My Alberta Adventure

Whew...

2007-05-22T17:22:00.000-06:00

Scared myself there.

I accidentally deleted My Alberta Adventure last night, but the good folks at Blogger were able to restore it for me...I didn't even have to grovel.

Sadly, things come to an end...

2007-05-21T23:19:00.000-06:00

I spend way too much time on the internet, as most of you know. And I've enjoyed keeping this blog, but as you can see my interest in it as of late has been waning.

Things are changing soon. Life altering decisions have been made. Moves are certainly an issue in the immediate future. Things that will make my little ones happy and things that will make Michelle smile more.

I'm not going to say anything yet. But I will probably be making one more post in the next few weeks. Probably just to say goodbye to this blog.

Talk to you soon everyone.

I know, I know...

2007-03-30T10:58:00.000-06:00

I already said something today, and all of you about to die of shock because it's rare that I blog a couple of days in a row let alone twice in one day, but I just had to. I just HAD TOO!!! If I didn't then I wouldn't be able to put up this 11 minute long animated Weird Al video:

Trapped In The Drive-Thru

There! Done! Finito! What are you still doing here!

Guess what day it is…

2007-03-30T08:46:00.000-06:00

Is it? Can it be true? Could today finally have come?

It’s Friday!!!

I love Fridays as a rule, not those fake Fridays like yesterday, but the real Fridays that signify the end of the week. I liken it to opposite bookends sandwiching the work week together; Friday is the baby face (or good) bookend while Monday is the heel (or bad) bookend. Neither of which is appropriate for the next two weeks as they are considered neutral during times of peace (or vacation).

Now, I slept like total crap last night as it felt like Christmas was coming the next morning, so I want you all to send out warm fuzzies our way with regards to traveling this evening. Michelle’s graciously offered to do the daytime driving so I could rest after work, but I’m terrible at sleeping in vehicles. Let’s hope I’m tired enough to overcome that, though.

So, I guess I’ll just say, “See you in a week or so!”

Bye, now…

Not necessarily the news...

2007-03-29T09:27:00.000-06:00

...But it made the news, so I guess it is news. Kinda...

You have to head over to the only TILAH strip to actually reflect current events so far. I always knew this about Shannon, but now I get to tell the world...

So, joy of joys it's finally Friday today, and as soon as that Cromagnum man pulls the pteranodon’s tail I'm going to slide down the back of this Pachysaurus’ and head on....

What?

Thursday? It's just Thursday?

Aw, sh-*END TRANSMISSION*

Week...so...slow...

2007-03-28T11:19:00.000-06:00

Is it Friday yet?

Saw Wild Hogs last night which is kind of funny because just prior to seeing it I was telling myself that I really haven't seen any movies dealing with middle aged men pretending to be bikers, getting hit in the nuts, making 'poop' jokes and overcoming obstacles lately.

Don't get me wrong! It was still a pretty fun movie, but it definitely wasn't the height of originality. Good ensemble cast with cameos sparsed along the way, but definitely not the usual movie I would see in the theatre. I went with Roger, though, so I was in good company.

I've been working hard to get the strips ready so I don't have to work on them over my vacation, but I got struck with an idea yesterday that was brought on by a news article I read, so it may be a late night. Wish me luck! I was even working on it while I was in the bathroom making a next door neighbor last night.

Here's something cool! I always think it's awesome when something I've been following for a while starts achieving phenom status. So's the case with Ask A Ninja. And a true telling of status is when you get to interview movies stars Will Ferrell and Jon Heder about their upcoming movie Blades of Glory:

Now that's just freakin' sweet!

It's gotta be Friday now! No? Crap!

Am I completely random?

2007-03-27T07:28:00.000-06:00

I guess there was some confusion as to why I posted that video in the previous post. Am I searching randomly on YouTube for content? No! If you look closely at one of the stars of the Josh and Justin Show, you may notice that I'm slightly related to one of them....by marriage. He is my nephew as I am his "Uncle Whatsisname."

Hey! Is it Friday yet?

Oh, I had to share this, too, which was brought to my attention by Dave who is responsible for Taking the Bi-Pass. It's the evolution of a beard:

That had to take patience and dedication. The look on his face was constantly passive. I just want to know how many pics were taken a day and how long it took in total.

Okay, is it Friday now?

Timmy’s just ain’t kind to me anymore…

2007-03-23T23:24:00.000-06:00

You’d think it a blessing when they open up a Tim Horton’s two city blocks away from your office building as opposed to the humongous 5 or 6 city blocks, but when service is lacking and they try to make you sick, you start to see it in a different light. The passed three days I’ve gotten off one train station later so I could go into the closer coffee shop so I could enjoy my extra large one cream, two sugars in the comfort of my office. I won’t make the extra effort any longer.

This morning, my third and final visit, I was enthusiastically greeted by the middle aged counter lady with the words, “Next customer!”

She didn’t ask what I wanted, so guessed she just assumed I knew my role. “Extra large, one cream, two sugars please,” I said with my typical charming smile that has wooed many a female in Spring time (but no longer used as such arsenal…married!).

Not a word is said to me. She takes my exact change and robotically dismisses my presence with her infamous catch phrase, “Next customer!”

I reflexively, if not a little sarcastically, lean in and say, “Your welcome!” This gets me a look of surprise from my cash grabbing counterpart as she didn’t recall saying “Thank you.”

I head over to the serving counter where another gentleman is waiting for part of his order. A young blond nose-ring adorned female is sluggishly preparing my coffee. Her half closed eyes are the typical trademark sign of a morning person. I’m not wearing my gloves at this point because Calgary weather has decided to be kind to its dwellers today, and Tim Horton’s cups are infamous for being terrible at protecting their holder’s hands from scalding. It’s not uncommon for a patron to ask for their beverage to be double cupped. I did so this morning.

I was given a look of disdain. Somewhere, sometime in a previous life I had wronged this golden frocked coffee maiden, and she stomped over to another counter, took out a cup that insured I wouldn’t be able to win any prizes from, and dropped the first coffee cup into it. The other gentleman waiting gave me a look that said, “Can you believe this?” I laughed out loud and said, “My goodness!” and chuckled my way out of that Timmy’s for the last time.

But that wasn’t the catalyst for my decision not to patronize the new establishment.

The pinnacle of sins that they delivered upon me was only discovered when, after sitting at my desk and booting up my computer, I peeled back the coffee cup tab and discovered what looked like cheese floating in my drink. The cream was curdled.

Is this a sign of what the weekend is going to be like? I mean, I just watched Eragon with the kids, and while it wasn’t the worst movie in the world, it could have been better. Is that how I’m going to look back at this weekend. I guess only if my dog gets loose again…

It’s time for The Josh and Justin Show:

Justin, I want you to know that your aunt threw up in her mouth a little when, and I’m quoting directly from your film (which episode, I can’t remember), you said, “You be the monkey!” Consider that an achievement. Any film that parodies the good ol’ Benny Hill running around skit is definitely worth the watch. Congrats! You made me laugh. Now we just have to work on your sound…Great editing, though!

The new strip was posted a little late but on the right day. Looking at it now, I’m not too happy with the over use of the fadey border for panels 2 and 3, so that may change. Thankfully, next strip signifies the ending of this story arc, and on to newer things. I’ve enjoyed it, though. It’s good to follow an arc every now and then as opposed to doing the one shots all the time. We haven’t done that since we premiered in January.

She's back!!!

2007-03-21T10:53:00.000-06:00

I forgot to mention this, but if you subscribe to the newsletter then you already know. But Courtney's coming back starting March 30. My favourite living dead girl is back...

Be sure to check out all of her zombie antics, y'all. And don't forget to vote for MLDG to be the top zombie website:

I'm so very, very happy that Jason's new born is fit and fine and that he's finally allowing him some time to toon. Yay for obsession!

Another run in with the neighbor....

2007-03-21T01:10:00.000-06:00

Agh! I can't wait till the end of May. I have no idea how Lilly is getting out of the backyard as we've plugged every conceivable hole and most inconceivable ones, as well. Now Lilly has to remain on a chain leash in the big backyard and will only be off leash in the appropriate areas by the Bow River.

I'm not going to go into detail about what happened yesterday, but suffice it to say it wasn't fun. I guess it's been deemed by certain commenter's that we ALLOW our dog to run around the neighborhood like we open the door to let her terrorize the neighborhood. She is, however, our responsibility, and we'll do our best to keep her from running around. We don't want to lose her, after all. She's just too darn social.

I like that some people hide behind anonymity to say things. I've been pretty open with my life here on this old blog, and I've made no effort to hide who I was. I've written my triumphs and I've noted my mistakes. It's fun to write, and it helps me remember things that bring a smile to my face, and helps keep in mind bad run ins so I can learn to act accordingly next time.

I've made light of my family's adventures and of my wife's night terror like dreams. But let me tell you this: a person who says things like calling my better half a "psychotic wife" and questions her parenting ability without even knowing her is, and pardon my language, nothing short of an asshole.

On a happy note, it seems that Lilly is just fine, and that light at the end of the tunnel that is our end of lease term never looked so good. It freakin' snowed again, and I just learned that it was the first day of Spring.

And now March is almost over...

2007-03-19T10:18:00.000-06:00

Wow! Where's the time going? I guess when you have a full time job, play with your kiddies, have a wife who demands to see you once in a while, and run another website you just start losing track of time.

Well, I'm done apologizing for it for now!

Hey, Justin! I've seen you lurking around the comments there. I'm glad you're reading, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm aware of your presence. Hopefully you frequent the more entertaining website that I'm responsible for: Take It Like A Husband. It's where I'm spending most of my internet time these days.

It's true! I post a news-like articles underneath each comic that sometime come off like a blog entry, but what I'm really trying to do is culminate a community of users who're interested in things that I am. It's fun to share interests, right? So hopefully I'll have the forum up and running soon (Shannon? You listening?), and then anyone and their dog can talk about comics, animation, bichon frise/poodle crosses and cloud formations that look like 20th century prime ministers to their heart's content.

I'll try to keep the content under the strips as interest related as possible and keep the personal stuff here. I've just been in a blogging funk lately that's extended to a despair and depression at being in Calgary, away from friends and family. We've tried to fill our lives with interests and activities Alberta related, but not a day goes by that Kristen or Rylee don't mention Victoria and their want of going back. We'll see what happens, but there may come a day when My Alberta Adventure will be over, and a different kind of adventure will begin. Hopefully a publishable adventure!

I still have pics and vids of our West Edmonton Mall trip to post, but the longer I wait on doing that, the more detail I forget. I'll do it soon!

On the psychotic babble front, Michelle is still trying to collect on my life insurance policy by scaring me to death. She was cuddling Rylee at her bedtime and fell asleep herself while doing so. I was working on a new strip at the computer. Suddenly she screams my name and begs me to come quickly. "Something’s crawling up the wall!" she screams.

I ran into Rylee's bedroom to find Michelle leaning over our daughter pawing at the wall. I turned on the light and saw, of course, nothing.

She explained to me that she saw what looked like an egg on the other side of Rylee who was closest to the wall. The egg cracked and a demonic baby emerged and started crawling up the wall. I'm looking into medication for her...

Michelle says it's the house. If she means it's haunted or if there is some sort of negative energy (see above) that's causing this, we're not sure. What I am sure of, though, is that Michelle's scared me more with these night terror-like episodes than my first viewing of John Carpenter's The Thing.

March already?!?

2007-03-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

Must be in a winter funk. That’s the only way I can explain that I only posted once during the month of February. To be fair, February is a short month, and it isn’t an uncommon occurrence for people to miss it altogether. Unless it’s a leap year! Then you’ll usually hear things like, “Wow! Is it February 29th already?” or “We’re in a leap year? That sure snuck up on us!” or “Hey! This calender’s from 1986!”

Next year is a leap year, by the way, so consider yourself warned.

Stuff has been happening, but I just haven’t been blogging. Pretty sad when the bulk of the blog entries lately are about why I’m not blogging lately. Let’s just chalk it up to a combination of being busy and lack of motivation.

We went to West Edmonton Mall a couple of weeks ago, and that was an adventure. I’d show you the pictures and video, but I haven’t a clue where the camera is at the moment and everyone else is asleep so I can’t ask them. We’re also considering buying a house, but that almost cements our permanent status as Albertans, and I don’t know if we’re ready to do that. That and pretty well the only way to get our foot in the door is by getting a 40 year mortgage!

A 40 YEAR MORTGAGE?!?!

Did you know they even had these? I mean, I know that it’s just a way of starting out in the housing market, but having that loom over your head is kind of frightening. 40 years! I’d be well into my seventies if we never renegotiated or, you know, were idiots.

Hopefully I’ll be a little more diligent about doing this! I love to write, but if I have to force myself to do it and it’s not fun, then there’s no point, right? So far, that’s not the case, though.

Cheers!

I said I wouldn't do it...

2007-02-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

I said I wouldn't blog for two weeks, and wouldn't you know it? I attained my goal. What did I attain from this? A complete lack of readership maybe? Yeah, that's probably it.

I really didn't have anything to write about...That's actually a complete fallacy as I could right about the way the light glinted off of collective water droplets sticking to the fur of a new born kitten, but I just didn't feel like writing about that particular topic because of the horrible memories it dredges from the depths of THAT particular cerebral river.

Oooh! It's big word day!

Truth is I've just been in a funk! The winter blahs have got us down and some events in and around where we live haven't been conducive for happy blogging. I've been negligent where it comes to my journal writing, and I hope to correct that not only for your entertainment's sake but also for my terrible memory's sake. It's bad! My memory, that is.

Blog? Negligent? Er, blogligent? I've suffered from "blogligence."

Oh, I have to tell of a phrase that I'm going to be using for the rest of my life, I swear. Well, if the context calls for it! I read a review for the upcoming 300, a movie that a long to see with every geeky fiber of my being, over at Ain't It Cool by one Neill Cumpston. In his review he complains about the accompanying dude nudity along with the unclad females of the film. He goes on to combine "dude" and "nudity" to coin the phrase "dudity." If that isn't a word worthy of Webster's. I don't know what is. I haven't Googled the word yet, so I don't know if Neil is the actual originator, but he's the one I heard it from first, and so he is very high upon a pedestal in my eyes, indeed.

I've made mention that I changed the name Tim Horton's in a previous strip upon the advice of my good buddy Mikey, but now I have to tell a tale of the employees Michelle and I have dealt with at our local Timmy's. Two drive thru events come to mind.

My TH poison is an extra large one cream/two sugars while Michelle's is a half hot chocolate/half coffee with cream. I always have to make sure they put cream in Michelle's drink as the high schooler's in the window can't seem to grasp that someone would want more that two items in a cup. God forbid they ever get a job at Starbucks! They'd probably be reduced to tears when asked for a half-caf low-fat non-chai-tea latte with cinnamon. Or whatever it is that yuppies drink...

First notable: I order mine and Michelle's drinks and pull up to the window. There are two cups waiting there at the window in front of the girl who accepts my cash and hands me one of the cups. She then turns away from the window as if to make something, and I'm sitting there with my car window open, coffee in the cup holder, wondering why she isn't handing me the second cup. She continues to mess around for about thirty seconds before realizing that there was a cup sitting at the window the entire time, picks it up and hands it to me saying, "here you go!" as if it was completely normal. I actually started to laugh hysterically since she had no clue. No clue whatsoever!

There was no cream in Michelle's coffee, by the way.

Second notable: the day before yesterday we ordered the same thing. We got to the window and both cups were handed to us. I notice on my lid that the letters "CF" are written and I ask what they mean.

"Would you like another one?" the girl asks me.

"No," I reply," I was just curious what 'CF' meant."

Our server turns to two other high school girls of the same age and asks them what it means. They have no clue! One of the new girls says that she could get me another one if I would like. I say that all I want to know is what "CF" meant and whether my coffee contained one cream and two sugars.

They didn't know that, either!

And this is the wonderful part that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The original girl asks me if I would like to taste it. "CF" could stand for anything, I guess, but no one knew what it meant, and no one could remember making it.

They got me a new one.

I made a special Valentine's Day strip. Hope you enjoy it!

I'm still in one piece!

2007-01-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

I believe I made mention of the fact that my neighbor threatened to call the pound on us the next time Lilly got out, but I guess what he really meant was he was going to call the pound anyway. We had a nice visit from Animal Services representative who was very friendly, but had to give us a warning despite everything. She wasn't allowed to divulge the identity of the complainant, so I guess it really isn't fair of me to assume that it's the only person that I know of to ever complain about our dog and to go straight to his lawyer whenever I blow my nose on toilet paper instead of Kleenex.

Whatever! The rep gave Rylee some colouring books and had to lecture us about the bylaws stating that all dogs must be on leash off their property. I agree! Last thing I want is for Lilly to get hit by a car. Part of the complaint was that Lilly has been seen barking at cars. Well, this mystery person who has seen my dog bark at cars must spend a heck of lot more time with Lilly than I do because I have never witnessed this phenomenon. If you can get Lilly to bark at a car, truck or any other vehicle barreling down the road then I'd like to add that to the ever increasing list of tricks that she knows such as sit, lie down, roll over and play dead. Barking at cars would be funny, but she doesn't do that. Not that I've seen. I wonder where liars come from.

As promised, here are some pictures of the kids at Canada Olympic Park:

That last picture once again shows Rylee's rebellious nature. Or it could be her lack of control. She went beyond the barrier tape into the cross-country ski area, and at one point a group of 20 or 30 skiers went zooming passed Rylee on all sides. I was actually pretty scared for her safety, but there would have been no way to reach her in time. I tried which is why there's no picture of the event. Thankfully, every single one of them missed her. Man, I wish I would have gotten that as a movie file. Stupid concern over daughter's welfare....

A Tad Nervous...

2007-01-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

Rylee wants me to snowboard with her tonight. I haven't been on a snowboard for two years, and that was the only time I had ever tried one. I remember falling down a lot. I remember very sore forearms the next few days. There are parts I can't remember due to hitting my head.

I remember it being a blast, though. I had hoped that the next time I went snowboarding it would be accompanied by a lesson package again.

I found this picture on the net:

This guy's arm was bionic for a long time after his snowboard accident.

I'm going to talk Rylee into letting me ski, hopefully. I don't hold out much hope, though.

Did everyone see my fashionable buddy?

Huh? Where am I?

2007-01-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, that’s right! I blog on occasion, don’t I? Every now and then? Sorry, but free time is lacking lately, and I was having too much fun exposing a different dynamic this weekend.

We signed the kids up for a four week ski-lesson package that occurs every Wednesday after they get out of school. This occurs at Canada Olympic Park, and I found it odd standing on the hill last Wednesday because I don’t actually remember ever going there when I live in Calgary prior to 1990. I may have gone to watch an Olympic event during the 88 winter games, but other than that, I don’t think I’ve ever stepped on the hill ever. I’m more of a Sunshine or Lake Louis type of guy. Well, I was, anyway.

The timing of the lessons wasn’t all that great since if Michelle doesn’t have a day off then the kids might be late to them if I have to take them. However, for the first two weeks it seems that Michelle has those days off, so I guess I needn’t worry. So the first Wednesday, last Wednesday, Michelle took the girls to the hill and I met them just as they were getting their names ticked off the list of registries.

Kristen took the route that she had already tried once which was skiing. Rylee decided that she was a snowboarder. Therefore, the two of them had to be in different spots with different instructors. When I arrived at COP I managed to find Michelle no problem as she stayed near the area where Rylee was, so I said a quick hello and followed Michelle’s directions to Kristen’s area.

What I saw when I arrived could only be described as a huge cell of people with the instructor being the nucleus. Everyone was gathered around this poor guy with the name sheet, and the other instructors didn’t seem to be helping with customer control. If they would have merely suggested a single line, chaos may have been avoided. Instead, this poor Australian guy was surrounded by hundreds of children under the age of 14 and their parents who insisted on their child being first. Let me tell you people, not all Calgarian’s are friendly. This would have been a perfect opportunity to study mob psychology.

I found Kristen right at the center of the cell directly beside the nucleus, er, ski instructor. This guy seemed to look right through Kristen when gathering names, and Kristen, who is mostly made of “shyness,” wasn’t speaking up for herself. She’s not shy all the time, mind you. But she is respectful, and you would never catch her butting in line ahead of anyone. However, lines aren’t usually a circular pulsing mass of people screaming that they were here first.

I greeted Kristen, and proceeded to stand beside her as the instructor ticked off more names; there didn’t seem to be any logic or pattern to how he was going about his task. He would turn around completely and only stop when someone mentioned the name of their son or daughter. Finally, after waiting for about ten minutes standing directly in front of him, I finally said Kristen’s name after he had ticked off his list. I guess my booming voice managed to attract his attention because he instantly went to Kristen’s name on the list.

A woman located at 9 o’clock said, “Weren’t you next?” to a woman at 10 o’clock who responded, “I guess not!” with the nastiest look on her face and a roll of the eyes.

“I guess it depends on what direction you’re coming from,” I responded, but this lady just glared. Sheesh!

Now, if I were nasty, and I’m not (at times), I would have said what I really wanted too: “I guess your child won’t be taking their lesson today since I butted in front of you, eh?”

See? Not that nasty, but it wasn’t said anyway. The statement wouldn’t have been true to begin with. I did not “butt” in front of her seeing as there wasn’t a line to begin with, and apparently courtesy was lacking as well. I can understand being protective of one’s child, but this woman looked at me as if she wanted to do me bodily harm for daring to be next. I guess we won’t be friends.

Michelle had a run-in with our anti-social neighbor. Lilly got out of our yard because someone, and I’m not naming names because I can’t prove who it was anyway, left the side gate open. Michelle went outside in her pajamas to retrieve our dog who decided to go over to our neighbor’s driveway and bark at him.

Lilly’s harmless and barks at anybody who comes near her domain. That is, until you pet her. Then she’ll give you all the jewelry and spare cash lying around the house in hopes that you’ll throw her ball for her. However, Mark isn’t social to us at all, so the chances of him petting our dog is about as remote as him inviting us over for tea.

Lilly just yapped at him until Michelle retrieved her. I can understand that it would be annoying; little dogs can be annoying. Michelle apologized profusely, standing outside in her pajamas, in the meekest and humblest of ways. It’s hard to be any more humbler than when you’re standing outside in your pajamas with your hair unkempt and holding your yappy dog. This has got to paint a picture of someone who is truly sorry.

“Next time this happens,” Mark said, not acknowledging the apology, “I’m calling the pound. It’s happened too many times.”

Ooh, the words I’d like to say about him would make my mom travel from Creston to wash my mouth out with soap in Calgary. Grrr.

The “many times” it has happened before is when we just moved in and tried to catch all the holes in the fence leading to his yard (he wrote a letter to my landlord’s lawyer for that one….one day after Michelle and the girls moved in), and that’s all that comes to mind.

Michelle phoned me at work, virtually in tears after this occurred. Why is he so antisocial towards us? What did we do to him? I’d love to know. Really!

I’m going to take the camera to this week’s ski/snowboard lessons, and Michelle and I are going to partake in a little evening downhill action as well. Wish us luck. Michelle’s only been on skis once since she was 14, and that was last year.

Because she wouldn't stop nagging...

2007-01-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well, that's not completely true. She was nagging me, but it wasn't her nagging that was holding me back from posting her picture online. I was putting the finishing touches on tomorrow's comic, so I wasn't able to get this up even though she kept asking me at regular intervals of 30 seconds.

Kristen's very proud of this picture. It's her cartoon version of Lilly. First I'll show you the real bundle of fluff:

This is one of my favourite photos of her. I think Michelle took it because whenever I try to take a picture, Lilly always ends up as a blur streaking toward the horizon. And now here's cartoon Lilly:

Kristen had me save the file as Lilly-Anger-Management since she has a serious frown going on. I love it, and I can definitely see the Manga influence in her style. Like a Chibi, I guess.

Tomorrows comic is lacking in art but full of message, so check it out.

Nosehairs!

2007-01-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate 'em? The way they casually sneak out of your nasal orifice when you least suspect it like, for instance:

1. First dates
2. Job interviews
3. Military inspections

I, personally, am very aware of them, and even though I may not be an Adonis of sorts, I feel that they should be groomed if not physically ripped out of my nose.

And here's an interesting fact: if the temperature drops below, say, minus 20 degrees Celsius like it did this morning, nose hairs huddle and freeze together, or they freeze to the inside of you nostrils making it oddly uncomfortable to scrunch your nose.

Went to the lab yesterday to have blood taken. Rylee actually wanted to come and watch, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to, so I asked Kristen and Rylee to wait in the waiting room while this was done. When I was called in, a nice lab tech, whose name I can't just recall at the moment (but she was very sweet), started to do her thing. She had to take four vials of blood which she said amounted to less than a table spoon. I was actually surprised by this as the vials looked rather large. I casually mentioned that my youngest daughter wanted to watch, and, to my surprise, the lab tech said she could if she wanted to.

She went out to get Rylee, made the mistake of asking Kristen as well whom can't even stand the word "blood," and brought Rylee back to watch. She was riveted as soon as she saw the vials filling, and she asked if it hurt. It didn't really, and I've never had a problem with needles. I'm sure deep down I have a bit of a phobia of being stabbed with something sharp (as opposed to something dull, I guess), but I'm sure this is just natural as I haven't heard of too many people being addicted to self pier...Wait! Scratch that! I guess with all the piercings in various areas and tattoos that the previous statement would have been completely wrong.

Anyway, Rylee's watching the vials fill, and the lab tech is talking her through it. All of a sudden Rylee starts saying stuff like she's used to blood because she's seen Jurassic Park and there was this scene where this guy was sitting on the toilet and he would have been fine except for that he moved and so he was eaten by a T-Rex. Yes, without all the necessary punctuation. The lab tech and I both agreed out loud that Rylee's diatribe wasn't quite the same as what I was going through.

Once done I had to do the ol' peeing in a cup thing. Rylee and I both decided that she wasn't watching that. Funny, though. After I was done, she snuck into the bathroom to open the cupboard door to make sure the cup was actually there. There were two cups (someone else's sample was there first), and she asked if mine was the full one. Out loud. In front of everyone. What a rascal.

I had to have my knees x-rayed after that, and I wish I could say that Rylee and Kristen were well behaved while I was getting this done, but I came out to the waiting room to find them both on the floor, Rylee crying and Kristen on top of her. Sheesh! How embarrassing!

I was to hungry to get too mad since I wasn't allowed to eat anything that day till I had finished giving blood. Thank goodness there were chicken quesadillas waiting for us at home. Leftover never tasted so good!

I'm not going to mention a comic posting every time it's done, but I have to direct you to Wednesday's comic. I'm not at the quality I want yet, but the first panel (besides the fire) I am proud of. It just worked well. That, and I like the girls in the last pane. I have to say that this one is very tongue-in-cheek since to my recollection Michelle has never actually broken my neck.

I'm having too much fun with this

2007-01-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Heh heh! I got Dan today! Mwah hahahahahah...

What's the deal with Alberta, eh? I've never, ever had a sinus headache before in my whole entire life, and now I can't get rid of one. It's like there are tiny leprechauns behind my left eye trying to push it out of its socket. Ugh! I'm tired of taking Sudafed, but if I don't then just the act of bending over to spit in the sink makes me want to fall to my knees in pain.

You want to know the funny part? As soon as I was across the Alberta/BC border and on the way to Creston to pick up the kids, I wasn't bothered by any pain or not nearly as bothered as I was back here. Someone might be trying to tell me something!

We got the kids back in one piece, the same condition they left my mom in, thankfully. I am so glad they got to spend all this time in Creston with my mom, dad, sister and their cousins. From what I hear, it was endless fun, excitement and kids DVD viewing.

Now it's back to reality! I've got to start acting all mature-like now and start taking care of myself. Finally went to see a doctor after not being to one since I ended my military contract in 1999, and as a result I now have to see three more. Stupid aging body! Maybe we'll be able to solve the mystery of the ever-failing knees, eh?

News Flash: the Chev dealer fixing the car just called, and it turns out that everything is covered under the powertrain warranty. That is the best news I've had in a long time...with regards to automobiles, anyway. Sweet! Now I'll be able to buy that pony I’ve always wanted. I take back a little about what I said of GM products…Not all of it! Just a little!

Happy Blogiversary!

2007-01-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

Wow! I've been boring you guys for a year as of today. How can you stand to look at yourselves in the mirror?

I spent my blogiversary in the traditional way: riding my dad's quad around the mountain in his back yard in Creston, BC. That's right! I spent My Alberta Adventure's birthday in BC. Sue me!

The third TILAH comic came out today, and as of now it's my favourite. It's not the best art-wise, but Shannon provided a great story, and I dirtied it up a bit. Enjoy!

And in new that makes me glow all over, my buddy Jason of My Living Dead Girl Fame (and his wife, Dena, too, obviously), gave birth to their first child, a baby boy named Hugo. On behalf of myslef and all of us at TILAH, congradulations!

I may be out of the will...

2007-01-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

...but I just had to elf my dad. I know it's a bit late, but I never said I kept up with the times. Me and the Amish have that in common.

Click To Watch My Dad The Elf

A note about the better half's night time psycho babble: I was so tired that I was probably asleep before she even turned off the light after reading, so I couldn't tell you if she spoke in her sleep or not. However, my body must have missed the torture very much because it decided to wake up at 4:00 AM. Couldn't sleep for a while after that, but I muscled through...by not moving and eventually falling asleep again.

Get to pick up the girls tomorrow. It's been so weird not having them here that I may have gone just a little bit crazy. Tried to get the dog to play video games with me...

Still trying to kill me...

2007-01-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Night 4 – Bedtime

You’d think I’d be super tired after getting very little sleep the previous evening and staying up all day so that I could go to bed at a regular time last night but nooooooooo…

So I read again. I usually read before bedtime because I find it relaxes me…Depending on the material, actually. If it’s something I’ve been dying to read then I’ll probably force my way through minutes I should be sleeping. Lately I’ve had an amazing amount of material to choose from, so last night I decided it was high time to put that Lemony Snicket series to bed seeing as I haven’t read the last three books.

I began to read The Grim Grotto; Michelle slept.

Yes, I still read books that are considered outside of my age level. But I still enjoy them and don’t feel the slightest bit ashamed. This is something that Kristen and I get to share with each other as she tends to shy away from John Grisham or Michael Crichton novels.

