A Thing Thing

I realise that my posts have often been depressing and complaint ridden. Alas, I can find no other easy outlet for my ongoing frustrations beyond laying them on your shoulders. My current rant (that you are reading, pour souls) begins and ends with my lady Sandra.

Lately, my wife has begun to remember another assault on herself. This one was committed when she was a bit closer to sexual maturity, when she was in grade eight. This has set our relationship back a fair ways in terms of many things. Lately, she has be having difficulty being in the same bed with me (let alone being intimate). And I now have another individual who needs to be beaten with a baseball bat with a railway spike through it.

I do not blame my wife for the difficulties that she is having. In what way can any of this be her fault? We have a saying her and I. "Its not a good thing; its not a bad thing; its a thing thing." Some times something just is and it has no moral value. A rock, a sense of humor or freckles are not good things or bad things. They just are. In a similar vein, I must remind myself that this is not her fault, nor is it my fault. It is like a car crash where a drunk driver walks away, while the occupants of the other car are injured permanently. Except these acts do not even have the tenuous excuse of "I was drunk at the time."

In the future I hope to have a string of more positive posts. Until then, thank you for allowing me on your couch.

Questions and Recruiters

Today, I have questions spilling out of me. These questions are of a personal nature, but I will share them with you.

Question the First...

What am I doing?

This may seem like a no brainer question, but it has strong ramifications. I am doing engineering, but I seem to be finding less and less joy in it. The work is tedious and repetitive (at least the work that I am doing now) and I have been locked in the lab for a good long time. And I hate the lab with a passion that is beginning to boarder on insanity. Which leads me to

Question the Second...

Should I go?

I have been receiving calls from an executive recruiter. Do I chase him down and jump ship? Perhaps my difficulty is with something more fundamental. A am beginning to think that a career change may be in order. My lovely lady expressed the opinion that I would make a good teacher.

Question the Third...

Who am I?

A basic and fundamental question with no real answer. I have many talents and many weaknesses, but my sense of identity has always been very fluid. No one aspect of my self rises above the others to claim precedence. I joke about being an engineer, but that is more of a cover that disguises my lack of a real identity.

My wife, bless her, holds my hand as I struggle to rise above myself. In spite of her ongoing and increasingly complicated difficulties, finds some energy somewhere to help me out. For this, and many other things, I thank you sweet heart.

Thank you for sharing my rant.

Goonius Maximus

Retraction

I had intended to post this as soon as I found out my error in my media rant. I was mistaken in my assertion that the media only focuses on race when a minority is involved. My estimation of the media in this country had improved significantly. I do, however, stand by my statements regarding the treatment of the Goth culture in the media. It is pretty rough.

Once a Goth...

The universe is again playing tricks on us mere mortals again. I heard about the 25 year old Goth with a Mohawk that shot up a school in Montreal. That is horrible, but not what I am here to talk about.

What I want to talk about is the way the media seems keen to report that this atrocity was committed by a member of the Goth community, who looked a bit weird and wore a trench coat. He had written on his website condemning all people save a select few whom he liked. He had pictures of himself on this site with guns and knives that were captioned with messages of hate. In short, he had a website that I would not touch with a ten foot pole. However, the media seems do be ripping into this website for condoning this action.

If a person commits a murder/suicide and leaves a note, does the media go after the paper manufacturers? The fact that he was writing what he wrote is not a cause of the shooting, nor should the forum in which he chose to publish his thoughts to be held responsible for an adults act. The writing and pictures were a symptom of a larger problem and I seriously doubt that the lack of a Goth blog would have prevented the tragedy. Allow me to pose an alternate scenario.

A portly 40 year old balding man walked into the school and shoots up the place. Would the media mention that he was going bald? Does your hairstyle determine weather you have violent tendencies? Is a mullet more or less violent that a Mohawk? I also notice that the man's race was not mentioned. I assume he was white as race was not mentioned. If he was of another race, that surely would have hit the news hard. "A young black\Arab\oriental man was found..." I have heard that phrase many times. Never have I heard "A young white man was found..."

Am I the only one who sees this as wrong?

Back in the Office

In a clear departure from the way that my life has been going thus far this year, I will be in the office this week. I will admit to a certain amount of nervousness about returning to the mother ship after such a long absence. The nervousness takes the form of me not wanting to go into work at all. But, I have arrived at work today in the morning, at a reasonable time. Who would have thought that I would be cheering myself for getting to work on time?

