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September 2009

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Animals, Food, Life, Love, Movies, Random
Comfy Cobra
09.19.09 | Permalink | Comment?

I made it back safely. Jeff got me to the airport just in time, and my flight wasn’t too bad. I finally got to see a decent copy of Star Trek, although it was on a 7″ screen, then I rocked some Super Stardust and Space Invaders Extreme on the PSP. My flight also had the map feature I’m ever so fond of (as I’ve mentioned before). My brother left work early to pick me up, then drop me at Holly’s. We hung out with the boys for a bit, then went and got some Sahara! – I love those guys.

Friday was Holly’s birthday and in the morning she went to work, and I walked Roan to school. I found a little wood pipe on the ground on the way to his school. I brought it home and threw it out. I had a bit of a panic attack when I got up and tried to get my desktop machine running.

Holly had some dude put a wireless card in it while I was out west, and although it powered up and booted XP no problem, not one of the ports on the board was working, and only one input on the video card was working. I’ve come to the conclusion the machine does not like being moved. The board was never meant for the case it’s in, and I don’t really give a shit. I’ll leave it where it is, finish this book, then build a new machine. One that is able to dual boot XP and Ubuntu. Or maybe I’ll just build an Ubuntu machine and keep this one as an XP machine until it dies beyond what I feel like putting the effort into fixing. I got everything working (including the wireless card), and now just need some speakers from my parent’s house. I also need to install all my ruby scripts on my desktop, and make sure Sketchup is setup how I like it.

After I got it working I called Mary Beth. I haven’t heard from her in probably a year, and I wasn’t sure why she disappeared. Turns out she was pissed at me for turning into who I was. She said I changed for the worse, and I asked if there was anything I directly did to piss her off. She said no, which makes it harder on me, because I would rather know what I did so I can prevent it in the future if I choose. Either way, I’m just glad she’s still my friend and we’re not too far from each other so we can hang out.

Mary came by, and Holly got off work early. The Dude dropped in, and we hung out on the patio. Brandi came by to pick up Mary, and the Dude left at the same time. Holly and the boys made Lesley and I eat a unicorn, then we came back here for a bath and UFC.

Today the Dude came by again with Benz, and the boys went nuts when they saw him. Gage played with him for a couple hours I figure, and eventually Benz got comfortable enough with the trampoline to not only jump on and off it, but to also play with the boys on it. It was pretty cool seeing him play with the boys the way he was, considering the last time I saw him he was still a complete asshole. Perhaps getting hit by a car changes a dog for the better. If the same is true for humans, I can think of a few who could really use a city bus intervention (okay, maybe more than a few).

For dinner, Holly made some strange dish with mashed potatoes (gross) which was actually pretty good (don’t tell her), then she left without feeding me dessert. Even after I bought her a huge bag of her favourite candies today. She went to see some lame band in Hamilton, so I hung out here with Roan and watched UFC, while Gage played his DS. Now the boys are in bed, and I’m thinking about doing the same.

I’m glad to be here, and it’s nice to be comfortable in a lot of different ways finally. Now if I only had belly full of dessert…
Animals, Gaming, Random
Cobra Hoorah!
09.16.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Jeff picked me up at the ferry terminal and on the way back we stopped so Jeff could get smokes. He stopped in a no stopping zone apparently and we got pulled over by a cop on a motorcycle as soon as we pulled away. Jeff got a $40 ticket, or a $50 pack of cigarettes, depending on how you look at it.

We came back to Jeff’s and smoked some weed, then killed a shit load of zombies. I love the new Nazi Zombie maps. Dave came by and I gave him the rocks I collected at the trailer for his birthday. I wasn’t sure if they were cool rocks or not, but I’m pretty sure he loved them. Which is good because the bag weighed about 60 pounds and I had to carry it with me all morning.

Holly sent me the video above and we’ve watched it a dozen times today. I love kitties. I miss mine. Jeff has a super nice kitty, but he’s not super social.

