Adware and caffeine withdrawal

Oh my! What a challenge to write this post. Im using my rents computer, which was at one time my computer.. lets just say its ancient. Everything grounded to a halt and luckily I knew what I was doing and exactly which process to kill because even upon rebooting it was caked to the nines with nasties. Should be better soon, im downloading AdAware as I type.

Onto the blog... I wokeup this morning to an empty house, it was nice cause my head was pounding. I knew exactly what the demon which plagued me was.. my good old friend caffeine withdrawal. I quickly readied a fix.. a cup of tea that was thick as sludge and drank it down while I worked my dreads. About halfway through the sludge I remembered nasty demon #2, the tanin's in tea leaves. Instant nausea. Bleh. I quickly packed my gourd with the bran filled raisin cereal and sunk it down to my belly pit where it could mingle with those tanins. That did the trick.. and as I felt the wave of nausea pass I heard my pops arrive in the turbo-Cummins. Off to work I went.

We spent the day planeing boards and fine tuned our system further. We managed to do a couple of the beams in a single pass each. What an improvement this was over our feeble attempts yesterday. We managed to get it easy enough for my dad to do it by himself for the most part, besides loading new beams and flipping them over. This enabled me to use the belt sander to get out the rough spots and burn marks the planer missed and created. The sanding belt broke after the first board and my pops sent me into town to get some replacements. He handed me a crisp $100.oo bean ticket.

I found what I needed at the hardware store and proceeded to the checkout. This is where I believe my appearance got me into a bind. As I handed over the bill to the broad, she left the till to talk to a co-worker. I could hear mutterings behind me about counterfeit bills. After a minute or two I guess they established that what I had provided was indeed a legit bill and they gave me my receipt and change. Part of the reason I chose to grow my hair long and get dreads was to see how different people would treat me. I wanted my looks to weed out the ignorant people who were too shallow to look beyond the exterior and see my true self. This didn't come without its catches. The number of people who have told me to get a haircut along with a phrases such as "Oh wow Mike, you were HOT with short hair" seem to increase as days pass. These comments don't affect my self-confidence these days as I believe I have for the most part left the stage of being insecure about my looks. These comments almost fuel my desire for my dreads to mature. Seeing people with dreads down to their ass at Shambhala inspired me further. I was so amazed with the level of work these people must have put in, just to make themselves stand out. That's just what I want. I would have such a strong sense of pride to have long, nappy, amazing looking dreads. I would flaunt them as a lion does its mane. Even if people think im a dirty stinky hippie, oh well, power to them. I know I don't stink, and if you must place me in a category, well then, hippie suits me just fine. My love for nature is one of my strongest passions, along with my desire for knowledge and the pursuit of inner peace. This makes up part who I am. The other reason I enjoy looking the way I do of course is because, well, I like the way I look. :) I also enjoy the look on peoples faces when I tell them I'm a computer scientist. Show you to have a first impression.. BEATCH. Next time look beyond. Ok, well now im rambling, and while god knows I love to ramble, you most likely are wondering at this point where I'm going. Well, im going here. This is where it ends.
Salutations dear reader.

Make Those Timbers Shine

I am going to sleep well tonight. This morning my mom and I went into town to get some dreadlock shampoo and send my student loan papers. Turns out, I'll have wait until Kamloops to send off these papers as the post office doesn't process them here.
We stopped by the local health food store and picked up a really good multivitamin and a topical cream to cleanse my lymphatic system. It's supposedly suppose to unclog the lymph nodes so they can fight infection efficiently. I was actually quite impressed with the man at the health food store, it appeared he really knew what he was talking about.

We came back to the house around lunch and I set off to work with my dad. We spent the afternoon and evening planeing huge 20' long beams for roof of the new house. At first, work was slow as we didn't have a level feeding platform for the boards and they were very difficult to maneuver properly to get an even plane. After a couple of hours we had slowly put together a feeding platform. We used PVC pipes as rollers to roll the boards along over another plank. This allowed us to feed the boards with ease and control. Our pace quickened as we learned the machine and developed a system. We managed to get 6 beams done in about 6 hours.. It was slow going.

Now I am exhausted and am heading for another good nights sleep.

Day three of cleansing complete.. is my pee supposed to be this neon?

