Sparky's_and_Sandy's

Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man... who even now fight to survive

I was all of 11 when ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (BSG) premiered on television in 1978. I was, at that time, an avid Star Trek watcher (the term ‘Trekkie’ was unknown to me at that time, but I was, and probably always will be, a Trekkie—not hard-core to be sure, but a Trekkie nonetheless).

Anyway, I was just a kid when BSG was on the telly, and I loved it! I thought it was a great show, with neat looking ships and actors that were fun to watch. Of course, Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) was the one that I most wanted to emulate, but that’s neither here nor there. Seeing Lorne Greene as well on the telly, since we did watch Bonanza when we were younger, was also fun.

Jump 25 years-ish to today.

They (they, being some studio types) decided to do a ‘retelling’ of BSG. Not a continuation, as Richard Hatch (Apollo from the original) has been trying to get done since the cancellation of the original back in 1980, but a retelling—basically starting over.

But they really didn’t—the new BSG basically takes place 40 years after ‘a’ human/cylon war. Cylons are now, in the new BSG, the machine product of human invention, and have ‘evolved’ to the point where they think they are superior to humans and are now on this rampage to kill all of humanity. Thrown into the mix is that during the 40 year armistice, the Cylons have made themselves into the exact image of humans (taking the ‘Genesis’ story—God making humanity in his image—the Cylons making themselves in the image of humanity—kinda a neat little twist, actually).

So here we have the base story in both the ‘old’ and the ‘retelling’ new version of BSG—Cylons wiping out the majority of the human race, the Battlestar Galactica leading ‘a rag-tag fugitive fleet’ on a quest for Earth, and the remenants of humanity being pursued by the Cylons.

The thing is I was a real big fan of the original, and, contrary to most original fans, I’m also a huge fan of the ‘retelling’ version. I find it refreshing to watch a show that is familiar, but yet so different.

As well, with the cancellation of Firefly (FOX--seriously, what were you thinking?), the scarcity of great Sci-Fi is deplorable. Star Trek: Enterprise is okay as far as Star Trek franchises go, but what else is there?

For me, knowing that Richard Hatch has now signed off on the ‘retelling’ version, as well as actually appearing on the new BSG, speaks volumes—here’s a man who worked harder than anyone to continue the franchise, and he guest stars on the new one. That’s good enough for me.

I hope that the new BSG is successful—I know I’ll be waiting for and watching every new episode with almost the same enthusiasm that I had when I watched the original those many years ago.

K, I really like old theme songs from shows

This is one of my favourites--

- - -

Far beyond the world I've known,

Far beyond my time.

What am I, Who am I, What will I be?

Where am I going and What will I see?

Searching my mind for some truth to reveal,

What thoughts are fantasy and what memories real?

Long before this life of mine,

Long before this time.

What was there?

Who cared, to make it begin?

Is it forever or will it all end?

Searching my past for the things that I've seen.

Is it my life or just something I've dreamed?

Far beyond this world I've known,

Far beyond my time.

What kind of world am I going to find?

Will it be real or just all in my mind?

What am I, Who am I, What will I be?

Where am I going and what will I see?

- - -

It isn't 'The Greatest American Hero', but it's not so bad...

First blog taken from the old Winona Press (in all its glory)

Good morning Winona. Welcome to this edition of The Winona Press. I. Of course, am writing this. Why, you may ask? Well, my contributions this month were pretty slim. More than last month, but slim nonetheless.

Is it such a difficult concept to grasp that this is a monthly paper and, as such, it’s published monthly? So September’s edition would be published when? April? I think not! So if articles are to be submitted for September’s edition, they should be in when? April? Again, I think not.

I am an understanding kind of guy. I see that you have a busy schedule. But I’m not asking for an epic like “War and Peace” or a cult classic like “The LEGO Wars Saga”. You don’t have to try to measure up to these, and other, great works of the masters. All I need are a few lines jotted down.

You’re too busy with such important things such as:

1. Cleaning your toenails (when was the last time you did that?)

2. Reading stupid articles

3. Watching Star Trek

4. Watching paint dry (which is akin to watching Star Trek)

All these things are important and they take up a lot of your time. Butjust, maybe, on a coffee break, or while you’re at Timmy’s, write down something. Can’t be too hard.

Speaking of poems from grade 2, since we were, indeed, speaking of them… Lessee if I can remember… ahhh, hmmmm…. Right, here goes:

Seals are nice

They live under ice

They have fins

Covered in skins

Theirfavourite dish

Is eating fish

Ewww! Whatta poem! For those of you who don’t have Dolby and are now in your bak yards blown out by that…

Roll Camera!

Take off ‘roll camera’!

I always wanted to say that!

There’s no camera here, hosehead!

Oh yeah—roll tape!

That’s better.

Speed.

Tangents, what a fascinating concept. Hey wait! That was a tangent on a tangent! Wow, a co-tangent!

Anyway, I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again—I want articles! Submitted preferably before the month is over, and I would like to get the Press out in the first week of the month, not the last.

For those of you who slugged your way through all that, I want to say, “Hi!”. Hi! How’s it going, eh?

Tangent. What is it? Why is it? How is it? Where is it? When is it? And most importantly, who is it? These, and many other questions, will be answered on the next episode of ‘Soap’!

A tangent, according to mathematics, that sometimes used, often quaint, and thoroughly antiquated science, defines Tangent as, and I quote, “A linear line (well, what else would a line be if it wasn’t linear!) that touches, but does not cross over, a curve or hyperbola, such that the resultant angles between the line and the curve are equal”.

Totally obsolete. Thus a new science has to be invented or derived from the old ones. We could look to Bistromatics but on giving this science a more throrough looking at, we would deduce that all people interested in this rarely used form of Mathematics are a) slightly obsessed with fijords and b) overweight.

Therefore, deducing that no brand of current science can adequately encompass this new theory of tangents, one has to come up with a totally new and radical brand of science.

Welcome to…

Winona PressOmatics

(which will complement and enhance physics, biochemistry, nuclear fusion geothermal radical techtonicology and toe-nail clipping)

PressOmatics is a brand new form of science derived from that internationally renowned paper (and becoming more international as we speak), the Winona Press.

Regular followers of The Press can deduce that people of the Press don’t quite follow the same rules of life that everyone else does. Why? This is why PressOmatics came in. To explain, at least partially, why these people are different than the rest of the known universe.

PressOmatically speaking, the tangent is a small, but significant part of this new and beautiful science.

The Tangent

PressOmaticnessism at its best

A tangent, in PressOmaticology, is defined as, and I quote, “That which tends to go off on an irrelevant topic of conversation than that of the previous, or main, topic of conversation.”

