A Week To Forget

So, while I haven't posted in a long, long time (my previously published post is from November 7th, 2022, exactly three and a half years ago today), I have always enjoyed having this blog as a repository of events in my life. With that in mind, I return to catalogue one of the most emotionally exhausting weeks in my life, purely for posterity reasons. Strap in, this is going to be a long one. (Spoiler: All's well that ends well.) 

Last Friday, May 1st, I was home from work a little early. Claire was still running her DnD game for Ada and three of her friends, so I retired briefly to the bedroom to rest and relax before dinner. 

As usually happens once DnD is done, Ada and her fellow party members hang out and play games together. When it's a bit wet or cold out, that means multiplayer video games. Oh, Reader. How I wish this Mayday had been wet and cold. But it wasn't. It was glorious. Beautiful, clear blue skies, temperature in the mid 20°C. Outdoor time. 

Once the house was quiet again, I came out and settled in to watch some YouTube. The open windows meant I could hear all the kids having a great time in our courtyard area, shouting, laughing, racing about the place like kids should. 

After about ten minutes of this, Connor arrived in the front door, declaring loudly that he needed the washroom. Finding it occupied, he came over to see what I was watching. 

"Having fun outside with friends?"

"Yeah. Ada's crying." 

Now, I just want to mention here that my daughter is rather sensitive to friends being "mean". I don't mean bullying or being excessively aggressive. She can get upset if friends aren't playing the game the way she wants to play it, or if her little brother is being...well, a little brother. 

So, you'll forgive me when I tell you I didn't sprint out to the courtyard on hearing this update from Connor, so casually mentioned. I calmly put on my shoes, walked down the steps in front of our unit, and headed for the courtyard. As soon as I rounded the corner, I knew this wasn't just Ada being upset. 

Our neighbour was carrying Ada in his arms down toward me, and Ada wasn't crying. 

She. 

Was. 

Screaming. 

We sat Ada down on the low garden wall, and immediately she was shouting not to move or touch her left leg. She had soil from the garden on her head, all around her left eye, all over her right hand and on her pants legs. I tried to lift the leg of her pants on her left leg, as that was the only area I couldn't immediately inspect, but the slightest touch seemed to cause her pain to spike. 

What had she done to herself? Surely this was the result of some daredevil acrobatic foolishness of youth? Our gardens have plenty of trees to climb. Our housing blocks are three stories high, and we regularly see maintenance people on the tiled roofs. Did she climb out a first floor window and take a fall from there? If one of her friends had presented me with either of these scenarios, I honestly would have believed them. 

At this point, Claire was out of the washroom, and, rather than taking the time to question her here in the garden, we decided to get Ada up into our unit where we could look after her better. Claire and I tried to support her to walk the few meters to the door, resulting in much screaming. Our wonderful neighbour stepped in and once again scooped her up, carrying her up the stairs and all the way to the couch. Ada still screamed, but at least this way was quicker. 

With her leg immobilized as best we could and a cold pack applied, Ada was calm enough to explain what had happened. 

While playing with the DnD crew and a few other friends in our co-op, Ada saw a neighbour's cat out enjoying the sun as well. Her friends were elsewhere in the co-op, and she wanted to tell them. She started to run up through the back garden, but only made it a few meters. She tripped while running on a smooth, flat path and, apparently, landed very badly. 

Now that she was back home, we could clean the soil she had carried with her. Road rash on her forehead, wrist and elbow, but it was her knee that got the worst of it. Any attempt to move it caused Ada to scream. We left her to rest on the couch, moved our cat Shade to a better spot when his attempt to comfort her by lying on her legs was met with unexpected resistance, and let her watch videos on the iPad. 

We did not think we needed to take her to the hospital right away. I mean, how bad could it have been? No trees or first floor windows were involved in the telling of this tale. She slipped and fell on a path. A concrete path, yes. A concrete path that had been installed in the back garden area less than six months ago because the previous path, concrete slabs along a mostly grass walkway, was deemed a tripping hazard, sure. But still, just a trip. 

An hour later, the pain was just getting worse, and Ada was unable to take any painkillers we had on hand.  We made the decision to bring her to BC Women & Children's Hospital, just to get a professional opinion. Claire would drive over while I stayed home with Connor. BC Women & Children's is extremely highly regarded for its quality of care and quality of staff, and we are honestly blessed to live so close to it. 

But, we had to get there first, and that meant getting Ada back down the stairs to street level and the car. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, as well as demands to be let go home, because she didn't "want to be a problem for the doctors and nurses" with just her sore knee. But once on the sidewalk, she calmed down. I helped her gingerly into the passenger seat, kissed her and reassured her she was not going to be a problem for anyone, and kissed Claire, wishing her patience and a quiet ER. Then I waved them off and went back to get Connor ready for bed. 

By the time I was struggling to stay awake any longer, we knew that Ada had fractured her tibia and was to see an orthopaedic specialist. They added the possibility of a "small ACL tear" to the injuries. By midnight, they had x-rays to confirm the fracture. The orthopaedic specialist informed us it is a very common fracture in kids, especially during the summer as kids get outside and get more and more active. 

A CT scan was ordered for the morning to further inform what would be needed, and so, Claire and Ada's quick trip to the ER turned into an overnight stay. Ada's leg was immobilized in a big splint and she was given a room for the night. She finally managed to take some painkillers, and that and a mixture of anxiety and stress got her to sleep for a few hours, at least. Claire did not. 

Having crossed off "Get a CT Scan" on Ada's list of Things to Do Before You're 30, mum and daughter were home, weary and sore, just before noon on Saturday. Ada was going to need surgery. The hospital would be in touch on Monday to schedule a visit to the orthopaedic clinic and lay out the battle plan. In the meantime, she would not be able to go to school for the coming week, as she should not put any pressure whatsoever on her leg. Recovery time would be about six weeks. 

