salut maman

A Grump

2012-02-08T13:18:00.001-05:00

Today I'm a grump.

(A great way to break my hiatus, start out with a story about how I'm a grump today)

A time ago a man told me to "remember who you're grumpy at, Bird". This was after I had asked him why he was never grumpy. "Well Bird" he said, "you have to remember ..."

Then I smirked the way late teens smirk when they hear something they know is profound yet don't quite understand what is profound about it. That something may not be entirely, or specifically, profound at all, merely a neat observation, but I'd smirk all the same since it was the reaction I knew best and was quite good at it.

A guy at the site today said to me "Bird", he said "Bird, why are you so grumpy today. I like it when you come to site cause you're usually cheerie. Not today, today you're a grump."

"I am", I said, "I know. I'm trying not to be."

I'll fix my attitude right now. I'll write it down to get it out of my system, then post it two weeks later.
Regards,

Brad Murray

Cronin Contracting
Professional ICF Installers

6983 John St
Dublin, Ont

(c) 1.519.272.5137
(o) 1.519.345.0112 x24
(f) 1.519.345.0201

www.crocon.ca

Sharing

2011-09-20T14:00:00.000-04:00

At college I learned how to use a binder. How dividers can be placed, how to pick out what goes where, when a topic has graduated to its own binder, when to shrink down to just one. How to title page, to colour coordinate, to spine label and to index.

I grew to like putting them together. I'd even say I loved doing it. Often, in english* to "love" something gets overused, but I'd say I loved it. Definitely a deep like.

I'd fall asleep with them spread out around my room, think about them first thing in the morning and bring them everywhere I went. I would be a wreck if I happened not to bring them with me, and the ones I didn't need to have with me I'd think about all day anyway.

So when someone at my office the other day talked about one of my binders, one that I created and packaged and beautified, as if it was the new guy's binder I just about died.

There weren't even binders here when I arrived four months ago. He's been here three days and all of the sudden it's his?

I clenched my fists for a moment to ease my jealous burst.

It's just a binder. Everything will be alright. He leaves before you, and when he does you can put it back on you shelf. 

My hands relaxed and colour flowed back into the room.

For a moment I went back to what I was doing.

Then I heard my 3-hole punch crunch on a stack of paper which shouldn't have happened because it was MY 3-hole punch and it was sitting on MY des-

Grrrrrr...

*and I have no reference point from another language to work from; other than chatting to italian families and people who speak more languages than i
written
with the help
of
a thousand monkeys

A Spectacle

2011-09-10T09:48:00.000-04:00

www.salutmaman.ca

Needy, so needy

2011-09-09T15:08:00.004-04:00

quietly, in the background
"...oh, it must be that guy..."

I smirk. It's me she's talking about, and obviously doesn't realise that I wasn't put on hold, only set down on the counter.

In her defense, this is the third time I've called today and the fifth time this week. Had I not've lost my glasses (in a golf cart related incident) I wouldn't be in such need, or be so needy. I feel a bit like a boy who's waiting for his first crush to call him after making that first move toward her locker.

Who am I kidding, I still feel that way. It's becoming more and more apparent to me how much I value constant connection. It should have been known to me sooner, and I should have dealt with it sooner too. I have been blogging for a while now, and the medium requires tough skin. I don't know if anyone reads this, there's a stats page that I can check but I have no idea who reads it, or how often, or for how long they stay, where they're coming from, why they're here, why they stay, why they come back - if they come back...

... man. I am needy.

The lady at the glasses store recovered quickly, quicker than I did. I awkwardly laughed every few seconds trying to show who not-unimpressed I was she basically called me annoying in front of everyone she works with.

I was hoping I'd draw out of her that she was sorry to have said it, but she never did. She just kept a steady voice for as long as I was on the phone, rolling her eyes as soon as the handset was in its cradle then carrying on with her next customer, one that was in front of her and not calling from some starbucks, somewhere.

I would tip her if I thought a person tipped glasses salespeople, and if she wasn't making commission off this sale. The easiest sale ever, might I add.

(However the easiest sale ever is making for a boring entry. If you've stayed with me this far into the post you'll be prepared for the image of me with my new specks that'll come shortly after me putting them on)

Don't Panic

2011-09-01T22:32:00.001-04:00

The security guard at the airport drop off saw us coming, well before we saw him. Regardless, we were well on our way to where we needed to be, and we weren't going to stop to talk to him. We hadn't a moment to spare and he would have had too many questions, all of them rhetorical.

"How are we doing for time, Bird" the Boss said to me, fifteen minutes later than he should have. I raised my brow in such a way so as to demonstrate a sense of urgency.

I assumed the urgency part, he was the one who did the math. I couldn't remember it.

"We gotta go", I stated simply. There was no other way to say it. We were trying to impress a client, and panic doesn't sell anything.

We shook hands, grabbed papers and made for our Sewing Machine of a rental whom we would, quite shortly, be testing every ounce of its strength.

Mrs Boss called at 6:42 "Is Boss there?"

"Busy dropping the car off" I replied. Mr. Boss smirked at me, knowing full well he was not and wouldn't be for at least another ten.

"Sorry" I said. "Don't tell her I did that"

"I won't till tomorrow"

The Security Guard at the airport drop off moved like a second baseman who knew the shortstop had under shot the fly ball. He started slowly from his perch, and by the time I saw him he rounded a column and we rounded the rental lot's median. I didn't see what did after that, none of us do. We knew very well we were driving the wrong way, but we had to get the rental back, and I'll be damned if we were going to circle the airport again.

Phone rang again "is he there now?"

"Bathroom."

(I was more articulate than that, but that's the important bit. I wanted to demonstrate the urgency of the situation, without losing the cucumber cool I had on the phone)

"Who was that?" "Farked if I know, park this flaming thing" I snapped in my head, but didn't actually say. Instead I just smiled.

A Greyhound staffer at the airport drop off watched the whole scene unfold. She cocked her head to one side as we second guessed the parking lot entrance, and exhaled with a smirk as we rounded back again two wheels.

Boss went into Rental Co to toss the keys, I grabbed the bags and ran for our gates.
Twelve minutes left.

I was flustered when I got to the desk, which was quick given there was no line and I had ran full tilt from the Rental Co office, but before I could get too far into the scenarios running thru my head-

.... leaving Boss there ... "Indian jones"ing onto the plane .. Bribing them at the gate .

-Boss was standing next to me.

"Hey" "Hey"

Stamp. Sticker. Stack.

"Where do we-"

"Toward the escalator please, si-" and I was to the top before she hit the last syllable.

Long story short, we jumped over the customs line. I was doing well till Security made small talk about my hard hat and I couldn't remember what it was I used it for.

"You had to think about that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and reaching into his pocket. Rubber gloved scenarios ran through my head as I moved faster than I thought I could.

"Did I make it" I asked the woman I was about to bribe.

Make it? You've loads of time. We START boarding at seven.

"Well", said Boss "we'd better go get a fast one, shouldn't we? That'll take this edge off"

I really wish I had a less cheesy way to end this. I don't. It's all about the journey anyways, right?

I'm laughing now because I'd forgotten Short Stack was even with us.

It's a good thing he was able to keep up.
www.salutmaman.ca

Qqch

2011-08-05T21:33:00.002-04:00

There's something refreshing about reworking a resume. It's not that new content's been added, it's the fresh reordering of the same junk. Sort of like the way I clean a room, or a drawer... which isn't at all. I push and pull stuff to different places which tricks me into thinking that there's something new in front of me.

No, I take it back. There's nothing refreshing about reworking a resume. A resume shouldn't just be reworked, it should be overhauled. It should be tore down, re-framed, painted then traded in for something worth while.

A new template is a great place to start. At least, it makes me feel better. I'm sure it feels better for the same reason shoe companies rotate their designs out every 3 months. People come in, see the shoes they just bought don't exist anymore, they feel out of date and buy new shoes.

What we don't seem to notice is that in the end they're all still shoes; laces, soles, tongues, etc.

In the end, it's still a resume; name, work history, impressive adjectives, etc.

The overhauled resume works to make an old idea new again. New ideas come more readily from new people, which is why having someone other than me*
have a look at it works so much better than these eyes.

That's a ton more refreshing.

(cry ... every night...)

[You're welcome]

Meanwhile, elsewhere in my psyche this is going on:

There's something wonderful about thinking on a full stomach. Currently I am not, and thus have no reference point in recent memory; but I'm sure there is something wonderful about it.

I would hope there's something wonderful about it because there sertanly isn't anything wonderull about thinking on and am tease tomb ache.

...

...what was I writing about?

something...

*later I will edit this to be a link because currently I'm ecrising this dans a noir-berry. I don't think including html will work when I send this via email**.

**though, I do so very much hope it does.***

***it didn't

A Nanny, perhaps?

2011-06-14T14:54:00.000-04:00

Dear Dinker,

On the weekend was around a few babies ... two of them were yours. Well done you.

Dad says congrats as well, although he also says that he still beat you. Just like you, he couldn't celebrate his first father's day ... he wasn't a father. By his second, just like you, he was father of two.

He says he wins because he didn't have twins.

I can't wait to see your daughters again. They're really cute and cuddly, and for the most part they just lay there. Lilly was flailing around, trying to look at as many things as she could, which isn't very much, as far as I know.

Though what I know about babies that age is limited.

Well, what I know about babies is limited.

I know how to hold them. I have to support their neck. I don't know how old they are when they can hold their own necks but I've figure it's safer to hold every baby as if it can't hold its neck up. At least until it proves itself.

When I was holding Lilly on Saturday we were having a grand old chat. I was going on about the headaches you'll have over the next eighteen years, how you'll take her to soccer games and show her how to do long division and she smiled back as if to say she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Her grandmother said "You're pretty good at holding her. You'll be invited back again next weekend."

She also said that I was keeping her up by talking to her, that she should be fast asleep by now since she was just fed.

I was just super thrilled to have such a small person so entertained by me. Maggie, who was also very cute, was sleeping the whole time she was waiting for Lilly to finish her meal.

If Lilly sleeps through the night I'll be praised forever. If she doesn't I may not get invited back again for a while.

It's Tuesday and I haven't heard from them about next weekend. I don't know what to think.

For H.E.

2011-06-13T21:40:00.001-04:00

Dear sister H,

It's your birth and grad day today. Hope it goes well. Don't keep my roommates out too late tonight, they have to be able to do chores tomorrow.

--bbb

Grown men

2011-06-11T22:55:00.001-04:00

"Grown men" is an oxymoron. At least, I like to think so.

Take the job site, for instance. It's basically a playground for grown men. At the start of the day we're given a game to play during recess. It's a game with a few rules, some powerful tools and a goal to reach. Best part is we get. a recess that lasts all day. We take a lunch, but all we talk about is how we've played the game so far and how we're going to play after.

Kids spend their time at school planning for recess. Desk time is just an annoying inconvenience, a necessary evil to be entertained so as to be allowed back out the door.

It was neat to see some of the same games being played as we played when we were in school. Ten or twenty years hasn't changed the fact that snow forts are built by a staff with a hierarchy, in kindergarten everything is a gun and the first kid to the playground gets first pick for his team.

Some kids would use their class time prepping for recess, to better use the time they had outside. Teams might be picked before hand, or at the very least captains. The more aware kids would have their desk work done first so that when the boss came around they would either not notice the extracurriculars, or not care.

Some kids will grow up to be in a hotel near Nashville with their wives, and after an early breakfast, will lean in to their middle aged buddy, fake a conversation and flip a back hand at his personals.

This is how I know there aren't any grown men.

At least I hope not.

To Mands, from the road

2011-06-09T22:57:00.005-04:00

Happy birthday.

It is the co-author's birthday today, though it's been a while since she's contributed a story here. She says she writes better from the road, but that only means she needs to hit the road.

I know I have more to write about when I'm on the road. I can't imagine I'll keep up this pace once I return home again (in 24 hrs. ish). I don't want to say I'll try because trying doesn't get posts posted.

Lee told me once that no one cares what you almost did, Bird and she is so very right.

Wasn't this a post about Mands, not about your posting habits?

i think it was meant to be, but i don't know what happened.

nevertheless, happy bday. hope it's a good one.

--bbb

jittery, from the road

2011-06-08T15:21:00.000-04:00

sbux is our new office on the road. we usually stop at one part way through the day, or when we've reached a point in our day where we've exhausted our research and the locations we want to hit and need a moment to recharge, cool off and, most importantly, spend some time outside of the truck.

we both agree, and the Boss figured when we left, that the hardest part of this trip will be the time spent driving.

.. and we've spent a lot of time driving; on average 400 km/day.

We figured that out on this morning's two hour drive/math refresher course. (I'll get to that in a moment.)

Just as we haven't spent longer than one night in the same hotel (save for one set of nights), we haven't made one sbuxs our local brew hut either. However, there's one in every major city and, quite often, one at every major intersection. They all serve basically the same things. Some people do different things, but over all it's the same. I've learned that they have the right things to make a dairy-free, soy-free smoothie. It's not on the menu, but when you're as versed as I am with the ingredients of all the smoothies, and there's a creative person working on the beverages, we can come up with something.

The first dude .. (man I wish there was a story developing here, but there doesn't seem to be. I was going to write about the math review that Sweet and I had going down I40. He wanted to use a calculator to figure out our daily average, I said we should use our heads, or at the very least a pad of paper and he couldn't understand why. Turns out it was because he'd forgotten how to use long division. After a few minutes I had him convinced that I thought he couldn't do it, which was the tipping point to put his pen point to the paper.)

[I know; nice alliteration, right?]

(we worked on a small problem, which he got right. we learned how to check our work and then he went to work on the problem at hand. It was an honour to see him light up with the answer he got, especially after looking over after a couple of minutes to find a confused look on his face because he couldn't figure out why 8x4=34, but 8x7=56.)

<<It doesn't compute he said, and I can't figure out why>>

(Eventually he got it, the right answer and a flood of other thoughts about teaching styles and learning habits. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about all this with such interest and passion, but without the cliche buzz words that practicing teachers find themselves using among other practicing teachers.)

(Road trips make great think tanks, it's unfortunate that it takes a week to get warmed up to it)

.. something about making a smoothie that isn't interesting anymore and wasn't interesting in the first place. Thanks for reading.

8x4=32

haphazardly, from the road

2011-06-07T15:27:00.000-04:00

The road to Missouri (MO) is a long one; 12 hrs long to be exact(ish). It involves rounds of driving of about four to five hours, which are juxtaposed by rounds of sleeping haphazardly while the maniac sitting next to you drives like he's in a race car.

It's a crew cap truck, Sweet. There's no pit crew and you're not going to get sprayed with champagne when we get to the next checkpoint.

I deal with it best while I'm sleeping haphazardly. It's during those times that I can't feel the truck swaying as he changes the music on the eyePod.

Currently we're in Guthrie, OK which is about an hour north of Oklahoma City which is the least likely place I thought I'd run into Vancouver Canucks fans. Turns out that there's a few anti Boston fans. Had I* been in OKC three weeks earlier I might have been invited to a basketball game, "the city nearly shuts down, as I'm sure these two can tell you".

She was motioning to the two sitting behind her, the pair of reception like people sitting just behind the board room table her and I were standing at. The man looked up and nodded eagerly in agreement, the woman didn't look up from her computer but smiled politely, nonetheless.

