Sunday, April 29, 2007

So much to talk about

Like Dave Matthews says "so much to say"





So how's my battle with the ticket going?  Well not good.  I can't take option #2 which is to plead guilty with an explanation.  Apparently that is only for when you have financial or time problems.  So they don't want to listen to me unless I'm fighting it.  So I've tried to contact PointTS to see if they can give me some options.   I really don't want to fight the ticket, but I don't want to pay it either... it's 4 demerit points!  On the upside, Mandy just got a speeding ticket (thank god I'm not the only one in the family to get fines!)





So congratulations go out to Steve and Dawn!  Campbell is a cute li'l baby boy! 

Rory and Rain... you're next!





As of late, been starting to really look at houses.  Been to a few open houses already... confusing the realtors by going with Brandy and then re-showing up with Mandy.  The one today was kinda funny "you're just playing with my mind now aren't ya!?"  heh

So we've been looking and deciding and we're finally going to see the bank about being pre-approved.  We'll see what they say... hopefully they don't laugh at us!

Found a really nice one on Mary St.  2 actually!  A little out of the price range that I think I can afford, but we'll see what happens after Tuesday.  Wish us luck.





Now... what else.  Nothing much.  I've ben making up new business cards.  Been at Churchill alot lately and noticed they don't ahve any of my cards anymore and I have been out.  I really need to start pumping myself at other schools.  Ran into a few people I went to school with and they have FULL contracts already.  SERIOUSLY... what am I doing wrong?





Other than that... realizing this summer's gonna be a load of fun with ror out of commission and me running this band... hope I just don't fudge it all up.  Alot of pressure.


Been biking alot lately, tho' I haven't seen any poundage dropping... soon maybe.  I really need to lose about 20lbs.  I said if I lost 20 I'd start looking at rock climbing.  But I really can't wait to get out and go canoeing.  Man that is going to be a blast.  Hopefully I get some time off for it.  Julie hired a new person out of the blue the other day.  Haven't met him yet, so we'll see what he's like. 

 

that's about all I can think of for now... maybe I'll be more verbose next time!

-ry

Saturday, April 21, 2007

I'm a politician / accident / karma's a bitch

So the other day I started to think to myself that life was kind of going good.  Mandy and I saw a house we really liked, and it is most probably in a range we can afford... I started to really clear down some of my debt because I've been picking up a lot of work supplying lately.  And, I had my work appraisal at PTC and it earned me a raise.  And not just a $0.34/hr raise like I would expect at Sears when I was there... this was a RAISE... It rivaled an MP's raise to be honest.  OMG, I'm a politician!

 

So, give me a few more months, hopefully my debt'll be gone, the car will be paid off in another year... so I figure my credit would look good to a banker and we might start talking about mortgages and see about this home.  Life was looking up!

 

-karma-

 

My parents invite us out for dinnner... and hey, we like to go out to eat!  So we start driving off down the road to get to Gargoyle's.  We come to a red light.  There is a black Kia in front of us and a maroonish sedan in front of them.  The light goes green and we all proceed through the intersection.  Just as you reach that point where you can increase speed the kia's brakelights are on, and he's dead stopped, so I have to SLAM on mine.  Longest secont occurs as we just tap bumpers.  Phew... thank god I got new brakes!

 

So we all put our hazard lights on, and I wait for a clear lane so I can get out.  I walk up to the Kia's car and ask if they're ok... the passenger says her head hurts, while the driver's calling 911.  Good call I guess.  I go to inspect our fender bender.  We are literally touching... you could slide a dime in between us... almost.  I go and pull my car back an inch or 2 to inspect the damage.  On my front fender the rubber is slightly scraped, and you can see some missing paint.  (I think I've done more damage brushing by my car than what I'm looking at).  I look at his fender and his black paint has a chip taken out (his fender is metal).  So I say "I think we're ok... really there is no real damage her, just some aesthetics issues."  At which point the driver then points to his front end.  This is where I sort of realize why his brake lights when on in the first place.  The car ahead of him must have stopped abruptly as I notice his front end is crumpled in, and it's leaking fluid.  Yikes.

 

So the fire dept comes, the ambulance comes and then the police officer comes.  Eventually the officer asks us "what way were you headed?" and "you were the 3rd vehicle?" then takes our licence and registration and disappears in his car for 1 hr.  Excellent detective work.  After standing around like mopes for an hour he comes back out and talks to the maroon car (1st in the chain) person and hands her a big piece of paper and she then walks away.  He comes now to the other 2 people (myself and Kia)... "you both will be fined... Mr. Moore your fine is $110!"

