Month: January 2020

Many, many moons ago, when my lovely wife and I got engaged, she bought me a lovely Gibson guitar and a sweet Marshall amp. We didn’t have children then, and our fur baby came along about a year after we got married, so for the longest time I could crank up my amp and play for ninety minutes or more in a day without a care. But since we’ve had children I had to curtail my musical endeavours in favour of nap time, for the sanity of everyone in our household. But, my Marshall amp is awesome, as i said before, and it came equipped with a emulated head phone jack. But i could never get it to just output through the jack alone, and not blast through the speaker aswell. I figured, for a very long time, that i just had the incorrect jack conversion piece that fits my 3.5 mm headphones. But no, i had all of the right pieces, i had just failed, miserably i might add, to work out the correct placement of the dials to be able to rock out with just the headphones. Until now.

Let me tell you something, i haven’t danced a happy jig in quite some time. I’m not a miserable sod, but i don’t get giddy very often. But tonight. Oh, tonight I danced a two step, clapped my hands and was beaming, just BEAMING from ear to ear. I can play again, without fear of disturbing my family or neighbours. Oh such joy, to bring music back into my life again! I have to restrain myself from staying up tonight and playing until my finger tips go numb, hurt or bleed.

So many songs I’ve forgotten over the last five years. Usually I would wait until my wife and daughters had sometime away to be able to dust off the green machine and play along to Royal Blood or Wolfmother, or even some Soundgarden. That’s not to say that I’ve never played in front of them. I had taken to playing my acoustic upstairs once in a blue moon. But I’m rusty af, and I learned some Joe Satriani material before I ever learned any chords. So my strumming is weak, and so are my fingers on those ultra thick acoustic strings. Gimme those bendy 9’s. Bit of a character flaw of mine. Trying to run before I can crawl.

But again I can know the joy of learning new material and keeping some dexterity in my fingers and hands. Oh happy day. Music really is a wonderful thing.

We sing a lot here at the house, well at least I do. I’m no stranger to a mid day dance party with my girls while we do chores, or to do away with some mid day blues. Especially since we’ve had snow since November first this year.

So very glad to have that option back. Feel stupid it took me so long to settle in and sort that out.

I really just wanted to having something in the bag incase I didn’t feel like writing anything at some point next week. Good to use your time productively and give yourself some slack in the future if you need a quiet day to relax a little bit.

I made mention of this before, yesterday even. Not in my quick note about the Iranian tragedy but the little written piece before that.

Last night, on opening night no less, I went to go see “Underwater” at an eight pm showing in what would be considered to be a sparsely populated theater. I know it’s January and Hollywood tends to drop off its pinched turds into theaters at this time. But I tell you what, Underwater was a fairly well crafted film. Acting was decent, script was not too mealy mouthed or jargon heavy, and it was paced quick as hell too. Effects were practical and you had a real sense of tangible on screen utility. Kristen Stewart did a commendable job as reluctant heroin who was not an over powered Mary sue, and she is an engineer so things she does are in her handy woman wheel house. Plus what she suffers through has real time effects on her, and are portrayed as such.

But what really got me going about this $65 million dollar, practical effects, team driven sci fi flick was how good of a proof of concept it is for a Gears of War film. Namely a first in the series, that sets up the cog wars, Serra, the Gears and those huge bulky power suits. If the first film is a character driven war time story of a team of six very tight fighting fire team, that shows their origins, how they work together, their banter and dynamics against a backdrop of man vs man war, only to end with the last five to ten minutes including Emergence Day, which could lay out a great series of sequels but keep the budget to $65/70 million so it didn’t have to make three quarters of a billion to be profitable, I’d call that a huge win.

If the horde show up as prosthetics, and guys in suits, under smoke and bad lighting you could really get that budget to stretch and focus on the team and why were cared about the game franchise to begin with.

If the group dynamics, claustrophobic scenery and story of human suffering in war time coalesce, the first time out in a GoW story doesn’t have to have millions of effects on screen at once.

I liken it to Alien and Aliens. Do the small intimate story up front, let it sell itself, then pump the budget to include a sense of scale to a whole planet at war with alien/ancient underground foes.

That’s just my two sense, but I really feel you could do so much with it if you keep it small, focused and driven by the interplay among the title characters who were soldiers fighting other soldiers to begin with, before the world fell because of a massive Hammer of Dawn strike that didn’t really work, except to kill a few billion innocent bystanders.

But beyond that, I’d by Underwater on bluray, and will watch any specials features with pure glee! It was eerie, and suspenseful, and scary and exhausting and fun all at the same time.

Go see it. It’s not a remake, nor a sequel, nor an adaptation of a pre existing property. Although it does borrow mightily from The Abyss, Aliens, Cloverfield (the original good one). Kristen Stewart did a real good job, she was ultimately believable in her role. That’s about as much as anyone could ask for.