Thankfully, I had booked that Saturday off work, as we had gotten tickets to see the Vancouver Pops Symphony Orchestra play music that evening. Instead, I spent the day letting Claire catch up on sleep and caring for Ada, helping her learn how to get around with the help of her shiny new crutches and making sure she was as comfortable as I could manage.

I had work on Tuesday, but with Connor at school, Claire was free to take Ada to the orthopaedic appointment, back at Women's & Children's. At least there were no surprises to be had on this trip, we joked. Which was why when Claire sent me a photo of Ada with a cast on her right arm, covering everything from her palm to just below her shoulder, all I could muster was a resigned sigh. After speaking with the orthopaedic surgeon, he closed with the standard classic "Do you have any other concerns?" Usually this is practically a rhetorical question at that stage of the conversation, but Claire mentioned that Ada had a bit of a sore arm. The surgeon took a look at it, asked her to do a few motions, and immediately sent her for an x-ray, confirming the fracture at her elbow. No surgery needed on this one, but her dominant hand and arm was now out of service for at least three weeks. It also significantly increased the difficulty of using crutches. 

But before all that, the plan for Ada's leg was laid out for us, and that would start the following morning.

Claire dropped Ada and myself outside Women & Children's a little before noon on Wednesday. Probably suffering from not a small amount of PTSD at the sight of the building at this point in the week, she pulled up in the drop-off area, got us a wheelchair, and disappeared again. We headed to General Procedures and were brought straight to her room. Ada was extremely nervous, but every single member of staff was so kind and patient and understanding, and she was never pressured to do anything. We had a visit from our lovely surgeon, who again reassured us that this was as close to routine as a surgery can be, and the wonderful anesthesiologist, who demonstrated how the IV patch that needed to go on her back of Ada's hand would work, as well as several nurses, each making us feel safe and heard. 

Ada got changed into her gown, and they wheeled her bed down the corridor and into the surgery. She was still very stressed, and the anesthesiologist explained all about the Magic Glove, gently massaging Ada's hand and arm, getting Ada to contribute details of how the glove looked and felt and moved, and suddenly, without feeling anything, the IV patch was in her hand. They administered the sleepy medicine to Ada, and I watched as her eyes closed and her body relaxed. A nurse invited me to give her a kiss, and that was the moment I broke and tears started to wet the neckline of my t-shirt. 

I was lead back to the room we had started in to collect our things. I could leave most things in a secure locker near the waiting room, and I was encouraged to take a walk outside and get a coffee or some food, which I did. The procedure, I was told, would take about two hours, with about an hour more for recovery before she would start to come around. 

Almost exactly two hours later I was reading a book in the waiting area, when Ada's orthopaedic surgeon came in and sat beside me and told me that the surgery was a complete success. He showed me how the fracture on the tibia had the ligament attached, which was pulling the bit of bone up and away from the tibia and interfering with movement of the knee. The surgery had gone in, cleaned up the wound, and installed two pins. He showed me some x-rays of the pins in her knee, which looked enormous, and like they were sticking way out into the gap behind the knee plate, but he assured me that the x-rays made them look a lot more alarming than they really are, and they only appeared to be sticking out far beyond the bone because I can't see the cartilage that they are actually embedded flush within. 

A short while later a nurse came in asking for Ada's family, this time to take me to see her. Ada was just coming around and I arrived to find a dazed and confused and high-as-a-kite kid feeling very confused about who was in the room with her, and asking why they all looked like potatoes. When I said "Hi Ada", she looked at me and said "You look like a potato too, dad!" and proceeded to call me Potato for the next several hours. They had given her an ice lolly to enjoy, and she choose blue, because "the white one was boring and the black one was too dark". At one point she asked if I wanted a lick, and when I said "No thanks, you enjoy it. You deserve it" she looked at me seriously, and thrust the lolly towards me saying "What if I want you to have some!!" Hospital grade painkillers are a wonder. 

Pretty soon we were both on the move again, this time, to our final destination. We met the new nurses that would look after Ada in recovery, and her surgeon stopped by two or three times that evening to check in on everything. We also got to meet her physio team that would help with moving about, and give tips on how to proceed now that the crutch was an issue due to our recent broken arm discovery. And we met the pain management team, who were there to ensure that Ada was comfortable, pain free with not too much meds, nor too little. Just the Goldilocks of medication dosage. 

I ordered food before the kitchen closed, and Claire and Connor arrived soon after with snacks. All the beeping from the various machines hooked up to Ada started to make Connor nervous, and he started asking if Ada was going to be okay, and how we can stop the machines from making noise. Claire took him home, Ada and I settled in for the evening. 

We were woken almost every two hours throughout the night with check-ins. "Can you feel this?" "Push your foot against my hand.""Do you have any pain?""Have you peed yet?" But Ada was a trooper, never complaining, always ready to do so she was asked and then drift back to sleep. 

We were both awake very early Thursday morning, so I went out to hunt for some food. I found a coffee place that had waffles and grilled cheese sandwiches, so that was how we started our day. Thursday saw the same teams checking in several times throughout the day, with everyone impressed by Ada's recovery. As the day went on, each of the teams signed off on Ada going home, until she was officially discharged just before 6pm. 

Ada still has about six weeks of recovery time ahead of her. Over that time, the amount she is allowed to move her leg will slowly increase, but, for now, it's stationary, with strict orders not to put any pressure on it. She's hoping around home, using her one good arm to steady herself against anything she can reach on he way to wherever she needs to be (mostly couch, bed or toilet). 

Connor is being a superstar little brother, carrying stuff for her, or racing to bring her what she wants, from stuffy toys to freshly filled bottles of water. 

