unfair....

life is unfair. karma is bullshit. i don't say this to complain, it's just a friendly reminder. let me give you an example, say.... my life yesterday.

my brother: calls to discuss my mom's birthday present 2 days before her birthday. and is somewhat shocked to hear we already have something, and aren't interested in going together on his last minute gift certificate idea. goes out, buys his gift certificate, returns home, realizes he doesn't have his shiny new blackberry. figures it's the last place he used it - the office - and goes to pick it up before heading out to banff. gets to the office, and there it is on his desk.

me: wakes up to a cold house, and a noise that sounds like an angry garage door opener trying to kill a cat. waited until the entire house was up a couple hours later, and then went downstairs to find out what was happening. ayup - the furnace motor for the blower is dead.

phone my local plumbing and heating shop that is a dealer for my furnace brand... closed until the new year. phone choice number two, whew, they're open today. good thing too, because they're closed for the next 3 due to the long weekend new year holiday. rip the dead motor out and haul it with me. drive down, pick up the new one, drive back.

phone rings... it's some guy who found a brand new blackberry on the street. he checked the last call made, and dialed it hoping to find out who owns it. chat for a bit, turns out he's right outside my brother's office - and he offers to drop it off since he knows where it is. great. phone the office and check that he really did - yup. guy at the office says "weird, couple minutes after marc left, someone came in and dropped off his cell phone."

kill the gas. kill the breaker. disassemble the furnace as much as possible for cleaning, remove the blower. rewire the new motor, reassemble the furnace. realize the gas valve that i had trouble moving with a wrench is easily moved by finger pressure. crap. all testing indicates no leak, so what the hell - i've spent 5 hours on the cold concrete floor or outside in freezing weather - fuck it, time to fire this thing up.

nothing explodes. good. heat? yes. blower motor? nada. wait. nada. wait. nada. kicks in. whew. clean up and head upstairs.

get a phone call from my brother - he got back to the office to pick up his blackberry he forgot there, and picked up the voice mail i left telling him he had lost it. he didn't' even realize it had been lost. what!?!? not even a little stress? argh! horseshoes up your ass. lucky fucker for no good reason.

the moral: there is no moral. i used to believe in karma... that those who did good would have good returned, that those who were assholes would get theirs. but it never seems to happen. so i've lost faith in it.

life happens.

my theory is that those who are capable, wind up with responsibility. those who can't really deal with life, get to float through without having to. what. the. fuck.

figures, don't it.

well, happy new year everyone.

(just wait till you hear my thoughts about new year's resolutions....)

way too funny.....

ok. i don't count this as a real post, but this was funny.....
ok go

(or if you're browser won't display, click here....)

better....

ok, i do have to admit christmas memories are getting better. and i have my son to thank.

i went upstairs to go to bed, only to discover at some point since he went to bed, he's gotten up, crawled into our bed, and taken it over to sleep in.

he's a funny monkey.

time to move him and hit the sack. morning comes early, and my alarm clock rarely ever sleeps in.

merry christmas....

i sit here on christmas eve, with a few seconds to spare. i can't believe it's already christmas. and i have mixed feelings.

there's been a lot that's happened around christmas, and sometimes that christmas 'spirit' is challenged. it's funny how negative occurrences have such a deeper impact than positive ones.

i've buried too many people around the holidays. grandparents. uncles. son.
i've been left, by a spouse.
and then i've got family to deal with.

they're not the best, but they're not the worst by far either. that being said, i'm good for about 2 hours, and then i've had enough. i fully realize this likely says much more about me, than about them. be that as it may, that's the way that it is.

i've got some thinking to do as well, once i get through the holidays. need to stop, and take some time. i'm guessing some of it will end up here.

so there may be some extremely boring, long-winded, introverted, whiny, suck ass posts in the near future. because it's finally starting to hit home that if i don't deal with some of this, it will kill me. at the least, continue to have unwanted impact. melancholy? perhaps. tired? yes - and not just physically.

merry christmas, and happy holidays, to all of you. take care of yourself.

we'll see you again soon. yup... good times ahead.

----
melancholia I, by albrecht durer. taken from wikipedia.

100....

i do believe this is post 100. so in honour i give you this years tree.

having had a perpetual run of colds since i returned from holidays, combined with work issues due to budget season and several large projects, stress, anger, car repairs, the flu, combined with christmas season shopping, planning, wrapping and the making of a large number of gifts this year, and you'll understand why i've been extremely bad about blogging.

ok, worse than normal. not to mention i was frustrated with some blogger issues the last time i did have time.

i'd like to thank everyone that has stopped by to see if anything has changed. and i'd like to apologize as i haven't kept up on my blog reading either.

but i'm in holiday mode now, and in a few days i'll stop reaching for my blackberry. and making time for myself.

i'm starting to learn a few things. finally.

so, realizing that i may not have the chance over the next few days, i'll take this opportunity to wish you all a merry christmas. happy holidays, and the season's best to all of you.

be good to yourself.

organimized....

warning... geek oriented post. proceed at your own risk.

my biggest challenge with everything going on (especially at work) is being able to remember and organize it.

i had a friend suggest a wiki. but most of those require a server backend of some type. although there are now several free online wikis available that have recently become available - and google bought out jot, which was supposed to be a really great pay service that should now become free when they finish merging the technology. eventually. a couple i ran across that are free (because they advertise inside your wiki) can be found here. i haven't tried these, but if you're interested....

• http://www.xwiki.com
• http://www.schtuff.com

for a while i was using wikidpad - a windows based program that was self contained, and generated a wiki that was easy to access. the problem then of course became accessing the files from more than one spot.

the same friend also recommended a book he had heard about called 'getting things done' (hereafter referred to as "gtd") by david allen. i bought it, and it seems interesting - i've been meaning to get into it in my spare time at work. it uses a couple of basic organization concepts to help streamline the mess. wikidpad had a 'to do' style plugin to assist in the gtd style which was nice.

imagine the thrill i felt when i was hunting through personal wikis a couple days ago, when i discovered tiddlywiki. a single page application based wiki. and cool too. go look. play. check out the javascript in the source code. it'll make your head spin. to be honest i think i skipped it when i was first looking because it uses 'tiddlers' - which made me sort of shake my head. i'm glad i went back and took a second look.

then i found a version based on tiddlywiki called monkeygtd. monkeygtd is a version that uses a set of gtd plugins, and has been designed for projects. bliss. nirvana. and if you don't like monkeygtd, try d3 - a kinkless based gtd (kinkless being a set of applescripts for creating a gtd framwork in omni outlinerpro on mac)

and then to top it off.... i discovered tiddlyspot. so what you ask.... tiddlyspot is a free hosting service that creates a tiddlywiki based wiki. no installation. update it online and offline. so as long as you have a net connection, you're good to go. and they have 6 basic templates - 2 of which are gtd oriented - monkeygtd & d3.

i think i just died and went to heaven.

i hope you'll join me