Being over in rural Ontario you tend to feel as though the happenings of the outside world don’t register as strongly as they should. Well today it has come to light that one family among those 176 lost, and of the 63 Canadians travelled in similar circles as my family. A friendly, quiet family staring back at us from the pages of an Obituary. A friendly and quiet family you recognize from your daughter’s pre school play group. We weren’t close, or even acquaintances, just on friendly and knowing nods in greeting as we piled our raucous and unruly young children into and out of the play room, wrangling our kids for snack or at circle time, and keeping our wee ones excited while chasing oddly shaped rubber balls on the field. We were all Canadians, doing our best to teach our kids, but now only some of us remain. A real tragedy. Brings the news, unrelenting as it is, right to your doorstep and demands you pay attention, even if you think its world news and not your concern. Humanity finds a way. Nothing I can say to their extended family would bring them back, or fill the void left by their untimely departure. May cooler heads prevail, and their contributions to humanity never forgotten.

Man, this shit is hard. It’s har-rd. But you gotta do it, you have to keep up, and stay on it, otherwise everything will just settle back into the way it was. If you weren’t happy with the way it was, then you’ll have to find a way, some way, any way to push on through and keep up with all of those tiny little incremental changes you’ve been trying to make. To get better, to be happier or more satisfied, or to obtain a goal or achievement takes work. Gods honest work. Put in the cumulative hours and be the change you want to see. Reach for a glass of water, walk a flight of stairs, turn on your favourite song and groove out to it for three minutes, thirty seconds. You have to consciously make those choices, deliberately. You ain’t a hero cause you did that once, you have to keep coming to the fork in the road and make that tough choice again, and again.

Sucks when you can’t pawn off your bad decisions on someone or something else. Got to, have to, must make those decisions daily in order to build up the muscle memory and create a lifestyle change. You don’t wish, you don’t want, you wouldn’t like, YOU DO. Just like Yoda says, you do or you do not, there is no “try”. And not in the sense that if you can’t do it perfectly from the get go then don’t bother. But do it, don’t try, sometimes, as a forgettable afterthought. Do it. Every day. Make that effort. Build it into your schedule. And get it done.

As a side note, I’m looking to go see Underwater tonight, and I think it’s going to be a fun sci-fi mix of the abyss and Aliens. It is January so I don’t have incredibly high Hope’s, but I’ve heard decent things about it.

What a surprise it is, that we are eight whole days into the new year and I am all ready flagging on my goal of trying to do a little bit of something every day. Doesn’t help that my eldest is at home sick with Strep throat, but that’s really just a minor setback, and not much of an excuse. Coming off the winter break (a.k.a. the Christmas holidays) I’m just having a difficult time settling back into my usual work schedule, of 3 hours, mid day of day job activities, surrounded by parenting duties, school pick ups, play group attendance and chores around the house. Really, the fact is I’m just taking longer than usual to adjust to real life after fourteen days of having everyone home and no work on the books, save for one small item that took less than an hour to accomplish. I do think that as my regularly scheduled life and responsibilities start to make themselves known, I’ll be able to settle into my fully functioning schedule. I think the best part of having multiple corporate clients with very different schedules, means I can keep somewhat busy all year, rather than having 2-3 months of seriously quiet downtime.

On a much happier note, we got my eldest looked after and she is on the mend. Her fever of 104 degrees has finally broken and the antibiotics are doing what they should. She’ll be well enough to go back to school tomorrow. That will have made for a very short first week back for the new year. Given the grade she’s in, that’s not a major setback, as there are no exams or testing done at her age. I think she’ll be tickled pink to be back among her friends, and to not feel so rotten. She really looked rough yesterday, and the constant waking in the night to cry and need a drink, and wander from her bed to the bathroom, made her worse for wear.

In other news, I’m still drinking more water, which is more of a benefit than any kind of a resolution, since I don’t consume alcohol much, if at all, beyond a couple over the holidays. But I do like soda, carbonated drinks, and fruit juices. But you can only get a head ache at 2:00pm every day for so long before you really do have to adjust your habits. Although since I know my eyes are getting worse with age, I did assume some of that was due to eye strain, but it’s more likely due to my not imbibing actual proper just plain water.

Something else that I have actually been doing, was going through one or two drawers per day, and tidying up the house. I tackled a couple of kitchen drawers the other day, and sent all of the extra napkins, and plastic utensils to work with my wife, so her cafeteria could put that stuff to use, instead of tipping it all directly into the trash. Sorted out my baking drawer too. Found all of the random sprinkle shakers and put them together. I now (and don’t know for how long I will remember it) have a decent count of all of our cupcake wrappers. Next big job is the junk drawer that is full of electrical parts, batteries, rubber bands, and all sorts of manuals and bits and pieces. No rush, as long as I get to it sometime this year, I’ll be happy with myself.

That’s the goal though isn’t it, small manageable tasks that give you a small win every day. Try to do it all at once and it becomes overwhelming and daunting and you’re more prone to giving up or giving in to the mess. Maybe I do need to get more corporate clients, so I can afford to build a new row of lower cupboards with a nice countertop along the far wall of our dining room to add much needed storage space on our main floor. We have a very nice, yet not terribly functional piece of antique wood furniture there, a side board, or hutch, or banquette type thing. It’s nearly one hundred years old, and has been in my wife’s extended family for a while. We have been stewards of this heirloom furniture, but our kids are remorseless with them. Will need to refinish them, before they go to someone else for safe keeping.