"would you like another coffee?" he asked, equally as eagerly. I remembered back to when I first sat down and he offered me the first.

"no thanks" i said, i'm still wearing most of the original "I should get going."

I know none of them had seen me cross my legs into the cup of coffee he had so generously offered me. I was glad because I went as red as the couch I had just spilled it on, and I hoped that it was coffee heating my leg.

Leaving meetings like this one have made this trip worth while. I know I enjoy talking to people, but having to sell myself is stressful, and I've learned that I don't know if I could do it all the time. At least not this road trip version. The road trip itself is going well, but it's such a rough ride emotionally all day. We stopped at more than 15 places in the morning and I got a different feeling about each one. The good feeling lasts until the next place we stop, but the bad feelings last the whole day.

But hey, I've crossed three states to my list (though I haven't found a badge for any of them yet) and there's a chance I'll get another two if the trip goes the way I think it might. (However in truth I don't have a clue where the trip will go from here. Sweet and I have been sitting at this cafe for two hours now waiting on orders from base camp.)

When I learn how to make the good feeling last all afternoon I'll let you know. I'm sure a few of you are thinking of suggesting that I drink, but that wouldn't help much since they don't put alcohol in their beer here.

*I had an urge just now to write this sentence out as "had I a been" or "had i of been" but neither would have been correct. It's taking me a while to figure out what is correct, in fact I haven't written the rest of the sentence yet and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it. I think it must be a colloquialism, or a rural thing. Any thoughts, dear readers**?

**speaking of which ... yesterday, apparently, there were 49 of you. I don't know who you are, or where you're coming from, but thanks for stopping by. I hope you like it.

A word from my cousin

2011-06-06T19:17:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone,

My good friend, Anna, is participating in the relay for life this coming Friday. She will be shaving her head, and as one of her team members, it is my responsibility to help collect pledges! It would be much appreciated if you could make a simple contribution, I need all the pledges submitted by tomorrow night. So, lets raise some cash for cancer!

Follow the link below to donate online!

Thank you very much,

Tom

http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFL_ON_odd_?px=4097999&pg=personal&fr_id=8764

stale, from the road

2011-06-05T09:52:00.003-04:00

Our road to Joplin, MO began six days ago. An early morning at the shop where we grabbed the essentials out of the yard (baseball gloves, golf clubs, cellphone chargers) and took the non-essentials out (empty candy wrappers, crusty coffee cups, smelly work boots) and took to the open road.

Twelve hours later we arrived in St. Louise to drive past the Gateway, maneuver around Cardinal fans and shack up for the night.

Now, that might seem like a bit of a jump, the skip over the twelve hours in the truck without any mention of a funny thing that happened, but the reality is that nothing much did. Traveling, a lot of the time, consists mostly of boring, mundane details that provide little entertainment to anyone, especially those experiencing it.

There was a great deal of mp3 shuffling, some chatting with the boss man every couple of hours with nothing more to report than our new location (which could have been guessed at with a quick calculation and an online map) and cracking juvenile jokes about everything and anything.

I learned the trick to starting the truck after putting new fuel in it: turns out one has to hold the pedal down to the floor, turn it over for thirty seconds then let the RMPs hover around 4000 for ten seconds. That got us a lot of looks, even the odd cheer, from fellow roadsters.

We would pause every so often at chain sandwich shops, or coffee huts, or road side trees to change up the pace. Sometimes when the Boss man called we'd say we were in a completely different state.

He didn't like that and told us so.

I learned to use the messenger system on the work phone, however if you're not in the crackberry club then I can't get in touch with you in text form from that device.

In closing, we rested a moment in St. Louis, ate a burger and tried to chat with friendly wait staff who were in no mood to chat with anyone because they worked at a bar that was next to a hotel and got all kinds of crazy come in the door. We spent the basketball game nibling quietly on a burger and talking about the people around us in hushed voices.

Sweet is learning to use his inside voice quiet well.

Planning

2011-06-03T18:45:00.002-04:00

i don't have a plan. i don't use capitals often. at least not when i write Here. I'm sure it's cause my fingers haven't practiced using the SHIFT key enough to make it part of their typing routine.

I'm writing as if I could ask them. If they could answer I wouldn't have to ask them directly because they'd already have replied by giving up writing what I'm telling them to and stare directly at them.

Perhaps that's what it means "to fing", for digits to cease what they've been told do in protest of being spoke to in passing.

If they could comprehend orders they'd likely respond the way that annoying guy on the bus does when you indirectly tell him to stop tapping his hand to the beat of Adele on the seat next to him by leaning over to your friend to speak in a loud whisper: embarrassing disgust. He knows he should have know better, that it was entertaining to anyone else, but he's had to be told by some complete stranger and now everyone around knows he's been scolded.

I find myself leaning over to complete strangers, sometimes even an empty seat, just to make my point.

... What was my point?

Oh, right. I don't have a plan.

Although here I've learned that not having a plan can still lead somewhere entertaining.

Can I go nowhere with you?

Semantically yours,

2011-05-04T07:50:00.001-04:00

"because I like your name I'm going to talk to you a lot today, Murray"

Is that so? I replied. I was busy going over the plans for the new overpass going in and hadn't much time for chitchat. It was looking like it was going to be a busy day, what with the labourers about to go to snack, and the unannounced t-Rex/deloposaurus parade it was hard to get any blocks laid.

"yep. And because you know so much about star wars. I know more, but you know a lot too"

I suppose so, Winston. Did I tell you that I think your name is pretty neat?

"is it because il named after Winston Churchill?"

Perhaps, I smirked. Perhaps. Do you know what know what next week is, Winston?

"no I don't, Murray. What is is?"

Star Wars day.

His eyes would have lite up if he wasn't a forty year old business man who had unfortunately been trapped inside a five year olds body and sent to senior kindergarten. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, confused.

I'll show you. Ms Quid, do you have a calendar?

"Sure do Mr Murray, just over there." Winston and I went over to the month of May.

That's the first of May, or May the first. What comes next, Winston?

"May the second?" yep, and after? "that's May the third, and that's May the forth and that's ... "

His head cocked to one side again. "that sounds funny, may the fourth. Why does it sound funny?"

I was smiling. I wasn't sure if he'd catch on, but then he started chuckling. It wasn't quite a laugh, I heard him laugh later that day when his mom picked him up and he was running around the tables pretending to be at a convention with his uncle where they had light sabers and costumes, but is was a good hearty chuckle.

"May the fourth be with you, Murray"

May the fourth be with you, too.

bikes, big and small

2011-04-30T18:10:00.001-04:00

I was at home for Easter and Dad wanted to go for a bike ride.

"don't we have two red ones?" he asked, not knowing how much I didn't want to talk about it. "what do you mean it got swiped too?"

Of course he knew exactly what I meant, he was just venting slowly, just as I did here, so that there wasn't a crater left in his spot when our conversation ended. He wasn't mad at me, it was the city that had eaten three of his bikes.

Well two, but I wasn't about to slow his roll. It didn't want there to be a crater named after me either.

I had came out on top with the first one going missing, the second one put us a bit behind. Especially since I had spent all of the cash we got for the first one on my new one. The second one going missing hadn't been planned for and thus I had let it disappear into the night without more than a wisp of ones and zeros on a blog buried deep in the blogger-verse.

A part of the blogger-verse that I was confident he rarely read when I was in the same province he was.

So now, at his suggestion, I'll be spending the last little bit of insurance money he thinks remains replacing a bike that I want to forget ever existed.

I am excited that he wants to get into biking, even if it is to the barn and back. I think eventually he'll get up to an around the block trip¹.

Something for him and you to work up to.

In a related story, he has a spot in the garage cleared for his big bike. I had gone out of a ride around the block, I had intended to go farther and see more people but as luck would have it I left the little bit I need to put more air in the tires at home and had to get back early. When I did, I found a nice, big bike sized spot open in the garage when I could put my little bike.

"You parked your bike where I park mine" he said when he returned.

I simply nodded. The playoffs were on and, mostly, I didn't want to make eye contact with him.

"It struck me as funny, that's all." Slight pause and small snicker. "You have a bike and I have a bike."

I smirked back.

"Don't scratch mine when you get yours out from under it" He would have thundered had he been anyone else. Since he wasn't anyone else other than who he was he said it in a gentle, loving way that let me know he meant absolute business and I'd better not mess around.

I didn't dare scratch it, just as he didn't dare park on top of mine.

¹ around the block means five miles, not two minutes

searching for the organic

2011-04-29T13:45:00.002-04:00

[note: I wrote this a while back, saved it to draft and I'm posting it now. I share these sentiments, however I don't remember what interview it was for. enjoy]

damn it.

why can't I have a good answer for what leadership means to me? i was asked in an interview last night and I totally froze. It was as if I had never heard the word before or that I didn't know they were going to ask me a leadership associated question.

my resume, as resume's should be, is riddled with evidence of a past of leadership. I have a past of leadership, a lot of it ... but I couldn't tell them what leadership meant to me.

what does leadership mean to anyone?

this post isn't going to solve that for me, I really just have to sit down and write an answer for myself that I can talk about in my next interview. If I delve into it now it will sound too mushy and forced.

That's it - I didn't know how to answer it because I didn't want to sound mushy and forced, I wanted to sound organic and honest.

instead I sounded like a bumbling baboon.

and how do you motivate people, birdley?

.. i uh .. i talk to .. find .. uh .. them tick ..

I have a smashing resume and I'm bountifully articulate, but I can't talk about it for the life of me.

damn it.

at a coffee shop, avec pants.

2011-04-27T17:07:00.003-04:00

pants. check

bike, helmet, gloves. check.

weather. ... che-hit.

It's nice to have a bike in a city because I can get nearly anywhere I want on my own schedule, most often quicker than transit can, sometimes even quicker than a car can.

However, the other two will make sure I'm dry when I there.

I'm not prepared to bike through this weather. I bring clothes with me when I take my bike to work - I don't like walking around in swassy clothes for an entire day - but I don't have the wet pants or the rubber shoes or the fenders or the [insert other items].

Like I said, I bike because I like keeping my own schedule. With that said, I was texting a new friend just now, explaining the liking of biking and the complaining of raining when I thought to myself ...

It'll be nice when I decide to leave here because I'm not going to have to be on the move immediately. I won't be rushing around through traffic and arrive home in a huff and a puff and an exasperated sigh. I can take my time and get there when the people in charge of getting me there feel like getting me there. I have no where to be and thus no reason to be rushed.

Then I laughed at the irony of how my version of rushing around is someone else's Sunday afternoon bike ride. The most stressful thing in my life is how I get to the next coffee shop¹.

I felt defeated when I climbed my stairs, after helmeting up, only to find that it was raining quite a bit more than I had thought which was not at all. I had been trapped in my basement room for the duration of the day where my only access to the outside a six inch window that I use as a book shelf for my dictionaries. It took me a good three minutes of standing on the little stoop inside the door that lead to the rain to decide that going out was still an option, even without my bike.

If it wasn't for leaving the house despite not taking my bike I never would have heard the guy seated behind me say to the girl seated with him "do you understand how much I cherish you?" I've experienced a few tid-bits of relationship blossoms while at this brand of coffee place. I'll share another with you in a few days.

My coffee has gone cold, but I'm pretty sure my jacket has dried off. Perhaps it's time to go get it damp again. There's a crowd gathering just outside the window where buses have been stopping all afternoon.

Cheers!

¹this, of course, is not true. the most stressful part of my life is that I have two degrees, I'm trained in something I like doing and it's unlikely that I'll find work in this province any time soon. Of course, this isn't really that stressful because I got into this knowing it. Perhaps I didn't understand the degree of difficulty, or how much I would want to work in Ontario. Worst case scenario, I go somewhere and apprendre une neuveau langue.

Guilt

2011-04-26T08:15:00.001-04:00

It was supposed to rain today, so I didn't bike. Usually I take about 20 mins in the morning to bike to my placement, this Koenig I'm taking the bus.

Usually I have my headphones in for the commute, this morning it's just me and the birds and the tires on tarmac.

It was supposed to thunderstorm this morning. I'm sure it will. I hope it does. If it doesn't I'll feel pretty guilty today. Well, a little guilty. For a few weeks one summer, between undergrad years, I took to biking a trail every morning before work. It wasn't a commute. It was for the exercise; for the birds, the fawns and the foxes; mostly for the smoothy at the end of it all. I went everyday for three weeks. One morning it was raining a bit and I took the morning off.

"you deserve it" said the part of me that likely knowing full well I'd never get back on that trail.

Other parts of me either didn't know, didn't care or agreed and didn't want to say why.

Thats twice that I know of where I've used "usually" to describe something that clearly wasn't, or isn't. At least not yet.

Ils vas faire du pluie a demain, aussi. Je n'aime pas du pluie, At least not while I'm on my bike.

(I was going to touch on the irony of music while I ride and nature while I bus, but the story moved away from it.)

today...

2011-04-25T10:29:00.002-04:00

Today is the day i sit around in my underwear and write and write and write. (I apologize for the visual, but that is what today is about.)

Today is also about haircuts, cleaning and making lists of lists on giant whiteboards. Today I wish my whiteboard was a giant tablet that allowed me to write as clearly as I do on a whiteboard but also let me save my scribbles as a jpeg.

(wouldn't that be cool!)

today is a day for deciding my three day old beard needs to be shaved off because the transitional period of itch isn't worth it. i don't know how I ever convince myself that it is. I look forty and I have to keep it trimmed. If I don't, I look forty and homeless.

Today it will dawn on me that in a week I'll be homeless.

Today might be the day I learn to use the SHIFT key instead of powering over letters that need capitalized. When I write I get lazy and never touch it. THen I go back over my post and have to highlight and delete and change and I am just as bored correcting it as you are with this sentence.

Today I might go to a coffee place and write and write and write. But first, the pants.

Thanks for reading.

... the race is on

2011-03-14T07:57:00.002-04:00

my summer reading list ...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (En Français!)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (En Français!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shaskespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

... 21/100. it seems we're evenly matched. the italics are the ones I'm either working on or started at one point.

... I don't understand why Hamlet is its own number outside of the Complete Works of WS, or why LWW by CS Lewis is its own outside the Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.

on your mark, get set ...

and then there were three

2011-03-12T22:37:00.005-05:00

[My apologies for the brief interruption in service. I forgot to renew my account with salutmaman.com]

[It makes me feel good knowing that people check in enough to notice that the site is down for a day or two.]

Currently I'm sick. some trouble breathing, but no trouble heating up a glass of water and adding some neocitron which I told my housemate that it tastes like sick.

I meant that it tastes of the reminiscent of being sick, not of an upset stomach. She had told me to add sugar or sweetener to take the edge off the tea, I said like liked the taste of sick. When we realized the miss-communication i chalked it up to her being british ... in reality it was me not thinking clearly because I was sick.

It's not that i'm actually sick though either. I am recovering from an evening with three cats whom I always forget that i am allergic to. In fact, it was only this evening that i realized there were three of them, every other time I've stayed I had thought there were two ... although the other times knocked me out for a couple of days too.

It wasn't that there was three this time because there's always been three and I've always got sick because of it.

It wasn't that there was three, it's that i think i am stronger than my allergy and i can force myself out of it.

