My mom had to go to emergency last night. It was a kind of messed up situation. I left to get some food for this weekend's festivities at Sean in Regina. I don't know if I was gone a half an hour. When I come back my mom is sitting on the steps going downstairs to the den/family room. She's got vomit all over her, there's a big pile of it on the floor. Her head is lolling over my dad's hand as he's holding her up while on the phone with 9-1-1 with the other. I walk in on this and I don't know what the hell is going on.

The paramedics show up after a few minutes, I don't know exactly how many as the entire episode seemed to happen in a fast moment, and an eternity at the same time. I guess I could have taken from the deliberateness of their actions that things weren't too serious. The paramedics didn't seem panicked or in a hurry or anything. I suppose that was a good sign but at the time I didn't really stop to ponder it. I did notice there were way too many damn people in the house. The ambulance showed up and two guys came in with medical equipment and started to try and figure out what was going on. A couple minutes later about 5 more guys showed up and all they managed to do was get in the way. The pathway from the front door to downstairs, or even into the living room is fairly streamlined, and not that conducive to large volume traffic.

Eventually they put her on a stretcher and took her out to the ambulance. By the time they'd got her on the stretcher she was already getting more coherent, and seemed to be getting better. She was answering questions and managed to tell the paramedics that she wanted to go to University Hospital. Dad and I cleaned up while they did whatever they were doing out in the ambulance, in front of the house. Eventually they drove away and a couple minutes later my dad followed.

There isn't much left to the story after that. I waited at home for news while dad waited at the hospital. I found my sister and told her what was going on. She came over and we waited for news together. Dad phoned once and said they were doing tests and there were no results, but she looked and felt better. He came home at another point to get her some clean clothes as she felt better and was likely coming home. He phoned a little while later and said the first tests were back with inconclusive results and now they were doing more tests and x-rays. I didn't understand the x-ray part. There was no answer on what was wrong but she looked and felt much better. Finally, at midnight Dad called and said Mom was okay, the tests came back good, and she was coming home.

The conclusion? Dad gave me the phrase 'vagus nerve reaction'. The explanation of that was, after a trauma (Mom had eye surgery recently) the vagus nerve can be irritated and it causes the desire to vomit, along with nausea. Blood pressure drops and you get the dizzy feeling Mom experienced. I looked up 'vagus nerve' on the internet this morning and its this fairly influential nerve that runs from the brain stem to many vital organs in the chest, including being connected to the digestive system. It seems like a plausible explanation, after reading about what the vagus nerve us.

So that was my night. I didn't get to sleep until about 1:00, and getting up at 6:00 has made me very tired. I question how productive I will be today. However, I will perservere. Thank you to all that I spoke to last night (Kevin, Sean and Greg in particular) for the support and kind words. They were appreciated. It seems to have just been an episode that has left no lingering affects. Mom seemed fine again this morning.

Have good day peoples. Toodles!

"You gotta grow man. Don't you ever want anything more for yourself? I know this poor, hapless son of a bitch does. I look into his sorry doe eyes and I just, I see a man crying out. He's crying out, when lord? When the fuck can your servant ditch this foul mouthed little chucklehead, to whom I am a constant victim of his folly, so much so that it prevents me from ever getting to kiss a girl. Fuck! When Lord, when? When's gon' be my time!"

I have a pet peeve. Maybe this is just particular to me, and everyone else does it differently but nonetheless it irritates the hell out of me.

MSN Messenger (aren't all my probably in some way connected to Microsoft!?!) imports your contact list to the contacts area in Outlook Express. This is a good feature, if it actually freakin' worked. When you install the program, it adds all the contacts to your address book in Outlook Express and that's where it stops. You can change your online name in MSN Messenger, but it doesn't update in your Outlook Express contact list.

Perhaps I'm just a feeb and there is a way to fix this. I always prefer ranting about the evils of Microsoft first. In any event, in the incarnation that is operating on my computers, Outlook Express does not update my MSN contacts and it irritates me. That is all.

Toodles!

Sorry for not posting yesterday. It was kind of a weird day. I was answering questions from a consulting engineer in Saskatoon. I spent nearly the whole day, yesterday, writing emails. I'd meticulously craft a response to this guy's question, send it off, then get another batch of questions about a half hour later. I must have written 5 emails to this engineer yesterday. I think I finally got my point explained to him. I got a reply this morning that said he understood my point now.

