DanB

What an Awsome Weekend!!

2009-08-17T11:53:00.002-03:00

We have been spending the past three weekends at the gay campground just outside of Fredericton. It is a really beautiful location, and a great facility with free showers, heated pool, and club house for events, but mostly it is a really nice community of people. In fact in the past 11 years it is the first time we have both felt like a part of any community in the maritimes.

It was a weekend full of special occasions as well. Friday was Darrell's birthday, Saturday was our 11th Anniversy, and Sunday was our Friend's David and Miachael's anniversary. So needless to say a lot of alcohol was packed. I stayed home from work on Friday and got stuff ready so we could just hitch up the camper and get right on the road. (We bought a 12 foot hardtop tent trailer three weeks ago, that combined with Fredericton's superior weather has fueled the camping bug lol). We got away a little later than planned but were in the road by five so it put us into the campgrounds around 6:30, which wasn't bad. We got set up and settled in, and eventually David and Michael made it out to join us. They got a little lost due to some construction detours, but ultimately we all ended up in the same place. We had a great night having a few drinks and visiting the other campers.

Saturday was a scorcher of a day. So once we were all up and had breakfast we spent some time in the pool. We made several trip to the pool throughout the day. Around 8 ish that evening my cousin Laura and her partner Ray arrived at the camp to hang out and help us celebrate our anniversary, they even brought some sparkling for the occasion....woohoo. I took Laura on a walk around the campsite to show her around, and when we got down near the washrooms where there is a seasonal tent set up, the three girls who stay there spun their heads around so fast I thought I could actually hear the vertibrea pop, then I remebered...oh Yeah...that's right....Laura's hot! It was actually quite cute. We headed over to the clubhouse for karaoke around 9. It was the first time they had karaoke there since we started going to the campgrounds so no one there had actaully heard me sing yet. Laura and Ray had also never heard me, so I was feeling a tiny bit nervous with a new crowd and family there, but for me those nerves usually only last about half a verse into the first song. I did two in a row and the campers were quite surpised. There were only a few singers in the crowd, but everyone was quite good. Laura put up a song as well, and they called her up to sing it right after I had just finished singing Sherry. She said something, like of sure call me up right after my cousin, and Randy the Host said, well let's see if that voice runs in the family. The music started and Laura opened her mouth and out came a great big powerful voice....blew my mind because I had absolutly no idea she sang. We sang a few more songs and then Randy suggested that we should try a duet, he also said that we needed to make an album together. We tried Picture by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, it was really good if I do say so myself. Ray and Laura didn't stay for the whole thing, but are coming back for more karaoke next weekend (fingers Crossed). Of course I stayed until the bitter end and then we all ended up around our neighbour's fire. I didn't factor in the bubbly to my drinking equation so was double fisting it for a portion of the night and actually got quite drunk, the sky was starting to brighten by the time I finally rolled into bed.

Of course when you're camping you're up with the sun, so I was up far too early and feeling the effects of drinking far too much for a man my age. Had a quick bite and then right into the pool, because the day started out hot and just got hotter. I got lots and lots of compliments about the singing the night before, for both me and Laura. She and Ray were quite the hit with the girls and guys alike, they all really liked them. After lunch we started packing up. David and Michael headed out and Darrell started breaking down the camper. There was no breeze so the heat actually started to feel punishing by the time we were finally on the road home.(I never thought cold Foggy Saint John would be a relief but it was) We unpacked everything and put some stuff away then Darrell headed off for a nap and I went to soak in a luke warm tub. afterwards I came into the office to start the final render of the final segment of an animation project that has been ongoing for nearly a year. My friend Jesse was down in Saint John from Fredericton for Pride and his husband told me he was planning to go to the drag show at Element, so I popped down to visit with him. When I got there Michelle, the hostess spotted me, and asked me to sing a song at the end of the first set. I was pretty scratchy and dry, but I said sure why not. Jesse left before it came up because he wanted to get back to Fredericton so he didn't get to hear, but it was actually really good. I did Try by Blue Rodeo and crowd went nuts. It was a pretty good boost to the end of an already pretty great weekend.

Today I am decompressing and recovering from all the fun, booze, and sun. Plus I'm feeling pretty good about finally finishing a very long on going project, although it technically isn't finished yet, it's just completed. The corporate whosey whats its still have to go over it up the and down the chain and see if there are things they want to change.

Elevator Etiquite

2009-08-12T14:53:00.003-03:00

Why is it so damn hard for people to figure out how to work an elevator? You press the button and step back. The elevator arrives, the doors open, the people get off, and you get on. You press the button for the floor you are going to and find a place to stand until the elevator arrives at your destination. The doors open and you get off. Pretty damn simple if you ask me.

You do not, press the button and then stand right in the center of the door waiting to barge on the second they open. The elevator isn't going to leave you behind. Let the people off first!! Oh yeah, and if the button you for your floor is already lit up, there really is no need for you to press it again.

And if there happens to be someone on the elevator who needs extra assistance getting on and off, or extra time, you put your arm across the doors or press the door open button and get out of their way so they can get off with as least amount of hassle as possible. Don't step over them or crowd them. Parents you are responsible to keeping control of your children as well, do not let them go barging on over top of everyone. People are so rude and stupid sometimes it makes me want to scream!

Here's something that perplexes me about one elevator in particular. The elevator in Brunswick Square which you have to take if you want to go to the gym, go figure having to take an elevator to go work out. There is a post about three feet out in front of the door and people waiting for the elevator tend to stand in that area. On the other side of that post is easily 20 feet of walking space. So why do all the people wandering through the mall feel the need to squeeze themselves between the people waiting and the elevator door in that three feet of space? WTF?

Trip Home

2009-07-09T14:46:00.003-03:00

I had a fantastic time on my trip home to BC. I flew out on the 16th of July from Saint John to Vancouver, then up to Williams Lake. My original trip was supposed to be from the 16 to the 27 and my WL to Vancouver flight was supposed to be the 16 and the 26 leaving me a night in Vancouver then home. However my return date got changed to the 1st so I had some time for a surprise trip to Vancouver Island.
My first few days in Williams Lake were nice and slow, I stayed at my Grandparent's house and everyone dropped by at one time or another. I dug my grade ten woodworking project out of the office and finished it. A mahogany Coffee table that we ran out of time in school to finish. It only needed a light sanding, some urithane and the top screwed, so 22 years later I finally got around to it and now it is in my grandparent's living room. Their brand new never used antoque coffee table...lol.
On the Saturday there was a horseshoes tourny up at my Dad's place, and there were lots of people up there that I haven't seen in a long time as well as some I've never seen before. After the Horseshoes, I popped out to Chimney Lake to check in on Heather's 40th birthday Olympics, then I stopped by the Red Dog and sang a little karaoke before heading over to my cousin's place for her Daughter's birthday party. Busy Day. I hung out with my Cousin Laura catching up until about 3 am. Sunday I met up with Debbie and we went over to my Cousin Jim's place for his daughter's birthday. We ended up laughing long into the night, and then Monday, Debbie, Hether, Jim & Sylvie, and I went to the OV and laughed our asses off all night long. It was a great time.
Wednesday disaster struck and I battled a bout of food poisoning. I managed to still make it out for lunch with my aunt Brenda and spend some time catching up, but I spent the rest of the day and night either on or beside the toilet. I was severly dehydrated, and (found out after I got home and weighed myself) lost 15 pounds. Thursday Dad brought me some immodium and gravol and I spent the day on the couch drinking gatorade and sleeping, then Friday I was on the plane headed for Vancouver and the Island.
I can only imagine what Earle must've thought when he laid eye's on me at the sea plane terminal. I was all gaunt and flushed and weak. He took me back to his place, fed me some water and then we went out to Rick and Owen's place, where Earle had his tent set up. I was pretty tired so I didn't stay up late enough to see Rick when he got off work, but I got to see him the next afternoon at the hall where they were setting up for the Pride Dance. Earle's Band Wonderbread played at the dance and Rick did his Vikki Smudge (which has gotten a hell of a lot better than when we doing it 12 years ago - the bitch finally listened to me and starting doing his own singing.) I didn't know a lot of people at the dance which was actually pretty cool, because I was still feeling a little weak and icky, but I did manage to catch up with a few old friends, and I got to concentrate on watchign the band. In all the years I've known Earle I don't think I've actually been to one of his gigs. I've been to jams he's played at, but I think his gigs probably conflicted with mine in those days. It was a pleasure to see them play. Great energy, fantastic musicianship, and great music... the crowd really dug it too.
Sunday I got to spend the day and night with Jan and Mark. Jan swung by the campsite and collected me and too me to her house. I even got to have a nice lonog soak in her jacuzzi tub. It was a very healing experience. I finally felt like myself that day. The next morning Earle swung by and picked me up to take me down to Ladysmith to see my Aunt Cheryl, Uncle Vic, cousin Brett, and her new baby Holly~Anna. (Side Bar - Earled bartended until 3am and picked me up at 10 am....I don't have any friends like that in Saint John). After a short visit there, we were off to Chemainus to see my Grandma and my Aunty Kim. We spent most of the Afternoon at Grandma's new Townhouse and then we were back to the campsite so Earle could go to work. Tuesday morning we headed over to Earle's so he could be present while the concrete guys poured and stamped his patio, then we were off to lunch where we unexpectedly ran into Burton (my friend Bill's Boyfriend). He called Bill and Bill rushed over to see me. He was so happy he actually cried (nobody loves me that much in Saint John). He looks fantastic too...lost 140 pounds, I could actually get my arms all the way around him. We had a good visit, then it was off to the Nanaimo River to enjoy the sun and the water, then back to the campsite.
Wednesday Morning I reluctantly got on the plane and headed back to New Brunswick and the crappy excuse for a summer we've been having here. It was damn hard to get on the plane and leave all my friends and family behind.
I think a change of location is in my not so very distant future.

Sore Tummy

2009-06-23T20:00:00.002-03:00

I woke up this morning with a sore stomach. It was good sore though. I went out last night with my cousind Jim & Sylvie, and my close friends from Highschool Heather and Debbie, and we spent the night laughing so hard, that today my stomach ached when I woke up. I have a such a good time telling old stories and catching up on old times. It was a great night.

Green Coffee

2009-05-29T12:02:00.003-03:00

No it's not coffee with green food colouring in it, and it's nothing like Green tea.
It's the difference between buying your coffee in the paper cups provided or using a travel mug. We have about a dozen different travel mugs we've picked up here and there, and use all of them. In the morning we make a pot of coffee and take our mug to work. It keeps the coffee hot, the lids close so you don't slop all over when you're driving, and it actually saves us quite a bit of money. How does it save money you ask?
That first cup is made at home, which is a quite a savings in and of itself, but there's more. I generally have my first cup on the way to work and finish it around 10. The mug keeps it hot enough that I don't have to be in a hurry to drink it. Then I go out to Quality Convenience for another cup. They sell java moose coffee there and I like it a lot more than that burnt tasting sludge you get at Tims. A large coffee at Quality Convenience costs $1.25, but if you bring your own travel mug it only costs a dollar. Okay, so a quarter doesn't sound like very much, but add it up over a work week and it's $1.25. Multiply that by 52 weeks in a year and it's $65, then double it for Darrell's coffee and we save $130 dollars a year, by using our travel mugs for our coffee. Add the savings to the 520 paper cups we aren't using and throwing away, and the $2 or $3 dollars a travel mug costs suddenly seems like a no brainer, doesn't it?

May 14th

2009-05-14T13:58:00.002-03:00

Ten years ago a complete stranger got a call from the hospital and was told they were a bone marrow match, and for whatever presonal reason they may have had, they willing allowed a doctor to take the largest oger of a needle they could find, stick it into their hip bone, and extract a quart of their marrow. That marrow was immediately picked up by a visiting nurse from Halifax who then jumped on a return flight fromwherever on the planet they happened to be, and then transfused into me to cure my leukemia. I recieved that transfusion exactly ten years ago today, and to this day I still don't know who that perfect stranger was, where they were from, or anything at all about them. I can't even send a card to say thank you.

Spring

2009-03-24T12:13:00.002-03:00

First day of spring was Friday. First Day of Spring MY ASS!! It has snowed three times since the "First Day of Spring." Here's an idea, how about we change the Canadian Calendar to actually reflect the Canadian Seasons. Spring means, Snow melting, grass turning green, leaves and and flowers growing, not 10 cm of snow falling and bitter cold.
By this time of the winter I have had it so much with the snow and the gray skies, that to think spring has started and then get snowfall, actually feels like a physical assault. Like being punched in the gut. WE should adjust the calendar so that spring starts in April, when it actually starts in most areas of the Country, not March. Our seasons shouldn't be reflective of some ancient Italian calendar, any more than our time zones are. Australia doesn't call our winter winter, because for them it's summer, so if we're still entrenched in Winter why are we calling it spring?

Vacation Part three

2009-02-25T11:37:00.005-04:00

Our holiday seemed to have three very distinct parts to it, a holiday sonata if you will.
The first was our week in the Keys, which was very refreshing and relaxing. I felt very much at home in the Key. I could actually imagine living there part of the year. The pace of life is much slower there and the people are very welcoming. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had it not been for the fact that this was my first trip to Florida and there was so much I hadn't seen, I think I could've quite happily spent the entire time we were gone in Key West.
The second part of the vactation was the Bahama's, which was also quite relaxing. However it was painfully obvious that we were tourists, in a foreign country that relies on tourism. Everywhere you went someone had their hand out trying to to sell you something or expecting a tip. I enjoyed the sun and the sand, and I think I would like to return there one day on a diving holiday, but to be quite honest I'm in no rush to see it again. There are planty of other places on my list I would prefer to go instead.
The third part of the journey started with a brief return to the Keys for a day of diving, which was totally awsome. Then off to explore some new territory that even Darrell hadn't explored. He's been to Florida several times in the past, but had never done an everglades tour, so it was something we both really wanted to do. We had stayed in Florida City after the Bahama's so we could easily get down to Big Pine Key for diving, and discovered that there was an aligator farm right in the city, near the Everglade National park. We headed over there the next day to see all the gators and take an airboat ride. It was a lot of fun. We watched the Gator show, and saw the breeding and grow out pens, then rode the big airboat. You have to wear ear protection on the boat because it is really loud as it whips over the water, and the Driver would spin it 360 degrees almost at full speed. It was a real rush. The driver was an excellent tour guide and he pointed out all the wildlife we encountered and told us about the birds that live in the swamps as well as some of the different kinds of vegitation. I could've rode that boat a few times, but we had places to go and things to see.
Our plan was to travel across to the west coast and up as far as Tampa then across to Orlando. The most popular highway running across from Miami to Naples is a four lane highway nicknamed Alligator alley, and you can supposedly see a lot of wildlife on it. Darrell has been on it before, but was unimpressed by it's claims, luckily we spent some time talking about our plans to various people in Key west when we were there and got some local info that was very helpful. One of the ladies we met inthe bar, Ginger, told us to avoid Aligator alley and take the old highway 41, which is a longer slower drive, on account if it being only two lanes and winding up the coast, but she guaranteed we would see a lot more on it. Man was she right. The ditches on either side of the road basically blended seamlessly into the swamps in most cases and we saw aligators everywhere. We stopped saying "oh there's one" because they were all along the banks every ten or twenty feet. Just about everywhere there was enough land on the side of the road for a parking lot there was a swamp tour operating and there was also a very cool nature center we stopped at, which had a big observation deck over the ditch. There were about a dozen aligators just laying about on the banks along the length of the ditch there as well, and these guys were not all covered in dried mud and laying piled on top of one anoter like the ones at the farm. These guys were sleak and clean and sunning themselves, and perfectly able to leave the ditch any time they wanted too, because they were wild. Of course wild aligators are actually safer for the most part than the farmed ones, because wild aligators, lik emost other wild animals, are naturally afraid of humans. Honestly, can you blame them. People are the most destructive and deplorable animal on the planet, they should be afraid...I am. You are actually in more danger at the aligator farm, because those aligators are fed by people and associate food with people, not a good thing...that's why it is illegal in Florida to feed or approach wild aligators. People are mostly harmed by wild aligators for their own stupidity, but doing things like trying to touch them to see if they are alive, or swimming in water where they could be, or any number of macho things that people are apt to do. That said, I still wouldn't have wanted to break down on the side of highway 41, even though there were people all along the sides of the road fishing in the ditches, it's not a place I would get out and walk about. I certainly wouldn't stop to let the dogs out either.
All in all our aligator portion of the trip was a blast, with one glaring exception that only bothered me. Everywhere we went, the Farm, the nature center, you name it, they had all kinds of information about the wildlife, and in their information they all mentioned the various kinds of poisonous snakes in the Florida Everglades, and that really grated on my nerves. There is no such thing as a poisonous snake! I think if you are setting up information to educate people then you have aresponsibility to provide accurate and correct information. Snakes are Venomous, they are not poisonous. It seems like a small thing but it is not. Ignorance begets ignorance. Snakes, and spiders, and other little fanged or stingered beasties are venomous. Berries, and toad slime, and arsenic are poisonous. The easy way top remember - If it bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. It bugs the hell out of me to see it wrong in a public information setting where people go to learn about things. End rant
We drove across to Naples, then up to Tampa and over towards Orlando. We stopped at a Ramada about halfway between for the night. The next day we headed into Orlando to see about park tickets. Oh My God, what a total rip off, tickets for those parks are. I can't imagine how families can afford to take their kids to them. The prices are insane. Disney has five different parks, and tickets to one of the for the day are $90 at the gate. That ticket doesn't get you in to all of Disney, just the one park. Want to hop between parks, add another $50 for a second park. Rip off - but for some reason people are paying it. I'm guessing with the state of the American economy, people won't be paying it for long.
I have already been to Disneyland in California and Darrell has been to Disney World, so neither of us felt the need to see the Magic Kingdom. Darrell does enjoy Epcott, but the $90 price tag kind of made us cringe a little. We then discovered we could go to Universal Studios for $69 and get access to both parks, Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure. We didn't have the full day since we were meeting our neighbours, who were also in Florida for dinner at the place they were renting from our other neighbours. For some reason, that I`m still not sure of, we bought two day passes to Universal. I think the plan was to go and see what we wanted to see then give the second day to Mike and Cathy (our neighbours) as a thank you for letting us stay with them that night. Turns out that wouldn`t have been possible anyway, since they have these little fingerprint readers at the gate, that reads your pass and your fingerprint together, so that only you can use your pass. You can`t give away the second day of your pass to someone else, or sell it or whatever. You are stuck with it once you`ve bought it. To top it off...Universal Sucked!
The time it took to park, get into the park, see three things, and get out again.....Five Hours. We waited for 40 minutes in line to see Shrek 4D. It was okay. We waited 30 minutes for the Mummy. Great roller coaster style ride, lots of fire and very fast.....also very short. We waited almost 40 minutes for Jaws...It was awful. We didn`t choose to use our second day. I was really disapointed. I had hoped for something cool, especially when you consider the kind of thing was do for a living...Unversal Studios seemed to be the sensible place to go. (I guess DisneyMGM studios is the one to go to)
After the park we went to visit Mike and Cathy and had dinner and some drinks. We spent the night at the house with them, and then got up to do our second park day. We decided not to do our second day at Unversal and chose instead to splurge and buy ticket to Epcott. We really should have done that the first time, because Epcott, although very pricey, was excellent. We did most of the attractions right at Epcott, with the exceptionof Soar in which had a two hour line and no fast passes. We had a blast doing the mission to Mars simulator, and liked it so much we did it a few times. The Canada Pavilion had the 360 degree movie, which I remember from Expo 86. The movie has changed since then...lol, although the Maritimes was not well represented in the presentation. In fact what they showed were the same sort of stereotypical fishing village sort of images I had in my brain when I lived on the west coast. aside fromthat the presentation was really good. We stayed the entire day and watched illuminations that night as the park closed. It was a great fireworks/laser light show. Then we headed back to the Ramada we had found a couple nights before and stayed there for a our last night. At this point I was past ready to go home.
The next morning we got all our stuff packed back up and arranged, then hit a few of the aquarium stores on our way to the airport. Considering our love for the aquarium hobby we should've skipped Universal and gone to Seaworld. Next time.
Our flight was ontime and went well. We got to New York with no trouble, and our connection all went smoothly. We landed in Bangour and picked up the car, then started the cold late drive home. Of course we stopped at the duty free for a couple big bottles of booze and some inexpensive cologne, and then made our way up the highway to Saint John. We got home around 5am and hit the sack.
Bright and early that morning, Brian Dropped by on his way to work and dropped the dogs off. They were very excited to be home again, as were we. In the week that has followed since our return God has been trying to punish us for enjoying ourselves by burying us with snow. I wish I could return to Key West until spring.