And Claire and I? We continue to be amazed by our daughter, so strong and capable and smart. Nervous when facing the unknown, sure, but once it's known and understood, nothing will stop her. Not a broken arm. Or a broken leg. Or even, a broken arm and leg at the same time. 

Could you imagine?!? 

Real Life Virtual Friends

Today I had the pleasure to showing two friends how far virtual reality headsets have come in the past 24 to 36 months. Both actually own slightly older VR systems, but it is a mark of how the technology has advanced rapidly watching their reactions. 

I've owned the Oculus Quest 2 since early 2021, and I love showing it to people who have never tried a VR system, or even play video games regularly. The shock and laughter of that first experience is already fun to see! Whether they're life long gamers that own a modern PC or the newest console but never had the chance to try VR before, or complete video game novices who's last experience with a game is on the Amiga, the reaction is always great! 

But showing the Quest to two friends who have played VR, and each own their own sets, but admit to not turning them on in over two years, it was really amazing how much they were surprised by this experience. 

The first thing was the freedom the Quest gives. As a self contained, all in one device, not having wires hanging off you of refreshing, and makes setting it up and getting into a game a snap. I could bring it over to my friends place, without needing anything extra, and share it with them in a long as it took me to sign into their WiFi. They were seriously impressed by that. Both lamented that one of the reasons their headsets are gathering dust is the effort it takes to get into a game, when they don't have a dedicated space to leave everything set up. 

Then there's the variety of play experiences. In the past two years, VR game development has lead to some truly astonishing experiences. I got to share a few rounds of mini golf, which is a wonderful introductory experience. People know how to play mini golf, so there is an absolute minimum amount of onboarding. It was so fun seeing my friends just losing themselves in a colourful, relaxing world for a while.

And then I turned on my newest purchase, Iron Man VR, and my friends were laughing and whopping with exhilaration! Flying through the skies, blasting drones is thrilling! But even that first time you suit up, setting the various armour pieces come forward you, instills such a childlike joy, that it's hard not to just laugh! 

In two short years, VR has changed so much, and the next two years look to be equally as huge! Eye tracking and face tracking are becoming standard. The new Quest Pro is just beginning to tease the possibilities of its full colour passthrough capabilities, a system that allows you to see the real world around you, while still playing a game. And the games themselves are just getting more and more imaginative! 

I can't wait to play with a friends headset in two years, and gasp at where things have progressed. 

You Smell Like Pixels!

 For reasons I don't feel like elaborating on, I wasn't feeling great this evening, so I excused myself and focused on trying to do some drawing on my iPad. A friend recently made some awesome pixel art, and I had asked for some tips, so he kindly streamed an hour long tutorial on Twitch. 

Unfortunately, I arrived into the stream minutes after he had wrapped the pixel art tutorial portion, but thankfully, you can save the videos on Twitch, and he kindly did for me. 

I watched the VOD a few weeks ago and had wanted to doodle around with something to practice, but just never set aside the time. Tonight, I decided to check the video again and try drawing a pixel portrait for a brightly coloured character.

I chose Bear, from the Henson Company's extraordinary puppet based series, Bear in the Big Blue House. Bear is a full body puppet with astonishing facial expressions, entirely from control over the eyebrows, nose and mouth. 

So, I grabbed two photos of Bear, one standing tall in a well lit promotional photograph, the other a screen shot of Bear happily smiling open mouth, but his colours are a little muted. 

Using both photos, I built a bright and varied colour pallet from the promo, and sketched the basic form from the screen shot, on a teeny tiny 64x64 pixel canvas. To put that in context, a canvas that is just the size of my iPad screen is 2388x1668 pixels, and my tablet can handle much bigger canvases than that with ease. 64x64 is really, really small. My brush for painting Bear was a single pixel, or as close as you can get on Procreate, the app I use. 

Below are my versions 0.1 to 0.3. 

V0.1 is very flat, just using a very limited pallet to set down the overall colour and form. 

V0.2 adds highlights and shadows, with gradients of colour. I achieved this using a Screen layer for the lighter tones, and a Darker layer for the...well...darker colours. 

V0.3 is where I stopped before writing this post, and mostly just tries to adjust Bear's eyes to less sad out sleepy, and more excited, or at the very least, happy. 

Not bad for a first attempt. 

In The Palm Of Your Hand

When Star Trek originally premiered in 1966, voice controlled, pocket sized super computers were wild fantasy for the far distant future. 

Even in 1987, with the arrival of The Next Generation, handheld touch interface tablets were seen as science fiction, belonging in the 24th century. 

Yet right now I'm writing this very post on my phone, a tiny super computer that lives within my arms reach at all times. This device has access to the entire knowledge of humanity, and has over 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed the first men on the moon (and over a million times the RAM, for that matter). 

My phone has a camera capable of recording HD video at 60 frames per second, or snapping photos in almost any lighting condition in the time it takes to get it out of my pocket, and can send them to anyone on the entire planet I have contact with at the speed of light. 

And what do I use all this astonishing power for most of the time? Photographing my kids a dozen times a day, doomscrolling on Twitter and texting my wife. Occasionally, I'll set an alarm by shouting a command at it, which is supposed to feel like Michael Knight talking to his wrist watch, but never manages to feel as elegant. 

Recently, I've been wearing down my battery playing a mobile card game, and I've been known to hunt imaginary pocket monsters on this wondrous device too, but I overall, I think I'm vastly underutilizing this incredible package of microprocessors that just 40 years ago was unimaginable in our lifetime. 

What is to come 40 years from now? 

Kindergarten Kid

Connor started school this September past. Although still only for years old, his birthday is this calender year, so he falls in the 2022/23 intake. We had the option of holding him back one year, but he's ready. If he'd been our first, I certainly would have spent more time debating the benefits of keeping him home another year. He's so sociable and confident, and he's watched Ada for his entire life. 

