Sparktoblog!

Memorial Madness

The Memorial Day weekend was certainly a much-needed change of pace for me. I took off Friday so that I would have a full 4-day weekend and a chance to relax. My sister and her new boy came into town on Friday night (with my new camera in hand) and we got a chance to get to know each other. We took a quick trip up to the Apple store in the U district so that I could grab an iPod mini for my mom. It's cool that we have nearly matching music players now (I have green, she has blue).

For dinner we all went out to the Wild Rose with a bunch of my friends (Janet, Dave, Ken, Mike, Cyn, Tres, Jake, Bago, James and myself if you must know) and had a gay old time. Speaking of gay old times we then went back to my place for a group showing of a highly acclaimed gay porn (family friendly version of course - we skipped all the sex scenes).

Come Saturday morning I had to get up early and go with Janet and Dave to Volunteer park so that I could get some couple shots for them. They really do make a cute couple and it was fun to do a session with them. Late in the morning they had to head down to Portland to see Dave's uncle and so he could introduce her to the rest of his family.

Sunday morning brought my friend Tye up from Walla Walla and we headed out to the Japanese Gardens to try out my new 10D. We got some cool shots of a Blue Heron eating a frog - Tye got much more excited about that then I did. I got a shot of some koi feeding that would have to rank in my top 10 favourite shots that I've pulled off. I love the balance that the diagonal line of koi gives, as well as the way the lighting came out.

Cold to the world for a while...

I have not had the energy or inclination to update my blog in the last couple of weeks. I've been pretty numb following Ann's death, and then trying to catch back up at work. I still wonder if I'm OK when I stop to think about how I deal with grieving - it seems almost like my brain would rather forget she ever existed than think about her not being here now. Taking a week off really threw me off on a couple of things and it's just now that I'm really getting caught up and ready to rock again.

Last week was pretty drained by work. Every day after I got home I just wanted to lay on my couch and play video games. Other than a couple of days where I got out with friends for dinner that's pretty much what I did. Last weekend was more of the same. I probably left my house for a total of a couple of hours, and aside from working from home for a bit on an emergency role ended up playing Knights of the Old Republic for a good 17 hours. I finally beat it playing through the good side and I have to admit I'm impressed. Other than Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean the Second Story, and the Final Fantasy series this is probably one of the most engaging games I've ever played.

I also got my ipod mini last week - Ian was over for our Hillchoad Mondays and the call came in so I dragged him over to Bellevue and we had yet another Apple product purchasing experience. I really have to say I'm impressed - the look, the feel, the weight, EVERYTHING about the mini is great. The only thing that I'm a little disappointed in is 4 gigs of storage space is really not enough, but for having a device smaller than my phone that I can literally have with me everywhere. It's small enough that I barely notice it while I'm running, and the sound quality (with my upgraded headphones) is incredible!

I'm going to try to get back into day to day blogging now that things have calmed down a little bit. I think it's important to keep a journal and the part of me that loves attention wants it to be a public one. Well off for now because I have to get back to work! I've got an afternoon full of sourcing, and then a nice evening planned doing dinner with Ken.

A sad, sad mother’s day…

The last week has been very hectic, but up until Sunday quite enjoyable. I spent a lot of time with friends, and have been keeping up with my running. On Sunday afternoon I was enjoying a nice mother’s day out. I have not had a chance to blog recently, and now that I write this I find myself with too much time with which to write an entry in. I had woken up early to call my mom and wish her well and that had gone well. Come the evening time I was getting ready to drive up to Greenlake for a run, and then do movie night with some friends. I was just pulling on my running shoes when my dad called me to inform me that a very close friend of the families had been out on a bike ride with my mom when she had been killed in an crash with a car. Ann was like a sister to my mom, her best friend, and it's taking a toll on us all.

Ann has been a guiding force in my life for as long as I can remember. When I was a little kid my mom was always riding bikes with her, and teasing me that one day I would end up in her English class in middle school. Eventually that fear came through and I was stuck in a class with a teacher that not only would not put up with my crap, but would also tell my mom about it every week after school while we were out riding bikes. Looking back it was probably one of the best things that ever happened in my education, but when I was back in middle school it was a nightmare. She seemed to be the only teacher that could keep me in line long enough to teach me anything.

Now I’m down here in Walla Walla for my mom. She was with her when she died and is taking it well considering that, but still needed family members here to support her. She’s doing a lot to supports Ann’s family, and to help make the arrangements for the funeral. I’ll have to head back into Seattle to get caught back up on my work on Friday, but until then I’m staying down here to support my mom and help her (and myself) through the natural grieving process.