So if I were all of a sudden start talking about plucking my eyebrows right now, that would be deemed as a tangent because the previous topic at hand was tangents. This was initially called a tangent squared, but a tangent squared didn’t seem to fit.

Now if you go on a tangent from a tangent, this is called a co-tangent, and further, if you come back to the first tangent before you come back to the main topic of conversation, it’s called an inverse co-tangent.

Then there’s the tangent that becomes the main topic at hand, known as the hyperbolic tangent.

Continuting, if one is off on a hyperbolic tangent and then brings up the previous main topic (the one before the hyperbolic tangent) through a tangent, this is known as an inverse hyperbolic tangent, and if, continuing with this line of reasoning, we were to go on a tangent from the inverse hyperbolic tangent, we would have… Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Right! An inverse hyperbolic co-tangent!

(when you read through this again, it might make sense. Then again, it may not)

Continued later, when we get to the good bit about using tangents—and it may or may not have Marvin in it.

As Woodstock used to type--written, but not read.

But I liked it so I'm putting it here instead...

There was one time I was stuck driving around with the boss and his family in his car. Not willing to upset anyone, I took the back seat and sat with boss and wife's 3 year old daughter.

Little daughter and I started chatting and during the conversation--

"Wanna see what I drew for gramma?" she asked

Hey, humour the kid, maybe score points with the boss (hey boss, if you're reading this, ignore this bit)--"Absolutely!"

She opens the envelope and pulls out a folded sheet of paper. She unfolds the paper and there in the middle, a hand drawn square. This square was separated into various pie shaped triangles and each triangle was filled in with various colours.

I actually liked it and let her know.

She folded the piece of paper and held it up--"It's gone!"

"Wow! How did you do that?" I acted astonished.

She proceeds to unfold the paper--"See, it's back!!"

I acted incredulous--"That's amazing!"

This went on for some time. Her folding and unfolding the paper, surprising me each time with the discovery of the drawing for gramma.

Then she sat back in her child seat, stared out the car window out at the bright blue sky and looked contemplative. Suddenly she held the folded piece of paper up to the glass.

"Look!" she exclaimed, "You can see it!"

I was watching her hold the paper to the window and, sure enough, the light made the paper transparent and you could see the picture inside.

Wanting to pursue this, I asked, "How did that happen?"

She responded, "The Sun!" with obvious 3 year old glee.

Taken slightly aback at the insight of little daughter, I asked, "How does the sun do that?"

She looked me straight in the eyes and with a serious expression, as if conveying that I should already know this part, "The sun's magic!"

I thought the sun being magic was as good as explanation as anything, and getting into densities of paper and watts of light, etc, wouldn't be appropriate, considering the audience, so I said to her, "You're right!" and we giggled and had fun holding the paper up to the window and pulling it away, making the drawing appear and disappear for the remainder of the trip, probably much to the annoyance of the two adults up front.

I got home that night and thought about that conversation--The way in which a 3 year old conveys the seriousness of her knowledge, as if it's an immovable tenant of life--"The sun's magic!"

I thought about that when I was off flying my kite the other week, watching the kite dance in front of the sun and looking at the kite's shadow scurry over the ground all around me.

I thought about that when I was diving on the weekend--looking up thru 20 feet of water, seeing the sun beams filter all the way down to me at the bottom of the river.

I thought about that last night when I watched the sunset thru the trees in my back yard, just appreciating God's great creation.

This leads me to one incontrovertible truth--The sun is magic.

Perhaps we should listen to 3 year olds more often.

If you want an epic to rival 'The Odyssey'

Then my Dodge Dakota saga is for you!

Go have a perusal at this page (there's pictures!) to see what I'm talking about.

As of today, as far as I know, the truck is still legal, but the MTO has a tendancy to mark vehicles as 'unfit' without notifying the owner of said vehicle, at least in my case.

Anyway, thought I'd start a blog regarding my ride for no real reason...

Hate to dwell on this topic...

But giving a 'heads up' to all you script kiddies and l33t h4x0rs--you're IPs are logged and I've started e-mailing your ISP's.

So there you are.

I mean, for me, this is the fun part--I tweaked Apache to generate a separate log file for hacking attempts, and now that this is being generated, I peruse it sporadically, taking note of all hacking attempts (actually less now then a few days ago, but eh...) and e-mailing the administrator(s) at the service provider. What happens after that is entirely up to them.

Little Sparky's Space will continue to chug away, and this is just added fun.

On a tangent, I learned more about configuring Apache during this one week than over the previous years of usage. Hats off to learning!

The preceeding tangent was brought to you by the letters '_vti_bin' and 'scripts', and by the number '301'.

Beethoven to Vivaldi

(though mostly about Beethoven...)

I spoke the other day about my appreciation of the musical group Supertramp.

Well, my musical tastes are not limited to the ‘classic rock’ genre. Rather, I like to keep my musical appreciation unlimited across the spectrum.

So today I talk about my classical appreciation (for no real reason other than I need a blog article on a Tuesday).

I went to my first symphony in grade 7. It was at Hamilton Place and it was a reward for being a lieutenant on the Safety Patrol. Eh, worse things could have been given as a reward.

So here I am, sitting in Hamilton Place, watching about 50+ musicians, holding various musical instruments, tuning, plucking, blowing… whatever… making sure they were ready.

I wasn’t ready, this I remember.

It’s one thing to hear classical music on the radio—it’s quite another to actually see it on the stage. I mean, a little quartet is a beautiful thing, but when you get 50 people, playing all these differing musical instruments, and yet all in harmony—well, that’s quite a bit different.

So I was pretty much blown away. I can’t remember what they played, for my classical musical appreciation really started that day, but it was probably a Beethoven. I think this is true for I’ve always appreciated Beethoven more than any other composer.

Some might state that Mozart was the best, and I wouldn’t fault that opinion--Mozart was very gifted and had a natural talent. I find that, for myself, I appreciate those that have to work at things more than those that have a natural talent. It’s the struggle to succeed that I am most appreciative of.

Not to say that Beethoven didn’t have talent. It’s quite apparent that he did.

And those stories about him losing his hearing. If that doesn’t get you in the gut, well, you just ain’t living. I’ve heard the story many times—how ‘they’ were humourhing him when they asked him to compose the 9th symphony—“He’s deaf—it’ll be crap! But he did great works in the past so we’ll just let him do another…”

I would have loved to be there. In ‘Mr. Holland’s Opus’, Richard Dreyfuss’ character goes into a little exposition about it—how Beethoven, completely deaf and eyes closed, was conducting the orchestra—them trying desperately to keep up with him, as his music was playing in his head…

That one scene makes my eyes misty--even now, just thinking about it.

