A friend suggested that I partake of a smoothie; soft food while my mouth recovers. That sounded like good advice, especially since I work above a Booster Juice. So I went and, after much deliberation, purchased my first smoothie, put the straw in, raised it to my lips and… stopped. I’m not allowed to use straws; dentist’s orders.
I don’t think the experience is the same with a spoon.

In previous times when I have been in a car accident, I could always take something from it. I could figure out what I did wrong and learn to not do it again. Become a better driver.
This time, I’m having trouble. I wasn’t doing that much wrong. I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t following too close. Inclement weather isn’t something I have control over.
The best lesson so far is “keep your eyes on the road at all times.” That sounds good, but I can see that causing more accidents than it prevents. If I do that, driving becomes much more boring than it already is. The road is not that exciting to look at, and if you want things to be more interesting, you drive more interesting. Besides, shouldn’t I be aware of my surroundings?
Probably the best thing to do would be to stop driving.

Before I even got out of bed, I knew this would be a bad day. I woke up moody. I have a theory about why; last night I had a talk with a friend about relationships and feelings. Whenever I do that I get into an emotional state that tends to linger. I really need to stop introspecting about where my life is going.
It didn’t help that I had a fairly major dental operation this morning. Bad gums. Stitches were involved.
Then there was the car accident. A slippery road and a car waiting to turn left in the middle of nowhere is a bad combination. Especially in an area I’m not familiar with. I wasn’t following too close, but I got briefly distracted looking at the building that was the destination of my first trip in my first car; my first auto insurance company. Irony. Anyway, low speed and no one was injured. My front bumper broke a few pieces off. Their car looks perfectly fine.
The best way I can think of to get out of my funk would be to go for a run. A nice endorphin rush would be appreciated. But the dentist has forbidden me from exercising for the next week.
Another theory about my moodiness might be that I haven’t had a decent dinner in two nights. I have the food, but not the time. And now I’m not supposed to be eating hard food.
The funk shall continue.

Gingerbread icosahedron
Originally uploaded by ad_havoc

The second batch of gingerbread was more fit for eating. But I don’t think it is fit for load-bearing. The burnt cookies did seem strong enough. Let’s face it though, I’m not planning on eating this. I want to build with them.
So, I continued with my plan and started construction. I made three sections of five triangles each, frosted them together and let them harden overnight. It seems to have worked. In the morning I attached two of them together with a few more pieces. Then in the afternoon, I finished it all. The last piece did not fit well and I had to use a knife to de-equilateralize the triangle. I don’t think it is even an isosceles triangle. But the beast is complete.
Now all I need to do is number it.
Unfortunately, the next D&D game isn’t until the new year. So it will be awhile before I can roll/destroy it.

I’m goal oriented.
When I have a task in mind, I don’t feel happy until I finish it.
Yesterday was gingerbread night at a friend’s place. Basically, bring your pattern, it will get carved into gingerbread. Then build away. Last year I made a Star Destroyer. This year I was even more ambitious. I wanted to make a icosahedron. AKA, a d20.
The pattern was simple; I just needed a lot of triangles. At work I did some math and did my best to construct perfect equilateral triangles in cardboard. (The paper-cutter really helped.) I tried to be precise, but let’s face it, we’re dealing with gingerbread, not machined parts.
Things went fairly well. I used a bowl to help put the pieces together, and then “glued” them with icing. I used marshmallows inside to help support it inside, while I used Ritz crackers for scaffolding.
Unfortunately, the frosting was goopy. I finished and let it dry for awhile, but when I tried to remove it from the bowl, the dripped icing made it stick to the bowl. The extra weight made it collapse.
So, gingerbread d20 failed.
This annoyed me. A lot.
So I decided that I would have to try again. Immediately.
Due to a kitchen mishap, the triangle pattern I used the first time got destroyed. I had triangles that were 50% bigger, so I would have to use those.
My friend was kind enough to give me the recipe. Unfortunately I have no baking skill. While shopping for the ingredients though I saw a box to make gingerbread cookies. Score! I’m more interested in the building, than the taste, so making from scratch didn’t mean much to me.
I soon realized I didn’t have enough in the package for the twenty triangles I would need, so I left part way through to buy another box.
My shortcut though may have destroyed me. This looks like eating-gingerbread, not construction-grade gingerbread. After baking in the oven, they felt dangerously soft. I left them in for a bit longer, hoping that would harden them. All I think I did was burn the bottoms.
But now that I’ve let them sit, they look like they’ve hardened. The next batch out of the oven is not burnt, so we’ll see if they stiffen up.
This is going to be a multi-day project so I’ll update if I have more information. But I might just have to start from, literally, scratch.