It wasn't that there was three ... it's that i can be a bit daft some of the time.

I didn't help either that I went out last night. It was the last night out with my B.Ed buddies because we finished the uni part of our bach of ed. I think we all had fun.

I could tell that some had more fun than others. The ones not having fun were either a) swaying to the beat of music that can only be described as anything other than what was currently playing while they starred disconnected off to the back wall and beyond, or b) the friends that were taking care of the people swaying to the music of some other party.

Those having fun were somewhere in between. Luckily, that was most of us.

A bus ride

2011-02-03T14:46:00.001-05:00

Snow-boy ... I would have liked that snow day (yesterday) better if had been a snow day, yet as a Wednesday it was still pretty good. Ive an essay due today that I started yesterday, first-drafted by nine and final pencil version was done by 830 this morning.

All because of a little bit of snow that kept students out of their school and thus outside of the gym after the school day as well.

Also, tutoring was postponed until tonight.

[I started this this morning, I've picked it up again sitting on the bus en route to bball prac]

We had a class today on Amish communities and I doodled an Amish man on my feedback sheet. The class is usually boring and I get all my best doodles done during it. I told my art teacher this through my reflection paper and she wrote back that I was "too funny". I had a teacher in Gr 11 who would give us bonus marks for doodles we added to tests or in class assignments.

I think I'll do that in my own class, in fact I may do that in my next placement.

At practice tonight I'm going to have them moving with more conviction and more speed. Not dashing around like maniacs, but when the whistle goesthe balls stop, when I call for a huddle they won't walk or lag. If anyone does we'll do three push ups together, and we'll keep doing it till we move the speed I want us to.

That's one goal for today, I'll set a second one before the bus ride ends.

--b

When the chips are down

2011-02-02T17:06:00.003-05:00

Is there a commercial about eating chips in a quiet place, like a library? I am sure there is and I am sure that if there isn't there will be one out next week. Then, if the latter is true, I am sitting through the taping of said future commercial.

If it is candid and if it does air next week I am going to be the blurred out face with the beeped out dialogue that kicks the chair out from under the star of the commercial. She'll land on all fours with the chip bag next to her, the chips in a mess around her like a bowl of corn flakes that dropped on the floor. She'll look dumb-founded up at me and make as if to explain about the commercial and I'll lean over all smartly and say something like

"I'll bet you can't eat just one ... off that floor."

and i'll pick one up and crush it in my hand, letting the bits fall to the carpet again.

While I walk away you'll be able to tell that I know I picked a dumb thing to say but we always pick the dumb things to say in a moment of confrontation and edit them in our heads for the next several days.

At least I do. I'm still thinking about a group of dudes at the bar last week. There was an improve group on stage and the dudes thought that everyone wanted to hear their stories about girls and drinking. I wanted to tell them that it wasn't their show, so I did.

It felt awesome. For a moment. Then the dudes realized that I hadn't taken away their ability to from words and began forming some in my direction.

Amazing what a little motivation can do to an inarticulate group of young men. Before I told them that no one wanted to listen to them they were quite happy calling each other inappropriate names, now they were even more happy to have someone that wasn't them to call these things.

It took them a bit to say more than oddly placed nouns and verbs, but once their balls got rolling again they appeared able to take on anything. Luckily my table was filled with Anythings, and the table to their right was filled with more Anythings.

Nostalgia tells me that I coolly reminded them that it still wasn't their show and they should take their conversation outside to where no one would listen. Then I smirked at my table of Anythings and turned back to the stage and gestured to the improve team to continue with the show. Later that night we all shared a beer and told our own versions of the story over and over again, changing it a little bit at a time to include the knocking over of chairs and a small stand off of some sort.

Of course the real thing went nothing like that and was significantly less eventful, just as is the case in the library right now. The boys likely said something back to me, but I had no idea what they were saying because I was still shaking from the nerves that were building up. The chip eater has long finished with her snacking and has gone home having already finished the assignment that I've been writing this post instead of.

some questing

2011-01-28T14:20:00.001-05:00

A bunch of us went to laser tag last night, about 30 or so. all teachers college kids, which we in chorus told the Marshal in the prep chamber. We played three games, each time they did an introduction to the game and an overview of the rules. The first time he made a small faux pas, and Jeff corrected him. The guy said "what, are you a teacher?" and Jeff said "actually, yes."

"you look like one too" the guy replied in reference to the shirt and tie he was, like a few others, including myself, were wearing. I had got a text earlier that day: "you better suit up".

The suit turned out to be a bad choice because A) it gets really hot inside the vest we wear while running through a maze full tilt for fifteen minutes. I was sweating buckets through my blue and white striped shirt, which was problem B) because, unbeknownst to me, laser quest arenas are lit with black lights and I stuck out like a florescent sore thumb.

The second time through the Marshal made a comment about how we weren't paying attention and asked where the teacher was from before and if he could help out. The Marshal was knocked back by the booming "we all are" that we responded with.

In the cafe today we all reminisced about the ambushes and misshapes from the night before, and the injuries that showed up this morning when we tried to get out of bed.

iMail

2011-01-17T21:35:00.002-05:00

Mom,

my mail won't work, but mostly I hadn't thought of a subject heading yet and that was the first thing that came to mind. I haven't been bothered too much by it to look further into fixing it because messages still come to my phone and logging on to the web version is just fine.

it stays open all the time though, and that bothers me a bit. when i alt-tab it's always there ... staring at me .. mocking me ...

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME iMAIL?

mostly I spent today planning escape and bus routes. in art (which reminds me that i have to add it to my todo list) we drew stone henge. how we did it is just as mysterious as the building of the real structure so I won't be able to divulge any more details about it in this message. I also had another class, it was math and we learned about protractors.

where the hell was that a month ago?

it makes total sense now and i was going about it all wrong. hopefully those kids recover and learn from their grade 6 teacher how those half circle things work (actually, they didn't call them half circle things at all. i consider that a victory for me).

Then we had basketball and lost, but the team did alright. I would rather have time with them at practice then all this time at games. I see a ton of things we could work on and not being there hurts. I'm sure they wonder what my role is too.

right now i'm the guy that shows up to the games and tells them to do things that don't make sense.

I am smiling. I don't know if that's evident in what I've written, but I am. Because at the end of the day I did a bunch of things that I like doing .. including catching the right buses every time.

things are turning up Murray.

--b

Small One and the Douche

2010-12-22T19:16:00.002-05:00

Lightly tapping on the table, Uncle Dude stares at his phone. Small one had been bursting with excitement and could hardly contain herself while he waited in line for a smoothy. It wasn't the smoothy she cared about, in fact she hardly touched it once he brought it over. she wanted him to sit next to her and presumably entertain her. Mommy sat quietly next to Small One looking rather disengaged, while Uncle Dude tapped quickly away on his phone.

"Stop that" he said, "you'll get me sick." Small one looked on just as confused as you do right now since she had no idea what she had done or what he was talking about.

"He needs his space" mommy said in a way that redefines passivity, "You know that."

"This is my cylinder", he said gesturing to his sphere.

Small one's expression might have resembled slight confusion as to why Uncle Dude had just used the word cylinder, but since she didn't know what cylinder meant she simply cocked her head to one side and smirked.

"yeah?" she challenged, "well this is my sililindinar", although she should have set it as her status since it fell on digital ears.

Uncle Dude tapped tapped tapped on his phone some more and then stopped. Small One had started to work on her smoothy again and Mommy drifted off somewhere.

Uncle Douche stood up and said "mumble mumble", or something as equally unrelated, motioning for Small One and Disenchanted to follow him. They all stood and Small One skipped for a bit until momma reached for her hand to ground her. Uncle dude walked several paces ahead of the pair with his nose once more buried in his phone. I was not lucky enough to see Uncle Dude walk into anything, though I am told storied like these usually end in that manner.

Merry Christmas Small One, I sure hope your mom finds a less douchie dude by next holiday season, or at the very least you get to see your 'Uncle' walk through a calendar kiosk.

three dreams

2010-11-28T12:44:00.005-05:00

Last night I dreamed that Dad showed up with a surprise bike for me. The night before I dreamed I was biking down the main street here with my breaks failing, but there isn't much more of a story there. I avoided the traffic and got stopped and woke up shortly after.

Last night, however, you and Dad had arrived in the city, but hadn't told me you were here. I knew because you were leaving tokens of your arrival all over campus. The most impressive was Dad's old red road bike (Though not the one that went missing, this one still sits in the barn at home. For the purposes of this dream its sitting in the hallway at school with me leaning over it). The rear tire needed attention, some air, new treads and to be reattached to the frame. It seemed to be held on by strategically lazy cobwebs. There was a rear rack, but it hung to one side apparently by the weight of the rust. The handle bars were bent down, but the looked like they could be bent back up if one was patient and careful.

The night before I had dreamed of a bike shed in the backyard of my big city house.

what do you think, Bird? you said to me in my dream from last night, which was startling because you hadn't been standing there moments before.

I stood sheepishly there because I was embarrassed to have been startled into breaking the handle bars off in my hand.

it's great, i said honestly because I knew you knew I needed a new bike (although in my dream life I knew I hadn't told you and I knew that you had read about it here and I knew you were here to surprise me.) I also knew that it could be fixed up, regardless of how many parts came off in my hand.

Dad was behind you, smirking like he was hiding something. He was.

Behind him was a chopper-like pedal-bike. Beefy and low to the ground with a bucket seat and what looked like a cup holder on the roll bar which turned out not be either but merely the way the light was hitting wall behind. He loved it. I also loved it, but he loved it more. At least I think he did. I was even more sure that he did after I told him I had already picked up a replacement bike because he acted as if he already knew that and had already decided that he was going to keep it for himself.

I was even more sure after I took a walk around it. His vanity plates said DADSRIDE.

In dreams chopper-like pedal-bikes have vanity plates.

I don't want to talk about it

2010-11-07T20:27:00.003-05:00

Two bikes? How do i get two bikes stolen?

One, .. sure.

Whoops. I went to the pub and left it locked in the wrong place and someone needed it more than me.

Fine. Take it. You might have been hungry or thirsty or bored.

I can find something else that will serve the purpose. After all, I'm not chasing a yellow jersey.

But then the "something-else-that-will-serve-the-purpose" gets taken and I feel like I might cry.

Cry, or wound something. I'd like to wound something. Like something riding a red bike with a rack on the back and CCM painted on the tubing.

I'd like to wound something like that. If someone can find me something like that let me know and I'll feel better.

It didn't make me feel better annexing my landlady's bike.

I didn't feel better walking several block to put air in tires that may or may not hold air.

I certainly didn't feel any better as I rode up hill paying close attention to tires that may or may not hold air and not nearly enough attention to the pedal that certainly won't stay attached to the crank any longer.

that's fine world, I'd rather carry it anyways. Besides, my left leg is a bit weaker than my right. This will work out much better

If something is to fall off a bike it almost always does so in an intersection. #murphyslaw

I most certainly didn't feel better biking up hill with one pedal to get to a big box store that doesn't stock the part I need to make my landlady's bike usable for the next three days. I need something to get me to campus until I find a way to a bike shop to buy another bike that will most certainly be taken from me too.

It didn't make me feel any better to have to tell Dad that I couldn't meet the two of you for mass tonight because I had homework to do. Sure I have homework, but I can put it off. I didn't want to have to tell you I lost another bike.

And this time it was his bike I lost.

So no, I don't want to talk about it. Unless someone finds me something to wound. Then I'll feel better talking about it.

online math post

2010-11-04T18:32:00.000-04:00

the other day in my classroom math class i was presenting my group's solution. we had drawn a picture and written a sentence.

well, i had re-drawn the picture that several of us had come up with and then re-written the ideas down that one other group member had come up with.

when i hung it up to present i realized that the sentence i had written couldn't be called a sentence because it was missing the essential bits.

"that isn't a complete sentence" i said to myself and the class as i faced the board "but that doesn't matter because this is a math class, not an English class"

it was out before i could bite my tongue. i turned slowly and saw the professor grimacing.

i back peddled as quick as i could, but it didn't make a difference, the damage was done.

I don't know why I said it, I don't think that. I understand that language arts should be incorporated into all lessons, just as the lines between other subjects should ideally be blurred, dissolved if possible.

I blamed it on my associate and what she had told the class time and time again during my placement. That isn't at all fair to her, she wasn't presenting there with me, standing in front of my peers defending my ignorance.

Have any of you been told that there's a difference between math or language arts or visual arts or gym or spelling or ____?

la button

2010-11-03T17:19:00.003-04:00

i've was just bullied by the new post button.

when i logged on I felt it looking at me. I could feel a button looking at me.

where do you think you've been? it asked. i know it did. i felt it ask me.

around. i've been around. doing .. stuff. busy, you know. work. school. those big reports are due soon ..

I could feel myself drifting into a conversation that would soon sound like that virus email that went around about a month ago.

I am sure you know the one. It took hold of your address book and told everyone your sorry for not having talked for a while, but that you knew they were busy with work/family/travel. .. but anyways, i just found this incredible site that allowed me to make hundreds of dollars a day by ..

(it was sent to me by a friend whom i ran into a week later and never got a chance to tell him about it because i never called him back and i've only just realized now. E^#.)

the new post button starred back at me, obviously not taking my crap filled crap story. it raised it's eyebrow.

what, you think you can just stroll back in here and do what you want?

i shrugged my shoulders and smirked a bit. you're a button, not a person. leave me alone.

but thanks for a posting topic

i wonder why my first posts written after short hiatuses are typically about writing or not writing or not knowing what to write about.

Red and Yellow

2010-10-23T09:21:00.001-04:00

I have twelve counters. I have both red and yellow counters. I have two more red than yellow. How many of each do I have?

shaggy hair gets out his manipulative dinosaur pieces. “These ones will be the red ones, Mr. Murray” pointing to a pile of all sorts of colours, “and these the yellows”.

alright, but, what else might we want to do? Is there another way we use the dinos?

“ummmm,” he thinks for a moment. “There are lots of yellows and reds, should I use the real colours?”

I don’t know, does that sound like a good idea to you?

He shrugs his shoulders and organizes the pieces.

Another girl comes up to the table, picks up the sheet of paper with the Question of the Week is written on.

“can I try?”

you sure can

She takes a pile of red and yellow and counts out twelve. She shows six of each colour and goes back to the question.

it was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever watched. I could see the cogs turning in her head as she looked from the paper to the piles of six and back again.

“I got it Mr. Murray” says Shaggy “it’s fourteen”.

Are you sure?

He shrugs his shoulders and goes back to work. The other girl changes the piles in front of her. She takes two red away and replaces them with two yellow. She counts them up: eight red, four yellow. She furrows her brow and replaces the reds and removes the yellows; two piles of six again.

Turning, turning, turning

Then suddenly her face lights up. Her eyes widen, hands shake momentarily.

Something clicks

I could almost cry

She moves her pieces and looks up with a smile. “Is it right, Mr. Murray?”

What do you think?

She smirks and nods ‘yes’.

