Grazing Rites

Who needs costumes when your partner wakes you up in the middle of the night like it was The Exorcist or something. A couple nights ago that’s what happened. Nothing like completely incomprehensible screaming at 2am with no cause in sight. Do you wait it out? Call 9-1-1? Pop in some earplugs and try to ignore the Poltergeist laying next to you? Splash some water on them? Slap them around a little? Make a cross, bless some water, and sprinkle it on them shouting “the power of Christ compels you“?

I’m thinking I chose wrong. Really, it seemed like every choice I made was wrong. I turned on the light to asses the situation and was told to shut it off. Tried to offer comfort, the screaming got louder. She asked for pills that made her groggy and snore louder somehow so I had to sleep in the hallway so I could look after the kid. While this was going on I was texting my mom for advice.

What did my choices get me? A migraine of my own that only went away hours later after some of the most painful vomiting of my life.

And if that wasn’t enough it turns out my mom was fighting a cold of her own and my sleep-disrupting texts added to making her miss work the next day.

So could I have botched this operation up any more than I did? Well I suppose maybe if I went insane and clubbed my family to death but joking aside I could really use some advice on how to handle situations like this. Although I pray to God I won’t have the need of such advice I’d rather be prepared.

The other day someone implied that I was lazy. I suppose a case could be made that I can be lazy but where on the continuum would I fall? For every time, as an adult, that I’ve been accused of being lazy there are a dozen times I’ve been accused of being a workaholic. That doesn’t compute particularly easily. Am I a lazy workaholic? I suppose I’ve been worse contradictions.

I’m not easy, that’s for sure. I’m uber busy in the summer and frugal and prone to SAD in the winter. But one thing I absolutely despise is people who conveniently have just the right combination of challenges that prevents them from doing for themselves. If this were the case by sheer willpower I’d find a way to break the cycle lest self loathing set in.

But how can that be a part of who I am? I lived by myself for 4 years so I had to do it all for myself. If I was lazy it was controlled, contained, and by choice. So all things being equal I don’t think I’d naturally tend towards laziness.

So it seems that the position with the Olympics that was brought to my attention months ago has been reposted. Feels like a long time ago now given my son’s development and Patti quitting. So once again the dilemma is thrust upon me. The question is are the conditions right to make me go?

Or to put it in different terms: is this the Ares, Melbourne, or Titan?

The reposting tells me they failed to find a suitable applicant in the first attempt. This could mean a few things. Perhaps they’ve lowered their standards. Perhaps they increased the pay. Perhaps they’re very picky. Perhaps the deal isn’t very good so no one’s taken it.

And why is it that people bring the wardrobe type jobs to my attention? Yes it’s what I’m doing now but that’s not because I have a passion for textiles. I don’t. I have a passion for management, for training and development, for organization, and to a lesser extent service - specifically helping people. So why don’t people mention general management, training, and Guest Services jobs?

Perception I guess. People are after all pattern recognition devices. Fits the short-term profile.

Yesterday I got to talking to a virtual stranger about the most recent version of this dilemma. Call it dilemma in a funny hat. Anyways this person said “I’m going to give you some very cheap advice and by cheap I mean something uncomplicated that you already know. You have nothing to lose by applying. Worst case you never hear from them. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain”

“But what about job security?” I said “I’ve got a pretty good gig right now, why would I give that up for a 2 and a half year contract? The economy or job market could decline right after the Olympics and I don’t want to be the only guy without a chair when the music stops”

“Job security isn’t the issue” he replied “look at it this way, you’d have job security for 2 and a half years. That’s 2 and a half years of bringing home a bigger paycheque for your young family”

Today one of my staff provided the counterargument. “But what then?” she said “it’s not like this job will be waiting for you 2, 3 years down the road”

It was then brought to my attention that someone I used to work with is already with the Olympics so I’ll contact her to see what it’s like.

I suppose one could argue that working for the Olympics is a unique opportunity but that doesn’t mean much to me.

I haven’t even looked at the site since the reposting was brought to my attention.

My staff did bring up another interesting counterpoint, “what if they hired someone before and fired them already?”