Anyway, I do listen to the local classical radio station on the way home from work. It soothes the nerves.

One day I may tell you about a little drive I went on with my good friend Marie, and Bach’s ‘Tocca and Fugue’ was playing. Now there’s a story for ya…

The world…

Is a vast and wonderful place. The good news is that we’re living in the 21st century which makes it somewhat easier to get around, as opposed to folks living in the 18th century. Most folks back then were born, lived and passed away in the same village. Now, not so much.

But that’s a tangent.

What I came to talk to you about today is what I believe is the one of the neatest little things ever. I mean, it’s a little thing, but I’m quite suitably impressed.

Go look at this page—

January Sparky’s Space Stats and scroll down to the very bottom—where it lists the countries that have visited my site.

Seriously, wow! Slovania! Iran! Saudi Arabia! And a place I’ve never even heard of—Niue!! Now I have to find an atlas!

It’s like the opening scene in ‘Contact’ when she has that map of America with all the pins of people she’s talked to via the short wave.

To me, that’s extremely cool! I mean, Sparky’s Space doesn’t generate alotta traffic (unless you’re looking for Elin pictures) and the idea that someone in Romania has actually stumbled across my little web site is just a little cool!

I’m such a geek.

‘If Mohammad can’t come to the mountain, then the mountain’ll come to Mohammad.’

Hello World!

Love Sparky.

Fools Overture

was playing on the radio when I started my truck this morning. Through the years I've found it difficult to actually pick my favourite song from this group. As my freinds well know, Supertramp is by far my favourite 'rock' group, but as to which song...

Hmmm...

I once stated that 'Take the Long Way Home' was numero uno, 'cause it's just such a fun little song--almost any song that has an harmonica as a major instrument gets my vote.

But that then leads us to 'School', from their 1974 album, 'Crime of the Century'.

When we're led to COTC, well, the song 'Crime of the Century' springs out as what could be their best.

Then there was some dark days in my past and I couldn't stop listening to 'Hide In Your Shell'...

'Wait!' says the general audience, 'These songs are all 'Breakfast in America' and older! What about some of their newer stuff?'

Well, I really did like 'Brother Where You Bound?', but wouldn't put it at number 1, ever.

In the end, even though I have many favourites, if I had to choose, it would be 'Crime of the Century'. I really love the piano...

As a tangent--'Fools Overture' weighs in at just over 10 minutes in length. Not too many songs done by the groups of today get that long. 'Brother Where You Bound' is something like 15+ minutes long. I appreciate the 'rock epic'--there's 'Meddle' by Pink Floyd, coming in at a whopping 22 minutes. I'd have to say my favourite one, though, is done by Reginald Dwight (a.k.a. Sir Elton John)--'Funeral for a Friend'. At just over 11 minutes, it's a really interesting piece of music. I can't define why I like that song so much--it's my favourite Elton song by far, but I don't know why. 'Levon' also ranks up there, but that's neither here nor there.

The word Music derives from the word 'Muse'. That's an interesting topic, but maybe I'll save it for another time.

You'd think there's nothing better to do on a Tuesday

then download pictures of Elin Grindemyr. But nope--over 1 gig of information in a matter of hours off my little website, most from the Elin pages.

Well that brought my little Apache webserver to its knees. Took me a while to track it down, but after looking thru log files and the like, I saw that Elin pics were just being ripped off my website, hundreds--nay, thousands per minute!

Seriously, go look at the graph on the Stats page (stats page)--look at the 18th of January--check out the big spike!

I was shocked! Shocked, I say, to find out that there's gambling in this here establishment!

So whatever site posted me, hey, thanks for the hits, but no thanks--I took the Elin pages off-line. My little webserver can't handle the traffic and I don't want the headaches--there's more to my little website than that pretty face.

I appreciate Elin, and I hope she has a safe, fun, and good life, but I'm done.

Unless, of course, someone starts sending me money to upgrade the server...

wink

We come home

after being at her apartment for a few days, and we step in the door.

Something's not quite right in the Abode of Sparky. Can't quite put my finger on it--oh right--my fingers are frozen 'cause there's no heat in the house!

Well.

My preliminary investigation led me to the thermostat--maybe the batteries were dead. Looking at the display, it was saying the temperature of the house was 12 degrees Celsius (we're metric up here in the frozen north in case you're reading this from any area other than Canada) 12 degrees in the house is close to a meat locker temperature--you can almost see your breath.

Anyway, the house is cold, the thermostat appears to be fine but there's no heat. turn the slidey-switch on the thermostat for the fan to the 'on' position and... nothing.

Well, grab flashlight and saunter downstairs to the furnace room. I hear the pilot light before I see it. So that part's working. But still no heat going thru the rest of the house.

Before I got the coat hangers and marshmallows out to do some roasting over the pilot light, I decided to try one more thing--check the fuse. Yeah, my house is old enough to warrant a fuse box, and not a breaker box--maybe I'll get that fixed soon, but as for this weekend, it's fuses. Take out the furnace fuse and look closely at it--really didn't look blown, but I try a different one. Pop! as soon as it screwed in.

Hmmm, probably the blower motor. I go have a look.

Checking out the motor, I'm trying to spin it by hand--not really spinning. Yep, probably it--the motor's all seized. I begin the process of unwiring and unbolting the motor with visions of driving over to Princess Auto or Canadian Tire to get a new one.

Well, after a few minutes with screwdrivers and wrenches, the motor is sitting on top of my dryer. Since this is the dryer my dad gave me as a house warming present, I didn't want to scratch it up so I put an old towel on top of it (my furnace room is pretty small so there wasn’t much room to do this anywhere else but on top of the dryer).

Anyway, I'm looking at the motor, trying to spin it by hand and it's not spinning well. I'm noting that there's a virtual tonne of dirt/dust/whatever all clogging the front of the motor. I thought that was rather strange and do a more thorough investigation. Turns out that probably for the last 25 years, the furnace filter was rubbing against the pulley system on the blower motor and the blower assembly, wearing down the aluminum pulleys and the rubber belts, for the pulleys/belts were honed down to a fine edge.

Great.

The debate ensues--Canadian Tire for a new one? Nyaah--let's see what a little WD40 can do.

I take the motor housing apart and clean it all out. Putting the motor back together and spraying WD40 all the way, I find that the motor spins freely by hand. Well, that's a good step.

Rewire and rebolt the motor back in place--making sure that the furnace filter wasn't in the wrong spot, I put in the fuse and turn on the furnace switch.