He's been doing super, as expected. He's making lots of new friends, the first without his big sis. Up to now, Connor has mostly played with kids that we met when Ada was a baby. Covid means that Connor never really got to go to Family Place as a toddler and develop those friendships. 

So far, his only real difficulty with starting school is learning how snack works. During the first two to three weeks, we had to pack him more and more lunch each day, as he would eat everything he had and get hungry again later. Our boy is a healthy, growing Irish kid, who can eat and eat and eat. At one point, we were packing two full lunch boxes with him. Thankfully, things have settled down a bit over the weeks. 

If that's the worst we have to deal with this year, I'll be a very happy dad.

30 Posts For A Buck Fifty Apiece

It’s that most wonderful time of the year again when I post 30 times in a single month, and never again for the other eleven, despite promising to do better this time in the last post! I’d hate to break tradition now. 

I have much to discuss from this year. Life has thundered along at a blistering pace for everyone in my family. Along the way I have made cryptic notes in my phone to remind myself of things that at the time I thought would make for interesting posts. At one time in my life, I didn’t have to worry about that, as I would come home and write up the post that evening. That time, for now, has passed. 

Reviewing those notes, I have factual life stories, funny and fantastical short stories, follow-ups to previous years posts, and at least one post that I am completely convinced I’ve written at least twice already, yet cannot find any evidence of in my searches! 

It’s November. It’s Buck Fifty! An avalanche of typos and spelling errors are coming your way!

Enjoy the chaos. 

Short Story: Dead Days

 I was dead. That much was sure. On the bright side, it must have been painless. I couldn’t recall how it happened, and looking at the body, it was fairly recent.

“Mr. Crayne?” 

I jumped out of my skin…so to speak. I turned to see a rather average looking woman. Not “average looking” in terms of attractiveness. She actually looked pretty nice. But no wings or horns. No spectral glow or ethereal smoke. Just a regular woman. Standing in my office. 

“So… are you my guide to the afterlife?” 

“You could say that.” She looked at the office door, then her watch, then my body on the floor. “What do you remember?” 

I took a moment to try to recall what I had just been doing. “Nothing unusual. I was waiting for an appointment. The last thing I remember is checking Twitter. I think the client was running late.” I walked closer to my body and leaned over. The skin was still fairly pink and flush. There was a wet mark on the carpet by the desk. Wow. I really hope I didn’t piss myself. “Do you know how I died? Was it a heart attack? Dammit. All that healthy living and exercise and Eddy outlives me on a diet of burgers and fries and Netflix marathons. He is never going to let me live this down.” 

“Yeah. Ah. Look. I just need to confirm a few things. Are you Thomas Crayne, Licensed Private Detective in the district of California?”

“That’s me, formerly at your service. I’m going to haunt my doctor for missing whatever got me.” 

It was dawning on me that I was taking being dead remarkably well. When Carla Friedman dumped me for Manny Keisic in fifth grade, I cried for the entire weekend and ate a whole two litre tub of salted caramel ice cream while watching Jurassic Park on cable. That was a rough night hugging the toilet bowl. I wish I could say at least I enjoyed the movie, but it was the third one, not the original.

“Do you recall working with a Mr. Miguel Park?” The woman hadn’t moved from where she was standing. “It would have been several years ago.”

“I don’t know if being dead voids confidentially agreements, but until I know for sure, I can’t discuss anything about past clients.” I stood up and looked around the office. My phone was in its charge cradle. There was an almost full glass of water on the far side of the desk. The rim had a slight smudge of lipstick. I touched my lips, and looked back down at my body. Nope. Definitely not me. 

That’s when I saw a second glass on its side under my desk. 

“How did I die, Mrs. Park?”

“Your expertise is required, Mr. Crayne. The situation is…complex. I had to expedite the initial requirements of your employ. Time is a factor in this case. It’s already taken you longer to materialize that I was told to expect.”

“You killed me? I don’t recall agreeing to that, as a requirement for my employ or otherwise. I enjoyed being alive. I’d been practising for 38 years! I was just getting good at it.” I lunged at Joanna Park, but was abruptly stopped by a very solid, very invisible, very firm wall. Pain must have a psychological aspect. I was pretty sure all my nerve endings were lying on the floor, but my present form still felt like it had just run full speed into a brick wall without inhibition. I bounced back and found myself on the floor of my office, gasping for air through apparent pain. My face was right in front of me. 

I was breathing. I mean dead me. My body. My body was breathing. I wasn’t dead. Maybe?

Mrs. Park looked down at me. “I really need you to calm down. You’ll be returned to your physical body once the contract is complete, regardless of outcome. My team will be here in a few minutes to remove and store your body. Your consciousness has been discorporated and tied to this device.” She held up her left arm, showing what appeared to be a smartwatch. 

“Yours has a bigger memory than mine, it seems. I hope it has a better battery too. I have to charge mine every night.”

She turned towards the door at some noise from the reception area. Glancing back over her shoulder at me, she tapped twice on the watch. A green circle appeared on the screen. “Remember when I said time was a factor?”

Fourth Race Around The Track

My youngest turned four today. 

I'm not sure how that happened so fast. All at once, it seems so recent that I was showing Ada her new baby brother lying in the crib in the hospital room, and that it was months and months ago that Connor was learning to use the potty. 

Connor has been an absolute light in our lives for four whole years. 

Of course, some mornings, the light needs to be turned down for an extra hour or three. Like this morning, Connor was up and out on the couch at 5am... Let me say that again. The little monster was awake at FIVE AY EMM!! Sitting on the couch, playing Switch... Claire found him when she gave up trying to stay in bed with the pains in her shoulder. 

