstalled and files moved back over to it. I've been editing my ass off the past few days trying to finish up some stuff before a bunch of new stuff comes through the door. Yes I'm working on it, and yes I'm getting a lot of it done, but I'm not saying anything more about it because I don't want to jinx anything. You all know what I'm talking about anyway, so we'll leave it at that.

I ended up coming into work for a couple hours on Friday even though I had the day off, because I had to shut stuff down. I left a bunch of files transferring before leaving Thursday so I had to finish that up.

I broke a vow this weekend... twice. When we got our cleaner wrasse in the aquarium I did some research after the fact and vowed if we ever lost him I wouldn't replace him. Well, we had that hot spell and didn't have an airconditioner yet, and the tank overheated and he jumped out while we were at work, and I lost him. I was really sad too, because he was oneof my favorite fish. This weekend Pets Unlimited had some in and, even though i know I shouldn't buy them because they should stay in the wild, I bought one and put it in the main tank. Then just to make matters worse, I bought another one and put it in my small nemo tank (He now seems to be missing... completely vanished for the past two days). We also got a really pretty racoon butterfly fish who will live in the 77 gallon tank once everything else has moved to the 130.(He eats corals and anemones so he can't go in the main tank). My stand downstairs is coming along...it's moving a lot slower than the original stand because I don't have the cash to put it together all at once and I'm doing it bit by bit.

We did a little visiting with the Bonds this weekend as well. Helen's mother Margaret is visiting from England for a few weeks, so we got to catch up with her. We'll be seeing them tonight as well.

So far this week has gone very fast. Last night there was an open house at Atlantica for people to come and see the school and talk to the instructors about upcoming classes. I had a lot of interest in my animation and painting classes, and signed up several new people, so it should be alot of fun in the next couple weeks when everything starts up. All my classes start the week of the 20th. I've made a few exceptions in the age areas, because there's a couple mothers who want to take the painting classes with their daughters... which I don't mind at all. In fact if I had enough interest in that regard I'd open another night just for that. I don't like the idea of everyone sitting behind their own easle painting in their own little space and the instructor wandering around the room looking over everyone's shoulder... it's took sterile. That's not how I learned to paint, infact I probably wouldn't have learned to paint if that were the case. I like the idea of everyone sitting around a big table... more like we're getting together for coffee and just happen to be painting as well.

I've also decided to throw in a guitar lesson for myself on mone of my class nights. I already know most of the chords and can strum the guitar okay, but I'd like to be able to go to a party and actually sit around the fire playing the guitar with some confidence. Also I would like to be able to sing whatever I want as compared to trying to find songs the guitar player and I both know.

Freddy Town

Wednesday after work we picked up Thomas and headed out to the beach at Gardner Creek to shoot the opening segment for my pilot. It went very well and was a gorgeous day. We were all done by 7.

Was up in Fred'ton yesterday filing my passport application. It was a surprisingly quick process with only one person in line ahead of me. We stopped at the pet store while there (of course) and got some live rock for my 25 gallon nemo tank, and then headed home. The entire round trip took four hours...not a bad way to spend a Thursday really.

Spare Change

So I'm on my way to the gym yesterday afternoon, first time in a couple weeks :( ...things just kept getting in the way, and a guy wearing $200 runners asks me for spare change. Don't ask me for change if you're wearing better shoes than me!!!

Good work out though.

Update

I haven't really been keeping up with this blog very well, and it's been a week between posts.

Last week was pretty good. Darrell was out of town on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was his birthday, but he wasn't around we went out to dinner at Romanos on Thursday instead with Bertis and the Bonds. The computers at work are still acting up. Darrell finally got the editor up and running and everything working beautifully, then we went to install this program called ghost so he could make an image of the working computer for future installs, and everything f^%ked up. So... no I don't have Cabaret finished yet.... but I swear it is the very first thing I am going to do when the computer works again.

The weekend was really good. I got a little bit done on the new cabinet on Friday before runnign out of wood. Saturday I got somemore wood, then went to Kizzy's birthday party. Lots and lots of fun. As usual there were plenty of guitars players on hand and lots of singing, and catching up with everyone. I stayed until about 1am, I was going to leave sooner, but Jeff Scott showed up with his guitar and we got busy singing, and the next thing you know it was 1.

