This morning I successfully water-skied. There were a few false starts, but the lessons I learned last year still seemed to be in my brain. Everything clicked together properly and I stood up and was out of the water. The boat turned a total of four times before I lost control and sank. I think it was more that my arms were getting tired than me forgetting what to do.
But I did it. Better than the three seconds previously.
I’ll try and do it again, but the one critical lesson I learned last year was that after water-skiing for the first time, your arms hurt for a week. A whole week. I was lucky I did it at the end of my vacation last year. This might be a problem this year.
Other than that I spent the day helping people who were organizing events. There is a fashion show tomorrow that had a dress rehearsal and fitting today. I would have liked to be in it, but I think I was gone at a critical point trying to find a tray for the show and someone else volunteered in my absence. However, he probably wants it more. He says if he is in it, then he can’t be asked to film it. He is the media guy around here and I think he is tired.
I think I lost my paper journal. I remember using it to transcribe some information, but now it has disappeared. My best guess is that it was hidden on my bed when the maid came and cleaned up. So it went with the sheets and may have been laundered. I don’t believe it was intentionally stolen because I can’t see it being worth anything.

I went to the beach party dressed in part of a gladiator’s outfit. I had a kilt-like thing for it. The only thing is that my chest looked somewhat empty. A complete outfit would have something there.
On the way to the party though, I ran across the body painter and he agreed to paint a harness on me. That will look cool. It shouldn’t take long. Half an hour?
Three hours later he was done. There was a harness. I also had chest muscles and various tribal tattoos. And he had experimented with a new painting technique. Pictures were taken and much was learned about photography.
Of course, the party was long over. In fact it had only really lasted for twenty minutes before rain sent people to the main dining area. The place where my body painting was being done. So I sort of got to attend the party. There were some performers as well. A man with a bed of nails and some sedated snakes. The contortionist was also good.
Now it is quite early in the morning and I’m going to get some sleep. And see how much of this paint rubs off into the bed.

Today there was a fancy dinner in the Pastafari restaurant. Nice food, although it took a long time and the portions were small. Luckily, unlike last year, the air conditioning didn’t break down.
At the end of the event, there was a contest. Due to the support of my table, I made it to the finals. However, when asked to give as many synonyms for “sex” as possible in 30 seconds, I could only come up with seven. And I think I made up one of those. I was actually winning compared to the other synonymists, until the last person was asked for synonyms for “breasts”. He topped out at ten.
It’s a good thing I didn’t care if I won. The prizes were for excursions that I had been on already. And really, how many times does one need to kiss a dolphin?

I’m feeling better now and I’m getting onto Jamaica time. That would be staying up really late and not even sleeping in that much. There are many more people I recognize here now. One couple even tried to get me to come back next year, contrary to my current plans. But the seed of doubt has been planted.
I would like to go and do some partying, but that all seems to be winding down. It is raining quite a bit now, so it puts a damper on outdoor stuff.
I loaded my pictures from my camera to my laptop before going to bed, so far every evening since I got to Jamaica. It’s a bit of an insurance policy on the data, but I’ve realized that it puts all my eggs in the laptop basket.

Earlier today I think I got overheated. I’ve been feeling a little out of it since this afternoon, with a touch of a headache. I still have been going, but I haven’t partied as hard as I feel I should.
Mind you, I got up early today, so I might just be really tired.

This morning I was starting to recognize more people. I had breakfast with a lovely girl that I first met last year. She was beautiful and thin. While I had piled potatoes, pancakes and french toast on my plate, she had… fruit. I think she was jealous. She asked me how I, high with carbohydrates was slim, while everyone else here was more spherical in nature.
God bless running. I was even conveniently wearing a running shirt, advertising the K-100 relay.
Since my work offers me increased benefits if I do exercise three times a week, and I’ve been a bit lax this week, I actually took time out of last evening to run for twenty minutes on a treadmill. 2.34 miles. It’s amazing how that little bit of incentive is actually changing my lifestyle. A little.
A pretty girl is a much better incentive.

First, I got my pants fix. Not perfect, but close enough. Now on to other stuff.
This is my fourth time to this resort. It is, according to the propaganda, 40 miles from Montego Bay. This is the first time I have ever arrived and it was still light out, even though I have always taken the same flight. There are three reasons for this.

