So much for my relaxing little vacation.

London was fine and dandy, the trip down was seamless and fun, the visit to the car lot in Stratford was mostly fruitless, but not unenjoyable, and the trip back was even alright, until we hit Sudbury. Then it got interesting.

The charging system warning light came on as we were approaching the bypass. The light is the one that looks like a battery. Now when this light comes on, it means that there is something wrong with your car’s electrical system; either the battery is dying, the alternator’s output is below or above the normal range, or there is a fault somewhere in the system, like a bad ground connection. In any case, if you continue driving like that, all sorts of bad things could happen, from the car just quitting, to frying all the electronics on board, so you really can’t afford to take any chances.

It was only 7 o’clock, so we pulled in to the local Canadian Tire, hoping that they could get a look at it right away. This was, apparently, a foolish notion. Best they could do was the next day, and at first, this seemed unacceptable. We had places to go and it wasn’t dark yet. I concluded that if it was either the battery or the alternator, and if they had one in stock, I could just change them out myself in the parking lot, so we went in again to see about getting a volt-meter to diagnose the problem.

After poking around a little, it turned out that the battery was just fine, which is good, because Miatas have a very special, unique, and expensive battery not used in any other car, and so likely not in stock anywhere. It has a different chemical inside because of its location (the trunk) and is extra small and light, like everything else on the car. Though it would have been the easiest to change, I could have substituted a different one temporarily, and even if dead, the car would continue to run from the power provided by the alternator; we could just drive it home and deal with it later.

Checking the alternator revealed the problem; it was only putting out 12.1 volts. That would explain the funny smell on the way into town. Here I just thought it was the smell of Sudbury. A car’s electrical system runs from both the battery, nominally 12.6 volts, and the alternator, usually putting out about 14. Most cars, especially older ones, will continue to run until they’re at about 8 or 9 volts, but lights will be dim, accessories will be sluggish or non-functional, and the vehicle may run poorly, especially if newer. In my case, the altenator didn’t even have enough juice to keep the battery charged (anything under 12.5 volts is unlikely to start the car), and would probably not be enough to keep all the lights on, or operate wiper or blower motors. It was getting dark, and we were back in the North, so it was cooler and would be a little unpleasant without heat. Really, not having enough juice to power the lights was the big issue. I’d also noticed that the car was beginning to idle strangely, so continuing didn’t seem like a good idea.

Looking under the hood, the alternator is actually fairly easy to access and change, and I was prepared to just change it in the parking lot. I was at a Canadian Tire after all, I could just pop in and buy whatever tools I needed to do the job. Being a summer car, there were no rusty bolts to worry about, and I didn’t particularly care about getting dirty. However, it was irrelevant since they didn’t have one in stock, nor did anyone else in town that was still open, nor, as it turns out, did anyone else that wasn’t open. I found that odd, since Mazda uses similar versions of that 1.8 litre mill in other cars, and due to the economy of scale, would likely share as many parts with other cars as possible. As it turns out, after having asked around at my friendly, local junkyard when I got back, that alternator is only used in the Miata, and only in 1999-2000 model years. Similar is not identical, I guess.

So I called home. I was beginning to despair and feel panicky. I didn’t want to pause my trip here. I wanted to spend all of Tuesday relaxing at home, not continuing to drive. I told my parents of our situation and tried to figure out what to do. I determined that we should just get a motel and make an attempt to locate the part tomorrow, or failnig that, rent a tow dolly the next day and have them tow us back. There was a nice eatery close by and I could see several motels from where we stood in the parking lot. I also knew of a nice place near where I used to live in Lively. There was even a liquor store in this plaza. I’d planned to make the best of things; I could get some booze, have a bite to eat, get a room, get wasted and fornicate with my lovely wife in a place that was vaguely familiar at least. But this is Sudbury, quite possibly one of the most hostile places I’ve ever been.

