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