This may be sudden... and wierd...

but I'm gonna withdraw for a few days. I'm not exactly sure why, I just want to be alone in my thoughts and focus on Marie and the kids. I don't know how long I'm gonna feel like this but I'm tired of interacting with people. I feel drained emotionally.

Bye.

g.

Static electricity

So I have these dress pants that I wear to work... several pairs in different colours. I like the way they look and fit but there is one problem. Static electricity. I've tried to use fabric softener, dryer sheets, hang dry the pants, anti-static spray... nothing works.

So here's where it get funny.

I was telling a friend at work about my static problem as we went down in the elevator. He was polite and listened to me describe the problem. I wasn't embarrased by other people in the elevator hearing about my static problem... perhaps one of them could even offer a solution. Then it took a turn... my friend waited just a moment after I had finished my "story" and said (in that certain indignant tone):

I supposed you're gonna try and blame it on the lightning rod in your pants or something

um, yeah.

gneiss schist?

You can always count on Kerry Litka for some good stories but in this case, it's more the potential good story about how her students will use the names of two prominent metamorphic rocks in New Hampshire: schist (shist) and gneiss (nice). I think I find it so amusing 'cause it's the juvenile humour that I can identify with... that and it always takes me back to my highschool days and the circle of friends I hung out with.

Kerry can also offer good advise and in her last post she offered some that I think Jim will find very useful for his marathon... Jim be sure to take note of her learnings so you don't make the same mistake buddy. To save you a click over there I'll put a quote here for ya bud:

...take my advice: do not ever attempt to carry an iPod in your sports bra on a 13 mile run...

so Jim, for the sake of your sternum, keep the MP3 player out of your bra!

Reading GeWilli's post, he wrote a lot of stuff in his last post but it's funny how things stick out in yer mind... he talked about eating lamb and he said:

"...I'm not going to make excuses for eating the baby sheep..."

and it got me thinkin'... I'm frustrated with people tellin' us that we can't offend other people with our opinions and tellin' us all the things they think we're doin' wrong! I mean, hey, you can have your opinion and do what you think is right but don't impose your point of view on me. Tell me about it but don't condemn me for differing from you. Now, I'm not talkin' about, ya know, being a sick-o murderer or racist bigot, I'm talkin' about things like the fact that I like a certain diet that includes meat and some people will tell me that I'm wrong for eatin' that way. I grew up in the middle on Ontario farm country and I know what 99.999% of the farms are run like... they care for the animals properly and they respect the land. I worked on these farms and know first hand the conditions... I'm not some city dweller who assumes that all farmers abuse their animals by puttin' the calves feet in cement to keep the meat tender... farck off, that's PETA bullsh!t propaganda. Yes, there is some really bad stuff happening out there but it's not the norm people. (hee hee, I'm tryin' to make a serious point and now all I can picture is Norm from Cheers makin' his entrance... geez, maybe I have A.D.D.) Anyway, my point? stop forcin' your ways on everyone else... make a good argument but in the end, respect other's right to make a choice for themselves.

Wow, that was another one of those moments where I kinda just went off on a thought there.

Hmmm, what else did I have to say... can't remember. Oh well, I'll post again if I feel compelled to share it.

Have a great day everyone!

g.

Going to Florida is looking less and less likely...

so I figure I'd better accept that fact and if we do manage to pull something off, it'll be that much more of a surprise. Oh well... no sense in getting worked up about something I have no control over (people being sick, etc).

Speaking of being sick, I was working Saturday and as the day went on, I started to feel worse. By the time I was wrapping it up at 3:00 I wasn't sure I'd be fit to make the drive home from where I was. At least it was a little closer than my office. I did make it home but then I told Marie that I had to go lie down and that was the last she saw of me until later that night after the kids were in bed. I got up, had some water and then went right back up to bed. The next day was a lot of the same... get up for water then right back to bed. There were a couple of exceptions and I did manage to catch a little of the Daytona 500. I got the last three laps so I got to see that amazing sprint to the end by Mark Martin and Kevin Harvick. Great ending, I just would've like to see Mark Martin win after so many attempts in his long distinguished career driving NASCAR. Anyway, back to me (LOL!), I'm still not 100% but due to some of the issues that came up on the weekend, I had to be in yesterday and then today I have a session that I have to attend so again, no staying home trying to kick the last lingering bit of crappy sickness... oh well, the people around me can thank me later for bringing the virus to them. I've never understood the pressure that employers put on people to show up when they're sick... it only ends up costing them more in productivity (the sick people not working at 100% and them making other sick and then not working 100% either). Stoopid eh?

I also think that we should re-visit the work week and shorten it to 4 days... it would help create jobs and reduce the stress, increase the happiness of staff, and be really awesome for me! I'll sign up for being off Saturday, Sunday and Monday thanks.