To recap, since I left in 1986 or 87, I’ve never really had a good experience being back, or doing anything there. Meghan had a job interview with Rainbow District School Board one time, and we briefly considered moving there. We found only one place remotely suitable, and we got turned down from renting it. We had a flawless record with landlords and good job prospects, and we were turned down. By someone from Blind River no less, who knew me at least by reputation. Maybe that was why. Fucking cunt. While we were there, we had huge issues with Bell gouging us for using credit cards to make phone calls from pay phones rather than burning a zillion minutes on the cell phone. We were camping while househunting to keep costs down because the cheapest motels were 75$ a night, and they were all full. While camping, we had our tent stolen. Yes, fucking stolen. So we had to sleep in the car on the last night (which, with the back seat folded down and our feet in the trunk, was surprisingly comfy). The brakes on the car also decided to fail that trip, and it was by sheer luck that a Midas was able to fix it same-day. Any of the times we’ve stopped there to eat while passing though have been half-assed at best. We once went there to test drive a car (a Subaru WRX), and while on the test drive, the salesman called the police because we’d been gone too long in his estimation. Asshat.

Suffice to say, my plan epic failed. There were literally no vacancies in the entire city. None. I called every place in the book, and none of them had a room for the night, or just weren’t answering (probably for that reason). As it turns out, Sudbury is always full to the brim with out-of-town contractors. They’re a very progressive city, always building, building, building. They’re also working on extending Highway 400 all the way to Sudbury, which is a huge project. It’s really no surprise that every motel and hotel is booked solid. So, we needed a new plan, since sleeping in the car in the parking lot was not an option. We called my parents back, and asked if they would come get us. Sudbury is probably at the edge of the range where that is at all practical. They agreed to get us, and left immediately. We went to Buzzy Brown’s and had a bite to eat while we waited. I had a tasty, if oddball burger and possibly some of the worst coffee in history. We then waited the rest out at the Tim Hortons. That was a creepy enough experience; the parking lot was full of hooligans and loitering locals, pretty clearly up to no good. It made me start to fear for the safety of leaving the car here overnight, not to mention us sitting there for four hours.

Long story short we made it home, but I was pretty tired by the time that happened. It was after 4am by the time I was in bed. Good thing I took that extra day off to recover. I planned to spend it hunting down a part, driving to Sudbury, putting it in and driving back. That wasn’t in the stars either. Nobody had one, and we were not going to leave the car overnight again. We tried a convoluted plan of having the Mazda dealer in Sudbury cut a key from the VIN and bring it to their shop so they could just fix it, but by the time I found out this plan didn’t work, it was getting late in the day again. Meghan located a cheap tow dolly rental, and Dad and I hit the road at about 3 or 4. It was going to be another late night.

We made it there at around sundown, only to discover that the dolly’s straps were too big to fit the Miata’s tiny wheels. We clamped them down as best we could, and augmented that with some locking tiedown straps bought from the conveniently located Canadian Tire. ‘Good enough’ would have to do. We got in at about 2am, and again, I wasn’t in bed until about 4, so this morning I called in to work to say I wasn’t going to be there. I am still really burnt out from the road; it’s a safety issue. I could easily kill/injure myself or others at work if my mind isn’t on track. That’s not a chance I want to take.

My boss was pretty pissed off. I won’t be fired over this, I don’t think, but there’ll be hell to pay. My best bet is to go in tomorrow, nice and early, and give it my best. When he talks to me about it, I just have to try my best to explain, to make him see things from my perspective. Would he have left his 1970 Chevelle SS (the car of his dreams, the one he’s owned since he was 17) there overnight again, at the mercy of the hooligans of an unfriendly city? I hope he sees reason. To him it’s just a Miata, but to my dad, and to myself, the car represents a family project, a focus for bonding. It’s just a used Miata, far from perfect, but to us it’s special, and if he doesn’t understand that, then too damned bad.

On a positive note, Opeth rocked hard, and I snapped some lovely pics of the Grey county wind farm on the way by. Maybe I’ll even get the ambition to post some. Hahaha.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can, Home Sweet Home, Music, Work at 1:56 PM EDT

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It’s been many moons since I’ve posted here, after what could be generously described as a brief spurt. Being called back to work tends to have that effect, such that with so much less free time, I only post if I’m bored.

Clearly, now is one of those times.

I don’t even have a lot to say that is of any real interest, so as usual, I will fill this space with inane details from my mundane existence.

I’m steadily losing interest in yet another career path. I still like cars, and my co-workers (mostly), but I’m starting to think I don’t have what it takes. Maybe someday I’ll find a career that agrees with me.

I’m going to see Opeth, one of my favourite bands, in about a week. The show is in London, ON, at Centennial Hall on the 21st. I’m pretty pumped about that. It will be my first time back in London since I moved away in December 2006.

