Nuts

Between IVF appointments, being a temporary Support Team Lead  at work, and a particular support issue that erupted this week, life has been nuts. Fortunately, my temporary Team Lead position has finally come to an end after two and a half weeks so life is halfway back to normal. I expect it will be completely back to normal after Thanksgiving next weekend.

This weekend is my cousin's birthday party in Greenbush that we go to every year with the Kids. Sunday is recovery day, maybe even come into work to make up some time in lieu that I've used for the appointments.

Until then, have a good weekend.

Morons of Hazzard

I watched the Dukes of Hazzard growing up as a little kid and loved the show. When I heard they were remaking it, I was ambivalent when I saw the cast as they didn't fit my idea of what the Duke family should look like. Jessica Simpson especially was a bad casting mistake I thought.

Well, last night Kim and I were vegging and had taped the movie from earlier in the summer and decided to watch it. Let me tell you, Jessica Simpson was not the worst part of the movie. Yes, sadly its true.

In the old TV show Bo and Luke Duke may have been rednecks but they also had class, honour, and respect for other people along with the good-guy heart of gold. Sure they had fun dissing the law but they respected justice. In the movie, they cousins were classless, dishonourable, disrespectful towards women as well as the law, and caused property damage on a scale that speaks of hoodlums or criminals rather than boys having fun. I know it was done all in fun and laughs but it was "humour" aimed at the lowest common denominator. Shallow, crude, and infantile.

Additionally, the Dukes have always been protrayed as rural but not stupid on TV. In the movie, they were a few bricks short of an outhouse and I can't believe could pass the drivers test to get their licenses. Morons.

It was sad to watch an institution to seventies TV be mangled in the Hollywood of today.

On the upside, I loved Burt Reynolds take on Boss Hogg. That was cool.

I'm Not Ignoring You

Sorry for the lack of updates, but work has been especially busy yesterday and trips to the clinic for Kim's bloodwork has not helped matters. Fortunately, I should be back to normal work-wise next week and the clinic running should calm down the week after Thanksgiving.

The Workbench of DOOM

When we moved into our home almost three years ago, the previous owners left behind a workbench in the unfinished part of the basement. Not just any workbench mind you, its the WORKBENCH OF DOOM!!!

Its about six to eight inches higher than your average table or desk, three feet deep and eight feet long, made out of steel beam frame and 3/4 inch plywood sheets for the top and one shelf underneath. This thing is mammoth.

At first I thought it was great, but over time I found a lot of things I don't like about it. I can't reach the part nearest the wall very easily. Shelves on the wall behind it require me to get a stool to reach it and then I knock things off the bench itself. My comfy workchair is too low to work at it. The area underneath is a black hole of pack ratting and dust. It blocks off space on to one side. Wasted space on top of it gets filled with junk.

This year I started to plan how to replace it with a much more feasible small desk for my painting and shelves for storage. The ideas floated in my head but another part said "you'll never do it, you'll procastinate until its too late and its time to move..."

But this Saturday I went downstairs to clean up the latest growing mess from that Bench O' Doom and finally had enough. The cleaning up turned into cleaning out. It took me almost all of Saturday and a good part of Sunday, but the bench is gone, moved out in pieces to the garage. A pound or two of dust also exited the premises. I'm so stoked about the next step, finding a new painting desk and planning how to get shelves in there.

The Workbench of DOOM has met its match.

Oh, And An Update

Work is still busy but has calmed down and I hope some upcoming organizational changes get me back into hard core development instead of support in the coming week.

Also, Kim and I are heading out to the preseason game of the Sens versus the Sabres courtesy of MBNA Canada Mastercard. That was a nice surprise.

Finally, no I don't wear red on Fridays. Nor do I wear plastic bracelets for various causes. I don't need to advertise my support, I prefer to do rather than say.

EDIT: And I'm feeling much better, only a slightly rough throat and stuffy nose remain of my cold earlier in the week. Energy levels are back to normal. Yay me.

Its All About Desire

Sorry for no post yesterday, work was busy and I was gaming in the evening.