Tomorrow’s plan so far, is to smoke weed and kill tons of zombies after breakfast. Then I either get a good night of sleep before flying home, or stay up all night so I can sleep easier on the plane. Not sure which I prefer.
Gabriola, Life, Random
R.I.P. CBK hoodie & Brown shorts
09.15.09 | Permalink | Comment?

I’m just waiting for Ian to pick me up and take me to the ferry, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to say farewell to two of my favourite articles of clothing, which I will sadly be leaving behind.

So long brown shorts. I loved you ever since the day I cut you into shorts. Up until then I hated you, but it took some minor adjustments for me to realize your true beauty. You’ve served me well, with your large pockets that have buttons on them to help keep track of my goodies. I made several attempts to keep you alive when you started to die, but now the time has come to pull the plug.

So long Come Back Kid hoodie. You were a purchase I made at a show, which might have been the last time I actually listened to the band you support. You were so much better than the band, and I loved you a little too much. You fit better than any other hoodie I’ve ever owned. You have a long history told by your many stains and tears. From tattoo ink, to shredded thighs where my chisel sliced through you like butter, you’ve been with me a long fucking time.

You both will be missed, and never forgotten. Who knows. Perhaps someone will find you here and your journeys will continue, but for us, this is goodbye.
Animals, Food, Gabriola, Life, Love, Random
Murdoch the Marvelous
09.14.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Zack and I went for a bike ride to the store then back to the water for one last ocean side session. We got some mushrooms for dinner and I got some much needed juice. I skipped rocks while we smoked a joint and discussed my million dollar idea I had today – downhill hammocking. I also found this little crab above, who was playing dead at first, then came to life and hammed it up for the camera.

We rode back to the school and I stashed my bike for whenever I come back. Zack said he wanted to attempt to walk the wire again, so I sat and filmed as he failed a few times. Then he pulled off a fairly perfect run. We thought about raising the wire so it was 6 feet off the ground, but then decided to make dinner.

We made risotto with tempeh, mushrooms, and garlic and put some cheddar on top. It was delicious. For dessert we had plum cake. One of the older dudes taking the log course went home to Abbotsford over the weekend and brought back a ton of fruit and baking his wife did. Plum cake is good.

After dinner I called Holly and said goodnight to her since she was already in bed. Zack and I played a game of pool, then came here to smoke a joint. James stopped by shortly after I kicked Zack out, and we had our last little “in person” chat for a while. I thanked him for everything he’s done for me, and letting me stay here, and letting me do the log course for free, and he told me he was more than happy to do it, and he’s glad I’m so dedicated to the book. He said it has been nice hanging out getting stuff done the last few months, then gave me one of those powerful “bro” handshakes. We also discussed the course he wants me to teach her a little more, which is good – it means he hasn’t changed his mind about it, and there is still a chance it will happen.

I just finished packing all my stuff, aside from a few things I will use in the morning, and of course my computer. I’m considering leaving a few articles of clothing behind which are a combination of torn, filthy, too big, or just ugly.

Less than 60 hours until I’m back in Ontario. I’m looking forward to it for sure.
Animals, Gabriola, Photos, Random
Goodbye Gabriola. See you in spring?
09.14.09 | Permalink | Comment?

This morning I decided to get up early and head to the water before James started teaching. I don’t like interrupting him by going down the stairs and through the class during his lessons, so I rolled a couple joints and took my bike down through the public access trail on Coast Rd. When I got there the tide was low, but starting to come back in. I saw a group of starfish that were all different colours, which I’m not sure, but could possibly mean they were in different stages of death. I’m no starfish expert, I just know most of them you see here are bright purple.

I walked around to another spot that James told me about, where you can walk to a small island during low tide. Zack and I tried to find it the other day, but it’s hard to spot unless it’s low tide I guess. When I got there I saw tons of starfish.