Sunday I got a little more work done on the cabinet, then Brian and Helen dropped by for a visit. We watched Sicko and a few episodes of Little Britain. If you haven't seen Sicko yet, you really should. It's very well done. I used to think Canada had a great medical system, and compared to the US it does, but compared to Britain, France, and Cuba... it needs some work. Britain, France, and Cuba's systems are head and shoulders above Canada's and all of them are light years ahead of the United States. Any time you hear a politician start talking about a more private health care system more similar to the US, grab the biggest hardest thing you can find and bean them in the head with it.....Remember MPs all live locally. The doc showed footage of one of the richest university hospitals in the United States taking patients who couldn't afford their care and dropping them off on skid row in front of a shelter, and a man who cut off the ends of two of his fingers having to decide which one he could afford to have put back on.... and that was just the very tip of the iceberg. I could start a huge rant right now, but will spare you... this time.


We are still as fish crazy as ever. I am endlessly fasinated by the female Clarkii clownfish and her relationship with the Bubble Tipp Anemone. It is fun watching her nest inside it, and feed it, and chase off other fish. She will even come right up and take little pieces of cut up shrimp out of my fingers to feed the anemone. It is sooo cool.




I was going to be part of Shakespeare, but several weeks agao I pulled out. At the time my schedule would've allowed me to do it, but there was potential that it was going to get very packed and I would have to pull out later, and I didn't want to do that. Now I'm glad I did, but the potential I foresaw has been realized and I would be pulling out now, at the last minute instead of giving them time to replace me before they even started. At the moment my classes at Atlantica are closed down for the rest of the season (except for my summer camp on tuesday mornings) and due to start up again in September. In September I'll be teaching a total of nine classes. I have three beginner animation; ages 7-10, 11-17, and adult, Three beginner painting; ages 7-10, 11-17, and adult, and two beginner acting; ages 7-10, and 11-17. All this is in the evening after work... so I'm going to be very busy. There is a broshure floating around the city, but if you haven't come across it and are interested in knowing anything else about the school, just give me a shout.

Long Weekend - The Sequel

We took Friday off and had a second long weekend. It was glorious!!! hahaha

There was a guy on the Reef forum whose Bubble Tip Anemone split and he was selling the second one. I messaged him, but didn't hear back, so I thought it may already be gone. On Friday we decided to take a trip up to Moncton and check out Noble Aquariums while we were there. It was a very expensive trip!! I picked up a 25 gallon tall tank that was on sale. I'm going to use it for my ocellarus clownfish (like Nemo). A couple months ago I took them out of the main tank because we had an ich outbreak and now I can't put them back in, because the larger more agressive Clarkiis are well established in the tank and will pick on the little ocellarus to death. I had planned on putting them all in at the same time when I get the 130 up and running, but still wasn't completely convinced, so when I saw the 25 gallon tall tank on sale it changed my mind. I am going to set that up for my little guys with some live rock and really good lighting, then when it's established enough I'll get them a Riterri anemone that they can inhabit and possibly breed in.

At Noble's we also got a couple new corals, a decorated goby fish, and a Bubble tip anemone since we hadn't heard back from Ray and Noble's had some. Of course the second we got home and I checked my messages on the forum I heard back from Ray (he had been awy for a couple days) and he was willing to sell me his Bubble Tip.... no problem we have rooom for two.

Saturday we took a trip up to Sussex and visited Ray. He had a really cool tank with some of the biggest colt corals I've ever seen. (Darrell's probably seen lots larger, but I've never been diving). We got the Bubble tip (which was twice the size of the one we got the day before) and a frag of another SPS coral from him.

In an aquarium Clarkii Clowns are not fussy and will host in nearly any anemone you put in the tank, in fact they'll host in a frilly mushroom if there's no anemone around, but in nature they they are mainly found in Bubble tips, so I shouldn't have been surpised that by Sunday night the female clarkii was sleeping in the larger anemone.... I was... because I was under the impression it took a little time for them to discover and warm up to the anemone, but our Clarkiis were over investgating the second I put the firt BTA in the tank, so Saturday when the second one came along they must've been ready. This morning when I fed them she was still in there wiggling around. The Male was on the other side of the tank and I'm not sure if he's as interested in the anemones as she is, plus she tends to push him around a lot so I don't think they've decided to pair off yet, but maybe the anemone will change her feelings toward him for the better and they may even spawn... fingers crossed.