Then write it down and put it in the answer box. We’ll check to see if it’s correct later today

“I’m pretty sure the answer’s 14, Mr. Murray,” Says Shaggy.

i wonder

2010-10-06T16:40:00.003-04:00

i yawn.

just now too. i had been thinking that i'd start this post with those words for most of the day and as soon as i wrote them i yawned.

then you yawned.

interesting.

not-Orange

2010-09-25T18:27:00.004-04:00

The oranges I am eating are making a mess of the table and keyboard keys. It is spitting juice everywhere.

Very messy. Very messy indeed.

School started for me and 749 of my friends just over three weeks ago. We've been in class learning a ton of stuff, and we've been spending the time between the classes learning the names of the other 749 people in the program.

On the first week I went out to Baxter's Place and learned the names of a whole bunch of people, one among them was Ross. Red hair, glasses, early twenty-something. I quickly made a crack about Rachel that, luckily, no one heard. At least no one told me right away that they had heard. A girl sitting next to me told me a few hours later that she had heard me say it.

Though that's important. Ross didn't react to the joke I shouldn't have made about a television that isn't topical humor anymore.

Two days later I spotted Ross sitting in the lunch room and I went over to say hi and perhaps try my Rachel joke again.

Turns out I had sat down across from not-Ross. Red hair, glasses, early twenty-something - and not-Ross.

Not-Ross just smirked, awkwardly and shook his head no. Eventually he told me his name, to which I replied with mine and in the process of doing so promptly forgot his.

Luckily another girl I had spoke with at Baxter's came up and recognized him from a class of hers. While they talked I sat messily eating my orange.

Red hair, glasses, twenty-something, goes by the name of Dan.

I can never call them by name though. I see each of them in the halls still but there isn't a chance I'll be caught dead calling not-Ross by the wrong name again. I can't take the chance of messing up not-Dan either.

Remembering names isn't so hard, it's remembering who to call what name that is much, much harder.

A bit too much bit

2010-09-10T20:34:00.001-04:00

Today in class a teacher teacher read from a book called “Thank you Mr. Falker” which I snickered a bit because it reminded me of a couple of movies from a couple of years ago that played on a similar name.

As far as the movies went, I could have done without the play on swear words. I get it, they have an ironic name that does nothing to advance the story, and your son has an even more unfortunate first name that, again, does nothing for the story.

As far as the book goes, it turned out the name simply represented a particular young teacher who made a difference to a particular little girl who turned out to be the author of the book my teacher teacher read from.

By the end I was tearing up a bit. Not in a way that I put too much salt in the macaroni one time for H when she was little and we ate ice cream instead, but in a way that a bit of a hug can make the worst of a day the best day ever.

I was tearing up a bit, but not because it hit close to home, although it did, and not because it was the end of a long day, although it was, and not because I knew I would come home to a parking ticket that was a bit too expense, because I didn’t.

It was because it was the last class on the last day of the first week I realized that I have found something that I could absolutely be happy doing for the rest of my life.

It was also because the author who had been teased because she learned to read a little bit later than the rest of her class had become an author of stories about children that made eyes teary on grownup boys.

I think the girl sitting next to me, who shares Slice’s middle name except uses it as her first, might have felt nearly the same because she was the same little bit choked up as I was teared up.

The teacher teacher sent us on our merry way to find a children’s book of our own to share with the class which was fair to do because all I can think about it Mr. Falker.

Falk. Now what do I do?

a non-student

2010-08-20T22:01:00.001-04:00

i've been on top of an apartment building for the last eight days. today is the last day I'll be up here. today my family and friends and four hundred other people will come together to celebrate my sister and her engagement to a guy she loves.

i hope it goes well.

i also hope that yesterday was the last day i have to be on top of this apartment building. i hope that because I can't possibly know what day will be my last day up here because i have written this sunday night. while i was tired.

i am still tired.

in twenty (or nineteen) days i start school for the twenty-first time. this time might be the last time i start school as a student.

I hope it isn't.

I also hope that the following september it isn't all that hard to start school as a non-student because right now in ontario it seems to be difficult for people to start school in the position of non-students. although some people have told me that the age group i hope to be a non-student of is easier for a person of my talents.

it would be easier if i had more talents.

i also hope that this september is the last september i have to quit the job that has kept me up on this roof for the past eight (or seven) days.

see you at tonight's party, mom.

--b

@pmharper, 10-08-20 4:25 PM

2010-08-20T20:50:00.001-04:00

Mom,

There's a link below to a news story. I haven't read it, but you might like to. That is to say, I haven't read it yet. But I will. After the buck and doe. The one I'm at. Right now.

Your son,

--b

Stephen Harper (@pmharper)
10-08-20 4:25 PM
Announced support for wind energy project in PEI. http://bit.ly/cltv8S

Sent with Twitter for iPhone

Sent with love, from Nowhere, Particular

my travel blog - www.salutmaman.ca

I'm tired

2010-08-15T20:51:00.005-04:00

I'm pretty exhausted. we've started at six each morning and .. I am tired.

I'm drinking some orange juice out of a glass that i got because i got to keep the glass that the triple margarita I ordered at a chain restaurant came in it.

then one of the other guys gave me his because he couldn't finish his.

then i stuttered over the lyrics of a song we've heard thirty times everyday since we got here.

then i watched so much tv online that the internet told me to take a 57 min break.

which brings me here. posting #366.

the other day one of my co-w0rkers told me I should write children's books which i don't understand because at the time I certainly wasn't using language that children should listen to. in fact I distinctly remember telling him that very point after he told me to write for children.

he didn't agree with me. he told me that i would know better than to use the language of the job site in places that aren't job sites which is likely true because my I said hell at home the other day and it caught dad off guard.

that's not like you to say hell he said to me right after I said it.

he was right as well.

both of them right about my usage of language in places that should and shouldn't have certain uses of language.

perhaps there is something to this children's writing thing.

but it all sounds so cliche. a wandering dude in the autumn years of his twenties decides that he's going to write children's books simply because he knows the usages of language or thinks of the life of a writer as one filled with romance and wonder.

The truth is I am tired and I am glad I got to tell you that.

G'night mother,

--b

The Real "Strange Friend"

2010-07-31T19:35:00.003-04:00

[Friends,

There was a post up a few days ago that discussed the difference between fb and cs and why i like the one more than the other.

It may or may not have made sense to you. It shouldn't have because it was a work in progress that was posted by accident. If it did make a little sense, it appears that I was on the right track.

This time I've posted the real one, the one I meant to publish a few days ago. It was saved on my desktop as blah blah blah, I'll stop blathering on and let you get to the story.

Perhaps on another occasion I'll share an edited version of why cs is different to fb. Until then, enjoy.

--b]

There was a woman, she pulled up next to us. Driving a Saab or something. Chatty, early forties and driving by herself. We had pulled in to the gas station only five minutes earlier and were topping off our tank. It was taking a long time because we had run the tank nearly to empty.

“Were you worried?” Kate asked, politely, knowing full well that I was.

“Not worried per say,” I replied “mostly I would rather have had take in scenery be more important than find fuel now.”

She smiled because she knew the truth, because the truth had be painted on my irritated face for the last 80 clicks. The truth was I really would have liked to have stopped at any of the beaches along the way, or even glanced out the windows and admired the quaint houses and picturesque horizons, not curse every small town for their lack of fossil fuel. Each time the car made a ding, sounding off another twenty km less in the tank, my face had turned a new shade of white.

I also would have liked to stop at the cute little beach we came across soon after the gas station, but that didn’t happen because I forgot to pack the sunscreen and there were no stores near us for thirty minutes in either direction. (One of those stores was the gas station we were currently at, though at this time we don’t know we were out of sunscreen.)

The woman who had pulled up next to us got out of her Saab and asked if we were nearly done.

“I’d rather not pay for the premium you see I don’t think it’s worth it.”

I hadn’t noticed there was a difference, I had just lucked upon the cheaper side of the pump.

She spoke quickly and smoothly and mostly to herself and it took me a good l o n g moment to realized that she hadn’t said diesel.

“But oh look at that I parked the car on the wrong side and my tank is on the other side I’ll just quick turn it around and be out of your hair.” She said in the same breath as the one she used to confidently climb into the driver’s side back seat of her Saab.

We looked at each other in a fashion that bewildered doesn’t quite cover because neither of us could quite piece together what had happened. Luckily the back window was down or I wouldn’t have heard her say “it must be one of those days.”

She smirked a smirk that said it must be one of those days, and Kate smirked a smirk that she knew we would share again later during the retelling of this moment.

Unabashed, the woman climbed out of the back and into the front and in between said “I think you might want to pull out of the way because I know you know that neither of us know were I’ll put this car if I start driving”.

Kate asked if there was anything I needed from inside the shop. I might have asked for sunscreen, but we didn’t know any better.

I pulled the car up, Kate paid for the fuel and we left our strange little friend to go about her adventures.

Encore a sud-ouest l'ontario

2010-07-15T01:03:00.002-04:00

Salut maman,

I am back in the (home farm) area. Extremely tired. I'll write more tomorrow.

Good night,

--b

the illusion of 2x4's

2010-07-06T06:41:00.005-04:00

My Dear Town,

A town is empty the first time I move through it. I might argue that it is empty long after the first time I move through it and doesn't become not-empty until the last time I move through it. The buildings are all propped up like a village out of an old western movie; each supported by a couple of 2x4's and wooded stakes. They create the illusion of a town in the middle of a province that up until six weeks ago had little significance in the small universe that I occupy.

I am the most important part of that universe. Since I don't see myself in the stores they remain a one dimensional illusion.

Days turn into weeks, as they tend to do on their own accord with no guidance from anyone else. Quite often we miss this happening, try to stop it or slow it or effect it's progress by drawing attention to the speed at which they are progressing, first the days then the weeks and eventually we surrender and, under the influence of hugs and tears, we move once more through the not-so-empty town and the no-longer-empty buildings.

Nameless intersections transform into meeting places. Campers who had left campus found other campers who had left campus for what was, until this place, an unknown reason. Dark side-streets become the homes of small micro brew pubs, farmer's markets and remarkably delicious vegetarian restaurants.

Cold concrete structures are for shouting <<'parkour'>> and jumping over, sandwich shops are where I watch Poo-Bears eat mc-franken-burgers with gusto and that red brick building is a place where Allstars throw up. Twice.

It has been wonderful Exploring you, Moncton and I am happy to be part of your universe. Take care of your not-so-empty self, I will see you again soon.

--b

a Car and a Coast

2010-07-05T08:45:00.002-04:00

Salut Maman,

Here is a picture of Kate and I before we head out into the world and explore Moncton, NB, and it's surrounding friends.

One of those friends is Hopewell Rocks. I was at his place a few weeks ago but his basement flooded and we had to leave rather abruptly. We hope the timing is better this time around.

The other friend is a coffee shop who's name we don't know yet. Nor do we know where she lives. We'll let you know when we find it.

We are on our way to pick up the car, then to find the coast. Wish us well.

Sainté,

--b & K

(I am in red)

aide, svp

2010-06-22T12:01:00.000-04:00

Cool

2010-06-21T13:48:00.003-04:00

Mom,

It is so much easier to lay in bed than it is to get out of bed. I don't think it's cause I'm lazy, at least I hope it's not cause I'm lazy. I think it's cause it takes me so long to gain consciousness in the morning and I can easily be convinced that staying in bed is the better idea.

I hear two voices chatting about the pro's and con's of plus de dormis or réveiller.

I'd be curious to find out where the dormis voice gets all his energy so early in the morning. Perhaps I'll ask him, that is if I can get a word in edgewise.

Waking up later than I planned always makes for a rushed day. I wrote a test today and I did well, at least I probably did. I had planned on reading a few more notes in the morning, but Dormis won again.

Damn you, Dormis.

In class, after the test, my patience were wearing thin on account of Blonde thinking that it was his comedy hour and his show to run.

Deep breathing. Deep breathing.

"He's just being a mid-teen, that's all" I repeat to myself over and over and over again. At one time I was just as giddy, and in all likelihood I am still just as giddy and in all likelihood I crack the same type of jokes when I am in a situation that makes me uncomfortable and I don't know how else to act.

After all he is just a kid. He's just a kid who thinks that everyone needs constant comic relief and that he's just the kid to provide it. He's a Chandler Binge.

My patience wore thinner.

"You're wasting my time and the class's time" my inner me said. Suddenly I was a vigilante, fighting for the entire class. My god I need to relax. Deep breaths encore, tout le mond deep breaths.

Don't lose your cool. as soon as you lose you're cool you've lost.

I like it when my inner voice quotes Dad while sounding like Dad.

(By the way, can you tell him happy fathers day for me?)

I didn't lose my cool. Class ended and we all went for lunch. I ate quietly and quickly and worked on some homework. Then I was late for the activity. The activity was painting.

The activity was painting. Painting.

I like painting. I like painting when I am at home. I like painting all sorts of stuff. I don't like painting at french camp if we aren't going to learn french, nor do I like getting a fois jaune for being late to a ... breath ... to an afternoon activity.

I just about lost my cool. Then I painted a mustache on the person next to me.

I found my cool again.

Then I got a hug from a camper. I needed that hug. I forget how great unexpected hugs feel and how much we need them everyday, tout le mond.

Despite Dormis, I found my cool again. I am glad to have it back. I need to be able to recognize that there isn't anything happening that I can't cope with. That is to say if I am frustrated it isn't the event that's frustrating, it's me that's frustrated with the event. I can cope with anything.

The painting turned out to be a fun activity in the end. Mine turned out really good.

Miss you lots,

--b

Where I'm at

2010-06-18T19:09:00.000-04:00

Mom,

I can't remember if you asked for my address or not. I am pretty sure you did, but if you didn't then you can disregard this message.

This is where
the address
would go if it
were personal
message to
my mother
Moncton, NB
J2T A3K

I don't really think you'd need to put all that on a letter. I am sure my name, the name of the university program, and Explore Program written somewhere on it would be enough to get it to me.

or not get anything to me if you didn't ask for the address.

that is all. i am going to bed now. i am sorry that i've been writing only in french recently. I hope Mandy's been helping you out with it, or that you've been learning a bit along with me.

talk to you soon.

--b

Tu es comique, ha ha!

2010-06-17T18:01:00.000-04:00

je n'ai pas de pantoufles. Mon pied a froid la nuit. Puet-etre, c'est bon d'avons froid aux pieds, mais je ne sais pas parsce.

je n'ai pas de pantoufles.

j'ai des bas, beaucoup des bas. Mes bas gardent mes pied aux chaud, mais je pensce que les pantoufles sont plus élégants.

mes mains sont jalouses parsce ils n'y pas de gants plus élégants mais je ne cherche pas pour des gant pour mes mains.

some poetry

2010-06-16T17:56:00.003-04:00

S'enflammer

J'ai enflammé ma soeur
et sionner le feu
quand elle déborde
et me mord

Le lune

la lune est fait du fromage
peut-etre
je n'ai pas visiter
donc ca deveait etre fait du fromage
je ne sais pas

Le Sourteneur

"ou es mon aregent?"
ill dit avec patience
elle pleure un petit peu
parce que sa patience
n'est pas

English Practice

2010-06-15T17:19:00.002-04:00

Dear mom,

Here at camp we've entered the third week an are quickly approaching the midway point. This morning my class were asked several questions in order to test our oral ability.

J'as pence I did okay.

Tomorrow we write another test that will test our writing ability. I think I could have made the previous sentence work better, but I am out of practice. Since I am not overtly worried about English at this moment I'm simply going to move on.