Fan kicks on!

Woot!

Then I walk back up to the thermostat and set that up properly again. Few minutes later heat wafts up out of the vents!

Not so bad.

So the house starts warming up. I go back downstairs and clean up the furnace room--replacing covers and such, and throw the old towel that was on the dryer over towards the laundry tub.

Went upstairs for some lunch and such, and then the next event.

'Cause wait! There's more!

We decided that now that we're all warm and such, it would be a wonderful time to do a little housework. She throws a load of sheets into the washer, and I'm puttering around upstairs. Few hours pass and I think about putting the sheets into the dryer.

I go downstairs and walk into the furnace/laundry room and note that my feet got instantly wet.

Now what? Is my humidifier not working properly (again)? Nope--it's too wet for that--the entire floor is sopping wet. Then I look at the laundry tub--it's overflowing.

Perfect.

There, in the middle of the ocean that once was my laundry tub is the corner of that old towel.

Right--Dave the dunce had thrown that towel in the laundry tub a few hours before and, when the washer was pumping out all that water into the laundry tub, obviously the towel stuck up the drain. I pull out the towel and all that water goes down the drain. Since I know that everything dries quickly in my house, I let the wet floor take care of itself.

At the end of the day, Dave 1, furnace/laundry room 1. So we're even.

The trials and tribulations of home ownership.

The CN tower has 1776 stairs

from the ground level to the observation deck. 1776 is a very unique number in history, but I won't talk about that right now--I'm focusing on the CN tower climb.

What brings this story up at this time is that I'm wearing a tee shirt right now that has 'The Enbridge CN Tower Stair Climb for the United Way', and the time 32 minutes and 2 seconds written on the back.

Yep, I stepped up those 1776 stairs in 32 minutes and 2 seconds. Was feeling pretty good about that, though a little tired when I reached the top.

See, this stair climb was raising money for the United Way, and we had to work for it! Well, that's no so bad 'cause they gave me this tee shirt when it was done. As well, they had this DJ on the main floor playin' some tunes and over-talking with some stats about how much was being raised and the like.

So here I am, taking the elevator down after climbing--did I mention 1776--steps and feeling pretty good about the 30ish minutes. Then I'm meandering around the open area, listening to the music and talking to the friends that did the stair climb with me, and sipping some water--trying to get some energy back, but still feeling pretty good about the entire ordeal--money raised for the United Way and the--did I mention--30ish minutes...

The DJ was still talking over the musicin the background, and I wasn't really listening, until he stopped the music and said--"We have a new record!"

Oh, I'm thinking this should be interesting--I can add it to Dave's vast accumulation of useless knowledge--some world record was just broken and I can woo and wow my friends with the idea that I was there when it happened...

The DJ continued--"In the over 80 year old category--Harry, who just turned 81 years old this week did the climb in 19 minutes..."

19 minutes.

Yep, pretty much put the 30ish minutes in perspective.

Everytime I wear this tee shirt, I get a little perspective, and a somewhat mumbled but famous quotation from Han Solo in Star Wars--"Don't get cocky, kid!"

Sparky, nice to see you have come back into your stride of endless rambling.

"To correct ones fault, one must first know why the fault was made"

(Or 'Who was that psychoanalyst I saw you with, Charlie Brown?'...)

It's feast or famine, baby. Today I can't seem to stop writing!

Some might say that I should save stuff for tomorrow, should learn to pace myself. Well, I have a little story about that--

During the summers back when I was in high school, I had the privilege of working for my many uncles. Most of my dad's brothers are self employed, doing some sort of labour, such as framing, roofing, whatever. Few summers I worked for my Uncle Bud, cutting lawns for folks. That raked in enough money to keep me going to movies and stuff, but those were the early years.

I then worked for uncle Bill and Uncle Pete, doing roofing. Well, they roofed whislt I hauled up bundles of shingles and did lots of clean-up. Tough job, but I had the best tan ever, and was in pretty good shape.

Not good enough, 'cause I had to spend a week working for my uncle John.

Here's the thing--the guy just doesn't stop. I'm all of like 14 or 15, and I show up Monday morning at 6-7ish--whatever,time's not important. Here's the important thing--you don't stop. Ever. Go go go from sun up to sun down, running here, lifting there, carrying this to them, and dragging that there over here. Actually it was lots of fun but i'm pretty much wiped by the time Friday afternoon showed up.

Along with my general wipedness, on Friday the delivery truck full of lumber also showed up. During the unloading process, the lumber spilled everywhere--down in the foundation hole and everywhere else. So I was cleaning and restacking the 4x8 sheets of plywood and all the framing timbers.

Anyway, it's getting around 5 p.m. and uncle John sees me starting to drag my feet. He comes over to me and says, "Hey Dave, you have to learn to pace yourself."

Learn to pace myself? Yeah I gave him a look. "Thanks Unc."

Anyway, it was fun and I wasn't fired, so I must've been doing something right.

I told you that story to let you know I've heard the 'pacing oneself' before. Not my style. Blame me being pretty much doing my own thing for 37ish years--when I want to do something, I usually do it, within reason, of course. As long as no one else is harmed by my actions (and me posting 3-4 times in one day to my own blog does not warrant harm on other people), then I'm doing pretty okay.

I actually wanted to talk about something else, but had to do the preamble.

Over the last few years I've become very interested in personality characteristics and 'personal growth'. Not Dr. Phil or anything, but I wanted to undertstand more about human nature, and why individuals, given the same set of circumstances, often do completely different things. It intrigues me. I often find myself in debates, discussing the pros and cons of 'nature vs nurture' (I'm in the camp that your genetics points you in a direction to begin with, and can influence the direction of the path you take, but the environment plays a larger factor--enviornmental factors and your choices define the path you want to walk on, but maybe more on this later)

So I was most impressed when I stumbled across Maslow's Hierarchy. See, knowledge isn't understanding, but it adds to the foundation of understanding.

Spock once said "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end" (love that quotation--I read 'knowledge' in place of 'logic', so there you are)

Anyway, so we have Maslows 'Hierarchy of Needs'. Research says that originally there were 5 levels, then he tweaked them as you see on the link--to 7 levels. To me, the tweaking wasn't a significant step--the point is still the same--in order to achieve a higher level of 'who you are', you must have the lower level(s) managed. It does make sense--it's difficult to focus on ascetics and symmetry when you're without a house and sleeping in the streets, not knowing where your next meal is coming from.

I'm not saying I think this is the only way to understand ourselves and our place in the world, but, for me, it adds to the foundation of understanding.