Diving at Looe Key

2009-02-19T12:21:00.006-04:00

After we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale, Darrell made another call to Underseas on Big Pine Key to see if there was a diving charter going out that we could participate in and there was, so I was finally able to try diving. We drove down as far as Florida City that night and found a hotel, then we were up bright and early for our trip back to the Keys.

Since I have never dove, I had to do what they call a resort dive, which means spending an hour in the swimming pool with an instructor to learn the basics, and if the instructor felt I had a good enough understanding and was comfortable enough I could dive with him at the reef.

We stopped at the Dive shop where I met the instructor, Phil, and got outfitted with gear, then we headed back to Parmers Resort, where we had stayed our first three nights in the Keys, to use their pool. It was nice to get an unexpected extra visit in with Brad and some of the other staff at Parmers.

I got in to the wet suit and hopped in the pool, then Phil showed me how to get into the weight belt, BCE, and mask & fins. Then he showed me how to inflate and deflate the BCE, and how to breathe through the regulator. Even though I have used a snorkel in the pool many times in the past, breathing underwater with a regulator feels very strange the first time. In fact it feels strange for the first little while. I learned how to clear the regulator, and cough into it etc. I learned hand signals, and how to recover the regulator if it were to come out of my mouth, as well as buddy breathing in case you run out of air, and how to clear water out of my mask. Since I was the only resort diver that day and we had time, Phil also showed me some basic bouyancy stuff. We were in the pool for about an hour and by the end of it, he was pretty confident I would do fine out at the reef...that made one of us at least. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

We had some time to kill before we had to meet back at the dive shop, so we took another quick trip over to the blue hole to visit the aligator and iguanas. The female aligator even graced us with an appearance closer to the platform. She surfaced a few feet out and gave one of the little ducks a fright. He hopped right out of the water pretty quickly. Unfortunately a bunch of noisey people arrived and she disappeared. Some people have absolutley no clue. They show up making tonnes of noise and laughing and carrying on, then wonder why they never see any wild life. Duh!

We met back at the dive shop then, everyone headed over to the charter boat. Phil had three students who were doing their open water tests to get their licences, so I was going to be sticking with them. There were also some other divers there going out for the day as well as some snorkelers. Darrell was paired up with another tour diver and a couple other guys, and I was with Phil and his class. The boat ride out was about 20 minutes, and my butterflies were getting whipped up in my tummy the closer we got. When we got to the site I got into all my gear. Phil brought me two wet suits, one full sized and one shorty to wear over it, because the water was actually a little colder than usual. It couldn't have been too cold, since coral will only tollerate a fairly narrow tamperature band, but it still felt cold after being down for an hour. I got into the BCE and strapped it all up, then I couldn't get up off the seat. I was thinking, holy crap that tank is heavy, what if I can't even lift it and get off the bench. I was watching everyone else get up fine, and was feeling like a total wimp, then the dive boat operator reach over me and undid the bungy cord that was holding the tank down. The tank was still heavy back there, but not that heavy. I made my way to the edge of the boat, and put my left hand on my weight belt and my right hand on my mask and regulator, then stepped off and plunged into the water. I came bobbing back up, and put my fist on the top of my head to indicate that everything was fine and made my way over to Phil.

The group that was getting their licences had to do some stuff at the top with their BCEs and then we made our way over to the bouy where the rope was. I started going down the rope, but had to stop a few feet down, because I panicked, and came back up. It was kind of freaky trying to calm myself and go down to the bottom. There's a big difference between a six foot swimming pool and 30 feet of ocean water. Couple that with the fact that the visibility wasn't very good, only about 20 feet, so I couldn't see the other divers just below. I made a second attempt to descend the rope and chickened out again. I was starting to think I might not be able to do it and may have to return to the boat, and then I got ahold of myself and forced myself to go. Third time's a charm and I made it down to the sand below. Phil and his class had some stuff they had to do down there before we did anything else as well, so there wasn't much for me to do, but hang out on the bottom and try and calm my nerves. I was very aware of my breathing, and not much else. I was still waffling about going back to the boat as well, but as I sat there I started to relax a bit while I was watching them clear their masks and go through their manouvers. Then I noticed a little hog fish about six inches away watching me. He just hung there in the water looking at me, and for about ten minutes I sat there watching him watch me. Then I started noticing the other fish gathering around, and lost interest in the goings on of the diving class. Just when I was really starting to relax I had another little panick attack because I realized I had to cough. Phil showed me how to cough in the regulator, but knowing how and actually doing it were two different things. So I screwed up my courage and coughed into the regulator and didn't die, and felt relaxed again. When the class was finished doing their thing we all started moving and exploring the reef. There were some huge coral and sea fans, and lots and lots of little fishes all around. I was keeping one eye on Phil the entire time and trying to see the reef with the other, and then under a ledge I noticed a huge baricooda. He must've been about four feet long, and bright flashing silver. I stopped fora minute to check him out and that's when Darrell's group came around the corner and caught up with us. It was cool to see them emerge out of the cloudy water, and it was really neat to see Darrell in full gear swimming about. I have so many pictures, and we have a lot of footage that he has shot when he wasdoing underwater film, but to actually see him in action was pretty cool, after only hearing the stories for the past decade. I don't know if he had a great dive though. He was with a group of guys who seemed to do a lot of swimming and not alot of observing. If you really want to see things in nature you have to be still and let it come to you. A really good example is our aquarium, we have a few fish in there that are over six inches long and if you come up to the glass, every one of them will disappear. They just flash away and pop into the rocks, and unless you sit back and let them be, they don't come out. The reef is no different, except there are larger fish with larger places to hide. darrell likes to go down and park it in a one spot for a while and see the fish come out and swim around, but the guys he was with seemed to be on a marathon to cover as much ground as they could find. He did manage to sit tight a few times and see some cool stuff.

The first time down lasted about an hour, and I was nearing the red zone on my supply gauge by the end of it. Newbies tend to use a lot of oxygen their first few dives because they are so excited and breath a lot more than normal. I was no exception. When I got back on the boat, I was just shaking, partly from the cold and partly from the excited energy. Next they took the boat to the second diving location. It was little clearer in this spot and you could actually see the bottom this time. I also had no trouble at all going down the rope the second time around. I was much more calm and relaxed and saw a lot more stuff the second time around. The second dive also lasted about an hour, and after three hours of swimming that day, I was all kinds of sore the next morning. I will definitely be going out and getting my licence before our next vacation.

The Bahamas

2009-02-15T10:14:00.002-04:00

We took our tour over to Freeport, Grand Bahama on Discovery cruises. The cruise ship was a bit of a bucket, but it was cheap. At least the fair was cheap, once you were on the boat, they wanted to be tipped for every little thing. They even posted suggested tipping amounts all over the place. There was a complimentary breakfast buffet, that had some nice items on it, and some questionable ones. We had stayed up all night and done the drive from Key West up to Ft Lauderdale to catch the boat, so we spent the majority of the cruise sleeping in our cabin.
We stayed at the Sheridan, which was a fantastic resort hotel, right on the beach. We arrived on Tuesday and were scheduled to leave on Thursday. We checked with the dive shop there to see if there a diving tour we go on, but it was on Thursday. We looked into staying, but it was going to cost way too much to change our plans, so we decided not too. On our way back from the dive shop we were looking for a place to have lunch (not an easy thing for us, since Darrell is allergic to fish). There was a couple sitting in a little restaurant we were passing they were being served some pretty nice looking burgers, so we went in. I had the best burger I've had in a very long time. In fact if I've had a better burger I don't recall. Needless to say, we were there two nights and three days, so I had three of the best burgers I have ever had.
We spent the majority of our time in the Bahamas on beach chairs in the sun, but on the second day we were hit up by one of the many gals who man the middle of the road trying to track down clients for timeshares. We had nothing else to do, and there were some nice little perks for going, so we decided what the hell. No we did not buy a time share in the Bahamas. Had there not been a 900 dollar down payment required right away, the story may be different, but luckily they weren't willing to wave it and we couldn't afford it. We did get a couple bottles of rum, some tee shirts, and a free activity for going. We chose to go on the sunset booze cruise that night, and OMG we had fun.
The booze cruise was serving all you can drink Bahama Mama Rum punch, and Agnes, our bartender, made sure our cups were never empty. Agnes was a lot of fun, she had about six teeth in her mouth, and posed for pictures with everyone, and kept us drinking all night. We also met a couple fellow Canucks on the boat. Two french Canadian Sisters, Fran and Claire. Claire lives in Ottawa, and Fran now resides in Ft. Lauderdale. We had a great time drinking and dancing with them, and they were even on our return cruise so we all went up to the top deck to watch the sunset together.
Just a sidebar about the sunset, we have been jipped on it three times now. In Key West when we went to watch it in the "Top" rooftop bar, it was all going very well, and then the damn thing went behind a wall of clouds on the horizon. On the sunset cruise it was behind a bunch of buildings and we never got out of the canal in time to see it, then on the cruise home, there was another line of clouds along the horizon.
After the booze cruise docked we went to a little stand called rum runners that sold two corona for $5 so, needless to say it was a very drunken night, and we were both quite hung over the next day for our trip back to Ft. Lauderdale. In fact I was so run down I had a scratchy rough voice, and could barely talk. There was a karaoke contest in one of the lounges on the ship and I went ahead and participated anyway, even though I was having a rough go of it. I won.
Once we got into Ft. Lauderdale, Darrell gave a call to Underseas on Big Pine Key, to see if there was any chance of getting out for a dive. They said there was, so we traveled down to Florida City and got a hotel there for a couple nights.
I'll post about the dive later.
The vacation so far seems like three or four little vacations in one. We are getting very close to having to come home, and I'm feeling like I'm ready.

Vacation - Week one!

2009-02-10T23:29:00.002-04:00

I can't believe it's only been a week since we left on vacation. It seems like forever. Not everything has gone smoothly or to plan, but luckily we tried to keep our plans pretty loose to begin with so we could go with the flow, and that has worked out perfectly.

We Drove down to Bangor last week on Monday night and flew out the next day. We flew via JFK in New York into Orlando. There was a snow storm so bad in New York that we were delayed for a few hours and the sky was so white with snow, I couldn't see the city coming in or going out. You know it's bad when you can't even see the lights of the largest city in the country. In fact we didn't see much of anything from the plane until the Carolinas.

We got into Orlando late and found our hotel okay. It was very cold. All the weather reports were calling for a cold snap. Our original plan was to take a couple days and so the theme parks then head south, but since temperatures were going to be in the 50s we decided to head south right away, and left for Ft. Lauderdale the next morning. When we got there our Hotel room was awful, and driving around the beach area looking for a new one was promising to be a pricey affair, so we called down to the resort we were book at in Little torch Key to see if we could arrive a couple days early, and headed to the Keys. It was fantastic. We had only really planned on a few days in the Keys but were there from Wednesday, right up until last night. We stayed three nights at Parmer's Resort on Little torch key, and did a lot of partying in Key West, then spent the next two night right in Key West at the Travel Lodge. I love Key West!!!! I want very much to be a snow bird in the near future and start living the winters there. It is the Southern most Island in the Florida Keys and only about 2 miles by 4 miles. The pase of life is slow and there isn't a bunch of overgrown buildings taking up all the oxygen. It is a total party town, and you can take your drink from the bar and wander down the street into another bar. One of the biggest things every night is to go and watch the sunset. We didn't manage to get to that until last night and unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't actually see it sink into the sea.
We checked out of the Travel lodge Monday morning and hung about Key West enjoying our last day and evening there. We even hit the Monkey bar for a little karaoke before heading up the highway at 11pm for Ft. Lauderdale. At 5 am we hopped the discovery cruise line ship and headed over to Freeport, Grand Bahama where we are for the next two nights. The day trip to freeport is only $30 round trip per person, and you can rent hotel rooms here for $50 a night. We are at the Sheridan for the next two night, and it is awsome. Right on the beach and everything right here. The weather has been so windy in the Keys the past week that there have been no diving tours, so I haven't had the chance to try scuba diving yet. There is a beginner course and tour here in Freeport on Thursday (weather permitting) and I am signed up for it, if we can change our reservations on the boat back and stay an extra day. Fingers crossed! We still have plans to take an everglades tour, and check out the theme parks in Orlando before we fly home next week...but nothing is set in stone, so we'll see where the wind blows us. We are having a fantastic Time!!!

Six Sleeps to Florida

2009-01-28T12:53:00.002-04:00

This time next week I will be in Sunny Florida. I'm very excited!! This is my first trip to Florida, so I am really looking forward to it. It's almost like a Honeymoon without all the hassle of the wedding.

We're going for two weeks and plan on spending some time in Orlando and the Keys. We'll check out Disney and Universal during our Orlando stay, and do some scuba diving in the Keys. I've never dove before so I will have to take a course while we're there. I can't wait to leave winter behind for a little while and get a little sun.

Poor neglected little blog

2009-01-15T12:57:00.002-04:00

I have been such a bad blogger, and haven't posted in almost a month. Mostly because there hasn't been much to say.

The Holidays were good, and not long enough...duh. We kept it very cheap and decided not to spend money on ourselves or each other. Instead we used our bonus' etc to pay down debt. Considering the current economic situation this is not a time to be splurging on crap, plus we recently spoiled ourselves with a bunch of stuff anyway, including a dishwasher...that I have no idea how we managed to live so long without. I had a bunch fo sewing planned for my neices and nephews, that I still haven't finished, because the house was such a mess and we had so many other projects that had to be done while we were off. Hopefully I will be able to get around to it soon. On a high note I am starting off 2009 with no car payment!! Yay...I own it finally....so it will probably be breaking down any time...lol.

We went back to work on the 5th and have been going full steam ahead ever since. The school has started back up for the winter term but enrollment in my classes is way down. I only have one class a week this time around, and we had to do some juggling just to make that one. I can't say I'm surprised considering the weather this winter, and everything else that is going on politically etc. People are just not spending money on extra things, and they also don't want to be traveling around in nasty weather. Speaking of nasty weather and travel...we are taking off for two weeks in February to Florida. Can't stand these long drawn out maritime winters anymore and need a little sunshine break to get us through to spring. We are hoping to get to see the spaceshuttle launch among other things. We haven't decided if we are flying or driving yet. If we fly it will be out of the States because the fees and taxes in Canada make a simple affordable fair into a mammoth expense. We will probably drive down to bangour and then fly out from there. It would be fun to do the drive though and watch winter disapear as we move farthur and farthur south. Plus I've never driven the East Coast and would like to see the different States as we go. I think this will be my first actual vacation since I was in grade ten and went to Disneyland with my Aunt and Uncle. All my other trips about have been to visit family, and let's face it...as wonderful as that is, it is no vacation. How sad that I am 37 and this will basically be my first vacation. I will have to endeavour to rectify that several times in the coming years.

Dec 23

2008-12-23T12:22:00.002-04:00

It's almost Santa time, just a few more sleeps. Is it kind of spooky that moving the N from the middle of Santa, to the end gives you Satan? Kind of apre poe, when you consider the greed and commercialism that goes into the season I guess.
My gifts to my neices and nephews will all be late this year, since I haven't finished making them yet. In fact I've only just started...late I know, but better late than never....they're coming. Just gives them something to unwrap a few days after the big giftfest.

