11/24/2006 - Done for another Year

Am I done done? No, not really. there is still a lot of decorations that need to be sorted and put away neatly for next year.  Hopefully I will be energetic enough to complete that before we pull it all out again next October.   Didn't happen THIS year but there is always hope for the future.

Finally got pictures up on the web page for everyone to see.  Just seems like I'm too busy or too tired to get anything done.  Couldn't have done it at all without my wife Leah whom I owe a great deal to.  Without her I don't think I'd get anything accomplished.

10/29/2006 - Halloween in 3... 2... 1...

9/8/2006 - 1 month, 22 days, 16 hours....

Until Halloween and I haven't done a THING!  I blame my motorcycle for distracting me on every nice day that I'm not doing anything.

But Mortemus said that his wife and he are looking forward to start building so that's nice to know.  Now all we need is a plan.

4/14/2006 - April 14

So it's April and I'm dragging my feet on Halloween again... as usual.  I admire people who can build all year long but I just can't bring myself to do so.  Most of my builds start in August-September and of course I usually don;t get half of it finished.

Finished?  Last year's take-down is not finished!    Good thing we don't need the basement for anything or I'd actually have to organize and put away everything like I'm supposed to.  Maybe next weekend...

3/10/2006 - March Already?

It's starting to look like spring. Except for the snow that is.  I suppose the 5 cm of snow that appeared over night a few days ago was better than the 80 KM/h winds we were supposed to have seen.

Doesn't matter much though, the temp has been getting up to 6 or more so there isn't a whole lot of snow left on the roads, which is good because I have the Yamaha back on the road! Yay!  I no longer feel stuck at home when the wife has the car at work.  Doesn't mean I actually DO anything outside the house... but I could!

1/28/2006 - Sex Lives of the Potato Men

is a very, very twisted and funny movie!  SLotPM is a British film based on the.... well, sex lives of the potato men.  A bunch of guys who work delivering potatos (Potato Men) all have different and mostly unusual problems with their lives.  British comedy is sometimes hard to follow and hard to understand what they are saying but if you get the chance, watch it!

Of course... some people have different views.

"About as funny as being stabbed repeatedly in the face with a bread knife."
-- Gary Panton, MOVIE GAZETTE

"The result would be unspeakably vile if it wasn't so embarrassingly puerile."
-- Neil Smith, BBC

My kind of movie! W00t!

1/16/2006 - Snow

It's snowing. Lots of snow which is good.  Why? Cuz it means I'm glad I HAVEN'T insured my motorcycle yet... which is going to cost me as much as a fancy car does as the lady at BCAA put it. Yay.

1/14/2006 - Evil Dead: Regeneration

OK, as a fan of Ash in the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness trilogy, I purchased Evil Dead: Regeneration for $20.  Like most games I purchase for cheap, I am having too much fun with it.  Bruce Campbell voices Ash with the expected witty and witless remarkes and Sam Raimi voices Ash's sidekick Sam.  (correction: Sam is voiced by Ted Raimi, Sam's brother.  Wonder if they are making fun of Sam?)

Ash and Sam banter back and forth when nothing is going on which is amusing.  Like the movies you never run out of ammo and never seem to really reload.  Characters (you get to play both Ash and Sam) target the bad guys automatically so there is just a lot of carnage.  For a 4 disc game priced at $20 I give it one chainsaw and one boomstick (or 2 thumbs) up!

1/14/2006 - Mean people suck.

The weather has been great for January, reaching close to double digits a few days so far which makes me want to get the motorcycle back on the road. ~sigh~

Leah's grandpa is in the hospital after getting pneumonia which doesn't help his emphysema at all.  He also had a mild heart attack from all this so it's nice to hear that he is supposed to be leaving the hospital soon.

To top it all off, mom had her purse stolen from the staff room where she works.  Someone went into the back while she was up front working the till and took her purse... which means they had to walk right past her.  Pretty gutsy, the store isn't that big.  The purse was found in a washroom in the mall but the thief/thieves took her credit card, driver's licence, birth certificate and house/car keys.  This sucks!  They changed the locks at home, cost over $400 to have the car locks changed and we had the shop re-keyed.  So even though the crook didn't get any money (credit card had no transactions when it was cancelled and there was only about $10 in the purse) it has cost about $500.  Mean people suck.

12/31/2005 - Happy New Year

It's New Year's Eve... whoopie.  I don't know if I'm gettin too old but I much prefer to sleep than to stay up to midnight for no apparent reason.  Maybe we'll make it that late, perhaps not.  Cooking up a mess of wings and watching some movies tonight... I might even have a few beers!  It's gonna be CRAZY!! W00t!

12/23/2005 - Merry Christmas

Yes, I said Christmas.  Not Holidays.... not Festive Season.... CHRISTMAS.  No I'm not religious but for the love of whatever god or deity you choose to pray to it's CHRISTMAS!  I just don't understand why 2005 seems to be the year for being PC and 'not offending non-christian people' but it's been Christmas for as long as I can remember.  So Merry Christ's B-day... Happy Santa day or Have-a-couple-extra-days-off day too you!!!  TTYL

12/16/2005 - Texas = crazy!

But in a good way, I think.  Reading in a bike mag that Texas has passed a law making it legal to split lanes during times of traffic congestion. If you don't know, splitting lanes means riding between cars on the painted lines.

The idea is this will help with the flow of traffic. I don't kn ow how much help it will be but maybe it will make more people decide to ride to work and THAT would help with the flow.  There were a lot of riders in California who were riding the space between the HOV (carpool) lane and the regular traffic when we were down last month but I don't think they were supposed to .

So add to the Texas laws... odd like only the people in the front seats having to wear seatbelts!

12/4/2005 - Christmas party!

