The Magic Satchel

Wow… December already?

The details are as follows:

December 6th @ 7pm GMT

Time Zone converter: meow

Theme – there have been some suggestions made on post-org about inappropriate holiday or a simple holiday theme… any other suggestions?

after a rather lengthy time away, the site is back. I’m sure all 2 of you missed it terribly so I’m glad I can bring this irregular distraction back to you.

stupid server upgrades… and don’t try to tell me this was something I did because I don’t mess with the sql end of things unless I absolutely have to!

(deep breath)

anyway… there are things to be written about, stuff to be posted, and reminders to be made, so on with the show!

I was going to title this “who watches the watchmen?” but I figured I’d get a number of angry fanboy comments for misleading them. what the? why isn’t he talking about the movie? what kind of crap is this?

It’s true, this is not a post about the upcoming movie, this is my slightly late reflection on what I called (upon its completion) my best small venue concert ever. At some point I may have to dig back through the archives of cd’s and concert ticket stubs to possibly dispute that comment, but for now I’ll stand behind it as a fact… the Watchmen kicked my ass and did it with a smile.
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still haven’t found my cable (I know I’ve had it out since I’ve moved, this is most confusing) to put up my october pictures, but November p/d/p is almost upon us.

Saturday November 1, 2008

6am GMT (which turns in to midnight on the 31st for us in mountain time)

theme suggestions?

maybe still in the vein of halloween since for some of us it will still be going on?

other thoughts.. ?

dress up a tree that has no leaves? the moon?

No, I’m not talking about the movie (although I’m pretty pumped about that too), I’m referring to the band.

For those of you that have no clue what I’m talking about, go here and read up on one of my favorite bands I always managed to miss seeing live.

Well, that isn’t exactly true as I did see them once before they became “big” (Canadian music big, not international superstars), but something always seemed to come up any time after that when they would roll through town… I even had tickets to more than one show that went to waste for one reason or another.

well, not this time. Thanks to the wonders of the interwebs I’ve discovered that they have decided to do a minor reunion tour and they are coming to Calgary on October 31. tickets go on sale in one minute and I don’t care if I’m going alone, I *will* go see them this time.

If this has piqued the interest of any readers that have never heard them, I’d highly recommend Slomotion. Yeah it is 18 bucks on iTunes, but it covers their best songs (the last 9) and the first 9 songs are their last new material.

what are you waiting for? go buy it!

Hi,

How have you been lately?

Tomorrow at 11am mountain time (10am pacific, 1pm eastern) you should take a picture.

It should have some orange in it. or maybe be a little spooky.

you should put it here when you’re done: meow!

that is all I’ve got for right now, so I’ll talk at you later.

two days late

I could edit the date this was posted to show I’m not always late, but that requires more effort than I’m willing to put in right now. yes, I’m feeling so lazy that I’m not going to do about 5 mouse clicks…

Anyway, I’m really just posting to break the rather loong streak of silence here, to remind the (one) reader that I am still alive and kicking, just busy with stuff that doesn’t really seem to be worth writing about.

In short, my summer has been winning the ball hockey championship (for the 2nd season in a row), yet again not enough camping or hiking, trying to sell a house I own with my brother but then buying it outright instead, not enough biking… basically too much stuff I have to do but really don’t want to and not enough of the things I like to do.

My camera has been gathering dust, I’ve been dealing with yet another injury (the foot this time, always great to hurt something new), and generally haven’t had time to sit and gather my thoughts for more than a few minutes before I’m off to do something else.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to tie off a lot of loose ends over this most recent stretch of silence, and this means I’m now able to find the time to sit and bore you to tears.

In celebration of my birthday, I thought I’d take the time to generally outline what I see myself doing in my 36th year on this planet. Plus, with this on record I pretty much have to follow through on it.

- reducing debt (the bank list is down to 3 from 5, and in 6 months it will be down to just 2) Debt free in ’09 (with the exception of my house) is the goal, I just need to stay focused to make it a reality.

- traveling to Denver in February and Montreal in March – both to spend time with friends but also to attend hockey games

- pushing and participating in p/d/p more than I have been (other projects as well)

- reducing the clutter in my life – literal and figurative

- taking better care of myself – dealing with a knee problem 2 years ago and now a foot / ankle problem for the last 10-12 months I can’t ignore the fact that I need to find balance in what I do, or find better, less painful ways to do what I enjoy.

- find ways to break out of the closed environment I find myself in. new activities, volunteering… that sort of thing.

- become a more valuable employee (that sound so lame… I really mean find ways to not be bored at work) – I was approached the other day with a pretty outstanding offer within my current company that may push my career (I have a career? it sounds so grown up ) in completely different direction. I’d be a fool to turn this down, so I may be doing some book learnin’ soon.. here’s hoping my brain hasn’t completely atrophied over the last 5 years and I can live up to their expectations.

so yeah, a pretty general list, but if I hit all that I have laid out here I should be a pretty busy and somewhat different person sitting here talking to you a year from now.

talk at you later.

September 6th
4am GMT

aka 10pm Friday September 5 in MST
aka 9pm PST

seeing as how we are basically a day away howzabout we just do away with the theme for this month?

alternatively, what about taking photos in.. color accent? is that a universal feature for most digital cameras?

I’d really like to try some HDR for p/d/p, but that may not work depending on the theme we pick… unless HDR is the theme and we just take pictures of anything we want

So how do you follow an amazing day of entertaining music?

well, you start by getting up at 430 in the morning, packing your car and only then noticing you have messages waiting for you as you are about to drive out to Canmore for the 24 hours of Adrenalin bike race.
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Saturday brings the first full day of music, with workshops and individual concerts on 6 different stages that run almost non stop from 1030am until 530pm.

I definitely had some people I wanted to check out from what I had seen on Thursday and Friday, but I really wish I could have been in two (or three) places at once because the overlap from one stage to another made it difficult to get to see absolutely everything I wanted.
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