Gratitude

Both my morning meditation and my page in the Daily Stoic tackled the subject of gratitude today, a subject that's pretty relevant immediately after Xmas and right before the coming of a new year. So let's talk about it! 

Feeling grateful is actually coming pretty easily to me this year. That's not to say I don't feel some of my usual urge to completely avoid the holiday season and the excess that comes with it. I don't think that point of view is going to change for me anytime soon. Somehow, we took a holiday ostensibly rooted in the birth of a deity and made it about consumerism and guilt. I don't want to observe it for religious reasons. I don't want to observe it for capitalist reasons. So why do I want to observe it at all? 

I am grateful for having a healthy family. A family that is caring, motivated, and creative. 

I am grateful that, coming to the end of 2025, not only did it not knock me down, but I really managed to build up this year. 

In a year where I lost not one, but two grandparents, I'm grateful that I got to see so much of my family this year. I even think I saw The Navigator more times this year than I have in any given year over the last 5. Some things you can't be grateful for. 

As frustrated as my job makes me, I'm grateful that it's showing me other paths and giving me the time and resources to chase other dreams. And that it's there and dependable when my health is low. 

I'm grateful that I have the space and the creativity to pursue my music again. And I'm grateful for all the new friends it's brought me this year. I think I enjoy the social aspect of playing again as much as I enjoy making music itself.

In a world that seems to be burning down around me, I'm grateful to start seeing society push back. And not just politically with protest. People are making the choice to put down their phones and go out more. I don't know if we're breaking free or just finding the balance, but even through the struggle that the next 5 years will bring, we're going to find some beautiful things, too. 

I'm grateful that I'm less worried about the mess my house is in this year.

I'm grateful that I have more ideas than time right now. 2026 will not be boring. 

And I'm grateful for me. That I can look at myself, see where I'm at, how I feel and what I need and that I have the capacity to make something of it. 

Today, I don't need to practice gratitude. Because today I'm all practiced up. I just AM grateful. 

What are you grateful for today? 

Admiration of the PS3

 The whole family was home on Saturday night. Rhonda and I sat down in front of the TV, and after about 5 minutes of picking through possibilities, it was clear we weren't going to find something to watch. Infinite choice is no choice at all. I even commented that there was a time when looking at what's on only required that you push "channel up" or "channel down" repeatedly until something you like happened. Now it's navigating 25 apps and entering 40 passwords. 

We live in the worst timeline.

During our journey through the options provided by this "smart TV" we discovered that there seemed to be a way to play GTAV through the TV. While we scratched our heads like the confused apes that we are, Kayah entered the room and reminded us that there was a PS3 upstairs, attached to someone's TV and completely unused. 

So within about 10 minutes, we had that old tank hooked up, and we had started crashing cars, shooting innocent people and looking up the nearest strip club. 

Before long, the whole family had gathered around as we took turns spreading mayhem around Los Santos. We stole tanks, we tried landing a jet in a military base, we went for a lap dance, and we tased a man to death. As parents, Rhonda and I are second to none. 

And we laughed. Like that good, deep, crying laugh you really can only find in a room with others doing ridiculous things. Plus, Jonas - or should I call him "Mister Maneuver" is just ridiculously funny. 

One of the things everyone was amazed by was that we had Netflix installed on the PS3. I reminded them that yes, and also YouTube and Blu-Ray DVDs on it. It was really an all-in home entertainment system. And despite some very old batteries in the controllers and a fan that sounds like it's clogged with syrup, the old girl still rocked. 

Also - GTA 6 When? 

Disco Napping

I think one of the reasons that the success rate in music goes down as people age is that after you turn 30 - no one wants to go out very late. 

I certainly run into this all the time with local open mics starting between 8 or 9 o'clock, ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. It's pretty damn hard to get out of the house after you've taken off your work shoes, doubly so this time of year when the air has been custom-built to freeze-dry your lungs. 

But I've come across a great life hack for this situation, the Disco Nap. Rhonda was the one who gave me the name of this practice. Something coming out of the rave/EDM culture. The idea is pretty simple: come home from work, eat your supper, do your evening things, then take 20 minutes aside and have a nap. Even shorter works, I've got by on 10-minute and 15-minute disco naps too. You wake up with just the right amount of oomph to get you out to that 8:00 boogie session, but didn't go down hard enough that you can't sleep until 4 am.

Last week I had a pretty intense disco nap.

I've been trying out the Calm app for a few weeks now. It's a meditation and mindfulness tool with a bunch of materials to help you find calm, sleep, etc. I had heard that SaskTel was giving away free 1-year subscriptions, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. This kind of stuff has been one of the self-care things I've been missing, so what's the risk, right? 

Normally, I just do the 10-minute morning meditation before going to work, but last Wednesday, I figured I could put it on as my timer and focus for my disco-nap ahead of going to Bushwakker for the folk night show a few of my friends were playing at. 

Looking through the 15-minute-long meditations, I found one on forgiveness. For some reason, last week I'd been thinking a lot about the role of forgiveness in the modern world. Do we need more forgiveness? Is misplaced forgiveness what's put us in some of the negative places we're in lately? What role should forgiveness play in my life? 

Normally, when I'm curious about something like this, I'd read an article or Wikipedia about it. But I thought this time, let's meditate on forgiveness. And holy man, did it take me places that night. 

I didn't go into that meditation thinking I needed forgiveness or needed to grant forgiveness. But that meditation took me down to some actually kind of dark places, then slowly worked me back up with some ways to bring forgiveness and happiness in. Totally unexpected but very, very welcome to be sure! 

I rose from the meditation a bit stunned and full of thought, not just about forgiveness but how powerfully that meditation had affected me. In the couple of weeks I've been doing the meditation regularly, I've noticed a few little things. Getting on the bus in the morning feels a bit more detached and centred in a healthy way. My thoughts seem to have less static or bad tuning. They seem smoother. But nothing quite so overt as this. 