We spent the majority of the weekend cleaning our pigsty. It still has a long way to go. Being busy with the show and work, and having a bunch fo other projects on the go, has really made the housekeeping very low onthe priority list. Couple that with ripping the kitchen apart to install a dishwasher, and the mess I made painting, and it is one big intimidating disaster. It has finally gotten to the point where I don't feel overwhelmed by it any more and can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel. We will be using our break to get it all spick and span once again. I have some cabinet work to do in the kitchen now, to fill the space beside the dishwasher, and I want to install some lighting in the livingroom before I finish painting...but now I have time to do these things.

We don't have any hard and fast Christmas plans as yet. I got a turkey so we will do a dinner with the Bonds, and maybe Laura and Ray if they can come down, and Bertis and Colin if they're around.

I moved my baby clownfish into the fifty gallon grow out tank we set up for them. There are 14 that survived from the two batches of eggs I raised and they are all doing very well. I put a small anemone in with them and they took to it immediately. These guys are Clarkii Clownfish from our mated pair inthe 65 gallon reef tank. We have a pair of Tomato clown in the 135 gallon tank and yesterday they laid eggs, so next week I will try to raise the larva that hatch (if the eggs make it that long and don't get eaten by something else in the tank, or some such other disaster). The male and female do a pretty good job of defending them, so they should make it to maturity.
Here's some pics of the little guys in their new home. The largest of these guys is about and inch and a half long, so they're smaller than the images in the original sized picture...lol

Very Disturbing article

2008-12-06T14:08:00.003-04:00

OKay I just read something very disturbing and frightening reguarding our money and it's security on Garth Turner's blog. Since I can't figure out how to post it, I'll just copy and paste it.

From: http://www.garth.ca/weblog/

Toxic Cash

While the government cowers and the opposition squirms, while Stephen Harper licks his wounds and Stephane Dion contemplates rejection , while the economy disintegrates, houses devalue and Parliament is dark, there is something else for you to worry about. Something big. Disturbing.

Do you know what’s backing your money? You should. Because in the last 90 days this has changed drastically. There’s a big gamble been taken by politicians which was never explained, never debated, never questioned, and yet could affect us all.

Here is the way the system is supposed to work, and until this autumn, did.

* Our money’s printed by the Mint and backed by the Bank of Canada. The central is expected to hold assets equal to the amount of cash in circulation, which is more than $50 billion.
* Because our nation no longer owns gold reserves, our money is backed by the safest of securities, long-term government bonds and Treasury bills. This is what gives our money true value. At least, until recently.

But in the last 90 days, without public notice, the Bank of Canada has sold off more than $11 billion of those secure T-bills, plus cashed in billions more of its bonds. As stock market researcher John Paul Koning discovered last week, the central bank now lists on its balance sheet a stunning $32.4 billion in “other” assets, which comprises a whopping 42% of everything it owns.

That means more than two-fifths of the total assets backing our money supply is – what, exactly?

Well, let’s flip back a month to the middle of November, when finance minister Jim Flaherty announced the federal government was purchasing $50 billion in residential mortgages from the Big Six banks, following an earlier deal to buy another $25 billion in mortgages. “At a time of considerable uncertainty in global financial markets, this action will provide Canada’s financial institutions with significant and stable access to longer-term funding,” he said, adding, “with no additional risk to the taxpayer.”

So, the “other” assets the Bank of Canada has swapped for secure, near-cash holdings appear to be tens of billions of dollars in high-ratio mortgages. The money to buy those assets apparently came from the central bank, through CMHC, and ended up in the vaults of the Big Six banks. It’s also believed that the Bank of Canada has been buying up other commercial bank liabilities, such as credit card debt.

In fact, the central bank was at it again yesterday. On its web site, the Bank of Canada announced its buying another $1 billion in “private sector money market instruments” on Monday.

So, what are these mortgages with tens of billions that now stand behind a good chunk of our money? They are loans given to people who bought houses with little or no money down, many of whom purchased before October 15th, when it was still okay to buy a home with a 0% down payment and to take out an amortization of 40 years. The government, under intense criticism that these were Canadian equivalents of the disastrous US subprime mortgages, chucked them two months ago.

So, here we are. The Big Banks have unloaded tens of billions of dollars in potentially toxic assets to the Bank of Canada, which cashed in ultra-secure investments to hand over cash. The federal government orchestrated this in order to make the commercial banks more secure. But in doing so, what’s it done to our currency? As Koning wrote in an article in the Financial Post last week, “Our central bank has swapped a sure thing: a large chunk of liquid and non-volatile AAA-rated government debt, for a slew of ‘other’ assets whose nature remains uncertain to everyone but bank insiders, assets which are inherently more volatile and less liquid than government debt.”

That this compromising of our money supply could happen is alarming. That it could take place without citizens being told is shocking.

Why didn’t the finance minister explain his actions? Did he understand them? Where were the opposition watchdogs? What happens now if unemployment and falling house values turn some of those mortgages worthless, as happened in the US?

Let’s hope this comes to light on the floor of the House of Commons.

Oh wait. It’s been locked.

Sad Day for Democracy

2008-12-05T09:54:00.003-04:00

The weasely little coward managed to get his own way after all it seems. The Governor General gave permission to Prorogue Parliament until near the end of January. This set a very dangerous president in Canadian Politics, because it sends the message that if the Prime Minister feels his government has lost the confidence of the house and is in danger of falling he can simply close down parliament and regroup.

Now the coalition has 6 weeks to implode, which will happen since the Liberal Party is already trying to back away from it. They have a leadership convention coming up and are in no way ready for an election (which seems to be the common thread for the survival of the minority Conservatives) so they will not bring down the government in January...it's pretty much a guarantee. If they were to topple the Government in January it is far enough away from the last election that the Governor General may call another one, and the Liberals know they can't win with Dion as leader. In fact Stephen Harper would probably end up with a majority government if that happened and nobody wants that.

What I don't understand is why the coalition didn't play their hand a little closer to their chests and keep their bloody mouths shut about their plan. Churchill didn't go on german Radio and say, "We're planning to hit the beach early next week."

If they had just made their agreements and shut up about it, they could've arrived in Parliament and when it was time to vote, everyone could've stood up against the bill and brought down the government nice easy. No fuss, no muss, and just like that Stephen and his merry band of idiots would've been sitting on the other side of the room next time parliament sat. Instead they have to hold a press conference (in front of the Canadian Flag) and give the game plan away so Willy the Weasel could find a way out of the predicament. Honestly....I think they may ALL be too stupid to be in charge, and Canadians should be very concerned.

Coalitions and Governor Generals, and Prorogueing...oh my!

2008-12-04T11:56:00.002-04:00

The show has been over for nearly two weeks now, and I haven't had my post show depression, which isn't entirely surprising since we have been insanely busy. In fact I was in the middle of editing the OBAs during the run of the show, and had to finish that up in the early part of the week following, so I didn't have time to miss the show. I was actually relieved to have my evenings free to decompress from work. I have some projects at home that I need to get back to, and finally have the time, plus it's time to break out the sewing machine for Christmas stuff, so busy busy busy. All in all same old, same old.

Even if you don't follow politics, how could you not right now? This is about as exciting as the Government of Canada has ever been. Although, if the Governor General grants Harpers request to Prorogue Parliament, which she probably will, it is going to get very muddy in the coming weeks. There will be some serious slinging as a desperate man tries to cling to power, and I say desperate man, because basically that's what the conservative party has become "the Harper show". He wields all the power and is merciless with anyone who doesn't agree with him, just ask Garth Turner or Bill Casey.

I find it laughable that the Cons are calling the Coalition undemocratic, when it is the most democratic thing that's happened in Canadian Politics in Decades. This isn't a bunch of appointed senators or judges who haven't been elected trying to sieze the government. These are democratically elected Members of parliament, doing their jobs and following the rules of Canadian government forming a coalition to govern this country cooperatively. This is wonderful, it is what the Canadian Public have been telling the government for three elections in a row, by electing minority governments. We have been telling them, we don't want one party to run the country, we want want you to compromise in our best interests, and the Conservatives have been completely unwilling to do that. Stephen Harper has run this country like he has a majority. He has been like a playground bully who grabs your wrist and smacks you in the face with your own hand. He buries legislation that he knows the opposition can't support in legislation that they would have to support or look bad, then makes it a confidence motion. This worked in the past because the Liberals weren't ready for an election and wouldn't bring down the government so they were forced to abstain from voting and Harper got his way. He tried to do it again, and make them cut their own throats with an economic package that did nothing to address the current economic crisis (which the Cons contributed to by blowing a 32 billion dollar surplus trying to buy votes, and introducing no money down 40 year mortgages that contributed to a housing crisis similar to the US) and cut much needed funding to the parties, only this time the opposition wasn't going to be bullied, and in an historic move they sat down and came to a compromise. This is what we've been asking them to do ever since Cretien left office - work together, compromise, put the best interests of the Canadian public ahead of Party politics.

For the first time in a very long time, Canada will have a government that consists of MPs working together for Canada ahead of the interrests of their party. Isn't that what we want? MP to represent us first and foremost. This is the definition of democracy.

Let's face it Stephen Harper has lied so many times he doesn't deserve to run this Country anymore. He said his government wouldn't tax income trusted if they were elected, then once they were elected he did just that and thousands of seniors who invested in them based on his promise lost their life savings. He blew a huge surplus and promised that there would be no deficit while campaigning, now they project a deficit just a few weeks later. He broke his own law (which he teamed up with the Bloc to push through) by having the most recent election in the first place because he knew this economic crisis was set to boil and the Liberals were still not ready for an election, and by the time the fixed election date rolled around we would be deep in the throws of an economic crisis due in part to the Conservative mismanagment of the economy. Now he wants to Prorogue Parliament so he can stay in power for a few more weeks. He's hoping the opposition will lose their momentum and cracks will form during the break. There will certainly be a lot of mudslinging and lies coming from the Conservatives in the mean time, there already are.

The first lie is that the Bloc is involved in the coalition, which they are not. They have promised not to topple it within the next year if there are votes of confidence on three issues mostly dealing with the economy, that is all. If the coalition missteps on some other issue there is no such guarantee from the Bloc. By the way, Stephen Harper tried to form the exact same kind of deal with the NDP and the Bloc to bring down Paul Martin's minority government and seize power. Stockewell Day also approached the Bloc when he was leader of the Alliance Party to form a coalition. Talk about your hypocracy. Then when Stockwell Day was confronted about it in question period he denied any knowledge of such an offer until hearing about it just then, so either he is lying, or someone was making offered on behalf of his office without his knowledge which makes him incompetant. Liar or incompetant, which do you prefer?

I could rant on and on, but suffice to say the Harper Conservative are governing with only 36% of the popular vote, the remaining 64% rests in the oppositiong, so having a coalition government, actually means we will have a group that more people voted for representing us. Again that sounds pretty democratic to me. Now Harper can sulk like a spoiled child or he could actually do the right thing and try to find a way to participate in the government and compromise for the sake of Canada. I'm afraid that just won't happen in his case though, as he has already deomonstrated that he is a controll freak, a bully, a liar, and a narcissist. If this government falls, it's a pretty safe bet he will not be leading the Cons for very long after.... Ever notice that the Conservative starts with Con?

November 18

2008-11-18T11:50:00.003-04:00

Last night was the longest night in history. Well not really but it felt like it. I had to be up at the ungodly hour of 6 am (and before you say..."I have to get up that time everyday".... I don't...so it was too damn early as far as I'm concerned) so I could be in town and at K100 to meet up with Katie, Matt, and Stephen for our interview. It was a fun segment and the people who heard it said it sounded really good. I went back home afterwards to pick up Darrell and then we came back into town for work. I was feeling pretty good until 11 am, when I realized I was very tired and it was still only 11 am. It made for a very long cue to cue for me.

Our call was for 5:30 so I headed straight to the theatre from work, had mic check and 6, and then, since I don't come on until almost halfway through the first act, there was nothing for me to do , but pace around and sit here and there, and pace around some more until about 9:30 when they finally made their way to my scene. If only I could've found a nice place to curl up and have a nap, but unfortunatly cue to cues tend to jump around, and you need to be present in case they start a scene then skip to the end of it without running the whole thing. We got finished at midnight and managed to get through the majority of the show. There will be some touch up to be done tonight at the Dress and tech...but there always are, so we are right on track for opening night tomorrow. I can't believe it's already here. I can't wait to hear some response from an audience who are hearing it for the first time and haven't been at rehearsals watchig for two months. Tomorrow's "opening" night is actually our student dress rehearsal, but it has been opened up to the public, and the last graph that Jen had for seat availability showed very few yellow chairs, so it will be very much like an official opening night. It should be interesting as well, because student night tends to get laughter in places you don't expect, and no laughter in places you do, so combining them with the adult audience should make for some very interesting responses. I would advise you to get your tickets while you still can, already on nights like Friday they are mostly sold out. There are seats available if you want to go, but don't expect to sit together if there's more than one of you.... That shouldn't be a problem, since it's not like you're going to be having a conversation while the show is going on anyway...Right?

Here's a little photoshop fun with one of the images fromour Rob Roy photo shoot.

November 7

2008-11-07T10:31:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted on here in a long time it would seem. I have been insanely busy. There is a rehearsal every weeknight and every afternoon during the weekend. Plus I am still teaching two evenings a week, and working my actual job during the day.....very very busy. I knew it would be like this going in though.

My theatre curse is alive and well. Last Friday, some kind of stellar alignment or universal something happened and I found myself with the day off work and rehearsal. It was strange. I decided to use the opportunity to clena up some of the mess I made of the house while painting. I washed the floor and was moving the big concrete pot that contains our Canary Island Date palm back into place when my sandal slipped onthe wet floor...and you guessed it I kicked the pot with my barefoot and hurt my toe. Same toes I dropped the cabinet door on during Cabaret, on the same foot I dropped the end table on during Christmas Carol. So I'm hobbling slightly, but not too badly, and will be in fine form come show time. I am also battling a cold that came upon me a couple days ago. I'm kind of glad I got it now, so I can be over it by next week. The show is going great, and rehearsals are on shedule. We sing through with the band tomorrow morning, which I am really looking forward too. I love hearing everything come together for the first time. I've been resting my voice as much as possible because of the cold, so I hope to be in full form tomorrow. Lisa and Emily were intot the office yesterday and we recorded Lisa singing "All that Jazz" as backup music for the commercial on K100. a little later, Katie, Anthony, Emily, and I went to the station to voice the commercial...it was quite fun. I'm excited to hear the final edit on the air. We also had the Here magazine people in to do a story and take somepics of us all in Costume earlier in the week. We had a really good time with that as well. I think that will be in Thursday's Here magazine. We also got to see some of the images from our photo shoot with Rob Roy, and there are a few I really like. I can't share those with you at the moment however as they are for promo stuff and top secret at the moment...hee hee. Make sure you get your subscriptions soon, then deadling for draw prizes is closing in.

Long Time no Blog

2008-10-21T12:16:00.002-03:00

I haven't been doing a good job of keeping this thing up to date. I've been too busy. In fact you'd think I'd have a tonne of stuff to blog about, being so busy and all, but I don't.
Thanksgiving weekend was good. We had dinner with Brian and Helen on the Monday. I got a lot of paitning done at home, and there was a lot of rehearsing. The following week was hectic, with work, school and rehearsal. Everyone had Friday off from rehearsal, and I had hoped to finish painting the living room, but that fell through. Instead we met Brian and Helen and Yorkie up at the dog park. it was Tiff and Elton's first time there, and they really enjoyed themselves. They were even photographed for a broshure of some kind. No surprise there...they are beautiful dogs.
In our aquatic kingdom things are good. Darrell contimues to wage war on the bryopsis algea, and the baby clown fish are growing becoming more and more like little fish. I had an unfortunate miscalculation that cost me nine little babies, and I'm not entirely sure what it was or why it happened. I put a foam filter into the tank that had been curing in the main tank. I noticed the next day that there was an aptasia anemone attached to it. Either that anemones killed the little babies (which it shouldn't have been able to do, being clownfish and all) or the hieghtened levels of magnesium that Darrell has been using to combat the algea had something to do with it, or there was just something not completely right about those particular fish and the timin of the foam filter was just coincidence. Either way I am down to 11 from 20 as a result.
Sunday Katie, Lisa, and I had a promo photo shoot at Rob Roy productions.It was a lot of fun. Sandra Directed, someone was there from wardrobe to help us with our costumes...and she's gonna kill me because I can't remember her name at the moment (I'm such a tool when it comes to people's names), and Dre showed up and did our make up. Big thanks to all of them for their help. Then we ran the entire show for the first time. It was evreything you would expect the first run of a show to be. Those of you who know, will know and that's all I'm saying. The first run of the whole thing is to give the director, music director, and choreographer a sense of what stuff needs the most work, and what stuff just needs polishing. based on Sunday.....this is going to be a fantastic show and you should be getting you're tickets quickly because they are really moving.
Last night we finished the choreagraphy for "All I Care about is Love"...and it is sooooooooooo good. Jenn is amazing! Also, I gotta say - Sarah Dever is perhaps one of the most amazing women I have every met. She is stage managing this show, and is present for every single tiny little event there is. She is at every vocal rehearsal, dance rehearsal, acting rehearsal, production meeting...you name it she is there. If there is scheduling to be changed she's on it. She has managed to work around everyone'conflicts and still keep them informed and up to date....plus the woman is a very busy Lawyer by day. I don't know how she does it, but I'm glad she does, because she is making this a very smooth and organized production.

Thursday, Oct 9.

2008-10-09T11:31:00.003-03:00

There's not a lot to blog about right now. I'm busy busy, but you know that already. Work is busy, with two large projects on the go for me, plus I am still setting up my new animation computer the way I want it. There is also the addition of a co-op student to my Friday mornings to get used to. He hasn't started yet, but I'm already trying to figure out how I'm going to work him in, teach him to use the programs, and still get things done. Thankfully we are not signed on for a full co-op program otherwise he would be here every morning, and that just wouldn't work in this little space. I wish we were set up to deal with it, but we aren't and that's just the way it is right now.

