June 2013 Monthly Entry
I wish all my Daddybears and LeatherDaddies a Happy Father's Day, from a few days ago!
It seems a lot of the rain from winter has come back for the past month. While there are more sunny days, the weather just seems so weird. Rain, sun, rain, cloud, sun, cloud, rain... it never makes up it's mind on certain days. The temperature has been pretty good on sunny days and not too hot. But recently, the weather has become more summer-like.
My going back to the Marquis Grande for that one Wednesday last month (the building I worked in for over 3 months last year) was pretty good. David, the one who has managed it for under a year, had made some good work on the place. They now have a much better camera security system and he showed me the basics on how to use it. I found out from him that Fernanda, the nice Mexican cleaner lady who has cleaned there for over a year, was fired by her bitch of a manager sometime ago! Fernanda went and started her own cleaning company (good for her!). David then terminated the contract of her ex-manager's company as most of the workers are immigrants and he just didn't care for this manager (neither did I when I dealt with her last year - and I'm glad Fernanda never has to work for her again!). We both agreed that Fernanda was a good cleaner but the building now has a new company in and their cleaning guy does a good job too. The day was easy, only a couple of phone calls. The best part though was that the computer in the manager's office now has an internet connection! Certainly helped pass the time faster though I kept away from any bear/leather sites to prevent problems for the time being. I wish they had this for me when I was managing last year! Didn't really run into anyone that recognized me either than the Scottish electrician who services the complex and happened to be around that day. Even yesterday was my second time back and it was a low-key day.
Work has gotten busy as I'm doing some project work. I'm damp wiping all baseboard tops, most doors, walls, and other miscellaneous surfaces that need updating and been ignoring for a long time. The supervisor has been meeting up with me a lot lately and is paranoid about the new management in Crosby and the eventual takeover by a big American company. They are becoming more strict and expect better cleaning results from the complexes they service. Even my manager last week has affirmed this. In general, my two buildings are pretty good and so is my co-worker's according to my manager. But they now want us to scrub the lobbies and any other tiled floor with a scrub brush and cleaning solution (has a handle attached and saves us from having to get on our hands and knees or hunch down too much) once in a while to make them look nicer. My co-worker did both of his lobbies and the result is that it looks only a little better but not overwhelmingly better. We have kept them looking good for years so this doesn't help too much and if they want dramatic results, they have to bring in a floor scrubbing machine. But this has never happened (in the lobbies) as it's not in the contract and would be considered a free service. Of course, my manager avoids doing jobs for free when it involves him doing physical work (and of course, never pays extra when his employees have to do extra work LOL!). It's going to be a busy early summer that's for sure. To add to this, one of my co-worker's buildings has went the same route as one of my buildings a couple month's ago. If you can recall, they blocked the key locks for any entrance into the building and everyone now needs a fob to get in. In my building, this happened because some idiot broke into the fire department's key box outside which had a pair of keys and a fob. Instead of paying for an expensive re-keying of the whole building and giving out fresh new keys to all owners and tenants, they forced everyone to buy or replace their fobs while keeping the keys to access the common areas in the building. Now, my co-worker's building went through the same thing last Wednesday as some lady had her purse snatched. Why am I whining about this? Because unlike my manager, I'm the one running back and forth programming fobs, writing receipts, meeting up with people, taking payments, exchanging & (later) deactivating fobs while he only gets the job of forwarding me the info on people who call him. It takes a lot of my extra time out of the day that doing project work has slowed down. I'm worried when one of the next two buildings are going to go down this route and then I'm stuck for at least two weeks playing bus boy.
A couple months ago I went to Target which has started popping up around here in Canada, overtaking the various Canadian-staple Zellers stores. There has been a lot of hype surrounding Target being in Canada given our expectation of products from the US being sold here. I went to the newly opened one at Willowbrook Mall in Langley and... was not too impressed. The vast majority of the products are Canadian produced and no different than any other store! I was expecting stuff like Cherry Coke (outside of a 7-11, you won't find them easily in Canadian grocery stores or even Wal-Mart as for some stupid reason, they don't make them here) and other things imported from the US. Just a wasted opportunity to be more unique. The stores look nice and clean and have a good selection of things but everyone I talked to thought it could be better. I'd still go to an American Target or whatever to get what I need. It's a nice store and I'll shop at it but they can do better here.
