What a crappy, crappy, crappy day I'm having.

Here I sit on the tarmac in an immobile plane in Toronto. We've been here for two hours while a mechanic does something to the innards that makes the sound of a '69 Dodge Colt trying to start on a minus 40c February morning. I had maybe 3 hours of sleep last night due to the fact that I took a 12:30 am flight from Calgary to Toronto. When I reached Toronto, I was refused entry into the United States, as the Customs boys have very specific rules about non-Americans working in the States - you now need a letter of explaination from your company and the US company when you travel down to do work. I managed to get the address for the closest FedEx building but my cabbie couldn't find the said address and wasted about 20 minutes driving around an industrial park. At 8 am Toronto time, I was trying to find a crate for my parcel that I was to deliver and install, so at least it could get to where it was going so *someone* could install it. I finally got it into a box begged some some packing material from another company, then got it on its way. Then, Banana phoned me at 9:45 am crying and I couldn't console her.

I consider my business trip a failure, I feel that I've put the business in jeopardy and I'm cramped into a tiny airline seat and my knees hurt.

Did somebody say, "Road Trip?"

Here I am at an Internet terminal at the Calgary International Airport. I have found myself on the way to Conneticut for a work-related whirlwind tour. I have to go down there to talk nicely to some equipment, so one of the companies I support can have a website. The suspicion that I might be making this trip started on Monday and quickly congealed between 4 and 5 pm this afternoon. 5:30 saw me scurrying around the house, grabbing my passport and a clean set of boxers. I took the camera and may post some pictures of the wild ride when I get back. As tiring as this is going to be (flying ALL NIGHT to Toronto, then early commuter to Hartford, then rent a car and drive for an hour), I am looking forward to the adventure.

Whoops! I just had a spontaneous Monty Python moment.

Update time.

• I'm preparing to replace my dining room picture window with a set of garden doors. Never before have I made a five-foot wide hole in the wall of a structure that I wanted to continue living in. When I'm finished, it will be a beautiful set of double doors, opening out onto a four-and-a-half foot drop. Guess I should get to work on some deck plans, too.
  
• spring must be here, as the triathletes are beginning to show up in our master's swim team practices. I haven't been going to practice faithfully for the past few weeks, but when I am there, I can count on seeing at least four or five of 'em. The object of many a middle-age-woman's lust is one of these 160 pound wonders, whom I've dubbed Skinny Guy. One of the Broads has taken a shine to him. Sure, he looks hot in his Speedo, but I can still kick his ass (for fifty metres, anyway).
  
• work is a funny place these days. We're building something and I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say just what yet. Imagine a huge structure, totally surrounded by scaffolding, all covered in tarps, several stories high. People come and go from different levels at all hours of the day and night, carrying wood planks, steaming bowls of pasta, explosives, buckets of paint and manure, canoes and inflatable Zodiacs, cages with howling monkeys, Chinese throwing stars and 1960's lava lamps. Horrible and alluring cacophonies and syncopations are emitting from all over the structure in geysers of din and dissonance.
  
  My job has been to bring wires, batteries, balaclavas for everyone and 4 dozen freshly-baked lemon pound cakes. On Wednesdays I get to write speeches for the archbishop and mash kiwi fruit with my bare feet in one of the clawfooted bathtubs. It's the highlight of my week, I assure you. I enter on the fourth level scaffolding, northwest corner and leave through the ground level exit with exactly four and a half cups of stripped carriage bolts.
  
  Sometime soon, someone is going to tug on a cable, and all the sheathing and supports will fall away in one glorious and tumultuous collapse, leaving our company standing in the wide open business scape for all to see. I'll let you know when it's unveiled.
  
• I went through a bit of a blue funk, but I'm back to a muted yellow now.
  
• my dad's looking forward to his annual Father and Son and Son Father's Day golf game. I guess I should get out to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls before then.
  
• I think I've got a family reunion near Edmonton in the next month.
  
