The Magic Satchel

The first day of FF 2010 and I was heading in looking at the sky and willing the clouds to break apart and go away. Little did I know I’d be praying for those clouds to come back by Saturday afternoon, but for Thursday night I was hoping that my rain gear would stay packed and I would manage to stay dry.
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it is late so I’ll keep this short… do any of us care without the Flames in the playoffs? do you think the Pens can repeat? what are the Canadiens chances vs the caps in round 1?

and more importantly, does anyone beyond the spambots actually read this anymore?

after so long, do I really know what “normal” is anymore?

Every day that goes by I find myself thinking more about normal stuff, and less about what I need to do to win the war I’ve been waging for the last 5 months. A large part of this is because I took a fairly expensive and drastic measure and cooked my house to ensure there wasn’t a living organism left to torment me, nothing left to ruin my sleep and cause more stress than I’d ever have imagined possible from such a small creature.

After the thermal treatment I took steps to ensure that even if there were any survivors (doubtful when you consider the temperatures and the durations they were held for) they had no way to get back in (or out), and if by some small miracle they did find their way back in… well, I don’t suspect they would live long enough to cause a problem. I’m still following procedures until I’m clear of the 60 day mark, but in my mind I keep telling myself that it is finally over and I can take my life off pause and get things back on track.

Today was a small step towards doing things I used to do, or at least putting things in place so I can do them again. I haven’t done any real baking (muffin mixes and jell-o don’t count) in probably a year or more, and so when I went grocery shopping today I made a point to go through the baking aisle and fully stock up. My cupboards are still surprisingly empty after dropping a fair amount of money at the grocery store, but I’ve now got ingredients in place to create stuff again.

I hope that I haven’t completely lost the knack, but the good thing about baking is that your mistakes are almost always still edible…

other things in my life that have been ignored for far too long and need to be dusted off as soon as possible:

biking – not since September of 2009, after riding 99% of the days the year before

walking – my knees are too bad for running these days, but I need to get out and be more active now that I have the time and energy (both physical and mental) to do so

taking pictures – and then uploading them to flickr. it’s been so long I can’t remember the log in info for my flickr account.

reading and playing games – it’s tough to do these when you don’t want to be in your house for more than 5 minutes.

there are other things, like writing on here, but I’m enjoying the idea of simply having my friends over for a night of fun fairly soon. having people over and actually relaxing in my house. what a novel concept.

it feels good to be getting back to normal, and I look forward to the day when I can look back at this five month period and be glad it is just a distant memory.

On October 30 I discovered the two people I took a chance on when deciding to rent them my house left more than excessive dirt and a destroyed carpet behind in their wake…. they left me a lovely parting gift.

Bedbugs.

I know what you’re thinking, and I couldn’t believe it either. Bedbugs are something you worry about in hostels and divey hotels, not in your home, not in your sanctuary from the outside world.

I honestly got lucky to discover them as early as I did, and the only reason I found out was because one was just a little too eager to get to the buffet table (me) than it should have been. I was going to bed, and what looked like a piece of lint was on my red flannel sheets. I was planning on vacuuming the house the next day so I just tried to brush it off to the floor and go to bed. I missed, and it started to run away. I went to grab it, thinking it was an ant or something, and it squished in my fingers making them all red.
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wow.

According to this graphic, over 34 million people in the US are on food stamps. That is more than the entire estimated population of Canada.

I was just talking about the difference in cost of living between the US and Calgary with a friend and I can’t imagine how screwed people would be if Calgary’s cost of living was applied everywhere.

working on a post (or series of posts) for the 2009 Folk fest, and believe it or not there is one coming about Sasquatch from back in May, I’ve just been stupid busy for far too long.

more to come… in the meantime, go read a webcomic or two.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

http://xkcd.com/

Prior to leaving work on Friday I spent some Google time looking for hikes in the area we would be camping in that had some elevation gain. The closest I could find was Plateau Mountain, and lacking a better knowledge of the area this is where we decided to go. We didn’t have a map, and only a vague idea of where to go once we got out on the road, but we somehow managed to find the start of the hike without any turning around.