Some were the biggest I’ve ever seen, and some were the smallest I’ve ever seen. I even saw one with it’s head cut off (poor guy) and two deformed ones with six legs each! I’m not sure if it is just coincidence, but both the six legged starfish were fairly isolated from the others. As you can see above, they tend to hump each other all day. These ones appeared to be outcasts.

Then on my way out of the woods, back to the school, I found a substitute Holly. It’s not as attractive, and certainly not as much fun to hug or kiss, but it’s a Holly. If I wasn’t going to be back to hug and kiss the real thing in three days I might have taken this one with me.

Now I have to call Jeff and my mum regarding traveling home, then I’m hoping to chat with Holly for a bit before packing and going to sleep early again.
Gabriola, Life, Love, Random
Forced vacation
09.13.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Yesterday, after my talk with James, we decided I need to get back to Ontario as soon as possible. My computer is dying, and I can’t continue to work until I get back there. So because I had to find other things to do, I got Zack and we went to the water to smoke a joint. It was a beautiful day, and the water was relatively warm for mid September. Zack decided to do a flip in, because the tide was so high.

He did a sweet flip, then got out fast. I tried to get him to do a back flip, and he wanted to, but decided it wasn’t safe. After he dried off a bit we walked to Silva Bay and got some beer, then headed back to the school. I had decided to get some beer since I have nothing to do without being able to work, and figured it would be one of those cliche, drowning my sorrows in beer type things. I asked the dude at the liquor store to first try my debit card, and once it fails, try my Visa. He swiped my debit card, and I punched in my pin, expecting it to be denied as usual. Much to my surprise the screen read “Approved”. I smiled and said “Wow, this just went from sad beer to celebration beer!” and the dude laughed and said “Your lucky, that doesn’t happen often.” – no shit dude.

We went back with our beers and lazed about in hammocks (the ones above) for a few hours, listening to music on Zack’s computer. Then I convinced Zack to put up his high-wire and entertain me with it. It only took him about 10 minutes to setup, then he made several attempts at it. It’s only about 18 inches off the ground, but it’s good enough for now. I’m sure James will have him take it down, but at it’s current height he’s got better chances of him letting Zack keep it. I got a good video of one of his best attempts, but unfortunately forgot to turn the camera off and now have to edit the video before I can post it. Here’s a screen shot for now.

After that we made a fire and roasted marshmallows. I got somewhat trashed, and was in bed by 10:30. Before passing out I managed to book a flight home on this coming Thursday. It was expensive, and I probably won’t get a decent seat, but whatever. I had nightmares about Captain all night long, and woke up with a headache and some major stomach pains.

I spent today in the hammock and beside the water again. I look forward to being back with Holly this week, but I’m going to have to look for books about witchcraft on electronics while there, because I’m fairly certain she’s cursed my computer. Why else would it die, forcing me to come home to her the day before her birthday?

Now I’m going to call her because my computer is being a piece of shit again and not letting us chat on MSN. Then I have to clean and pack, because Tuesday I head to Vancouver.
Gabriola, Life, Love, Random
Coincidence or destiny?
09.11.09 | Permalink | Comment?

I’m having a brutal morning. Last night my machine started acting insane, and then stopped working. I went to bed, left it off for the night, and figured I’d try again in the morning. When I got up I managed to boot up, backup everything, and then I just shut it down. I went to Naomi’s office and called Holly (first time I heard her voice in about two weeks) to tell her I won’t be on my computer much, and why. Then I went for a walk to the water. I sat and smoked some weed and stared at the starfish laying in the water. I wish I was a starfish some days.

I came back and talked to James and Naomi for 2 seconds to inform them that I’m stressed beyond belief and that my machine is being a douche. I’m hoping to talk to him later about possibly heading back to Ontario soon. I would like to try and keep my laptop a little longer, and if this book is too much and is going to kill it, I’d rather go use my desktop back at Holly’s. Not to mention I’m ready to go back there any minute now, regardless of the state of my computer, the book, the world… I miss comfort and the ones I love.

