arthur_p_dent

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster. A decent start, some annoying but necessary responsibilities, and a couple things that really pissed me off. So, let’s see if we can end the day on a bit of an upswing. 

Duolingo / languages / language learning is not on my list of interests. Frankly, I had been relatively apathetic towards the subject for the bulk of my life. But a little over a year ago I decided that it was time to broaden my horizons a bit. I am learning Dutch.

Why Dutch, you ask? Well, like so many of my anecdotes, this one has its roots far in the past. But not just my past - this time I have to start all the way back when my father was a lad.

My dad was born in a small rural town in the Netherlands. When he was 3 or 4, just after his first sibling was born, the family moved here to Canada, and over the years four additional siblings came along. Now, all of my aunts and uncles, having grown up entirely in Canada, embraced their Dutch heritage. Several married with other Dutch-Canadians, and all passed along varying degrees of that heritage to their own children. At least half of my cousins are fluent in Dutch (Frisian, actually), since they were raised speaking both languages.

However, my dad was the anomaly. He arrived here at almost school age, and in order to fit in with the other children, he made every effort to be as Canadian as possible, as quickly as possible. Learning English and eliminating his accent were a big priority. Outside of the house he never spoke a word of Dutch, he married a very Canadian woman, and during my entire youth I can’t recall ever hearing him speak a word of Dutch. In fact, it wasn’t until my grandmother’s 65th birthday party that I heard him speaking with the rest of the family and realized that he was still fluent after all those years.

That realization had been sitting with me for a lot of years. But growing up prior to the technology boom of the 21st century meant that learning a new language came with a lot of obstacles and commitments, which I could never resolve myself to overcome. Then came the “free time” afforded to us all by Covid, and my introduction to Duolingo. I figured if I didn’t take that opportunity to start, then I probably never would.

So I started last August, and hit the 1-year mark a few weeks ago. I’m honestly extremely surprised that I’ve made it this far without giving up on it. As of tomorrow I will have fully completed section 5, and I’ll start working towards my level 2 golden owl. I’m by no means fluent, or even conversational for that matter. I can generally understand what’s being conveyed by most written sentences, and that’s likely about as far as I’ll progress. But I’m OK with that. Sure, if I had my druthers I would have wanted to learn it from childhood, but last time I checked time travel still isn’t a thing.

For now, I’m quite happy with the progress I’ve made, and we’ll see just how far it ends up going. =]
 

Wednesday is just starting, so there’s lots of time left to get your requests in for my open call.

For now we have a good one. Let’s take a peek behind the granny-squared curtain, shall we? ;]

As with most of my Wednesday posts, this one starts many moons ago in my teenage years. To give a real quick bit of backstory, my parents split when I was young, and my dad moved out west, got remarried, and settled down in a little town in BC’s Okanagan Valley. Several years later, my sister and I went out to spend the summer. 

Now, my stepmother had never had kids of her own, so an entire summer with an 8 and a 14 year old was probably putting a lot on her plate. And since dad was at work during the day, that left a lot of hours for her to fill on her own. I’m sure you’ve probably guessed by now that one of the things she taught us was how to crochet. My sister didn’t take to it too much, but constructing things out of other things was right up my alley. Simple things at first - dish cloths, pot holders, a scarf. Finally, the pièce de résistance of basic crochet projects - the standard two-colour chevron blanket. For a relative beginner it turned out fairly decent, and as I write this I wonder if she still has it.

So that’s where it started, but after returning home after that summer I didn’t really think any more about it. Fast forward an awful lot of years (decades actually) to about 2 years ago. A good friend, who was already accomplished at knitting, was going to try her hand at a crochet project. Since we were on the topic, I mentioned that I had once known how to use a hook myself, and that it probably wouldn’t take too much for me to pick it back up. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a ball of yarn was produced - the colour of which is best described as safety-vest orange. I can’t remember now whether what came next was merely a suggestion or an actual challenge, but the day-glow yarn was offered up for me to do something creative with.

I’m going to call it a challenge, strictly so that I can say Challenge Accepted! But what to make? Oddly enough you can find a lot of things on the internet (who knew?),and it wasn’t long before I came across a winning idea - a pair of shorts made entirely out of granny squares. Just like that, I was “hooked” again. Since then I’ve been picking away at it (the last two years have been a blur of other things in my life), but I’ve finally reached the final assembly stage, and I’m hoping to have them done by the end of this week. Don’t expect to see pictures here though - some things are best kept *off* of the internet. XD

I have a few more projects in mind to start on during the winter - something to help pass the time once all the craziness around the house settles down. Now that I’ve picked it up again, I’d like to keep it going.

And, now that tonight’s storm has moved off and the puppers has finally relaxed, I can drag myself off for a few hours sleep.

