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Life

Book stuff, Life, Sketchup
Just skip this one
01.03.11 | Permalink | Comment?

If you’re as tired of reading about the never ending saga that is this book, as I am writing about it, then follow the title’s advice. If you haven’t had enough (or perhaps you love to read about my misery) then feel free to carry on.

Since my last book related post I’ve had plenty of time to get the majority of the book redone in the new layout style which James actually liked. With the boys at their father’s house for a week and Holly super busy at work, I’ve been working a lot more than usual. I had only one short chapter left to layout yesterday when James called (Sunday is his favourite day to call and have long chats and add to my workload) and informed me that he wanted to change the layout again.

After looking at other books, he came to the conclusion that most books printed at 8.5″ x 11″ use two columns of text rather than one. His solutions are either re-size the entire book, or switch to a two column format and keep the current size. Either option results in me starting over (essentially from scratch) yet again. This wouldn’t be quite as disappointing if I hadn’t have already brought this all up at the beginning of this project, and he said it was fine. I don’t see how something so important could be ignored or avoided for so long. These things should have been decided on before layout began. I even suggested he find his printing company before we began the layout so we could avoid any potential issues, and have a better idea of what sizing to go with.

I fought off yelling “FUCK!” into the phone, and informed James that I had almost completed the new layout of the first book, and asked him to please look at what I had so far before deciding it wasn’t good enough. I also suggested he find a print-on-demand service that could fulfill our needs and provide us with a one chapter sample (I figure if he can see what it will actually look like he’ll decide it’s fine, and not something that goes against all the rules of book creation) for now, and a finished product in the near hopefully near future. I really hope he figures it all out and makes a firm final decision soon.

Before I hung up he also added some more work to my already intimidating load. It turns out he’s decided we need to show people some more examples of what you can do with simple modular post and beam construction, and therefore we need to add some images of other P&B houses. One of the examples he wants to include is an image of his old house, which is now the ISBA student residence. I was excited at the idea of getting to model this building, as it’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever seen. Instead, James suggested he take his old book and get it photocopied, then mail me the image. I tried to convince him it would be better and more consistent if I put the effort into modeling it. He was completely against the idea so I told him to leave it to me, and I’d see what I could do.

Today I sent him an email with the image above. It’s a photo I took of the image in his old book, then fiddled around with until it looked decent. In the email I made one last plea for the ‘Okay’ on modeling the house, but I doubt he’ll even read it. It always amazes me how many corners he tries to get me to cut considering he’s one of the hardest working, most motivated people I’ve ever met.
Life, Photos
Christmas with the Cobras
12.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Xmas morning started out with Roan waking Holly and I up and letting slip that he had violated the rules of xmas and peeked at everything before waking Holly up. Then everyone gathered in the living room while the boys tore open their gifts. After Holly gave Roan his last gift he looked at the massive pile of Halo toys and art supplies and asked “That’s it?”. I guess twice his weight in gifts isn’t quite enough. Holly and I left him and Gage to play Halo and went downstairs to rock some Call of Duty before heading out for the day.

We dropped the boys at their father’s house, then Holly and I went to my aunt and uncle’s house in Welland for lunch. The whole family was there, babies and all. Lunch was delicious (the vegetarian lunch that is, can’t offer any opinion on the Death Bird) and afterward my Uncle put his Santa suit on so people could get photos of the babies with Santa. Holly and I jumped on his lap first then grabbed our coats and headed home. The plan was to go back out for dinner at her aunt’s house, but instead she napped an I played games and made robots.
Life, Photos
Cobra Christmas customs
12.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

When I was a kid our Xmas tradition consisted of this: I’d sleep like shit all xmas eve, constantly waking up thinking it was time to open presents. By 6am I couldn’t take it anymore, and I’d start peeking at things in my stocking which my mum always hung over the bedpost once I was asleep. That was my parents’ way of keeping me from staring them awake (when I was a kid I didn’t want to wake my parents up, but sometimes I wanted them to be awake so I could ask them something, so I’d stand in their doorway and stare at them until one of them woke up – creepy). Eventually I’d start to make too much noise and my mum would come get me, then wake up my brother (who I always slightly resented because he slept in longer than me, and it meant I had to wait for him to get up on xmas morning) and my dad.

