The New Floodgates of the Mind

I just got back from my last LOMA 280 class. This was the class we reviewed last year’s exam to see how we measured up. I’m happy to report that even though I haven’t read anything beyond the 1st chapter in the book, and only got through the notes of the first 8 lessons last night, I managed to score an 83.9979 on the test exam. This, of course, gives me quite the lift for when I get to take the actual exam on December 10th. The only problem I have now is ensuring I don’t forget anything by that time! After all, these days 3 weeks is like a mini-lifetime! 🙂

Of course, now, I’m all bleary-eyed again as the staying-up-late of last night has kicked in and my morning’s coffee already gone out of my bloodstream. So, it’s time for another coffee. I have to stay awake since I’m heading out to the Paramount tonight for an IMAX presentation of Star Wars 2 – Attack of the Clones. 🙂 The idea alone of being thrust into the SW Universe in glorious IMAX starts me drooling. It has a lot to live up to!! 🙂

Blah.

I feel like hell. Dizzy, slightly nauseous, having trouble breathing due to clogged nasal passages, and it sounds like I’m losing my voice.

Blah.

Think my body’s trying to tell me something? Like get more sleep and stop taking Tylenol before bed?

I say again: Blah.

Ok. Now that I can breathe a little, I can fill you in on the weekend! 🙂

As you know if you’ve been reading, Chantale and I got up early on Saturday morning and headed out to the Colisee in Kirkland for an advanced screening of Harry Potter. We were there by 8am but bleary-eyed and nursing our free coffees, we were happy 🙂 The movie itself was incredible! Yes, there were some scary scenes (the Spiders and Snakes in particular) wherein I’ll be covering Melyssa’s and James’ eyes when we see it with them next weekend, but overall I didn’t find it that bad. Chantale hid under her coat for the entire Spider scenes whereas I took it in with relish 🙂 It was just so increidbly well done visually that it would have been a shame to not look 🙂 (Then again, I’m a horror buff and she isn’t 🙂 )

After the movie, we headed over to Future Shop to do some DVD Player checking. As we purchased Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone (yay! Original title!) widescreen on DVD last week, and picked up the Spider-Man widescreen collector’s edition box on Thursday, we knew the Player would be coming soon. At Future Shop, we just didn’t feel right. Everything is so in-your-face that the comfort level is way down. After gathering some info, we hopped back into the car and headed to Dumoulin. Much better. And the guy who served us was friendly and very helpful. We talked for about half an hour reviewing all our options and getting all the details. Finally, Chantale and I were left alone to look around and decided on a Panasonic R32 in silver. We decided it would be our shared (and early!) Xmas gift. We signed on for the extended warranty and the salesperson even threw in a bonus 35mm camera 🙂

Very happy with our purchase, we went to show it off to her mother and then went home to begin the massive clean out/ clear out of videocassettes. We went through our movie collection and divided them into 3 parts: the ones I could part with/give away (turned out to be 21), the ones I could store (LOTS!), and the ones we wanted up on our shelves. Then, I tackled all the tapes I kept with favorite shows recorded on from ever since I had my first VCR. There must have been over 60 of those. All the Star Trek tapes (about 12), all the Star Trek Next Generation tapes (about 20), all the Babylon 5 tapes (about 14), and so many others! These, of course, are just regular cassettes. I kept about 15-20 of them for daily recordings (of weekly shows like Crossing Jordan, CSI, Hidden Hills, Friends, Survivor, etc etc) and have a HUGE bag left to give away to whomever wants them. (If you want a series, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll give them away to people to record on!). With everything packed and stored, the place looks SO much cleaner! Our current plan is to only purchase DVDs of the movies we really loved and slowly, very slowly, replace some of the videos we want on DVD. Not all old movies will be replaced, though, which is fine. But the classics like Godfather, Star Wars, Scarface, Pulp Fiction, etc, definitely will 🙂 Always in widescreen, of course (whenever available).

After a wonderful supper of Alfredo Carbonnera with some exquisite homemade wine, we settled in for some Harry Potter viewing 🙂 In fact, that’s how we spent Sunday! We woke up early because our neighbors seemed intent on making a huge racket (sounded like they were building a bomb shelter). We stayed in bed and listend to the Trivia Show on the radio. I suggested something for brunch so we jumped out of bed and filled our tummies. After the very wonderful brunch, we watched the extras on the Potter DVD, took a short nap, had another light supper, took a relaxing hot bath, and then settled in for Spider-Man (with popcorn and Boomerangs! 🙂 ) Basically, we spent the entire Sunday in our pjs just lounging around enjoying the snow falling and the coziness of our apartment. Exactly what a wonderful, lazy, Sunday, should be!! 🙂

I guess the fact that the DVD Player was our Christmas gift made the huge snowstorm of this weekend and morning quite fitting 🙂

Slept like crap last night. Couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t fall asleep, and just tossed and turned all night. Alarm went off at 5:45am because I had to get in early and yet I managed to leave 5 minutes later than I hoped (6:30am). Even taking into account all the snow outside (a LOT more than I expected!!!), it took me over an hour and a half to get into work! 30 minutes longer than my longest time!!

bloody hell.

I’m pretty tired but I think the napping on the metro helped. So now, allow me to scramble through some stuff before getting my first cup of coffe in me. Then, I can come back here and post about my wonderful weekend 🙂

Leaving for Harry Potter in 30 minutes! Yay!!! 🙂

What a day!! On the go go go go gogo! So much to do to co-ordinate weekend work and testing that it’s getting me dizzy! Yes, it’ll work, don’t worry, it’ll work, if anything goes wrong we’ll revert very easily, yes i’m sure, of course you’ll be able to reach someone, no I’m not worried, etc etc etc etc….