It's taken me a long time to find something to fill this particular bucket in my life. As much as we all hear the term "self-care" and how important that is, it's not easy to find. Each of us has our own needs in that regard, and the whole world we live in is so toxic - it can be hard to find all the things one needs. I think one of the benefits of reading all the self-help books I have this year is that I've started to see the patterns and the repeating things that we all need. Spirituality and mindfulness are a big one, and if you're in pursuit of that, I'd suggest giving Calm a try. If Calm isn't in your budget, find some meditation videos on YouTube or grab a book from the library on it. Or just fold laundry in silence for a while. You might be surprised what you find. 

Kindness in 2025

 Last week, I found out that one of the security guards at my office had lost a very short battle with lung cancer. We'd known for the last couple of months that he was sick, and it seems he didn't suffer long. Yes, I've now reached that age where every third conversation or so will include me talking about someone dying. 

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This particular gentleman sticks out to me because he was one of those overtly social people. He always said hello when you came in, knew my name long before I ever learned his and had the ability to hold you hostage for an extended time while he told you about his latest Eve Online campaign or about the go-kart he built. He was an interesting character, and his absence is definitely felt around the office. 

For those of us who worked at this office for around a decade, this one has hit particularly hard because we lost a similarly social and friendly security guard in 2017 - this history rhymes very, very well for us. 

Hearing this news has left me very pensive and introspective because, as much as I can remember and celebrate the kindness of these men today, I often just felt annoyed with them in the moment. And I'm not sure why I felt that way.

Part of it is just that the first hello is always the first thing in the morning, while I'm rolling in groggy and grumpy to work, just trying to get to my desk in time. Being held up to talk about the weather is an inconvenience. 

Another aspect is that the relationships started out weird. I think the security cards we use to swipe into the building probably show our names on a screen for the security people, so they always knew my name. But I was never introduced to them. So the relationship was unbalanced. Had they taken the time to say "Hello Jeremy, I'm ....." I might have felt a bit better about it. But it was always like "How do you know me?" 

Which is to say, I think sometimes that kindness needs to be handled with care these days. You'll often hear advice about treating others with kindness and having that returned. But I haven't always felt or experienced that. Some people really don't reciprocate, and if you bring kindness to the table too boldly, I think it turns people off. 

I have a co-worker who has a very old-school approach to being social and being kind - and it feels invasive sometimes. I'm just trying to drink my coffee; it's not your business when the last time I pooped was. I'm drinking my coffee- it will happen again soon. 

Plus, after 18 years in the corporate world, I've noticed an awful lot of assholes and idiots get promoted. Not that there aren't people who earned promotions or deserve it. But I also know a lot of friendly people who have been passed over in favour of the people you really wouldn't want to spend any significant time with on a desert island. 

So, all of that to say: in this festive season, maybe don't be kind to each other. Leave me a mean comment below! 

Tossin it out there

 I know I had some good ideas for blogs this past weekend, but instead of taking note of those good ideas, I allowed myself to forget. Now it's Tuesday, and I have no idea where I'm gonna go with this. 

So let's go free-form for a bit. 

I twisted my ankle really badly about a week and a half ago. In addition to the general pain and inconvenience being hobbled AGAIN is bringing, there was the embarrassment of doing it in front of my neighbour. Thankfully, he'd just recovered from one himself, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 

But it does mean I've been stuck inside, grumpy and generally out of touch with the world. I did get a chance to head out to Indian Head and play an open mic this weekend. I drove out with a new music friend, Jason and had a fun chat with him on the road out there. He wants me to head out to the O'Hanlon's open mic tonight. I'm inclined to go, I do like this open mic, but I'm also tired and sore and kinda just wanna hang out at home. I've got a gig this coming weekend, and I could use the practice.  But I could also use the live practice. Dammit. 

I think I'm going to be happy by the end of December this year, and not for the reasons you might think. I've got a lot of gigs and practicing to do, but I also need to do some administrative stuff and get some projects wrapped and rolling on the music side. While 2025 has been a pretty great year for figuring out what I wanna do with myself, it's left me with a pretty big pile of things to do and it's hard to balance performing and doing the rest of it. I'd sure like to sit down and write some music again sometime! 

And then of course, I'm behind on Christmas gift-buying. I've gotten better the past few years at being on the ball for this stuff. But not 2025. I suppose some of that is being so busy. But also just haven't seen too much inspiration from the people I want to gift to in terms of what to get them. Maybe they all get toilet paper to celebrate 5 years since COVID. 

I dunno. Been thinking a lot about 2026 and the future lately. Sometimes it's hard to think of what to do next when you're worried the whole damn thing is going to collapse around you in the next few years. But at the same time - what better time to take a risk? If everyone is going to fail, might as well fail doing something I love and not talking corporate speak or having my soul drained at 7:30 am every day. 

Yeah - 'tis the season I guess. 

Let's have Moraff that

 Last Friday, The Navigator posted about a favourite piece of legacy software. It brought to mind the very old days of computers - pre Windows - and what that world looked like. 

It reminded me of an old game I played when I was younger, Moraff's World.

In the early 90s, my gaming PC was a Tandy 1000 TX, with a massive 640k of RAM and 16 blazing colours if you pushed it hard enough. Yeah, it was great in 1985, and I was still using it in 1996. 

In this pre-Internet age (or at least pre-Internet in everyone's home age), you had to go to a physical place called a "store" to buy video games. The games would be held on a physical object called a "floppy disk." In my hometown, there was a little shop that sold and fixed computers, software and general tech stuff. They had a little shelf full of blue discs where the owner would load the latest in Shareware games to be purchased for $5. I think that this is probably technically against the spirit of Shareware, but he had to do the work and pay for the disks, so... whatever, it gave me access to games I wouldn't otherwise have.

One of those disks I bought had the game we're featuring today on it, Moraff's World. I think it also had another Moraff game, Moraff Stones, on the same disc. Not quite a sequel, but set in the same universe as World. 

