December 23, 2011

Happy Festivus

It's done. I have my Festivus Pole up. It's the best looking Festivus Pole I've ever seen.

It seems some people don't know about Festivus. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry. (No wonder Jimmy Wales is desparate for donations. Everbody and their uncle is using Wikipedia's bandwidth.)

Happy Festivus everyone.

Comment here

December 22, 2011

Merry Kiss-My-Ass

It's that time of year again. Xmas. (Yes, spelled Xmas!! Deal with it.) It actually starts promptly on Nov. 1 when the malls put up the Xmas crap, and it doesn't really end until about a week after Xmas due to all of the Boxing Day sales... and the return of the crap people got that they didn't even want in the first place.

Anyone who knows me knows that I call for Xmas to be cancelled. Well, I've discovered that there's a name for myself and all the people like me. Santarchy. I'm a Santarchist. Not one of those Santa suit wearing, merry making wastes of protein who waste a good term like Santarchy. I embody the true meaning of Santarchy, the way it was meant to be when it came out of the London Punk scene in the 70s (not true, actually, but sounds good). I'm like the old man who yells at kids when their ball lands in my yard. Damn kids.

There's got to be a better way to get through this season. Lets investigate:

Hanukkah: The first thing people think of when they want to avoid Xmas is becoming Jewish. "Yay, I'll have Hanukkah." Lots of good food. It turns out the Dreidel game is like gambling. So far so good. The evenings get buggered up as you have to light candles every evening for eight nights and then the youngins get to open a gift, but I always PVR Daily Planet anyways. Oops, did you catch that? EIGHT NIGHTS! In a row?!? At least Xmas culminates in one evening and the next morning. You can rip off that festering bandage that is Xmas and get it over with. Sorry Jewish friends, I'll 'Passover' that idea.
Jehovah's Witness: The smart people. They refuse to get caught up in all this mess. You see, the Pagans celibrated Saturnalia (the Winter Solstice, when the days start getting longer) for thousands of years before the Romans co-opted it into their Christian church. Jesus wasn't born anywhere near Dec 25, but the Romans rolled Saturnalia into one of their old holidays, called it Christmas, and "Hey ho now we own the Pagans". All the "religious" holidays follow this theme, but our Witness friends don't fall for it. I like this. I like it a lot, but I really don't want to feel obligated to dress up in my good clothes and knock on all of my neighbours' doors so I'll have to bow out.
Kwanzaa: There's an idea. Putting up a Kinara and the black-green-red flag instead of an Xmas tree would be so much easier. Study one of the seven principles each day for seven days. I can do that. Trouble is, I'm white. Joyous Kwanzaa to everyone except me.
Pancha Ganapati: The Hindus have a 5 day festival, from December 21-25, where they honour Lord Ganesha, Patron of Arts and Guardian of Culture. You first have to decorate your living room with a statue of Lord Pancha Ganapati, or failing to have one of those laying about, a statue or picture of Lord Ganesha. It seems there's bonus points for adding lights, tinsel and ornaments. For each of 5 days this now gets decorated in a new colour. And there's singing and chanting to whichever Lord you brought in from the garage. Gifts are put under the statue for the kids to open after the 5th day. Each of those 5 days is about making amends and easing any strained relationships, and "creating a vibration of love and harmony" (Hippies probably love this festival). Day 1 is for immediate family, Day 2 is neighbours, friends and extended family, Day 3 is business associates and the general public, on Day 4 everyone gathers together to share their artistic leanings. Art, music, dance, sock puppetry... whatever. If they did everything right the first 4 days, on the 5th day there will be an outpouring of love and tranquility from Ganesha, but I assume not in a way like you'd see in a porn movie. Well, these traditions are definitely not for me. It sounds like most of the Xmas crap, spread out over days and days like with Hannukah, then throw it all in a blender with Seinfeld's Costanza family's strained relationships. I'll not be visiting this one.
Festivus: Speaking of the Costanza family, anyone who watches Seinfeld, which is just about everyone, knows about Festivus. "A Festivus For The Rest Of Us". The traditions of Airing of Grievances, Feats of Strength, and the aluminum Festivus Pole. Gotta love it. Did you know it's a real thing? Its humble beginnings were in 1966 by the Dad of one of the Seinfeld writers. He (the writer, Daniel O'Keefe) even wrote a book. I'll have to look for it. It's called The Real Festivus. There's also a book "Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us" by Allen Salkin. (And a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavour called Festivus.) Festivus is out there just waiting for everyone to adapt it. I might.
Holiday: Ah, the Pastafarians. Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Follow that link, I'll wait here... Good. What do you think. Just as valid as any other religion, yes? I like the idea of Holiday. Seeing as the Pastafarians reject formality and dogma, everyone is free to celebrate Holiday however they want to. There's not even a specific day for it. Perfect. I'll shortlist this one.

