11:55pm: For the gamers who might read this
You know who you are...

Image By Silver Oak Online Casinos

Edit:Fixed a busted tag.

10:01pm: On invisible disability and "passing".
Originally posted by full_metal_ox at On invisible disability and "passing".

7:12pm: A St. Patrick's Day memento
For those of you who haven't seen it, you really should:

A true Irish standard.

12:48am: Phone upgrade fail

I attempted to replace my aged, broken Motorola i530 with a shiny new iPhone 4. Did the paperwork, was told it should be almost instant to switch the phone, but might be as much as a half-hour because I was changing networks.

It's now seven and a half hours later, and they're now saying it might be as much as 72 hours.

Sigh. And Telus had been pretty good up 'til now.

6:09pm: New foodstuffs
Heidi has just invented popsquash.

12:19am: Some thoughts on self-identification

...sparked by a friend's posting.

FWIW, I don't particularly care how a person identifies or presents him/her/themself.

Are you a decent human being? If so, dandy, we'll get on fine.

I don't mean to belittle folks; I realize that for many people, identifying oneself as gay/lesbian/bi/trans/red haired/left handed/protestant/aboriginal/whatever persuasion is an important part of one's identity.  But to me personally, it really doesn't matter.  I've met nice people and jerks of every gender/race/persuasion. (Here I'm using "persuasion" to mean most any physical or social attribute, whether congenital, imposed, or assumed.)

Am I curious about people?  Absolutely, it helps me treat people better. Does one's persuasion (of any sort) help define who one is? Of course; every experience that one has builds the person.

But *TO ME*, identifying oneself as a member of a particular group is just that: an identifier. It makes as much difference to my opinion of the person as does whether they ate the left half of their potato or the right half first.

I hope that makes sense.

11:41pm: At rest
Today at 10AM was my father's funeral mass, followed by interment, followed by a reception.

Many thanks to all who came out, who sent condolences, who thought about us. It all helped immensely.

4:56pm: Sad news
Saturday, February 20, 2010, Maurice O'Heare passed away; my father, in his 88th year. He had fought Alzheimer's Disease, a number of small strokes, and a variety of other illnesses.

His last hours were peaceful, surrounded by family.

Our deep thanks go to the staff at Longfields Manor and at the General campus of the Ottawa Hospital; in particular to Angie, Jody, Claire, and Ali on the nursing staff and to Drs. Beck, Smith, and Kravcik.

Funeral visitation at Kelly's, 2313 Carling Avenue, Tuesday February 23 from 2-4PM and 7-9PM. Funeral at Our Lady of Fatima, 153 Woodroffe Avenue, on Wednesday, February 24 at 10AM.

8:46pm: Sentences you never hear spoken
In today's episode of Sentences You Never Hear Spoken¹:

Stay tuned for more episodes of Sentences You Never Hear Spoken

---

¹ Actually, considering our friends, this is a sentence that might well be spoken, and often. Hmm.

6:29pm: Dave Barry gets it right, again...
In his "Year in Review" column, he writes:

8:56am: "Tis the Season
Merry Christmas, folks.

I mean, if you celebrate something else, have a happy one of those, but from my point of view -- Merry Christmas.

11:57am: Things that make you go "Hmm..."
On the way to work today, we spotted a vehicle covered in advertising for one of the local Yoga places. Not such a big deal, lots of places have vehicles associated with their businesses. But this was a full-sized pickup truck. What in the world would they need THAT for, I wonder? "Oh dear, Mrs. Thing tried the Padma Bhujangasana again. We'll load her into the truck and take her to the hospital, get her untied." (On an unrelated note, I'm going to try to update things here more often. Don't hold your breath.)

2:14pm: Excitement, lessened
For those who were wondering:

• Heidi's mom did have a small stroke. She was home later that afternoon (!), and is recovering very well. She has essentially no mobility or speech problems, and the doctor has said that her prognosis is very good. She can't drive for three months, though; that will put a bit of a crimp in their lifestyle.
• The actor in the Oz play did not have a heart attack. It turned out to be a strained diaphragm muscle. He was back the next day, looking better than he had before, and is going to take a month off now that the festival is over.

And I'm nearly caught up on my sleep, I think.