This is why keeping a reef tank is so addictive, there's so much learning and it's all so interesting. Basically you're setting up a self contained ecosystem and watching it mature. Anyway...there's pics on facebook and Flikr.

Sunday I finally got back to my tasks downstairs and got the seams on the ceiling sanded and another coat of mud on them. It is very hard on the shoulders sanding a ceiling, so I broke down and bought myself a ceiling sander on a pole thinking that would make it easier. It did a little bit but my shoulders were already sore by then so it was hard to tell the difference. I also got the boards all ripped and the main base for the new cabinets built, then I ran out of wood.

Darrell mustered up all his bravery and decided to go ahead and drill the 130 gallon tank. He cut a 2 inch hole in the back for the outflow pipe and it went beautifully. He tossed the drilling idea round for a long time before he finally mustered up the nerve. It's quite a risk really, if you screw up and break the panel you just ruined a $500 tank, so you really have to take some time and think about it before rushing in. I just wish someone had of told us before we ordered it that for $35 we could've had the factory predrill it before they shipped it out and then there would've been no stress at all. Oh well, live and learn, and now Darrell has a more interesting story to tell about how he drilled it himself and the events leading up to it etc, instead of saying "oh we bought it that way."

Things that Smell.

The long weekend was a really good one. We took Friday off as well and turned it into a four day holiday. I still had to come into town on Friday and teach my class, but that just helped break up the day. We didn't have any plans to go anywhere, because Duke was still with us, but there was plenty to keep us occupied at home.

We got a good dent put into the work downstairs. Darrell got the sockets all wired up, and we got the insulation put back into the wall, the vapor seal back on, the strips of drywall taken out of the ceiling screwed back up in, and the wall closed back up with plywood. There was only one little strip of drywall that was too damaged to put back up but luckily Brian & Helen had some left over from when they did their bathroom and it was the right thickness.

Brian & Helen came over Saturday night and we hung out and watched The Incredibles.

Sunday I got the ceiling taped and the first coat of mud on it. I also got a start on planing my 2x4s down to 1x2 for my cabinet framing. Mike got back from his holiday and came too pick up Duke. Duke was really excited when he saw the truck pull in. Sunday night we popped over to Sylvia's next door and watched Finding Nemo (it was a real 3d kind of weekend), she had never seen it before and it's such a cute movie, we don't mind watching it a few times.

Monday I got the joining and planing done on all my boards and am now ready to rip them to width this evening.

In the Fall we got a really nice Jasmin vine when we were in Ontario at one of the nurseries there. I have it in a window box up on the window ledge for the stair way, and it has started blooming. Now whenever you open the door to go downstairs you're greeted with this awsome scent of blooming Jasmin. Plus after planing all those board s, the whole house smells of pine.

This morning I was in a rush to get into town in time to teach my class, and my car wouldn't start. I don't know why, it just won't fire up, so Darrell will have to look at it when we get home, because, while I could learn how to do it and have done it in the past.... I'm not mechanically inclined and he is. I'll fix it if I have to, but I'd just as soon have someone else do it. How's that for a guy who grew up in a family of professional truck drivers and heavy duty mechanics? At any rate, we got into town, late, but it didn't matter because the school was all locked up. I guess they decided not to have the summer camp this week because of the short week, but someone forgot to tell me.

Hopefully the car car thing is something stupid and easy to fix, or just one of those things where you get home it fires up and you never really know why it wouldn't before.... that would be nice.

What's New.

In a word...nothing.

The Weekend was fine. We didn't do too much. Ended up pruchasing an airconditioner to keep the living room at moderate temps, so far it isn't working all that well and we have a service guy coming on Friday to check it out.

