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April 2, 2007 - 12:40 AM  I seem to be in Arizona at the moment. We're about 112 miles away from Las Vegas and our journey tomorrow will take us there via the Hoover Dam, but this afternoon we toured around the Grand Canyon. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it is much bigger than any of us imagined it might be. It really is expansive.  Perhaps a bit of explanation might be in order. You see, I did in fact quit my job at Shaw Cable on Thursday. But that is only half of the story. Sitting here in my bed, serenaded by snoring yet wide awake from a half-drunken bottle of Pepsi beside me, it seems like a good time to type out a tale to tell, don't you think? Late in December of last year, Shaw introduced a new policy of annual vehicular inspection requirements for all it's unit based installers. Basically, the vehicle I drive as an installer for Shaw Cable, although being owned and operated by me, now had to meet all the criteria for an out of province style inspection. These inspections were to be completed, at our own expense, by January 15th, and any shortcomings had until May 15th to be repaired. Anyone without a vehicle boasting a clean bill of health would not be scheduled any work from that point on. Well. My 1990 Ford Econoline van did not come close to meeting the criteria now demanded by Shaw. Never mind the fact that it had delivered me and my equipment, tools, cable, connectors, and cargo to and from every installation, come rain, snow, hail, and (on the rare occasion) shine - now I was faced with a bill in the range of $4,000 to $5,000 just to keep doing what I was already doing at Shaw - installing cable. That van was originally used as a Telus service van, turned loose at an auction where we picked it up and it had been in the family for several years before I bought it from my father to use in much the same line of work it had been accustomed to it's whole working life. At this stage, however, fixing it up did not make much sense and I had toyed with the idea of buying a new or newer vehicle. Again, a cost incurred soley by me as a requirement to remain employed at Shaw. Now in all fairness, Shaw does pay it's unit based installers very well. Annual earnings in the six figure range are not unheard of and are attainable by anyone willing to work for it. There are various tax benefits as well, many of the costs incurred can be written off and most installers will get a handsome refund at the end of the year. Even so, having just completed my taxes this year and talleyed the totals for my time at Shaw, it is quite expensive to work there! In 2006 I spent about $4,100 on gasoline! My cell phone cost me over $2,300. This's and that's added up and slashed their way into my net earnings. All said and done though, still not a bad income. Then I went to Australia. I had toyed with the idea of quitting Shaw since January. The first month of the year was a very frustrating month for me at Shaw. Stress was high, income was low, hours were long and my temper grew short. Almost every night I was coming home from work at 9:00, 10:00, sometimes even 11:00 and later, only to fall hard on my bed, pass out for a few precious hours before facing the alarm clock and another waking day at work. The three days off each week were deceptively short. Thursday, my first day off was almost always a wash. Many times I would sleep most of the day, only to putter around for a few hours before crashing back on the bed and promising myself I'd be more productive the next day. February was not as bad, I started enjoying the work again and thought perhaps it was just a bad month or a phase I'd just gone through. The trip to Australia was approaching, and although my morale started to decline again, I decided not to do anything until I got back from my two week vacation. Australia came and went. It was an escape from everything. I honestly didn't give work much thought at all while I was there, just let my mind completely abandon all things work related. I got to relax, see part of the world I've never seen before, and took a glimpse of an entirely different way of life. I started to feel very trapped. Unpredictable, long hours. Days off that provided no useful weekend. Time off that required acrument and booking months in advance. There was no such thing as simply taking a day off without pay. And then, with a looming date of May 15th on the horizon and a vehicle that was nowhere near passing that inspection, my career at Shaw was quickly vanishing. Each day seemed to be worse than the last, and every time I'd complete a call my dread of the next one grew. A single thought kept resounding in my head, getting louder and more distinct every day and in every call: I don't want to do this anymore. Last Monday I went to see Ib at Sylvania. After some catching up on the vacations we'd both just returned from, I laid all my cards out on his desk. "I am in a position now where I am looking for a full time position" I told him. "Done." he said. "When can you start?" We initially agreed that I would start the following Monday, which would have been today, April 2nd. I filled out the paperwork and went on about my day. Ib phoned me back that afternoon however, to say that one of the executives in corporate who has to sign off on new hires was out of town until Monday and suggested we push the whole thing back one week. The following day I talked everything over with my family, and Blair then suggested that I quit on Wednesday as initially planned, but come to Las Vegas, amongst several other US destinations, with him and two of our cousins, Christy and Mark - expenses paid. How could I say no? Wednesday became my last day