Speaking of which, I’m in the process of looking at moving again. Locally this time. We’re considering going in with my Mother-in-law and getting a really giant old house. You know, the kind with all the old trim left. They just don’t make them like they used to. There are a few possibilities, but nothing sure just yet.

I’d like to find a winter beater so I can retire my SVX to summer-only duty. I also want to replace Meghan’s car with something newer and more reliable than a 17-year-old semi-exotic that was temperamental even when new. She’s a little bitter about it. Go figure.

I’m looking at used Mazda Protege5 or Chrysler PT Turbo as options, mostly because I can’t afford another Subaru that isn’t a base model, and Subarus don’t hold my interest unless there’s a turbo involved. Though I also found a used Mazda RX-8 for cheap… but then I’d need TWO winter beaters.

One of my housemates blew up his computer, so after frying my old system with his faulty power supply, we’re replacing it all with the guts from my current system, and I get an upgrade. I’m going from an Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz, high efficiency) on a flaky ASUS AMD 690G-based board to an Athlon X2 4850e (2.5GHz, high efficiency) on what is supposed to be a very reliable and versatile Gigabyte AMD 780G-based board. I wanted one of the 790G-based boards, as they have better graphics, but the only micro-ATX board that I could find (DFI Lanparty) costs way too much.

Anyway, what makes even this new Gigabyte board so much better than my old one is that the onboard video is actually good enough to game with, thanks in part to 128MB dedicated GDDR3 onboard memory and a modern, if low-end GPU (ATi HD3200-based). As long as your taste in games is sedate or old (which is the case), the board packs enough punch that you don’t need a power-hungry add-in card. That helps keep temps down, which is key in a low-noise HTPC like mine. An additional upshot is that it will do what they call “Hybrid Crossfire” wherein you can link the onboard GPU to an add-in card and boost performance further. It still won’t be amazing, but then, I don’t play games like Crysis, so I don’t care at all. Basically, it will run everything I play now, or have played, and will continue to play for the forseeable future. As long as I can run Diablo 3 when it comes out, I’ll be happy with it.

I got some higher-end DDR2-1066 memory for this board, which with the CPU I have is overkill (it only supports up to DDR2-800), but if I decide to upgrade in the future to a Phenom-based chip, this setup can handle it. If I had the budget, I would have bought a Phenom 9350e (quad core, 2.0GHz, high efficiency), but by the time I upgrade, perhaps there will be more AM2+ compatible, high efficieny Phenoms to choose from. As of right now, the 9350e is the ONLY one, and at 65W TDP, it’s still more thirsty than either of the chips I have now, and costs twice as much.

I’ve been filling the rest of my time with RPGs, as usual. I’ve been running a Shadowrun campaign for about 9 months now, and I think that’s about to draw to a close before the year is up. I’m getting tired of running it and need a break.

So, after that, one of our group is going to run a 4th Edition game for us. I don’t have high hopes for it. The game might play just fine, and in fact, I’m sure it will, but I will never switch over to it. The terms of the new “GSL” or Game System License are ridiculously draconian, especially compared to the “OGL” or Open Gaming License that 3rd edition was published under. The OGL is like the RPG equivalent of the Open Source software movement, and like any other fiscally responsible, socially retarded company, Wizards of the Coast, under the iron fist of its master, Hasborg, is doing everything they can to close that little Pandora’s Box.

There are no solid plans beyond that. Meghan might run one of her games again. Or I might start a new D&D game. I’m leaning toward using a D&D 3.5-based system called Pathfinder, published under the OGL by Paizo (former publishers of Dungeon, and Dragon magazines). Basically it fixes a bunch of stuff that was wrong with 3.5, and despite the terrible artwork, it has great promise.

Bad art in the books has been an ongoing complaint of mine ever since WotC bought the rights to D&D and re-published the 2nd edition back in 1996. Not that all the chainmail bikini babes and Conan-ish warriors made better subject material than anthropomorphic creatures (whose females all have big tits and silly armour anyway), but the quality of how they were rendered has suffered. It used to be gritty, or glossy, but recognisably fantasy. Now everything looks like either anime or a comic book, and I hate it. Whatever it takes to sell books, I guess.

