Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Life and Times of Stumpy

I'm writing from Nelson to night. I am recovering form a trip to the dentist and will be heading to Trail for yet more work in the morning.

I have in the last 5 months been playing catch up with years of neglect on my teeth. Front and center of this mess is a molar that at some point maybe as far back as 5 years ago cracked. It has been the source of lots of pain off and on for a few years. Its died since then and for fun peaces have broken off on more then one occasion. So here is a portrait of what pain can look like.



Well thanks to the hard work of the staff at the dentist in Nelson I have an appointment with a specialist to get ride of the old broken tooth. To speed up things I was given a copy of the X-ray to pass on to the office in Trail. So being a geek I put the camera on macro held the negative to the light and hoped for the best

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Entertainment Report

Northern Lites Entertainment report Number who Cares.

Earlier this spring I was in the mood for a slightly bitter rant, that mood has some what faded even though the cause for the rant still remains. I was upon my arrival here three and a half weeks ago greated with a memo on the need to curb internet usage. Among the notes in this memo was a prohibition against the down loading or streaming of audio and video content. This cut directly into my choice form of entertainment for my working hours, podcasts. I was up to having 3 or 4 episodes download a day from close to 30 different shows. So I was naturally annoyed by a change in policy that would cut off some media.

There were some positive side effects, I uncovered some music hiding in my hard drives that I had long ignored, I had also tripped across some podcasts that I had forgotten about, including part 4 of Mur's Heaven series, the best of that series to date, with dinosaurs and air ships just to add to the cool factor.

I have also been reading more than average this rotation, this owes less to the shortage of fresh content then it does to the fact that the DVD's I picked up to watch here I binged on before I left for the north. I picked up Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, on my last break and spent a few days in Nakusp fully sucked in to that world, like man being sucked out an airlock. So I did not have 20 hours of fresh entertainment to get zoned out on. So I read most nights, plotted a revolution others and watched the small stack of DVD's on loan from the shipyard to pass the time.

So here is a quick list of books and DVD's I have read since I got here

BOOKS:
Old Man's War, by John Scalzi, a fun fast passed Sci Fi read with some elements of Starship Troopers.

Storm Front: an Novel of the Dresden Files. The first of Jim Butchers series, which follows the miss adventures of Harry Dresden, Wizard and private dick.

Infected, by Scott Sigler. I just finished that last night. I was wincing in pain shock all through the book and that was even after having heard the whole story as an audio book. I was wandering how reading it would compare to having it read to me. It worked out better, more personal. I was pleased to find the Sig's writing style an easy read and a very close match to his audio productions. I did miss in the final chapters his constant whispering of chicken scissors.

DVD's

To nights film was Winged Migration, mostly video of birds flying crazy long distances. My complaint not enough Ducks

My favourate film of the loaners is Mirror Mask, produced by the Jim Henson company, written by Neil Gaiman. Its nice to see something that is not american for a change. Character and plot out way explosions and car chases. In a break with normal habits I watched it twice in the space of two weeks.

Now I am tired of writing and by now you are tired of reading so that will be enough for this post.

Wild Life

I have been informed that my blog is falling behind. So I have not posted in the month of May, its been an uneventful time, no drama, work has been better then average, with the company of two new people things have become a little livelier. I have been accused of knowing how to do my job and so have been given the task of instructing the new comers in the same. That has been a fun time, I have moved into a shop with windows and have not been working completely alone for most of the day. That has been a lot easier on my sanity, that and I am in the last week of a shorter then average 4 week rotation.

In other news, the snow is gone, there are a few patches of old crusty stuff hiding in the shade and there is still ice on the lakes but mostly the land scape has shifted form the endless white of winter to a half grey that will hold until the birches and alder come into leaf, at which point there will be a fresh tint of green on top of the old green of the evergreens. But it is with out a doubt spring. To prove that point a visitor wandered into the camp yard.

A black bear wandered on to the back side of the compound, people estimate that it is about 2 years old, it was a pretty laid back animal, it was sniffing around for a few minuets before some one spotted as they went out for a smoke. After a bit of yelling it wandered back up the way it came, having figured this place was too much trouble for now, or that there were too many Steven Colbert fans in camp.




The Fox is was back today too, unlike the bear we encourage that old fellow to come around. The critter still has a nearly crippled back leg and has grey around its snout, if any animal has earned a few hand outs its that old timer. I can see in it how we managed to domesticate some of its kin.