I managed to put the book down and turn off the light without Michelle uttering a single scary syllable. I had dosed up on the last of the NyQuil, and she had felt well enough to leave the stuff alone. I settled into a rhythmic breathing pattern and let my thoughts wander as I usually do when trying to sleep. The noises emitting from the heating vents became intertwined with my drowsy reflection, and it was like music was filling my head as I slipped deeper and deeper into uncons…

“Who’s calling me?”

Bam! I’m awake! Whatever tiredness I had felt before immediately escaped me.

“What?” I asked.

“Someone’s calling me!” Michelle was leaning towards me in bed. “I heard it!”

“Michelle, there’s no one calling you!” I reassured though I was a tad upset at being robbed of what felt like the beginnings of a good sleep.

Michelle grunted and turned over. She immediately started to snore softly.

Ugh! There I was awake again. I tried to let my mind wander, but twenty minutes later Michelle was at it again.

“What is with this house?”

“What now?” I asked.

“I just saw a face! It was a Cabbage Patch kid on the door!” She indicated the ensuite bathroom door. “It was moving!”

Visions of Child’s Play filled my head, and my imagination added Chucky’s footsteps just for the fun of it.

“I can’t stand this house!” she insisted, “There’s something wrong with this house!”

Instantaneously, she was back to sleep.

I lay awake for another 10 or 20 minutes before I decided that it was futile and read another chapter of the Grim Grotto before maybe falling asleep at around 2:00am or 3:00am. Felt good to wake up at 5:30am (note: sarcasm).

I’ve already had a few comments from coworkers that I should go home. I’m considering it, but seeing as I’m taking tomorrow and Friday off, I may be pushing it.

Take It Like A Husband is up, but it's kind of in its developmental stage right now. We have two comics up, but the front page didn't update like it's supposed too. Hopefully Shannon can get on that, but for now you have to go to the archive to see today's comic.

She’s trying to kill me…

2007-01-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

With heart attacks, at least!

Michelle has been giving me the horror movie heebie jeebies lately. We’ve both been under the weather and have been dosing up with NyQuil, the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever so you can rest medicine. It’s been having strange effects on her.

This has been a three night process of which I’m sure is ultimately leading to that pivotal moment where she scares me to death.

Night One – Bedtime

I am reading; Michelle has fallen asleep. I decide that it’s time to turn off the light, but as I do I’m hit with the sudden urge to go to the bathroom. I get up in the dark and round our bed to make way to the ensuite bathroom.

“Stop!”

I look down at Michelle and can just make out her face in the darkness. Her eyes are wide open and staring at the ceiling. She points at the spot she’s staring at and says, “There something on the ceiling!”

I look and can’t see anything.

“It’s flying,” she insists, “It’s like a dragon fly!”

I look harder and can’t see a thing. I look back at Michelle who’s now asleep again. I manage to slow my heart beat and make my way back to the bathroom.

Once I’ve made it back to the bed, Michelle says, “How many lights are on the wall?”

I had no idea what she was referring to, so I said, “Seven!”

She replied, “I see three!” I glance at her and realize that she’s looking towards the ensuite light switch which glows when it is in the off position. However, there is only one light.

She was quiet for a while and said something that I can’t recall a few minutes later. But the worst was when, about a half hour later, she sat bolt upright and stared at our darkened doorway without so much as saying a word.

After a few minutes I asked her what she was looking at. She said, almost angrily, “Nothing!” and went back to sleep. I’m sure it was a long while before I was able to do the same.

Night Two – Bedtime

I had just finished reading and switched off the light when Michelle, who had been sleeping, sits up and leans over me to look at our window.

“Why’s it hanging from the window?”

I look at the window, see nothing, and tell Michelle as such.

“You hung the cell phone from the window!”

Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t…

She was asleep before I could tell her so.

Night Three – Bedtime

This was last night. Once again, I am reading while she sleeps. She sits up again, looks at the ensuite door (which is closed) then turns to look at me.

“There’s a splash of red on the door!” she whispers.

I’m kind of buggin’ out at this point. I look at the door and, of course, see nothing.

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” I asked her.

“I think the dog did it!” She looks at Lilly who is innocently sleeping at the foot of the bed. “She put the red there!”

She goes back to sleep.

“You are, aren’t you? You’re trying to give me a heart attack!”

She didn’t even respond.

Later, though, she asked me how much. I was pretty much in pain last night due to an all day Chinook induced headache, so I just blurted out, “500!”

“I thought it was 63,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“It just looked like 68,” she responded.

“I thought you just said 63?”

“Yeah!”

“Why?”

“It just computes,” she said, “It just makes sense.”

I thought for a moment.

“We’re having you committed in the morning!”

All she did was snore.

I wasn’t kidding about the Chinook induced headache. I’ve been told that it has to do with the extreme pressure difference when the Chinook winds come about. Yesterday there was a beautiful Chinook wind which practically melted all the snow. Lilly and I went for a nice long walk while I did my best to ignore the nagging headache. Well, it kept me up till 3:30 am, and when my cold and head wouldn’t cooperate with me at all, I phoned in sick. Great, eh? First day back for the New Year and I’m incapacitated.

Ugh!

I need Tylenol!

Holy Schnikies! Gak-A-Teer of the Year!

2006-12-31T17:14:00.000-07:00

I go away for Christmas only to come back to one of the best presents yet:

I'm the Gak-A-Teer of the year! The first ever! That's, like, the first time I've ever been first at something and had it be a good thing. Not like those other times. Like when the doctor said to my mom, "Mrs. Mohninger, your son has the first ever case of..." Or when my high school science teacher said, "Derek, this is the first time anyone's ever gotten below zero." I recall saying, "That's the first time THAT'S ever happened," to many a young girl I was interested in, then running away all hunched over. However, this is truly and honour.

Thank's Jason! I mean it! I think My Living Dead Girl is a very entertaining strip. I've always been attracted to the type of entertainment that includes some way out aspect that everyone takes as normal. That's perhaps why I liked the first Ace Ventura so much. Hey! Everyone might have been thinkin' this pet detective guy was crazy, but they accepted him for who he was and didn't have him committed.

Courtney Davers goes around eating anything she wants, and everyone just takes it for granted that their school mate or cat won't be around anymore. Love it! Jason, you have truly come out with a product that has me enthralled.

If you head over to MLDG's News Blog, you'll see that Jason's awarded the first ever Gak-A-Teer of the Year (me again...schwing!) with an autographed clock. Now, my wife was totally excited about this clock and has given me permission to hang it in my office out of site. I will hang it with pride. I've got kind of a theme going as I got a MLDG hoodie, too. I've never has a quality hoodie before, so I though that since I wanted some MLDG paraphernalia, I might as well kill two birds with one stone:

You can tell two things from this photo with out using any psychic abilities. Those with psychic abilities: STAY OUT OF MY HEAD! The two things are:

1. I spend way too much time on the internet.
2. I hate to shave regularly.

Once again, I have to say, "Thanks, Jason!" I want to encourage everyone who likes and dislikes the zombie genre to head over to his site and read about Courtney. Also, head on over to Top Site to vote for My Living Dead Girl as the best zombie site ever. I want to get more traffic Jason's and Courtney's way so that we can encourage them to come out more frequently.

What are you waiting for? MOVE!

And now for some personal stuff. We had a wonderful Christmas with my mom at her's and dad's place in Creston. Sucked that dad wasn't there, though. Apparently he'll be there next year, so we have that to look forward to. We got something that Calgary didn't have: a white Christmas. I also got a cold that is just now going away.

Doesn't that beat all? Michelle and I get ten days away from the kids who are still in Creston with my mom, and we both get sick. Nothing spells romance better than the honk of someone blowing their nose into a used and dried up Kleenex.

We watched Little Miss Sunshine last night. I tell you, I just can't get enough of Steve Carell. Not only is he the master of uncomfortable comedy, but he shines here with a touch of dramatic acting. The rest of the cast were spot on in their rolls from the wife hiding her smoking, the husband convinced that his nine step self-help program is the key to success, the gay brother who fails at committing suicide because of his lack of recognition for being a scholar in something I can't even remember, the father who snorts heroine and swears in front of everyone, and the son who's taken a vow of silence until he reaches his goal of becoming a military test pilot. Oh, and the innocent little girl who's beauty pageant routine you just have to see. Not a family film, but very, very entertaining.

In closing, I want to wish everyone a happy New Year. It usher's in mine and Shannon's webcomic, and we're going to strive to entertain. If nothing comes out of it, at least we're having fun doing it. I hope you have fun reading it. So don't forget to check out Take It Like A Husband starting tomorrow:

Merry Christmas!!!

2006-12-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Santa did something special this year...he made it possible to sleep in till 7am. Other than that, the kids tore into their loot this morning made out like bandits.

My sister got a special present this year. The novelty wasn't as, er, novel since she owned it already, but it came in a shiny new box:

Seriously though, what I think is really cool is this:

A white Christmas, ladies and gents. Just awesome!

So, here's a toast to your very merry Christmas! I hope it is shared with friends and family be it with their physical presence or warm fuzzy thoughts.

Love you guys,

Derek

Instead of complaining to everyone…

2006-12-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d write it all down to see if I’m being reasonable or not. Chances are that I’m not seeing as I know myself better than anyone, but I’ve been known to surprise myself on occasion with an actually piece of well thought out diatribe and decision making. However, perusing my previous posts proves to me that these are rare occasions to be cherished and, possibly, collected into a novella as proof to my offspring and future generations that I wasn’t a complete moron at all times. Just part-time! However, in a lot of the movies I watch, the loveable goof-of-a-guy is always rooted for, right?

How many people know that I’m having car trouble? Show of hands please…

Okay, now how many people knew that it was actually cars and not car? Ooh, a few hands went down.

Michelle and I have somehow become a GM family. This was not intended as I didn’t really read any lemon guides to automobile purchase, but through a series of good fortune we are both able to use separate vehicles which both happen to be GM products. The first, a Pontiac Sunfire, was purchased brand new back in Victoria from Dave-Wheaton Pontiac Buick in 2002; the second is a used 2002 Chevy Venture, yes, a minivan, that was purchased used from Murray Chev in Medicine Hat at the beginning of this year, so I’ve had it for almost a year now. I couldn’t afford to be choosey at the time (yeah, because now I have more money than I know what to do with NOTE SARCASM), and even though one could tell by the way the vehicle looked that the previous owner had been less than kind to the vehicle, I had been assured that the vehicle was in tip-top shape because it was a GM Optimum Used Vehicle. Reading through that link, it seems like every used vehicle sold under GM’s Optimum name is gone over from top to bottom, inside and out. I was assured by the salesman that the van had been thoroughly inspected and every conceivable detail had been taken care of. Upon test driving the vehicle, I noted a certain smell to the salesman who told me that the van would be detailed before it came into my possession. Man, I’m thick! Why the heck would they detail it after a purchase was made? Why wouldn’t they do that before to increase the appeal of such a vehicle to a consumer? I was told that the interior would be steam cleaned and the engine shampooed or what ever it is you do to engines. Kiwi-lemon rinse, maybe? What they actually did was put some sort of scented deodorizer in the interior carpet to mask the smell for a short period of time. Now, I had my humorous dealings involving this van, but like I said before, I was assured that it was inspected to the very last diminutive detail. However, I purchased a protection plan anyway.

The “Emissions Control” and “Traction Control” light lit up early last week on the Sunfire’s display. The automatic shifting became vary rough at high RPMs. Not being under the bumper to bumper warranty anymore, I took the car to a Petrocanada Certiguard mechanic or, as the big dealers like to call them, jobber shop. They hooked their diagnostic tool up to the computer of the car and found a trouble code (P0717) that informed them that it had something to do with the Transmission Speed Sensor (TSS), but seeing as they weren’t transmission specialists (they could take them out and put them back in, but they wouldn’t open up a transmission), the mechanic wanted to send it to a transmission place to be diagnosed. He informed me first that I shouldn’t drive the car too much in its current condition (no kidding), but then totally failed to inform me that the transmission guy he wanted to send the car to was about 20 kms away. He phoned me later to tell me that they had pretty well been right about the problem and that because of where the sensor was located (apparently in the transmission), several things would have to be done to get at it. Part of the axel would have to be move, a priest would have to bless the area, a microscopic population of unknown creatures would have to be relocated, and, finally, the transmission would have to be taken out. All in all, the total approximated cost would be around $1450.

I was dumbstruck (big surprise)! The car is only four years old! There’s no way that any repair should cost that much…yet! Unless I had been driving erratically (I don’t) or had been in an accident (I haven’t), I mean.

But wait!

The bumper to bumper warranty may be up, but I remembered that the vehicle still had a 5 year, 100000 km powertrain warranty. Being a person of my intelligence level, I suspected that the powertrain warranty had something more to do than protecting any toy train sets I may have purchased and taken for a ride in my car, so I phoned up the GM help line and barely had time to listen to the hold music before I was speaking to a very friendly lady on the other end. I told her my dilemma; she put me on hold.

She didn’t take too long, however. She informed me transmissions fell under the warranty but even though the TSS was located in the transmission, it was considered an electronic part, and the powertrain warranty only covered mechanical components. My hopes were dashed!

I considered this after I finished speaking with the GM representative: the component is electronic, yet it tells the transmission what to do. If it fails in doing so, the transmission shifts roughly and will eventually fail. When the transmission is all gibbled and useless, the problem has then become a mechanical one. Wouldn’t my warranty cover that? I’m not saying that this is the course that I’m taking, but I find it odd that the powertrain warranty wouldn’t cover small items that would prevent major mechanical failures. I looked up the price of a TSS; 50 bucks at most! That’s almost $1500 to replace a $50 component!

I tried phoning some dealers to see what their take on it would be, but they just wanted me to bring it in and pay to get it diagnosed again. I’ll probably have to do this, anyway.

Now, the van had some brake work done on it a week or so before this, and since then when the van stops there is a serious squeak or grinding sound that wasn’t there before. Could be that the brake pad are wearing out, but seeing as the van was just serviced and an inspection done, I thought the mechanic doing the servicing would have caught this. The van was serviced at Certiguard, as well. The technician wrote a whole list of items that he found, though, upon his inspection. Items that included a leaking oil pan, a leaking steering column, leaking brake lines, etc, etc. All sorts of items on the barely year-old purchase of a GM Optimum Used Vehicle. On the list of items that he gave us, the brakes were the most important, so we got those done right away. I had completely forgotten about the protection plan. So we paid for the brake work to be done, and no, this did not involve new pads.

A few days later we noticed the squeaking and grinding every time we would brake to a complete stop. Only when stopping did this occur and not when holding the brakes to slow down. We brought the van back to Certiguard where the technician had guessed that it was just brake dust. What he found would cost almost $400 in parts alone. It was at this point that I remembered the protection plan, and we took the vehicle out of Certiguard’s care and made an appointment at the nearest GM dealer, Shaganappi Chev http://www.shaganappi.com/. Michelle dictated to them word-for-word every item on the Certiguard technician’s list. This included about five items, and we added two more: the air conditioner that didn’t work and the rear windshield wiper that didn’t wipe. Every item was covered under warranty, thank goodness, and all I had to pay for was the $100 deductible. There is a $100 deductible per visit not per item.

I went to pick up the vehicle yesterday. The attendant told me they had found a few more items that we didn’t know about that were covered under warranty, and that I had definitely taken advantage of the coverage that I had purchased. I had been reassured that there were no more leaks, that the ABS light wasn’t going to be on constantly, that my AC would blow cold air and that everything had been taken care of. I even found out that the brake work that Certiguard had done was covered, and that all I had to do was fax the receipt to head office where they would reimburse us minus the $100 deductible. I was happy.

That’s when they pulled the van around, and it made the same squeaking, grinding noise when it came to a complete stop. I said to the kid that got out of my van that I thought that noise was supposed to be fixed. He hadn’t a clue about it, so he got the attendant who talked to me before. I asked why the noise was still there. He looked through the work order and said that it wasn’t one of the items we had given them. I said that we were told by Certiguard that it was due to the brake problem we stated. We looked through the book of a receipt they had given me which detailed every item that was covered during my van’s stay at Shaganappi Chev, and under the first item it said that the technician heard a squeaking, grinding sound while taking it for a test drive.

Why wasn’t this investigated, I asked the attendant. He said that the technician had made a judgment call and deemed it not important enough to pursue. They didn’t even check what it was making the sound. I was flabbergasted! Yes, I just used the word flabbergasted in a sentence. I was stammering! I read the note again, and I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t have the actual receipt in front of me, and read that the service technician had hear a squeaking, grinding sound from the rear brakes or suspension when coming to a stop. How could that not be important? I said. I’m pretty sure that the brakes and suspension are a core piece of the vehicle that prevents its occupants from, oh, I don’t know, DYING!!!

He reiterated that the noise was not mentioned on our list of complaints. Michelle had dictated the list over the phone and never mentioned the noise. I don’t blame her at all! We had the vehicle in at Certiguard and were told exactly what the problem was. That was the list Shaganappi Chev was given. It didn’t occur to us that we’d need to mention the noise as well.

But they heard it anyway! I have it on the receipt they gave me! And they never even checked it out because they deemed it unimportant! I don’t even care if this particular problem wasn’t covered under warranty; I just want to know what the problem is and how to make it go away.

This attendant asked if I wanted to bring it in the following morning, but I was just angry at that point. Now if I brought the van in again and the problem they discovered wasn’t under warranty, they would charge me for inspecting the vehicle. This just floors me! They had the vehicle in their shop, and they didn’t bother to check something that could potentially be a serious issue. Mind you, it could be a simple item, too. But they didn’t check! Now I have to take time out of my busy schedule to get this checked out! Again! And I have to because my kids and my wife and, sometimes, my dog ride in that van, and I like them alive! Always have.

And what really grinds my gears is that the attendant kept making excuse after excuse and said that the noise wasn’t on the work order. Why hadn’t we mentioned it? Well, that point is moot, my friend, when you actually know about it. The attendant didn’t know about it personally, but the technician did! They should have checked. They should have at least checked. They made me feel like I should have diagnosed every little problem with the vehicle before I brought it in. Well, if I did that then I’d be a mechanic and wouldn’t need them now, would I?

I wanted to make an appointment to get the car’s problems checked out, but they didn’t have any space before the holidays. I’m leaving on Friday for mom’s and dad’s, so the car will have to wait till I get back.

If it is in my power and within financial feasibility, I will never, ever buy a GM product again. I may have the same problems with another manufacturer, but that is an adventure I’m willing to take. From problems with the vehicles to the people who sell them and the people who service them, I find that I now have a particular loathing for GM.

Grrrrr!

I can’t wait till Friday!

Dream, dream, dream…

2006-12-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ola! How is everyone?

Michelle kind of freaked me out Saturday night/Sunday morning…ish! I think it was actually Sunday since I remember picking my cell phone of the night table (I use it as an alarm so Michelle can use the clock…I’m so good to her) and seeing around one in the ante meridiem. You have to understand where I’m coming from when I relate this tale. I’ve been reading, on and off, Neil Gaiman’s short story collective “Fragile Things,” and while I wouldn’t describe him in the same vein as Stephen King, I would definitely put him in the horror genre of a book store. And yet I wouldn’t, as well. He is an author of such caliber that he can jump around from every section of your local library and still feel comfortable. He’s written comedy with (my favourite author) Terry Pratchett; he’s written horror; he writes fantasy. Kristen even has one of his many “for younger readers” books in her desk at school because I recommended it. He even wrote comic books of which one was my very favourite of all the titles I collected: Sandman. Dark, gritty, intelligent and just enough content to make you uncomfortable as your skin tries to crawl away from your body.

So now you may have an inkling of the mindset I’ve been in lately when the lights turn out, and I attempt to sleep. Neil has done many stories in the H.P. Lovecraft universe, and while I’ve only exposed myself slightly to Lovecraft’s works, I definitely know enough about it to describe Neil’s horror works as Lovecraftian. For those of you familiar enough with Lovecraft, you won’t need to follow this link to learn about the popular Cthulhu of Lovecraft tales. I will definitely be reading more of his works.

I had a dream while in this mind set. I remember my dreams, mostly, after awaking, but the level of detail retained has always varied. I sometime immediately remember the dream and its contents as soon as I open my eyes, or an event during the day may cause a jog in my memory reminding me of the previous evening’s slumberland entertainment. Sometimes the dreams are so vivid that when I’m reminded of them later I have trouble distinguishing them from an actual event from the past. And other times the dreams are so emotionally draining that I find they affect the way I feel and act throughout the day or days to come.

In this dream, Michelle and I sat in chairs in a room of insignificant mention. A phone rang, and my wife passed it to me saying that I was wanted on the other end. I don’t remember saying hello, but I do remember that it was Michelle on the other end. I looked over and saw her in the chair beside me, no phone in her hand and her mouth wasn’t moving to the words coming from the telephone’s ear piece. I enquired as to who this really was on the other end, to which the voice replied. “Very funny!” and continued to speak to me about matters I found trivial. Michelle, who sat beside me, continued to sit beside me. Michelle, who was on the phone, continued to speak as if answering questions I hadn’t actually asked her.

I continued to voice my doubts about the identity of the person speaking to me, and Michelle, who sat beside me, didn’t seem to notice that I was becoming agitated, and, in fact, didn’t seem to realize that I was even in the room.

The voice on the phone finally gave up on me and said, “Hold on!” There was a moment or two of silence on the phone before another voice came on. “Hello,” it said.

It was me!

I could recognize my voice easily enough. I continued to talk to myself from the other end, but the part of me that was sitting in the chair talking to myself over the phone was becoming quite upset with the charade, and I started to voice my discomfort. I started to fling insult after poorly thought out insult at myself over the phone. The voice on the other end started to protest, but he couldn’t get a word in edgewise as I had had enough. I was not going to be made a fool of.

“What am I if I’m not dead?”

It took me a moment to realize that I had woken up and was lying in my bed with Michelle to my left. The room was still dark, and it was at this point that I checked my cell phone for the time. I thought I had heard someone ask me a question, but I wasn’t sure if it was the tail end of the dream or if it was real.

So I asked, “Wh…what?”

Michelle, in her drowsy voice, asked me, “What am I if I’m not dead?”

I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not; Michelle and I have carried out many conversations that she would never recall as she was asleep and dreaming while I should have been, as well.

“Um, alive?” I responded.

“No!” she exclaimed. “What am I if I’m not dead wood?”

If I had been more awake, which it may seem impossible at the time as I had no intentions of falling immediately back to sleep with the way my brain was buzzing and my heart was pounding. But if I had been more aware of the situation, I would have said, “Useful?” Instead I said:

“I don’t know!”

She didn’t respond after that, so, finally realizing that she was still asleep, I asked her the same question:

“Well? What are you if you’re not dead wood?”

With just a tiny hint of a drowsy pause, she answered: “Alive wood!”

No amount of urging could get her to continue, and I am now forever left with wondering what had brought that particular topic up. She doesn’t remember saying or asking anything, but the tale really amused the kids.

I got to play drywaller helper this weekend. My buddy Roger hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to hiring people to help him out. He related the fact that he went through three people in one month, all of them falsifying their experience, but readily showing their lack of it on the job. So I got to help him out at a particularly nice duplex on Saturday. I’m actually a little sore seeing as my job hasn’t required any heavy lifting, and I’ve forgotten what the free gym upstairs is for.

This is a shout out to anyone with drywalling experience living in Calgary. Roger needs reliable people! Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll pass your contact info to him.

Dear Anonymous Poster

2006-12-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

There is one thing you have to know about me if you plan on frequenting my blog, which I am happy to see that you are doing. Friends, family and strangers alike are welcome here. I just ask that you wipe your feet because we just had the floors done. Oh, yes, the one thing you need to know about me is that I am, now what was that technical tern the special doctors used….Right! GOOFY! I’m goofy! In no way should you take me too seriously. People who have taken me too seriously have wound up with a weird perception of what reality is. My sky truly is not blue! There are shades of taupe and some spatterings of puce. In other words, there’s no rhyme or reason to any of this other than the order it comes out of my itchy fingers.

And I was in no way implying that you weren’t being family friendly, but once again just stating random obvious facts. Some cows are black and white! There I go doing it again. I will also run off on tangents that are only slightly linked to what I’ve previously said. The bulls in the movie Barnyard frightened me because they all had udders. See? Only slightly linked because I made reference to a cow a couple of sentences ago. Please don’t think I’m offended…it’s not like you’re my next door neighbor or landlord, right? Right?

And “anonymous post” post away! Any comments I receive, good or bad, lets me know that people are reading. That’s some serious ego stroking, dontchaknow? And to know that I’ve actually touched on a subject that others care about makes me see that everything I write isn’t complete drivel but only part drivel-part real world commentary. Hah! That last sentence WAS complete drivel!

I am SO looking forward to taking Kristen to see Eragon. She managed to read the book while I did not. I’m still immersed in Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, and I just read a short story entitled The Problem With Susan. It was Neil’d fictional take on what happened to Susan from the Narnia series, and I did not like it. I’ve liked most of the short stories in the book so far, and I could see what he was doing. He actually had the characters make mention of previous versions of children’s stories such as the Grimm tales and how they were originally made for adults with all the macabre details left in that children shouldn’t (in my opinion) read or hear about. However, CS Lewis’ stories were, I believe, written for children in the first place, and Neil did a sort of reverse engineering of the process and made an adult story with regards to Susan. I didn’t like the effect it had on me. However, that was probably his intent, so since he was able to accomplish what he set out to do, “Bravo!” He’s still tops on my reader’s list.

Oh, yes! Kristen and Eragon! It starts this Friday, and you can see the trailer for it here. I wish I had a chance to read the book first seeing as I’ve heard a lot about how the author started writing it at a young age. He came out with a sequel that Kristen also read. These books are about a foot and a half thick, and Kristen put it away in about a week or two each. She loves reading, and it warms my heart to know that.

I’ve kind of taken a step back from writing too much for two reasons. First, after sitting idle at my job for almost 6 months, I’ve finally been given work to do. In fact, I’ve been given lots of work to do. I could literally sleep at the office if I wanted to…I don’t, mind you, because my bed is softer than my desk chair. The second reason is that I’m hard at work on Take It Like A Husband. That takes a little bit of time, dontchaknow?

And with that I leave you for now. I’ll show you a picture of me cleaning gutters at night, however. That’s an interesting story in itself, and I’d print it here if I didn’t think lawyers would get involved. Suffice to say it’s another one of those adventurous speed bumps I’ve mentioned previously. I’ll tell the story to anyone who wants to hear it though! It’s a doozy!

Anonymous posters...

2006-12-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

I don't mind having anonymous posters to my comments section since, ultimately, I have the power to keep or delete the comments at will. This is just to keep things family friendly and all.

However, it seems like a certain poster felt the need to defend the Village Square Rec Centre. I replied in due fashion as well.

Just check out the comments for that post to see what I'm talking about. Oh, and happy hump day!

I'm workin' here, people!

2006-12-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, besides a certain "gutter" issue, everything's been a little quiet on the home front. I have to get off my butt so I can, er, actually sit back down on it to draw an immense amount of entertaining strips for maybe one or two people to enjoy. So I thought I'd make this a quick little photo blog.

Here's Kristen the night of her dance:

Oh! My! Gosh! I mean, oh my gosh! What the hell am I going to do? I'm either going to drink myself stupid with worry, or I'm going to jail for beating on boys who look at her in a certain way, and seeing as any way is a certain way, it's open season on every freakin' male child in the whole freakin' world!

Oh my gosh!

So she went to this dance at the community centre with three of her friends, and she stayed the entire time. She only phoned when the dance was over because she thought her mom wasn't on the way yet. Thankfully we're not at that age yet where she phones to say she doesn't need to be picked up.

Oh my freakin' gosh!

I asked her if any boys asked her to dance, prepared to start my list of names to remember. She said one did, but that she said no to his request. I jokingly asked if he was ugly. She said yes, yes he was. Apparently he had braces, too. So either my baby has standards or she's a snob. Either way, she didn't dance with the kid.

Oh my, agh! Give it a rest, Derek.

We decided to take a Christmas photo for our cards this year. So I set the camera to take automatic pictures of this pose:

However, I guess we didn't realize it was taking pictures, so we just thought we were waiting for a very long time. Eventually, we all fell asleep from boredom:

Later, we roused from our slumber. Everyone seemed normal, but I was a little peckish:

Rylee didn't seem to mind as she was using her right brain at the time. Kristen, who I swore I mentioned was very beautiful before (OH MY FREAK-A-DEAKIN' GOSH!), was practicing her boy-repelling, and Michelle, er, um, Michelle was doing some sort of Willy Wonka impression. Don't ask me! It was her impression!

The Urilift System

2006-12-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just had to show this to everyone. This is probably the most high tech urinal ever created, and where's it going if it's constructed? That's right! Victoria!

Here's the link to the article about the Urilift System which is, essentially, permission for every guy to just whip it out in public and do their thing. Awesome! I wonder if there's a female version in the works?

The Urilift is a urinal that rises out of the ground at night. It's pupose to stop people from peeing on the street.

Edit: If the video doesn't work, it's also located on the article page I linked.

It's officially December which means we can finally put the tree up. I know a lot of people have already put their tree up (COUGH! Roger! COUGH! May), but I just don't feel right about doing it until it's officially the Christmas month. Actually, my favourite way of putting the tree up is going to sleep and having it all ready for decorating the next day. It's happened before when Michelle didn't feel like sleeping. Ah! Those were the days...

Freakin’ out a tad

2006-11-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Is my 11 year old allowed to go to dances? I’m not sure if I’m allowed to allow my 11 year old to go to dances! They have dances for 11 year olds? Did I go to dances when I was 11? Why do I hear my sister’s laughter reverberating in my hollowed out skull?

Kristen is attending a dance at the local community center tomorrow. She was asked by a girlfriend of hers, but apparently this prompted the need to go shopping. Michelle and Kristen packed up the car and left me to handle all the dinner dishes. Honestly! I had to load the dishwasher all by myself; I even unloaded it first! As proved by science, guys don’t know where all the dishes go, so there is currently a single cupboard that I don’t want to be around when Michelle opens it purely for safety reasons…My own!

Yeah! They went shopping, and once they came back, Kristen disappeared for a moment to change into her choice of dance wear to model it for me. I wish I would have taken a picture because, oh my gosh, did she ever look beautiful. For some odd reason, the first thing I though of when she showed it to me was Amy Lee, but not as goth. Whatever! Maybe it was a poor first thought, but Kristen pulled it off.

