Monday, September 30, 2002

Yikes!

It's been over a week since I've written anything here. The big event that I was working toward is now behind us, it happened this weekend. Today, we clean up the debris from this year's weekend and start working on next year's.

And I have a cold. A lousy stinking headcold. At least my allergies aren't bothering me though. On Friday, remnants of Tropical Storm Isidore hit us, while we were setting things up in a large tent. The dampness and cold have taken their toll and everyone's sick today. Fortunately, the weather was absolutely glorious on Saturday and Sunday. It's hard to believe that it's all over for another year but it seemed that a good time was had by most (some folks will not admit to having had fun but you can't please everyone, can you?) and most importantly, we survived!

Yay!

Sunday, September 22, 2002

I've been thinking about Kirsty MacColl a lot lately.

The name of this blog, for those who didn't realize, is the title of one of her songs. I recently joined a yahoo list dedicated to all things Kirsty. In December 2000, when I heard that she had been killed, I wept. I went home, put on her album Titanic Days and sobbed. It wasn't the first time that I had cried while listening to Titanic Days. It was however, the first time, since I'd heard that John Lennon had been murdered (I was 13 at the time), that I had cried for someone I didn't know. On some level, I guess I did know her. I had always loved her music, always felt a connection to her through it. She was a brilliant song writer who had a quick wit and a biting sense of humour, two things that I admired her for.

A tribute concert to Kirsty is taking place in London at the Royal Festival Hall tomorrow night. Johnny Marr, Alison Moyet, Roddy Frame, Tracey Ullman and a bunch of other folks will be there. It's a fund raiser for The Music Fund For Cuba, something which was very near and dear to Kirsty's heart.

SEND DONATIONS IN MEMORY OF KIRSTY TO "MUSIC FUND FOR CUBA"
The Music Fund has two simple aims: to raise money to send musical equipment for schools and colleges and provide materials for music and cultural projects throughout Cuba. Secondly, it will facilitate a wider understanding of the breadth of Cuban culture and use visits and exchanges to further develop cultural links between Britain and Cuba.

Cheques should be made out to
Music Fund For Cuba, c/o Major Minor Management, 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU

Friday, September 20, 2002

First Family Affair and now, Bewitched

Mike Myers as Derwin? Nicole Kidman as Samantha? yikes!! Why the heck do they make bad movies out of great old shows? They shouldn't be allowed to do it, they should allow the memory of the shows to remain sacred. I always thought that Bewitched was a cool show, one of my favourite "after school" syndicated sitcoms when I was kid. That and the Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island and The Partridge Family. All of these rip-off movie versions of sitcoms are really boring and lack imagination.

It'll be interesting to see who gets to play Schneider if they get really desperate and do a remake of "One Day At A Time."

It really threatened rain all morning, it was cloudy, and really windy, and humid. It never happened though...it got stinking hot, absolutely scorching. The upside is the that little bit of rain we did get last weekend, combined with the humidity this week, has made the lawn a little greener than it's been in a while. They're calling for heavy rain all weekend. I'm not holding my breath.
I'm an early bird.

My partner drives a taxi so he leaves for work between 5:15 & 5:30 a.m. We're up before 5 most mornings. This means that we are usually in bed, asleep by 9:30 p.m. We've been doing this for almost a year now and I must say that I do like this schedule. I don't leave for work until around 7:30 a.m. so I have some time on my own in the mornings to get some stuff done around the house or just chill out if I want to.

According to the cab company, our neighbourhood (or "zone") is called "The War Time." The majority of the homes around here were build in the late 1940's and early 1950's for returning war veterans who would be working at the local Aluminum factory (the old factory's property runs along the west side of this "zone"). The stillness of the "War Time" at this time of day is lovely. There aren't any buses or souped up cars (with sub woofers in the trunks) racing up our street. No kids zooming around on their bikes or drippling their basketballs. This part of town is very residential. We have an elementary school at one of end of our street and a high school at the other. There are commercial areas surrounding our neighbourhood but they are not close enough that we can hear any noise from them.

Despite it's name, It's very peaceful and still here right now. I love living in the "War Time." It's nice. It feels like it's going to be a good day.


Thursday, September 19, 2002

It's Thursday again.

Where do the days go? And it's dark, very early tonight it seems.

I just took out the blue box and the trash and it's almost pitch dark. It's eerie...that it's dark so early and the weather is so warm. It must feel like this down south I guess. The air is heavy, humid, sticky. The bugs are everywhere, spiders and flies. The flowers in my garden are going nuts.

The cosmos I planted beside our driveway have taken over half of the flower bed. Ordinarily by this time of year, I have taken in all my pots of geraniums and my big potted hibiscus.