Anger.

I was recently angry. I have not been properly pissed for quite some time. Or, more specifically, I have not let the anger out. And there is a lot of anger sitting inside me, from this damn job, from what is happening to my wife and just generally being upset with myself. Yesterday, a mountain was made out of a mole hill on the job site and I lost it. I raised my voice (in response to a raised voice), I questioned, I argued and when I was done I panicked. Anger like that has not seeped out of me for a long time. However, my frustration did not take me over. I was in control, and that is a feeling that I have never really experienced. My emotion was channeled in a non-destructive fashion.

I am not proud that I lost it, but I am oddly proud that I managed to direct it better that I have ever directed it before.

Things are looking up.

My first day back a work (up in the great white north) has been a rain day. The powers that be up here are all a-quiver with rumors regarding the mergers with Inco and Falconbridge. Rumor has it that the top 36 big wigs in Falconbridge are going to be eliminated with Falconbridge's merger with Extrata (I hope I spelled that right). Basically, they are more worried about other things than me. That is a good position to be in.

Good Bye, Grandma

At about 6:15 pm last night, my Grandma died. I will miss her.

My Grandma

As it stands now, my Grandma is dieing. She had a stroke about a month ago that had her in a hospital for that entire time. I went to visit her once or twice (it is hard for me to make it down more often because of work) and sometimes she remembered me. She seemed to have fun scolding me when she did recognize me.

My Grandma is wonderfully independent and this being in the hospital is very hard for her. Apparently, she has bitten the nurse that was attempting to give her some pills to calm her down. She hates the diaper she is forced to wear and takes it off given any opportunity.

I will remember her as she was when I was little. My siblings would hide under the beds in Grandma and Grandpa's room, hiding. Chris and Jenn slept with Grandma and I slept with Grandpa. And those nights are some of the most comforting nights I have ever had.

I will miss you, Grandma.

Home, please.

I wish I had a chauffeur to take me home when I leave. A chauffeur would allow me to nap on the way home, so that I would not have to take a nap half way through my trip home or risk driving into a rock cut. It would cut the trip down by half an hour. Plus, someone else would be dealing with the possibility of speeding tickets.

Construction Accident

Check out the fun and damage noted in these pictures. It seems to be a mechanical failure. The guy driving the truck is OK, but he could easily died. 'Twas a bad day yesterday.

Games and Gaming

Let me preface this by saying I am a bad man.

I am also a gamer. And not just a Risk gamer, but someone who loves pretty much any type of game out there. From computer, to board, to role playing and beyond. The games are currently stored in a large bin and on one complete bookshelf in my home. The question is why do I play these games?

I like the company. I like to stretch my mind. That is pretty much it.

To me, playing a game is not about winning or loosing (unless someone is being a prick), but about getting together with some buddies and having a good time, within the structure of a set of rules. If those rules need a map of earth and several plastic pieces, so be it. Should the rules require a certain amount of theatrics, so be it. The important thing is the friends.

But, my knowledge of games does make me a bit of a geek. I know what the zerg are, what the major differences between 3.0 Edition and 3.5 Edition Dungeons and Dragons and what the strengths and weaknesses of the factions within the Warhammer 40,000 universe. If there is a more nerdy combination, please let me know.

Recently, I have been looking more at the structure of the games than the pretty models, graphics or books and have begun trying to find games with interesting, yet simple, game concepts. My brother and I have been apart on and off for quite some time. He took the brunt of my habit. He and I tested out our many new game acquisitions. Now, the burden of my gaming habit falls to my wife. My long suffering wife, who's prior nerdyness stopped with an enjoyment of Star Trek, The Next Generation. Now, she has become not just a willing participant but an enthusiastic instigator in a string of games ranging from Dungeons and Dragons to Settlers of Catan. My wife's nerd factor has risen very high. She has even begun making gaming related jokes. As she is a teacher, it sometimes helps. She startled two students printing out gaming materiel in the school library by knowing the game they were playing.

For taking a lovely, normal woman and creating a gamer out of her, I am a bad man. I am also oddly proud. Love you, sweet heart.