11:13pm: Far too much excitement today
First, found that one of the actors in Oz was taken to hospital with chest pains and arm pain.

Then got word that Heidi's mom had had a stroke, and was in hospital.

Some time later, got word that the stroke wasn't completely debilitating. Shortly after that, got word that she was going home.

So, Heidi's mom is home. It was a small stroke, and prognosis is very good. She and Heidi's dad live in a seniors' apartment building, with nursing on-site and so forth.

I have had no word on the actor yet. It axed the play, though; a two-person cast doesn't work well with one person missing.

8:26pm: Fantastic Fiction with Ursula K. LeGuin
For those who are interested in this sort of stuff, here's the info from the poster for the last night of the International Writers Festival here in Ottawa.

Disclaimer: I'm the technical guy/sound technician for the Festival

 

URSULA K. LE GUIN

with Mike Carey, Jo Walton, and Kelley Armstrong
Saturday, May 2, 2009

 

6:00 PM - Fantastic Fiction: Mike Carey, Jo Walton and Kelley Armstrong on World Building

(Mike Carey photo by Lin Carey, Kelley Armstrong photo by Curtis Lantinga)

Three gifted storytellers delight in showing us worlds almost our own, each with a twist that transforms the mundane to the fantastic.
(Tickets $15)

 

8:00 PM - Global Encounters: An Evening with Ursula K. Le Guin

(Photo Copyright © by Marian Wood Kolisch)

We close the Spring Edition with one of the world’s undisputed literary masters. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and National Book Awards and eighteen Locus Awards, she has inspired generations of readers. Don’t miss a rare appearance by one of America’s most profound thinkers and authors.
(Tickets $20)

Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts and Humanities
314 Saint Patrick (at Cumberland)
Tickets and information: 613-562-1243 OR www.writersfestival.org

10:58pm: Hearing testing?

11:40pm: The new ride
Well, new to us, anyhow.

It's a 1988 (yep) Dodge Ram 150, V6, in astonishingly good shape.



More later, but the insurance company, Ottawa police, and all sorts of other people were terrific about the whole process of dealing with a stolen and damaged car.

The Ministry of Transportation, on the other hand, required me to provide an appraisal of the value of the vehicle before they would transfer the ownership. So I traded on a friend of a friend's generosity, and got his boss (at Import Auto on Merivale Road in Ottawa) to provide the appraisal (which requirement he called "ridiculous" -- I have other words).  Go buy some cars from them, okay?

I also had to fight with the person in the office to transfer the ownership when "the system" would not allow her to do so. She was trying to renew my plates using an emissions test that was going to expire before my birthday, instead of simply transferring the ownership to me. "The system won't let me do it." Not my problem -- certificate's good for a year, it's less than a year old, make it work.

Sigh...

11:44pm: Dave's missing gear
As I mentioned, our van was stolen on the morning of Christmas Eve. The van itself has been found, and is in an impound lot waiting for the insurance appraiser to look at it; the musical equipment that was in the van is all missing.

But being me, I have made a list of the equipment that is missing, with serial numbers when I have them (yes, I should have ALL the serial numbers, but I don't).

If you find any of this gear, please inform the Ottawa Police at 613–236–1222x7300, and refer to report #08–357933.

Musical equipment missing includes:

• Targus laptop case with
  • Behringer MXB1002 mixer, with AC adapter, ser# N0213928122,
  • FMR RNC audio compressor, with AC adapter,,
  • Lexicon LXP-5, with AC adapter, ser# V1292-44861,
  • 4×dual 1/4" cables,
  • 2×1/4"-XLRm cables
• Multi-Caisses Road Boss 4 rack case with
  • Marshall 8008 power amp with broken power switch,
  • Denon 2000F MkIII cd player,
  • Apex AMX61 mixer ser# 20044492;
• 2×Yorkville speakers NX35;
• 2×Yorkville speaker stands, in padded nylon carrying case;
• 2×Plano pistol cases with:
  • Sennheiser Freeport handheld wireless mic sets ser# 1510410930 1510410805
• 2×K&M model 252 microphone stands, in padded nylon carrying case
• Flambeau 3501 fishing tackle box with audio adapters:
  • 4×XLRm gender changers,
  • 4×XLRf gender changers,
  • 4×XLRf-2m y-cables,
  • 2×Shure A15AS XLR pads,
  • 2×VGAm gender changers,
  • 2×VGAf gender changers,
  • 4×XLRm-TRSm,
  • 4×XLRm-TSm,
  • 4×XLRf-TRSm,
  • 4×XLRf-TSm,
  • 4×1/4 in TS (F) to Dual Banana
  • 8×RCAf-TSm,
  • 2×3.5mmf-TRSm,
  • 2×Shure A95UF transformers,
  • 2×IEC to Edison adapters
• black Pelican 1510 Laptop Carry On Case with
  • Apex headphones,
  • Shure SM58-S,
  • 15' XLR cable,
  • 6' XLR cable,
  • 2×3.5mm-2 1/4" male cables
  • boxes of
    • 12×9V batteries,
    • 24×AA batteries,
    • 24×AAA batteries,
  • Studiomaster Diamond 4-channel mixer (4-channel battery-powered mixer with XLR inputs),
  • Behringer CT100 cable tester,
  • Philips portable CD player
  • a couple of rolls of Permacel gaffer tape
  • the usual junk that accumulates in a briefcase,
• plastic crate with
  • 2×Furman SS-6B power bars,
  • 3×10 meter black power extension cords,
  • 4×50' speaker cords,
  • XLR cables (2×10', 2×25', 1×50');
• Manhasset Model #48 music stand;
• Shepherd flatbed cart

8:52pm: Abandon hope, all ye who...
Well, maybe not all hope, but the police officer that took my initial report said that the van would likely be found in 48 hours, or not at all.

It's been more than 48 hours, but then it's also been Christmas and boxing day and Christmas Eve and such. There's still some hope, but not a lot.

Thanks for the sympathetic comments, folks; they've helped a lot. The van and the gear are all fairly anonymous and straight off-the-shelf stuff.

One thing I neglected to mention, and an important thing, is how nice everyone has been that I've talked to. The police, the insurance folks, the car rental people¹, everybody. They've all been calm, and sympathetic, and businesslike, all of which made the dealings much better for me.

¹ We did get a rental car, btw. And from a rental place that was quite close to home.

12:33am: Remember that nice van we used to have???
The operative word is, of course, “used to”. Two words, operative two words.

My sweetie, looking out at around 9:30 AM to see how much snow we had to scrape off the van today, saw that there was nothing to scrape snow off of, woke me, and thus began my day of talking to

• the police,


• my insurance agent,


• the police (again),


• my insurance agent (again),


• three insurance claims people:
  
  
  • one for the van itself (three times),
  
  
  • one for its contents (once),
  
  
  • one who answered the phone when one of the others was on another call,
  
  
• a bunch of car rental folks (some several times; try to imagine how hard it is to rent a car on Christmas eve, during a transit strike -- it's actually much harder than that),

etc., etc., etc..

I'd looked out at the van last night (December 23^rd), and all was well. On December 24^th, Dave Eh?, our neighbour to the east, noticed the van in the drive as he left for work at 6:30 AM; Marion, our western neighbour, noticed that the van was not there at 7:30 AM.

The problem with the contents is that I'd been the sound guy for a Christmas party, and hadn't unloaded the van 'cause I really still need some help for that. As a result I had a small PA system left in the van, which is now missing. Mixers, amplifiers, speakers, CD player, microphones, stands, cables, gone.

Yes, I do realize that nobody was physically hurt, it was only stuff, and stuff can be replaced. But it was MY stuff, dammit. We'd spent a chunk of money on the car in the past year, planning to keep it for a while yet. And the audio gear had been collected over quite some time, picking carefully and choosing only good gear. Yes it was insured, but still...

Sigh...

8:54pm: *AND* they come in decorator colors

I woke up yesterday morning with my broken foot hurting quite a lot, which it had not been doing.  Considering that I suffer from classic migraine, I believe that "quite a lot" really is quite a lot.  Inspection showed that the cast had broken above the ankle, about 3/4 of the way around, in line with the plaster bandage used to make the thing in the first place. If I relaxed my ankle, the crack opened and my foot hurt; if I tensed muscles so that the crack closed, my foot didn't hurt but my calf muscles ached and cramped.

