"Keep a Journal: How else are you going to get a good look at who you were?"

Sunday, March 26, 2006

I yam zee worlllld travellair!!!

I've been having fun with Google Earth...

Oh, the places I've seen and the things I've BEEN...

...wait, that didn't come out right.

I've discovered a few little "gems" while exploring the possibilities...did you know, for instance, that there is a giant postage stamp painted on the roof of the Canada Post building in DT Vancouver? Did you know that the Google campus near Palo Alto CA has a pool with a google logo painted on the bottom? Did you know that the images collected from CFB Cold Lake, AB were taken during an airshow last summer? Did you know that some of the footage taken of DT Vancouver was taken while the Molson Indy was on (hint, look for the yellow-and-purple striped tents near BC place stadium)? Did you know that footage of DT Montreal was also taken while the Molson Indy was in town (look for the same tents near the Expo 67 site)? Did you know that you can see the "Ararat Anomaly" on Mt. Ararat in Turkey? It's supposedly a possible resting place of Noah's ark!

There are several Crop Circles in England and elsewhere throughout europe and north america that show up beautifully on Google Earth. There is even a utility file you can download and open (with Google Earth) from the Wikipedia article on crop circles that will show you most of them. The mysterious "landing strip" lines near Nazca, Peru are also visible using google earth. The mysterious Great Pyramid at Giza is still just as mysterious when viewed from the geosat images. Teotihuacan, Mexico...Machu Picchu, Peru...Santorini...The Eiffel Tower...The Millenium Dome...The Leaning Tower of Pisa.

And my house...

Footage for my neighborhood has not been updated since at least last year. The empty lots on 84th ave now all have houses on them. The 4-way intersection at 116th and 82nd is now a traffic circle. Other places: the olympic site in Torino is still under construction in the geosat images Google is using...weeks after the olympics have ended.

As I am not using Google Earth Plus...I have a few complaints about the detail level available for some areas. Or perhaps that's just the level of detail available currently. You cannot see the Confederation Bridge in PEI. You wouldn't even be able to tell where it was if you had the roadways layer turned off. Ditto for the Taj Mahal; the search tool points you to an indistinct blob of green in the middle of nowhere in northern india. Half of the Panama Canal locks are so blurred you couldn't tell WHAT they were...if the other half were not clearly visible.

But hey, it's still fun...

I will be biking to work tomorrow, as Laurie has a dental appt. at 10 am. She'll probably just have the standard check-up and cleaning. I myself need to see a Dentist soon...that hurting tooth which I thought was abcessed may actually only be impacted: it's growing...and I can feel it abrading against the upper teeth when I flex my jaw side-to-side. Cavity or no...that tooth is probably going to have to come out. Dr. Carol Shpak of the Ladner dental clinic already mentioned (years ago) that extracting that tooth might mean fracturing the jawbone, as some bone loss has occurred. Dr. Shpak also saddled me with a 400$ piece of plastic that actually made my crooked teeth worse. I have suffered MUCH at the hands of the Dental "Profession".

Gonna be cold and rainy tomorrow. Joy. Need to get all my gear back together and get everything prepped for an early departure...

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Work, work, work...

...and lots of it.

Got a little ambitious these past few days. Father-in-law Bob loaned both himself and his truck to the cause on Thursday. We moved (literally) a TON of stuff out of the garage; with more still to come! The upside is that we can now PARK THE CAR in our garage. We can even get in and out of the car! (on the driver's side). Grandpa would be shocked by just how MUCH stuff we managed to trash. We even tossed that grotty old electric mower! (after I tried -unsucessfully- to re-wire it) So much of Granpa's excess STUFF went and the shop looks a little bare for it. I know that Nick was counting on inheriting most if not all of the shop tools; so we left those. Nick won't be disappointed...all the expensive toys are still there. We've got another TON of metal plate scrap and bar stock to toss as well. Bob has persuaded me that I should try selling the copper and brass pipe and stock to a metal recycler.

