It’s a pretty flash place.

So, thanks to a great many friends — of whom only two have a web presence, and therefore get a web shoutouts — the move went off as close as can be to the ideal “without a hitch” experience.

I would like to formally thank:

Simon Brady Mel Vicki Dad Beau Jerry The D&D Conglomerate Ryan

To the rest of you, thanks for the many offers, some of which had to be turned down due to logistics. Nonetheless, you are welcome in our home any time

We hope to have things squared away by the time I get back from Brazil yet again, and after that we’ll talk housewarming.

I mean, I can chalk it up to being a bit hung over, what with Brady and Mel not leaving til 4 AM this morning, but waking up at noon and realizing that I really don’t have time to go out, jump, and get home…

Bleargh.

I wish I had been a bit wiser, that’s all.

I did, however, oversleep a bit this morning. I blame the fact that I’ve not topped 6 hours of sleep in any night for around a month, which is probably not doing my body any good whatsoever.

In other news, Mother’s day is coming, and I’m pretty stoked: I remembered!

I love you all

Squash is responsible for a sore forearm and back, biking for sore legs, and disc golf for a sore shoulder. My mind is awash with details I never knew about good friends and family, which is great — I’m going to get Char to forward me the emails that she assembled into the fantastic party game that we played, and I intend to read over them all.

Thank you all so very much, those of you who were able to come out last night. I had a great time, and it was arguably the best birthday e-var!1!!bang

Yeah, I’m still here.

I’ve been working on school a lot, and work — I’m pretty stressed these days, and my time is at a premium, so I haven’t been writing as often as I want to. I’ll try to remedy that, but this won’t be the post that does

To all of my assorted friends, book time while you can!

The former has been an introduction to the general concepts of LDAP; I’ve had to get at least a bit familiar with it in order to put together a critical piece of functionality for our client. The latter, well, I took the hard part of the project, as is my wont, and it’s been nifty, getting it all working.

So, there’s that.

Plus papers..

Plus presentations…

Plus finals, upcoming…

Mind you, none of this is on the scale of Simon’s workload. Congrats on the thesis presentation!

I just learned how to pack a parachute.

I’ve jumped from a plane twice in the last five days (yeah, not too much).

I’m turning in my second assignment of the school year.

I’ve survived my first ever round of layoffs.

I’ve got to start my project work.

I’m laying on a couch typing this.

I’m going to eat chili this weekend in the company of geeks.

I’m going to miss Char while she’s away this week.

I ate a lot of turkey last night.

I wish I was working full time.

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I’m trying to do more work around the house, partly because Char’s taking a class plus working full time… well, she was working full time. She goes back to her sane schedule this coming week, which will mean I’ll get to see more of her. The other reason I want to do more around the house is simple: I’ve had it pretty good for a long time, but as long as Char’s working to pay for our lifestyle there’s no reason she should have to carry the housework load. I acknowledge that there’s always going to be a gap, because there are things that I care about that she does not, and vice versa, but I’m trying to narrow it down some.

In other news, I have a reasonable hope that I’ll be getting jump number 22 in tomorrow, weather permitting… which it seems not to be. Damn.

We’ll see.

Not a lot new — getting ready to end the internship, mainly, and return to the academic life, poverty and all. I’ll be part time anyway, but it’ll be interesting, being back on the grind.

Saw Valerie for lunch today, she’s in town only briefly for the Folk Festival, and then she’s off to Sechelt, near my cousins’ place, where she has a short-term teaching position. All over the place, she is. I miss having her around for epic theological debates, but life moves us all, I suppose.

How’s everyone else? Anyone care to touch base, let me know what’s going on in your lives?

I collected their deposits today, and tomorrow I head out to the drop zone to drop them off. The best part? Because I’ve had my next ten jumps covered by a birthday gift, I can afford to hand off the discount I get from this to two good friends who otherwise could not afford to go again, for a few good reasons.

So this is a win all around.

