7 Quick Takes (IX)

1. This past weekend was the long weekend, of course. As I believe I mentioned already, I spent five hours of Saturday working. Indeed. On Sunday I went to St. Thomas' and had an epiphany, which I have somehow forgotten. This was upsetting. And on the Monday we (that's my mother, father, and I) toured the boats I've been working on all summer, and then went North to visit Fort McKay and the Bridge to Nowhere, two notably spots in the Fort McMurray surrounding area. I did other things that weekend, but I can't really recall many of them. I went to the bank, at the very least.

2. Somewhere in there, the Monday I think, I took numerous photographs of fungi. You will see next week how this is relevant: I had written posts on Saturday that will be published sometime in the near future. I forget the exact dates I programmed in. Eventually it will be my pleasure to show them to you.

3. I have now finished working at the Marine Park. On Tuesday we cleared out the paint and I cleaned up a fair amount of the yard in the afternoon. On Wednesday I was interrupted at Heritage Park (you'll see in what later) to go and help my supervisor move pallets and anchors around with the CAT lift. When we were done there, just after lunch, he took me back to Heritage Park and said that, minus a few hours work here and there, I was done at the Marine Park. I was now on my new project...

4. Except not really. I spent much of Wednesday editing storyboards. Summer students are great in many ways. Among these ways, however, sudden and total absence at the end of the summer is not included. Numerous storyboards somehow got slated as good for publication when someone decided to give them a quick look...and discovered they were unedited. Since my employers have caught wind of my knack (stark raving obsession) for grammar and style, I was asked to harness that compulsion and get my red pen out. This is what I was interrupted doing in the last post. And I did some more when I got back. It's not that they were truly awful, but there were some errors which would look pretty bad if they got on the walls. For instance, "5,000 thousand" was a funny one that no one had caught. The grammatical nonsense was less funny.
This is why you never ever try to publish your work without someone else looking at it. You miss things because you read what you meant to say.

5. And after that I still didn't really get much work done on my project, because I was busy helping prepare for a move. Heritage Park is getting a facelift; the Gift Shop is moving to the front entrance, Reception is moving to where Collections currently is, and Collections is sharing what is now the Gift Shop with a new Children's Programming Space. This move is happening today and over the next few weeks. I am lucky enough to have really and for truly coincidentally booked my vacation time for the beginning of the move.

6. One of the days in there my folks and I watched Point Break. I actually now own the movie. Have you seen Hot Fuzz? I love that movie. Anyway, there's a scene where Nicholas Angel (such an awesome name) and Danny Butterman are watching action movies. One of them is Point Break. The viewer sees a particular emotionally-charged shot, in which Utah (Keanu Reeves) cannot bring himself to shoot a masked man, and fires his gun into the air in frustration. Later in Hot Fuzz, Danny himself repeats the same action.
I had never seen Point Break before this, but I as familiar with that scene shown in Hot Fuzz. It was nice to at last see the movie it took place in, to get a feel for the context, and to understand the emotion it was imbued with--and thereby imbued Hot Fuzz.
Anyway, it was a good movie.

7. And now I'm on vacation. After work I packed, had a two hour nap, and caught the red eye to Pearson. On that flight I got a bit over an hour of sleep. Then I took a complex transit route, involving a bus, two subways, a train, and a cab, to my brother's apartment in Oakville. Then I waited outside his apartment for his class to finish, during which time I dozed for about fifteen minutes in the grass. Eventually Nick let me in, and now he's gone back to class, and I'm writing out my 7 Quick Takes on his computer. Which, obviously, brings me to right now.
I have realized two things about my trip. 1) This is the first time I'm on a vacation in which my destinations and suchlike are entirely self-directed. I am not with my folks or my friends or a class or even a group of strangers somehow organized, like a retreat or something. Even though I am visiting friends at each step of my journey, I make the journey alone. 2) This is also the first time I've slept outside, on public property, since I was a little kid. I've slept in vehicles like trains and buses before, but not on the grass. Huh.

Make sure you visit the Quick Takes Queen.

7 Quick Takes VIII

1. To those who live rural or small-town or small-city communities, the idea of a harvest fair or festival is probably not just an academic sort of thing but more of an experiental one. And I'm not just talking about dressing up for Hallowe'en or eating turkey at Thanksgiving, either, but rather about going to a real honest-to-goodness Fall Fair or Agricultural Fair or Plowing Match or something similarly named.

Well, Fort McMurray has some things vaguely approximating this idea, and one of them is the Country Fair, which has for the last few years been venued by Heritage Park. By now you can guess what that means...

This past weekend I was working at the Park. Because of the events in the Park, the executive director decided to open Chateau Gai Hot Dog Café, our concession stand. Due to the sudden absence of any summer slaves (I mean "summer staff"), I was called to work the whole thing. My Dad volunteered the Saturday, and my Mom volunteered the Sunday. Technically, Dad was there for some of Sunday, too, since we called him in but then didn't need him, so he left again.

On Saturday, my Dad and I ran the barbeque and hamburgers while the girls--Susan and Laura--ran the actual concession stand itself, taking money and suchlike. On Sunday, we didn't have Laura, so my Mom ran the barbeque while I helped Susan in the concession. However, we were worried that it would be too busy for my Mom to handle alone, and called Dad in. It turns out it really wasn't that busy on Sunday. Overall, it was a pretty slack couple of days, considering that I was in fact working. (This all means that I have worked for 12 days straight now. Ho-hum, actually.)

2. I painted some at the Marine Park. I put some aluminum paint on vents and the like, and I put black paint on other things. I also painted the great big auger (which is quite distinct from an augur, even though I would have spelled them the same if I hadn't looked it up just now) aluminum, which I don't personally think was an improvement. It does look new and shiny and eye-catching now, but I think it's eye-catching enough without the shine. Its twisted, snaggle-toothed, rusty, menacing mass was enough to grab my attention on the first day, at any rate.

I wore my knee-pads, of course, and I hadn't been on my knees all the time, but I can still feel the weakness and stiffness and pain in my joints from last week, and I feel it all the more when I'm working on those decks, pads or no. (Sorry for the hypertactic sentence, there.)

3. And on the note of things I did at the Marine Park, I once again rode up high in the Genie with my supervisor to paint things I couldn't otherwise reach. I note this in particular because, as my folks will readily attest, there was a time when I would be too utterly terrified to do it. I am afraid of heights (I know too much about phobias to claim I am acrophobic any more), and yet I am not so often afraid any more.

For instance, I was utterly fine in the Genie, despite the fact that it's basket has a grill bottom, through which I can easily see. It's strange: not only am I unafraid, I get somewhat sleepy, in a contented way. It's the same sort of feeling (though not as strong) as that I get sometimes when I am getting a haircut, or someone for another reason is playing with/working on my hair.

