Well, three weeks to go…

This past weekend I realised that my next big life change is approaching much sooner than I had previously registered… Three weeks (or less) from today my family will grow to included a brand new little bundle of joy.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 at 7:30 AM my wife “T” is sceduled to go in for a Caesarian-section — her second* — to bring out little sprout… we don’t know the sex of the baby yet. Little “L” was also born à la Caesarian almost two years ago… so his birthday party is coming up pretty soon too.

Life is pretty busy right now so I may not be able to post much before-hand but I will the day to let y’all know.

steelie

*Apparently, there are four different shapes to women’s pelvises… one of which is not baby-delivery-friendly. That’s “T”… so all babies are to be Caesarian. Which is why this will be our last one… the first took its toll.

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The Homepage Gets a Facelift… Oh, goody…

I have to say that I’m not really a fan of the new approach to the VOX Home-page…

I’m really missing the Recent Comments and the old format… I mean, the new content has value too but the previous iteration was customised to me and my neighbourhood. Now, “my” VOX Home-page shows me more or less what VOX has chosen for me to see.

I feel that the current state of the Home-page is better suited for the Explore page… in fact, it would be perfect for the Explore page. People would immediately get an overview of highlighted posts and images, see what the recent favourites are and scroll through the most recently listed posts.

I know others will dissagree but I greatly preferred the set-up the way it was before the facelift.

Of course, the ultimate would to offer multiple modules that people could choose from to customise their Home-page to be how they wished… similar to LiveJournal’s “portal” page.

VOX, why fix something when it’s not broken… of if you are going to change something, why not adding enhancements or modifying things slightly instaed of removing almost all of what everyone is used to seeing.

steelie

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“Men are like…”

Just a bit of fun circulating around the office I thought I’d share… Enjoy!

  1. Men are like… Laxatives — They  irritate the crap out of you.
  2. Men are like… Bananas — The older they get, the less firm they are.
  3. Men are like… Weather — Nothing can be done to change them.
  4. Men are like… Blenders — You need One, but you're not quite sure why.
  5. Men are like… Chocolate Bars — Sweet, smooth, & they usually head right for your hips.
  6. Men are like… Commercials — You can't believe a word they say.
  7. Men are like… Department  Stores — Their clothes are always 1/2 off.
  8. Men are like… Government Bonds — They take soooo long to mature.
  9. Men are like… Mascara — They usually  run at the first sign of emotion.
  10. Men are like… Popcorn — They satisfy  you, but only for a little while.
  11. Men are like… Snowstorms — You never know when they're coming, how many inches you'll get or how long  it will last.
  12. Men are like… Lava Lamps — Fun to look at, but not very bright.
  13. Men are like… Parking Spots — All the good ones are taken,  the rest are handicapped.


steelie

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I turned thirty years old today (AKA Birthday Rant)…

<rant>
As the title says… today, I turned thirty years old… and I’m actually very excited about it.

I’ve been very lucky in my life — luckier than many, I continue to discover… I come from a great family that has never been well-off but has always been supportive of everything I do and dream. I have a decent job that has afforded my family a house and car — the house is old and needs work and the car is used but I have a home and a means to get from there to most places I need to. I am in overall excellent health, and today, I have been granted the privilege of making it to my thirtieth birthday, still breathing with blood pumping strong.

I wanted to emphasize the word “privilege” because I feel that this is exactly what being alive is… a privilege.

I have heard/observed a number of people in the last little while complaining about life and how it sucks and how getting old sucks and how “thirty” is a good time to “check-out” because thirty is old and remember getting old sucks and blah fuckin’ blah blah…

Yeah… I’m a bit irritated by this type of talk… I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and I rarely force my opinion, thoughts or beliefs on anyone semicolon however comma “it’s my party and I’ll rant if I want to”.

There are so many people that die everyday, way before what seems like should be “their time”. Whether it be from terminal illness, war, unfortunate accidents or any number of other things their privileged life was taken from them. Again, I say privileged because at any given point someone who decides that they are having an especially shitty day/life could choose to end yours. The almighty Cancer could pay you a visit and make your last days miserable for you and your family. Someone could drop their coffee in their lap and react by jerking the steering wheel and redirecting their vehicle into a head-on with yours. I could go on but I’m starting to depress myself…

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live more than one hundred years… Over ten years ago I was having severe chest pains and doctors found a spot on my lung… I thought I would never make it to twenty, let alone thirty. Forget three-digits. Turns out it was nothing. I’m fine. And you know what? Until I got the news that I was fine, not once did I think, “Oh, thank God… I was afraid I was going to have to endure ‘thirty’. Man that would have sucked!” And I’m willing to bet that if you got hit by a car on the eve of your thirtieth birthday and the doctors told you that there was nothing they could do for you, you’d smirk and breathe that sigh of relief, “Whew! Thanks Docs. That was cutting it close, wasn’t it.”