As for my new glasses, they arrived in the mail but I'm afraid they were a little small and tight for a snug fit. Clearly Contacts will refund the glasses once they receive the return shipment but I'm exchanging it for a new frame that I hope will fit me better. It's only a single penny less in price LOL! Will upload a picture of my new glasses when I get them at my folks.
Seems lately, I've been thinking a lot about last year as it was around this time in mid to late spring that things blew up and I was in a depressed state. I've been reading some of the things David and I wrote to each other and it still appalls me on what he wrote. It was like a different person... so much more dark, condescending, spiteful, you name it... I was talking to my friend Peter about it last weekend and he remembers the one night a year ago (plus a week) that I called him after midnight and woke him up, telling him the devastating news in what David wrote to me that night. The one thing he has never said to me before but for the first time did: "I will no longer be your Daddy". I kind of knew what it felt to be told that your spouse wanted a separation! Reading that statement for the first time made me shake and I felt ill. I went to work and spent most of my time in the office... talking to Peter and then fellow-Knight Paul, and also texting Kevin in Fresno too. I had some shoulders to cry upon but I was very grateful for friends helping me through this emotional roller coaster. June 22 was the day we moved from Burnaby to here in Port Coquitlam and was also the day I got my novice driver's license.
A couple Saturdays ago, I went to VASM-founder George Whiting's 90th Birthday Party at MasterG's home. It started off with 11 guys and before I left, 14. It was a nice party though I spent most of my time fixing a fellow-Knight Wayne's computer. He caught malware out of nowhere from a gay porn website. This one locks you out of your Windows desktop after booting up with a message onscreen stating that it's from the RCMP and to remove it, you have to pay $100 by buying some non-existent paycard from a handful of places. You buy the card, input the code from it, and viola! - the lock is gone... but it's all bullshit. It's a scam and meant to intimidate you by guilt as they want you to think you did something wrong: like download willingly or unwillingly, child pornography. I researched about it as he contracted it earlier in the week (in fact, he got it the afternoon I was over at their place and talked to me privately). There were YouTube videos on how to remove it manually as anti-malware usually doesn't pick it up. To start, I went into Safe Mode with Networking which did in fact, bypass the malware. Instead of deleting from the registry, I turned the Windows XP clock back to earlier in the week, recovering the system before any changes to the registry. After some time, Windows rebooted back into Normal Mode and the malware was gone! I did some tuning up to speed the PC, including disk defragmenter which took a couple of hours to complete. It all worked, as there was a notable difference in loading things and Windows opening.
A couple Sundays ago I saw Disney's 1950 classic Cinderella on Blu-Ray, another one of my favourite animated Disney movies. I first watched it in second or third grade on VHS and last watched it some years ago on the Platnium Edition DVD with the late-Kevin. That DVD version I got as an asked-for birthday present from my folks. Looked nice on Blu-Ray and the extras were pretty good too. I always enjoyed this classic movie, a lovely romantic-comedy that holds up well today. The scenes involving the mice and animals is something out of the classic Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons of the 1950s and 60s. Heck, it reminds me of watching a classic Tom & Jerry and Looney Toons cartoon! They're quite funny and make good use of sound effects, music, and just perfect timing. The music was memorable, though the lesser appreciated ones "Sing Sweet Nightingale" and "So This Is Love" don't get the appreciation they deserve. The wicked stepmother, Lady Tremaine - awesome Disney villain! To see Doug Walker's review, go here or below:
Monday night I watched the 2009 Star Trek reboot on Blu-Ray. And yesterday... I watched Star Trek Into Darkness in 3D at the Cinemark Theatre in New Westminster! I invited my former roomie and big-trekkie, Shane, to watch it with me. For him, it was his second or third time he's seen it. We had a couple of hours to kill before the movie started so we caught up on how things were going in our lives. We talked about my journey through Star Trek: TNG and the 4 movies. Throughout the movie, I was quietly cracking jokes to him through all the different series references. It was entertaining and a good sequel. I don't have time right now to review both movies but I promise I will very soon. But I will say this about Into Darkness: check it out if you haven't right now before it stops playing or snag it on Blu-Ray in a few months. I plan to for sure!