I didn't have a good night last night. I woke up a bunch of times. I even had to get up and go to the bathroom, which almost never happens. I couldn't tell you why it was such a chaotic night. I do know that I kept having this irrational fear that I was going to oversleep and be late for work. Of course I wasn't late for work, and instead woke myself a bunch of times overnight. I hate when I do that.

My new favorite emoticon is 8-|

I'm downloading new music like a crazy man lately. The endless cycle of the same CD's in my truck was driving me nuts. I have downloaded 5 albums in the past 4 work days. I'm a crazy man!!! I'm also a thief but I'm comfortable with it. I wouldn't otherwise listen to this music so its not like anyone is out any money. I wouldn't have bought the CD's so I didn't really cost the artists, or the record company, any money. I am thinking of buying some CD's but I never seem to end up at the record store. I wanna get the Pearl Jam album and I think there's a Tragically Hip album that I don't have. I think I'll have to make an effort to go to the store one of these weekends. I never seem to manage all of my differing priorities very well. 8-|

Toodles!

Have you ever taken a Mr. Big bar out of the wrapper and set it on the table? Doesn't it look like a turd?

I'm having a weird day. I've been having a lot of those lately. My head just doesn't seem to be in the game anymore. I'm not sure if its winter blah's, general discontent, or something more sinister. I just can't concentrate. I will provide some examples.

Right now I'm trying to write this simple introduction letter. I did a budgetary quote for a consulting engineer in Saskatoon and I'm just puttting together a short one page document to introduce the proposal, and give the preliminary price. I can't find any words. I just wanna say hello, this is who I am, and here's the price. That should be something simple for me, a person that likes writing. I'm stuck for words. I wonder if my atmosphere is contributing to my problem. Maybe I need more sunlight. Sunlight seems to help me think. That is an angle I had not considered.

I want something. That's all I know however. There is this general sense of desiring some thing but I can't put my finger on what that object or concept is, that I want. It is a most frustrating situation. I'd ponder that but I want to finish this stupid letter I'm trying to write yesterday. If any of you have seen my missing 'want' let me know where you saw it and I'll swing by and pick it up. Thanks.

Toodles!

Today has been a day of random thoughts. I've been kind of flitting across a wide variety of things and haven't really concentrated on anything. Such is my day-to-day life but its seemed more pronounced today.

Our new friends from Winnipeg got home, and went to work for the first time today. Thus they were recieving emails and the barrage of digital mail has begun. I wonder what people did during the work day before email and IM? Probably talked to their co-workers. I suppose I could do that too but, my co-workers do not share the same world perspective as me so conversations with them are often brief. I prefer talking to my friends, or are more in tune with my way of thinking.

I finally got to wash my truck last night. God did it need that! It was caked and covered in a white, ugly crusty substance. I'm assuming it was road salt but I did not perform a full spectral analysis. I spent three bucks washing it and I got my full money's worth. Actually, the sludge game off pretty easily, which was reassuring. If it peeled off that easily, it wasn't embedded or anything. It was probably too cold for that, if that's any kind of explanation.

I sorted my file cabinet this morning. The one project from Manitoba has created a prodigious amount of paper and in looking for something I realized that my file folder had no rhyme or reason. I decided to try and make order from chaos. It took an hour. That surprised me. If you just randomly stuff paper into a file cabinet for months, its amazing the level of insanity you can create.

There's something else on my mind but I can't figure out how to write it down, to really say what's in my head. Grant, stuck for words? Doesn't seem possible, does it? In this instance it is true. I'm actually having some trouble getting my head around some of my beliefs lately. It looks like its time for another re-definition. I hate having to do it but every so often it seems my psyche needs reorganization. I should draw up a map of my convoluted brain so it would be easier to sort. Kind of like my file cabinet from this morning.

Toodles!

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I just wrapped up two things simultaneously and need to show them to my boss. So what happens? He leaves the office after being in it for only half an hour this afternoon! So, while I'm super busy with projects, I'm kind of up against the wall at this very moment because step two is dependent upon my bosses approval before continuation. I hate that. I should assert myself as a constitutional monarchy and make pre-emptory decisions based on what I think.