The only other thing I’ve been up to is expanding my music folder on my computer. I’ve been hunting down material from bands that I meant to catch up on 10 years ago. Some have been like revelations, while others have been an utter waste of bandwidth. That might make an interesting post all on its own…

Posted by Ron as Computers, Fire-in-a-can, Games, Home Sweet Home, Music, Work at 2:04 PM EDT

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Twin Peaks is a series I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time now. I’ve had the score from it for a long time, and I still listen to it to this day. I bought the Prequel/Epilogue Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and watched it several years ago, but not knowing much about the series, it made almost no sense to me, though it was still a very interesting; a typically “David Lynchian” movie experience.

Meghan bought me the then just-released Gold Box complete series for my birthday this past year, and we just recently got around to watching it. That series is, in short, completely amazing; we were both completely hooked right from the start, and now that we’re done, I find myself wishing there was more. It’s just too bad that ABC killed it before they could do a third season, because so much was left unresolved. That, in and of itself is fairly typical David Lynch, but still. It’s disappointing. And there’s virtually no chance in hell that it will ever be resolved. Some of the actors are now dead, others are not interested in returning, and they’re all too old now anyway. It was 17 years ago, after all.

The only hope that the world will ever see any “new” material resides with Mr. Lynch himself; there remains a lot of unused Fire Walk With Me footage (whole story arcs were cut out) that he has supposedly been re-editing to put in a special edition release of FWWM on DVD. The last word (in 2006) was that is was supposed to release sometime in 2007. We’re well into Q2 2008 and there’s been no word, so I’m not holding my breath. On the plus side, FWWM is becoming hard to find on DVD, which may mean that existing stock is being sold out or recalled in anticipation of a new version about to release.

So I’m stuck turning it over in my mind, how things turn out. Left with the surreal and haunting imagery of the series every time I close my eyes. In particular, the sequences in the Red Room with the Man From Another Place, are etched into my mind. At this point, my only hope for any kind of closure, is that Lynch and his co-conspirator Mark Frost will put their heads together and write a novelization of what the third season should have been. That also seems unlikely.

It’s amazing to see though, just how profoundly the show impacted and influenced pretty much everything that came after it. The X-files and the Silent Hill games are the most obvious examples, but I see many many elements of the show in other things, too. I had no idea just how influential it was. Ironic that they were shunned by their peers in the industry at the awards shows, despite 14 nominations. Unsurprising that the industry doesn’t bother to reward innovation and creativity. I guess that’s why I don’t have cable, and why I think 90% of the stuff on TV is garbage.

Posted by Ron as Media, TV & Movies at 9:22 AM EDT

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I heard about Failure quite a while ago, I even had one of their songs (a cover) on my computer long, long before I realised just how incredible they are as a band. They contributed a cover of “Enjoy the Silence” to a Depeche Mode tribute album, which my sister bought and ripped, which I then copied. It was a good cover; so good that even Depeche Mode like it better than their own version. I tried searching for some of their other stuff, but could find nothing, and gave up on it.

Fast forward several years, sometime after I discovered the Minibosses. At one point, they had a live cover of a song called “Golden” available for download from their website. I grabbed it because I was grabbing everything  they had up on the site, and there were few details available on the individual tracks. It was a neat song, but I had no idea who was responsible for the original. I tried searching for individual lyrics (I’ve had good success with that in the past), but came up empty. For all I knew, it was a Minibosses original in a more conventional alt-rock style. It’s live, and the ‘bosses were drunk, so the vocals are bad, the guitars are sloppy, and it’s a piss-poor recording. For some reason though, my wife really liked it. It’s unusual enough that she likes anything in that style, let alone a grainy live recording, so I tried to discover exactly what it was for her benefit. Whenever she does like something like that, I try to be as diligent as possible in accommodating her.

To that end, I emailed the Minibosses, asking them about it. To my pleasant surprise, they got back to me, letting me know that it was a cover of a Failure song. Now that I knew the band I thought I’d have better luck finding it. That was not at all the case; searching for Failure was pretty futile. It was almost as though they didn’t exist. In fact, what I did discover was that they did exist, but were now defunct, with almost no trace of them on the internet (at the time). I did find a few sites that mentioned them, and some bad samples of Golden that sounded just as bad as the Minibosses cover version (possibly thanks to the inferior WMA CODEC). So again, I’d given up.