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone. =]

Edit 9/10/21: Aside from adding a few belt loops (a belt is going to be a necessity), the neon orange shorts project is finally complete!  8D

Before I get started, I’ve decided that I’m going to open up next week’s edition to requests. I’ll put up a post on Sunday for you to post your questions to, and I’ll add my replies on Wednesday. Just about any topic is fair game, even if you want to stray from the interests list - ask away. =]

I’ve tried my hand at a number of different instruments over the decades - guitar, trumpet, sax, piano, to name a few (since I’m not a famous musician, I’m sure you can get an idea just how good I got). I did manage to progress enough with the saxophone to maintain a spot in the high school band, but that’s about it. 

Wait. WTF? Has it really been 25 years since I’ve played anything?

Lately I’ve kinda had the urge to buy a drum set. Given my track record I know it sounds slightly insane, but hear me out. First, I am constantly tapping out some kind of rhythm - fingers on the desk, feet on the floor, etc. Second, I have tendinitis in both shoulders, which makes traditional weight-bearing exercise difficult. Third, it gets the heart rate going just as well as a treadmill, but isn’t nearly as boring. OK, so maybe I’m thinking about buying a new home gym disguised as a drum kit. Whatever - it’s still an instrument, so it still counts.

And if I become the next Neil Peart, I’ll be sure to let you guys know. XD

So here I sit today. Liking tattoos, wanting tattoos, but still only having one. Obviously there’s something in the works, otherwise this would be a short and slightly depressing story. 

I am currently in the process of designing seven tattoos for myself. Some are very linear that I’ve sketched out on my own (my left brain hard at work), others are decidedly artistic (these are conceptual - I need someone with actual talent to do the visual stuff on these ones). One will be a coverup of sorts for the one I have now - actually more of a “reimagining”. The fact that there are seven is definitely intentional, and even though they are all distinctly different, there is a common theme throughout. 

The next question I’m sure is on your minds is “What the hell is taking you so long?!?” I could make some bogus excuse about life getting in the way, blah, blah, blah - but ultimately I really don’t know why I’ve been putting this off for so long. However, I can say that I’m glad I waited, because I’m really excited about the direction I’m going with it now.

Now, all that’s left is to get started. =]

Most of us like to travel, and I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to see many great places - six Canadian provinces, almost half of the US states, six European countries, and China. Many of these I’ll never see again; some I return to regularly. And of course, there are still several destinations on my “to go to” list.

You know what makes these posts interesting for me? Each time I end up realizing something about myself that had never occurred to me before. In today’s case, I never realized just how structured my travels are. Sure, most travel involves some sort of planning - flights, driving distances, overnight stops, etc. Sometimes if you’re doing a large tour, you’ll have daily itineraries. But beyond those normalcies, I have a couple of idiosyncrasies that always seem to be present.

First is that I tend to gravitate back to the same places. It’s a comfort thing I think - familiar things are easier to cope with. And it’s not just the destinations themselves - even stops along the way tend to repeat. For example, every trip down I75 is timed so that I hit Newport KY at lunchtime, so I can go to a certain pizza place. Almost every golf trip to Myrtle Beach has an overnight stop in Asheville NC so I can visit the main strip (the one exception was the time we stayed in Knoxville TN so we could go see the Sun Sphere at the old World’s Fair site, just because they did it on the Simpson’s).

Second, I cram a lot of things into a trip. I invariably end up with a list of specific places, events, restaurants, etc, that each trip is “built” around. I go to NashvilleTN a couple times a year for work, but I always work in a stop at Bridgestone Arena for a hockey game or a concert (both if I’m lucky). Golf trips have rounds pre-planned for every day, even knowing that we won’t be able to lift our arms by the end of the week. There’s even a “maybe” list most of the time - things I would like to do if I can manage to fit them in.

What’s one thing I want to do in the future? Take a trip NOT have everything planned.

Why haven’t I yet? I simply don’t know how.

I can picture it now. Me, trying to plan a trip without any plans - makes my head hurt just thinking about it. I feel like I would need someone else to handle the details, and just hand me a plane ticket and say “let’s go” [that actually sounds really wonderful, not having to do all the “heavy lifting” for a change]. 

Well, time to wrap this up for another week. Tiredness is finally starting to push back at the insomnia, and I think I can get about 90 minutes of sleep in before having to get up for work.

Until next time, thanks for reading. =]

I never watched the British version when it was out (still haven’t, in fact). I thought it looked like a stupid concept and didn’t want to bother with it. So when the American version came out, I painted it with the same brush and never gave it a chance.

Then this “Netflix” thing came out.

