Hey 'New Being' enroute

On Christmas day, during the Prayers of the People at church S. and I inserted the announcement that a 'New Being' is enroute to our home - and actually has been for some 90+ days. We felt that it was important for the prayers to have some positive news in them - too often we are pray only for sick or the dead - this seemed like just the thing to add to the joy of the evening.

So wish us luck - I'm in serious Data Acquisition Mode - Full 5 here - 2 books down for the count and I've already made 2 hunting trips to the bookstore and my amazon wish list has even more. I started The Big Red Book of Baby Planning (not a book, but my hardcopy planning, shopping and note-taking journal) and am ready to take notes and clip ads and articles with wild abandon! Now it's not exactly a fair comparison because S. has no choice but to be the carrying end of this team but that's ok - I have a basement to finish and a nursery to build.

Merry Christmas - may the spirits alive around the world this night bring you peace and joy.

Christmas Rundown

Recently a church where I live had the Christmas lights stolen off their building. The parish had gotten together and raised $400 to pay for new low energy LED lights (which are just becoming widely available in Canada) and spent a fair amount of time getting them all up for the coming Sunday.

That Saturday night someone stole the lights off of the church (you know - the old punishment for desecration a church was hanging!). It's Christmas time and you steal lights off of a church -somewhere along the way we've seriously missed the boat here - when Christmas becomes more about what you have hanging off of your house than it does being kind and generous with strangers, friends and family then we are in real trouble.

Sigh...

Hockey Smockey - I want my newspaper back!

If you're a hockey fan you're not going to like this, I'd skip to the next post...

In the interests of full disclosure - I don't play hockey, watch hockey (never been to a game), skate, wack frozen bits of rubber on ice or out front on the street, hip check people (except when attempting to dance), drink beer, or subscribe to any sports TV channel or web site (the concept of 'sports reporter' is a joke, I don't even read the section of the paper that says sports) - the only reason that I'm commenting on this at all is because this nonsense is invading the front page of my newspaper and my websites - that makes it fair game.

The NHL players recently offered a 24% pay cut for their players. Now let's understand some statistics; for a player making 17 million in 5 years that reduces their income from 3.4 million to 2.58 million dollars per year.

And now a couple of questions: a) why does any one doing anything need to make that much b) The 2002 average Canadian income for a two parent double income family with kids is $67,700 (2002 dollars Source: Statistics Canada) that means that this player makes 38 Times as much and he (note that this is a male-only sport at this level) gets to do what he loves to do - play hockey.

And they are offering a 24% cut - humm this is a little like the sales at Canadian Tire, Sears etc. An item comes in and sells for 59.99 - eventually it drops to $19.99 (or less) on sale. As these companies avoid (not absolutely but generally) selling anything at a net loss that means that the wholesale price was under $19.99 to begin with and they started at a 200% markup.

I wonder - if players make 3.4 million, and they've put themselves on sale for 2.58 maybe we should just wait a while and they will eventually drop to a level that makes more sense - maybe in the 200K range.

Please everyone that is worried about Hockey - get a life - go to the library, buy a book, build something, play soccer (most of the rest of the world does), play Quidditch (if you read you'd know what that is) , take a trip someplace warm (without hockey) the world will NOT end if you don't see Don Cherry (don't even get me started on him)

Sigh...

Open House Round-up

Well, the open house has come and gone and was a great success. We had lots of friends, good food and fun for hours on Saturday, some 30+ visitors actually.

It's interesting the differences in what we use from year to year - last year we had lots of left over mulled wine, this year we used 1 1/2 batches (we use 30 cup coffee perks to make it) .

It's great to catch up with everyone and see them getting to know each other - a New-Old friend of mine (long story maybe for another post) turns out to have gone to school with our next door neighbor's. We had a chance to visit with our SouthSide neighbor's more than we have in the weeks since freeze up)

Spook (the cat) was so tired by the end of the day - he'd been so scritched, hugged and entertained that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer - it's funny to see a cat try and stay awake just as he fades out.

