Wisdom Teeth

I'm in Lexington again this weekend. SouthernKitten is taking a nap at the moment, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to do some blogging. (edit: I finished and posted this a few hours later)

SouthernKitten's been complaining a bit recently about pain in the back of her mouth. She fears her wisdom teeth may be the cause but hopes it isn't as she'd heard a few horror stories of wisdom teeth coming out.

My experience really wasn't at all bad.

I first noticed what I assume was pain from my wisdom teeth the spring I was 18. Basically the back of my mouth was sore and tender. But, being a male I first used the "If I ignore it, it will go away" approach to the problem. After a couple of weeks it did.

A few months later, on my next visit to the dentist I was told they were impacted and would need to come out asap. We went to an orthodontist in Barrie (a bigger city, about half a hour drive south of Orillia) to have it done.

I have some rather gaping holes in my memory about the day of the operation. My mom drove me to his office, I sat in the chair, he injected me with something white and milky looking...

I woke up in the recovery room. I felt fine, so I sat up. A nurse rushed over and strongly advised me against that. I laid back down mostly to placate her. I really did feel fine, and this was a bit silly.

I next woke in my bedroom the next morning. I'm told that my mother had enlisted the help of the father of a fellow patient to help hold me up as I staggered to the car. I have no recollection of this at all. Nor do I have any recollection of the half hour long car ride home, nor of being put into my bed. I assume all these things happened, it's logical that they did, but it's really equally as plausible to me that I flew home in a UFO.

The next day was a admittedly unpleasant. The hangover from the anesthetic was as bad as my worst one from alcohol. I won't get more graphic than that. Use your imagination.

My cheeks and jowls were swollen enough that my family thought I looked like John Diefenbaker. I took the pain meds, but only for a couple of days. Soon enough the swelling went down I was forgetting to take my meds because I just didn't hurt that much.

My follow up appointment was like a mutual admiration society. My surgery had gone well, I thought the doctor was great and he thought I was a great patient.

Hopefully SouthernKitten won't have to have hers out. If she does I hope she has as easy of a time as I did.

Astronomical Phenomenon

In case you don't follow such things, there was a lunar eclipse last night. I watched off and on and even tried to take a couple of pics of my own. Sadly my little cam was just not up to the task of taking clear photos of the moon. Or possibly it was and I just had no idea how to do so.

I've had a minor interest in astronomy for a while. Not enough to study it properly, but enough that I like to go outside and look up at whatever interesting and/or unusual phenomenon pass our way. Comets, meteor showers, lunar eclipses are all really neat to me. I can identify a few of the constellations and a couple of planets.

Well usually...

I remember a while ago I was out doing something or other with DevilBoy. I think I may have dragged him out to do some political canvassing of some sort, but I'm not really sure, and it's not important anyway. What is important is that I saw what looked like a star with a faintly red tinge to it. Clever guy that I am I immediately deduced that it must be Mars and pointed it out to DevilBoy. He disagreed, and said it clearly wasn't. We went back and forth like that for a little while. Right until "Mars" flew right over us, sounding suspiciously like a light plane...

I'm pretty sure that actually was an eclipse, though.

Great Balls of Fire!

I haven't told an old story for a few days. Today we're going to remedy that.

Back when we were young, a favourite evening pastime for DevilBoy and his friends (including me) was to build a nice fire in his backyard and sit around it. DevilBoy's parents' backyard is huge in city terms, so we had lots of room for a nice fire. Like many 14 year old (I'm estimating the age) boys we had some pyro tendencies, and this was mostly how they were manifested.

At some point we were advised that a city bylaw stipulated that all outdoor fires either be enclosed or used for cooking purposes, so we'd have to stop. So we mostly did.

Some time later, a fire inspector declared that my parents would have to get rid of their fire places. The fireplace inserts were way to close to the wood. So, my parents ripped out the inserts and converted most of the fireplaces to gas, which was allowed... (Though much less satisfying).

But this meant that DevilBoy and I could grab a fireplace insert, but it in his backyard and have an enclosed fire. This was very exciting.