1. My flight had its schedule changed so that it was slightly earlier. Not significantly so though.
2. The road from the airport to the resort is now paved and two lanes. You can actually pass traffic that is going slow or stopping to turn. This helps a lot. That cuts about an hour off the travel time.
3. The new schedule for daylight savings time works in my favor. Because Canada is still on DST, the flight arrived an hour earlier than usual. Jamaica is no longer on it.

It was nice to come here and be able to look around properly. I also discovered that when you don’t know anyone here, it can be rather boring. (Let’s be honest, I’ve tried most every activity here, and they do wear thin. I come now for the friends.) There was one person I knew, and he was on the flight from Toronto. More arrived a few hours later and things are getting better.
The weather here is hot and muggy. When I walked into my room, the A/C was going so much it felt like I was still in Canada. I’ve fixed that. The locals are complaining too. One was sick of the heat all the time and was seriously thinking of going to Alberta.
Idiot.

One of the main reasons to bring a laptop died. The flight from Toronto to Montego Bay had those video terminals too. So I had good in-flight entertainment. Better than working on a computer.
“Evan Almighty” was a poor comedy. I barely laughed. However, I still enjoyed it; It was uplifting. It probably should have been billed as a drama.
“Surfs Up”: It was a family movie. It fit the mold well. Maybe is should have been released by Disney.
Oh look, Jamaica. Gotta go.

Toronto does not serve my pant needs. Well the airport doesn’t. If I was feeling adventurous I would leave the airport and venture into the city itself in a quest for pants. I have the time, but I have no idea where to go looking. Or how much it will cost to actually get anywhere. Or where they would be selling non-seasonal clothing.
Guess I’ll be using the resort plan.
Unfortunately the Toronto airport isn’t as nice as the Edmonton one. Here I have to pay for Wi-fi. So this post won’t actually get posted until I can get free internet access again.
The flight to here did have the video terminals in the seat in front of me. I could have watched several films I’m actually interested in seeing. I could have. Instead I actually slept. Now I’m hungry.

Well, it is time for my usual journal entry in the departure lounge. It happens every time; I’m bored, nothing else to do. So I make an entry.
Strangely, this will be the first time I can actually post an entry as well. Cool. Free Wi-fi.
While waiting in security I realized I have forgotten something. Pants. I have lots of shorts, but I never got around to grabbing some long pants to take along. I will need those for the evenings. I do remember packing one pair of long pants, but those were good pants for formal occasions. This is not really a formal resort.
I have five hours in Toronto so I’ll look for some summer pants there. Or in a worst case scenario, I’m sure I’ll be able to buy some overpriced ones at the resort.

I’m going to Jamaica today. Technically tomorrow, but it feels more like tonight. I hope I can sleep on the plane to Toronto. I am really hoping they don’t have a good movie showing on the flight. Or worse, if they have those video consoles that let you pick what to see. I wouldn’t get any sleep with that. And I want to limit the amount of sleeping at the resort as much as possible, so it is better to stock up beforehand.
I have a lovely six hour stopover in Toronto, so I will either sleep or program there.
Yes, program. I’m planning on bringing my laptop. I have vacationed enough this year that I don’t have anything to prove. I can actually bring my own work with me to a sunny resort. I don’t plan to do any computer work at the sunny resort, except to update my journal at times. But it should make the flights more interesting and productive.
I’m slightly worried about this trip. Many things in my life follow a pattern. The first time is good. Then the next time I will have bad things happen. Third time is good again. Fourth time, not so good. If this pattern is like the Star Trek movies pattern then this will be a bad trip. And I don’t mean in the pot smoking way.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
In other news, it looks like I am making it pop free for my entire stay in Edmonton. On the flight from London to Edmonton I drank a lot of Coke. By the time we landed, my stomach was feeling a little sore. I decided to avoid drinking pop for as long as possible. And I’m still good.
However, in Jamaica it will be necessary to drink it. I will need all the caffeine I can get. And coffee isn’t an option.

Halloween is a good time to go to the drop in clinic. Everyone is out trick or treating, so there is no line.
Mind you, it still takes too long for the doctor to show up.