Dominance Issues

I swear, the contractor and the site manager are determined to turn every little disagreement into a pissing contest. They fought for two days about removing some material from site that did not need to be removed and left me caught in the middle. I am getting tired of babysitting two teenagers who reminisce about the days of old and seem determined to prove that they run the job. To add to this fun, this verbal brawl occurred when all the big wigs showed up on site. And there is nothing like the gleam of sun off a string of shiny white hardhats to intensify the pressure of a skirmish of this nature.

We are having fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun up here in the 30 degree weather in the boiling north.

Northern Sibling

For the record, I have one little brother and one little sister. The sister is chasing her calling in theatre in Halifax, while my brother headed north.

My little brother is hiding up in the great white north. He is living in Yellowknife, North West Territories and working in one of the remote mines. As I have never been to Yellowknife, I will post a couple pictures of the town for your enjoyment. The thriving downtown of yellowknife is first shown. Second, a large house that is an example of what Yellowknife's rich people live in. Lastly, part of the Giant Mine's infrastructure is shown overlooking Great Slave Lake.

Small Triumph

As I gaze over my virtual desk top, organizing things into something resembling order, I glance over at my list. I am done!! I have been drowning in paperwork due to my own laziness for the last three days. But I am now officially caught up. However, my ecological footprint has doubled in size due to my paper and electron output. Ah, the cost of business.

Northern Ontario

There are some differences between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario (I use caps, as Northern Ontario will be its own province someday :)). Today, I will explain one or two of them.

There are the obvious linguistic differences. The obvious differences are sledding/sliding, cottage/camp and snowmobile/snow machine. And I tend to use the southern versions of these words, due to the fact that I spent a large part of my childhood in residual (north western Toronto). But quite apart from the vocabulary, northerners are less guarded in the speech. Where as city born southerners are generally hipper yet closed, while the rural southerners tend to consider their speech carefully. I have no idea why this is, but it is true. As someone who went to university in the south, I was told that I had a Northern Ontario accent. When I came home for Christmas, I had apparently developed a Southern Ontario accent.

Furthermore, there is a cultural wave washing up from the south. Of the shows are set in Ontario, how many of them are set in Northern Ontario? The same applies, though to a lesser extent, to print media and music. If one wants to find media from Northern Ontario, one really has to look. Though this may be largely due to the comparative populations of Northern and Southern Ontario, it still does piss people off.

However, these minor linguistic and cultural differences are not the major things that separate north from south. The major difference between Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario is the same as the difference between Canada and the United States. Now, I will not go off on a rant about the U.S. (but I could), but in general Canadians feel ignored and slighted by the Uncle Sam. There is a feeling of being looked down upon and an assumption that we will toe their line. The only time we seem to get noticed (either Canada, or Northern Ontario) is when we stand up and refuse to agree with what the larger community is saying. So we get ignored even more, and slapped with the whiner label.

And that is unfortunate. Because that means that neither community is listening.

Heat.

Man, today was hot. Like, up in the 25 degree range. Man, if it was not for the wind blowing over the wide open spaces on site, this would be truly unbearible. That, and my sweet air conditioned rented truck. And the air conditioned trailer. I pity the poor folks sweating it out in tropical Sudbury, or (god forbid) Toronto. Sometimes, spending time in the cool north is good.

Have fun...

More Stories?

Let me know if you would like me to post some more stories.

Thanks.

The Mountain With a Cave

Once upon a time, there was a Mountain. It was a lonely Mountain, jutting up out of a rolling plain. The peak was blue and marbled, with a brilliant white snowcap. No one had ever seen the top of the Mountain, as a gray cloud mat covered the peak for miles around. The Mountain could see all around herself, but all that was visible was the gleaming white tops of the clouds.

Then, the weather shifted. The rains came and tickled the feet of the Mountain. The snowcap receded and revealed a Cave, high above the clouds. This was a frightened Cave, and had made the weather cold so that the ice and snow would cover her. She was afraid of the world. But, still the Cave was curious. And so the weather warmed and the rains came. And all the Cave could see was the tops of the white fluffy clouds.

So, the Cave took a big breath and drew some of the clouds inside of her self. Suddenly, the world of white turned green as the fields and forests became visible. The flowers and animals were visible as bright spots of colour against the green background. As the Mountain looked around in horror, her entire world had shifted from one of endless white to a cacophony of colour pasted on a green background.

Fear shook the Mountain. The Cave got frightened. The weather got colder and the clouds rolled back. Once again, the snow and ice covered the Cave. Once the clouds had resumed their white hiding of the world below, the Mountain calmed herself. And the Mountain’s world became calm and serene again.