So, I'm down to Festivus and Holiday. Which one??? Holiday is the easiest of them all. You don't have to do anything. Anything, that is, except explain Pastafarianism and the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the lay people. Festivus isn't too much to do. Just put up a Festivus Pole, then do the Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength. (I could probably use the aluminum pole the rest of the year to bat away raccoons and hornet nests too.) Festivus has reached critical mass in public so there wouldn't be much to explaining it. What to do... what to do.

I think I'll go with Festivus. That way when people squawk and say "Bah humbug" and all that I can point to the Festivus Pole. And then I'll tell them they just made my list of Grievances. I'd better get crackin' though. Festivus is tomorrow (Dec 23). I need an aluminum pole, pronto!

I do still think there's a need for Santarchy however. I can still share that with the world, although I want to take it to the next level. Yes, you guessed it....

The Santichrist

Comment here

November 21, 2011

Moving Violations

A list of observations and grievances from the road:

I hate those a-holes that don't merge, until the last minute, in a lane that's ending. They drive up as far as they can then expect to just merge over after driving past everyone. Sorry Dick, (I assume that's their name) the end of the line is 10 minutes behind me. I absolutely do my best to not let those people in. (With the exception of a commercial van or transport truck. I'll help those people out because their job must be nightmarish enough dealing with all the a-holes on the road.)
People, I don't mind if you drive right at the speed limit. That's fine. When you drive below the speed limit, though, you should know that myself and almost everybody else are wanting to run you right off the road. The other side of the coin is the a-holes that ride up the back of me at stupid fast speeds. If you do that, I'm the one that takes his foot of the accelerator. No braking, I just let the car coast slower and slower until you get the point and back off or just go around share your ignorance with the next car down the road.
You ever notice the car with dad in front, mom in back with the little whelp, and nobody in the passenger seat. Looks ridiculous. Is your baby so precious that you can't take your eyes or hands off of it for the length of a car ride? Dad, grow a pair! Mom, cut the cord! You're ensuring future beatings of the momma's boy you're creating.
You see those people who sit in the front passenger seat with their feet up on the dash or out the window. (It's usually a chick.) Don't tell me for a minute that's comfortable, I won't believe it. I'd say they're trying to look cool I guess. I always hope they get into a head on collision or smash into an old, mature oak tree. They'd totally deserve the half body cast they get, and they'd look pretty funny in it. Definitely not a cool look and I'd totally ask them how comfy they are now.
How about when people edge forward at a red light so they can take off and get in your lane in front of you. Both my vehicles are standards and they just happen to sometimes accelerate faster than automatic transmissions so I can't really help that you get stuck in the lane you're in. You know what's weird? Sometimes my car goes at just the right speed so the other car can't get over, but not too fast that there's a gap between me and the car behind me leaving enough room for the other car to come over. Strange days indeed.
Speaking of automatic transmissions, why do they even make these performance cars (Mustangs, Chargers, Corvettes etc) with automatic transmissions? If you have an automatic in what you subsequently call a "muscle car", well, you're sadly mistaken. What you actually have is a wannabe muscle car driven by a fairy. Try to learn standard without injuring your limp wrist, then get a proper performance vehicle.
This one is possibly the worst thing on the list. How often do you see somebody toss garbage out of their window. (Your car is so full of trash already that you don't have room in the back seat for one more burger wrapper and drink cup?) Or sometimes it's a whole garbage bag laying in a ditch. Who does that anymore?? My calendar shows 2011, apparently theirs is stuck in the 70s and that Indian Chief still has a tear running down his cheek. I'd love to stop and pick up the garbage so I could follow them and put it in their mailbox but of course they'd be gone by the time I got back in the car. Where's a cop when you need one.
This doesn't really have to do with driving but once at a DQ drive-thru there was a car in front of us that had a dog in the back seat. The dog was all antsy and the first thing the people got from the DQ window was an ice cream cone. The dog really got excited then, and we could both tell what was coming. Doesn't the passenger reach back with the cone so the dog can eat the ice cream. We were stunned. These are probably the kind of people that treat the dog like it's their child. Obviously they want to love it literally to death. Surely the next time we're behind them all we'll see through their back window is four paws pointing skyward.

