Hallowe'en at Wilsonworld

So the night of spooks, goblins, princesses and machete wielding hockey players has come and gone. Every year we do things a little different around here. The huge spider web covering the front of the house and the entire yard is your first clue that this house is not normal. We've been doing that for around ten years now, I warms my heart to hear the comments of children and parents alike when they approach - It's the spider house! I know then we've done our job - scaring the crap out of little children. 

This year my son helped with the web for the first time. He did a pretty good job of it, considering it takes a month and averages 500 feet of string. We scaled it down a bit this year, we only used around 300.

Next comes pumpkins and costumes. Each of us has our own, each a piece of our own personalities.  Here is Kim waiting for her (my) pumpkin to talk to her and reveal it's inner jack-o-lantern. If you want to know why I said my, visit Kim. She has no problem telling everybody all about it.

The finished products...

New this year was my coffin. I had a great time last night laying in it motionless until Kim directed poor unsuspecting kids and parents to the candy bowl laying in front of it. I got several kids when they reached for the goodies - I reached for them. Some screamed, one jumped back and tripped landing ass over tea kettle on the sidewalk (Kim checked, he was fine, and I apologized to the surprise parent - even shook the kid's hand). One parent leaned over me to take a picture thinking I wasn't going to jump at him. He yelled and jumped. I don't know if he got his shot. I was in this thing for around two hours with a bathroom and smoke break at the mid point. We had over 100 kids last night, it was great laying there listening to the comments from everyone. The coffin my wife bought me for my birthday came in really handy! One lady stared at me for what seemed like about 5 minutes trying to figure out if I was real or not - then I winked at her. She jumped. My evil mind at work. The first pic is Kim in her garb mourning my "youth" at my side. The second is the just before I made some kid dressed as Spiderman jump out of his costume.

Nothing left but the clean up, and trying to figure out what to do with a coffin for the rest of the year. But at least now I have one if anyone wants to borrow it. Kinda like the one neighbour with a chain saw. You never know when you'll need one!

Cheers.

Trust me

Last night my oldest had his first Confirmation class in which I was given the wonderful opportunity to cover his face with wet plaster to the point where he could not talk or see. I completely covered his mouth - It was great; a teenager with no ability to talk back. I had the opportunity to let him have it so to speak, of course encouraged by the facilitators, also parents of teenagers. I didn't have to, the youngest took the reigns and did got the last word, or many of them. All oldest could do was hum.

The mask is symbolic of the mask we all wear to cover the real us. The facade we put up to give society an impression of who we are instead of the real thing. For years I have been asking people to remove their masks, their facades are quite fake and transparent. Admittedly my own mask covers the fragility of being. I put on a mask that says I can be a tough blunt spoken man, taking it off reveals one who is worried about the future of my children, the health of the things I cannot control, a longing for things and times past, and concern for my own mental health. The mask is somewhat transparent, there are many I do not allow to see through. 

Oldest's mask will be painted to reflect his personality and displayed in the church at his confirmation ceremony. Mine is displayed every day. First thing in the morning I put it on and it stays that way all day - making it hard to function freely all day. It makes it hard to be me.

What is your mask covering?

Cheers.

Wednesday funnies.

This is brilliantly stupid. I love it.

Change of environment

Weird day. The computer that crashed last night was joined this morning by my own - same problem - Darwin Kernal. For those that don't actually know this rather common terminology (all of us) this is the equivalent of DOS for Mac, or put it this way - ever had food go down the wrong hole? So did my computer's start up process. I have never seen this happen in 15 years of dealing with Macs, nevermind twice on two machines in two days. Freaky. My first thought was a virus, but the company firewall wouldn't let anything through, chock it up to coincidence. Off to the repair shop. Now I have known this guy for years so I had no issue just walking in a barking orders. When I was refuted, I was annoyed as any customer would be. He was too busy to look at them right away, It would have to wait. Nay nay said I, I work in publishing and today is deadline day. They get fixed now. 

So there I am, in somebody else's shop, fixing my own computers with his stuff. He better not charge a service fee. I spent all day in there, between the machines, the repairman, on the phone with my boss (who owns one of the machine, see yesterday's post), and on the phone to our tech support in Vancouver. Did I mention anywhere that I live in Windsor? 2,500 Km away some guy is giving me instructions. His coin, not mine, talk away.

