Archive for August, 2004

So, the time is booked off and we’re planning a road trip to Thunder Bay in September. We plan to get into town on Saturday the fourth and take off on Saturday the eleventh. There’ll be family to visit, new nephew to play with, and for certain a big BBQ for all our friends! I imagine on the Sunday, Monday or Friday that we’re in town. Hopefully it’ll be like a hullabaloo but in the summer!

I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t been to Thunder Bay when it wasn’t winter for a couple of years now. Both Jenn and I are thinking that we should try to line up some interviews while we’re in town too — to facilitate a move from Ottawa as soon as we can. Speaking of which, I’m pretty much out of my funk from last week. Thanks for all the calls and letters (except no one sent any letters.)

Oh, did I mention that we went to play mini-golf with our visitors this weekend? Fourty eight. Not bad. I can’t wait to post a graph one of these days!

Again, I was really pleased with the number of captions entered for the second caption contest — even though, it seemed like most of them came from one source. I’ll try to get the comic coloured and up by the end of Tuesday with the winnign caption. But as a tease, here are my top three favourite entries!

We’re going to van now. Don’t come out until you’re finished breaking wind.
:: Andrew 08.09.04 1:39 pm

How long til we tell them the power has been out for more than an hour? Shhhh……just go!
:: DW 08.10.04 11:45 am

No amount of kicking is going to make you sound better!
:: Doug 08.13.04 11:25 am

Jenn doesn’t like it when people stick “and” into their numbers. She was taught to leave them out — the and’s, not the people. But hey! Sometime in the last month I posted my one hundreth entry to my blog. Horray me!

I was at Chapters yesterday and found myself reading books on writing again. I learned that it’s bad form to use the exclaimation point outside of dialogue. I think that’s a good idea. So, why did I use it twice in my first paragraph? Well, because my blog is conversation. It’s neither fiction nor fantasy. When I write my blog, I write as I speak — and I fill it with spelling mistakes. Not on purpose mind you and since Blogger’s spell checker went kaput last month, I’m sure there’s more than you were used to.

I’m enjoying the Olympics. Wastes of money and scandals don’t bother me. I think it’s a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the opening ceremonies on Friday, even though I didn’t get to see much beyond Kanada entering the stadium. The first part was fabulous. I especially enjoyed the parade of Greek art and culture through the ages. The costumes and theatrics were great.

On the side of the Rockin’ Comic, I’ll hopefully have the winner up this afternoon. Last time, I coloured the comic right after I drew it. I haven’t done that yet this time — and I’d also like to redraw it. Oh well.

Oh, one last thing. I can’t stand Debbie Travis.

Well, it’s been a rough week for me, and that’s probably saying something because I don’t often admit that kind of thing in a public forum. Without going into a lot of details (which I may or may not go into if we were chatting in person) an unsettled feeling has set upon Jenn and I and has got us into a bit of a funk. Now, Jenn usually is the funky one, but I think I’m taking the lead this time.

Basically, I’m feeling like our lives have been at a stand-still for some time and the means to get going with it are out of our control. We know we don’t want to stay in Ottawa and we’d like to move to Thunder Bay, but we can’t afford to. We want to move to Thunder Bay because our families live there, and that’s where we see ourselves setting up a home and having a family. Now, financially we’re doing alright, but to move to Thunder Bay with no job would put us in a not alright financial situation. I can’t seem to even get a phone call back on any of the jobs I’ve applied to and it appears that there isn’t much in Jenn’s current line of work for her up there either. Oh, and our place has become a difficult place to live lately due to outside forces. So, it’s stress, restlessness, non-control and no clue as to why things seem to be in opposition to us.

I’d like to point out that as far as Jenn and I go, we’re doing very well. She puts up with me better than anyone I know ever has and I just love her as more than I thought I could. We normally enjoy our lives and spend 100% of our non-work time together and haven’t once wanted to get away from each other. In fact, I’m tentitively going camping for four nights in September which will be our first real time appart and it’s a hard decision to make.

I haven’t been blogging much lately because I don’t have anything to really say and I wasn’t ready to dump this stuff out. But now you’ve got it, do with it what you will. Hopefully after a nice weekend of visiting with Jenn’s sister Launa and family I’ll be less funky and back to my usually self.

You may have notice a little button on my blog for Blogs Canada. It’s been there for a couple weeks. Anyway, I’ve just recently been added to their database and am eligible to be ranked!