S. was at a volunteer meeting in the morning and came home at about 1, we were opening our door at 3 so that left it to me to do much of the final cleaning and finishing off the tree. Apparently the Ladies at the meeting were surprised that her husband would do this - I'm continually surprised by this - isn't the idea of being married include splitting up the work even doing stuff you wouldn't normally do if needs require?

Humm - more to think about on that one later - for now I have Christmas shopping to do!

In the 2nd week of Advent 2004 - this is 5Life

Open House To Be

So, the Synod is over and our Open House is rapidly coming up! This annual event takes place in our home every year. I get into baking up a storm, shortbread, butter tarts, cookies and whatever else I can come up with, if anyone knows a recipe for Rice Krispiee cake that doesn't turn as hard a rock in a day or so I'd like to know!).

We've sent out an evite using (www.evite.com) to make it easier and cheaper for people to be invited and to send RSVP's

This weekend we'll take out the decorations, clean up the house and generally try and get ready as much ahead of time as possible!

We need to order glasses (we always rent them - it's not too expensive and is much less work than washing and cleaning everything. )

Then there is the desk in the kitchen to attack - unfortunately we don't use it much as a desk and more of a dumping ground - maybe we need a better chair, in order to make it more usable - it's counter top height so a regular office chair isn't going to work - maybe IKEA has something that will work there.

TTFN

Well I survived the Funeral

Well we survived, it was as long or longer than I had ever hoped was possible. We began by leaving home at noon and arriving in SmallTown USA some 2 Hours later. We stopped by the widow's home (where many grandkids and parents were staging for the trip to the funeral home.)

We then changed and left to go to the Funeral Home at 4 for family prayers - unfortunately I had it in my head that this would be 20-30 minutes long (this was my previous experience) then we could leave and come back at 7 for the memorial service - no such luck. We had family prayers from 4 to 5 then it seemed like the whole population of SmallTown showed up (they had to finally close the funeral home doors) between 5 and 7 to pay their respects. S. and I finally snuck out at 6 to go and get water, gum and hard candies. Then we had a nice 20 minute memorial service.

As a note to those running funerals in the future - take care of the living! Water, tea, coffee and some small nibbles are really a blessing especially for family that has to be there for 3 1/2 hours.

This isn't happy happy joy joy...

Here's an interesting contrast, Wonderful Wife and I are going to have to travel out of province for a day to attend a family function. The contrast comes in when you compare how Wonderful Wife and I approach this situation - I'm not happy, this will involve two days of people I don't know well, dinners, gatherings etc. that will require continued personal interaction - i.e. talking. On top of all of that we're staying with relatives, so there's no escape (not that the relatives are not nice people, they are) the issue here is energy - I see this kind of situation as energy draining, with little or no ability to recover. On the other hand Wonderful Wife sees this as an opportunity to meet with family - generally an energy + evolution.

While it's true that I don't know this branch of the family well, it's also true that I find any large unlimited gathering like this as draining.

I wonder if other 5s find this kind of situation draining as well...hummm

Evan

It just isn't meant to be...

Ever have one of those weeks (months) when things just don't work out... I've been involved in a major project at work for the past several weeks, the initial work I did was horribly tedious and detailed. Requiring very small manual changes to the code that creates printable labels, now that that is all done I've finally been able to go to the client and score a success with good test result.

Now, S. and I need to go off to a family funeral - it's out of province so we'll be away overnight. We need to go, not really an option not to, and of course, one of the days we're going to be away was the day this was to be installed. I doubt that I'll even get mentioned in the 'ataboy' email...

Sigh

Ok so now it's a Deck

Well, we finally have a deck, got the platform up in a day thankfully, glad to have that project completed - now we can close up outside and get ready for the winter. Those of you who don't live in Winnipeg should realize - snow by Halloween is not uncommon - so we're just about out of time.

The Garage is much less full of 'stuff' (extra lumber and other items - much much better than it was before! I was thinking of going for a hike with the Scouts tomorrow but may stay home and clean the garage enough so that we can get the cars in - that would be nice! Then there is the Christmas lights to clean up, the roof to fix a shingle on and a couple of other 'outside' chores that need my attention - oh well and here I thought I was done...