Usually, by now, we've had at least one frost and the flowers are fading and the leaves are turning colour. This year though, the leaves just seem to be drying up and falling off the trees, green to yellow to brown and then poof...they're gone.

I heard a former government leader on the CBC the other morning, talking about how Canada shouldn't bother with the Koyoto accord. Apparently, Canada is a "low" producer of green house gas, we only contribute to 2% of the problem. How small a number is acceptable? Isn't 2% too high? Shouldn't businesses be encouraged (if not legislated) to reduce pollution, to clean up their acts? Shouldn't we, as individuals be a little more concerned about this?

I don't think that the weather should be hot and dry at the end of September, in Eastern Ontario. I'm also not sure that the possibility of not having to shovel snow this winter should seem like a good thing, all things considered.

I guess, when you think about how messed up the planet has become, in a relatively short period of time, that the weather is a big deal. Maybe now I'll stop apologizing for always seeming to turn this blog of mine into a weather report.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

I think that I'm a fairly decent human being. I try to be fair, to be courteous, to work hard, to do my share. I'm usually on time, I try to not break promises and to tell the truth whenever possible. I think that basically, I'm a nice person.

Today I've been thinking about that old expression "Nice Guys Finish Last." I never agreed with it, I always though "at least you finish." You don't get discouraged too easily, you don't cop out of things because they're too hard. You do your best and you get things done, quietly. Maybe that other old nugget "the squeeky wheel get the grease" is hitting a little too close to home these days.

Have you ever noticed how some folks seem to live their lives, totally bullet-proof? They are loud, late, ignorant, rude, inconsiderate, manipulative and mean, and this behavour is rewarded. They get promotions, raises, public praise and private perks. I get angry when I hear about things like this... about how people who are just mean and miserable seem to get away with bad behaviour and seemingly never have to pay the consequences for their actions.

It's a good thing that I believe in Karma. If I didn't, I'd be a lot angrier right now than I am.
The past two days have been an absolute blur. I'm not sure where they went at all. Funny how that happens huh?

Our next door neighbours have a motion detector flood light on the front of the garage. The north side of our house is next to their driveway. The motion detector part of their flood light doesn't work anymore so our room was lit up like a baseball diamond for a night game on Sunday evening. Last night we stuck some towels up on the window and it seemed to help. I slept like the dead last night.

Hopefully today won't be as blurry as yesterday.

Sunday, September 15, 2002

I know that I said that this wouldn't turn into a weather report but...it finally rained last night. At one point in the night, I woke up briefly to see a flash of lightning and this morning when I woke up, everything looks a little bit greener and the rain is pounding against the south side of our house. Yay!! I hope it keeps up all day!!

Saturday, September 14, 2002

"I heartily endorse this product or event.": Sally Hansen "New Length" clear nail polish with Teflon! Not only does it help my nails grow (I've split a bunch of them on boxes at work this week) but I'm pretty sure that I could fry an egg on them and the egg wouldn't stick to the finish!

It's Saturday afternoon and it's a little muggy outside so I'm hiding out in the house, applying nail polish to said split nails and listening to Hefner. I spent the morning scanning videos and getting them ready to put up on Ebay once things settle down at work. I now have 51 tapes ready to go. We've been slowly switching our VHS collection over to DVD so I've decided to bite the bullet and get rid of the rest of my video collection. A few months back I put a bunch of them up on Ebay and sold them all. Rather quickly too. I figure this a good time of year to do it, the holidays are right around the corner and this way I can build up my paypal account again for my own holiday shopping. Not that I'm all about winter holiday = presents or anything but I do like to find nifty stuff for my family that I can't find around here. I did most of my holiday shopping via Ebay last year and everything I found turned out to be a big hit with the recipients.

Still not sure about going to see Fred tonight. It's over an hour to drive up there so we'll see what the weather's doing. It looks like it may rain, finally. It's been weeks now since we've had more than a couple of drops. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been pouring all weekend as the local agricultural fair is on right now. It started on Thursday night and the fair grounds aren't far from our house. The other night we fell asleep to sounds of the Demolition Derby. I think that the idea of the Demolition Derby is good, if you're driving...you can release a lot of stress I'm sure. I'm not sure what the audience gets out of it though...but I guess some things in life are just meant to remain a mystery.

Friday, September 13, 2002

Friday the 13th has never been spooky for me. My birthday is on the 13th (not of September) so I've always like Fridays when they fall on the 13th. I wouldn't say that they're lucky but they're not unlucky.

The lucky thing about this Friday the 13th is that the weekend is merely minutes away. No, I'm not one of those folks who live for the weekend but this week has been particularly busy and I'm looking forward to two days of rest.