Indeed. Where would I be then? A highly employable person in a great job market, yes, but I don’t have the greatest track record looking for work. The one job I found myself is the one I’d most like to forget. Everything else found me.

MJF - Teacher recommended
KGIC - Teacher recommended
PNE - Jon dragged
SOF - Mom submitted
E/S - Burton asked
VMP - Fei recommended
VKI - Maggie recommended
WV - Scott asked
GM - Patti recommended

I was having one hell of a day a couple days ago. For what was at least the 4th day in a row I had only gotten 4 hours or less of sleep - that’s skirting the line of dementia and insanity. No seriously, I read a few years ago about how getting less than 4 hours sleep a night over an extended period can seriously impair cognitive function in qualitatively detectable ways.

So I felt like poop, exhausted poop. Poop on bad day. Until I stumbled upon the trailer for the new season of 24. It did nothing for my exhaustion but it punched my recent ennui in the face. With no new episodes or plot news of Star Trek, Doctor Who, or Torchwood and no vacation to plan for and Christmas still 2 months away and no release date for Conquest I had very little to look forward to.

Buying the Wii helped a bit but it was a distraction. What I needed was a hit of anticipation. I think I could be an anticipation junkie. I thought the only danger of this addiction was not living in the moment but no, there’s withdrawal. Dragon’s Den and The Sarah Jane Adventures, while entertaining, gave me very little specific and complex things to think about and look foreword to, they require little use of creativity or imagination to be a fan of.

I needed an exciting puzzle to ponder over.

Tony Almeida as the bad guy? Order filled!

The federal government is currently advising people to be more like me.

The strong loonie is making many prices in retail outlets unreasonable. The conservative government naturally doesn’t want to intervene in the free market however they are requesting retailers lower their prices to better reflect the actual value of the goods. So far only Zellers and Walmart have respond favourably, and even then in a somewhat limited way.

The government is thus turning to the people and suggesting they comparison shop to reward fair market value pricing. Recently when shopping for Wii accessories I compared prices at no less than 5 retailers before making my purchase…several days before the recommendation was made.

Could the plight of the price takers in Canada be over?

See, back in my economics class the prof would say “consumers are price takers” meaning that we neither set nor negotiate the price. That, while somewhat logical, never sat right with me. We posses free will after all. Well now it’s time to exercise it. We can comparison shop, wait for sales, clearance markdowns, and promotions. Make like it’s Buy Nothing Day every day until retailers follow government direction.

A consumer uprising, that’s what I’m suggesting but without the turmoil. For things you need comparison shop, for things you want wait until the price is on par or better than what the yanks are paying. Reward retailers like Walmart and Zellers who voluntarily follow the government’s request.

How far do we take this? Not very.

What? Yea, you read that right. See there ARE reasons we should pay more than our southern neighbours. For one shipping could cost more to bring the goods further plus tariffs and special printing for french and our funky way of spelling things like ‘neighbour’, ‘favour’, and ‘colour’ (my PDA and Friendster have a fit when I spell like a Canadian). Also our market is a tenth the size of the states.

So there are some solid reasons why we should pay more than our warlike friends however we should be paying less for many things than we are now.

Retailers claim it takes awhile to respond to currency fluctuations, the government responded in a well-reasoned way pointing out it’s a trend not a fluctuation and has been going on for some time. Personally I’d argue about 6 years. Not mentioned was also the valid point that Walmart and Zellers have responded so clearly it can be done.

Now granted Walmart has a whole international ad campaign based on dropping prices, ‘rollbacks’ they call it. And Walmart and Zellers both target, well, let’s say a more frugal market. That probably explains why The Bay, owned by the same people as Zellers, hasn’t responded. These particular business streams are profitable by selling inexpensive merchandise in large volumes, what they might lose in markup they make up in volume.

So be frugal and be proud.

http://www.24trailer.com/

Kurtwood Smith!

No more CTU!

TONY ALMEIDA IS BACK!

And this time…he’s the bad guy?!

Suffice to say January 13th, I’m BUSY.