Maybe next week (if it doesn't snow)

Evan

It's a Shed Jim...

We took delivery of our new shed this weekend. Now, this is a wooden kit - not metal. Pre-made trusses etc. kit comes complete with all the nails, shingles, door hardware etc. and (most importantly) instructions. Now here's where we get interesting. being the 5 that I am I'm happy with instructions - I like them - I'll read them a half a dozen times before we even begin to work. The kit got dropped off at about 1 on Sunday and I would have been happy to move the kit pieces to the back yard and then spend the next hour reading 4 pages of instructions. S. on the other hand was happy to go to the backyard and read them as we went along...The compromise was a quick lunch and reading them as we munched. Only got part way yesterday - more to come today.

 

So we can add work working to our summer of Brick...yea....

 

 

 

Mind like a Library

I often think of thinking (which is a 5 thing). I often describe my brain as a big, dusty library, with old librarians moving slowly around pulling old tomes and putting them away after blowing the dust off of them, or sitting in big chairs by the many fireplaces and reading (and falling asleep) sounds like an old tv show actually - The House of Freightenstein - probably where I got the image. There are rooms along the walls that house laboratories etc. (with the occasional kaboom for good measure) but on the whole the place is busy but old, dark and sedate.

S's mind on the other hand could be described as a modern book store, full of life, light, many new books and magazines and CD's and DVD's and giftwear and other stuff, it has a coffee shop for that caffeine hit. Very busy, somewhat disorderly and fun. Interesting contrast no?

I'm shuffling ahead laying the patio in our back yard now, one brick at a time, tap tap tap, level, tap tap tap, level, ok , tap tap tap level the other way, tap tap tap, ok (you get the picture) I'm holding my hammer at the top, near the head and letting it's weight do the work - too much more and I break the brick. S. starts working on brick - she holds a hammer like you should - at the end, and tap tap snunk (the brick has a rather distinctive sound change when it breaks. ) 5 times in a row - which is (of course) annoying for hear and dangerous for me to be around.

I'm going to be ever so happy to be finished this project - both to be finished with the tap tap tap than to be around a happy S again...Sigh tap tap tap...

Bye from the brickyard...

Book recommendation

5's are typically interested in books and this month is no exception - I just picked up Gwynne Dyer's book Ignorant Armies. It discusses the run up to the 2nd Persian Gulf War that we're currently experiencing. Interesting thing is that this book was written over a couple of weeks in 2003 before the war started. Shows you how predictable this whole thing has been.

If you haven't read or heard of Gwynne Dyer before and are at all interested in war and the politics of war check him out. He's very down to earth, not a pacifist, he's served in several navies and taught at Sandhurst. Should be a good read.

Signing off from 5 Space,

Evan

Welcome to the Brickyard

The differences between S. And I (She's a 7 ) are amazing to me some times. I'm not individually goal oriented - that is to say completing the little bits of a project doesn't particularly thrill me, I'm almost always too caught up in 'the big picture' to bother with checking off little boxes on a to do list (if I had a to-do list on paper at all actually) S. On the other hand is really driven by that being marked off the list.

We're working on our brick sidewalk and patio - we have about 15m of sidewalk to lay down and we're proceeding at the rate of about 1m a day. It's going to be well into the August before we're done. Now, I knew that this would be a big project, and had some time ago decided that my summer would be taken up by this particular project.

Now the here's the conflict - I know that this will be a doggedly slow process taking up most if not all of the next month of our time, pretty well every evening that we've got. There isn't a check off here for her, she can't 'win' at this and check something off. To her this is appearing like the 'never ending task' and she's now feeling like we're never going to get done. I on the other hand will slog forward (occasionally bitching about it, I acknowledge) but It'll get done.

7 vs. 5 hummm

Election

Well, it's over and the liberals have a minority government, (for those who don't know that's when no one party in our house has a majority of the seats - 155 would be required I believe in this case), the downside is that this kind of government doesn't last that long and that we're probably going to be back at the polls within 18 months. The upside is that we might, for a change, actually get some responsible government, where the people in the commons actually want to find a solution that pleases several viewpoints (notice I didn't say pleased the voters, because I don't believe for a second that they have changed to actually caring about how their decisions affect middle class Canadians. ) That said, we might get some good decisions from this.