I cooked pancakes and crispy bacon for his birthday breakfast, but made the critical error of not having it done before he unwrapped his birthday present. His visiting grandparents got him a set of Hot Wheels race cars, and Claire and I got him a Hot Wheels track set. Once he laid eyes on that, nothing else existed in the entire universe. 

The track set we got him has a launcher system and ramps and my entire morning and early afternoon was to the tune of *slap, shunk shunk, slap, shunk shunk, slap, shunk shunk, "Yay! I did it!" slap, shunk shunk, slap, shunk shunk, slap, shunk shunk...* Mistakes were made. I needed painkillers by noon. 

We picked up big sis at 3pm and went to a nearby activity center for some fun and play, and then went out for dinner together. The visiting grandparents joined us for all this too. Cake was just before bedtime, which could have been another mistake, but exhaustion soon over and the birthday boy was asleep as soon as his tired little head hit the pillow. 

It's hard to imagine that I'm signing Connor up for school this year. Next September, my youngest will be starting kindergarten. What am I going to do then? 

So much freedom...

The Tales Continue

November is done, and Christmas is on the way. Here's a little gift for you to start off the holiday season.

The Buck Fifty challenge is done, but I'm hoping that I'm not. I'd like to continue posting regularly, maybe not every day, and maybe not writing 150 words every post. With the freedom of...well, the rest of the year  that isn't November, I can write shorter posts, and I don't need to word count my first few paragraphs. 

I really enjoyed this year's Buck Fifty. Last year I was stressing about not writing a lot of just straight personal story stuff, trying to do more essays, or reviews or work that required more advanced planning and effort. This year, I quickly got into a flow of not having any idea what I was going to be sitting as I sat in front of my iPad and connected my keyboard. I'd start typing what I thought was a weak idea, and in a few moments I'd have a pretty good idea of what the post was going to be about. 

I think I'm going to be sticking with the "let it flow" life stories and updates for a bit, but I do have a list of non life stuff I want to write at some point, including the follow up to that world building thing I wrote last month. I am going to drop the Buck Fifty tag from the following posts, as I'd like to keep that for the November challenge posts. 

So all going well, I'll stick around for a bit. 

Let's look back at this post at the start of November 2022 and laugh at how little I ended up posting.  

Fighting Crime, Spinning Webs

I love Spider-Man. As a kid, he was the first comicbook character I collected. I had a huge collection of Spidey comics. I loved the 90’s cartoon. And when they started selling the US comics in stores in Ireland, the first one I bought was, of course, a Spider-Man issue. Though I was a bit lost, as the UK reprint collections I had been buying as well were about 6 to 8 months behind, so I had a lot to fill in. 

I was incredibly excited at the prospect of seeing my hero in live action in a major summer blockbuster movie with the budget and team to make it look good, and I adored the web swingers 2002 release, starring Toby Maguire. 

The follow-up in 2004, pitting our friendly neighborhood wall crawler against the awesome mind and might of Doctor Octopus took everything to the next level, resulting in a movie that still thrills me to this day. It did, however, get me in a not insignificant amount of trouble with my girlfriend for buying a super articulated 18 inch tall action figure released for that sequel, which I still have to this day, and I bring him to the cinema for the wall crawler’s big events, much to many other fans amusement. 

Although they generally get poor reviews from critics and fans alike, I unironically enjoyed the Andrew Garfield movies from the 2010’s. I still think that while the Toby Maguire had a much better Peter Parker, the Garfield ones captured Spider-Man far more accurately. But both are outdone by the Tom Holland series that brings Spider-Man and friends into the mega blockbuster universe that all began in 2008 with Iron Man. 

Being a comic character, it’s no surprise that I love his animated outings as well. The incredible Spectacular Spider-Man from 2008 is one of my all-time favourite cartoon series, with its gorgeous, clean, minimalistic designs, absolutely rocking theme tune, and top tier character development and story arcs. It died too soon, cancelled after only two seasons, ending on a cliffhanger, thanks to the purchase of Marvel by Disney. Disney! Till all are one! 

The theatrically released animated Into The Spider-Verse movie from 2018 left me utterly stunned in the cinema, sitting jaw wide open, gapping at the unique visual touches, the masterful characters and plot and the unexpected twists and turns, all wrapped in a genuinely touching story about family, love and loss. I consider it to be one of the finest superhero movies ever made, and certainly the best Spider-Man movie to date. 

All this to say that I’m very excited for the upcoming third instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man series, No Way Home. 

Earlier tonight, I got my tickets for the preview screening on Thursday, December 16th in downtown. I would have preferred to get tickets for my local theatre, but all the good screenings (Read: Not 3D) were sold out by the time I learned they were even available. 

Friday morning had lots of space, so I’m also going to go see it then.

And maybe once more over the weekend. I haven’t decided yet.

Of course I’ve decided. You know me too well. 

The Spirit Of Christmas

Since she was born, we’ve taken Ada to visit the same Santa every year, and gotten our annual Santa photo with him. This has sometimes required some travelling, but it’s important to us. When my brother Stephen was visiting for a year, Santa made sure to not only include him in the photos, but also get one of just us two brothers with the man in red.

Ada and I visited the mall the year Connor was born to say hi to Santa in late November, but told him we’d be back in a few weeks to get our photo, once our newest family member arrived. When we came back in mid December with a two week old Connor, Santa welcomed Ada with open arms, giving her a big hug and telling her what a wonderful big sister she had become. He held a tiny Connor and took extra time to get some extra special photos. 