Comment here

September 16, 2011

Vacation- Week 2

After surviving week 1 of my vacation, week 2 was much easier. Relaxing even. I had no big jobs that had to be done, and I was very successful in not doing them.

We had a few days of light rain during the week so I caught up on some tv shows and goofed around down at the Messy Bench. I managed to cut the grass on one of the nice days.

Last month I signed up for two courses at Mohawk College. (Web design courses. I'm planning to take all the courses I need to get my Webmaster Certificate.) Being on vacation, it was the perfect opportunity to go pick up the books I would need for class. Actually it was necessary to go when I was off as there is a strike involving all the support workers at the colleges across Ontario. This has many of the functions at the college buggered up, and the bookstore is no exception. They're on reduced hours during the week and closed on the weekends.

Not only do they have things screwed up inside the college, they're picketing the entrances to the parking lots so there are long lines of cars waiting to get in. I didn't feel like waiting in that line so I drove around the nearby residential area looking for a parking spot. Strike or no strike these streets are full of parked cars at the best of times so it took a little driving around until I found a spot.

After claiming my little section of one of the streets I made my way to the college on foot. In a light but cold rain no less. No biggie. I peed my diapers when I was a baby and I survived so a little mist wasn't going to hurt me. (That goes for all of you people too!!)

I haven't been to Mohawk College for a few years, and it was 20 years ago that I was a full time student. It seems Mohawk has spent a lot of money in the last bunch of years adding new wings and upgrading a lot of the existing stuff so it took a bit to get my bearings. If nothing had changed in the school I could still find my way around there like I did 20 years ago. I walked around the place to see what all they have done and I found enough things that are still pretty much the same so I could use those to guide me around the new parts. There's still some exploring to do, though, until it feels like home again.

So I make my way to the bookstore and wasn't there a big long line up. Was it for the parking pass office? No such luck. It went from the bookstore doors all the way to the doors of the auditorium. If you don't know the layout of Mohawk, that means it went from the bookstore doors all the way to "I'm not waiting in that line!!". I had time before my alloted amount of free street parking time expired (and you know the bylaw people are crawling all over those streets to make the city lots of money) so I wandered the school and tried not to look like anyone's grandpa. I think I fit in. I went past the bookstore before I had to go and the line was still pretty long. I figured I would come back later in the day.

Remember from above I said the bookstore is on reduced hours? 9:30 to 2:00. I came back to the school at about 1:30 and got to the bookstore at about 1:45. Wow, almost no lineup!! Oh wait, some girl said the bookstore was closed. There were some people in there, but I guess they stopped letting new people in so that everyone would be out by 2:00. So why were there still a few people standing where the line was?? Maybe they're... aw forget it, I'll come back tomorrow.

Tomorrow turned into today (the Friday of that week) so I left to get to the bookstore when it opened. As I approached the school I saw that the line of cars waiting to get through the picketers was moving. (The picketers hold the cars for some determined amount of time, then they let a batch of cars through before stopping the line for their amount of time again.) I stayed in the lane of cars getting into the parking lot, and if I didn't get in I would change lanes and go park on the streets again. Well, didn't I get in right away. Nice. The cost to park there these days... not so nice. I paid for a few hours and headed in to the bookstore.

I wondered if I would need those hours of parking when I got into the bookstore line right in front of the auditorium doors. Yes, it was that long again. The bookstore still had a few minutes before it even opened so the line might move up a bunch when the first wave of collegiate humanity gets in the doors. It did, and it really didn't take all that long to get in there. I even found my books fairly easily.

So now I have my books and still over an hour of parking that I've paid for, but I have no problems entertaining myself. I got myself a pop and camped out in a chair at a busy loungy type of area. I browsed through my new books while watching the previously mentioned collegiate humanity wander by. Awww. College newbies. You entertain me to no end. Sadly I have to assume I looked just like them all those years ago too.

On Sunday I moved a 650lb piece of granite across the backyard by myself. Well, it was me and my good friend physics actually.