On second thought, that's a bad idea. I have a tendency to go for the overly dramatic and that doesn't play too well in the general business world. My decisions would be rash, and ill concieved, if I put all of them into practice. Better that I have a boss, to buffer my wild notions from the world at large.

Toodles again!

News from the world of Blog!

In news today, your intrepid warrior, Sir Telk, has encountered the Hortizigoid Intestine creature. This is a foul, entrenched beast that feeds on the healthy intestines of wayward travelers. Early this morn, yours truly came upon this miscreant as I slumbered quietly along the Road of Sominus. I was minding my own business, having a lovely dream about something I don't remember, when the Hortizigoid Intestine Monster or HIM for short, jumped up and grabbed me firmly, with all claws, about the intestine and general tummy region. I was in agony. My interminable battle with this monster has continued, without abatement, since 4:00 this morning. I am not winning the tide. My latest weapon to unleash upon the beast has been a liberal dosing of the ale of ginger. It is my distinct hope that this will provide the necessary carbon dioxide to poison the creature, and with a powerful exhalation or two, I will rid it from my innards.

Other than that, I'm good. Hopefully the rest of your travelers of the internet are avoiding the pitfalls and follies of misfortune. Toodles!

I am a glutton for punishment.

I'm no sooner back from the Dominican Republic and I'm already into planning mode on the next trip I want to take. I would like to go watch the Montreal Expos play baseball this summer, in Montreal. The problem I'm having is, I can't find a hotel. Its hard to search for a hotel when your criteria is, proximity to a facility. Everything is based on price and, as I'm finding, the internet does not favor searching for discount chains. The search pages are geared towards luxury accomodationis so you get high end hotels at a couple hundred dollars a night. Not what I'm looking for. Thus my search is frustrating. I need a better way to do this.

Toodles!

I am back from the Dominican Republic!

What does this news mean for you, the blog reader? Well, for one thing, I'll be writing in my blog again. I was going to do an entry from Punta Cana but when I had internet time, I had another problem that took me away from the computer. Oh well, I didn't really have much of note to say at that time anyway. I'd only been there one day.

The real shock that I've experienced coming back is the weather. Holy Moly is it cold! Last week at this time I was in +30 C weather, with high humidity that made hot seem even hotter. I was roasting on the beach, getting a sunburn that turned out to be fairly nasty. Now its this week, and I drive back to -38 C on my truck thermometer as I rolled into Watson. That's a 70 C difference! Yikes! That's nearly the difference between freezing and boiling water! All I can say is, wow. Its been a wild transition.

I'm glad to be home though. I think the value of a vacation was kind of lost on me, with all the travelling I've done since Christmas. The trip was good. I loved the beach, the warm weather, and the new people we met there. Hopefully some lasting friendships will endure, and the memories will linger for some time. But when a week was up, I was ready to come home. Its actually comforting to be back at my desk, some work in front of me, to engage my mind. The cold is but a minor annoyance.

Have a good day people. Toodles!

Well, this is the last day before I leave. I thought I'd jot down a quick blog entry while I had a minute. Funny, I'm not excited. I'm actually nervous and tense. I believe I'm having a small panic attack. Which sucks because these aren't fun. :-s

I don't really have anything to say this morning. I've been kind of lost in a fog the whole time I've been awake. I was kind of in a fog while I was sleeping too. I had a continual night of sleep, but it wasn't relaxed. I have a vague recollection of hazy, disconnected dreaming. I guess that doesn't matter much. I tend to ponder my dreams though, and I'm always discombobulated when they won't fit into some kind of pattern.

I'm at once happy to be going on vacation, and sad at leaving so much behind. Life's been pretty chaotic for the last year, and as much as I want to get away from it, there is a sense of comfort in knowing your circumstances, even if you percieve them to be lousy. I will actually miss coming to work, even though its been causing me grief lately. I'm going to miss talking to my friends on the computer. I'm going to miss my routine on weekdays, and my frenetic weekends in Saskatoon. And I'm going to miss Tara. Lots of missing. It almost doesn't seem like the fun of a vacation is going to replace it.

One thing that might be causing my trepidation today is the realization of what happened last year. I went on vacation, came home, and promptly lost my job. I hadn't considered that particular angle until just this moment. I hope that's not what's preying on my mind.

