Long Time no blog

Calgary

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

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

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?

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.