 

The conservative in our riding was trounced by thousands of votes, I'll have to look at a poll by poll analysis when it comes out to see where the strong liberal support actually is, I suspect it's in the north of my riding in the French quarter but I don't have any facts yet to back that up.

 

S. and I are going to make contact with the local Conservative committee and see what we can connect with.

 

I'm sure this is going to be an interesting year...

 

 

 

Colds

I hate getting colds - I was out at the Goldeye's game the other day for the evening and it was very cold and damp, that on top of being tired coming back from the camp may have done it. No I have a sore throat, no other symptoms yet but I'm at that point - don't know if this is going to evolve into a full blown cold or just be an annoyance for a few days.

I have stuff to do this weekend, I don't want to spend the day moping around being sick.

Drat

Cement & Hikes & Attitude

Got back from the hike with my scout group, had a great time turns out that 7km with these kids was just about as much distance as they could take in one go. You know, the technical aspects of camping are important, the gear that I'm using today is amazing, high tech lightweight fabrics and insulation, very light weight stoves and cooking gear. I was still carrying 60-65 lbs of gear but what I got for that weight was impressive. That said, the attitude things with hiking are even more important than equipment (and I'm a 5). We got to bed on Saturday night at 9:30 - everyone was tired and the bugs were really beginning to drive us nuts. Now, the kids didn't get to sleep until 11 or so but that wasn't bad really. The interesting part was that I told the kids to wake us up early, say 6:30 or so and to have the first ones up wake up the rest - in fact we were up at 5:30 and on the move by 7 or so. No one complained, no bitching nothing. The trip was a very pleasant experience for everyone. The hike out was on a beautiful day the hike back a little colder but still nice. The food worked out great, the kids bought and cooked their own food and had good results, even the stew and dumplings worked out well. If only every scout event was like this.

After the hike on Sunday night Jerry came to mark out the new driveway - on Monday they had formed and rebared the entire area and on Tuesday morning they poured everything, it's now Thursday lunch and it's been sealed, cut and is dry enough to walk on - not supposed to put weight on it (the cars) until next Wednesday if we can help it. Attitude was interesting here as well, Jerry's guys were great to be around, very personable, obviously enjoying their work and the guy they were working for, they answered all of my 5'ish questions comfortably and with interest. What a nice change from many of the trades workers that I've been around in the last couple of years working on the house.

You know, maybe it is all in the mind..

Evan

The Deaf Cubs Made It!

We had a great time at the Goldeyes sleep-over with the 12 deaf cubs and various and sundry other adults. The kids had a great time, the HQ team made a point of designating a spot for us and setup the closed captioning of the movie (not that you could read it but...) I have discovered that Section C in the far left side of the field is a war zone for incoming fly balls - we had 3 people injured in our area including one of my cub parents and one other guy that needed 10+ stitches to close a cut near his eye.

It rained on Sunday morning of course - getting everything wet just in time for me to have to try and put everything up and dry it out before the upcoming hike...sigh.

Onto another day...

Well they copped out...

The General Synod copped out...They've delayed a decision on Blessing of Same Sex Relationships at least until 2007. Giving us 3 more years of confusion and turmoil. Some more diocese will probably go ahead and OK a rite, which will just cause further turmoil that the national body will not be able to speak about because it has no position, for or against - that's the real problem with delaying the decision, the vacuum we find ourselves in.

One other thing I'm trying to understand is that several native members of synod mentioned that they to preferred the delay - apparently their people don't understand this issue or it isn't relevant to them. I probably don't have a good picture of the issue here - the GS2004 web site has been a little bit disappointing. But I'm concerned that what is emerging is a race based veto - if the native communities don't understand then we delay? I even heard one native member indicating that the intention is to create a separate native church management structure - apart from Synod...Don't understand if that's formal policy or his own idea. If that's the case - a separate native governance structure coming in - they why would we delay this decision to wait for them - they're just going to break away anyway? Need more info on this one.

