Fun and Games Dept

So I am currently sitting outside the gaming floor of the local casino, writing this blog entry on my iPhone. Earl is playing Let It Ride and is doing good thus far. He thinks I’m out of money, but I’m not. I still have more than half of what I budgeted for tonight in my pocket. I have this thing about losing money; I don’t like to do it. I am quite content just people watching and being amused by the intensity of some of the players. I make up stories in my head about people. Someday they might end up characters in a novel I write.

I have received several comments on my last entry about my HIV test. Some comments have been through e-mail and have had a common theme: the younger generation ain’t taking HIV as seriously as my generation did. I suppose it’s because HIV was fairly new when I became sexually active and I saw a quite a few of my friends die of AIDS. With the advancement of medicine it seems that younger folks just aren’t as concerned with the disease that ravaged our community back in the day. I sometimes wonder if there is misinformation or a dose of ignorance out there. I sometimes think that I could do more in helping educate folks; I suppose these two blog entries are a start.

Well enough of the heavy stuff for tonight. After all, I’m listening to bells and whistles of slot machines and hearing the occasional scream of a winner here and there. A gay couple just walked by and they were holding hands. That’s pretty remarkable for these parts. It makes me grin.

I should probably go check on the husbear. He’s one of the best card players I’ve ever seen. Maybe he’ll buy me something pretty. Heh.

So a little research on YouTube turned up this video clip from a 1969 movie. Can you name the famous cartoon character who’s voice is in this scene? It’s best evident at 3:08 or so.

Moment., originally uploaded by iMachias.

A shot of Earl and I in Times Square a couple of weeks ago. I really like how Jamie just captures a random moment.

I think I was futzing with the GPS in my iPhone at the time.

234b.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

Earl and I ran out to the local car dealership to put his work vehicle in for it’s routine maintenance. The weather was so balmy that I decided to pick him up in the Jeep. The Jeep is still in summer mode in that the sides and back are off and the doors have been removed. To make sure no autumn chill made the ride uncomfortable, I threw my sweatshirt on over the clothes I had changed into after work: the same comfortable t-shirt and jean shorts that I had worn during my sick day yesterday. Earl was dressed in similarly styled clothes: including a pair of cut off sweat pants and a t-shirt. He threw on a fleecy jackety thing to complete his ensemble.

After picking him up from the auto dealer I suggested we stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for a treat. After bombing around in the Jeep in relative darkness for a little bit, the bright lights of the store were a bit startling. I imagined that we looked like those folks you see in a 7-11 at 3:00 a.m. that are looking for a quart of Ben and Jerry’s and they’re not fussy about the flavour.

We opted for iced tea and a donut (so healthy) and sat down in the corner just to shoot the breeze a little bit. We discussed important issues like the complete reshooting of the varicose veins commercial they show prior to the main feature at the local theatre and the missing crew member at the Dunkin’ Donuts (who has a license plate that says his name is Beef Stew).

More importantly, we decided to sell the house and move into a trailer because we felt very dressed for the part.

New Desk., originally uploaded by iMachias.

Yesterday when I was busy getting the cold that I now seem to be over, I put together my new desk. Earl and I have been arranging the furniture in the offices a little bit. This is the newest addition and it resides in my studio. I have plenty of room to be a geek now.

I was out for a long drive (okay, a really long drive) when I tweeted the following¹:

Yes, I saw a UFO tonight. It was a cone shape light, almost like someone was shining a flashlight in the air with a beam that appeared the come down a long way. The beam slowly split into two and then extinguished, leaving a luminous cloud behind. The cloud lingered around for about four minutes before dissipating.

There were hundreds of tweets appearing on Twitter around the same time I tweeted my sighting; folks from Maryland to Buffalo to New York to north of Boston had seen this thing. Folks had pulled over to the side of the road where I was driving and looking out the window.

NASA reports that they launched a rocket tonight: Night Time Artificial Cloud Study Using NASA Sounding Rocket. The launch was from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

I’m guessing that’s what I saw.

¹ Yes, I pulled over to Tweet.

Today is my mandatory day off from work so I made a trip up to where I grew up and surprised my dad by joining him for lunch. He was busy at work at the family business; when I arrived my dad was eating lunch in the office with my uncle and my aunt. I grabbed a lunch special from the Chinese restaurant across the street and joined them. We talked about the usual stuff; what was going on with the family, the town gossip and the general state of affairs in the world.