4. I have begun, very tentatively, to work on the virtual museum exhibit that will occupy much of my time for the next six months. When it is completed, the museum will be hosted by the Virtual Museum of Canada. Specifically, it will be part of the Community Memories deal. A good example of an exhibit, like that I would wind up making, is Ava's Story. (Isn't she pretty?) Anyway, I won't be e-curating about Japanese-Canadians in BC, of course, but that is the format of what I'll be doing.

In the end I only installed and messed with the software, looked for computers to work from, and did very very very preliminary research. But I have begun.

5. Let's see, now. There were books in there. I finished Prince Caspian. I started and finished Taran the Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander. That was a good one, which I had never actually read before. I read all of the other Prydian books as a kid, but not that one. I also started and finished A Wrinkle in Time, and have been chipping away at The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia. I think, for a number of reasons, I will struggle with the latter; some of those are differences in literary-analystical interests and methods (for instance, I think Lewis' biography is of far less importance than the author seems to believe), but others are more personal. The author, as you can tell from the title, is against the whole Christianity thing, and loves the books despite their theological moorings. And I think most of us know the emotional toll anti-Christian sentiment plays on me.

6. And if you didn't know the emotional toll anti-Christian sentiment plays on me, you will soon find out. I had the idiocy of reading the page on Dawkins in Wikiquote. I have no idea what made me go there, but for some reason I did. You know, I've been good lately. I haven't read very many comment threads, I haven't gone scouting out for atheist blogs (I do this looking for some thread of open-mindedness, and so far I haven't found enough to stitch together a hole in your sock), and I haven't been reading the sorts of books that are likely to irk me. But, for whatever reason, I read some quotes from this man.

Atheism in general distresses me, but I don't make a fuss about it because, let's be honest, that's almost the worst thing you can possibly do. I have lots of atheist friends and even if I'd like the 'atheist' part to change, it seems rather important that the 'friends' part remains the same. So I don't make a fuss or attempt conversions or preach or make leading remarks or talk Christianese. Atheism may bug me, but I don't let that influence my behaviour.

But that man (Dawkins, I mean). He just drives me up the wall. I read that page for maybe ten minutes, and I spent the rest of the evening angry, frustrated, scared, and hurt. I had such trouble dealing with it. While I knew that everything he said was wrong, and I could articulate reasons why it was wrong, I still couldn't shake the convincingness of it. He's like that. He's good at these sorts of rhetorical games. He's so f***ing persuasive. Part of the problem is that the man rides on probability and dismisses possibility, and part of the problem is that he tends to isolate things. Everything makes perfect sense in the little nuggets he presents them in, but they tend to look less relevant and less convincing when you realize that he's looking at a very small part from a very narrow angle. In the end, of course, he has it wrong. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't look like a fine piece of reasoning taken on its own terms.

This, I think, is how he gets so persuasive. He says things people suspect or want to believe, and then backs it up with these little philosophical tricks of the light. He adds in a great deal of the sort of dry humour which includes those who believe what he says and utterly degrades those who don't, and he layers on top of that huge piles of self-confidence in his own rightness. The humour and the confidence, though, are only hiding the hatred and arrogance that make up his whole project.

At least, I know there is arrogance and I suspect there is hatred. There is likely also fear and confusion and doubt and love in him somewhere, but I cannot see it and almost do not want to believe it is there.

So anyway, sometime later that evening I was having a shower and outright fretting about this man and his clutch of rabid followers, and I didn't know what to do. I felt I had to do something, but I couldn't for the life of me think of what. I wanted badly to just sit down and give the whole thing up (not that I could have told you what that meant) if it weren't for the fact that I knew that not only the organized church, but also Christianity, humanity, and the whole of existence would cease to exist if I didn't fight.

And then I remembered a few fundamental things. The first was that so long as I believed and lived that belief, then I've done all I was supposed to do. The second was that God would make things OK. I might not understand how he was going to do that, and I might not even be able to recognize the OK-ity of it at first, but in the end all things glorify God. I just have to deal with that, and it's something I do for and within myself. I don't need to "fight"; at least, not here and for this. The third was that all the screaming and arguement and proof and sophistry is not going to move someone who really believes, be it in the existence of God or the non-existence of God. I can provide arguments to weaken Dawkins' hold on people, but in the end these arguements will not win people over to the side of God. Just calming down would be a better bet than to go in swinging. To say, "Yes, I understand what you are saying. Yes, I can see how these things are convincing. And yet, I still believe," might be more powerful than any arguement there is.

So after my shower I was a bit better. But I've still rankled a little here and there for the rest of the week, and my back, just beneath the shoulder blades, still crawls a little with pre-fight or flight tension.

7. This Take requires some background: starting at the end of next week, I will be taking a vacation to my home province of Ontario, visiting three campuses altogether (Sheridan - Oakville campus, Kingston, and St. Clare).
I had been planning on leaving on Friday at 1:00 or so at night. On Wednesday night, I looked an my travel itinerary and noticed something interesting. Due to the obvious error we made, I am actually leaving very very early on Friday, at 1:00 in the morning. Yes. I leave a full 24 hours early than anticipated.

Which actually works out quite well, because I now get to spend a whole other day with my brother. We plan to go see 9.

My employers are fine with it, in case you were wondering.

This means that my next 7 Quick Takes will be written from Oakville, perhaps in the late morning, even.

That is all. My, what a long post for such little occurence.

You know the drill: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2009/09/7-quick-takes-friday-vol-49.html

7 Quick Takes (VII)

1. On Saturday, I set up a computer in my room. Do you recall reading that my computer is fried? Well, it is, in case you didn't read it or don't remember. Anyway, I got the hard drive recovered--that is, I got it ripped out intact and bought an external reader.
Well, I used my Dad's old tower and keyboard, and my Mom's old moniter and speakers, and a brand-new mouse, and I cobbled together a new computer for my room. I got a desk and rearranged the furniture and plugged everything in and voila, I have a personal computer.
Only it doesn't have the Internet, so for this I'm still using my folks' computer.
And the hard drive? Well, it's apparantly still protected by my old password, which I know, only I can't type it in anywhere that I can find because I am now trying to open it like a file. Yeah.

So, while I do have a computer, it does not have Internet and I cannot use it to read any of those old files I wanted to open.
I still have a few tricks to try, but I gave up for the moment. By which I mean week.

2. On Sunday I again attended St. Thomas' Anglican Church across the road. That's about all I have to say about that, except that it might be easier to pay attention to the front when Sunday school resumes. Children are awfully disruptive there.
Oh, and I'll mention that they are very enthusiastic about sharing the peace. There are some there who want to say "Peace" to every person in the congregation; there are some who hug everyone, too. One woman, who seems quite friendly, noticed the paint on my arms and joked about it.

3. I also decided sometime in here (though there's not really a defined date) that I'm not likely going to school in New Zealand come February, as I had planned. I will still go to school in September, though, if all goes well. I'm not just not really sure for what, yet. This isn't a crisis so much as an indecision.