My dad would light a fire and my mum would start breakfast while my brother and I tore into our stockings. We’d eat breakfast (usually muffins or turnovers, something easy to eat) while we opened gifts and tossed the wrapping paper into the fire after each one. We would have an hour or so to play with our toys while my parents got ready to head out for the day. Then we’d tidy up the toys and pile in the car.

My Nan’s house was always our first stop, and we usually got there well before lunch. We would all sit in a big circle with a large cardboard box in the middle (we literally used the same cardboard box for every xmas I remember), one person would get named ‘Santa‘, and they would be responsible for dishing out the gifts. After we opened everything we ate. A short time later we’d gather all our gifts and pile back into the car. We would drive (and sometimes I’d walk) over to my Gram’s house, which was less than 500m away.

I always remember the smells of walking into each grandparent’s house. My nan’s house would smell like a roast, my gram’s like roast and cigarettes. The one major difference in the two family occasions for me was the frequency in which I saw the relatives we were with. My mum’s family all lived in the same city. My dad’s family was spread out all over southern Ontario. It was rare to have all of my dad’s family together. At my gram’s, we would have another stocking to open, then another round of gifts. Then everyone would hover around the main floor kitchen (gram had 3 full kitchens in her house! and they all got used on xmas) and eat veggies and blue cheese until dinner was ready.

After dinner, there was a constant flow of people gathered around the pinball machine. For me, that pinball machine is an icon which represents those fun family memories. I managed to be lucky enough to inherit the pinball machine about ten years ago, but have rarely been able to have it in my ‘home‘. My parents have been more than kind in housing it and even paying for storage for it when I was homeless and broke (don’t get me wrong, I’m still broke). Recently my parents hired movers to bring it back to their house and I’m really glad they did. On xmas eve we went to my parents’ house for dinner and gifts, and I got to play pinball for the first time in almost 3 years. It really felt like xmas to me once we had a crowd gathered around the machine.
Angry Art, Life, Love
Merry Christmas cobras
12.26.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

I spent last night and today hanging with Holly, the boys and my family. I’ll post a full update about all the celebrations later, but for now here’s an Xmas rendering I did this afternoon while Holly was napping.

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and I want to tell all my friends I love them and wish them all the best.
Life, Photos
A model idiot
12.23.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Monday night was the annual Kicking the Christ Out of Christmas, Klopeks show. We had planned to go, along with Syx and Taryn who came by after checking out of their honeymoon suite and took me to breakfast at the Flying Saucer. Just before Holly got home, it started snowing pretty bad. We all decided to stay in, and I was absent at yet another Klopeks show. I miss Klopeks shows.

I still had a great time hanging out with Holly and the newlyweds, watching East Bound and Down, and smoking fat dubs. The next morning Syx and Taryn joined me for my morning coffe walk, then I asked for a lesson in photography. Syx is an amazing photographer, and knows a ton. My only interest in learning about basic photography is out of a desire to be able to light my renderings better. Most of the images I produce can look incredibly different just by changing a few basic camera settings. I unfortunately have no idea what any of them do.

Syx did his best to explain white balance and temperatures to me, and I think I got a good chunk of it. He also gave me a hands on lesson while forcing me to get my picture taken (not fond of having other people take my picture, see: low self-esteem). I got my first taste of the other type of modeling. The two photos above were taken by Taryn with her iphone. Syx had me put them up on my monitors while he took a bunch of photos. I was pretty uncomfortable, but fortunately for me the photographer insisted I be smoking a joint in the photo. I’ll take discomfort and fat joints over plain old discomfort anyday.