Moraff's World is a role-playing game with no real plot, and the only stated goal is to get stronger and more powerful. 

The player starts in a top-level town and needs to descend through progressively more challenging dungeon levels, encountering monsters to fight for experience and loot.  It's a lot of climbing up and down ladders and pushing "F" until you or the monster die. 

In addition to the ladders, occasionally you get caught in an invisible (and occasionally visible) chute that drags you down to ever deeper levels. It's like a high-stakes version of snakes and ladders. 

You start the game off by creating a character. I'm not a big D&D player, but I think that this plays out much like rolling your character for a campaign. You get to pick a race and a type that defines what kind of weapons, spells and actions you have access to. 

The top level town is free of monsters and has a number of shops you can enter, including the store, inn, temple and bank. These are each noted by a different colour square, and without a key of which is which, is super annoying. I'm sure in time I'd memorize them all or put a little note on my monitor. But for this short term play it was really frustrating. Additionally, when I was younger, I played on the 4-colour setting because my computer was such a beast, so telling the difference between shops was impossible. I wish there had been a letter or symbol representing each spot. 

On the subject of the graphics quality, an oft-repeated criticism of this game is the at best-childlike drawings of the monsters featured in the game. 

I never noticed this when I played as a kid, but as I say - I only had 4 colours to work with and everything looks bad when the graphics are this bad. 

Looking back on the game 20-30 years on, and I'm a bit mixed on how I feel about it. I was able to play long enough to recapture the depth of this game. Trying to figure out what spells to use when, building up my character and trying to get deeper and deeper in the dungeon. But playing it through an online DOSBox console is very unstable, and it would crash before I got too deep. 

On the other hand, the terrible graphics are all the more clear the better the graphics quality gets. Go figure. Plus, the game is agonizingly slow even on a modern computer, and it's not something I can see myself returning to in much depth. I certainly don't feel like pursuing finding the full version. 

This game could be fun with a reskin, some more efficient programming and some quality of life updates. I think the core game really could be something fun on a mobile.

I took a poke at the sequel, Moraff's World: Dungeons of the Unforgiven, but didn't give it much time. The graphics are slightly improved, but the control scheme is all different and pretty frustrating. 

All in all, Moraff's World is probably best kept in the past. It was a fun introduction to the RPG genre for me, but looking back on it now, there were definitely better games available at the time. I'm not saying I had access to them, I'm just saying better was out there.

And if I want to scratch the same kind of dungeon-crawling itch, I could pick up one of the early Diablo games and get a far better experience. Although that's an addiction I swore I'd never go back to. 

Done did a football

 While my love of Canadian football and, in particular, the Saskatchewan Roughriders is well documented in this blog, I haven't written about ball in any real depth here since restarting a couple of years ago. At least not Roughrider football. So it might come as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated that my beloved Riders brought home the Grey Cup for the first time in 13 years on Sunday. (Well, technically, they brought it home yesterday, but they WON the Cup on Sunday)

It was a very good season for the Green and White. With a teenage son who's obsessed with football in the house, getting out to games has been something we put some work into, and it was early in the season that we were discussing how good the team worked and how maybe-just maybe- this was the year. 

Well, we led the league in wins coming out of the regular season, and we got a chance not only to attend the West Final to see them beat BC, but the winning touchdown happened in the end zone right in front of us. 

And so we reached last night - and a 25-17 win against the Montreal Allouettes in Winnipeg. We walked down to the Green Mile (Albert St. and Victoria Ave in Regina, and Albert St north/south of there) to join the celebrations. We'd gone down in 2007 and 2013, so it felt like a "must do" this time as well. 

We got there relatively early in the night; there was a group enough to fill the intersection, but it hadn't filled the streets yet. But there were fireworks being fired off and plenty of folks celebrating the win. It was a bit wet and cold, but nothing like the deep snow from 2013 or the bitter cold the night we won in 2007. 

I said it on the walk home - I've become so conditioned to being disappointed by the Riders, it felt weird to be celebrating the win. And it's gonna feel good for a few weeks, love being in this city when we're champions. 

Quotable Quotes

When I think back to some of the things that I miss from before the internet, magazines come to mind as something I'd love to have back in my life. Yes, I can still subscribe to Rolling Stone or Wired if I want, but it feels like that era has passed. 

One of the pivotal publications of my early years was a stocky little magazine called Reader's Digest. Now, I'm sure my only reader is aware that Reader's Digest was less about putting together a collection of new articles than it was more of a soup of articles from other magazines all over the world. It made the Reader's Digest a delightful view into a million subjects. Perfect for a polymath like me.  

One of the recurring features in the Reader's Digest was "Quotable Quotes", a page of quotes from famous or notable people. It was my least favourite of the recurring Digest pages. I much preferred "Humour in Uniform" or "Laughter in Medicine". 

I've always felt that way about quotes. We've all seen those Facebook posts from some Karen telling us to "Believe in urself" superimposed on a picture of a creek. Or like "Where's my wine" and it's just women laughing. Truly the very dregs of modern culture. 

I think it's why I love Disappointing Affirmations on Instagram so much

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So it's in that context that I find myself quite confused about my recent obsession with quotes.

I think it's coming from all of the self-help books I've been reading lately. If the information in a self-help book is the tile that builds the floor, quotes are the grout that keeps them together.

I've found myself writing these quotes into my journals and copying them onto my studio whiteboard on a regular basis. I don't think they're changing my behaviour or making my life any clearer. But I'm copying them. And this isn't me copying quotes from the books I'm reading. They're quotes I'm hearing out in the world, stuff I'm hearing people say.

Stuff like: 

"Money is the result of investing in hard work" - Susan Sneath

"Always move on. Take the next step forward" - Elder Harry Francis - Piapot First Nation

"You are playing the game of becoming more yourself every day" - Designing Your Life

Ok well that last one was from one of my books. But it's not a quote of a quote - it's right from the book. 