This morning I woke with a headache. And as the day went on it steadily got worse. Tylenol was really not helping. Tonight was important and I did not want to be under the weather.
Know what did cure it within half an hour?
A can of Coke. For the first time I used the drink machine at work. And that shot of caffeine fixed my head right up.

There are three essential qualities of a medicine:

1. It tastes bad.
2. It is expensive.
3. It cures a problem.

I’m not a doctor, so these are just coming off the top of my head.
With these facts, I have come to a conclusion (as circular as it is) that alcohol is medicinal for me.
I’ve never liked the taste of alcohol, so I don’t drink it. And on a price comparison, why would I spend a lot of money for something I don’t like when there are much cheaper alternatives that I will enjoy. But the fact remains that I am uptight in social gatherings, especially when I don’t know everybody. When I was in Jamaica where the alcohol was free, I forced myself to drink it, and it was a very good social lubricant.
I should drink more in Edmonton if I’m socializing. But I’m fundamentally cheap and don’t want to pay inflated bar prices. Plus, I don’t want to drink and drive.
Last Saturday I went to a club party in my neighbourhood. This gave me an opportunity to experiment. The event, wasn’t just in my neighbourhood, but across the street from where I live. (Okay, kitty-corner, but the former sounds cooler.) Since I have insane amounts of alcohol in my home for my friends who do drink, it looked like an excellent time to experiment. I could “tank up” before hand. I didn’t have to pay “inflated bar prices” because I could always leave the party, cross the street, and then come back. (The huge lineup at the bathroom didn’t bother me either.)
The difference was considerable. A friend noted how much more extrovertive I was. I had a good time and talked to people I didn’t know. I felt comfortable. I was, dare I say, popular! (Or at least in my own imagination.) I even felt confident enough to ask a pretty girl for her phone number.
Social drunk?
I know there are people who will say I shouldn’t drink (I’m looking at you S) but the results are fairly encouraging.

I’m thinking of changing my movie rental strategy. Now that I have a Blu-ray player, I am not confined to DVDs only. And the local store has a small Blu-ray section. And let me emphasize here, small! Perfect! Since only newer films are really in Blu-ray, I can start going through that section. I will get to see newer releases faster, and in high-definition. Plus, it won’t invalidate the old system, since I’ll be preventing previous alphabetic films from coming in.
First up, Burn After Reading.
Any opinions?

I got an underwater camera over a year ago. I’ve taken it on two vacations since then, and it finally ran out of film (yes, film) while I was in Jamaica. In the middle of a dive actually. I’m getting the impression that a film camera is superior to a digital camera in an underwater environment. Digital cameras get hot as they use energy to run themselves. A film camera only needs a battery to operate the flash, which you probably shouldn’t even be using. A hot object will generate fog in a cold, enclosed space.
I cracked the camera open today to get the film out. I am slightly disturbed that there was a piece of foam insulation floating around inside, right next to the lens. It is going to be interesting to see how the pictures turn out now. I’ll have them tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t traumatize the developer with too many level three pictures.

In this corner, weighing in at 190 lb., the Canadian! In this corner, weighing in at 27 lb., the Turkey! Two shall enter the kitchen. Only one shall leave! Come witness American Thanksgiving

Today is my traditional turkey day. American Thanksgiving. Blah blah blah. Invite people over. Blah blah blah. Prove I can cook a turkey.
I’ve never invited this many people over, which has required a bigger turkey than I’m used to. More pressure too. It doesn’t help that I’m operating on about four hours of sleep.
So far, in the battle against the turkey, we’ve won a round each. The turkey got the first win by causing me to cut myself. Thankfully no blood got on any food. But I won second round by actually getting the turkey in the oven. There are still a few rounds to go.

On the fifth of November I went scuba diving. This was altogether the best diving experience I’ve ever had. Mostly I’ve been unimpressed with Jamaica diving; the seas aren’t vibrantly blue and there aren’t that many fish. I always compare it to my dives in the crystal waters of the Turks and Caicos which were teeming with interesting fish.
But this part of Jamaica has its own charms.
The weather wasn’t that great to start. I did meet a cute girl from our group who claimed she also had trouble equalizing. I thought she would be a good dive buddy since we could both go down slowly. On the first dive though, she had nothing but trouble; her two regulators both broke down on her while on the surface. She decided she didn’t want to go diving after that. Surprisingly, I had no trouble going down. Apparently it just takes one day of deep diving to get my ears trained to handle equalization. (Although, when I equalize on land, I find the sound of air hissing out my ear somewhat disconcerting.)
Anyway, I went down to a sunken ship. It was made of metal, and could have been there for ten years or fifty. I didn’t know. It wasn’t that interesting though; I had seen it before. We continued along, going to 72 ft deep. Then, out of the mists (or the aquatic equivalent), there was an entire plane. I had heard about this wreck, but I didn’t expect to see it. Off to the right there was another one, missing its back half. I swam up to the cockpit of the second one and looked in through the window. The controls had been taken over my coral.
Then I did something extremely stupid/dangerous/exciting. I swam around to the door and then into the plane. I promptly swam out the back, so I was only inside for about ten feet. So cool!
That was why this was the best dive I’ve ever had.
The second dive that morning was shallower, going to only 35 feet. This time a new tank and regulator were found for my dive buddy and she was able to go down as well. She had an underwater camera that took pictures. Hopefully I’ll be able to get copies from her. This dive wasn’t that exciting as we just looked at coral. The highlight was when the dive master found a slow, almost round, fish tooling around the bottom. He picked it up and showed it off.
As it sat in his hands, fins flapping, you could almost hear it saying, “Guys! This isn’t funny anymore.”
Ah, anthropomorphized fish.

