A week in the life

Living in a small town means I get some free community newsletters. Their definition of community covers more area than some European countries. The other day, there was an article about Hinton, and a new bylaw that has been passed. The new Anti-idling law. Vehicles that are left idling for more that 15 minutes can be fined. The fine is complaint based, so the cops won’t be looking for cars running in the IGA parking lot while their owners run in to grab a jug of milk.

This law is a big deal. People in this part of the world don’t shut their cars off when the temperature drops below 0. Are they afraid of getting cold? It is Canada after all. Walk through the Timmy’s parking lot at 7 am, and you will only see one car shut off, mine. Now this is only in Hinton, but it’s a start.

On a totally unrelated note, Rose had her grad dinner this past weekend. Along side with one of her classmates, Rose gave a great speech in front of her graduating class. It was a fun evening, and the margaritas were enjoyed by everyone. I’m getting excited that Rose is almost done school.

I just have to warn you, the Truck Room at the Fantasy Land Hotel is a whole new level of cheese. Way too many mirrors.

Sex and Candy

It surprises me that St. Valentines day isn't bigger than it already is. It takes time to celebrate some of the things that western culture deems as most important:

1. Buying stuff (Cards, flowers, balloons, whatever)
2. Eating Chocolates
3. Having Sex.

Personally, I'm all for skipping over number 1, go straight to the chocolate, and work our way down the rest of the list from there. And I know where there's a Caramilk bar with my name on it.....

Think you're funny?

Well, you may very well be. I'm laughing. It is, however, a fine line between laughing with you, and laughing at you.

Thanks to e-mail, people can share and pass on information, at an alarming speed. This is both good and bad. This has created people who indiscriminately pass on jokes, stupid pictures, and those little luvy-duvy poems that look like a they came from a hallmark staff member on crack. Now, if you come across something, and think, "I think Al would like to see that." Great, pass it on. But if you are sending some Joke-of-the-day, because some co-worker passed it on to you, and my name just happened to come up on your address book, don't do it. You're just pissing me off, and I'm liable to mention you by name in front of a group of people. Or worse, I'll pass your name on to a few friends that will fill your mail-box so full of stuff that would make whore blush, you'll wish your forward button broke. Look who's laughing now.

Oh look, it's that joke about the Qantas "squawk" list again. It's old. The first time I saw it, it was on paper. (you know, mail with out the e) How old is this joke? There is a line about "#3 engine missing." Turbine engines don't miss. Piston engines miss. I don't know when Qantas stopped flying anything with a piston engine, but in the late 70's they boasted the world's only all-747 fleet. Yup, it was funny.

But you want to add icing to the cake? Have somebody reply to your Joke d'jour by hitting the "reply-all" button. Great, now I have Two addresses to block.

The only thing to top it off is an E-card. I'd like to meet the cat-loving, "everybody-is-special", Yanni-Listening, shut-in that came up with that waste of bandwidth. They should be kicked outside without their security blanket and told to get on with their lives. E-cards are like e-mail, but worse. They play stupid music, they are loaded with pop-ups/spy-ware/spam. And they usually have some poorly written poem or verse that wouldn't cut it at an elementary school valentines day poetry reading. There is software available to stop spam, they should add e-cards to the list.

Sure, sombody will pipe-up and say that passing on these little 1's and 0's is a way of saying "I'm thinking about you." So then use your keyboard, and say "I'm thinking about you" It will go alot further. Tell me what you are thinking.

Recycle your cans, not your thoughts.

Nothing like family.....

To piss me off to a level that I can't believe. All it takes is one seemingly harmless e-mail, and my blood pressure will go up.

I'll admit that I'm not one to be pegged as an image of a family person. I forget birthdays and anniversaries, but I don't ask for any recognition of mine. And I'm not ever likely to phone just to say hi; small talk not being something I am good at, or enjoy.

Yet somehow, with the handful of times I do hear from my family, well, I wish I hadn't. Don't misunderstand, they have not done anything wrong to me. In fact, for the most part, I've been left to my own devices. Perhaps, a mixed blessing.

Personally, I have only asked for one thing from my family. I've been gone for 5 years, and they have yet to come north and see my life. It's a little hard to take. However that isn't what has me over the top.

I feel as though my sister has taken advantage of my parents. They have put their lives on hold to support and pay for hers. And now, she is moving on to start her new family, leaving her old family with her debt. With what appears to be little or no thanks. While my parents should be enjoying the golden years, they are still going to work. I understand that parents will do what ever it takes to help their children, but at the same time, some recognition and respect would be good. I fear that after all their years of hard work, my parents won't have a chance to enjoy the things they should. And I just don't understand how my sister will ever be able to re-pay the debt as she claims she will.

My sister is entering, what I can only imagine, is a very big time in her life. It is unfortuante that what should be a happy and exciting time for everyone in the family, is overshadowed in my mind by things that I have little or no control over.

In regards to the e-mail in question; If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. I'll just vent it all here.

Tropical Island

Over the past weekend I went to Jasper to take the Venturers skiing. Now, it's February. It's Canada. We were in the mountains. Put those things together, and one would be lead to belive it should be cold. You know, really cold. And there should be lots of snow on the ground.

But thanks to the efforts of modern man, such is not the case. The weather was hovering around freezing all weekend. The snow cover is thin. When you looked down the valley from the mountain, you saw colours like green and brown. But not a great deal of white.

Something is wrong. We need snow, or there won't be any moisture in the ground come spring. We need the cold to kill off some of these bugs that are eating our forests. If this keeps up, we will be in for one hell of a summer.

What about the skiing? We all had a good time. Everyone came home with all their limbs attached, however some were more usefull than others. But the weather was great.