You start out on a road that is blocked off by a locked gate, and walk up at a relatively easy incline… on the road. This continues for a while and I say “well, it is great to be out here walking but this hike better not all be on this road or this is going to suck”. We continue walking on the road and reach the top of the ridge with no difficulty at all. The road continues off to our left and directly across from us is our goal, Plateau Mountain.

Yeah, the road we were on took us up 90% of the elevation gain we were expecting to have to work for, and there wasn’t an obvious alternative to the road to continue on to the top of the mountain. At this point I think we agreed this hike was sitting in the 2 or 3 out of 10 category for challenge, fun, views… all the stuff you hope for when you go on a hike.
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Ahh camping, is there anything better than not being in the city for a few days to help get your head cleared out and things back on track?

This past weekend was a late change of plans (from none to hmm.. camping? to getting invited to camp with friends) but thanks to “the list” and the fact that camping gear is always easy to get out and throw in the car, next to last minute planning is no problem. I got off work early-ish and we headed out to Chain Lakes Provincial Park and had a pretty casual first night, sitting around drinking and listening to a couple of friends play guitar and banjo.. yeah, banjo!

The only complaint was no firepits at the individual sites. Seriously… camping without a fire is like chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. Sure, the cookie is still good, but it isn’t as good as it could be with that missing element.

Anyway, we made it through the evening without fire and Saturday morning Josh and I decide we are going to go hiking before the heat made us not want to move. That post is coming up next, but needless to say after a dusty hike in near 30 degree heat the first thing we did when we got back to the campsite was change in to swim trunks and went to jump in the lake. Glorious is the word I choose to use to describe the feeling of the cool water, and it definitely saved me from being a total zombie for the rest of the night. I still had a nap after dinner, but I think I’d have had serious heat stroke if I didn’t have the lake to take the edge off.

Saturday night was more of the same as Friday… drinking and guitar / banjo playing, and that was just fine by me as I relaxed in my chair with my new favorite fruity drink – Blueberry vodka and sprite. mmmm, tasty.

Sunday was pack up and return home, and let me tell you this – I knew I had too much sun when the first thing I wanted to do when I got home wasn’t have a shower, it was go to sleep. The shower I had later just let me know I had burned the top of my head, and I think from now on I’ll have to be a hat wearing hiker.

“Camp more this summer” is already a success, and I know there are at least 2 more trips planned so I’m pleased with this.. I just need to work on the “hike more”.

I have about 10 games in my lineup that date back to Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. In case you are wondering, yes I have finished Half Life 2.

Who has enough time in their lives to call about a car being abandoned on a residential street?

more importantly, how is it a problem when the “abandoned” car in question is in front of MY OWN FREAKING HOUSE?!?!? I could maybe understand if it was parked in front of another house, inconveniencing that home owner and forcing them to park elsewhere, setting off a chain of events that could destroy the stability of the universe as we know it… but it is on the street in front of my house, in what I would consider to be “my” spot.

There was a sticker on the window saying the car would be towed if it hadn’t moved in 72 hours, and the tires were chalked, a single line at 12, and a double line at 4 and 7 if you think of the tire as a clock.

Biking to work today I happened to see a Calgary Parking Authority car parked on my route to work, so I stopped and had a chat with him. This guy said as long as the chalk is gone from the tire it should be ok to leave the vehicle on the street. I just got off the phone with the Parking Authority dispatch and they gave me a different story completely. Apparently I not only have to move the car so the markings are gone, I can’t have it parked anywhere ON THE BLOCK when the enforcement people come by or it will get towed, to the tune of a $200 fine.

@#%@#$

IF there was some problem with where the car was parked, wouldn’t most normal people knock on the door and say “hey, could you move this car? it is blocking my view of the mailbox” or whatever the @#$# motivation was to call about the car in the first place.

assholes.