Hopefully we'll get to see Fred Eaglesmith tomorrow night. He's playing up in Lanark County so we may take a trip up there and check it out. It's been a long time since we saw him last (I think 2 years almost now), so we're overdue for a fix!

Thursday, September 12, 2002

I'd thought about starting a blog for several months now. To start one now, this week, during my busiest time of the whole year, work-wise, seemed like a bad idea. At least it seemed a bad idea to me, the day after I started this. I didn't think that I'd have any time to write anything and anything I did have to write wouldn't make much sense. Now, I know that the stuff I have been writing isn't important or informative but it's been a good outlet for me this week. Somehow, taking a few minutes here and there (like right now) to clear my head and just spew text out is helping me to keep things in perspective.

In 15 days, approximately 5000 people will converge on my town to take part in events that our office is organizing. Once they all arrive, we'll have fun, and everything we have planned will no doubt run smoothly. From now, until then however, we're frantically running around, calling folks, furiously sending emails, following up on stuff, getting things together, making lists, doing the things that were on the list, crossing items off of lists, and making more lists, so we can repeat the process all over again, as many times as is necessary until all the little tasks are completed the people arrive.

I love my job, it's a lot of fun and I get to meet a lot of very cool people. These last two weeks though, things can get a little hairy and I'm living on caffeine and echinacea, keeping my fingers crossed that everything comes together as it usually does and that we all don't get sick with the flu.

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

Fortunately, the day didn't stay dark, it didn't stay hot and sticky either. The sun came up and it looked beautiful outside but the temperature was only 12 degrees this morning, yikes! Polar fleece and sandals is not a pretty look!! Fortunately it warmed up to 21 eventually....anyway, enough of the weather report!!

I received an email from my brother this evening. He plays in a bunch of bands in Ottawa and two of his bands have shows this weekend (see the end of this for details). At the end of his note, he asked that everyone on his list "please take care." I think it is important to take care. It's also necessary to give care, whenever you can, if you're able. I mean, it's probably more important to give it than it is to take it...unless you can't give it and then you should just be glad that someone is concerned enough about your welfare that they can spare some care for you!

It reminded me of a sign that I saw several years ago, while driving through Weehauken, NJ. It was one of those Chamber of Commerce type welcoming signs you see as you drive into and out of a town. It read "Welcome to Weehauken, we take pride." When I read it, it struck me as an odd thing to say. I mean, if you're from Weehauken, perhaps you'll know what it means. For myself and the friends I was travelling with, we couldn't figure it out. Does it mean that Weehauken doesn't actually have any pride, so they have to snatch pride from other towns? Is there a town near Weehauken that maybe manufactures pride and they send it over Weehauken way?

The sign in my town doesn't make much more sense I suppose "Kingston, you'll be amazed." I wonder if the point of the signs isn't to confuse the reader, so much so, that they will actually stop in the town that has confused them the most.

If you're in the Ottawa Valley region this here weekend and you're looking for some fine musical entertainment in a smoke-free environment, you may want to check out one or both of the following shows (for the record, my brother Pat is both a half-miler, and a glad):

Friday September 13th
Veal (from out west)
with Casey Comeau and The Halfmilers.
9PM sharp! Zaphod Beeblebrox. 33 York St. Ottawa.
Veal feature Mr. Luke Ducet, who's solo LP Aloha Manitoba, made Pat's top ten last year. Very cool.
http://www.vealmusic.com/

Saturday September 14th
Le Nombre (Montreal)
The Glads
The Red Hots
10 PM. The Dominion Tavern - next door to Zaphods.
To quote my brother, "Le Nombre effing ROCK. They are cool. You should go."
http://www.birdmansound.com/
Not off to such a good start was I?

It's very dark this morning, it's been very dark every morning this week, I guess summer is almost over. It doesn't feel like summer's almost over though, given that it's been 30+ Celsius all week and the air has been thick and humid. It feels very spooky that the weather is so tropical this late in the year, usually by now, the leaves are starting to turn and the air has a delicious bite to it, a crispness.

On the up side, perhaps we'll be shovelling less come late December...I guess Global Warming does have it's benefits.

I think that I'm possibly the last person on the planet to do so, but I've started reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I picked it up last night and actually read for an entire hour (which is rare for me because I don't often have an entire hour free in the evenings). It's terrific so far, I'm going to try to take another hour tonight and carry on with it. I hadn't realized how much I missed reading until I started doing it again.

Saturday, September 07, 2002

I haven't written anything in ages, although I used to write all the time. I haven't actually finished a book in a long time either but I'm hoping that's going to change this autumn. This blog stuff looks neat and I have read a lot of other folks' blogs...so what the heck, here I am.

I find that the days go by so quickly at this time of year that this might be a good tool to make me slow down and think about what I'm doing. We'll see I suppose.