Last night was the annual Mount Paul Leaseholders Christmas party.  Had fun as always but the food seems to be going down each year in direct proportion to the decrease in attendance.  But there was an abundance of booze and really loud music and people being funny (the drunk chick dancing and stumbling around by herself for example).  We didn't win any door prizes but Leah whined enough that someone at our table gave her the duffle bag that they won.

We gave the golf balls that were in the bag away to add to the assortment of silverware, corks, napkins and empty wine bottles that were shoved in Kurt's jacket while he wasn't looking  wish we were there for when he put on his jacket though.

On a side note, we had a new furnace installed on Thursday.  It's nice.  The house is warm again!

11/27/2005 - November 27

Well it's getting closer to Christmas again... the weather is getting colder, the snow has fallen a couple of times, the bums are sleeping in the bank kiosks...

My dad and sister came up yesterday to pick up dad's trailer from my driveway. Nice to have the entire driveway back even though we don't usually need it. Both my brothers had their birthdays the past week so all that is left now is Christmas itself.

Our next door nieghbour had his house broken into around 3 in the afternoon today while he was out shopping. It's like the 6th time he has had his place broken into in the past 10 years or so. I can't decide if he's unlucky or our house just looks too much like a slum/crackhouse to be bothered with.

Only a few more months until spring! Yay!

11/18/2005 - Finally

            We made it back from our trip to Disneyland, it was a great trip.  The hotel in Seattle smelled so musty we slept with the balcony door open even though we were right across the street from Sea-Tac airport!  Got to see the Haunted Mansion set up as the Nightmare Before Christmas display and Small World in its holiday mode.

James came over today and helped put the last of the lumber and Halloween stuff away that we didn’t get a chance to before we went on our trip.  Next year I am NOT planning anything so soon after Halloween so we can get it all done with before it gets cold!

11/3/2005 - November

So it's November now, Halloween is over for another year.  We had over 950 people pass through our haunt with varying degrees of enjoyment.  We had the usual kids and parents who thoroughly enjoyed the display, the ones who thought last year's was better and longer, and people who just grabbed their candy and popcorn and left.  I was one of the most stress-free Halloweens we have had in the last few years probably due to the fact that we live in the house now instead of having to come over to the place when my brother was living here.

Leah, James, Justin and Angela helped out a lot this year as always and it was nice to be able to leave some of the decisions on decorations to someone else.  I have enough trouble with concentrating on what needs to be done next!  I'd go to grab something I needed and end up working on another task before I got back to the first.

The backyard and house are still a complete disaster but I did take down the graveyard today.  The mailman will be happy since he can cut across the yard again I'm sure. 

Just keep thinking to myself that by this time next week I will be landing in California for our trip to Disneyland!

10/30/2005 - Open

So we had the haunt open to the public tonight for the first time... and I am beat.  85 people, mostly Beavers, Cubs and Pathfinders and a few sent over by Lady Dracul (thanks!).  Tonight we had 5 people helping out (well 6 for a bit) which worked pretty well.  Tomorrow we only have Leah and me for most of the day and part of the evening.  That is going to suck!  Already thinking that we might have to scale back our display or change it drastically to enable the wife and me to be able to keep an eye on everything.  What I really need is a garage that I can do a maze in so I can build it well in advance and just lock the doors at the end of the night.  We spent most of today getting the last of the lights in place and setting out all the decorations and then after we closed we took most of them back into the house to make sure they don't 'walk away' tonight.

Time to get some sleep... it all starts again at 10:30 tomorrow morning!

10/27/2005 - Final Countdown

We are in the last few days left!  The Beavers and Cubs and possibly the Girl Guides are coming over Sunday night for their Halloween meetings.  This gives us a chance to make sure everything is working the way we want it to.  Starting around 10:30 Monday the classes from John Tod Elementary will be making their way over for a tour.  Last year we had the grade 3/4 class come over and they all had fun... this year it's supposed to be all classes!  We also are expecting some ESL students from TRU to come visit and see what we crazy Canadians do for Halloween.

As always everything seems to happen at once.  The power went out at our shop today causing our register to lose it's memory.  To make things worse we spent and hour re-programming the stupid thing to find out the battery backup is shot and as soon as we unplug it it happened all over again.  Tomorrow: Shopping for a new cash register!

10/23/2005 - Like 8 days left

Yesterday managed to get most of the crew together (Justin, Angela, James and myself) and pretty much finished the walls.  I came up with a great idea (I think) and hopefully it will work as well as I think rather than cause the problems I also think possible.  Yes I am being vague but I don't want to ruin the surprise.  Have some pictures of my niece Kaylee being what babies are... well not ALWAYS... but being cute rather than screaming banshees.

10/20/2005 - 11 days left (and nothing ever goes as planned)

Today was one of the first nice days we have had all week and I was supposed to be off early (like noon) from work.  I say supposed because as always when you have plans something goes wrong.  The other crew at work ended up spending most of their morning babysitting a machine becuase tech support at this particular bank is DUMB.  I have never dealt with a tech support group that seems to enjoy or be oblivious enough to send us back to the same machine time and time again for the exact same thing when we CAN'T fix it!

"The machine isn't working because it's empty."

"OK"

~not even 10 minutes later~

"Yeah, they want you to go back to the machine... it's not dispensing."

"Yeah... because it's FREAKIN' EMPTY!"

So I didn't get anything really accomplished this afternoon.  I did wash my motorcycle and go for a ride before it got too cold but that's about it.  Oh yeah, I stopped by a fellow haunter's display to check on her progress.  The weather isn't helping her either!  STOP RAINING ALREADY!!

Next few days are supposed to be nice.  Need to get stuff done... will try to post pictures soon!