Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Go see the Lion King because it's fantastic! Even if you live in Calgary this mission can be accomplished since they are headed that way soon. And I think you know who I'm talking to!
The only thing that sucked about it- Pallas is too young to go.

11:23 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, July 13, 2009

This one time I was hitch-hiking home from BC. Somewhere on the Yellowhead. Anyways this guy picks me up and we're driving. Right away he shows me a picture of his daughter that he's going to visit and we talk about her for a while. After a while he asks me where I'm headed.
"To Edmonton."
"You're going the wrong way!"
For a second, just a split second my heart kind of skipped but of course I wasn't going the wrong way. "No man, this is the way to Edmonton."
"No, because I'm headed to Williams Lake and that's this way."
We argued about this for a few minutes and finally I pull out a map and show him. "Look, here's where you picked me up, this is the highway we're on, here's Edmonton, and Williams Lake is the other way. See?"
"Ah shit! I'm going the wrong way! I gotta let you off, sorry man."
He pulls over, lets me out, does a u-turn and screeches away.
It was lucky for him that I came along, so that he wasted minimal gas and time going the wrong way. Not so lucky for me as I was now stuck in the middle of nowhere and spent the next 8 hours waiting for my next ride. Which only got me a few clicks down the road where there were already other hitch-hikers going nowhere. I wound up tenting in the bush that night, and was woken up by the silhouette of one of the other hitchers breaking a branch off a tree just outside the tent. That was kind of freaky.
Anyways.
I remembered this story because yesterday I picked up this kid whose car had broken down, just outside of Edson. He was headed for Saskatchewan. But he had started in Edmonton. So he drove 2 hours the wrong way.

9:47 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

So we have a tornado watch going on right now. Nothing too serious, it's hardly even windy and it definitely isn't very hot, so anything that does develop is likely to be very mild. Still, here are some photos of the ominous looking clouds we were looking at a few hours ago.

3:28 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, July 06, 2009

This month's National Geographic has an article on Tongariro National Park in New Zealand. If your Mother-in-law doesn't supply you with a subscription (membership in NG parlance) like mine does you can check it out here. Just a short text and then the photos are pretty great. Almost as great as mine!

8:09 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Sunday, June 28, 2009

So far all is going according to plan. About the only thing I did today is destroy a nest of spiders. Actually it was a huge clump of eggs that I told MIchelle was likely just some seeds or something, but I thought I would still give them a spray with the garden hose in case. And then they turned into a raging seething mass of spiderlings so I had to get all Ripley on their asses. Hopefully that's the last we see of them and there won't be a huge vengeful alien queen waiting for me tomorrow.
Have you heard there is talk of an Alien prequel? Ridley Scott is said to be involved, and it might focus on the derelict ship from Alien. JimSmash has more info.
Anyways.
Don't want to leave you with nightmarish images of spiders and aliens so here are some pics of my daughter who got her first taste of pear today and couldn't get enough. Chompchompchomp!

8:37 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Finally it's here! First of six days off. Canada Day is a holiday, obviously, and Homie And Michelle's Fantastic And Amazing Fourth Anniversary the next day is a localized holiday as well.
My plan is to do as little as possible. So far everything is proceeding accordingly.
My wife suggested I watch Lady Gaga's MMVA performance. We have developed a bit of a fascination for her royal gaganess- at least for me I find her interesting because what a great name, right? And she seems, to my untrained eye, to be kind of an awkward dancer. Decent singer, I suppose. Not really my normal stuff I listen to. Anyways. Helps if you have pyrotechnical support garments!
I think we are developing our own little fashionista- Lady Googoo!

8:28 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Avatar trailer! Watch it before it gets taken down:



Looks like they decided to name it The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar. Please don't suck! But who cares if it does because the cartoon is unassailable.
Thanks to BetterThanBunnies for the link.

Labels: avatar

8:18 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, June 22, 2009

Now To Design My Costume . . .