I have no idea how we got the thing into his backyard (His parents' house is two blocks north of my parents' place), but we did. (Maybe DevilBoy does and will remind me..) And he, Eggman and I installed in his yard got a nice fire going.

That was great. For a while. Buuuut... Little pyros that we were, it just wasn't enough. We wanted bigger, we wanted better, we wanted more exciting.

DevilBoy had been cleaning his bike chain in kerosene and had a margarine tub of the stuff sitting around in his shed. We decided that the chain was clean enough, and kerosene would make a great toy for the fire. We took turns pouring a little on the fire and had a grand old time making the fire go "fwooosh!" Until the kerosene ran out.

The plain old fire seemed so boring now... We need something else to entertain us. We cast about for things we could put in but were drawing a collective blank. At least until DevilBoy remembered that there was gasoline for the lawnmower in the shed.

Now, a mature, responsible adult would know that pouring gasoline on a fire is a Bad Idea. That's right, capital B, capital I. It's that bad. Since none of us were either mature, responsible or adults, we filled the margarine container with gasoline and walked back to the fire.

Somehow we decided that Eggman should go first. We were emphatic that he not pour much on. Not because it was extremely flammable, but because we wanted to make sure that we all got a turn.

Eggman poured on a little gas. The fire went "fwooosh!". Then it ran up the stream of gasoline and set fire to the rest of the gas in the container. Eggman took one look at the flaming container in his hand and got it out of his hand as quickly as humanly possible. He threw it behind him. The gas landed on a small tree, on rocks, on the grass... Pretty much everywhere. DevilBoy's yard was now on fire.

Fortunately, once the gas burned up nothing else really caught and we were able to stomp it out. Eggman then remembered his curfew and headed home rather quickly.

DevilBoy and I sat down in front of the fire, now quite content to let it burn as low as it pleased, and chatted for a while.

A little while later a strange man wandered into the yard.

"Who are you?" DevilBoy asked.

The man gave his name.

"No... Who are you?" DevilBoy repeated, unsatisfied with that answer.

"Oh, Orillia Fire Department. We had a report of trees on fire..."

DevilBoy and I gave him our best innocent faces and denied knowing anything about that. As he could see, our fire was small, contained, and legal.

The firefighter didn't push on the tree thing, but did advise us that our enclosure was still not legal and we'd have to put out the fire and not do that any more.

I don't remember where the fireplace went, or how it left DevilBoy's yard. But it did.

We didn't have any more fires in DevilBoy's backyard after that. Well... Not many. And the gasoline stayed in the shed for them.

Smelling the Digital Roses

The Technology and the Interweb allow for some weird things now and then. For instance a little earlier tonight I was chatting with an old friend when at around 10pm he left to go find some lunch.

I've been using the Internet for about ten years now, and it still blows my mind that I can chat with a friend in Arizona, Kentucky or, in this case, Australia as easily as someone just up the street.

But the wonder of technology can also swing both ways.

Early last November we had municipal elections here in Ontario. I'd been working on a local campaign and the night of the election we had our "victory party" in a local restaurant. (You call it a "victory" party no matter what the outcome). At these events it's traditional to watch the results come in on the largest TV available. In this case we had a nice big large screen TV, but a little issue. I flipped through the channels looking for local coverage. There were hundreds of channels, but none offered what we were looking for. As it turned out the restaurant had satellite TV, and no cable. We could watch the local news in Tampa, Florida or one of seventeen action movies, but getting local election results just wasn't going to happen.

I ended up calling my dad in Orillia and having him look up the Windsor results on the Interweb and read them to me, so I could announce them to the crowd. I had to call home to get local news.

In the end technology fixed the mess different technology had created.

An example that is a little similar is what happens when SouthernKitten gets lost in a strange city. She calls me. Not because I am at all familiar with the city in question. Nor am I very good with directions in general. But I am good with Google, MapQuest and Microsoft Streets and Trips.

It's great. I've never been to Las Vegas but I can find and direct SouthernKitten to, for instance, somewhere nearby where she can get Thai food. Sometimes even by cell phone text message.

None of this is all that new. The Internet, MSN, MapQuest and the rest have all been around for years. I just like to stop now and then and smell the digital roses, if you will.