• Jenn was shown the results of some testing that was done during her recent interview and they are relatively certain that she is assertive and task oriented. Why didn't they just ask me?
  
• I am selling some old junk through the Bargain Finder, and no matter what I price it at, someone wants it for ten bucks less. Cheapskates!
  
• in answer to an ongoing mouse problem my mother-in-law is having, Jenn suggests at the dinner table that she get a cat. Resounding cheers sound from both my daughters. McMonkey tries her best to convince everyone at the table that bright-eyed Calico kittens would make excellent mousers.
  
• our van has finally rusted right through. You can see the ground through the door jamb when the driver's door is open. At only 276,000 kilometers. Crappy Fords.
  
• Our yard is home to two robin's nests, both of which contain four chicks. One nest is in the pine tree in front of the house and the other nest is on top of the floodlight in the carport. It pleases me to know that the birds chose our yard as a place to make their home.

That's all for now. I'll keep you informed as new stuff comes up.

I think I'll get a beer before I get started.

I'll be right back.

The amnesty from imagined sins of your innocent youth can never be too late in coming.

I spent the evening with an acquaintence who had changed from a wild, reckless party girl to a mature but edgy mom of three. A conversation regarding her son and his behaviors freed me from shackles I was unaware of.

Thank you.

This weekend was a long weekend here in Calgary and I made an encouraging observation - all the stores were closed.

We (as a society) have leaned towards valuing success in business over personal, non-working time. In years past I've noticed more and more flyers advertising long weekend "sales". Big department stores, specialty boutiques, car dealerships, electronics stores, even some little mom-and-pop shops - they all seemed to be open and ready for business. If there was a sale on, that meant that everyone had to be working. "If everyone's working, who's meant to be at the sale," I often pondered. No one seemed to come to the same conclusion I did. In fact, right up to last year, it seemed to get worse with each passing holiday.

This spring, I noticed that for some reason, the trend seemed to be reversing. Today (Monday), I had the luxury of not having to work. In my travels, I noticed that the majority of places of business that I passed where ... closed. Phew. Finally, everyone gets a rest. Could it be that the events of September 11th have reminded everyone of what really is most important in life?

I have a feeling that society is getting around to valuing mental health and time with friends and loved ones.

I keep thinking of cool things I can make technology do around the house - wireless networking, server file storage, virtual private networking to my office, network access throughout both floors .... I can't seem to find a reason to do any of this, though.

Technology is outstripping my needs.

I came in to work today to find that due to a breakfast meeting, several trays of fruit and baking had been left as surplus. It put everyone in the office in a good mood.

Dried papaya - yum!

Stayed up late tonight to watch the last episode of The Amazing Race. For the first time since, oh, the original late-60's Star Trek, I watched a series from start to finish and found it terribly entertaining. The characters were good, but the premise was even better. Race against teams where plotting against each other was shown time after time to NOT WORK. Paying close attention to details, reading instructions carefully and using good traveller sense was the way to win. Watching the show also gave the viewer a whirlwind tour of the famous sights of Brazil, South Africa, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Some of these real-time, real-people "competition" shows focus on building alliances and rely on the other contestants deciding who is going to be eliminated. On The Amazing Race, it was all about getting to the finish line first. One incident even accentuated the need for teams to be respectful of each other. One of the more ruthless teams had lost a piece of crucial information and other teams had a copy of the required info. Neither of the two remaining teams would share their info with the first team. Also, the more ruthless team made an attempt to deliberately sabotage another team. The attempt ended up backfiring and cost the perpetrators victory in that segment of the race.

After watching that show, Jenn and I tuned into some late-night trailer trash TV called Elimidate. The premise of this show was that one guy (in this episode it was a guy) took four potential suitors on a date, asking three of them to leave, one by one, on the course of the date. My gosh, what has society lowered itself to? Are people really THIS desperate for a date? I was appalled at more than a few things.