at Shaw, I went in on Thursday, handed in my letter of resignation and while I was cleaning out my truck in the parking lot of the Shaw warehouse, Ib phoned me to say that the fellow who had been out of town had returned early, signed the paperwork, and I was officially (and finally) a full time employee of Sylvania Lighting Services. I then had to explain that I couldn't start on Monday as initially planned, but would be happy to start the day after I get back from this excursion. This was agreeable, and here I am. Lying in bed at the Comfort Inn in a small town whose name has completely left me at the moment, air conditioning humming away under the open window and the now calmer sounds of Mark snoring in the bed beside me intermittently interrupting an otherwise serene night in the Nevada desert. Kind of funny how life broadsides you sometimes and you find yourself places doing things you'd have never expected. But I am honestly excited - more excited than I've been in a LONG TIME, about going back to work! I loved lighting, I loved the guys I worked with, I loved the 8 hour days, I loved having the weekends off, I loved going out of town. I loved getting to use bucket trucks and Skyjacks. I loved making silly jokes about the number of guys required to change a lightbulb. I'll even be able to start going to church again, now that I'm no longer working on Sundays. The only thing that makes this transition unfavorable in the least is the pay cut - but I've been considering over the past couple of weeks - what is my happiness worth? How much would I pay for my free time? I've lived on much less before, Ib has offered me a wage that I am more than happy with, even though I won't have the free cash I did over the past year, it will be a good lesson in discipline. I really found myself squandering a lot of money, and I've never been in overdraft as much as I have the past year! You spend what you make. I am happy and content with this decision, even though some might think it crazy to take a job making less money. The way I see it, my time and sanity are worth far more than dollars, and this change just makes cents. And now, some more photos from our trip:          April 5, 2007 - 1:28 AM It is late, I am tired and sore. We were in a four-car accident on Freeway #10 this evening on our way from Los Angeles to Tyler's parents' house where we are now staying for the night. A drunk native woman apparently got a flat tire while driving down the middle lane of the freeway. She stopped, (in the middle lane) - got out to look at the tire, then got back into the car and put on her hazzard lights. The vehicle in front of us spotted her car parked in the 65 MPH lane ahead, slammed on his brakes. Not knowing why he was braking, we too slammed on our brakes, but just as the vehicle in front of us came to a stop, we bumped him from behind. A half second later, we were also slammed from behind with a much bigger thud. There was virtually no damage between the vehicle in front of us and our front end, and the damage to the back of our SUV was minimal (I think it was just the muffler that sustained any real damage) although the entire front end of the vehicle that hit us was crumpled up. See the pictures at the bottom. I think everyone was ok but I am experiencing a sharp pain in the middle of my back, about half-way down and just to the left of my spine. I can feel it when I take deep breaths and so far it has not subsided but we'll see how it feels in the morning. Poor Blair was quite shaken by the whole ordeal. I think he's been too stressed out on this trip to really enjoy it, and then this came along. He did all the right things though and there wasn't really anything else he could have done. The California Highway Patrol arrested the woman who stopped her car in the middle of the freeway and I believe she was impaired from the way they were checking her out. Christy said she saw them have her blow into a machine. I heard one of the two officers say he had to write out a ticket for the guy that hit us, although I'm not sure what for. His side windows were tinted, so maybe they dinged him on that. Still, despite being in two separate accidents, we drove away and made it safely the rest of the way to Tyler's parents' house where Blair, Mark, and I are now sleeping in their caravan parked in the driveway of their house. It's quite fun, and the smell of the trailer has brought back countless memories of our own trailer and the adventures we had in it.   We went and saw the Star Trek Exhibit at the Hilton where we rode both Star Trek Experience rides: One Borg themed adventure and The Klingon Encounter. Blair and I bought a case of Romulan Ale which will probably be the only time we see Blair carrying a full case of beer out to his car.    An incredible meal in Las Vegas.   I think this is a bit of false advertising... Does it look like this place is open?          I will have to elaborate on this image. I spent nearly an hour and a half hidden behind this curtain waiting for Mark and Christy to get back from their casino chip-hunting mission, only to discover that they'd come back separately and were already fast asleep by the time I gave up and went back to the room. Learned some lessons on gambling through that experience though that I believe were quite insightful.    What the hell am I doing, drinking in LA at twenty-six... ? I couldn't resist the opportunity to enact one of the chorus lines from a song that was once in my list of favorites: Drinking in LA by Bran Van 3000. And considering I AM twenty-six years old at the moment, this was likely the only time in my life I'd be able to legitimately do this. Tyler and I bought a cup each of Fat Tire beer and sat in the Farmer's market in the middle of LA, drinking our beers and me singing the chorus to the song. It was very surreal.   