New Threads and Wet Mountains

Ahhh, its good to be back at the parents. Good food, my old dog, and my the company of those who raised me. I'm always taken care of so well here.. food is put in front of my constantly, along with all my mom's herbs and remedies. The rents even took me out shopping at the local bike shop and I managed to pickup new shoes, a new jacket, new windbreaker, new gloves, and a new touqe. SCORE! The best part about it was I got it all for regular price of the jacket. How? You might ask. Well son, 70% off on everything. It's all great quality stuff too, (ie. burton, concept, sombereo, vans)

I consider myself super lucky, and I think my mom considers herself super lucky to hit the sale on the last day. :)

After out little shopping spree, we headed east to revelstoke and up a 26km road with 16 switchbacks to the top of mount revelstoke. It poured the whole way, and the low lying fog obscured our vision, so travel was slow. We let out our dogs at the top and hiked the alpine to to the peak. Talk about cheating... every other time I've seen alpine I've spent hours hiking and climbed many many metres. Ah well, it was a nice change.. and was great for my mom, it allowed her to appreciate the alpine that people seldom see. Unfortunately due to being foggy as hell, we missed the scenic 360 degree view at the peak. However, a walk through alpine is always appreciated in my books, regardless of the conditions. I even saw the "fly algaric" or amanita muscaria mushroom for the first time. It has been used for visionary purposes since the dawn of time.

We walked back down to the car and packed our soggy dogs into the back seat (with yours truly) and headed down the mountain. We stopped by the revelstoke hydro-electric dam on the way home and did the tour. Kinda interesting.. I was impressed with the sheer size, but was nothing that I hadn't seen national lampoons family vacation. ;)

It all leads to me being here, writing this, another update to the continuing chronicles.

Day Two of Cleansing.... COMPLETE!

On The Road Again

Yawwwn.. Off to Salmon Arm.

T-2.5 Hours

Tick... Tock... Tick...

Still waiting on the hosting company to set up our account.
Oh well, 2.5 hours and it's off my shoulders.

Last Day As A Web Developer

That's right, after today it's back to being a full time computer science student. The one task left before me is to get the website hosted. So if all goes well, by the end of the day the website should be up and running. Lets just hope that's how it turns out.

Shout out to C. Bush -- Happy Birthday you little rat.

End of Summer Rut

As the end of my work contract approaches I can't help but find myself in a rut. Its time for change. This shouldn't be a problem for long, as im leaving on saturday to help my parents build their new house down in Salmon Arm. Although I will be working the majority of my stay, I dont doubt I'll find myself refreshed upon returning. There is somthing about that place that refreshes my soul.Oh well, only one more day after today.. then I'm on the road again.. one last time for this summer.

Hot Evenings To Cool Mornings

As the small circular ball we all live on moves farther from the big circular ball that heats us the days grow shorter. Feelings of warmth and comfort begin to fill our cozy abodes and we all begin the transition. I found myself getting a cold, is it that season already? Or did 3 nights of little sleep and pushing it do me in. Either way I'm finding the experience of having a cold almost comforting. Its been ages since I've had a simple cold and not some sort of infection or fever. A warm comforting glow is the result of me being stuffed up, heightened by the experience of changing seasons... its making for a welcome change.

Now it is time for me to print the "Website Update Guide" I've been working on and train the admin staff how to do updates to the webpage.

The K&D Sessions

I've recently been turned on to a new form of music. It's titled dub, and for those of you who do not know what it is, well, I shall explain. Take essentially any form of music, tone down the leads, remove the vocals partially or in whole, add a lot of filters and effects to the remaining sounds, and generally just mellow things out. The dub sound originated in the '70s with reggae music. Reggae tracks were modified, usually with the vocals removed to make an easy listening 'b-side' type track. The dub infection spread from there and became infused with all types of music. At Shambhala "Garth, from San Fran" was spinning some phat-phat dubby house.. from that moment on... instant appreciation. I expect the dub sound to soon enter my musical creations.

Stay Tuned...

Back From Shambhala (The Chronicals Begin)

After an amazing time at Shambhala in Nelson, BC I'm feeling refreshed in mind, spirit, soul, whatever you choose to all the emotions and energies you feel within yourself. I figure I've kind of wanted to start a blog for some time, what better time than this?