• the chauvinistic manner of the guy (who was obviously reveling in the attention of the four women)
  
• the cruelty of the guy to the women, fawning over each of them, in turn, ignoring the others while he nuzzled with the particular chosen one of the moment
  
• the degrading, embarrassing questions that he put to each of them about their past sexual encounters and preferences
  
• the fact that the women were willing to put up with the creep
  
• what the women would do or say to remain part of the "date"

One of the activities in determining who would be ousted from the little menage-a-cinq was the guy asking each of them in his best macho-dude-swagger, "What would you do, how far would you go to finish this date with me?"

I was waiting for one of them to say, "I'd put up with being seen with you in public and make myself look like a lonely, desperate trouser leech," but it never happened.

I guess I'm just not open-minded enough to watch post-midnight TV.

You go, girl.

The minor demographic of the great unwashed that makes heavy use of vulgarity are a constant source of amusement for me. I'm not sure if this is a recent thing, but the advective (and often pronoun) of choice has shifted from the relatively tame "damn" to the abrasive and hard-consanant-ending "f^ck" (I've altered the word not out of modesty, but out of the desire to keep my search engine hits to a minimum). Certainly, they can't be aware that they're regularly using it in casual conversation. I long for the days (if they ever existed) where people were careful with the language they brandished.

Case in point: I was striding through the +15s today as I passed a teanage grunge-goth couple, ambling through the overhead walkways of our fair city. I am about three meters ahead of them when she says to he: "... an' I was over at her f^cking house, and I left my f^cking boots there. That was last week, an' she won't gimme my f^cking boots back."

Still striding along, I turned to look at them and said, "You have special boots for f^cking?? Cool."

She gave me the quizzical, raised-eyebrow Elvis snarl, then about two seconds later, he guffawed. I live for moments like that. Do you think I reached either of them?

See if you can bumfuzzle someone today. I just did.

Hmmph.

I've received three of these "Get To Know Each Other" surveys via e-mail. I'll fill this one out if you promise not to send me any more.

1. LIVING ARRANGEMENT?
A 3 bedroom bungalow, same as I grew up in. Shared with my wife, Jenn, two daughters, Banana and McMonkey, Devon the dog and a never-ending parade of quickly-killed fish.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Dot Bomb, by J. David Kuo

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Cookie crumbs.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Backgammon. An oldie but a goodie.

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Print Magazine. I'm drawn to the visuals.

6. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Due to my anosmia, I don't have any.

7. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
The happy, tuneless songs of young children who are content and unaware that society disapproves of people being joyful without just cause.

8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Waking up after a heavy sleep and realizing you are late for something.

9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Been there, asked that.

10. FAVOURITE COLOR?
Used to be yellow, but I'm more a bluish person now. Some days, it's brown.

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Must I?

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
All done procreating. It's enough work keeping track of the ones I've got already. I may get another dog someday and name it Hoover.

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Reduce suffering. (Wow. Can't believe I boiled it down to two words, but it works.)

14. FAVOURITE FOODS?
Chocolate chip cookies, caesar salad, cajin-grilled chicken breast, oriental-style fried rice, dry Chilean red wine.

15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Vanilla.

16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Nope. I only enjoy the speed of human- or gravity-powered locomotion.

17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Hey! That's my WIFE you're taking about!

18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Way cool.

19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A 1972 Toyota Celica, bless it's now-rusted-out soul. It looked just like this one.

20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE WHO WOULD IT BE?
Abraham Lincoln. I'd like his perspective on the changes that have taken place in 150 years.

21. FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
Coffee and white coconut rum.

22. FAVORITE NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
Water.

23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
All the time.

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Shepherd.

25. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Mallard Duck Green.

26. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Oh yes. And then some.

27. IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?
Half full - and the rest is potential.

28. FAVORITE MOVIES?
Joe vs. The Volcano. The Sixth Sense. The Maltise Falcon. Star Wars. A Christmas Carol (the one with Alastair Sim). maybe Spiderman - I'll tell you tomorrow.