I saw a tonne of Betty Boop memorabilia and just about bought one particular figurine but my better judgement prevailed and I resisted the purchase. I did however take pictures instead. (Big surprise, I know...)    Here are the pictures of the car that hit us.    Nearly two in the morning. We might have to head back home early given the events of this evening, but tomorrow will be the tell. In the mean time, I need my beauty sleep! April 6, 2007 - 10:58 PM We are presently driving north along Highway 15 just south of Las Vegas. On both sides of the vehicle flat desert covers the land for about a mile on each side and then mountains spring up out of the ground. The rocky, sandy ground is spattered with brown and dark green bushlets that are sprawled out all the way up the sides of the mountains and blend into a blur of spots. Then, seemingly out of nowhere a small casino town springs up with tall, colorful buildings, green manicured grass, signs, lights, and neon to beckon the weary traveler off the endless highway to try their luck and spend some money. Everything about this place pushes people into the casinos. In our hotel room at the Excalibur we had a 46" plasma TV on the wall, and barely 20 channels of nothing to watch. The pool at the Excalibur was closed, so a walk through the halls and cooridors past countless slot machines' blink and clammour to the pool at the Luxor, which was only open until 6:00 PM. Time to go gamble, I guess. As an ex cable guy, I couldn't help but notice that the quality of the cable service supplied to the TV was very poor. Some channels had snow over them, others were covered in jagged lines. I couldn't help but wonder if that wasn't even done on purpose to get you to move downtown where you could catch your game from a bar-side TV while you poke mindlessly away on a VLT as your wallet empties and your stomach fills with beer. Vegas is a really depressing place. The one ray of hope for me was the Spamalot musical we had the privilege of watching. Oh my goodness, this was a treat and a half. Essentially a broadway musical based on Monty Python's Search For The Holy Grail, this production was laugh out loud funny! It's actors did excellent impersonations of the original six stars of the movie, the costumes were recognizable and the humor was true to form. The musical encompassed the re-enactment of several key scenes from the movie, some original, some new songs (Hence the musical part) and some new funny bits that are sure to become as classic as the movie that inspired them. The night ended with the audience singing along to Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life We must be getting close to Vegas now; billboards are appearing every 20 seconds on both sides of the highway, including one for Spamalot. One caught my eye, I kid you not, advertising a Chinese restaurant named Ping Pang Pong.  Throughout the entire trip Mark kept asking to stop at an In-And-Out burger, so for lunch we pulled into one. The burgers themselves were decent, but I think the consensus was that Peter's has better burgers. I just had a chocolate milkshake, and it was indistinguishable from a Dairy Queen shake. After lunch we went to Scandia and played 32 holes of Mini-Golf on their palm-tree covered course. Even though it was mostly overcast in LA, we had moderate weather throughout the day and the course was a lot of fun. Here are the pictures in no particular order.             Scandia also had an arcade and we had an air hockey tournament and I got to play some classic arcade games, including The Simpsons and Street Fighter II, and also a Simpson's pinball game that was loud and funny and the Adam's Family pinball game. Once we were all golfed out, Tyler brought us to a little Mexican restaurant east of LA where we had supper together.  For a bet of $10, Tyler drank an entire bowl of salsa.   Since the forecast for today was not overly favorable of outdoor activities, particularly going to the beach, and given the long drive back and two simultaneous accidents we'd just been in, we decided this morning to start heading back today instead of tomorrow. We thanked Tyler's mom and dad for their hospitality and for letting us stay at their house and packed up the Rendevous. Most of today was spent driving although we did stop for gas and popped into a Carl's Jr. which reminded me of my trip to Soledad a few years ago. This evening we had some difficulty finding a hotel with a suitable vacant room at a reasonable price since it is a long weekend here. Eventually we did find a Travelodge that had a very nice suite that was under a hundred dollars. It has a huge living room with couch and two chairs, bar, fridge, even a cordless room phone! It even has two separate bedrooms that sandwich the bathroom, one with two double beds and one with a king. Given the size, the room also has two Air Conditioners making it quite comfortable. In terms of functionability and features, it's actually a far nicer room than at the Excalibur and I'm sure it cost a lot less! (But of course, it's not on the Strip either.) I've learned that there is nothing like a road trip to bring out personality conflicts in even the best of friends and family... There have been a few tense moments in the past couple of days, but so far everything has remained civil and I think that being on our way home now has extended the patience of everyone as the light at the end of the tunnel draws nearer. We might even get home a day early! Anyway, I think I'm going to upload this and head to bed. It's been a good trip but I always look forward to going home. April 10, 2007 - 12:21 AM There's No Place Like...  