Last week my cleaner wrasse jumped out of the tank while we were out and I found him in the plant too late to save him. I'm really sad about it too because, even though he was a purchase done without research and I vow never to get another one because they belong in the wild and mostly die in captivity, he was doing really well. He was eating prepared food and getting along famously with all the other tank inhabitants .... in fact he was one of my favourite fish to watch. The heat must've raised the tank temp to a place he didn't like so he abandoned the reef in search of cooler places ... :(

We are still puppy sitting. Duke has made himself very at home, and doesn't whine or do any of the things Mike said he would, but then again we're dog people. I don't think I'd actually ever own a beagle though. Don't get me wrong they're cute as all get out and have lovely personalities, but they need even more care and attention than most other dogs. Of course once Underdog hits all the theatres and families fall in love with that superdog, kids everywhere will be wanting a beagle of their very own... here's hoping their parents do some reading first so they know what they're getting into (doubt that but here's hoping). Beagles are hound dogs, and they smell like hound dogs which is a considerably more pungent musky aroma than even the dirties lab or shepard. Beagles also track things like all other hound dogs, and have a tendency to stick their nose to the ground, find an interesting scent, and follow it wherever it may lead, completely ignoring the world around them and your calls for it to come back. (that's the whole needs extra care part... you have to keep them very clean all the time and you always have to spend hours upon hours with them when they are young to train them to stay, and even then you have to monitor them or keep them fensed or on a leash.) So in summary.... lovable, cute, adorable, small dogs.... but they stink and they wander.

Friday Feast July 17, 2007

Appetizer
Describe a toy you remember from your childhood.
I had lots of great toys when I was a kid, but I was really into action figures so I had all the GI Joes, and all the original Star Wars stuff.... too bad I don't still have that stuff (although it has to be inthe packages to be worth anything and what good is a toy if no one plays with it?)

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how observant are you?
6 sometimes I'm ultraobservant and other times I'm completely vacant

Salad
Where would you rather be at this very moment?
What's wrong with where I am right now?

Main Course
When was the last time you learned something new?
Every day I learn something new.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have ____________ but I haven’t ____________.
I have been shopping all shopping for art supplies all morning but I haven't purchased anything.

Friday

It has been a very long week so far, made longer by the stress of reformatting my computers. I finally got my animation computer back up and working, now the chore will be to get the editor done this weekend.

It has been really hot, which I totally love, unfortunately the aquarium inhabitants don't. We will have to tinfd a way to keep them cooler in the daytime if this weather persists, which I hope it does.

I've heard Facebook has been having some legal problems and lately it has been Down for Maintenance an awful lot, so I spent a little time yesterday backing up e-mail addresses etc from old firends I reconnected with through Facebook, just in case. I'd hate to one day go to sign on only to find out it's been shut down with no warning and then lose contact with those people again because of it.

This week we are puppy sitting for Darrell's business partner Mike, so there are four extra paws added to the eight already in residence. He's a fairly old dog, so he's not hard to keep up with, but he is a beagle so he has to on the leash outside at all times or he'll stick his nose to the ground and be gone in search of whatever scent he fancies.

I spent this morning shopping (not as fun as it sounds) for prices on art supplies. I need to come up with a cost for supplies for my painting course in the fall. The school likes to have all supplies etc included in the course fees so all parents have to do is drop the child off and everthing else is done. I hit the Dollar Store, Kent, Walmart (argh), and Michaels looking for prices on stuff. Michael's is not very competitive in their pricing, in fact I'm suprised they seel any of their paint with Walmart right next door selling the exact same brand for less. Their brush selection is head and shoulders above all others though, although it would be nice to find a brush set of just the basics. One set of midsized brushes that covers all the types... is that so much to ask for? They have plenty of different sets, but you'll find one set has almost everything except and anglebrush, and the next set will be missing the fan brush etc. There is not one set that just has everything a beginner would need without adding another brush.

This weekend it is supposed to rain all weekend so hopefully we will be able to get some work done downstairs. I found a tile I really like that could go on the back wall above the cabinet, and it's on sale....yay!

New Post

I haven't put anything here since last week. The weekend was really productive. We started tearing out the wall downstairs where the built in cabinet is going to go for the new 130 gallon tank. Darrell also cut strips of drywall out of the ceiling so he could run a dedicated outlet for the aquarium lights. We are going to go with the highend metal hallide lights and that mean three 175 watt lights plus 4 35 watt actinic lights.... therefore they get their very own circuit. He has the line runn through the recroom alraeady and now has to go through the freezer room and into the utility room. I will have my work cut out for me patching the drywall once the wiring is done.

Sunday the weather was awsome so we tried not to spend time indoors even thought there was work to be done downstairs. I did some routine chores, dishes, laundry and such. I dried everything on the line of course.

Monday was work as usual. Afterwork we stopped by Hunter Lake Lumber and discovered they have hardwoods. I nearly cried when I found out their price on oak and realized if I had found them before hand I could've saved about $600 on my aquarium stand.