Maybe it's helping me to put all of these new ideas I'm grinding on into context. Or maybe knowing someone else said this stuff gives it more legitimacy. 

I dunno. But I'm pretty into quotes lately. 

Share your favourite quote in the comments. Or better yet- write me your own quote that I can put in my journal and write on my whiteboard! 

A story about gitch

Gitch. Gotch. Ginch. 

Call them what you want, they're all underwear and of late, I've needed some more. It's a combination of realizing that my 10-year-old Pac Man underoos have very few outings left in them and the fact that the Fruit of the Loom pack I bought last year never really lived up to their promise. 

So it was in that environment that I was on the search for something new a few weeks ago. I investigated some new styles, learned about breathable cotton and all sorts of things. Through this sea of options, it occurred to me that maybe I could be finding something Canadian or local to buy. And that's where I found Do + Dare. 

It's a small company out of Toronto that makes underwear here in Canada out of bamboo. They've been on Dragon's Den and overall seemed like a good match for what I want. 

I put in an order for a couple of different styles, including, of note for this story, a 3-pack of "Shorties Undies" which were listed under the Unisex section of their site. Honestly, what I'd been looking for was something closer to a brief over boxers, and these seemed to be the closest thing they had. 

Now, I'm not so naive that I didn't clue in right away that these really looked more like women's "boy short" style underwear, but I thought maybe there was something about the material or make that I didn't see. They were listed as "unisex" after all. 

A few days later, a little paper-wrapped package arrived with my new underwear! It was with the type of glee one can only experience when new underwear arrives that I ran upstairs to try them on. And they... they weren't right. 

To the uninitiated, wearing women's underwear is a strange thing. Sure, there's the kink of it all. We can all enjoy that. But they just don't fit. And it's not just the pouch in the front. It's like they aren't tall enough. Like the bottom of the underwear comes up just a little too high. That's the experience I had putting on these underwear. 

But fret not, this wasn't a waste! By some serendipity, while Rhonda and I are of very different heights, we are nearly identical around the waist. So Rhonda got herself three new pairs of Canadian-made underwear. Everyone wins. 

A few days later, I got the usual "review our product email" and did so by giving the product 4/5 stars and commenting that maybe they shouldn't be categorized as unisex because they're clearly designed for people with female anatomy. 

Imagine my surprise when I got a personal text message from the owner of the company asking to discuss the issues I had and offering to make things right! We had a really productive and open conversation about my experience, and he was very open to my observations that this wasn't an issue with the product but an issue with the marketing. To his credit, he shared that the underwear is indeed designed for women, but they found a lot of men in the LGBTQ+ community were buying them, so they thought they'd give this a shot. I didn't say it to him at the time, but the thought occurred after that: maybe there's some kink to buying women's underwear, and you're actually taking that away with the permission that unisex grants. We also talked about sizing and how maybe an XL of this product would have been a correct fit.

All this to say, a company saw that I had even a minor issue and reached out to see if they could fix it. I do note that the shorties are still listed under the unisex category, and there isn't a change to the sizing guide. But maybe that's coming. You can't change every time someone makes a complaint. Plus, they gave me a $10 credit, which I used to buy some 4" Boxer Briefs, which fit great. 

And wouldn't you know it - there was another minor problem in that I ordered a 3-pack and the colours I wanted were out of stock. So in came another text message to make a few quick substitutions and another text from the owner saying he'd made sure my new order was sent out with care. 

All in all, it ended up great. The new undies fit like a dream, and I have a company that I'm prepared to sing the praises of. 

Oh, and there's an epilogue to all of this. Wouldn't you know it if I got an email last week inviting me to test drive their new underwear style - men's briefs. Dammit. By the time I got on the website, my size was sold out, but you can bet that I'm going to be waiting with baited breath for them to go on sale!

Incidentally, I understand that my only reader is my brother, so a post on underwear is uncomfortable. But I spared you the details of the thong, and I didn't post any pictures of me in the shortie undies to illustrate the poor fit. So just say thank you and move along. 

Is AI coming for me or not?

 Come at me bro.

If you've been anywhere outside or online in the last 2 or 3 years, you know that we are in the gold rush of the 2020s - Artificial Intelligence. At first, I thought it was just large language models like ChatGPT, but increasingly I'm seeing that the world wants to put AI everywhere - in our fridges, our underwear, heck, I even ordered a sub last week and had to ask them to hold the AI. 

I've got some opinions on AI. I've certainly looked it in the face and played around with it. I'm not one of those "not in my backyard" type folks. I've tried to implement it in my work, talked through a few problems with it and even wrote an academic paper about the application of AI in disaster communications for an insurance company. I know, I'm an absolute riot at a party. 

But more and more, I'm not liking AI. And I don't think it has so much to do with the product itself, I recognize it as the next step in technological advancement and that it's in an imperfect early phase. It's how it's being implemented and pushed by the tech sector that has me annoyed and frustrated.

At the most basic level, CoPilot, Microsoft's AI model, has been pushed to our software at work. Which wouldn't be an issue but for the fact that every document takes an extra 30 seconds to load while Copilot pre-reads it for me. Or every time I right-click to copy something, the Copilot option is up there. And yes, I know Control-C is there, but I want to keep my hand on my mouse, quit trying to control my life! 

Even more frustrating is its integration into our search. At first, I thought it might be useful, but it's all but destroyed Google. I've received demonstrably incorrect answers from Gemini AI, and it has positioned itself as the first stop when I use the search. 

And I think this is where we're at the crux of our modern world - we're happy to gobble shit up long before it's ready. Generative AI is, at this point in late 2025, completely mediocre. Yes, it can write, but it doesn't do it well. I will, I know that, but it doesn't at present. It's kind of like how when/if you buy a game on day 1 and you still need to do an update to make it work. Brand new things are not ready for market, yet we're happy to let it go out. 

Ok, enough old man rant. But a couple of other thoughts. 

