December 18, 2005

• Hi all

  Many little largely-unconnected nuggets of information flaoting around
  in my life, asking to be shared here. Not sure exactly where to start.
  And despite my ardent desire to move back toward more literary,
  thoughtful posts, I think this one will once again be a muddled
  diary-type thing. Oh well. On my list of failures, that's pretty minor
  

  So many things to say, all of differeng levels of significance. I guess
  I'll start with the weightiest, and then get fluffier. And I'll use the
  image-hosting capabilities of my Lifetime Premium which I got for my
  birthday back in Septmeber but haven't really taken full advantage of.

  Okay, first up is my father's
  grave marker (click picture to enlarge). If you remember, he passed away back in August. We wanted
  a grave marker that would suit him more than the standard polished
  granite thingy. We thought that a peridotite boulder would be really
  amazing. Peridotite is a rare mineral found in only a few places in the
  wold, including the Tablelands
  in Gros Morne National Park. We spent many wonderful hikes there over
  the years, and the family house is full of many bits of peridotite and
  serpentine (not, I should add, from the national park, but from public
  land further down the mountain chain). My wife did a huge amount of
  legwork and managed to find a local artisan who had a suitable boulder
  and would cut a face off for us. We then designed a brass plaque to be
  attached to the face, and had it mounted on a granite base. It took a
  great deal of time and effort, going back and forth with sketches and
  things, doing painstaking graphic editing,  but the result is stunning. It was recently installed at the
  cemetary. I don't know when we'll be able to see it in person, but
  knowing that it's there is a real step forward. How I miss my father...

  

  Okay. On to brighter things. I have a new toy. For years, I've been an
  avid audio recording enthusiast. In addition to multitrack recordings
  of my music, I enjoy carrying a recorder with me to capture ideas and
  act as a sort of diary. Unfortunately, my recorder crapped out on me
  about 2 years ago and I've been without ever since. I've now remedied
  that problem with the purchase of a shiny new Sony MZ-RH910. It's a
  hi-MD recorder, capable of uncompressed 16-bit recording as well as a
  variety of compressed formats, and the recordings can be uploaded
  directly to the computer for editing and whatnot. It's very cute, and
  hopefully will give me many years of service.

  

  Next, work. The end of November quietly made this job officially the
  longest-lasting of my life. In university, I worked every summer for
  the same theatre company, but this is different. This is a regular job,
  union and all. Too regular, in fact, but oh well. I've been here over a
  year now, and unfortunately things continue to degenerate in terms of
  my morale. Some of the new policies and stuff are just ridiculous, and
  I spend many of my days in a foul mood. I had planned to stay with this
  until my wife finishes school in a year-and-a-half, but now I'm really
  not sure if I can last that long. Problem is that I don't want to
  switch out of this job into another manual labour job. When I switch, I
  want it to be part of my moving on into a proper job and a proper life.
  I had hoped to have some pictures for you, but the camera's been acting
  up so it'll have to wait.

  In musical news, although I haven't made much songwriting progress
  lately, I did have a paying gig the other day for the first time in far
  too long. It was a short solo guitar performance at a private function,
  and I had fun. It's nice to be able to use my talents in a professional
  setting again. Hopefully it's the beginning of a trend. I'm not looking
  to earn a living at it right now, but I really would like to be out
  there more. Playing for fun is one thing, but playing as a pro is a
  whole different beast. And it's not the money that I'm after. It's just
  something about the distinction between the two... I also recently
  finished translating one of our songs (3 Bears) into French, and a
  recording of it was used as part of a series of cultural workshops at a
  French-language school in northern Labrador. Our material has been used
  in schools before, as part of an anti-violence curriculum, and I think
  that's great.

  My wife's birthday is coming up in a couple of days, on the 20th. We're
  not going to do our traditional fancy-dinner-out thing, since finances
  are still a bit strained, but I do have a lovely gift for her which I'm
  really hoping she'll like. Still have to pick up some nive paper and
  stuff to wrap it up. She's the one with the gift wrapping talent,
  unfortunately, so she's going to have to make do yet again with my
  sub-par attempts. But oh well. After 10 years of giving me the
  it's-the-thought-that-counts benefit of the doubt, I guess I can get
  away with another one as long as I try my best.

  Been getting back in touch with some old friends over the past few
  months. Got together with Dave when I was back in Newfoundland, and had
  a great chat. Also went and visited one of my favourite professors,
  Arif Hasnain, and spent a nice afternoon there. More recently, I've
  electronically reached out to my old buddy DJ, who's currently teaching
  English in Korea and having a blast, and to my pal Amelia, who's still
  in Halifax working away at her 4th album. It's really nice to reconnect
  with people, and hopefully I'll slowly start expanding my net to reel
  in a few others.

  Finally, if you have some prayers and kind wishes to spare, send some the way of Eileen,
  a favourite Xangan of mine who is currently undergoing some pretty
  radical and experimental surgery to combat her cancer. She has to spend
  Christmas in isolation, and I'm sure she'd appreciate the support.

  Okay, that's another long-winded missive ready for consumption. Another
  goal of mine is to start posting smaller chunks more frequently, rather
  than these occasional and forbidding brain-dumps. But then again, I've
  also always wanted to be able to fly...

  Take care
  -J-

  • 10:49 pm
  • 10 Comments