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!.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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The Weirdest Sleep Last Night – It Was Too Real

July 10th, 2010 Thomasso

I do not know if it was the heat, or the supper amount of stress I am going through with classes right now, or the exotic food I ate for dinner, but man, did I ever have a weird sleep. Right now it is 5:30am and I am looking outside at the first bit of sun light hitting the horizon and my body feels like a million dollars: unbelievably great. My brain, on the other hand, feels like a water balloon full of thick gooey sludge. I think I might have a head cold that is going around?

It was a welcomed sight seeing the high clouds roll in last night. I know the heat was killer, and everyone was feeling it, but we only had three days of it. According to Environment Canada’s definition of a “Heat Wave,” you need to have three consecutive days of 32C, or hotter, weather to constitute that title. We only broke that temperature for two days, so we can not use the term Heat Wave until the next high pressure weather system moves in.

So far, the heat seems to be trapped under the clouds and it does not appear to any threat of rain, but the clouds are moving away as I can see clear patchy skies. The night was warm, which is unusual from the last few days where the temperature dropped to 15C at night. We had our share of rain for far too long, so I think we might be back to some more glorious sun shine which I am looking forward too.

Well, I think I might throw on some coffee and start preparing for the first of two papers due this week. I hope you like my Sun Shine Man drawn on InkScape.

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Canada Day – What Does it Mean?

July 1st, 2010 Thomasso

I just did a whole day working on a new vehicle – thank you Diane. I am sore, as I spent most of that time standing in one position, arched over the engine with my head crouched under the hood. The good news is, I think everything looks good and the vehicle might pass through the inspection centre. We have this thing called Air-Care, or as some call it, the “mechanic’s Dream Law” because it force people to do maintenance on their vehicles in order to pass the emissions standards law. I think it is a great money revenue scheme, as there are ways to get around it if your vehicle does not pass the test–for another fee of course.   We can claim with this law that we care about air!

Canada Day, July 1, 2010 making the country about 143 years old.

What is there to celebrate? Well, this depends on who you are, where you are living and probably your age. If you are of Chinese origin, than July 1st is known as the “Day of Shame” because Canada had the Chinese Head Tax during the early part of the last century. If you are aboriginal, as some of my friends are, then they simply do not care and do not recognize Canada as a legitimate state, only the guns, segregation, land rights and poverty represent Canada in their eyes. If you are young, say born after 1990, then Canada day is just another opportunity for a long weekend and holiday to kick off summer with. If you were born between 1940 and 1965, then you would have a stronger appreciation for what Canada is; these are the baby-boomers. If you live in Fort Langley, well, it rained today, and it was not a great day doing the fun outdoor activities.

Personally for me Canada has all the problems that any other nation state has.  It has poverty and other issues related to economics and the care and well being of some its less fortunate citizens. I believe that we are over taxed, our Banks sucks, and the government does not adequately represent the people. But realistically these are minor issues because we are truly fortunate to live in a democratic government that at least is somewhat accountable to the people it servers and is more fare to us than other governments around the world. Any how, it was a great day to work on a vehicle.

Hummm, I sound so negative?

Good night and may the sun shine again soon.

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Clouds on High – When Did Summer Start?

June 23rd, 2010 Thomasso

The funny thing about clouds, you either love them, or you hate them, there is very little in between. When I looked on my calendar last week and saw that the summer solstice was near, I was excited. When I looked out the window, I had my doubts that summer was on its way, as I put my sweater on to go outside.

Since then, a week to be exact, the official start of summer has gone by, but the shift between summer and spring like days still bounces back and forth as each new day could bring any type of weather you can think of. Last week, Friday morning, it could have snowed it was so cool out. Today, I thought about turning on the air conditioner.

I told my co-workers that from now on the days are getting shorter until winter. That killed the moment.  They hate me now. Oh well, c’est la vie!

Still the clouds keep rolling in, and even now, with a fairly warm day, as soon as the sun is hidden from the clouds the cool air returns. “Clouds, I love you, but sometime you gotta go…”

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Junuary?

June 13th, 2010 Thomasso

What is up with this weather? First we had an unbelievable winter where it was so warm that some days you could wear shorts and a t-shirt in it, and then when spring finally hits, I am wearing a sweater again. Yesterday we were hitting some damn good temperature, but then this morning when I woke up and started doing some laundry, it is cold out again. On top of that, I think it is going to rain too!