Before we built the deck we removed over a thousand patio bricks. When these were put down they also put down a slab of granite as a step. Seeing as it wasn't being used there anymore, I thought it would be a great step in front of my shed door, but first I have to move the thing over there. (The granite is 5ft by 16in by 7in. Or in metric that's blah blah blah blah whatever.) After standing there looking at it and thinking things over I decided I would take lumber and strap it to the flat sides of the granite to essentially make it a wheel. I also used other pieces of lumber and wood blocks for levers and fulcrums. Holy crap, after getting it all strapped together it actually rolled. Not as easily as, say, the front wheel of Fred Flintstone's car, but it did roll easy enough that it would work.

This "wheel" was not exactly round and was a little lumpy so about every half a roll it would get hard to push. Never one to stop thinking, I wanted to try levering it up on one side enough to feed a rope through and coil it around several turns worth. Now when you pull this rope it wants to roll the lumpy wheel as it uncoils and I could get some steady rolling for a longer distance. Also, pulling the rope was much easier than bending down to push the lumpy wheel. It worked like a charm. I was quite pleased. When it was almost in place at the shed I took the lumber off of the granite and levered it into place and Bob was in fact your uncle... Done. I have to level it a little bit still but that won't be any problem at all.

there's the rope colied around the lumpy wheel

Monday I didn't do too much that was constructive. Mostly lamenting the fact that I had to go back to work the next day.

It's Thursday night as I write this so one more day until the weekend. Forty hours of ~~working~~ showing up at work is no good after 18 days off. I need a vacation.

Comment here

September 11, 2011

How I know summer is over

Summer ended Sept 5th. I know this as a certainty because that was the last day McDonalds had their Dollar Drink Days for this summer. Any size drink (duh, that means large) for a dollar. Plus tax, of course.

I don't think I missed a day without a large Coke Zero (no ice) this summer. And the best part; they were all good this year. Last summer it was a crap shoot with the quality. Too often the syrup was weak and the pop was watery and lacking flavour. A lot of the time I went through the drive-thru so you know I wasn't going back just for that. I should've learned a long time ago from Lethal Weapon II, but I didn't. Nobody ever does.

Ray Kroc would be pleased to know their quality control was greatly improved this year. (You know who Ray Kroc was don't you? Ah christ, here then. And you call yourself civilized.) I don't recall getting a bad drink this summer, not even at the drive-thru. Inside the store it looks like McDonalds is going to the self serve fountains, which is great. I can do my own quality control. Thanks.

Yes, I like my pop. (Or soda if you're not from these here parts. Check this site out.) Preferably Diet Pepsi, and in the 710ml bottles. Room temperature as well, unless it's one of the hottest days of the year. I should start ordering pop like James Bond would. Diet Pepsi, bottle, room temperature, neither shaken nor stirred. The Aston Martins come with drink holders, yes?

I think people think I drink way more pop than I really do, but it only looks that way. ("I can quit any time I want to!" Look for my episode of Intervention next season.) The reason I like the bottles is that you can put the lid on it and it'll last most of the day. (Which is why I don't bother keeping any in the fridge. It's going to warm up before very long anyway.) At work I usually open a bottle in the afternoon, but I don't finish it until the next afternoon. At home I'll open one after work and it'll last into the night. I do open one right after that, though, so I have one ready for the morning. (You see, after a bottle is opened it kind of mellows out before long. You have to keep the cap on when you aren't drinking it, though, to keep it from going flat.)

I don't only drink pop. I love my iced teas. Real brewed, flavoured, sweet tea. It's all good. Most juices are good too. I like to try different things, and one really good drink I've found recently are the aloe based drinks. (Aloe pulp must have the exact same density as water because the chunks stay in perfect suspension in the juice. Doesn't sink, doesn't float, just hangs there right where you left it.) And of course when I feel dehydrated or am about to start, or just finished, some hard, physical work on a hot day I'll go for the bottles of water. (And/or the iced tea.) I don't rely on pop to fully hydrate me or provide any nutrients what so ever. It just tastes good, has good mouthfeel, and I guess my body likes the caffeine just like with you coffee addicts.

At least with the Dollar Drink Days over I don't have to try to keep $1.13 (Remember...taxes) with me at all times. And I will get home a few minutes earlier if I don't have to go out of my way and stop at McDonalds. I wonder if the various McDonalds stores will miss me. I guess I'll see them all in 7 or 8 months when the Dollar Drink Days start again. (I'm sure I'll see them once, maybe twice before then, although I've had enough Breakfast Burritos for a while.)