In order to prepare for the test I decoded to write this post, and so far it's done nothing to help me. I've used three french words in what is likely the wrong tense and I even think I spelled the one wrong.

What will likely help me more are the stacks of journal entries i've been meaning to input. I've written one for every day I've been here and I plan to set them to post automatically over the next few days.

So, ah. Stay tuned for that.

I hop you are well, and make sure to keep dad out of trouble.

Love,

--b

je pense

2010-06-11T08:46:00.000-04:00

je pense j'ecrise mon petit journal après le corrections de ma professeur

le 3 juin, 2010,

Je pens que c'est pluvieux mais j'ai oublié mon imperméable et mes gants. Peut-etre j'achetaerai un autre imperméable et les autre gants mais j'ai oublié ma portefeuille. C'est dommage. Je m'en veux!

not long boarding

2010-06-09T20:39:00.000-04:00

I fell and hurt myself. I am pretty sure I am okay, but I did fall and hurt myself.

The day after the cat started taking not-valium I started long-boarding with a helmet. I did a few little hills, went around the block a couple of times and put it back inside. Once I tumbled off the board onto the front lawn of a lady a few houses down from the Cat's house.

For letting me crash on her lawn I helped her unload her patio set.

The board went away and the Cat and I went back into the house to jump on all the furniture and pee on DVD's and hiss at people who came in the door.

Well, we would have hissed at people if anyone came in the door or if the cat hadn't been doped up. As it turned out it was just me peeing on things and running wild around the place.

The Dog wasn't sure what to do so she just kept doing what she was doing which wasn't much at all.

Later on that same fortnight I started long-boarding sans helmet, which is a whole lot worse of an idea than it sounds. Although had I the chance to do it again I likely still wouldn't have put on a helmet, but took that helmet and put it on my right elbow. It would make a lot more sense than the cover up I am now applying daily.

Bruises are hard to hide, really hard.

The good news is the board did not get wrecked, it was safely returned to the owner. My elbow is terribly pissed off at me though, and tells me this whenever it can, although it doesn't get that chance very often.

It is getting that chance right now, though. So this is the end of this post.

I am doing well and no longer studying long-boarding. I've decided to put that energy into learning french, it is a whole lot safer.

Talk to you soon.

--b

inaudibilities

2010-06-06T23:09:00.003-04:00

Dear Mom,

I went to a dance club on Friday. It was exactly what a dance club should be. It had a big screen where the dancers where told how to dance and what to drink and fast to drink said drinks.

They were told to drink them very fast.

Apparently they were told to dance poorly, dress scandalously and yell inaudible things that likely shouldn't be said at all.

I didn't hear the big screen people tell anyone that, but then again I wasn't watching anything all that closely.

What someone should have told the Dance Bar was that it wasn't a Dance Bar, it was a Country Bar. Or perhaps someone should have told the sign guy and the guy who dressed the big dudes at the door and the little girls with the quickly drinkable drinks that it was a dance bar, not a country bar.

That way they could have avoided the embarrassing wide brim hats, corsets and Rockin' Rodeo sign out front.

They could have also avoided the disco ~~ball~~ saddle.

That's right, a disco ~~ball~~ saddle.

I think the people at this camp should start using those Big Screen people to teach us students French, because the people at the bar that night sure got the drink-a-lot-of-drinks-fast message. The big guy with the shaved head sure did, I think he even got the message a few times. I think he even started on The Message while he was shaving his head, because he left a bit in the middle that turned itself into a feux hawk. He then got The Message twice more at the bar and decided to pick a little guy up and yell inaudible things at him that shouldn't have been said at all. The little guy wasn't saying too much which I am sure was because he thought Big Guy might rip his little arms off like a Wookie.

A Wookie is what the big bear thing from Star Wars is. He sounds a bit like a loose fan belt.

The night ended soon after that, and appeared to end well. The little guy kept his arms and Big Guy was finally overcome by the bouncers. They had been outside removing a few other guys where were just as good of listeners as the big guy was.

Perhaps even better.

Bonne Nuit Maman,

--b

et une autre thing

2010-06-03T19:01:00.000-04:00

Salut Maman,

Fun Fact about Twenteens #15,

They ask odd questions at the oddest times that exist in no other realm of reality than their own.

...
"Oui, je suis vingt et un." étudiant un
"Merci et enchanté." étudiant deux

"Excuse me. This is really off topic, but what do the green and blue garbage bags mean?"

The disbelief must have been written across my face because Alternative met my gaze with one of agreement when I drifted away from Twenteen's direction generale.

That just happened? I mumble. Alternative shrugs her les épaules the way they must in l'alberta. Prof cocks her head to the side come a confused chien might, but quickly regains her composure and patiently answers the question. I asked myself if I was in a grade one class.

Once Prof settled the confusion surrounding the Moncton recycle program we went on to recite l'alphabet.

Later, unprovoked, un étudiant from un autre salle de classe would describe mon Prof as having kindergarten teacher qualities.

I smile because I don't know how to agree with her en fransaise.

--b

Sent avec amour from Nowhere, Nouveau Bruswick

Jour Trois

2010-06-01T20:30:00.003-04:00

Dear Maman,

fun fact about twenteens #7

Take away their langage premier they turn twenty-something.

Peace. Pour a petit temps, anyways. They soon discovered that their English hadn't actually been taken away, they had just been tricked. They needed only to not speak while the counselors where near and the could continue on as they did during their last four years.

Maintenant, je digress. Because I will quickly run out of things to talk about if I stick with this group of girls, but mostly parce que there really isn't as many twenteens as I make there out to be.

I think there is actually only one, and she is beginning to come around.

The real issue is that I do not know any French whatsoever, in fact I have only just realized that speaking french is a beauxcoup difficile than I imagined.

If I had more time I would go deeper into how discouraged I became playing Trivial Pursuit, however the details are insignifiant.

Bonne Nuit,

--b

Sent with amour from Nowhere, Particular.

Sans wifi

2010-05-30T13:59:00.001-04:00

Mom,

I am moved in and unpacked and napped and coffeed.

(I figure since this is my last day with the English language I can butcher it as much as I want. Feel free to use those new verbs I just created. You're welcome.)

I have also met my roommate, Ryan. Or Adam, I can't remember for sure. When I met him I did a name association for myself but made the mistake of using Adam Ryan as a memory tool. I even asked the nice girls whom are moving everyone in to remind me, but that didn't work worth a darn. Now I'm banking on him forgetting my name and doing our introductions again.

I hope he doesn't cheat like I did.

A Twenteen is an early twenty-something who hasn't quite given up the shreeking and giggling and "you're-such-a-sl*t-ing" from their late teen years.

When I went to the local fast-coffee joint I over heard three young women talking about the french program and I was about to say hi until they openly labled themselves as a gaggle of twenteens.

I kept my bearded mouth shut and sat in the corner and watched an 85 yr old hit on a pair of 89 yr olds.

I sure hope I find more thirty-ishes like my roommate (although he might be closer to a 1/4 lifer if I am not mistaken).

Anyway, I should finish my sub and get back to french school. I just wanted to let you know that I overheard the twenteens say that they didn't know what they'd do because we weren't getting access to the campus wifi.

My updates may be coming from my phone when I get around to it.

Miss you,

--b

Sent with love, from Nowhere, Particular

first night in Moncton

2010-05-25T23:17:00.004-04:00

Dear Mom,

The cat gets Valium.

This is fine. After what I've seen here every cat should get Valium. And of course it's not real Valium, because people save that for other people. Cats get other stuff that we're told effects them, the cats, in the same way that Valium effects humans.

So the cat gets not-Valium.

And really I should write that the cat got not-Valium for the first time tonight and after what I've seen here, every cat should get it.

More on that later because I am off to bed because while we watched the cat take the not-Valium I lost count of the whiskey's I've had.

Do keep in mind that I'm learning how to count in French. Tomorrow I learn how to say four.

your son,

--b

going east

2010-05-12T15:40:00.000-04:00

a few of my plans to go east are coming together.

this is really great because I am set to leave in the next two and a half weeks.

not to mention that by "few" I mean "one" and that one is my ride out there.

turns out kajiji has a rideshare program. it's a bit like couchsurfing for drivers without the profiles and community.

come to think of it the service could do with a bit of community.

perhaps Cory and I will discuss this on the steady trip east.

By the way; Happy Birthday Greg! Your card is in the mail, and Bizz, your mothers day card is lost in my parents kitchen. I hope it turns up because I really liked picking it out. I have a few other mother's day cards to send out but alas I do not have any addresses.

Merde.

Bon Nuit!

--b

The New Big

2010-05-10T20:29:00.006-04:00

Man.

I wrote something.

I'm too tired to read over it to post it.

So I didn't.

I wrote this boring piece.

Next time will be better. I promise.

(The good news is my beard is big. Not Italy-big, but still pretty big. I think East Coast-big will set a new standard for Bird's Big Beard)

Roughed up Ideas

2010-04-21T23:42:00.002-04:00

Roughed up Ideas
Until I find a better mobile bloggers app I will be roughing up ideas on my notepad app and emailing them to blogger. Until I get used to it, or until I get fed up and go back to using a full sized computer, you may have to forgive some minor typos.

Though so far the predicuve text has fixed everything.

(I guess it doesn't know how to spell predictive)

I am writing this way for two (quick) reasons ...

1) I went back to my house at school for a few days to wrap up my exams and move out. I have no essays or major research tasks so I left my laptop behind. There are less distractions from studying if I can't flip on four episodes of Dexter on a whim.

Yes. I understand the irony in my having found a distraction anyways, but I've come to terms with it ... As I am sure you have too.

2) when I head out east this summer I would like to be moving as light as possible, which, ipso facto, leaves me without a laptop. I will be blogging, it's just that I don't know what I'll be blogging on.

Grayson manages just fine working from cafè's he finds, an option I haven't ruled out.

It will be nice becuse I don't know how to make hyperlinks on this notepad program.

And before I get to a third reason I will sign off and get back to either studying or bed, I haven't decided which yet.

Tomorrow I write an exam for Reading Fiction, which I will do well on.

Yours,

--b

Sent, with love, from Nowhere, Particular

Université du Moncton

2010-04-08T12:16:00.007-04:00

Oh exams, you are what I did not miss about school.

I like the essays, and the take home assignments due a week later, and the lectures and the young minds and the society of school.

But the exams are a bane, a thorn, a nuisance.

We spend twelve weeks learning great, new ideas then have two hours to get it all out on paper. I don't get it, I really don't get it.

In other news, I received word this week that I will be studying at Université du Moncton for five weeks starting at the end of May. Just so you're aware, I may start writing in French soon so I can get into the zone for a month of hardcore learning. Part of the challenge of the course out east is not to speak any English at all, and if I am caught three times I'm sent packing.

I'm really excited, and I'll share that excitement with you through here.

dans l'attende de votre résponse,
i am looking forward to hearing from you,
(... but i searched for that one the web)

b

(one of my exam questions is on the film Hamlet (2000) starring Ethan Hawke, Julia Styles, Bill Murray, et al. Just in case I loose the link to an online copy of the movie I'll post it here)

3:25, time to shower

2010-04-03T10:25:00.001-04:00

I was picked out of the class to show a head stand. I feel this is my greatest accomplishment this week, mind you this week hasn't been very productive. I mean, I haven't even had a show yet today, and it's already 3:16; I am sure it will be closer to four before I take care of that little issue. Good thing my clothes don't judge me for smelling the way I do.

I slept through the pagan new year, I haven't got a clue if anyone was fooled. The only one who respects that holiday in the family is you, mom. I imagine you caught a fair few of the nursing staff off guard with some crazy stunt. I can't wait to hear about them.

I called the people at Trois Pistole. The lady on the phone said she didn't know the status of my application but that I would be getting a letter in the mail soon. Western sent me an email to check my student account for information they sent to it. Jokes on me because I haven't a clue how I check that email. I had forgotten what it is like to be a clueless first year, however this time around I give a crap and know that no one is going to check it for me.

I certainly wish they would, or at least share with me the secrets of the website. I can see why people stay loyal to a system the know; it's mostly so they don't have to learn a new one.

All in all, I did get to do a head stand for the class. Slowly bring myself up onto my head and forearms, then slowly and controlled, lower myself back down onto the mat. We then learned a prep move that will eventually have me balanced on my forearms only, my head won't touch the mat, with my quads vertical and my knees bent and my feet resting on my head.

not doing homework

2010-04-01T12:34:00.003-04:00

my room is still an arrangement
of books and clutter and mess

so i grab a blue bin

how do socks wiggle their way into small places
how did i get so many so many socks

an ancient plate of peanut butter
several empty coffee mugs
stacks of unused folded
loose leaf lined paper
a half eaten plum

but the plum is from today -

my four new juggling balls
provide a wonderful distraction
because after all isn't this what
a day like today is all about?

distractions

Odd Language

2010-03-28T06:34:00.002-04:00

Yoga ends, I change my clothes. Tie my shoes. My hand slips the lace.

I swear.

didn't you just finish yoga?

I take a walk, a boost of juice with a side of espresso;
an extra shot -
on the house -
because I am patient -

A smile thanks her. She did not need to do that, I just finished yoga.

Find a seat, I bump the chair. I do not spill a drop.

I swear.

what's going on with you tonight?

Odd.

Yoga, basically.

2010-03-26T16:15:00.000-04:00

Welcome, everyone. please, choose a spot on the floor. mats are available in the corner.

make yourself comfortable. breath in slowly, through your nose. exhale slowly also through your nose.

pull yourself into a ball. roll softly back and forth to warm up your back and spine.

now stretch. do a sort of push up. bend. stretch again.

lye flat on your back, palms up and open yourself up. breath deep. in through your nose and out through your nose. relax. let your mind slow.

now take a moment to thank your body for helping you through the series of exercises this evening. we'll see you again next week.

my room's a mess

2010-03-23T23:26:00.003-04:00

My room may be a mess, but I'm sitting here at my desk writing about nothing because writing about nothing is a whole lot more fun.

House Keeping Item #1 - There is now a word verification text box to fill out before you post. There has been a couple of, well several actually, robot posters trying desperately to get our attention by posting not so interesting comments on my not so interesting blog.

In the end, the jokes on them because they've wasted their time writing a program that searches out sites that receive more than one hit a week.

The verification thingy is a little annoying, but I think we can make a game out of it by asking commenting visitors to use the word provided to them in their comment post.

In closing, since by item #1 I actually meant the only thing I had to write about on this post, I leave you with a picture because pictures make words more enjoyable by giving us a thinking rest for a while.

My room is still a mess, but at least I cleared some cobwebs away from this place.

(mom is doing much better today. I got word from Mands that she'll be in Recovery getting all the physiotherapy she can handle)

Miss you terribly,

--b

It's science

2010-03-13T00:04:00.003-05:00

I like my room warmer rather than colder.

For the past couple of weeks I've been without a heater in my room at school, the old one conked out on account of too much dust getting inhibiting the filter, which slowed down the heat manifold conduit and made a mess of the circuit board.

But I can tell that you're bored with all this circuit manifold talk so I'll skip the technical jargon.

What's important is my room is warm again because I picked up another one a few hours ago.

It's toasty warm in here now. Perhaps now I can get some work done.

