A Perfect End to a Not So Perfect Week

September 3rd, 2010 Thomasso

Well, I am glad that this week has come to a close. Actually, I am very glad, no, make that super happy that this week is over. With a sore foot, tons of preparations to do before next week’s start to the last semester, and some unexpected garbage from an ex-friend, the week could not have come to a close any sooner.

I will embrace these next seventy-two hours. The first thing I am going to do tomorrow morning is not get up.

Here is today’s sunset from my front yard. What a way to end the day with–a warm evening, no flies and a sunset.

Maybe the whole weekend will be like this. Although the weather station said it was going to rain on Sunday, but they are notorious for being wrong!.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

The Seasonal Change – Is it Here Already?

August 31st, 2010 Thomasso

It is cold, damp and miserable today. The last day of August is here, and it seems like the first day of miseryville as I drove into work with pounding rain hitting the windshield. Even in the afternoon it was cool and wet.

The high point of today was getting paid. Yay, the lovely pay cheque. Yes, as a part time employee the few bucks (Dollars) I have earned are long awaited. Playing the role of the struggling student, plays a toll on the mind and soul (meaning my state of mind beyond my inner self, like the need to buy food), so when pay time comes, I seem to be relaxed a little more. Then it starts all over again in two weeks, slowly at first, then the money dries up days before the nest pay time comes, and I wait, again and again, over and over. Soon this will stop as my worth will grow expediently, and I can focus on just work in my life.

I am debating on whether I should turn the heat on. Yes, it is that cold out. It is cold enough that my nose feels cold. I can feel it on my chest. I am holding back turning on the heat because the cost of electricity has jump my more than 30 percent year, and I am not sure if I want to risk a early spike in my electric bill for next month. Money is tight as I just paid my tuition, and most of my annual bills such as insurance, post office box rental, and other such bills.

The glorious back to school commercials are polluting the airwaves as merchants plug their stock to the soon to be happy parents as the state run babysitters start up next week. I know, to my teacher friends, school is not a place to bring your children for daycare while the working class do their thing and go to work. But, most parents look forward to the respite that public school offers them. Public/private school is the perfect solution for that eight hours of work that grownups need to do.

Driving through a school zone I saw the practice run of crossing guards they alert drives that the kids are coming back. There were some kids marching along too. The children are not happy though, as they are marched off to school because they know that this is not only an institution that helps them grow and prosper, but a place where they are introduced to the harsh realities of life. Their eyes look glassed with disbelief that they are being rounded up and herded off to a cell where they will be programed and trained to meet the needs of society.  Oh do they learn.

That is where I got my first lesson in sex education: grade four. Seeing the cartoon hieroglyphs of the female genitalia etched on the metal surfaces of the bathroom stalls was one of the first images of woman that left intrigue and mystery for me. From there my education expanded to unforeseen realms and higher levels of ascension. As my father preached his conservative values to me during my eighth year, dancing vaginas (Vulva) danced around my head as I learned what made girls so different from the boys.

In Canadian terms, we are back to normal. Winter is six months long, and it is an accepted fact of living here: cold is normal. As summer fades, the cold signals the start of the regular season for hockey, school and television. Work becomes normal as businesses gear up for the big spending spree of the winter season—the seasonal holiday period. “Buy, Buy, Buy” ads are already hitting the TV and radio waves.

We have one more shot at the end of summer: the last long weekend of this happy, lovely season. The mad rush to enjoy the moments are being planned out with meticulous care, where one can walk along the shores, bare feet in the sand, and not have to worry about frostbite and snowballs to the head. This festive holiday (BBQs, beer and bathing suites) is only four days away, and only the young will miss the significance of it. The young are so blessed: with ignorance comes the potential of happy memories of the last days of summer. For them, this will be such a glorious time.