I think I'll end this by paraphrasing Ron Burgundy (Clayton will laugh.): I love pop. Poppy, pop, pop. Here it goes down, down into my belly, mmm mmm mmm...

Comment here

September 08, 2011

Empire Avenue

{EAV_BLOG_VER:05288d8bca17089e}

Had to put that to verify my blog for Empire Avenue. Please disregard unless you're my new friends from Empire Avenue. And if you join, tell them that tomjensen sent you.

Comment here

September 06, 2011

Vacation- Week 1

A little more than half of my vacation is over. If I only took one week, I'd definitely be going back to work for a rest, but fortunately I have one more week.

For about two days worth of time (it actually went into three days, but it not every available hour of each day) I worked on my car, the Saturn Vue that I drive to work. The Subaru still has lots of warrenty on it but the 03 Vue... not so much.

On the week before vacation the Vue decided it would stop charging the battery and crapped out on me. I had to leave it in a parking lot down the mountain, take the battery home to charge up, then put the battery back in the next evening and drive it home. No radio on, no fans, I didn't want to roll the windows down at all and waste battery power, and at the one red light I hit I pulled the parking brake up a little to shut off the daytime running lights. I actually probably could have drove around quite a ways with the usual things running but I wasn't taking any chances. I just wanted to get it back to my driveway.

Knowing I had this vacation coming up I decided I would drive the Subaru to work for the week and fix the Saturn on vacation. The Coke Oven Instrumentation shop isn't the best place to be driving your fairly new car to, but it was only for 4 days, and I got it washed after the week was over.

The first Saturday of vacay was spent doing venting for my friend Rob's pool heater for his new pool. The previous Saturday we ran the gas piping, and this Saturday we would complete the job by doing the venting. Fortunately it went very well and in a few hours it was done. The pool went up a few degrees by the time I left, so all was well there.

During this week, and the week or two before, my Mom's husband, Gordie, has been building a deck on the back of our house. (After completely removing the old one first, right down to the dirt.) Gordie is more than capable of doing this stuff, but it's a huge amount of work so when I wasn't at work or doing things I had to do on vacation I was helping out where I could. It seems to be one hard job after the other to finish a deck, and of course it was hot and humid all week.

So, the Saturn Vue. On Monday I removed the alternator and took it to a shop to have it tested. The guy said it worked, just not enough. I was pleased with this as now I knew where the problem was and it should be an easy fix. (Ha ha. "Should be!") He said he'd replace the voltage regulator, if they can get the part, and call me the next morning. Great, I can have the car all fixed by the next afternoon.

By lunch time Tuesday I still hadn't heard anything so I called the shop. "Oh ya." he says "It's ready to go." Thanks for the phone call, guy. At least I have a working alternator waiting to be put in and all my problems are solved. I picked it up and brought it home and got to work. Pop it in, wire it up and start the car. Hmmm, I'm still getting only the battery voltage. Not what I expected. I disconnect the battery cable and the car dies. (If the alternator is working the car should keep running off of the power it's generating.) Unbelievable... except that it's totally believable. Just ask everyone's pal Murphy.

Well, disconnect everything and start testing cables. The cable wasn't open between the battery and the alternator, and it wasn't shorting to ground at all so I was a bit stumped. I decided I would take the alternator back to get retested, but not today. Seeing as I was already dirty and sweaty I thought I would run a cable to install a voltmeter on the dash. I had to take apart a number of pieces of the dash, then find suitable wires to use, then put it all back together, but it wasn't too difficult. It's not rocket surgery, as I sometimes say.

No car engines or decks for me on Wednesday, we took the boy to African Lion Safari. He's been there several times, but I haven't been since I was a kid. I'd like to say that it's the same as it was when I was a kid or it's totally different but the fact is the only thing I can remember was the monkeys climbing on cars pulling parts off as you drove through the place.

These days they have a bus that will take you through (for about $5 per), or you can still drive your own vehicle if you want. We chose the bus. Those monkeys can be insidious. (And it turns out those monkeys are baboons.)

The bus took us through the park, On Safari as they call it, to see the lions, tigers and bears, Oh My. Actually I don't think there were any bears. There were a lot of other animals from all over the world, though. After that we had a little boat ride, saw some elephants go on the first of their twice daily swim, saw shows with exotic birds, birds of prey and elephants, had a train ride, and Tamara and Carson took a ride on an elephant. And at about 4PM we finally had lunch. The boy then went on the Jungle Playground and to the petting zoo, and that was it. Whew, one fully packed day was over.