(that might mean I end up writing more here, there are so many things I haven't been writing about for so long. I get tingly just thinking about it all.)

early morning thoughts

2010-03-09T00:11:00.003-05:00

here are some point form thoughts while I write my poetry paper. I haven't taken the time to arrange them in any particular order; at least, I don't plan to.

- I have a toque on because my heater conked out two weeks ago and when I got me money back without my hassle it never occurred to me that it would be cold for another two months.

- I can't, for the life of me, make a good cup of coffee.

- my roommates love to celebrate a goal by tapping the same spot on the the floor in the living room/ceiling of my room with their foot and all their weight.

- I think I was possessed when I wrote the last paper for this class and did so well. I am afraid that I can't possibly do as well this time around. I peaked too early.

- I closed my door as if it makes a difference to do so when I live in a papermaché house.

-

It happens to the best of us

2010-02-17T13:25:00.004-05:00

I sent a text to Kate's friend the other day.

(it was while I was driving)

Kate was asleep in the passenger seat and we were on our way back
from something; I'm not sure what, though I am sure it doesn't matter
for the story.

I had stopped to fuel up.

The text'ng went like this...

"So it's twenty to ten, we're still in London and Kate just hit her
proverbial wall."

"I don't know what that means but i hope you're not beating her"

"No, not beating. I think I miss used the word. She's tired. Asleep
nearly. Also, I just noticed that when we filled up I likely left the
gas cap on her hood.
It's no longer there."

"Hahaha oh man. You 2 are hilarious. Hope you're home safe and sound.
I am done for the night so maybe see you tmrw!"

A day later we're out at Boars Head for a pint with Amy when Kate asks
me if there's something I wanted to tell her.

I, of course, had not mentioned the gas cap incident as I, of course,
had expected to have had it replaced before she noticed.

What I didn't realize is that the absence of a gas cap turned the
check engine light on which the turned the car into the shop class of
Kate's school.

They made a crack about blonds, which would later be a crack over my
head.

Meanwhile, back at the Boars Head, I was, of course, blaming all this on Amy because she had already told Kate a out our text'ng the night
before.

"Why would you think something like that?"

*crack*

ouch

..in other news:

One for the road

2010-02-14T19:25:00.000-05:00

Since katey's gone to work i've sent myself out on a few errands
around Stratford. As I'm sitting here at the boatshead pub on Ontario
street I realize how I had forgotten that I liked Stratford. And how
much I liked it. At least, this quiet little pub.

I turned in here because my other favourite spot was closing at seven.
Instead of a hot chocolate I get a pint of Guinness.

I like the trade off.

I'm taking a break front being trapped inside katey's place, watching
the olympics.

Also, I needed a card and some chocolates.

Tis the season, right?

They'll Think of That

2010-02-13T14:42:00.004-05:00

Reading week started today. I'm sitting in the library on campus, hanging out while Katey writes a paper for her online course.

The paper has to be four pages, single spaced.

That's three and a half longer than most of the paper I've had to write so far this semester.

And I'm the one doing an English degree.

(Why doesn't that girl at the next table understand what a no cellphone zone means?

I should have tipped that maître d' better)

I lost my keys this morning; at least I couldn't find them. Katey and I searched and searched, which also means didn't speak because both of us would have got angry over the missing keys.

I wish Ikea could come up with some sort of key-storage-device that I could use. Then they could use us in their line of commercials that have been focusing on spousal abuse.

You've likely seen them. There's one that has a family quietly watching television while the narrator, Fraser Crane's brother, tells us how the evening would have gone horribly wrong had the family not have invested in Ikea furniture. There's another one where a husband and wife avoid a battle because of their closet arrangement.

When I first saw these commercials they made me angry; how dare Ikea assume that couples everywhere are so angry that they're prone to boil over at the slightest thing.

But I understand now. If I had a do-ad or thingy that kept my keys in the same place everyday, not to mention my phone, wallet or glasses, I'd be a whole lot safer.

Wasn't life easier when we could leave our doors unlocked and phones stayed attached to the walls? I wouldn't have keys to eventually find next to the washing machine in the basement, nor would I have had the desire to stomp my size 14 through that girls blackberry storm her parents bought her for getting a B on intro to psych.

We Are More

2010-02-12T18:59:00.000-05:00

by Shane Koyczan
Performed at the
Opening Cerermonies
in Vancouver

When defining Canada
you might list some statistics
you might mention our tallest building
or biggest lake
you might shake a tree in the fall
and call a red leaf Canada
you might rattle off some celebrities
might mention Buffy Sainte-Marie
might even mention the fact that we've got a few
Barenaked Ladies
or that we made these crazy things
like zippers
electric cars
and washing machines
when defining Canada
it seems the world's anthem has been
" been there done that"
and maybe that's where we used to be at
it's true
we've done and we've been
we've seen
all the great themes get swallowed up by the machine
and turned into theme parks
but when defining Canada
don't forget to mention that we have set sparks
we are not just fishing stories
about the one that got away
we do more than sit around and say "eh?"
and yes
we are the home of the Rocket and the Great One
who inspired little number nines
and little number ninety-nines
but we're more than just hockey and fishing lines
off of the rocky coast of the Maritimes
and some say what defines us
is something as simple as please and thank you
and as for you're welcome
well we say that too
but we are more
than genteel or civilized
we are an idea in the process
of being realized
we are young
we are cultures strung together
then woven into a tapestry
and the design
is what makes us more
than the sum total of our history
we are an experiment going right for a change
with influences that range from a to zed
and yes we say zed instead of zee
we are the colours of Chinatown and the coffee of Little Italy
we dream so big that there are those
who would call our ambition an industry
because we are more than sticky maple syrup and clean snow
we do more than grow wheat and brew beer
we are vineyards of good year after good year
we reforest what we clear
because we believe in generations beyond our own
knowing now that so many of us
have grown past what used to be
we can stand here today
filled with all the hope people have
when they say things like "someday"
someday we'll be great
someday we'll be this
or that
someday we'll be at a point
when someday was yesterday
and all of our aspirations will pay the way
for those who on that day
look towards tomorrow
and still they say someday
we will reach the goals we set
and we will get interest on our inspiration
because we are more than a nation of whale watchers and lumberjacks
more than backpacks and hiking trails
we are hammers and nails building bridges
towards those who are willing to walk across
we are the lost-and-found for all those who might find themselves at a loss
we are not the see-through gloss or glamour
of those who clamour for the failings of others
we are fathers brothers sisters and mothers
uncles and nephews aunts and nieces
we are cousins
we are found missing puzzle pieces
we are families with room at the table for newcomers
we are more than summers and winters
more than on and off seasons
we are the reasons people have for wanting to stay
because we are more than what we say or do
we live to get past what we go through
and learn who we are
we are students
students who study the studiousness of studying
so we know what as well as why
we don't have all the answers
but we try
and the effort is what makes us more
we don't all know what it is in life we're looking for
so keep exploring
go far and wide
or go inside but go deep
go deep
as if James Cameron was filming a sequel to The Abyss
and suddenly there was this location scout
trying to figure some way out
to get inside you
because you've been through hell and high water
and you went deep
keep exploring
because we are more
than a laundry list of things to do and places to see
we are more than hills to ski
or countryside ponds to skate
we are the abandoned hesitation of all those who can't wait
we are first-rate greasy-spoon diners and healthy-living cafes
a country that is all the ways you choose to live
a land that can give you variety
because we are choices
we are millions upon millions of voices shouting
" keep exploring... we are more"
we are the surprise the world has in store for you
it's true
Canada is the "what" in "what's new?"
so don't say "been there done that"
unless you've sat on the sidewalk
while chalk artists draw still lifes
on the concrete of a kid in the street
beatboxing to Neil Young for fun
don't say you've been there done that
unless you've been here doing it
let this country be your first-aid kit
for all the times you get sick of the same old same old
let us be the story told to your friends
and when that story ends
leave chapters for the next time you'll come back
next time pack for all the things
you didn't pack for the first time
but don't let your luggage define your travels
each life unravels differently
and experiences are what make up
the colours of our tapestry
we are the true north
strong and free
and what's more
is that we didn't just say it
we made it be.

Vancouver Sun, Feb 12, 2010

one love

2010-02-06T18:15:00.001-05:00

I finished the first part of sense and sensibility, but I've another two parts to read before Monday's class.

Not to mention a movie review, poetry midterm and a take-home all due this week.

My café is getting cold, so I'd better get working on it to. I just wanted to give a quick hello from the local European coffee shack in Stratford.

I'd been having a craving for an espresso for about a week; I felt it time to succumb to the temptation.

Adieu,

--b

sent, with love, from Nowhere, Particular.

Why talk about that

2010-01-29T14:09:00.002-05:00

The end of a week, I'm sitting at another coffee shop near campus having another coffee, a simple, over priced sandwich, and a glass of water.

Though that's not much to talk about.

What do I have to talk about today? Geeze, not much really. I've psydo- planned something for the first of the summer, tho I won't know for sure about it for another week or so.

I can't talk about that.

I've been holding a volunteer package to a local school for about a week now and I've had too much school work to sit down with it, not to mention my needing a police check first.

I can't talk about that.

I'm reading midsummer night's dream, sense and sensibility, the tempest, a book of poetry, and some other novel that I've an essay to write eventually.

But that's all business as usual, so why talk about that.

This is comfortable. I like studenting. I feel as though I could do this for a while yet.

I wonder what people think about my being a student again.

Perhaps that's something to talk about.

sent, with love, from class

A Break

2010-01-21T18:35:00.001-05:00

So here's the thing. I had a second yoga class today. I felt disorganized. Rushed.

And now I'm sitting at sbux. smelly. having a coffee.

This is counter productive.

Isn't it?

I dont know. I would have thought I should have had a booster juice or
something.

Man. It's been a long time since I've writen.

At Jill and Steve's there was a tea cup that had broken in half.
Cleaved. Like a log. I asked if the madhatter had come for tea recently.

"Oh I couldn't possibly have another. Oh, well, if you insist... just
half a cup though"

I laughed. But I'm a geek like that.

In fact while I'm writing this I am thinking of how to get a costume
together for Burtons "wonderland" that comes out in march.

It would be a nice break from the usual movie going.

Anyone want to join me?

Tshirt

2010-01-12T13:55:00.003-05:00

Since I am completely iDdicted to my new gadget I figured I should at least share a bit of what I'm doing with it.

Today, while i was hanging around the second cup on campus between classes, I was staring down at this little device I own.

It's such a little device to demand so much of my attention.

Anyways, as I was staring down at it, waiting for it to do something spectacular a tall shadow fell over the screen. I looked up to and an English prof was smirking at me.

On this particular afternoon a group of a hundred students were gathered together, screaming and chanting and competing for something or other (and five years ago it likely would have been an exciting thing to have watched, but five years ago I was doing my first undegrad and didn't have a new iPhone to stare at while waiting for spectacular to happen).

He asked me how I was able to study with all the noise.

It took me a moment. Wow, I thought. He's asked me a question... and I haven't responded yet.

Mumble mumbled, I replied. Awkwardly star struck. What is wrong with me? I thought. I am more articulate than this.

Well, he said, I suppose if you're plugged in you're likley not to hear any noise at all, are you.

Yes. I'm. Not. It's new.

Indeed, he smiled, see you next class then. It was good talking to you.

Same, said I, same.

Whoops, I swore

2010-01-11T17:48:00.001-05:00

Cass,

I know no one hardly uses email anymore, but it holds a special place in my heart. Not as special as the postal service, though I don't use it as often as I might make it sound.

Mostly it holds a special place because I can't stand the Peeping Tom feeling I get when I open a friends profile page in facebook. I like my privacy, though keeping this privacy makes keeping in touch with ppl a lot more work.

I keep a bit of a blog, some points about what i'm doing, funny shit that I happen upon or cause to happen upon other people. I keep it to stay in contact with people whom I've moved away from, which is somehing I've just learned about it. I've never told people about it while I've been living around them. Though while I was tending bar I rarely wrote at all, likely because the friends I made while in ireland don't often use the internet. They are more apt to use the post, which, as mentioned before, I love but never use.

Anyways, Cass, this is an invitation to read about my life, through my blog, if you so wish. This is not to say that a person needs an invitation to read it, just that sometimes it's nice to have one.

We'll talk again soon, and perhaps I'll drop in to see everyone before too long.

In the mean time, take care.

b

Oh, and I've made this a post on my blog, I hiope you don't mind. The link to the site is in my signature.

(this post also marks my first post via my mobile. neat, eh!)

--b

untitled

2010-01-05T23:46:00.002-05:00

I am pretty tired so I'll have to make this short. In the background I'm listening to @neilhimself read from his book that I bought for Josie's September birthday, wrapped for christmas and still sits undelivered underneath a Christmas tree that has likely been packed up till next year.

Mands, we should get on that.

The book is called The Graveyard Book in which Neil Gaiman retells the Jungle Book story. I didn't get to the ending, because around November I was feeling guilty about reading a present I bought for an eleven year old girl and I was reading it myself, so I don't know how it ends and I don't know how similar it is.

There's a few hours of Neil reading posted on his website, perhaps I'll fit it in yet tonight.

Though I hope I don't.

Today was Reading Poetry, EN120. I liked it, but it'll be some tough reading. Not a lot of reading, but difficult.

I have to have Sense and Sensibility read by Monday.

Also a play, I am sure. I'll likely have to have a play read by friday.

So much for having thursdays off.

Take care, sleep well and I'll write to you again soon. Perhaps to tell you about the two hours we waited in a line at Wilfs, miss two periods of the Canadian Jr's only to take a bus back to the house, catch the third and over time periods while eating pizza.

Actually, that's pretty much it.

Hair's hoping

2010-01-04T09:26:00.004-05:00

Here's hoping that sometime soon i figure out what the heck is going on with the font sizes on this page. when i looked back though it appears as though I've been an eight year old with his first box of crayons and a newly painted hallway.

Moving on to items at hand: today is day 1 of my twelve weeks of an english lit bender. I was hoping that before today I would have had a chance to get a hair cut.

For two reasons. One, because it's my first day of school and I want my new threads looking good underneath a new do.

And two: since I haven't had a trim in a while quite shortly i'll be looking a hell of a lot more frazzled and confused than I actually am. Soon after that I will be as frazzled and confused as I looked before, but my look will have spiralled towards, and out of control mind you, a state of frazz and confus that no woman, man or child alive has bore witness to.

I've class in thirty minutes.

I miss you.

Studenting, Part 3

2009-12-31T00:28:00.005-05:00

well, first things first.

i am officially enrolled in four classes, all english, for the winter semester. only moments ago i opened an email from a professor who's been helping me along. it was the final link in the chain that had me going to school full time.

that is to say the final link besides the "not having a house" link, but that's a minor link because, well because i'll explain.

dave and i went to visit joel today.

we hadn't been to his new house; we had been invited a few times; we decided it was time to go.

along the way we stopped in university town for me to look at a house, which, as you may or may not know, is not really on the way to joel's house at all, which isn't actually joel's house but kim's but you haven't met her yet so it doesn't really matter.

but we did stop at the house, despite the detour, and i am a better person for it.

dave knows his stuff about the owning and renting of houses. i know my stuff about houses i don't want to live in. i also know my stuff about the signs people put in windows when they are trying to get people to visit their house because they have a room that can be rented out.

there were a few of these signs all around the house that had six people living in it.

tomorrow i am going to look at these houses to see if they want to be houses that Bird Morley lives in, or if they'll simply be houses that Bird Morley visited once for a brief moment.

mostly it was the leaves in the hallways, the dishes in all the sinks and the "i don't really know the other six people who live here, but i'm sure they're normal people" comment from the dude showing the room he had yet to move out of.

all in all it was a good day. joel is doing well living in his friend kim's house.

