Copyright this.

I really should stop reading articles about copyright protection, it always make my blood boil.

Kat wanted to buy the Sims 3 while we were in Best Buy but I recalled the company that puts it out was responsible for putting some pretty nasty root kits on customers machines to 'protect' their game from pirating. So in the process of installing a game that you have *bought the rights to* they install software on your machine that you don't ask for, don't know about, and controls how many times you can install the game. I'm looking at you SecuROM.

Kat and I had a tense moment where she wanted the game, but I refused to buy/install it on my laptop if it came with SecuROM. Happily having a Internet enabled smart phone allowed me to make some quick searches and find out that the Sims3 does not have that execrable piece of software, so we bought it. Oddly enough even though the Sims3 doesn't have that rootkit I've still lost access to my machine, Kat won't give it back to me.

Ooh, while we are on that subject the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills department in the U.K. seems to think that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should pay 25% of the costs of warning users that they may be fined for downloading copyrighted material. As somebody on the slashdot forums put it:

Would you penalize those that build highways for giving road racers the smooth and long pavement on which to drive recklessly? It's not their fault that people choose to break the law (or in this case, violate copyright).

As somebody else on slashdot pointed out, the people are responsible for funding the vast majority of the U.S. government:

2009 Income Taxes

Individual: $915.3B

Corporate: $138.2B

Expand that + sign beside Income Taxes, yet it is the corporations that have the most influence on the laws due to lobbyists.

Grr.

Kat and Nikki outside Coronado

On a positive note, Nikki and Mario had a good visit. We took all kinds of pictures, played Wii, visited and saw dolphins. I also discovered the iDVD application that comes with any Mac so I created a DVD of all the pictures and videos that will play on a normal DVD player connected to a television. Pretty cool. Of course televisions have a lousy resolution so most of the pictures don't look fabulous, but at least you can watch them on the television.

Hey Mario, the helicopter misses you.

We also discovered that we could have gone for a romantic long weekend at the hotel Coronado's "Beach Village" for a measly $25,000, scroll all the way down to the bottom. We walked by those places while we were wandering around, I didn't realize the people in there had so much damn money. Heh, I like how the $25,000 option has small print that says "Taxes and $25 daily resort charge not included.". Oh come on, if I just coughed up $25,000 for four days I'd be pissed that they would tack on another $25 dollar charge per day *after*. I'm rich, pander to me! And exactly what is "bath butler service in your cottage."? That sounds sordid. Oh wait, I'm rich .... pander to me!

Kathleen had her last day of classes on Friday, so now she has graduated from Mueller College. Woo Kat! Of course now comes the State exams, the national exams, and all the paperwork. Boo paperwork!

I'm keeping busy a with new project that highlights the schizophrenic ways of large corporations. The VPs claim that the project is of utmost importance on one hand while cutting funding to key people who deliver items to my project with the other hand. I don't understand the myopic views of large corporations, but then again I don't work in the rarified environment of upper management. The worker bees are continuing to do "more with less" and at the same time we've managed to build a museum celebrating the companies history. Uh-huh.

Things Break, and Get Fixed.

Let's get this out of the way first, I bought new glasses. I was vacillating between Italian skinny suit wearer and 50s scientist. I decided to go with the 50s scientist look. Now I have to beef up my wardrobe to match the glasses. Guess I'll be wearing lab coats from now on.

It's been a time of breaking and fixing. This week we had horribly long hours at work due to system upgrades that broke in unforeseen ways. I won't go in to details because nobody wants to hear about messy IT details. Suffice it to say that my boss's boss's boss's boss (yes we have that much hierarchy and more) wanted updates all the time. It wasn't any systems I was responsible for that broke, but we were the ones suffering the side effects. The only good outcome is that my name gets more notice higher up the pay grades as the person who 'takes care of things', this will help when the Portland move has to get approval by food chain.

This was also a week where other things were fixed. My motorcycle finally got fixed from the accident I had over two months ago. This means I'm finally finished with the annoying "Your lamp is not working!" warning that by moto has been telling me about for months. Also my shifter is now fixed and I'm no longer cutting holes in my boots. This means I get to use my new boots, woo! Sadly I think they messed up my clutch settings along the way :(

Next week is going to be exciting, Mario and Nicki are landing Friday to stay for a week and a half. Nicki has been here before so I'm sure it's all ho-hum for her, but Mario has never been to San Diego. Actually I don't think Mario has been much further than Quebec, Ontario and Vermont so this should be pretty cool. The only thing we need to figure out is how to get a hold of a vehicle that seats four, that or we travel via Smart car and motorcycle all the time. I think we'll work on the rental car idea.

Kat and I dodged a bullet last night. We were give free tickets to a harbour cruise by friends of ours, they won the tickets and couldn't go. We dressed up in white, which was required, and headed downtown for the evening. We quickly realized one of the reasons we don't go downtown very often is the dearth of parking. We ended up parking somewhere that was questionable, but was better than spending another 20 minutes looking for approved parking.

• Then we realized the line to embark was huge.
• Then we spent an hour in line waiting (poor Kat was in heels).
• Then we got on and it was a 'booze cruise'.
• Then we noticed there was nowhere to sit that wasn't already taken.
• Then we realized once the boat left there was no getting off for three hours.

Three hours of being stuck on a boat with a bunch of drunk people, loud music and no chairs=get the hell off the boat. We had a nice supper in a new Italian restaurant in Mission Hills instead. Yes we are getting old, but happily Kat and I are still simpatico in regards to what we think is entertaining.

Our friend Amanda who first introduced us to Portland (we went there to visit her) has continued to send us pro-Portland information in the mail, which we appreciate. The latest tidbit from Portland that we read, and resonates with the way we feel, is the '20 minute neighborhood':

A 20-minute neighborhood is a place with convenient, safe, and pedestrian-oriented access to the places people need to go to and the services people use nearly every day: transit, shopping, quality food, school, parks, and social activities, that is near and adjacent to housing. In other words, a 20-minute neighborhood is another name for a walkable environment.

Links to more detail here (PDF file) and here (blog entry). I believe I've had conversations regarding exactly those ideas with my mother, since we both like the urban environments, also, almost all the places Kat and I have lived meet those criteria. Without giving it a nice sound-bite name we've been living that idea for ages. More reasons to love Portland :)

Designers and bankers, sometimes both lack a connection to reality

It's been a mixed week. We got a notice from the IRS regarding out 2008 taxes, turns out our accountant messed up and we owe another $500. Our cat decided to urinate on the couch again. I think my motorcycle helmet is the causing me acne like a 16yr old and I just spent 1/2 hr deciding on new glasses just to find out the place doesn't take my insurance. Oh yes, the kitty has now racked up over $1,000 in vet bills.

On the plus side I had a good mountain bike ride on Wednesday and a good road ride back from work yesterday and Kat and I had a really nice supper Thursday night, and it was free. I think overall it's been a positive week.

On the ride back from work on Friday a random driver rolled down their window and declared "Croatia!". I happened to be wearing the 2002 Croatian world cup jersey for a biking shirt. She is only the third person ever to recognize the jersey. Sadly my Nigerian jersey has never been recognized by anybody and *that* one stands out.