I made the appropriate phone call, and got told to come in to the emergency room for a look-see. So my sweetie wrapped my cast in an elastic bandage (looked rather surreal), packed some supplies (food, check; drinks, check; paperback books, check) and we head off to the QCH.  Usual triage and wait ensues.

When I finally got to the cast room, the technician (I believe that's the right term) sawed off the old cast, washed my foot and leg, and we had a discussion on the scentedness of the soap being used ("It's unscented." "No it's not, I can smell it from over here," says my sweetie. "We're only supposed to use unscented stuff here." "Look, here in the ingredients list: Fragrance." "Dang. I'll take that up with the powers that be." "Thanks.  And while you're at it, would you mention the Purell that's everywhere and makes us ill?").  After a few careful rinsings with clear water, I had a new fiberglass cast installed.

If you ever need a cast, go for fiberglass.  It hardens in ten minutes, instead of the 48 hours that plaster takes; is much lighter than plaster, and (at least in theory) won't crack like plaster.  It also is available in a variety of colours; I picked blue, of a choice of blue, white, and glow-in-the-dark (I imagine a particular LJer is plotting a fracture just to get a glow-in-the-dark cast). That was the selection at the QCH, the manufacturer (3M) makes the stuff in 113 patient-pleasing colours.  (Sorry, that should have been 13, not 113, colours)

So far, so good.

7:22pm: Better news
I got a phone call from the manager of the space, informing me that they would pick up the tab for expenses incurred because of the accident.

Turns out things were left in a poor state because of a previous event, and the new person (her first day) who should have noticed such things didn't know to look.

Anyhow, I'm off to the local bookstore for their customer appreciation event.

9:07pm: The reports of my demise are somewhat exaggerated
That might not be the correct quote. Anyhow...

Your humble servant is currently ensconced in the living room, crutches by his side, cast up to his knee. Argh.

I was setting up some chairs and a table on a stage made up of movable risers, and one of the risers moved as I stepped onto it.  I clearly recall thinking that I'd better present as much of myself to the floor as I could, to spread out the impact. This I did, quite successfully; I suffered a small bruise to my right elbow, and a wee bit of abrasion to the skin thereon.

In my case it wasn't the landing but the falling that caused the damage. 

I finished the gig, mostly running the microphones and playing the CDs for the songwriters workshop.  I phoned my sweetie, who came down and drove me to the hospital. A moderate wait later, I was having my foot prodded, then X-rayed, then wrapped in plaster bandages.

My foot apparently twisted as I went over, causing what is called a Jones fracture, a break in the fifth metatarsal in my right foot.  I am to see an orthopedics specialist on Thursday; with any luck I'll be into a walking cast (as opposed to the thumping and crashing cast I'm in now).

No sign of osteoporosis (and yes, I do take calcium supplements), the arthritis apparently didn't play a part. I do, however, feel pretty stupid.

7:42pm: Going 'way past 10

8:38pm: On Rasputin's
We were in to Rasputin's today to lend a bit of a hand.  As one might expect after a fire, the place is a mess, but not IMHO a complete disaster.

There is a hole in the ceiling in the back kitchen, through to the 2nd floor apartment.  The fridge and freezer that were back there are apparently a total loss, as was the stereo system (it melted).  Stuff in other parts of the place suffered little fire damage, but a lot of smoke damage.

I took most of the PA system away, after removing the worst of the crud from the outside.  I suggested that Dean discard the microphones; I doubt that they could ever be made acceptable for use again.  The mixing board, power amplifier, and one speaker are currently at an electronics repair shop (the other speaker is still hanging from the ceiling, and we couldn't get to it because the ladder was melted); Dean's electronic keyboard is at a different shop (the first place, arguably a better spot for audio gear, doesn't work on microprocessor-controlled stuff, period).  Dean's guitar and mandolin survived pretty much unscathed -- they were apparently even still in tune.

Fortunately the electronic gear was neither soaked in the firefighting, nor was it powered-on during the fire.  Dean has for years used a power bar to turn things on and off, so there weren't even any items on standby.

People are devoting time and labor to getting things going again.  One local performer took away a van load of dishes and cutlery and stuff, to run them through a dishwasher. Dean is hosting a table-washing party tomorrow, I think.