Strange, though, as she has no interest in dancing with boys. I look forward to hearing how the evening went.

Something occurred to me while watching an almost-great episode of Jericho last night; I haven't drawn Dan leaning against a building corner seeming disheveled while looking impatiently at his watch for such a long time, so I picked up my pencil, and a couple of minutes later:

Once again, it’s just a quick and dirty sketch, but it just kind of drew itself. Y’know! Using my hands and coordination. It also occurred to me that tomorrow means one month till the premiere of Take It Like A Husband. Hmmm! I don’t really feel panicky, but I do have this shooting pain running up and down my left arm…

Doing it like bunnies!

2006-11-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ever have a Samara moment? I don’t advise them because I believe they shorten the life span by quite a sever factor. Samara is the result of the Japanese believing, and proving by the way, that little girls in night gowns with long, stringy, messed up hair covering their faces are scary. Samara is the little girl antagonist who scares people to death in the American remake of Ringu (Japanese) called The Ring. Samara is the reason my sister hates sleeping in her basement.

I love horror movies, but this morning as I was making a cup of tea and having breakfast, I turned to the opening of the dining room to head towards the fridge and saw an empty doorway. When I turned back to my cereal bowl after getting the milk, my heart was beating regular beats. However, when I turned once again to return the milk to its rightful place in the refrigerator, a little girl in a nightgown with long, stringy, messed up hair covering her face filled the doorway. Samara’s hair was black, but this little girl’s hair was dirty blond. Oh, and the face behind it was smiling broadly, and even broader when she saw that she had scared the living, er, poop out of me.

Rylee joined me for breakfast at 5:45 am.

I would like to thank the mouth-breather for standing directly above me as I sat on the train this morning. Tall, rather handsome gentleman who decided to run for the train like a track and field star. The panting made the smell of your Tim Horton’s breath all that much more enjoyable and at a much higher frequency of whiffs. I’m thankful that I pulled out the ski jacket this morning of -29 C so I could burry my face in my collar as I read Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey. I hope you get your breath back eventually, as you hadn’t stopped panting after five stops.

As I pulled my car out of the driveway after saying a short prayer of thanks that it actually started in this sub-arctic temperature, I reflected on why I didn’t have a block heater installed. It’s because I’m lazy! I already told you that! Those last two sentences were actually part of my reflection because not only do I talk to myself, but I occasionally yell at myself for stupid decisions.

As I rounded the first corner, my headlights hit two jack rabbits racing across the street. Being the person who I am, my initial thoughts, of course, were, “C’mon, guys! It’s freezing out here! Get a room!” This thought was in no way the result of listening to “Let’s Have A Drug Free Christmas This Year” on CJAY 92. However, after a moments pause I thought, “Actually, what a great way to keep warm, eh?”

Just a quick and dirty ink job to show that I’m still working on the comic:

I’m really digging the style and totally think it’s an improvement over my first attempt:

The new one is just a quick ink, and I have to redo some areas to remain consistent with line thicknesses, but I just hadn't put anything drawing-wise on the blog for a while and was eager to share. I like the new style better, but what matters my opinion? It’s yours that I’m after!

Anyway! It’s freezing in Calgary, there’s snow on the ground and gravel trucks running around the city. The pea gravel that they spread on the street actually becomes quite useless once the passing vehicles have fully forced the small stones into the snow covering the roads. Andrew and I actually saw a gravel truck running around the city doing nothing; it was just going for a stroll around downtown. Now, one could argue that it was going for a pickup, but unless the gravel yard is right downtown, I doubt it. My theory is that the truck is coin operated like those rip-off gum ball machines you find in malls. Unfortunately, the union employees driving the trucks ran out of quarters…

Dear Mother…

2006-11-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

I appreciate your suggestion of directly asking my neighbor what his problem with me is, but there are a few obstacles in the way of this endeavor:

I am not allowed on his property! I’m not sure what the repercussions of actually stepping on his property are, but I’m a little afraid of what they might be. Since the snowfall he may be hiding a laser security system under all that white stuff, and I like my feet a lot. I may consider tunneling under his property since according to law, we only own the first six feet of depth of our property, and Canada owns the rest. But this leaves the question, “Am I trespassing on Canada’s property if I tunnel below six feet?" Also, if I do manage to make it to his property, there is still a barrier consisting of six feet of rock, dirt and concrete. If I yell loud enough, maybe…But my neighbor may think it’s a ghost or something. He has exhibited paranoid qualities. I’m so confused!
Before I was banished from his property, we had attempted to knock on his door to apologize for the earlier mentioned dog trespass. On four occasions (maybe five, actually), either Michelle or I went up to his front door, knocked or rang the bell and were left waiting outside to no answer. On more than one occasion Michelle swears she heard noises coming from inside, too. It is very apparent that he doesn’t want to talk to us. I have seen him barbequing every once in a while (not since the temp dropped to -25, though), and I can only hope that my nude sunbathing hasn’t put him off his dinner. Also, I have considered standing in front of his house and screaming his name alla Marlin Brando style, but I thought he may get the wrong impression from the bouquet of roses and champagne I was carrying.
I have already introduced myself to him, and unless he has a very bad short term memory, I’m pretty sure he knows I’m approachable. Lot’s of people approach me all the time. Many people of different size, race and smell. Just the other day an individual approached me and said, “Gimme your wallet!” I had to remind him of the magic word, so he scuffed the ground with the toe of his shoe, looked all shy and bashful when he corrected himself by saying, “Please gimme your wallet!” (Note: I have never been mugged, so mom, quit worrying! I was only kidding.)

If I do happen to see him out of his fortress of solitude, I will approach my neighbor and say, “Wassup?!” Until I do see him, I will also be looking for the mythical sasquatch and maybe the Lochness monster swimming down the Bow River, as well.

Michelle made me see the new Bond flick on Saturday. Contrary to what you might think, I’ve never really like the Pierce Brosnan Bond flicks. I’ve found them too, what’s the word, over the top. That’s actually words not word, but you know what I mean. One of the Brosnan Bond flicks featured a drill bit missile that went slowly through ships and was able to change direction, as well. Another featured an invisible car. I know I’m supposed to suspend belief, but, “Come on!” So after seeing Casino Royale, all I have to say is:

BEST BOND MOVIE EVER!!!

If you blog past midnight…

2006-11-26T03:11:00.000-07:00

…The fuzzy Mogwai blogger turns into a very tired, grumpy, green gremlin blogger. Let’s pray that I can control myself.

The road of my Alberta adventure has been a twisty, windy one. There have been ups and downs and there have been lights at the ends of tunnels that actually turned out to be natural light and not the LRT waiting for me with retribution in mind because of the stories that I’ve included it in. And, unfortunately, there have been potholes. I’ve asked the city to do something about them, but, alas, labor is in great need nowadays, and there doesn’t seem to be enough hands to fulfill the positions.

One of those potholes lives next door to me. He doesn’t get in my way, but he certainly doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling, and I have to admit that his latest action has bothered me more than I really should allow it to, but what can I say? I’m an emotional guy.

Let me clear up the fact that my other neighbors are wonderful. They are chatty folks, well, the wife more so, but they are both interesting and will give the time of day to us when and if asked. Lilly even got into their yard a few times, and the husband said not to worry about it even after I told him to just call me to come over and clean up whatever, er, leavings she, um, left.

However, Lilly also got into my other neighbor’s yard, and this resulted in my neighbor, Mark, writing letters to the lawyer(s) of my landlord. My landlord didn’t care as there really wasn’t anything he could do, but he thought I should see the letters as I and my family were mentioned in them. Believe it or not, Mark never even approached me once about my dog before writing the letters. We’ve tried to find all the holes that Lilly can get through, but she’s a little dog, and she’s a good finder of holes. We believe that problem’s been curtailed now.

I believe I’ve made mention before the strife between my landlord and my neighbor. My landlord has asked me not to discuss the legal matters between him and my neighbor, and I believe I’m honoring that by not giving out any details on the matter. I have told my landlord that I’m to be in no way, shape or form involved in such matters, and if I knew of the visits from police or the unpleasantness from across the fence that was to follow my moving in to this place, I would never have subjected my family to this part of the neighborhood. I must stress again that no one else in the neighborhood seems to act like Mark, and I’m about to give an example of what happened to make me feel the need to write about it.

My readers know about Kristen’s flyer route, right? She’s determined to be the little entrepreneur, and she’s got her sites set on a PSP, specifically for LocoRoco (this all sounds familiar for some reason). Anyway, Mark is on her route. Michelle was at work, so it was up to me, Kristen and Rylee, with Lilly in tow, to deliver these flyers on Friday afternoon.

Kristen delivered the flyers to Mark’s house and came back to the cart that I was towing across the street. Mark came out of his house, collected his flyers and called to me across the street.

“Are you from next door?” he asked.

I smiled and said, “Yes! Yes I am!”

Without a beat he replied, “Stay off my property!”

I was taken aback and kind of stammered, “Wh…what?”

“Just stay off my property!” It wasn’t a mean voice. There was a trace of an English accent, I believe. But he matter of factly told me to stay off his property.

I called out, “Whatever suits you!” as he went back inside.

I don’t even know if he heard me, but I didn’t think it mattered. I’m left wondering if he’s upset with me because of something I did to him, or if it’s just because of the neighbor-landlord strife I mentioned earlier. I’m pretty sure that I’ve done nothing to make him act like a jerk to me or my family, and I don’t believe he is a jerk because I haven’t really gotten a chance to know him. When I first moved in, and it was just me and Roger with my landlord’s father living in the basement, I went over and shook Mark’s hand and introduced myself. He seemed friendly enough, but also mentioned the legal stuff that was going on between him and (geeze, I’m tired of saying it) my landlord. But that was it! He hasn’t said “Boo!” to me since except for that little exchange above.

I’m a curious individual, so one day at work close to when I just started there, I did a little search on Google to see if I could find out anything about what was really going on between my, argh, lord of the land (hah!) and Mark. A couple of Boolean searches lead me to find out that Mark is an aurora chaser and that he has his own website where he invites other aurora chasers to share photos and comments on the subject.

Just seems weird that he’d be so social to perfect strangers around the globe, but wants nothing to do with the guy over the fence. If I’ve wronged him somehow, especially if it’s about the dog getting into his yard when we first moved in, I apologize, but if this has to do with my landlord then, buddy, your fight’s with him not me. Do you still want your flyers?

Who needs to pay for cable?

2006-11-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update since I haven’t done so in more than my allowable laps, but my excuse is that I’ve been struck with an extreme case of “the lazies.” Actually, the real truth (as opposed to the fake truth which, I guess, would make it a lie) is that I’ve been busy. Busy with work, family and side projects that I wish were my work. Usually I have time to post a novel to my blog first thing in the morning, but that hasn’t been the case for the past week (obviously). It’s good and bad: good that I’m actually earning my paycheck, but bad because I like to write. Oh well, best not to waste time.

I have two small stories about Michelle; one is rather humorous and one proves that she’s clairvoyant.

Cable Schmable

We got a cable bill for over $370 in the mail the other day. I knew this immediately because Michelle loves to phone me at work with things like this. It is not uncommon that I’ll get a phone call asking for a suggestions of a side dish for tonight’s meal, requests to tell the children to listen to their mother or, and I actually like these ones, just to say hi because she misses me. However, this time she phoned me to tell me that the cable bill was over $370.

I have mentioned in previous posts that Michelle and I have put all our eggs in one basket where internet service, cable and phone are concerned. Shaw has me by the short and curlies with all three, so if anything goes wrong on their end there isn’t anything I can do except phone them on my Rogers cell phone. They’ll probably figure out how to get that service too, however.

We both went through our online bank statement, and Michelle phoned them up. It was very apparent that she had made a payment to Shaw a month ago when the bill, for some reason, was over $240. We had just assumed that a bill had slipped past us somehow, but now it was getting ridiculous. She phoned them up and said that our bank showed the payment being made, but the friendly person on the other end informed her that we hadn’t made a payment in 4 months.

A warning went off in my head.

I mentioned before that I’ve been lazy in a jesting manner, but the truth is that I have been lazy with piddly little things…Like correcting our online bank billing to include our new Calgary bills. I told Michelle that until I did that we’d have to pay the bills at the bank machiene. This little tidbit of information slipped her mind, and she had been paying out old cancelled account in Victoria She told me she’d make a call.

Five minutes later, after she had dug out an old bill and called a Victoria Shaw office, she phoned me up at work to let me know that we had almost $500 in credit on our old account. Easily resolved with another phone call, and we won’t have to be paying next month’s bill either. So have I set up the bills online yet? Ha! I put the “PRO” in procrastinate, my friends.

Pizza Sauce Clairvoyance

I made pizza (from scratch) for Kristen’s birthday party which was smaller than the previous ones since she’s older and most of her friends were brand new (really nice, though…Kristen has a wonderful habit of surrounding herself with wonderful people). So while Kristen, Michelle, Rylee and the guests all went to the wave pool, I set about the task of making my specialty. I had asked Michelle to pick up the ingredients on my recipe, so when I went to look for the 8 oz can of tomato sauce, I was surprised to find a can that could only have equated to a small bucket. Why would I need so much sauce? It’s not like I’m making six pizza’s for a hockey team, for crying out loud. Kristen’s appetite suggested that she may get through two pieces and that’s it. So made up the sauce (seasoning and all) and put it in the fridge for an hour, and I put the leftover unnecessary sauce in a plastic container in the fridge, as well.

An hour later, when I pulled out the ingredients for the toppings of the pizza, I knocked the bowl out of the fridge onto the floor where it smashed into an infinite amount of pieces and sprayed pizza sauce all over the under side of the fridge and floor. I was devastated!

But I didn’t have time to be devastated for long! I cleaned it up, quietly thanked Michelle for seeing my clumsiness using whatever psychic abilities she has and made up another batch of sauce. I really would have hated to order pizza after missing out on the swimming to fulfill Kristen’s request, so once again I have to say, “Thank you , Michelle! Now use your powers to predict the winning lottery combination.”

That’s it for now! I have to go on a trip up to Redwater overnight, so no drawing for me tonight (maybe writing). I have been doing strips for our upcoming launch, but I’m not posting those here. You all have to wait! Shame on you for begging!

Edit: And since I owe you all at least something viewable, I just noticed that the new Harry Potter trailer went up last night:

I'm really looking forward to this, but I also have to nitpick. When Potter's flying towards the screen in the final shot, it's reminiscent of the special effects used in Superman 4. In other words, it looks terrible! C'mon, WB! This is the age of special effects where anything is possible. So, possibly, redo that shot! Ugh!

Not sure if it’s disconcerting…

2006-11-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

…that Kristen and I are reading the same book, and that after reading it for a few minutes the evening I bought it and on a to and from ride to work on the LRT, Kristen reads Wintersmith for, like, a little over half an hour and she passes my book mark. On one hand, I’m proud that she’s reading and reading books that I enjoy, but on the other hand, wow! She’s…She’s…Aw, screw it! I’m just proud of her.

She was a little disappointed when I told her there probably isn’t a werewolf in this particular Discworld novel. You see, Terry Pratchett has written this series in two styles: one geared for (hah!) adults and one geared for younger readers. The current book fits in the latter category, and the age group it’s intended for is the same age that the Harry Potter books are geared for. I have no doubt, however, that Kristen is mature enough to enjoy the rest of the series (there are 30 books as of last count).

I had told her about the main characters of the books; some are written about Rincewind, the wizard who knows no spells, has the word “WIZZARD” embroidered across his pointy hat and has a talent for running away from danger. Some are written about the witches, of which mostly include Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. And still, some are written about characters that only appear once or are sporadically mentioned throughout the entire series. My favorite books in the series are written about the personification of Death and his granddaughter, Susan Sto Helit (that’s a very, er, complicated story that I’m not about to explain). But, and this is besides Terry’s Wee Free Men books as of late, Mr Pratchett seems to favor writing about The Watch which is the police force of the city that seems to be mentioned in every Discworld novel, Ankh Morpork.

That introduction, which is very brief as I could go on and on and on about the characters and the descriptiveness and the wonderful, wonderful comfort the series brings to me, was to mention the fact that in The Watch there are very many humans and creatures of the biped variety, and among them is a woman, Angua, who is Captain Carrot’s girlfriend, who just happens to be a werewolf. Kristen was fascinated by this fact and wanted to read about her, and in my excitement for the latest Discworld release may have misled her into believing that Angua was in Wintersmith…my apologies to my beautiful daughter who now shares my love of all things Discworld.

Yesterday, I got an idea for the TILAH Myspace page. When you are added to another person’s friends list, you are allowed access to their comments field, and usually people (I can only assume they’re people as cats aren’t all that adept with the typing) use this area to thank the page owner for adding them to their friends list. I got a comment from another webcomic author, who does a very funny strip called Taking the Bi-Pass, in the form of a comic or panel of a comic. So I thought, what better way to introduce people to the artwork and humor that TILAH will incorporate. So I took a couple of hours to do this:

That’s all of us behind glass, and usually I include the message “Thank you for inviting us into your space!” above the image. I’m thinking I need to add another nipple on Dan, there. What is it with my nipple fascination lately? Speaking of which, Cry Baby Mason took second place in the CD challenge over at the animation forum.

The aftermath...

2006-11-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday yesterday, and I find that the older I get the more I want to only mention that it was my birthday the day after my birthday. It’s fun to watch the guilty expression fleet across the face of the person with faulty memory.

Nah! Just kidding! The only one around the office to even know that it was my birthday was the HR department, and they actually sent me a card. It was surprisingly lax in any form of monetary bonus, but the thought was appreciated, nonetheless.

I got to see some of my favorite people over the weekend, even if it was only for a short period of time. My sister had a stop off at the Calgary airport, and I made sure I was outside of the gate waiting for her to pass through. She truly misses Victoria (even more so than myself, which is very hard, but her story, which should be told by her and not me, has resulted in such a cavity in her soul that could only be filled by the loving friends she has gathered around her), and her weekend pass, er, visit there has probably made her miss it more. Be that as it may, it was really nice to see her for the two hours she was in Calgary.

My mom flew in less than an hour after Wendy arrived, so the three of us got to have a short visit. While Wendy and I were waiting for our dear mother to de-plane, a group from Frankfurt came through security with about a million skis. I guessed that they were part of a ski team, not because they were tall, in good shape and had a million skis, but the back of their jackets said “SKI TEAM.” It was a wild guess, but I have a good feeling about it.

My sister remarked to me as a response to something I said to her but can’t quite recall right now, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with me saying she “had” to do something. She remarked that she didn’t “have” to do anything, and the emphasis was on the “have” as she is in complete and utter control of herself and doesn’t “have” to do what she’s told because that’s what life is all about: choice!

It only took a moment for me to come up with what I can only assume was a very annoying response to her, but now that I’ve had longer to think about it, I came up with the top 3 things she “has” to do:

She can’t punch any old person in the face on any old street in any old town, etc. She can’t turn her car into the oncoming lane against the flow of traffic just because she feels like it. She can’t change her diet to include a side order of razor blades and a tall glass of hydrochloric acid to wash it down with. Why? Because she “has” to RESTRAIN herself.
Does my sister want to be rich? Probably! Does she want to rob a bank, risking imprisonment with no visitation from her two handsome sons just to fast track her way to wealth? I doubt it! Why? Because she “has” to COMPLY with the law.
And last, but not least, and since it is such an obvious one, and I feel like copping out: I believe none of our ancestors were fairies or pigeons, so since flying without mechanical means is out of the question, Wendy “has” to OBEY all gravitational forces.…

That last one could probably be stretched out to include all of Newton’s laws, but my sister would probably just ask if he was the guy who did all that wonderful stuff with figs, and I’d be left wondering if she was being serious or not.

Regardless, it was nice to see her. She departed, and I brought mom back to my place for a few minutes before she took us all out for my birthday dinner. We went to the Cheesecake Café, where some of us had mediocre, cold meals, some BEvERages and a healthy (hah!) portion of cheesecake. I used to love the Cheesecake Café, but now I’m very selective about what I order there for dessert. For some very, very stupid reason that I can only assume is for esthetics, they have decided to put icing on most of their cheesecakes. If there were ever a cake, besides rum cake (mmmmm!) and others, I’m sure, that didn’t need icing because it was sweet enough, it’s cheesecake. However, under the icing is one heck of a good sized, great tasting piece of cheesecake, and no crumb went unconsumed. Michelle and Rylee had a piece of Cheesequake Cheesecake (everything but the kitchen sink), Mom and Brendan shared a piece of After Eight Cheesecake, and my favorite 10 (soon to be 11) year old, Kristen, picked a piece of Oreo Cheesecake for her and I to share. You’d think beer and cheesecake wouldn’t go together, but you’d be surprisingly wrong. Too much beer and cheesecake? Yeah, that’d probably be bad.

Mom left the next morning for Creston, but not before leaving me a birthday card. When I got home from work, I opened up to find Monopoly money in it. Further inspection proved that it was actually American currency, and she had left a not in the card to get those books I wanted. So I did! My two most favorite authors decided to come out with books at the same time, to my delight, and the money mom left and the $10 discount coupon I got when Michelle and I saw The Departed (gooooooood movie!) last week was enough to get both in hardcover.

I’ve mentioned the first one before, maybe on more than one occasion. It’s Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, the definitive author combining humor and fantasy:

This is the third book about a certain character named Tiffany who is training to be a witch (better than Harry Potter, in my opinion, but I still like J K Rowling’s books, as well), and Kristen and I care for this character very much. When I told her that I had purchased it she was already making plans to use separate bookmarks to indicate where she and I had left off. I’m sure her bookmark will reach the end of the book in a few short days.

The second one came as a surprise because I hadn’t read his website in quite awhile, so when Neil Gaiman’s collection of short stories called Fragile Things came to my attention at the airport bookstore while waiting for Wendy, I was pleasantly surprised.

I bought both books while Rylee was at her karate lesson last night, and when I brought both books up the the counter, the guy operating the register was very excited to see that I was reading Gaiman. He told me what an awesome book it was, and he appeared to be a full grown adult. He had read it and enjoyed it immensely. When I queried him as to how the short stories were, he paused, took off the tissue like book cover and pointed out the cover art. “Look! A snowflake, a butterfly, a heart with a map on it! That’s totally Gaiman!” With the smallest of pauses, and resisting the urge to tell him that Gaiman probably didn’t do the art himself, I agreed and took my purchases out of the store.

Another animation challenge has been issued, but this time I’m not going to wait till the last minute to finish it up. I’ll post a link when I have something, but right now I’m only going to work on it little by little. I have many strips to draw, ink and color, and those take priority over any extra fun I want to have (besides family fun, that is). Be that as it may, I did do another Character Design last night. Here is the criteria:

You will have to design a character, a musician.
Rock star, rapper, pop singer... your choice. Add a little description or explanation with the picture, though.

And, as a result, I quickly did this little design:

Not as detailed as I'd like, and the shading is off a lot, but I wanted to submit something. The gentleman above goes by the moniker "Cry Baby Mason." His mission, as bestowed to him by a Saturday night haze party hallucination, is to bridge the tremendous gap between children's music and death metal. You can go to the thread and see what others have come up with...there's a vast array of different talent there!

Actually, come to think of it, maybe cheesecake and beer wasn’t such a good idea

A public apology

2006-11-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

If you use Firefox chances are the page looked just a tad, well, cruddy. That was my fault. I tried scouring Blogger for some solution to the way my page looked in Firefox, but as it turns out, Firefox is perfect and I'm not. It was my eagerness to bring you my Fifty Bucks cartoon that did it. The problem is fixed; you may carry on. Good luck!

Two months?!

2006-11-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have to wait two months to find out what happens next on Lost? And their replacing it for 13 weeks with some sort of show that seems to be a cross between Groundhog Day and Man on Fire but with no humour whatsoever…Guess I’ll have more time to draw and stuff! Hmph!

I quickly sketched this up while half watching Jericho last night:

I wasn’t going for realistic, but I was inspired by Kristen’s and Rylee’s total blatant passion for all things involving pencil and paint. If I get off my duff this weekend, I’ll take a few pictures of Kristen’s rock paintings and post them here. Once we get a water proof lacquer and seal those puppies up, we’re going to have the busiest garden in our neighborhood.

Good news…for me, that is. My company loves to turn every three day weekend into a four day, so I should have time to finish up a few strips this weekend. Shannon and I want a comfortable stockpile before launch, and however many we can come up with determines the frequency of putting them online. I’d love to imagine a three day per week publishing, but I have to be realistic with my time. For all I know, the amount it takes to make a strip could mean a one day a week rate, but let’s hope I can handle more than that without neglecting the family.

Remembered my music today, so everyone on the train could have been sniffly, sneezey, grumpy, purpy, farty or Doc for all I cared. I just cruised listening to Blue October’s Overweight…I love that song, for some odd reason.

I totally thought I’d be bored

2006-11-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

I forgot my music this morning…

I was saddened by this realization when I arrived at the C-train Park n’ Ride, but it was a little too late to turn back just so I’d have something to do on the LRT. You see, I finished the book I had been reading several days ago, and I’m finding that, even though the train is packed lightly during the summer months, in the winter it is shoulder to shoulder human sardines, and no matter where you are, be it sitting or standing, someone is always looking over your shoulder. Thus, if I don’t have a book and I don’t have music, I still feel too uncomfortable to write.

During the summer I had gotten a lot written, but as people started coming back from their brief reality breaks, too many people are interested in what you do on the C-train. I have considered being gassy to get some privacy, but I don’t think I’d be able to stand myself.

So, I thought I’d be bored. I was wrong! What I was, in no uncertain terms, was “annoyed!”

I have prided myself with growing up in a matter that has afflicted me with no, in my opinion, odd fears or anxieties. I am afraid of falling to my death from a very high altitude, but I’m certain that no unnatural force is going to propel me through my fifth story office window. I am afraid that some lunatic might run me over in the streets for no good reason but to test the traction on his truck, but I’m not going to fear the outdoors because of it. I can let an object such as a tree or a light post come between me and the ones I love without fearing the karmic repercussions. When I eat my Smarties and I eat the red ones last, it’s out of choice and not some sort of obsessive compulsion.

However, that being said, I have a particular aversion to disgusting noises. This is a trait that I share with my sister. I have risked losing marks on a test to tell a friend, acquaintance or stranger to chew his gum with his mouth closed. Practically every day I have to inform Rylee that the food will stay in her mouth better if she would stop smacking her lips. While being oriented at the Naval base after my basic training had completed, I told a new recruit to go get a Kleenex because he kept clearing his nose backwards into his throat. Yes! It’s a compulsion, but I feel it makes the world a better place when people are aware of the others occupying their surroundings and act accordingly. I’m not saying “pinkies out” with every glass of punch, but just thinking “is what I’m doing annoying anyone?” would suffice.

I managed to get a seat on the train before it filled up completely. This makes the ride to work a little more pleasant because standing on the C-train in the morning isn’t quite as nice as standing on the way home. On the way home I want to stand…I’ve been sitting in my office for most of the day prior to that. Yes! I got a seat. There are seven stops on the way to downtown, and on the very next stop a gentleman got on the train, stood right beside me and, due to a lack of room, directly over me.

He started to sniff. He sniffed again! And again! He sniffed in an almost rhythmic beat, and he didn’t sound plugged up which sent my imagination into overdrive. I could picture a watery droplet clinging to the rim of his nostril, threatening to drop. He sniffs and pulls the droplet partially inside his nasal cavity where it pauses temporarily and begins to slide back out. This man was playing games with the top of my toque, and there was nothing I could do about it. I would have offered him a tissue, but I had none. I didn’t feel right about getting on someone’s case before 7:00am. I toughed it out, and when I say “I toughed it out,” I mean it was tough to ride it out.

One stop before mine, another gentleman who knew Mr. Sniffy engaged him in conversation. Instead of joining him in a nostril snorting duet like I was afraid of (okay, maybe one or two unnatural fears), Mr. Sniffy stopped sniffing or, at least, just stopped sniffing over my head. The throbbing in my neck ceased, and I stopped grinding my teeth. I’m pretty sure Mr. Sniffy shortened my lifespan a little.

Sticking with my daily artistic (hah!) contribution, I sketched two character sheets from our upcoming webcomic. I didn’t ink them, but I will. I wanted to try a watercolour feel because, first, I wanted to see what it would look like, and second, it took like 5 or 10 minutes:

The facial expressions will become avatars for Shannon and I upon his approval. I didn’t really pay attention to proportion or, in fact, realism, since I’m pretty sure we want to go in a more cartoonie direction, but I just wanted to quickly sketch out some funny facial expressions and body positions.

And something came to mind while sketching these out: being the artist, I can put my friends in any situation or position I want. Thus, Shannon is swooning!

Moving day!

2006-11-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

I’m changing offices today so that instead of wallowing in my own self pity, I’ll be too busy wallowing in everyone else’s. Just kidding! It’s actually a good move to get me into, as we call it around here, “the loop!” Seems like days could go by without a visit from a co-worker. That’s not true, either, seeing as my job requires that I get up to fetch my own coffee. I’m working on that one, though.

So goodbye to my view of the Christmas tree and decorations that fill the only supply closet I’ve ever seen to have a window. No longer will the employees in our sister building be able to look from the fifth floor across the alley and catch me picking my nose. That’s everyone on the northern side of building’s job now. I will have more natural light filtering through my window, and I have a lovely view of the Bow River and the people who get to enjoy it while I’m indoors soaking up the fluorescent radiation that accompanies my filtered window light. No, really, I am happy about the move, but I have to make it seem like I’m put upon so you all don’t get really, really jealous of me. Mwah!

To continue my artistic muscle flexing, I tried my hand at a little lip syncing last night. Nothing fancy as I did it in about half an hour, and the longest thing to figure out was how to get that “ANSWER” button in there. So check it out, click the word “ANSWER” and enjoy:/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0">

Hmmm! I'm moved now. Had to hit save as the IT guy came in to move the computer. What will this foreign land be like? Will I fit in? Can I learn the native language in time before I'm devoured by the hungry canibals that reside here in the north?

I guess if I update later you'll know the answer to that last one.

