I attempted to get confidence before the halloween party I went to. I drove there, and then guzzled as much vodka as I could before entering; vile stuff. And as I waited in line, I could feel myself getting light-headed. That’s a good sign!
Unfortunately that feeling went away after only half an hour. Which shows I’ll need to consume more alcohol, and keep consuming it, while I’m on vacation until I feel comfortable socializing with people again.
I usually enjoy halloween the most of all the nights of the year. It is the one night I can go out to a bar and socialize. Because I usually have a cool costume so people will talk to me. And I can always talk about their costumes. I guess it’s the internet effect; it’s easy to be confident when you are behind a mask.
The other preparations could have gone better as well. I wasn’t looking forward to going out (never do) so I didn’t start getting my costume ready until it was late. I have a good demon costume, but the last time I really remember wearing it was in 2007. Well, it hasn’t aged that well. Or, probably I haven’t.
The suit itself is feeling tighter, and since it was tight to begin with so that the wings would stay on, I didn’t think the wings would actually fit. They even felt rather floppy too. I decided to go without. The vampire fangs look like they’ve yellowed; ditched them. I couldn’t be bothered to put on any makeup to accentuate the demonic.
The contact lenses I usually wear; I wasn’t sure about them. I have two pairs, one from before the laser eye surgery and one after. I assumed I was putting on the post-surgery pair, but I was pretty unfocused when I put them in. I still think they are the non-prescription, but they are just old. I’ll try and find the other pair.
I think I’m going to have to face facts and try to get a new costume.

I saw the movie Due Date. I think it was chiefly financed by the TSA.
In the movie, due to a minor incident, a man gets kicked off a flight and put on the no-fly list. You could say it is just a wildly improbably occurrence that is just the set up for a bad comedy.
Or is it?
The TSA only really functions when the American population are living in total fear of terrorist attack. Or fear of the TSA itself. Face it, if you have spent hundreds of dollars on a flight, and probably even more for the vacation, the last thing you want is to be kicked off your airplane. And if you decide to exercise your constitutional rights, what are the odds that that will happen.
If the TSA keeps people scared, they’ll shut up and do whatever they are told to. And then the TSA can say that no one is complaining and keep racking in massive amounts of government money for security theatre.

Last week I decided I wanted to vote for the premier. There wasn’t an official election, since it was only the leadership of the Alberta conservative party that was up for grabs. But the leader of the Alberta conservative party will be the leader of Alberta; probably for several years.
Let’s face it, after the next official election, the conservatives will still be in power. And probably the one after that as well.
Unfortunately, to vote in this election you have to be a member of the conservative party. It only costs five bucks.
The entire time I was buying my membership, the words “member of the ruling communist party.” I know conservative is the opposite of communist but the feeling is the same. It feels like a third-world country where you have to be a member of the ruling party to do anything. If that government collapses, then all the members of the former ruling party are looked at with suspicion, even if they got membership just so they could get a teaching job.
So now I’m a card-carrying member of the conservative party. Well, the card hasn’t actually left my car. So I guess my car is a card-carrying member.
At the line to actually vote, I was behind a woman dressed in a Fringe Festival sweater. “You don’t look like part of the conservative base.” She seemed embarrassed.
I’m fiscally conservative, but rather left in my social views. But I hope I will always think before voting, and not just go with a party line.
Then again, the person I voted for wasn’t one I had researched, but had been told by a friend I trusted that she was the best candidate.
Sheep.

On Saturday I drove out to Innisfree where a friend had purchased some land next to a lake. It was totally undeveloped, but he and his wife went out regularly in their camper to spend time there. They have an eventual goal of putting up a cabin.
The place is filled with “No Trespassing” signs, and I guess you could say it is a gated community. But that is all due to the gas well there. It does allow a nice place to park.
From there you go into the woods, where they have been working to make a clearing amongst all the poplar trees. So I was put to work chopping down trees, cutting up branches, and piling up wood. The wife did the burning, but she got a little zealous at it and put too much wood in the fire pit. The coals burned all day, and probably still are.
I didn’t head out as early as I could have. It wasn’t the best weather in the city, but it was nice out there. A little cloudy, but an acceptable temperature. Once you got working, it was perfect.
It was nice to do some physical labor. It’s a change from using your brain at your job. And you get to see immediate results from the work. And I only once hit my leg with the machete. Thankfully, I never did with the chainsaw.
The wife gave us a goal of getting to a certain fallen tree. That helped me a lot. My sister describes me as goal oriented, and I’ve come to accept that. So I focused on that, and we got there. Unfortunately the chainsaw ran out of gas while we were cutting it up, but I still think of the mission as accomplished.
The clearing is now bigger.
We had a dinner cooked on the firepit, and then sat around the coals until it started raining. (Hopefully that will put them out.) By then it was pitch black and we had to use the flashlights to get out. As always happens in those situations, you don’t realize how much smoke you’ve breathed until later.
I drove back to town that night.