Well we all made it home safely. I sit on my futon in my pajamas, waiting for one last load of laundry to dry and listen to Radiohead through headphones as I write the last few words of text before the Adventures Of A Lightbulb Changer continue. I heard this song in a skate shop in LA and knew it inside and out but could neither recall the author nor title at the time. It's been bugging me ever since. It was a song that Julie recommended to me, so naturally I thought of her when I heard it in the store and then kicked myself for not remembering what it was. No matter now. Just cause you feel it doesn't mean it's real... I'm excited to get back into lighting. I think it was Lee who pointed out this evening that there aren't a lot of jokes you can make about being a cable guy that don't include Jim Carey... I hadn't consciously thought of it, but it is true. I love the reaction people give when they ask what you do for a living and you tell them you change lightbulbs. But it is rewarding work — Every day I brighten someone's life. :P  I'm looking forward to summer, and to the freedom having predictable working hours will allow. Perhaps I might even get something of a life back in time. Oh, and if you are single and female and would like to come to Florida for 10 days in May with me, please email me! Sorry about the short notice. I wanted to post my 'rent-a-friend' ad earlier but I kept forgetting. Still have just over a month though. Dates are May 11 - 21. My neck hurts, and I think I'll have to go to the chiropractor about it. I was hoping it would just go away but now I don't think that's going to happen. I have no idea how to claim for this though. (And I can't really afford to pay for treatment myself in the mean time...) Swine accident. Today I found another song that Bo and I heard a lot over in Australia on the radio and the streets. It's a fun, swinging sound and the lead singer's been a favorite of mine since high school when I found one of her CD's in the lost and found. Wow, look at the time. Almost 1 already! Crazy. Don't want to be sleepy my first day on the job... Here are some other pictures I found still on my camera cards before I go to bed.  Dad would have loved to browse the many trinkets and doo-dads in this Cracker Barrel Store we stopped in. Both an old time country store and a restaurant, the atmosphere and artifacts take you back in time to a different era in a different land when the world was younger and life was simpler. A fun store to stroll through.  These fries taste awful! exclaimed Mark upon biting into a handful of In-And-Out fries. The reason was revealed on the bottom of the box - they were made from fresh potatoes, cut up in the restaurant and cooked the same day. We've been so conditioned to the frozen, reheated, scientifically engineered food that the real deal tastes bland and strange by comparison. Kind of a sad realization really... April 12, 2007 - 10:38 PM  It's morning. Pulling the back door open I let the screen door swing closed against my shoulder as I removed my keys from my pocket and found the one to lock the door. I notice a puff of breath wafting upward and into my range of vision. Any day I can see my breath is too cold to ride. Instead, I walk around to the front of the house where I can see the sun's rays slicing through tree branches and over roof tops on the horizon. There is a fog in the air. Frost covers the ground and my van, the charriot about to deliver me over hills and rivers, under street signs and street lights, will need to have it's windshield scraped. Despite the cold however, there is a new power in the light creeping across the waking land; no longer simply light, there is warmth there as well. Warmth that signifies the approach of spring, and spring paves the way for summer. During the day there are many things that come to mind of which I think to myself, Oh! I should write about that on my web site! But as you would expect, by the time the day is done all those ideas have vanished and I'm left sitting propped up in bed against a pillow with my laptop atop my lap staring at this screen and like an artist with no paint, drawing a blank. One thing I could mention though, this evening Bo and I rode our bikes to the Village Square Leisure Center (while Maddy rode along with Bo in his kid seat) and Maddy performed yet another incredible feat! One which most kids her age would not even concieve of doing! At the deep end of the wave pool, (the very end part where the wave grates are) we dropped a bracelet to the bottom of the pool and Madison dove down TO THE BOTTOM and picked it up!!! Is that not unbelievable?!? She just turned 5 years old and that water is about 7 or 8 feet deep! It is mind boggling the things she has learned. She is a little fish. Speaking of Maddy, the other night I was over at Bo's dad's house and it was Easter Sunday. I probably spent a good hour going around the house with Maddy, hiding Easter Eggs while she followed behind and collected them in her woven basket. But instead of eating them, she turned a blind eye as I pillaged her basket and continued hiding them. On and on this went until we'd probably hidden the entire collection of eggs 10 times or more and some of them were starting to lose their foil wrappings. She probably would have played all night but eventually I got tired and had to come home. It was very cute though. Last but not least, I have a puzzling picture for you to try to identify. This photo is of a common household object, taken at a strange angle, and you have to figure out what it is. I've done no photoshopping or modifying the picture in any way (other than cropping it.) Guessing correctly will grant you great satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. Good luck!  