Vacation '04 — Now Pre-boarding

As I said in my last entry, I have a vacation scheduled. I am taking next week off. Once you factor in weekends and the Labour Day holiday this will give me a full 10 days off work. Actually, the reason I am taking the vacation is so that the days won't be quite as full.

I have been very tired and rundown lately and part of it is due to my getting burnt out at work. It is not that it has gotten any more stressful at work, but for some reason it has been weighing heavier on my lately.

So I am taking the time off, but I don't know what I am going to do yet, or where I am going to do it for that matter. I do know that I will probably head home for at least part of it. Home being Nova Scotia. This will allow me to see my family, friends, and my old haunts.

Other than that, the only plan I have so far is to try to get rested, and to relax.

Any suggestions? Leave comments or email using the links below.

Don't look behind the curtain!

Well, I worked on my journal somewhat this weekend. Made several changes behind the scenes, including the comment system in use. The new system is through HaloScan and includes Trackback as well as Comments.

I switched for several reasons that I am not going to go into right now. However, I will say that I did not do it in order to get trackback, but since I was changing and they offered it, I figured "Why not put it in too?"

I have not had a chance to see if I can get the old comments imported into the new system. If I can import them, I will.

I just realized that it is 1:15am and I have to get up and go to work in the morning. I guess I should go to bed. Hopefully I will be able to get to sleep quickly.

I need time off work. Good thing I got a vacation scheduled. I'll give you more information about that soon.

Still Standing

I was in Blue Hills for a while on Sunday and found that the standing stones I erected over 3 months ago are still there. Actually, I am not sure if they are still standing or if someone else has rebuilt them in the same location in the meantime.

Either way, it is cool to return to a quiet, peaceful place and find standing stones like that. Even if it is an area where you have erected those same stones in the past.

I also did some hiking and geocaching while I was there. Considering how rundown I have been for the past week or so it was good to get out. Bushwhacking and climbing over rocks was just a bonus.

At one point I happened upon a clearing, one whose center was the smooth surface of a buried boulder. On this spot there was a collection of stones which looked to me as if they had been standing at one point but had since fallen. So I stood them.

I will be posting these pictures, as well as a few others at Buzznet. Look for them there.

I mentioned that I have been very rundown for the past week or so. It has been a combination of my insomnia, a touch of some bug, and my bloodsugar being unstable. Of course getting sick and not sleeping will play havoc with anyone's bloodsugar.

This all lead up to me spending most of Saturday in bed fading in and out of restless sleep. Which did seem to help, but it sucked. At least I was feeling good enough after that to get out on Sunday, which I have already told you about above.

Well, that's going to be it for now. I am off to bed, and hopefully to sleep.

Pleasant Dreams.

It's past time

I don't think I properly thanked everyone for the kind words when my grandmother passed. I know I thanked some individually, but I also know that I missed others. This was not intended as any kind of slight. I just had a lot on my mind [Still do, but different things. — The Editor] and forgot who I thanked and who I missed. So...

To everyone who sent any kind / caring words, I thank you.

And to those I missed the first time around, I am sorry I missed you and that it took this long before I wrote anything about it here.

Peace.

Alive and Well (-ish) - Revisited

To follow up my last message, as noted before, I am fine.

After I got home that night I had a shot of rum, Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay if you want to know, and a bite to eat and tried to settle down before writing the entry. I stopped shaking while writing it, sorry I didn't mention that at the time.

After posting it, I had another shot or two of rum and watched some Adult Swim on Cartoon Network since I couldn't get to sleep for some reason.

...

I am planning to do some work on this site this weekend. This will include design, coding, and posting. I have some ideas in mind for the design and coding, however if I do them right you may not notice a difference at all. At least not yet, but it will make things easier for me. As for the posts, I have a few things I and thinking about, I just need to pull the thoughts together in a coherent form. As soon as I do I will put them up here.

Walk in Beauty.
Peace.

Alive and well (-ish) ...

I knew that I was going to write something tonight but I wasn't sure what. I could write about Rites of Spring, about my grandmother, about what I have been doing for the past few weeks, ... But something happened on the way home and I think I will tell you about that instead. I am not shaking as much as I was when it happened, and maybe after writing it down, I will stop shaking altogether.

On the way home from work tonight I was coming up to a tight curve in the road, one where I was on the inside of the bend, and traffic coming the other way often cut the corner if there is no traffic in their way. Well, I guess the guy coming at me didn't think there was any traffic coming because he didn't even slow down while coming around the bend.

Did I mention that the guy coming at me was driving a tractor-trailer? I didn't? Well, he was.

So here I am heading around this tight curve and I see a semi come blasting around the corner and coming into my lane. We both hit the brakes and avoided a major collision. But we were completely blocking the road while we checked what damage had been done. It took less than five minutes for traffic to be backed up for over a hundred meters in each direction and for two police cruisers to arrive. The police must have been really close.

The hood of my truck was under the trailer of the semi, but didn't look too bad in the parts that we (myself, the driver of the semi and the police) could see. Since my truck still ran, I got back in, started it up and, with guidance from one of the cops, reversed out from under the semi. That's when we were finally able to get a good look at the damage.

There wasn't much ...

After getting in an accident and being under a semi the sum total of the damage will cost less that $5.00 to fix.

