Busier than a One Armed Paper Hanger

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

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

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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