John the coked up, gambling addict tooth fairy…

2006-11-05T18:56:00.001-07:00

I got to help out with Kristen’s flier delivery today for the first time since she acquired the route, and we had a little trouble establishing that she has to do the (bulk of the) work since it’s her earning the paycheck. We had memorable moments along the walk where she thought that her 8 year old sister wasn’t doing enough, and she whined that her arms were sore after carrying five bundles of fliers that wouldn’t fit in the cart that I was lugging around that contained the bazillion other fliers she wasn’t carrying, so at one point I had had enough. I said, “here!” and passed her the route addresses and pen, released the cart from my burden and told Kristen she could do the whole darned thing herself.

We went two houses before she started appreciating her family again. Amazing, don’t you think?

It’s a wonder though seeing as a lot has occurred to her to go to her head in such a short period of time. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t made a huge bundle of money yet. Yet! But still, we have offered Kristen and Rylee a two dollar a week allowance for a few years now so they could learn the responsibilities of handling even their own meager finances.

So it took one day to screw up the fact that they thought they were getting a good deal!

Rylee’s friend Hailey’s mom offered Kristen five dollars a week to walk Hailey home, and immediately after that another mother asked her the same thing for the same price. Now Kristen makes 10 dollars a week walking home from the bus, so to speak. Then she gets this flier route the same day! Pretty soon she’s going to be making more than me! She probably gets to keep more, anyway…

I entered another challenge at the Animation Forum, but thankfully this one isn’t an animation as I’m not swimming in free time at the moment. This is just a simple character design, or CD. Basically, a moderator of the forum puts out a little character description write up, and members who are willing to participate draw up their envisioning of the character. This is the description from the CD Weekly thread:

John has a problem with drugs and gambling lately... He hasn't left the children any money for three months now. He's keeping it all to himself. Still, John loves his work more than anything, so that's why he keeps visiting them. Dedicated to his job, he's willing to take radical actions to get things done. And he even has a bad habit of pulling out teeth that shouldn't be pulled out just yet...

Yes, John is a tooth fairy.

I had to come up with something that reflected everything said above, so this is what I came up with:

Disturbing? Just a little…Some of the comments I’ve gotten have been pretty positive in a shiver-down-my-spine kind of way, but I’m taking what I can get. It’s been a while since I’ve drawn seriously, so I thought these weekly exercises would be an excellent way to flex those atrophied muscles again and learn all this wonderful software.

Until then, I’m locking my kids’ windows so they don’t lose anymore teeth than necessary to this guy…

Just got back from my sugar high...

2006-11-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

…and boy are my arms tired.

Didn’t really eat all that much candy, actually. Although my respect for junk food is ever present, I’ve found that my tastes for sugary treats has been edged out by my aforementioned favourite food stuff, chips and salsa. I will have a chocolate bar every now and then, but, honestly, once you get a little old you start to worry about cavities. Darn you age! Darn you all to heck! Poop!

Yup! Got a little Tourettes Syndrome there, but had to keep it clean because of the all ages blog thing.

I promised pictures of the pumpkins and now I will deliver pictures of the pumpkins. Just know that they suck! The pictures, not the pumpkins. I accidentally took my camera, which is super spectacular, as I’ve mention before, off of the setting that automatically senses all the surroundings light, temperature and smells while enacting an impenetrable force field around the viewing area so as not to allow any disturbances to interfere with my shot. Oh, it also makes me coffee and rubs my shoulders when I ask it to (don’t tell Michelle). Somehow I put the camera on some sort of setting called “The Operator Knows What He’s Doing!” Why would I do that? I wouldn’t do that! It even came with a DVD that explains in simple, one syllable words how to do everything with this camera, and I haven’t watched it! No way! It’s instructions! I’m a man! Sorta! Exclamation mark!

Yeah, pictures. Here they are:

This one was Rylee’s, but I hesitate to say that either pumpkin belongs to either daughter because it is I who ultimately carves the stupid things. Rylee had a small mishap with the tiny saw that she broke from our carving kit. It involved blood but not a lot of it. I had to dig the broken piece of the saw out of the pumpkin.

This design was chosen by Kristen (there, that’s a better way of saying it). Can you see what it is? Probably not because of my craptacular picture. It’s a wolf! Kristen picked this design after we had destroyed the pumpkin carving kit, and I seriously tried to talk her out of it. My suggestion of a pumpkin with a near perfect circular hole for a face was met by a blank stare. Thankfully (hah!) we were able to rustle up the borrowed kit (see last post). Kristen thinks it looks like the Husky symbol.

And finally, here are some blurry pictures of the girl’s costumes:

Rylee is a Geisha, not a zombie at an oriental restaurant. Some people mistake “Geisha” for prostitute, but if you think I’d let my daughter be one of those for Halloween, you've greatly mistaken my powers as a father. Prostitutes have bows in the front, Geisha’s do not. She bought that dress herself with the birthday money her GG gave her.

Kristen is recycled, meaning that she wore some costume we had lying around and wasn’t really into Halloween other than the fact that she’d collect humongous sacks of sugar. I believe this costume was called “The Medieval Princess.”

I packaged up my animation for the challenge, but I didn’t get to finish it due to coming up with the idea really late in the game. For what I pulled off in the last six days, I’m really rather proud. Let it play through once before you really watch it as the file starts to play before it’s completely loaded. I needed to put in a preloader which allows the file to completely load and gives the viewer a chance to start it when they want to, but, alas, time was not on my side.

Yup! I had two whole months to do this but pretty well did the entire thing in the last six days. Why? Am I lazy? Nope! I had an awesome idea at first, but like I said in the forum, it grew into something more than I could contain in this challenge. It will escape from my brain onto the computer one day. Also, I have a metric tonne of false start .fla files on my computer for the dry spell that came after I gave up my first idea. They all sucked...

...until last week when I came up with this idea. I thought it was doable, and I was right. It's not done, but hopefully done enough for the challenge. I know it has a non-ending, but look for that in the future. This is literally my first animation!

I will continue to work on it, but not at the pace I’ve been keeping the last 6 days. I need to clean it up, put in some sound and add the ending I intended. Then maybe I’ll submit it on some of those Flash sites I go to every now and then. Until then, enjoy The Pixie, The Cyclops And The Golden Apple!

Finished the pumpkins...

2006-10-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

It was difficult without the little tools we usually use for the task, but we eventually finished the pumpkins to a degree satisfying Michelle and myself and only slightly disappointing the children:

Good news, though. All the crying tuckered them out so much that they fell to sleep really, really well.

Actually, Kristen borrowed a carving kit from a very nice new friend of hers who lives close by, and braving the freezing cold with her dog (whose belly had been trimmed just two weeks ago...poor Lilly), Kristen trudged the two blocks to get the kit.

We finished the pumpkins, and I will post the pictures later tonight. What are they? You'll have to wait and see like the rest of the class.

100 POSTS?!?

2006-10-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

It’s my blogtastic birthday, fer crying out loud! I came here to post some drivel that’s probably only important to me and realized that this is my hundredth post. Let’s here it for free time, a wild imagination and a captive audience of maybe one or two people. I kid! According to that stupid little hit-counter I put in on the left there, a lot more people come here than I ever expected. I’m either interesting to others, or some people are attracted to this blog the way onlookers are attracted to destructive and violent vehicle accidents. Now there’s a tired cliché!

Rylee’s looking into a career involving politics. She spent all last week with her class at an event called “City Hall School;” here’s a three year old link that describes what it is in more of a personable way. It basically gave Rylee’s grade 3 class a chance to see how Calgary is run and who’s involved in running it.

Rylee told me about City Hall School several weeks ago, and she even informed me that she and her class would get to meet the mayor, Dave Bronconnier. Thinking I’m clever, I tell Rylee that she should ask the mayor a very tough question to answer. She’d get noticed and put the mayor on the ropes in front of a grade three class. So I suggest to Rylee that she ask the mayor what he’s going to do about all the crime in Calgary. I’m a little two sided about telling her to do this because on one hand I think it would be darn right funny, but on the other hand I don’t want the mayor to find out it was me that put her up to it. I realize the guy has too much to do to worry about coming after me for getting Rylee after him, but, then again, he’s taking time out to entertain a grade 3 class. And everyone knows that my vernacular becomes nonexistent when put under pressure. Heck, what I’m typing right now is probably unintelligible to the educated socialite.

Turns out that I had nothing to worry about. I should have guessed that our mayor would have been prepared for any eventuality. Such is the life of politics! Rylee totally forgot what I had told her to ask him; instead she was given an even more complicated question to ask:

“Many places and businesses are shutting down due to a lack of people to work there; what are you doing about this situation?”

I am intellectually thrashed by my own daughter’s vocabulary. She’s 8, and because of asking that question she was given the honor of wearing the mayor’s chain of office. I guess that made her mayor for a couple of hours, but I’m very glad she didn’t realize the power she held. Could you imagine the chaos that could have occurred in such a short period of time? First, she probably would have made all candy free to every child in Calgary; second, the resulting destruction from the overzealous activities of every child in Calgary on an extreme sugar-high would have ground this city to a halt for months. Not a good thing in winter!

Michelle and I watched The Lake House over the weekend; I really liked it! Not only was the story very heartwarming, and Sandra Bullock flashed her very comely smile a lot, but Keanu Reeves did not say, “Whoa!” once during the entire film. That must be a cinematic first!

I’d probably have a picture of our pumpkins up here, however, our carving kit decided to self-destruct mid-carve. Michelle went out to pick up a new kit last night, but finding a pumpkin carving kit a few days before Halloween is not unlike finding a Tickle-Me-Elmo before the Christmas of 1996. Impossible! So I have to figure something out when I get home today which might involve digging into my, hah, toolbox. Tomorrow may yields some photos of pumpkins with various drill bits sticking out of them. The red stuff will be the blood I spilled trying to carve the complicated things!

And finally, you might want to click my animation challenge link. I have a very rough animation mapped out in one of my last one or two posts. No! Not the old man! If I’m going to finish it by November 1st, I’m not sleeping for the next two nights. Wish me luck!

Which way should I look?

2006-10-28T17:57:00.000-06:00

Funny story! As most of you know, for the interim, Michelle has taken a job as a cashier at a local grocery store. Well, two nights ago at a particular slow point (I’m assuming) during her shift, Michelle’s supervisor asks her to go “face” aisle 9. Michelle agrees to this task and goes and stands in front of her check out line. She stays at that particular spot until her supervisor comes up to her and asks her what she’s doing.

Michelle says, ‘I’m doing what you asked me to do! I’m facing aisle 9!”

Those of us who have worked retail know that facing means to bring everything on a particular shelf or display forward so as to make the overall effect pleasing on the eye. Michelle had never been taught this, and her response to the task was to actually look in the direction of the aisle 9.

No one could say she was facing in a different direction, anyway.

By popular demand, or, actually, by singular demand, I have drawn zombie Shannon:

Shannon has been zombified into history, and now I must concentrate on my animation. Well, as much as Michelle and the girls will let me. Finished the Christopher Moore book, as well, even though I shouldn’t have been reading it. My goal, which changed from my original one of not reading it at all, was to read it as fast as possible so Michelle could start reading it. It was very, very funny. There were points on the C-train where I wanted to laugh out loud but had to contain myself due to not wanting to look insane. I must say I probably looked even more ridiculous when I was trying not to laugh than if I just let it go. I’m pretty sure that holding in laughter is hazardous to your health.

Undead SWAG

2006-10-27T13:47:00.000-06:00

Did I tell you guys that I was the Gak-e-teer of the week? Well, I was! Jason McDonald puts out a weekly e-newsletter updating everyone on the happenings of Courtney and her eating disorder, giving shameless self-promotions for his Cafépress online Gak store, and giving loyal fans who subscribe a chance to become the Gak-e-teer of the week. In order to win this esteemed honor, one has to read a specific quote sent in the newsletter and derive the person who said it and the movie in which it was said.

I did that! Me! And Jason sent me some undead SWAG…Although, since watching The Office I discovered that SWAG stands for stuff we all get, so I guess that isn’t too accurate seeing as I just got it. So that would be stuff I only get and not you, or SIOGNY. That’s pronounce SEE-AHG-NEE, and you all can just writhe in a jealous fit for all I care. Nyah!

To prove my good fortune, here’s a personal card from the undead tween:

That's just awesome because up until just before I opened the card, I was totally wondering, even though they have no control over their vocabulary and bodily functions, if zombies could write.And here I am swimming in all my living dead stuff:

To show my appreciation, I did a little sketch of my upcoming TILAH character as if I was a zombie…or maybe it’s the point at which I just wake up and before I’ve had my first cup o’ Joe. I just penciled this while Rylee was in her karate class, and originally I gave myself eyes not unlike Courtney’s, but I wasn’t happy with the over all effect. So I redid them in the matter below when I got home:

Yup! That’s my living dead self, and I’ve never looked, er, better? If you’re a fan of Courtney’s adventures, I encourage you to hit the link below and vote Jason’s site as one of the World’s Best Zombie Sites:

TopSites

Sheesh! You think this sick fascination I have has anything to do with Halloween coming up? Huh? I think you might be wondering that! All I can say is that the answer is a definite….

I CAN'T HELP IT!

2006-10-26T10:10:00.000-06:00

Man, I'm weak! I just can't help posting when I'm not supposed too. Maybe I should say I'm not allowed to all the time, eh? Maybe I should put a roll of barbed wire around my computer and post single brain celled infantry men with C-7 machine guns to prevent me from blogging, huh? Then you'd get your posts! Then you'd get your daily dose of Vitamin ME! Yeah, I may be torn to shreds and riddled with bullet holes, but I'd die trying to do what I'm not supposed to do. Cripes, I spend too much time on the internet!

But I love it! And it loves me! And our love shall not be denied…unless Michelle tells me "no," anyway.

At one point I was totally ho hum about Myspace, but just for kicks and giggles I decided to put one up and see what happened. I rigged it so that my gmail account would let me know automatically if someone was requesting to be my friend, and I'd be able to see who or what they were with just the click of a button. Turns out that every up and coming band wanted to be my friend; turns out that every 15 year old girl with a fetish for negligee wanted to be my friend; turns out that everyone with a gender-confusion issue wanted to be my friend. Oh, and Tom wanted to be my friend, too. He still wants to be my friend, and he keeps appearing in my inbox every now and then.

As it turns out, my first impression of Myspace was that it involved a never ending cycle of request and deny: anyone requests to be on your friends list, and you just keep hitting "deny." I didn't understand why I would want any of these people or bands on my friends list. I didn't know them and they didn't know me! I guess there's the advantage for them in getting new listeners and acquaintances, but I really suspect that they were just padding their friends list so that their ranking on Myspace increased so they'd get noticed more...Which I guess is the same thing.

So that's all I did with it for a while: deny, deny, deny.

Then one day I thought to check out one of my favorite bands ever, They Might Be Giants. They had a Myspace page, and I thought I'd request to be one of their 27,000 friends. A day later, I had my first friend on my list. I did the same for Weird Al and even found a Myspace page for Lost. Lost has a Myspace page...No kiddin'.

So now my friends list was starting to look like a fanboy's stalker list, so I kind of just let it sit for a bit. I wasn't doing anything with it, and the only purpose it served was to let me know what TMBG and Weird Al were up to.

Then one day a member of the Animation Forum community asked about everyone else's involvement with Myspace, and it turned out that quite a few of them had Myspace pages. Not only that, but after checking out their Myspace pages I realized that they were using them as networking tools to promote their art, web pages and businesses. They would use their friends list to promote themselves, and I discovered that it was just a matter of simply typing a message and clicking a button and everyone on your list would be informed of upcoming events you were promoting. Here were users with similar interests to myself using Myspace to their advantage, and promoting themselves in a group of people that are willing to accept the promotion and possibly share it with others.

I had to use this to my advantage!

After a quick revamp of the site, a revamp that's still in progress but changed enough to reflect its meaning, my Myspace page has become the official (if Shannon agrees) TILAH Myspace page. At current count, and just starting yesterday, I have 14 friends on my list with similar interests and a willingness to promote mine and Shannon's future webcomic. Awesome! Free advertising! Who could ask for anything more, Toyota!

I'm sure I'll still have to deny certain requests to become friends with some guys who are interested in dating me, but the point is that Myspace seems to be the ultimate networking tool. I'm pretty late getting on board with this thing, but better late than never. And the timing seems right for our upcoming launch.

So the question is: what does this have to do with my Alberta adventure? It's my adventure, and it's occurring partially in Alberta, so there! If we just happen to move back to BC (hint, hint), my Alberta adventure will be over. But for now it happens the way it happens, and I get to share it with you.

Oh! Lost was on last night; it was awesome! If you didn't know that then I suggest you check your pulse. Chances are that you're dead. Just sayin'!

Edit: I just noticed that Dan, Shannon and I are using our avatars for Google Talk...It made my beady eyes well up with joy:

Zombies! I Couldn’t help it!

2006-10-25T12:26:00.000-06:00

Odd, eh? When I have time to post and have nothing to post about, I usually won’t post. But if I tell myself (and my loyal fan(s)) that I won’t post, and I have some useless crap to post about, I find myself logging into Blogger and typing away. Funny! I guess it goes with the old adage about forbidden fruit and all.

Some of you may notice the new link to the right, there. No, not your right! My right! Fine! Left! The new link to the left, then. It’s to an online webcomic called My Living Dead Girl…Well, of course it’s an ONLINE webcomic. Most webcomics come prepackaged on the internet, and few, very few, are found, say, on a spider’s woven home.

Anyway, it IS a webcomic, and I advise you not to click the link. DO NOT CLICK IT! Don’t click it if you are not a zombie fan and are squeamish about the walking dead eating the walking living. There! You’ve been warned!

The setting is a world in a sort of Beaver Cleaver era with a working husband, devoted housewife, older sister who is very chatty and very nonchalant about everything, and a younger sister who’s among the walking dead. The wonderful thing is that the fact that she is among the living-challenged doesn’t seem to be odd to anyone. Even when dogs and cats inexplicitly start going missing around the neighborhood, no one seems to point the finger at the zombie.

Anyway, Jason McDonald writes and draws My Living Dead Girl, and if you are a die-hard zombie fan such as myself, you’ll want to give this a read. Just like yesterday’s post about A Dirty Job, the content is intended for an older, immature audience.

You may wonder about my fascination with the dead lately, and I can’t really explain it other than being quite an unusual coincidence. Although, looking back I have to admit that one of the main characters in Terry Pratchett’s (my absolute favourite author in the entire world) Discworld series was, indeed, Death. Go figure! A movie has just finished filming about Pratchett’s Death, and all that’s left to add are the many, many hours of special effects. Hopefully the time will pass in the blink of an eye, and soon I’ll be watching the first ever live action Discworld movie entitled Hogfather. Now that, and any other of the 30+ Discworld novels, I’d recommend to anyone, young or old. Read them! Read them all! Now!

Now, just to set your mind at ease that I am, in fact, among the living and not a card carrying member of those doomed to walk the earth in search for food that I used to be related to, I had to reflect on what my favorite foods were. It was such a hard decision because I like a lot of food since I’ve gotten over that picky period in my life where I actually required ketchup on a t-bone steak. However, if I had to whittle it down to three choices, and those choices were what I’d only be allowed to eat for the rest of my life without worry of the consequences involved with eating them and them alone, I’d have to say that these following three items would be the penultimate of culinary delights:

Pizza – As soon as I wrote that, I felt a disturbance not unlike the one that Obi Wan felt when an entire planet was blown up in the original Star Wars. The only difference being that instead of feeling a planetful of people screaming in agony, I felt their shoulders sag as they said, “Duh!” But why not pizza? Pizza is versatile! Pizza is tasty! Pizza is a gift from God, himself! That’s the only way I can explain it….
Teriyakis – I love me some teriyakis! Mmm mmm! Chicken, beef, sticky rice, veggies and hot sauce. Good; very good!
Nacho chips and salsa – I could almost live off of nachos and salsa if it wasn't for the fact that I’d die if I just ate nachos and salsa. It is the perfect movie watching snack despite what all you popcorn eaters say. Plus, if I felt the urge, I could take some of the cheese of my pizza and put it on my nacho chips. Am I allowed to have sour cream included with this choice?

There you have it! Next time you have me over you’ll know what to serve. Don’t worry, however, if none of the above three items is on your catering table. I’m very polite, so I’ll just take lots of water with whatever you serve or slip it under the table to the dog. Here, boy! Fillet mignon, boy? Gooooooooood!

If you’re not watching Lost and Heroes…

2006-10-24T13:29:00.000-06:00

…Then you’re watching something else. That means I can’t help you! You are beyond help! I now have two shows that are must-see, and the rest of every channel’s line-ups and schedules could just disappear, for all I cared.

It’s been hard on my 10, soon-to-be 11, year old. She’s gone from a school of 25 students to a class that’s almost twice that, and the work load has increased and is coming at her from all sorts of different angles. I was not a good student when I was in her grade, and I was not a good student in the subsequent grades to follow. I’m not sure how I got away with it, but I managed to fit more time in front of the TV and Commodore 64 than I put in school and homework combined when I was in grade six.

Kristen is persevering, though. At first I saw the signs that were similar to the way I felt at that point of my life. When I saw something that I didn’t understand, I would just clam up and try to be as invisible as possible. Kristen, it would seem, even though she is a social butterfly within her age group and gender, would just let things slide by if they were beyond her grasp. But things are changing…

She came home with a POW (problem of the week) that she had handed in the previous Friday. This is a math problem that she has an entire week to solve and needs to be handed in before the end of the last school day. She came home with one that had, in big red numbers, 4.5/10 on it. Less than 50%. And even though she has never even closely hinted that math is her favorite subject, she would usually get very good grades anyway.

This was a quandary. Not only did she have this lowly graded paper, but she had a new one to do and no desire to learn what she had done wrong on the previous one. We had a firm discussion about learning from our mistakes, particularly mine. I told her that I suffered in school because I didn’t ask questions, and I would most definitely not have made it through college and university if I let those fears of being noticed take me over again. I asked a tonne of questions to the point of being annoying. Not as annoying as the guy who would doze off and ask about exactly what the instructor had mentioned seconds previous, but annoying enough. I didn’t care; I was paying to be there!

Kristen asked her teacher the next day how she was supposed to go about answering the previous POW. She even asked about the next POW that wasn’t due for three days. She was ever so proud when I came home and she showed me that the poorly marked POW had now been changed from a 4.5 to an 8.5 because of teacher error. She had, in fact, done most of it right in the first place. Not only that, but she had finished her next POW and gotten confirmation on its correctness with three days to spare. I am a proud dad!

Yesterday, our adventure didn’t take us very far. Besides work, we walked around the block with Lilly. It’s so cool to live in a neighborhood where jack rabbits roam freely. I’m pretty sure Kristen and Rylee have named each and every one of them, and I’m sure that Rylee has named a few of them twice.

I’m taking the next week to finish two projects before I start spending too much time on TILAH. I have a story to finish and an animation to complete, so if I’m absent for the next week, you’ll know why. I’m also setting up a Myspace page for TILAH since it seems like such a good promotional tool. There’s nothing too important there yet, but I’ll work on it when I can. There’s still over two months until the official launch, but I’m pretty sure that time will fly by before we know it, and I’ll be neck deep in deadlines. If I do post, we’ll consider that a bonus, okay?

Wouldn’t you know it, but the book that I had been waiting over a month for (possibly two) finally came in at the library. Now, I could cancel the request and pay the fine (a whopping two dollars) or I could take it out and try not to read it while I’m so busy. Yeah, right! I took it out on Saturday and started reading it before I fell asleep that night. I immediately new I would love this book. It is called A Dirty Job,

and it is about a Beta Male inadvertently becoming a, well, uh, Death, actually. Not THE Death but a Death. Not only that, but his wife dies after giving birth to their daughter leaving him a single father, he runs a second hand store with a 16 year old emo girl and a nearly 40 ex-cop on disability as employees, and there seems to be a homeless man who goes by the title of The Emperor. Frequent strong language that should be avoided by children, but extreme graphic wonder and explicit writing that is enjoyed by me. I hope someone out there gives it a try. I, however, will only be reading it during my 20 minute C-train rides and hour long visits to the toilet.

Ciao for now!

A bit shorter today...

2006-10-23T09:31:00.000-06:00

The kids talked Michelle and I into going swimming; this should come as a big surprise to most of you. Not that we went swimming but that the kids had to talk us into it. The last time we went swimming was with the Porters at West Edmonton Mall, and that was many months ago. For the girls and I, swimming was usually an every weekend thing while Michelle was at work. Occasionally, I would talk Michelle into joining us, but it wouldn’t be too hard to talk her into it.

It’s just that lately we haven’t been doing it at all. I’m pretty sure the time before West Ed was when the girls came to visit me during the Medicine Hat fiasco which means that I’ve only gone swimming with my daughters twice this year….Whoops! I forgot about the two times we went to the outdoor pool in Silver Springs here. I guess that counts as well. But still, four times this year versus 52 plus times the previous years. What’s wrong with us?

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a mushroom. We’ve spent most weekends inside with the exception of shopping (whoopee!) and Rylee’s karate class. We haven’t even signed Kristen up for swimming lessons again. There’s only one explanation: it’s the funk! The weather’s changing, making the indoors more inviting and video games seem like an extracurricular activity.

Well, thankfully the kids talked us into going swimming. I actually put up some resistance to the idea, and Michelle would have been more than happy to stay home as well, but the kid’s persistence won out. We ended up going to the Village Square Leisure Centre in the north east of Calgary. I chose this destination because I had heard that it was the home of the Pepsi Thunder Run waterslide. I’d post a picture, but I couldn’t find any on the internet. Needless to say, claims have been made to it’s awsomeness, so I had to check it out for myself.

We had a blast! The whole facility had a wave pool, diving board, two water slides, jungle gym, hot tub, rope swing with six foot drop, etc. There also seemed to be enough chlorine-salt mixture in the water to burn your eyes right out of your skull but keep you afloat while doing so.

Kristen and I tried the Pepsi Thunder Run waterslide while Michelle and Rylee sat in the hot tub. Something has happened to Rylee where she, the one who used to jump off things just for the sake of falling, is very weary to the point of being scared of trying any form of waterslide. We witnessed this at West Ed and it was apparent here, too. I hope that this is a phase she’ll outgrow because I miss that part of her. However, she still rocks! Kristen and I climbed the four stories to the top where she went first, and I waited the mandatory 10 seconds before following. They actually have a red light/green light system that in no way detects whether or not a person has cleared out at the bottom. Wonderful!

So I went! You enter a tunnel and continue to wind down the outside of the climbing structure, but at some point you enter utter darkness. This was very, very cool! You had no idea where you were going to turn or which way, and I found myself rocking back and forth uncontrollably. At one point there was a small drop that would have been tame if one could have seen it. I found myself closing my eyes just to prevent the water from getting in them. No, not because I was scared! When I finally exited the tunnel, I could hear the screams of families having fun below, and I was impressed by how much fun this slide was. As I rounded the last corner, I saw Kristen was already out of the catch chute at the end, standing off to the side smiling at me. That’s when it happened!

Pain! Intense pain! The catch chute, apparently, isn’t long enough for a person of my size. Instead of gliding to a stop like I would do at, say, any other waterslide in the world that uses a self-contained catch chute system (Commonwealth Pool http://www.gov.saanich.bc.ca/resident/recreation/scp.html in Victoria, comes to mind), this slide uses the very end of the chute to stop its victims of, ahem, size. Not only that, but the end is covered by a gate composed of one inch square iron bars. My feet slammed into the bars but thankfully didn’t slip through the large gaps between them. As I write this I am thinking that not going head first was a capitol idea!

A 16 year old lifeguard came over and asked if I was okay. That’s when I remembered that he had done the same thing to a guy that had gone before me, but I thought the gentleman had hit the end because he was rather, um, on the robust side of large. I now know that this wasn’t the case. I told the 16 year old that maybe foam padding the bars would be of some benefit to preventing any civil cases towards the leisure center, but he just responded like he had heard that many, many times before.

Here’s the rub! The leisure center actually hired someone to stay at the bottom of the slide to ask if every person who hit the end if they were okay. This was done instead of extending the catch chute a few extra feet. I’m no math whiz (ha ha), but I’m sure if I sat down with my trusty TI89 (a wonderful calculator that got me through UVic…I named mine Tiffany) I would calculate that extending the waterslide versus hiring a professional apologizer and paying for medical bills would weigh in the favour of the extension being cheaper. Just a guess, mind you!

I spent the rest of the time in the pool because I didn’t feel like hurting myself again. I’m sure that if I sat up and allowed my trunks to grab the surface of the slide, the friction would have slowed me down enough so that I would have stopped before the end, but let’s face it! That just takes away from the whole experience, and a waterslide enthusiast, such as myself, wouldn’t want to take away from the experience.

We enjoyed the rest of our visit to the leisure center as it was completely devoid of pain. Oh, and I think I’m shorter as a result of my little bump.

Here’s a wonderful new breakfast product for the kid who’s on the go:

Eventually, it’ll probably stop them with massive heart attacks but the resulting short term energy will guarantee that they’ll be first to puke after the 400 metre relay.

News on the animation: what news! I’m busy! Very busy! I’m trying to finish it, but the deadline is looming…

News on the short story: see news on the animation.

I don't do product endorsments...

2006-10-18T09:53:00.000-06:00

...but you have to watch this commercial. You need Quicktime 7 to watch it, but it's worth it!

Oh, and don't neglect the new post below...my sister made me do it!

Because you demanded it

2006-10-18T08:19:00.000-06:00

I’ve been a little lacks in my updating duties (according to some sister of mine who will remain nameless, Wendy), and the only excuse is that I’ve been busy with things. Oh, and none of it really seems to be worth writing about. I’m sure my loyal fan base doesn’t want to hear of my daily trips on the C-train with all of the other faceless masses in some sort of weird tribute to the opening credits of Joe Versus the Volcano... Seriously! How many movies has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan starred in together? Why don’t they just get a room or something? It would be cheaper than wasting millions of dollars on another movie that my wife’ll force me to watch because of the obligatory tears and sappiness and getting in touch with my feminine side? Does she really want a feminine husband? Because I gotta tell you, most feminine husbands aren’t married to women!

Ever since I learned the meaning of digression I seam to get caught in it quite a bit. Actually, that’s not entirely true. If it was, then I learned the meaning of digression in grade two.