April 14, 2007 - 10:12 AM Going Through The Attic...  Last night and the better part of today was and will be spent going through the attic at my parents' house. The ever-filling storage cavity of all things keepable but not usable, many a treasure has been banished to it's confines over the years and now we are finally going through it all, sorting it, cleaning it out and organizing the remains of what will go back. Not the least of the discoveries are some of our favorite childhood toys, (I remember some toys in particular dating back to ECS!) some of my old computer parts, sprinklers, motors, switches, lights, part of a photocopier and an electronic organ my old principle, Larry Maertz, gave me to play with, tapes, 8-Track cartridges, schoolwork, binders, assignments, doodles, oh - the list goes on! It was like wading through one's own memory, each item inducing the recollection of some story or other, many bringing back memories long forgotten. We're about 40% done, but hoping to get through the rest of it today. April 16, 2007 - 6:45 AM Boy, what a load of memories going through that attic brought back. I've got a whole box full of items I'd like to photograph and document, to record the stories and details pertaining to each before I forget! Other than that, my weekend was full of computer frustrations. My "Main" computer, if one of them could be considered main, decided it didn't want to boot anymore, so much of yesterday was spent quarrelling with it. My argument was that it should boot and it was of the opinion that it should not boot and thus, we were trapped at a stalemate of opinions... Finally this morning after some rest I've plotted a course of action to circumvent it's counterproductive opinion and we should be able to live in harmony once again. It did release all the pictures it was holding hostage so we made some progress there. The Adventures Of A Lightbulb Changer continue! My first week in and already I've had several, but one of them in particular bears repeating. I was working on a tall ladder, changing ballasts in the ceiling of a Safeway store when I saw two Safeway employees walking up one of the isles, probably 3 or 4 isles away. They were looking up at me and I heard one of them say, "He's pretty cute!" I looked over at them and they quickly ducked so that I couldn't see them. They made their way out of the isle and were walking along the main cooridor at the back of the store and every time their faces were visible as they passed the ends of each isle they continued to watch me and smiled sheepishly when they realized I'd caught them looking at me. I chuckled to myself and continued about my work. Nearing the end of the job at this particular store, I was walking around the perimeter of the sales floor, looking for anything that may have been left behind when I spotted the two girls checking products down one particular isle. I made my way up that isle, and one of the two noticed me. Quickly she poked her friend and then looked back at what she was working on with a smile on her face. Her friend, having been poked, looked up, saw me, and then also went quickly back to work, hoping I hadn't seen any of this. I stopped between the two of them and said with a grin, "You'd be amazed at what you can hear from up there!" The two of them burst and the one who had made the comment gushed, "That's why I was so embarassed! I didn't think you'd be able to hear me!" I made my way backwards up the isle, still facing them and replied, "There's nothing to be embarassed about." Ahh, it's good to be able to flirt again. April 17, 2007 - 6:38 AM Fire In The Vault It's as though one had put all one's valuables into an impenetrable vault - only to have a fire break out inside it that destroyed everything of value in the one place that should have been safe. When I built that main computer I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I installed two 300 gig hard drives in it. Instead of utilizing the 600 gigs of potential storage space, I opted to make them redundant, so that if anything happened to one of the drives, the other drive would hold an exact copy of everything that might have otherwise been lost on the other drive. That computer went to all my other computers nightly and downloaded any new files, keeping them all within this double-drive vault for safekeeping. As well, I stored all my pictures there too. Yet still somehow, and I am at a complete loss as to how - something happened and everything that had been stored on either drive since December 22, 2006 has vanished. All my episodes of Heroes, the Office, any music I've come across since December 22nd, and worst of all - every picture I've taken since that time. Christmas? Gone. New Years? Gone. All those get-togethers with family and friends - Gone. Maddy's 5th birthday party? Gone. Fortunately, both my recent trips' pictures should all be ok as they were stored on my laptop first and I believe I have all those pictures still. But undoubtedly hundreds, probably thousands, of pictures - gone. There was one little ray of hope in all this plethora of gloom, I got to thinking - how many pictures are still on my camera? After all, it has an 8 gig memory card and I have been purposely not deleting pictures off the card until absolutely necessary. It turned out that I still had all the pictures I've taken since Bo and I arrived home and were greeted by Maddy with a big green sign at the airport - and that includes Maddy's 5th birthday party. But it just goes to show, even the best laid backup plans can be thwarted by an evil computer! The long and tedious process of rebuilding starts tonight, and so far it's off to