With the combination of school and rehearsals, every evening of my calendar is booked with something. Since I'm the one with the biggest scheduling conflicts, Sarah and Stephen have done their best to work around my schedule, which I wam very grateful for. Of course that means my nights off from the school are taken up with rehearsals, with the except of last night. I'm not going to comment too much about the rehearsals on the blog, because I don't want anyone taking anything out of context or reading more into it than is there. So far everything is right on track and there is a lot of energy and excitement from cast and crew alike. We are working hard, and having a lot of fun as well. Get your tickets now, because they are selling fast, and this is going to be a good show.... you have my personal guarantee.

We took advantage of my night off last night, to have Brian and Helen over to watch "Iron Man." I loved it just as much the second time around (I saw it on my birthday in Calgary.)

I am still not finished painting the kitchen/dining/living room. The paint I used went on fine, but when it dried there is a veining pattern in the paint, with little darker streaks all through it. I have half a mind to go down to Ritchies and pour the remained of the second bucket all over the person who recommended it. I've painted a lot of walls over the years, and know what I'm doing, so it is obviously the paint. I'm hoping to get the big wall done this weekend. I'm saving the wall in the livingroom with the popout (it's the only way I can really describe it) for later. I want to run some wires from the light switch and put some pot lights up over the plants in the window, plus I have to do the drywalling around the window, so I want to make sure everything is done in that area before painting. This is the problem I have....I get doing something simple, like painting, then see something I would like to change like the molding around the windows, and end up creating this huge job out of a simple project. Granted, it looks 100% better, and the time to do these things is before you put the new coat of paint on... but I really need to learn to keep simple things simple.

Tomorrow is my yellow lab, Elton's, birthday and he will be 9. I can't believe my little puppy is already 9. He still acts like a puppy.

What's New.

2008-10-03T15:45:00.002-03:00

I spent the better part of the weekend Painting the kitchen and rehearsing Chicago.
The new Theatre building is making it so easy to rehearse and feel like you're part of a big production right away, because there is so much space that there can be more than one type of rehearsal going on at once. We can be in back running lines with Stephen while another group is dancing with Jenn, and another can be downstairs singing with Richard. What an assett to the company and the arts community in general to finally have this space where everything can happen at once. Plus having it three doors down from our office makes it very convenient for me as well.

I got most of the kitchen painted and the windows are looking awsome, except there was one fly in the ointment. I started off with a can of Taupe that I had left over from the basement, and got a couple new one from Ritchies, only to realize after finishing that the colours don't quite match. I will have to go over all of it again this weekend to even it all out. Gives me the oportunity to touch up the drywall around the windows that little bit more anyway.

My second batch of clownfish larva are in the process of morphing into little fishes now, and already I have twice as many as the first and more still to morph. You can't count until after the morph because many don't survive this stage, but once they get through it they are hardy little fishes that are a lot easier to care for. My original three from the first batch (Huey, Dueym & Luey) are all doing very well and are abotu an inch long now. They recognise me as a source of food, and swim up to the surface when I approach the tank eagerly anticipating a treat. Still waiting fo rmy tomotoe clown pair to settle into the act of laying eggs. I know they are not far off from their behavior, but so far nothing.

Tuesday we were off to Harbour Station with Brian and Helen to see Elton John...... it was AWSOME, with a capital HOLY SH!T. One man and a piano and there were time my whole body vibrated from the music. He's had a few throat surgeries, and is 60 years old now, so he can't hit some of the old notes from some of his old songs, but he still sings beautifully and doesn't rearrange or wreck any of the old stuff. Sometimes, like in Crocdile Rock, where he can'thit the notes, he just doesn't bother and is a good enough entertainer to get the audience to do it for him, and somehow it doesn't seem lazy like it woulod from another performer. Mostly because he does such a good job of everything else, you can happily overlook it. Of course I blew the back account and got myself the $40 t-shirt (But how often do you get to see Elton John?). We also picked up the DVD. There was a shirt Darrell liked that was $75 dollars and he decided not to get it, so I snuck back to the table before the concert started and got it for him. I snuck it back to my chair under my shirt and then tucked it into the arm of my jacket so he wouldn't see it. Before the concert we stopped at the airport and checked out his private jet, and then as the last song of the encore was ending we moved toward the doors so we could rush out of there, and hightailed it back to the cars and out to the airport hoping to catch him. We figured we had it nailed too, until we got there and were told by a couple who happened to be at the airport when he arrive that we had missed him. His plane was still in the same place and started to pull away a few mintues after we arrived, so we watching it take off so, "We could see the red tail light, headin for Montreal. And Maybe Elton was wavin' goodbye.... Oh I miss Elton, oh I miss him so much."
Anyway....we went back to the house and let the dogs out. While Darrell had the dogs outside I took the opportunity to sneak the shirt onto his pillow, and then we went down to the Irving to for milk shakes with Brian and Helen. The concert started at 7, so it was still pretty early.
The week has been very busy so far, with lots to do. Between School and Rehearsals, nearly everynight of my life is booked up until the end of November. I also have a co-op student coming in to train with me once a week starting next Friday. I just met him today and he's a pretty shy guy, but seems eager to learn. He ultimately wants to work for Pixar, so here's hoping I can get him started in the right direction.

Tuesday

2008-09-23T15:40:00.003-03:00

Soooooo tired today. The premiers of just about all my must see shows were on last night and I had to do some time shifting to watch them all. My comedy block started at nine with "The Big Bang Theory" (Which I am loving more and more each time I see it), "How I Met your Mother" (fantastic show...if you aren;t watchig it you're missing out.), "Two and a Half Men" (One of the strongest comedies on TV right now), and the series premier of "Worst Day" (Should never put Worts in the title, it's like "Super Bad" why watch the movie, when they've already told how it's going to be?)- not really feeling this one. It is trying, but didn't grab me. There was also some dialog lifted right out of an episode of Roseanne - I gotta say.. probably not gonna last.

Of course the biggest most anticipated premier of them all, and the reason I'm so tired, "Heroes". I love Heroes. It is so good, and the two hour season premier did not disappoint. Now I just need them to switch it to a night when sucky shows are on, so I don't have to start watching it at 11 on an Alberta station.

The weekend was good. I didn't get as many things upstairs done as I had wanted to, but there are two coat of drywall mud onthe windows and I should be down to just fine sanding and touch up mud now. I'm excited to see how this little experiment turns out. I already like the look of them much better, even without the sills yet.

Sunday was the first reading of Chicago, and the first time the cast and crew got to sit down and see who else is in the show. It's a really strong cast and lots of really fun people. There's a few brand new people who i've never met before which is great, some who I haven't done anything with since Guys & Dolls, some of the Cabaret cast has returned, and there's some people who have done a lot of other stuff but this is their first musical..... I'm really excited for them. This will be the show they measure all other musical shows by. Guys & Dolls was my first and I still compare nearly every other experience to that one.

Ticket sales for the show are already going very fast. There is someone booked for the theatre for the Sunday after the show so unless they cancell there won't be a chance for an additional matinee like Cabaret, so the theatre company is going to open up the Student Dress rehearsal to the public as well. Students will still get their special price and get first priority, but the general audience will also be able to come and see the show on Wednesday.

Wednesday Sept. 17

2008-09-17T14:58:00.002-03:00

Okay my bad, the read through is Sunday not Saturday. Good thing I ran into Anthony on the street, or I would've shown up and been the only one there...hehe. It Says Sunday in my e-mail and everything, but have my moments.

Life is about to get busy. I started back into my classes last night. I had 5 kids and 1 adult in my animation class, and 4 kids and 1 adult in my beginner painting class. Those are nice sized classes, which give me the opportunity to spend a lot of time with each student to help them get the most out the class. My Thursday night painting class is also a go. It's intermediate painting for adult, and I've been told there is one beginner in it as well. I'll be able to catch her up easily enough.

I still have a huge disaster on the main floor of the house. I haven't had a chance to touch anything since the weekend, but plan to get quite a bit done today when I get home. I have molding to rip away from two more windows and corners and mud to put up on them, then I need to sand and finish mudding the kitchen window. Once all that is done and dry and sanded and perfect I can paint. I also have a pile of boards to plane down to thickness for a cabinet I'm building for Mike, so I have to sit down and figure out a time management strategy. I have to extra careful as well, because I tend to drop things on my foot, when I start into a play and injure myself. (my toenail has finally completely grown back since Cabaret a year and half ago....dropped a cabinet door I was building on it first week of rehearsals. Brenda still has the bloody sock pics from the costume fittings I'm sure. I also dropped an end table on my foot during Christmas carol, and had to limp around for part of that...so I'll be extra careful of my feet for the next two months. When everyone else is breaking a leg, I'll be watching to not break a foot.)

I am in the process of installing programs and goodies to my brand shiny new animation computer. It is sah-weet. It had a dual quadcore board, and the potential for 32 gigs of ram..... that's not a typo. I only have the one processor in it at the moment and the ram is no where near maxed out, but it still sings like no ones business, and is more than thrice as fast as our other computers.....it is a little on the loud side as there are a tonne of fans in it, but I'm learning to tune it out.

Busier than a One Armed Paper Hanger

2008-09-15T14:59:00.003-03:00

School starts this week. I still don't have a nailed down schedule, because I still don't know which classes are full enough to go and which ones aren't. I know for a fact my animation classes are booked up, thanks to some great press last week.

There was a press conference for the school's announcement of the 3d animation course's launch. It will be a postsecondary, full time schooling course. I will not be the instructor, but I may teach a portion of it, that remains to be worked out. I was asked to be part of the press conference because I am a 3d animator working full time in Saint John, so I have a little insight into the market for people with skills in 3d animation....who'd've thunk it...me...an expert witness.

I am gearing up for our first read through of Chicago, this Saturday. I'm very excited to see who else is going to be in the cast and hear the script for the first time.

Just in time for all this schooling and rehearsal to start I went ahead and gave myself a big project to do at home. I've spent the past couple weekends painting the main living area. Since it's open concept that means, kitchen, dining room, livingroom, hallway. I've finished the hallway, the accent wall, and the ceiling. Then I got the bright idea that I hated the molding around the windows. It wasn't a new idea...I've always hated the molding around the windows...it looks cheap and unfinished. It reminds me of a trailer, and makes me feel like the contractor, just slapped it up, and said "There, that looks finished, and once you buy the place you can do it properly." It's not poorly done by any means, that's just how I've always felt about windows framed by molding. I ripped down the molding on the kitchen window and got some drywall corner strips. Then I put them along the top and sides of the window and mudded them yesterday. I have to finish that today. When I'm finished the window will have no molding at all, it will just be nice sharp corners along the sides and top, and I am going to install an oak ledge/sash. Even unfinished the window looks larger and the wall area looks sharper. It just means my simple painting job will be more complicated and take more time, but in the long run it will look so much nicer. I'm also considering opening up the wall above the fron window and running some wires off the light switch to install some pot lights up over the plants and take down the hideous fixture we have there now. When you're getting ready to paint is the perfect time to do these things, so you can rip open your walls and fix them back up again before the paint goes up.

Chicago

2008-09-06T22:51:00.002-03:00

I heard from Stephen last night aboout his choices for the cast. It was nice to finally get all the waiting over with. I don't want to say too much about who is or isn't inthe show, because I don'tknow who has or hasn't been contacted yet, but I can say that I got a part in the show. Okay...I won't try to be coy and draw out the suspence....I got Billy Flynn!!!!!!! I am so excited! My first Lead!!! I'm also a little terrified, but just a little. This is a big part and I have a lot of work to do. Guys like Bertis, Bob, Jeff, and Stephen have set the bar pretty high so it will be a real challenge. I'm excited to accept the challenge and give it all I got. Congratulations to everyone who got the parts they were after in the show...you know who you are, can't wait to see everyone at rehearsals.

Three Little Fishes

2008-09-05T13:44:00.004-03:00

I a now 15 days into my clownfish raising experiment. I started with about a hundred or more freshly hatched little clown fish larva, and over the past two weeks have watched them grow, and watched several of them die, and watched three of them morph into actual little fishes. I am left now with three very little baby clarks clownfish, which is actually a 3x as many as I had originally thought I might have at this point. Keeping mind that this is the very first time I have attempted to grow them out once they hatch, I think I've done surprisingly well. I 've made some mistakes that cost some lives, but at the same tim, none of them would've survived the first night had they been left in the tank and I hadn't tried this to begin with. Plus my success rate is a hell of lot higher than the success rate in the wild. That said, I now have three very tiny (just over a cm or 2 long) little baby clarks clownfish, and hardest part is over. Now I juast have to keep their water clean and their bellys full, and they should grow into healthy happy adult clownfish.

It's hard to get a good picture of these little guys.
I have been keeping a photo diary of the process on my flikr site in a set call trying to raising baby clowns

Flikr site

The parent fish already have another batch of eggs set to hatch on wednesday and I might try again.

Called back to call backs

2008-09-04T16:11:00.002-03:00

Last night was my second callback for Chicago, although for some of the ladies it was their. The boys (Bertis and I) did a little soft shoe number, which was fun because I've never done that before. Luck for me Stephen had an apartment emergency that made him late and I was able to use the extra time to get the routine down, but wouldn't you know it, I danced it flawlessly when we practice it, and the only time I screwed it up was when he was watching. Murphey's law. We both sang a portion of All I Care About is Love, and then we read some scenes with the various girls present. I did the best I could and felt fairly good about it, now it's just about the look of the show I guess. Should hear something soon.

Still so sick

2008-09-03T13:16:00.002-03:00

I still feel gross. Achey and snuffy, and my guts ar churning. I threw up a couple times duing the new 90210 last night, I don't know if it was the cold/flu or the show... wasn't the most exciting television experience of my life. It's like degrassi next generation or whatever it's called....they should've called it 9021 - oh no whatever possessed them to do this show show again?
I have my second call back tonight....just once I would like to audition for a show without being ill. Seems to be my luck, I get my seasonal 'whatever' just in time to go sing and dance for a part. Should be a hell of a night.

Loooong Weekend!!

2008-09-02T10:31:00.002-03:00

True to form, we took Friday off as well, and stretched the long weekend into four days. My sore sore throat from earlier in the week, worked it's way into a full fledged cold with coughing, sneezing, and nose running a marathon. Still have it, still feel awful, and have have a second call back tomorrow. This time I get the honour of going up against Bertis, so I won't be holding my breath for this part, since leads tend to go to 6 foot tall men and I am never gonna be 6 feet tall.

Friday we spent putzing about the house, Darrell also has the cold, so we are quite a pair at the moment. Brian and Helen came by to visit. We had all planned to go camping on Deer Island, but just couldn't get it together to get there, and the way I was feeling I was relieved it didn't happen. Plus I have my little clown fish fry to fuss about as the larva make the transition into actual fish.

Saturday we got up with the birds and took a road trip to Maine. We hit all the Aquarium stores and had a very enjoyable day. We went to Bangor, Fairfield, Bucksport, Ellsworth, back to Bangor, then headed for home. We got two gorgeous fish, an Orange Shoulder Tang, and the fish Darrell has wanted since the very start, a juvenile Queen Angel Fish.

Both these fish will look a lot different when they are adults. We also got a few supplies and accessories. It wouldn't be a road trip to Maine for us, unless we were traveling home in torrential precipitation, last time it was the worst snow storm of the year, this time the sky waited until we were about half way to Calais and then it dumped rain on us so hard you could barely see out the window. The rain made the journey to Calais very slow, but it finally let up once we were nearly there and then all we had to contend with was the NB fog and poorly marked, wet roads.

We got home around 11:30pm and spent a great deal of time acclimating the fish and just chilling out. It was 2am before we hit the hay.

Sunday was a wasted day, since we were up so late the day before. We were supposed to head down to Deer Island and meet the Bonds for cake, since they had actually gotten brave and camped there on Saturday. After the rain we drove in I'm glad it was them and not us. A friend from Sussex paid us a visit, so by the time he was gone, it was just too late to head down to the Island.

Monday was another lazy day. Just kicking back and dealing with the colds. I did a little (very little) cleaning and generally spent the day fussing over little things and watching the fish swim. The little clownfish fry numbers dropped significantly from day to day as the morphing phase hit. As of this morning there are two that actually survived the change and two others that have yet to go through it, quite a drop from the hundred or so we put in there to begin with. I'm quite happy with the result so far though, as I never expected any to really make it this far since it was my first attempt and I knew I would make some mistakes. The bright side; none of them would've made it through the night after hatching if I hadn't tried this, so to have two (potentially four, but not counting them til they change and survive) make it this far is pretty impressive and encouraging.

Thursday

2008-08-28T10:25:00.003-03:00

Some time around about 4:30 yesterday I hacked up something disgusting, and afterward had about 60% of my voice back, so I went to the 7pm call back after all. I was pretty scratchy and rough sounding, but as the evening wore on my throat loosened up some. Luckily the songs are fairly simple and there's nothing to terribly high or hard to hit in any of them. There is an F# at the end of Mr. Cellophane that appears out of nowhere and needs to be held for a while, but it's only and F# which, for me, is not a high note. If there were high As or Bs in the song I would've been in some trouble with my throat the way it was feeling, but the F# wasn't too much of a hassle. Funny how quickly singing a few songs and reading a few lines can change how you feel about a show. I'm actually feeling pretty excited about it now, and looking foward to it.

Aside from going out for call backs, I spent most of the rest of yesterday in bed with my laptop and a book. I did my daily maintenance on my clownfish fry as well. They are now at day 7 and there are still a lot of them in the tank feeding and swimming about. To be perfectly honest I am surprised. After reading the books I felt like this was going to be a challenge that would take a few trys to get right and there would be many fatalities along the way before I got the hang of it, but so far so good. That said, it has only been 7 days and the critical day is tomorrow when they should morph from their larval phase into actual fish. It's quite a process really...I'm feeling a little like a marine biologist...hehehe. I'm still always surpised each morning when I go down and turn the light on and take the cover off the tank to see them still swimming in there. I keep expecting a big mass die off, because I did something wrong or whatever. Fingers crossed all continues along well.