On Wednesday night I went to Jiu Jitsu class and attended for the first time the Orange to Purple belt class. Like the first day of school I did not know hardly anyone and ended up working with the teenager named Jeff who was an orange belt with two stripes. But in my opinion, he should have been in the white belt class.

Doing the co-operative warmups, he didn't try and I felt like a fool. His techniques were sloppy and only tried half-heartedly. He lacked confidence in what he was trying to do and seemed fine with just moaning about not being able to do it and whining about it. I was embarrassed for him. I wanted to ask him what he was doing here if he really didn't want to be here but I didn't want to be rude. Perhaps his parents force him to come, or maybe he was having a bad night (although I doubt that).

This is my one complaint with this dojo: they will promote people who simply say they want to climb the ranks instead of just the people who are able to climb the ranks. Being able to survive a belt test is not the same thing as passing one in my humble opinion. I know why they do it; if they didn't a number of people would become frustrated and just give up and martial arts strives to be inclusive of all, not just the phsyically fit and the dedicated. But there was nothing physically wrong with this kid, he just seemed to lack any desire to try.

And excellence is all about desire.

This and That

A coup in Thailand with the coup leader promising elections in 2007. Unsettling but unsurprising given the political unrest in that country recently with corruption, scandal, and governemental crisis. Makes you wonder how close any modern democracy is to a military coup.

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RCMP slammed in report on Arar debacle. My only hope is that people in positions of power in the RCMP and CSIS learn something from all this. And that proper restitution is made to the victim of this travesty.

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Chavez calls Bush the devil. Yeah, I bet that was helpful. Idiots.

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That's all, carry on.

Improving

I am feeling slightly better today, but still not 100%. Throat is a tad scratchy and head is a little foggy, but nothing I can't live through easily. I would have stayed home and rested but with Kim working and the kids, I'm probably resting more at work.

And I still blame Andrew. It feels better that way.

*Grumble*

I think I'm coming down or have come down with something. I have no energy, my head's in a fog, my throat feels like a frog pee'd in it, and my tummy feels only so-so.

Yuck. I blame Andrew.

Water Water Everywhere...

 I read this blog post over at LiveScience.com Blogs and shuddered:

This week, NOAA said 40 percent of the United States is in drought. The agency has been saying pretty much the same thing for quite some time now.

We should get used to it.

“Drought is always out there,” says drought policy specialist Donald Wilhite of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska. “It’s always affecting some part of the country.”

In fact, drought has little to do with rainfall or the lack of it. It has become a political word used to describe inadequate municipal water supplies. Recently, researcher David Meko at the University of Arizona told me that “drought” may now be defined in ways that have little to do with nature. Basically, drought = thirst. “It’s not purely a function of the natural system,” Meko said. “It’s partly a function of need. What might not have been defined as a drought 50 years ago would be now.”

What worries me is that our country currently has an abundance of water and as need grows in the U.S. for water to drink and farm, how much pressure will they put on us to sell our water to them? At what cost to our environment? If America starts pumping water by the trillions of litres from the Great Lakes, can we stop them?

Its No Fun If You Can't Laugh At Yourself

I'm a funny looking guy...

Orange Belt Rank Achieved

Now, next step is to start working on that Green belt. Booya.

Stupid Stomach

A very restful and relaxing weekend was ruined at the end when one of my episodes occurred at 2am last night. Needless to say, I'm tired. Add to that I'm temporarily a team lead at work for a couple weeks so I get lots of stress and people demanding my attention. Sigh.

Posting may be light this week.

Agony Continued

So, I didn't get my belt last night. Apparently, after the test Wednesday they forgot to ask me when I was going to be in next so they never wrote a note down to promote me. After class last night I went up and asked when I would get the results of my test and they were quite surprised to see I wasn't anywhere in the list.

Ah well, I can wait until Monday night.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

I did my Orange belt test last night, and it was a combination of agony and ecstasy.

Agony: Last Friday's class I must have hurt my right shoulder because it was mighty stiff on the weekend. I thought it was better by Monday night but tennis with Andrew on Tuesday showed me I was still hurting in certain movements in that shoulder. Last night I wasn't even halfway through the test when I was hurting pretty bad and by the end it was downright painful to move it. It made doing hip throws very difficult and threw off my concentration a bit.