4. On Monday I got married. Well, ok, maybe not for real. A photographer came into Heritage Park to take pictures, and he/his clients wanted models dressed in historical garb in the buildings. 'Models' turned out to be Heritage Park employees. Some pictures were taken in St. Aiden's Church, which is our 'wedding' church. It has nice white pickets fence around it and is still rented out for marriages. The models were to be getting married. Since I am the only current male employee in roughly the same age bracket as the female staff, I was the groom. A nice girl named Dayna, who I really hardly know, was the bride.

So I now have professional wedding pictures (oodles of them, let me tell you), and eventually these will surface. There is a good chance that they will turn up on Facebook, and there is also a good chance that they will turn up in promotional material for Fort McMurray Tourism and Alberta Tourism. So if you ever see a picture young bride and groom, where the groom has weird sort-of-blond, sort-of-brown hair, and the bride is pretty and quite thin, wearing a hat, and they are walking down a boardwalk with a white picket fence in the foreground, and the picture is in a pamphlet or something which encourages you to visit Alberta or Fort McMurray or Heritage Park, then the groom is likely me.

And if they do get on Facebook, I am sure many of my highschool friends will be congratulating me and asking why they weren't invited and so forth. Only some of them will be joking.

I have heard that the pictures are quite good. They were somewhat awkward to take. Have you ever tried to fake being in love with someone for a camera? Apparently we did it well.

Some of the other staff saw the photos, and one of them said she wanted to use them for her own wedding. Her guests would say, "These aren't of you," and she'd say, "I know, but aren't these ones so much better?"

5. The rain finally broke off. We got some sun starting on Tuesday, and it's been nice and bright ever since. This means...

6. We finally got painting done! The decks look so much better properly painted. They are oxide red, which is regulation. Before they were a faded oxide red overlaid with black spray and white spray from adjoining surfaces, mingled with dirt and rust. Now they are a solid, strong colour. On Wednesday we did the whole of the barge in one go, and then on Thursday we got a good deal of the Miskanaw deck done. Today my supervisor finished off the Miskanaw and I painted some silver on pipes and vent hoods and things on the D250. My supervisor was very pleased with the amount of work we got done, as was I. However, there was a drawback.

7. Since Wednesday, my knees have been sore. I have spent most of the week on my hands and knees, which means my knees were resting on the bare metal deck. You know, "resting" is such a bad word for this context. "Weight-bearing" is a better one. On Thursday my Dad lent me his kee pads (and thanks again for that, Pa), so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But oh, man, my knees were stiff and weak both Wednesday and Thursday night, and somewhat this morning, too. Even now I can feel that they're a little weak. Whenever I hit them against anything, they hurt more than usual.
But I can be such a masochist. See, you'd think that the above paragraph is self-pitying, complaining. But, no... it's bragging. I am pleased that my legs hurt. Why? I'm not sure, other than, perhaps, that it's a reminder or badge that I worked hard and that I'm tough enough to take that pain. If it's work-related, I don't mind pain. Discomfort makes me squeamish, but pain I can manage.

And that's 7. See, it's been a busy week. Lots of work, some pain, a wedding, all sorts of good stuff.

Remember to visit the Quick Takes Queen!

7 Quick Takes (VI)

1. As it has been doing almost all summer, it has rained a lot this week. I had some painting to do, and now I can't get it done because of this cursed rain. I understand that much of the country's agriculture and livestock is suffering because of plants' general inability to grow in standing water without sun.
Working outdoors really makes you appreciate the weather more.

2. I have realized that I am a graduate who spends most of his time on the computer in his parents' basement. Even though this is temporary, the fact that this has come true is depressing.
Though I'll actually note that "most of my his time" is an exaggeration. I spend maybe an hour and a half a day, which is far better than some people.

3. I attended an area church this past Sunday. I think I will attend here regularly. This church (Anglican--not what I'm used to) mixes the more ceremonial vestments and altars and hand-washing with more up-beat Bethel-like (for Queen's students and alum) music. It is a small church. I will discuss more in time, because I think it is an interest environment/community, but need to know more before I gain any insights.

4. Let's see. You've read about my computer and such.
Oh! I used a pressure washer this past Tuesday. I was removing paint from the side of a historical building (per curator's orders, don't worry). Not that this is a hugely exciting task, but, you know, it's one more piece of equipment I can use.

5. That reminds me: I am now spending every morning working at Heritage Park (cleaning washrooms, doing garbages, watering flowers) before going to the Marine Park. This isn't for sure, but I might just have an interesting project at work at the end of September. It may have to do with on-line design, too. Which means the completed project will be link-able.
In fact, my work on this project (if it happens) will immediately follow the next entry...

6. I am going to go to Ontario for a visit in late September. Destinations: Oakville, Kingston, Windsor. I am getting excited (but it's still a bit away). This will also mark a cusp point in my work: before this, I am still mainly at the Marine Park, while after this, I will be beginning the afore-mentioned project.

7. I am still reading Book Three of The Faerie Queene, though I will soon move on to Book Four. I am now on Nehemiah in the OT, and dabbling occasionally into Prince Caspian. I am feeling like I want a new book.
And, incidentally, I think I traced a prototype of Gollum in Canto Ten of Book Three of the Faerie Queene. I'm dead serious. We know that Lewis and Tolkein read The FQ, and likely read it in depth. I think we can see an early precursor to Aslan in Book One. So I don't think it's a stretch that one particular character in Book Three was the ancestor of the ill-fated Smeagol. Of course, Tolkein expanded the relevance of the character and made him far more interesting, and made him fit into the schema of the work, but we've got the basic elements of a person, overwhelmed with jealousy, turning bestial and sub-human as he crawls into a damp cave, feeding on toads and frogs, forgetting his name, and always blindly watching.

Wow, that's an uncheerful note to end on. Oh, well!

Have a good one!

Marine Park Photos

I have included photos that will not "open" the Marine Park prematurely. These are more showcasing details than wholes. The moths invaded one day, and the swallows soon followed. The lady porn is the inside cover of a Viking historical romance I accessioned in the Miskanaw galley. I thought it was funny. The close-up of the moth was actually taken at Heritage Park. So sue me. I hope the rest explains itself. Much of this is in-process on the boats.

Hopefully these pictures don't come out too jumbled.

7 Quick Takes (V)

1. My brother's gone back to school.

2. As I said before, the dog is here. She's getting on in age, but she's still doing well. She was tired last week, but now she has much more energy and constantly craves attention (and treats).
Her back legs are stiff, though, so sometimes requires assistance when trying to stand up on the linoleum floor.