I forgot to mention that the insurance company got back to me with my check for the damage to the motorcycle. They actually sent me a cheque for more money than the BMW shop quoted the repairs for, which is pretty shocking considering the quote. I think their approach is to give you more money than you asked for and then hope they never hear from you again. Fair enough. I've replaced the pants and boots and I'm waiting for all the parts to come in so they can fix the rest of the motorcycle. It'll be nice to be able to shift in a normal manner again rather than having to hook the sole of my boot under a sharp piece of metal, which is what I have to do now. I didn't realize it until last week, but I'm wearing a hole in the thick leather of my boots by shifting like that.

not my picture

As some of you may know, Kat and I appreciate designer things. A well thought out, good quality item is (in my mind) well worth the extra cash you have to cough up for it. Our Cameleon couch is one thing that falls in to that category. We also subscribe to Dwell magazine because we like to look at how people use small spaces and 'green' design for houses. I find that only 5% of design appeals to me, mostly I just don't agree with peoples design esthetic which is fine because that is the joy of artistic things, you can differ in opinion. Some times though I think that designers seem to forget about reality and get caught up in their own heads. A recent list of chairs in Dwell pointed out this as a 'designer' chair (follow link or look to the right). Oh please, what the hell is that? It's ugly, unfinished and boring. I don't care if the wood is cured using a unique mixture of yak and panda piss and it hum lullabies to you when you sit in it. It's ugly, unfinished and boring. Somebody take that designer outside and slap him around with a reality stick.

It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a designer/artist who was telling me about his coffee table he designed that had grass under the glass top of the table.

me - Interesting, how do you handle the drainage?
him - What?
me - You're going to have to water the grass, so how do you handle the water drainage?
him - looks confused, then adopts the long suffering look of an a miss-understood artist dealing with a Philistine

The conversation dried up after that. Actually, that conversation was with an ex-girlfriend's boyfriend so there were all kinds of extra layers of uncomfortable.

On a lighter note I just got back from the bike shop where I had to get my rear wheel trued on my road bike. There were two cute ladies working at the shop and both of them getting dirty and fixing bikes, how hot is that?

Of Bread and Portland

Green Dragon Brew Pub

We're back from Portland; loved it there again. We had a lovely time visiting Amanda and Ryan, they put us up in their spare bedroom and acted as tour guides to all the cool, hip places around their neighborhood. Portland has a lot of cool and hip places: sustainable sushi, brew pubs, movie theatres that let you buy and drink beer, mass transit that goes out to the airport. It's a great place to be.

The weather was bright and sunny, in contrast to San Diego, which was overcast while we were gone. Good timing on our part. Kat has been judiciously keeping to her new exercise regime (and I've been joining when possible) so while we were in Portland we took long walks and Kat and Amanda did yoga.

We liked the area where Ryan and Amanda live, with the old Victorian style housing, communities and an organic blend of residential and commercial. We also visited Ryan's cousin's place, which is a renovated condo downtown with huge, floor-to-ceiling glass windows that span one entire side of the living area. Very nice as well. Seems Portland has it all.  ;)

There was a lot of "when are we moving here?" questions being asked. We are looking in to it. I'd love to work remotely, there are a few of my co-workers who do that.  They fly in a week every month or two for meetings that have to be done face-to-face. I could live with that. Cheaper living conditions, flights to rack up frequent flier points, working from home, what is not to love? Of course working from home may drive me nuts due to lack of interaction with other people. I know I can be efficient working at home, I do it occasionally now, but not sure what would happen if I worked from home for weeks on end: Kat would come home from a hard day wanting to relax and I'd be  "WE MUST GO OUT!".

Update since I wrote this: I spoke with my boss about working remotely and he thinks we may be able to work it out. I guess that is one benefit about being employed by a flexible large company

My department has moved buildings, so now we are in a nicer one. Not the top of the line building that some other, more important, groups are in, but better than we had. I get the feeling IT is at the butt end of list when it comes to making employees comfortable. After all, we aren't really revenue generating, we're nothing but an expense. Since we are no longer near a place for acceptable coffee I moved the espresso maker Kat bought a while back in to my office but I have still to work out where everything goes. This week I realized that I'd stored my lunch food, coffee and my towel in the same drawer. My towel smelled of coffee and banana. It wasn't bad, just disconcerting.

Kat made bread last week, it was very successful. She picked up a book that has a different way of making bread. Rather than mix, pulverize, recover, pulverize, ignore, pulverize, it includes a lot of waiting. I'll let Kat describe it better since - (This is Kat, I'm taking over this post...)

The book is "My Bread" by Jim Lahey, and the technique he describes is not really "new". In fact, it's very old. The concept of letting a very moist dough rise for up to 24 hours before baking it inside a cast iron pot in the oven, dates from the Roman era. I highly recommend the book and the technique. It's summer now of course, which means I'm not keen to bake a lot right now, but I'm eager to try a cinnamon-raisin recipe next. Okay, I'll hand this back to Phillip.....

... The results were lovely, good crisp crust and tasty spongy interior. The crust was very crisp, so crisp that I didn't realize I'd sliced up the roof of my mouth and tongue until I took a sip of wine. Ouch. (Kat again....)  He exaggerates. It was excellent bread. Especially for my first try! (/ end Kat)

One of the many reasons I love Kat is because she is a grounded, down to earth kind of person. She is taking 'Spa Techniques' in school right now and is covering such things as wraps and hot stone. Body wraps sounded vaguely interesting until Kat told me that it essentially immobilizes you and then they leave you for 20 min. I'm suddenly no longer interested. She was saying that the job of the massage therapist is to sit there and pay attention to the client for the 20 minutes that they are immobilized (which makes sense, what happens if sneeze then fall off the table?). In class people were channeling energy with dance and tracing glyphs over the wrapped person ... um, okay. I think I'd prefer the person to check facebook rather than tracing some bizarre glyphs over me while I'm stuck there.

Her hot stone class was talking about how the massage therapist should choose stones that 'speak' to them. If I told people that I was connecting with stones and that they were speaking to me they'd assume I'd fallen off my bike and taken a head wound. Kat figured she'd find stones that were a good weight and were nice and smooth. See why I love her?

We've booked our flights back home, so we will be sending emails to people letting them know when we will be back in town. I'm excited about re-purposing my grass cutting boots back in to the winter boots they were originally made to be :)

Hills n' Valleys

Where did June go? I swear it was just here. I'm sure everyone has felt this way at some point, and recently things got a bit crazy here. For one, my school semester was particularly challenging, secondly, I've been cast as Banquo in Macbeth and finally, there was some pet drama here in the form of Scuttle.

My last class of the semester was on Thursday and boy am I relieved it's over! Deep Tissue and Trigger Point Therapy, while useful as a modality for treating chronic muscle tension, is a bitch to cram into your brain in a few short months. The final exam had a written and practical portion, and let me tell you, being in a hot room (81 degrees F) with twelve other students - all of them really nervous - is no way to spend your morning. The exam was like this: while waiting your turn with the professor, you work on whatever muscles your partner asks for. When your turn comes around, you choose a slip of paper from a bag, on which is written one of potentially twenty-odd muscles that you had to study. I chose supraspinitus, a relatively easy one, because it is small, specific and has only two trigger points. As per the routine, I explained the location and attachments, the action, where the trigger points are, then the referral pattern for pain. After this, I was asked to demonstrate my technique for working the muscle and finally how to "set" it. I lost points because I blanked on the referral pattern, (it's down the radial side of the arm), but passed with a 93%. I was mostly just happy that it was over and done. When my partner switched places with me, he got vastus medialis and kinda froze. I felt bad for him, but the prof gave him a second chance. He scraped by with an 80%. (The pass/ fail mark is 75%). Even worse, when I got dressed again, my bra was wet from how much I'd sweat during my test. Yuck.