The announcement was made today of the opening of the first Metis child and family welfare centre - I have to say it concerns me greatly when we have police forces, child and family service centers etc. That are racially based. If I had suggested that I'd like to have a child and family center opened that would service only whites of western European stock I'd be shot, and they'd be right. Why is it ok to open a race based government service for one race and not the other? If we are all Canadians and all people are truly equal then why are we doing this?

Ranting over have a good one.

Yea the fence is up and we seem to have survived the monsoon

Well, the training ended on Friday after two full days and a good experience, the students enjoyed the class and I didn't run into anything that I couldn't find the answer for.

On Saturday we started the fence behind our place, the digging crew arrived at 9 and we were putting starting on the stringers and fence boards by 9:30-9:45. I spent the first 30 minutes running around looking for things, interesting thing was that several of the items that I was requested to find I had sorted, found and placed in/on my workbench the week before - I had taken time to clean up and get this ready because I could foresee that I would need many of my tools and that I didn't know where several of them were - S on the other had thought this was mostly a waste of time - "the tools are all there right? You stuffed them under the bench months ago when we cleaned up for the party." Now while this is true, it's funny how a 7 and a 5 think differently, so far as she was concerned that was enough - they were in the general area of where they should be. But I didn't 'know' where they were so it wasn't enough - I was trying to dance around not knowing what I would need by having (knowing) everything - typical 5 reaction really.

At 5 in the afternoon the monsoon started and it rained from 5 on Saturday until this afternoon around 4 - total of some 30-40mm of rain - that's a lot for us.

The farmers are happy (at least some of them are) the hay will be growing this year and the pastures will green up.

We can't go back into the back yard for a while - probably 3-5 days of sun at least - oh well their is still lots of painting to do.

Night

Getting Ready for Training

Work...
This Thursday and Friday I'm supposed to be training 12 people on how to use a new version of a reporting tool. Now, I've used this tool in the past and taught the course so it's not all new, this is version 10 and the old version is version 8.5 so It's not that big a jump. The problem is that today is the first day I've had a chance to work with the application and I teach tomorrow starting at 8:30 (I need to be there at 7:45). I don't use this tool on a daily basis so I'm playing catch-up here, my only real concern is if someone asks me how to do something that is outside of what I'm preparing, I'm screwed if they do...I'll just have to table the question and look up the answer that night...not what I really want to do.

Life...
Last night I went to the Manitoba Deaf Scouts - Cub Section meeting, it's great to see the program proceeding so well, the leader's are doing well and the program happens on it's own now, I don't have to drive it. We still need some mentoring from cub leader's next year to make sure the program remains 'scouty' enough - if we move out of the school next year and into a different meeting place then that would be good!

Home...
We're getting ready to put up our fence on the weekend $3k of wood is scheduled to be dropped off today for our fence. We went over last night and spoke to our neighbor's about the wood delivery. Now we find out that they may have objections to using the older preserved wood vs. ACQ (one is arsenic based vs. copper based) S. and I have done our due diligence, nothing I have found has indicated that the older wood is a great risk. I wouldn't use it for the surface of a deck where you might be walking and track it into the house or for a kids play structure. But this is a fence, not a play structure. We'll take precautions (masks and washing) as we work but it's not really a big deal. Problem is that their notice of concern is a little late, I wish they had raised red flags a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, we'll check the prices and see what we can do for them, their concern is legitimate, and each of us must evaluate the risk.

Election '04

Well they're off and running - election on 28 June, just after my birthing recall day. See the page from the
The Globe and Mail.

Problem is that much difference has yet to appear, the two major parties that have any hope of winning are attempting to convince us that they are very different but in fact they support many similar policies. I'm getting very tired if the Liberals trying to paint the conservatives as radicals, harper has given up much of what made the reform/alliance party important in order to join with the PC's. I wanted to see true reforms in government and some (though not all) of the items that the alliance stood for would have done that. A triple-e senate (Equal, Elected and Effective) is a must as is having all votes in the commons as free votes.

I've subscribed to the G&M's daily newsletter on the election and I'll be commenting if I see anything that might be interesting.