Now, obviously, last year, we couldn’t visit Santa due to pandemic travel restrictions between Canada and the North Pole. Instead, Santa sent us a beautiful photo of him and his wonderful wife, Mrs. Claus, holding our annual family portrait. It also turned out that Santa needed a rest, and while it’s hard to say that the pandemic was ”good timing” in any context, it did mean he could take a break to rest and allow his new heart time to heal without feeling guilty that he might be disappointing anyone[1]. 

This year, with Santa, Mrs. Claus and all the wonderful elves vaccinated and rested and healthy, we got to visit in person again. He was as jolly and joyous as ever. Mrs. Claus was delighted to see us back, and it was wonderful to talk to them both. Santa made sure we all felt special, both kids and parents. And grandparents, with Claire’s parents here too! They were included in a set of group photos, as well as getting ones with just the kids and them together. 

A true Spirit of Christmas.

See you next year, Santa. 

[1]- Which is obviously ridiculous. If Santa needed a year off to recover, we’d all send him love and best wishes, and look forward to seeing him the following year. No disappointment, only respect for our Santa. 

The Perfect Crime

Claire gets emails for every transaction on our credit card, which is great for security, but terrible for surprises. In the age of Covid, most of my gift shopping is done online. It’s kinda frustrating to order the perfect gift, only to have my darling wife ask if I know anything about a transaction from “Gifts For Claire dot com”.  The best I can hope for is explaining away a purchase from Amazon. 

But, I have recently discovered the perfect solution! Related, I also recently discovered that my darling Claire doesn’t read my blog. 

And so, dear Reader, I am free to explain my cunning plan. 

You see, I got a reloadable Visa card from Safeway and loaded enough to cover Claire’s gift on it. Genius! She’ll never suspect a thing. It’s not like I’ve posted it publicly online for anyone to read…

Okay. Not that cunning, but I’m pretty proud. 

I’ve now ordered the bulk of Claire’s Christmas gifts online. Next, I just need to make sure I get to the post first when they arrive. Apparently, opening mail addressed to another person doesn’t count as a federal crime if you’re married to the other person.

Lawnmower Man 2021

During the after-Christmas sales last year I managed to gab myself a virtual reality headset. Specifically, I got the shiny new Oculus Quest 2, an entirely self contained, wire free VR headset. No need for a beefy and expensive PC to process the games. Everything is done on board the headset itself. 

There are limits to this freedom. There is a curated storefront, so I can’t simply buy games on Steam to play on the Oculus right away, though with a link cable and a built in feature, you can use the Oculus as a pass through headset and play the greatest VR game ever made to date, Half Life: Alyx. But that would require the afore mentioned beefy and expensive PC, which I do not have. 

It’s also made by bookFace, and intrinsically tied in to the Facebleag infrastructure, requiring an active Facebukk account to log in and start using. 

However, although I only ever otherwise use it for messaging my local Pokémon Go friends, I do actually have an EffBee account. So, good to go, I did a little research. 

VR is a total body experience. Most games have you standing up, moving about, looking around, ducking, dodging, and swinging arms and hands about. This is a lot more than pressing joysticks and buttons on a traditional console. I have a full body tremor, mostly centred on my arms and legs. Would I be able to get into VR at all? 

It turns out VR, and VR exercise in particular, is really great for Parkinson’s. Basically something, something, something, distraction, something, blood flow, something, something, music, fun and tah-dah! It has been shown to have overall positive mood and health benefits. 

So I got in to the VR space focusing on that. All my first apps were fitness forward, such as the phenomenal boxing simulator Thrill of the Fight, and the rhythm action games Beat Sabre and Pistol Whip, my personnel preferred gmae in that genre. I really enjoyed playing all of these, but they were exercise games, and kinda started to become a chore to turn on. Over time, with a narrow focus on just those games, I lost interest in VR entirely. 

It didn’t help that I had no one to share the experience with, both in person and online. With Covid being very much an ever present threat, I couldn’t have friends over to show of my shiny tech to and share challenges with. And I made no effort to find friends online, largely because last year the Oculus was difficult to get hold of, so very few of my friends had one. 

But now a few of my Twitter buddies have one, and I’ve broaden my library thanks to discounts throughout the year, most recently the Black Friday sales. I now have a wonderfully fun, stunning looking, very real feeling mini-golf game, Walkabout Mini Golf. I’ve been having a lot of laughs with that one, and it allows online multiplayer with avatars and in game voice chat and sounds like a whole lot of future fun, because several of my friends already own it! 

Virtual Reality is here, now. Yes, unfortunately the cheapest, easiest entry, beginner friendly, expert featured machine is owned by a very, very evil mega corporation that willfully pushed lies and mistruths and corrupted millions of users opinions on governments, elections, science, vaccines and more. Sigh. But they really are the only horse in the race at this level. 

It is a thrilling experience to put on a wireless headset and discover you can freely move about within a generated environment, interacting naturally with objects and characters. It is equally thrilling to watch a friend try it for the first time and wave at a robot friend, then pick up a can and throw it at the robot, entirely without formal tutorials. 

I’m really enjoying my time in VR. My tremor rarely causes me any issues while I’m exploring my digital world. I can’t wait to see where this goes. 

I also can’t wait for the first time Ada and Connor try it themselves. There will be video. Dear Reader, I promise you, there will be video.

Order Up!

As the pandemic wore on, the alure of home cooked meals began to wear off, and with the rise of meal delivery services, such as DoorDash, UberEats and Skip the Dishes, new and varied meals were available at the touch of a phone screen. 

After a friend suggested a fancy burger place, and I started craving fancy burgers, I decided to try ordering from them. When I found them on my delivery app of choice, I noticed they also offered fancy deserts, so I ordered one for me and one for Claire. The kids wouldn't appreciate it, and there was ice cream in the freezer. 