a bad start. Last night I began the process of downloading the four-gig DVD image of Fedora Core to install on that computer again. It only took two hours but when I went to check the file this morning - it had disappeared. Every other file I've ever downloaded saved perfectly fine, but this one vanished off the desktop. Simply unbelievable. It's infurriating actually, how these things that should work - don't, and for no apparent reason. I really hate computers. April 18, 2007 - 6:21 AM Man, every time I prepare to bring the bike out, we get a heavy snowfall warning! But I guess the lesson of late is simply that life is NOT fair! Hard drives crashing, snow a'falling, friends moving away from the city... If I were someone else telling these things to me, I'd have my imaginary violin out by now and I'd be into my third verse already... What goes around, comes around. Yes, Rob and Lee are moving away from Calgary. Not *that* far away mind you, but far enough. Rob gave me the news last night over coffee and last night they showed me the house they bought and it's pretty nice. Carstairs is a pretty good community, and one of my co-workers (Al) lives out there and makes the commute to and from Sylvania every morning and afternoon. He's been doing this now for some four years. Yesterday, my fifth day back, I went out into the world of burnt out lights on my own. I still can't get over how much it seems like I never left. The day was fairly adventure-less, thought I got a lot of jobs done. A lot of the places I went to service I've serviced before. And WHAT'S with all the emails from people claiming they've added me as a friend on Facebook? Almost all of the people from whom these notices have supposedly originated are friends I've not spoken with in years, and why they would put my email on their friends list is beyond me. I suspect it's another instance wherein (Facebook) has gotten a hold of their MSN contact list and mass-spammed everyone on it, trying to lure in unsuspecting victims by originating the note from a familiar face. Those sneaky bastards! If anyone gets an email from Facebook, IGNORE IT! Opening it (and particularly clicking on any links it contains, no matter WHAT they say they will take you to) will almost undoubtedly suck up your contact list and soon all your friends will think YOU added them on Facebook. Stop the madness, people! Just delete the message! April 20, 2007 - 12:34 PM  It was just another day. I was over at my parents' house, playing with my puppy. Slowly but surely his age had been catching up to him though you'd never guess he was as old as he is by watching him play. On my hands and knees, I pretended to be another puppy and he barked, jumped up on his hind legs and wagged his tail, all at the same time. He'd scamper off and then turn around to take a new stand, front legs crouched, his bum sticking high in the air - tail a' flappin. His face always seemed to grin when he panted. I knew it was probably just the design of his lip, the way it curled upwards as it got closer to his face, but intentional or not, he was smiling. Then, without warning, he fell to his left side and his right hind leg started kicking wildly at the air. I crawled over to him as fast as I could, and as I got to him he tried to stand up but something was wrong. Half his body seemed limp. "Oh my God, he's had a stroke!" The thought flashed through my head as I watched in sick agony, the poor fellow push himself with one paw, only able to writhe in a circle on the floor. Helplessly, I watched him struggle and tried to fight off the next thought, "We have to put him down."  I sat up. Was it a dream? I'm here in bed, nobody else is around, all is quiet except for the sound of my fridge. I could still recall every detail. A preminition, perhaps? Is he ok? Most times you awake from a nightmare there is a feeling of relief, a comforting realization that it's not real and whatever seemed to happen, no matter how frightning, is entirely in your head. This time however, although the events I'd just witnessed were fictional, (or at least so far as I know) that sinking feeling did not leave me as the awareness of reality hit me square in the chest in the middle of last night. Sooner or later, BJ is going to die. I don't very often write about the real details of my life on this web site. I touch on the 'news and weather', cite the obvious and try to keep things upbeat and family oriented - but death is something that will affect everyone, sooner or later. Whether a family member, a friend, a relative, a co-worker, a neighbour, a classmate, or someone you simply see on the bus every day - death is inescapable and often catches us off guard. I've been fortunate so far, to have only dealt with the death of one person I really knew - my grandpa. But as 'lucky' as I've been, I know that sooner or later I will be faced with the deaths of more people, people I'm even closer with. How do you deal with that? How do you prepare for that? How do you cope with that?  This afternoon after work, Maddy came downstairs and wanted to help. Since she's been very interested in taking things apart and I needed to change out the power supply in one of my computers, I let her take the computer apart for me and once she had the power supply out, she proceeded to further dismantle it into many tiny pieces. She removed EVERY screw and then cut EVERY wire off it until there was nothing but a pile of parts remaining. She then helped me make some KD and we sat at 
my table and ate it, she eating hers plain, me eating mine with crunched up soda crackers. All of a sudden I had
feeling in my stomach, not from the KD (huh huh) but as the memory of last night's dream came back with startling clarity.