The link also shows how other people have modified or re-interpreted the hierarchy into, basically, Existence, Relatedness, Growth.

Eh, I'll stick with Maslows pyramid.

Wait! I just remembered something--Adams, that brilliant philospher, had something to say about this. He mentioned the 3 states of 'knowledge evolution' (not what he called it, but I don't have the text in front of me to quote verbatim)

He stated that the 3 steps of personal growth are the 'How', 'Why', and 'Where' stages. For example, 'How do we eat?' would be, obviously, the first step--if you don't know how to eat, your existence will be pretty brief. Then comes the 'Why do we eat?'--getting into the existentialism of eating. Finally we find ourselves with the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'--obviously being the most important question of them all!

Douglas Adams--you passed away far too soon!

Anyway, enough for now.

Properly run blog...

If you really want a good read, and want to see what, in my mind, is a very good blog, see one done by my former Poli-Sci professor from Redeemer University. It's updated (mostly) daily, and he writes about a variety of different aspects of life, but focusing on (due to his vocation) political ideas.

http://byzantinecalvinist.blogspot.com/

Whilst I attended his classes, he also tried to correct my speeling and grammar. That's my fault for not heeding his wisdom (in more ways than just this one).

"Repeating the same action over and over again but expecting a different result"

Someone once stated that this was the very definition of insanity.

I sporadically check my website logs to make sure that Sparky's Space is puttering along just fine. As a 'web host', I'm kinda interested in these types of things, and configuring my web server, and my system, and the other things that go with this stuff, is actually fun for me.

What isn't fun for me, Mr. 24.215.238.24, is your constant, and I literally mean constant, attempt to hack into Sparky's Space. The thing is, you could be a little 'script kiddie' with nothing better to do with your time, but trying to hack into my little web server almost on an hourly basis? It also looks like you're doing it manually 'cause the times aren't consistent. So that means you're not even getting your hacker tools doing it automatically--you're running your scripts manually! And you've done it 8-12 times a day since the beginning of the year!

Yep, you're an idiot.

Normally I try not to resort to name calling, but you're a grade-'A' moron. You run your script manually every day, expecting a different result. What, you think I'm changing my hosting service? You think I'm all of a sudden going to run IIS instead of Apache, and on the of-chance that I might do it this very evening, you have to be right there, running your little script?

Yep, reiterate--idiot.

You--turn off your computer and go outside. Enjoy the fresh air. Get off your lazy heinie and do something.

As it stands, Sparky's Space will continue to plug away, attracting, on the average, 300 visitors a day (not bad for a little 'free' website that's run by a hobbyist), and you really can't change that.

So basically I'm bitching for nothing.

Move along--nothing to see here.

PressOmaticnessism at its worst

Wow, a few weeks into this thing and I've run out of things to talk about.

So I'll wing it. Winging it, in the past, has always proven, well, not necessarily successful, at least good at keeping my life interesting.

I am reminded of a poem I once heard, from that bard known as Sparky (no, the other one)

It's 3 o'clock

And here we sit

Coffee's cold

and tastes like

Well, polite company--the kiddies might be reading what Uncle Dave has to say so we'll at least try to have the semblance of keeping this above board...

I was reminded of that poem when my good friend Marko added his reply yesterday. In it, he quoted that pinnacle of wisdom, one W.T.V.--"Those who can gargle peanut butter, can accomplish anything they put their minds to."

That was in a Press years ago. I kinda miss making those things. It was a brief but glorious run of about 18 months of me using my Commodore 64 for somehting more than playing 'Paradroids' and 'Fort Apocalypse'. GEOS was a phenominal piece of software--I wonder if my copy still works? But why even try when I have any tool I could possibly need for desktop publishing right here on my laptop?

So this little reminiscing has led me to dig out some old issues of the Winona Press. I laughed, I cried--5 stars!

Whilst affording liberties of what was previously published (as in I won't put all Press stuff here--some things are best left in the past), I may start transcribing a few Press articles for your viewing pleasure.

Maybe.

I could dig up Omar, and his not so smarter brothers Hectar and Rommel--they had a pretty fine time in the pages of the Press. Or I might launch into my 4 part epic of 'PressOmatics', pressomatically speaking, of course. Of course, for those of you without Dolby and are now in your back yards blown out by that, I apologize...

Tonight I grab one article from the 18 month run of the Press and I post it here.

I may have to grab the updated version of 'A Minute Passed'--my sister's favourite story of mine. Or I just post some ramblings 'live (about 15 years later, but 'live', nevertheless) from the 96th floor', written by Sparky (no, again the other one).

Decisions decisions.

I'll come up with something!

(this space for rent)

If I did this properly...

To the right, at the bottom, below the archive links, the calendar, and other stuff, there's a link to Sparky's Space RSS feed, if you like that kinda thing. Took a while to set up, but I think I did it right.

Now if someone would like to point me in the right direction for a 'news' feeder that accepts RSS feeds, then I can actually see what all the fuss is about.

One shouldn't write blog articles at 5 a.m.

But I'm awake, so who really cares?

I was just perusing some pictures I've taken over the years...

One more step back--I'm watching 'Rescue Me', that firefighter show on HBO starring Dennis Leary. Yeah I know he's a profane actor, but I still like him. Anyway, in the show one of his buddies ends up in the hospital--there's this scene with buddy unconsious in a bed and wife sitting beside him, looking thru a photo album, tears in her eyes--no overpowering music and no voice over--just a scene. You can imagine in her mind the overwhelming voice begging buddy to wake up.

Anyway, that made me start hauling out pics (and since most of the good pics I have are here on the website, I didn't have to 'haul' far). I'm looking thru these things, remembering what was going on at the time, and who I was with, and the events that were transpiring around the time the pics were taken.

Then I realized, 'Boy do things happen in life.' No, seriously, they really do. A picture may say a thousand words on its own, but the story behind pictures say more. I was going somewhere with this but I have since gone off on so many tangents that I can't find my way back.

I'll try to regain the direction of the story--I took pics of my house when I first moved in. Let me tell you that there was no absense of emotion for that event. Most people would have focused on the large sum of money, the bank interviews, lawyers, paperwork, etc--whatever is involved with the actual deed of purchasing a house. To me, all those things were cake. Really. I was going thru something else at the time which made all house buying endeavours honestly, well not necessarily insignificant, but pretty much non-emotional in 'Dave's Grande Scheme of Things'. It's only been a year an a half, and it's now 5:28 in the a.m., and we're about to listen to the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir singing my favourite rendition of 'She's having my baby'--the second WKRP comes out of DVD, that's one purchase I'm making.

