Spring has sprung!

Well the good weather is finally here!
This Sunday I was out at my parents' place, it was so beautiful with the sun out, that we spent the afternoon with the neighbour out on the deck while our kids played together in the new sandbox my dad set up.

Our first BBQ of the season wasn't fancy fair: Hamburgers and Hot Dogs, but is was a testament that the good weather is now with us! :o)

Though the trees are still budding, the grass is already green and needs cutting. Flowers are in full bloom, and the air smells fresh! I love this time of year! Despite the rainy days - like Saturday's downpour, this is truely the month of rebirth.

Easter and Healing

Well, Easter has come and gone, as most people are coming down from their sugar highs, figured I'd drop a post.

I usually enjoy Easter. The chocolate, the excited kids, the Easter Egg Hunts... Just brings out the kid in you!
Well, with my recent surgery and having to work the entired of the weekend on the mend, I can't say I really enjoyed it much this year. I'm feeling better now, still hurts to use the washroom, but over all life is slowly returning to normal.

The wife got a new desk for her birthday, soon as I'm better we need to finish repositioning all the furniture to make room for it all. Well, they do say that Spring is a time for renewal, moving things around is one way to get a new feeling out of the old appartment.

I joined a second forum game on Dumpshock, think I'm getting addicted to play-by-post! I've even suggested it to my online live group as we've been having scheduling issues lately. It's hard enough planing for a live game, even harder when your players are scattered over 8 time zones!
Some of them are on the fence about the issue, I'll have to see if they come around.

Long time no Post

I know I haven't posted for awhile and for that I appologize...
Not like it has been a very busy time, just things keep coming up and I never get around to dropping a note - seeing as there's not much to say. ;)

Well, lately - outside of work - Role-Playing Games have really taken up most of my time. Between my D&D campaign, my Shadowrun campaign and now Dumpshock play-by-post gaming, I'm keeping my imagination flowing.

Recently I had the unfortunate discovery of having a kidney stone, it was only 4mm in size, but it hurt like hell! They removed it a week after and now I think the recovery process is more painful than the problem was! But it seems to be slowly getting better.. not bad considering I had my urinal tract assulted about 24 hours ago.

Well, I'm off to the Dumpshock boards, I'll keep you posted how it goes.

Moving into March Break

As March Break nears, I'm sure many parents are busy sorting out what to do with their munchkins for the week... after all, not all of us can take a week off like our kids - though I bet some of us wish we could!

As for me, I've been working extra hours with the rash of sicknesses that's been roaming around. I even lost 2 days of work last week myself when I lost my voice to a throat infection. Fortunately I'm never sick for long, must mean I have a strong constitution, and I'm back to work filling in for those who can't be here. Inconsistant days off means I've fallen behind in my web development alot since the New Year, and I'm striving to get time/energy to get the backlog caught up.

For the geeks out there, I've been pondering the concept of setting up Wikis for my gaming sites, so that my players can help fill in the gaps in gear, skills, feats, etc. that I haven't had time to put in... Two RPGs are a lot of work to keep up gaming resources for... particularly when one of them is a world that's no longer actively in print. Unfortunately not everyone can have access to these resources, for copyright reasons, I can only share it with the gaming groups...
My only issues so far as Wikis go is:
a) most of them are designed for Linux, and I just don't have a spare box kicking around that I can devote to a stand-alone server at this time.
b) wikis don't offer a great deal of style options, and those who have seen my website projects can attest that I love tweaking page layouts with custom colours and fonts... though I am seing increased support for various CSS configuations, so it might just be a matter of heavily tweaking the style sheets to my needs.

Oh well, till I get a dedicated box, most of these issues are a moot point I suppose.

Hope you're enjoying some good weather where you are, and for you students out there: Happy March Break!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Though it's been a mild winter, Valentine's Day was white here in the Maritimes.
It was a beautiful crisp day to spend time with the one you love, and warm enough to enjoy a short walk outside.

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

The Big White Yo-Yo

Nature can't decide whether we're suppose to have Winter or not....
After several weeks of unseasonably warm weather, Winter seems to have decided that it's hasn't given us a fair chance yet.... as the storm hit us Tuesday night we experienced the season in all it's not-so-wonderful splender: High Winds, blowing snow, blizzard conditions - and to top it all off - every school and social group closed for most of the day Wednesday. When I checked the HRM School Board's web site at 4am, they had already annouced every school in the metro area would be closed. The first Snow Day of the year, and man were the kids excited!