Me and 40 foot Jesus

I felt that I may have given Forty Foot Jesus the short shrift yesterday. He's really fascinating enough to deserve an entry of His own.

Here's picture the picture I took again:


There's also a couple of great pictures at Roadside America along with some more info.

I think that the first think you have to ask yourself is "why?!". Well...

"One of the reasons Solid Rock exists is to let people know that God loves them. What greater symbol than the King of Kings for people who drive by and see it there's hope? Whatever circumstances they're in, they'll see that there's hope for them," said Ron Carter of Solid Rock Church in a quote given to local TV station WCPO.

Personally, the only real hope I feel when I pass it is for Canada. (Not that we don't have our own odd Jesus phenomenon)

I also browsed a few other sites and learned a bunch more about the Big Guy.

40 Foot Jesus was sculpted in Florida by a gentleman who normally does work for (surprise!) casinos in Las Vegas... Nothing says class quite like Las Vegas, eh? Also, wouldn't the sort of Christians who'd build a forty foot Jesus kinda frown on the sort of things that Vegas is known for? Mind you, I guess there just aren't that many options when you're shopping for someone to build your four story Messiah.

After he was completed he was loaded in 13 foot chunks onto trucks and shipped up I-75 to his home in Monroe, Ohio.

Jesus is 42 feet tall, has a 40 foot wing span and weighs in at over 13,000 pounds. He's been painted to look like He's made from marble, though He's actually made from fiberglass, styrofoam and plastic. I really wonder how He'll stand up to the elements.

There's no word on the cost, but they accept online tithe paying by credit card. And in order to be involved with any kind of church activity you must be able to prove you've consistently been paying for 3 months. Clearly this works. They built a really big Jesus.

As it turns out Jesus is not universally loved in Monroe. A recent online survey of residents of Monroe overwhelmingly called Jesus "an Eyesore, bad for Monroe"... Of course it's an online survey and one with very few respondents, so it's not exactly scientific... The local Highway Patrol is also not thrilled with their new resident, fearing that rubberneckers will plow into each other. Apparently Jesus causes traffic accidents.

Mary should be paying Him a visit this weekend. If we're lucky she'll share the pictures.

I can't wait.

Back from Lexington

My apologies for the lack of updates over the last week. I was in Lexington and SouthernKitten's Internet access was on the fritz. No internet = No updates.

Anyway lately while driving I've been playing with taking pictures with my free hand. Now, just to dispel any fears you might have for my safety, I don't use the view finder. I just point and shoot. Since it's a digital camera it's not like I'm wasting film. More often than not the pictures don't turn out, but occasionally I get a really nice one and I'm getting better at it.

Here are a few from this trip(severely trimmed to both be small enough to post and to show only the interesting bits)



This is a shot of the cooling towers for the Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Michigan. I took it because I wasn't sure what it was, but thought it looked a lot like the nuke plant on The Simpsons... Turns out there's a reason for that...



This is a shot of a 42 foot statue of Jesus in front of the Solid Rock Church in southwestern Ohio, just a little north of Cincinnati.

I watched over a couple months as he was built in sections, the last being his hands. The hands seemed to take a while and he sat there with large metal beams sticking out of his wrists. During this period I called him "Laser Beam Jesus"...

He's quite the sight.



In the middle of Ohio I encountered a small convoy of three new-ish Corvettes. This is a shot of them in my rearview mirror after I passed them.

Who could resist photographing three Corvettes in their rearview? Clearly not me.

---

In other news, I've been seeing an ad on TV lately for prepackaged breakfasts from Jimmy Dean.

Among other things the commercial features an enthusiastic woman saying:

"The eggs come from real chickens!"

"The cheese comes from real cows!"

"The sausage comes from Jimmy Dean!"

Does anyone else find this disturbing?

Poor Jimmy Dean.

Fun With Computers

I wrote my second midterm of the semester yesterday and since it was a Flash program written for my computer class, I figured I'd post it here.

Midterm

It's a little rough in places, but that's what happens when you only get about three hours to write something. Hopefully that'll get me a decent mark, though.