So it's been a year and a half, and its early in the a.m. and this is hte first time I'm writing about it. So deal.

Yes I specifically bought this house becaue I had just broken up with my fiancee.

There.

I said it.

I broke up on the weekend, and Monday morning, at work, I really needed to do something to get my mind off not spending the rest of my life with the person I was really thinking I could spend the rest of my life with up until that very weekend, so I went over to my company's real-estate guy. It's nice working for a company that has its own real-estate guy. Anyway, he stated that he only does commercial, but he gave me a number of a friend who does residential. So Tuesday I get hold of this guy and we go house shopping. Looked at 4-6 houses. Then we looked at this one.

The second I walked in the front door, I knew this was my place. No one had really asked me to--not family, not friends, not the fiancee--but events and happenings and the way I do things had transpired to keep my life on hold long enough. I said to my real-estate guy to set things in motion, and, no less than a week after the biggest event in my life thus far, I was signing papers to own a house. This was a far bigger 'Dave 'Scale O' Difference'' but similar to the time I bought a digital camera for a thousand dollars, then 2 weeks later I bought a car for a grand.

I was also embarking on a course, so I thought at the time, to pretty much stay single the rest of my life. I mean singleness doesn't have the outrageously high 'highs', but singleness also didn't seem to have the really low 'lows' that come, as far as I could see, with the trials and tribulations of relationships. Singleness, as far as I remembered, is just pretty much consistent--little variations now and then, but you're not beholden to anybody, you can petty much do as you please, and above all, you won't hurt anyone else. K, all pshrinks/counselors/etc listen up--yeah, i get it. Hurt is part of life--Everyone has already informed me. Jump to the end of the page.

I have always believed, and still believe to this day, that things happen for a reason. Some call it Fate, I would call it Divine Providence (if I were to invoke my more Christian ideals, but some of my friends disagree with me on that), but whatever you call it, there is a purpose to life and the things that happen in it. I will never speak for someone else, but from what I know and from what I hear, I believe my ex-fiancee is in a far better relationship now for who she is and what she wants out of life than she would have been if she was still with me. I'm very happy for her--I think she found what she was looking for. It's not self-deprecating or me thinking I am of lesser value. Bottom line is that there can be two wonderful people--it doesn't mean that they'd be compatible in a relationship.

Anyway, I was just looking thru the first few pics I took of this place, and it brought back those memories. Then I looked at the winter pics I just took last weekend, which brought a whole different flurry of emotions.

The thing is, life happens when you least expect it. Whilst I was in the process of settling down to a nice life of singleness--I have my house, my canoe, my website, my camera, my LEGO (things that would keep me more than occupied with my singledom) and I have my family, my friends, my job and my hobbies to keep my social skills from atrophying--there were plans afoot.

Stupid plans (Homer Simpson quote)

The good part is that these plans were initiated at a LEGO event! A LEGO event!! How much more appropos can ya get??

Whither from here for me?

Well, I'm not sure, and in times like these it's best to see what the most intelligent people in history have done and follow in their footsteps. Take, for example (and those of you who know me can see this one coming a mile away...) Napoleon--

Napoleon, one of the most brilliant military strategists of history, had a two part battle plan.

First Part--Show Up.

Second Part--See What Happens.

They say 90 percent of getting things done is showing up in the first place. Well, she showed up.

Now we'll just see what happens.

For myself, I couldn't be happier.

Now off to bed with me.

WOW,

dave, whats the news on steves balls?

Oh never mind. this gets old

so you got hackers. GO AWAY. you bunch of script kiddies!!!

you'll NEVER be able to hack into this machine.

I dare you!! I double dare you!!!

go on. knock the chip off my shoulder.

HA!!

there you go dave.

I told them!!!

Chris.

I don't know if I'm going to do this all the time...

But I just added a new page of pics from a little hike we had on the weekend.

Click here to see 'em.

Anyway, I probably won't do this again--look under the 'What's New' link on the main Sparky's Space page to see the most recent additions to this website.

I have no problem with 'fluff'

I know that 'Sparky's Space' is fluff, and I couldn't be happier.

The reason for this post is that I have received a few e-mails and other forms of communications over the years with regard to Sparky's Space, and, whilst most of the communique's were in the 'Nicely Done' column, a few persons mentioned that they thought that 'Sparky's Space' was a waste of bandwidth and I should add more substance.

Well, I thought about it but... no.

Sparky's Space is fluff and I love it as such. There are enuf legit 'blogs', newsgroups and websites out there for those of you who want substance--I read a few daily--Democratic Underground and Free Republic (newsgroups) as a start (though some may disagree about the 'legitimate' description).

The World Wide Web, if you know how to look, affords you almost anything you could possibly want--every hobby, interest, discussion or support group I have ever had a remote interest in, I have found pertainant websites.

So I offer no apologies for my little dusty corner of the internet. You didn't pay me anything to view my site, and I offered no warranties or claims that this site would be something it isn't.

What it is is the meandered thoughts and interests of yours truly. No more, no less. If you want to peruse what I find interesting, that's what it's here for. If you don't like Sparky's Space, the internet is a vast and most times wonderful place--go out and find what you're looking for.

I've been told time and time again

To leave this alone. But here's the thing--I had an epiphany a few years back--"Bad things happen when good people don't stand up and say something".

So here I go (again).

Newsflash!!

All you people who pilfer, steal, sniv, or otherwise take what is not yours have to understand this one little thing--in the end you're no further ahead. Ever.

'Cause think about it--no seriously, I know that the mind that is prone to stealing cannot comprehend such a simple idea, but at least try to think about this--

You steal a stereo out of someone's car. You think, "Hey, I'm ahead of the ballgame by about 300 bucks! I didn't have to spend that money for a stereo so I'm further ahead than I was before I stole it!"

Wrong. You are no further ahead. Moreover, you put the rest of us behind as well. Here's the cost fallout--

300 dollar stolen stereo

Owner has to go thru insurance--few things to consider here--because a claim was made due to theft, wages have to be paid to people processing claim/police/paperwork/etc--as well his insurance rate goes up, he needs more money to pay for things. Insurance charges everyone else more as well, including, I might point out to you, you, the thief (unless you've got some way of completely living 'outside' society).

I might point out that my car insurance, even though I've not had a claim in years, has gone up $350.00 this year alone. Sure some of that is due to accidents and the price to fix vehicles, but don't you think that breaking the window to get the car stereo adds to that? And since almost everyone's auto insurance went up over the last few years, aren't you thieves just basically idiots? (not that I'm bitter or anything...)