According to the weather bureau, we're suppose to get more of the white stuff this weekend... we'll see whether that materializes or not...we've had our fair share of false alarms this year.

Where did winter go?

Shortly after Christmas, it started getting warmer... what snow we did get, as I mentioned in my previous post didn't last long. Outside of a few chunks of hardened snowpiles, the snow is pretty much all gone!

Today temperatures rose to 10ºC, outside of a little freezing rain to make things slippery, one barely needed gloves. After 12 years of living in the near arctic winters of Winnipeg, this is surely a big change for me! No snow in January?! Now that's something that's amazing in my experiences.

Happy Holidays

Sorry for the delayed post everyone.. this has been a busy Christmas. Between leaving to my parents and having no Internet access for a couple of days, to working through Christmas night & Boxing day, to waiting to get the chance to get some pictures off my camera... well, you get the drift. ;o)

As I posted in my Christmas Pictures, someone put a White Christmas on their Wish List this year... We woke up Christmas Eve to a beautiful snow fall, so the munchkin just had to go out and build himself a snowman! Kids can be so cute...
Unfortunately the snowman didn't live long, it started to rain late Christmas morning, so by the time we left to go home, the poor creation was pretty much already gone... oh well, at least I got a picture of it.
After a few days of wet, warm weather, the temperature dropped yesterday and everything is bitter cold again, this is sure shaping up to be a strange winter so far..

Holy Heaping Snowfall Batman!

Last night Nova Scotia got slapped upside the proverbial head by winter!

What started off is a warm flurry in the afternoon turned to a wet slushy snowstorm by supper time. As the storm got worse, the wind picked up and the wet snow started sticking to everything.
Although I enjoyed a night out with the wife at our staff party, it was hectic just trying to get there... we caught the 5:30 bus at 6:15, at the terminal, 2 busses didn't show, and the 3rd bus was late. We ended up finally getting to the party at 7:30 even though we left an hour and a half sooner... a trip that should have only taken 45 mins at most.
Getting to work was no better, with busses being late or not even showing. At work my coworker and I experienced a non-ending series of power outage alarms that went on way beyond our shift ending... as it is I stayed till 7:30 am just to help out.

I found out my wife faired no better. The bus got stuck on the way back, it took her nearly 2 hours to get home. Soon after she got there, the power went out for the second time of the night. The night went on with blowing wet snow and electric blue flares as power transformers popped all over Dartmouth. Though we got power back by 5:30, most of the city was still without power well into the afternoon. (I'll try to get some pictures of the fantastical scenes, man I wish I had my camera yesterday morning!)
We're suppose to fare no better this weekend... oh mother nature is not done with us yet. Sunday we're suppose to get rain and freezing rain, making the 2 feet of compressed half-frozen slush even worse!

On the bright side, we're most likely going to have a white Christmas.... And the kids are having a royal ball in the snow!

A White Christmas' Tease

As the kids dig into their advent calenders, and people start doing their cram holiday shopping, we got a little tease of winter to come the past couple of days.

The first snow is finally staying on the ground, and although it's just a few wisps, and that the light fluries are more blowing aroudn than staying on the ground, it does nothing to quell the excitement of my son realizing that winter and snow is finally here. I remember a time when I got excited about winter, though I don't enthusiastically look forward to it like I used to.. I guess 12 years of arctic conditions in Winnipeg have jaded me towoards the enjyoment of this frigid season.

Lets see how much of the white stuff will stay on the ground...

Winter Creeping in....

Well winter is finally starting to creep in.. it was bloody well cold this morning when I was coming home from work, a sudden turn towards winter from the warm wet rainy weather we've been having. All that was left of Thursday rain was a few frozen sheets of ice where puddles used to be. Tonight wasn't so bad, but it doesn't promiss to get much warmer soon.