 

-this is karma-

 

Really?  He explains something about the rule of the road being you have to at all times make sure your vehicle CAN'T get into an accident... but we just tapped... I really wasn't listening as I was pretty stunned.  I ask him how he arrived at the decision that I was in the wrong and he just cites the traffic act to me.  Only now does he ask me if there's any damage to my vehicle.  I say there's some paint scraped off... so he comes over to look and then leaves me to contemplate WTF...

 

So what do I do?  Is this karma... something that I must accept as fair turnabout for the cosmic balance?  I mean there must be some validity to what he was saying.  Had I not been following too closely maybe I could have avoided this?  I dont' think so... I had about a car length between... and we just tapped... literally.  I don't want to go through the hassle of fighting this ticket in court... it's only $110, -- but then again it might be 4 demerit points!

 

GAR

 

karma... she's a bitch!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Fable - cool game... really cool.

So a while back I had a hard group of students to teach.  So I tried all sorts of ways to try to connect with them.  One of them was a hardcore gamer.  Seriously played for hours on end on different systems.  So I figured I'd try to connect with that kid by talking about the games that I've played.  It was a pretty good conversation, and we would talk most days about how I played it, and did this part.  Kinda connected... kid still failed.

 

Point of the story is that at one point when I finished one of the games I said I was done for a while.  He asked me what game was next, and I said I rightly didn't know.  I'm not one to be 'up on things'.  So he went through a whole series of checklist type questions of games I've played in past, and what types I like etc... eventually he came up with FABLE:  the Lost Chapters.  I must say I totally dismissed it for a while.  I was busy.

 

So recently I bought a new video card from Jarron as he decomposed his older computers to pay for his new Mac Pro.  I started to think about what game I'd give it a go on.  I've played everything in my little case probably 2-3x each.  So I scoured the boards to see what I could download ... and there's Fable.  So I give it a shot.

 

WOW

 

Very cool game.  Kinda like taking SIMS and WORLD OF WARCRAFT type of game, but still make the combat real time like LEGACY OF KAIN all mashed together.  Very neat how your character can develop differently, with being good or evil, reknown, titled, physical characteristics, tattoos... mine has a scar across his face.  Hurting his attractiveness.  Guess I should learn to block or something.  Stupid Balverines.

 

Well, i'll see if I can remember to photo all the good ops in the game for ya.  In the mean time I'll attach a couple that I've taken thus far.

Monday, April 9, 2007

R.I.P. Nancy LeBrun

I've been quiet on here for a while now.  8 days.  Not that there really was much going on lately... there was a good shag (still have the bruise, thanks Brandy).  But still it's been hard to try to get energetic about something enough to write.

 

Last tuesday I got a call from Lindsay saying she needed to get a hold of Robin.  Turns out her mom had just passed away.  Very sad.  She was only 52.  She had gone through a bad bout of illness.  I still don't think people really understood what the problem was today.  She died in the end of a heart attack from some infection that had caused fluid on the lungs (or something like it... I haven't really mustered up the courage to really ask).

 

Just sad that Lindsay will have to miss her at her wedding in a few more months.  garth won't be able to enjoy retirement with his wife.  It brings a lot of self reflection ... It's hard not to in times like these.  At church the other day they sang "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" and that has long been my dad's song that he wants sung at his funeral.  Just thinking of what that would be like is hard enough.  I can't possibly imagine what the LeBrun family is going through right now.  Last death I've had to deal with in the family was papa, but i was pretty young that it was hard to connect with anything.

 

The other reason has been I've been trying to figure out what has to be put together for the funeral on Wednesday.  Lindsay has asked me to play for it, and because of Nancy's involvement in both our band and the Police band we've wanted to put together something.  I'm sure it will work out in the end and give her the proper respect she deserves.

 

Rest in Peace Nancy - May the creator shelter you in the palm of his hand.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

What a boring day...

Okay, so I missed out on the Mudmen concert due to some personal concerns.  But irregardless, today I woke up late...

 

Nothing at all to do today.  I wanna go bike riding, but it's raining, so that also rules out going blading.  It's Sunday so any stores that are open are closing early today, so tehre's no places to go hang out.  The only thing that was fun so far was there is a new Dr. Who episode I can watch.

 

That done, what else there... a friend recommended I work on some of my projects... unfortunately because I don't have a real class this semester I have nothign in terms of projects... I'm absolutely lazy at home. 

 

Argh...  I can't even take my camera out today and try that out for size (it's been so long).

 

I need to get out for a coffee or something.