I got to sort of be a vigilante today. Michelle got me some custom bookmarks for Father's Day so we had to go to the SEC Wal-Mart to get them. I waited in the car with Pallas while she went in and got them. Then this guy runs by full speed, kind of a gangly strung out looking dude. Weird. Shortly after a green-vested Wal-Mart employee comes running after him. Just another day at Wally World right? Michelle comes back and tells me how this guy set off the alarm just in front of her and the elderly greeter had to call security, which explains why there was such a large gap between them. So that was interesting and I tell her what I saw and we headed off to Indigo to take advantage of their 4-for-3 sale.
Then I saw the guy still running, over by the Alberta Research Council! So I told Michelle to let me out since I thought I could cut him off. She didn't really want me to but I talked her into it. Off we go! Even though he was the equivalent of a good block away I totally had a bead on him and ran an intercept pattern, or as we superheroes call it, a Maneuver 2-B. I had him! I so had him. I was about to tackle him but a conveniently placed pond on the ARC campus provided his escape. He jumped in rather than face my righteous wrath! Even though I briefly considered jumping in after him I thought it would be just as effective to keep an eye on him till the security guard caught up.
"What are you gonna do now?" I said in a less ridiculous voice than the one Christian Bale uses as Batman. I have more of a Michael Keaton vibe about me, I think. At least that's what Wolverine told me once.
"Leave me alone!'' said the hardened criminal. I think he was going to cry. His jacket had come off and was floating in the water in front of me. "Geeze I hope he doesn't drown," I thought. The Wal-Mart guy finally caught up and took over, telling me he'd be sure to activate the Bear Signal next time he had a dastardly villain to catch. At least I think that's what he said, he was a little out of breath.
Anyways, the pond he jumped in can be seen in the first second or two of this video.
Also- I really shouldn't have gotten involved. I'm a Dad now for goodness sakes! But I have a really hard time resisting these types of situations. From now on no more vigilantism! I am hanging up my cape.
Oh yeah, we totally got some sweet stuff from Indigo! Three Star Wars trade paperbacks, and a bunch of books too. Sweet!

11:42 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Sunday, June 21, 2009

It's my first Father's Day ever! Yay for me! Our friend Erika came over and took some great pictures of all of us yesterday. Sweet!

8:57 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Friday, June 19, 2009

First of all, check out this sweet Where The Wild Things Are fanart by SeizureDemon:


Where the Wild Cards Are by =SeizureDemon on deviantART

Hey do you want to own some art? I know some ways:
Quidditchmom and her crew are raising funds to adopt someone into their family by having an art auction.
And Amy Pronovost, whom I met at the Calgary Comic Expo, is moving and is selling some art cards and such to help defray the costs.
And Noah Albrecht is doing sketch cards to help keep his family healthy.
Finally, my friend House of Duck (and who doesn't love to call someone House of Duck?) is open for commissions as well. He sent me some goodies earlier in the year and I gotta say he is a good guy.

Labels: fanart friday

3:13 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Sunday, June 14, 2009

We decided to start Pallas on some solid food today:
Chompchompchomp! --------------------   Yum!

(but rly we will not start her on solids for a while yet)

2:42 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The other day at work my fellow oiler turned to me and asked, "What do we do out here anyways?"
"Mostly it feels like I hold a bag out and they pour money into it."
But actually we had a pretty busy week. In fact that fellow oiler, Charlie, was actually leadhand, meaning he is the acting junior foreman and basically the busiest guy on the minesite, and me his right-hand guy. Trucks were getting flat tires, pit walls were crumbling down, there was blasting every day, the maintenance crew was in a state of near rebellion, the night crew was screwing us over and the (acting) senior foreman was looking more and more frazzled as the week went on- he starts to stutter, forgets peoples' names and develops an eye twitch- I feel kind of bad for him since he is a junior foreman on another crew and not really suited for the senior position. But all in all, a regular week.
This time of year is hard on the pickup trucks- it snows and then melts and makes an awful muddy mess, and the trucks get mud and water everywhere and their alternators short out and all kinds of things. One just quit when I was slowing down for a yield sign, so there it sat. Charlie kept having issues with trucks and their wipers. One would just start spraying washer fluid on the windshield randomly and keep spraying till the well was dry. At least he had clean windows! But no horsepower, so he switched out for another one that had only one working wiper. The faulty wiper was on the passenger side, so I couldn't see where we were going. I told Charlie he better not crash into any haultrucks since I wouldn't know until it was too late. I had to go operate a shovel for an hour and when Charlie picked me up again he proudly informed me he had fixed the wiper. So of course he had to demonstrate and it worked for two whole cycles before the blade sproinged off and the arm went crazy and got caught in the other, previously good wiper and wrecked that one too.
I think that's when he asked me what we do out here anyways.

Labels: work

11:56 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, June 08, 2009

Hey you got a flat tire! Wouldn't be so bad if they weren't $65,000 each.

8:00 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Friday, June 05, 2009

Just the cutest ever.

9:22 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

www.flickr.com All material, unless otherwise noted, is © 2002-2009 Nathan Waddell. nwaddell at gmail (dot) com to contact me. The Origin of Homie Bear. Bear art by Sarah How, © 2005. Unless it's the pirate bear, which was drawn for me by Karen Ellis. Robot bear created by Shane Cheffins