HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
(almost missed today.)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Things to do on Halloween eve....
shoveling isn't one of them.
In honour of receiving our first snowfall last night I thought I would title todays post appropriately. You have read it right, last night we received about 2 inches of snow, now its bad enough that I was working at 7am this morning, but the last thing that I wanted to do was to clean off the car. Actually, the last thing I wanted to do this morning was get up and go to work, but alas, here I am.
The spirit of winter, though, has yet to awaken from it summer slumber and the “Fall Guy” has decided that he was going to bitch his entire way through the day.
Generally, I'm all about winter. Its my 2nd favourite season to take pictures in, Fall being the first with all of the colours. The first snowfall of the year, makes the trees, in particular the Pine and Fir, stand out from the rest of the forest. My new work environment is completely surrounded on the back by forest so I have spent a good portion of the morning looking out at the trees and the way that the snow is hanging on the branches.
The downfall of the winter, now that I own a car, is the expense of maintaining it in the winter. Seeing as how the East Coast of Canada gets a lot of snow and freezing temperatures the general consensus of people around is to put “winter tires” on the car. Now, really, who the hell can afford to put winter tires on the car? Not me. Though I am looking forward to the first time that I have to shovel my driveway when I own a house, that novelty will wear off once I figure out that it means that I have to get up an hour earlier to get myself *out* of the driveway.
There is one more thing about winter that I like, normally people are happier in the winter. Yes, people love the sunshine and the warmth of the summer, but you will hear more people complaining about the stickiness and how they can't enjoy anything outside because of the heat. In the winter, everyone already expects to not do anything because of the weather so they are accepting of this and walk around with rosy red cheeks and a smile on their face when they reach the comfort of indoors.
Just thinking about going outside after work and taking in the fresh air is making me smile and is turning my day around already. I think that today just might be a great day...
In honour of receiving our first snowfall last night I thought I would title todays post appropriately. You have read it right, last night we received about 2 inches of snow, now its bad enough that I was working at 7am this morning, but the last thing that I wanted to do was to clean off the car. Actually, the last thing I wanted to do this morning was get up and go to work, but alas, here I am.
The spirit of winter, though, has yet to awaken from it summer slumber and the “Fall Guy” has decided that he was going to bitch his entire way through the day.
Generally, I'm all about winter. Its my 2nd favourite season to take pictures in, Fall being the first with all of the colours. The first snowfall of the year, makes the trees, in particular the Pine and Fir, stand out from the rest of the forest. My new work environment is completely surrounded on the back by forest so I have spent a good portion of the morning looking out at the trees and the way that the snow is hanging on the branches.
The downfall of the winter, now that I own a car, is the expense of maintaining it in the winter. Seeing as how the East Coast of Canada gets a lot of snow and freezing temperatures the general consensus of people around is to put “winter tires” on the car. Now, really, who the hell can afford to put winter tires on the car? Not me. Though I am looking forward to the first time that I have to shovel my driveway when I own a house, that novelty will wear off once I figure out that it means that I have to get up an hour earlier to get myself *out* of the driveway.
There is one more thing about winter that I like, normally people are happier in the winter. Yes, people love the sunshine and the warmth of the summer, but you will hear more people complaining about the stickiness and how they can't enjoy anything outside because of the heat. In the winter, everyone already expects to not do anything because of the weather so they are accepting of this and walk around with rosy red cheeks and a smile on their face when they reach the comfort of indoors.
Just thinking about going outside after work and taking in the fresh air is making me smile and is turning my day around already. I think that today just might be a great day...
Monday, October 29, 2007
Being off the grid...
something I really and truly suck at. For once.
So, you may or may not have noticed that my apparent news of going “off the grid” seems to not be going that well. Not only am I still frequently using MSN (btw, if you see me there say Hi), I'm still not using this newfound “time away” from technology to complete the tasks that I want to do. Boy am I ever slacking with this, but on the plus side, I've managed to only reactivate my Facebook account once within this time. And the only reason I had done that was to clean out my friends list, though I may have deleted a few too many people and you may inadvertently been one of them, if you find this the case let me know if/when I reactivate my account.
Thats right, I'm admitting that I suck at this, damnit all to hell. I'm a geek and taking away my toys doesn't really work that well.
I'm sitting here at the keyboard staring at the screen trying to find something to say, when really, I've got nothing. My fingers are poised at the kyboard hovering over the keys just waiting for something inspirational to enter into my mind so that I can show the world how smart and witty I am. I'm left sitting here with a blank stare on my face looking like a child who's just been told that there is no toothferry. This isn't a new occurrence though, I'm frequently looking blankly at the screen first thing in the morning, must have something to do with Caffeine withdrawl or something.