NOTE: since the time of the first draft, this post has undergone several revisions: September 1, 2010.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour | No Comments »

The Shifty Satire of a Dead Beat Day: A Nonsense Post, It is Just Me Babbling

August 27th, 2010 Thomasso

Finally the weekend is here. I am beat. When I got home today, I took a nap, and when awoke it was three hours later. I must have been tired. Sounds boring eh? Yes, it has been a boring uneventful last couple of weeks. Then I look at all the notes I took from the lectures I attended from over the last five days, and then I realized that I have worked just as hard as I normally would as a student. So much for having a break.

My next and final term is fast approaching. This is all I am thinking about, except for the lack of money  and time. It is hard to believe that in sixteen weeks it will be all over and a major chapter in my life will have come to an end. Actually, it is damn exciting because I have waited for this moment for so long, six years, so I may not miss it as much I thought. This means that I have no reason for sticking around Fort Langley, or the Lower Mainland for that matter. With great change comes the great move. I can feel it.

The shift has already started. I have started the planning process for my next line of employment. It is a cool feeling to know that as of January of 2011 I will be at the apex of my discipline and completely indoctrinated into my field, a true profession, with credentials. Neat! I know, I must stop gloating about this. I think people are getting tired of me touting the final leg of my success?

Oh, I should talk about the last post here, about Lady Gaga. It had over 6000 hits in the first half of the day. There are many Gaga fans out there. Even more astonishing are the twenty-two links to it? I just thought I would point that out.

Well, I am going to focus on some papers that I have been working on. That will keep me busy for the next couple of days. A am actually going to work on some statistical data that I have been working on for the last six months. Yup, I am going to voluntarily count data sets and recode my surveys, as I am in search of the allusive correlates. “A sick mind is one that loves statistics,” a friend once told me—I am a sicko! But there is poetry in Math as there is in the written form, you just need to appreciate it. And I am right, 19 times out of 20!

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So, Now We Are Back To This – Rain

August 22nd, 2010 Thomasso

I guess it is kind of nice to have the rain back, but it sure feels, umm, normal, again?

From one extreme to another, this weather sure has its surprises. Heat-wave to cold in just a matter hours.

So, I made some cheep animations of rain with a program called Ktoon. This took me about five minutes to create, and was fun to do. The instructions that I have, however, are in Spanish, so it was a learning curve at first. It does make sense once you get familiar with the buttons. It is undoubtedly cartoonish, eh?

Posted in Art, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | No Comments »

Sleeping In Today

August 21st, 2010 Thomasso

Well the first of my marks came in. Not bad; not that great, but I can live with it. A letter grade of B+ was given to me for my efforts. My weakness: the presentations, and my thesis for my major paper. The argument was good, but the effort put into it was not, or at least worthy of a grade of A. So the total combined effort that course was rewarded with a B+.

[ADDED] My GPA seems to have only suffered a little bit. I lost a one hundredth of a point.

I am still waiting for more marks to trickle in. The term is not quite over yet. For my last course, the final paper just handed in last night, and is a group assignment, almost the equivalent of a final exam. So my heart is beating very lightly as the will marked this my Monday.

Today, this morning, I purposely slept in. It felt great not to worry about a starting time, and having responsibilities waiting for me when the alarm clock goes off. Though I did felt guilt when I opened my eyes, and forced myself back to sleep. It was cold, too. I had to grab another blanket to cover myself with. Could a early winter be around the corner waiting for us? No! Not so soon.

The Police came and dealt with my unruly neighbours last night. They were drinking, smoking drugs, acting like children with their loud voices and bad language. A car was damaged as it hit another car along the street. Everyone who was drinking was also driving. The police were vigorous this time around because there were little kids on the premisses while the drinking and drugs were being consumed. Not a very healthy atmosphere for children in a household to be in, eh?

[ADDED] It appears that I was not the only one who put their foot down and alerted the police about last night’s little episode. I now know of two others who did some phoning of their own. I guess I cannot take all the credit after all.

Am I the bad person for this? They seem to think so as I took away their fun. But what about the children, the safety of our roads, and my peace of mind? Maybe the drugs made them forget, or did they forget long before that?