No problems. Just worried about a persistent cough. He thinks that it is just after-effects from a previous sickness, exacerbated by dry air. So I think the best thing to do would be to find some humid air. Maybe at an island community in the caribbean.
Yes. That should do nicely.

I’d like a tickle trunk.
Of course they don’t make the magical ones, as seen on TV. But it would be nice to have a chest filled with costume props.
The reason I mention this, besides it being close to Halloween, is that in an improv class I took, it looked like it would be really useful. Students were encouraged to bring props to the class. And then we would come up with characters, using the brought items to inspire us. The more props available, the more varied the possibility of characters.
Of course, I can’t see much use in day-to-day life.

Last night, for my costume, I put on some make-up to give myself a scarier face. Almost all of it washed off in the shower before I went to bed.
Except the eye-liner.
This morning it is still there, even after going to the gym to exercise. My usual method of removing stubborn make-up, rubbing harder, doesn’t work on the eyes when you aren’t sure how recovered they are from the laser surgery. From a distance, I must say, it brings out my eyes. But when I peer closer, I look like a confused 80’s rock star.
I am not Johnny Depp.

Before I left, I was really thinking about how much I was going to enjoy tomorrow. I would have a day at home where I could clean up everything, cook a nice meal, and go out to a coffee place and work on the computer.
I guess I was setting myself up for low expectations.
And I had a great time at the party! The wings worked fine and the only thing that broke was something that I hadn’t touched but wouldn’t be out of place through normal wear and tear. I didn’t spread my wings more than once. They do become huge and somewhat unmanageable. And also a bit difficult to get folded in again.
And I talked to many nice girls. One of them was also very into wings and tails. And she let me know it. It was everything I could hope for and more. I got email addresses where I am supposed to send pictures. Let’s hope I do something more with them this time.
While getting ready to go, I dumped out the bag of all the accessories that go with the costume. On top of it was a card for the person who made them. However, on the back was the email address of the subcontractor who actually built the frame and mechanical parts. This is good!
Although it is only good if she hasn’t talked to her old boss.

Looks done. Now, it just needs to go to Q/A to make sure it is good to send to the customer.
Except I don’t have a Q/A department.
I don’t feel like testing anymore. I feel like having dinner. So I’m just going to assume it is good and ship it.

Seems to work. Now I just need to wrap everything up. I’ll get out my old sewing kit which should have some strong black thread in it.
Except it doesn’t.
Irony! I just gave away a huge bunch of sewing equipment last month.
It does have some black thread. It just doesn’t look very strong. Or I can use the white thread that does look strong.
I do have a black marker…

Aw man.
Not a loose bolt. It looks like the PVC pipe that makes up the main support struts was just glued in. That isn’t surprising, but it does make my job harder. The glue must have gotten loose after all the pressure and isn’t supporting itself anymore.
They’ve taped over the joint so I can’t separate the pieces easily and reglue. Even if I could, I don’t think I have the time to let the glue set. I’m going to take out the drill and make a hole through the pipe and then jam a screw through it.
Hopefully that will get it to stay.

I didn’t go out to a Halloween party yesterday night. The stress and anger over my costume was just not putting me into a party mood. That and I didn’t have the energy to repair it. So I went to a non-costume party at some friends.
When I got home I had more energy so I started doing the repairs. Some glue needed to dry overnight so it was better to do it earlier than later. A caulking gun would have been nice, but I don’t think it was truly necessary.
This morning I installed the new pieces. A few errors were made, but nothing too serious. However, when I tried it on this morning, there was some groaning sounds. That is not good on a mechanical device. Although my repairs were fine, it revealed another problem.
When I picked up my wings on Thursday they had been bound up so that they took up less room. Now that I think about it, they may have been like that for an entire year. I guess the stress caused one of the wings to come loose. Now the new weight is causing the right one to droop.
I think a bolt just needs to be tightened. The problem this time is that the bolt is inaccessible. I need to start ripping cloth apart to get to the attachment. And then I have to hope my theory is correct.
I’ve been trying to be forgiving of her. But now I despise her with the hate of a thousand burning suns.

Okay, here is a theory.
She never actually had anything done and was just looking for an excuse to make it my fault that she never finished.