So the insurance rates go up, people need a higher salary, therefore companies need to start charging more for their products and/or services. Not over a lifetime, but over a few years, you've more than paid out the cost of that stolen stereo in purchases/transactions/services with any company/person you deal with.

So unless you're an extremely good thief, and the overflowing jails in our society attest to the simple fact that almost all of you aren't, you're not going to get further ahead when you steal.

Hope I dumbed it down enuf for you?

If anything makes me angry, it's people who break the law. Not every law is a good and Just one, but the laws that protect me from others are usually pretty good--and stealing, which directly affects me, is breaking the law.

I may, at some point in the future, discuss my issues with laws that should be stricken, such as possession of drugs and such, but I'll leave that for another time.

As it is, if you steal, forget about those you're harming--what should be more important to you is that you're harming yourself.

Having never seen 'Meet the Parents'...

but knowing it was a Stiller movie, I kinda sorta knew what to expect. The thing is I was most pleasantly surprised.

Yeah I knew Dustin and Babs were in it, so it wasn't going to be a crude 'toilet humour' movie (though toilets were prominent in a few scenes) but I've seen many Ben Stiller movies and I wasn't expecting much.

I was really happy, though, that I saw this movie. Barbara, you've been away from the screen *far* too long--it was wonderful seeing you 'up there' again. You have this charisma and presence that makes people's eyes just draw to you. Dustin, wow--you played the father perfectly. It was sheer viewing pleasure to see your character and De Niro's fatherly character trading spars about how to bring up children. Wonderful!

My only complaint, if there is something to complain about, is that Teri Polo (Northern Exposure, Aspen Extreme, Sports Night, I'm with Her, and now, much to my greater happiness in the world, West Wing) wasn't on the screen more! She's absolutely fantastic as an actress.

Anyway, that's Sparky's Review (if it could be called such)--Meet the Fokkers--A joy to watch.

(just don't mispronounce it when you're trying to purchase a ticket to see the movie)

Hey hackers!

Seriously, don't you have anything else better to do with your lives besides try to hack into people's websites???

Know who I'm talking about? Mr 156.62.3.21? Mr. 24.99.162.187? Mr. 24.214.198.163? And the rest--Idiots all.

Beyond that, I've tried to set up my little server as best I could to stop all you idiothackers from doing crazy things to my webserver whilst also leaving enuf running to do the fun stuff.

I'd do more but the hackers are there, just at thefringe, waiting with their scripts, ready to pounce on the latest found vulnerability in the Microsoft OS.

Eh, I've been here for 11 years, and I'm havingfun with it. That's something these hackers can't take away from me.

It's amazing how life can change in an instant

There have been a very few moments in my life where 'everything changes'. A day in June 2003 was one such say, December 2nd, 2004 was another, but completely opposite, and yet another was today.

I'm not going to delve into the first two, but today...

The moment started as benignly as most Saturdays do, at Tim Hortons. I was there with my 'Saturday morning coffee' friends, partaking in conversation and enjoying my extra-large tea (three sugars, tea-bag out). Rick and Al were there with the kids, also as usual. The kids were occupying themselves, as they do almost every Satruday morning at Timmy's, with toys and games brought from their home--Noah was drawing on his 'Magna-Doodle' and Ashton was combing the 'hair' of her three 'My Little Pony' dolls.

The conversation amongst the adults was proceeding around video games (EverQuest), recently seen movies, how fast Simon was growing up, as well as the usual relative joys and ills. I just happen to notice during one lull in the conversation, that Ashton wasn't watching her 'little ponies', but was, instead, trying to get her dad's attention. I reached over and snatched one of the little pony dolls and put it on my head.

Ashton caught sight of the movement and squealed with delight, and came over to try and get her doll off 'Uncle Dave's' head. She reached up and grabbed it, but by this time I had grabbed another one off the table.

She went to retrieve that one too, and when she did, I had grabbed the last. Having only two hands, Ashton tried her best to get the third pony doll from me. When she attempted to retrieve the third, I grabbed whichever pony she couldn't hold on to. This game went on for a bit, much to the delight of Ashton. After a while she got smart and got all three ponies in her arms, which was fine because I thought it was about time for the game to end anyway.

A few minutes passed and Ashton's attention drifted from her pony dolls, and I restarted the game by taking one and hiding it in my coat (which I was still wearing--January and all that). When Ashton noticed one of her ponies was missing, she came right over to me and started searching thru my coat, and I started tickling her, and hiding more of her pony dolls on her.

What I didn't realize, however, was how close my extra large tea (three sugars) was to the table edge. Actually it wasn't close at all, but when dealing with the 'playfulness' of kids--on a particularly fast grab for one of her ponies by Ashton, she knocked that cup of basically hot water over onto herself.

For what seemed like an eternity everything stopped.

My reflexes caught the cup before it spilled all hot tea-like contents onto Ashton (and my legs, but my pain was inconsequential), but enough was spilled onto her shirt to cause damage. Her dad sprang into action by taking her shirt off and getting paper towels. A hostess brought over damp cold cloths, but by the time that happened, Rick and Al had their kids almost out the door to get Ashton to the hospital.

I felt absolutely terrible. It was an accident, but that knowledge wasn't going to alleviate the feeling.

I called an hour later to see how she was doing. Rick mentioned that she's fine but she suffered 2nd degree burns across 3 percent of her body--on her chest, and that the doc mentioned that she *may* have scars for life, but it probably wouldn't be that bad--kids have a remarkable way of healing.

So I continued to feel terrible.

A few hours later, I'm home, thinking about writing this on my blog (to share my suffering with the world, but that's the good bit about blogs... ) Rick calls and gives me the little talk about not worrying about it and that it was an accident, and we then go on and talk about other things, but I knew I wasn't going to 'get over it' even though I knew it was an accident.

Then Rick says, "Someone wants to talk to you" and puts Ashton on

"Hi Uncle Dave!", she sounded all cheerful (again, showing the resilience of kids)

"I'm all better!" she states soundly, "Don't worry about me--it was a accident!"

Now Ashton's all of like 4 years old, so I'm thinking that she was coached by her parents. Rick gets back on the phone and mentioned that Ashton came up with that all on her own--no coaching from mom and pop.

And then the relief feeling shows up. It's extraordinary when that feeling hits.

That said, I, of course, will not forget this, and I plan on keeping better tabs on my extra large tea and proximity to kids. I'm sure more accidents will happen in the future, but two 'Daveisms' come to mind--'You do what you can' and 'Life goes on'.