I just want a whole weekend with sun in it. Maybe I am asking for too much? Nope, I think we deserve it!

Based on experience from other years where the weather patterns looked like this, I can see a massive mosquito problem on the horizon! Time to get the bug-bite out.

Added

OK, the day took on a turn for the better and became the end of a perfect weekend. Although a little on the cool side, the clouds move away and the little village of Fort Langley changed.

It is funny how many people were out walking. Funny becuase there are so many socail groups that use Fort langley as their community. Probably the fastest growing group to take over the streets are the rowers. Next to them I see the joggers and peddle bikers, or as my friend calls them, the spandex warriors, where every morning, gathering in certain locations around the community, they prepare for their rides/runs out along the Fort to Fort Trail. There are things that these eyes should not see, and wardrobe malfunctions from spandex wearers are one of them–especially while following a group in your car down the main drag.

Next to the spandex clubs are the motorcyclists. Mixed in with this group of small gangs are the weekend warriors who pretend that they are riding the American dream, but are just normal middle class, middle aged yuppies on bikes. Usually it is the pubs that you will find the remembers of organized gangs hanging around, but the café shops are where you will find the spandex weekenders.

Then there are the walkers, which are people who like to window shop, or loiter around, walking endlessly up and down the main street. They are also known as the gawkers. It is very hard to the tell the locals from the tourists this time of year, you can tell the hardcore tourist, the Kodak Attackers which are  teams of outsiders with their camers clicking away at anthing that moves, or seems to be too colouful to resist a click–they stand out.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked where the public wash rooms are from tourists today. I counted six times while I was out shopping at the local market. Fort Langley does not have public wash rooms. To re leave yourself, you must go to one of the local shops and become a customer to use their facilities. It is a quaint way of issuing a user-fee for public services, kinda like a toll on our bridges, you “pay as you go” around here. If you are guy, then you have more options. Hey, I didn’t come up with it and implement this social policy for Fort Langley! I do know that some would fear this as an invite for the homeless people to use the public wash rooms if we have them, and we don’t want that, I mean the homeless people that is. So Fort Langley does not have public wash rooms-end of story-don’t ask me any more.

Well, it is time to call it a day. I have one more homework project to complete, and its deadline is this Thursday, so I will give the blog a rest until next time.

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Moving Into Spring Fast Now

April 10th, 2010 Thomasso

Just a little note on spring here in the Fraser valley – it is definitely getting greener out. It was looking dismal there for a couple of days as cooler temperatures moved in, but in all, we seem to be bouncing back into a normal spring, just a few weeks ahead of schedule.

But who cares, just the fact that the brown days of winter are gone, (notice I didn’t say white) says a lot about what we could be in store for summer. Who knows, maybe a it will be a record cool summer, or new killer heat wave records will be made? Who can predict!

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Is this Incredible Weather or What?

February 6th, 2010 Thomasso

For the last five weeks, I must admit, I was paranoid about having to go through another winter like the one we had last year in the Fraser Valley. For the first couple of week in December it looked as if we were going to endure another super cold one, but as luck would have it, we are getting California like weather in the middle of winter for 2010. Is this Incredible Weather or What?

I know that we should be worried about having such wonderful weather in a place like Canada this time of year because it is unnatural, and nature has a way of turning such a nice thing into a huge nuisance later on down the road. I am thinking of the mosquito problems we have here along the Fraser River. With every warm winter, there follows a wet spring, and mosquitoes love water to lay their eggs in. There are other bugs too that are loving this weather, take the Roach for example. Yes Fort Langley has Roaches–although some people I know will not admit it and call them something else, like a Termites. I saw one zipping out of the storm grate alone Glover Road yesterday when I was walking back home. That congered up bad memories from when I lived in Toronto, Ontario. Toronto is a place that has a huge roach problem. Also there is the infamous Pine Beetle that has destroyed a large portion of our Pine forests in BC–can  we say “Global Warming.”

Not having to deal with shovelling, huge heating expenses and the inconvenience of driving on snow and ice, I can enjoy this weather in the short term. I say keep it coming! I love thisI In fact, I am asking myself if I should even bother heading to Mexico, in stead, stay here where it is warm?

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