I guess the only thing to do is throw aside all my cares and just embrace the coming experience. I will take some pictures, collect some stories, and come home with lots to write about here, in this blog. Miss me people, because I'm going to miss you.

Toodles!

I've done it again. No, no, not that! Geez, you guys have sick minds! :-P

No, I wrote something that's not going to see the light of day. I wonder some days why I even bother putting this stuff on page. Of course I know the answer to my own question. I need the catharsis of committing stuff to some kind of reality, since I will, in all probability, never act on the things that I can so easily put on a page. I wish I had more confidence in myself. Any time I have the guts to let someone read something I've written, I always get mostly positive feedback. They always have suggestions, which is good, but for the most part they think its good. Still I'm mired in self doubt. I hate rejection. That's my biggest failing, and probably the one single factor that limits me most as a human being.

Anyway, what I wrote. I wrote a caustic pilot report yesterday afternoon and into this morning. We got a set of comments about the first revision of the original report. (For you keeping score that means this is the third iteration of the pilot report) Most of them were valid, from the point of view that the information wasn't there. However, the information wasn't there because there was none to give. Really, they didn't need to ask the questions that were asked. It shouldn't matter to them. Bottom line, do we think can provide the quality of water asked for in the contract? We said that we think we could. That should be end of story. So, being the type of person I am, wrote a very politely worded report where the veiled response was for them to sod off. I gotta break myself of this habit! 8-(

Toodles!

Hell is other people – Jean-Paul Satre

Someone actually called this the worst joke of the day.

I'm a single Mom. I had minor surgery and while I was recovering and spending most of the day in bed, my seven year old son asked me why I didn't have a boyfriend.
I told him the television was my boyfriend, he entertained me all the time.
The only problem was the television set was old and would just shut off for no reason. But, I would just give it a few hard wacks on the side and it would come back on, which was no big deal...
A couple of days later the pastor stopped by to check on my recovery.
I was trying to get the television to come back on so, my son answered the door.
The pastor smiled and asked "Is your mother busy, son? My little one looked up at him and replied, "No, sir, she's in the bedroom banging her boyfriend!"

Just for the record, I hate greensand filtration. Its stupid and pointless, in most instances as a membrane system will deal with dissolved iron and manganese in water just fine. If either is oxided there is a problem but typically that's not the case. I fail to see the point of purposely oxidizing the iron and manganese, to remove it with greensand filtration, when if you leave it alone its not a problem for a membrane. Its the logic of it that escapes me. Convert it to the form that is problematic for you, so that you can use a different process to remove it? How is that logical?

It's another one of those days. I'm glad I went with the approach to this week that I did. Just sit back and wait for the fires to flare up. One did, this pilot report I am re-doing again. If I ever get it into my head to be a consulting engineer will someone please shoot me? No, I'm serious. Please shoot me.

Its snowing here in Watson. Really snowing. I looked out the window a few minutes ago and you couldn't see the train tracks just down the street anymore. That's pretty intense. We haven't had a good blizzard here in Saskatchewan in awhile. At least not anywhere I've been at the time. This would be a good time for one. It would make me grin at being able to leave for the Dominican Republic in the middle of it. :-)

Toodles all!

Today should be considered a good day. First and foremost, HIGH SPEED internet is now alive and running in the Central Water Conditioning office. I set up our router this morning, and get everything working in about half an hour or so. Stupid thing. The default IP address that the router uses I had already programmed into the computer we were using for the satellite internet. So, I wasn't able to connect to the router because my idiot computer had learned the 'Server' was 192.168.0.1. I'm suffering from insomnia right now so I'm not fully on top of my game and it took me awhile to get this little incongruity figured out. {for all you that like to upbraid me for my loquaciousness, I'm still alert enough to use the words incongruity and loquaciousness :-P} Long story short, I unplugged the 'Server' computer so only the router was using 192.168.0.1. Oh yeah, since I'm using Microsoft software, I also had to reboot my computer. WTF!!!!