I was hoping this once to have a stress free Halloween. Unfortunately it was not meant to be.
For the past few years I have had a lot to deal with around this time. I’ve taken three trips to Jamaica about now which require work to prepare for. Plus trying to get a costume ready for the Halloween parties has its own dilemmas. Halloween is the one time of the year that I like going to bars. Girls are easy to approach when you compliment them on their costume. So it is an important weekend for me. My one time of the year when I can feel normal. (Irony?)
This year was going to be different. The vacation should be easy to prepare for because I just came off one that had a lot of similar elements. I just have to be lazy on unpacking and my work is half done. The costume was going to be easy, I’ll just use the one from last year again.
Two years ago I had a costume custom made for me. A scary demon with cool moving wings. It was great. Last year when I wore it, there were some technical difficulties. The first party I went to, one of the cables/strings that operate the wings broke. I was able to figure out what was going on and repair it myself before the party the next day. However, due to the first injury, a support strut had gotten weak and broke during that party. This malfunction seemed more than I could handle, so I took it back to the manufacturer to ask her to see if she could repair it. That was on the 31st of October, so it wasn’t a rush order. I didn’t need it until next Fall.
Around July I was getting concerned. It still had not been repaired but she said she would be done during the next weekend. That is the last I heard from her for some time. I made another request hoping that I could get them before I left on my European vacation. I still didn’t hear back.
On the 16th of October I finally got word from her that she would try to be done by the weekend or the beginning of the next week. She was super busy. That is cutting it close because I wanted to have them back on Thursday (i.e. today) so I could use them at a Halloween party tomorrow. I sent her an email on Monday asking for an update. No response.
Yesterday, the stress was killing me. So I sent an email just asking her for the wings back and I would do my own poor-man repairs. I figured that if I hadn’t heard from her by now, she probably still wasn’t done and I should just try and do it myself. I thought I had been very patient. Of course, email always makes people sound angrier than they are. And reading it again, it does sound insulting.
She has now replied back, and she is angry with me. I have given her attitude. She has thrown out the repaired piece. I am never to contact her again for anything.
At least I got my broken wings back.
But now I’m feeling like a monster. A stressed monster. I am trying very hard to tell myself otherwise. She has had nearly a year to work on them and has given me a string of broken promises. I gave them to her with a long deadline precisely so this kind of stuff wouldn’t happen.
I still emailed her an apology, but she did say I am never to contact her, so she probably won’t even read it. I have gone and done a tour of hardware stores and I’m going to try and make my own repairs tonight. Last minute. i.e. More stress.

I think I am semi-friends (via Friday Feasts) with a relative of hers.

You might say meticulous, but really, let’s accept that I am anal retentive.
I keep careful track of where my money is coming and going. To the cent. It would probably have been for the best if Quicken had not come pre-installed on my first computer.
So, on my travels through Europe, in the same book that I kept forthcoming journal entries, I kept track of what I had purchased. And every so often I would do the math (sans calculator) to confirm that I had the correct amount of money in my wallet.
It’s sad really.
Now, I want to enter all this data into my computer. I won’t feel right until I do. (Don’t judge me!) However I have hit a snag. Due to a discrepancy between the starting money between my notebook and my computer, I am forced to believe that I left some extra money in my home. It sounds like something I would do to avoid carrying around extra change.
The exact problem is that I don’t know where this missing $19.58 is.
Did I hide it that well? Or did I spend that in the four days before I left on the trip?

I really need to get rid of this mental affliction.

On Friday I went out to the Farm of Fear. I thought it was the corn maze at night populated with zombies and other scary people. (Vampires would be too sophisticated to hang out in a corn maze. Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t seem malicious enough to be a threat. Werewolves would fit in well.)
Anyway, I was wrong. It was a barn made up to be a haunted house. I went in hoping to be scared, but it wasn’t meant to be. That was the problem though. I knew there were supposed scary things in there, but I also knew that nothing bad could happen. (Lawyers would get involved if it did.)
So there was no fear. When creepy guys in hockey masks came out, all I could do was say hello. And I feel I disappointed them. These guys are working hard to scare me and I couldn’t make the effort to act frightened. The best I could hope for was to be surprised, and that happened when various doors slammed shut.
I am envious of the girls who were in the corn part being chased by the guy with the chainsaw. They sounded really scared. And yet when I got there, I knew what was coming. No fear. The guy did seem tired though. He had been running through the corn all night with a heavy piece of farm machinery.
I tried to help. I hid in the corn and jumped out at the next party coming through.