My landlord is like an ostrich, who quickly buries its head in the sand hoping that the problem will work itself out and go away. I bypass them and deal with these issues myself. In the past I have sent the mounties over to their place too. Sad isn’t. They know, but they don’t care, only their reputations after the fact. If they actually thought about what they were doing before hand then all would be well today. That was a different story, told a long time ago.

The HST. I love how this roller coaster ride of a story is taking on a life of it own. I am a proud signer of the petition of the anti-HST protest. My argument is that it is not the tax itself, but the timing of it. Introducing a tax right in the middle of a recession has got to be one of the most sure ways of committing political suicide that there is. Canadian history is full of good examples of this. You don’t start taxing during rough times: you will loose your votes. Unless Prime Minister Harper and Premier Campbell decide that Canada should be a Fascist State and start running everything like Hitler did, then I will leave. They could start taxing all they want after that, I wouldn’t care. But in the mean time, I do not want them in power if they are going to crank up taxes to pay off the 2010 Olympics and Corporate Welfare pay-outs! Such apathy towards the people to feed only the big businesses at our expense —what happened to capitalism and the market economy? Yeah, it doesn’t work. I shake my head.

Well, time for that first cup of coffee, and then my morning surf for the news. Awh, to sleep in.

[ADDED] A cup of coffee turned into a full pot. I hit the coffee hard today, but sure got a lot done.

Until next time.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Law and Order, Social economics, University classes | No Comments »

Heat Effected Attitudes-the Fake ‘n Bake Rate

August 17th, 2010 Thomasso

If there is one thing that I have learned since working with contractors, it is that laziness abounds. When hard based labour is required, taking the shortcuts usually means “passing the buck” on to the next guy, without any remorse, in spite of their evil hands and minds–they happily go about their day. Harsh is the penalty of insubordination.

These are strong words, especially coming from me, but I have witnessed in the last few days of the heat wave, time in and time out, the level of apathy among co-workers. It is surging beyond belief as each record hot day passes, so does the count for incidence reports, now at five in total.

I have had people dump garbage in my work area, left paperwork incomplete, and have had people say some very hateful things to me because they did not feel that they should do the final leg of their duties. Sure, I could have walk off the job and said “see ya later, you deal with the mess,” but that would have being the cowardly way out. Instead, I have resorted to written disciplinary notices, left unfinished jobs back on their work schedules, and held off on their up coming job until they completed their required duties of completion on their past jobs.

The cries, the whining, the language. Oh my. Poor fools, those foolish fools.

What these people forget is that a pen, and a piece of paper and the words that are written on it, stays with them for the rest of the duration of their contracts. Oh yes, the file. Their file—your file!

The inability of fulfilling their end of the bargain, or a breach of contract, means that the agreement can be terminated if the breach is due to any number of reasons. Lack of duty, derelict of duty, breach of duty, these are very bad things to defend against. Their duty to full fill the requirements of the contract as the contractor, mine is to make sure that the tools are there so they can do that, but there needs to be a meeting of the minds, a single playing field to work on. Without this agreement, nothing could get done, that is fare reasonable. So, a punishment must be enacted. It is a cruel world–yes I know–but “you can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat” and vegetables (Pink Floyd).

Tomorrow will be a new day. But for my friends, the contractors, this new day will be rot with old news from past days that they will be faced with and cornered. The essence of a stain on their file will permeate with the fragrance of a bitter-sweet flower of guilt and disgrace.

Need I say anymore.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General | No Comments »

Is It Ever Hot Out!

August 15th, 2010 Thomasso

I do think we have passed the criteria of what Environment Canada calls a Heat Wave?

Other than watching my lawn furniture melt, a couple of things happened today that makes wonder if everything is falling a part?