I saw an ad today that made the claim that our lives are twice as busy as they used to be, and in order to SURVIVE - yes that was the word used, survive - moving forward, we would need AI to help us. What happened to the dream of this technology making our lives easier? Like, shouldn't we be granted more breaks and more time off since the computers are doing so much more work? 

But more concerning is that I've heard and seen a lot of recent discussion about AI being in a bubble. A bubble that's ready to pop. Today I saw an article that said the AI bubble is 17x larger than the dot com bubble - and the chart is pretty wild to see. So like - if we need this to survive and it's about to burst - um. What? Like I can fix my dryer so I'm sure I'm ok but like we're gonna be seeing a lot of people jumping off very tall narrow buildings pretty soon if any of this is to be believed. 

But then. Maybe why worry? If it's all gonna collapse or it's plateaued - another claims I've seen - then this really is as good as it gets and it's really not much of a threat. Maybe it all adjusts itself soon enough and we can get back to playing lawn darts and smoking in the car. 

Only time will tell. 

Repair Guy

 Well, speaking of being an impostor, I spent the last weekend pretending I'm an appliance repairman. That's twice this month I've had a washing machine apart in the house to fix it. It was the dishwasher earlier this month, this weekend it was the clothes washer.

I joked to Rhonda as she was lending me a hand with the dishwasher that when I die and she goes through my photo reels, it won't be salacious photos of me with another partner, it'll just be thousands of pictures of the wiring harnesses, pump innards and valve bodies. Scandalous nudity indeed. 

I said it earlier this year; on one hand, I'm grateful that I have the knowledge to do some of these repairs - and the know-how to watch YouTube videos and read exploded view drawings on Parts Select. It not only saves me money but it helps when things go wrong to be able to handle the situation until I can get someone out to fix it. 

On the other hand, I blew a full evening and an entire weekend fixing this goddamn thing. I had other things I wanted to do. But I got it fixed. Eventually. I think I ran through every single other system in the dryer and was on the last one before I found the problem - a dirty lid switch. 

Which is where I argue that doing these repairs is much harder for me as an amateur than it would be for a professional repair person. They've seen it all before and probably would have gone, "Oh, these Amana washers, 9 times out of 10 it's a dirty lid switch." They'd then proceed to spray it with some weird shit called "Miracle Repair All" and give me a bill for $500. I sprayed it too - I guess my time is worth $500. 

But I suppose that's just being a dad and owning a home. At least I got all fixed. And you won't catch me complaining about it when it helps me fix my guitar or an amp that's on the fritz. 

Oh, and these photos? They're not just from this weekend's challenge. There are photos from the clothes washer, dishwasher, camper, clothes dryer and Jonas's computer. All from the last year or so. 

Maybe I got into the wrong line of work. 

Impostors and Impostor syndrome

As I enter midlife, I'm pursuing creativity more in my life. And not just as a hobby or pastime, but as something that defines me and as the foundation I want to set my career and life on. I've always been creative, but my creativity was never properly encouraged growing up. For a long time, I thought that meant I didn't have as much creativity as others. As I've matured, I recognize my creativity is very different from others, and they didn't know how to process that. 

But especially when you're young, it's not easy to see that. So it's made it hard for me to enter the creative realm, and like many people in my position, I've really struggled with impostor syndrome. Struggled to the point where co-workers have had to actively tell me I am worthy of what I have. It's a hard thing to work through. 

Which is why I'm floored when I come across stories of real impostors. I don't encounter a lot of real impostors in my life (or at least they're really good at imposting, so I don't recognize them). But every so often, you hear stories of them.

For example, I've really been into police bodycam and dashcam videos lately. I don't know why. I bear witness to enough violence and vehicular carnage in my neighbourhood to satiate that urge. One of the videos I watched recently was of a group of officers investigating a guy who was pretending to be a cop. It's pretty cringey to watch since you know from the very start that the guy isn't a cop. For someone who feels like an impostor in a place I've been asked and encouraged to be, it makes my skin positively CRAWL to watch this guy try and squirm his way through this. I just don't know how he does it. 

Or maybe one of the more famous and egregious impostors is the story of Tania Head (or so she called herself). Tania claimed to have escaped from the impact zone of the South Tower during 9/11. But, as this blog is likely leading you to see, she wasn't. She wasn't even in the US. The whole story is told in some depth in the documentary, The Woman Who Wasn't There. And she didn't just claim to be a 9/11 survivor. No no no. She actually took control of a couple of 9/11 survivor support groups, led tours of the WTC area and was a very visible face in the survivor community. Until the New York Times started meddling in her past.

Watching impostors like that gives me much the same gross feeling inside as watching urban explorers in places they shouldn't be. It all seems very fun right up until you're going to get caught. Then there's no way out. 

I sometimes have an urge to create a different personality. Or create a second me that's maybe a little wilder, more daring. I'm not even talking about being an impostor as much as just having a second personality that amplifies certain parts of my own persona. Maybe that's the kind of place where impostors come from. Maybe the cop dude watched body cam videos like me and just pursued that interest in the wrong direction. They say Tania Head suffered from some lack of empathy in her own life and maybe saw the 9/11 survivors as a place where she could find love. 

I don't know where it comes from, but it's fascinating to watch people who have dug themselves so deeply into a lie. And it always makes me wonder where it started. 

Leave me a comment as an impostor below! 

The Return of Rush

Back in our radio days, The Navigator and I had a "Trilogy of Rock". Rush, Clutch and Motorhead. 

Unfortunately, neither of us would ever see Motorhead, but we've both been able to see Clutch and Rush together over the years. We saw Clutch a couple of years ago in Saskatoon and saw Rush in Calgary in 2015 on their final tour. 

Or so we thought. 

It was to my great delight yesterday that I opened up YouTube and saw a video that was only a few minutes old from Rush called "Geddy and Alex Send a Message to Rush Fans". Rush is back, baby.