29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
That's where they start, then they go all over the place. Mrs. Danyluk (my Grade 10 typing teacher) would be so proud.

30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Christmas wrapping paper, dust bunnies and the skeltons that wouldn't fit in the closet.

31 WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
42.

32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?
Sports are for doing, not watching.

Go Blake! Go Paige!

If you know what I'm talking about, you watch too much TV.

What I expect archeologists would say if they were to find my office, perfectly intact, a thousand years from now:

"I wonder what all these cables were supposed to attach to."

Work at the treehouse is busy, busy. Even though this job is everyone's primary source of income *and* we've all put in some of our own money to make this thing run, something is different from our eyewire days. I (for one) am more relaxed about the outcome.

For example, I set aside my nose-to-the-grindstone, gonna-get-fired-any-moment paranoia last week long enough to take care of some personal business and as a result, wasn't in the office for the promised 32 hours. Normally, this would cause waves of forboding, expecting at any minute to see any one of my colleagues walk up to me and say "Sean, we see you're not pulling your weight. Get the hell out of here." Just as some of these feeling would start to well up in me, a little voice would remind me of the many, many hours of volunteer time I had put in over the past few months and most certainly will be putting in over the next month or two. Suddenly, the guilt just rolled off me like rainwater from a freshly waxed car.

Thank goodness for rational thought.

In past entries I've made reference to The Treehouse. Although I do have a very nice treehouse that I built for the kids and myself in the backyard, that's not the one I'm referring to.

When Brad Z., former owner and CEO of EyeWire, resigned from his position as CEO, he was financially independent (that means rich). He didn't have to work again for the rest of his life, as long as he didn't hit the VLTs too often. I didn't hear much from him for some time afterwards. I assume he was taking a well-deserved break after piloting the EyeWire steamship.

Late last year, I became aware that he had rented 3000 square feet of office space and set up shop about a block and a half from the EyeWire building. He most likely was underfoot at home and his wife had urged him to get out of the house. To him that meant get an office and find some businesses to dabble in. The next thing you know, he and a bunch of his well-to-do buddies were holed up in one corner of a high rise in southwest Calgary, trying their hand at several ventures and projects, much like a grownup version of a clubhouse. But a clubhouse with a view (a magnificent view, I might add).

A Treehouse, you might say.

My initial post-eyewire contact was to assist him with network cleanup (the last guy hadn't done a great job of keeping his clients satisfied). This just sort of picked up since then. I now support all of his pet companies' technical support needs.

And I couldn't be happier.

I've had to put Geek and Company on the back burner, but I'm OK with that. I feel that Geek and Co. will only get better with age. I will relight the fire under it as soon as I'm done here (three to five years out, I'm guessing).

I often find myself slipping into the use of chauvinistic humor. I know this isn't a cool thing to do for a new age guy in these politically correct times, but I can't help myself.

Get me a beer while you're in the kitchen, Edith.

Har har har!

After producing a very respectable result of 2:08.03 for 21 kilometres in Vancouver, Jenn is back.

Thank goodness. I couldn't find the instructions for the dishwasher and we were almost out of clean plates.

Jenn's off to do her first half-marathon ever. She's been training hard, becoming fit and making her spouse immensely proud and envious. She is tricked out with the latest in techno gear, including MP3 player, heart rate monitor and chronometer/speedometer. I bet you thought *I* was bad for gadgets. Go get 'em, kiddo.

The race is in Vancouver - she boarded the plane a few hours ago and is probably sprawled across the queen-size hotel bed as I type this. She's trusted me to keep the kids clean and healthy for three whole days. As long as toaster still works and the case of Eggos doesn't thaw out, we'll be fine.

I just finished a favorite activity of mine - carrying my sleeping, angelic, rapidly growing daughters from my bed into their own beds. I'm sitting on our sofa, making a blog entry using my laptop and our new wireless home network, all the while enjoying Chopin's Nocturnes.

Contentment is wealth.

I wonder if there's any chocolate chip cookies in the house?