Learning Flash has been fun. I'd played with it a little before, and done some programming in different flavours of Basic and Visual Basic, so I had a little bit of a head start.

I've written a fair number of fun little programs, one or two of which might still be in use at my last job.

One of my favourites was a simple little program I wrote in (I think) GW Basic over a decade ago, back in the days of MS DOS.

When run it displayed the following:

***WARNING*** (flashing)
Auto destruct sequence initiated!
Please stand at least 50 feet away from the computer.
Destruct in 30 (counting down to 0)

When the counter got to 0 I believe it did something anti-climatic like say "boom."

My brother, The Communicator and a friend of his installed that program on the computer of a friend of theirs. The set up was perfect. They'd had the machine taken apart for one reason or another, then when their friend wasn't looking, had set this little gem to start when the computer was switched on.

Apparently when it came up he yanked the power cord out from the wall, pointed accusingly at my brother and bellowed "WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?!"

Maybe later I'll try re-writing that in Flash...

Just a Cartoon I Liked

I found this in the Toronto Star today:



More of an entry tomorrow...

Home for Thanksgiving

For anyone who doesn't know, this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving traditionally involves a big family dinner involving turkey followed by pumpkin pie. So I've traveled to Orillia to spend the weekend with my parents, as have a number of my old friends, notably DevilBoy (as I mentioned a couple posts ago) and The Eggman and family.

The Eggman is the responsible, mature one among us. While DevilBoy and I didn't finish school the first time through, The Eggman did. Consequently he's married with a kid and has a real job, while DevilBoy and I are back in school with kids ten years our juniors. My TV is literally older than some of my classmates. The Eggman's daughter is a new addition to his little family and I look forward to meeting her.

I'd hoped that SouthernKitten would be able to make it up, since, being American, she is not expected to spend Canadian Thanksgiving with her family. I think it'd have been particularly fun for her to spend some time with my old gang. Unfortunately it didn't work out her as father was inconsiderate enough to have a birthday Sunday, so it seems that she actually is going to be spending Canadian Thanksgiving with her family after all.

Someone else who won't be making it for Thanksgiving is my brother, "The Communicator", who, in a move that shocked everyone, quit his very lucrative job at which he spent almost every waking moment, and has taken off to Europe for two months. I'll admit to being jealous, yet incredibly confused by this whole turn of events.

Using the name "The Communicator" for my brother is sort of an ironic joke as, well, he isn't and really doesn't. My favourite example of my brother's knack for communication happened back in high school. He'd won some sort of math award or something. It involved, among other things, having his picture in the local paper. Now, if I were having my picture in the paper, my family would know about it. If I thought there were a slight chance, they'd know to be looking.

I believe the first my mother heard of the picture was when the butcher said "That's a nice picture of your son in today's paper."

To which she responded with a blank look "Which son??"

When this story was recounted at the dinner table that night and The Communicator was asked why he hadn't told anyone about the award or the picture, he answered "You didn't ask."

He landed at Heathrow the other day. I imagine it'll be a great trip.

Anyway, I'm going to keep this entry pretty short as it's late and I really ought to be sleeping by now. I hope you all have a nice Canadian Thanksgiving. (Even those of you who are Americans and insist on celebrating it during the completely wrong month)

Wisdom from Oliver Wendell Holmes

My views on the limits that should be placed on individual rights can be almost entirely summed up in a single quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes(1809-1894).

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

As a metaphor, this quote is surprisingly versatile and as such is equally surprisingly pertinent, despite the fact that the author was born almost 200 years ago. My views on hate speech, gay marriage and gun control among others are based on this simple statement.

The right to free speech is important. Authoritarian governments as rule supress it. Liberal democracies tend to allow it as much as possible, but there are always limits. The classic example is that of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Similarly, if I posted here that I was going to kill US president Bush, the RCMP would knock on my door tomorrow. Both of these are prime examples of the swinging fist banging square into the schnauze.

In the US hate speech is protected under the first amendment (though the above examples oddly are not). Recently the University of Louisville in Kentucky has been embroiled in a debate concerning whether the Klu Klux Klan should be allowed on campus. These people preach racial hatred and violence and at least in my opinion their message is no less dangerous than my first examples. In Canada hate speech is banned. The KKK would not, under any circumstances be allowed on the campus of my school. There would be no debate.