3. On Wednesday evening, I went to a staff (Heritage Park) potluck. I made a pasta: penne with two parts alfredo sauce and one part tomato sauce, mixed with fresh diced tomatoes, oregano, basil, and thyme, covered in grated cheddar and baked in the oven for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. The food that the others brought was quite good. There was a curry-base dish with chickpeas which I quite liked, numerous excellent desserts, perogies... I can't remember it all, but I quite enjoyed the food. I spent most of the time with Brett and Brody (sons of the receptionist and, interestingly enough, my brother's co-workers) and Ross and Ben (brothers of co-workers). These are pretty agreeable guys. I barely knew Ross and had never met the others, but I enjoyed it. I didn't really spend much time talking to the girls. They seem to have established cliques or social patterns which I do not fit into. That's fine, of course, and understandable. Most of them will be leaving in a few weeks.

4. I have received a number of old books, most of which I will not read. Josh (my coworker at the Marine Park) and I cleaned out an old trailer full of stuff, and in it was a box of books that were going to be thrown out. Books! Of course I had to rescue them. Most are your cliche fantasy types (at least half have "Dragon" in the title, and one has "Elf"). I don't think I'll keep a single book (they'll go to the Salvation Army or the used book store), but I will likely keep the Archie Digests. What a nostalgia trip, reading those. I'm going to write a post about them at some point. The social dynamics in them are fascinating.

5. We've been having trouble getting work done at the Marine Park. Guys from Ceda came to blast off the old paint and rust from the deck of one of the barges, using a high-pressure washer. This was on Wednesday. We were planning to paint the deck on Thursday, but that was a no-go. It was too rainy. So we worked at Heritage Park instead (during which the previous entry happened). Then today we were going to paint it, but in the morning we saw water standing on the deck and it was too damp when the supervisor made the call. Not half an hour after the supervisor left it warmed up enough, dried up enough, and the water evaporated. If it weren't for half an hour of rain after 1 o'clock, it would have been perfect painting weather. What do you know? I'll be painting Monday, I suppose.

6. Oh! I nearly forgot! My mother and I went to interPlay on Saturday. It was entertaining enough. We saw a performer in the little open-air theatre where the library used to be. He juggled impressively, at fire, that sort of thing. Good performer. Then we saw another busker on the street. He was an escape artist type, though he also swallowed a balloon and did a strange trick with his hands, where he bent them backwards oddly. It was hard to tell what he did. It was neat.

7. Today was my co-worker's last day. I'll be alone at work much of the time. It was good working with him. He kept me entertained. Jon, he'd remind you of Dave Griese, in that he says racist and sexist things all the time, and you're never sure if he means them or not. He drives some people nuts (quite intentionally), but I don't get offended easily. I'll enjoy the solitude for a while (I always enjoy solitude at first), but perhaps I'll start to get lonely in time.

That's seven. Go see the Quick Takes Queen. And while I'm making plugs, I encourage you to read PA's Automata series. The first page is here, and the second is here. The remainder you can get to by hitting "Next" from the second page.

7 Quick Takes (III)

1. We are in the midst of preparing for Heritage Day. By "we" here I mean my employers and I. Because of my place in the Park hierarchy, I manage to sidestep most of the drama (also called "hostility" by some) of the office girls. I run between them and the other guys who do the physical and maintenance stuff in the Park. That's not to say that there aren't things that irked me or that I thought might have prevented me from having to go in tomorrow (which I have to do), but overall it's fine. I am also less stressed about it this year than last year for a myriad of important reasons. Foremost of these is that I actually haven't been in the park all week, and I'm not the one on whom the responsibility lies.
As you can infer, I'm at the Heritage Park location and not at the Marine Park location, so I am getting to work with people other than the two I've mentioned before. I suppose I am getting to know them a little better.

2. My brother and I postponed seeing Harry Potter until tomorrow night. We both work tomorrow, but not Sunday (I better not be working Sunday), so tomorrow night makes more sense. I am excited, as I hear this is the best one yet. The trailers certainly look epic, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. The trailers always look better than the movie these days. Except for 300. I thought the movie was OK and the trailers awful. So that's the exception.

3. Speaking of 300 and of working at the Park, the forestry guys volunteering there make me look like an effeminate four-year old. I mean, these guys are built. This isn't something I usually worry too much about, but then I usually work in the summer, as opposed to paperwork. "Paperwork" is really something of a misnomer, as it doesn't seem to be actual work to me. (Apparantly, Pacific islanders have in the past thought that paperwork was a religious ritual, as it makes goods appear without any labour going into it.) So I'm getting soft. Not that I've ever been anything like these guys, real work or no.

4. I finished reading Many Waters by Madelaine L'Engle. I think it is my favourite of her books. That is not really fairly said, of course, as I have only read four in my life, and two recently. Still, I found this book quite enjoyable.
Oddly, however, it is filled with sexuality. No overt sexual scenes, but I still thought it was a bit overt for kids. Desire is dealt with frankly, and some characters are almost portrayed having sex (or portrayed as almost having sex, which is different). Also, everyone wore only loincloths. I just thought it odd for a kids' book. I thought The Amber Spyglass was shockingly implicit; I can think of why, compared to Many Waters. Regardless, the book has seraphim (which I've always found cool), takes place in Biblical times, and deals directly with complicated romantic relationships that include more than two people. There are also mammoths, unicorns, manticores, and griffins. And, for a fantasy, it is unique in being set in a single oasis community, and not traversing vast space (except for the first and last chapter, of course).
In sum, I liked it and suggest it to anyone who would read my blog. Eventually I will do a post of L'Engle's work.

5. On the topic of reading, I am struggling through 1 Chronicles. I do not want to say that any part of the Bible is boring, but gah! There are little gold flecks between the genealogies, of course. I found the name Hazzelelphoni, for instance, as well as such interesting things as how the priestly families guarded the tent (or tabernacle). It has also been helping somewhat as a refresher for the last several books; I've been ploughing through the OT to improve my "overhead view" of the history of Israel, making a cohesive story from Joshua to the prophets instead of a collection of episodes (which has been my usual interaction with the first Covenant). However, it's still hard to get even this from lists of names which are all very similar and often actually the same.

6. At Heritage Park we have a volunteer named Jens. He is from Germany, and has a degree in Industrial Engineering, with electives mainly in Electrical. Jens is a very friendly, funny guy, and is volunteering at the park until he gets a job as a way of staving off boredom. His English is quite good, though not perfect. He is quite tall and well-built, and has a gently teasing sense of humour. He's really a great guy, I think. Anyway, my co-workers have three times in the last day brought up the World Wars or Nazis casually in conversation around him. Maybe I'm just overly sensitive about this, but I thought it was generally polite not to mention anything like that around people from Germany. I knew guys in a history class who said that their German friends got uncomfortable if you mentioned Indiana Jones, so saying, "I felt like I was in the trenches in World War I," or (of some disobedient children), "At least they're not marching down the street yelling anti-Semetic slogans," seems like it might not be very polite.