I’m hoping Syx will email me the finished product, because I’ve never seen anyone look bad or awkward in any of his photos, and I’ve never seen a photo of myself (well, very few) where I’m not awkward or looking like shit. Maybe a nice portrait will boost my self confidence…
Life, Love, Photos
Back to blogging
12.23.10 | Permalink | Comment?

As some of you may have noticed, my blog has been put back to normal. I’ve been asked to restore it since the day I started removing things, but had been reluctant to do so until Holly had made a firm decision on her policing future. I was afraid I’d ruin things for her, but I don’t think it matters anymore.

This weekend past, we went to Wheatly for a wedding celebration. Our friends Syx and Taryn got married in Vancouver in August, and since a lot of their family and friends are located in Ontario they also held a reception type celebration back here.

Holly and I went up with Pepper (who is distancing himself from his true identity) and Chantal on Saturday morning. We stopped for lunch, then went and found a cheap, shitty motel that had two joined rooms for $60 in Leamington. It cost us $20 (including $5 tip!) to get a cab to the party, and the hosts were kind enough to provide free drinks until 6:30. I guess what I’m saying is, it was a cheap weekend for the most part.

Just before dinner I had a conversation with Chantal while we were sharing a smoke. I think we were both a little drunk at that point (I rarely drink, it doesn’t agree with me) and we got into some deep, interesting conversation. We eventually cut it short since we were the only ones not taking part in dinner. I unfortunately didn’t find much I would eat at the party, and ended up having a bun. It went nicely with the bagel I had for lunch (<- sarcasms). The only other thing I consumed was a pot cookie and almost a dozen beers.

After the party cleared out, the bride and groom, along with the groom’s brother and all of us staying in our motel headed over to some shitty little strip club in Leamington. It was classy (<- double sarcasms). There was an agile little stripper who did some interesting acrobatics (along with some nasty stripper things) to this song. It was strange. We stayed there until they kicked us out, then walked back to the motel.

Orbax shared our rooms, and between him and Pepper snoring and trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night, I didn’t get a wink of sleep. The next morning I was hurting. We had to check out and meet Syx, Taryn and their family for breakfast and I was dying. We got to the restaurant and I attempted to take part, but I had to ask Holly for the keys so I could go wait in the car. I didn’t make it to the car. I barfed all over a snow bank near the car, got a dirty wife-beater out of the trunk, and cleaned myself off, then headed back inside for breakfast. I didn’t eat anything, just some apple juice (my favourite juice!), but I felt a lot better.

The ride home was good, until we got to the falls. It literally turned into terrible roads the minute we hit the St Catharines / Niagara Falls border. When we got home the plan was to nap, but I suck at those. Instead we went out for nachos and drinks with Syx and Taryn who came down for a honeymoon. We had fun, then I finally got some decent sleep. When I got up Saturday morning I asked the magic 8-ball if the weekend would suck. It did not lie – I had a great time.
Book stuff, Life
I love what you’ve done here, now can you change it all and do it over again?
12.16.10 | Permalink | Comment?
I’m sure everyone is dying for an update on my book progress, so here:
1. A few days ago my work machine decided to die on me. Not sure why it died, or why it’s working now.
2. Had a panic attack over losing stuff that wasn’t backed up.
3. Got it back up and working and caught up on my back ups.
4. Died again (still no idea).
5. Got it back on just long enough to check emails.
6. Checked voice mail from days ago while it’s booting.
7. Received message James left on phone informing me that the book was basically done as far as he saw it.
8. Smiled.
9. Checked email to find an email from James (same James) informing me that he has decided to change the entire layout of the book.
10. Shook with anger.
11. Avoided replying to email for two days.
12. Started over from scratch this morning.
And if that wasn’t enough to make work suck, the office apparatus decided to die.
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*Disclaimer: Just because I put a green check mark on that exampleon the right does not mean I'm delusional enough to believe I'vedone anything correct and won't end up doing it all over again,many, many times. That would be foolish.
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Life
So bong and thanks for all the hits
12.16.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Eight years ago I lived a very different life. I had two jobs I worked 5 days a week. I had just taken a gamble and bought the tattoo shop I was learning to pierce at, and wasn’t willing to fail. I was making a lot of money and living in the cheapest, dumpiest part of town in the cheapest, dumpiest apartment one could find. I spent most days working early at a filthy car wash before heading to the tattoo shop for the rest of the day. My evenings were spent partying with friends and clients.