Free speech is precious and needs to be defended. Insults and objectionable opinions may be unpleasant, and the fist may be invading personal space, but that must be tolerated. Hate speech tramples the rights of others. Hate speech is the squarely impacting the nose.

Gay marriage is a hot issue right now. I really don't understand the fuss. If two men or two women want to get married this doesn't effect me or other straight people in the slightest. My nose is fine. No fist is anywhere near it.

Right wing religious groups in particular are vehemently opposed to it. I just saw a preacher from a prominent Canadian television ministry promise to "defend traditional marriage" for the rest of his life. I fail to see how "traditional marriage" has been threatened. Gay marriage has been legal in Ontario since June 10th of this year. I don't feel that the "traditional" marriage of my parents has been deminished by this. Nor have the marriages of any other "traditional" couples I know of.

The only reasoning I've seen to justify this opposition is based either on "traditional" families being threatened (which, as we've discussed, I feel is bunk) or a quote from Leviticus, otherwise known as the crazy part of the Bible.
(18:22 - Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.) Once the people using this argument start following every single other line of Leviticus, then their argument may hold a little water. Have a read and let me know how likely you think that is... Leviticus

In the meantime,there are no fists within visual range of my nose.

Gun control is a bit trickier. Most of the time, gun collectors are pretty harmless and not a threat to my nose. If Bob Smith (made up generic name) wants to keep a grenade launcher in his basement, odds are I'll never know and if I deprive him of his grenade launcher am I bopping his nose?

The potential problems with Bob's toy are when something goes wrong. If Bob blows a gasket, problems. If Bob's teenaged son take his toy for a spin, problems. If Bob's house is broken into and a criminal steals his grenade launcher, problems.

These are a lot of problems. Problems where I don't so much have to worry about a fist in my nose, as my nose being blown into little tiny nose pieces.

So, we have to weigh the benefits of the grenade launcher against the possible harm. Grenade launchers are cool. Blowing stuff up is a great hobby. If a bandit breaks in while Bob is home, instead of calling the police, Bob has the option of engaging him in a gun battle. In fact, if Bob brings it everywhere he goes, then he can engage in wild west style gun battles (but with more explosions!) everywhere he goes... But I think at this point we've left the benefits column...

So... Really we've got a lot of potential harm to my nose, with wild west style personal defense and "it's cool" being the biggest benefits.

Ixnay on the enade launchergay.

And while that may be an extreme example, I believe the same thing really goes for firearms in general.

All that from one simple little phrase... Neat, eh?

You're Fired!

I've been having fun telling old stories of late, so I'm going to continue on that theme again today.

This one is one of my favourites.

My first job after I left school (the first time...) was doing over the phone technical support for a little computer company near Toronto. We mostly sold to the southern US, so I spent a lot of time walking Americans through fixing various things. I hated that job. A lot. I hated it with the power of a thousand suns. But, it was my first real job and it put food on the table and paid the rent. I hated so many things about that job, including the commute. At the time of this story it was taking about two hours on transit (subway then bus) to get to work, but only an hour to get home, because a friend would give me a lift to the subway. This actually cut way more than an hour off my commute because I worked the 4pm to midnight shift, and bus service after midnight is almost negligible in that area late at night.

So, it was a normal day at work. I was sitting at my little station, fixing computers over the phone and quietly hating the fate that had placed me into this job. My driving friend walked up and told me that he had to leave an hour early that night. If I could leave then too I could still hitch a ride, otherwise I was on my own. I didn't like the idea waiting an eternity for the late night buses and since I hated the job leaving an hour early seemed like a great idea.

I went and spoke to boss #1 and asked if I could leave early. He wasn't sure, and suggested I go ask boss #2. I asked boss #2. He also wasn't sure and suggested I go ask boss #1. Clearly this was going nowhere and I didn't think it was worth the hassle. I dejectedly went back to my station and took a call.

In the meantime, boss #2 (who was actual the more senior boss) approached boss #1 and suggested that maybe it would be ok to "let CanadaDave go".