7. I was accessioning drawers in the Miskanaw galley earlier this week, and I have no idea what half of these kitchen utensils are called. Some of these things I have used before and just never knew the name of (and often enough didn't realize I didn't know the name of), or didn't know the Nomenclature-ly official name of; other of these things I have frankly never seen.
Actually, to be fair I was inventorying most of these drawers and not properly accessioning them. It didn't make much difference, though, as far as naming them goes. Inventorying just winds up being less paperwork.

See the Quick Takes Queen.

7 Quick Takes (II)

1) I have either a cold or allergies. Maybe the lack of sleep has shot my immune system, meaning that my body cannot handle these allergens as well. Curse you, allergens!

2) I spent a lot of this week actually working. By this I mean painting, helping my supervisor with the bobcat & fork, hauling things, cleaning, etc. This coming week will also involve lots of real work, as we (the park) prepare for Heritage Day. I am sure I've mentioned Heritage Day before. Search for "festival" in my labels list, if you want more info. The point is, I am coming home dirty and sweaty more often than any other week this summer, and have gotten more of a tan than any other week this summer.

3) I think I have some workable story ideas, both for shorts and long-term... and this long term one might finally stick. My criterion are pretty much all covered, and I am actually interested in this project. Essentially, in writing this, I am rescuing a princess. That would be me, the author. Can you see how this is appealling.
(How is this possible, you ask? Maybe, one day, you'll know.)

4) Have I said this yet? The swallows have invaded the Marine Park. There are so many swallows. It's amazing. Have you heard swallowsong before? Or listened to it? They are vocal little creatures, with a number of interesting calls. Flying, they chirp, but when perched they give long, very watery chuckles and chirping/buzzing noises that sound vaguely like an alarm beep or a road duster scratch (speaking of which, those little brown grasshoppers I always think of as locusts but I think are more properly called road dusters are now out here in Fort Mac; they make me nostalgic). We are worried about bird droppings on our boats. The phony owls we put up are no good at all.

5) My brother made some excellent chicken tonight. My Dad had bought a lot of chicken breast some time ago. It is very good stuff. If you cook it for an hour from frozen, it comes out beautifully moist, cooked perfectly through, and tasting delicious. You don't even need to season it. When you're used to white meat being dry and flavourless, it's even better. That was the last breast, he cooked.

6) I have been reading Planet Narnia, a book of literary criticism that examines how C. S. Lewis used the nine Ptolemic planets as controlling but hidden symbols in the nine Narnia books. When I first encountered this idea on Wikipedia, I thought it was bunk from beginning to end (to paraphrase Polly in The Magician's Nephew). However, I am very nearly convinced of the Intentional Heresy, even; that is, that the nine planets are not only hidden in the books, but that Lewis meant to put them there. That they are hidden is part of the plan (the author of the book suggests that Lewis never meant them to be found, but only absorbed unconsciously). You'd have to read the book to get the whole argument; I can't exactly describe in a blurb what he argues in a full book, without making it seem silly. But I think the author does some very excellent work. And his work makes Lewis look like even more of a master at his craft, and his books as even more cohesive and wonderful.
If you are interested (or maybe even if you're not), I'll go into more detail about Ward's ideas of donegality in the Narnia books. I think donegality is my new favourite literary term, if not just plain new favourite word.

7) Today, after cashing my cheque (Woohoo!), I went and bought myself some oatmeal and raisin cookies from the little food vendor in the top of the River City Centre mall. I mentioned them before. These are seriously some of the best oatmeal cookies I have ever had--and if you knew how much I love oatmeal cookies, you'd understand the significance. I told the guy so as I bought them. I have taken to telling people when they provide good service. I did it the other day, too, when I found a place that sold pop for 22c less than any other place I've seen in town.

See the Quick Takes Queen.

7 Quick Takes (I)

Over at Conversion Diary, Jennifer Fulwiler does 7 Quick Takes on Fridays. I'm not promising I'll keep this up, but here's one for now (since stuff's happening).

1) We've moved. My Dad, brother, and I used to live in an apartment; now we live in a duplex a few blocks away. It means slightly earlier buses to get to work on time, but also less time to the grocery store (Safeway is literally across the street), less walking time coming home from the bus stop, and far fewer stairs. While the place still looks post-move (boxes, ad hoc furniture, disorder), it's getting more together as the days go by. There's still some stuff in the apartment, but not much: it looks more like some rooms with random stuff in the corners or boxes on the floor and not like somewhere someone has recently lived.
As you may know, in a few weeks time my mother and dog will be coming to join us out here.

2) I am getting to know a co-worker. By "a co-worker," I of course mean, "my only consistent co-worker." He is not someone I am used to socializing with. For instance, he is somewhat racist. This does not make him remotely out of place in Fort McMurray, nor does it make him out of place in the Maritime population of Fort McMurray. If you want to get on here, you just learn to deal with racism. It's not manifested in discrimination (that I've seen) so much as implicitly attributing a person's behaviour to their ethnicity/nationality. For instance, "That f**king Somalian just cut me off!" This is true of many people here. But back to my coworker. He also likes to talk a lot about music (about which I know too little to follow what he says) and events that take place in the bathroom (about which I have no interest whatsoever) and combat sports (about which I know too little to follow what he says) and movies and TV shows I haven't seen. However, we are on the same page when discussing animal behaviour, movies and TV shows I have seen, and (to some extent) theology. I'm not 100% on Calvinism or the difference between Calvinists and Armenians in the churches he attends, but I get the drift.
Virtually every workplace interaction is with the supervisor, who I don't find opens up much, except in anger (not at me, at people who aren't around), and with this co-worker. Whether I like him or not isn't something I've decided for myself, or even thought about. I don't think I can decide that in this circumstance. The case is simply that I'm getting to know him.

3) I am thinking that if I ever write something in the vein of the Narnia books, I want to include talking dinosaurs.

4) My father got my brother the movie Dragon Hunters for his birthday. It's made by a European studio, but is in English. Don't be surprised if you've never heard of it. Anyway, last night we watched this Dragon Hunters movie. I enjoyed it. The story is intriguing enough not to disappoint, but the true strength of the film is in its layout and environments. The character animation may have been a bit sub-par, but the backgrounds and the world concept were breath-taking. I think it was a solid movie, and I'd suggest you watch it--if you can find it.

5) While work is getting mind-numbing, I have increasingly found interest in the Nomenclaturcon. I have no idea why I am getting so fascinated by these lists of categorized objects. Perhaps it is a boredom-induced hypnosis. I want to write books where the title is the category and the chapters are all titled as objects from these lists. Ceremonial Artifact would be one novel, with chapter titles like "POLE, TOTEM" and "PYX" and "FONT, BAPTISMAL" and "BAG, TRICK-OR-TREAT." Protective and Regulative would have the chapters "BALLOT" and "NOOSE, HANGMAN'S" and "ALARM, SMOKE" and "BELT, CHASTITY" and "HANDCUFFS." I don't even want to think about Chemical Tools and Equipment. Half of those things sound like they come from an episode of Buck Rogers. Anyway, I feel vaguely like I'm in Gertrude Stein's worst nightmare: lists of objects she can't contort, but just stare with their naked, uninterpreted identities.