Wednesday

2008-08-27T10:38:00.003-03:00

I'm home sick today. I have very sore and gravely throat. So much for my call back tonight, probably the universe punishing me for going into it with the worng attitude. But you can't help feeling how you feel right?

Last night we had Bob and Deb over for dinner and it was a great night. I made some little double baked potato appys, then cheese and brocolli soup, followed by fetucinni carbonara, and desert was blueberry cheesecake while we watched Steel Magnolias downstairs from the projector....just like being at the movies. I am so glad we got that projector, don't regret that little expense even slightly. It was really nice to just hang out with Bob and Deb and we had a great time, hopefully we can do it again soon.

I am still trying to figure out a way to make my fetucinni without cows milk products so I can have a dinner party in the future that includes Dre, one of these days I'm gonna get it.

Weekend

2008-08-25T11:03:00.003-03:00

I took Friday off and spent the day cleaning and tidying up, because Darrell and Mike were having a business meet with Greg at the house. Darrell had to take the dogs to the vet in the morning because Tiff was acting very sick and they were also overdue for their shots. Tiff was very lethargic and drooling a lot, and we couldn't get her to eat. The vet examined her and said she thought she had swallowed a bee and been stung on the way down (it's not uncommon this time of year and Tiff does snap at bees). She told Darrell to give her some benedril, so we were doing that. I would mix up some sugar and milk and then soak it up with a piece of bread with the pill hidden in it to get her to take it. The Bonds came over later in the evening and we watched Firewall with Harrison Ford. It was one of those movies I picked up at a sell off or something that was sitting in the collection and no one had seen. It was actually quite good. There were a few rushed and wasted scenes that could've been done better but all in all it was a really good movie.

Saturday morning Tiff was still not doing any better and we weren't even able to get her to take bread. The main problem, the vet told us, is that when they swell up from this kind of thing it blocks their sense of smell and dogs just won't eat or drink anything they can't smell. Darrell went back to the vet's and got some anti inflammitories and antibiotics. This time we had to dissolve them in water, take a syringe, hold Tiff's mouth open, and squirt it down her throat. The anti inflammitories did the trick though, as soon as she could smell again she started eating.

Around four thirty we went to Bob and Deb's for dinner. Deb is a super cook and everything was terrific. Kristy and Anthony were there, and Sandra dropped in for awhile. There was also a brief visit from Jeff Smith. So it was a very good time. Kristy tried to show me some of the dance audition for Chicago, but I wasn't planning on auditioning and had already had 6 beers, so that really didn't work out. It was funny, plus Elton kept thinking I wanted to play with him, there's no getting down on the floor with my dogs around. It was so nice of Bob and Deb to let us bring them, since Darrell and I were still worried about Tiff. Later Bob put on a video from Bravo of the final performance of Smokey Joe's Cafe. What a great show. The singing was so incredible, and everything else about it was so simple. We didn't get finished the whole show, since we started it pretty late and everyone was starting to fade near the end, but what we saw of it was really fantastic.

Sunday I went ahead and did what I said I wasn't going to do and auditioned for Chicago. It wasn't a great audition though, since I went in completely cold, without even knowing the song or anything. I remembered a couple of the steps Kristy had tried to show me the night before, and arrived late, so they were done learning the dance when I got there. After the first round of dancers did their things for Jen, Kizzy and Lisa taught me the dance in the back room, and I went on with the last group to dance it. I think I did okay, but really...the idea of a dance audition is to show the choreographer that you have the ability to learn choreography and can move your body, and since Jen choreographed Cabaret I'm pretty sure she already knows my dancing abilities whatever they may be. Richard taught us the song and we went through it a couple times, then we went off to wait our turns. Luckily I was one of the last so I had time to memorize the lyrics and work on the notes. It gave me a chance to try and put a little something into it, but like I said I didn't know the song, so I did what I could. I got a callback for Wednesday so hopefully that goes well.
To be perfectly honest this is the first time I've auditioned for a show with the attitude that the part will determine whether I participate or not, because I wasn't going to audition at all. Frankly it's a good show, but it's not in my top ten of shows I just love...having said that, actually doing it would probably change that fairly quickly. The thing is, this fall is going to be busy. We have a lot of stuff going on at work, and I also have a few evenings at the school, so I don't have a lot of free time. Therefore It's basically going to have to be "The" part to make me give up what little free time I do have to do a show. It's a very heavy decision to weigh out, IF I get offered a part.....just have to play it by ear I guess.

Fry Friday

2008-08-23T10:36:00.003-03:00

We now have four different pairs of clownfish in four different tanks. We have a pair of ocellaris clown (Like Nemo) in our fifty gallon, a pair of Maroon Clowns in our 77 gallon, a pair of tomato clowns in our 135 gallon, and a pair of clarkii clowns in our 65 tall. The female clarkii is the first salt water fish we bought. We got her and her mate at the Pets Unlimited in Moncton, not so long ago the male passed away and I got a new captive bred juvenile from Nobles in Moncton. The neat thing about clown fish is they all start out as sexually undeveloped males, then eventually a dominant clown will emerge from the group or pair, it will grown quite a bit larger than the rest and then change it's sex and become a female. If there's a group, the second most dominant will becoe a sexually developed male and they will be the only mated pair out of the entire group, the rest will remain juveniles for the rest of their lives or until something happens to one or both of the mated pair. That's why, when you're buying clown fish it's best to pick out two small ones (preferably captive bred so you know how old they are) and let them figure it out for themselves.

At any rate, our 50 gallon is still cycling so the conditions aren't stable enough for the Ocellaris to breed yet, the anemone in the 135 keeps moving around so the tomatoes won't breed either, and the rockscaping isn't done in the 77 so the maroons don't feel secure enough with the eel around to lay any eggs, but our Clarkiis had been laying eggs to beat the band until the male died. Now there is a new male in the tank and the egg laying has begun again.

Raising clownfish fry is not exactly an easy thing to do, and you can't just leave them in the tank and expect them to grow into little fish. They either end up as lunch, mangled by power heads, or starve to death. They need to be fed a tiny little organism called rotifers, and to culture rotifers you need to feed them phytoplankon.
We've been culturing phyto plankton for a few months now, because it's also good to feed your filter feeders in the tank and growing your own is a lot cheaper than buying it. I also got a rotifer culture started last month and they are growing and doing very well as well. I was on the verge of screwing up my confidence and trying to raise a batch of fry when our male clarkii died, so I had to wait for the new guy to start mating with the female. It happened surprisingly fast, so the first time around I wasn't prepared. Then the second time I actually got to witness them laying the eggs so I was able to count it out. Eggs hatch between 7 and 8 days after being laid, but I ended up buying the rearing tank and supplies the morning after they hatched so I missed out. This was a week ago Tuesday, so I figured I'd have to wait another week at least until tey laid more eggs, then another 8 days until they hatched, but the little horn dogs had a new batch by the next evening (wednesday night).

It's neat to watch the eggs mature, they start out little red glods, and by the time they are reay to breakfree they are like silver slivers and you can see the eyes glowing inside. We figured they would hatch wednesday night, so we turned off all the pumps and powerheads, then turned the lights off so there would be complete darkness....the Fry wait for dark to hatch. We waited quit a while, but nothing happened, so we gave up and turned the pumps back on. Thursday morning the eggs were still there, so we decided to try again that night. We once again turned all the pumps etc off, and left the tank and room in complete darkness. About fifteen minutes later we checked with a flashlight and the tank as full of little fry swimming about. Darrell took the flashlight and held it up by the water's surface and they all started being drawn to the light. (In nature they follow the moon light up to the surface and spend the first 8 days of their lives up in the plankton rich surface water). As they congregated at the light, Darrell scooped them out with a bowl into a jug and I put them in our little five gallon rearing tank. I then loaded up the tank with lots and lots of rotifers and left the light on for a little while so they could start learning to hunt. Yesterday was day one of them in their new homes and I think there were a few losses, but I managed to clean the debris from the bottom of the tank and did a water change to keep the ammonia and nitrate levels down. I'm keeping a heavy stock of rotifers in the tank so they don't have to look too far for food.
Today is day two and it has started out well. They are swimming and hunting and scooting about all over the tank, so fingers crossed I can do all the right things to bring them around to the day 8 metamorphosis. This is the day they all change from fry to actual fish, they drop down to the bottom and begin their change. According to my book this will be the day of the most losses, but if they're in good shape leading upto it, it shouldn't be all that bad.

To be quite honest, this being the first attempt and all, I'll be surpised if any of them manage to make it into actual little clownfish, but none of them would if I left them in the parent tank to hatch, so fingers crossed.

Bad Blogger, Bad Blogger

2008-08-19T11:03:00.002-03:00

I have been neglecting my poor little blog. Mostly because there isn't much to tell.
I finished the last of my three summer camps last week, and it was a lot of fun. I only a three kids in my last camp so we got a lot done. I was really impressed with the progress and I think they all had a good time which is kind of the whole point. I get them doing a project, but I don't worry about whether they finish it or not as long as they are having fun.

Aftr our visit to Fredericton a couple weekends ago, seeing Laura and Ray going to town ripping down wallpaper, I must've gotten inspired because I popped out to Home depot and got some paint for the masterbathroom. I spent last week fixing the walls and painting the room. I have been hesitant to touch that room, since we have plans to competely ovehaul it including ripping out a wall and breaking into the closet in the spare room, putting in a stand up shower and separate tub, etc etc. Alas those renos are not in the forseeable future, so a nice little makeover what all that was needed now to tide us over until the grand facelift. As always, I went completely overboard and couldn't stop at just patching holes and throwing a new colour on the walls. I used three separate colours, a very light light blue onthe cieling, and very dark rich blue onthe walls, and a shade in btween the two in the skylight. Then since everything was taken apart I figured I might as well change the cheap (came with house contractor grade) $8 light fixture and put up something better, and of course with new color in the rooms comes new towels, bath mat, shower curtain.......

It looks great now, so I'm happy.

Now I'm itching to get started on the rest of the upstairs.

Friday

2008-08-08T11:52:00.002-03:00

I haven't been very good at keeping this blog up to date lately. Could be because I've fallen into the "Same Old, Same Old" rut and don't really feel like there's much to blog about. My summer camps have been going well. I've done two so far and have one more scheduled to start next week. Would be nice to see some summer start as well. What a shitty season it's been so far weatherwise. There's been so much rainy and gray cloudy days I feel like I'm on the Queen Charlotte Islands. I spent a few summers in my childhood there, and it can get pretty gray and wet. When the sun does come out it's amazing though. A little more sun out here would be nice!!

I posted an ad on Giraffecycle.com to see if I could find a band and start singing again. I'm not looking to make a career out of it or anything but it would be fun to hang with a group of guys (or gals)and get back onstage on a fairly regular basis again. So far I've heard from a few different people who are interested in trying something out, but nothing definite has been nailed down yet. I has been a few weeks now, which seems kind of long to me cause if I was on Vancouver Island, I could put a band together in about five minutes...haha. Well maybe ten. I've had a couple very promising meetings though, so I think it will happen shortly. I'm wanting to stray from country music this time around and do more Adult contemporary and classic rock. Elton John/ Billy Joel kind of stuff. Throw in some oldies too like the Four Seasons. I think that would be all kinds of fun.

Aquarium obsession is getting completely out of hand. I think we're due for an intervention. Make that overdue. It is a little frustrating right now because we are still battling Algae problems from that stupid foam background the Woman at Village(Idiot) Pets convived us we needed. We didn't know any better, and th bloody thing soaked up andexpelled nitrates into the tank causing a forest of hair alae growth that killed some of our corals, and now six months later we are still trying to get rid of. A warning to anyone looking to get into the salt water hobby, or looking for a pet period, avoid that store liek the plague. They're overpriced and their livestock is not good qaulity. In fact their salt water fish tanks were in such a disasterous state the last time we were in I was almost tempted to call the SPCA.

Aside from constantly battling algae the tank is quite enjoyable. All the fishes are healthy and happy and beautifully coloured. We are setting up yet another tank at the moment (which is crazy I know) for a little pair of ocellaris clown fish (Nemo) we got. We have for pair sof clown fish now, all different types and all in different tanks, cause you can'e keep them together. Our Clarkii pair is still breeding to beat the band and laid another clutch of eggs on Monday. I have a pretty good phytopankton culture going as well as a good batch of rotifers, so I may even consider trying to raise the next batch of eggs they lay once they hatch. We'll see what happens.

The dogs are doing great. We changed their food a few months back to this organic stuff that is made in Quebec. There are no foreign ingredients in it...ie wheat from China etc etc. It is 100% Canadain sourced and contains no filler, which means the dogs don't eat a much of it because they stay full when they're done eating. It cost $50 for the big bag and the woman delivers it right to our door. On average we're going through about a bag every three weeks, which is really good compared to IAMS at a bag every two weeks. The dogs love it and they are doing really well on it. The biggest difference is Tiff. She has lost a lot of weight and had a lot more energy than she used to. She's no spring chicken anymore, she turned 10 in March. Elton's nineth birthday is quickly approaching in October, and our tenth aniversary is next week. Hard to believe we've been in New Brunswick for a full decade.

On the weekend we took a quick trip up to Fredericton to see Laura and Ray and check out their new house. They just took possession of it and were in the process of ripping down the hideous wallpaper when we were there. Someone informed Ray that spraying fabric softener on the wallpaper would loosen it right up and it works like a charm. You;d think with all the "wallpaper remedies" out there people would get the message and stop putting the damn shit up to begin with....I mean really people... Prints belong in Frames!!!! A bucket of paint is cheaper, easier to clean, looks nicer, and simple to change when it gets old, you get sick of it, or get new furniture. At any rate they found a great house at a great price and have great plans for it.

We have been overdosing on movies lately. Darrell ordered a projector from dell and we have it set up in the basement projecting movies on the end wall of the recroom. It's like being at the theatre. We have an 8 foot screen and the DVD player plugged into the stereo....good times. We've been watching stuff with sweeping scenery and big effects like Narnia, Batman Begins, Prisilla Queen of the Desert, and Finding Nemo. It's been a lot of fun. The Bonds have been over a few times for movie nights and we've done the entire Omen series as well.

I've also been addicted to "So You Think You Can Dance." I don't watch Idol Shows (everyone gasps and thinks to themselves..but you're a singer how could you not be totally addicted to Idol) but "So You Think You Can Dance" really surprised me. What I disliked most about the show were the auditions and the amount of time they wasted on the freaks. The judges complained about all the freaks coming out to the auditions yet they cut the footage in such a waythat the freaks were the ones that got the most airtime, so the show is just inviting them to come out for their 15 minutes of freaky fame. That aside the rest fo the show was amazing. The talent featured was top notch, and the judges critiques were always very very good (I could do without that Mary Murphy screaming all the damn time though). I liked that they didn't sit there and blow sunshine up everone's ass, and called them on their screw ups. Yet at the same time they also pointed out the good things. It was proper critique not critisism...there's a difference. I also likes that in the finally show the judges put their money where their mouths were and danced. So often in talent shows you wonder what qualifies the judges to sit there in judgement... mean really David Hasselhoff give me a break... but on this one they stepped up and showed everyone what qualified them to sit there. Mary Murphy was an amazing dancer, and the best part of it was that while she's dancing she can't talk...lol. It was good final show, and I wasn't surprised by the result, but I was in agreement with it. Oh and the reason I don't watch idol shows is because I can't handle bad singing. The auditions are paiful to listen to, and the finalists (mostly in Canadian Idol) aren't all that great either. There's usually two or three that are good and the rest are mediocre at best, so for me, listening to it is torture.

New Post

2008-07-23T12:06:00.002-03:00

I guess it's about time I updated this blog. Last week I had the first of three week long summer camps at the school. This one was part of a YMCA day camp, and had 12 kids, not all of whom were interested in animation, so it was a little more challenging than normal. All in all it worked out well, and I think they all managed to take something away with them that they were happy with.

We've been overhauling my office and making more room to work, so at the moment it's not quite all the way put back together. I took my peronal animation computer home and have been bringing my new laptop in to use in it's place, and I spent last week building a shelving unit that sits on the desk and goes over the computer moniters so that the video moniters can sit above them. There's a lot more space on the desk these days, so in a few weeks I shoul dhav that all cluttered up with crap I'm sure.

The house is still a huge disaster, but there is a very faint light at the end of the tunnel. Darrell got the second set of shelves built in the freezer room, and moved his RO unit into the electrical/water heater room. Now we just have to reorganize and clean the rest of the downstairs. I also have to finish building the trim for the rec room and install it. I want to get that all finished before I start thinking about painting the upstairs, or it will just not get done.

Saturday we spent the morning online at the Harbour Station Box office trying to get tickets to Elton John. Darrell and I were on both our laptops, Brina and Helen were on their computer, and our bookkeeper (and friend) Trish was on her computer. I signed into the site, and at the stroke of ten put four tickets in my basket in section A. I was all the way through the process of checking out, and pressed submitt only to get the site unavailable screen. I was cussing and swearing like a trucker working on his truck who just smacked his hand with a wrench and dropped it on his toe. I kept trying to refresh, then made the mistake of moving back a screen. I got back into the site and the tickets were still in my basket, but when I tried to check out again I got booted back out of the site, so I just kept trying. About an hour into it, Helen called to annouce that she and Brian got four tickets, so at that point Darrell gave up trying and just paid them for our two. I was still trying however, because we were trying to get tickets for Mike & Kathy and Trish & Mike. I had the business visa and Darrell's visa and was resfreshing like mad, and cussing and swearing a blue streak, it really was quite a sight. Mike called a little later onto see if we had been sucessful, and Darrell told him the story of what happened to me, and I told Darrell tell Mike I wasn't giving up, so keep hoping. Darrelll hung up the phone and headed downstairs to start working on the shelves, and by the time he got to the bottom of the stairs I got back into the site. I signed back in, but my cart was empty, so I added four tickets in E section to my basket and proceeded through the checkout sucessfully this time...yay! I yelled down the stairs to tell Darrell to call Mike back and let him know that I got four tickets. We just picked them up at Harbour Station today, so alls well that ends well..... but man was I pissed off about losing those first four, until I finally got the others. Still a little pissy about it to tell the truth cause they were awsome seats, but there's nothing to be done about it...and besides I'm going to see Elton John!!!