The 5HP Mower won't start...so I bought a lightweight (and fuel efficient) 4.5 B&S from Zellers (paid too much...:( ). The new mower is a combo mulcher/rear bagger and does a fine job of both the front and back lawn; save that it uses .75l fuel to the 5HP's 2.5l of fuel for the back yard. It's WAY easier to push around than the "Lead Sled". Mowing the lawn was just the capper to the day. L and I were out back pruning, trimming and cutting back. Good news: one of the transplanted cedar bushes has revived since last year. Bad news: I didn't get the blackberry brambles taken care of in time; and where we had three canes, there are now over a dozen rooted runners back there. Guess I'll just have to keep cutting them down.

Speaking of cutting down: Bob and I found a LOT of wood rot on the north wall of the shop. Bob recommended taking down the panelling and cutting out the rotten wood. The post by the shop door, and the post on the other end, are still supporting the garage roof...for now. Need to get that all fixed and may even be calling someone for an estimate. I wonder if Dad would help?

I know Grandpa isnt' dead yet...but a part of me kind of wishes he would pass on. He's NOT having any fun right now. He's not in his right mind...and is lucid enough at times to know he hasn't got his full faculties. He's upset, occaisionally disoriented and angry (at times) that he isn't being allowed to do what he wants. His former life here with us held a few simple pleasures...and he's being denied ALL of them. He wants to come home...but he can't take care of himself and WE certainly have no way to take care of him. There have been several...incedents...at the care facility and he has spent some time under heavy sedation at SMH. I hate to sound ghoulish; but I hope he doesn't hang around too much longer...he really isn't enjoying life right now. He's fully in the clutches of the Medical Profession; may heaven help him!

Saturday, March 18, 2006

I'm on vacation...

Wanna know why I'm on vacation?

My ex-boss, Len Lemieux (he of the shakes), decided that we just CAN'T have more than two machine operators off work in the same week. Ergo, the other TEN PEOPLE in the dept who are all senior to me have managed to book off some time between June 1st and Sept 1st. Not so yours truly. I figured Spring Break might be the next best thing if I wanted to spend some Quality Time with the wife and kids. We've gone on a couple of day-trips so far, but nothing too extravegant. Saw "Doogal" with the kids and the wife saw "Brokeback Mountain". I still want to see Ultraviolet (it's Ultra-Violent!!!), as I am currently suffering from Eye Candy Withdrawl.

Speaking of suffering...

I have a small abcess in a front tooth. Naturally, with teeth like ten miles of bad road, the inflammation in question is in a location I cannot see, let alone reach. I've tried chewing gum, dental yarn, tylenol, and finally Cepacol lavage. The discomfort is under control, but it was a rough couple of days while I figured out how to deal. My pursuit of Dental Hygiene has never been particularily vigorous, but lately I've become a fanatic...It's either that, or having to go through an extraction that would likely break my lower jaw (snaggle-teeth are no fun, especially impacted ones). Contrary to popular wisdom, cavities don't happen because there is bacteria on your teeth...Cavities happen when the bacteria break down the tooth enamel faster than your body can repair it. Teeth are the only bones in your body that grow constantly. Also, like other bones, material is leached away and replaced more-or-less constantly. This process slows down when you are older; which is why bones become brittle and teeth can get loose and fall out when you get real old. Anyway: keep those pearly whites clean kids, even if they're crooked...or, I should say: especially if they're crooked.

Speaking of keeping things clean:

Laurie has reduced her demands on me to three:

-The Stairs
-The Baseboards
-The Garage

So, I'm cleaning the garage currently...'cause I can't do anything about the other two until I clear some space to work in. Problem: most of the debris in the workshop is Granpa's. I have managed to toss the scrap metal we have added to the pile, but the shop is still a mess...I really need to swap around: store Granpa's scooters and stuff in the shop, with only occaisional forays inside to use the saw and other woodworking tools; and use the Garage for MY needs: automechanics, computers and bikes...

Ya know...that just might work.