(this time i am going back to school for a third undergrad but perhaps for a teachable, i haven't quite decided)

Stickies: Nov 5

2009-12-26T12:29:00.003-05:00

Stickies: Created Thursday Nov 5, 2009 @ 10:01:55 am EST

it's ten oclock now...
... and today i have to:

- laundry
- photoshop project
- work at five
- work out schedule
- pay rent
- renew gym membership
- clear out katey's laundry room/puddy walls

Stickies: Created Thursday Nov 5, 2009 @ 10:36:58 am EST

things i actually did..

- ate last of a bag of tostitos multigrain rounds
- watched sportscentre am
... ellen
... cp24 for a half hour
- text'd jon
... adam
... leanne
- watched it snow
- ate a bowl of Just Right
- took a poop
... read a few pages of Generation A
- played with photoshop
- turned off Road to Avonlea when it came on
- started a list for katey's christmas present
... but it's got nothing revolutionary on it.
- started writing to steve walkom
- emailed janelle about her schooling
- paid mastercard bill

moving frames

2009-12-11T13:23:00.006-05:00

mostly what's happening in my life is boring, generic things. little items of everyday life moving in and out of the frame.

this week i started with a beard, now i have a moustache; but that is completely understood because, as everyone knows, moustaches come from beards.

my rent was due on the first, but i don't want to live at Victory Towers anymore because one of the old men that lives there smokes out his window and lies about it like a rebellious 14 year old.

he makes the whole house smell of stale cigarettes and misery.

time to move out.

not to worry though, a new place has been found. it overlooks the railway, has a room for me to move in and they don't smoke cigarettes in the house.

done.

(they do have a cat, and by they i mean the one guy. but there were no cat hair anywhere ... i don't see it to be a problem)

(although if you remember from the story that i didn't write, so you can't remember it because i didn't write it, about four months ago i nearly stayed in a house with a couple of cats . Geevee would've been a great roomie, but her cats showed their preference loud and clear. the tiny cat particles were too much for my asthmar to handle)

in closing, it seems my life is just made up on one little item of life moving in and out of the frame in the five minutes it took for you to read this far.

thanks for tuning in, and until i write again

i'll leave you with a few moustache pictures to warm you heart.

cheers,

--b

cliche

2009-12-02T21:45:00.005-05:00

So.. I am writing again.

(I want to stay away from the cliche remarks of the time that passed while I wasn't writing, the possibility of false hope saying that I promise to write more, or anything else that might draw attention to this being my first post in a long time)

(a very long time)

In closing I am writing again.

Perhaps I'll explain why I couldn't, and wasn't, another time.

(that, my dear reader, is a teaser ad)

jurrasic'ly parked

2009-10-08T14:53:00.004-04:00

Dennis,

I graduated university two years ago, spent some time traveling and working a few odd jobs around to keep me going; bartending and construction mostly. I'd like to involve myself in a creative environment, although I don't know how to begin. I've been looking into more school, perhaps another undergrad, or a college course, but I don't know what route to take.

Currently I have an Honours Undergrad from an Ontario University.

Do you have any suggestions? Or, perhaps, some internships coming available. You can reach me at this address.

I found your email on your website where it said your were the contact for the Toronto office. I did not, however, say that you were the CEO of the Toronto division; that little bit of information I found when I dug further into the Toronto branch of the website. I guess someone meant to put a contact, not the contact.

I am sure you'll get back to me though, I'm sure a busy man like yourself has lots of time to write an email back to a kid who found your email in a thirty second search of the corporate website.

I do hope to hear back from you soon, although I'm sure it'll be a bit longer since I am not actually sending it to your inbox but leaving it posted here for your staff to find in it's daily search of the networks.

If you do happen to stumble across this letter, I do sincerely thank you for your time. In my mean time, however, I'm going to sign up for a creative writing course.

Bird

Because in the end, it`s my floor

2009-04-09T12:55:00.004-04:00

Mom,

I don't have much of a commentary today, but I do want to share a video from yesterday's episode of Q on CBC radio1. Jian Ghomeshi, radio host on radio1, interviewed Billy-Bob Thorton and ... well, see for yourself. You could listen to it, but seeing Thorton`s blank stares reminded me of an experience of my own.

you can read what John Paolozzi, of radio3, has to say here.

It made me uncomfortable, then I hiccoughed a small fit of laughter then I asked my computer if this was actually happening.

I might have jumped over the desk; although in all likelihood I'd've been sitting there, shaking wishing I had the courage to jump over the desk but thanking that the desk was there stopping Thorton from coming at me.

Last night a guy came into the bar, with some foreign substances reeking havoc with his inner bits. I told him, Johnny we'll call him, I told him Johnny, are you all right?

He stared at me, eyes wide like he opened a ninja turtle action figure on Christmas morning to discovered that it wasn't the gift he had always wanted but a demon device sent to steal his foreign substances.

Why? he asked me. Why do you ask that?

Oh, this is going real well, I thought to myself. And I could tell it was just going to get better. I shifted the bar chair I was propping my foot on to be more out of my path back behind the bar and more into the path of his to mine.

I just wanted to check in, I calmly sputtered out. nice one scaredy cat, just tell him he's not getting served.

So, are you going to ask me if I'd like drink, he asked.

ah, no. sorry johnny, i think you`ve had enough for tonight.

He made a move for my chair and in a flash I was back behind the bar and making for the local hockey team I been serving for most of the night.

Johnny sputtered and spit and made his way slowly to the door. Not that he was moving particularly slowly, but it was made slower when he stopped at everyone, gave them a thug hug, shouting about how sober he was and how out he was being thrown.

Then the hockey team, three of them celebrating a birthday of one of them, asked to buy him a drink.

In retrospect I should have got him a rye and coke and a shot of lime juice and no rye. People who have had lots to drink, or who have foreign substances floating around their bits, tend not to know the difference.

Like making a White Russian for a drunk guy, in a red hat, a week ago, with Worcestershire instead of Kahlua; but that`s another story.

I said no and Johnny left, no more angry than when he came in but that`s only because he had lost all range of emotion two hours previous.

The hockey team said I should have gave him one drink so they could talk him down which means I should have gave him one drink so they could mop the floor with him.

It was my floor. I think I made the right decision.

One guy in the group recapped the events each time a new member joined the group, each telling more descriptive than the next. By the end of the night we were heroes who tried, in vain, to save a damsel in distress.

Anyways, enjoy the rest of the day.

Your son,

--b

just because

2009-04-08T15:11:00.000-04:00

Dear mom,

Mands and I have new email addresses. Well, additional email addresses. You can still reach us at our usually ones, although you can reach us at our new ones too! Here they are, in all their .Jpeg glory.

Thanks for reading.

--b

the new bird morley

2009-03-30T21:43:00.000-04:00

Since I've arrived home, from Ireland, I've been moving around a bit. I took my time moving from Pearson airport to the other dublin. I made a road trip out to Alberta and toured around for two weeks, then took my time moving from Hamilton airport to Dublin again. I've been working in St. Ratford and crashing on couches of friends and family, and visiting and moving and visiting some more.

I've been having a pretty sweet time, people have been very accommodating and very patient and have never told me that I've worn out my welcome.

I hope I haven't, and I hope I never do.

I just got a new cell phone number. The old one I had, turns out, is long distance from St. Ratford which, as it turns out, is the latest city I am spending my days in. I am tending bar on most weekends, a shift or two through the week, and spending the other hours at my day job and sleeping.

Also going to buck and does, but that is another, less important to this story line, story.

So I got a new cell number, which I just told you, and if you been talking to me over the past six months since my arrival back in Can. I've likely told you this several times.

Let me explain.

I arrived in T.O and went to the skydome because i was scared of the big country that i no longer knew and needed to be somewhere that I felt comfortable.

So i went to the monument that I, and the world, knew best. There, as I waited for a good friend of mine, I purchased a SIM card and joined a one year commitment with Canada.

I wanted to pay-as-i-went, she wanted me to pay-more-than-i-should and I left the story paying much more than that.

I had my first Canad'ian cell number in over a year; a T.O. local number.

I moved around for about two weeks with a T.O. number, visiting friends and family, crashing on couches and not wearing out my welcome.

I arrived in the city, and picked up a local number.

Number number 2.

I was happy at home for about a month, got restless and decided I might like Edmonton so I got local number for there.

Number number 3.

Getting home two weeks later meant another local number, which would be one more than the last number number.

Today I was talking with rogers for the third time in three weeks. The first time I was on hold and got a call from Greg who was announcing the birth of his new baby girl. The second time rogers hung up on me and the third time I got a new number.

that makes five.

This one is a St. Ratford local because ... well, you can remember what I wrote above.

I sent out a mass text to 49 people in my phonebook. It has been a great day because I've heard from so many people who I haven't heard from in a long time. I think I might change my number every month.

"You do that anyway!" shouts drunk guy from the crowd.
"shut up, you. I have a blog, you don't. I'm funny, you're not. Shut the eff up and don't bother me at work."

Below are the responses that I've received today so far and I'll add to it as, or if, more come in.

Think of this as visiting facecrap.com

Enjoy,

--b

sent: 9 of 49 delivered
"I'm the new Bird Morley"

received:
Leanne: "Again!"
Mike C: "Pardon"

sent: "i said: I'M THE NEW BIRD MORLEY"

recieved:
Ms Maloney: "we don't want any"
*Greg: "finally, we r rid of the old BM!"

*who, as it turns out, isn't the same greg that just had his baby

Dave H: "and i am the improved wendel clark. lol"
Bre: "that was three of the weirdest texts i've ever recieved. lol. cant wait to meet the new Bird face to face. lol"
2525: "destination landline. reply E to rogers txt 2 landline msg in Eng"
2525: "destination landline. reply E to rogers txt 2 landline msg in Eng"
Uncle Mark: "Neils Bird?"
Mandy: "stop getting new numbers"
o - colter: "who Bird Morley"
aunt mary: "thx Bird. what area code is 226?"
heatger work: "Bird Morley?"

sent: "it's alright, i don't know my co-workers have last names either"

recieved
heatger work: haha mines [last name]. nice to meet ya lol"

sent: "likewise, see you on the weekend"

received late on March 30th:
bobbi p: "lol okay"
evan: "who is this? <.evan.>"
dinker: "what is that suppose to mean"
bob smith: "improved?"
craig: "what?"
Mike C: "Will the real Bird Morley please stand up?"
Greg: "let me know ahead of time next time u r in town"

*which is when i realized it wasn't the same greg who just had his baby

katie: "Just got your msg the Bird Morley. Congrats!"
eli: "are nothing"
eli: "not"
eli: "+1."
The Kid: "I did get your txt, but i didn't text you back because it is costly under my plan"

in person, late evening, april 1st
GeeVee: "did you send me a text saying `i`m the new Bird Morley`?"

Lost Prizes

2009-03-17T09:38:00.010-04:00

I woke this morning and put on my best Irish National Rugby Jersey. A part of me wishes that I was heading to a match, another wishes I was living out of my rucksack and yet another is very glad to be behind a bar in southwestern Ontario.

Not behind a bar tonight though, tonight is an evening for friends. This means spending an evening at the pavilion in Dublin and green beer at a watering hole in Stratford.

Yesterday, the day after the snow has disappeared, I found my hurley ball which marks nearly four months to the day my having lost this very ball in the amongst the evergreen trees on the day before the snow came, and stayed, for the winter.

It was watery and soggy and happy to come home. I could tell by the way it sat quietly next to the heater in the entrance way, slowly warming up and waiting patiently for itself and the ground to dry and be back out playing in the sun and rolling in the dewed grass.

Have a wonderful paddy's day. I'll talk to you again soon.

slainte,

--b

K'Naan on Radio3

2009-03-13T10:54:00.007-04:00

We are no longer having the technical difficulties that plagued us for about only fifteen minutes.

Perhaps I am a bit of a dramatic, perhaps I was over reacting by making a post about technical difficulties, perhaps I was over whelmed thinking that I'd never get the layout back to the way it was, perhaps I was lacking sleep or caffeine or those other things that I might have to have in order to think coherently and chronologically.

In the end everything looks the same, and everything is regular; at least in the world of my blog.

In the world outside the blog, which has be very much more alive in the last four weeks.

I have an old friend who is waiting patiently for his wife to give birth to his first born. The youngling was due last Saturday, March 7th, and appears to be very happy and healthy where he or she is.

I am also waiting patiently for the baby to arrive.

I went out for coffee with an old friend on Sunday, and to dinner that night at her mothers. It was a good dinner and it was nice to be off the farm for a short while, even if it meant being on another farm.

I've also developed a love for the cbc radio network. The music you've been listening to while reading this post is courtesy of radio3.cbc.ca and I think it will play every time you view this page. If it does, I'll take care of it and turn it into a link instead.

(which is what i've had to do)

This has been an update of the life of b. Stay tuned for some more entertaining reading in the near future. Also, Mands has learned how to create pod-casts; perhaps we might hear a bit more from her soon.

Technical Difficulties

2009-03-10T21:13:00.004-04:00

Over the next few hours there will be a many things changing at salutmaman. I hope they are for the better, perhaps only time will tell.

In the mean time please feel free to search the words cartel, hypoventilation or pollok.

We Apologize for the Inconvenience.

*Update*
The operation was a complete success; that is to say stage one was. You're not going to notice anything right away because it'll take a day or so for it to make the switch. I hope to have something more for the unveiling of the upgrades, but alas, for now, I don't.

Sorry for being so vague, but I don't want to ruin it.

And really, in the end, it isn't that big of deal anyway.

(Although feel free to post if you know what it is.perhaps the first person can post something rediculas so that other people don't feel silly about being wrong. perhaps no one will post because no one is reading)

;)

damn

2009-02-16T15:46:00.002-05:00

i called ireland again, hoping to talk with roy, and learned that roy was still not there and my irish accent was total rubbish.

i am quite sure i left the guy on the other end of the line wondering who the dumb american was and why he felt it necessary to mimic him.

damn.

(as a favour to a friend i'd like you to follow this link and vote for chris and tash)

missing

2009-02-07T19:14:00.004-05:00

i called ireland today, more specifically to the university of limerick, the shelbourne pub and roy, and within moments my irish accent was back.

i miss it.

i chatted with finn for a few minutes, nolan for much more and left a msg for roy on his mobile.

i miss them.

monday i start a new job, basically an executive assistant at a construction company; although that's the name i am giving it, not my boss.

i want to enjoy it, but i want to travel too.

perhaps if i take trips out of the city i can couchsurf instead of stay in hotels.

The Queen and The Silver Fox

2009-01-31T14:00:00.004-05:00

While I don't nearly have the tales to tell of new ally and walk ways explored, I do have a few experiences of walking an old one again for the first time in a long time.