As it turns out the hood of my truck was just low enough that it slipped under without touching the underside of the trailer. The driver's side mirror had hit, and rubbed, the side of the trailer leaving a significant scuff mark, but no scratches, on the plastic enclosure of the mirror.

The more telling piece was that my front bumper had stopped right against the wheels of the trailer. This left another a scuff mark on the rubber of my front bumper. If the semi hadn't stopped as quickly as it did, those wheels would have continued up and over the bumper and my truck, but instead it only scuffed the the bumper.

So, two scuff marks which I should be able to deal with using ArmorAll (hence the $5.00) if I even have to deal with them at all.

So basically, no damage, but a lot of shaking. Some of which was from the anger which arose when the semi driver kept trying to blame me for the accident when I stayed in my lane the whole time.

But after all that, I am completely uninjured. I feel very lucky and thankful for this.

How was your evening?

I like this thought

I am not sure of the source, since it came from a "fortune" file and had no attribution, but it quite liked it and thought I'd share it here.

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I'd travel and see. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hotwater bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I probably wouldn't make such good grades, but I'd learn more. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies.

I was going to put some kind of commentary here, but I have decided against it. The piece stands on its own. Any commentary I put would only take away from it.

On another note, it has been three weeks since I wrote anything here and I have some entries to make. I will try to get them posted over the next few days. These will be entries about my family, myself, and Rites of Spring.

Hope you come back to read them.

Peace.

There's a new star in the heavens tonight

I got the news this afternoon, Nanny passed this morning. It appears that the doctors were right...

Millie Berry
April 14, 1909 - June 9, 2004
She was a strong and feisty woman.

I love you, Nanny. You will be missed.

Latest Update

I got a call from my mother today. She was calling to give me the latest information on my grandmother. And now, here I am passing it along to you. I figure that some of you would be interested, and at least one of you have asked about her...

My relatives were trying to find out what was going on with Nanny's sleeping, she only woke up occasionally and only for brief periods, and they were talking to doctors and trying to get her checked into a hospital.

I knew this, and that she had been admitted to a hospital, since shortly after the last update. However, since that was all there was to it, I didn't bother posting it since it didn't really tell us anything.

Today Mom called to give me the latest, and it isn't very good...

Apparently Nanny fell out of bed while in the hospital. Actually, since noone saw it happen we don't know if she fell out of bed or if she fell while trying to get out of bed for some reason. With how groggy she was before the fall, and how much worse she is after the fall, she can't really tell us what happened.

What we do know is that when she fell she broke her hip. So now, in addition to the problems she was already having, she has a broken hip, is in a cast and traction, and she is "drugged up" for the pain and what not. And there appears to be some complications from the break. (Anytime someone breaks a hip there can be complications, but they are almost guaranteed for someone who just turned 95.)

While we were talking Mom made it clear that she wasn't just calling to give me the information. She was also calling to give me a chance to prepare for the inevitable. Nanny has had a good life but it is coming to an end. The doctors feel that she doesn't have much time left. I don't want to lose her, but I don't want her to suffer.

Nanny has always been a strong woman. She lived on her own right up to her 95th birthday when all this started. She has lived to see her grandchildren growup and have children of their own. She has watched her great-grandchildren grow up and get married, starting families of their own. But she also buried her husband, her son (my father), her brother, and at least two grandchildren who died of childhood illnesses. And throughout all of it, the good and the bad, she has kept going and stayed strong.

I know she is still strong and will stay or go on her terms. Her body may be failing, but I believe her spirit never will.

I am glad that I got to see her when I was up in August and again in December. She was just as lively as she ever was. In fact she was more lively at 94 than a lot of people 25 years younger.

My friends who are reading this, and those who aren't, I wish you could have met Nanny and gotten to know her. (I have not given up hope, but I also want to prepare myself.)

I will let you know when I get any more news. You can rest assured that there will be at least one more update.

However it turns out, she will always be with me. A person is never truly gone as long as someone remembers.

... and there is always hope.

Rites of Spring - The Return

Rites of Spring is closed for another year. I will not say that it is "over" yet because there are people, including myself, who are still processing their experiences from the gathering. And while this processing continues so does Rites of Spring, in a way.

The gathering ended last Monday and we all left the site and mostly headed back to our homes. I got back to my residence sometime after 6:00PM and unloaded my truck. Of course this was done with the assistance of Sand since she was traveling with me.

Afterwards we sat and relaxed for a while and ordered some Chinese food. Then we settled in and slept. In was not the most restful sleep I have ever had. The sounds of the camp and the drums had been replaced with the sounds of the suburbs and my roommates playing video games. But it was still good to sleep in a comfortable queen-sized bed again.

Sand was gone by the time I woke up. Her flight back was early and the airport shuttle was supposed to pick her up at 7:00AM. Neither of us had any delusions that I would be awake and able to drive her to the airport at that time of the morning. Especially since I had taken the day off of work knowing that I would need the sleep, and the time to readjust to being back. (I have taken this extra day every year, starting with my second, and will continue to do so.)

I suppose I should tell you that I did not write any entries while I was there, but I will be writing entries about Rites now that I have returned. You should see them start to trickle in over the next couple of days. It's just that I have not put anything into words yet.

For now I just wanted to let you know that I was back and that I had not forgotten about my journal.

Peace.