Thursday I took the alternator back to get retested. Of course it was working fine, and they showed me as much on their test rig. They said to check my battery and cables, which I already knew were both OK, and the other wire that goes into the plug on the alternator. The alternator won't do anything if it's not getting good battery voltage back into this plug. D'oh. I was thinking this plug sent the signal into the computer to monitor the voltage for the dashboard indicator lights. Instead it's the excitation voltage for the alternator, and sure enough... no voltage on it.

Man, what a job to find that problem. I was opening cable bundles to trace the wire around, checking fuses, even pulling off these two cable connectors and testing every pin first for voltage, then for continuity. Nuthin'. There was a spot on the wire right near the plug that had the insulation scraped a bit. I had put tape on it the other day so it wouldn't short out or get moisture in, then I moved on to other things. I thought I'd try taking the tape off and measure continuity from where the insulation was scraped away to the connector that goes to the alternator. Didn't the insulation stretch when I pulled the tape, meaning that the wire was broken inside. Aha!!! That must be it. A butt connector and some heat shrink and tape and that was fixed. Wire everything up and voila, I'm getting power out of the alternator. Still not the 14ish volts, but it's something. I had started the car a bunch so I put the battery on the charger for the night, then I had to get ready to go out to a concert.

As mentioned in my previous post, Saga was playing in Toronto at Sound Academy. I picked up my friend Rob and we headed out to eat then drive to Toronto.

The tickets said the show was at 8:00, so we got there about 7:15 and got in line outside the doors. The doors didn't open until 8:00! We got inside and noticed there was a setup for an opening band in front of Saga's equipment. Oh man, who has opening bands anymore??? The opening band, Wise, Young & King, started about 9:15. They sounded a bit like The Cult, I thought. They were OK, I guess, but we weren't really there to see them. And Sound Academy is a standing venue so by the time this night is over I might never be able to stand up again. There were a few tables in the middle, but of course they were all taken, and you would never see the stage when all the people are standing in front of it anyway.

Saga started their show at about 10:30. It was cranked up quite loud and it took a few songs for the sound guy to get things somewhat right. Even then I still thought the guitar and keyboards were fighting for the same space most of the night, but all in all it was OK. The guys in the band seemed to be having a lot of fun playing, so that always makes for a great show, and they definitely didn't disappoint. It's always great to see them play.

They played until about 12:30 and we were dying to get back to the car and sit down as we had been standing for a little over 5 hours. Sitting was good!!! And Rob had to work the next day so we kinda needed to get back to the city ASAP.

Friday morning I got back to the Saturn. With a nice, freshly charged battery I started the car and got about 14 volts from the alternator. Just as it should be!! Finally!! I put back the stuff I had to remove to get to the alternator (the parts of the air filter compartment) and made sure everything was completely back together and took it for the road test. All OK. I can park the Subaru in the garage again.

Friday afternoon and Saturday was spent finishing the deck. Of course Saturday (Sept 3) was a hotter day than any we had in August, but what can you do. Except for two sections of railing the deck is finished for now. The plan so far is to add another section next summer. I'm not looking forward to it, but then again I know now what to expect. Here's a pic.

Sunday was mostly relaxing for me, except we had people over for supper but I didn't have to do much. The Boss had me do a little yard work that didn't take too long.

Today, Monday, has finally been a Vacation. I've been writing this and watching a marathon of Known Universe on the National Geographic channel. I have some things I'd like to get done over the next week of vacation, but hopefully it won't be as heavy as this week. I'll let you know how it went.

Comment here

August 09, 2011

Saga at Festival of Friends, Aug 7/2011

They came, they rocked. Saga was back in Hamilton at Festival of Friends.

I'd heard that the night previous (Friday) was chaos because so many people showed up at the Festival. This was the first year it was held up at the Ancaster Fairgrounds. For decades the Festival was held down the mountain in Gage Park but it has grown so large they had to move it to a venue with more parking and more room for the activities and vendors.

I saw on the weather radar Saturday afternoon (I'm a weather junkie) that there was a cell of heavy rain coming through the area and then nothing after that so I was thinking that would work out great. People would stay home, or the ones that were there would leave and it would be not overly crowded. It worked out well in that regard. We went to the Wife's Mom's house to pick them up and left for the Festival when the rain died off. Parking was easy, and the crowd was good; not overcrowded.