Ecstasy: For the most part, I nailed the test. I had some trouble with single and double leg takedowns, and kind of flubbed the two wristlock comealongs, but everything else was good. Those damn comealongs are hard because I'm doing movements with my feet and both arms at the same time, and have to master it on both sides. For your not-so-coordinated hero, that takes a lot of work and practice.

I have class tonight and should get my promotion at the end of class. Good thing Thursday's classes tend to be less strenuous than normal so my shoulder can heal and hopefully be in better shape for next week. I'll give it the weekend to recover.

Offense Taken

An email memo circulated around work today telling us of a potential client coming around tomorrow and to make sure our areas are tidy. Oh and this:

As these gentlemen are Muslim, they consider "excessive" displays of flesh to be offensive - long pants etc are the order of the day.

At first I was slightly put off. Not that I wear shorts to work very often but still I found it kind of rude. Then I was thinking that many workplaces have dress codes and this is simply a one day dress code. Whatever.

But I kept coming back to it. To me there is a difference between a dress code for reasons of professionalism, and a dress code required because of someone else's religion. Then again, inviting a client into your place of business is like inviting a guest into your home. I wouldn't serve a pork chop to a guest I knew was a vegetarian.

However, someone going to a country like Canada should understand that knee hgh skirts and shorts will be worn in a workplace and they should be willing to adjust their expectations. I wouldn't expect a guest to my home to tell me that me eating a pork chop is rude and offensive and I should stop. (Side note: yum, pork chops)

Regardless, its not my call. Working in the office known as the Glacial Palace you'd be hard pressed to find my working in short sleeves much less short pants. Still, I'm tempted to put up a swimsuit calendar smile and wave when the tour walks by.

Belt Test Tomorrow Night

I've got my belt test scheduled for tomorrow night at 6:30. My uke is a fellow named AJ who is a bit taller than me and significantly thinner, meaning I won't get too tired throwing him. Nice. Results posted on Thursday.

Meanwhile, tennis against Andrew tonight.

News Flash! Sugar Found In Kids Cereals!

Courtesy of MSN.ca: Sugary Cereals sweeter than chocolate bars

CTV News and the Globe and Mail decided to examine the sugar content in some of the most popular brands, to investigate one of the possible contributing factors to the epidemic of childhood obesity.

[...]

She said parents would be horrified to give their children a chocolate bar for breakfast.

"But when you think about eating you know a serving of cereal that contains the same amount of sugar, they might think twice about they're serving their kids."

Anyone who has eaten something like Fruit Loops or Captain Crunch can testify immediately that those things are pretty damn sweet. Hmmm... chocolate. I haven't had chocolate for breakfast in a while, sounds like a good idea. Where was I? Oh yes, there's more!

[...]

Not only are these cereals very sugary, they are being doled out at twice the recommended serving.

"It's not one bowl of cereal. It's many bowls of cereals. Most kids don't stop at one bowl," says Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California in San Francisco.

Welcome to North America kids! Where we just don't do it, we overdo it!

[...]

"The reason they are so popular is that kids will pester their parents to eat them. You'll notice the sugared cereals are put down at eye level for children and there is a specific marketing strategy going on there."

He recommends giving children food with six to seven grams of fibre per serving, and being wary of lower-sugar kids cereals, which may compensate with more carbohydrates.

"Breakfast cereal is just one manifestation of what's gone on with our entire diet," says Lustig.

Amen. Any society where commericals for burgers trumpet the fact that you can get three pattys of meat with no useless vegetables in the way probably has eating issues.

We are sick sick sick in the head. 

...

Yum, chocolate.

Not For Me Thanks

I stayed home yesterday to help Kim out with looking after the kids since she has been feeling under the weather lately.

Seven kids, 8 hours.... send me back to work please!

It was exhausting, especially being on my feet without comfortable shoes for most of the day. I don't know how Kim does it.

I wonder if her back and neck problem would be lessened a bit if she wore good shoes for the day instead of bare feet? I know it helps me.