So I’m headed in to work a couple days ago when a fellow I’ve never met before in another department tells me to get a haircut. I take a look once I get to my office and sure enough it’s been over a month since my last haircut. I normally let myself get a little shaggier than this before getting a cut but if people are commenting it’s time to take action.

So I go to my haircut place (I refuse to call it a salon) and begin to get my haircut when the small talk takes an uncomfortable turn.

Hairdresser: So did you hear about those 6 people found dead in Surrey?

Me: Um, no.

Her: Yea, they were all found dead.

Me: Huh.

Her: In the same place.

Me: That’s…unfortunate.

Her: I read about it in the paper today.

Me: Ah.

Her: But they were found on Friday.

Me: Oh.

Her: Isn’t that sad?

Me: Yea.

Awkward silence.

Her: They were all dead.

Me: Hmmm.

Her: In the same place.

Awkward  silence.

Is there something I’m supposed to say here? Was she just feeling some psychological need to share something that made her sad in order to deal with it? If so I daresay work might not be the best venue for such a discussion, especially with someone as poorly equipped as myself.

Today, several days later, I read in the paper about how the people were shot as part of a gang war. Perhaps there was a subtext to the conversation that went over my head. Perhaps that’s for the best.

I’ve officially lost track of how much money I’ve saved the organization I serve. I could probably look it up somewhere if I had to.

Today I had a meeting. We covered a wide variety of items but this is the result of probably less than 5 minutes of conversation: we figured out a way to get more units of an item, at a higher quality, and save about $1,400. I’ll say that again, 250 units more of an item of a higher quality for $1,400 less.

That was just the first 5 minutes, the meeting lasted 45 minutes.

I hope they don’t begin to expect this level of production on a regular basis, I’m running out of rabbits to pull out of my hat. But that won’t stop me from basking in the glow of what could be an unprecedented budgetary savings.

Within an hour of posting my last entry Jon called to assure me that our plans to go on a road trip next year are still very much alive in his eyes. The idea is to drive to San Francisco and spend a few days there including a possible return to the Six Flags Marine World or whatever they call it now. Then off to spend a night in Yosemite and then on to Vegas, arriving on a Sunday or Monday. Then 4 or 5 days in Vegas including a visit to the Hoover Dam and of course The Experience and then drive back home via Salt Lake City.

Mindi on the other hand expressed an interest in going to the Bahamas.

Frankly I have serious doubts that either of these will happen as discussed. The Bahamas is just too damned expensive and the road trip seems very far away in an uncertain future. Don’t get me wrong if we could pull them off both would be awesome but this is how I see it playing out…in order to work the Bahamas would have to become Mexico and the road trip shortened.

Although the road trip as originally discussed could very well happen. I mentioned simply flying to Vegas and Jon made it quite clear he was sold on the road trip idea. Certainly works for me.

Is it strange that I find myself missing places I’ve been to on vacation? I know, it hasn’t even been a month since we got back from Orlando but I can’t help but think about it for some reason. Maybe it’s because of our Vegas trip last November. Similar time of year and all that. But it’s weird that I find myself missing specific places.

Walking around Vegas, The Experience, the water fountain shows at The Bellagio, seeing so many interesting things and eating great food.

Taking the tube in London, exploring the city with my mom.

Sitting on the dock of the bay in San Francisco, Gheridhelli’s chocolates, the 6 Flags, nearly running out of gas in the dark of night.

The hotel in Anaheim, Universal Studios, The Tonight Show.

West Edmonton Mall, the water park.

Driving pretty much anywhere with Jon and to a lesser extent Burton.

Walking to Wet ‘n Wild and Universal Studios in Orlando, Sleuths.

I’m not sure quite what’s brought this on. It could be the lack of a foreseeable vacation on the horizon. I guess I’ve had some crazy adventure to look foreword to somewhat constantly over the last while. Before Orlando it was my son’s birth, before that it was Las Vegas, before that it was Edmonton, before that it was a new job, before that it was Europe.