Though as we all know the tooth ferry does exist, she's the main cause of tooth aches when eating ice cream. True fact!
Another true fact....
So, you may or may not have noticed that my apparent news of going “off the grid” seems to not be going that well. Not only am I still frequently using MSN (btw, if you see me there say Hi), I'm still not using this newfound “time away” from technology to complete the tasks that I want to do. Boy am I ever slacking with this, but on the plus side, I've managed to only reactivate my Facebook account once within this time. And the only reason I had done that was to clean out my friends list, though I may have deleted a few too many people and you may inadvertently been one of them, if you find this the case let me know if/when I reactivate my account.
Thats right, I'm admitting that I suck at this, damnit all to hell. I'm a geek and taking away my toys doesn't really work that well.
I'm sitting here at the keyboard staring at the screen trying to find something to say, when really, I've got nothing. My fingers are poised at the kyboard hovering over the keys just waiting for something inspirational to enter into my mind so that I can show the world how smart and witty I am. I'm left sitting here with a blank stare on my face looking like a child who's just been told that there is no toothferry. This isn't a new occurrence though, I'm frequently looking blankly at the screen first thing in the morning, must have something to do with Caffeine withdrawl or something.
Though as we all know the tooth ferry does exist, she's the main cause of tooth aches when eating ice cream. True fact!
Another true fact....
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Motivation
lacking the proper words.
Today I am totally lacking any kind of motivation for anything at present. I have lots of ideas of things that I want to say, write about and document but there seems to be a complete lack of words going through my mind right now its kind of funny actually.
I started something this morning actually, a small little paragraph about my drive to work and how driving while exhausted just isn't as much fun as it used to be when I was 'younger'. I'm not the same kind of person that I once was, there was a time when I could stay up all night and function more or less as a normal part of society on about 4 hours of sleep. Now, I'm lucky if I can keep my eyes open after having only 6 hours of sleep. Whatever happened to those days? The days when there wasn't a care in the world and there was nothing holding you back? Oh right, I apparently grew up and joined the real world.
If there is something to be said about my current line of work, its this: working night-shifts has really started to make me appreciate those people who work full-time nights and raise children. I have the utmost respect for those people who can balance that and still function.
But I digress, I guess I was originally going to mention how much you mind can play tricks on you when you are experiencing some serious sleep deprivation, but I suppose I already proved that already with the scatterbrainedness (and made up words) of the post. Personally, I love being sleep deprived somedays as it leaves your other senses heightened trying to catch the things that the rest of you just may miss.
With that I will get back to sleeping with my eyes open....
Today I am totally lacking any kind of motivation for anything at present. I have lots of ideas of things that I want to say, write about and document but there seems to be a complete lack of words going through my mind right now its kind of funny actually.
I started something this morning actually, a small little paragraph about my drive to work and how driving while exhausted just isn't as much fun as it used to be when I was 'younger'. I'm not the same kind of person that I once was, there was a time when I could stay up all night and function more or less as a normal part of society on about 4 hours of sleep. Now, I'm lucky if I can keep my eyes open after having only 6 hours of sleep. Whatever happened to those days? The days when there wasn't a care in the world and there was nothing holding you back? Oh right, I apparently grew up and joined the real world.
If there is something to be said about my current line of work, its this: working night-shifts has really started to make me appreciate those people who work full-time nights and raise children. I have the utmost respect for those people who can balance that and still function.
But I digress, I guess I was originally going to mention how much you mind can play tricks on you when you are experiencing some serious sleep deprivation, but I suppose I already proved that already with the scatterbrainedness (and made up words) of the post. Personally, I love being sleep deprived somedays as it leaves your other senses heightened trying to catch the things that the rest of you just may miss.
With that I will get back to sleeping with my eyes open....
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Clarification
or some more confusing words to hide the point of it all.
As my valued reader(s) [which I'm assuming to this point is just me.] may or may not have noticed, I've essentially dropped off the face of the planet in an online instance. No more Facebook. No more chats. Nothing. Well, except maybe for this.
The thing that you may want to understand is my reasoning for this, I may not have written the clearest explanation possible earlier. It may seem as though I'm just abandoning everything and everyone that I'm close to (AD has gotten a few emails/messages from people asking why I'm not longer their friend on Facebook). That is not the case, all I have done with my Facebook is deactivated my account, it still exists and all of my contacts and information remain there but I'm hidden from everyone while I get everything together again.