6) I had to dispose of some pornography today (speaking of naked identities). We found some on the boats, and I finally got around to asking the curator what I should do with it. On the one hand, there's the question of whether or not we should keep it or make it disappear. And if we do decide to keep it, there's the other hand, which is whether or not it's archives or artifact. If it counts as archives, then I send it off to a bunch of people who will be far more embarassed and offended by it than I will be. If it's an artifact, than I have to accession it. Well, I likely would never have to accession it. It's on the D250, in the cabins, and I may not ever get that far. But anyway, as we were discussing how I was to deal with assorted things I came across (post-it notes with tallies scribbled on them, cobbled-together operation manuals, etc.) I said to the curator, "I have a somewhat awkward question. What do I do with pornography?" Thankfully she didn't take that question out of context. She wasn't sure, so she promised to ask the executive director about that (I hadn't really wanted to ask the exec director or the archivists myself, as they're maybe more likely to be awkward about it than the curator would be).
Anyway, the word came down that I was to dispose of them. So that's done. It's just that it seems very weird to me. I had to handle pornography both in the variety store where I worked and at Roger's video, and it has never affected me. I have never responded with lust--at least not to these images--and it's getting to the point where I'm no longer disgusted or curious. It just seems very odd to me, that people desire looking at pornography. This likely makes me the odd one, though, at least among guys.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting question: what do we do with pornography, at a museum? We can't display it, so is there any point in keeping it? Unless it was locally produced or featured an article about a person who lived in the area, it would be an artifact, not archives, so it's not even like it would be available for future research purposes. But it is part of our society, and future history. What do we do? Apparently, we make it disappear. My co-worker was then prompted to ask what other parts of history just conveniently 'disappear' in the same way that this part did. Which means, actually, that I took part in white-washing history. Huh.

7) There was a fire down the road from where I work. There's this trailer park along the river which is a disaster area. It's Fort McMurray's third world. The place has been condemned for months, but the tenants threw up a fit and got their notice extended by a few more weeks, so they can find places to live. The problem is that no one in that trailer park can likely afford anything else, so they'll never find another place to live. But the municipality cannot allow this trailer park to remain--it's a hazard. The place is literally falling apart. Across the front of one trailer is graffiti'd "The end is near", and under that, "here." Every trailer has at least one pile of garbage leaning against it, and that pile consists entirely of pieces of the trailer it is up against. It's a mess.
Anyway, my coworker came up to the wheelhouse where I'm currently sequestered to tell me to look out the window and call 911 (his phone died). There was a huge plume of smoke coming up from the trailer park. So I called and was put on hold. Of course tons of other people were also calling about the fire.
And then, later in the day, as we were headed to Heritage Park for payroll stuff, another plume of smoke rose from roughly the same area. I have to wonder where it was from.

So that's my Quick 7. Not so quick after all, I suppose.

Adventures in Accessioning

"Good evening, Accessioner."

This play on the Joker's characteristic line has been running through my head lately. I am accessioning on the CCGS Miskanaw now, which was at first a relief... now I'm not so sure. It's a very slow process, so I'll be in the same room for a very long time. I am certainly worried now that I will not get the boat accessioned in time for the projected public opening of the Miskanaw.

So what is accessioning, I can here you not asking. Well, it's an alchemical process whereby I take any random piece of junk, soak it in a beaker of oils and paperwork, mutter some incantatory numbers, and watch the junk become an artifact.

Or, more accurately, I paint a stripe of clear nail polish on an object, paint a stripe of white-out on top of the nail polish, write a serial number on the white-out and cover that with more nail polish. I then do paperwork describing and categorizing the object that is now labelled. Voila, I have made an artifact. Maybe not alchemy, but it's more fun to think of it that way. Otherwise it's just paperwork.

Also, the Nomenclature book has gaps. For instance, I cannot find anything resembling "POWER BAR" or "BAR, POWER" in there. Does anyone happen to know if there is another name for this object? Also, I have tons of little pieces of paper tacked to a bulletin board which are all under the category DOCUMENTARY ARTIFACT but seem to be lacking an object term. This is somewhat frustrating.

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My adventures in the Lovecraftian universe are getting somewhat more interesting. I enjoyed "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Colour of Outer Space" quite a bit. In these cases, his tendency to be hyperbolic and speak of "unknowable" secrets which will drive a person mad are more appropriate. Necromancy, for instance, doesn't have the same mind-blowing effect of applied non-Euclidean geometry, I think. If you don't believe me, read "The Call of Cthulhu" (at least juxtaposed to "The Festival"). And either I'm getting used to the adjective-compulsion, or he's getting to be a better writer.

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Geez, that's about all I've got. What a dull day-to-day existence. Hmm, let's see. The dragonflies seem to be out. Oh! I got some more pictures of a tarsands beetle. They were quite good. I'll put them up on my bugs photo post.

Lewis, Samuel, and the Nomenclaturcon

"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very long important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began.
"In those days, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street, and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won't tell you how cheap and good they were, because it would only make your mouth water in vain. And in those days, there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer."

So begins The Magician's Nephew, which I have taken out from the Fort McMurray Public Library. In the same trip I returned The Silver Chair. There do not appear to be all of the Narnia books in the library; either that, or they are so popular that not all of them are ever in at the same time. Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle were also there. I have read Voyage most recently of all of them, and in fact own a copy, so I didn't take it out. I am also waiting to have read all of them before reading The Last Battle, as it is the ultimate work. I want to work through them all, though, before reading any of the critical literature offered in the library: there is are three books, including the atheistical one subtitled "The Skeptic's Guide to Narnia," as well as the somewhat dubious criticism of Planet Narnia. I intend to read them all, though.

Once I have depleted the library's resources on Lewis, I will see what they have for Lloyd Alexander.

Why?

Well, I want to write something marvellous, as you all know, but haven't the guidedness of Jon Wong, nor the--what, insistence?--of Cait's project. This is an issue, obviously. I do not lack ideas so much as I lack ideas which interest me for any period of time. What fascinates me most daunts me most in execution. Also, I lack the time here in Fort McMurray for sustained creative endeavours. I work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus an hour and a half to two hours travel time, as well as either cooking supper and washing dishes each night. I am also the primary grocery-shopper for the current household. Once you calculate in eating, sleeping, Bible readings, etc., I have very little time to write, and what time I do have is often lost because someone else is using the computer or I am simply too lethargic or restless after a day's work and evening's supper-prep to try. So even if I am enthused about writing something, I can't get involved in it enough to have a sort of sticking power. It dies in the infant stage.

Of course there are weekends, but I find these don't work well for writing either: I build up so much pressure to write on the weekends, but then don't have time to anyway because I have to wash the dishes from the night before and run errands and do laundry and buy groceries and cook supper, all on one day. Even if I have an hour or two throughout the day during which I could write something, I feel so much stress about having to write something and having to enjoy my day off in prep for a week's worth upcoming that I feel too wretched to get anything done anyway.