Banquo is an honourable character from the famed Scottish play, and yes, a man. I'm interested in how the director plans to address my approach to the role, which is to not address gender at all. My first rehearsal was supposed to be on Sunday, from noon till 6pm, but a handful of actors flaked out when they belatedly realized that it was Father's Day. This marks the first bump in what will be a very long road. The director and dramaturge, by the way, are planning an ELEVEN MONTH process of analysis and rehearsal. I'm still not sure why I agreed to this, except perhaps for a sort of morbid fascination. I'll keep you posted.

And then there was Scuttle. As some of you may have noted in previous posts, she's gotten skinny and unpredictable. It's been a very gradual change, and there was concern mixed with rationalization that it was a natural part of aging for our fourteen year old ice princess. About two months ago, she peed on our couch (the expensive one of course), which is totally out of character for her. Then she peed on the ottoman. One day after I'd spent hours with a rented steam cleaner on the furniture, she peed on the ottoman again. Then the other couch. Twice. Obviously, something was wrong.

Given my schedule and relative stress level, I decided to wait until classes finished to take her to the vet while Phillip and I both adapted to this upsetting new routine by keeping everything off-limits and/ or covered in plastic sheeting. We spent more money on cleaning products and kept a close eye on her. On the last day of classes, I took her to our vet and she was kept overnight for extensive tests after learning that she'd went from nine pounds to only six. That's a lot for a little cat. The vet was also concerned about a mass in her abdomen.

The dreaded phone call was to tell us that she was very dehydrated and constipated - which explained the mass in her belly, and that she might have a tumor. I authorized treatment and another test and we waited. When I was called to pick her up the next day, she was in rough shape from an enema and the resulting mess. They had washed her, but she messes in the cat carrier out of nervousness, so I had to wash her again at home. Nightmare!

Diagnosis: hyperthyroidism. The vet has given us pills and an appointment in three weeks to check her T4 hormone level (which was extremely high) and her kidneys. The drugs should stabilize her metabolism, so she'll stop eating so much but gain back some weight. There are potential side effects, of course, but the medication is common enough and inexpensive, so she may safely be able to take it for the rest of her life to manage the condition. Poor old lady. Hopefully, this will calm down her strange behaviour, but we're not taking chances. We'll be the youngest couple on the block to have plasticized our furniture like old biddies. Maybe I should buy a candy dish and peppermints to set out for guests too.

All in all, relief is the emotion of the day. Scuttle is recovering - though I think she got a bit of a strain in her hind legs from struggling against so much handling - and I'm embracing some free time to help Phillip with a bit of yard work and of course to write. I've stopped playing Warcraft since school got so busy and I'm disinclined to return to the time-wasting. I have regular clients wanting massage every week and two more classes to complete before I will be certified. I hope the excitement is done for the year, I've had about as much as I care for.

Hey you kids! Get off my Internet!

Kat and I have some disagreements about technology. She's an artist and a student of the human body, I work in IT. You can see where this is leading, right? Yup, she's an early adopter and I generally dislike technology until you can prove to me that it is better. Happily for me, Kathleen puts up with my Luddite ways; she recently wanted to buy some music by Lamb, and rather than buy it from iTunes (which is what she would normally do) she humoured me and ordered the CD from Amazon instead.

Kathleen loves iTunes. She has bought episodes of Family Guy, Chuck and a few movies. I generally dislike iTunes, I can't explain how much I hate the fact that iTunes tries to restrict what I can do with the media that we legally bought. Cartoons to the rescue! (Also, click on the image above to see a clearer version of my point.)

Kat would sit on the couch and laugh while watching episodes of Chuck so I figured that I wouldn't mind watching them. She bought them on iTunes and downloaded them to her computer so I can't just say "Give me your laptop, I want to watch the shows you bought.". I'd rather watch the shows on the projector in the living room. She also has been running out of space on her machine due to the amount of data she has on it.

Let's pretend that we owned the shows on DVD, how hard would that be? Hmmm ... I'd pick up the DVD case, go in to the living room, put it in the Mini and watch the show. That's easy!

Now let's deal with iTunes.

- We'll just export the shows from iTunes on to some fast media like an external drive and import it to the Mini! Nope.

- We'll just burn it to a DVD! Nope.

- We'll sync it to the iPod and then sync it to the Mini? Nope. The mini will insist on wiping the iPod if it is going to look at it.

Argh!

Yay! iTunes has allowed home sharing. Time to go read some FAQs on how to use it. It works! I copy over the Charlie's Angels movies (it takes all night). A couple nights later I go back to continue the job, I can see her iTunes library on the network ... but it won't let me copy the contents this time. WTF? Two days later I've uncovered the issue and start to copy the T.V. episodes over via the wireless network. So. Very. Slow. Wireless network issues and bandwidth raise their ugly heads days and days later I have the first season of Chuck copied over *whew*, it's been two weeks of on and off suffering for one season of Chuck. I haven't bothered to copy over the other files yet. So painful.

Kat also likes her Kindle (which we've written about before). There are many things about the Kindle that are good, but let me explain what *isn't* good about it. While Kat was in Ottawa a while back she bought a book by Ian C. Esslemont. She went to go read it when she realized she had bought the second book in the series. By the time she gets home she realizes no worries, I'll just buy the first book on my Kindle, woo for new technology! She reads the first book on the Kindle then the second paper copy. 

Let's pretend we own the paper copy. I get it off the shelf and start to read it.

Instead I grab the Kindle (how exciting, new technology!). Wait .. Kat wants the Kindle back because she is reading the Twilight series. So when can I get the Kindle to read the book that she isn't using? Soon? Kinda soon? Maybe? (Note from Kat: Pft. I'm a speed reader. It took me very little time to finish the Twilight series, you big baby.)

We bought a paper copy of the book. I can see why publishers like those things. Could we give the copy of the book to a friend? No. Can we sell it to a used bookstore? No. Did it cost any less? Not really. (Yes it did.)

That is enough of that.

I'm back playing soccer again, which is good fun. During the first game, however, another guy on the team messed up his knee and now we are a guy short again. Dangerous fun.

I've discovered a new web comic, I think it has been around for quite some time but I have only just started going through the backlog. Odd, math-based sense of humour. Very entertaining.

We're back from vacation. A really short one. We rented a cottage up in Idyllwild for the memorial day long weekend. There were two things I was worried about regarding the trip:
1) How the Smart car would handle the hills
2) How the dog would handle the trip and odd surroundings

I'm happy to say they both passed with flying colours. The dog settled down pretty quickly and was really good in the new place. It had bad 70's shag carpeting and he enjoyed his four paw traction. I made use of the 'flappy paddle gear box' as the guys on Top Gear like to call it. That made the annoying shift choices of the car a thing of the past and it took the hills with no problem.

The fact that the windy route caused me to drive up the hill like a go-cart was both fun and amusing, since it sent the dog tumbling on every tight corner. I take my amusement where I can find it.

Like many places that have wilderness and are still close to L.A., it was touristy. We went for a few small hikes but ran in to a lot of people. There wasn't a lot of hiking done because the urban dog was overheated and tired quickly. We found a good local coffee shop (important) where I was outed as a Canadian, I have to stop saying the word 'out'. Of course the coffee person had been to Canada and loved it up there (Victoria and Whistler). Who doesn't love Canada?