I've been going through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pretty quickly and on the 5th disc. Even around 20 years later, I still remembered some of these episodes but there were some I forgot and don't remember at all. Eventually, it will get to episodes I've never seen at all as no channel provided in western Canada had the series shown throughout the early 90's (I cannot comment on other areas in Canada). I forgot how funny this show is - even breaking the fourth wall jokes! Some stuff can be silly and stupid that it gets to the point that I want the villains, Shredder and Krang, to win! There are at times questionable animation problems and the one MAJOR problem: when a certain turtle's voice doesn't match with the proper one onscreen! So, you can have Leonardo (who wears blue and sports the "L" on his belt) speaking with Michaelangelo's totally tubular voice!
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has been beaten but I'm doing a second playthrough. It will be reviewed probably next week. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is progressing nicely too and will have it done very soon. For Bible reading, I've completed Genesis and Exodus so I'm working on Leviticus. I've finished Genesis with the story of Joseph, read about Moses and the Exodus, the brining of the Ten Commandments, the golden calf incident, and the boring last half of Exodus in which we get the instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant. Leviticus is mostly about ritual and moral purity for the Israelites and a sizable chunk of the 613 commandments are in this book. Just read the two verses prohibiting the practice of gay male anal sex (18:22, 20:13).
Last Movie: Star Trek: Into Darkness (Theatrical), Star Trek (Blu-Ray)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - Exodus
Last Game: MadWorld (Wii)
Current Book: KJV Holy Bible - Leviticus
Current Games: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) & Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
It seems a lot of the rain from winter has come back for the past month. While there are more sunny days, the weather just seems so weird. Rain, sun, rain, cloud, sun, cloud, rain... it never makes up it's mind on certain days. The temperature has been pretty good on sunny days and not too hot. But recently, the weather has become more summer-like.
My going back to the Marquis Grande for that one Wednesday last month (the building I worked in for over 3 months last year) was pretty good. David, the one who has managed it for under a year, had made some good work on the place. They now have a much better camera security system and he showed me the basics on how to use it. I found out from him that Fernanda, the nice Mexican cleaner lady who has cleaned there for over a year, was fired by her bitch of a manager sometime ago! Fernanda went and started her own cleaning company (good for her!). David then terminated the contract of her ex-manager's company as most of the workers are immigrants and he just didn't care for this manager (neither did I when I dealt with her last year - and I'm glad Fernanda never has to work for her again!). We both agreed that Fernanda was a good cleaner but the building now has a new company in and their cleaning guy does a good job too. The day was easy, only a couple of phone calls. The best part though was that the computer in the manager's office now has an internet connection! Certainly helped pass the time faster though I kept away from any bear/leather sites to prevent problems for the time being. I wish they had this for me when I was managing last year! Didn't really run into anyone that recognized me either than the Scottish electrician who services the complex and happened to be around that day. Even yesterday was my second time back and it was a low-key day.