I guess I like to loose myself in the planning but for now there’s nothing to plan for. My girlfriend’s short on funds and finding someone to watch my son is problematic. Jon’s career is in a state of flux (look foreword to him ghost writing a blog entry here on the subject). Burton’s busy with school. Sam’s working 3 jobs. Can’t anyone take a vacation with me? Go on some kind of adventure at least?

I could pack up the family and go somewhere local-ish but the weather isn’t the greatest. The train to Edmonton is too much, Victoria’s not much different from here, the train stateside is out of commission, and taking my son on a bus or plane would be a nightmare.

I don’t care if it’s 9 months from now. Just something concrete to look forward to, you know? Plus with my girlfriend going back to work full time in February who knows how scheduling would work to say nothing of potentially crippling daycare costs.

And it’s not like I’m rolling in it at the moment right now either. Heck, I’m still trying to get over a pretty serious cold. Maybe this is all just my SAD flaring up or a case of cabin fever. Hopefully just sharing will be enough to help.

Okay so perhaps I shouldn’t have trusted Walmart after all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with my Wii but I…well…look, I’ll level with you, the Transforms prequel was a sham. It was some pages from a comic book with voiceovers that ran less than 20 minutes. Now I could have accepted that however the package it came with doesn’t include the special features disc that the 2-disc version has.

So you had to choose between a disc full of hours of entertainment or 20 minutes praying for death. Walmart doesn’t believe in letting you have both, or even making you aware of the fact that you must choose. I wonder what genius thought the fanboy who wants the prequel wouldn’t want the special features disc.

Hopefully on the trail end of a cold I decided to trek out to the mall where I first saw Transformers: The Movie with my sister over 2 decades ago to pick up the Transformers DVD on the day it came out. Why the trek? The location was coincidence as Walmart had a special version with a prequel you couldn’t get anywhere else. Yea Walmart’s evil blah blah blah but this is Transformers so you can shut the hell up.

Their layout not being the best I stumbled upon the Wii before asking a clerk for assistance in my quest. The price point was $20 less than anywhere else I’d seen it, not counting questionable online sources, and I’d been checking prices since Conquest was announced.

When the clerk pointed me to the correct DVD, there were at least 4 to choose from, I said “can I get a Wii with that?”

She was understandably confused. “You want to buy a Wii?” she confirmed.

“Sure, why not?” I said, “you talked me into it“. This did little to dispel her confusion but she got the Wii for me despite that as I grabbed the DVD she got the system.

“So, you wanted the console, right?” she asked.

“Yup.” I said, smiling.

“So let me get this straight, you came here for a $30 DVD and decided to get a $300 Wii on a whim?” she asked.

“Pretty much” I said.

“Who does that?” asked the guy behind me.

“I do,” I replied, “bought a laptop once the same way. Went in to Future Shop to get a DVD and saw a laptop I suddenly felt like buying”

Noticing the general mood turning against me, my attempts at humour being mistaken for boasting I tried a different approach with the clerk.

“Tell you what,” I said “tell your boss I came in to get a DVD and you asked if I’d like a Wii with that, you know, like fries at McDonald’s, and I said yes. Your boss will think you’re a great salesperson and won’t pester you about add ons for the next month”

Blank stare. The guy behind me snickers.

“That’ll be on debit” I said.

The garbage strike is over. From the very beginning the city said they had contingency plans to deal with the extra garbage. When it was announced that up to 6 additional bags would be collected each week over the next 2 weeks at the expense of recycling pickup it seemed to make sense. So why then were the 6 perfectly tied and placed bags next to our bin not picked up this morning?

Looking down the alley I could see that no recycling had been picked up either. So we seem to have sacrificed recycling pickup this week for nothing. I can’t help but wonder why.

Was the announcement misreported? God knows misreporting has caused plenty of problems at my work. Did the city not actually have a plan? Did they have a plan but not run it by the union? Did so many workers find other employment that the plan couldn’t be carried out? Is the union continuing to be dicks? Or are specific workers in my area slacking off in protest of a dead issue?

I plan to get to the bottom of this.

The picket lines most visible on my daily commute, those around community centres, are gone. I can’t say I’ll miss their ‘Sam’s Strike’ signs.