This morning a bird hit my bedroom window. Knocked itself out cold. I was typing my report this morning for my last bit of homework when I heard a loud thump coming from my window where I was sitting. It was loud enough that I jumped up and ran outside to see if someone had thrown a rock up over the fence from the road. This has happened before. When I started walking back after inspecting the window for damage, I caught a brown object moving on the ground—it was a bird.

The poor thing was just slowly moving, its eyes wide open, but clearly stunned with the wind knocked out of it. I slowly touched it to see if would move, but it just sat there. I slowly picked it up and moved it to underneath my walkway where it was in the shade. I watched it for a few moments, and it started to regain some of its motor functions. I left it, so I would not let it freak out, as I’m sure it was not in any mood of it thinking if whether I was going to kill it.

When I came back a few minutes later, the bird was gone. I wanted to check to see if it did in fact not die, as having a dead bird in a hot sweltering day would not be a good thing. The bird did hit the window hard enough that it left bird shit on the window. It was lucky to survive that impact!

I feel sorry for the women who have to walk outside during the heatwave. I watched this pregnant women walking down the main street who looked as if she was ready to pop, and she did not look too happy. She was wearing a summer dress, but with all that rigging underneath, she looked cumbersome, and in pain. The sweat was just pouring from off of her face. My friends who were with me, women, told me that she was probably dealing with a bad case of heat rash too. I guess the weather needs to get a whole lot hotter before women to go topples.

Well, gotta go. I’m what the power bill is going to be like when I get it. The A/C is working very hard right now. Like I’m helping the climate out.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General | No Comments »

Cooked Meat On a Grill: At Least Make it Safe

August 13th, 2010 Thomasso

To TM and DS, I hope you two are getting through you ordeal. To the rest of the people that went over for a barbecue, I hope the “Hurshy Squirt” feelings passes soon. The the ones who were doing the cooking, you may have a law suit on your hands?

Many years ago I fell victim to under cooked food that was the result of my hastiness on the grill, and I got dreadfully sick. I will never will forget that part of my life as I felt like I was on my death-bed and spent a couple days inside while summer time activities were put on hold. Another time was at a chicken restaurant in Toronto, but that was mild compared to the last bout of sickness. These were wake up calls for just how dangerous food can be, especially cooking meat.

There is a trust issue when food is involved. I remember once when I was just a kid, I watched my sister choking on a piece of steak. It freaked me out, and for years I chewed the heck on my food because of that. Eventually I got over it. I will not return to the same restaurant if I felt the slightest inclining of sickness from the food. The psychological effect that food has on people is almost universal according to my Psych Professor from my first year psychology class. One super bad experience is all that it takes.

Now, I never ate any. I sat and talked to everyone, and even I never suspected that something was wrong with the food. Fortunately I was leaving for my afternoon class at the time, so I was spared. I could have been a victim!

So, cook your food. Make sure that there is no red juices on the meat. Cook it right through. Don’t take the change of getting sick from it!

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When You Hang Your Underwear (Personal Affairs) in Public, It Becomes a Messy Deal if Your Motives Fail

August 10th, 2010 Thomasso

For about a couple of weeks now I had known of a college buddy who was head over heals about his one true love, (R.B.), and when he popped the question, it was worse than an atomic bomb going off.  The whole campus knew about it in a matter of minutes. He went and asked his girl friend out on a date. I my opinion, this was an extremely tacky affair because when he announced that he was going to do this by a combination of text-messaging and Twitter, I shook my head in disbelief. RB did it, and it got ugly real fast.

The background.

For months RB was obsessed with her. He told only three people that I know of, of how he felt about her. He mingled with her, walked with her as much as possible, and even switched majors and so he could take classes with her so that he could spend more time with with her together. on campus We joked that he was fast approaching “stocker Status,” something that everyone is more concerned with these days as date-rape, sexual assaults and nuisance cases flood the media. But the lure of love gripped him—tightly.