This morning I had another hour and a half long animation session for the school's full day summer camp. It went really well. Looks like I'm going to be really busy in the fall with the school. I will have four different animation classes ans as of this morning I will also have at least two introduction to painting classes.

I spent the rest of today cursing and swearing as I tried to reformatt my work computers and continupously ran into set back after set back that eventual made me feel like taking the whole shittload and dumping it in the Bay. Perhaps tomorrow the gods of patience, luck, and serenity may smile on me as I try again to get things up and running.

Rainy Days

I generally like rainy days, but not pouring. Too bad Harry Potter wasn't released yesterday, because today would've been the perfect day to stay in bad with a good book. It was absolutely treacherous coming into work this morning. The MacKay highway is probably the worst designed road I have ever driven on when it rains. It doesn't have proper runoff in many areas and there are huge standing pools of water everywhere... it's terrible, the only thing worse than driving that highway during a rain storm is driving it during a rain storm at night, when the paint onthe road completely disapears and all you can see is a shiny black surface with no visible end or beginning. At one point coming into town I was going past a truck when he hit a huge puddle and showered so much water onto my windshield I was completely blind for about 3 seconds... yes very scary and extremely dangerous.

Somethings off

I don't know what it is but something is definitely outof whack with me right now. Today's run just wouldn't go right either. Not from anything physical this time, but my MP3 player kept f&cking up and my shoe laces came untied three times, and it was just not good. I normally feel great at the end of the 20 minutes, but today I felt relieved it was over. Then I did three reps on the chest press and before I could move on to the next machine I just felt an overwhelming desire to be anywhere else but there, so I showered and sat in the sauna for a couple minutes. There's something gone wonky with my system somewhere, I wish I knew what it was.

Is it only Wednesday???

This feels like such a long week. Both my computers are running like total garbage. they've obviously reached their Windows xp best by date and need to be reformatted. I find windows run beautifully for the first six months, then slowly starts to degrade over another threee months before you just can't ake it anymore and have to zero fill the entire thing and start over. Better to do it now before I start getting to serious into a couple projects I have on the go, than to wait until I'm in the middle and have no other choice.

Monday at the gym I had a terrible run. I just couldn't seem to catch my breath and ended up walking out the last 10 minutes of the treadmill cycle. I didn't make it out to the gym yesterday because the guys had a meeting when I normally go and I was the only left in the office. Hopefully today will be better.

Yesterday morning I did another 1 and half long animation session for the school's all day summer camp. One of my kids from the week long camp was there and one of my regular Friday night kids was there as well, the rest were young rowdy boys. Luckily I managed to keep them fairly occupied until about the last 15 minutes when two of them started getting restless and a little unruly. Luckily they were someone else's problem by then....hehehehe. the hour and a half session are quite a bit harder than my actual week long camps because the kids there aren't neccessarily interested in animation or working on the cumpter. The session is part of an overall program that gives the kids a week long sampling off everything the school offers, so it's not like I'm used to. I'm used to teaching kids who are there because they want to learn animation, not because this is what is scheduled for this hour and a half and they have to do it.

Fun Weekend

We had a pretty good weekend all in all. Darrell took Friday off, but I had to do my summer camp so I couldn't. He managed to get the grass cut which, since it was left for a couple weeks, was quite a chore.

Saturday night we went out to catch up with our old friend, who I found on facebook, Evelyn. She and her son Tyler used to be our roommate back when we first moved out to Saint John. She had a video of the christmas we all spent together, it was nice to look back. It was kind of hard to look at myself pre-tranplant though, before all the nasty damage.... I was actually kinda cute. Oh well, can't turn back the clock and it's better than the alternative.

Sunday I came into work to do a picture project for an upcoming baby shower. I wanted to do it on my own time and not company time, but ended up having to finish today because my DVD authoring software, was F%cking up and it was already 11pm. I got it all wrapped up this morning and am not working on a simple vhs to loopable dvd dump. I have to backup everything and redo all my computers because they are all acting up again. I think windows has a "best by" date, like most products have an IDF (intentional design flaw meant to burn out in a few years.). Windows works perfectly for about 6 months then the computer starts going for a shit and you have to reformatt everything to get it working all nice and shiny again. Still I'd rather work on PC than Mac any day of the week. Even for all it's flaws at least a PC will do you courtesy of just crashing instead of hanging up with that stupid coloured wheel doing absolutely nothing and impossible to get out of.