Then one day, I got a mailer from Grant Henry, a.k.a. Stemage, the fellow responsible for the MetroidMetal project (of which I am a fan and sponsor). This mailer had information pertaining to a tribute project that he was working on to none other than Failure. Looking it up this time revealed a lot more information. It seems that the internet caught wind of them, and word-of-mouth had increased their fanbase a lot. They now had a detailed Wiki page, and a huge underground following. I found that a collection of their b-sides, demos, and rarities was even available for free download. Paydirt!

I got a chance to listen to this collection (a while ago) and I can confirm many of the things I’d read about them. I didn’t think that anyone made music like that anymore; they continued the evolution of great underground acts from the late 80’s and early 90’s (minus the mainstreaming). The best way I can think of to describe it, is that they sound like a “retro” indie-garage-rock act, the likes of which could have come from the Pacific Northwest scene circa 199x, and yet, at the same time, sounding like they come from 1,000 years in the future. The sound is very atmospheric, concentrating on creating texture and mood rather than on technical displays (though it’s evident in some tracks that they’re still capable of excellent musicianship). Long story short, they blew me away.

Posted by Ron as Music at 1:16 PM EDT

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When I was young, and first exposed to the marvel of Much Music, I began keeping a list. This list contained the band and sometimes album or song name of things I’d heard that I wanted to check out in greater detail. It grew and grew over the several years I’d kept it, and while I’d never made an exact count, I estimated that it may have contained as many as 2,000 entries.

Sadly, at some point, the battered blue spiral-bound over-sized notepad which contained this list became lost in time and space, possibly as the result of cleaning my room, or perhaps when I moved back upstairs from my windowless room in the basement. I don’t know exactly when it was lost, just that the next time I went to look for it, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I was pretty distraught over it, as it took me a long time to compile and at the time, could not easily be re-researched and compiled. I wrote the stuff down precisely for that reason.

It was probably just as well. I vividly recall crying myself to sleep one night after having made the realisation that I would probably never have the resources in time and money to follow through with my research. After all, at $20 per CD, just to sample the most acclaimed album from each band would have cost in excess of $40,000. Even if I were hunting through pawn shops, that still represented more money than I could ever commit to such a project. That list didn’t include movies either, and when you factor in that many of the groups on the list probably had more than one release worth buying, the cost grows rather quickly. The list was still growing at that time as well. The conclusion I was left with was that I would be constantly playing catch-up.

Then the internet happened. Napster. It was a dream come true. I downloaded a lot of stuff. I started keeping track again (though mostly just on scraps of paper). It was like a second shot at the dream, until the service was shut down by the lawsuits of a few wealthy artists whining about how they were missing out on revenue desperately needed to fund drug habits, psychiatrists, and whores.

Still, the genie was released from the bottle, and has to date proven impossible to put back. Things aren’t as easy as they were then, but looking this stuff up is still fairly trivial, as is keeping a list on my computer. It doesn’t have 2,000 entries or whatever, but factoring in all the bookmarks and everything, might be getting there. Wikipedia helps a lot too.

And that’s one of the many things I’ve been using to occupy my time whilst I’ve been  away from work. I’ve also taken the time to rip many of my old CDs to MP3. I hadn’t realised how many of them were not on my computer until recently. I think that was a result of being storage-limited before. Now I have more space than I know what to do with.

Posted by Ron as Computers, Music at 6:58 PM EDT

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I’ve been feeling a little less than stellar about things in general lately. What precipitated this melancholy introspection, I can’t be certain. I just know that I need to do something to make it go away!

Work has been picking up a little, and as such I have been helping out a little when and where I am needed. Today though, I stayed home from work; I wasn’t feeling well. I’m also not so sure that I want to go back full time. I guess this is less about what I don’t know and more about what I do know. I know now that this trade is not for me. I love learning, and I love doing the work, but I don’t think that it’s what I really want. I think the change of heart comes from my reflections on the past couple days experiences.  I had two less than stellar days, yesterday being particularly bad. I know it isn’t always like that, everyone has both good days and bad, but I now know that I need to alter course again.

I wish I could be one of those people who just knows what they want and can therefore go after it, or at very least one who has enough success with something that they can tolerate that they can focus on other areas of their life. Both would be better still. I seem to have neither.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 4:30 PM EDT

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I despise April first. Despise. It’s a pretty strong word, and maybe not strong enough. The whole concept of April Fools just incites me to near-rage; consequently, I have exactly zero tolerance for all the stupid gags. You know the ones; websites littered with disinformation, silly products that don’t exist, fake press releases, and the like. Hate it.