I dabble in wood working, and I desperately want to build us a new dining room table, one that fits the space better than the current one. Although I think for the love of all that is good and holy, I will start by building two desks for use at the cottage to bone up on my skills, before making something as expensive as a hard wood dining table. I’m going to attempt a char at some point too. Probably something more utilitarian that I can keep in my workspace, rather than in the house.

Anyway, stay golden pony boy.

-M

Yesterday was the blessed first day back to school of the new year and my poor little Lemon came home sick at the end of the day with a bit of a fever. She’s now curled up asleep after spending the night sweating through her sheets at nearly 104 degrees! So far today she has spent most of her time coiled in blankets, watching cartoons, and drinking watered down juice to keep her spirits up. She’s been a really good sport about it all. Glad it hasn’t brought any vomiting, or upset tummy along with it, at least at this point, it has not. My youngest is trying her damnedest to not have a nap, but I actually had some of my day job responsibilities to attend to today, if only for a couple of hours. The best part of working from home, is that these sorts of occurrences don’t throw a huge wrench into my day to day plans. I’m pretty fluid with how I can and do conduct my day to day business. If it was real bad, I’d just do the bulk of my work at night after the girls had gone to bed. Provided they stayed there, and didn’t require an emergency trip to the ER, or walk in clinic. Then all best are off, and I’d be figuring things out on the fly. Both a plus and a minus to working for yourself.

Oh yeah, I checked in on my Word Doc for my short story, looks like it’s all there. I definitely want to make it a bit longer. Not sure if that means making each adventure it’s own self contained “thing”, or making each one a short 2 page spread in one singular book. I guess because I want to illustrate it myself, I’ll make it one book. No reason to have five unfinished projects on the back burner, just mocking me, knowing that they are there.

Oh yeah, go donate to Australia, that shits on fire yo. Got Damn. Greta Thunberg and all the rest of those climate researchers and activists have been warning us, over and over, and it seems as those we don’t really heed the call to action. Plant more trees, go meatless once a week, use reusable bags when shopping, recycle, walk or bike more, turn shit off that doesn’t need to be on. Do what you can.

M

I don’t much care if it’s writing a short blog post, reading a few pages from a book, doodling, noodling on a guitar or starting a new full fledged sculpture. I’m doing a little bit of something everyday, instead of watching others do it on line or through social media.

I dug up my initial notes for my short story and I also found some character designs I had worked on previously. I’ll dust that stuff off and give it a bit of love this year. If I feel more ambitious I’ll even illustrate the pages and post the story here later on.

We just had a major clear out of old clothes for the girls, and sorted about eighty pairs of shoes, boots, slippers and crocs. It was exhausting, but we are all the better for it. Plus the bulk of it got shared out among the extended family.

Chopped up god knows how many card board boxes, and recycled about two tonnes of wrapping paper. I even dug out all of the left over pieces of model kits I’ve put together over the last decade and cut them out of the sprues. Took me about three hours, but it’s a job now done, never to be seen again.

Small incremental steps towards something greater. Plus a cleaner, and neater home.

2020 is off to a good start, four days in.

M

Went for a dig about in my trunk of old things and papers and failed to turn up any of my previous writing pieces. That’s a fair bit of a disappointment to me, not because my old writing was any good as it was, though I was looking forward to editing and possibly improving what I had written nearly twenty years ago as an OAC creative writing student. I got the best grade I ever achieved in high school in that class. It was a 94%. The only other class I ever passed with a grade in the nineties was Kinesiology, with a 92%. Then they chopped the OAC year, and no one cares. Neither of those marks got me into college or university later on. So more of a personal highlight than anything else really.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I need to decide if I can try and remember some of the longer stories and outline them and tackle a new rough draft, or consider them dead and buried and lost to the ages.

I’m actually really annoyed, because I can see the purple duotang in my mind, and I still have a few drawings I did to complement my writing hanging up in my office. But no writing excerpts. Damn. Double damn. On the bright side I did start an outline of a children’s book I was writing for my little girls, so now I can just focus on that.

Or sculpt more, find new clients for my graphic design day job, complete some wood working projects or finally paint our stair well and get this summers chore list started early.

I think my children’s book would greatly benefit for artwork in the style of Skottie Young. Pow! So beautiful.

Ciao -M

This year I will endeavour to create a few more articles of both written and sculpted entertainment. I loathe to say “content”, as that is cold, impersonal, and some what corporate in nature. I aim to produce a few items of merit, that warrant even a fleeting moment of attention. It’s not much, but that’s what I have on offer for 2020. Maybe I’ll dig up my old short stories and edit them and post them on here. I’m no writer, but that was a thing I used to enjoy doing. Maybe I’ll paint a few things this year as well. Who knows, the year is my oyster at this point.

Mayhaps I’ll see you along the way.

M