Sadly I didn't manage to get far enough away from cell towers so work found me on Friday night and I spent a couple hours trying to trouble shoot issues over the phone. Unpleasant.

The cottage was nice, the back porch was really, really nice. We spent a lot of time on the back porch reading (in my case) and doing yoga (in Kat's case). The dappled sunlight, the quiet and the fresh air. Sigh. There was a small parcel of land at the end of the street for sale that Kat and I spent time building our dream home on (that is the view on the right). You can tell from the two photos how much the dog appreciated my 'Lord of this domain' pose. I thought about putting a mouse-over in there but became bored quickly and gave up on it.

The whole 'Dream House' discussion brought up some question about how exactly does one go about achieving a dream home? I've always been a big fan of paying for things in cash, which obviously you cannot do with something as big as a dream.
Do people save up lots of money just in case the dream home shows up?
Do people buy the dream home after the standard one and hope like hell they don't lose their jobs?
Do people sell everything and live in limbo while the dream home is being built?
How do you know your dream home is in the right place? What happens if your location turns out to be not-so-dreamy?
Buying a dream-home anywhere essentially ties you down to that area, and is that a good idea?

It's a tough thing to figure out. Kat posited that we need to look around a variety of areas to see if any particular place grabs our interest, I'm good with that idea. Idyllwild was nice, but I wouldn't give up things to live there. We are heading back to Portland next month, so we'll have a second look at that area. I've always believed I wanted a place in the desert with views of desolation, that would be very cool. Of course a couple days without a walk to a coffee shop may turn me in to a unhappy person. I also wanted a cool place in town as well. Am I unsure, or am I flexible?

I'm fine. Really, I am. Had a little accident on the motorcycle on the way home tonight. Turns out the protection gear works just like it is supposed to. Some rips in my pants, but otherwise it all came through with flying colours. The guy swerved in to me as I was coming up on his right while getting on to the highway. I took out his wing mirror, but I think there is way more damage to the bike. I just started the insurance process (Gieco was very nice) so we'll see if my normal hatred of insurance companies is going to be validated. My poor bike has some damage now :( I'm going to have to take some pliers to my shifter to get it to stick out like it is supposed to.

In more positive news, Kathleen has received two different accolades at school; the first is a letter of recognition from the school for volunteering with them at the Earth Day fair. The second award is for two semesters of achieving a 4.0 grade point average. Woot!

The Deadly Sins and You. How to Avoid Bad Things by Sinning.

Sloth has been my buddy for a while, it's one of my favourites. As people may know, I like beer. Beer=Yum. My lack of self control regarding consumption has always been balanced by my laziness. Many a time I've been sitting around and my mental process go something like this:

"Wow, I could really go for a beer/cookie/pie right now!"
"Hmm, I'd have get up / get dressed and go out to get it ... and it's blocks away."
"What is that friend Sloth? Yeah, you're right. I really don't want it that badly."

High-five to sloth. "You da sin baby!"

Unfortunately I have a corner store a block away, that is pretty close. They don't sell pies (thankfully!) but they do sell beer. The next bit is a bit geeky, you've been warned.

Back when I used to play Warcraft in a raiding guild the raids often started late and there were AFK (Away From Keyboard) times when we weren't doing anything. I started to drink beer while raiding. I attempted to use the beer drinking to motivate my fellow guild mates: the longer we wait the more beer I drink and a drunk healer means you die more often. That didn't seem to work. Then the bad moment arrived when I realized I could get to the corner store and back in the time it took for some people to go AFK and go to the bathroom.

My good buddy Sloth couldn't compete with that kind of access. Whenever I thought a beer would be nice I could get one. I often think a beer would be nice, you can all see this isn't good.

So with Sloth not pulling his weight, I've had to call upon Pride to step up. Beer=calories=belly. Pride seems to be holding up pretty well. Pride has staying power since it "... is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise." Wikipedia.

Yes, yes, I know there is a theory that I could only drink one but I don't have that sort of self control. Put a bunch of cookies in the house and they're gone. What I like, I consume. Essentially, that's Pride battling against Gluttony. I'm sure that would make a great grudge match, oh wait .. they've come close to doing that already.

Greed also dropped by last weekend to help me. We've been meaning to stack our washer drier to save some space in the garage. We've been meaning to do it for around four years, Sloth and I were hanging; "We'll get to it eventually". We also wanted to put a wash tub out there as well. Kat called up a plumbing place to come in and give us a quote on stacking the washer/dryer and installing a wash tub. Since they didn't know how hard it would be to install the drain for wash tub they gave us a price range: $600 - $1,000. Stacking the washer/dryer was $250 of that. Greed and I decided that was a ludicrous price and we weren't going to pay it. A tape measure and a phone call to a friend later, it was stacked.

Envy and I have never gotten along very well. Yes I'd like more stuff, oh, wait, I don't want more stuff. Yes that guy has a nicer car than me ... hmm, don't care about that either. Every time I covet something I realize I could probably get it if I worked hard enough / lied enough / saved enough /stepped on enough people and I'm too damn lazy for that. Envy isn't really that great a motivator.

I would work with Wrath but he's so demanding. Get angry about this, pissed off about that, rant, yell, scream. It's exhausting.

So Sloth, even though you let me down on the beer front you are still my BSF (Best Sin Forever)! What's that? You saw me with Lust? We were just getting a coffee and talking. I swear!

On a completely unrelated note I saw a Delorean on the way home from work today. Caught a brief look at the back end while I was accelerating into traffic and glanced back to see the hood. That is all you really need to recognize one. A quick search to get the right spelling and it turns out they are still selling them!

Things Change.

Kat and I've have dropped cable for a new entertainment provider, we've moved to satellite, Direct T.V. to be precise. Should be cheaper for the first year, but come the second year it'll be the same price as we were paying. I've found the only way to get cheap prices from companies is to go through their contractual period, then threaten to leave. It's sad to think that what I'm being told by companies is that they love me as a payer, but not enough to give me the cheapest deal. Essentially you have to be the squeaky wheel, or they take you for granted. Two years from now I'll be dropping Direct T.V. for somebody else who is willing to give me a cheaper deal.

I watched my first soccer game in high definition (HD), it looks impressive. I sure hope the World Cup is in HD this summer.

As some of you know, I have had all kinds of issues with my iMac in terms of over heating. I am now the proud owner of a custom laptop for gaming purposes. It comes with Windows 7 and other fun stuff like a fingerprint reader and all kinds of extra hardware like 2GB of video RAM. I've found Windows 7 not as easy to understand as OS X for Mac, which is odd. Over 10 years of working with Windows and I'm still looking around trying to find information that I found in a shorter time as a new Mac user. Games sure look pretty though. Games look *really* pretty. I'm working my way through the PC games that I couldn't play for the last couple years.

Mass Effect=Very good.
Dragon Age, Origins=Very, very good.
Plants vs. Zombies=Hilarious and good.

Kat was making fun of me because I bought a big powerful gaming machine and I'm playing something downloaded from Popcap games (Plants vs. Zombies). It's fun.

Or cat decided to piss on the couch last week, a couple days later I find she's pissed on the ottoman as well. So now our living room smells like cat pee. That is one of the worst things. After a first application of Natures's Miracle the smell was still there and we were thinking we may have to replace the cushions. Of course our couch is made by some obscure manufacturer in Montreal and the store who sold it to us isn't around any more. I had a heck of time even finding it mentioned on the 'net.