Suddenly, I had a strong urge to go over there and take him for a walk. I sent Maddy upstairs and put on my jogging pants,
toque, and jacket and drove over to their house. Blair cracked the door and glared out at me as he often does while
pretending to be screening visitors to the premise. As he did, the puppy also stuck his snoot through the crack at the bottom
of the door and his lips began to puff as he sniffed and snorted to try to see who it was. Realizing it was me, he began
his usual excited dance, although I noticed this time it seemed to be scaled back, probably because of his arthritis. I'm
sure this weather can't be too good on him. But he was eager none the less and we ran a few laps around the kitchen island
before I gave him a bone and he went off to eat it on the couch. Not long after, I managed to get the leash without him
noticing, and when he came over to see if I had any food, I quietly clipped the cord to his collar. Puzzled by this
unusual procedure, it took him a few moments to realize what was happening, but pretty soon he put his paw up on the
rope and when I stood up he made a run for the door. Donning my shoes, we went outside, but today he wasn't running ahead
of me like he usually did. This time, he seemed stiff and sore and walked about a fast human pace. Stiff or not, he didn't
seem to mind though and investigated and urinated at all his usual spots. We crossed the street into the field and his
paws pitter-pattered leaving dog-prints in the freshly fallen snow that covered the dirt trail we were following. Snowflakes
blew against our faces and quickly dissolved. It was wet but not too cold. By the time we got to the park, I noticed he seemed to be walking with more ease, but the images of last night kept forcing their way to the front of my mind. As we got to the stretch behind the ball diamond, I thought about the day we first got him so many years ago. I was eleven at the time. It was only a few weeks into summer holidays after my grade six class had been dismissed forever. I'll never forget that first night he slept in his basket in the kitchen. He cried all night and Blair and I took turns sleeping beside him on the couch. He was so tiny he'd stick his head through the holes of the lattice my dad had erected to keep him from roaming the house since he hadn't yet been potty-trained. One day, Blair, Lorina, and I would set him at one end of the kitchen and then call him from the living room, banging our hands on the floor to see who he would come to. I think Lorina won most of the time. But then again, she'd known him already two weeks before we had. It was one of her dogs who had given birth to him the last day of my grade 6 year - June 25th.  BJ continued sniffing and marking. As I watched him investigate indiscernable scents in the snow, I began to break down. I tried to fight it, looked around hoping to see anybody nearby for whom I could justify composure. Not a soul in sight. My eyes were filling. I felt my lips quivvering. BJ kept trotting on. I closed my eyes and pretty soon, I couldn't have held back if I wanted to. I was sobbing. I was wailing. Sorrow. Agony over the inevitable. Fear of the future. An impending unavoidable loss of the irreplacable. Honest, humble words fell from my lips - I don't want you to die, BJ I'd been afraid to say it. I'd avoided thinking it. But now there was no holding anything back. I knelt down right there in the snow and hugged him. His fur smelled like angel food cake. He always smelled like angel food cake when he got wet. He gave my face a lick and then merrily continued about his business. I too got up, but between the flood of memories and the pent up sorrow I'd just cracked open, I continued sobbing for a couple hundred feet. Eventually I was able to recompose myself and we took the short route home. I don't think he minded this time.  Back inside the warm and dry, we played some more and chased each other some more and did all the usual things we do whenever I go over there. He is slowing down. You can see it in his walk. Sometimes you can hear it in his groans. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It's so hard to see the progression. How do you prepare to say goodbye to a friend you've had more than half your life? April 25, 2007 - 7:00 AM  With Maddy in Lethbridge this week, Bo and I went to the leisure center for the first time without her last night. We started out with four rounds of Badminton, which both brought back a lot of high school memories and also made clear just how out of shape we have become! Then we moved over to the workout centre and did a quick but painful workout. Last but not least, we made our way over to the pool where a very relaxing dip soothed all the muscles we'd just injured. Small world too, I ran into Tanya on our way out - and oddly enough I had run into her dad the day before! So in keeping with that trend, I'll probably run into Ryan today.  Oh, but a funny thing did happen as we were getting out of the pool. I realized as I was walking back to my
locker that I hadn't brought a towel. I grabbed my shirt from the locker I'd been sharing with Bo and started wiping the excess water off myself but
noticed the shirt itself was already pretty wet. Wow, I thought, I must have really been sweating during Badminton! It was at that