Another Weekend

2008-07-08T10:43:00.002-03:00

Yet another weekend come and gone. Morrie was once again a great success. The audiences really responded well to the show and a lot of people stuck around for the Q&A sessions afterward. There was lots of great discussion. After the final performance, on Friday, Jeff Smith hosted a very nice cast party at his house. It was a really nice evening...thanks Jeff!

Saturday we were going to take a trip up to Moncton, but it was such a nice day out we opted to just stay home and enjoy the deck and the sunshine. We are outside of the fog belt so the weather is always pretty nice at our house....keep that in mind all you uptownies... if you're looking to get out of the fog and enjoy the summer pop over anytime. We were scheduled to head to the Bond's at 6 inthe evening for Bertis' Birthday celebration but ended up being about an hour late. We had a nice BBQ and then a rousing round of Cranium. Brian, Bertis, and I were leading the entire way, but somehow Colin, Helen, and Darrell managed to squeak out a win in the final round.

Sunday we spent the day at home again. It was a fairly productive day I guess, though I can't recall what exactly we got accomplished. Darrell got his little trailor for the lawn tractor all put together and hooked up, and we managed to coax the dogs into it, and hauled them around the yard for a little while. That was kind of funny to watch, because they wouldn't stay in, but didn't want to be left out either.

Monday Darrell had a doctors appointment in Sussex, so I stayed home and waited for him to get back. His appointment ran quite late, and by the time he called to tell me he was on his way back to town, it was pointless to go to work, so I stayed home and had an extra day off, during which I did absolutely nothing. I sat on the downstairs couch watching the fishtank, a few movies, and playing on my laptop.

Today is business as usual. I have the last of my classes tonight and then break for the summer. I am playing make up right now for the classes I had to cancell to go to Calgary. Next week I have the first of three week long summer camps. Thye are spaced out over the summer, so it's not a constant thing, which is kind of nice.

Canada Day Weekend

2008-07-02T13:04:00.005-03:00

I took Monday off and made it a four day weekend , so today my internal clock is way off. Darrell got home at 1am on Sunday from a very good visit with his family. He had a really good time and came back very tan.

Every day of the weekend there was a rehearsal for Morrie, but thankfully it is a short show, so it didn't completely suck the life out of the time I had off. KV High has a fairly nice theatre, I've only been in it once before, and their tech kids are fantastic. What a great group of young men and women. I was extremely impressed with their professionalism and skill level. There was one guy on the tech crew who seemed to be everywhere at once, and I thought holy crap that guy is busy. Then one of the days I noticed him and he was wearing a white shirt, he disapeared back stage and came out wearing a yellow, then a little while later he was wearing the white one again... of course that's when I put it together that he was actually twins... which explained why he seemed to be everywhere all at once. Of course that doesn't discount the fact that they are very efficient and skilled group of Techy's and the Theatre Company would be extremely lucky to have any of them decide to come participate in our projects.

Tuesdays with Morrie Opens tonight at KV, so if you missed it last time around, now's your chance to see it again.

Four days off waas exactly what the doctor ordered and I thinkI've finally put that nasty bug or whatever it was that I picked up in Calgary on the run. I even managed to get to a point where I felt rested enough to tackle some of the finishing touches onthe basement. I got the doorway under the stairs completely trimmed out, and am now at a point where I can sand and urithane the wood.

We are still trying to win out over the algea problem in the aquariums, so we took a day to scrub some rocks and got a good leg up on the problem. Now if I can put aside a half hour a day to take the brush to the rocks and keep the algea at bay, eventually we will win and it will die for good. Good water quality combined with less of a lighting period, and a couple weeks of constant brushing should put us where we need to be. I could strangle that woman at Village Pets for tellin gus to get that stupid sponge background for the 70 gallon tank when we got into this hobby. Tha is what trapped all the nitrates that caused the problem in the first place. If you are into fish or aquariums at all, stay away from that place. She doesn't have the first clue what she's talking about and the stuff is so overpriced it blows my mind that they stay in business, because I have no idea who would be stupid enough to shop there. Unless she's just making her money off of people like us, who were just startig out in the hobby and didn't know all the various places to buy equipment or even what to buy.

Today I am trying to get back into the swing of work. Thankfully things have settled down on my end, and I have got most of my projects to a point where it is now back in the client's lap. I have two make up classes to do at the school to cover the ones that were missed for my Calgary trip. The first is on Friday and I've had to change the times on account of Morrie, and the last is Tuesday. I have three summer camps booked, so it will be a busy summer. Then It's back to the fall program. I am hoping to change things up a bit. I'm getting rid of classes on Fridays and changing them to Thursdays,and am trying to get kids divided up into beginners and non beginners. It makes it too hard to have a mixed class, because the kids who have been through before get shortchanged on account of me having to teach the beginners.

Weekend

2008-06-23T11:03:00.003-03:00

I had a really nice weekend. Darrell is still in Ontario visiting the folk so I am still batchin. I got some cleaning done, not much but some. It was a beautiful day on Friday and I was at work alone most of the day, so I considered closing up shop around noon and taking off to Fredericton to visit my cousin, but couldn't because I had my animation class to teach at 6:30 that evening. I am definitely going to have that changed in the fall.....NO MORE FRIDAY CLASSES! Or Mondays for that matter... fucks up too many weekend things. If we have along weekend and take Friday off...it sucks to have to come into town just to teach a class for an hour, only to get there and have two kids show up. Tuesday - Thursdays from now on I think. In fact I think I will pause and send Jim and e-mail about that right now, before the day gets away from me.

Okay back.

Saturday night I was just hanging out watchign the fish and some tv and the neighbours called to see if I wanted to come help them christen their new screened in porch so I headed over there for a couple hours and had a couple beer.

Sunday I worked at getting the dishes and the laundry done. I had plans with Brian and Helen to go into the vortex for dinner and a movie, and when they showed up to pick me up the clothes weren't completely dry yet, so I left them. We went to Montanas for dinner. I had a really great burger, and to make it even better, the Bonds treated....thanks guys!! We were quite full and a little rushed for time so we passed on dessert and headed over for the 6:35 showing of Sex and the City. I was pleasantly surprised by it. I was expecting it to be a fashion show with some gratutious nudity, but it was actually quite good. The plot was a bit contrived, but it wrapped up some things from the series nicely and had some laugh out loud moments. If you liked the series you will like the movie. It runs almost two and half hours, and by the time it was over our dinners had settled, so we headed back to Montanas for dessert. Helen had their Brownie Mountain, which was brownies with fudge and caramel sauce, topped with ice cream, and served in a four cup measuring cup. Brian had the Apple Cobbler, also served in the measuring cup, and I had the mile high mud pie. They were all really good, and we didn't finish them all.

By the time they dropped me off at home it was quite foggy so I left the laundry on the laundry on the line, then I chatted with Darrell on MSN for while. He's having a nice trip so far. Then I headed off for bed and forgot to bring the laundry in. This morning I awoke to the sounds of a tourential downpour, and realized that the laundry may have to stay on the line a while longer to dry. Had I known...I could've saved the electricity of running the washer as well....hehehe.

Darrell was supposed to be coming home on Tuesday, but that has changed thanks to Tuesdays with Morrie. For the Canada Day Long weekend we had planned on taking the Friday and the Monday as well as Canada Day, and Making a little holiday of it, which I could really use right now. Even though I took a week and went to Calgary, that wasn't a vacation it was a visit, and as fun as it was, it really wore me out. So we were planning to have a nice relaxing five day weekend where we could do anything we wanted or nothing at all, and then I got the rehearsal schedule for the restaging of Tuesdays with Morrie out in KV. Turns out there is something planned for every single day of the weekend as well as the holiday Tuesday, so our little plans are completely fucked. Had I known that was going to happen I wouldn't have agreed to participate in the show no matter how much I love it. But now that I've committed I certainly wouldn't dream of backing out and letting everybody down. I thought I had leanred my lesson with Guys and Dolls.... NO SHOWS IN THE SUMMER. The summer here is too damn short to start with, and we work too damn hard all year round to have one of the only long weekends of the summer taken up with rehearsals.... Yes I'm kind of pissed about it. At any rate, since I'm going to be busy all weekend, Darrell decided there was no reason to come home in the middle of the week, and pushed his flight back to Saturday instead. So he'll get to spend a few extra days with his family in Ontario and I will get to spend a few extra days alone at home with the dogs and the fish.

Moncton

2008-06-18T18:22:00.002-03:00

Had to head up to Moncton this morning for my quarterly visit with the transplant specialist. It's been nearly 4 months since I went off the drugs and everything is as it should be, so she decided I didn't need to see her again for another year. I can now also drop my monthly blood work to every three months (which is about what I usually get around to anyway). So all in all a very good visit to the doctor. I also stopped in to Noble Aquariums and picked upa juvenile clarkii clown fish to replace our male who recently died. I was sad when he died because the clarkii pair were the first salt water fish we got when we set up the tank, so we are more attached to them. The female doesn't seem to like him all that much yet, but luckily he's small enough to fit into a bunch of places she can't fit.
Darrell is in Ontario for the next week, and I left the dogs home, so I didn't want to waste a lot of time hanging about in Moncton. I headed right home after picking up the fish. As I always do on my way home, I gave a mental Shout out to the reigning Miss Norton, as I passed the sign on the highway.

Impulsive

2008-06-12T13:18:00.002-03:00

Last night I finally got the bug and went out and treated myself to a new laptop. Total impulse buy, but am very happy with it. I will now be able to retire my giant PC at work and bring it home, clearing up some realestate on the desk.
The laptop is an HP, I was looking for a toshiba, but they didn;t have the one I wanted, so I settled onthis one, which is actually a little better specwise. It has 17 inch monitor, built in cam, and lots of little extras that make it worthwile. It will be so nice to work without so much clutter in on the desk.

Long Time no blog

2008-06-10T13:59:00.007-03:00

I've been neglecting my blog, mostly because I haven't had anything new to talk about.
Mostly life has been same old same old. I'm still trying to get over the cold I picked up in Calgary. Just when I think it's over it comes back, so it's starting to really get on my nerves.
Last week I did a little volunteering for the Animal Rescue League. I spend a couple hour Thursday standing outside the liquor store at Prince Edward's Square collecting donations. Of all the liquor stores in Saint John to stand outside of....that one is... well...that one is kind of heartbreaking. There are some very damaged people in the world, and it's quite sad, and if you want to see them, just stand outside the Prince Edwards Square Liquor store for two hours in the middle of the afternoon. What is very surprising is who actually puts their change in the bucket and who doesn't. It seems the people youwould least expect to be generous ar the one who are the most, and the people who would expect to have the change to spare are the ones who pretend you aren't there. There was one guy, who quite leterally begged for money in the street to get enough to buy a bottle, then came out the door and put the rest of his change in the bucket (that was Saturday). But, buddy in a brand new mustang wouldn't even look me in the eye.
On to other things. My cousin Laura recently moved to Fredericton and I finally got a chance to see her for the first time since she's been here on Saturday Afternoon, after my shift at Prince Edward's Square. She and her significant other, Ray, came down to do a little exploring and we me tup at the office around 3. I haven't seen her in well over a decade since she was just a chubby little girl, but she has grown into an extremely beautiful, intelligent, and wonderful young woman. I had a really great time getting reaquainted. Laura was bornt he same year my sister was, so she's ten eyars younger than me, and she lived up in the Queen Charrolotte Islands until she graduated highschool so I didn't get to see her that often growing up. Her boyfriend (for lack of a better more appropriate title), Ray, is a very nice guy. He's a chef and took an amazing job at a restaurant in Fredericton, which is what brought them out here from Vancouver. I think they're both still a little culture shocked, but are finding that there are a lot of oportunities that the maritimes offer that Vancouver just can't. I was already in town when they arrived, so Darrell drove in and met us all and then we headed out to the house to drop off some vehicles and tooka trip to Saint Martin's to have a late lunch at the restaurant by the caves. It wasn't haute cuisine by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't terrible either. It's just so nice to have a little family close by. I can't wait to spend more time together and show them around the maritimes, and now that Laur's here, it's pretty much a given my aunt Kelly will come out for a visit and probably my cousin Robert as well (who I haven't seen since he was alittle boy so I could probably trip over him and not recognise him). Who knows... with two grandkids out here, and all the golf courses we may even see my Grandma put in an appearance.
Sunday we spent the day cleaning the disaster that is our house. It has been so neglected and fallen into a state of total chaos. I was mortified to bring Ray and Laura over to see the filth. We got a good chunk of it taken care of, but there's still quite a bit to do. I finally got up the nerve to tackle the downstairs bathroom, which was the absolute worst offender, and it is now spotless. When you tackle the biggest job first and get it out of the way, the rest seem less oppressive.
As usual we are hard at it at work...nose to the grindstone pluggin away which I should get back to.

Long Time no blog

2008-06-10T13:58:00.001-03:00

Calgary

2008-05-27T17:23:00.002-03:00

I got home from Calgary on Thursday around dinner time. The flight was uneventful, but I ran myself down from too much going on in Cowtown and developed a head cold, so my ears wouldn't pop. Hurt like hell it did. My left ear took a full two days to finally pop. aside from that, the trip was awsome.

I arrived on Wednesday the 14 at aroun 11pm Calgary time and my Mom met me at the airport. By the time we got back to her apartment and got everythign settled it was about midnight, so there wasn't much visiting, since 12 Calgary time is 3am Saint John time. Thursday we were up and about pretty early and headed down to Black Diamond to see my sister and finally meet my nephews. Cole is 4 and 1/2 and Seth is 2 and 1/2 so suffice to say my visit was long overdue. We made a quick stop at Walmart (only becuase we forgot to stop at toyrus) and picked up some stuff for the boys. Always good to bring presies...it helps smooth out that initial shy period. The boys and I got along immediately though, and began playing. That's basically how I spent the majority of my time in Calgary, playing with my nephews... they are very very busy guys.

Friday Mom and I spent the day putzing about 9th ave, stopping from shop to shop and seeing all the overpriced and unique things to be seen. Then later that evening we went out with her Friend Suzy. Mom took Suzy and me out for dinner at Earles to celebrate our birthdays. Suzy is the day after mine.

Saturday and Sunday I spent at Amanda's house in Black Diamond, playing with Cole and Seth. Monday was my birthday (thanks for all the facebook messages) and we spent the day asa a family. We all went to the show. MomMom, James, Cole, & I saw Iron Man, and Amanda took Seth to see Horton Hears a Who. Then we all wandered down to sears and had a family portrait done.

Calgary is very very dry and within a couple days my skin was like sand paper, so when I woke up Tuesday morning with a sore throat I didn't think much of it. Mom and I headed out and did some stuff around town, then went for pasta, and then around 4:30 I met up with my Friend Colleen. I have a lot of friends from my past life as a musician in Nanaimo who now live in Calgary, and most of them are still working musicians. Our mutal friend Lena was visiting Colleen and so Collie dedided to have a huge dinner party. (lena is an amazing chef) What started out as 19 people snowballed into 24 and then slipped back to 22. At colleens I started feeling a fever coming on and was really trying to hold it together, because I was looking forward to hanging out with everyone. I saw Bruce and his new girlfriend (they're having a baby... or could've already had it), Bob & Dawn, a bunch of people I don't know, and of course my favorite jet screamin hooty babe... Alida Schedel. Alida and I played in the same band together for it's entire run so she's like a sister to me. I got some visiting, but near 8 O'clock I finally had to admitt to myself that I wasn't going to make it, plus I didn't want to be passing a cold or something on to a lady who was about to have a baby any minute, so Alida and Jimmy(he rocks her world) ran me back over to my Mom's. They came up for a drink and, of course that's when my advil kicked in, and I felt better.
Wednesday we headed back down to Amanda's place for one last day with my boys, and then Thursday I was onthe plane back home.
Cole and Seth are both awsome little boys and had such a blast getting to spend time with them. Cole is very imaginative and we were able to play all kinds of game without the aide of a lot otoys and stuff to bog us down. It was a really great time.
I really needed a good dose of family, I've been missing it.

Anniversaries

2008-05-14T10:21:00.004-03:00

Today is a big day of anniversaries for me. Ten years ago today, Darrell and I got together for the first time. Three months later we were on the road to New Brunswick.
Quite fittingly one year later a complete stranger donated a gift that saved my life. Nine years ago today I recieved my donor bone marrow in room 143 on the 8th floor of the QE2 in Halifax. That was the day I was no longer allowed to leave the room for a few weeks, so I also quit smoking, and have never had the desire to start back up again. So May 14 has been quite the life altering day for me in the past, but since I'm flying across the country tonight, I'm hoping for nothing in the life altering category today. Unless of course my numbers come up in tonight's 649 draw.

Home today packing and getting ready to fly out this evening.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2008-05-13T11:41:00.004-03:00

Tomorrow I am off to visit Cagary, and see my Mom, Sister, and friends for a week. I'm getting quite excited about it too. There is a lot to do before I go and the time is ticking down. I would like to have the house cleaned up so I don't have to return to a disaster, but I'm not sure when I'm going to get the oportunity to accomplish that. I teach tonight until 8 which means today is shot, so hopefully I get some time before I leave tomorrow to get some stuff accomplished.