Work has gotten busy as I'm doing some project work. I'm damp wiping all baseboard tops, most doors, walls, and other miscellaneous surfaces that need updating and been ignoring for a long time. The supervisor has been meeting up with me a lot lately and is paranoid about the new management in Crosby and the eventual takeover by a big American company. They are becoming more strict and expect better cleaning results from the complexes they service. Even my manager last week has affirmed this. In general, my two buildings are pretty good and so is my co-worker's according to my manager. But they now want us to scrub the lobbies and any other tiled floor with a scrub brush and cleaning solution (has a handle attached and saves us from having to get on our hands and knees or hunch down too much) once in a while to make them look nicer. My co-worker did both of his lobbies and the result is that it looks only a little better but not overwhelmingly better. We have kept them looking good for years so this doesn't help too much and if they want dramatic results, they have to bring in a floor scrubbing machine. But this has never happened (in the lobbies) as it's not in the contract and would be considered a free service. Of course, my manager avoids doing jobs for free when it involves him doing physical work (and of course, never pays extra when his employees have to do extra work LOL!). It's going to be a busy early summer that's for sure. To add to this, one of my co-worker's buildings has went the same route as one of my buildings a couple month's ago. If you can recall, they blocked the key locks for any entrance into the building and everyone now needs a fob to get in. In my building, this happened because some idiot broke into the fire department's key box outside which had a pair of keys and a fob. Instead of paying for an expensive re-keying of the whole building and giving out fresh new keys to all owners and tenants, they forced everyone to buy or replace their fobs while keeping the keys to access the common areas in the building. Now, my co-worker's building went through the same thing last Wednesday as some lady had her purse snatched. Why am I whining about this? Because unlike my manager, I'm the one running back and forth programming fobs, writing receipts, meeting up with people, taking payments, exchanging & (later) deactivating fobs while he only gets the job of forwarding me the info on people who call him. It takes a lot of my extra time out of the day that doing project work has slowed down. I'm worried when one of the next two buildings are going to go down this route and then I'm stuck for at least two weeks playing bus boy.
A couple months ago I went to Target which has started popping up around here in Canada, overtaking the various Canadian-staple Zellers stores. There has been a lot of hype surrounding Target being in Canada given our expectation of products from the US being sold here. I went to the newly opened one at Willowbrook Mall in Langley and... was not too impressed. The vast majority of the products are Canadian produced and no different than any other store! I was expecting stuff like Cherry Coke (outside of a 7-11, you won't find them easily in Canadian grocery stores or even Wal-Mart as for some stupid reason, they don't make them here) and other things imported from the US. Just a wasted opportunity to be more unique. The stores look nice and clean and have a good selection of things but everyone I talked to thought it could be better. I'd still go to an American Target or whatever to get what I need. It's a nice store and I'll shop at it but they can do better here.
As for my new glasses, they arrived in the mail but I'm afraid they were a little small and tight for a snug fit. Clearly Contacts will refund the glasses once they receive the return shipment but I'm exchanging it for a new frame that I hope will fit me better. It's only a single penny less in price LOL! Will upload a picture of my new glasses when I get them at my folks.
Seems lately, I've been thinking a lot about last year as it was around this time in mid to late spring that things blew up and I was in a depressed state. I've been reading some of the things David and I wrote to each other and it still appalls me on what he wrote. It was like a different person... so much more dark, condescending, spiteful, you name it... I was talking to my friend Peter about it last weekend and he remembers the one night a year ago (plus a week) that I called him after midnight and woke him up, telling him the devastating news in what David wrote to me that night. The one thing he has never said to me before but for the first time did: "I will no longer be your Daddy". I kind of knew what it felt to be told that your spouse wanted a separation! Reading that statement for the first time made me shake and I felt ill. I went to work and spent most of my time in the office... talking to Peter and then fellow-Knight Paul, and also texting Kevin in Fresno too. I had some shoulders to cry upon but I was very grateful for friends helping me through this emotional roller coaster. June 22 was the day we moved from Burnaby to here in Port Coquitlam and was also the day I got my novice driver's license.