Afterward Dad asked me to join him as he went up to the local tractor dealer. We checked out new lawn tractors that will probably double as a snow-blower for him. It was a good visit and I felt very grounded.

I took a picture with Dutchess, who lives with my aunt. She is eight years old and prior to living with my aunt she lived with my grandfather (until ’05). Dutchess spends her days at the lumber yard/hardware store. She is camera shy.

229.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

227.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

It’s just a typical day at work, and a good one at that.

Favourite., originally uploaded by iMachias.
The view of Downtown Toronto from the Gardiner Expressway, as seen through a dirty windshield with an iPhone.

So I spent the weekend in the beautiful city of Toronto, Ontario. I always fully appreciate how close we are to this fine city and that there are multiple ways of getting there, so the drive is rarely boring.

I made the trek to help dave get settled into his new home and to touch base with some friends up there. On the way home I stopped in to see my sister, her husband and my nephew. I didn’t get the chance to spend as much time there as I would have enjoyed but it was good to see them. I’m determined not to let the snow slow us down this winter when it comes to future visits. Canada is properly enjoyed in both the summer and the winter.

Try as I might to the contrary, I can’t help but declare that Toronto is my favourite North American city. There is such an openness there that you rarely find in the states and the folks that I have run across are not crabby or cranky. I feel very, very comfortable in Toronto; much like I felt when we spent time in Dublin. My love for the city shouldn’t be perceived as an anti-U.S. sentiment, because it truly isn’t, I just like Toronto better. I tell my sister that she is quite fortunate to live in the area; I understand why folks bend over backwards and invest thousands of dollars into immigration proceedings for the opportunity to live there.

It’s all a matter of taste, I suppose.

The weekend started off as a long one; Earl was helping Jamie finish the move from Buffalo to the Manor, so I was going to spend the night with them in Buffalo Friday night and continue the short trek to Toronto Saturday morning. dave was flying into Toronto from New York Friday night but all his flights were canceled due to weather, so we went with Plan B where he flew into Buffalo and then I drove him across the border to Toronto. We ended up getting into Toronto Saturday around 0300 so we slept in a bit Saturday morning. The change in plans and sleep schedule made the weekend feel extra long and I feel surprisingly good today.

So it’s getting to that time of year when we are doing that whole transition thing of summer to autumn. We are actually moving into my favourite time of year in these parts. I love the autumn breezes with their slight chill, I love the sound of rustling leaves and I can’t help but feel a certain magic in the air. There is something very enchanting about this time of year to me.

Unfortunately, there is one thing my body has a hard time reconciling with the season and that is time. I have said many, many times before that I am not an early person. I’m not. I try to be. I set my alarm early, hoping to leap out of bed all happy and ready to start my day. I have dreams of working out, doing several loads of laundry, rearranging the spice rack, adding a new room to the house, you name it, all before going to work at 8 a.m.

It seems that I never get these things accomplished.

My body is just out of sync with the man-made concept of time. Before the days of the railroad, each community had their own schedule and “clock”. Noon was determined by when the sun was highest in the sky. I believe that our bodies are wired to be in sync with nature in this regard and that some of us are programmed to be early birds and some of us are programmed to be night hawks (I’m in the latter category). I remarked on Twitter this afternoon that it feels like my day truly begins after I return from lunch because try as I might, I am really stumbling my way through the day before noon. I fake it pretty well but I feel like I’m in a constant state of jet lag. Then I eat lunch, return back to work and I feel like I could plow through eight hours nonstop and actually enjoy the experience. I have told my employer that if I worked noon to 9 that they would get me at my optimum time but unfortunately that shift doesn’t exist. So I fake it.

With the onslaught of Daylight Saving Time the clocks are becoming farther and farther out of sync with what nature has deemed to be “time”. At least when DST is over we get somewhat closer to they way my body wants it to be, but until then I stumble. It’s unfortunate that the previous president extended DST by a few weeks into November, for I just stumble longer.

Nevertheless, here it is 10:33 p.m. and I have been trying to go to bed for the past hour, hoping to catch up on sleep so I can be productive at work tomorrow and then be ready for a fun filled weekend. As you can see by this entry, I have not been successful in this endeavour, for I am wide awake and writing a rather long blog entry. I feel like I could full steam for the next several hours.

But it would make me too foggy tomorrow morning.