Boss #1 called me into his office and fired me. I asked why and he simply answered "performance".

Boss #1 had been recently promoted to boss level and was really eager to assert his authority. So, while I more seasoned boss might have questioned such an instruction, he just didn't. That boss #2 just wanted to let me leave early would not become clear until later.

So, I gathered my things, said goodbye to my co-workers and I left. The car ride to the subway passed quietly.

They say that after losing a job one goes through the same five stages of grief as when a loved one dies. I quickly went through all five on my train ride home.

1) Denial - This had all been some crazy mistake (which oddly enough was true..). Everything would get worked out in short order and I'd get my job back.

2) Anger - How dare they fire me?! I was the smartest guy in the building!!

3) Bargaining - I just want things back the way they were!

4) Depression - How am I going to feed myself and pay my rent? I'm doomed!

5) Acceptance - Y'know, I really hated that job. Maybe this is for the best.

I figured I'd take things slow the next day. I slept in... Lounged for a while... Then eventually went out and got some take out chicken for lunch.

When I got back, the little red light on my answering machine was blinking. I listened to the message. I was working that job through an employment agency and the rep for my company had apparently called...

"Uh... David, I understand that you left work yesterday under the impression that you were fired. This is not the case. We'd like it very much if you'd come back. Please give me a call as soon as you get this."

I later learned roughly what had happened at my place of work earlier that day.

In a meeting the two bosses were discussing potential promotions with a more senior boss. One who I got along pretty well with. When they listed the people who might potentially fill a certain position the senior boss noticed that my name was no longer on the list and asked why.

"Oh, we accidentally fired him yesterday"

"You did WHAT?!?" the senior boss demanded.

"Fired him. By accident" They replied, apparently happy to continue their lives as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Don't think there's something you should be doing about this?! ISN'T THERE SOMEONE YOU SHOULD BE CALLING?!?" Asked an astonished senior boss.

"Oh.. I guess so..."

So it came to be that I came back the next day, and we continued on like nothing had happened. The company also took that opportunity to do a review of their firing practices...

I got paid for the day I didn't show up because I thought I no longer worked there, and, as penitence of sorts, boss #1 promised to drive me to work for the next week.

Eventually that company went under, and to this day still owes me money (which I will never get). It was probably a good thing that it went under. I'd tried to quit a while before they did and they'd talked me out of it. I'd pretty much concluded that for me to leave that company, one of us had to die.

I'm pretty happy that it was the company that expired...

DevilBoy and I Had Been Drinking...

My parents are coming to visit and will be arriving tomorrow, which is a change of plan from when they were going to be arriving tonight, which was a change of plan from when they were to be arriving tomorrow. Nothing like following a plan...

My place isn't anywhere near as clean as I would like it to be, due to my having felt like crap over the last couple of days. I've had a nasty cold/flu type thing and for reasons I don't comprehend my lower back has really been hurting.

Next weekend will be Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving, obviously) and I'll be heading to Orillia. With any luck I'll be able to get together with DevilBoy and have a few drinks.

I haven't told any of my drinking with DevilBoy stories here yet, but there are quite a few of them. My favourite is probably what happened when I came back to Orillia one fall for my high school commencement.

I really hadn't been out of town that long, but it was my first time living away from home , so the couple a months had seemed like a really long time. DevilBoy and I had gone to our favourite bar and had what I imagine was a lot of drinks. The we left the bar and took a stroll, you know, to see the enormous changed that must have happened over the fall... One thing I really wanted to do for some reason was stick my finger in the lake to see what temperature it was. I have no idea why, but it seemed important at the time.

DevilBoy and I stumbled down to the beach. I stuck my finger in the water, thus satisfying my desire to learn that, yes, the lake was cold. DevilBoy didn't stop stumbling in time. He continued stumbling right into the water and then face planted into it. He expressed in graphic terms just how cold the lake really was.

For reasons that I don't remember DevilBoy ended up crashing on my floor. The next morning, he got up (still wet) and asked if he'd fallen off the beach. I just laughed.

We should have a good time next weekend, like I said, we'll likely get a few drinks, but I doubt we'll be going near the lake.