I’ve been back in Edmonton for a week now. I think I have enough distance that I can comment on the Eurotrip as a whole.
I was extremely lucky with the weather. I have heard about their summer being cold and rainy. Yet the weather was great almost the entire time I was there. The one day it was completely overcast is the day I got a sunburn (I was above the clouds on top of a mountain). Except for Denmark; There it did get rainy.
The Contiki tour was perfect for me. It kept me busy the entire time. I like to be kept busy. I got to see the highlights of Europe and I now have a better idea of what areas I would like to spend more time in. I did see other tours that had better busses. Some had television or two levels. A Danish tour bus had free alcohol in its storage locker, available at stops.
The problem with tour buses is that they are hermetically sealed. If anyone gets sick, everyone eventually gets it. I think there were two different illnesses that made the rounds. And they smoke everywhere in Europe, so colds get aggravated. That is one thing I really enjoy back in Canada is cleaner air. But when you are sick, you should drink lots of water. I would have tried to drink more water, but they make it hard there. The restaurants don’t want to serve tap water when they could instead charge you for bottled water. This put a damper on the guzzling I usually do at dinner. I think the only public water fountain I ever saw was in Paris.
And because alcohol is cheap there, it is probably more economical to drink beer. The local pop drink, Fanta, was a nice change from the usual. But after a few tastes I still prefer Coke. Right now though, I am sick of it. I drank too much on the airplane home and I started getting a burning feeling in my stomach. I take that as a bad sign.
If you say Gesundheit to someone in Germany, they might think you actually speak German. It may get awkward.
I saw many museums in Europe. They are quite prolific, but I don’t think they are my thing. Unless there is an interesting topic behind them, or there are rides, museums are rather boring. I did find that after going to the Louvre and the Vatican Museum, you effectively have a Get-out-of-Museum-Free card. If anyone says you should see their local museum, you can just say that you have already been to the big ones, and anything else would just be disappointing.
Looking at the architecture is slightly better than going to museums. For one thing you don’t have to pay. And since most are functional, you can try and use them. For example, climbing them. And most buildings look so much better than Edmontonian ones. Even the concrete bunkers of apartments seem classier.
Unfortunately, there was scaffolding everywhere. I don’t think I saw any historical buildings that didn’t have some scaffolding draped over part of it. And come to think of it, I don’t ever recall seeing anyone using the scaffolding to repair a building. Berlin was the worst. But then they seem to be trying to rebuild the entire eastern part of the city.
While I was gone, the iPod touch came out. An iPod that allows you to use wireless hotspots to browse the web. That would have been insanely useful for this trip. In many places, wireless was free, but internet cafes usually cost money. And while trying to log the trip, I used more internet than I would have cared to.
I also discovered the George Clooney shills a lot. I kept seeing his face on advertisements. Everywhere! Someone pointed out that it was just for a coffee and a watch, but they were so prolific.
I had hoped to “find myself” on this trip. I don’t think I did. I still feel the same as I always do. The biggest benefit is that I found I enjoy physical activities with friends. Bicycling in Edam, tobogganing in Switzerland, whitewater rafting in Austria. I just need friends who want to go out and do things like that. Friends are the key. The big disappointment on the trip was that I didn’t have anyone to share it with.

If I had arrived in London five hours earlier, my night would have been completely different. I would have put my luggage into storage as previously described, but when I stepped out of the train station, my eyes would fall upon the big poster covering the side of a nearby building, advertising the contents.
I would have had plenty of times to go and see Wicked. I would have been a cultured person. Instead of a homeless one.

I went running today. I think it went well, My ankle didn’t feel too bad. But I guess tomorrow will be when I really find out.
Posting entries to this journal is going to become weird. While in Europe it was easy. Everything was exciting simply because it was in Europe. I could comment on the completely mundane, things I would never do while in Edmonton. Now I have to try and think of only interesting things.

Yeah. This isn’t going to be easy.