They're reuniting with German-stickswoman Anika Nilles, who, per the video, recently played with the late Jeff Beck's band. I admit, I hadn't heard of her before yesterday, but the videos I've seen have been promising. She certainly has the chops. And if Ged and the other guy think she's good enough, then I trust she is. 

I'm glad to see the guys back at it. It always bugs me when talented folks aren't playing. I know it's selfish as a fan to say that, but there's always a pretty good reason for musicians to stop playing together. It makes me sad that bands like Rage Against the Machine don't play together. There is too much talent in the surviving members of Rush to leave them in a retirement home. 

Tickets go up for sale next week, and I expect I can't afford to go to Toronto for the show. But boy, it's tempting to see them again. 

One more time. 

Dogs! (Oh heck and why not cats too?)

 I've wanted to do a post about my dogs since coming back to the blogiverse, and since I've caught the curse that's befallen my siblings, today is the day for that lazier path. 

Long-time readers will know about my first dog, Bootsy, and Rhonda's pupper, Shadow. Bootsy left us in 2013 after a short and kinda disturbing set of illnesses. That was a pretty tough one for me, and I still miss her from time to time. 

Bootsy wasn't gone for long before Rhonda dragged me to the Humane Society, and we dragged home an adult Husky I named Leika after the first dog in space. 

Leika was a pretty challenging dog. She had a drive to run - especially away, and she was never easy to walk despite practicing every single day. But she did have a lot of love in her heart and was unflinchingly protective of the kids. Like Bootsy, she had a very short but extreme decline at the end of her life in late 2020, and we said goodbye to her while we were in lockdown.

In 2013, we started to notice that there were an awful lot of mice around the 100-year-old house we moved into that year. So we decided to get a cat. And so we adopted Chopstick from a farm. He was a famous scrapper on the farm, and the family there thought he might do best if he was taken away from the other cats in the area. 

Chop really was an excellent family cat. He was patient with the young kids who would drag him around, knew how to keep our big dogs in check and kept the mouse population in the house at zero. But he never lost his scrapper attitude or his wanderlust, and he paid the price for it over and over. More than a few times, he came home with severe fight-related injuries to his face, eyes and ears. 

Most famously, Chopstick was a victim of violence at the hands of an unknown assailant in the neighbourhood. One evening in late June 2017, Chop came home dragging his rear hind leg behind him. We couldn't figure out what had happened, and when we took him to the vet, it was quickly determined that he had been shot in the butt by a BB gun. The pellet shattered his rear hip, and unfortunately, it led to an amputation of his hind leg. 

Chop would spend the remaining five years of his life as a tripod who still loved to go out and scrap, catch mice and keep the dogs in check. While Chop got along famously with all of the dogs, when Liberty showed up, he no longer had patience for dealing with dogs. Chop moved himself outside permanently when Lib moved in, and he stopped coming by the house for visits in late 2022. We don't know what happened to him, but I suspect someone will find a kitty skeleton under the deck someday. 

Like when we lost Leika, it didn't take long for the thought of another dog to start making the rounds in late 2020. So it was in November 2020 that I got my first real puppy - though she wouldn't stay small for long. We got my first purebred dog from a breeder, the Newfoundlander dog, Ahsoka. The new Star Wars series of the same name debuted that week, and Ahsoka is one of my favourite Star Wars characters. So it was an easy one to do. 

Ahsoka has been the most successful dog I've had so far. Maybe it's the breed, maybe it's because she was the first dog I raised from a puppy, but she's been easier to walk, train and communicate with. She is absolutely the big teddy bear that everyone thinks she is, and is just a pleasure to have around. But she's unfortunately enormous, and I've not got the body I need to have for such a big dog. Because she's still a dog and they need to dash at squirrels and cats, even if I'd rather she doesn't.

Ahsoka is also my first pet with a social media account. But we basically never update it anymore. I wonder if people think she's gone? 

As mentioned earlier in June 2022, Liberty, the Great Pyreneese/Border Collie cross, joined the family. His owner, Gary, passed away, and we agreed to adopt Liberty and give him a good home. This made the family a three-dog family for a short while (tragic foreshadowing). 

Liberty is a pretty good dog, but he's also quite anxious. We've never been sure if it was some of the stuff that happened when his owner passed, or just his nature, or both. But he's always been quite reactive and headstrong. And he's obsessively protective of Rhonda. He reminds me a lot of Leika a lot of the time, especially when I walk him. He's got his own path that he wants to take at all times. 

And so we come to late 2022 with our last welcome and our last farewell. 

During Christmas break in 2022, we welcomed a new mouse management officer to our home in the form of a tiny little grey/gold tabby named Baba. For my own reasons, I rarely call her that and have just nicknamed her an altered version of "Chop" to "Chip". She's a very small cat compared to Chopstick, but she's extremely fast and very bold. Despite living in a home with two large dogs, she rules the roost. And she might be even better than Chopstick was at mousing. Because there has been ZERO sign of mice since she took over the job. I think she's just able to fit into spots he wasn't. 

She's a troublemaker, but she's cute and clearly thinks she's a dog that weighs over 120lbs. No one's bothered to correct her. 

And I've hinted enough, but we said goodbye to Shadow just as 2022 turned into 2023. He was nearly 18 years old, and the last year of his life was not very high-quality. Shadow was a fierce protector, despite his diminutive size, and I don't think he ever needed a leash in his whole life. 

And so our family has been filled out with two big dogs and one tiny cat ever since. We fostered a beautiful reddish golden retriever, whom we nicknamed "Honey" because her name was also Liberty. The owner wanted us to adopt her, but with my gout and two dogs we already needed to care for, it wasn't to be. She stayed with us for a few weeks and was definitely part of our pet story. I miss having a fish tank, but I don't think the cat would leave them alone. Her killer instinct is too strong. We tried to have a few guinea pigs, but Leika made a snack of one, and that experiment ended prematurely. 

