January 11, 2004

• Hi

  
  

  Well, another week-and-a-half has gone by and 2004 is well underway. I was back at work this week, which was a relief. I even got a bonus on Friday, which was certainly appreciated. Even with our currently much-reduced bills, it's still challenging to get the money trickling in to balance with the money flowing out. Hope you all had a great New Year's.

  
  

  Let's see. What's been going on in my world? Well, today we visited some of my wife's family -- aunts and an uncle and some cousins with very cute twin baby boys. The twins (Aiden and Elias) were born just before we went to Korea, so they're about 15 months old. This was the first time we'd gotten to meet them, and the first time we'd seen their parents in even longer. It was a nice, relaxed sort of gathering, despite the fact that the central concept was breakfast. Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely breakfast, but I'm definitely not a morning person, especially when it means going out when it's -25C and driving for half an hour in the unheated car. The twins are just great -- very good-natured and pleasant and quick to smile as they toddled around.

  
  

  Also today, we finally acquired a new piece of computer hardware we'd been wanting. My wife got some money for her birthday back in December, to buy a scanner. The model we decided on (Canon LiDE20) then proceded to go out of stock quite spectacularly. Well, I finally located one at the Future Shop in Brantford, where we went for the family breakfast. However, after 3 weeks of looking, we in fact decided to buy something else . There was a sale that ended yesterday, which featured a printer/scanner/copier which looked good. But we missed it, only finding out an hour before closing. But the store we visited today had fogotten to take down the sale sign, so they honoured the sale price. So we're now the owners of a Hewlett Packard psc1210. It took way too long to install, since it turns out the supplied drivers wouldn't work since our edition of Windows XP is in Korean. So I had to go online and download the massive (180MB) driver in Korean. That took about 5 hours, but now it's all up and running and so far I'm really pleased.

  
  

  I don't think I've yet mentioned one of the best things in my life right now -- every second Sunday there's a sort of structured jam session that I attend. A dozen or more folk afficionados gather together, and we go around the circle with everyone also free to join in. It's just great, since the skill level is extremely high and the people are very warm. The range of instruments is also quite varied, including multiple variations on the guitar plus mandolin, fiddle, accordion, tin whistles, cuarto, lute, stand-up bass... and the list goes on. It's probaby the single most anticipated event in my life these days. No 'probably' about it, actually. I've been contibuting various traditional and more contemporary things, both instrumental and with vocals, plus some Ticklish Brother material and some of my recent songs. Last week didn't go ahead, so I'm hoping that we'll be convening tomorrow. Three hours of musical bliss.

  
  

  Anyhow, another form of bliss I've been depriving myself of is ordinary, basic old sleep. I think I'd better go to bed now, and play catch-up for this past week. In fact, I even napped a few times at work this week, when I had done everything I had been assigned yet had to wait for ages for my boss to get back.... Anyhow, I hope you're all well and happy, and that you're being spared the rather chilly (currently -28C) temperatures we're getting here.

  
  

  Take care
  -J-

  • 2:06 am
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