The burgers arrived, nicely packed, and, packed in individual little plastic ramekins, fancy dips for my fancy chips (fries to my North American friends). I tried the watery yellow honey mustard with a chip. It wasn't very nice. I tried the thick dark orange peach sauce. That was too sweet.

But my kids loved dipping their chips in the fancy sauce, so I left them enjoy it. 

Dinner done and the kids in bed, I cracked open the fancy deserts for Claire and myself. Key lime pie for Claire, sticky toffee pudding for me. The pie was delicious, the pudding was...fine? It kinda lacked something. A little dry. You know, now that I think of it, I'm sure the description mentioned something...

I checked the app. In house fresh made custard and warm caramel sauce included.

I looked over at the sink, piled with the plates and leftovers of dinner, topped with two, barely touched ramekins of honey mustard and peach sauce...

I'd made a horrible mistake.

That sticky toffee pudding was delicious, with just a hint of potato chip.

The Visitors

Once again, my morning started at 6am, but I definitely looked at my watch at 4:45am. 

I got dressed and went out to the living room to find Connor sitting on the couch, in the dark, playing Switch. I might have snapped a little bit too harshly and sent him back to bed. Checking in on the Switch, the battery was only down 4%, so he couldn't have been there long. As soon as the kids I was caring for arrived, I went in and got Connor up to let him play. But not on the Switch. We have a strict "No screens" policy while friends are visiting. 

Once Ada got up, plans got into gear. 

A little before 8am, someone knocked on the door.

You see, dear Reader, Claire’s parents flew in from Ireland last night, arriving after the kids bedtime. They went straight to their accommodation, and crashed hard. However, jet lag is a cruel master, and they were up early, waiting for a text. 

Connor ran to answer it, as he loves to do. He checked the window to see who was there, and shouted "What are you doing here?!?!" The last time they visited was for his second birthday, two years ago. He's only ever known them through Skype.

Ada jumped up from her breakfast and hugged Nana. It was really nice to see that neither kid had even a bit of shyness around their grandparents, even after this isolated time. 

Technology. 

Amazing. 

Who Watches The Watch?

Technology is amazing. 

My alarm on my phone went off this morning at 6:10am, to have me up and ready when the kids I was caring for arrived at 6:30. Without even taking my arms out from under the covers, I silenced it with a tap on my Watch. 

I wear an Apple Watch, which connects to my phone and tracks my general heath, though I haven’t referred to it much. But I did recently start the sleep tracking feature, and now at 11pm I get a gentle pulse on my wrist to remind me that I should be heading to bed, and in the morning, at 7am, I get a gentle musical call to start my day on, if I’m not already up at crazy-o’clock for work. My Watch can monitor my heartbeat too, and tells me that I dropped to a steady 48 beats per minute around 4:30 this morning. I guess it can track blood oxygen levels too, because it somehow tells me that I dropped to a mere 12 breaths per minute around the same time.

I also know that when I go for a run it triggers the Watch to offer to track the run, and although it takes a few minutes to register that I’m trying to stay fit, and not, say sprinting away from a rampaging rhino, the Watch knows enough that it will post-date the run to roughly the actual start time, not the time I agreed to register the activity. 

I’m very grateful to have this technology available to me, even if I probably only use 10-20% of its features to their fullest. 

There are two features I love the most, though. Tap to pay lets me tap my Watch to pay almost anywhere. It’s just so convenient and secure not having to get out my wallet all the time. 

But the feature I use more that any other on my Watch is Find My Phone. Ever since I got a Watch and discovered this feature, if I have put my phone down anywhere and I can’t see it in a five second glance from exactly where I’m standing, I just tap my wrist and ping my phone, setting off a sonar-like ping sound, telling me exactly where my phone is. The fact that this feature works even when the phone is on silent or sleep mose is amazing. This one, simple feature has literally saved minutes of my life. 

Technology. 

Amazing.

The Trouble With Streaming

I loved DVD’s when they were a thing. The higher image quality and the ability to jump to my favourite scenes instantly were neat, but the thing I loved most about DVD’s was the extra storage space they provided, allowing studios the freedom to bundle extras like blooper reels, behind-the-scenes documentaries, commentary tracks and making-of featurettes.

I adored seeing the magic behind the curtain. It never robbed me of the beauty of cinema, but made it shine even brighter. I watched those bonus features more than the movie they came with. 

But as DVD’s and physical media transitioned into the streaming services, those bonus feature became more and more difficult to track down. Netflix never had making-of specials included with the movie for the longest time, and still doesn’t for most of it’s content. Neither Prime nor Apple TV seem to make a habit of it either. Occasionally, someone would upload such content to YouTube, and even more occasionally, it would an official source.

In their defense, Netflix does have a series called “The Movies That Made Us” that looks back at an ever increasing catalogue of classic movies and the trials and tribulations that went into making them. I find every episode fascinating, even the ones on movies I’ve never seen, like classic slasher Friday the 13th. They get wonderful stories from costume and set designers, scriptwriters, producers, and actors and more. The documentary series highlights the less often heard voices compared to studio produced making-of features, and getting far more gritty and truthful confessions on what it was like to create my favourite, and not so favourite movies. 

Most recently, Disney+ has embraced it full on though. The recent Marvel movies and series all have additional content to support them available directly on the service, and I love them! As soon as I finish the movie or show, I jump into the making-of stuff, because it’s right there! Often linked in the end screen. 

I hope this trend continues and we see a return to the overloaded content that used to be included on DVD’s. Netflix does have some great features up for it’s recent high fantasy series,  The Witcher, so, I live in hope. 

Whatever Happened To Harold Smith?

I recently talked about trailers and spoilers and the dream of going to see a movie, walking into the theatre knowing nothing of what I was about to experience. It has actually happened once in my life. 