Now, I know what some of you are saying already, “But Shroomie, you’re rank already!” Thanks, but we all know that smell isn’t everything. If you go to thier directory and search for me (try looking under “thunder bay” or “mini putt”) you can rate my blog. I figure the higher I rank, the more potential readers I’ll have and then you’ll have more competition for the comic caption contests.

While you’re there, look for Robin and Rick Three. Hmm, now that I think about it, I’m surprized that Tim Lappala isn’t blogging. Why is that?

Oh, and while I’m on the topic of voting, just to make it challenging for me (and so Andrew’s head doesn’t swell from winning twice in a row) make sure you dump in lots of captions for the comic contest this week. Rock, rock on!

I had planned on having the childrens story that I’m writing done by now, but I got really hung up a little less than half way through and wasn’t inspired enough to contune writing past my block and then come back to finish it. Well, last night, I just happened to think of an idea that I think will get me past my block. So, after I finish up around the house, I hope to get out to the canal and write for a couple of hours and see what happens. The story may get finished afterall.

In other thoughts, I stumbled across a Teddy Ruxpin site that I found enjoyable. I’m not afraid to say that in highschool I watched the animated adventures of said bear on tv most days. What was most enjoyable about it was that unlike most childrens cartoons, the individual episodes were all part of a larger story. It was quite enjoyable. Being reminded of that also inspired me to continue with my own creative work, so there you go, validation.

There’s a fine line between praying that God accomplishes His will and asking for what I want. This is complicated even more when I don’t know some of the specifics of God’s will. So, I guess, I’ll assume that He’ll do what He wants — “God will kill and God will laugh,” as the old song goes — and ask for what I want.

I’m not feeling jaded or anything today. I still trust Him. I just figured I’d make an observation seeing as I haven’t done that too much in the past few days.

This past weekend, Jenn and I took a trip to Maine to do some camping and visit some friends of ours. We were driving out to Bar Harbor on Saturday afternoon (to look around the town and play mini-putt at Pirates Cove) and either Jay or myself remarked at something by saying “Holy Cow!” Then Jay asked, perhaps rhetorically, where that term came from.

Of course, I had no idea, but that didn’t stop me from making something up. So, I explained how it was a Biblical reference to Moses’ exasperated cry to those crazy Israelites who built a golden cow so they’d have something to worship while Moses was up on the mountain talking to the real God. Of course, when Moses first used the expression he didn’t use it with the same intonation that we use these days. He would have asked, “Holy cow? Holy cow?! Is that what you want to be your god? Holy cow?!”

Yeah, no one in the car belived me either.

Now, last night for our small group Bible study, we hit the mini-putt course again — but this time, it wasn’t our idea, however we were easily convinced to participate. And, with church people as my witnesses, I scored a season low score of 40! That’s an average of less than two and a quarter strokes per hole. This was on the same course that I have a hard time cracking 50 on usually. I got two holes in one and only three putted six times. I want to golf with Cathy and Dave in my foursome more often!

First off, let me tell you, I laughed out loud at a number of the captions submitted to the Rockin’ Comic Caption Contest. Well done, you made it hard to pick one winner — but I decided to go for Andrew’s submission because out of my five favourites, it seemed to best mesh with my idea of how the band relates. I see the lead guitarist being an obnoxious, 80′s, cliche. The rest of the band (especially the bassist) can’t stand him, but for some reason tollerate him — maybe he owns the van they use to get all their gear to their gigs or something.

Anyway, in order of their arrival, here were the sumissions that I narrowed down as the potential winner — they all made me laugh out loud…

I’m not sure I like Mike’s way of dealing with hecklers. :: RH 07.26.04 8:45 am

These new cordless foam guitars are a Godsend! :: Andrew 07.26.04 8:53 am

Wipe that grin off your face… you’re only encouraging him! :: Andrew 07.26.04 9:24 am

Spider! Somebody kill it! :: Doug 07.26.04 10:35 am

I guess we shouldn’t sing the Juicy Fruit theme anymore, eh? :: DW 07.26.04 1:54 pm

Y’know, we have just the right amount of accordians in this band. :: rpepper 07.27.04 1:54 pm

Oh, and by the way, those weren’t supposed to be curlers in the keyboard players hair, they were supposed to be goggles.

Just wanted to post a quick note saying that I’m back from my trip this weekend. Some of the highlights included the trip to Canada, going in the Atlantic, making a cat sneeze repeatedly, Pirates cove, designing new crochette patterns for Jenn (it’s just like designing graphics for the Commodore 64!) and Geary’s London Porter — mmm.

Comic Caption Contest winners (and the comic in colour) tomorrow!