You’ll note that Sam had nothing to do with how the strike ended so clearly that strategy was a win. He didn’t have much to do with the start of the strike either. Or the middle for that matter. So it seems they launched, and maintained, a personal attack for no good reason. It wasn’t a position founded in logic nor was it effective. So they just attacked a cripple in the court of public opinion and the media for nothing.

Well, I guess they wanted their enemy to have a face. A mirror was what they really needed.

The city did not make a single personal attack, not once. Not that I’m aware of. It annoys me that one side of a very public conflict can behave so poorly without consequence.

I read in the paper today about how Sam’s comments before the strike were overconfident and his few attempts at intervention to get things moving along were unsuccessful but at least he tried. And when his attempts met with resistance he removed himself from the situation. Seems rational to me. Try to help but if you can’t let the people responsible handle it. A far cry from causing the strike.

And with all the BC Liberals have done to crush unions and undercut collective bargaining you’d think they’d have intervened at some point now that a case with probable cause cropped up but no. Why not? No personal gain? Sullivan not their friend? It’s not like they could possibly think there’s a single unionized person whose support the could lose - by virtue of having pissed all those people off long ago.

No, this wasn’t Sam’s strike and I’m glad the erroneous claims to the contrary can now fade to a dim memory.

For someone who understands quantum situations in which effect can precede cause I really don’t understand people who take certain allegedly preventative actions to stop things from happening that they have no certainty will happen.

Take Echinacea. Or rather don’t. In order to be effective you have to take it BEFORE you get sick. But how do you know, with any degree of certainty, if you were even going to get sick in the first place? Some people swear by it I’ve heard but I think any claims of effectiveness are fallacy.

Think of it this way, let’s say you get sick on average 3-4 times a year. If you were to take it every day, even if it had no effect, you could report it working 90% of the time. Now if it were a vitamin that would be good for you anyways, like vitamin C, I could get behind it but from my research indicates that it loses effectiveness over time of continued used. So it’s efficacy is based on your ability to accurately predict when you’ll get sick.

If I could predict the future that well I’d win the lottery and stop working so taking sick days wouldn’t really matter.

And before you Echinacea-lovers out there accuse me of not fact-checking, the wikipedia page on the subject says “clinical efficacy has not been established” and further goes on to say “doses must be taken every two to four hours after the first dose, including every two to four hours during the overnight sleeping period, until the cold symptoms have disappeared (generally within 24 hours.) The scientific studies stated above appear to disagree with these claims as ad hoc rationalising; if the cold doesn’t go away when expected, the patient can always be blamed for not following the strict regimen, and the product is never to blame. This is known as subjective validation.”

I rest my case.

Let’s take another example, taking Tylenol BEFORE getting a headache. Apparently it’s more effective that way but my previous questions still stand and what’s worse is that Tylenol isn’t good for you. Prolonged used can damage your stomach if memory serves. Yes Aspirin can help prevent blood clots by acidifying your blood but if you’re not at risk then it’s probably not a good idea to take it without cause.

So you could take Echinacea or Tylenol whenever you think you may get sick or have a headache but when is that not a possibility? Guessing wrong lowers the effectiveness by increasing your tolerance and then it won’t be as effective when you really need it. So then you have to get extra strength which only increases both the cost and the risk.

The fact is you can’t predict the future but thinking that you can may lead you to make bad decisions that could hurt you over time. So perhaps we should wait until the problem actually occurs before taking dangerous, harmful, and costly steps to allegedly prevent it.

It’s that kind of logic that took the US to Iraq.

So the next time someone uses the argument, “is it better to wait for the problem to happen before doing something about it?” take a moment and truly consider if the answer might be yes. If it’s healthy like vitamins or the environment then go ahead but if there’s a risk factor think twice and make your peace with the fact that you can neither predict nor control the future in many situations.

Finally some progress on the civic strike. Inside workers should be back on the job tomorrow. Assuming their partners in crime let them.

Inside workers voted 72% in favour of accepting the mediator’s proposals, like the union told them to, and the city agreed. Library workers on the other hand voted 78% against as their union told them to. Fair enough, I can respect both of those occurrences.