With my wife's parents dropping in town at the first of the month, we're setting up the decorations this weekend. We've replaced the old light bulbs with strings of LED lights... they were cheap, will use less power, and I don't need to worry about bulbs burning out or breaking anymore. Not to mention the lifespan that these LED strings promote. The white from the strings isn't as blue as some LED strings I've seen so far, so that's a good thing too.. I'll see about getting a pic or two up once we've got the living room all decked out.

With the hassle of the holidays, I've pretty much put my gaming groups on hold, lets see if the players will be as gung-ho about the campaign in the New Year as they've been so far. Game Masters out there can sympathize in that it's difficult to keep a dependable gaming group going - particularly in online campaigns. We've been at the Adventure Path for 2 years now, and I've yet to keep a group long enough to get very far with it. I had even started novelizing the latest groups adventures, but with the constant drop in and out of characters in the party, I'm wondering just how coherent a story it'll make...

Happy Hallowe'en Indeed!

It was a pleasantly warm Hallowe'en this year, great for Trick or Treat'ing. The one thing I love about having young kids is that you get to keep some of the candy!... I like to think of it as a tax for the one checking the loot to make sure it's ok. ;o)

We brought the kids around Porter's Lake this year where my parents live with little more than warm sweaters under their costumes. This fall has been uncharacteristically warm, the trees still bear a lot of leaves, and winter seems to be a long time away... Locals have told me this is the warmest fall that we've had in a good 30-40 years.

The kids are enjoying it, though I'm waiting for their disappointment on how little snow we'll be getting this winter if the warm weather continues.

Boo!

Hallowe'en is just around the corner, so I thought I would get ready with an early surprise.. This years pumpkin is already carved!

Tumbling into Fall

Temperatures are finally beginning to fall as the season grows late. This has been a warm season for us, though the leaves are finally starting to turn. The one thing I love about the Maritimes is the array of beautiful colours that fall brings: reds, oranges, gold, brown, purple, all make a rainbow canopy of colour that rolls across the countryside.

Yesterday I got to chaperone my kid's class as we went off to Ross Farm. With 10 kids per two parents it was fairly manageable as we toured the early period farm. The buildings range in age from the mid-1700s to the late 1800s as the town slowly grew - so did the complexity of the things they made. Not only did the kids learn a little about history, but they learned the praticality of it all as we experienced workshops in Blacksmithing, Woodworking and Farming. Frankly I never seen kids so happy about shovelling manuer... (they wouldn't find it so exciting if they had to do it each day!) The village was quiet, being nearly the end of season and a weekday, so we mostly had the town to ourselves. With two classes that was fortunate for us as we could control the groups better.

Over all it was a fun trip, even with me only getting 3 hours of sleep afterward before going to work.. it was a long day, but the kids had a blast, so I would say it was worth it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here in Canada we're celebrating Thanksgiving, a time to celebrate the harvest and to relax after the hard work of the summer, signaling the transition into winter. If the farmer's almanac is correct, that'll nearly be the case, as it predicts a sudden shift into a cold harsh snowy season to come.

Meanwhile we're enjoying record high temperatures for the fall, as we tumble further into October, the trees are just now starting to turn to their seasonal colours. After a warm dry summer, we've gone through 3 days now of rainy dismal weather, and the weather office doesn't predict sunshine till sometime Tuesday... and I was hoping to do some gardening this weekend.. it'll soon be the last harvest of the season, and I don't want my veggies over-ripening before I have a chance to pick them.

Serenity has been out for a week now and I haven't had the chance to see it yet! It's driving me nuts! I'm not expecting it to be entirely like Firefly, I love the show, and from what I see of the previous, I'm going to enjoy some of the changes. If I don't get to see it Tuesday my next night off to see the movie won't be till Monday... sigh! the curse of working nights.

Shopping Cart March

Those who know me know that I'm not a strongly political person. I rarely follow the news if it doesn't involve space and technology, and I find the media reports little more than the worse of news and rarely the good things that happen. After all sensational news gets better rates.

Since I've moved here, I've slowly been getting more and more interested with the community, and what affects the Maritimes, and particularly the Harbour area. So when I saw posters demanding for more affordable housing, I couldn't resist and showed up to the event more inquisitive than wanting to be outspoken. Lets just say the cause consumed me and I marched with the small group to let the government know that people are tired of being broke. Though many news sources were there, the only article I've seen online so far is from an indy news source, though we'll see once the papers publish later this morning.