Air Canada

Air Canada is trying to save it's skin see the article in the The Globe and Mail I've been through Air Canada's service in the last few month's, they operate with twice the staff of the other carriers and the CAW isn't ready to realize that unless they are willing to shrink the staff base and let people to multiple jobs just like the other carriers AC will NEVER be competitive with WestJet or anyone else for that matter. While I wouldn't want to be one of the people about to become unemployed this is getting silly, it's negotiate or go out of business people.

Same Sex Blessings

We had a meeting at our parish last night on the Same Sex Blessing issue. This is a hot button topic to say the least. Some people are adamantly opposed for both biblical and cultural issues, others are open and able to see this as a challenge and not a threat.

There remain people that are a priori opposed to this, they frequently rely on biblical references to validate their point, problem is that when you speak to them the biblical references are actually found after the fact. They believe this is 'wrong' and then hold up the bible and ask you to look at it, point out the passage with a finger and say 'see here it is' and that, for them, is the end of their argument.

The problem is that the moment that a person uses the bible to justify this one position they open themselves up to the argument that there are a number of other 'rules' in the bible that are just as important, working on Sunday, usury, female priests, death penalty etc. that are in the bible but are no longer being followed by our church, you can't pick and choose, the Sunday work thing is a 10 commandments issue, working on Sunday carries the death penalty - it's very clear - but we haven't had anyone stoned in recent memory. So unless you're going to accept all of the bible and all of it's rules you can't use it as a basis for argument.

The other thing that confuses me is the attitude that the conservatives hold that "if you disagree with me I'm leaving" I can understand someone not agreeing but why leave? This seems to be against the Anglican tradition really. It's almost as if it's being used as a sledgehammer to try and hold this issue back - I have yet to find anyone who can give me a reason for this extension to the argument especially with parishes rejecting bishops. Nothing that has been said that would force any parish to do anything that they don't want to do, so why can't they accept a bishop that might support this issue? There is so much else for us to spend our time on why is this an issue.

Sigh...

Lunch Time, Ersatz 7-11 Burger & Deaf Cubs

Yum yum, instant burger, it's not bad, so long as it's hot - Picked it up on the way back from a client site, microwave for 45 seconds and instant lunch...

What's going on today, I have 6+ projects on my desk, the manager for one of which is currently sick and hoping to be able to come out this evening, I have a speaking engagement at 6:30 on one side of the city and I need to be back on the other side of the city at 9...Preferably a little before that - sheesh how do I get myself into these things.

That said, the presentation is for the 1st Manitoba Deaf Scout Group - We're trying to form up a new section of cubs for the kids that are not resident at the school - and maybe a Venturer company as well. The challenges are of course communication, I seem to have a great number of volunteers, some of which even have some field experience (yea) they are all young and they all sign. We're going to need equipment and support staff coming up but we'll see how many parents come out to support us.

Ramblings on a Sunday Morning

Sunday at 6:30am, A copy of the super-manionation program International Rescue (at least I think that's its' name) was just on and now Supperman II just started. S is still asleep and even the cat has decided to have breakfast and leave me in peace. Didn't mean to get up this early but we went to bed at 9:30 so it's not terribly surprising. You know you're getting old when you go to bed at 9:30 on a Saturday.

Lindsy Wagner is just on TV doing a commercial for inflatable matresses - must need the money I guess. You would have thought that money for re-runs from the bionic woman would have kept her in cash for a while.

We're trying to get ready for our upcoming hike - I was intending to do that yesterday but I spent the day doing laundry and cleaning up. Needed to be done but...I wonder how much it might cost to have a cleaning person come in once every two weeks or so and do a good general cleaning (vacuum everything, wipe down the floors, do the bathrooms and so forth, even once a month would be a great help.

I'll have to look in the paper and see what there is to see.

I'll finish this up now, I want a little time playing The Sims before S wakes up.

How are you supposed to find the time...

I started my day today at 6:30 (well 6:44 after a couple of sleep buttons). 2 hour project meeting, jump across the city to a client site who is pushing me to finish a project because they're short of budget and they keep throwing new items at me as 'is that done yet items'. They seem to think that an access application will be 'done' i.e. finished and delivered - fact is it is unlikely to ever be that good - the application is based on a botched model and much of the work I've done has been to keep the thing working, not really cleaning it up to make it perfect. They will need to continue to update and change the application in the future - they just don't want to...