Here's where the trouble began. Of the four of us, I was the only one who was going to see Saga and the others would meet me after the show. The show was to start at 6:00, but at 5:30 when I got there the band playing before Saga, The Reason, were just starting their set. The rain pushed things back about an hour and a half. As it turned out, about the time Saga was starting was the time I was going to meet the others to go home. Oh well, screw it. The reason any of us were there was because I wanted to see Saga so our plan was getting pushed back as well. (They'll figure it out when I'm not there on time and the band is still playing.) I made my way right up to the rail on Stage Right (audience left), ready to watch, listen and photograph.

Finally at 7:30ish the sequencer fired up for the intro to How Long. Over the course of about an hour they played some of the older favourites. By my memory they played 8 songs. There was (probably not in this order) How Long, Wind Him Up, Humble Stance, You're Not Alone, The Flyer, On the Loose. You can never forget hearing Scratching the Surface, as you get to see Jim Gilmour punch himself in the junk to sing way up high for that one. (Um, no, not really. Come on now!!) And, before playing it, Sadler talked a bit about the idea behind writing I've Been Framed. He was saying that in London he was asked if he would like to participate in a police lineup. He agreed, but then he was quite worried that he might be picked out as the criminal.

Due to the rain delay all the bands had to play reduced sets and I understand Saga had to leave off 4 songs. There were still two more bands to play after Saga, and I'm guessing it all had to be finished by a certain time. Local noise ordinances and all that stuff. "The Man" and Rock and Roll just don't go together.

For what turned out to be the last song I made my way to the back of the venue and took a few photos from near the sound tent. I then went to the area where I was supposed to meet the others, but of course the rest of my party weren't there. I stood around for a bit, as the final song was still going, and checked out all the "local talent". Later that night my wife mockingly told me about all the chicks walking around that I missed but, no, I didn't miss too many of them. (Sorry, no photos though, unless you can see inside my head.)

During the show, Sadler mentioned that Saga is playing in Toronto on Sept 1st. (A Thursday night, rockfans.) They're playing at Sound Academy. I'll have to see who wants to go with me, then scoop up some tickies.

If you want to see a few more photos from the show, click on my Facebook badge down near the bottom of this page. See you there.

Postscript:
I've been to many a Festival of Friends over the years and I have to say; when it was down at Gage Park the bigger name bands sure brought out the ummm.... well, the white trash and low lifes of the city. I wondered what it would be like having it moved up to Ancaster, a more upscale community in Hamilton. Well, I gotta say... The free shuttle bus from downtown Hamilton brought many representatives of the old Festival of Friends. I guess they're harmless, though. A little misdirection gets them out of your grill. "Hey look! There's still some cigarette left on that butt someone threw away."

Comment here

July 28, 2011

Hello World

Flux capacitor charged? Check.

Warp Drive engaged? Check.

Birds Angry? Check.

Is this thing on? Here we go...

My first blog post. I'm not constrained to 140 characters here. (Nor am I constrained by morals or ethics. Gotta love the Interwebs!!) I do hold myself to decent spelling and grammer, though, and at the end of the day I always hope to Get The Laugh.

I remember when I first got on the 'Net. It was the whole reason I got a computer, and there wasnt even an internet provider in the area. I had to sign up with Delphi in Cambridge, Mass., and in addition to the monthly fee it was a $2 an hour charge for a Sprint line down to there.

The World Wide Web was just breaking, and I dont recall seeing any browsers. It was all text for a while. There was really nobody to email, either, if you can imagine that. And all this online goodness was through the old dial up phone modems (I think I had a 56.6k at the end of that era. Blazing fast!!). And now here we are. If a neighbourhood doesn't have cable Internet, well I guess we won't be buying a house there.

Unfortunately I was just a few years into my career in Industrial Instrumentation and just a passive consumer of all things computer. I really wish I had the foresight to get more proactive in computers and the Internet and make my millions that way. I fail at life. Does Stephen Hawking have a time machine I can use?

This is my first stab at anything that's my own on the Nets so I'm going to do as much of my own coding on this website as I can (PHP = great fun... not). It may look a little rough for now, but Im hoping to steadily improve it and make it a thing of beauty eventually (I'll work on adding comments next, so you people can praise/lambaste me for my words). And I hope to have fun and learn a lot along the way to making my millions.

Comment here