I realize that there are people in the world who are so much worse-off than I am that I’m not going to pretend to be able to fathom an inkling of what their personal hell lives must be like. I am quite sure that many victims of war, grave sickness, abuse, poverty, etc… might whole-heartedly disagree with me but this is partially my point… The life you have right now is a privilege and any one of a number of people/illnesses/things can take it from you in a heartbeat.

SOOO… the next time you get all angsty about your life and getting old, take a good long hard look at the cards you’ve been dealt… and if you really want to complain about turning thirty or getting old, go to the palliative care wing of your local childrens’ hospital and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to trade spaces with you to have the chance to live to see their tenth birthday. Or even go to your local senior citizens' home and tell them all about it — I’m sure some of them would give anything to add a few more years to see the birth of their first great-grandchild.

Fuckin’ live, dammit!
Keep breathing and live.
</rant>

steelie

PS: Thanks to Julé, Jared and Jen for the warm birthday wishes. Thirty is awesome.

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Passive Activist…

So, at work we have a social event coming up commemorating a former coworker’s retirement and I’m doing my little bit by helping out with certain decorations and ordering the coffee from a local vendor… So far I haven’t had a chance to start designing any on the decorations yet. I did, however, manage to get down to Timothy’s coffee shop to place the order for the coffee…

Now, I used to go to this place every day — EVERY DAY — but stopped going recently because the daily coffee/tea plus treat I was getting ended up costing upwards of $45 a month… some months more than that I’m sure. I know that $45 is not much but when trying to cut down on spending to manage other monthly bills it actually works out to be a whole heck of a lot… try over $500 a year!

Either way, that was a bit of a pseudo-digression… the point of which was to say that it has been a while since I’ve been down for my “usual”. So when I went down today (with a co-worker), I was a bit surprised to see that I didn’t recognize any of the staff… I knew that school had started back up and I knew that some changes were happening so I didn’t think that much of it at first. I proceeded to order the coffee (four urns: 2 regular, two decaf) from a gentleman who was apparently the new owner. I off-handedly mentioned that I didn’t recognize any of the staff — kinda wondering about the back-to-school theory — and he indicated that none of the old staff was left.

As I finished up the order and started walking back to work, I thought to myself that this really sucks because I’d gotten to know a few of the workers really well…

Please keep in mind that I am quite sleep deprived so it takes a while for certain this to sink in…

The co-worker I had gone down with mentioned that the new owner was going to force all of the old employees to re-interview for their positions and impose a pay cut to those who continued to work there. Needles to say, the employees were… well… how can we say this… pretty fuckin’ livid. So on the first day the new owner was supposed to take over none of them showed up. Not a single one. This of course left Mr. New Guy in a pickle… he had to shut down the shop and hire a whole new staff.

Wait a second…

Things start to sink in…

I just ordered coffee from this guy after he treated these people — some of whom I had grown quite attached to — like crap!? Now I’m not to happy with myself… I get back to wortk and explain what happened to a couple of other co-workers, Mr. Miko and Julé. Mr. Miko said that I should cancel the order…

I wish I had thought of that…

So, I hop on board and decide that this is exactly what I’m going to do… march right back down to Timothy’s and cancel the order and inform Mr. Latte that we have placed an order with someone else. Mr Miko was quick to point out that while was all-fine-and-dandy (my words not his), this will not let Mr. half-caf know that we don’t approve of his business practices — which is of course the real reason for cancelling the coffee order — and that today, he (Mr. Miko) was a bit of a self-proclaimed “crank” and perfectly in the mood to let Mr. no-foam-with-a-dash-of-cinnamon know why we were cancelling the order.

[sigh] I’m not built to be confrontational…

And so he did… Mr. Miko marched down to Timithy’s and cancelled the order that I should have cancelled… said his piece, which should have been mine to say… and earned my appreciation and admiration, which should have been a quiet proud moment I shared with myself…

[double-sigh]

I could promise myself that next time I’ll do it but I never make a promise that I can’t keep… so I didn’t. I turn thirty on Saturday… that should be grown up enough… to bad I always feel like a terrified kid in situations like this…

I wonder if I ask for a backbone for my Birthday if it would arrive by Saturday…

How would you wrap that?


steelie

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