We had a super busy weekend. Friday night we had to make another midnight run to Moncton for fish. There was another group order happening and we decided to participate to get some more stuff we wanted. I talked to Janet at Ocean aquatics in Vancouver (Where the order was from)about eels, since we wanted to get another snowflake eel, and she told me about zebra morays. They had some nice ones there she said, so I also ordered one of those as well as the snowflake. We also ordered some more Chromis, a juvenile maroon clown, a neon goby, a clown goby, and three corals. The flight came into Moncton at 11pm so everyone met at the Tim Hortons by the airport and we divvied up the loot. Sadly the snowflake we ordered perished during transport, as did one of the 8 chromis, but we were extremely surprised when Derek pulled the zebra moray bag out of the box. Janet had said 18 inches, but that really didn't sink in. We had something much smaller in our minds... this guy was a monster compared to my imagination. An additional surprise was the maroon clown because he wasn't a regular maroon, he was a gold bar maroon which typically sell for $70, apparently I lucked into a sale and got $45 off. It makes for a nice contrast between him and the female he was bought to keep company.

We spent the majority of the weekend setting up our 70 gallon tank once again, to house our new eel and the maroon clowns. We moved it into the room we're using as our office so we can still paint the rest of the upstairs this summer. Once we're done painting etc we'll be able to move the tank and stand back out in the living area. Turns out the Zerba Moray was actually closer to two feet long and about 6inches around, so he's a big boy. He seems very healthy and is eating off the feeding stick with gusto. According to Janet and the rest of the literature I've been able to find on him, he is no threat to our small clown fish or any other small fish for that matter... crustations on the other hand.

Here he is:

Here's the new maroon clown

Neon Goby

Chromis' in quarantine

Open Brain Coral

Hammer Coral

Chalice Coral

What's the Deal with Lunch Hour?

2008-05-08T11:39:00.002-03:00

My Mind is getting foggier and foggier as I get older, but I distinctly recall only getting ahour for lunch when I was in school. In fact not even an hour, because there was inevitably some teacher who decided his lesson plan, was infimitely more important than your nutritional requirements and kept you five mintues past the bell, then you had to drop off your crap at your locker, and by the time you actually reached the caf it was 20 after, giving you just enough time to wolf down some gross fries and gravy and meet up with friends in the hall to hang around until it was time to rush back to your locker and get your crap for your next class.

Of course that was junior high, in senior high we had a double block, so the class before lunch was the same class after lunch which meant you could just leave your crap there and race to whoever's car you happened to be leaving for lunch in. If you had a spare period and it fell on a double block that day it was awsome, and almost not worth going to school at all that day... but what the hell is happening at the highschools now? 10 to 11 there's a group of kids already lined up at McDonalds in Brunswick square waiting for them to start serving lunch, and the mass of kids stays in the mall and uptown until 2 pm. How long is the bloody lunch hour today? and when are these kids ever in school anymore?

I know all about spare periods..I majored in them, with a minor in skipping out, but the groups uptown are way way way too large to be explained away that way.

What's Going On

2008-05-06T13:00:00.004-03:00

In a word not much, and that was two words so there you go. Work is insanely busy these days. We have several clients all doing ongoing things at the same time, so there are a million things to do and everything needs to be done yesterday. My vacation to Calgary will be a very nice break. The countdown is on, just 8 more sleeps. I'm very excited to see my Mom and Sister, finally meet my nephews, and get a chance to visit with some friends while I'm there. It won't be a restful week by any means, but should be fun.

The weekend was spent trying to catch up to our life. With so much going on at work, and the ever ongoing renovation in the basement, the rest of our life has seemed to get away from us. So we did a lot of cleaning this weekend and I managed to finally finish and install the last two doors on the cabinet. I still need to put some glass panes in them, but for all intents and purposes it is finished. I will be spending time this week trying to finish trimming out the room. I would like very much to be completely finished this phase of the reno before I leave next week, so that when I return it is to projects that are awaiting their beginning as compaired to projects in progress. I think we're finally gaining on the mess, so it doesn't feel as opressive as it did.

Friday night we went to an AA meeting, which was an interesting experience. We were there to celebrate with a friend who was getting their three month chip. We are very proud of our Annonomous friend and their accomplishment, and we will continue to be there in any way possible to offer support and encouragment in their journey.

Your Hobby May be Getting out of Hand When...

2008-04-24T11:18:00.002-03:00

It seems like we've made several Aquarium related trip over the past two weeks and it may be getting out of hand.
Darrell went in on a Bulk Skimmer order with a bunch of people from the Atlantic Region Reefers Forum (yes that's right there's a forum for just Atlantic Canada..inf act there's three) and we were up last Thursday to pick up the new skimmer in Moncton. While up there, of course we had to drop into Noble Aquariums to see if he had anything new and exciting. Terry told us we should've waited until Sunday when he gets his new salt water order, and told us what was coming in the order. There were actually three fish in it that we wanted, and to simplify matters, his orders come in via AirCanada to the Saint John Airport, so we arranged to meet him there on Sunday. That's right, you didn't misread that, we arranged to meet the plane at the airport to get some fish. PLane came in at 4:30 and Terry drove down from Moncton to meet it. I met him at the airport and we both discovered that the shipment was bumped to a later flight. Terry came back to our place to wait it out, and checked out our system. He liked it. The flight wasn't coming in until 11pm, so I said, "If you don't want to wait around here for 6 hours, you could always go back to Moncton and we could pick the order up and meet you in Sussex."
So sunday at 11:30pm we find ourselves driving to Sussex with five big boxes of fish in the car, only to discover once we get there, that his supplier only sent out the fresh water fish he ordered and his salt water stuff was nowhere to be found. Very disapointing. Made even more disapointing by the fact that there was a group order being done that I got in on and could've ordered the fish I wanted, but didn't because I thought they were coming in Terry's order.
It doesn't end there. The group order that was going on in the forum was being delivered on Tuesday, and I had ordered an urchin, 2 cleaner shrimp, and a clown goby. That order flew into Moncton at 11pm, and we had arranged with a friend in Sussex who was also involved in the order to have him pick everything up and meet at his place, so once again we're on the road to Sussex except this time it's nearly midnight when we leave. We meet Ray only to discover that one of the shrimp and the goby were both DOA, so again we were quite disapointed. On the bright side, the skimmer works awsome, and I took Wednesday off and finally managed to get the last of the cabinet doors glued together. Someday I'm going to finish this project.

On a completely unrelated topic, I was feeling homesick and thinking of trying to plan a trip out west for a visit in July, but it just isn't going to happen, because it's too damn complicated and expensive. The my Mom came to recue and bailed me out of a jam, by cashing in some airmiles for a ticket to Calgary for the week of the May long weekend (my birthday). That means I will be able to go out and see her and my sister and some friends next month, then save some money for a BC trip this time next year, for my 20 year highschool reunion. (okay before someone from the family points it out or says it outloud to themselves... yes I didn't technically graduate with my graduating class... but I did spend 13 years {if you count kindergarten} in school with them, so I plan to go). Traveling out west for a visit is a bit of a logistical nightmare for me, because I have so many places to visit and I have neither the money nor time to visit them all, and then I feel bad. Going home is not supposed to make you feel bad or guilty, so I end up putting it off, and then I feel bad about that...so it's a no win thing. Mom saved me the guilt though. I visit Alberta this year, and BC next year, unless someone in Williams Lake wants to cash in some airmiles in the Summer....hehe

Blog Neglect

2008-04-18T14:04:00.004-03:00

I been neglecting my blog lately. Mostly because there's nothing to talk about. I'm about as boring as watching paint dry.
Busy busy busy at work. Busy busy busy at home. Trying hard to finish up the last couple doors on the cabinet, but I keep geting distracted from the job. We're so busy during the week that the only time left to do any woodworking is on the weekend, but we get up, grab a coffee in the morning and sit down to watch the aquarium for awhile, and the next thing we know the day's over. Honestly... we barely even turn the tv on anymore.
We were up in Moncton last night to pick up a new skimmer that Darrell ordered in a big bulk order with a bunch of other people. We met Marc and Carol for the first time and saw their varios tanks. They have a tonne of knowledge and are only to happy to share it. We got so engrossed incoversation it was after ten by the time we left to come home. We didn't home until around midnight, so I'm pretty bushed today. This evening we have a booth set up at the Quispam Civic center for the school. Fingers crossed things go really well and we get some new students. I need one more person for my adult painting class on Thursdays if anyone is interested. More than one would be a major bonus.

Friday Feast Arpil 4, 2008

2008-04-04T12:48:00.002-03:00

Friday Feast

Appetizer
Invent a new flower; give it a name and describe it.
Calandria - Nuclear red (whatever that colour may be since I just invented it as well) & Neon Green... glows in the dark

Soup
Name someone whom you think has a wonderful voice.
Kelly Myers

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how clean do you keep your car?
1, Because I take the dogs with me, pretty much everywhere I go, and I'm too lazy to keep it clean.

Main Course
How do you feel about poetry?
Depends onthe poetry...technically every song is a poem set to music, so I guess I love poetry.

Dessert
What was the last person/place/thing you took a picture of?
I'm not sure off the top of my head, but It's a pretty safe bet to guess the Aquarium.

Very Productive Weekend

2008-03-31T16:35:00.002-03:00

Another weekend come and gone, but I got some stuff finished that has been on my list of things to do. Having a week filled up with theatre doesn't help you get much done at home.

I finally got the end doors for my cabinet finished. Well, sanded and installed, I still have to take them off and Urithane them. I have the center doors to do next and then the cabinet is fini!! WE got some new fish (but I think I've mentioned that already)and Darrell popped up to Sussex and got some coral frags from a guy we know up there. We also got a new beer fridge for downstairs. Greg Hemmings gave it to us, and it's an actual beer fridge like you would get from a bar, with the glass door, proper shelves, and light at the top. We should have lots of fun stocking and RESTOCKING it...hehehe.

We did our part for Earth Hour on Saturday. Darrell napped (which saved considerable energy hehehe) and I went downstairs to watch the fish and practice my guitar. It was extremely relaxing and I think I may have to incorporate it as a regular part of my routine.

Long long week

2008-03-28T17:09:00.003-03:00

This has felt like a really really long week. The constant snowing doesn't help it go any faster either. I'd bitch about it, but Mother Nature doesn't have a complaints department. My internal clock is allout of whack out on this side of the Country. My body tells me that the end of March is spring, and this snow is really starting to wear on me, and make me depressed.

But if you want to talk about depressing.... I spent the last two days at Rogers in the controlroom, running the feed for the Tom Young Show. There's six hour of my life I'll never get back. It was a lot like being back in radio, and I remember quite well now, why I quit radio. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that bad, it was just brainless button pushing. It would be nice, if someone would tell the men in the world, Canada especially, that Sports are not news. It is called the Afternoon New with Tom Young, not the entertainment file, or sports world, so it baffles me why he yapps on and on about baseball and hockey. Half an hour on the phone yesterday about baseball, and an entire hour today about the Toronto maple Leafs. Why I find the saddest part of it all is the Maple leafs discussion was actually sandwiched between interesting and evokative topics that deserved to be discussed. He had a guy on who wrote an article for report on Business, about Bottled water, and another guy talking about the use of water in the Alterta Oil sands operations. Two guests who could very easily have filled an hour with some phone in questions... but no. They did their half hour each one on one with him, and then it was on to the great "Distractor" Hockey. really that's what it is too, the Great Distractor, because if the intelligent, analitical people, I heard calling in talking about strategy, and trades like they actually meant something in the grand scheme of things, actually started consentrating on, and analizing things that matter; like how to improve their community, Province, Country... then the corporations and politicians wouldn't be getting away with half the crap they are getting away with. People would actually take a little action. Unfortunately we're all distracted by useless crap, like hockey, Canadian idol, facebook, etc etc etc.
I'm not sayig Hockey isn't a great time waster for those that enjoy wasting their time, but it isn't news. It is entertainment pure and simple, and doesn't deserve an hour on a "NEWS" show. If that's what passes for news, how about an hour about the Fiasco with the three directors of the Stratford Festival, or an hour about how Madonna has managed to maintain a career spanning Nearly three decades, and at 50 years old, somehow manages to remain relevant in a youth driven industry?

Okay, Now I have that off my chest, before I end my bitching and ranting let me add that Waterloo Street has a very bad traffic problem inthe form of a Tim Hortons Drivethrough. The city needs to force them to do something about it or shut it down.

Done ranting. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend at home, where I can finally get back to working on the finishing touches for my cabinet downstairs. I got the doors built, but haven't had a free moment to sand them or finish them, so fingers crossed they can be done this weekend so we can finally put a period on that portion of our reno and start the next phase.

Saturday

2008-03-22T12:27:00.002-03:00

I don't usually post on a Saturday, but I thought I would share the review of "Tuesdays with Morrie" from the Telegraph Journal Online. I am getting ready to head into town for today's matinee, and tonight's final performance....so if you haven't already seen it, make sure you don't miss out. Plus tonight is going to be the last ever cast party at the SJTC Loft, try and drop by if you can.

I bolded a section...because....How often does the sound guy get a shout out in a review?????

Here's the Review:

Well Taught Life Lessons

SAINT JOHN - There are many life lessons to be found in Tuesdays With Morrie. Actor Bob Doherty, who plays the title character in the Saint John Theatre Company's production of the play, said in an interview earlier this week that the one that resonates most strongly with him is Morrie's advice to forgive everyone everything.

"When you're where I am, it won't matter who is right," Morrie tells Mitch, his former student, from his deathbed.

It's appropriate Doherty chose this aphorism as his favourite of Morrie's many, considering the highly sympathetic performance he gave on opening night, Wednesday at the Imperial Theatre.

As Morrie Schwartz, a 70-something professor stricken with ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease, Doherty exudes the loving benevolence and peaceful wisdom that so endeared Morrie to readers - and there are tens of millions of them - of Mitch Albom's best-selling memoir.

Doherty's Jewish New York accent is pitch-perfect, his comedic timing spot-on, his quips eliciting plenty of laughs from the audience made up mostly of local students Wednesday night.

It is a sentimental role, to be sure, one that could easily drown in its own bittersweetness, but Doherty nails it.

Unless you've been living in a cave, you likely know at least the broad strokes of Tuesdays With Morrie. First published in 1997, the book tells of the reunion between teacher and student 20 years after Morrie taught Mitch sociology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. As so often happens, promises to stay in touch after graduation fell to the side as career and adult life intervened. By chance, Mitch rediscovers Morrie when his old professor has just months to live, and begins calling on him every Tuesday. These visits became their final class together. The subject: the meaning of life.

Jeff Smith is well-cast as Mitch in the SJTC production. Cocky, ambitious, work-obsessed, Smith is tasked with a character who is far less sympathetic than Morrie. A successful sports journalist who says things such as "You've got to hustle if you're going to stay on top," he is brisk and sarcastic, impatient with that "touchy-feely" stuff.

In contrast, when we first meet Morrie he is a healthy senior, an old man with lots of life and fun left in him as he gently soft-shoes it across the stage, unabashedly dancing by himself, mixing goofy jazz hands with a solo fox trot.

Doherty does a great job charting Morrie's decline, as the degenerative disease takes away his ability to dance, to walk and, eventually, even to breathe. The momentum is never broken with no intermission in the 90-minute play.

When Morrie receives the prognosis that he has just months to live, he quickly decides to embrace the time he has left, to observe his death and share what he sees.

"I'm not quite alive, not quite dead. I'm in between," he tells Mitch. "I'm going to take that journey into the great beyond. People want to know what they should pack."

One particularly well done scene smartly illustrates Morrie's increasing influence on Mitch and the frantic pace of the young sportscaster's life. Busy reporting at Wimbledon, the sound of a tennis match bouncing around the theatre is joined by a ringing cellphone and Morrie's voice in his head, asking Mitch if he's happy, if he's living life as he should. The tempo grows frantic, the sounds cacophonous, and Mitch reaches his breaking point, shouting out.

The show's simple set - a backdrop of old leafy trees, an old leather recliner toward the front of the stage, a piano to the other side that Mitch plays a few times during the show - doesn't detract from what is essentially a character study that needs no embellishment.

Those of you who read - and loved - Tuesdays With Morrie will likely delight in the sharp dialogue of the stage adaptation and its fidelity to the memoir.

But even if, like Mitch, you don't have much time for that "touchy-feely stuff," the show is still a worthwhile outing if only for the chance to enjoy some great local acting. Who knows? You may even take away a life lesson of your own.

The Saint John Theatre Company's production of Tuesdays With Morrie opened Thursday at Saint John's Imperial Theatre and continues tonight at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets, $16, $24.50 and $27.50, are available at the Imperial Theatre Box Office or by calling 674-4100.

* Okay so it wasn't a direct mention of me as the sound guy...but it did mention the sound effects in "One Particularly well done scene".....which incidentally is a pretty hard scene to do, and we should have it perfect by Sunday.

Update

2008-03-17T16:08:00.004-03:00

Not a lot going on, but lots going on...you know what a mean. Busy, busy, same old, same old.

I'm very nearly finished the doors for my cabinet, and will soon be able to move onto other things. Darrell was in Halifax for the weekend doing a video shoot with Greg and the guys. He brought back a bunch of corals from a guy selling off all his softies, so they are a nice additon to the tank. We have a J&L Fish order arriving on the plane tomorrow, so we'll finally have most of our fish... we are very close to putting a period on this whole project...yay!!

I have the week off from the school, so I can do sound for Tuesdays with Morrie at the Imperial. I still so very unprepared it scares me. Hopefully it will all come together at the cue to cue tonight.

We had a birthday party for Colin at Brian & Helen's yesterday afternoon. We spent the day doing crafts which was a lot of fun. We decorated picture frame with a variety of different fun items, I went completely overboard with sparkly things and feathers...it's very Dame Edna. Then I was off to the Theatre to do some recording with Richard for the show. Today I am still editing all that I recorded and it is 4:15 as I type...so time is ticking.

I saw a few Youtube videos that totally made me pee...they are so funny. I don't watch Jimmy Kimmel so I never saw the first two when they were actually played, and didn't really know the "Backstory" but it's all pretty self explanitory in the videos. The last one is Alanis Morrisette Making fun of Fergie....so bloody funny!!!!