I left briefly to take my dad to his radiation treatment at the hospital and headed back to "work". By 4:30 this afternoon, I had a G4 tower running on a new operating system, but all software needs to be reinstalled, and the Macbook Pro has a new hard drive ordered. For the two days it will take to arrive my boss must work on his machine via a firewire portable drive forcing the computer to keep it together. It's jerry-rigged at best. Gotta love technology. I hate computers, with all my heart. They are the most annoying pieces of crap ever dreamt up by devious little people. They toy with our emotions by promising us effieciency, enjoyment, fun, relaxation, information and the like, then deliver us into the vile hands of the repair man when all hell breaks loose. The hard part of all of this is explaining to the powers that be why they break. I don't know, I would say, maybe micro bots from our competitors have been inserted into the mail slot and followed their pre-programmed course through the office to the machines, scaled the desks and climbed in through the air vents, concluding their work in the drive sectors. Or maybe, they were just pieces of crap! I don't know, they frickin' broke. Leave me alone. 

The weirdest thing about the expedition was watching him clean out my tower with a shop air hose - the type used to power air tools in your average auto repair centre. You see, the Mac repair shop in this town is also the Volvo Recycling centre. Don't put all your eggs in one basket I suppose, he took that advice to heart. 

Back to work at 5, the paper ready for press by 8. Makes for a long day, especially when my computer is still sitting on the floor at work, unplugged and needing everything installed. (I used another workstation for the paper). Tomorrow I get to finish it off, spending my day doing the same thing I did today in more comfortable environments. Another deadline looms on Thursday, when one of our magazines goes to press. Should be fun. One day I will have a normal job, predictable and comfortable, with no computers and no deadlines.

And I will be bored stupid.

"I love deadlines. - I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." – Douglas Adams

Feel the Power

Funny thing, my boss just called me in a panic telling me his Macbook is fried - he wanted help at 9:30pm.

Hee Hee Hee.

Cheers.

Comic relief

Sorely needed for a Monday.

Unexpected expectations

So today with my back still causing me tremendous grief, the family headed off to church while I squandered my time on the computer with Adobe GoLive tutorials. I am in the process of building the church website and needed a refresher on the software. It's been a while since I've done this in it's basic form, never mind the intricate interactive aspects I want to incorporate. My brain hurts after reading that stuff, almost as much as my back. I need to get back into this stuff, I've found that lately I'm not being challenged enough - I've been slumping at the computer with this, or random YouTube videos. Now this, admittedly takes great patience and some degree of skill, but too much of a good thing is ridiculous. 

I've always been fascinated with architecture, and as a graphic artist, I was hooked. Google Earth is pretty cool when the cities you're exploring suddenly pop upwards into 3D. Kinda neat. But going through some of the models on the site I noticed that my city was very poorly represented, I of course need to rectify that. I have spent the past two weeks wasting as much time as possible building this. 

I will let you know if I ever finish it. Back to the web software - After an hour my brain hurt so much with code that I needed a break. Then it hit me - I have a Playstation!

Another hour I will never get back. 

If I wasn't hurting so much I would actually do something around here, I'm not hurting for chores. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to bend. 

The fam came home from church telling me the priest was asking about me. Last week he indicated that I will be a new usher. I thought he was joking - he wasn't. Today he inquired as to my whereabouts and seeing that I was MIA headed off to fill the vacant usher position in a hurry. Between the website, youth group, building committee and now being a reluctant usher, you might think that I'm catholic. Surprise - I'm not. The priest is working hard to rectify that, Kim is quite pleased about his progress thus far, I however, have other opinions.  

I have no objection to the faith, I attend catholic services every week, and the whole family is quite involved in the church - both kids were and or are servers, Kim heads up the youth group and I do well, everything else. The problem I have is having to go t class to learn to be a good christian. I am constantly being razzed about being a heathen, I take it in good turn and there are times when being the only protestant in the family has certain advantages (another post).  I just have a problem being indoctrinated into the catholic faith the way the church wants me to - in class. I believe in more than the Vatican wants me to. I believe in the Gnostic Gospels, which the Vatican tried to admonish, I believe in priests marrying, I believe in choice, and much more. Doctrinal differences that I have grown up with. It would be nice if the church would break with some of its traditions and meet the new age. Imagine how many churches would have remained open if there were more priests to administer to the parishes? Our diocese is looking at a one-third reduction in priests in the next ten years due to retirement. This year only 8 were enrolled in the seminary. I actually support the church, I just think they are a bit behind the times. Hence, I don't really think I'm ready for the classes. I can't get around the differences in thinking.

So now I'm a protestant usher in a catholic church. Who'd a thunk it.

Now, I'm worn out with web stuff, Tired of Playstation, can't do anything physical around here, I've posted, and read the blogs that interest me. What's next - Ah! TV!

Cheers.