At the beginning of the month he popped the question and announced it on Twitter, and then sent out a text message announcing “Will you go out with me.” Within minutes he got his answer, but not from her, but from her close circle of friends. It was brutal. They had no mercy. He got his answer with a barrage of text messages back that spanned from calling him a “animal,” to a being a criminal, in other words, a resounding, “NO!” There was no doubt that she did not want anything to do with him after that announcement. Even today she is shy and embarrassed when walking among the other students on campus, never bring that episode up with her as she will become very upset.

What went wrong?

Today, serenading, flowers and love notes are fine, but not in public. Public also includes text-messaging, twitter and email. Blogging and posting on Face Book are bad too. The Damage is far too great, even if she accepted, to have everybody including the guys next door, know  that you tried and asked your girl out on a date.

My friend forgot the two basic principles of human nature in romance. First, everyone has feelings, and embarrassment is one of them. Second, no two people share identical emotions at any one time, especially courtship emotions and other sexual based feelings. To assume that the person of whom you have a crush on thinks likewise requires a lot of research and field testing. The first rule would be to test whether the person you fancy has any feelings about you in the same manner, in a positive light. Remember that “love is blind,” as the saying goes, but today, in our society, you must be discreet and cautious as the storybook romances are just that, stuff of storybooks. So posting your announcement on Twitter, and text-messaging that person so that everyone can see it is not a good thing. Networking is a powerful tool, but it is viral, and stuff that you did not want aired in public seems to spread even faster through the network than the boring stuff.

There are things, actions, still today that must be kept closed off from the public sphere and given a high level of discreetness. The outcome could have been a lot different had my friend used the old school from of asking his girl friend to embark on a more intimate relationship. This is a very good example of how not to use social networking as your way of communicating your needs.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, University classes | No Comments »

My Day Told in Pictures

August 3rd, 2010 Thomasso

I don’t know why, I just had the camera with me the whole day. I wasn’t the best of days, the weather was sunny, then stormy, then sunny again, and the attitude from everyone was one of “I want to go home and continue with the long weekend.”

Anyway, we all got through it.

So, here are some photos of my day, so far, as it is not over yet.

Life at 5:00am. It is weird that the sun is still getting up the same time I do. In fact, this whole picture is weird because the I only see the sun this early for less that two months our of the year–I’m not used to this. I’m usually long gone, and  off to work, before the sun starts to shine along the horizon.

The mid morning Moon shot. I was originally taking photos of the clouds because a storm system was rolling in, but this shot took my fancy. The Moon looks really cool in this image, I think, so I thought it was worthy of being posted here in the blog. Note: from my course in astronomy, on the Solar System, I know that this phase of the moon is the third quarter, soon we will have the new moon.

And then there is the library at the Surrey campus. I just took this one as I was typing this out (about 2:45pm). The architecture looks really cool, especially when there is little light outside (like late at night) and all the flood lights are on, but this only happens during the winter months when it gets much darker earlier in the day. In the summer, the sun turns everything a gold colour inside the walk-through area. You literally walk in from 30C super humid heat, into 20C super dry cool air from the A/C.

Next was the two group meetings that I had, which took me from 3:00pm until 6:30pm, just before my 7:00pm evening class. So, eight solid hours of campus! My butt was sore from sitting for so long, and when we took our breaks it was like walking on glass my legs hurt so much.

There is still so much work to do until the very end of the semester. Less than ten days to go! Oh we need more time to polish these presentations.

From the above image you can see that our energy levels are running out from the input on these brain storming session. This is our last presentation we have for our communications class, where each of us gets only 2:30 minutes to speak. Every second counts in these presentations!

After class, on the way out from the Admissions Building I took this shot(s). I was there so late! I want to curl up on the bench and stay the evening–I didn’t want to move.

I watched the fountain at the turtle pond – it was hypnotizing. It was peaceful. The flash had a nice effect on the water too.

Here we go – the end to a perfect day. OK, it wasn’t that perfect, but it sure felt like when I sat down and took this photo. I could have slept on the bench I was so tired.

Good night.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Photographs, University classes | Comments Off