*deeeeeep breath*

Ok. I’m better now. And have to head into my weekly meeting. But shortly after that i can go home. HOme. home. and nothing to do tonight but relax. Ahhhh… that sounds so wonderful…

And early tomorrow morning? Harry Potter!! At the Coliseum in Kirkland! Cool! 🙂

I’m exhausted again. My eyes are swollen and puffy and I can barely keep them open. But, the working day is done and I’ll be off to meet up with Chantale at the Second Cup next to Concordia for some hot apple cider 🙂 I usually get rejuvenated once I’m outdoors and I’m looking forward to getting some fresh air.

Hey, remember that old adage of the difference between a good and bad haircut is 2 weeks? Well, I’m counting the days. Sheesh. Bad hack job last night. Time to find a new place.

*zzzzzzz*

I’m so exhausted I almost passed out during my class. Even now my eyes feel so heavy I wonder how I’m going to get through the next 2 hours. And I’ve already got 3 coffees in my system. *sigh*

And I just wrote up a long email to in regards to my BBS, The Savage Land. We are no longer in the “salad days” of BBSing. 1991-1994 is way gone. All our fervent and loyal callers have moved out of town or simply stopped BBSing once the Internet became so prevalent. Now, the board is a ghost-town. It’s staying active simply because it does not interfere with anything and doesn’t cost me anything. The system, games, files, etc have been paid off years ago. But no one comes knocking any more. Every couple of months, though, an “old-time BBSer” will dial us up and completely freak out over the fact that TSL still accepts calls. There’s a sense of pride in that but they don’t really find themselves getting back into the habit of calling regularly and soon fade away again.

I have to face facts: The Savage Land Bulletin Board System will soon have to close its doors. I’ve been “missing” it for a long time, even while it’s active. But the thought that the computer will go silent fills me with the blues… When the time comes, I hope some of the old users will want to meet up at Picasso’s like we used to on a regular basis to toast its memory. Outside of that, I’ll keep some of the more important posts from the Archives and probably just upload them on my web site. But then, the jungle will cease to be. Ending another era of the early electronic communication age…

“To the world, you may be one person; but to one person, you may be the world.”
*Author Unknown

Isn’t that a beautiful quote? I know I like it 🙂

Busy day today! Been on the go-go-go since I got in and it isn’t going to stop any time soon. Plus, with my Loma 280 course at lunchtime, I don’t even get a lunch break! This is the last class and next week we’ll be going over some previous exams. After that, two weeks to study before taking my exam!

was in working last weekend. Well, I’ll be in this sunday. The Project Leader wants to do his changes at 9am but I’ve got to co-ordinate the testing with a number of user group leaders. Somehow, I don’t think they’re up to wanting to be in that early on a sunday morning.

I went to the Parents Council meeting last night at my kids’ school. I had taken the position as Recording Secretary 2 months ago meaning I wrote up the minutes of the meetings. Well, in the official minutes, where the council members were announced, I listed myself as the Minute-Man (Transcriber). That was actually left in the minutes and the parents got a giggle of it last night. I got a huge giggle as well as only my fellow Comicopians could understand 🙂 Upon my comment of it being an ‘inside joke’, the principal smiled, held up her hand, and said, “I don’t think I want to know!” 🙂

Well, I’m looking quite shaggy these days so I set up an appointment for a haircut tonight. I always go to the same place near my house, but I tend to try out the various stylists 🙂 Does that make me a hair slut? 🙂

Ok, coffee break over. Back to co-ordinating!

I spent some time Saturday night reading through some old emails I had totally forgotten I still had. See, when I left DPM back in 1999, I took a copy of my emails to keep at home. Since I was (and still am) using the same mail program -Pegasus Mail- it was simple to create another user id in order to keep them separate. Well, saturday night I remembered about them and decided to switch into that user id and read. I remembered having deleted thousands of them so I knew there wouldn’t be that many. But still, the ones that were there filled me with so many memories it almost became hard to breathe at times.

Sure, there were the typical operational ones of my telling my assistants to do some kind of work, or informing users of work being done on their systems, but there were also a lot of personal emails. Of course, like anyone else, I do send the occasional personal emails 🙂 The range of emotions were vast and wide. From personal and intimate messages with Chantale, to friendly joke mails with others, to some heart-breaking and very personal ones. Heck, I even found the email sent while organizaing my farewell supper at Casa Greque!! 🙂

So what’s this all about then? Just that no matter how often I think back to that company and all the time spent there, I can’t deny the fact that the people I worked with became a big part of my life and many things happened then which still affect me now. Sad things like folks I considered Friends whom I can’t get a hold of. Good things like folks I considered Friends whom I’m still in contact with. And Very Good things like folks I considered Friends who I consider Close and Very Good Friends 🙂

I guess I’m just blabbering and waxing nostalgic because of all those messages which got me thinking to how different my life is today. Driving to the Gym last night, I got to thinking again about how incredible my life is with Chantale. As wonderful as it is now and special as its been in the past, there is always the promise that “tomorrow” will be even more so. And every morning when “tomorrow” comes, I realize that the “yesterday” which just passed was indeed nicer and better than the “day before last” 🙂

My Life seems to read like the most amazing Love Story at times. Every chapter brings new revelations and something’s always happening, but no matter how the storm rages around us, together we weather it. And no matter how sunny the skies, together we enjoy it more. And no matter how hurt we may feel after a nasty fall from whatever event, we help each other up, nurse each other back to health, and then, together, carry on proudly with our heads held high.