CaptainOrange

My Quest goals have been bouncing around in my head. I finally realized that if there will be a theme to this year for me it will be just that. Marathons. Rehearsing for Kiss Me Kate is a lot like training for a marathon. It's really more time than you want to spend, but you know you have no choice if you want to succeed. After it is finished I will be doing pursuing that ever elusive goal of walking clear around the city in one go -- clocking in around 60km, it will be more than a marathons worth in distance and stamina. Later in the summer, I hope to run my own personal marathon along the riverbank. I hope to beat my 4h 56min time of several years ago. I believe I also mentioned earlier, wanting to do a solid 24-hour stint in an attempt to write a (potentially) Quest themed play. Finally, I am working on what can only be described as my mammoth Multimedia Miktacular, Miktacular. My statement of beliefs and feelings on the Quest as a way of life. This one has been on the back-burn...

Frank Sinatra sang " Chicago is my kind of town! " The weather must have been better when he was there. Our vacation plan was to fly from Saskatoon-Toronto-Chicago-Richmond(VA) and get picked up at the airport to drive to Newport News, Virginia (google maps). The Whole Ordeal was to take us about a 14hr day. Cue bad weather near Chicago- O'Hare (wikipedia), the worlds busiest airport (or, so the ticketing agents were fond of telling us). We sat on the runway ready to leave Toronto long enough to nearly finish the entirety of Cheaper by the Dozen II (imdb.com). It was meant to mollify us, but somehow it only made the wait seem longer. We were told not to worry about connecting flights because the whole airport was backed up and so everything should amazingly work out just fine. Hmmmmm. To make a really long story only quite long, our connecting flight was not backed up, but entirely cancelled ! I'm not sure what the throughput of O'Hare is, but with scores of ...

My post is a bit tardy, but if you really want to know what I've been up to, I must include this fine evening before I can tell you about anything else. Rainswept, Kyro, and I were privileged to spend the evening over at Cuz Jay's Howse. The coffee could have been better, but that might have spoiled the great retro feeling that was in the air. Wine Gums and Sour Skittles were plentifully provided by the Captain and enjoyed by all -- including two of Jay's spawn and visiting little cousin Emily. Vin GM'd and we other three each took a single 3rd level character through the classic gaming goodness that is "The Keep on the borderlands." How many times will I begin this module in my (hopefully) long life? How many times will hoards of Gnolls, Clerics, Hobgoblins, Goblins, and their uneasy roommate the Minotaur haunt my dreams the next time I sleep? Longing to know more? You will have to come to the next revival. Kyro appears to have high hopes for an update. Hopef...

rich and tasty double Americano thanks to the fine Broadway Roastery staff An intimate affair over at the Bway Roastery this week. James came by for a bit. We discussed muscial education for one and all. It was the decided opinion of the table that we would all have been better off learning basic musical theory rather than biological taxonomies (much as I personally enjoyed that unit). I guess there is a lot of disputing over educational priorities. After James left, Vin and I had some good discussion about literature and about the value of having children and opening up to let them teach you. Probably not so important if you were one of those persons who paid attention in your formative years. But I find that there is a lot I have learned about being a kid since having them.

Quest New Year was a rousing success for me. I can't speak for everyone else, though it seems as though a good time was had by all. I managed to get to our meeting spot in record time (which for me was 6:45pm). That gave me time to wait for a good table, do some last minute reading and set up the pool from which participants collected this years Quest branded gift of slate coffee coasters hand carved with the Q symbol. I had a really tough time hanging on to them until new years as I made them well before Christmas. As I had planned, they were snagged b y the Questers as they arrived (after 8pm) at the table. Me, Dave, Geof, James, and Vin. There were some good books picked for this year. As I recollect however, there was almost no discussion about last years picks. Without Vin's early prescence, there was just no one to jumpstart the HoL discussion. Other than that, there was plenty of fun discussion of goals for the year (mostly mine) although James, Dave and Geof all seemed...

What is a hard working father to do after the 28mm of precipitation (The sum of the total rainfall and the water equivalent of the total snowfall observed during the day) that we experienced in the first few days of March. In my case you use the excuse of your daughter's birthday to call in the troops. Wendy and I worked for about an hour to clear our driveway and a path out to the back, then when the guys and the kids came over, I spent another hour or so working on our luge/skeleton run and some fortifications in case we have to pelt passing high-school kids with snowballs. My body complained insistently about this effort for several days afterwards. Here you can see what fun we had with the snow that we weren't able to shovel onto the fort. I've kept these snowshoes around for a lot of years with little use to show for it. Now it all seems worth it.

So I stayed up a bit late watching Immortel (Ad Vitam) . It was a terrific late night movie. Surreal and beautiful. I can't give any review until I see it a second time. It was far too late for me to start a movie alone and I was constantly in and out of consciousness. Kind of pleasant really. In the morning, which came all too soon, Leora and Anwyn had made cinnamon toast for breakfast and ground some beans, boiled water and pressed my coffee. It was perfect!