I just got on here to find Dave’s number, because tomorrow is his birthday and I want to call him, and I also checked Facebook for messages from Holly. In that process I noticed some people on my friends list were playing with anagrams of their names, so I decided to throw mine in a generator and see what I got – Carjacker Slime. Interesting. Then I put Holly’s name in, and I got something that seemed perfect – Heals Your Soul. I can’t agree more. I’m not so certain we all have souls, but she definitely makes me feel good all the time.
Gabriola, Life, Random, Sketchup, Timber framing
For real? That guy?
09.10.09 | Permalink | Comment?

I spent an hour or so on this drawing this morning, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. As annoying as some of these more difficult drawings are, it’s going to be so worth it in the end. After seeing that piece of shit James bought last week, I’m starting to see my drawings in a different way – they make this craft seem like Ikea furniture in some ways, but in many ways they are the most informative drawings I’ve ever looked at on this subject. Nothing seems to go into the detail that we get. Or if it does show you excellent details, it usually has shit for a description. This book has such amazing drawings (I swear) that probably anyone with a basic knowledge of tools who is half literate could build any of these homes. Add in James’ descriptions of what is going on in the drawings, and it seems impossible someone couldn’t do it.

After I finished that drawing I went to print a bunch of stuff for James, and then checked out how they were doing with the log jig. Zack put a brand new blade on the chainsaw so they would have real nice cuts, only to fire it up and find out Jan had mixed up some screws and one that was too proud collided with the blade. After he put the old blade back on they finished the cuts, but apparently there is about an eighth of an inch discrepancy overall. I’m not sure, but I’m assuming that’s due to the foundation being built out of scrap timbers laying in the yard.

I also spent a couple minutes this morning making some shirt designs for each of the building courses. I’m not sure if he’s going to want to make three different designs, or maybe just combine them into one design of all three buildings. Or maybe he’ll hate them all. Not sure.

Here they are:

That’s the Bents course design.

This is the Post and Beam design, but I liked the side view of this building better than the gable, so I did this one too:

This is the point where the blog post comes screeching to a halt due to exposure to a photo of my love I shouldn’t have looked at. I guess that’s what you get for being curious. Karma sure does work quick when it comes to the little things. Fuck you Flickr.

I love you Captain. I wish I had you to hold and pat your butt. I was never allowed to tell you, you were my favourite, but you are and always will be and I miss you so much.
Gabriola, Life, Log building, Love, Random, Sketchup
Cobras, come-alongs, clothing, cravings
09.09.09 | Permalink | Comment?

I got zero drawings complete today, but I did get a ton of work done on about three or four different ones simultaneously. The ones I’m on now are all the harder ones. Some aren’t that hard, but they are a lot of work, and are usually pretty hard on my machine, which slows the whole process and frustrates me. I normally prefer to work on one drawing at a time, but since James has limited time for me it’s better to do one to the point where I can’t proceed without talking to him, then moving on to another one (or two) until I have time at either lunch or the end of the day to ask him questions regarding all of them.

It worked out okay today since I had to model a bunch of little random things that are included in the remaining drawings. Mostly just stupid things like kickers, strong backs, and a spreader bar (funny story – I did a google image search to find out what spreader bars commonly look like, and I got a bunch of images of people using wheelchair hoists to get on the toilet… I kind of wanted to model one for a joke and put it in the drawing and show James then act like I didn’t realize that wasn’t what he meant), but I also modeled a sweet come-along.

You’re probably thinking “Are you serious? that’s sweet?”, and the answer is yes. It’s DEADLY. I showed it to Zack and he said “Oh my god, that thing is awesome!” Then I showed it to James tonight because we were discussing the drawing the come-alongs appear in, and his reaction was “You made that!? Wow!”. So there you go. Both a 58 year old man, and an 18 year old kid agree I’m “the shit” when it comes to modeling come-alongs, which will appear about the size of a fingernail clipping in the actual drawing.