And now, I'm finally caught up on my pet story here on Pilot's World. My pets really are important to me, and in looking at my Instagram to put this together, I'm realizing how much I love animals in general. Maybe someday, Rhonda will let me get a highland cow. 

Two in a year

Last week, just after walking off stage after performing at O’Hanlon’s I learned that my grandfather, Remo Forer had passed away at 97 years old. I carry his name with me; my middle name is Remo after him.

I’m sad about it, but at the same time, I never had a deep relationship with grandpa. We would talk politely at family events, and I always loved passing out the gum he gave me to my cousins, but he never really shared wisdom with me or guided me through much of life.

We always lived in a different town, so that’s a part of it. I know many of my cousins who lived around Avonlea had much closer relationships.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an appreciation and respect for the man. 97 good years of life is in itself respectable. But I also share his passion for hats, and I admire his entrepreneurial spirit. In fact, if there’s one thing I wish I’d learned more from him, it’s how to be a businessman. He may have been a farmer and later a gravel-baron, but at his core, he was a shrewd businessman.

I also admire his longevity. And not just living to 97. Up until two or three years ago, he was still extremely active. Famously, he did a James Bond-style dive out of his bulldozer as it slipped off a cliff. On his 90^th birthday! I don’t know that I could make that dive now at 44.

And so, we said farewell to grandpa on Saturday. I always find the graveside part of the mourning process to be the most impactful. Church is important to a lot of my family, but it always feels like the priest is spending more time delivering a guilt trip than helping us remember or mourn. But at the graveside, we say goodbye, and it’s very emotional. And twice in the last month, I’ve shovelled dirt on the remains of a grandparent. I was an honourary pallbearer for the first time; I’m sure it won’t be my last.

And so, I’m left with one grandparent. Luckily/unlucky, I dunno. But I know it’s fleetingly rare to reach my age with any grandparents. And grandma is not doing great. She was too sick to attend the funeral, and I do worry if we’ll be saying goodbye to her before long.

I suppose that’s just part of growing up and growing older. 

Danks Coach!

It’s been a weird year for me.

On one hand, I’ve launched a music project that’s growing at a really comfortable rate and giving me the confidence – and permission – to really stretch out creatively.

On the other hand, nearly 18 years at the same company and struggles to get ahead there have really started to chafe me, and I question why I’ve let myself get stuck there.

Over the past few months, in particular since I was unsuccessful in earning the promotion I was going for, I’ve been looking at changing paths. Maybe find a new job or at least look at some different possibilities. But the job boards don’t really have anything that piques my interest.

In a few months, my current job contract will expire, and I’ve already made a goal to try and make up the shortfall that will come by playing music. I don’t know if I’ll make it in time, but BOY am I gonna try!

It's with that frustration at looking at other jobs, and this maybe a bit insane try at something completely different that I decided to start using a career coach. My work has an FSEAP (Family Services Employee Assistance Program) that provides it as a benefit, so why not?

So it was that last Friday, I spent over an hour on a Zoom call with a wonderful woman named Susan as we started to discuss my goals, look at what I wanted to make happen and explore some ways to make that happen. It was shocking to me how encouraging she was; there was no “no you can’t do that,” and very little negative language. In fact, the only negative language was coming out of me, and she was very quick to correct it and put me back on a better trajectory.

It was also interesting how I’m really already on the path. I’ve set some deadlines, making some hard work happen and making some hard choices. I’m looking at my options, and even though I perceived my use of the resources my job gives me to my own ends as parasitic, she helped me to reframe that as just realizing the possibilities of my resources. It’s less about being selfish as much as it’s about self-care. We have benefits at work – so let them benefit me!

In the short term, I’ve reignited my use of my daily journal (basically every counsellor and coach I’ve ever had harps on it; it’s time I get more consistent), and I’m making plans to start doing a bit more every day. I already practice and write every day, but I also need to set time aside to “do paperwork”. And that’s one I’m well behind on. I’m actually a bit slow at work lately, so I’m going to use some of that capacity in the short term to catch up on that and get myself set up for future success.

And then there’s the books.

While I do like the idea of journaling, self-help books are a bit grating to me and a few were recommended. They just seem to go on and on, and then you get one good nugget of info. I’ve put a few on my reading list per Susan’s suggestion, but I’m not sure how deep I’ll delve into them. But I will try.

Oh, and – the encouragement. I’ve gotta say there was nothing more valuable than having someone who understood my frustration and my dreams just yelling “YES” at me across an internet connection. Don’t get me wrong, Rhonda is supportive, and Mom tries to be enthusiastic. But there’s something about someone who’s also pursued a life in the arts telling me that YES, I CAN DO THIS, that is just the bee’s knees. I think I needed someone to give me more than permission.

I think it’s gonna be a really interesting winter. There are lots of cool things ahead. 

Is summer really going to end?

Rhonda and I were discussing recently how once the kids were gone, we were going to start taking our holidays in the fall when the weather is a bit more moderate, there are fewer people at campgrounds, and it's just easier to get time off. 

I've always hated how so many people just give up on the outdoors as soon as Labour Day is behind us. Sure, for the kids, summer necessarily ends when they go back to school. But for me, little has changed beyond the month I write at the top of my journal every morning. 

This past weekend really reinforced that for me. I went to my first Doylefest, a little folk festival at Eagle Creek Regional Park near Asquith. In true folk-festival form, it was a camping-only festival with a great group of musicians and music lovers. I'm not exactly the biggest folk-nerd, but these were my people, and it was a really great weekend outside! 

Wasn't it cold at night? You bet your damn bippy it was. But when has that ever been a hindrance for me? I had a good tent, lots of blankets and clothes, and I was ready and happy to be out there enjoying myself. If I'd attended with a few other people, I would have had a big fire and brought the camper along just to further my comforts. As I sat at the main stage on Sunday morning, basking in the sun, buzzing from my own recent performance and sipping my delicious coffee, it occurred to me that this weekend could go on forever. Maybe I wouldn't go home. 