Running with the Jedi

The last day or so has been really fun. On Sunday I got my Garmin Forerunner 201 and got to play with it on Monday. In keeping with the consumerist theme I also got Star Wars – Knights of the old Republic, a USB key chain hard drive, and a DVD burner for good measure. Monday was spent buzzing about at work taking care of things before I got to go home and play with my toys.

The Forerunner is great. I took it for my first run last night and enjoyed being able to tell just how far I had run. Somehow it makes exercise easier if I can quantify it. Once I got home I was able to hook it up to my computer and see all sorts of graphs about my performance. It will be interesting to see how as I get in shape I’ll run more (and faster), and walk less on my little outings. I’m at about 1.5 miles every other day right now with my run/walk routine, and my goal is to within a month have 2 miles every other day of straight running.

After the run I sat down and got into KOTOR. It’s a fun little game, and quite addictive. I found myself drawn into it, and more than 4 hours later I managed to put it down. My friend Ian came by after he got done at WinHEC to check out the game (he’s the one that turned me onto it in the first place) and browse around the net as our alter ego. A mutual acquaintance of ours named Jeremy came by for a while, but other than that is was a video-game centric evening.

So here I sit at lunch eating my veggie burrito and waiting for 5:30 to roll around so I can go run and play KOTOR. I’m surprised at how into the whole exercise thing I’m getting now that I’m actually doing it. I find myself looking forward to it almost every day. There is a part of me that wants to start running every day, but I’m worried that I’ll get burnt out if I start that too soon.

Wedding bells in Canada

What a fun week it’s been. The chairman has been in town which has been a drag, but due to a lot of other factors I’ve been feeling great (insert Nutrigrain advertisement here). I’m now a little over a week into my efforts to make me healthy. I’ve been running (with varying amounts of success) for about a week now, and have completely quit smoking. My asthma is bugging me quite a bit when I run, but I’m hoping as the last bits of crud get out of my lungs that will get better.

Working out every other day has made a huge difference in how I feel. I’ve had more energy, and felt better in almost every way. I’m sleeping less, feeling more alert, and eating less. I’m hoping that if I keep this up I can finally be one of the healthy, fit people and stop being overweight, out of shape, and sick all the time.

Aside from working out I’ve been keeping very busy. Every day this week I’ve been getting out of the house after work, doing things and seeing friends. I’ve met a few new people, including this really cool guy named Ken. The busyness is continuing into the weekend as my boss James is getting married to his sweetie Lynn up in Kamloops, BC. I took Friday off and drove slowly up to Kamloops taking pictures on the way. Here I sit in my hotel room after a run and some dinner relaxing and working on a few coding project that I’m getting started. Most of them will never go public, but keep your eye out to a completely new idea in blogging!

Saturday got off to a jolting start with a fire drill bright and early. I managed to stumble downstairs in my jeans, camera and laptop in hand. It was a sight to see a ton of little old ladies dressed to the tee standing around outside. It turns out that the British Columbian Women’s Institute is having their annual summit today, and I was invited in to take some pictures for them.

After that I headed down to the ranch to help James get set up for his wedding. I ended up playing audio monkey, and generally helping set up a few things. After that I headed into town to get a haircut. Anyone who knows me would have an appreciation for what a major event this is. My work wants me to cut it constantly, and I want longer hair so it’s always a fight. When my boss tells me to get my hair cut at work I pretty much ignore him because I don’t feel that my work should be able to infringe on my personal life. However when my boss asks me to cut my hair for his suit and tie wedding then I’ll do it – I feel a wedding is a sacred ceremony and deserves the utmost of respect (something our world seems to be lacking of late).

The ceremony itself was a beautiful thing. It’s always nice to see a couple that you think can really be together for the rest of their lives celebrate their love in such a special ceremony. James and Lynn had picked up a bit of a doof for a justice of the peace (he made a Lord of the Rings reference), but he did a great job. They had friends of theirs singing and reading poetry that they had written.

After the main ceremony I ended up taking some pictures and we all hung around having a grand old time. The reception was quite nice and I enjoyed hearing his mates tell us all sorts of interesting things about his past.

Come morning I headed down off the mountain to Abbotsford so that I could have some lunch with my grandparents. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them and it was good to hang out for a while. They are getting on in years and its sad to see them age like so and getting ready to face death. They seem to be handling it with some dignity so hopefully things will work out for the best long term. We ate chicken and had some gurks, talked about the cathedrals of Europe, and they told me about their travels.

The trip back had a moment of note at the border. For some reason they were looking for someone or something and thought I was it. They pulled me over and searched my car for a good hour and a half before finally letting me through. It’s sad that the terrorists have won like this and decent American citizens are being put through hassles like this in the name of security.