Last week I took a little trip up to a little place in our big province. The little place was called Redwater, and it’s located just to the North East of Edmonton. The most exciting part of the trip was the fact that it was around 3 and a half to 4 hours of driving one way, and I had to do it without falling asleep. Those of us behind the wheel like not dying; it’s just one of those things. However, it started to snow on the way up, the roads got pretty slick and the rest of the traffic still maintained a steady 140 km/hr in the thick fog that rolled its way in. Yeesh! Talk about hairy! We passed an accident going up there on the other side of the highway. Traffic was backed up for miles, whoops, I mean kilometers (Canadian, remember?) with seven emergency vehicles on scene and three more passing us on the way by. Not pretty! I didn’t read about it the next day so I don’t know what happened. It was gone when we came back.

Redwater is rather small, as I’ve made mention above. I’d really like to tell you what I did up there, but I’m concerned for your well being and if I can avoid making you fall asleep and smashing your face into your keyboard (unless your reading this on a handheld which is even more dangerous) then gosh darnit, I’m going to hold that story in for bedtime. I did, however, see a rather tidy facility up there, and I was treated to some really terrible Chinese food. It stayed with me for a long, long time, but thankfully my stomach endured a little bit of culinary redemption with a visit to Joey Tomatoes for supper. My project manager took me there once we got back into Calgary, and, since I wasn’t paying (my company was) I thought I’d try something a little different. I tried the Bombay butter chicken which came in some sort of curry sauce, basmati rice and something called garlic naan. A quick search on Google tells me that garlic naan is the bread I was eating. Mmmmm! Garlic!

Thankfully I didn’t actually drive back to Calgary because my eyes were fighting a losing battle with my eyelids to stay open. One thing dad taught me when I was growing up is that if two people are in a vehicle for what appears to be a long trip, it is rude to sleep or read if you aren’t the driver. It is the passengers responsibility to keep the driver awake, in other words. I was doing a poor job about halfway to Calgary, and at one point my eyes closed. I was vaguely aware that my project manager, who was driving, had just asked me a question. Fearing what he’d think of me if he knew I had nodded off, I just stuttered, “Th, that sounds good to me!” Apparently I had agreed to go to dinner with him, so it didn’t turn out too bad. He took me to Joey Tomatoes, I got some really good food and he got to ogle all the waitresses. Seriously! If there was any place that had questionable hiring practices that wasn’t a Hooters, Joey Tomatoes would be it.

Michelle worked the weekend, and Rylee got me all excited about making pancakes. I found pancake mix but no eggs and a serious lack of milk, so I did what any normal parent would do. What? Go to the corner store and pick up some eggs and milk? Nope! I took them to Denny’s. Apparently everyone else in Calgary had the same problem because there seemed to be standing room only at that particular fine dining establishment. Seriously, the Denny’s in Victoria is known for its debatable cleanliness, but the one in our area of Calgary actually seems to be on the brighter side of “okay.”

Long story short: got a table, Rylee spilled her hot chocolate in my lap.

Yup! I got to sit in a very busy restaurant with a seeping brown stain on the front of my jeans. I cleaned up as much as I could, but it was very apparent that the huge wet spot wouldn’t dry before it was time to go, and ravenous customers were growling for any available table. I saw one guy who was just sitting down for coffee ejected from a window by a family of four. Rough place! They served the girls hot chocolate in medium size plastic glasses. What’s the deal there? Denny’s hot chocolate doesn’t belong in a coffee cup? That’s very dubious. I’m actually convinced that if the hot chocolate had come in a coffee cup that my lap would have been saved a searing. Leaving the restaurant was very fun as standing revealed all.

Shameless plug time: I would like to point your way to the TILAH page where you will find a little bit of almost-finished art work that will hold our website till its launch on January 1st, 2007. I will send warm fuzzy thoughts to anyone who tells me which character is whom and what the symbol is on the only ball cap in the picture. I still have some shading and detailing to do, but besides that, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turning out.

Wouldn't it be great if Nutrigrain Bars made you feel this good? I mean, GREAT!!!

Anyway, I have to get along little doggies. Apparently I have work to do, people to save, and subway trains to stop from launching off of incomplete bridges. Wait! That’s spiderman, actually. I just have to work!

TILAH - Coming to a website near you

2006-10-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

TILAH, or Take It Like A Husband, is forging ahead with some very humorous material that'll have me sleeping on the couch for a very, very long time. Shannon and I have decided on a January 1st launch date so we could start the year anew and have a backload of comics to put out.

Shannon's got a bit of work to do on the website (what you see there will be gone shortly, thank goodness). And I've got to tweak all my characters and such to fit my drawing style. I've changed almost everything now that I've figured out how to draw again and have learned some really awesome software to boot. By learn I really mean "barely scratched the surface."

Speaking of changing the style, you may have noticed a smiling new face in the left-hand margin. He'll be staying there for a while until I get tired of him, but for a slightly larger look, here are the two tweaked characters from your first encounter with TILAH:

Oh, what happy avatars we are. I'm making a whole host of these things to reflect the feelings behind certain posts on the website. Ooh, there's going to be a grumpy one I bet!

Seeing as I'm tired and should probably get more than 5 hours sleep tonight, I'm going to cut this one short. But I will say something about a few comments I've heard lately...Or should I say the lack of comments. I've heard that some of you don't comment because you don't know how to. Is this true? Dan's figured it out, so I naturally thought everyone could...Dan, I apologize! That sounded really mean.

All you have to do is hit the word "comment" that is located after every post and before the previous blog title and date. You'll be taken to another page to leave a comment, and you don't have to be registered with Blogger to do so. Just sign in anonymously. Heck, some guy was trying to get me to join his MLM by posting in my comments section. I'm now three tiers away from the top of the pyramid, and all I have to do is sign up all of my friends and family so I can get that trip to Ecuador. Good times, good times!

So, yeah, short! I'm going to bed, and it's only 10pm. Hopefully I'll have some Alberta Adventure appropriate material to post in the next day or so. I could tell you of my trip to Redwater yesterday, but I'll save that for the next post. Until then, check out these studs:

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians

2006-10-09T23:22:00.000-06:00

How did you spend your Thanksgiving? I spent mine driving the 5 to 6 hours to Calgary from Creston, but I'm not bitter! I got to spend faux Thanksgiving with my mom, grandma, and sister, Michelle, Kristen, Rylee and Kyle. Also, my sister's French-Canadian hockey billet joined us, as well. Wait, I'm forgetting someone, aren't I? Who could it be? Oh, yeah!

THIS LITTLE GUY!!!

Don't you just want to get angry with him? He just screams trouble, doesn't he? No, really! He would scream, "Trouble!" if you just hinted at it. But getting mad at him? It's very, very hard to do, so I just take it out on my kids.

Speaking of my kids, here's an interesting sport they've come to enjoy:

You see how carefree I am with their safety? After this I encouraged them to go play in traffic on Highway 3. Of course, it wouldn't be an event without a Rylee diva pose:

My mother fed me so much on Sunday I honestly though something ripped inside me. All the food made me wonder why I didn't eat like this more often...then we cleaned up and I remembered why I appreciate fish sticks and fries. Still, my mom can cook!

My sister invited me to a Creston Thundercats game on the Saturday we were there. Unfortunately, they lost to the Spokane Braves 3 to 1, but man did they put on a show. Looking at those two websites you can sure tell who's not a hockey team from a very small town.

Michelle and the girls joined us, and while Michelle enjoyed the game with even more enthusiasm exhibited than myself, Kristen did not seem to be all that into the game. During the intermission between the second and third period a conversation took place between Kristen and my sister:

Wendy: So are you having a good time?
Kristen: Yup!
Wendy: Really?
Kristen: No, not really!

Honestly, if Wendy hadn't of pushed the issue Kristen would have let her believe she had a very good time. Kristen had the facial expression to make it believable, too. I'm so proud that my ability to lie with a straight face is being passed on to yet another generation.

Dance of the potatoe man

2006-10-05T08:39:00.001-06:00

Okay! So I’m not blowing off this animation challenge thingy…Well, not just yet, anyway. I just have a lot to do and little time to do it. I’ve had a bit of an issue with my graphics tablet lately, and I am totally not willing to draw anything with a mouse. It just doesn’t work out well and is tedious times tedious to the power of tedious. Add a dash of mundane and let sit for five minutes before serving.

I resolved those issues last night, but unfortunately my most favourite show in the whole entire universe premiered its third season opener and just about blew my socks off. For those of you who don’t own TVs, that show is Lost, and if you didn’t know that, I would seriously get your head checked out because it’s most likely that you’ve suffered a critical whack to it recently. Also, just on before that was rival network CBS’s apocalyptic thriller, Jericho. Definitely not as good as Lost, but it has me a bit intrigued, so I’ll watch it every once in a while till I’ve decided it’s not worthy of my time. Heroes, from NBC, is another one I’ve got my eye on. What can I say? With this new season of television, it’s a good time to be a geek.

My point is that I wasn’t able to spend too much time in front of my computer to animate because I was spending too much time in front of my TV. Geek, remember? Oh, and I was helping Kristen with her homework, too. You know, I can (probably with a little refresher) do complex calculus, linear algebra and have experience with differential equations, but I was having a little trouble with what Kristen had to work on last night. It just seemed that the question was so vague and had to do with setting up tables to provide you with an answer. No real instruction on how to do it…Just go!

Anyway, between Kristen and the TV I managed to pump out this quick little animation of a dancing potatoe man. Not really a potatoe, but I just wanted to see if I could do some entertaining movements that were both fluid and entertaining.

YOU HAVE TO CLICK HERE

Don’t watch too long because it’s mesmerizing. Oh, and that’s it! Nothing else happens in it! Just go about your lives people!

Thanksgiving weekend is here, and we’re Creston bound! Hope everyone has a great weekend! Eat lots of turkey! Unless you live in the States…you guys have to wait until your Thanksgiving!

I have a unibersatty dygree

2006-10-03T07:29:00.000-06:00

You know, sometimes I just peruse an old post or re-read my recently published entry and I cringe just a little. I think, “did I really find that funny” or “how many people were offended by that?”

But what’s worse is when I read what I had thought to be a sentence in the first place, and what it turns out to be is pure unadulterated trouser smear. Thank goodness there’s an edit function because, even though you guys have already read it, I just couldn’t live with myself if that crap was permanent.

Here’s some advice: do not read the first two months of this blog! It’s like I was just learning to write, and I was using Dr. Seuss as reference material. Without the witty banter, however.

Michelle had a really good day at work yesterday, but had to come back to my home cooked meal. I’m usually pretty handy in the kitchen, and I’m not saying that last night’s meal was inedible, but I had made an assumption that rendered my mashed potatoes eye-watering.

Before I go down that road, I’ll tell you that Michelle is enjoying her job at, uh, the grocery store. I’m not sure if I should mention the name in the blog because I’ve heard of these things coming back to bite people in the fleshy part of their glutes. Anyway, as Michelle waits for her call from her preferred line of work, she has taken a cashiers position. On top of that, she’s working in her spare time on a typing tutor I set up for her and trying to learn as much about Microsoft Office as possible.

I talked to Michelle about her work after I fed her supper. Supper? Oh, yeah! I grilled some chicken breasts, but before I threw them in the oven, I was at a loss about what to do with them spice-wise. I did a quick check on the internet but most of the ideas there would have taken a little more time than I was willing to spend. Then I remembered a friend of mine pan frying some potatoes in Italian dressing, and a light bulb went on in my head. Now, 20 Watts isn’t that strong, but I put it into practice anyway. We didn’t have any Italian dressing, but we had some Kraft Sweet Onion Vinaigrette. So, after the oven had pre-heated…

Okay! Tangent time! How can you pre-heat something? Isn’t the definition of pre-heated actually heating something before you heat it? I understand the context, but that’s what it literally translates too. Yes, I understand that it means allowing the temperature in the oven to stabilize at a certain point before cooking with it, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to “heat” the oven? Isn’t that like the word “reiterate?” Reiterate actually means to say or do again repeatedly. Iterate, however, means to utter again or repeatedly or do something again or repeatedly. So wouldn’t reiterate actually mean to say or do again repeatedly, again? Like you iterated once, had a break, then iterated again? That sounds a little dirty. I think I’ll learn French!

Digression…

After the oven had, uh, achieved its ideal temperature for cooking chicken, I put a light glaze of the salad dressing on the chicken's skinless surface and sprinkled about a teaspoon of rosemary on top of each breast (teh heh). I did the same when I turned the chicken over 10 minutes later, and once more 10 minutes after that for a total cooking time of about 25 minutes at 400°F. But the chicken wasn’t the problem! It was actually very, very good.

And the problem wasn’t the steamed carrots, either. It is possible to over steam vegetables, but I like a little bit of crispness left in them so my teeth don’t get soft and I loose that hunter’s instinct that was passed down from my forefathers and their forefathers before them. Carrot hunting used to be a very hazardous undertaking, I've been told. Today's carrots are very tame by yesteryear standards.

The problem was assuming that an electric hand mixer would mince up the six cloves of garlic that I had thrown in the mashed potatoes. I originally wanted to mash them with a mortar and pestle, but Michelle had cleverly hidden them in plane sight. Actually, the mortar was hidden right in front of me; Michelle had deemed the pestle cupboard worthy. So I threw barely chopped garlic into the pot of mashed potatoes and hoped it would mash along with the rest of the pot’s contents. It didn’t, and it was very fresh garlic. Kristen did not enjoy the chunks of garlic in her mashed potatoes, but Rylee and I would enjoy a good wince when chewing on half a clove. I love garlic, and this was no exception. However, I had learned that Kristen and Rylee had decided to partake in a cookie (or two, is my assumption) at a friend’s house before coming home for supper which made making them finish their meal all that more difficult.

All in all, it was a good meal, but lacking in the green department.

After dinner, I finally got a chance to relax a little and asked Michelle about her day. She said it just flew by which seemed to make her very happy. She was able to converse with a few of her fellow employees and said that her supervisor, some gentleman a few years her senior, gave up trying to teach her anything because she was picking it up so fast. I asked if he was hitting on her, but she just looked at me funny. I can only assume that meant yes and that I would have to make a stop at her work very soon.

She made reference to a new female acquaintance who started work at the same time as her but had actually worked there several years ago. She would give Michelle all sorts of hints about the benefits her company would provide her if she just knew where to look and what to ask. I asked Michelle if this girl was hitting on her, but she just punched me playfully, but rather hard, on the shoulder. I decided that I would have to set Michelle’s new friend up with her supervisor.

One thing that Michelle is great at is putting up with me and my whack sense of humor. I’ve made it no secret that I like to write and enjoy a good joke every now and then. However, some of my humor may venture off into the world of untested waters, and I’m afraid that I may offend someone. So every now and then I write something down on a pad that I keep beside the bed. Just as Michelle is about to drift off to sleep, I give her a little shake and ask her to read what I’ve just jotted down. If, after reading, she turns onto her side facing away from me, holding her breath so as not to laugh too loudly and wake the kid, then I know what I’ve written is funny. However, if, after reading, she glares at me with ocular daggers, grabs her pillow and the top comforter and heads to the couch, I know what I’ve written is down right hilarious.

The Redemption of Moxie’s

2006-10-01T18:49:00.000-06:00

I guess I’ve been lax in relating or concluding stories that began months ago, but there is a conclusion. Or at least a current conclusion to an ongoing story since we’re going to continue to patronize Moxie’s. In fact, we were going to anyway, but we were just going to avoid the one at Market Mall over here in our fair city of Calgary.

Redeem themselves, they did. The general manager, Al, of that particular franchise had gotten a hold of me a few months ago and proceeded to shove a $50 gift certificate down my throat. Actually, that makes him seem kind of rough and tumble, but he was actually a very courteous guy who seemed to be genuinely distraught that the usual level of customer service that Moxie’s is known for wasn’t maintained for our particular visit. He actually wanted to know who our waiter was, and there were hints of job action to be taken. I’m sort of glad that I didn’t remember the waiter’s name because, even though our dining experience was made memorable in a bad way because of him, I wasn’t sure his attitude was bad enough to get him fired. He might’ve just been having an off day as I’m sure we’ve all had. We were just the unfortunate recipients.

I didn’t want it to seem as if we were just fishing for a free meal; we would all like one and I’ve heard of people complaining about service or quality of food just to avoid a cheque, but I believe in paying for quality, and Moxie’s has always provided me with a great place to hang out with my friends while being entertained by the staff. One of my biggest disappointments with Moxie’s is that with keeping up with the times and maintaining a positive image they managed to do away with the birthday run around the restaurant. That was always good for a humiliating laugh, wasn’t it?

But we did end up receiving a gift certificate in the mail, and we finally decided to put it to good use this last Friday. We went to Market Mall on what was perhaps the most busiest evening of the week. Michelle and I are somewhat known for our good timing, aren’t we? So when we put our name and number of our party down with the hostess, she asked if we were aware that there were about 20 parties ahead of us. I said that I wasn’t but now was thanks to her informative skills…actually, I did really say that minus the “informative skills” comment. Looking at that sentence now, I’m very glad I didn’t because it seems rather rude. So the hostess gave us a coaster and told us that we could walk around the mall and when our table was ready the coaster would let us know. Did I forget to mention that is was a coaster with a built in pager that would light up and buzz when paged? No I didn’t; I did that on purpose!

We tooled around the mall for about 40 minutes with an extra long stop at the Toy’s R Us. I got to play with a PSP for the very first time, and Rylee managed to seriously kick my butt at some sort of Sonic the Hedgehog racing game. My pride was shattered! Michelle managed to tear me, I mean, the girls away from the videogames so we could go check on the status of our table. Apparently, we had wandered out of range, and Moxie’s had been trying to page us. Thankfully, they said the next available table was ours.

A host came up and offered us wine; there were two glasses of red and one of white. Not one to pass up free alcohol even though I was under the assumption that people who drank wine were born with a silver spoon up their butt (I don’t really think this, but I love the thought of all the wine lover’s reading this and reacting in fashion), I decided to try the red while Michelle stuck with her favorite, white. I was pleasantly surprised! This was the first wine that I had ever tasted that didn’t remind me of really bad grape juice and vinegar. It had had a fruity aftertaste, and I found myself actually finishing a whole glass. A small “whole” glass, but a whole glass, never-the-less.

We were seated not too long after the wine and a quick game of I-Spy with Rylee. As soon as we sat, I asked our waitress if Al was working that evening. Al had asked that I inform him I was in the restaurant so he could attend to us personally. Seriously! That’s what he said! So he came over and introduced himself, and asked if I was Derek Monaghan. I said no, told him my real name and said that it wasn’t the first time that someone had called me that. He apologized and said that he must have had that guy from Lost on his mind - Dominic Monaghan. Well, Al just scored a huge amount of points in his favour for mentioning my favourite TV show, that was for sure!

Our server was awesome! A girl named Amanda who just got along famously with the kids. She entertained us, attended to us when needed and even catered to Rylee’s request to make her kids’ hamburger, and I quote, “Like a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy’s.” They actually did it! Michelle and I decided that, since $50 of the meal was already paid for, we would order from the lucrative section of the menu. She ordered a piece of salmon that had been stolen from the only albino grizzly free roaming today, and I ordered a steak that had been painstakingly separated from a golden cow attended by 100 fair-haired virgins and was smothered with prawns and scallops raised by King Neptune himself. Even my baked potato which had been stuffed with cream cheese and seasonings stolen from the king of dreams accentuated my entire dinner. I’m trying to say that it was awesome! Awesome, I tell you! Just Awesome!

In the end, we had a fabulous meal, witty banter with our waitress and my favorite restaurant became a favorite again. The only thing missing from it were my friends from Victoria, but I tried not to think about them because it would have looked bad if I was crying while I ate.

To top off the evening, Michelle and I rented Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and totally fell in love with this movie. We liked it so much, in fact, that we watched it the next evening, as well. Now, there is excessive use of colorful language, but if you can see past that, you are going to be mightily entertained.

Alright, I owe you a picture or two, don’t I? Heading home yesterday I saw that the entrance to the path that leads to the nature preserve area looked so beautiful with all the yellowing leaves. I just had to go back with the girls to take a few pics. Here they are:

That last one? I just wanted to play with the B&W setting on my phenomenal camera. It turned out quite nice, I think.

Anyway, I've got things to do and people to see. Actually, I just have things to do. Also, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is on tonight, and I'm digging it so far. Probably one of the best new shows this season. Yeah, I know! I watch too much TV

Now I'm nerdilly happy

2006-09-28T22:20:00.000-06:00

Or is that nerdiciously? Whatever! I like the title now, so that's one thing to chalk off my list before I die.

I got home, and Michelle sent me over to my neighbor's with Brendan to pick up yet another computer desk. That makes three in my possession. My old one is in Kristen's room where I foolishly thought she'd use it to work at instead of piling up generic pieces of paper, rocks and other trinkets of her own design. Oh well, it leaves more room on her floor for the more important stuff. The one my parents gave me is now my main desk. I work tirelessly here to bring you quality entertainment and keep myself from any semblance of a social life in Calgary.

I thought I'd put the new desk...Aw, who am I kidding! There's no real reason for having it that I can think of. Not unless I'm about to go corporate and branch off into the basement where we're actually putting the desk. I guess I need to hire a secretary now.

So I was conversing with Mercedes via email today, and she related something rather embarrassing that happened to her in a very professional situation. What was it, you ask. I'm not telling you; are you crazy? I just wanted her to squirm thinking I was going to tell the world about her little problem, but, oh no! I'm going to let the world use their imaginations. Bwaaaaaaah!

Snazzy new title, dontcha know!

2006-09-28T13:44:00.000-06:00

Yup! I'm changing it, though. It's just too big! I was going for a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" feel, but I think I can compact the size just a little bit. It may look neat, but it's a bit of an eye sore at that size. Besides, there should be a picture of my handsome mug up there, don't you think? Do I hear snickering? Does someone want to stay behind after the dismissal bell, hmmm?

Last night was interesting because it combined two of my lives into one: my work life and my home life. My company had an open house, and while my first thought was, "Ugh! I go to work for approximately 9 hours a day; why would I want to waste my evening there, too?" I am extremely glad I went!

First off, after I got home I re-informed the kids that we would be leaving for my office building in about an hour. I say re-informed because either we didn't tell them (Michelle and I) or they just forgot. I had to re-inform Michelle in the morning when I phoned to wake her up because I'm pretty sure she had forgotten because I didn't tell her or she just forgot. She's working now, so she has a lot on her mind. I must stress that I do not think she wasn't working before, just that the wage I was paying her for her domestic engineering skills was so piddly that I wouldn't put it on my resume as a job if I were here. Wait! Am I digressing? I'm digressing...

First off, after I got home I told the kids we were leaving for an open house at my office buildings (there's two side by side). Their response to my request that they clean themselves up a little was to wash their faces, brush their hair and put on dresses. Rylee would put on a dress for any occasion! She would put on her best dress to celebrate the un-birthday of herself, her majesty, Princess Rylee. Heck! She'd put her best dress on to celebrate a cool breeze. Kristen, however, wears a dress with the frequency of a leap year. I'm not sure if she thought it was a very special occasion, but when I pointed out that her mother and I were wearing jeans it still didn't deter her from wearing one. Hmmm...

Secondly, and to make a long story short, the volunteers from my company put on a host of fun events for the kids. There were computer activities, marshmallow tower building, mini golf, a scavenger hunt and more. The open house was scheduled from 6:30pm to 8:30pm and we were there for the whole thing. My one regret was making supper before we got there. There was food on all five floors that my company occupies in two different buildings. I ate anyway! Also, Kristen and Rylee met my boss’ kids who are roughly the same age and both girls as well. They got on famously! Of course, Rylee gets along with most people, trees and imaginary bipedal manatees, as well.

My family got to see my office which, I will admit, I cleaned up before they came. I hope that their view of my blank walls will inspire Kristen and Rylee to draw me many pictures for my viewing enjoyment. I need pictures since my boss doesn’t like it when I doodle on the walls wth my crayons.

It just figures…

2006-09-27T10:45:00.000-06:00

You know how you get a friend to read your blog? You write about him, that’s how!

So Shannon finally phones me last night and gives me some lame excuse about not calling me the night before due to work or the plague or something, and we finally discuss a bit about our web-comic. While we’re doing this, he’s trying to talk to me on speaker phone while he does dishes or changes into a dress or something, and I note to him that his end sure sounds terrible. It’s full of static and it's like trying to carry on a conversation with a McDonald’s employee through the drive-thru speaker back in the mid-eighties.

I tell him that it’s about time to invest in a good phone, and he tells me that, no, it’s time to invest in a good phone plan. He’s currently using VOIP from one of those cheap carriers…Primus or Vonage, I think. He informs me that he’s going to drop them like a bad habit. Not like one of those really bad habits like smoking or crack, but one of those bad habits that are easy to drop like poking yourself in the eye or bungy jumping with the cords attached to your boxers. A bad habit that isn’t really habit forming, is what I’m trying to say.

Shannon says that he’s going to switch to Shaw’s digital phone. Well, this just gets me going. I start singing the praises of Shaw’s digital phone and how it's given me nothing but pure joy since I had it installed. There was once where, for some unknown reason, it just stopped working, but it started again within a half hour. I don’t mention this to Shannon, not because it’s of any benefit to me (although, if there’s a referral plan, hopefully he puts my name down) but just because I didn’t deem it necessary. Shaw’s been good to me! They bring me Lost on Wednesdays.

Well, funny story! About 10 minutes into the conversation and after my buddy Mike arrives at Shannon’s and says “Hi!” to me, the phone goes dead. Not only that, but my internet stops working and the TV’s on the blink. Lucky for me my cell is through Rogers. I call up Shaw and it seems that cable’s out for all my neighbors on the same node. That’ll teach me to talk good about something, huh? And it's kind of scarey just how much I rely on Shaw now. Too many eggs in one basket, I guess.

Hey! Check out those two snazzy buttons on the left there. That was hard work, I tell you. Two minutes of my life I may never get back. The Animation Forum provided the graphic for their link, so I decide to make my own. Turns out it’s easy! For an added bonus, just hover your mouse over the TILAH button. Cute, huh? That font is called "Feast of Flesh!" Isn't that wonderful? I got that font and several others over at Blambot.

Hopefully I can rip some more free time from the continuum because there’s just so much I want to do right now. If anyone can lend me some spare time, I’d gladly repay you with gratitude. I have lots of gratitude! That’s what the bottle depot gives for my returns…

News flash!

2006-09-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

Shannon didn't call me last night!
Shannon's a big jerk!
He will now feel my wrath,
As I go violently berserk!

Thank you! Thank you! Don't clap, just throw money!

It’s not Delissio, it’s delivery

2006-09-25T11:19:00.000-06:00

That mouse ripped me off, and now I’m telling the world. Holy cow! I can’t believe those guys are getting away with it!

So, I managed to lose my third bankcard over the weekend, and the terrible thing is that I’m pretty sure it’s only been a month since the first. Our cards, mine and Michelle’s, have been flagged twice now for suspicious activity. I guess there are a lot of bankcard scams out there now-a-days, and banks have to be quick to prevent it from getting out of hand. Even my sister was a target not too many days ago, but I won’t post the details of that because it’s not my business to tell. It’s hers! So call her at area code 250…Just kidding! I’m not giving out her personal information…unless you email me privately (mwah).

On Saturday I managed to get a replacement card for the second one that had gotten cancelled, and it was all shiny and blue. Previously, I would let my bankcard rot inside my wallet. I recall a time when my bankcard was nearly split in three pieces, and I still managed to feed it into the ABM to proceed with my transactions. Lately they can’t even get dusty without being cancelled.

The last one was my fault, though. There’s a Bank of Montreal (BMO) close to my house that has two drive-through ABM’s, and in the early evening on Saturday, Michelle suggested that we take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and fun. It’s the place where a kid can be a kid, dontchaknow. So I stopped at the BMO to use the drive-through to empty my account so we could afford to go to Chuck. E. Cheese. By the way, does anyone remember it being called Chuck ‘n Cheese? I did a quick search on Google and came up with a few hits but nothing explaining the name change. I would appreciate any knowledge you might share on the matter.

We get to Chuck. E. Cheese, wait in line for about 20 minutes because everyone else in Calgary had the same idea and finally get a table. At this establishment you are seated and then have to proceed to the counter to put in your order which will then be delivered to your table. As I was about to pay for the order, I discover that my bankcard was missing. How could this be? I had just taken money out at the ba…OH CRAP! I left my card in the machine! I had no recollection of collecting my card but remembered that the machine was temporarily unable to issue receipts. Something clicked in my mind, informing the rest of me that I was to leave the machine after getting the cash.

Ever try to cancel a card in a noisy Chuck. E. Cheese over a cell phone that likes to blank out when there’s too much noise. Try it! It’s fun! Thankfully no other transactions were recorded after I pulled that boner, so now I have to get another new card today. I wonder if they’re going to start charging me for this service, but come to think of it, I probably am already paying for it.

Our pizza arrives at the table, and I’m thinking there’s something vaguely familiar about it. I have a pizza palate! I have actually looked at someone’s leftover pizza that they’d brought for lunch and told them where they ordered it from. Yes! I am that good! So you can be assured that when I say on Saturday I paid $24.00 for a $6.00 Delissio pizza at Chuck. E. Cheese that I know what I’m talking about. Is that legal? Are they allowed to pick up a variety pack at Superstore and sell it for 300% more than what they bought it for? That doesn’t seem right to me somehow. It’s been decided that if and when we go again that we’ll eat somewhere else first be it at home or another restaurant. What a rip! Kristen and I played mucho amounts of that basketball game with the moving backboard, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to play more basketball.

Head over to the animation forum using the challenge link on the left there; I’ve updated my portion with a very rough walk-cycle for my character. Pay no attention to the backgrounds and such as I just threw them in for reference. Let me know what you think.

For your amusement, here is a conversation I had with Shannon this morning on gmail chat. You may recall me talking about him; he’s the one that is working on Take it Like a Husband with me.