During that time one of my favourite people – my cousin Dave, came home from BC for a visit. It was around this time of year (he was home for xmas) and for some reason he and I ended up in a bong shop. He insisted on buying me a new bong, and a few minutes later we were christening a fine piece of Canadian made glass on my couch with no legs, in my shitty apartment.

Recently that very same bong has been what I refer to as the “office apparatus”. I use it semi-hourly regularly to clear my head and keep focused while working on things that bore my giant mind. My cousin was home last week and as we hit the bong we reminisced. I even bought a brand new bowl for us to use on the second night. I treat my bong well, clean it regularly, and am generally cautious with it at all times (thanks Larry). So it came as a huge shock to me yesterday when I discovered a crack, then floating shards of glass.

The bong is fine (I’m starting to think that thing will never die!) but the stem is trashed. The likelihood of me finding a suitable replacement stem is slim to none. I will try, but I think in the meantime I’ll get something small and cheap. I picked up a neat little vaporizer today, but I don’t think I can use it exclusively. Now if I had one of these, I’d use it and only it (I think).

Bye bye bong. Hopefully you’ll return with a vengance.
Life
Classified cobra ops
11.30.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

The chronicles might look a little different to some of you regular readers, but this is how it’s going to stay for now (well, it’s also going to get even a little more edited, but for today I’m done). Someone I’ve made frequent mention of is considering a career change, and I don’t want to cause that person any problems. I’m sure the chances are slim to none that anything negative would ever spawn from something I wrote/posted here, but I would hate myself even more if I ruined this person’s chance at achieving their dreams.

It took a lot longer than I expected to remove all mention of that person (and a few others) from the first page of this blog. It turns out I mention them far more often than I thought. I guess maybe that’s proof I love them. I have a lot more posts to remove, then there is the matter of establishing code names. I think I’ll let everyone pick their own.
Animals, Life, Photos
Cobras are at Cat-pacity
11.03.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Tonight, Holly took Roan and I out for dinner at the mall food court (we’re classy like that). After we ate I took Roan to the Humane Society Adoption Center while Holly wandered over to Cole’s for some new books. When we got inside the area with all the cats, I immediately went on a tortie hunt. I found one beautiful tortie, and two really cute calicoes. Unfortunately the tortie was a moody bitch, and the calicoes were just as shy as Tabbouleh so I didn’t play with them much at all.

Holly came in and right away spotted the lovely lady above. She was sleeping peacefully on the couch, and felt impossibly soft. She fell in love right away, and 20 minutes later we were buying a new litter box and smuggling the new cat into our bedroom. We’ve got to rename her yet. Her name is currently Arabelle. I’m pushing for D’argo, but Holly says she can’t have a boy’s name.

She’s definitely a cuddler. She wasn’t home five minutes and was already rubbing faces with all of us, and lying next to Holly on the bed. When we brought Tabbouleh home, she hid under the bed for a week. She only recently (after a year of me pampering her) got comfortable enough to come on the bed while one of us is in it. This new cat has already stolen my spot, and claimed it with a fart in Holly’s face.

I stole this picture from the HS site because I can’t seem to get a good photo of her pretty blue eyes. I’m glad I’ll have a new friend to hang with while Holly and the boys are gone. Hopefully all the others get along with her when we start to introduce them.

Anyone have name suggestions?