A Chilling Discovery

Well, my garden faired pretty well, it didn't get flattened by the rain as I feared.. we really needed that rain though... man did my garden ever turn out strange this year:
The cucumbers look like gourds the way they're fat at the bottom but skinny at the top. My carrots are these fat short mutations. They all taste fine fortunately, the tomoatoes are the only things that have come out the way we were expecting... and man did I ever have a lot of tomatoes to pick this week! Looks like it's time to make some spaghetti sauce! :o)

I had a chilling discovery today... I wasn't looking forward to coming in to the sauna that I was expecting the office to be, only to find the air handler had been fixed this morning. So I'm chilling here - quite litterally - at my desk drinking coffee to keep warm. Although I need my jacket, it's quite comforting to know I'm not going to roast in here again tonight.

Breezing By

Well, as luck would be Ophelia didn't hit the Maritimes as bad as many had feared. Though I believe the southern part of the province got the whipping it was suppose to get, the storm then drifted east.
Here in Halifax we got about half the rain expected, and barely any wind at all! I'll find out later today how well my garden faired the torment of nature. I still got fairly wet on my venture to work tonight, but I was expecting to get drenched! So I don't feel so bad.

Now only if the air handler hadn't died at work today, I wouldn't be baking in the office right now! And worse, they probably won't get it fixed till Monday, so I'll be baking again tonight! I'm definately wearing some shorts for tonight's shift! If I'm going to work in near oven-baked temperatures, I might as well be comfortable.

The worst part of working overnights is weekends... friends and family want to do stuff on the weekend as 'they' have time off. All 'I' want to do is sleep! So I usually go on very limmited amounts of sleep over the weekend, otherwise I may never get to see my family. It can be hard... they have all these plans for the day, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and snooze. Not that I don't appreciate or enjoy the things we do, I just rather sleep during the day when I'm suppose to, rather than sleep at work and get fired! Though I often joke that sleep is a poor substitute for running out of coffee, and that - like sanity, you only need enough so people don't worry about you, I can only go so long on limmited amounts of rest before my body enforces a state of commotose.

Here Comes the Rain!

After a pretty dry summer, it looks like Tropical Storm Ophelia (who thinks up these names anyway!?) is going to be dumping us a whole lotta rain! So much rain that we'll be getting 50-100 mm of rain in a 15 hour period... and she's picking up speed - hitting us in the morning, instead of tomorrow afternoon... I'm beginning to think that my umbrealla won't be enough!
I think that's a little more than the ground can absorb in one shot, I hope it doesn't ruin my garden, we've been enjoying the carrots, tomatoes, cucumber and turnips this year, though the lettuce didn't fair as well as we had hoped.

They're advising power outages and such all through the province, this is going to be a long weekend.... sigh!

Happy Labour Day!

Not all of us have Labour Day off, though working the morning of it and having the night off, I'm not sure if you would consider that 'working' Labour Day or not - though 7 hours of my shift should be paid Stat Holiday wages. :o) For those who don't know, I work the overnight shift for an alarm monitoring station, so my day is basically reversed from most people. My wake/work/sleep cycle would fit well in Australia. Working the graveyard shift often rewards me looks of adversion or horror that I'm subjected to such hours. What many people fail to comprehend is that I willingly work these hours and enjoy my schedule.

After I get off work today we're heading on a road trip up towards Grand Pre and Hawkorn Farm Zoo (hope I spelled that rigth). Though I don't think my parents realize that the zoo will most likely be closed due to the holiday, it'll be a nice day trip where I can take some pictures of mainland Nova Scotia. Mind you the price of gas these days will make this a costly trip I'm sure....
Hopefully I can catch some Z's on the road, otherwise it's going to be a very long day indeed...

For those following my photo archive on my main site, there will be new pictures loaded shortly, I've been working nearly every day for the past couple of weeks, but I have a weekend coming up and should have time to catch up on some of my web work.
I actually have been doing a fair bit of work to my websites, but as most of it has been for my D&D group, it's locked and reserved for my players. Though I would love to share the content with a larger audience, not all the material is Open Game content, and hence cannot be seen by those outside of the campaign.

Have yourselves a good long weekend!