A couple Saturdays ago, I went to VASM-founder George Whiting's 90th Birthday Party at MasterG's home. It started off with 11 guys and before I left, 14. It was a nice party though I spent most of my time fixing a fellow-Knight Wayne's computer. He caught malware out of nowhere from a gay porn website. This one locks you out of your Windows desktop after booting up with a message onscreen stating that it's from the RCMP and to remove it, you have to pay $100 by buying some non-existent paycard from a handful of places. You buy the card, input the code from it, and viola! - the lock is gone... but it's all bullshit. It's a scam and meant to intimidate you by guilt as they want you to think you did something wrong: like download willingly or unwillingly, child pornography. I researched about it as he contracted it earlier in the week (in fact, he got it the afternoon I was over at their place and talked to me privately). There were YouTube videos on how to remove it manually as anti-malware usually doesn't pick it up. To start, I went into Safe Mode with Networking which did in fact, bypass the malware. Instead of deleting from the registry, I turned the Windows XP clock back to earlier in the week, recovering the system before any changes to the registry. After some time, Windows rebooted back into Normal Mode and the malware was gone! I did some tuning up to speed the PC, including disk defragmenter which took a couple of hours to complete. It all worked, as there was a notable difference in loading things and Windows opening.
A couple Sundays ago I saw Disney's 1950 classic Cinderella on Blu-Ray, another one of my favourite animated Disney movies. I first watched it in second or third grade on VHS and last watched it some years ago on the Platnium Edition DVD with the late-Kevin. That DVD version I got as an asked-for birthday present from my folks. Looked nice on Blu-Ray and the extras were pretty good too. I always enjoyed this classic movie, a lovely romantic-comedy that holds up well today. The scenes involving the mice and animals is something out of the classic Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons of the 1950s and 60s. Heck, it reminds me of watching a classic Tom & Jerry and Looney Toons cartoon! They're quite funny and make good use of sound effects, music, and just perfect timing. The music was memorable, though the lesser appreciated ones "Sing Sweet Nightingale" and "So This Is Love" don't get the appreciation they deserve. The wicked stepmother, Lady Tremaine - awesome Disney villain! To see Doug Walker's review, go here or below:
Click to view Monday night I watched the 2009 Star Trek reboot on Blu-Ray. And yesterday... I watched Star Trek Into Darkness in 3D at the Cinemark Theatre in New Westminster! I invited my former roomie and big-trekkie, Shane, to watch it with me. For him, it was his second or third time he's seen it. We had a couple of hours to kill before the movie started so we caught up on how things were going in our lives. We talked about my journey through Star Trek: TNG and the 4 movies. Throughout the movie, I was quietly cracking jokes to him through all the different series references. It was entertaining and a good sequel. I don't have time right now to review both movies but I promise I will very soon. But I will say this about Into Darkness: check it out if you haven't right now before it stops playing or snag it on Blu-Ray in a few months. I plan to for sure!
I've been going through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pretty quickly and on the 5th disc. Even around 20 years later, I still remembered some of these episodes but there were some I forgot and don't remember at all. Eventually, it will get to episodes I've never seen at all as no channel provided in western Canada had the series shown throughout the early 90's (I cannot comment on other areas in Canada). I forgot how funny this show is - even breaking the fourth wall jokes! Some stuff can be silly and stupid that it gets to the point that I want the villains, Shredder and Krang, to win! There are at times questionable animation problems and the one MAJOR problem: when a certain turtle's voice doesn't match with the proper one onscreen! So, you can have Leonardo (who wears blue and sports the "L" on his belt) speaking with Michaelangelo's totally tubular voice!
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has been beaten but I'm doing a second playthrough. It will be reviewed probably next week. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is progressing nicely too and will have it done very soon. For Bible reading, I've completed Genesis and Exodus so I'm working on Leviticus. I've finished Genesis with the story of Joseph, read about Moses and the Exodus, the brining of the Ten Commandments, the golden calf incident, and the boring last half of Exodus in which we get the instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant. Leviticus is mostly about ritual and moral purity for the Israelites and a sizable chunk of the 613 commandments are in this book. Just read the two verses prohibiting the practice of gay male anal sex (18:22, 20:13).
Last Movie: Star Trek: Into Darkness (Theatrical), Star Trek (Blu-Ray)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - Exodus
Last Game: MadWorld (Wii)
Current Book: KJV Holy Bible - Leviticus
Current Games: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) & Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)