9:42 AM me: Hey!!!
9:43 AM Shannon: yes
me: Did you see the comic?
#$%&#
9:45 AM Shannon: Yes I think its great. I see you worked out the bubble issue you were having.
me: Yeah...it was simple! Give me a call tonight so we can plan some $%&# out, kay?
9:47 AM Shannon: what's with the $%&# language?
9:48 AM me: Just answer the #$%&ing question!!
9:50 AM Shannon: What #$%@#ing Question?
9:51 AM me: The one I asked with the #$%&ing language...call me tonight so we can work #$%& out, 'kay?
9:52 AM Shannon: Are you just messing around or are you mad about something?
9:53 AM me: Just messing witcha! You over sensitive #$%&!!!
9:54 AM Shannon: just tired
9:55 AM me: OH MY CRAP!!! ARE YOU GOING TO CALL ME TONIGHT YES OR NO FER CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!
9:57 AM Shannon: Why are you yelling?
me: I might kill you...
9:59 AM Shannon: Why?
me: Well, for one, you're not answering my question. And, two, for the betterment of mankind!
10:11 AM Shannon: I don't understand?
10:13 AM me: I'm pretty sure it's obvious, but I'm going to spell it out for you in single syllable words again: Will - You - Call - Me - Two - Night - ?
10:23 AM Shannon: How could I call you over two nights? Should I be on the phone with you more than 24 hours?
10:26 AM me: Listen, buddy, it's painfully obvious that you're being a smart ass, and you may think it's cute, but all you're doing is just adding to the pile that is my eventual wrath that will be delivered unto you. Do you really, really want to poke the bear, or am I gonna have to get out the morning star of butt-kick and send it to you first-class mail? Huh? What's it gonna be, smart guy?
10:28 AM Shannon: I am sorry but there are to many syllables in that message. Can you give me the coles notes version?
10:29 AM me: I hate you!
11:00 AM AM Shannon: But I love you...

As you can see, we’re the best of friends. His impending death may look like an accident, but you’ll be secure in the knowledge that I had something to do with…wait! I’m not supposed to give that information away. Aw, crap! How do you un-publish?

Happy Hump Day!

2006-09-20T09:14:00.000-06:00

No! Get your dirty minds out of the gutter, all you poi-voits! Hump day is that magical day of the week that signifies the peak, or, as you were, the positive amplitude of the sine wave that is our ever repeating week. Take, if you will, this sine wave:

The very left of the sine wave represents Monday, the beginning of the week. It’s the unfortunate day where all we see in front is the beginnings of a very steep climb that’ll eventually lead to the weekend. The peak obviously represents Wednesday, or hump day because it is the hump we have to get over to access the downward slope that is Thursday and Friday which leads us into Saturday and Sunday (the bowl portion of the sine wave). You’ll notice that there is also an upward climb on the Sunday portion of the sine wave. This is significant in that it represents our unwillingness to admit that the weekend is almost over. Some actually refuse to acknowledge this area of the sine wave and find themselves out of a job on Tuesday because they slept through Monday. Let this be a lesson to you!

I am progressing in two or three of my little projects. The short story I’m writing for the CBC Literary Awards is near completion, and a lucky few of you will be able to read it and tell me how far out of my depths I am before I submit it. I might even submit two short stories, actually. I was considering revamping my “Urine My Seat” blog entry and submitting it under the nonfiction section of the contest. There are three categories:

- Short story
- Creative nonfiction
- Poetry

Needless to say, I am not going to enter the poetry portion of the contest. Each entry for the story sections must be between 2000 and 2500 words long; I think I could add a little flare to my true-to-life occurrence, don’t you?

My animation is coming along slowly as I don’t have as much time to spare for it at the moment. I truly hope that I can get something completed before the November 1st deadline (same deadline as the literary contest, as well). I’ve gotten a mock up of the walk-cycle for my old man and have been working on some stuff that I haven’t posted yet, so stay tuned.

Take it Like a Husband is ramping up a little! I’m still learning how to use certain software, but the overall effect is becoming very pleasing to me. Here’s an example:

I’m not too keen on the character design yet, but we have to start somewhere. This is actually an excerpt from the first comic, but I’m hoping to get back to it before the site is completed (*cough* Shannon *cough*). I know there are a lot of mistakes that I need to correct in this panel: proportions, varying line thicknesses in the back ground and Shannon has no eyebrows. Oh, and there’s no Spiral Café symbol on Catherine’s coffee cup. Some of you might be wondering why I drew myself with hair. The only answer I can come up with is: Shut up!

So, what’s been going on here, you ask. Well, you know my current projects, but what is the rest of the family up to? Let’s see…Michelle is currently job hunting after being royally screwed over by Employment Insurance (EI). She’s had a claim in since June, and she qualified because she was forced to quit her job to accommodate me in my career change. However, they neglected to inform her that because she didn’t have childcare in a city she’s never been to and just moved to that she wasn’t actually available to work and therefore didn’t qualify for EI on those days that she wasn’t available to work even though she wasn’t available to work because she knew no one to take care of our children while she set up roots in a city she’s never been to and just moved to and shouldn’t have wasted her time with EI in the first place…whew! Gotta catch my breath! So, yeah! The money she was expecting from the coffers she’s been paying into refused to cooperate with her at all and neglected to keep her informed while she stayed at home with the kids till school started. It’s not like we’re poor, but she was relying on that money before she started job hunting. I know there are a lot more disadvantaged people out there, but they should have at least kept her informed so she wouldn’t have wasted her time. She’s out job hunting now, so please keep her in your thoughts.

The kids have adjusted to school really well, I have heard. Tomorrow will be my first parent-teacher conference ever. Now we will learn the truth! Mwah hahahahaha! Kristen and Rylee are making friends left, right and center, but they still pine away for the ones they left behind in Victoria. We all do, actually.

So there’s a quick and dirty update. More self-centered than most, but what can I say? It’s my blog!

So much internet activity!

2006-09-14T09:36:00.000-06:00

Who ever thought that my Alberta adventure would consist of so much non-adventurous activity? I’m just thankful that Michelle’s so supportive of my extracurricular activities. So, not only am I trying my hand at:

1. Writing a screenplay
2. Writing a short story for a contest due in November
3. Writing a children’s novel (actually, a few of them)
4. Starting a web comic with Shannon

But now I’ve gone and sunk myself even deeper by entering an animation contest. What basis do I have for actually joining something like this? None, other than a desire to draw, animate and tell stories. Why am I telling you this? So that the added fear of not completing something after I’ve told everyone what I’m doing will drive me towards the finish line.

You can check out mine and Shannon’s web comic at the link to the left (when we get the site up, obviously), and you can check out my animation progress at the Animation Forum. I go by the username Daft_Wullie, and you can check out my specific forum complete with storyboards, character designs and progress right here. I'll make a shortcut on the left for that, as well.

Thanks everyone for your eventual support and good tidings, and I’ll try to be funny by my next post. Ciao for now!

My piggy bank was full, so…

2006-09-12T14:24:00.000-06:00

Rylee missed her first day of school already. Seeing as the kids’ first week of school was only four days long that means that Rylee hasn’t even completed a full week of grade three yet. She’s back today, thankfully.

Rylee is not one to miss school when she’s feeling ill; it takes a lot to knock her on her buttocks and keep her there. Actually, that’s true for both of my offspring although it would be for two very different reasons. Rylee, at her age, sees the fun that could and will happen around her for that day. Kristen sees the potential backlog of homework that she’d have to catch up on if she were to miss a day of school. I’m not saying that Kristen isn’t fun. It’s just that she sees a realistic view of what could happen. On the other side of the coin, I’m not saying that Rylee’s always stuck in a dream land of cotton candy clouds and elixirs of unicorn giggles. That’s only when she’s awake!

She came down with a slight case of puking on her bedspread the night before, and seeing as she had eaten dinner at her new friend’s house we just chalked it up to unfamiliar food. Michelle had to inform the mother of this new friend that Rylee may put on the front of being a vegetarian. She has done this before and gotten away with, if I remember correctly, eating a dinner of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and ice cream. As a child, I probably would have mixed them all together let alone enjoyed them immensely.

Well, we cleaned Rylee up not before I stepped bare footed into a small wet spot on the floor. Oddly enough, the tine pile of vomit contained corn. We cleaned her up, as I was saying, and she went to sleep. She got up before me the next morning and seemed in good spirits but had a temperature, so Michelle kept her home for the day.

Later on, Rylee admitted to Michelle that she had swallowed a loonie. I remember a time I had put a coin in my mouth and accidentally swallowed it, but I don’t remember specifics. I can’t recall any pains about loosing the money, so obviously I was too young to appreciate the value of it. Or it was when we lived in the Philippines which meant it was a Peso, and I knew it wasn’t worth much anyways. Either way, I swallowed a coin. I do not remember what happened next or if it was ever recovered.

Last night when I was putting Rylee to bed we had a little talk about the cleanliness of coins. I told her that if, at minimum, the loonie she had swallowed were handled by a thousand hands prior to coming into her possession, there was a thousand hands worth of nose picking, bum wiping, crotch scratching bacteria running around on the coin’s surface. I know that this isn’t exactly true, but with Rylee you have to make the picture bigger and brighter to get your message across. She still picks her nose and pops the nuggets into her mouth from time to time, for crying out loud. Mmmm!

Rylee informed me that she had, ahem, passed the loonie into the toilet, but wisely did the math and came to the conclusion that the economic benefit of fetching the coin did not out weigh the disgusting process of actually retrieving it from its gross encasing. For that I am very proud of her!

Let’s file this under “Unfortunate”

2006-09-07T15:14:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was an interesting day because at around 2:30 or 3pm my heart seemed to want to burst from my chest while my brain sizzled like a freshly opened soda. However, my work production increased 250%, and I was a bit more chatty than usual with my coworkers. Why? I’ll tell you in a minute.

After consuming lunch at my desk, I left the building to go to the convenience store for a diet Pepsi with lime but was disappointed to only find regular ol’ boring diet Pepsi. But on the way I noticed two humorous items which drew my attention away like the easily distracted child-minded person that I am. I’m going to tell them in reverse order because I find the first item funnier than the second item, and I thought you would appreciate them better that way.

Runaway Cart!

Please don’t think I look unkindly towards the homeless. They’re on the street, and there’s obviously a reason why they’re there. But yesterday as I was heading back to the office from my useless trip to the convenience store, I saw a gentleman with a shopping cart full of pop cans. What drew my attention at first was the rattling sound of the cart as it sped freely off the sidewalk and into the side of a very new looking Dodge truck. As far as I could see there was no damage, but the cart had tipped over and much of its contents spilled behind and under the truck. When I saw the owner of the shopping cart running towards the mess I was a little stunned. He was younger than me, pretty spry (as he was running) and kind of well dressed. It might be presumptuous of me to say that he was homeless, but if he wasn’t then he was definitely horning in on their business.

Do We Really Want to Eat Here?

Now, on my way to the under-stocked inconvenience store I witnessed something that I found very funny indeed. There is a restaurant very near where I work which is along the way to the store. I won’t give you the name since I don’t want to be responsible for its decreased business, but suffice it to say that it is a self-proclaimed pizza and steak house. The set-up inside consists of booths that rest up against full-sized picture windows so masticators can watch the traffic pass as they eat. As I passed by the window noticing the packed seats in the restaurant, the reflection of the glass showed me this:

Okay, okay! The smiling guy in the hat may not have been there, but his truck was parked right outside the front door of the restaurant. I don’t know about you, but if I’m the owner of a downtown restaurant the last thing I want parked outside the front door would be the guy responsible for getting rid of the roaches. In fact, the absence of the smiley guy is all that more ominous. What was he doing? Spraying for rats? Well, that can’t be because as far as I know Alberta is still considered the rat-free province. I hear they just turn them away at the BC and Saskatchewan borders, and forget about making it across from the US! Those border guards are ruthless. Just try sneaking an apple across! Or an IBM!

Is My Heart Supposed to Beat This Loudly?

I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in over a year…I had a cup of coffee. The effects weren’t immediate, but when my hands started to vibrate so much that I could see through them I knew something weird was happening to me.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, so when I got into work and plopped my butt down in front of my computer I knew that staying awake would be a chore. So I had a cup of coffee with none of that floofy poofy stuff like cream or sugar I used to put in it. I took a sip and immediately regretted it; not because it tasted bad! No! I regretted it because it tasted good.

When I was younger and my family and I used to live in Calgary, we would make the drive back to Victoria a couple of times a year to visit family and friends. Common on this trip were drive-thru stops so my parents could pick up a cup of nuclear hot coffee from McDonald’s and an Egg McNuthin’ for me and Wendy. I used to marvel at the smell of coffee; its aroma was rich and would encompass every breathable inch in the vehicle we occupied. It called to me with its siren song, and, since I was still a pre-teen, I hadn’t partook in the beverage yet.

On one particular trip I asked my mother for a sip (ahh, poetry). She took her coffee black, I believe, like she still does today. Two sensations were immediate in my mouth, one of pain and one of disgust. Many people have heard the story of the woman who sued McDonald’s because she spilt the coffee she had just purchased on her lap. You can actually read about her, Stella Liebeck, right here. It’s an interesting read as it tells the whole story and not just the “what the?!?” part of someone suing for a stupid reason. Where was I? Oh yes!

My mouth was seared, and my tongued took on that sandpapery feel that it takes on when it gets burnt. Thankfully mouths heal pretty fast because that is one annoying feeling. I rank it up there with that piece of skin that hangs from the roof of your mouth after you try to take a bite of piping hot pizza. The second sensation of disgust was brought on by the fetid diaper water that molested my taste buds. How could people drink this? What an untrustworthy beverage, I thought. Nothing should ever have a taste as terrible as that but have an aroma that angels sing about. Totally! Not! Fair!

But then yesterday I partook of the forbidden ambrosia and found it savory. Much like beer, coffee is an acquired taste, and I guess that in the time between retching about it’s flavour to drinking mass quantities of it with cream and sugar, milk and sugar or just sugar I had acquired its taste alla plain. Now I just have to stay away from it since the reason I quit it before was that I drank practically two pots a day and still had to fight to stay awake in class. The withdrawal headaches were akin to the Lord of the Dance and Stomp dueling it out in my skull.

I have to admit that the affect was quite funny to others, though. I popped my head into Andrew’s office to inform him that I had taken from the bean, and he laughed at how chatty I was. At one point I’m pretty sure the order of my words were breaking the space time continuum by racing each other out of my mouth. I would hate to see that fateful day when, as a result of a subsequential word escaping before its predecessor, a black hole forms and the universe is sucked in whole. That truly would be a day to stay in bed.

My seester is here

2006-09-02T00:52:00.000-06:00

Wendy made her first trek from Creston to Calgary this evening, and she managed to pull it off in just under 6 hours. I have to give here credit since I was sure she wouldn’t have done it that quickly. Not that I doubt her driving abilities, but she had two boys in the car, one still in the toddler stages, and I was positive they’d have her pulling over every 20 minutes. And I was partly right. Wendy said they had to pull over lots since she had three bladders to contend with, and she still made it in good time.

I also have my cousin Brendan staying with us for a while, too. I am a little embarrassed to admit that when Rylee and I just got home from karate that I glanced and saw him sitting on the couch and did not immediately recognize him. I believe my exact words were, “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming, too!” I had thought it was Jakie (sp?). My cousin, and Brendan’s sister. His hair is really long, and from far away in dim lighting and with a low intellect, he looks like his sister.

So Wendy is here for a weekend of Calgarian fun. So we’re doing Calaway Park for the bazillionth time and the zoo for the second. No rest for the wicked I say.

Since I haven’t posted anything since the dreaded urine pants episode, I thought I’d leave you with a cool burnout video of last Sunday’s Race City Speedway winner, Pinkfoot:

Urine my seat

2006-08-29T11:37:00.000-06:00

I have to relate a story to you that happened to me a couple of days ago, and I’m not going to lie to you, but I suffered just a little bit of trepidation when it came to deciding whether to tell the story or not. Seeing as I’ve taken no qualms with laughing at myself before, I came to the decision that I might as well take the plunge for pure entertainment purposes. So sit back, relax and enjoy my very special C-train ride home.

This occurred last Thursday as I left work early. I tried, oh how I tried to talk myself into being well, but the amount of drippings escaping my nostrils and the bees crawling around on the back of my eyes indicated that I was in no way, shape or form healthy enough to brave the golf lesson that I was supposed to be at in four hours. With a heavy heart I left work around two in the afternoon with prospects of lying in my bed until I felt better. Further thoughts of Nyquil and Neocitrin lured me towards the LRT station, pure will forcing my feet to step one in front of the other in a straightish line. I made it and only had to wait a minute or two for the train to arrive.

Usually I leave the office around 4:30pm, and when I get to the train there’s standing room only. Since it was earlier in the afternoon I hoped dearly that a seat would be available since most people would look unkindly at my lying on the floor. I was in luck! A three seater bench had only one occupant and I was the second one to enter the door of the train. When facing the bench, there was an elderly woman on the right, the gentleman getting on before me took the left leaving the middle for me. I took my place…

However, with my momentum going towards the cushioned seat, I just happened to notice a slight discoloration in the area my buttocks were heading towards. It was too late, though. I was already seated. That’s when I noticed a certain pungent smell, and I recalled that a father had gotten off the train with his two very young daughters before I entered the train. I’ve just sat in someone’s pee, I thought.

I entertained the paradox. Should I get up and expose my soaked bottom to the many, many passengers on the C-train, or do I sit and wait for my stop which is the last on the line? I leaned towards the latter since I could read my book, or attempt to anyway, and take my time putting it away while the rest of the passengers got off the train thus sparing myself a huge amount of embarrassment by not exposing my backside.

I could feel the backs of my legs getting colder.

I didn’t want to reach down and touch my pants; the saving grace being that I hadn’t gotten any urine on my hands. I remembered the gentleman beside me looking at the discoloration before I sat down and quietly cursed him for not warning me before I seated myself. What a great guy he must be! I also did the same with regards to the lady to my left as she could have said something. She was on the train before we were.

Every jostle the train delivered to its passengers caused me to shift from side to side thus giving sections of my pants that were previously moisture free a chance to see what it was like on the underside. I held my book in front of me while I quietly wretched.

There were eight stops in total till mine, and I quietly prayed that either the lady or the man beside me would be getting off way before then. That way I could at least slide over to either side and save myself acting like a sponge for a few minutes. I vowed that when I did this I would warn any other passenger who wanted to take a load off their feet. No one deserved this, I thought. Well, maybe the man and woman did for not warning me, but I also told myself that I should always look before I sit. It’s more my fault than anyone else’s. I was sure teaching myself a harsh lesson.

Another bump reminded me of the cold, wet feel on the backside of my legs. I hoped beyond hope that my wallet was safe.

I thought of my car. How was I going to drive my car? I actually entertained the idea of disrobing, taking off my pants before entering my vehicle. I’d rather that than have a child’s urine smelling up the Sunfire on a very hot day. I had my jacket in my bag, so I told myself that I would lay it down as best I could, sit on it and then throw the jacket and my pants in the washer right away once I got home. I promised myself a very long shower, as well.

This sucked!

We pulled into my station, the loud speaker thanking us all for riding Calgary Transit and that this was the final destination. Luck was definitely not on my side as the lady and gentleman did not exit the train until the very last stop. What were the odds? So I slowly closed my book and looked around as people exited to the station. I put my book into my shoulder bag while wishing that this whole thing was just a figment of my over active imagination.

Everyone had gone from my section of the train, so I looked out the window to make sure there wasn’t too much foot traffic at the terminal. Unfortunately, people had also gotten on the train which would soon be heading downtown, so they’d get a good look at my urine soaked bum.

I got up slowly, turned towards the train doors and couldn’t help myself. My left hand reached down to the back of my pants to feel how bad it was. I also contorted myself to get a look.

Nothing!

I was dry! I saw no discoloration, and I felt completely dry. It had all been in my head. I thought of the dark area I saw on the seat before I sat down and just chalked it up to years of use. I thought of the odor I smelt and attributed it to the many different bodies that enter and exit the train each hour. I had completely convinced myself that I had a wet backside, and, as a result, my miserable ride brought on by my miserable condition was made all that more miserable.

What’s the moral? The mind is a powerful thing, but it is also very susceptible to suggestion and flights of fancy. I've booked more air time on those flights than most of my friends combined. What I am not saying, though, is that you don’t need to check where you sit. Always look before you sit! Always! You never know, but someday someone might leave you an unwelcome treat that doesn’t blend well with 100% cotton.

Hippo Crispies

2006-08-26T23:45:00.000-06:00

We celebrated Michelle’s birthday with an age old tradition. That, obviously, being the one of making a hippopotamus out of Rice Krispy square mix. How does one fashion a hippopotamus out of Rice Krispy square mix? Well, allow me to take you on a trip through the extraordinarily simple process that you too could follow.

First, the ingredients:

50 ml (1/4 cup) margarine or butter
1 package (250 g, about 40) regular marshmallows or 5 cups miniature
2 ml (1/2 tsp) vanilla extract (optional)
1.5 L (6 cups) RICE KRISPIES cereal
Two eager beaver children who can’t stay still due to the fact that they probably need to pee
A temper

First, you must combine the butter and marshmallows into a microwave safe bowl and nuke the ever living crap out of it for two minutes. We chose to use miniature marshmallows due to a need for them later on in the project; we chose to use butter because, well, margarine sucks. When in the microwave, pause after a minute to absolutely ruin a large spoon mixing the butter and marshmallow mess together. It is not pretty! I think I lost my watch in there! Place back in the microwave for the remaining minute, and watch the mess try to achieve cognizance while attempting to flee the bowl. Laugh at its futile attempts mockingly. The last few microwave rays should render it quite dead by the end of the two minutes.

Remove the bowl from the microwave; careful, it’s hot! Whatever you do, do not touch it! Just mix in the Rice Krispies and ruin another spoon. Curse a lot when it gets on your hands. Do not take a swing at your kids! Yet! Still do not touch the mix in the bowl. If you do, you will be spending several precious minutes you could have been using to sleep or watch Lost licking your fingers and washing your hands. You haven’t watched Lost yet? It’s the only gosh didly darn reason to watch tv, for crying out loud! It’s in reruns, so you have plenty of time to catch up right now.

Let the crud cool! Now you can set the two eager beaver children on it. Here, Kristen and Rylee are molding some legs for the hippo to stand on, so if anyone said, “That hippo doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” they’d be wrong!

One of the trickiest aspects of this endeavor is keeping an 8 year olds’ hands out of the mix. You may have to raise your voice quite a bit, apparently, since 8 year olds are very, very hard of hearing. The only thing they seem to listen to is promises of treats or Vegas vacations. I’m not sure why Vegas, but I think it has something to do with the Blue Man Group.

In the end you have a devil hippo just dying to kill you in your sleep.

Kristen seemed very nonchalant about this impending death. I guess she didn’t care because it wasn’t her name that escaped from its lips as I put it in the freezer.

So, after surviving the sleepless night with a chalk circle and various rune symbols placed about my bed, the children and I surprised Michelle on the morning of her birthday with the Rice Krispy hippo.

Thankfully, Rylee got it before it got me. Another close one in the Mohninger household.

The rest of Michelle's birthday consisted of picking up seasons 8 and 9 of Friends courtesy of my mother and father, picking up her present from me (would you like to know what I got her? I bet you would!), a trip to see Barnyard, and rounded off with a trip to the Cheesecake Café. All in all, she said she had a wonderful day.

Oh, we did sit down to watch a movie recommended to us by Shannon. Yes, it’s my male friend with the feminine name again. The movie was about a family’s reunion at Christmas, and the hate they share for one of the bother’s girlfriend. Also, there is some other conflict such as a mother dying of cancer, some broken hearts and the breaking of some pretty expensive high heel shoes. After watching this movie, I can only come to the conclusion that Shannon is, in fact, a girl.

Happy birthday, hunny, and good night!

Head...Stuffed...With Cotton

2006-08-23T18:37:00.000-06:00

Ill! So ill! Kids gave me Germans! By the time I'm well again I'll probably have forgotten all about the zoo. I'd update longer but the peepers hurt looking at the screem. Oh Buckleys! Where are you?!?

A very lucky anniversary

2006-08-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

Michelle and I celebrate our 13th anniversary today; can you believe it? And although she has taken to not reading my blog because she is actually living the Alberta adventure now, I wanted to use a little of this space to say “Happy anniversary, hunny!”

Now, what does one get for your loved one on anniversary number 13? It’s an obscure number that has been down trodden by superstition and curses alike. Should I get her an 8 ball (the pool ball, you knuckle heads), a black cat, a trip under a ladder? A quick search on the good ol’ world wide web reveals that traditional 13th anniversary gifts have a lace theme. Hmmm. I guess I better leave work early today so I can go and buy some curtains…

Zoo pics will be coming later today, hopefully.

The Badlands are good lands

2006-08-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

Hey all! I’m back with the latest and greatest of what’s going on in the lives of the Mohningers and those who choose to associate with them. I feel kind of tardy with this entry, but since YouTube was acting up yesterday I didn’t feel it was appropriate to update with out the video I wanted to include. So here goes! Hang on, kids! It may get a little rough ahead.

We were treated to a visit by not only the Porters, but by the Cameron’s as well. As most of you know, the Porters hail from Victoria. The Camerons used to live in Victoria with Steven and Corinn sharing pastoral duties at Highpoint Community Church, but they did something very, very bad and were relocated to Regina, Saskatchewan. Just kidding! The Salvation Army has a policy about moving their pastors around, and it just so happened that the Cameron’s number was pulled. It’s just as well since me and the family just happen to live in an area located between the two families. As an added bonus, Shannon brought along his parents who were great for a laugh and generously watched the kids for us so we could go see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. GO SEE THAT MOVIE!!! My sides hurt, and I literally shed tears from laughing so hard.

So all three families went to the Badlands in Drumheller, Alberta, to visit the Tyrell Museum. On a personal, pat-myself-on-the-back side note, I am solely responsible for not only getting the Porters somewhere on time, but I got them there a half hour early. Man, I’m good! But, anyway, go to the Badlands we did:

Notice the one of Rylee behind the security barrier? It says a lot about my supreme parenting skills that I decided to take a picture of her before telling her to come back because it wasn’t safe. As we waited for the Camerons to arrive, we decided to lounge around the front of the museum outside. I guess at one point the kids ticked off a raptor or something because I snapped this shot as they were sprinting by:

And I got another one for the "Stupid Signs" section:

Shannon, who's preventing Gideon from going in, was all set to tear off his clothes and jump into the six inch deep pond, but thankfully decency won out, and he kept his shirt on. I believe his posture and expression are saying in this picture, “Duh!” Not only was the water really not deep enough to swim in, and I’m not sure if it comes out that well in this picture, but there was some sort of radioactive froth floating on the surface. Mmmm mmm! That stuff would be so good on Corn Flakes in the morning.

Here are some random pics of all of us in the museum. Nothing happened that resembled the upcoming Ben Stiller movie, but we did have a lot of fun with the kids. They sure could care less that there’s little write-ups beside each display, but the large bones and dinosaurs sure kept their attention for almost five seconds:

This next pic was a request from Michelle. She wanted my best sexy, let's-get-it-on face:

I don't know! Too Jeffrey Dahmer? I'll have to practice in front of the mirror.

The next part is my favorite. Up until recently I had just called this little practical joke my “sneeze joke.” Shannon came up with a better name for it, though. Just watch it first:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the “Sniper Sneeze!” The unwitting recipient of this quick and uncomfortable jest is Steven. Shannon had seconds prior come up behind me and pulled the same joke. Calmly, and without even a trace of a flinch, I turned to face him and casually said, “That would have been funny if I didn’t invent that joke.” Now, it is true that I didn’t actually invent that joke, but I did bring it into my circle of friends which makes me a sort of ambassador for this joke. Maybe I should have said that I was the one to bring that joke to the people, but I don’t think it has quite the same ring to it. Shannon suggested that I perform the joke on Steven, and after a little rubber arm twisting I agreed to do it. Shannon whipped out his camera and what resulted is above. Steven was a good sport about it and actually watched the video clip on my computer about 4 or 5 times when we got back to my place. Just watch his expression when he thinks that it’s actually my nose mucus landing on his face and neck. Priceless!

Hey! I have an idea! I would like anyone who reads this blog to submit the same crazy joke. Try to catch your friends, enemies or complete strangers off guard with “The Sniper Sneeze.” Just be sure to let them know that it was water after they’ve had time to stew. When I was in the military, I performed this trick on a guy on my ship. He was up and in the showers before I could tell him it was only water. He wouldn’t listen to me. Anyway, go on! Give it a shot!

Finally, before I go to bed, here are some pictures of friends and family under the 50ft tall T-Rex located at the Drumheller information centre. You only have to pay $10 for a family of five to climb up the stairs inside to peer out of its mouth. What a bargain!

And that's it for me! It's almost 12:30am, and we have a trip to the zoo planned tomorrow. I’ll try to get those pictures up sooner than I did these ones.

Oh, I do have an amusing snippet for you that occurred during our viewing of the Calgary Public Library’s copy of The Journey of Natty Gann. At one point during the depression, this little girl named Natty Gann traveled across the United States to be reunited with her father. Along the way, she makes friends with a fellow traveler and a wolf while jumping illegally from train to train.

At one point when the train is stopped, that eras' transit police were searching the boxcars for stowaways when they heard a noise from the one Natty Gann was hiding in. To help Natty avoid being caught, the wolf revealed itself to the cops.

“It’s just a damn dog,” said one of them.

Rylee looked at us, and without a pause said, “Don’t they take damn dogs whoops!”

We have a standing rule in the house that if inappropriate language is repeated, those shows will no longer be an option for our young ones. This time, however, was a very amusing exception. Hopefully she doesn’t capitalize on it, eh?

There’s a mall in the West of Edmonton

2006-08-14T23:13:00.000-06:00

Did you know that? Well, there is! And apparently it’s a pretty well know one, too!

Upon reflection, and hindsight being 20-20 and all, we probably should have visited Edmonton’s main wonder on the Monday as opposed to the Sunday. Reason being is that on Monday everything in the mall is open from 10am to 9pm while on Sunday the bulk of our mall visit was eaten up by the World Water Park since it was only open from 11am to 6pm. Oh well! Live and learn. Live and learn.

We left our home at approximately 7:30am but really didn’t get out of Calgary till 8am. That worked out just perfectly since we got to the mall at 10:30am and the water park opened in a half hour. What follows is video and photographs taken from our short visit. Next time will be longer since we didn’t even put a dent in what they have there. It’s all expensive, of course, but there is a nice man at every mall entrance willing to take your credit card and debit card so as to max out the balance and empty out you account with out the effort of having to walk the miles and miles this place stretches out over. At least I think that was part of the mall service; I’d hate to think I was being scammed.