There are a few things that I'm trying to accomplish with this. The first and foremost is to spend some more quality time with my wife, I feel as though I have been neglecting her these past few months spending more time getting in touch with old and new friends than I have with her.
Also, I have been sitting on a website and potential business opportunity for the past few months (since August I do believe) that I have done nothing with. I'm shelling out all of this money for something and yet I can't seem to get it off of the ground. There are all kinds of ideas in my head that I want to get out and get on paper but have yet to find the motivation and time to get it done.
Its never an excuse to blame an incomplete project on the lack of time and resources to get the job done (well thats what many companies blame it on), I'm still going to use it for my case though. A few years back I started writing a little story, simply called The Lumberjack. It was a modern day horror with some throwbacks to the story telling of cheesy classics. Simply stated it was an imaginative story surrounding survival, past-lives, and a close encounter with some seedy individuals. I have visions for this story to be completed at a running length of 90 – 100 pages, its nothing by modern story lengths but I'm new to writing fiction so I'm allowed to be ambitious.
On top of this there is a second story that I have on the go, which may end up getting scrapped in the near future simply for my lack of ambition in continuing on with the recent string of horror related items that I've been writing. I've picked up the proverbial pen a few times in the last couple of years but could not muster up anything more than a few scattered sentences surrounding a keyword that I had in my mind.
I'd really like to utilize this time to write something worthy, something heartwarming. Though as we all know, heartwarming is harder and more time consuming to write than anything else simply for the fact that you have to make people care about what happens to your characters. Its easy enough to write a story involving a couples love for one another and a hardship that they endure; its harder to make those characters dynamic enough that you actually want to see them make it through their ordeal.
What I'm really trying to say is this: there are so many things in life that are worth doing, why are we so preoccupied with flashy gizmo's and convenient technology that we put the things that are most important to us so far away?
Friday, October 26, 2007
Off the grid
As you may or may not have noticed, I have deactivated my Facebook account and have been using MSN Messenger less frequently.
There is one simple reason for this. I have lost touch with myself and the things that I stand for in the last few months with my obsessive use of the above mentioned applications/sites. I am ceasing to use these in an attempt to correct my life and become one with the things that I have long forgotten how to do.
Those things would be writing and reading. I have two started stories/novellas which have been sitting on the back burner for the past two years that I would like to finish at some point. There is also a continuing stack of books on my shelf that I frequently pick up but have yet to open and read.
I will still frequently update this area of my life as there are some things that require me to say and you can always reach me via email: ajyates AT gmail DOT com.
There is one simple reason for this. I have lost touch with myself and the things that I stand for in the last few months with my obsessive use of the above mentioned applications/sites. I am ceasing to use these in an attempt to correct my life and become one with the things that I have long forgotten how to do.
Those things would be writing and reading. I have two started stories/novellas which have been sitting on the back burner for the past two years that I would like to finish at some point. There is also a continuing stack of books on my shelf that I frequently pick up but have yet to open and read.
I will still frequently update this area of my life as there are some things that require me to say and you can always reach me via email: ajyates AT gmail DOT com.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Photography....
Or something like it.
Driving down the road today after dropping my wife off at class made me realize that I've missed almost 90% of the good fall pictures simply because I've forgotten about taking my camera when I go out side. All of the lovely fall colours seem to have fallen from the trees and are rotting in the gutters on the side of the road while I lay indoors staring at the ceiling wondering what tomorrow will bring.
Well, no more, from this day forward, my camera will no longer leave my side. I have already made plans to go out tomorrow afternoon driving around the city looking for scenes that require pictures to be taken.
Since I have been thinking about pictures today, I thought about posting some here within this area, but then realized that this would be pointless as I plan on having a Photo gallery within my site when it is designed eventually. In any case, there may be a few pictures cropping up here and there in the next few days.
Driving down the road today after dropping my wife off at class made me realize that I've missed almost 90% of the good fall pictures simply because I've forgotten about taking my camera when I go out side. All of the lovely fall colours seem to have fallen from the trees and are rotting in the gutters on the side of the road while I lay indoors staring at the ceiling wondering what tomorrow will bring.
Well, no more, from this day forward, my camera will no longer leave my side. I have already made plans to go out tomorrow afternoon driving around the city looking for scenes that require pictures to be taken.
Since I have been thinking about pictures today, I thought about posting some here within this area, but then realized that this would be pointless as I plan on having a Photo gallery within my site when it is designed eventually. In any case, there may be a few pictures cropping up here and there in the next few days.
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