Back in 1999 we were all still fretting over Y2K and I was in my second year in University College Cork. I had been going home at the weekends during my first year, but now I was starting to spend more time in Cork, hanging out with friends at the weekends.

One dark and cold Friday evening in November, the gang we all going to the cinema. A new movie had just come out and they were excited to see it. I tagged along out of curiosity. I went in knowing nothing. Like, absolutely nothing at all. Not an actor, not a setting, not even the overall genre. I don’t even know if I saw the poster while I was in the cinema that night. I suspect that my friends engineered it so I wouldn’t see the poster after discovering I was so ignorant to everything else at this point. 

The movie is called “Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?” Don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize it. Looking it up to help write this, it’s not going to make anyone’s “100 movies you must see before you die”. 

But I loved it!! I howled with laughter throughout. Every little twist and turn, every cameo, every sight gag and stupid pun was all new to me. It holds a very special place in my heart, though, to be totally honest, I haven’t seen it since. I don’t think it’s streaming anywhere, and I never saw it advertised on TV, even in the years after it’s release. 

If you can, maybe watch it. Don’t look up any trailers or cast list or plot synopsis. It’s a strange beast, but it’s a funny one. 

And with that, you already know more than I did 22 years ago.

Red Sky At Morning

Over the last few months our province has had a bunch of very unusual weather. 

Earlier in the summer we got trapped in a heat dome for a few days. Temperatures soared to 40° Celcius. It was too hot to just go outdoors. We had all the doors and windows closed, which is a bit counter intuitive, but when it’s that warm outside it’s easier to try to trap the cool air in. We had fans going almost all day, and I filled the bathtub with a few centimetres of cold water and let the kids come and go as they pleased throughout the day. It was nothing to joke about, though. There were a lot of deaths associated with the unexpectedly high heat, including a family member of a friend. 

More recently, the aurora borealis was visible twice over a fortnight from Vancouver, far further south than it comes usually. We didn’t see it ourselves, but apparently it was pretty cool to see. 

But then, most recently we got hit with a huge wet weather front from Hawaii, dubbed the Pinapple Express. The first sign that something unusual was happening was videos of an honest to goodness tornado showing up just south of where we live!! Last week, it poured rain for a solid three days, causing widespread flooding and mudslides, damaging roads and highways, and effectively cutting Vancouver off from the rest of Canada by road and rail for a while. 

Thankfully, where we’re located, we had very little disruption at all, without even any noticeable flooding. But there were parts of British Columbia that fared much worse, in particular, the town of Merritt, where all 7,000 residents were evacuated, and as of writing this post, some seven days later, they are still not able to return to whatever is left standing. 

It is not hyperbole to say that we have caused global climate change on a scale that has never been seen before. But I want to be very clear who I mean by “we”. Humanity has polluted the planet, over-fished the oceans, burned millions of acres of forest, created mountains of garbage that will be around longer than us, buried nuclear waste, and much, much more. But, reader, there is little chance that you or I did any of this. I don’t think my blog has that wide a reach. A tiny percent of humanity is responsible for this, scarificing all our futures for their present financial and political gain. They are the ones that need to enact real changes. Instead, they point their finger at you and I and tut-tut about straws or plastic packaging.

We are swiftly reaching a point of no return, a tipping point of cascading catastrophes that will decimate the planet. The changes the vast majority of the population can make are tiny. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, of course, but even if every person on the planet stopped using straws tomorrow, it wouldn’t be enough. 

Think of that when the next election comes up. Don’t ask what they can do for you, ask what they intend to do for the future, for the entire planet. Unfortunately, only those at the top have any power to force those mega corporations to make real change, but us here at the bottom can influence who sits in those top seats. 

Choose wisely.

No Spoilers!

Back in my day, we had TV ad breaks and pre-show cinema trailers, and we liked it!

Actually, we hated it. I recall trying to download tiny pixelated 480P trailers on the college computers at UCC just so I could watch Spider-Man web a helicopter full of bank thieves between two iconic buildings in New York. 

There was a time, however brief, when people would pay to see a mediocre movie just to watch a new trailer for a major upcoming release, such as The Matrix or Lord of the Rings. 

Today’s standard deluge of endless previews and promos and extended scenes and “first five minutes” were unheard of. You got a few trailers in the months running up to release, all made up of broadly the same footage, with maybe one or two unique shots to justify it’s existence. 

If feels like these days you can piece together 75% of a movie from the promotional material. In fact, the inspiration for this post was a clip from the soon to launch Hawkeye series for Disney+ that I watched just before starting to write this. I didn’t mind because the clip was short and while I’m looking forward to the series, I’m not super worried about light spoilers. It’s not like an official promo piece was going to spoil the ending or anything before the series even airs, unlike all those “What the Last 3 Minutes of the Big New Movie That Only Came Out Today Means” that are all over YouTube for every major release. 

On the other hand, I am already 100% sold on the upcoming Spider-Man Marvel Universe movie, No Way Home. If I don’t see a single frame, set photo, news article, rumour or trailer before I see the movie in theatres this December, I’ll be delighted! I have a bunch of keywords muted on Twitter in the hopes that they won’t show up on my feed. 

However, last Tuesday a new trailer dropped, with loads of new footage and new big plot reveals. I had long before decided that nothing would get me to watch it, but as soon as it was online, YouTube helpfully pushed it into my suggested feed. Not an issue, I can just not click on it. But there was a new character reveal right there in the thumbnail. Worse, while I had gathered enough rumours in the months previously that I expected this particular character to appear, I now had their new look spoiled on me. 

I miss going in to movies blind, being totally shocked by every twist and turn of the plot, every reveal and cameo. It feels like the only way to achieve that today is to swear off the internet in the months before the release. And as much as I love you, Spider-Man, I love the internet more.