So instead of worrying about it, I'm going to read imaginative fiction that I enjoyed in the past but that I don't particularly desire to copy, like the Narnia books or the Taran books. I don't see how I'm going to get out of this trap that I'm in, but I must push on anyway.

Well, it's one of those weekends I spoke of just now. The dishes are mouldering in the kitchen, so I ought to go do them soon. And then I need to buy groceries for supper. I will start cooking supper at 5:00 or so. Say I am back from grocery shopping by 3:00. Provided that Nick doesn't come home, that will give me roughly two hours in which I do have time to write if I can drive myself to do so. Alright. That is a plan, perhaps. But 3:00 might be optimistic, and I know I'll be sore tempted to play a computer game instead of writing.

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I am currently reading from the Old Testament. That is an area I generally feel weak in, so I am giving it a quick run: roughly four chapters a day. I began in Joshua, and am now in 1 Samuel, having gone straight through Judges and Ruth.

One thing that strikes me about it (and my coworker Josh mentioned this as well) is how much of Judges could be made into a movie. Samuel also seems possible so far as well. The number of battles and speeches and political affairs is fascinating. The Bhagavad-Gita (a Hindu sacred text) has been made into Bollywood-style soap operas and is rerun daily in India; illiterate Hindus now have access to one of their texts through this medium, congregated daily in whichever village home has television access to watch their religious-cultural epic. The Old Testament (I man all of it, not just the Veggie Tales and time traveler "highlights") could also be adapted to such a model, it seems to me. Perhaps Biblical literacy would improve if this were done. It would be no adequate replacement for the textual version, of course, but it's something to think about.

I am having trouble in interpretation, though. I struggle to understand what I am supposed to get out of land divisions, for instance. I read them all, but I didn't really feel like I gained much insight. Also, it is difficult to not feel somewhat concerned by the massive genocides the Israelites committed. Wholesale slaughter tends to go against modern ethical norms: I frequently find myself asking (as I have before) how killing everyone in this village could be the will of God. I remind myself that complete understanding is impossible and that I oughtn't worry over it, but it still gnaws at me whenever I read these parts.
Anyway.

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I am going to accession in the boats at the Marine Park after all. I now have myself a nice new (well, OK, used) Nomenclature book, which I often call the Nomeclaturcon or the Gnomenclature book. It feels like one of those magical books in a LeGuin novel, which contains the true name of everything in the world.

In actuality, the book contains the name and category of every object the Nomenclature Committee though a curator was likely to come across. When you accession an item, you must choose a name and category from the book. This makes things consistent across museums, easing loans and allowing new curators to go through their precedent's files without confusion. What you see when you open the book, though, is simple a list of names of objects. Hence the LeGuin reference.

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Well, off to the dishes, I suppose.

Working in Fort McMurray: Episode Umpteen

G'day, Internet.

It is currently Wednesday, but it feels more like Thursday to me. This will inevitably end in disappointment. The reason it feels like Thursday is that I worked Sunday, helping at National Aboriginal Day. It was not a difficult day as far as working goes, but it means Monday felt like Tuesday and it all dominoed from there.

I have said that cleaning boats has given me time for thinking, though productive thought isn't a guarantee. It's more wandering around sort of thinking, producing weird, repetitive, and usually forgetable 'results.'

'Result' 1: A previous discussion on Cait's blog about past and future selves disagreeing over the quality of one's work made me think of plural selves among my friends. OK, I think about plural selves fairly often in my on-going questioning about the nature of identity and of multiplicity. Anyway, I remember way back in first year that we were talking about something and Jamie (some of you readers know Jamie; others won't) said that something I had said made her feel sort of like two people in one skull, an out-going Jamie and a reserved Jamie. According to her, her selves got along fine. I think I remember Cait saying that if she became two people, her selves wouldn't get along very well. This made me think about other people's selves interacting: two Roz would probably be very awkward together, and I can imagine two Kays sitting around talking about their emotional situations very--rationally is the wrong word, as is calmly--honestly. But I have a hard time imagining more than one of myself. Sometimes I can, but not often, and not often comfortably. I am somewhat attached to my singularity, even if I question it from time to time.

'Result' 2: I've given thought to literary theory. I'm trying to develop of school of criticism that combines formalist, reader-response, and authoral approaches. I am interested in the rigour and text-centricness of formalism, but cannot conceive of useful criticism which ignores a text's effect on the reader. How can you talk about a horror novel without discussing how the scariness of it influences the 'meaning' or ideology of it? How can you talk about a comedy if you ignore the humour? Formalism doesn't seem equipped to deal with these questions. No, scratch that. Formalism isn't equipped to deal with them. And I generally do not care one wit about authoral intent, but I do think it would be a worthy project to find a way to at least allow a critic to discuss the author, since some projects would be more useful/meaningful/relevant if you could bring the author in. Lots of people do anyway. Granted, the only examples I can think of at the moment are cranks, but, hey, there are likely legit ones. My professors, actually, come to think of it, often implied authoral intent as much as some of them were formalist. So finding a way to integrate that would be nice, but I refuse to do it if it doesn't seem honest to me. Anyway, I'm working on the epistemology/metaphysics of such an approach. I'll publish if I come up with anything insightful.

'Result' 3: I've been thinking about escapism. I have traditionally sat between two different factions on this one: those who prefer escapism--and sometimes think it fits outside of the reach of literary analysis, somehow--and those who think escapism is trash and I ought to be reading something more challenging (teachers and professors). I tend to think that the best escapism isn't really escapism at all, but teaches us things from within an awesome story. Cases in point would be Harry Potter (the value of courage, friendship, equality, honour, humility, and love) and The Chronicles of Narnia (too many lessons to go into, but at least one per book). This is what I would like to write.
But anyway, I re-read a post I wrote a while back about Domino, and that brought me to thinking about escapism which represents an act of escape. Consider Narnia: in many cases, the children are escaping an uncomfortable situation in a boring and morally oppressive environment to enter their adventures in Narnia. This exactly figures the reader (if approaching the story as escapism), in which they escape from their own messy and often frustratingly boring lives into the adventures of Narnia. Or a young boy is told that he is a wizard and taken from the normal world into a magical one. Or a woman is taken from dull lonely routine into an exciting intrigue with a mysterious stranger who makes her feel sexy (I imagine this is how romances go, but have no idea, so let me know if I'm off). Or an average citizen accidentally gets involved in an international security threat/is compelled to hunt down a cunning serial killer/must face a supernatural horror. Either way, the character moves from the dull to the exciting, recreating exactly the same journey as the reader. This is something I may want to explore more.