But then again, so much of this is about letting seasons affect our behaviour. Obviously, when it rains, you need an umbrella, and when it's cold, you need a jacket, but why do we decide to hibernate the second it gets less than ideal? I've always wished that I had taken up snowmobiling or another outdoor winter sport. Something to get me out in the sun so I can stave off the seasonal affective disorder a bit. 

I did get some snowshoes for Christmas a few years ago, but I've only really had a couple of opportunities to use them. And with my endlessly encroaching gout, I don't know how many more opportunities I'll get to use them. But I heard that the Farmer's Almanac is predicting lots of snow this year, so who knows? Maybe this is the year. 

I don't exactly know what I've got planned for the next few weeks, but I'm going to find things. Football games, maybe some walking in the parks, and I'll hopefully find myself a way to enjoy as much of 2025 as I have left. 

Let's go for a swim

I had a weird liminal space dream about a week ago. I was in a vast area underground of stacked halls with tall columns, all in pale white marble or limestone. It was located underneath a city, and I remember wondering which level I'd go through that would pop up to the surface - though it never came. At one point, I really wanted my flashlight, and somehow I knew - I'd have to wake up to go get it. 

So with that unsettled, offness that can follow a nocturnal liminal adventure, it was quite stunning to stumble across YouTuber, TangoTek, playing a game called "Pools." So I stopped for a bit and watched what he was playing. Another escape into the liminal.

I started with the demo, which features Level 1, a complex of interconnected, waist-deep pools. The facility is dotted with the occasional waterslide, bottomless pit diving boards, deck chair, rubber ducky and a couple of very unsettling environmental occurrences. While occasionally unsettling, I would actually very much like to be able to wander through a place like this myself. Especially if the water was very warm, it would be sort of a sauna wander. Some areas in Level 1 are very dark and secluded. Places like grottos and tunnels are the kind of place you could cop a feel - or lose an arm, 

For all of its minimalist simplicity, the game is stunning both in the visual and audio spaces. It's actually why I tried the demo first, I wasn't sure if my Costco laptop was gonna handle it. It does, but it sags a bit from the heat. 

This one is better with headphones for sure, each room sounds and echoes differently. But it's in the audio space that the simplicity of going for a stroll gets amped up into the horror genre. Or at least high anxiety. You can hear machinery moaning, the building creaking and occasionally footsteps and voices where there shouldn't be. My biggest complaint about the whole game is that your footsteps sound like you're wearing army boots. I feel like it should sound barefoot. You encounter statues throughout the playthrough and they're all naked. 

To be sure, it reflects tense feelings visually as well. The facility switches from brightly lit and maybe sharing a wall with the outside to dark, with only pool lights to guide your way forward. 

The game also seems to read your mind at times. In one of the middle levels, I got to thinking how weird it was that there weren't any doors. And shortly thereafter, doors begin to appear. And just as you're thinking that the tile everywhere is so repetitive that you can't tell which way is up and which way is down, the game takes a turn into movement that can only happen in a dream. 

And this is where this game really sticks to the feelings of the dream I mentioned at the start. It's an enormous place, like the underground labyrinth my dream took place in. It's lonely, and the only instinct that serves you is curiosity and exploration. As a regular player of games like Zelda, I was always looking for clues or a puzzle to solve, but it was never there. Just as the Steam description promises, there are no enemies, no antagonist, no story and no jump scares. It gets tense, but there's never anything to kill you. 

The game does have a death mechanic, but instead of starting you over at the start of the level, it just rewinds your progress about 30 seconds or so to the point before you died. For the most part, you die by falling or drowning - but you are still asked to take a few leaps of faith in the game to progress. 

Overall, the game captures that backrooms/liminal space well. There are parts that are reminiscent of Silent Hill, especially in the odd constructions that don't make sense. And there are parts towards the end of the game that elicit the imagery at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Dave has gone through the technicolour wormhole and is walking around in his spacesuit before becoming an old man. 

Pools is a good deal for the $13 or so you pay for the game. If you have someone in your house who might play through it as well, it's a steal. If you're looking for a few hours of distraction with a game that isn't really a game at all, I encourage you to check it out! 

I saw the Navigator this weekend

I even poked him in the back.

This weekend was the not-so-exciting but emotional sequel to our grandma's funeral from this past January. We gathered in Melville to inter her and meet as a family. 

The gathering was much more intimate than the funeral, with only the direct descendants gathering. While there was some focus on keeping the family together and united, I never feel like I get enough time at these things to meet with everyone. When I say I poked the Navigator in the back, I think that's about the extent of the interaction I got with him. I talked with a few of my aunts and uncles, but again no real catching up. 

I always somewhat dreaded family reunions in the past, but coming out of this, I do hope we have one for this slice of the family sometime soon. I'd like to spend more time catching up with cousins, aunts and uncles soon. It seems the only time I've seen any of them in the last few years has been to help grandma move or mourn her loss.

It was a bit of a low weekend overall. Rhonda was out of town, which meant I had a lot more on my plate. In addition to the funeral, Jonas's team suffered a pretty humiliating defeat on Sunday night that was capped by a season-ending injury to their slotback. It was so bad that they called the game 4 minutes early to bring an ambulance onto the field. And that was the second player they've lost for the season already. But Jonas made his first reception, so I guess there was a bit of a silver lining. 

Beyond that -a bad rental car, a depressed dog and our water being shut off for 3 days because of the construction out front made for a pretty frustrating and depressing weekend. 

But I think I'm getting it turned around. I played on the Bushwakker stage for the first time last night and had a great time meeting some other musicians and singing songs for people. Between playing at the funeral and the 'Wakk - it's been a busy week of rehearsing. And I've got more coming right away with a little performance at the library for Nuit Blanche on Saturday and another gig in Asquith SK on the 6th. They're all little gigs but they give me a chance to network and spread some more stickers around!