After some time had passed, the Mountain wanted to see the green and the flowers again. She tried to coax the Cave into action, but the Cave was scared. The Mountain’s reaction to the last time she saw the clouds had frightened the Cave very badly. The Cave did not want to inspire such fear. Gently, the Mountain coaxed the Cave to show the fields again. And the weather got warmer.

Soon, the Mountain gazed at the fields and forests in wonder. The vivid reds, yellows and blues of the flowers sharply contrasted with the lush greens of the grass and trees. The Cave was happy to bring such joy, though the clouds were not completely gone. And the Mountain reveled in the new details and colours.

And the Cave’s only regret was that she could not remove all the clouds.

Hey, Dawg.

I have not mentioned that I have acquired a new dawg. He is a red boarder collie and matches the current black boarder collie. Sadly, as I have been isolated up in the far north, I missed Loki coming home. And I also missed Merlin's (the first dawg of mine) reaction to Loki, which has, apparently, been very cute. The picture with this post has my lady, and both dawgs. Enjoy.

Two Evils

I am feeling a lot of anger today. Work is being super stressful, in spite of the beautiful weather that I am experiencing. I am currently thinking homicidal thoughts about two very specific people. One person deserves it and the other does not.

To begin, I will discuss the lesser of my two evils. The clients representative and site manager is a low tech, stamp collecting, long-winded story telling, lonely old man. Ordinarily, I could handle a person such as this. My patience with people is generally not too bad (while my patience with things… I will leave for another blog), but after dealing with this man for two months, my patience is nearing its limit. The computer the client gave him is slow and unwieldy. However, his lack of understanding of some basic computer functions makes it very difficult for me to work with him. If I send him an email with more than one attachment, he gets upset. This is because he cannot then forward the one important attachment from my email to his boss. The only way that he can forward attachments to other people is by forwarding the entire email. I did somewhat lose my temper with him today regarding that. I suggested that perhaps he should take a basic computer course. It might make his life easier. His response was “That’s not my job.” Yet, nowhere in my job description does it say Information Technologist. Still, I have difficulty condemning a person whose only crime is ignorance. Even if the ignorance is somewhat willful.

The greater evil is someone who did something very bad to my lady, when my lady was only a little girl. My lady has begun to remember these bad things slowly over the last three years or so. When she first told me she knew who it was who had done this to her, my reaction was immediate and visceral. My lady’s sister was there when the angry side of me envisioned, with crystal clarity, a wooden baseball bat with a railway spike driven through it. This was to be my weapon of vengeance. I have since gone through many other implements of destruction whenever the stress becomes too much for me to deal with. From axes, to picks, to an imitation katana of my brother’s, all have been tools in my mind to bring home the message that children should not be touched that way. I do not think I could ever plan to do anything to this man. However, if I ever meet him again, I do not know what I would do. I would hope I could keep my temper, but I do not know if I could. My current, slightly more rational, revenge fantasy, is to go into his workplace and ask, loudly, how he could do this to her. And then refuse to leave until the authorities were called. Again, I will not do this, but it is a thought that rolls into my head from time to time.

Unfortunately, stress causes anger in me. A t-shirt at a truck stop explained stress to be very well one time:

“Stress is the body’s confusion when the mind will not beat the shit out of someone who really deserves it.”

So, now I practice just letting everything go. It does not always work, but is works sometimes. I will find my peace, with my lady, in the lakes and the stars.

Executive Recruiting

I received a call from an executive recruiter. Apparently, engineers in northern Ontario are becoming sparse. (cue dramatic music) "Soon, I will receive more money. Mwahahaha." I just seems strange that anyone would be chasing me.

Separation Anxiety

I left my love behind yesterday. Do not get me wrong. I am not leaving her. I am again living in the rustic splendor of a small mining town. And I again left my woman behind. She is a good woman, strong (though she feels week), beautiful (though she feels large and ugly) and sensual (though she hides from her senses).

For you, my lady;

Though the greasy black pavement may separate us,
The blue sky and twinkling stars that you see
Are the same ones I gaze at.

I miss you...