Like I stated above, we mostly stayed at the World Water Park. Here's proof:

Behind these two lovelies is one of the biggest wave pools that I have ever been to. We enjoyed mass amounts of body surfing, the waves being strong enough to even shift my slightly overweight bulk a certain distance.

We had arrived before the park even opened, so when we were allowed in, it wasn’t too busy. However, as the day went on there were more and more bodies jamming up the pool, and a large percentage of them had rented these personal inner tubes to sit and relax on. I personally wanted to swim under all these things with a pin. These people, young and old, really pi--! Really, uh, grinded my gears! When a body is in a current they can control them selves with these God given appendages that, er, God gave them. However, when you’re sitting your lazy bulk in an inner tube and a wave shifts you towards shore, you tend to have an amount of control equivalent to a jellyfish’s control over any piece of heavy machinery on a construction site. None! As a result, small children get run over by fat, useless people. Am I a little harsh? Maybe! But I’d love to give these people a little taste of what it’s like to fear drowning like some of the small children I saw pinned under those stupid yellow tubes. Kristen got run over by one, but instead of being pinned under water she suffered a small bump to the shoulder. She swam it off; what a soldier.

Which brings me to another beef: the World Water Park is understaffed. As a result, certain slides were open while others were not. This was because the lack of supervising staff meant that all of the slides couldn’t be manned. Meaning that there wasn’t enough lifeguards to ensure that small children weren’t almost drowned by lazy, inner-tube riding mouth-breathers. Does the park give anything pack to the consumer for patronizing their establishment? No! I guess they don’t need to with how busy it was, but I’m guessing that all the patrons had no idea they were going to be held up in lines and kept off of certain attractions due to staff shortages. It’s a guess, but I’d bet on being right. Regardless, the kids had fun:

The left one is of Rylee and Gabrielle. I did mention that we met the Porters at the park, didn't I? Whoa, I guess I didn’t. Well, we did! I guess I also need to mention that if you click on any photo you’ll be taken to my flickr page. Just click “all sizes” above the picture, and you’ll be treated to an extra large and very detailed version of that picture. Cool, eh? And just for the record, Rylee is not drowning in that picture. She is an “A” grade swimmer and loves the water. The right photo shows Kristen in all her professionalism when it comes to swimming. Just today she was made to swim 60 lengths in her lesson which is equivalent to a kilometer. She truly wants to be a junior lifeguard.

By the way, I faced one of my biggest fears at the World Water Park on Sunday. That being the fear of falling to my death on a very tall, very fast water slide. Now I know the following video may frighten some of my readers, and some of you with weak stomachs may, in fact, feel queasy if not outright nauseated after viewing it, but all I can say is, “I’m sorry!” I have let myself go in the past few months, so my slightly overweight physique combined with my pasty white skin minus the well tanned back of my neck and forearms makes for a chilling sight. Keeping that in mind, I ask you to view the video below:

In case it doesn’t come out clearly in audio, I am saying, “I kept my eyes open!” That was actually the second time I went down The Sky Screamer. The first time my heart was racing and for some odd reason my eyes glued shut as soon as I started to drop. Sitting on the ledge of that thing is like sitting on the ledge of a cliff except if you push yourself off the ledge of a cliff you will die. I will have to remind myself of this fact the next time I find myself sitting on the ledge of a cliff.

We decided to end our water park visit around 4:30pm so we could still have an hour in the mall after we changed. However, before we could even make it to the shopping levels, Gabrielle and Rylee were attracted to a interactive bungy trampoline exhibit. So while they were waiting to suit up, I snapped a couple of photos:

The orientation of these pictures actually works out pretty well as Kristen is up one level smiling down at Gabrielle and Rylee as they get ready for this fascinating feat of fun and flying. I also got a cute picture of Michelle and Catherine. Wow! You’d almost think they liked each other or something:

Catherine was eating something at the time, so that’s the best smile I could coax out of her. She said she almost choked holding that pose. I’m glad I only made her do it twice. Gabrielle and Rylee had to be affixed to two sets of bungies thus this rigging:

The ham poses were no extra charge for this ten dollars for ten minutes event. Want some video? I got some video! Here’s Gabby:

And here’s Rylee:

Afterwards, Rylee and I tooled around Galaxyland, West Ed’s indoor theme park, while Michelle and Kristen went shopping. Rylee was really timid when it came to waterslides and rides for some reason, which was also pointed out by many who were with us. It was very perplexing. Kristen, however, tried almost everything; she was a real trooper. I hope to get to the bottom of this Rylee mystery, but until them it will remain, er, a mystery still.

Two other photos we took:

The one on the left was pre-mall and is just about the coolest limousine I have ever seen. A hummer limo! Wow! Unfortunately when I was naming the photo file name I hit the “p” instead of the “o” so it is now called “hummer limp.” Many people may interpret that in a strange way. The photo on the right is of West Ed’s very own live flamingo display. Why’s that cool? ‘cause their flamingos. In a mall. Their pink. Kristen likes ‘em. Go away!

Which brings us to the section of my blog which I will entitle “STUPID SIGNS!” The first was a sign at the entrance to the bungy trampoline thingy:

Did you read it? Are you sure? I quote: If you are pregnant or have any other physical or medical problems.” Am I reading that right or did they just say that pregnancy was physical or medical problem. I could just see the reaction on the mother-to-be’s face when the doctor informs her that she is suffering from a medical problem know as pregnancy. But truly, this sign is genius compared to the sign on the back of one of those rental baby buggies that Shannon rented to push Gideon around:

Well thank you Captain Obvious! Holy crap! If a parent actually put their child in that bag they should be sterilized and their children should be set free to roam in the wild because they’d have a better chance at survival there than in the care of their mentally challenged guardians.

I regret not taking a picture of the sign that Michelle saw as we came back into Calgary. We were passing over a bridge that was the subject of some construction when Michelle read a sign stating, “Caution! Do not jump over hand rail.” Really? I shouldn’t jump over the handrail into the vehicle traffic traveling at 100+ kilometers an hour below? Why? The gene pool will thank all those who ignore such a sign.

On the way back to Calgary after bidding a fond farewell to the Porters, we stopped in Red Deer for gas, food and aluminum statues. Gas was $1.13/litre there, but when I stopped at the pump I noticed that regular was on for $1.17/litre. I just assumed it was one of those ridiculous promotions that those stations do where they jack up the price by a certain amount and then take it off at the till thus making the consumer believe they just got a deal. They must think that the average consumer is brain dead, but seeing as we rely on their fuel anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it. So I filled up the van and washed about a billion dead bugs off my windshield. As I was just finishing, a guy in a Shell Gas golf shirt came up to me and said hello. Then it dawned on me: I was at the full serve pump not the self serve. This kids confirmed as such, and I asked him if he was going to charge me full price. He seemed like he was going to, but I guilted him a little more by saying, “I just did your job for you!” He ended up taking off four bucks from the end price which actually got me down to $1.10/litre. It’s sad that I think that’s a deal now.

Before we left Red Deer, we had to check out these statues:

These were great! They’re made out of recycled aluminum which is melted down and poured into several different castings. You can visit Brian’s site at Metal Sculptures to see what else he’s made. A lot of wishes were fulfilled with this little visit:

1.Kristen got to ride a horse
2.Michelle got to ride a hippo
3.Rylee got to ham it up like her dad on a Rhyno
4.And seeing as I was so jealous that the kid’s got attacked by a bear on our Creston trip, I got to fulfill my wish likewise.

Well, that’s it for now. If you got to the end of this very lengthy entry then you will know that the secret word is “fatuous” and that you should bite your thumb the next time you see me if you want a sprinkle of pixie dust. Au revoir for now.

My weekend is looooooong again!

2006-08-11T23:32:00.000-06:00

The Porters are coming! The Porters are coming! Yaaaaaaay!

This weekend I have taken a couple of my vacation days...What? You guys didn't get vacation days when you first started a job? Well, they forced them on me! Honest! I was just like, "hey," and they were like, "yer hired," and I was like, "cool," and they were like, "go on vacation!" Um, okay, sure. So on vacation I am going. Not too far, though. Just to the next city for a day to visit their ginormous mall and visit the Porters whom will join us back in Calgary in the following day or two. So last weekend was a four day, this weekend is a five day so I think next weekend I'll just stop going into work for about a month.

I wanted to try something artistic, so I took the photo below and did a little trace of it.

What a mug on that guy, eh? One thing I've noticed since wielding this wonderful piece of equipment called "MY DIGITAL CAMERA" is that many things get photographed, many people get photographed and many photographs are taken. However, not a lot of photographs are taken of the photographer. Thus, I believe I took this picture of myself at our '06 New Years party. Yes, I know. If you take a picture of yourself you look like a half angry, half bemused monkey man. I think that was what I was going for.

I wanted to try something psychedelic. Actually, my first intention was to get rid of that out dated profile picture because it's out of date, and that was during a blissful time when my scalp put forth many strands of wonderfully unmanageable hair. Michelle told me today that she loved my hair like that. I guess I could style my back hair that way, but I'm pretty sure the same affect would be lost on her. Any who, below is my masterpiece:

What do you think? I think I come off a little agrier than I wanted too, but I get an over all Philip K. Dick feel from it, so I thought I'd share it anyway. Oh, and I gotta say: those are some huge nostrils I'm sporting. Guess I should of never started picking my nose with my thumbs.

12 steps to a good night's sleep

2006-08-09T09:35:00.000-06:00

By Derek Mohninger

First, I guess I should mention that I went through and fixed a few of the obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes from my previous post which means it's just as bad but more flamboyant. I guess I was getting a little morose at the end there for which I apologize to all my fan out there. No, I didn't forget the "s."

As I mentioned in the title, I'm going to tell you how to get a good night's sleep in 12 easy steps:

1. Make sure you had a really bad sleep the night before. I'm talking about the kind of sleep where you lie in bed wondering why the heck, even though you have your eyes closed, you don't feel the least bit tired. What a rip, right? But this 24 hour period sans any rem sleep will guarantee that work sucks and sucks hard.

2. Come home and try to put as much of a 500 piece puzzle together at the chiding and begging of your sadistic 8 year old. I'm sure she's not really sadistic, but she kept saying "my precious" under her breath a lot. Managed only to get all four corners started, too, before I remembered I wanted to post that previous blog entry.

3. Ask your wife at 9pm if she minds if you go to bed. Going to bed early means that you don't get to help put the kids to bed, and although they brush their teeth themselves and put their own pajamas on, your wife still seems to express that this event is somewhat of a chore. Actually, with Rylee it can be. You feel like relating the fact that being up at 5:30am while she wakes up at 7 or 8am should allow you a little leeway in the scheduling of you sleep time, but you're too tired, so you just grunt something, kiss the girls good night and go prepare for bed.

4. I hate flossing!

5. Sleep.

6. Wake up at 12:30am to the sounds of a huge explosion. It's Armageddon and you're expecting a fiery asteroid to come crashing through the window. Calm down! It was just thunder. You can go back to sleep now...

7....Wait! You left the window on the van open! There wasn't supposed to be any rain tonight! Should you chance it? Aw, crap! You call your wife's name, somehow rationalizing that she should be the one to go close the window. After you repeat her name a couple of times with no answer you reach over to gently shake her only to find a much smaller human beside you. That's not your wife! It's Rylee!

8. Rain starts to fall outside. You wrestle with your shorts and pull a t-shirt on inside out, heading towards the front door. On the way you scold yourself for thinking that your wife should be the one to head outside since it was you who left the window open in the first place. You get outside and it really starts to pour. Fiddling with the window, you realize that you can't close it because it's one of those angular pop-out windows and you've forgotten the keys inside. You are now drenched.

9. Get the keys, go back outside and close the window. Seek the warmth of your house. You might as well have been swimming in your clothes.

10. Go to the bathroom.

11. Lie down in bed and realize that you can't hear the rain anymore. It has stopped.

12. Cry yourself back to sleep.

There you go! If you follow these 12 simple steps you'll have the courage to slap Tony Little in his smug face while the pink giraffe king orders you to polka with his daughter a mere 70 more times. Blaaaaaaaaaah!

What a pic-tacular 4-day weekend!

2006-08-08T10:14:00.000-06:00

I managed to slip out of work a little early to beat all that rush hour traffic that is associated with a city of a million plus people, and the plan was going perfectly. We were way out of Longview on Highway 22, just five minutes from the Highway 3 junction which would take us to Creston in the Kootenays, when Michelle and I looked at each other simultaneously as I said, do you hear something? FLOOM! No, it wasn’t a “boom” noise as it was a more squishy, not quite filled with air type of busting noise. Regardless, I wrestled control of our minivan and managed to pull over to the miniscule shoulder, stepped out of the van and saw this:

The second picture, the one on the right, shows that the tire tread managed to stay on, actually acting like an onion wring on a finger where the finger is my axel and the onion wring is my lost hopes of reaching Creston in record time. The funny and ironic thing, and by funny I mean “tear-inducing”, is that Michelle pointed out quite a few pieces of tire on the way to the spot where the fan decided to have a rest. She asked how that occurred, and I casually mentioned that most of the time it was due to the large truck, semis, with dualies, those are the side by side tires you see on semis, tractors and trucks owned by red necks, where one of the dualies has become flat, but the driver keeps driving. As a result, the tire literally explodes from the excess wear and tear it receives as a lack of proper pressure. Apparently it can also happen to nincompoops driving minivans, as well.

A situation like this can’t get anymore perfect, let me tell you. Oh, wait! It can! It just so happens that this blowout, and this was definitely a blowout, occurred at the most excellent tome of the day where everyone in the small towns between Calgary and Creston closes shop for the day and has a siesta. There was no one open in Crowsnest, and I wasn’t about to double back to Longview, and there wasn’t even any point in going to Lundbreck That town has a population of 234 according to a little poking around on the internet. I heard that all of them feast on wayward travelers force to stay the night due to vehicle troubles and bad weather; I wasn’t about to take any chances (just kidding Lundbreck).

So, hopping along on the spare, or “donut” as some motor enthusiasts like to call it, we passed through Frank Slide. You should really follow that link and read the story about the town of Frank and the little known but Earth shattering devastation that occurred there. It's a quick read but gripping.

I’ll probably take some pictures of it on the way through next time, but for now you should just do a quick search on Google to see the tonnes of rock that came down on the town of Frank.

I tried to explain to Rylee about the tragedy that happened there, and for the most part I was successful. However, she just couldn’t get over the fact that the town was named Frank. She kept asking if Frank survived the rock slide which goes to show how much she listens to me. I explained the Frank Slide to Kristen when we moved from Victoria, and she just accepted it in stride.

So we hobbled all the way to Creston because not a single tire place was open. We made it to Cranbrook a little after 9pn, but Canadian Tire had just closed, and the Walmart Service Centre hadn’t been open for an hour. So we made it to Creston on that cute little Barbie tire. The owner’s manual said that the spare was good for 60mph and 3000 miles which is a heck of a lot better than most spares I’ve had before. Most said not to go over 60 kpm and a distance of 60 kilometres.

The rest of the weekend was fabulous. We spent the first day at my parent’s place. During the day I hung out with my pop, Walter and Orin on the golf course, but seeing as I can’t play I just got to drive the cart around. That was pretty fun in itself because those little electric numbers seem to be able to go pretty fast. I kept worrying about damaging it though because it wasn’t mine; it was Walt’s.

While I was at the course, Michelle managed to snap a few pictures:

The above one is some sort of fancy cheese stick party that was too good for the likes of dad and I as we weren't invited. Below is a rare cooperative moment that involved gluing the children in place. The adhesive eventually wore off in time for bed:

Saturday evening was spent over at my sister's new house, and we had a little pizza party. Wendy has settled into her place pretty quickly as I noticed she had more pictures up on her wall than mom and dad did. She has the same view of the mountains that my parents previously did in their old house. One of our conversations:

Derek: Did you know you had mountains back here?
Wendy: Is that what they are?
Derek: Well, they’re not mole hills.
Wendy: I hear some people try to make mountains out of those.

Ah! Good times! Good times! Later on in the evening she was relating to me a tiresome quality she found in children. That is, the lack in quality of their hearing which I just ascribe to selectively blocking out certain adult voices so children can do what they want.

Wendy: Your daughter had a box of apple juice downstairs and was trying to feed it to your dog. The conversation went something like:

Rylee: Here Lilly!
Wendy: I don’t think Lilly wants any, Rylee.
Rylee: Here you go, Lilly.
Wendy: Rylee, she doesn’t need that!
Rylee: C’mon Lilly, have a sip.
Wendy: Rylee, Rylee, Rylee!

More good times!

The next day we went to a swimming hole that was part of the river going through Creston. Is it the Kootaney River? I don’t know! All I know is that the river that was flowing was cold and that the sectioned off swimming hole was warm. As a result, more pictures were taken:

I love Kyle’s Hulkster pose, brutha’!

We also managed to take in a walk in the nature sanctuary, and by nature sanctuary I mean “swamp.” Nothing spectacular out there that beat the nature hut although a sign said that a black bear had been spotted in the neighborhood recently. My biggest regret is not getting a photo of the turtle crossing sign. Next time, I guess. The guide:

…on the back of which were points of interest. One point of interest, I think it was point number 4 or 5, was entitled “annoying females.” I quickly scanned the swamp for some of my ex-girlfriends, but upon further reading discovered that it was actually referring to female mosquitoes. A widely known fact that the female mosquito is the only one of the species that bites. A little known fact is that the Creston nature preserve is so hard up for exhibits that it includes mosquitoes as one of them. These pictures resulted from that little excursion:

Believe it or not, Wendy’s actually smiling in that picture. However, she’s cleverly disguising it as disdain for my taking her picture. We also went to the nature hut where the kids were attacked by a bear and Rylee hugged an ugly duckling:

I like these photos:

When transferring the pictures to the computer, I noticed that Michelle had taken about 5 or 6 pics like the one on the left. Apparently she just wanted one without Luke’s tongue hanging out. I guess Luke got tired of it and started laying the smackdown on Papa’s hat.

The day we were leaving, mere minutes before we left in the van, Rylee let out the most ear piercing scream. This was the reason:

That sucker could fly, and it landed right in front of Rylee prompting her to believe it fell out of her hair. See how big it is in the second photo? Someone tell me what type of bug that is, please.

Now it is time to go. I slept like dog-leavings last night, so I’m going to attempt it again. Guess I was too used to sleeping in different beds this weekend. Any way, I’d be witty for you, but I don’t feel like it right now. Maybe read a Farside cartoon if you feel let down.

Oh, and I should say happy birthday to Kathy even though I did it in person, I mean, on the phone. With my voice. Yeah! It was the first one in a long time that Michelle didn;t get to spend with her, and she got all emotional about it. That part kind of sucked. Three good friend's birthdays go by and all we get to do is...woah, I'm tired. I'm getting a little morbid or expressing self pity which means it's bed time. Night all!

Quick one before the large one...

2006-08-08T07:07:00.000-06:00

I have a rather large update with photographs brought to you in Technicolour(TM), but right now seeing as I just got to work and should probably be doing something other than updating my blog, I thought I'd post an update that I should have done when I was at mom's and dad's this weekend. I say "mom's and dad's" because the apostrophe "s" indicates a possessive by my mom and dad as I've been taught by my English prof at Camosun College. However, it just sounds plain weird when said. Most people would have just left the possessive to the last person indicated as in "mom and dad's," but they'd have been wrong! That's my English lesson for the day.

I actually ended up emailing Moxie's after I finished my last update, and here is what I sent them:

Topic: Disapointed

Good day,

After being a long-time patron of your Victoria location where we've celebrated birthdays, friends and special occasions, we had to say good-bye when we moved to Calgary. We have now found that after being pleased with every experience we've had in Victoria, even when things didn't go smoothly the staff was always quick to remedy, we are now disappointed with our first, and quite possibly our last, Calgary Moxie's experience at Market Mall.

My first complaint is personal as it deals with a favourite meal of mine. In Victoria, Moxie's does a chicken version of your Philly cheese steak sandwich. Apparently in Calgary you do not. I realize I will have to live with this no matter how terribly it affects me.

Secondly, and this is the most important, one of the things that I've admired about Moxie's is that the people who work there are always striving to make each dining experience an enjoyable and stress free one. People should always feel pleased after dropping their cash down for the meal they've just ate, and they should feel that their waiter or waitress deserved the tip that was left. That being said....

My daughters ordered their meals from the children's menu. My youngest one order a pizza with fries. I found this meal combination odd, but that is what she ordered. It wasn't until I got my bill that I found out fries did not come with the kid's pizza, and the waiter did not make any mention of this at all. My children also ordered soft drinks which have always been included in the cost of a kid's meal since we started bringing them to Moxie's, but when I received my bill there were four soft drinks listed for our party of four (me, my wife and two daughters). I asked the waiter why this was, and he said it was because the drinks were not junior drinks. I said, "You served my daughter's adult size drinks?" He just said sorry and charged me anyway. When it was apparent the volcanoes were on the way for the kid's deserts, the waiter did not ask what topping the girls would like. They came with chocolate sauce. When we informed the waiter that my oldest daughter didn't like chocolate sauce he just said that the kitchen had already made them up. Not once did he try to remedy anything.

And that is our disappointing experience with Moxie's. I guess we'll just visit your establishment in Victoria when we go back for visits.

Thank you for every other dining experience you've given us.

Derek Mohninger

Not very eloquent, I know, but no one has ever accused me of literature. Ever! Any who, I get an email back, not from head office but the actual general manager of the Market Mall Moxie's (say that five times at a speedy rate). Here's what he had to say:

RE: Disappointed

Dear Derek,

Thanks for taking the time to right to me about your recent experience at Moxies Market Mall. As a long standing loyal guest of ours I am deeply saddened that we disappointed you. Please accept my apology for this awful experience you had here at Moxies Market Mall.

We continue to coach all of our employees to ensure that every guest leaves happier than when they came in. The guest’s dining experience is our main concern and indifference of any kind is grounds for discipline up to and including dismissal. I will definitely speak to your server about the way he dealt with you that day.

Secondly, although the Philly chicken is not on our menu, we can certainly make it for you. We have all the ingredients right here (as it is just a simple substitution) and would be pleased to make it for you anytime.

Please, give me the opportunity to re earn your patronage. Give me a call on my cell phone at XXX-XXXX or here at work at XXX-XXXX. I would love to speak to you further about your experience and see what I can do to re earn your trust and loyalty. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Al Rajan
General Manager
Moxies Market Mall

What do you think? Should I call him?

Hey! Quit grumbling! I said it was going to be a quick post, and seeing as most of it was written for me already, it was. I never implied that it would be quick to read! That's your fault for assuming.

…Becomes my BC adventure!

2006-08-03T11:43:00.000-06:00

Temporarily! For the long weekend, anyway.

Today, after work, we make the 5 to 5 and a half hour journey to Mom’s and Dad’s in Creston, BC, and I’m really looking forward to it not only because my mom and dad and family friends are there but, well, it’s Creston, BC. All Kokanee loving jokes aside, Creston has got to be one of the most beautiful areas to live let alone visit. You’re smack dab in the mountains, there’s a crystalline lake nearby and, um, they brew Kokanee there. I wonder if Kokanee Gold is brewed there. Mmmm.

Something happened this week that totally made me miss Victoria very, very much. Not seeing our friends and family is one thing, but when you go to a restaurant that is part of your favourite chain and things are completely different, you feel home sickness pangs. Where did we go? We went to Moxie’s which I guess has changed its name somewhere down the line to Moxie’s Classic Grill.

This place has been a standard in meal eatery and coffee socialization with us and our friends for countless numbers of years (actually, they are countable, but I don’t feel like counting them right now…I’ll get misty eyed). Not only that, but I was actually employed by the first Moxie’s ever built even before construction was completed on the pioneering Chinook Mall location. I went into the restaurant which was just decimated with the equipment and debris befitting of an “under construction) zone, and no sooner that I had said the words, “I’m here to apply for the bus-boy position,” the manager had said, “You’re hired!” It was very moral boosting for me because I remember looking for a part-time job at the time and not finding any suitable for my tender age of 14. I remember my mom driving me to an interview for one of those ice-cream peddler jobs (peddler as in seller and as in one of those bikes modified with a cooler attachment), and upon arriving at the place and seeing the type of people hanging outside the establishment (tough and intimidating) I asked her to turn around and never went to the interview. Moxie’s was a great first time real job. My previous jobs being flyer deliveries, covering a friend’s paper route while he vacationed, oh, and clay pigeon loader for the Calgary Gun Club. Dad got me that job, and it will ever go down in history as my first and strangest job ever.

Where was I? Ah, Moxie’s! It’s been a mainstay for years. We’ve had coffee there on numerous occasions (uncountable, actually, because we’ve literally lost count) even though most find their coffee unpalatable. We’ve celebrated birthdays there even as far back as when they used to make you run around the restaurant with a sparkler in your cheesecake (they don’t do that anymore). We’ve discussed many serious issues there while we also went there just to laugh with ourselves or the very sociable wait staff.

And they made my favourite sandwich. The Philly Cheese Chicken! Most people like a nice Philly cheese steak sandwich, but to me the best way to improve on it is to replace the beef with chicken. And the way Moxie’s does it with the banana peppers and peppercorn sauce and the baguette, slurp, gets me drooling just thinking about it. I love that sandwich.

We went to Moxie’s at Market Mall in the NW of Calgary after another Calaway Park visit. After Michelle and the girls had ordered their meals I looked at the waiter who was a young mid-twenties guy with one of those very precise beards that requires a straight edge to trim, and I ordered the Philly cheese chicken sandwich. He actually said, “You mean the Philly cheese steak?” At that point I knew all was lost. I would never be able to find my sandwich in Calgary, and I will never be able to have it again until I visit my Victoria friends.

And I wish that was the worst of the dining experience, but some nit picky things happened as well. Rylee ordered a pizza with fries, and the waiter didn’t even bother to say that fries were extra. He just brought the fries and charged us for them. Also, drinks are included with kid’s meals, but the waiter brought us all adult drinks and, yes, charged us for them. That’s almost an extra 5 bucks added to the bill, and when I mentioned this to him he still charged me for them. And, yes there’s more nit picking, when they brought the kids volcanoes (this is a bowl of ice cream sitting in a larger bowl that has dry ice and hot water in the base to make it appear to be erupting…very cool) they didn’t even bother to ask the kids what topping they would like on their ice cream; they just brought them with chocolate sauce on them. When we told the waiter that Kristen doesn’t like chocolate sauce he made no move to remedy this at all. Geeze, I wish I got his name now. I so regret leaving him the very small tip I gave him. While paying I almost made the comment that there would have been an extra 5 bucks for you, but I have to use it to pay for the two extra drinks you charged me for. Grrr!

Victoria Moxie’s! I miss you!

Hmm! I just a quick search and found that Moxie’s has a website. Maybe I’ll email them my little experience, eh?

I didn't miss Dan's birthday...

2006-07-28T10:56:00.000-06:00

It was yesterday, but don't worry because I actually called him on the right day. I called Mike too, though. Not only did I call him three days after his birthday, but I decided to call him at an hour I knew that he'd be sleeping. I also called him on his cell phone to ensure that not only would he appreciate the value of my calling him, but he'd also pay for it on his next bill as well. Actually, when I called him his stupid Primus telephone wouldn't recognize my number, so for security reasons decided that my call wasn't worthy of its VOIP network. Who do they think they are? Mike's bodyguard? Except that instead of guarding his body they're actually guarding his ear drums from my screechy voice and, thus, from future emotional trauma. I got by them, though. I did indeed.

But it was Dan's 35th birthday yesterday, and from what I hear he celebrated it in a drunken stupor. Completely made a horse's behind out of himself. I guess he crashed a wedding, threw up on the bride and commented on how she now looked like her brides mains. What a jerk! He spent the night in a local drunk tank, but I gather he's staying behind bars a little longer because he kept offering a pack of cigarettes for a night with his jailer's wife.

Wait a minute! Michelle's whispering in my ear. Oh. Really? Oh, okay! Apparently I just made all that stuff up about Dan except for his age. He really is 35! Happy birthday, Danno!

Proportions? We don't need no stinkin' proportions! Yes, I did put a purplie-pink shirt on him. I thought he was secure enough to wear that colour. Are those pit stains? Maybe he's been running for a very long time. What do you expect? I'm at work and all I have is MS Paint. Sheesh! Give a guy a break, for crying out loud!

In other news, if you have any serious items on you mind or something is weighing heavy on your heart, I suggest you ask a ninja for advice. Because of this website, I now know why the number "3" is considered so magical, and how it's linked to Emanuel Lewis being shot out of a cannon. My goodness, I have such a whack sense of humour.

What a terrible friend I am...

2006-07-26T22:57:00.000-06:00

Mike! Mikey! Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike! I am such a terrible, terrible person! What an irresponsible friend you have who totally relies on his wife to know what day it is, let alone what the day is supposed to be. But even with Michelle's wonderful date retentive brain, I still can't believe it, but...

Please forgive me! Please forgive us! I really hope you had a wonderful 40th, and now everyone knows that I missed your milestone. Crap, I hope someone did something special for you. If not, just know that I'm sending special floral coloured brain wave transmissions to Victoria. You should be receiving them right about....NOW!

And the award for lamest weekend goes to...

2006-07-24T15:22:00.000-06:00

Wow! That weekend just flew by, and not much of it seemed worth documenting. I helped Roger set up his computer, we took Rylee to karate and otherwise just stayed at home.

We did purchace an agility kit for Lilly, though, and Kristen is hard at work running her dog through a tunnel, over a high-jump and around slalom poles to achieve that championship status that all bichon-frise/poodle crosses deserve.

Doesn't that kid look like he's about to pop? I'm pretty sure he just needs a quick bathroom break while his Quaalude induced side-tippin’ brother needs to visit a 12-step clinic.

Lilly is very adept at sitting in the pause box for an undetermined amount of time (I say undetermined because when my girls count to 30, I'm pretty sure it takes them about 45 seconds), running through the tunnel and jumping over the high-jump. She hasn't taken to the slalom poles quite as fast, but with Kristen's determination Lilly will be zooming through there with ease.

Seeing as I'm making fun of people I don't deserve to, I thought I'd make a mention about Mr. Cartoon Walker. I saw Mr. Cartoon Walker today as I was crossing the street from the coffee shop to my place of work. He was crossing at an adjacent intersection. What caught my eye were his carefree jaunt and his loosely held arms. I did a quick (3 hour) sketch up of his walk in MS Paint:

Notice the way Mr. Cartoon Walker's wrists do not lock when his arms come to the apex of their arc. That is how Mr. Cartoon Walker walked. He seemed very happy in a carefree, I'm not gonna let the world get me down kind of way.