Outside workers on the other hand voted 58% in favour, against the union’s instructions. But the union set a 67% percent hurdle. The vote fell 9% short. So the minority is holding the majority, as well as the rest of the city hostage. As if that weren’t dickish enough they’ve threatened to picket inside workers job sites effectively forcing their will upon them.

Gotta love a democracy that doesn’t believe in majority rule or free will.

What issues did the outside workers union advise them to vote no on? Issues of pay that were less than a dollar. In one case a raise was 50 cents less than a counterpart in another municipality. In another case it was a 17 cent difference on an overtime premium that only applies part of the time!

Has this union lost the moral authority to represent it’s members?

How about when they offered $100 to cover up 3 of their members tampering with the wiring on a private disposal truck and harassing it’s owner at home in front of his children?

How about the verbal assaults on people cleaning up after themselves at the fireworks or parents trying to keep their children safe at local parks?

How about the assault on a 55 year old violinist? I’m sure that was called for and helped their cause, why else did police lay charges? I know that whenever I have a conflict in the workplace the first thing I want to do is assault an elderly violinist - they just dared to live the dream.

It’s not that I hate unions, in point of fact I respect them and their purposes so long as they serve their members’ best interests. T is one stopped doing that some time ago. Somewhere along the line it became a pissing contest for these guys, how else can you explain their behaviour?

The first thing that catches you, if you can forgive the Annie Lennox Vulcan, is the interesting, innovative, and original directing. It’s not often that the directing of a show or movie gets my attention so that’s saying something.

The beginning is very exciting with great, nay, perfect special effects.

James Cawley’s performance has greatly improved, leaving almost no room for further improvement. He has become Kirk. Perhaps, dare I say, even a BETTER Kirk.

The writing is absolutely brilliant. Funny, charming, emotionally engaging.

Charles Root and his accent appears quite rough and almost comical upon first viewing but I have found that on each subsequent viewing it becomes more natural, if that makes any sense.

I only have one complaint about this episode: not enough DeSalle.

Seeing George Takei again, and seeing him really sink his teeth into a role, being given great dramatic and comedic moments…I’d give my left nut for an Excelsior series or movie.

Visually it’s a little darker but thankfully not to the extreme that Generations took things. It’s actually rather colourful, vibrant even.

I was worried about the Kirk-gets-the-girl thing but they handled it brilliantly.

John Kelly’s performance has also come a long way; he used to be my least favorite character – now I don’t have one. Well, Charles Root I guess – largely because the accent kept making my girlfriend laugh the first time I got to see the whole thing straight through, it was kind of distracting.

This episode has great character bits for all the major characters except maybe Chekov (and don’t get me started on that!).

Everything seems more natural, more organic (which I suppose is an ironic thing to say about a SciFi show).

George’s Takei’s performance…wow, what can you say? Were this a different medium the word Emmy or Oscar would be bandied about…and rightly so.

DS9 has ‘The Visitor’, TNG has ‘Sarek’ (although popular opinion favours ‘The Inner Light’), Voyager has ‘Timeless’, and Enterprise has ‘Twilight’. Now TOS has ‘World Enough And Time’.

By God it’s good. However many people have seen it (40,000 at the launch, 115,000 on the first day), it isn’t enough. This needs, no, this DESERVES widespread mainstream exposure. And this is only the 4^th episode, depending on how you count. What broadcast TV show turned out scripts of this quality by the 4^th episode? Maybe the new Doctor Who, maybe…can’t think of much else.

If you don’t know what New Voyages is, then find out. You don’t know what you’re missing.

I decided to check out one of the fan films I had been reading about on TrekToday not long after New Voyages released their second episode.

I decided to start with the first episode, ‘Come What May’. The acting was poor, the plot was shaky at best, and the lighting was terrible. It was more-or-less what I expected, a self-aggrandizing fanboy orgy. But a couple things caught my eye and made positive impressions. The sets were excellent, the guest stars were entertaining, the navigator DeSalle was interesting, the special effects pretty good, and the costumes were perfect. At the end of the episode was a trailer for the next episode set to the song War. I was just about to pack it in, having satisfied my curiosity and having a few laughs but this trailer caught my attention. It looked, well, it looked phenomenal. I decided to give it a chance and downloaded the second episode. If nothing else I could see if they did indeed improve upon their first outing.