A bucket of Nature's Miracle and a steam cleaner and the couch is happily back to being clean again. I like the couch, I don't want to replace it. The feline is sitting in the back room looking quite happy with herself about *something*. I hate that cat some times.

On a happy note I talked to my orthopedic surgeon on Monday and I'm cleared to get back to road riding and surfing. I'll be organizing Friday morning surfing at work, I've decided to try and invite as many people as possible. As much as I love being in the ocean in the morning, it is peaceful, I have issues getting up that early and in the cold water. The more people I invite the better chance I will get out of bed assuming somebody else will show up. Motivating myself is difficult, assuming that somebody else is showing up will motivate me enough.

I know everyone is wondering how my various email incarnations are doing around the world:
- The Irish me was enjoying going to the greyhound park to watch some races (booking from Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium)
- The Las Vegas me is heading off to Eddies wedding (I got their plane ticket reminder). Yay Eddie!

The police are breaking in to our cranky next door neighbor's house. Ah, the joys of the big city.
- Update One: They are now announcing to whomever is in the house that they are going to have to break the window to get in.
- Update Two: I think he's dead. The ambulance just showed up.
- Update Three: The words 'face down' were heard.
- Update Four: He's not dead.
- Update Five: The four police cars, fire truck and the ambulance (containing the cranky neighbor) have now left and all is quiet again.

To more mundane matters, my foot is getting much better. I no longer have to wander around wearing the franken-foot, and I can finally put away the collection of left-foot shoes I have spread around the house. One more doctor's appointment week after next then I think I'm done. Still not allowed to do any 'impact' things, but I've gone for a road ride and that felt good.

One thing this broken foot has proven to me; this is indeed a litigious society. When I was in the emergency ward being triaged they asked me my level of pain on a scale of 1 - 10 and I told them 'One'. As long as I was not standing on it, it was just a dull throb. When I saw the doctor in the Emergency he asked me again what my level of pain was, again I said 'One'.

When the nurse shows up to give me my marching orders he hands me a prescription for Percocet, which from what little I know, is a pretty heavy duty pain killer. I had to ask him how they managed to think I needed those after saying 'One' all the time and he said with a straight face "Pain is the number one cause of lawsuits.". Fair enough.

I just looked up Percocet online and read this: "Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert.". Anything that requires you to be awake and alert? That covers just about everything.

By the way, has anyone ever seen the 'face scale' of pain? How very bizarre, I'm sure it tests well, but who drew those? Wong, or Baker's children?

We had a little dose of Americana last night, and not the type you want to see. Kat and I stopped at the corner store to pick something up and as Kat was walking up to the door a fat kid jumped out of a minivan, finished stuffing something in to his mouth while running up to the door and screaming "Mom! Hurry up!" By the time the child turned around Kat was staring down at him with great distaste. It is probably not a good time for me to feel love for my wife as she is disdainfully staring at a child, but hey, sometimes you can't help the way you feel.

To top it off, Kat ended up in line behind the mother in the store. The two ladies working behind the counter were not white and according to Kat they really didn't look the same.

Clueless patron: "Are you two related?"
Employee One (sarcastically): "Yeah, we're sisters."
Employee Two (embarrassed): "We're from the same island, actually..."
Clueless: "Oh really? Like, what one? Samian? Samo-something?"
Employee One (still sarcastic) "Yeah, that's right. We're all related on the island."
Employee Two (too embarrassed to continue, serves Kat)
Clueless: "Oh wow, really?"
Kat: OH MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU CLUELESS DUMBASS!

No, not really. But that's what she wanted to say.

Kat is in the midst of her finals for this semester, stress levels have risen. I was helping her study by calling out pressure points like "Kidney 27!" and she had to point at it. I have no idea how she keeps all those points in her head, I'd be at an utter loss. She is getting interested in Acupuncture. I told her massage I will let her practise on me (I'm nice that way) but no way is she going to practice acupuncture on me. *shudder*

I'll leave you with this parking ability, I've heard rumours that this was possible, turns out it is. Then again, just because it is possible doesn't mean it's legal. I haven't checked. I was using my crutches to get around at the time so I had an excuse ready in case anybody asked me what I was doing. It was only for a short time, I was picking up a pizza. It also greatly amused the patrons of the pub across the street.

More random updates:
- the tree we planted in the front yard is sprouting leaves, yay!
- I took the crappy GPS back to REI (a year later) and they gave me a full refund on it! I love REI.

Doesn't it seem that the holidays either zip by too quickly or get stretched out until you find yourself blinking at sunspots while emerging from the end of the tunnel? We had a wonderful holiday; relaxing and quiet at home for December and then a nice long visit with Joan and Paul for January. Normally I wouldn't consider January a 'holiday', but having guests who bring 'happy hours' and stories of adventure and excuses to play outside seems close enough.

Speaking of playing outside, the weather has been alternating between grey, rainy days and brilliant sunny ones. Today is one of the latter, and I realize I appreciate it all the more for being a bit more rare lately. The rain has been good for the little ficus we transplanted; while rather anemic-looking, it nonetheless seems to be thriving after being thoroughly doused in a few days of hard rain, with intermittent sunny periods.

The last weekend of Joan and Paul's visit was cause for a send-off of extra-ordinary proportions, and as you may have read here, we chose to spend the night in Venice Beach, then visit the Getty Museum.  The little 'canal neighbourhood' of VB is very obviously a hot-spot of architectural exposition and is truly a delight to explore - especially since we rather chanced upon it unexpectedly. The Getty is yet another architect's dream made reality and we were fortunate to have a wonderfully clear day to admire both the building, grounds and the surroundings all the way out to the Pacific.

Our return home was bittersweet; we always enjoy the January visit and it's sad to say goodbye, but it felt nice to come home with Maverick and just curl up in the solitude. Scuttle looked terribly smug.

The peace was destined not to last, sadly. Monday night was the Sprouts final game of an unbeaten season. Phillip played twenty minutes before an awkward kick between him and another player resulted in a painful strike against the bottom of her cleats, with him hobbling off the field shortly after. He took a breather and prepared to come back onto the field, but the pain persisted and finally, he sat out the rest of the game.  The Sprouts went on to an undefeated season and will be promoted from 9b to 8b league. Huzzah! Phillip then walked (well, gimped really) the whole six blocks home and upon coming upstairs, declared his suspicion of a broken foot.

There was discussion about emergency room versus family doctor appointment the next day for x-rays, and after a shower, Phillip was in enough pain to choose the ER; however, after signing in with triage and being told the wait-time, he was ready to flee, hobbled or not. My good sense prevailed: "We're here now, might as well see it through rather than take a chance on our GP's unavailability."

The ER wait wasn't as bad as either of us feared, but it wasn't quick. I had my textbook with me so I could study for a pathology exam - the irony of which was not lost on me, surrounded as we were by the dross of humanity - but I ended up driving home after an hour or so. It's hard to concentrate when there is so much of your subject matter in the air, not to mention the blaring 'reality tv' show about dog-fighting. Ugh.

We'd arrived at the ER at 10 pm, and by midnight, Phillip called me to pick him up, foot heavily splinted and bound with bandages. The resident who examined his x-rays suggested it was not a serious break. Phillip had his appointment with the orthopedic surgeon today who confirmed that the hairline fracture of his fifth metatarsal (with some extension into the joint) is not enough to warrant a cast, but a special foot-brace will be required for a month. I had to stop empathizing with my beloved, because my own foot started to ache. Yet, I will continue to suffer! I have to share Zoomie the Smart Car and -gasp- mow the lawn!