Ashton, you're probably way too young to understand this and I highly doubt that this'll be here when you grow up enough to really understand it, but thank you for being a wonderful kid. If, in the future, you notice a scar, I am sorry that it happened. Uncle Dave will endeavour to be more careful in the future.

Lego soccer balls that is!!!

just a note to say i am still alive

i have been moved by the ball contraption thing...

this needs to be an RTL game.

Chris

My first attempt to post

an external link--

http://news.lugnet.com/robotics/?n=23244

See how this works. Seriously, for those of you that loved the game 'Mousetrap' when you were a kid, or just like things that move around and do stuff, have a boo at this link.

I'm in! I'm going to start my own GBC as soon as I can.

Once a long long time ago

At a 'Henny Dinner' (for those of you who are unfamiliar with the Henny Dinner night in Canada, it's too, well, convoluted, to explain here), the hostess of the evening, Henny, actually resorted to scissors to cut a pizza into slices. That's due to the slightly burnt nature of the crust that seemed to be imbued with an extra-ordinarily ability to not be cut with a knife.

Anyway, we all had a good laugh, once again, at the 'style' of Henny cooking, and that pizza/scissor cutting story lasted for years at get-togethers.

Zap to today. Rather, let me set this up better--last week I'm grocery shopping and notice that there are these 'Delicio' pizzas on sale so I bought one. Sat in my freezer until today, until I came home from work and decided to throw it into the oven. Reading the directions carefully, I preheat the oven to 400 degreees F and then throw in the pizza, supposedly for 20 minutes.

Then I go upstairs to watch TV. MuchMoreMusic had a Kylie special on, documenting thru videos and interviews the music wonderment of Ms. Minogue, and I was slightly distracted. Compounded with watching 'the Loco-Motion', I was also working on this very website, specifically this very blog!

So 20 minutes in the oven turned into 40 minutes in the oven for my Hawaiian pizza.

Needless to say, when I started smelling smoke upstairs is when I was unpleasently reminded that there was a pizza in the oven. Rushing downstairs, I found myself in a smoke-filled kitchen and one very black pizza.

Right now I'm just eating the not-too-burned pieces of ham and pineapple off the top of said throwing disk, and I'll find out the aerodynamic properties of said throwing disk when I'm finished with the pineapple--see if the furry woodland creatures would like some burnt crust and all that.

To wrap this up, Henny, I apologise for the humour at your expense with regards to the scissors/pizza. I can relate to it. That said, I don't think I'll ever relate to that other... what was it? Stew... Soup...? Yeah, going into the field behind the house to find sustenance sometimes isn't the best idea... ;)

But I still appreciate you and your kids turned out pretty healthy so you did good!

The weather is here...

Wish you were nice.

That was on an old postcard I received from a friend who vacationed down somewhere warm and sunny whilst I was stuck up here in the frozen tundra known as January in Canada.

Dunno why I thought of that just now.

Anyway, some of you might have hard the epic 5 part trilogy known lovingly (and politely) as 'The Dakota Saga'. Well, the saga is at an end (I hope) and the mighty Dodge is fully functional. What is interesting is that the truck is in far better shape today than it was 5+ years ago when I originally purchased it (purchase price--500 bones! Can't go wrong with that!).

Anyway, the truck seems to be performing remarkably well (knock on wood) in this terrible weather, and with 310,000+ kms on it, it continues daily to surprise me when it starts in the morning.

There are times, however, when I do miss the Honda(s). Many wonderful things happened to me during the time of ownership of those vehicles. But the mighty Dodge, having not too many memories (besides hauling LEGO train stuff to shows, and of course, the Dodge Saga of '04) is perfect for today--I'm wanting to, well, not necessarily forget the past, but relegate it such that the past isn't as influential on my decision-making ventures of today.

Knowing that I become attached to certain things, and 'sentimentalize' them, the Dodge is a wonderful vehicle right now 'cause there aren't too many 'sentimentalized' memories pertaining to the aforementioned truck.

Beyond that, it is a choice ride--all old and standard and square and such--the truck itself has much character, and it's perfectly me. The ability to throw a canoe on the rack all by myself is just one of many selling features of the pickup. Other Daveisms include the painted flag (all done by le artiste--Davide Koudyse (known world-wide that guy!) on the cap.

Did I mention that I danced on that cap? It's like a dance floor, except better 'cause I made it.

Whether the truck makes it thru the winter...? Whatever. I'm not too worried.

Eh, blogs. Don't think I'll ever get used to 'em!

so i have been granted authority to have a form!

do you know what this means!!!

YES!!

YES, NOW ~I~ can be my own 2 bit cracpot dictator!!!

WEEE

look at me world! I'm a dictator!!!

now piss off!

and make this snow go away!!!

and why does my sheer bolt on my snow blower keep sheering?

Chris

Dictator

Here's the thing....

I've had 'Sparky's Space' live on the web for 11 years now. I did it originally to get to know HTML so I could get Redeemer's first web page done--Sparky's Space was just an experiment.

Then I started adding pictures of various things, such as, well, the submarine (which, for those that don't know about the Endeavour, well, look around here and find out). Those original pics were scanned from prints using those old hand-held scanners (circa 1995).

I purchased the Kodak DC120 Digital Science digital camera a few years after that and have been snapping pics ever since, and postin many here at Sparky's Space. Mostly to share with friends and family members who have access to the 'net, and for my enjoyment.

Now I add this blog thing and it's like, "Well, say something!" and it's like I've got nuthin' to say.

So I'm saying it loud and clear--don't come here expecting a dissemination of world issues or some broad reaching governmental policy changes that should be implemented so we can save the spotted turtle, 'cause that probably won't be talked about on a regular basis here.

Though I do reserve the right to go off on a rant at any moment regarding any subject, such as, for example, the fact that British Columbia contributed somehting like 8 million dollars to the tsunami disaster relief efforts, Ontario somewheres around 5 million, and my French bretheren in Quebec stepped up with 150 thousand dollars.

Yep, thanks for coming out.

Now if I'm wrong with these numbers (and I grabbed 'em from the paper yesterday so they're wrong as well) then I will beg forgiveness, but as it stands--yeah well, whatever.

And whilst I'm at it--people getting their knickers in a knot over how our PM didn't suddenly cancel his trip and haul it back to here--to do what? I'm no Martin fan, but name one thing he couldn't accomplish whilst on his travels that he could do in Ottawa.

Anyway, I'm finding that people get more and more pissed about the inconsequential, and less and less pissed about the big stuff. SUV sales are up. Want to be pissed about something? There it is. "No clean air in our time!"--new marketing campaign given by me to all you SUV makers and purchasers

Done

Sparky

-tangent king