I also did some rough drawings for a shirt for the school. People were asking for log shirts, which does make sense considering a lot of people take just one of the courses, and would ideally want to buy a shirt with a frame they built on it. So James and I were talking about it tonight, and he asked me to try a couple things, if it wasn’t too much work. I didn’t really feel like getting back to work after we talked, so I just made a few quick designs. I prefer the colour one, but I imagine it will only be one colour on a shirt.

Tomorrow is James’ birthday, so maybe I’ll print these off for him and write happy birthday on them.

I setup the new router today too, and it’s working sweet. I’m going to try and finish getting Deadwood finally. I’m tired of everything I have here, and when I’m eating I like watch something. I’m killing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Tomorrow is Holly’s busy day, so we won’t get to talk much until later on. I hate days like that. I want nothing more than to be back there and hanging out with her, waking up beside her, doing fun things with her. I was going to talk to James about booking a flight today, but I think I might continue to wait. I don’t know how he’s going to react at all. Maybe I’ll wait until we’ve had a few beers one night. Maybe I’ll get him beers for his birthday, then ask him…
Gabriola, Life, Photos, Random
Creepy cobra cat chimera
09.07.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Today was the first day of classes here, and last night was definitely my worst night of sleep in here. I had multiple kitty nightmares (I miss you so much kitty crew) and froze most of the night. I fell asleep with the windows and doors wide open, and the air mattress I sleep on (like all air mattresses) gets fucking cold! It’s nice sleeping with the doors open so I may try it again tonight, but this time sleep inside my sleeping bag, instead of using it as a comforter.

I only met a handful of the students today because I was so busy, and so were they. The ones I did meet seemed nice, but a couple seemed a little odd. Two seem really young, and I believe they are friends taking the courses together. Last night was their first night on the island and they got drunk and crashed their car, totaling it, and losing one of their licenses. Tonight they were going to try and buy a new car, and try again, with the other guy as driver from now on. Another guy I met is from Ottawa. I think this is his first time out of Ottawa he said, but I wasn’t really listening – I’ve got too much going on to pay attention to small talk, and things that don’t concern me. I’ll make an effort to meet everyone tomorrow morning. I think I need to be very social and approachable if I’m going to be teaching, so I best take this chance to practice up.

Zack and I went exploring briefly today, in the fields behind James’ house. We were looking for quick access to the water, and we found it. Unfortunately it was on someones property, so we just came back to the school and smoked some weed in his fridge (no I didn’t get in a 17cu ft refrigerator with Zack, he is staying in an old walk in freezer at the moment). While we were smoking he told me about how inspired he was after I showed him Man On Wire the other night, and how he spent a few hours planning and gathering supplies to setup a high wire at the school. He’s hoping to have it ready to assemble soon, and even talked about putting over water possibly. I’m curious to see how it turns out. I have no doubt he will actually do it, but whether or not it will work, or is worth the effort, is something I question. If it works, watch for a video of me walking a high wire while juggling!

Above and below are pictures Naomi took of me carting James back over to his house, after we had a few beers over at the trailer. It was the day after (or possible two days after) his paragliding accident, and he was going to attempt the 150 yard walk through the woods, on his crutches. Normally I would have watched and laughed, but he asked me to wait up for him, and I was impatient. I told him to hold on a sec, and grabbed a wheelbarrow from the work site. He jumped in, beer in hand, and we made it safely back in a fraction of the time it would have taken if he walked. It was good times.

Now I have to go watch a special video, do some work, watch that video again, and then get to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to get 4 drawings done in one day, as well as get the new wireless router James bought up and running. All that while worrying about money I thought I had (several times now), missing Holly and my kitties, and trying to adhere to regular school rules. i.e. no smoking while I work, or anywhere near where I work. Should be an easy day.

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