All kidding aside, I'm glad Phillip gave into my pestering to work from home this week. He hobbles about when he can, but he won't be on the motorcycle anytime soon, if I continue to have my way. Amazing what a tiny crack in a tiny bone can do, huh? That said, be safe and healthy, my friends and loved ones.

-K

Here's hoping everyone has a good holiday, whichever one you care to choose!

I'm currently sitting at home the day before X-mas because work gave everyone the 24th off, how kind :) All the shopping is done, the champagne is in the fridge and I think we're good for the next day or so. Oh wait, I have wrapping to do yet. Almost ready.

Kathleen is finished her first semester of school, she had an average of 94%, and she is annoyed it wasn't a 96%. I asked her why, turns out 96 is better because it is closer to 100 ... can't argue with that.

As you may know, Kat and I play World of Warcraft. It takes the place of television watching. Kathleen was talking to some of her online friends about the massage courses she was taking (and enjoying) and it turned out one of her online friends used to do massage. She now does photography. All her gear was sitting in her garage and she was going to be in San Diego for the holiday break. Some money was exchanged and now Kat owns a top of the line table, bolsters and three boxes of linens. Yay for random connections!

Last year Kat bought a small tree in a bucket to decorate and we put it outside all year to be watered by the sprinklers. She brought it back in, it's bigger now but seems to be suffering from a distinct camber. I think it looks more inclusive, the tree bends towards the viewer, casually inviting them to join the holiday spirit, like an off-beat but lovable uncle. So there, it's not bent, it's inclusive.

Kat already has one of her presents, the big one. She was interested in getting the Kindle for X-mas so me being the accommodating husband said no. We had to go look at all the alternatives that are out there. So we looked at the Nook (I wasn't impressed) and the Sony Reader (which I liked) as well as reading up on the Kindle. She ended up getting what she wanted the first time. At least I can feel we did some due diligence.

I'm no fan of e-readers, the DRM infestations they have and the restrictions on book sharing but I won't get in to it. On a positive note the trip to France we took earlier this year would have been far easier with a Kindle. I took two Stephen Erickson books with me, yes, two. Bringing a Kindle would have been far easier on my spine. The screen is great and Kat likes the whole feel of it, she's reading it right now.

Weather here is getting chilly, not northern climes cold, but chilly. It was 10 degrees celsius the other day when I left work. I had to turn on the grip heaters on the motorcycle. Kat also had to use the seat heaters in the car. How we suffer ;)

Random story: I was pulled over by the police the last week on the way to the pub to meet up with some members of my soccer team. I was riding the scooter and wearing my glow-in-the-dark jacket from MEC, so I wasn't looking that scary. At least I didn't think so. I had turned right on a red when there was a sign saying I shouldn't be doing that. Oops. The first thing the cop asks me is whether I'm on parole, which struck me as odd, I told him no. He then asked me whether I had any weapons such as a shotgun or grenades that he should be worried about, which also struck me as odd. Where in a scooter was I supposed to be hiding a shotgun? It all ended with me not getting a ticket, so I was happy, but still confused. I didn't ask him whether that was standard procedure, but talking with friends afterwards it doesn't seem like it is.

I wonder if it was the fact that I was so apparently not scary that made him cautious. Nevertheless my team mates had my back, they were watching from down the street to so they could record if I was brutalized. How thoughtful.

On a final note, most people are lazy, I think we can agree on that. Given the choice between and escalator and stairs, people take the escalator. What happens if you make the stairs more interesting? What happens if you give feedback to people when they throw their trash away? How did they ever manage to get those projects approved?

American Thanksgiving is fast approaching. I'm looking forward to the three day week coming up, also not looking forward to it. It will be two days of work that won't be helping the project get finished. I'd make the developers work the holiday if I thought I could get away with it, but probably not. Two of them are from India so it isn't like they'd be celebrating anyway ...

Finally got back in to biking around the canyon at lunch hour. A director in the company kept booking half hour meetings at 11am that would stretch in to 12:15 or so and chew right through my riding time. Saw one of my favourite signs while in the canyon (see over to the right). That is the North American sign for "Good biking is over here". Plus by not defining what a single track trail is I can always claim innocence.

Kat and I will continue to avoid Black Friday. There would have to be something I *really* wanted and it would have to be very discounted for me to put up with the crowds of shoppers. So far nothing has met that criteria. The one big purchase that Kat and I were going to do has already been done online. We've ordered a pet-specific Roomba (I hope that link works, I think there are shopping cart specific values in there that may cause issues). That is the big gift for the house. For those of you who don't bother following the link, it is a robot that vacuums your floors for you, avoids banging in to furniture and will go back to the base station for recharging when the power starts to run out. Kat and I can indulge in more leisure time as robots make our lives easier. Hmm, I'm sure I've heard that statement before. What could possibly go wrong?

We figure if the robot scares the animals, that's just another plus.

Speaking of purchases, I recently bought an Eyetv adapter to plug in to the Mac Mini with the plan of getting rid of the CRT television and the DVR that we rent from cable company. Plus (my thinking went) we could burn copies of T.V. shows to DVD after we pulled out the advertisements. Oddly enough buying that piece of equipment led to the following discoveries:

1) It didn't work.
2) The cable company encrypts all the channels so, I can't get them on the EyeTV.
3) The clear over-the-air channels have horrible reception where we are in San Diego due to the hills.
4) We only watch a couple shows on cable.
5) Why the hell do we pay so much money for channels we don't watch?
6) Project Runway is shown a week later on Hulu for free.

So we've decided to drop cable entirely. I won't be able to watch Premiere League Soccer any more, but I see that as a couple hours of the weekend I get back. I'll go surfing or read a book.

So an initial investment of $200 is leading to a $20 cost to ship it back, a $200 refund from the company, and $60 less a month in cable costs. That's a win.

Some quick links.
One for the cat lovers out there, here.
One for the end-of-the-world lovers out there who are worried about the Large Hadron Collider causing black holes to swallow the world. The Register have gathered up some of the best comments from the fringe crowd.

Beer week was here last week. Some of the pubs around the areas were offering beers along with custom food. An example of the stuff we *didn't* eat is:

3rd Course; Spiced waffles, house made chocolate bacon ice cream, coco nibs
Beer Pairing; Belgian Stout

I'm not such a beer fan that I could pair a stout with bacon ice cream. I like bacon and I like stout, but throwing ice cream in to that equation makes it all kinds of wrong. We did have some coffee stout with a brownie at the Blind Lady Ale Pub. Yummers.

When Kat and I first arrived in San Diego one of our big complaints was the lack of pubs. There were bars everywhere, but no pubs, or very, very few. Now we have a bunch in the area with all kinds of custom micro-brews on tap. I appreciate the change, and from the crowds we are seeing in the pubs, so do a lot of other San Diego residents. So for all of you Canadians who like to mock American beer because it is weak and tasteless, you are mocking the best selling American beers (Budweiser and Coors) and if you look at the matching Canadian beers (Molson and Blue) they aren't that much better in the 'taste' category. There are *tons* of really, really good microbreweries down here. Stone Brewery even has a lovely upscale restaurant attached to its brewery. I put a link in there to their site, for some reason it asks you whether you are over 21, it is safe for work.