The shop could also use a little work. The ceiling is still a mess -- we should perhaps have told the guys at classic wood restorations to go ahead and restore the shop ceiling while they were doing the deck, but I guess we didn't think of it at the time. I have no idea if there is even any material to repair the celing with...must check later. There is something dead hidden in all that mess, if the mild stink, and cloud of blue-bottle flies are any indication. There was a rat in there last year...and we think that perhaps it expired, and the carcass is feeding all those hungry lil' flies in there. I just KNOW I'm gonna find some dessicated nasty when we finally get around to shipping all of Granpa's tools and scraps out of there.

Granpa himself is all set up at the care facility in South Delta. We are fairly resigned to the idea that he won't be returning to live with us...but we won't be moving any of his property out of the house, garage, or shop until he's actually deceased.

KWY showed me a venture that has him frankly quite excited. More on that later, as events warrant.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Blogger pooched.

They lost the draft of a draft post I was working on last night.

Now, I'm a spontaneous sort of writer. I either get it right the first time, or I need endless revisions and re-writes to get down what I want to say. I only write when I'm "inspired".

...or ticked off.

Losing a bit of writing to the electronic ether is annoying. I don't lay the blame entirely on the good folks at Blogger.com; they're doing their best, I suppose.

On the other hand...that post was kind of dumb. It was to have been a blow-by-blow description of how our Beagle, abby, caught a mouse in the living room...

...oh yeah, we have mice...

We've got sonic repellers installed on the west side of the house, next to the garage. No mice seen there since. On the east side of the house, however, is abundant evidence of a rodent problem. We set traps, we laid bait. No luck.

Since Granpa has now vacated the downstairs suite (only temporary, we hope), there has been no forage to speak of downstairs. Thus, the mice are now venturing upstairs.

Abby can hear them.

She flushed one out from beside the fireplace early one morning last week. The mouse beat a hasty retreat down the stairs and bolted into a mouse hole under the front door landing. A few days ago, abby flushed out another one that ran from the fireplace to hide underneath the love seat. Laurie...FREAKED. Had no idea my wife was capable of such hysterics. Abby, for her part, was very excited and hung about the love seat trying to persuade the mouse to come out and play.

I moved the loveseat aside.

The mouse, paralysed with fear, sat quivering in the midst of the dust bunnies and other junk we had under that couch. Abby leapt upon the opportunity and trapped the mouse between her front paws. She then picked the mouse up gently in her mouth, trotted over to the middle of the room, and settled down to give her new "chew toy" a thorough going-over.

She was a little disappointed when I picked up her captive by the tail and carried it away. After all, I couldn't just let her rip the mouse apart...that would have been SO messy! I got a small perverse thrill from showing the specimen to Laurie, who was by this time cowering in her bedroom on the opposite side of the house. The mouse was eventually disposed of in a steel rubbish can next to the elementary school ballfield. Said rodent will probably end up as a midnight snack for one of the barn owls that frequent our neighborhood at night.

Abby was quite pleased with herself for the next few days. We even let her patrol the downstairs suite a few times. Laurie bought some new and tastier poison bait, and so once again the dog is not allowed downstairs. We haven't seen any more mice upstairs...this week.

Speaking of this week...

Paul came by for a visit on his way down to California to vist his folks for Spring Break. I sponged off him mercilessly, and generally abused our friendship as only former university pals can. He's still single, but not terribly upset about it. His life is fairly full anyway. Without spouse and kids he has much more room in his life for...things. He bought a TRUCK!!!
Anyways, it was good to see him again, and we had a pleasant time over the last couple of days.

It's pathetic to admit this; but the only time I ever "go out" without either L or the kids is when Paul drops by.

Speaking of going out...

The rear wheel on my bike has gone out of true. I can't find an obvious problem; such as a broken spoke. I think it may just be because the bike is a clapped-out hunk of junk and I am one heavy hombre'. The wheels had a LOT of rust on them when I first restored the bike. It would not surprise me if there were some structural weakness there. I really ought to finish off that ATB...