I am back home. In the past few days I decided to stop trying to update the journal. I previously did it at night but I needed the sleep. Instead I’ll just try and write down memories as I recall them. Less pressure.
In summary: fantastic trip! I think this was the best one I’ve ever had.
But I need to go to bed now. Conveniently, I’m leaving my luggage outside in the cold overnight so that any parasites that decided to stowaway in them will seriously rethink their plan. This is not an excuse to avoid unpacking. Honest!

The excursion yesterday was fantastic. It was described as a tubing safari, and that is essentially true. I had been put under the impression that it was going to involve a lot of rapids but I was mistaken. It was a calm river going through the jungle. What really made it good was being with friends. There were a few bumpy parts where there were rapids. At the big one I got flipped out of my inner tube.
Halfway through the float, we got out and had a nice jerk chicken lunch before continuing on. They had three dog, and we learned something about dogs here that is different from what we’re used to. First, they are far more lethargic, barely moving in a heat. Secondly, they are tougher digestively; they survive on chicken bones.
After the tubing, there was a pool party. I had to leave early for a fashion show rehearsal. We had the actual show this evening. It was a goth fashion show, so the girl running it put some makeup around my eyes. She did not tell me how to remove it. Soap and water helps, but doesn’t completely handle it.

Yeah, sleep would be good. I’m obviously not getting enough. I’m having a good time, but the lack of sleep can leave me moody. I got up too early, and lost all interest in doing anything. I’ve been having trouble with the locks on my room door, so I took a nap by the pool. In the shade; it is far too hot in the sun.

This is a fashion show, not a snuff film

I am going to be on stage on Wednesday. There is a fashion show that needs a few men. There has been some plotting about making it more extreme. There were initial hesitations but I am game.
The bodypainter was also doing a seminar on a new “paint” called liquid latex. Pretty cool. Basically paint that can be peeled off after it dries.
I’m now at the bar, relaxing and updating my journal, while a band plays Michael Jackson’s greatest hits on steel drums. It is interesting to try and recognize the song when it is being played so differently.

I went scuba diving this morning. Two dives, each half an hour long. The first was 45 ft down and the second was 35 ft. I continue to have a lot of trouble equalizing, especially my left ear. I think there is something wrong with it; I seem to recall a childhood ear trauma. It still feels rather off, and I’ve been trying to equalize ever since.
A lot of my friends are showing up, so I really can’t justify being on the computer much.

The gaggle of swimsuit models are still around. They were did a show tonight. It is actually hard to tell them apart. They are almost uniformly beautiful, so there is no real distinguishing feature I can use. But I did learn one was from Canada; northern BC, although she lived in Edmonton for a time. She knew what the Death Race was!

Today was very low key. I didn’t do much, just relaxed, wondered if I did anything stupid yesterday. Most of my friends arrive tomorrow, but a few have floated in. So there are a few more friendly faces.
I signed up for scuba tomorrow morning; hopefully I remember how to. I probably should study a bit more. It is hard to justify reading a book in sunny Jamaica.
Now that I write this, I’m almost disappointed at how little I accomplished today. For most people, that would be a sign of a good vacation. But I take a vacation as a challenge. I should be busier.
What the heck am I doing typing here. To the pool!

I did go through with the one drink an hour. Which means I’ve had nine drinks today. There was a time when I got a bit of a buzz, but on the whole I don’t think I was too drunk. Loquacious. I started with dirty bananas, but eventually migrated to Bob Marley shooters. Word of warning, if prepared in a mix, they taste vile. But if the bartender can make them in the three layers they are supposed to be, they can actually slip down quickly and without mayhem.
I was more confident and at ease. But even though there is a gaggle of swimsuit models here, I still don’t feel I can really talk to them. Unless, based on today, they are married and studying a double major in Biology and Psychology. That was an interesting conversation.
I don’t want to drink more. I didn’t really enjoy this experiment.