I guess I'm not actually making fun of Mr. Cartoon Walker (well, except by giving him the name “Mr. Cartoon Walker”), but I'm actually advocating a positive pedestrian experience. I believe I have related to many my theory that people would get along much better if we all just skipped. Not only that, but we'd be getting our heart rates up, increasing our cardiovascular activity, thus prolonging our lives. Maybe I should start an advocacy group like those milk pushers.

Muh-muh-muh moo cows, muh-muh-muh make milk, it’s the only thing that we adore! When the muh moon shines, on the cah cow shed, we hope the cows are makin’ plenty more!

We had guests!

2006-07-20T14:27:00.000-06:00

I had the pleasure of helping Roger and May move into their new place by Nose Hill Park on Sunday. Kristen is very adamant that “Nose Hill” is a ridiculous name and should be Noah's Hill or something like that. Anyway, Roger now has his wife with him again, so all is well there.

They had the honour of being our very first dinner guests last night. Michelle made a wonderful vegetarian lasagna, but I was confused as to the lack of meat. Michelle informed me that there wasn't supposed to be any meat in vegetarian lasagna, but I just didn't understand what she was talking about. Total lack of communication! I ate it anyway, but I imagined rubbing a steak on it beforehand for flavouring.

The carpet cleaning guys finally got to our basement, I was informed. Michelle says that the distinct odor that was seeping into the upstairs because of its sheer strength is now a thing of the past. I guess when I get home from work I'll be able to deduce whether or not the smell that I can only describe as the inside knee of a sumo wrestler is gone. Oh my, I hope it's gone!

We continue our search for a karate instructor for Rylee and a swim class for Kristen. We actually had Rylee in lessons with one individual, but it differed so much from Canada's Best Karate that we just had to find out what other places were like around here. I wish CBK was in Calgary because they'd be worth driving across town for. All you Victoria residents petition them to do so and quickly.

Other than that, we're pretty well unpacked, the kids are liking the neighborhood and the latest round of disasters seems to be over. We're even getting a new fridge, the old one being a host for some sort of smell that was battling it out with the downstairs odor for supremacy.

I'm sure something will come along worth writing about soon. Very, very soon. Foreboding, isn't it?

When it rains, it pours...

2006-07-18T08:48:00.000-06:00

...into my basement.

Yes! Wonder of wonders, I am now trying my hand at mushroom cultivation in one of our spare rooms. I'll elaborate a little later as I have a meeting to attend to (no, not AA). But what ever is going on downstairs, I want it cleared up before any visitors come over. The smell is terrible!

Gotta go, bye.

I promised photos and here they are!

2006-07-13T22:43:00.000-06:00

First the parade. And I have to tell you that I'm not going to be publishing them all because, as I said before, I have like 2000 pictures of horses alone. Big horses, small horses, fat horses, thin horses, clown horses, recovering alcoholic horses, executive horses and even some horses with odd accents that I just couldn't place. Even the Calgary Flames were riding horses...the three that decided to grace us with their presence did, anyway.

So, the parade. As you can see on the faces of my pretty offspring, they were extatic to the point of hysterics to be sitting on the pavement an hour and a half before the parade started:

But it wasn't long before some pre-parade entertainment showed up:

See those pictures of the Snowbirds? That's right! I took them! Yes, I am awesome!

And then the parade started, and as spectacular as it was, I couldn't get past the fact that I was risking hemorrhoids for its sake. Here are some random pics with a special request from Kristen to post the mini ponies. They are a sight to see, but it almost seems cruel to harness them up. They should, mmph, be running, *snicker*, wild and free in some largely erected hamster cage somewhere...BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Yup! Kristen's going to give me crap for that.

The following day, Saturday to be exact, we went to Spruce Meadows for the National horse jumping competition. This was my family's second C-train ride in two days. It was a nice change for me because, as I said in previous entries, it gets so crowded that most people become more than friends, if you know what I mean. A Saturday morning ride, however, is kind of pleasant:

Here are another four pics from that event:

They didn't allow a rider on the Jack Russell for some reason. Actually, that one is part of the Prairie Dog show.

Finally, here's a couple from the stupid Stampede where my stupid batteries died stupidly. A bit of that was my fault seeing as they don't charge without some sort of plug in apparatus, which we have. I was just supposed to use it, that's all. Bitter? Nah! Like I said: 2000 horse pictures. There's only so much horse meat a guy can eat:

Yup! That's all I got of the Stampede that's worth showing. The one of the dud flying in the air was part of the Bell RodeoX which was just about as super cool as you can expect to be where guys put their bodies at risk for our entertainment. Reminds me of WWE wrestling in that respect but without the cheesy feuding.

So there you go! Just click on the pics to make 'em grow; kind of like those foam doohickeys you put in water or the reverse of Shrink-A-Dinks (teh heh). Now I gotta go to bed. I'm sleepy! Night night...

Calaway, Spruce Meadows, the Stampede and a bunch of Pirates

2006-07-13T07:47:00.000-06:00

Oh! And I guess a bit of Superman, too. Although I don’t count that last one because it wasn’t really involved in this blink-of-an-eye weekend. I think we went to see Superman Returns on Thursday; a treat I thought all of us would enjoy, to tell the truth. What actually happened was that a scene in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, and I’m going to try to do this with out giving too much away for all you people who still want to see it, a scene involving one of two dogs, both Pomeranians, used for dark comedic affect caused Kristen to completely make up her mind that she hated this movie. She managed to stay for the whole thing, but she stated as the credits started rolling that she hated Superman Returns and never wanted to see it again.

When the credits started rolling, I was a little confused as to how I felt. First off, the movie had a constant barrage of pre-teen interruptions going against it. There was Kristen’s “moment” during the film, and then there was Rylee’s necessary trip to the bathroom. This wouldn’t have been too bad, but the bathrooms are located at only one side of our 12 theatre multiplex, and, of course, we were at the opposite side of this location. Thankfully, Rylee didn’t want to miss too much either, so she sprinted there and back.

Secondly, the movie was just too darn dramatic. Brendan Routh did a perfect job of channeling Christopher Reeves’ Clark Kent, but apart from that everything was taken soooooo seriously. This is a comic book movie, for crying out loud! Get with the COMIC aspect. Now, I’m not saying that the movie was bad as it was definitely above the level of being “meh.” I just thought that for 260 million dollars Bryan Singer would have made a movie that made me love the characters like he did when he mad the first two X-Men movies.

Anyway, it’s not like this is a movie review column. On with the weekend…

We literally did everything the title suggests we did, and the weekend went by with a flash. First I took Friday morning off to take Michelle and the girls to the Stampede Day parade. Man, it was long! This city sure makes a big deal about this 10 day event, that’s for darn sure. I now know that I definitely need to bring one of those umbrella chairs with me next time I go to an event like this as sitting on the pavement causes certain things to just seize right up. At one point I said to Michelle that I wanted to go as soon as the Calgary Flames went past, and she readily agreed since the pavement was affecting her in the same way. I actually almost missed them because the entire Flames section consisted of three players. I believe Robyn Regehr was one of them, but since it’s Thursday and I’m writing about last Friday, I could be a little hazy on the subject. I do know that the two players had the same last name, and seeing as I doubt that they were married, they were probably brothers. I just looked at the Flames’ roster, however, and they don’t appear to be on it (Hmmm).

After work on Friday, Rylee and I decided to make me a little nauseous by going on every spinney ride that Calaway had to offer. We discovered that Rylee does not like the log flume ride. No! Not one bit.

The following morning we awoke bright and early to head South of the city. Not very far outside the city limits since Calgary is almost the size of Alberta now. I don’t know if I’ve made this very clear, but Kristen is an avid horse nut. She will name the breeds of horses from half a kilometer away and claims that our backyard is big enough to sustain one of these creatures. She’s the same way about dogs, too. We were at Thetis Lake once, and I saw this dog retrieving a ball from the water for its master. I exclaimed to Kristen that it was a beautiful German Shepard, to which she replied that she didn’t think it was a pure Shepard but a Shepard-Husky cross. She even went up to the owner to confirm this. What a wonderful power she has! I wondered if she could tell what different nationalities I was made up off, but I believe her powers are only limited to animals. Where was I? Oh, yes! Saturday morning we went to Spruce Meadows to watch the horse jumping nationals. Horses and riders from all over the world came to this event, and it was spectacular. The weird thing was that it was free; we received tickets in our gas bill. Andrew said that you can find deals all over the place for good entertainment here, but I wasn’t expecting Enmax to mail me event tickets. Whatever! The event was wonderful. We saw two horse jumping events, a military salute (whatever they call shooting their guns off in the air…I forgot. I’m sure they were blanks, anyway, as anyone some miles away might find themselves in an oddly fatal hail storm), a mounty synchronized ride and the Prairie Dog show. The Prairie Dog show consisted of dogs racing through obstacle courses against each other. Very amusing!

Sunday was an early day, as well, because we had to get to the Stampede gates before 9am for family day entrance and pancake breakfast. I have four words for you: wall to wall people! I felt like I needed a machete to get through the crowds, but somehow felt that ending the weekend in a manslaughter arrest would be a bad turn of events. We managed to avoid the expensive pitfalls that are the Stampede Midway and attended many of the shows. We saw bull riding, the Iams Super Dogs show (like Prairie Dogs but huger), six horse hitch competition and watched some Border Collies round up sheep. Rylee and I did go on one ride that wasn’t so much a ride but a very long slide. I marveled at the fact that one had to be 36 inches tall, which Rylee is beyond, to go on the slide with out an adult, but the indicator was set at well over four feet. Carnies! To sum up, I spent ten bucks for Rylee and I to ride down this slide in ten seconds. Well worth it don’t you think? The whole experience was great, and, most importantly, my ladies had a fantastic time.

Sunday evening we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but you don’t want to hear about that do you? Actually, since it’s Thursday morning, and I’m at work, I should probably do some actual work, so I’ll let you know about that movie later. I did take a massive amount of pictures the whole weekend, but they’re on the memory card at home. If I get the time I’ll upload some this evening. No, I wasn’t allowed to take the camera into the movie, so stop wondering about that. I do have about 2000 photographs of horses for some reason, though.

Holy Smackers!!!

2006-07-06T17:51:00.000-06:00

The clouds opened up, and the floods were released. One minute I'm outside trying to take still shots of lightening:

Yup, that's right outside my front door. Anyway, the next minute the skies just burst:

The hails was the size of peas, and all I could think was, my poor car! You can see that the water got pretty deep pretty fast around the small gutter at the end of the driveway.

Just another part of the Alberta adventure.

I’ve got to write things down as they occur…

2006-07-04T20:48:00.000-06:00

…or I end up missing or confusing some of the finer details that otherwise should be included, so I know that what I wrote actually occurred and was not just some figment of my already overactive and somewhat fatigue induced imagination. Whoa! Is it me or were there a lot of multi-syllable words in that first sentence.

I had to laugh at myself a bit when I read an email from my mom this morning. She said that I always have a good story to tell, but I’m very aware of my verbal capabilities, and so what makes me laugh is that the only stories that I tell that are probably bearable are the ones that I write down. I’ve seen the way faces have glossed over when I speak and know that I’ll never have the delivery of a stand-up comedian unless certain moods hit, my audience is inebriated or a certain mood hits while I’m inebriated. It doesn’t, however, extinguish the passion I have for telling stories. My children are a somewhat attentive audience, at least.

I’ve got a phone now, I may have mentioned. Has that been an ordeal? Uh-huh! Do you get to read about it? Oh, yeah! Am I mad at Shaw? Not really, no. Where U-Haul failed in their customer service and personable departments, Shaw has more than excelled.

Last Tuesday I was supposed have a phone, but when they came to hook it up my downstairs roomy (who’s gone, gone, GONE!) wasn’t there, and apparently the cable installer needed to get into the basement. Of course, when my roomy’s gone the doors are locked. So the cable guy did as much as he could with out getting into the basement which included setting up internet and basic cable. I’d rather have no cable, but I was afraid that the withdrawal symptoms that Michelle would most likely go through would actually kill us both. I’m pretty sure my death would be the more painful of the two. Hey! I like my TV, but I’m pretty sure if Michelle could hook up some sort of IV that fed cable straight into her veins she would get the body stone of a heroine addict.

Once again, I have to state that I’m kidding, or I will probably for go any of the pleasures associated with marriage. All you married guys stop laughing or the previous statement means absolutely nothing.

Back to cable! Shaw actually rescheduled a service call for the following Saturday, and that tells you something about a company that employs people who aren’t barking mad to get out of working on Canada Day of all days. Joe, the representative who came to the house, was a nice young guy who immediately started rearranging the furniture to improve the Feng Shui and started chanting whenever my dog came into the room…Wait! That wasn’t real I think. Probably just a heat induced hallucination. What he really did was try to fish a wire into the existing outside hole through the house and down into the junction box to hook up the phone. He tried, really, he tried. He was there, sweating in the hot sun for two hours with no success. Finally, in the end I had a temporary cable leading from my neighbor’s lawn around my yard into a basement window, Joe had unhooked the existing phone lines and installed the digital phone modem leaving me with no existing phone line other than my cell phone that is still rooted in Victoria. Every call on it right now is a long distance call. That’ll change soon!

Joe had to leave, but he said that the phone may be up in the afternoon, and this wasn’t that great of news because I had promised Rylee that we’d go to Calaway Park again. Suffice to say, I waited and waited and waited until the prospects of going to Calaway Park because less and less likely. I decided to phone them from a pay phone on the way back from Walmart with Kristen, and lo and behold they said they’d call me back in 10 minutes to see if they could rectify the problem. Once again, they said that it would probably be up in an hour or so, and the guy on the other end said he’d call me back after his lunch break to make sure. I was to keep trying the phone intermittently for the next hour, and I was left pondering how a guy could be going for a lunch break when it was already passed 6pm.

This was the only annoying part: he didn’t call me back. Well, I guess I should say the only annoying thing over and above the other annoying things like having no phone. However, when I tried to phone them back the automated voice designed to stress out already stressed out people informed me that there would be a 35 minute wait for the next customer service representative. So they were busy, I guess.

I’m a little hazy on the details because of the passage of time, but I believe the rest goes something like this:

Guy phones me and asks if my phones working
I say no
Guy asks me to go downstairs to where the phone modem is located
I do as he asks
Guy asks me if there is a phone cable jacked into the modem
I say no
Guy informs me that modem is not tied into the house’s phone system
I say eh?

That’s weird that Joe would set everything up without setting everything up, but as a resolution my cordless phone base is plugged into the modem in the basement while we carry the phone throughout the house. The inconvenient part is charging it, but that’ll be resolved, hopefully, tomorrow when they come to bury the temp cable and drill a new hole in the wall.

Speaking of which, I needed to get my landlord’s permission to allow them to drill into the house. Problem is that my landlord lives in the states and won’t be able to fax anything until after Independence Day. I hear it’s a big deal in the States; probably wouldn’t make their Shaw employees work on July the 4th, eh? Anyway, my landlord’s faxing permission the same day that the service call was scheduled for, so I phoned Shaw to reschedule. They said that they’re coming on Wednesday anyway because I said that my landlord was giving me permission. Now, I’m no lawyer or anything, but that’s not exactly my definition of proof. Whatever!

Got my camera and didn’t forget it during our second trip to Calaway (Rylee and I went a third time yesterday) Here are some choice pics and maybe a little video for you guys:

Isn't she beautiful, folks. No, that wasn't a question; it was a statement. She doesn't go for rides like the Scrambler behind her. Her mom and sister are on there at that moment though.

This is the type of ride Kristen likes; it's pretty tame, but when her daddy starts spinning it her and her mom and sister get stuck to the wall. If they were previously soaked they would have dried off. Kristen enjoyed going around fast, though, so I'm slowly trying to get her brave enough to try some of the scarier, um, I mean more mature rides.

Note that in the first picture Rylee has a hat. Notice anything missing in the second picture?

Just before it starts. This ride is like the tea cup dealie you see at Disneyland, but the twist is that occasionally and without warning it tilts up on a pneumatic arm. Wheeee! You actually see it in the second pic, and it may not look like it but we're actually spinning around at a billion miles an hour. Yup! My camera's that good.

You are actually guaranteed to get wet on this ride (Bumper Boats). The second pic is the after shot.

Here Michelle and Rylee are just finishing their ride on the Scrambler.

That's enough! It's was torture trying to put these pics up on Blogger. I thought this thing was user friendly, but every time I tried to upload a photo it would say it's done but there'd be no photo. I end up just uploading them at Flickr and copying over the links one by one. There's got to be an easier way. Until I figure it out, I'm done! Ciao!

So what’s the deal?

2006-07-01T19:57:00.000-06:00

The family’s finally here so now I have no time to blog? Well that just can’t happen, right? Right!

Yesterday was Rylee’s official 8th birthday, and we celebrated firstly by taking advantage of those seasons passes I bought to Calaway Park. And like the jerk that I am, I forgot my @#$&ing camera. Why do I even have that thing? Anyway, we learned an important lesson today: Rylee likes rides that spin and make it seem like you’re going to smash into the ground but doesn’t like rides that have big drops and make it seem like you’re going to crash into the ground. This means rides like the Scrambler and the Adrenaline Test Zone are a go, but the Vortex roller coaster and the Shoot the Chutes log flume ride are not. Makes me a little sad because I was hoping she’d want to ride the coaster with me, but I’m not going to make her go on rides she doesn’t want to. Kristen got into some of the rides, too, but she will not go on anything scarier than the Carousel. But she had a blast at Calaway and was very happy to learn of the season’s passes.

To finish off the day (we spent almost 6 hours at Calaway Park) we took in some dinner at Montanas where they put the lodge hat on Rylee (again no camera…STUPID! STUPID!) and sang her some sort of song you had to be a lodge member to understand. I didn’t even know Montanas was part of the freemasons. Then we took in a viewing of Cars only because Over the Hedge stopped playing during non-matinee times. It was cute, but definitely not one up on the Incredibles. I’m not saying it was bad, it’s just that Pixar had up to this point made a movie that dwarfed the previous, and I guess it was about time that stopped. Still, it had its moments, but when I asked 10 year old Kristen how she liked it, she just shrugged and mumbled something that resembled, “It was okay!”

Ahh, returning the U-Haul. I swear the next move will be done U-Haul-free. First off, when I picked up the unit, the girl behind me had absolutely no interest in helping me, and decided to let her I’m-stuck-here-going-no-where attitude shine full-force upon my little pre-booked transaction, but she tried to stick me with a gas bill that wasn’t rightfully mine in the first place. They marked down that the truck was 5/8ths full, but when I got in to the truck, it was clearly less than half a tank. One of the guys working there claimed that it must be due to young punks siphoning during the wee hours of the night. I was later told by my dad that most modern day vehicles have baffles to prevent siphoning, and since the truck I was driving had just a little over 24,000 miles on it I figured it could be considered a modern day vehicle.

Trying to return it was even more of a hassle. First I look in the phone book for locations near my very North-West Calgarian home and proceed to call them. There are like four. I phone one which promptly goes to a message stating that Bowness U-Haul will be closed June 23rd. It was June 26th, but, oh well, I had three others to choose from. I phone two more in the NW which lead me to the same message, and I’m thinking, why in the heck does one place have three listings under one U-Haul heading in the phone book? Oh, and why are they not answering, too? So I decide to phone the 1-800 number under the same heading but get some very-American guy with a Southern drawl who says I need to look at my contract to see my list of return locations. He said it like I was a moron for phoning this number, and who knows, maybe I was. So I get my contract from the truck, and I notice there are only two locations to return to, one in the NW close to downtown and one in the SE nowhere near where I live. But there is a main office number, and I decide to phone that first.

Some girl picks up and I immediately ask about the non-answering Bowness U-Haul to which she says they must be to full for pickups. I figure they must be to full to get to the phone to tell me this themselves, too. She gives me two locations to return to, one in the very NE and one on the way out of Calgary towards Airdrie. What!?! That’s nowhere near me, I say, but this does nothing to make the girl on the other side of the phone want to hang up any less. I say, what about Kensington, the location in the NW nearest me. She says they’re too full, but there’s Bearspaw which is out of Calgary on the NW. It’s closer to me than any others, so I ask her for the address. I’m not even exaggerating when I say she let out a sigh of contempt and said, dripping with venom, “Give me a moment!” Isn’t this her job? Whoa, I might have gone too far with that last request, but she actually gives me the address for Bearspaw U-Haul.

After I hang up I figure if I had the phone number to U-Haul in Bearspaw that I could phone them and ask for directions seeing as I had no map and only know Bearspaw as some sort of paw on a bear. So, grudgingly, I phone the girl back at the main office. We go through the same ordeal as we went through when I first called seconds before, I try to interrupt, but she is determined to do her job by the book because she probably figures it’ll get her off the phone quicker so she can chew her gum more loudly, not that being on the phone with me stopped her chewing any less. It went a little something like this:

GUM CHEWING U-HAUL GIRL (Or GACUHG)
For what city please?

VEIN ABOUT TO EXPLODE IN FOREHEAD GUY (Or ME)
I just talked to you a few sec…

Gacuhg
For what city?

Me
Calgary! I…

Gacuhg
What part?

Me
(Exasperated)The North West…Silver Springs.

Gacuhg
You can return it to Kensington

Me
(Flabbergasted pause)But, but you just told me they were full.

Gacuhg
If you head down there someone will be happy to receive your truck. Good day, sir.
(CLICK)

Me
...

Following the dot, dot, dot was a tirade of swearing and yelling that caused my wife and children to back into a corner, inflicting on them, most likely, permanent psychological damage. Not really, but the restrained yelling and swearing that didn’t occur caused a large lump to swell up on my neck alla Homer Simpson, so I just pressed it back in and choked back the bitter bile that was my revenge monologue. Oh, and I may have exaggerated Gacuhg’s last line in her dialogue. I mean, I’m pretty sure she didn’t actually call me sir.

Needless to say, I returned the truck even with an eighth more of a tank than they gave it to me. Next, hopefully I’ll have pictures of our second venture to Calaway Park, and I’ll have a story about Shaw Digital Phone. Cheers!

We made it...

2006-06-27T12:50:00.000-06:00

...and it was all relatively uneventful, if I do say so myself. Actually, returning the U-Haul truck was more like the maze I posted before than the trip was. I'll tell you all about it when I get a moment. Right now I'm at work with actual work to work on, so bloggin is really taking away from my, um, work. But the good news is that we're getting cable today which will include our television, internet and digital phone...yup, we're giving it a try. Then I'll be sending a mass email to let everyone, including all those people who didn't know I've been keeping this thing for six months, know that we're all alive and back on the map at the same pinpoint.

Oops! Michelle just phoned me to let me know that they're having trouble getting into the basement (my roomy's out, and his door is locked), and apparently the cable guy needs to get in there to get things set up. So I might have been a little premature on that cable-being-set-up thing. I guess you'll know a little after I do. Ciao.

Tick Tock Tick To…

2006-06-22T14:12:00.000-06:00

It is literally just a few hours until all this separation garbage is over with. My plane is leaving at 9:15pm, and if all goes well, I’ll be on it. I tell you, ever since the beginning of January this whole moving ordeal has been an ongoing series of madcap adventures be it welcome or not. Will they stop once my lovely ladies are in Calgary? The only answer I have to that ridiculous question is “HAH!” I just know myself too well to think things will ever go normally; I’m bound to make a stupid decision or get caught in some preposterous act that will result in me filling out a couple of paragraphs for your entertainment, right? Right!

The plan is as follows:

Fly to Victoria
Pick up truck Friday morning
Pack truck all Friday
Catch first ferry to mainland Saturday
Arrive in Creston Saturday night
Leave for Calgary Sunday morning
Unload truck Sunday and Monday
Escape while Michelle unpacks everything while openly loathing me for not being there to help

Now I want to say that things are going to go that smoothly, but in reality the plan probably looks like this:

Yup! We’ll get to Calgary by Thanksgiving. Just in time to get fired.

I guess I kind of forgot to tell you that I finished The Last Juror which may tell you a little about how much I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the first quarter of the book, but it became a little tedious after that. In fact, the plot that started the whole book just went on hiatus until, I swear, the last 30 or 40 pages. I didn’t get that at all, but then again I didn’t write it. It was a tad enjoyable, and I do recommend it if you don’t have anything better to read.

Right now I’m reading a book called How to Write: A Screenplay, and since I don’t have any time to link up to its page, I’ll just tell you that it’s interesting because it’s an instructional book on writing a screenplay while in the format of a screenplay. Eh! Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, I gotta run! Have a meeting, y’know. I am at work after all. I’ll either catch you all up while I’m in Creston or when we get our internet hooked up on Tuesday. Ciao!

Matt's gone!!!

2006-06-20T17:28:00.000-06:00

But he lives on in our hearts. And, um, in Houston too. Uh, yeah. We watched the game last night in a pub called the Toad 'n' Turtle Pubhouse and Grill. Directly above where we were sitting was an enormous brass sculpture of a turtle, or tortoise (whatever), adhered to the wall but looking precariously like it wanted to crush one of the waitresses under its enormous mass. Once again, if I had a camera, you'd have a picture. I know how all of you like pictures with your reading material, right?

So the Oilers lost, and I can honestly say with the way that Carolina was playing last night, they deserved it. It was heart breaking for those players, but they certainly played their hearts out...in the third period. Wow! It's going to be kind of hard getting through the rest of June with out hockey (yes, it's sarcasm). Good game, though, good game.

Afterwards, Matt and I drove around so he could enjoy a bit of Calgary before heading back to the hotel for a snooze. He was also determined to find some sort of fictional beer that he made up. I did, however, do a quick search for it on the internet and found Tree Hophead out of Kelowna, BC. It's an India pale ale out of BC, Canada. I don't get it, but I'll try to find some for you, Matt.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but Matt's gone. And now Roger's gone, too. Not out of Calgary, but he got himself a house and is moving in today. Good for him! It's a house that I looked at for him while he was in Victoria getting ready to turn fifty, and I highly approved of it to the point of wanting to trade. Seriously! Now it's just me and my roomy until he moves, and I'm told that that may be very soon, too.

On the way home there was a woman waiting for the c-train wearing one of those ear pieces for her cell phone. She was a good head and a half shorter than I am, and she spoke a language that I couldn't recognize into the mic. What was interesting about her was that she was very expressive and gestured constantly as if who she was talking to needed the motion enhancement to totally appreciate the depths of the speakers meaning. She continued to talk while we crammed onto the crowded train, and was forced up against an elderly woman sitting on the train. Funnily, the little lady continued to speak into her mic over the sitting woman's head...

Turns out the woman I call "sitting woman" was also "cranky woman" and told "cell phone woman" that she was being very annoying. "Cell phone woman" continued to talk but in hushed tones. Hmmm.

Anyway, it's time to go and count the minutes till Thursday night.

So…very…tired…

2006-06-19T16:14:00.000-06:00

The plane got in at midnight last night, and along with the ride back to the house and getting ready for bed and such, I think I finally closed my eyes at around 1:30am. Then, to my joy, I had to get up at 5:30am to get to the LRT and yadda, yadda, yadda…Oh well, eh? At least I got a wonderful weekend with my family and friends. Not a huge get together or anything, although Roger’s birthday party was a great success with all the fifties paraphernalia and all that.

Saturday evening was Roger’s surprise birthday party that he knew about all along, and the theme was 50’s style clothing and music. I had some sort of pretense about going as a 1950’s Archie Andrews with the plaid vest and bowtie, but due to the lack of plaid vest and a bowtie, I went as a greaser. Now, those of you who’ve seen me lately might think that I have a lack of hair to grease, and you’d be correct. So the overall costume kind of made me look like a skin-head. I was leant a really worn leather jacket complete with buckles Michael Jackson would be proud of and a smell that made me think Fonzy wore it when he jumped the shark. Seeing as I already owned a pair of jeans, the only thing that was missing was a white shirt.

I used to own a ton of white shirts, but having gone through a phase recently where I thought white shirts were strictly uncool, I had donated my vast collection of white shirts to the United Way or Salvation Army or some charitable donation that doesn’t mind worn white shirts. They weren’t plain white shirts, anyway. They usually had some sort of mascot on there, be it Larry the Cucumber or Mr. Bean. Needless to say, the only white shirt I could find (actually, Michelle found it) was Kristen’s Sea Biscuit night shirt. I wore it backwards and only took off the leather jacket when I succumbed to the heat. Yes, it was hot! I

don’t know why people used to wear these leather jackets. Obviously they were in trades that didn’t require them to bend their elbows. I have a leather jacket that is soft and supple and bends and flexes. I get the impression that anyone wearing one of those leather jackets of yesteryear only leaned against walls and looked cool. That was their job! Perhaps that’s why they traveled in large groups. The others would take turns surrounding an individual who needed a break from wearing that constrictive jacket, so they would shield the individual while he stripped of the jacket and fanned his arm pits.

May (is that how you spell her name?) and Roger had a blast, though. They dug the music right from the start and danced many cheek to cheek dances (their facial cheeks, you dirty minded reader!). Roger definitely had a happy birthday. And I enjoyed it too because I didn’t have to dance. Given the restrictive quality of the jacket, there wouldn’t have been a lot of arm waving anyway.

On to Rylee’s birthday. Once again she and her multitude of friends and family had a blast at the expense of Sempai Raj. He’s just awesome with the kids, and seeing as this was Rylee’s last birthday there, he really put in the extra energy to make it that much more fun. Rylee, of course, made out like a bandit again. I will definitely post some pictures when I get the camera here.

In the morning, Rylee opened up her presents and discovered that Michelle had bought her the one Loreal hair dye she’s been after from the start and that her dad (me) has been opposed to from, well, the start as well. I believe it’s called Electric Black. Michelle applied it to her hair, and oddly enough unlike the other colors that stuck to her hair like crazy, this one wasn’t that strong. It turned her hair kind of a grayish purple which doesn’t look like it will stick for very long. She loved it though.

Tonight I get to hang out with Matt again, so I hope I can get some sort of a second wind so I can be excited when the Oilers win the Stanley Cup tonight. I have to take advantage of what little time we have to spend together…in a manly way, of course. Man! All you guys have creepy thoughts!