On a final note, got back to the beach again. Strapping the surf board to the top of the car and driving down the highway causes the surfboard to bounce around in a disconcerting way. Plus the straps were humming in the wind and drowning out the Stuart McLean CD I was listening to. Stuart McLean and surfing, there's a combo for you. Oh yes, turns out my upper body strength still sucks.

The holidays are fast approaching and I find myself getting excited. Yes, this may seem out of character, but within my sometimes-crusty mien, there resides a bouncy child that goes "whee!" when plans for christmas begin to wind up.

As some of you are fully aware, plans have flip-flopped a bit already, but we've always been fairly relaxed about that sort of thing. Adaptable one might even say. We've also been called 'spontaneous' because friends can often count on us to go "okay!" when they call last minute and ask us to join them for hijinks. So, this year is no exception; plans to have guests for Christmas day became speculation about traveling north or east to visit some snow and friendly faces, and finally morphed into an obligatory stay-at-home event. When I say obligatory, I do not mean to say it is a bad thing. Yes, Phillip may have to work right up to Christmas day due to a timely technical release; however, we are happy to cozy up at home with the pets in front of our gas fire and pretend it's cold outside while we sip coffee, have a long breakfast and open presents to each other. See? "Wheee!"

Of course we can't talk about holidays without mentioning Thanksgiving, which is coming up very quickly. This year, rather than attend the HUGE event hosted by our friends, known fondly far and wide as The Maryland House (even though they now live on a different street), we are hosting a small gathering with two other couples. The fun of this is that we are at home, so no traveling is required; secondly, one of the Kevins (we have so many friends named Kevin) is bringing the bird itself, with stuffing, so I'm responsible for side dishes.  I'll be making maple-glazed sweet potatoes, rosemary-orange cranberry sauce, brussels sprouts au gratin, brandied carrots and parsnips and my delicious garlic-mashed potatoes. Jenny is bringing gluten-free pumpkin pie and a banana-squash cream pie for dessert. How nice is all of that? Thank you very much!

In other news, Phillip is still beloved by his bosses and doing well at work and I am enjoying massage therapy classes immensely. I've learned so much in a short time about health, history and the quirky machine we call the human body. In the first week, I found myself saying "fascinating!" a lot, and that's just in the nine month Massage Therapy, Western Techniques program. There is a full year-program for a Holistic Health Practitioner license that is even more in-depth. Returning to school seems to be paying dividends already; I realize that this is what I've needed to feel like I can put down roots here and have no doubt that by the time I am ready to graduate, I will have made many valuable contacts that will see me happily employed with a number of ready clients. Future plans entail spa-work for a few years and maybe eventually owning my own small business.  It's exciting and motivating and I feel like I've made the right choice for a new career.

That said, theatre will never by far from my heart. While I don't think I can make a living at it here, I do think I will continue to perform and write for a long time. At the moment, I am cast in a show called "True West" by the amazing Sam Shepard. It is a story about sibling rivalry (between brothers), but the director is making a bold choice in casting 'Austin' as a sister (yours truly). The risk will be that when violence erupts, it will be seen as "against a woman" rather than the intended sibling hostility, so we will have an interesting challenge on our hands. I'm excited because this is a wonderful opportunity for me to take on a juicy role opposite a very talented friend of mine who is an amazing actor.  Rehearsals start in January.

So, that's my little update, out of the blue. I hope all of you are healthy, safe and happy and wish you all glad tidings for the end of the year.

I'm at the coffee shop while Kat is off doing a read-through for some Day of the Dead
thing going on tomorrow. I couldn't help but feel like I had to put that guy to the right out of his misery. Who bakes unhappy ginger bread men? Perhaps he was the only one enlightened enough to realize his lot in life is to be dismembered and ingested. I had to eat him before he spread the news to the rest of the pile of ginger men and a yummy sugary riot ensued. Wow. I need to cut back on the caffeine.

We're back from the cruise, it was fun. It didn't give me a "Wow, we must do this again!" moment, but it was enjoyable. Kat pointed out that the rest of my discussion (below) doesn't sound like we enjoyed it. We did, but we aren't cruising converts.
I have to say if you have kids, cruises would be great. There were (so we were told) 700 staff on board for 2,100 people. I think that is a better ratio than at day care. We saw a lot of kids running rampant around the ship unsupervised and why not, where are they going to go? I guess they could have jumped off the ship, five stories down to the ocean. Of course if your child is the type to do that, they aren't safe anywhere.

Kat and I spent a lot of time lying in the shade and reading. Snoozing. Snoozing was really big. Staying in your cabin to relax wasn't really much of an option since it was a very small cabin. Some of the bigger boats we saw had cabins with balconies facing out, how cool would that be? They did make towel animals for you during the 'turn down service' they were adorable. I'll link in some pictures later.

They do try and keep you very busy, if you allow them:

• Didn't take part in the 'hairiest chest' competition.
• Did play some miniature golf. On a ship, top deck, how cool is that?
  
• Didn't do any of the bingo (although they were giving away a lot of money).
• Did go in the warm-tub (wasn't hot enough to be called a hot tub).
• Didn't go to any of the 'how-to shop' seminars.
• Did go ashore in Catalina and Ensenda (Mexico).
• Didn't do any of the package tours they organize.
• Didn't go to the meet-and-greet with the captain and the officers.
  
• Did go to the first 'show' they had. I don't go to those types of shows so I don't have much of a baseline, but when the guy starts singing J. Geil's band 'Centerfold' song and they've changed the words to be about women on a yearly calendar, ouch. When Ms. November came out dancing with a rubber turkey on a platter (Thanksgiving month here in the U.S.A.), I wasn't sure if that was the part I enjoyed the most, or cringed the most.
• Did go see, briefly, part of the hypnotist show. Just enough to realize it wasn't worth it.
  
• Didn't go to the second show they had. It was promised as 'completely different' to the first show and just walking by the auditorium, you knew it wasn't different at all.

In terms of food ... acceptable and ever-present.  One of the areas was open all the time. You could eat from 7:30 AM straight through to midnight if you really wanted to. On the second night we started to meet Kristina and Kevin at 'our' dining room (there were two). The chef was Indian, which meant the vegetarian dishes at supper were great, the others were good. Free food did mean we saw some of those unsupervised urchins running around at breakfast with a fizzy drink in one hand and an ice cream in another. Yeah, that's what we thought too. Explains why they had a 'serenity' section at the back of the boat where children weren't allowed. We spent a lot of time there.

One thing that did strike me was that I should have been reading a dystopian novel while I was on board, it would have *so* fit.
- You're issued a card when you board the ship. Everything you want to do, you use the card. It's ID, it's collateral for borrowing towels or putters, it's money for the slot machines, it's money for your drinks. England, you paying attention?
- Your picture is taken as you get on the ship, off the ship, and constantly during the trip. Oh yes, those pictures of you belong to them and they can use them as they see fit.
- They attempt to keep you busy all the time, join in with your comrades! Have fun!
- Attempting to leave the boat or getting back on means you line up, get your ID checked and everything else goes through the x-ray machine and metal detectors.
- No matter where you go there are 'staff' watching you.
- You want to go where? That part of the boat? I'm afraid not comrade, but remember the dancers are on at 6pm in the Mikado lounge!

Overall the cruise is very much like going to Vegas, if you suspend your disbelief and enjoy it (and ignore the cost of drinks) it can be a lot of fun.