Well, back to backing up!!

Finally Friday

It's been a very long week of earlier than usual mornings. I'm good with getting up earlier, not a problem....getting up earlier and then heading into a room with 7 kids for three hours is a different story. All in all though it was a really good and productive summer camp. Even my guy with special needs got his project done and had a good time. I had one girl who didn't get finished, but not because she's slow by any means, just because she picked the longest piece and is such a good artist that she put a lot of detail into her work, and that takes more time. She'll be back for my regular class tonight so hopefully she has enough time to completely finish. If not maybe we can convince her to join our regular class full time. It's nice to be in an environment where kids are excited and eager to learn, I can't say I'm doing a teacher's job, because I'm not trying to teach people who have no interest in the subject and have to be there. I'm teaching people who are there on their own time and are interested in learning... it's a totally different scenario.

I changed up my workout schedule this week as well and have been really feeling it. For a while all I was doing was cardio, but now I'm back to the weights as well. I'm running for twenty minutes each day and then doing one muscle group a day. Back on Mondays, chest on Tuesdays, shoulders on Wednesdays, arms on Thursdays, legs on Fridays. Crunches everyday!!!!! It feels a lot more intense than upper body, cardio, lower body, cardio, full body, cardio. Now if I just get my diet completely nailed down I'll be golden.


Addition: I will have four classes in the fall at Atlantica, provided there is interest. We will be doing three month classes for - Beginner aged 7-12 (I believe), Beginner aged 12-17, Beginner Adult, and Intermediate all ages. It would be an hour a week for each course...wooo hooo. If you know a creative kid of adult who wants to come play tell them about it. It think it's only $50 a month for the three months, but don't quote me on that!!

Very long Saturday

We had a very productive weekend but it made for a very very long Saturday. We went up to Moncton in a rented van (That incidentally the guy at Delta is now trying to screw us over onthe price of claiming there's a bunch of damage to it that isn't there....don't ever rent from Delta)and shot several sections of our pilot. It all went very well. We left Saint John at 8 am and didn't get back until 10pm so it was a full day. At noble Aquariums I picked up a really cool Flame Lobster and a sea cucumber. The lobster is really really colourful with orange and red and purple patterning... he totally rocks.... That's right he's a.... wait for it.... Rock Lobster. He's pretty shy still so we haven't seen much of him since he entered the tank but eventually he'll be out and about where he can be admired by his adoring public.

Sunday I had very little energy for anything, but managed to do a little cleaning before flopping on the couch for the rest of the evening.

This morning was day one of my summer camp. I started with 7 kids but one is autistic and the camp may be a little too hard for him. I'm hoping, if he stays with it, that I can find something cool to do with him that will keep him interested, but three hours in front of a computer each day is a long time. Everyone is pretty gung ho to do some fun stuff, and I think they got the general idea of what I was tyring to teach them today. I haved out a bunch of poems and they eachpicked the one they liked best, so tonight they are practicing them and tomorrow we go into the studio to record them so they can get to work animating them.

Busy Morning

I spent the majority of the morning catching up, answering messages, and trying to get the things on my end together for tomorrow's shoot in Moncton. This pilot idea is the first time I've had this much to do with a project, I basically created the show from scratch... came up with the idea, wrote the script, did a little concept designing of the look of it, and will now be off to shoot parts of it tomorrow. Thomas Daigle has translated everything into french and will be hosting the french version of the show while I do the english. the company has rented a van and Darrell and Mike have everything together for tomorrow... so exciting. I hope I don't forget something crucial because that would suck.

Also, my summer camp starts next week, so will have a week straight of very busy mornings. I found a great website called poems4kids.com and it has lots of short funny poems that appeal to kids. I printed off a tonne of them and have permission from the author Kenn Nesbitt to use them in the class. The kids in the camp will get to pick the one they want to use and then we'll do a sesssion in the recording studio to have them recite their poem of choice. After that it's story bording time and the animation work begins. It's so great to have material already ready instead of trying to get them to write something because we only have a week and that's not alot of time in the world of animation. Thankfully these poems are short and sweet and the kids should have a finished product at the end of the camp.... also so exciting.