The other piece of really good news for today is, it would appear our shop drawings have FINALLY been approved. There is a massive pile of paper on my desk that I'm much too fatigued to want to look through. I've scanned a few pages from it and it appears to be approved shop drawings. Hallelujah, holy , !!! I truly did not expect this day would ever arrive. As astounding as it seems to me, I think we can finally move on to the next phase of the project and actually order some materials. I refuse to take responsibility for this outrageous delay. According to the original schedule, we were supposed to be starting construction already. They just approved the shop drawings. I pass nearly all the responsibility for this delay onto the consulting engineer. Yes, they had some questions and concerns about the package we submitted. Why didn't they address those specific questions with me in October, instead of waiting until December? And then taking 6 weeks after that to approve the package? Yes, they had some legitimate concerns but most of the wasted time was their fault, not ours. Bygones.

Toodles!

Sorry I didn't get a blog entry in yesterday. Its kind of a work thing I do, and I toasted my computer yesterday around 10:00. I didn't have the internet for the rest of the day and into the morning until, coincidentally enough, 10:00. I now have a brand spanking new computer and it works super slick. There's more stuff I want to install. 'Non-standard' stuff :-D that I'll put those things on as I want/need them.

Now that I have real high speed at home, this satellite connection at work is really chapping my ass. I will be so glad when we have real high speed here too. That's supposed to happen while I'm gone. I'll set it up first thing when I get back and then the horses of war can really be unleashed! :-D (That's my favorite emoticon for the day.)

I better get going. I'm off to Edmonton for a conference for two days. I don't expect there'll be a blog entry until Friday. Toodles!

It would appear I'm going to do the insomnia thing again. ...sigh... I don't really want to do that right now but for whatever reason I'm having trouble sleeping. This is night three of being awake most of the night. I went to bed early, about 10:30, because I was tired. Head nodding to the side tired. I go to bed, crawl under the blankets and bling!, I'm awake. I really hate that. Maybe I should start sleeping on the couch, with my contacts still in, to remove the, trying to sleep, aspect. If I'm just tired I can fall asleep but if I try it doesn't work. I woke up a bunch of times over the course of the night. I didn't bother looking at the clock because I could tell from the radio not being on that it wasn't time to get up. So I lay there, and rolled from side to side, and didn't really sleep. What a frustrating thing!

There was a car accident near here this morning. We heard a bunch of sirens wailing and then news filtered back that there'd been a crash. I didn't participate in any conversations about it but everyone tends to congregate at the cash register, which is just outside my door. Consequently I hear most of these conversations. There was heavy fog this morning. Some woman pulled out to pass a car and slammed into oncoming traffic. It makes you wonder about the mentality of someone that would try passing in such heavy fog.

I'm printing manuals here this afternoon and my latest batch of print jobs just ended. I'd better queue up another set. Toodles!

Sorry about yesterday. I totally forgot to do an entry when I got home last night. I was in Souris for a meeting yesterday. That was a big waste of time. It was a site meeting; an opportunity for prospective bidders to examine the water treatment plant and ask any questions they might have about the tender package. We didn't need to be there. Our presence was not utilized and we just stood around for 1-1/2 while contractors went around tape measuring things and taking pictures. I examined the pilot plant. That was my biggest contribution to the day. Then we went to lunch and listened to the problems of the project engineer. Considering all the grief I've been put through over this project, I don't feel particularly sympathetic to their plight.

I have some ominous news. Ominous for me really, not that much for anyone else. I'm not sleeping. This concerns me because with my medication I always sleep. Last night was the second night in a row that I did not sleep well. I woke up at 2:30 last night and never really got back to sleep after that. I dozed, but ended up rolling over to check the time, again and again. I'm really hoping this does not settle into a pattern of no sleep. I need it, quite desperately in fact. I feel just awful right now. The plan is to go home at lunch, lie on the couch, and maybe snooze for a few minutes, if I can. Not sleeping only leads to further bad situations, for me.

I wanted to start the next chapter in my book today. I've been putting it off and putting it off, waiting for divine inspiration on where to take the story in this next chapter. I've decided that type of epiphany is not likely to occur. I know how I want things to open, in this chapter, so I'm just going to start, and see where my typing takes me. That usually a pretty good method for me to get from point A to point B when I write. I don't know if this book is any good but I'm enjoying writing it, when I sit down with it. I just wish I could devote more than an hour a day to it. I just get into the narrative again and its time to go back to work. I'd write in the evenings but then I watch TV, chat with people, play games, and so on. I wonder how some other people make a living at doing nothing but writing?

Toodles!