Sarah Silverman & Matt Damon's gift to Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy's response

Alanis Morrisette "My Humps"

Need an 8th Day

2008-03-10T15:44:00.003-03:00

I don't seem to have any time to just "be" anymore. We've been slammed at work with projects and it's only going to get busier in the coming months, three nights a week I teach, and then every spare minute I can find I am trying to finish up the build on my cabinet and get the rest of the renos done, not to mention we're about to bring Tuesdays with Morrie into the theatre so I will actually have to start working a lot harder on that than I have been.(since I haven't actually been doing much on it at all to date.)

I had someone drop by on the weekend to see our new aquarium setup and while we were sitting there looking at it, I realized I haven't spent too many minutes sitting down looking at it since getting it all set up, and I thought "What a waste to be working so hard and not actually take a few hours to enjoy the fruits of that labour." I managed to actually take an hour and just sit and watch the fish swim around. It's a very relaxing experience, because it requires quiet and stillness... I found it very theaputic.

It would be so cool if we could occasionally add an 8th day to the week. Nothing regular mind you, or we'd just fill that up too, but something that happens every couple months and you don't know it's coming until the news or the radio tells you it's about to happen. That would be cool.

Finished...Mostly.

2008-03-04T12:51:00.006-04:00

We are onthe verge of being completely finished our reno/upgrade....well the basement part of it at any rate. I got he canopies finished, and Darrell installed all the lighting, then we spent Saturday slowing moving all the rocks, fish and corals to their new nine foot long, 233 gallon, salt water home.

Behold...Before:

... After:

I don't want to come off like I'm blowing my own horn or anything, but these pictures really don't do the setup justice. It is quite spectacular to in person. I am actually quite shocked at just how grand it all seems, and I've been working on it since July. OMG I've been working on this since July.

I still need to build the doors for the cabinet, and trim out the room. Then I have to build a new canopy for our 77 gallon tank, and paint the upstairs. Then the 77 gallon has to be set back up and the snowflake eel and maroon clown(soon to be clowns) can be moved to their new homes. Then we can get on with our other plans outside of the aquarium hobby.

The picture set documenting the entire process to date can be found here:
Photo Set

Week 01

2008-02-27T10:00:00.003-04:00

So far, so good. One full week of no medication and so far, no problems to report. It's really the next two weeks that will be the determining factor though. The meds are still in there slowly diluting and leaving at this point, so next week they should be gone, and if anything nasty is going to happen it should be apparent by the week after. I'm pretty confident that everything is good, and things will continue to get better.

The past week has been pretty productive and quite expensive. I had to have some repairs to my car, and they turned out to be way more than anticipated. Obviously my car has realized that it is closed to being paid off. I knew I had a wheel bearing in the front going that needed to be replaced... what I didn't know, was that both needed to be replaced along with the struts, brakes, and rotars...so $1400 later my car rides like it's brand new again.... it should, the repairs cost twice as much as my first car. Luckily our mechanic is someone we know and has been working on our vehicles for a number of years. He doesn't cut corners and always shops around for the best deal, so I know that I wasn't overcharged, and I also know that the work was absolutely necessary.... it just really hurt our budget.

We got a lot accomplished on our aquarium project/basement renovation. The rest of the house is an absolute disaster because of it, so I will be very very happy to have this finished and cleaned up. The Aquarium canopies are now completely built, and their various pieces are in various stages of urithaning. This weekend things will be being tranfered to their new homes and I will be looking to start building the new canopy for our existing tank upstairs. I have to redesign what we have with the eel in mind (they are notoriuos escape artists). I will also be looking to paint the upstairs, and redesign and reupholster the couch and chair in the basement. I may actually go hog wild and reupholster our upstairs couch as well, as it has had a couple years of wear and tear since I last did it. As usual it looks like one project is going to transition right into the next one.... there's always something.

Day 01

2008-02-21T12:23:00.002-04:00

I spent the majority of yesterday in the waiting room on the Moncton Hospital Oncology department, waiting to see my specialist for my regular appointment. My appointment was for 11:15 and I finally managed to see her at 3, only in the health care industry can you make appointments like that and still stay in business.

The appointment went well, all things are fine blah blah blah, and we finally decided it was time to take the plunge and go off my anti-rejection drugs. So, last night, for the first time in Nine years, since having my bone marrow transplant, I did not take a pill to supress my immune system. Fingers crossed that all goes well and my body has built up a tollerance to the new bone marrow, so I can finally put all the little problems and annoyances of the past nine years in the past.

The next few weeks I will have to pay very close attention to my skin and make sure it doesn't start to thicken up again. At the first sign of any tightness I will be popping my pills again to make sure it doens't get a good grip on me like it did years ago. It only took a few weeks for my skin to thicken up, my body hair to dissapear, my pigment to go all blotchy, my skin to get all wrinkley, and my flexibilty to be greatly inhibited. Then it took years for it to heal to the point where it is now...which is still not 100%, so I will be paying extra special close care to every little thing as far as my skin/body/health is concerned for the next month or two.

All that aside, my gut tells me everything is going to be fine.

After the appointment I popped into Noble Aquriums and picked up a few snails and a lawnmower Blenny for our aquarium, then came home.

Honorable Mention

2008-02-15T11:15:00.002-04:00

Life has been fairly hohum, humdrum lately. Routine, routine, routine. I had yesterday off because the guys were shooting some green screen stuff in the office and it takes up so much space that it's just easier to not have the extra bodies around.

I got some stuff accomplished on my canopy build, and did two workout cycles on the treadmill before heading off to teach my classes. My painting classes are coming along very well, and the adult students are now wanting us to extend the class to two hours in the spring. My guitar lessons are working out quite well too, although I wish I could be more disiplined about practicing. I find the week just flashes by and before I know it it's Thrusday and I haven't practiced all week, which is kind of a waste of both my time and Wes's because we have to go over the same stuff again and again. I am learning to finger pick, which is basically a classical guitar style, so it is quite difficult to start off with.

The winners for the photo contest i was pestering everyone to vote in were announced. I did not win, but I did get honorable mention which I guess was 4th place... so that's nothing to sneeze at.

I am still hopelessly addicted to the Knighthood application on facebook as well as scrabulous (I think I have ten games on the go right now). If you're not playing knighthood with me, you should be.... it is so fun. For all intents and purposes it is a Medieval Sims game, with a social factor added in. There is a certain amount of inviting involved, but not as intense as some facebook apps. The way the inviting works is different as well. If you invite someone, and they don't accept they are still in your court for 7 days. So if I've invited you and you didn't accept expect another one in 7 days. IF they do accept however, they stay in your court even if they uninstall the app after installing it and you don't have to reinvite them. So there you go...even if you don't want to play, just install it and uninstall it an presto...no more invites....tee hee.

Sick and Tired

2008-02-11T11:39:00.001-04:00

I had a very long and tiring week last week. I started developing a cold on Wednesday, and have been stuffy and yucky ever since. I took Friday off and stayed in my road most of the day. I had to get dressed and go in to teach my class at 6 so it wasn't a total day off, but it helped.

On Saturday I had a birthday party at the school for 8 (originally but it grew to 10) 9-11 year old girls, from 4 until 6:30. They wanted an hour of animation and then some acting. They spent a little longer than an hour in the animation room, since the girls were having fun, and while they animated I came along with blank strips of paper and got them to write down stuff like their favorite movie, song, cartoon etc. I then used those slips after the animation class to play charades. Charades, after all, is acting. Charades didn't last very long before it just became chaos, but thankfully by then, it was time for cake, and time for me to go.

After the party I hurried home, so we could make it out to the Bond's for Helen's Chinese New Year Party. Helen thought it would be fun to try something new and she was right. She did a lot of work and research and the whole night was really fun. She even dressed up in Chinese attire along with a stunning black wig that she purchased victoriously. We had a big feast of Chinese food and at each of our places there were little picture frames with cards inside and a write up about each of our Chinese astrological signs. We all had lucky envelopes with chocolate coins in them, because apparently the banks out here don't have any yen on hand. Helen also had traditional snacks laid out on little plates in the middle of the table, each with a card to tell what it symbolized. There was candied melon,lychee nut, coconut, and a bunch of other things I can't recall off the top of my head. We all sampled a little something from each plate... including Darrell who is not super adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. Then for desert Helen brought out two traditional Chinese New Year deserts. She went to the Chinese market and asked a lot of questions and really put together a great party.

Sunday I put a big dent in the work for building the canopy to go over the aquariums. Darrell checked the water chemistry from the new setup and it is almost completely cycled...so the sooner I can get those lights up and running, the sooner we can do the big move and reclaim a small portion of our lives.....hehehe

Today I am taking another sick day, and I have no classes tonight. It is noon and I am still in my robe.

Feb. 4, 2008

2008-02-04T14:28:00.000-04:00

There's not a lot going on these days other than the same old, same old.

Last week we worked late a few nights in a row and by the weekend I was pretty burned out and feeling very lazy. Our house is a complete pig stye and I was too lazy to care. I did get some boards glued together as a start to building the canopy for the aquariums. Other than that the weekend was very laid back and quiet.

We bought a treadmill, so I gave up my gym membership, since the treadmill seems to be the only thing I use there lately. It's a nordic track treadmill and works very well. We have it set up in the spare room with the TV and stereo, so you can watch television or listen to music while working out. I can even sing karaoke while I run/walk if I want. I like being able to sing out loud while doing cardio, I think it helps expand my lung capacity and endurance. I found that during Cabaret I had alot more stamina for singing and dancing at the same time and I atribute a big portion of that to singing while working out on my eliptical trainer at home. I sold the eliptical trainer though, since Darrell didn't feel coordinated enough to use it, and now we have the treadmill in it's place.

I've been having a really good time teaching my classes. Everyone is really into what we're doing, so it's a piece of cake. I had one real challenge in my Friday evening Animation class. I have one boy who is autistic and he is also new, so he's not familiar with me. Friday I finally cracked the code on him. I've been sitting next to him the past three weeks, but basically letting him do his own thing and trying not to get into his space very much. Friday I grabbed one of the stuffed pokemon figures down off the shelf and started drawing it in flash, and when one of the other kids noticed and asked how I did it, I offered to show them how. That was the key that unlocked the door for me. I finally found something he was really interested in and by the end of the class he was talking to me and asking questions. Up until then the only question he had asked was where the bathroom was. I look at it a lot like cracking a code because I think everyone has a code that needs to be cracked where learning is concerned because everyone learns in a way that is unique to them. With most people though, they will help you along by telling you what they get and what they don't, and it's easier to see how they learn things best. With autistic kids it's much more challenging, because you really have to let them come to you, and sometimes it takes a while before they feel comfortable in new surrounding, with new people. Anyway... I feel like we got somewhere and that made me feel really good, so it was a great way to end off the work week.

Addiction Addiction Addiction

2008-01-30T12:13:00.000-04:00

I have a very addictive personality. Always have, always will. Thankfully I am aware of it, and in the past decade or so have managed to limit my addictions to things that aren't self destructive or hazzardous to my health... like smoking (which I did for 14 years).

Right now I am addicted to a couple things. The biggest and most expensive being our aquarium hobby. The only problem with this addiction is it is one Darrell and I share, so there is no other side to the relationship, saying "Don't you think it's time to take a step back?" Thankfully we are now in the finishing stages of the building downstairs. I am working on getting the lighting canopy built and then it will just be a matter of waiting for the tanks to cycle so we can move all the fish and corals over. So far, I have to say, hopefully without sounding too concieted, that I think we have done an exceptional job transforming that space in the basement, and my design idea looks pretty good if you ask me.

The tanks are on the stand, and there is salt water cycling in them. There's even rock and a couple fish already. Now it's just a matter of finishing that canopy, so I can move on to rebuilding and reupholstering the furniture for the room.

The other addiciton I have been indulging in is kind of silly. It's a facebook application called kighthood. Unlike all the other facebook apps out there, I don't have to continuously invite my friends to join over and over and over, in fact I've only sent out a few invites and that was a week ago. I am still playing and everything is going fine. It's kind of like an online role playing game, and I was never much for role playing games (they didn't really become popular until I was too far into my teens to care) but for some reason I am all over this one. Too much fun!
*Amendment: It's actually more like a SIM game, than role playing... so if you like games like SimCity...you will love Knighthood*

Yesterday I took the last half of the day off, so I could work from home catalogueing some tapes. I had a few stops to make on the way home, and then spent the better part of the afternoon on the floor of the spare bedroom going through footage and writing down information. I got through two tapes and started a third and only had to break twice because my ass kept falling asleep from sitting on the basement floor (doesn't help that I slipped on the ice on Wednesday and landed on the step so I have a giant bruise on my ass right across the left cheek). I was a little full of myself having gotten through as much fo the footage as I had, until this morning when Darrell declared I need to learn to make better use of time... since I "only" got through 2 tapes and started the third. Here I thought I was ticking right along. Oh well...what can you do? In my defence I almost never catalogue tapes, so it's not like I know what I'm doing, or do it all the time.

Friday

2008-01-18T10:03:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a little while (bad blogger). There isn't a lot to blog about really. We got the tanks up on the stands and there is now water in them. It's not salt water just yet, but it is water and it is circulating through Darrell's plumbing without mishap. We have a few things still on order and few more things that have to be built but all in all we are in very good shape to have some residents in these tanks in about 6 weeks. (The water has to go through an entire biological cycling process before it is safe to add fish etc.)

We lost one of the fish we got on our trip to Maine, to worms and parasites. We weren't prepared to deal with worms, as it is the first time we've encountered it... we'll be ready next time though. The other fish are all doing well and seem very healthy.

Darrell had to go to Portsmouth last week for a couple days to do a shoot for Irving, and while he was there he brought back a couple little clownfish for a lady in Shippagen. We know her through the online marine forum and she was looking for little nemo fish, only a black variety of them. All the dealers around NB basically looked at her like she had two heads when she asked about them, but they had an abundance of them in Bangor, so Darrell picked a couple up for her while there and we took a trip to Moncton yesterday to deliver them. She met us at Nobles and was very happy with her new additions.

One more thing on the fish front. Thank you to everyone who continued to vote everyday for my fish pic in the contest. I was super suprised (event hough I shouldn't have been...I have the most awsome friends and family) to not only get up into the top 20, but to end the voting at number 2. Not only did my first pick picture make it to number two, my second picture (that I had basically given up on in the beginning) made it to number 15, thanks to splitting my voting team once the first one had managed to secure it's place in the top 20. So thank you all for helping me out. Now the top 20 pictures will be judged by a panel of three judges and the one they pick will be the winner of a $250 gift certificate to the pet store of that persons choice. Fingers crossed and wish me luck.... thanks to everyone's help I actually have two shots at winning.

Atlantica started up it's winter programs last week, and I have a few new students. There weren't enough to add extra nights so we're incorporating them into existing classes, and I am splitting my time between beginners and more advanced. It is a little challenging right now, but in a couple weeks it will even out.

1st post of 2008

2008-01-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

The "Holidays" were good. We had fun and got a lot of work done on our reno/upgrade project. New Years Eve was quiet. The Bonds dropped over and we had a few drinks. We didn't make it back to work on the 2nd like we planned, because of the snowstorm, but we were back on the 3rd. I then took Friday off to stay home and clean up the basement. The stand is now finished to the point where the plumbing can go on and the tanks can be set up. I still need to build doors and do the trim for the room but the big stuff is done and the rest can be done a little at a time. Next up Darrell has to get things plumbed and up and running, then I have to build a canopy for the lights for the tanks.

Sadly, Eddie the pufferfish died over the Holidays, and we're not exactly sure why. As heartbreaking as it was, it was ultimately for the best, since he would've outgrown our 77 gallon and we would have had to do another upgrade, which just isn't going to happen. One of the guys we talked to in Maine said he doesn't even bother with puffers because they come with all sorts of parasites and worms and generally don't live. I wish I had known that prior to getting him, because he was such a cool fish and really had a neat personality... that's right the fish had a personality, he would see you coming and come up to the glass and beg for food... just like a dog.

On a happier note our clownfish, who have had a very tumultuous relationship, laid eggs. When we first put the anemone in the tank, the female took it over and chased the male away, then little by little he managed to work his way back over, now they have mated. We aren't prepared to do anything about the eggs so they will hatch and the little fry will not make it, and probably be eaten by the other fish in the tank, but I am assured by another hobbyist who has been having a lot of luck raising baby clownfish, that once they lay eggs once, it will become a regular occurrence, so we can get set up and consider raising babies in the future.

Here's some shots of the before and afters from downstairs.
There's more pics of the entire process from start up until now on my flikr site

Before:

After:

Not quite enough room for snorkeling:

The Stairs are on my Radar now!

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

2007-12-29T13:54:00.000-04:00

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

2007-12-29T13:42:00.000-04:00

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

2007-12-19T11:35:00.000-04:00

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

2007-12-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

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

2007-12-07T14:13:00.000-04:00

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

2007-12-05T11:17:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-30T09:45:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-20T13:03:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-19T10:43:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-13T14:15:00.000-04:00

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

2007-11-08T10:27:00.001-04:00

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!

2007-11-07T09:38:00.000-04:00

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!!!!!!!

2007-11-02T12:34:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-31T16:42:00.001-03:00

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

2007-10-30T11:00:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-22T10:01:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-17T10:10:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-15T10:14:00.001-03:00

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!!!!!

2007-10-11T10:04:00.000-03:00

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!

2007-10-09T10:14:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-03T13:46:00.000-03:00

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

2007-10-01T10:00:00.000-03:00

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

2007-09-19T09:50:00.000-03:00

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

2007-09-18T09:40:00.000-03:00

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

2007-09-17T10:10:00.000-03:00

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

2007-09-11T10:24:00.001-03:00

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

2007-09-07T10:08:00.000-03:00

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

2007-08-24T09:47:00.000-03:00

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

2007-08-22T12:12:00.000-03:00

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

2007-08-20T09:35:00.000-03:00

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

2007-08-13T09:39:00.000-03:00

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.

2007-08-07T09:35:00.001-03:00

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.