I had a rather embarrassing revelation on my motorcycle last week. I have a sixth gear! The Yamaha only had five and I was constantly looking for another gear, the BMW has six ... but the five I was using for the last six months were doing fine. I had an inspiration on the way home from work to try and see if there was another gear and surprise, there was. I'll see if the discovery of the sixth gear will increase my MPG.

I finally bought a surf board: 8.2 feet. Picked it up last week last week and took it out last Wednesday morning. Embarrassingly (again) the surf was stronger than I was used to and I couldn't even get the board past the surf break. I'd paddle out 15 feet and get nailed by a wave that would push me back 12 feet. Three waves later I'd gone nine feet and realized that I'm seriously short of upper body strength. I caught some tiny waves as they reformed before hitting the beach. There is next to no surf this weekend so I'm planning my not-so-mad skills out to the beach again.

I've alway been fascinated with how people learn. Why is it that some people seem to pick up on languages really easily and others (namely myself) don't seem to get it? I believe a good amount of it is simply the way you are wired, some people are better at it naturally. Some of it is the way my brain has been trained over the last ten years of being in consulting and IT. As soon as I start to hear information my brain attempts to put it in boxes, define them, and make connections between the boxes. It must be why I need to have a white board in my office when discussing things, I'm constantly drawing boxes and connections. I believe even have a rows of stick figures on my board right now with lines connecting them.

I figure I'd be a very good mechanic if I took the time to learn about engines, it's the same pattern.

Languages are far too anarchic to be nicely put in to boxes. No boxes and flows, no remembering by me. Yes, languages inherit from other languages and there are basics like Latin that are roots for many rules of language. Yes there are rules in English like "I before E except after C" (although I heard they are thinking of scrapping that one) but those aren't really rules, they're suggestions. How are you supposed to learn something if the rules keep changing or being ignored? It used to drive me nuts trying to learn French by memorizing the 'rules' first and then attempting to apply them.

The only reason I understand English is because I'm constantly bombarded by it, not because I have any sort of aptitude. I couldn't tell you what a hanging participle is, but if I read a sentence I can tell you whether it is grammatically correct. Sadly it's a binary sort of ability, either it is correct, or it isn't. I couldn't tell you exactly what is wrong with it.

Of course since I have no grounding in rules for English I have to wonder why I'm so pedantic about them. If my understanding comes from constant references then you'd figure I'd be faster at accepting regional differences and new ways of speaking. I still wince whenever somebody in southern California says "Uh-huh" instead of "You're welcome".

Kat is studying for her first test so we are back at the coffee shop, her decrying the lack of highlighters in her bag and me with the laptop. She is planning on acing the tests so studying is a requirement. We had to leave the house so she could get some studying done, which I can completely understand. As I've probably mentioned before, I'm all about avoidance of temptation. Staying at home means there are things to distract Kat from studying, like playing Warcraft. One of the reasons I bought the Mac Air is (other than being really cool) that it isn't powerful enough to play any interesting games. That way when I'm using it I have removed some temptations. So Kat could either sit at home and constantly resist doing things she would rather be doing, or we can leave and remove the temptation. Thus here we are. Of course now we have to resist desserts. It's a dangerous world out here.

Part of her studies are about nutrition so it was doubly funny when she ran in to an article in the Economist about fried butter. Now not only does she dislike the idea on a visceral level, but she can dislike it on a molecular level. She's trying to explain to me about ionic and covalent bonds but all I can think about is ionic vs. doric vs. corinthian columns. I'm not going to mention that to her because it'll mess up her studying and that would be bad.

I've been looking in to using surveymonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/) to gather information from customers but I cannot get past the name. I keep having this image of a closed room with statisticians in lab coats, clipboards and thick glasses at one end and a horde of monkeys at the other end. What could possibly go wrong?

Had a moment of weakness on Friday. I was standing on the beach just as the sun was starting to make enough light to see, shivering from the cold. For some reason I had decided shorts and a tee shirt was a good outfit to wear for 6:30 in the morning, it wasn't. So there I stood with all my gear looking at the ocean and thinking "Damn, it's cold!". I almost didn't go in. I finally sucked it up and went in, and it turns out the water was far warmer than the air and it was good.

I think I disappointed the guy in the picture. He was waiting for some carrion.

The standing invite I have out now has ten people on it, and I find maybe two (including myself) show up. That's fine. I don't expect other people to show up, but I use them to motivate myself to get my ass out of bed at 5:30 in the morning.

I still haven't bought a surfboard. Kevin Six and I went out to buy one last weekend, it is always good to go out with somebody who really knows their stuff. He skimmed through the used ones on sale muttering to himself, no good, no good, good but too expensive. There weren't any that met the good and cheap criteria. We even went to CostCo, since they sold surfboards earlier in the year. They were all gone. So I am still without a surfboard and just using the boogie boards. Kevin mentioned that I should wander by garage sales and any surfboard eight feet in height and $50 in cost could be considered a good one. The search continues.

I did see a used surfboard with green camouflage, not sure what that designer was thinking. The camouflage was on the top of the surfboard, so it won't be confusing sharks and it'll really stand out if you look down from above (unless you are caught in a seaweed jungle). Maybe the pattern was meant to be ironic, it's really anti-camouflage.

I'm writing this in the coffee shop while Kat and her theatre group are having a post-mortum of the show they put on. It is also the last meeting they will have as a group since four out of the five of them don't want to continue with the 'collective'. I'm sitting sitting as far away as possible. Things rarely end cleanly. I'm hoping I'm wrong about that.

It is also filling up with gay men and their little dogs. At least they are all well behaved ... the dogs, not the men. Okay, I take that back. Time to start stuffing muscle relaxants in to little pieces of meat.

Kat is still enjoying the massage courses. She was naming off all my muscles the other day, I'm always impressed with that because that kind of information never seems to stay in my head. I must have a filter that labels it 'not important' as soon as I hear it and shuffles it off to the damaged section of my memory. Same place that foreign language information is sent.

October is here and it is going to be busy. The latter half of the month is going to be full of things to do, including the short cruise. I'm still debating on whether to try and see as much as possible on the ship, or just sit on my ass for a few days and relax. I'm thinking the relax bit. Our friend Kevin has been adamant that no matter what happens he wants a fruity drink with a little umbrella in it. We've decided we have to hit up a dollar store and stock up on little umbrellas so we can throw then in everything he drinks.

Those of you with gmail accounts may have seen strange emails showing up in your inbox. Seems gmail will send emails that seem to be addressed to you, to you, even if they aren't exact. I have sent plane tickets addressed to Phillip Dean back to people (she had a son named Phillip Dean) and I know that Branpford House needs the parapets and rear wall repaired (mostly to "hack off loose render and to renew as necessary", hell who doesn't need that?).

This morning I was sent congratulations on taking up the responsibility as Dean of Philosophy at JDV (the Pontifical Institute of Philosophy and Religion). Seems somebody from Institute Mater Dei was interested in a visit, how exciting! To top it off I received the "Minutes of the Philosophy Faculty Council Meeting" which ended with:

The meeting was over by 4. p. m, with tea. (my emphasis)

That's the way to run a meeting. I'm moving to India and taking up philosophy. Namaste.

By the way, while looking up 'namaste' on the web I found out that Yoga is dangerous to Christians. You've been warned. I didn't get 1/3 of the way through that rant, and that site is Not Safe For Work if you work in a secular environment.

P.S. The meeting Kat was at did end quietly. I knew you were worried.