Photo Contest

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

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




This is the link for the contest

Contest Page

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

Hump day

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

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

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

Scary

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

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

DVDs

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

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

Another Monday

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

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

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

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

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

Fairly Productive

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

Another Long Weekend

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

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

ow my face!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday!!!!!!!

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

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

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

Down Time

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

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

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

Happy Halloween!

Spoke too Soon

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

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

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

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

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

Longest week ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

The weekend

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

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

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

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

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

Almost off the drugs!!!!!

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

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

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

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

Long Week, Longer Weekend!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Premiers

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

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

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

So What


Don't Tell Mama

October 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Busy Busy

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

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

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

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

Back to School

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

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