Speaking of work... yes, I'm doing this at work again but what else am I supposed to do? Alison didn't sign in to chat and Jim's on his day off so I had to do something to distract myself from the crap that's on my desk! LOL!

Have a great day everyone!

g.

P.S. go over and have a read of Jill's recount of her Sustina 100... it's a good read.

So I was uploading pictures from my camera this morning...

and I discovered some interesting photos the kids have taken. Ya see, I like to let the boys (the two older ones) use the camera... see what they come up with and let them be creative. Well, it turns out that it can also be a great source for photographic evidence of what they get up to when their parents aren't around... take a look at what they were apparently doing the other day.










I laughed outloud when I saw it! Awesome stuff... boys being boys!

What a nice drive in...

we got our first real snowfall here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and I have to say, it was kind of a nice drive in. It was very tough but I left extra early because of the weather and it was a fairly traffic-free drive in. Don't get me wrong, there were some really stooopid people out there... like the woman walking on the road because the snow was too deep on the sidewalk (I guess she'd rather challenge a 3000+ pound car or even better - a city bus), or the snowclearing service at that apartment building that decided it was best to blow the snow off the driveway and sidewalk onto the road create a really fun 2 foot deep ramp for us to try and launch our cars off, or the guy who was sittin in the curb lane after pulling his car forward out of the curb parking spot and sitting with his door open into the second lane while he... well I'm not sure what he was doing but obviously he thought we should all swerve around him and his car while he performed whatever important task he was doing... oh, I could go on but you get the picture.

I'm not sure why I feel good about the drive in... perhaps because I triumphed over the elements and made it into the office (first one on my floor here at the office) or maybe because of the whole "black Monday" event... I'm curious to see who else on my team makes it in. :)


Speaking of the office... no, I haven't been priviledged to see my window buddy doing yoga again... I hadmy camera here so I took a delayed exposure shot of Jarvis Street out my office window. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Well, I've got a work project that I'm running on Saturday and I have a lot of little things that I need to get taken care of so that it goes off without a hitch so I'm gonna leave off here and hope that everyone has a great day. By the way, no comment from me about yesterday's post... I was having a moment, or should I say a bunch of moments that weren't so pleasant...


g.

Aaaaarrrrrggggg!

that is all.

Is this Karma coming to bite me in the...

as$? I got a call from Marie yesterday afternoon saying that her mom had been taken to hospital with congestive heart failure. Yep, you heard it right, congestive heart failure. WTF?! Eeeeh. I can't believe it... they took her into the I.C. unit last night when Marie and her brother went to visit her so that took it up a notch last night. Yesterday turned from an pretty good day into a real stressful, crappy one.

Let me give some background details about work... my boss is someone who is also a friend and we worked together at a different company than we're at now. He called me when he needed someone with my skillset and I both appreciated the call and answered it since I was also looking for a change. Now, we know each other very well and so I know when there are "issues" before he says anything and we've always had a relationship where everything was black and white. No hidden meanings, no covertly made statements. It's an arrangement that I find works *very* well. Okay, so where it turned no-nice yesterday... In January there are 5 Mondays - the first was a stat holiday, the second I called in sick, the next I took as a vacation day, then a personal obligation day to take Marie to a specialist appointment (we get 3 PODs a year) and the last was another vacation day. Okay, nothing wrong with this in so far as they were all approved by my management. Well, my boss come by my desk and mentioned that I hadn't worked a Monday in January. I went over the days and he said, "it's not an issue, I'm just makin' an observation and I thought that if you continue doing this, you're gonna run out of vacation by the end of March. Ha! Ha! Ha!" I asked him if it's an issue or if there was an "optics" issue with somebody saying something (my boss' boss or people who work around). He said no, it was just an observation and there was no issue. At this point, based on our relationship and history, I assumed it wasn't an issue and didn't take any measures to change my actions. Well... this past Monday traffic was crazy with snow covered roads and it was shaping up to be a 3 hour drive into work so I made a decision... turn around and work from home. For a brief second I thought about his comment (since it was another Monday) but dismissed it because he was very clear that the Monday thing was *not* an issue. I sent an e-mail from my blackberry to tell my team where I was, went home and worked the entire day. This was good for me in that I wouldn't have to stay at work until 7:00pm to make up for the slow drive in and I didn't have to face the potential of a slow drive home where I would walk in the door at 8:30pm and not see the kids.