If the summer stays this exciting I may just explode.

Heroes

Am currently on the NBC Heroes website and am downloading 24 graphic novels from the show. They are only little 7 page stories about the characters, but what the hell, they're fun!!

Long Weekend!!

What a nice long weekend. We got alot of stuff done around the house that really needed doing. Darrell go the huge mess I made downstairs building the aquarium stand completely cleaned up and reorganised. Gregg Hemmings Dropped by and gave us a hand to move the huge 130 gallon tank out of the back of the blazer and down into the basement. Now I will be making a huge mess building a nice built in cabinet in the recroom for the big tank to live on.

Sunday was Kizzy's awsome Canada Day BBQ. Lots of fun people and good food. Darrell had to work for Rogers that day so he couldn't make it over, but I partied hard enough for both of us. I baked some pies to take over, and when I popped home to let the dogs out, I loaded up on some firewood so we could all sit around the fire and sing with the guitars. It was tonnes O fun!!

Monday we took it easy. I did some cleaning. Brian and Helen came over later in the evening and we BBQ'd some hamburgers and hotdogs then sat around watching a marathon of "Next Design Star" on HGTV... the Miami Hunkmachine David ultimately won. It's nice to have friends pop over who can just hang out and watch TV and you don't feel like you have to entertain. I was up a little late last night to see the end because I had already invested all those hours on the other shows I wasn't about to go to bed without knowing who ultimately won. I must've slept wrong on Sunday because yesterday and today my neck has been super stiff. Hopefully some stretches will fix it up. I have a pretty busy week ahead getting ready for my summer camp next week, and preparing everything for our "pilot" shoot up in Moncton on Saturday....please let there be sun.

HummingBee???

I was out in the beautiful sunshine doing some gardening and saw this little guy popping from flower to flower. At first I just thought it was a bee, then I looked a little closer at it.

It's furry like a bumblebee or a moth. It's shaped kind of like a moth. It has six legs (so it's an insect) and antennae, but it also has a beak and flapps it's wings superfast like a hummingbird. I have never in my entire life seen one of these guys before... anyone know what it is????










Never mind, just did a google search and it turns out he's a Hummingbird Moth.

link for info

Today

This morning I taught my first summer camp session. I have two different kinds. The school offers a full day summer camp that covers everything offered by the school, and hour of and hour of that and so on. So I am teaching an hour and half on tuesday mornings for that. Then in July & Auguts I do a full week long animation camp for three hours each morning. This morning I had nine kids and it was a fairly boisterous crowd, but we got a lot done and they had fun.

Last night we got our new 130 gallon aquarium..... It's a sickness I swear!!

Reevaluate

Today I am sitting down to go over my entire fitness regime and reassess and evaluate, and set some new goals.

I'm really happy with the way things have been going so far, and I've reached quite a few of my original goals. So it's time to set some new ones, and have a look at how I'm going to go about achieving them.

First off, a little self pat on the back for the goals I've achieved so far.

1) I've managed to make going to the gym a daily habbit and get there five times a week most weeks. (That may not sound like much, but it's a fairly big deal to me because it's very easy to fall off and miss days. I missed several weeks while we were rehearsing Cabaret and it took two full weeks to get back into the routine and I'm still catching up to where I left off physically)

2) I am the size and weight I think I should be!!!!

3) I am running and managing to go the entire 20 minutes on the treadmill without feeling like I might fall down and die afterwards.

4) My stomach has gone from one big roll to three with slight dents down the center.

5) My bloodpreasure is textbook perfect. Getting off the cycloporin will help keep it that way also because that is what was driving it up to begin with.

6) My endurance is 100% better and I have more energy everyday.

7) I am doing more sets with heavier weights.

So all in all the program I'm following is working well for me. If i want even better results I'm going to have to make the adjustments to my diet. So my next and biggest goal will be to eat properly!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, with my left shoulder being all gymped like it is I know I can't build a big upperbody, it's just not going to happen because I will look completely lopsided... so I know the best bet for me is to burn fat with a good diet and define what's already there. Stay lean and mean hahahaha. I am going to set up a meal plan of five small meals a day working with a calory deficit for three days then maintenance for one, and a cheat day every two weeks, then maintain that! That is my new goal, combined with what I'm already doing. I think if I can maintain that, by the end of two months I should be seeing my abs.