'Result' 4: I have given a little thought to the nature of artifacts. When does an object become an artifact? When the museum owns it, or when the paperwork known as 'accessioning' is completed? How do we treat these objects at the different points in their existence? It's like a rite of passage, only not for a person. There's liminal space. It's vaguely interesting to think about while working in a museum, and has some practical application in my interaction with these objects, but likely is of little interest to you readers. Also, this sort of thinking has likely already been done by people in Museum Studies programs.

Anyway, these are a sampling of my thoughts. Other than plot lines and character sketches (which are not going up here), they are maybe the most interesting for you to read about. Re-hashing arguments against Dawkins' claims isn't exactly exciting. If you really want to read those, I might as well direct you to the original posts, linked on the sidebar. I can't even remember what else I thought about.

I did, however, see some interesting things. For instance, assorted homeless people, who were predominantly Native, were dancing behind Rona. Later, they got in a bit of a shoving match and started swearing at each other. I could hear it from inside the engine room of the CCGS Miskanaw. Oh, I'm done the engine room now and have gone through some cabins. I'll be done with the Miskanaw tomorrow, at least for the time being. Also, according to the care taker, the dog Max hates Native people. I don't know what to make of this claim.

That is truly all for now.

Heat and Tardiness

Well, it's hotter than cakes that sell quickly up here. Oh, man. The Albertan summer has arrived.

Today was a pretty good day. I was pleased at work. I'm not sure why, though. I can't be glad to be back at work--can I?

Anyway, I have a funny-looking hat now. It's a Penman. I think that's the brand. Is that a brand? Anyway, I'm sure I look like a n00b when I wear it, but that's better than getting my Dumbo ears burnt. I also wore my sunglasses and smeared myself with suntan lotion. I was working on those white decks all day, and the glare off that paint is something else.

Oh, and I finally climbed up to the very top of the Fort McMurray (that's a boat). The last ladder was freaky. It's WAY up there and designed poorly--there isn't much room for your knees when you climb it. But I did it, acrophobia and all. We needed to mount a phony owl up there to scare off the swallows.

After work I picked up my paycheque and deposited it at the bank, and then had to hang around the bus depot for an hour because an accident in Thickwood blocked up the bridge (again) and the buses were running very late. I got home an hour and a half later than usual. It's 8:30 and we're starting supper.

And that's my day. No epiphanies, sorry. I have writer's block, though. I need more time to just write through it. Oh, well.

Ruminations Aboard a Ship

or, I'm on a Boat

Actually, the first thing has nothing about shipboard ruminations. It has more to do with the ridiculously loud engine-roaring going on outside the apartment. Some guys compensate with the size of their vehicles, others with the noise.

Anyway, shipboard ruminations.

I have spent a lot of time thinking on these boats. Well, I'm all alone, right? I'm doing very repetitious tasks. So I get fairly contemplative and quite insignificant events become more memorable. For instance, one of the cool things I had to tell my Dad and brother after work is that a raven was punctuating the swallowsong with low croaks, and I told him it wasn't quite harmonic. Oh, and the clouds were very awesome looking today. There were all sorts of layers and colours and textures and such. Alberta skies do tend to be much more spectacular than Ontario cloudscapes. I'm not sure why--maybe the altitude? Anyway, these were noteworthy events...

Actually, yesterday I had a real event happen. I managed to lock the keys to most of the park in the Miskanaw's wheelhouse. Two hours of nonsense ensued, involving trying to hop a chain-link fence and run-arounds with the people down at Roger's AT&T, trying to get my cellphone to work. Bah.

OK, there was an actual rant or something I had in mind on these boats. What was it? I think I'm going nuts, here. Tomorrow I will get to work with people again. We'll see how I handle the change; though it can be awfully monotonous, there are real benefits to working at a sight all by yourself, such as not worrying about being in other people's ways.

Geez, it's not coming to me. I had really wanted it to. I thought a lot, as I always do, about the role religion has in society and what opponents of religious practices have to say about it, and what it is they don't understand that allows them to think these things. I thought about the open-mindedness thing Jon was talking about.

Oh, wait. That just triggered something. I was going to have a paragraph responding to what Jon would likely think about whatever I had in mind to write about. Huh. What was it? This is ridiculous.

Well, if it occurs to me, I'll get on writing it. Maybe I'll jot something down quick if I think of it away from a computer.

The Marine Park

I am now working at the Fort McMurray Marine Park.

If you're in Fort Mac, don't bother looking for it. It's not open to the public yet. Oh, you can see through the chain-link fence, but you can't go in. (It's behind the Rona if you really want to know.) I'm cleaning the boats up to prepare it for a few private tours.

The Marine Park is owned by the Fort McMurray Historical Society, which also owns Heritage Park, where I worked previously. Yet again I am an Assistant Curator, and yet again I've been given an utterly different job.

Right now I am try to clean up the decks. They've got drifts of grit on them from the sandblasting that took place last summer. I need to sweep the grit up into garbage bags and throw them in the dumpster. I can't vacuum because there's too much of it; the bags would fill too quickly and the motor would burn out, because the stuff is coarse. However, it's been raining, and the grit is now all water-logged. I can only clean out that which is dry, so it's been tough going. All this morning I've had to do indoor work, so I vacuumed a lot of the navigation booth and captain's quarters of the Miskanaw. It took me an hour to get set up for that, though, as I had to drag the vacuum cleaner up narrow staircases and had to carry it around scaffolding. By the latter I mean that there is a thin walkway between a set of scaffolding and the railing along the edge of the boat. To get through it normally you need to turn and walk sideways through it. I had to hold the vacuum cleaner up and over the railing and shuffle sideways across. About halfway the lid came off the vacuum and the bottom fell down the side of the boat. The hose is attached to the bottom of it and since I had the hose wrapped around my arm and held between my torso and the railing, the bottom of the cleaner was hanging against the side of the boat by the hose. I had to get the lid somewhere so it would fall (without letting go of the hose) and then haul the bottom back up without accidentally pulling the hose out of the vacuum itself. That was a monster. And then I had to run my numerous supplies back and forth between the galley of one boat (the 250 Dredge) to the navigation booth of the Miskanaw, which involves scaffolds and ladders on both ends. However, working in some of these rooms and on the decks are cool. It a little tiny bit like I'm working on real operational boats at sea, what with river next to the boats. Also, looking at the wheel and dials and stuff is fun.

It can get a bit lonely working there. Every so often I interact with someone, and I do alone pretty well, but the time can drag. On the one hand I enjoy it a lot when I do get to talk to somebody; on the other hand I usually freak out whenever I think I hear someone coming. I think it's because I'm so used to working there alone that the very idea of someone else being on the boat is terrifying. It's like when you think you're alone in a room and then suddenly someone comes out from behind the couch or something. It's not that they shouted "Boo!," but that no one should be there. It's uncanny.

There are lots of swallows there, and a dog named Max. Max is big, and he's not 100% comfortable with me being there yet. In time I hope he will be.

I think that should be all for now.