I spent all day yesterday trying to discern why that might be, but unfortunately, drew no meaningful conclusions.

Posted by Ron as Miscellaneous at 8:46 AM EDT

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I feel compelled to say something here to mark the passing of a man whom, though we’ve never met, changed my life. Yesterday, Ernest Gary Gygax died. He was best known as one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, and as the Wikipedia article says, is “generally acknowledged as the Father of role-playing games.”

I’d like to think that RPGs have had a positive influence on me over the years. For one thing, I met my wife through D&D, and made many lasting friendships as well. I’ve been playing since I was 8 years old, and have spent probably thousands of hours playing and writing game material, and hope to spend many more; the stuff is fuel for my imagination. It’s like a great book that never needs to end. Maybe I’ll even get my own stuff published one day, who knows. If I do, I should dedicate my first book to Gary.

Over the years, the man made some enemies, even if most didn’t even bother to find out who he was. The genre he helped create, and D&D in particular had its critics, and to those who would denounce it as unhealthy, I have this little story to relate.

I don’t remember how old I was at the time, but if I had to guess, I would say maybe 12-14. Young, in any case. I lived in Blind River at the time, I remember that, and my friends and I were always looking for places to game. Many of my friends’ parents were not fond of the game, for whatever reason. Most just wouldn’t allow us to play at their house, though they didn’t actually try to stop their children from playing, save for one, however, that is a story for another day.

My parents were always willing to let us play at our house, but we lived a short distance outside of town, about 8 km or so, and this created logistics problems. So we thought we’d hit pay dirt when the town built a new arena, and sold the old one to a company that turned it into an amusement hall, complete with arcade games, miniputt, and pool tables. We thought we had found the perfect solution; it was fairly centrally located, they were open late, and sold all kinds of refreshments.

We were wrong. They threw us out for “playing the devil’s game” and told us in no uncertain terms that we were not even permitted to bring the books with us into the building. Something to the effect of, “don’t let me catch you with that shit in here! It’s the devil’s game!”

While we had no choice but to respect their wishes, I did ask them why this was so. All I could get out of them were pseudo-religious proclamations of inherent devilry in the game. So we were forced to continue playing when we could, at my parents’ home, infrequent as it was for my liking. My parents were very tolerant, but even they needed a break from us sometimes too.

I should get to the point. The point is, what did we do on all those nights that we otherwise would have been playing D&D? We got up to no good, that’s what. Mischief. Vandalism. Drinking. Smoking. Perhaps even Fornication for some.

I’d like to close with a quote from Steve Jackson’s eulogy for Gary, “For the last few years, roleplayers have celebrated March 4 as “GM’s Day.” (March Forth, get it? -ed.) And now it’s the day when the best-known GM of all time put down his dice. Going forward, this should also be a particular date on which we recall Gary and his contributions.”

Posted by Ron as Games at 12:30 PM EST

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Whew. I was just outside, enjoying the beautiful winter sun, and chipping away at the disaster that I call my driveway. Whilst out there, I thought that I might write about it. Sure, not the most interesting subject matter, but then, you don’t have to read it.

Basically, the situation is this: I have barely ever shoveled the driveway this year, and we’ve had a ton of snow. My wife and I both drive AWD Subarus, so getting in and out of the driveway hasn’t really been a problem. Even sitting low like they do, the ol’ girls still have traction like a proverbial mountain goat. The rally-winning reputation is well-earned. I’m sure driving talent like Petter Solberg helped a lot, too, but us everyday folks don’t need to drive like Solberg (even if some of us would like to imagine that we can) to appreciate The Beauty of All Wheel Drive™. Now, combine that with my near-legendary laziness, working full-time, along with a few other issues (that I won’t get into here), and you have a recipe for driveway disaster.

I let it pile up and pile up, all the while just continuing to drive over the snow, packing it down nice and hard along two narrow humps, leaving everything else a mess of slush, snow and ice. My wife was starting to get a little annoyed by the situation, but in typical fashion, I continued to not give a rat’s ass. I went out and did only the bare minimum that my conscience would allow, and usually only if my wife went out to start shoveling, or if we really got whomped with wintry precipitation. I know; I’m a bastard, but I didn’t feel like one until the other night when my parents came over. My dad didn’t say anything, but I did ask if he had difficulty getting in the driveway, and it was then he admitted to getting stuck.