As you know, since getting home I've been on the farm. Life has been quiet, a few chores here and there. While we haven't any free range pigs or chickens, and we don't have an old apple tree in the middle of the pasture that I can lay under with my blue jean overalls, no shirt and a bit of wheat grass to chew on and nap beneath my wicker hat, it does, in a more contemporary sense, remain relaxed.

Today I have the house to myself. I've set myself up with a pot of coffee, my guitar to my right, an address book and pad of paper.

I've been seated for three hours and thus far: no letters. Well, none hand written.

But that's beside the point.

I've got back into a bar I worked at six years ago. Working a few shifts on the weekend, making more cocktails than I can remember and at the same time
remembering how different, wonderfully different, it was to work in Cork.

But that's beside the beside the point.

The new bar is the same, essentially. Everything is in the same place it was, the equipment and tables and doors and windows. Even some of the semipermanent furniture, that is to say the regulars, hasn't changed. Just outside my peripherals the other day, well yesterday in fact, I heard two familiar voices ask each other if what they saw was a familiar face.

This familiar face, so they said, had changed a bit, but not overly. beard was grown, new glasses worn and hair cut shorter, but besides all that, the Queen said, I was still the same Bird.

With his english accent, he agreed and we dove into some old memories and quick recap of the missing six years. His grey hair, if he didn't die it, would be
red, or so he claimed. She didn't want to just up and move to Panama because she wasn't sure if she'd like it. I was behind the bar again. It seemed that in
six years nothing had changed at all.

It is a very odd feeling, following the footsteps of a me from before, and I have yet to figure out what it is I am learning about him.

If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

For now, I am awaiting winter to allow for Prince Tourism to ride through town and awaken Sleeping Stratford. I miss the transients, the movers, the
nomads and the travelers. They will come, and when they do I will welcome them with open arms.

So many signs

2009-01-26T10:56:00.004-05:00

There were so many signs. I should have picked up on all of them. However hindsight is twenty-twenty and knowing now isn't knowing then.

He approached the bar, ordering a round of drinks. Jagerbombs all around. When just as he was about to order his pint of Guinness, he recognized me.

As he approached the bar I thought to myself how familiar he looked. Just a fleeting moment, a flicker of something, someone I used to know. Perhaps not well, but knew none the less. He ordered his Jagers and then, just as it hit him it hit me.

Craig Kelly I thought. At that same moment he shouted my name.

We shook hands and laughed. Nothing specific, simply thoughts of things.

you were in Ireland, weren't you?
sure, sure I was.
How's Nolan? Did you ever meet up with her
craig kelly doesn't know Nolan i thought. How do you know Nolan? asked I.
St. Columban Soccer stupid. Are you ever going to 'coach' us again?
craig kelly doesn't play st. columban soccer.

Things were making less and less sense, and yet at the same time it was making more and more sense. This old friend, whom I had worked with over the stretch of a few summers between semesters at his father's construction company, was confusing me, though only slightly mind you, more and more.

We'll have to catch up again later, I said. I've got to get back to serving up drinks. Let me buy you a pint though.

I poured off his Guinness, my fourth to be poured in Canada, and shook his hand again.

Good to see you again, Bird.
Good to see you too. I'll be damned if Craig Kelly hasn't changed a lot since I saw him last.

I was cut early that night, only half an hour since my old friend had come up to the bar. I poured myself a cola and joined him and his buddies at their booth in the bar.

These are the guys, my old friend said as I vigorously shook hands with one whom I had never met but was pretending to be old friends with.

We small talked again, for a little while, but it was when I asked about his sister, whom I had gone to elementary school with and whom had just had a child, that my embarrassment, which I had no idea was growing, peaked.

You think I'm a Kelly, don't you, said my friend formally known as Craig Kelly.
Not anymore, thought I.

I took a sip of my cola.

It doesn't bother me, said old friend. But I am not a Kelly, I'm a Culligan.
This is bad, thought I.

I took a sip of my cola.

You didn't know who I was when you bought me that beer, did you.
Well, that's not entirely true, thought I. I thought I knew you.

With an awkward smile I finished my cola.

Well Culligan, (because at that time I did not remember his first name to be Ben) I can't say that I have been more embarrassed. Ever.
It doesn't bother me, really Bird. It doesn't bother me at all. It still was great to see you.
It was great to see you too, Culligan, and I hope to see you again.

Though next time as Ben and not as Craig Kelly.

I left through the back door.

2009, Day 3

2009-01-03T18:56:00.001-05:00

So here's the deal.

The holidays have come and gone, and I've survived them both. We got snowed in a bit too, and, again, we survived them too. New Years came and went, and, as you might have noticed the trend, i survived.

It seems that with all the planning and stressing and thinking and shopping and walking and drinking and watching of movies that no matter how much you plan to start earlier and earlier each year with everything that needs to go on to make a successful holiday season that it still only ever lasts fifteen minutes.

I am tired. I need a vacation, though from what I don't quite now.

I have started working a bit. It's for a neighbour just up the road who has a job in Toronto building a house. He called me up to give him a hand on a weekend job, a Saturday to be exact which I would have complained, what working on a Saturday and all, except that Saturdays only count for people who work. After he called me up for the weekend job he asked that I help out a bit more, and after I helped out a bit more I ended up more or less semi permanent.

These things just seem to happen that way, and it made for a nice end to the holidays to be back on a job site, with a bit of purpose in mind and some cash coming in to pay off what I have left to pay off.

There are a few more tales to tell about my western adventure, which I hope to get to at some point. Thank you very much for tuning in over the past few weeks even though there has been nothing to tune in to. There have been a few photo's posted up on my flickr, which you may not have seen since I made no mention of them here.

With that in mind I will leave you with one of my favourites from that collection.

Happy New Years All!

Dear Blogger.com,

2008-12-10T07:35:00.001-05:00

You have a "javascript void error" message appearing on my page. I would like to thank you for letting me know the particulars of the problem, however in the future could you do one thing for me?

Fix it.

Oh, I don't actually mean that. It isn't that big of an issue. I don't really care all that much. I am, however, chuckling a bit at the fact that the message is there in the first place. You see, it might as well say "bake at 450 degrees", "PC Load Letter", or "Coalition Government" as none of them make any sense to me either.

Thank you for your effort though. I do really appreciate it.

In closing, I was simply wanting to add a new widget thingy to the side bar. I hope I get to soon.

--b

**i've taken the widget off this post because it was screwing up the count on my couchsurfing profile page. not to worry, the one in the side bar here will remain and is working just fine. thanks for everyone who has visited here. cheers, .. --b jan 14, 2009

Calgary, Day 1

2008-12-09T07:39:00.002-05:00

So, this should have been posted (not to mention written) on Dec 4th as that was the day I actually got to Calgary from Banff (a post called Banff, Day 1 should have been posted [not to mention written] on Dec 2nd, but we'll talk more about that later).

The bus was quick and painless, as was my meeting a new friend. I did not have to know that she had come from Vancouver that morning, some eight hours ago, to know she was stir crazy and hungry for conversation. I was simply hungry and gladly accepted he offer of a clementine while she talked my ear off about nothing and everything.

There's not much of a story to be told as there wasn't much conversation being had. She was middle aged, married and full of small talk. I smiled, adding words like "yes" and "oh yeah?" whenever I could, which wasn't too often as she had been on the bus for eight hours and a me smiling and eating a clementine.

Janelle picked me up from the bus station, and there's no real story their either. After a hug and a chat we hurried off to see if the car was still parked in the space she was holding for the fire truck, should there have happen to be an emergency. It was a good idea since she was so close to the fire hydrant.

I have a feeling they would have appreciated it.

After spending most of the night trying to decide when it was we had seen each other last, or even written each other, we decided that it was a some summers evening some three years ago in some back yard of some other friend, who's name is Steph, where we listened to other friends talk about mortgages and leases and some other things that were as much out of our league now as they were then.

Laura came home later, from parent teacher interviews, and we had another good laugh over when it was we had seen each other last, or even written each other.

A quick search through me email inbox later would find that Janelle and I had last written each other in oh-six.

We went out for wings, which turned into nacho's and a burger, which, come to think of it, was never going to be wings in the first place, at a pub just up the road from their house, which was conveniently located just up the road from the pub. The server hit on the girls, which we were all very happy about because the girls wanted an in when it comes to patio season and I was very scared that he might have been hitting me. By the end of the evening he had stolen my glasses, called Laura a pretentious beach, asked which one was my girlfriend and still, somehow, we thought of him as a friend.

If you happen past the Ship and Anchor on 17th Ave in Calgary say hello to Kevin for me. Well, use Janelle or Laura's name just in case we were wrong about him.

Yellowknife, Day 1

2008-12-08T14:36:00.007-05:00

So I arrived in Yellowknife last night. Leaving Calgary the pilot said getting into edmonton we'd see weather a little better than where were presently where, however failed to mention, let alone warn, the sorts of things we'd feel landing in the great white north.

Welcome to Thirty below, the chill through my nostrils said.
Too bad I never got around to finding that tissue earlier, I replied.
The cold of the north just laughed and said "you South-Western-Ontarians are all the same".

Mary and I, Mary being my aunt and youngest sister of my Dad's, had trail mix, Keiths and several hours of conversation. She got up for work this morning, I searched the house for Claw, the dog of a friends whom she is, and subsequently I am, babysitting, because 11:30, when I woke up, was high time he was let out to the back door.

**whistle**
Claw!
**whistle whistle**
ummm .. claw.

Back upstairs I trudge, fearing the worst and knowing I'd be the one cleaning it up.

hey claw, where are you little guy? I asked the upstairs, as if it, or the dog, could have answered me.

He was tucked into Mary's bed, snuggled into the mess of sheets.

Oh my, I thought. This is not going to be good.

hey claw, how are y-
BIRD!

As I stood in the room making the mess I had feared to find as a result of the Claw, I reflected on a few things: why the dog had replied, why Mary had not made her bed before going off to work and why Mary was not at work but starring back at me from a mess of hair and a splitting headache.

We cleaned up my mess, made some coffee and let the dog out so he could pee on the kitchen and livingroom floor.

Jasper, Day 1

2008-12-01T06:14:00.000-05:00

I am on a computer that make it ound like i've got a tuffed up noe. Ret aurred I am quite healthy, it i mearly the keyboard I am uing.

You ee, the "" key doe not work. I could be hitting "ctrl+v" to pate an "" but I can't be bothered right now.

beide, it might be fun to ee if anyone can actually read what I write.

That i if anyone i reading at all.

Japer i beautiful and I am tired. There' been a great deal of hiking and walking and meeting of people, o much that I may need a vacation from thi vacation.

I can undertand why a peron could pend a lot of time here. there' mountian everywhere I look, elk every other block (or at leat a few reminent left by the elk) and floppy eared touque on every head. I'd pot ome picture of the area, except that I haven't taken any yet.

We went out lat night, which wa fun. My host went back to the place we were taying early and I tayed out which wa a good idea until I realized, long after cell phone had been turned off, that I didn't know where thi place wa that I wa uppoed to be taying.

I had, though, made ome friend who where more than happy to give me their couch for the evening; although that didn't change the fact that my ride tomorrow didn't know where i wa, not to meantion that tomorrow morning I would be jut a lot a I wa the night before.

Never have I been a lot a I wa lat night. In any other place I had been I had at leat looked at a map or learned the name of the main treet. I had been riding around in a car for the weekend, ever ince I'd arrived, and not paying attention at all to any direction. Even when I had been driving.

o thi morning I cleaned up ~~my bedroom~~ Rosco' living room and tepped out the door and choe a direction. All I could think about wa hoping my ride wa looking for me.

And then, out of nowhere, or eamingly nowhere, came a familiar little black ford. I had been found and wa going to be alright.

ince then I've got myelf a map and learned the addre of the place I am taying.

At the end of it, however, I had made ome great friend.

Edmonton, Day 1

2008-11-30T15:32:00.003-05:00

Nothing much to be said about the city of edmonton. I drove into, and around, the city on thursday, and adventured a little. although the only real adventuring i did was to follow the main arteries of traffic and try to remember which direction south was.

also, trying to remember what the car I was driving looked like. something i didn't think about needing to remember until I stepped out of a shop that afternoon.

I had been picking up a trimmer, you see it was time to tame my beardness, which promted a few smart remarks from fellow shoppers.

"hmm." smiled a mom at the counter, behind me in line. "i don't need to ask who that's all for" making reference to the shaving kit I had assembled.

in the end i did find the car, luckily enough for the panic button, which scared the heck out of a young couple loading up christmas gifts in their trunk in the car next to the one who's alarm I had just set off.

I hid just out of site until they had moved on. boy was my face red.

(I've been in Jasper for the weekend, but more about that a little later)

I did not find any oiler fans to talk to.

Wild Rose Country

2008-11-27T12:06:00.005-05:00

The good news is there is an unlocked internet network that i've tapped into. the bad news is i am hungry and don't know edmonton in the least bit.

i have been given my hosts care for the day as she goes off and makes money to buy things. i don't know how it is she has entrusted me with her manual shift car in a city i've been in for just over twelve hours without my glasses.

perhaps it was the bottle of wine she drank last night.

my flight was alright, as flights go. in recent history i have grown to loath airports, planes and attendents; they smelled, poluted and wouldn't give me all the coffee i could drink.

"sir, i would fill your cup up again if you'd just hold the cup still"
"I DON'T TELL HOW TO YOU DO YOUR JOB SO YOU'LL SURE AS HECK BETTER NOT TELL ME TO LIVE MINE" was my usual reply, delivered with more gusto than grammar.

However, yesterday I flew out of Hamilton International Airport and my, let me tell you about a delightful experience. First off the port goes by the name "Hi", so right off the bat I felt at home.

"Is that wall greating me, Dad?"
"Yes son, that sort of thing happens in the big city"

I suppose they don't need to have "Airport" in the name because, likely, if you are going there, you know that it is an airport. In fact that's included as part of the directions on the website.

"Read that again to me, Bird"
"That's what it says: turn on to highway 6, it's the one that's the airport."
"Is that it?"
"That's a farm"
"There?"
"a school"
"and that?"
"that's the farm again"

and another thing, they have these nice gentlemen in orange shirt who helped use a computer to check in. i could pick my seat, i chose an isle because the windows were already taken, i didn't want a middle seat and the computer had already given me an isle. i remembered the map of the plane that i saw on the Orange Man's computer screen so that i would know where i was going later on.

**memorizing sounds**
hmm. turn left at the wing, young child should be two seats behind me. good. i think i've got it.
**/memorizing sounds**

of course when i got to the plane i'd've been better off just checking the ticket as i would have noticed that the planes was parked differently, the child was an old man and the wings where the cockpit.

never the less i found my real seat, all red in the face, from embarrassment not the hieniken, with the help of a friendly couple who's seats i was in.

i nearly finished my book too,.which, as it turns out, i'd finished several years ago. it felt good to blow through a novel though; made me feel smart.

All said and done, I had a great time flying. I had my usual anxiety about flying and traveling but that passed, as it always does, and i just watched things unfold around me.

I'm off to explore the city of edmonton, maybe find out what their tim's cups look like and maybe, just maybe, meet an oiler fan and find out what makes them tick (like I know anything about baseball).