So, we started watching. And we kept watching. And before we knew it we were hooked. Couldn’t tell you why at the time, but after seeing the entire series a few times I think I have it figured out…… I like it because I live it. For every character on that show, I work with at least one person that has similar personality traits. We have:

- a bunch of Darryl’s
- a few Dwight’s
- the Creed guy is gone, thank goodness
- etc, etc

And yes, even me. I’m currently in a Oscar/Angela/Stanley hybrid-phase (kinda weird). But I also went through a “Jim as Co-Manager” phase a few years back. Thought I could change things for the better with a few simple ideas (smh). I even knew going in that I was destined to fail - I had seen a string of people from the outside come in and try the same thing, and they were all gone within a year without changing a thing. But I was going to be different because I knew all the pitfalls going into it. I did manage to last more than a year (by a few months), but for my troubles I got 30 lbs of stress weight, a return to smoking (I did quit again thankfully), and borderline lost my marriage from working 80+ hours a week. And, like Jim, I returned to the same job I had left, and have been much better off since.

So that’s it - like I said, a quick one this time. For now I’m going to “Stanley” - it’s 4:30 on the dot and I am out of here.  =]

Yes, I’m combining a couple of interests into one post this week, but only because they’re so closely related. 

I’ve always been a fairly independent person. Much of my youth was spent without other means of transport, so I developed the habit of walking pretty much everywhere. It’s something that has stuck with me all these years, both as a means of travel, and simply for the recreational aspects of it.

My first experience “engaging in this independence” (and all the helicopter parents and millennials out there are going to cringe after reading this) was when I was in kindergarten. I had school in the morning and day care in the afternoon, and each day one of my parents would pick me up at lunchtime to bring me from one to the other. I’ll bet some of you can already see where this is going. One day there was a miscommunication - each parent thought it was the others’ turn - and nobody arrived. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I made the decision that I would just walk to the day care. After all, nobody was there to get me, and we had driven that way so often that I knew the way - why not just walk there?

Yes - I walked the whole way (about 2.5 km).
Yes - I was barely five.
Yes - I got my ass tanned good for that one (even though it wasn’t me that forgot to pick me up).

And yes, I’ve really been wanting to tell that story. 8D

So like I said, walking has long since been a part of my life. All through school, during summers to the community pool, to pretty much every friend’s house, paper routes, hiking through nature trails and wood lots, golf courses, etc, etc, etc. I was close to 20 before I had a car and didn’t have to walk so much. But the habit stuck.

These days it’s more recreational than anything. I try to go for a walk most days, as long as the weather isn’t being awful. I find it’s good to step away - especially on work days - and be able to clear my head. And there’s the dog, who needs her daily constitutional as well. I’ve even found a couple of friends who enjoy a good walk just as much as I do, and I really enjoy sharing that time.

And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll find myself in your (whomever may be reading this) neck of the woods, and we can share a stroll together. =]

(This week’s side note: I like the heading format I use for my “New Thing” posts, so I'm going to carry it over here - the name of the post, and then the topic. A bit of organization for me, and a bit more informative for you, the reader.)

Welcome to week two. =]

Home design (specifically, designing floor plans) was something I just started doing on some random weekend afternoon back in my teens. I remember we had a Reader’s Digest book about home architecture from the 50’s 60’s & 70’s. Each chapter started with a sketch of the outside of a house, and then discussed the design and style elements. I never read the chapters - didn’t care about that part of it.  But I did start to imagine from the sketches just how each of those houses would be laid out on the inside, and one day I grabbed some graph paper, a pencil and a ruler, and started drawing floor plans.

One in particular was my all-time favourite. It’s been well over 30 years but I could sit down right now and recreate it almost exactly as I did back then. And if I were to build a house today, it would be this house. It was a 60’s style horseshoe ranch, set on a corner lot. One arm of the horseshoe was the 2-car garage, with the driveway coming off of the side street. The base of the horseshoe started behind the garage with the kitchen and dining room, followed by a 2-step sunken living room. The final arm of the horseshoe started with 2 smaller bedrooms along the back of the house, and the master at the front. Large windows in the living and dining rooms overlooked the back yard, where there was a large deck and in-ground pool. In the front, the horseshoe design of the house created a courtyard entrance, with a cement bridge spanning a large pond and waterfall feature. (like I said, I could draw it right now if I wanted)

With the benefit of hindsight, I can look back now and see that this was how I was able to express creativity. I’m a very left-brained person - analytical, linear, strong at using things like scale and spatial reasoning. If I were to try painting, I would end up with a lot of hard lines and stark colours, and would probably make Bob Ross want to rethink his statement that “anyone can paint”. But this was almost like a natural extension of my normal way of thinking, and became an art form for me.

Again with the benefit of hindsight, I can look back now and see some of the possibilities of how my life could have played out differently. This could easily have been a career opportunity. It would have meant attending different schools in different cities, meeting different people, etc etc. I’m not saying I regret the choices I made in life - but I do find it interesting to think about the different paths a life could follow.

I wish I knew what happened to that book. Every floor plan I did was kept in that book, folded neatly and tucked in at the start of the chapter it came from. The book, and all the drawings, disappeared years ago - probably along with all of the Reader’s Digest volumes of short stories that my parents collected back in the 70’s (anybody remember those?)