He got stuck. In my driveway. In a front wheel drive minivan with top-rated snow tires on. That’s when it hit me, that I was, in fact a jackass for not shoveling more. I mean, my mother-in-law had already started refusing to pull in the driveway for fear of being mired in the icy bog, but somehow, I didn’t let that bother me. I think I rationalised it as her just being a bit timid about her driving skills, or her car, or whatever. That part probably makes me more of an arsehat, really, than the fact that I was negligent about it in the first place.

So there you have it, I was motivated by guilt to go out and do something about the problem. Now that I’m on a little vacation of sorts, I have all kinds of time to do things, and more reason than ever to need to get out and exercise a bit. Zero excuses. Time to get it done.

I started two days ago, around 3:15 in the afternoon, thinking that I’d have it done before my wife came home from work that day. I guess I didn’t realise just how bad it was out there. She was late coming home, and I’d only barely managed to scratch the surface. It was that bad. Granted, the graders and snowbank-removal equipment had been by the night before, mangling the end of the drive with hard packed ice chunk soup, but I still had no idea how long it would actually take. I’m not trying to bring it down to bare asphalt or anything either, I just wanted people to not be afraid they’d need to call a tow truck if they came to visit. Not that we get many visitors, but that’s not really the point here, now is it.

I took yesterday off from my travails because I was sore, over-tired, and just generally feeling like a sack of dung. Possibly the sum of the flabby interest I’ve earned on my lazy account, compounded daily. Today, I felt just as rotten, which I’m sure had nothing whatsoever to do with overeating at a greasy diner late last night, but my determination had returned at any rate, so I attacked it again. I must say, progress is being made. Last night, I got in the car a few times and noticed how it was listing at a pretty good pitch, the result of my efforts the day prior, to only one side of the drive. Today, I tried to even the slope off a bit on the other side, which was much more work. That side had more packed ice and snow, but it needed to go, so I worked relentlessly. I’m not even done yet, but it’s much better than it was. I will take another crack at it, maybe come back to it tomorrow or Saturday, after I’ve had another break.

Despite how rotten it sounds to do, I can’t say I minded doing it. It was a beautiful day out, and it gave me some time to appreciate the winter outdoors. It also gave me time to think. Whenever I do manual labour, I always set my mind free to wander. Sometimes I use the time creatively, or other times, just to work out issues in my head, have a conversation with myself, imaginary ones with others, stuff like that. In fact, while I was out there, I came up with an idea for another post. I think I’ll jot down the idea for draft, and flesh it out more tomorrow.

Posted by Ron as Home Sweet Home, Work at 3:12 PM EST

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I have to admit, I stole that one from Star Wars. You know, the scene in Episode 4, when they’re attacking the Deathstar, they’re in the trenches proceeding towards the exhaust port, dodging fire from the turbolaser batteries, and suddenly, the guns stop firing. The rebel pilots are confused for a moment, they don’t know why they’re no longer being shot at. And then they realise, as the TIE fighters are coming at them, just why it is that the guns stopped.

So it kind of parallels why it was that I quit blogging for so many months. I had a bunch of other shit going on, life outside teh intarweb. I didn’t want to shoot down one of my own, you know?

But that’s over now, for a bit anyway. I fought valiantly, but the damned X-wings took out all my TIE fighters, so back to the guns it is.

It’s kind of funny, the way I do that; using pop-culture-based metaphor and euphemism to communicate ideas. My sister does it too. In fact we can, and have, had entire conversations using quotes from films, songs, and other unrelated nonsense jargon. It confounds my wife; I can see how and why. I think it annoys her a bit, too. Sometimes, though, it works better than any conventional grammar at conveying just the right meaning, with the caveat that your ‘audience’ be already on the same cultural wavelength as yourself. That’s why it works with my sister, and not my wife; Jen and I grew up for 20-something years together (like it or not!), and have largely been exposed to the same things, culturally and environmentally, over time, so she has a pretty good idea where I’m coming from with my odd manner of expression.

On the other hand, my wife and I have completely different backgrounds, and have only the last 9 years or so to draw upon. Yes, we have a lot of things in common now, one of those things that help make us a beautiful team, but our childhoods are not really among them. That’s a strength all its own, though, and not entirely related to what I’m talking about.

Posted by Ron as Media, Miscellaneous, TV & Movies at 10:57 AM EST

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