Oh my god! The weather is so beautiful here. No sight of rain. Hot, sunny with a hint of clouds. The weather report was a lie!
I have arrived at the resort. I’m already feeling better. The sea breeze is working as advertised.
I’ve gotten a good room, which I almost think is the same one I got last year. I had to put a special request for it.
It is a nice location, close to all the fun activities. It is rather far from the nude areas, but I’m okay with that. I just wandered through that place and there were things man was not meant to see.
I have started drinking, a dirty banana. I’m trying to figure out if I’m going to do my one-an-hour alcohol test today, or save it for some other time.
For now, I’m really tired. I’ve been traveling for a long time, and I just don’t have much energy. Thankfully this is a vacation so I can rest. Plus, all the fun people come in two days. I have time.

I can actually feel the plane warming up. It looks nice outside, sunny, which is unexpected since all the weather reports I’ve been seeing for the past few weeks have indicated thunderous rain. I’m not complaining; I’m just waiting for the penny to drop.
Fortunately I brought a change of clothing. Airplane bathrooms aren’t easy to change in, but it is doable. And I feel a lot better now. Wearing appropriate clothes for Canada isn’t conducive to wearing appropriate clothes for the Caribbean.
I’ve been able to get snatches of sleep, but nothing really long. I feel awake and alert now, but I’m concerned about a tickle in my throat. Hopefully it will go away if I get enough sleep and get subjected to nice sea air.

I always name my airport entries that…
I’m at the airport about to go to Jamaica. It has been a bit stressful getting ready for this trip. I made it easier by starting packing early and adding to my suitcase as I thought of things. Which of course meant I quickly got over the weight limit. Thankfully I have a bathroom scale so I can find these things out before I get to the airport.
I went for a run after work. I’m not sure if I should have. It did make dinner harder to handle. Basically I didn’t have one until I got to the airport where the only thing open was Tim Hortons. Dinner of champions.
The group going to Barbados looks like they are already drunk.
Jamaica, here I come!

I don’t think I’m getting sick. I can’t be sick now; I’m off to Jamaica on Thursday.
But I had no energy today. But if I think about it, there is a good reason.
I did a nice reasonable run yesterday. 23 km. Short enough that it doesn’t dominate your day and just leaves you feeling refreshed.
That is all true if you don’t go for another 7 km run after lunch because a cute girl wanted to.
A 30 km run will drain you and mean you have to eat much more than you think. If you don’t account for that, your body will run out of energy and you will be lethargic the next day.

Guess what happened.

I just learned that my favorite video store is moving three blocks away from its current location. This annoyed me, because the main reason I go to it is the REALLY convenient walking distance. If it is three blocks further away, then it becomes only somewhat convenient walking distance. I might as well go to the movie theatre.
All these emotions disappeared when I learned it was actually moving three blocks closer to me. I wouldn’t actually think that was possible. The only way it could get any closer would be if it was in the same building.
Score!

I feel like a storage locker lately.
I have a friend who I let use my place when I’m off on vacation. She has stored food here for those times; food that keeps taking up more and more of my pantry. There is also a bag of clothes in the closet that I don’t recognize. I’ve run out of space for her laptop.
Other friends store tea here.
Today, I had a neighbor beg me to store food for her. She’s on a diet and had too many temptations. So a bag of healthy snacks has now wandered in.
Please note: I’m not allowing the storage of unicorns here. So don’t bother asking.

One of the best reasons to throw a party is that it forces one to clean their place. I should have parties more regularly because it gets me to clean. I’m trying to encourage my friends to be more willing to drop by unannounced; the threat of people seeing an untidy place is quite motivating.
So, after throwing a wild potluck party yesterday, (where the last person didn’t leave until 2:00 in the morning) and proactive tidying, my place is cleaner now than it was two days ago.

Harry runs a tight ship.
He is my parent’s dog. He is part border-something so he has good organizational skills. Since he doesn’t have anything to herd, he tries to herd the family. He still knows where his bread is buttered, so he doesn’t have real sway over us. But he has figured out the schedule we are on, and demands we keep to it.
So this morning at 8:15 I got a face full of dog. It was time to get up. He has us eat breakfast on schedule. Then he makes sure we go take our naps on time. Now is walkie time. I am suspecting the reason he was staring at me last night while I was in bed reading was that it was lights-out time and I wasn’t part of the program.
I don’t know what benefit he gets from this. I have a weak theory that he knows if he follows this schedule, then he gets a biscuit at certain times. But that does project some long-term planning on to someone who seems to live in the moment.
We have got to get him some sheep.