As it turns out, when I told him about Marie's mom and said that I may be in a little late he threw the Monday thing in my face. I was kinda broadsided with that. He said that if he was me, he would have come in not matter how long the drive was since we'd had a conversation about it the week before. I wish I hadn't been in shock that he was saying this because I should have pointed out that I confirmed with him twice that it was *not* an issue and he even tried to make light of the "observation" that he made. I don't get it. Well, I do get it, things have changed and this is how I found out about it. Oh well, no real damage done except that Marie is booked in for her MRI on Monday and I had booked a second POD to take her. So I got on the phone to my parents last night to see if my dad could go out and get Marie and the kids and bring them down the the appointment. I figured that I would work through my breaks and add them to my lunch so I have enough time to go over and take care of the kids while Marie is having her MRI. He (my Dad) said he can be the chauffeur on Monday so it's looking like things are under control on the family front. I've sent an e-mail to my boss asking to cancel the POD so I think everything should be okay on the work front now. It just sucks. All of a sudden, work is absolutely no fun anymore... I hope that feelin' passes soon.

Well, given the situation here at work, I'd better sign off here.

Have a good weekend everyone!

g.

How can I complain about this?

okay, so it's not so much a complaint as it is a statement of suckiness about a situation I find myself in. We've been blessed with an opportunity to have a family vacation for the last 3 years down in Florida. The last 3 years have been with my in-laws. Now no matter how much I tell you about issues I have with my MIL, really they are well intentioned people and I have learned to cope with the difference of opinions that I have with the MIL. (by the way, in Volkswagen speak, MIL stands for message indicator light which is usually equated to problems with a system in the car... lol kinda fittin' isn't it?) Anyway... back to my issue... this year we were supposed to vacation with my parents since we hadn't done that in a number of years. My parents are now retired and they just got back from Barbados, so I assumed that they would not be vacationing again this year. As it turns out, they are interested in going south with us.

Crap.

Now I feel like I have to choose between my in-laws and my parents 'cause we'd already been talking to the in-laws about vacation plans with the assumption that my parents wouldn't be available. I should also mention that in the past my mother has poo-pooed the idea of vacationing in Florida as they like Myrtle Beach. Again, this lead me to assume that they wouldn't be interested in coming to Florida and since Marie really wants to go there and, given the year she had, she gets priority. (Well, that and the fact that I have to live with her and I kinda like sleeping in the house... lol!) As it turns out, my parents are interested in going to Florida so I say it again...

crap.

The only glimmer of hope I have to make this decision easy is that my in-laws are not sure if they are going... they are waiting to hear how my niece is doing and if her transplant is taking. They don't want to get stuck down there if something happens up here and they want to get back. It's a little different for us since we're still young enough to make it back rather quickly but for a 70 year old, the trip back would take the better part of a week. If they don't go now, they said they would go later in the year, prolly after hurricane season. Let's hope they decide to do that so our decision is made for us.

Wow, this really sounds sh1tty... most people would love to get the opportunity to vacation every year and here I am talkin' like this. I should make it clear that I'm not complaining, just "talkin' it out" to help figure out the plan of action.

I'm gonna move on to more important topics now...

I went down to Sick Kids Hospital to drop off a book of riddles as requested by my niece. I also picked up a girl's magazine that was geared at her age group (12 yrs old). It was weird, I could only call into the room and her mom had to come out to get the stuff since she's in what they call reverse isolation. Basically, the kids in that ward have no immune system (it was shut down by the chemo in preparation for the bone marrow transplant) so they can't allow the general public in. The rooms are under positive pressure so that no unfiltered air can enter the room... such that when you open the door, air always pushes out of the room. Anyway, I have to say I was quite disappointed 'cause I thought that there would be some sort of window that we could at least see her... kinda like the old concept of the baby nursery only not a window into where they sleep, just a room where they can see people on the outside. Oh well, at least she liked the book and mag that I delivered. I think I'm gonna do that again next week since she's gonna be in there for about another month.

Well, I'm gonna go for now... I hope you don't think any less of me for having written what I wrote today. :) I'm of the mindset that if I write it, as long as it's not offensive, I'm gonna leave it up 'cause this is my place to put my thoughts and I don't feel compelled to censor them.


Have a good day everyone.

g.

Take that Mother Nature...

Jim has a condition that has given me cause to worry now that we're doin' some serious interior camping (no not that nasty rash Jim, the cream the doctor gave you should clear it up...)... Jim is allergic to bee stings. We had gone over our response plan last year to ensure that we understood ahead of time how we'd react. The plan was for Jim to immediately self-administer his epinephrine while I dropped everything, grabbed the canoe and hightail it out to Brent to make a call on Jake's satellite phone for MNR to go in and rescue Jim. We hoped that he would be able to keep administering his meds until someone got there for him. We also hoped that I could manage to get out in time to give him a chance of rescue. I have to admit, the more I thought about it, the more I was concerned about how realistic this plan really was. I mean, let's say he was stung late in the afternoon - that means that I would most likely be trying to find my way in the darkness of night, struggling to find portages, possibly missing ports and ending up shootin' rapids. Let's just say that I think that there would be a serious possibility that you would read about us in some newspaper as the latest casualties in Algonquin. Not the end I want to have. I'm more inclined to want to die the way my Granddad Doyle did... went for a nap after lunch and never woke up.