Done at 5pm exactly no-flex here with this client. Stopped at the bookstore and picked up a new book on the Enneagram and Christianity I'll let you know what I find out about that when I have had a chance to read it.

Had my massage with N. It's surprising how much I enjoy this - not a 5 thing at all really very 'body' oriented - N is a great talker though and it's always a pleasant time. Left the Massage at 7:40, grab Mc D's on the way to the church and eat en-route before going to the think tank meeting - more talk about the same sex blessing issue and (I'm for it by the way) discussion about other plans - hope to get the habitat build nailed down.

Back home now, I have to take a look at a project I was working on earlier and now my client would like it - they sort of expect it to be 'part of the package' even though I really wrote the code quickly and more for my own support than theirs.

I have another client that has been very patient and I need to get back to them but I'm unlikely to be able to get to them until after next week and I currently have 6 projects on my desk including some that have taken much longer than I would have liked them to have taken. Programming sometimes seems to take me a very long time - I don't have much 'personal' library code done up so I'm frequently 'duplicating' work that I know that I've done before but can't remember where or when, and it's been long enough that I need to look it up again so that I can do it again.

Sigh - off into .net land - it's 11:15 - I have to be up at 6:30

Lunch...

You know, some foods can be stored for a time (frozen or otherwise) and do quite well, such as the bean/meat stew thing that I just ate. Other things, like the fruit desert that I made for Mother's Day dinner on Sunday don't and as today is Wednesday, it would be safe to say that it has expired - but it's a slow expiry - the first mouthful is ok, next sort of blaaa and the third comes up as 'WARNING Your Body Has Rejected This Input - Do Not Attempt Further Ingestion'

Running to the washroom, in 5Life...

CBC News: May snowstorm dumps on Western Canada

Ok, it's not a smart thing to try and drive down a side street in the middle of a May Snowstorm. Took me 40 minutes to get my self unstuck and get home 15-20cm of snow in the city and it's still coming down, it's after 5 now so it isn't going to turn to rain it's going to keep snowing all night.

Getting to my conference tomorrow is going to be fun.

CBC News: May snowstorm dumps on Western Canada

Greetings and Felicitations

Hey, Welcome to 5Life - the ramblings of a serious 5. What's a 5 you ask - it's a personality type in the Enneagram system. It's a little like the Myers Brings personality type that you probably did in school or work. 5's are thinking types, they think about everything, they feed on collecting info - about just about anything and they love to share it (shows how smart they 'think' they are)

I'll go on about Enneagram more at some point, but this BLOG isn't about the Enneagram per se it's about ramblings (which to a 5 is just about anything...), what I'm thinking about or concerned about or building or experimenting.

'humm I wonder', is just about the scarryist thing that S can hear it means that some thing has gotten a hold of my mind and won't let go until it either works, breaks something (or me) or fails spectacularly, which is by far the most common result, unless she can get me out of 'mode'.

Here's a good story - I was driving S nuts the other day, we have a new house and have many many projects on the go this spring including drive way, fence, deck, patio, sidewalk, flowers, sprinkler system and so forth. I went to the store with her the other day and I (being a 5) was in 'info collect' mode. I wanted to find out as much about as many things as I could - I wasn't really worried about putting it into any kind of order, I'd work that out later on. I was just ready to learn. S on the other hand thought that we were going to go there and 'make a decision' about the style of fence and get prices. The funny thing was that we had talked about going, and what we wanted to do (as good couples should) and were both comfortable in what was to be accomplished. Trouble was we didn't find out that that belief was horribly WRONG until I drove her nuts wandering around the store, stopping at every third display that had anything remotely to do with our house and looking at things (we were only 1/2 of the way through the store) S is a 7, a very different type and the 'discussion' that resulted was interesting only in that it resulted in our finding out that we had we had in fact not communicated at all well. he he, 5Life is like that.

Take Care!