time Bo went to put on HIS shirt, only to realize we'd gotten our white shirts mixed up and I'd just wiped his sweat all over myself. Swine. Though I
guess over the years, particularly when we were fighting, sweat flew in all directions... But still. Yuck. I saw this in a store the other day and had to take a picture. A sign that reads, "Breakfast" and then a rack full of dounuts beneath. Is it any wonder our nation is overweight?  On a more sombre note, please pray for Raychel's mom, Sandy. She is in the hospital right now and is not doing very good. According to Raychel, (and as of last night) she was having major complications following a routine surgery and every organ in her body seems to have simply shut down. It is looking very serious. April 27, 2007 - 7:07 AM  Just about that time... The Adventures of a Lightbulb Changer continue. I Fixed a letter "F" yesterday and last night Pat and I went and checked out some signs at night. It's so much easier to see what's working and what's not at night than while the sun is shining on them. It looks like we've got our work cut out for us today, but even so, it's FRIDAY! It's so nice to have the weekend free again. I'm so excited about this summer, even though I really don't have much of anything planned. Just having the option to do things makes it exciting. April 28, 2007 - 8:34 AM  The Adventures Of A Lightbulb Changer Continue... Seeking out darkness with the sole purpose of replacing it with light, our intrepid hero battles broken and burnt out bulbs everywhere, saving the day and brightning people's lives everywhere he goes! High and low, above and beneath, inside and outside, no defective lightbulb is safe so long as The Lightbulb Changer is near!  Ok, so mabye I hype my work a little bit... But doing so is half the fun. Someone once said, "I can't believe you get paid to change lightbulbs!" While strictly true, the perception of what exactly I do for a living may be a tad understated. When a bulb burns out in a light in your house, you simply unscrew it and replace it with a new one. If it's in a ceiling fixture, you may need to get a ladder or a stool to reach it, but pretty much any household light can be replaced by the homeowner. However, the lights I work on are usually much higher and/or much more complicated than your average desk lamp. The next time you're out, say, at a supermarket or a gas station, a convenience store or a recreational facility, take notice of all the artificial light that is bestowed upon you, and then ponder briefly these two things: Where does the light come from, and How would you change those light bulbs once they burn out? Every light that is out there will eventually need to be replaced, and that is what I do for a living. In most cases, just reaching the lights is half the battle. But fortunately we have a plethora of tools available at our disposal specifically suited to such needs. Ladders of varied heights are probably used most often, but we may also build scaffolding to reach high fixtures, or if they are outside such as signs or parking lot lights, special trucks outfitted with movable, extendable ladders allow us to access some of the tallest pole lights and neon signs. It's not just a matter of me walking over to the desk lamp, unscrewing the burnt out bulb, screwing in a new one, and then filling out a time sheet at the end of the day! :P  Today's story has been brought to you by the Letter "A".  On another note, yesterday marked the first time this year I watered the flower beds and some of the dry patches of the lawn. The night previously I rode my bike over to Pat's house and we went out that evening to check out several signs we needed to work on yesterday. Doing night surveys, even unofficial ones, makes repairing large backlit signs much easier since you can tell immediately what's working and what's not. This can greatly reduce the amount of time wasted opening up signs that do not need to be fixed in the day because with the sun out, you can't tell if they're working or not until you open them. By the time we were done it was close to midnight and much colder so I left my bike there and he dropped me off at home. Yesterday morning, while I waited for him to pick me up I did a bit of yard work, raked some of the dead grass from the lawn and watered the budding plants in my flower gardens. I'd like to do some more this year with the flower beds. Maybe I'll try my thumb at a few things and see how green it turns. Today I plan on meeting up with Bo and Maddy at the Leisure Center for some badminton and probably a swim after her ballet class, and then it's off to Ghost Lake for the afternoon on the bike. In the back of my head I had something planned for tomorrow but I cannot remember what it was. Swine brain. Always forgetting things... April 29, 2007 - 10:42 PM  Baby, baby, don't be late The world is ending I can't change The way I feel about you now New York is cold as ever But still I go out every night And hide myself among the lights Bathe in all the pretty things the city brings The bodies glisten and they shine Like the stars we're born to die And like these roses we all will fade I'm counting the cars on the freeway below Lost in the music all the foolishness of our lives Speeding out of control Lost in the music in the music — David Usher |