‘In Harm’s Way’ had a very involved and somewhat confusing plot. Story wise it was very “fannish” but Peter David’s been called “fannish” so I tried not to hold that against it. The acting and effects had both improved significantly; they seemed to have resolved most of their lighting issues. There were exciting and chilling moments…such as these exchanges…

Kirk: “How do we know your correct history’s the right one, the best one?”

Spock: “Because, Jim, here in your timeline billions of people are dead.”

McCoy: “All this for a history we don’t know, for people we may or may not become? Captain, call it off while you still can”

Scott: “It’s time to ring the dinner bell. Alright beastie, come and get it” (and the special effects orgy that follows)

Guardian: “Many such journeys are possible”

As well DeSalle had more to do and began to form a real character, I also greatly enjoyed watching Kargh and Pike. The ships didn’t move quite right but it was still fun to watch, the special effects having improved a fair bit. It was much more fast-paced than the first episode. I knew my fellow fans of the show would appreciate it. And it got me to thinking, if they could improve this much over one episode imagine what the next one must be like. Then began the waiting game. I shared the episode with Burton and Jon who both enjoyed it but as time passed, I felt a loss of momentum.

Then along came Centre Seat in March 2006; a 5 minute vignette that gave me exactly what I wanted, more of that De Salle guy. It was good stuff but only served to whet my appetite for more.

Then came the announcement, Walter Koenig was going to be in the next episode, ‘To Serve All My Days’. The waiting game got harder. It came out in November and I remember waiting for it to download. It was great. They had taken it up another notch and not just by virtue of having the real actor and original series writer, everything continued to come together. And Kargh was back which I was happy to see. I still had some slight issues with John Kelly’s performance and I felt Cawley could stand to rein it in a little but by and large I found myself wondering, how can this get any better?

You’d think I had learned my lesson to stop underestimating these guys. Come back tomorrow to find out just how wrong I was.

So my girlfriend is getting strapped into the Dueling Dragons when her thumbnails gets almost completely pulled out. Blood is covering her thumb and running down her hand. We approach a ride operator and ask where the nearest first aid station is, he refuses to answer and tells us to wait without explanation. A few minutes later, somewhat impatient, we repeat our request. He tells us First Aid is coming to us and we should wait. Fine enough we figure.

Well it’s that time of year again…or is it? October is usually when I have to begin living the frugal minimalist existence but some interesting developments may mitigate this until the new year. And of course the shorter the gray mode period the less drastic the cutbacks.

This is how it breaks down. Poor weather had an understandably negative impact on revenues initiating some cost cutting. This includes delaying the hiring of someone in my parent group until the new year. But they still need some of the coverage and work done that person would have been responsible for. Enter me and the compromise. Delay hiring a full time person for 3 months but add 2 days a week to my schedule.

So instead of drastically dropping from 5 days a week to 2, I’ll only lose 1 day. But that’s not where the story ends, I go back to moonlighting this week and Mindi plans to return to work for a half day each week on the weekday I have off.

Plus it’s a new opportunity for me to take on some new duties. Seems like a pretty good arrangement across the board really assuming it all works out. Granted I’d rather not be moonlighting but it’s not like I’m without options. I could be outright fired from my moonlighting gig and still end up ahead getting a job somewhere else.

Plus I get to spend a bit more time with the kid this way and Mindi gets to spend a bit more time around people over the age of 1.

Hopefully I’ll still be as positive about this plan during my Mr. Mom half days.

I have but one regret and that is leaving it until so late in our trip to go to Sleuths. On our second to last night we went to see Squire’s Inn and afterwords we couldn’t cancel our dinner plans for the next night fast enough so that we could go to Sleuths again. It is now my mission in life to try and find something even remotely similar closer to home. If I lived in Orlando I would look into season’s tickets. The gift shop / bar / waiting area was absolutely charming.