Anyway, I’m bored. Char’s outta town, for those that aren’t paying attention, the local hockey team is sucking it back in ways that resulted in my being mocked by the AppleCare support folk I spoke to this morning, and work was… if not completely useless today, competitive with it.

Blah.

If the weather gets good, at least I can go skydiving this weekend, having been unable to last week (sorry to disappoint, Dad — I was at the library getting books for the Phil250 paper that was due, well, today).

We’ll see.

A quick sum-up:

Work: Active, rewarding, and busy. Friends: Hanging out with a bit more, which is good. School: Really iffy on Philosophy 250 — this is some wonky stuff, if you ask me.

The world: Fucked, man. Hypocrisy in Congress down south, media shutdown up here…

I’d rather not think about it.

I’ve never been one for many friendships. The people whom I consider to be my friends are infinitely precious to me, as a product of both their individual merits and their scarcity. As it is, I don’t see enough of the people that matter to me, so I clutch those moments close.

However, over the course of my life, I’ve let go of, or been let go by, a few friends.

Farthest back was Daniel, a kid across the street in Clairmont. It was a typical 6-year-old’s lament — his parents moved away. Looking back, I suspect that I was more “into it” than he was, setting a pattern that I believe holds even today, although to a lesser extent as I become more selective in my associations.

There’s a scattering of loose acquaintances throughout elementary and junior high, but the only friends I really had during those years (that I can remember, of course) were Cody and Eric, neither of whom had anything to do with my school life. Cody was a farm kid, something of a troublemaker. I remember his dad’s house was the coolest place in the world, and the barn was the only place I’ve ever been scared of the dark. I remember some filthy-minded conversations, stealing our respective parents’ porn, and the fact that it was a friend of his that introduced me to Elfquest. It was also at his birthday party (13th, I think) that I played the most lascivious game of Truth or Dare that I can remember… Ah, Kate. Never meant to be, I think, but it was fun I was 14, at the time. Last I heard, Cody was working at a gas station in GP, but that was at least seven years ago.

Eric… How to explain Eric? This was the first friendship I ever flat-out ended. Eric could be a good guy, but mostly he was… Well, I didn’t like the person I was when he was around. It’s hard to quantify. He did some bad things to someone that was a close family friend, and that more or less ended things right there. I’m curious where he’s at, now. I haven’t heard anything about him in years. I can only hope that, flawed as his father may have been, he takes after dad and not his mother.

Dennis and DJ — Never really close. See Daniel, above, for the nature of this friendship. Still, they were good guys. I’ve bumped into both of them a couple of times since graduating, and I gather they’re doing well. It’s been probably five years since I saw either of them, but I still wonder.

Ryan was a pain in the ass. We lived together for a while, but he was … well, he was like me, sans moral compass. Which is not to say I was perfect those days, either, but all the same, I had an idea that some of the things I was doing were wrong. When it came to respect for others’ property, he’s about as low as it goes.

Shaun was one of my oldest friends. From a common interest in Dungeons and Dragons, through years of geekly association, we were friends for almost a decade. We kind of drifted apart. He lives in Edmonton here, last time I heard he was working for Telus, and has possibly as many as two children. I don’t know what happened, to be honest. First we were friends, then we were not. It was a weird enough situation that I still (to this day) am not 100% sure that it wasn’t him that destroyed my apartment in GP.

Now that I’m in Edmonton, there’s been a veritable whirlwind of brief friendships, barely quickened from mere acquaintances. So many people in a bar crowd stand out for a moment, maybe flirt, maybe hang out, maybe sleep together, and then they recede into the morass. I’m thinking Lindsey, Jess, Candace (Amber, I suppose), Shane, Andi…

I know that some of these have meant more to me than they did to the other person. I find myself constantly fighting the urge to call and cling to the friends I have — I know that people have social obligations that take more time than mine do — having a small circle of friends will lead to that. Still, I like the people in this group now.

Time will tell, of course. It always does.