Questing for the Good Life

In my eternal quest for optimism, I find myself often floating away in the wrong direction. That direction that lets one know that without a doubt, you yourself are the stupidest person in the known world. This state of mind follows me. It lingers in the background like a faint but persistant odour, like aftershave someone's mom bought. It waits for me to get sleepy or stressed out. Then, the current of my life yanks me towards the darker places. The the bits that remain shaded from the public eye. The slivers of yourself that will not listen to reason. Where do I go for balence?

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity-Jog…

I have arrived home on Thursday amid a flurry of pre-moving activity. If there is anything more stressful than moving yourself out, I have not found it. The stress is increased when you are living with someone else. It further increases when one has not been home for some time. It increases yet again when you realize you are live in a third story walk up apartment.

In short, I am not looking forward to this move. It will be a heavy, slow, frustrating affair. But, for any of you are wondering what friends are for, here is the simple reason. Next Saturday, my extended clan of friends and associates are gathering together. This gathering will move all our stuff from point A to point B. And all it will cost us is a case of beer and some pizza. The knowledge that my friends are so willing to assist my move for so little in return is very gratifying. So, remember to play nice with people. Some day, you may have to move too.

Programming.

I had not noticed the little "Edit Me" links on the right hand side of my blog. Thanks to the blogspot guys for making it so easy to change those links and for giving me my first chance to use html code. I am so very glad that the programming language I learned in university was FORTRAN. Stupid FORTRAN.

Later,

Goonius Maximus

ps, Does is seem strange to you that on a blog site, the spell check does not accept BLOG as a legitimate word?

Caught Between

In the madhouse that is life, how often do you get caught between? Between boss and client, between here and there, between friend and lover, between truth and that thing that is like truth, but is easier to speak. Yesterday, I was caught in that first crossfire. The client was calling for information and the bosses (yes, plural, but that will be a different rant) were in a meeting in Vancouver. Thus, I needed answers, but there was no one available to return my calls and emails. Being between is a helpless feeling, like being lost but without the same sense of purpose.

I have some experience with being caught between. My lady (a tall, beautiful, dark haired beauty), and I were together for a good many years prior to our marriage. Yet, while we were dating, we did not live in the same city for any considerable length of time. Both of us looked forward to the time when we could be together, in the same city. When we would not be anxiously awaiting the Thanksgiving weekend in November when we could be together. We were waiting for a time when we would not be between.

Why must so much of our lives be lived between? Like the last year of school, all you can think about is the end of the term. I try to take it as a lesson. When you are between is when you have a chance to think. There is an opportunity to look at your life’s direction and decide that you are on the right path. There is a sense of change in the air. Perhaps, my current state of between-ness could come to a close.
Until then, I remain between.

Its gray today.

I gaze out my window, looking at the clouds. The occasional light sprinkle of rain is visible in the puddles surrounding the site trailer. Time drifts slowly by without care or desire. As the clouds float higher, a sense of hope fills me. Perhaps, tomorrow, the sun will show its face. Perhaps, tomorrow, the aura of gray that surrounds this town will lift. Perhaps, tomorrow, I will be to busy to blog…

Or perhaps not.

Ottawa, what happened?

I watched my poor hockey team, the mighty Ottawa Senators, choke and fail today. Their defense was sloppy, their goal tending was hit and miss and they could not catch a positive puck bounce in the offensive zone. Curse whatever hockey god mocks me and my Senators. To quote a random prisoner in Pirates of the Caribbean, "I'm sorry friend, you've no manner of luck at all..."

First Time

Greetings and salutations, hail and good morrow.

On this, the historic first blog by Goonius Maximus, I have something to say. The weather in Northern Ontario is terrible. Although this is hardly a news flash, I feel the need to say something specific about the weather where I am hiding out. I am currently working on a former mine site up in the hinterlands of Ontario and yesterday we had snow. Well, perhaps freezing rain is a better description, but snow was the net effect. Here we are, seven days from the May two four weekend and we get an inch and a half of snow. My lady, who is waiting patiently for me in Sudbury, offered a gentle “Poor guy…” Can you hear the laughter too?

The job has been essentially rained out for the last several days, and the freezing rain was the last straw. The poor contractor shut down and has not been seen this morning. So, today will be another slack day of memo writing and surfing the internet.

I realize that I have not answered the one question that you all want to know. “Goonius,” you ask, ”What in god’s name are you doing in this cold but beautiful portion of Canada?” I am a site engineer. That means that I am responsible for ensuring that this project gets built and will not fall down.

Later,
Goonius Maximus