Anyway, I've got a ton of work to do so I'll end my post today with a little picture for Jim:

Have a great day everyone!

g.

Neat map of Algonquin Park

Here's a neat survey map from 1893 -->


It's neat to compare the original map to a more modern one to see the changes (location of features, lake names, etc.)
Here's the newer map from 1997 in pdf format with lots of details.

I've been reading a blog by Jill from Alaska. Yes, she's another cyclist that I've found through GeWilli. You should take a look at her blog... she writes very well (she is a journalist after all) and I found her post from yesterday to be very inspiring. She also has some fantastic photos that she takes when she's out riding. I like that a lot of her pics feature her bike standing alone like this... cool.

Well, it's Friday and I have to say I'm really glad about that... it's been a crappy week at work and I really want to get the basement finished off and move onto the next "thing". There were some issues this week that caused us to have to move the drywall guy to Monday but that's it, I'm not delaying it any longer. With the latest delay taken into account, the basement should be ready for flooring by about the 14th. We're trying to decide what kind of floor we'll put down. I originally wanted carpet but the idea of a nice, high quality laminate in a cherry wood style would look really nice I think. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

Okay, I gotta get back to work so I can jet outta here at 3:00 today and beat the traffic home.

Have a great day and a fantastic weekend everyone!

g.

At the risk of airing my dirty laundry...

I wanted to vent a little about my mother-in-law.

I'll start by saying that I believe that she always as a good intention in her heart when she says and does things. I'll follow that up with an observation that I believe she falls flat on her face with her execution of her ideas.

She provides updates about my niece's progress with the bone marrow transplant and it seems that she ALWAYS paints the worst possible picture, often exaggerating and mis-representing facts so that the we get an inaccurate understanding of the situation.

Case in point:
She said that my brother-in-law(J*) didn't want anybody coming down to visit them at the hospital. My other brother-in-law(D*) decided to go down anyway and have a little visit with his brother. It turns out that J* was so happy to have someone come down and "have a cup of coffee" to give him a bit of a break and, I assume, remind him that we're here for him if he needs us. With this revelation, Marie was chattin' with J* and mentioned that I wanted to drop by and have a coffee with him since I'm workin' a few blocks away from the hospital. J*'s response was very positive and he said he would love to have the visit. Now I feel like a heel 'cause I've been so close to where they are and yet I haven't gone over to see them because M-I-L said it wasn't a good thing.

This is where M-I-L and I have very different approaches to things... she thinks that you should keep away from people in sensitive situations whereas I believe that when someone is suffering, you should demonstrate that you are there, be supportive and not be afraid to "make contact" to see if the person in need is receptive to you support. In some cases they want the space but at least they know that you're there if they need you and you've demonstrated it through actions as opposed to words, which people are always quick to offer but they remain just that - words. Don't get me wrong, it's important to be sensitive to what the person wants and not force yourself on them, just let them know in a gentle way that you are really there and ready to support them.

It makes me want to respond the way that stewardess in the NicoDerm commercial acts. Take a look:


Imagine me responding to my M-I-L the way she handles that guy "THE SEATBELT SIGN IS ON! GAWD!" except I'd be saying, "STOP BEIN' A MEDDLING OLD LADY! GAWD!"

(in sheepish tone) Did I mention that my in-laws are helping us finish off our basement? What? Can't I still feel that way about her even though she's helpin' us? '(sheepish tone off)

Speaking of the basement, we've put off the drywall guys until Monday so I can finish off the last few things (framing the doors, putting up the vapour barrier, finishing the insulation around where the plumber worked yesterday, etc) I should have no problem gettin all the little things done by the end of the weekend even though on Saturday we're going over the Cobourg to get help from the local Member of Parliament to get our passports processed quickly in the event that we go down to Florida on March break. Okay, a few details on that one.

We're waiting to see how our niece is doing before we go on any family trips, just in in case. With the whole flight thing for Marie, last year she had bought a ticket to fly to a music teachers conference but ended up having her seizure so we got an extension to her ticket that expires April 1st. We figured that rather than driving for 24 hours with the baby, she would use the ticket, the baby would fly for free and she would be only travelling for a few hours versus days. The theory is that it will be easier than the road trip although I have to say I'll miss havin' her as my co-pilot and relief driver. We always have a blast on these long road trips... they're such an adventure with the kids.

Anyway, I have a 10:00 conference call so I'd better stop here and get ready for the meeting... it has the possibility of bein' a little lively (in a work kinda way) because of the topic.

Have a great day everyone!

g.