Just before Pallas was born I started playing around with Tiltshiftmaker, and then completely forgot about it till now. It's kind of fun taking some of my pics of the giant mining machines I work with and "miniaturizing" them. It doesn't always totally work but the end result is cool anyways. And they all look way better in fullview so click on the photos for the tilt-to-the-hilt goodness.

So, something like 13 years ago I took this English class, Feminist Literature in the 20th Century. It turned out to be pretty much the best course I ever took in university. Yeah I know I majored in geology, shut up.
Anyways, we read books like Beloved and The Color Purple and probably even some books by white women though for whatever reason they don't stand out in my mind very much. One of the books in the syllabus was Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. For whatever reason I never got around to reading it. Actually, the reason is I never got around to buying it. But whatever. The salient point here is that I finally got around to it this past week. Great book Dr. Read! Can I still hand in my paper on it?
I liked Janie a lot, and I liked Tea Cake, though I wasn't sure he was trustworthy. I'm glad she finally came alive with this scoundrel after living for so many years as the Mrs Mayor and just being a shell of a person. And the end is amazing, totally makes the book, though I won't say anything about it. Don't want no Their Eyes Were Watching God spoilers here!
Also, just read The Art of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. That is a seriously beautiful book. Some of the concepts that got discarded were pretty cool. Though I am glad young Han Solo was cut from the final movie.

Day 1 of a 20 day break from work! Sweet! I think I really deserve it too since so far this year I have worked 30 days. But seriously, this last week was soooo long. I was running shovel 10, the big digger. I find running that thing for 12 hours a little hard on the shoulders, back, and neck. Dig dig dig! Dig dig dig! Honka horn! Swing dis way! Swing dat way! Dig dig dig!



But now I can relax and be with my family.

I solemnly swear to pursue the twin values of mischief and havoc to the ends of the earth. Cuteness in extremis!
So say we all.

It must be spring because the winds are whipping up again at the mine. The one night we had gusts of 100 mph. Yup, miles. Even the heavy equipment sways in that kind of wind. And guess what? We still gotta be out there, though the boys and I refused to move shovel 6 since it was non-essential. Charlie our drill oiler was acting junior foreman this week, so I took over his duties. One of which is to water up the drills. Sometime around 3 AM I went and grabbed the water truck, the one with no shocks or heat, and drove it to the fillup. All you have to do is hook up a hose and fill up the tank, maybe two tons of water?? I have no idea how big the tank is, but it doesn't take long. While it was filling up I just rested in the cab. When it's full water comes out the overflow valve and off you go. So when I heard the telltale spray I unhooked and went back to the drill. Had to wait for him to finish the hole he was on, and then I pulled up and started to hook up. That's when I noticed the tank was empty! #*&%!!! The water was draining out of the drain valve not the overflow valve so by the time I got there it had all drained out. Not being a drill oiler normally I forget to check these things. So I drive away in disgust. Herman calls over the radio, "Where are you going?" So I had to answer him over the radio, where everyone can hear. "Someone left the drain valve open so I gotta go get more water."
When I get back to the fillup I discover my hose is gone. #*&% some more!! Now I have to call my buddy Robin over the radio and ask him to retrace my steps to see if he can find where I dropped it. Anyways he finds it and it isn't all mangled though he told me it was. So repeat the whole process, all the while trying not to get blown away by the wind. After about a half hour Herman comes out of his drill and says the tank isn't filling up at all! #*%& and &%*#!!! So I check my hookup, there are two valves you have to open, as well as an electrical cord to plug in and a power switch for the pump. It all looked good. Finally I notice a breaker on the drill was turned off. Finally I get it right, and something that should have taken an hour at most has taken four.
When Robin points that out to me, I say, "Well, I have to admit it was partly due to my incompetence."
"No," he says, "it was completely due to your incompetence."
Oh the love.
Anyways, once again I discover I have no good pictures of our newish drill to illustrate, but I did find this gem, and was shocked when I read my own words to describe it- we were using this drill in this century??? Wow.



I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since we are still running shovel 6 fullbore. That one is a year newer than me, and I am no spring chicken. On the last night the wind finally died down so we had to move it. Move it a loooooong way, too. The guys on the other shift refused to do it since it has no brakes. So they told me it got new brakes on the dayshift. I thought that was a little weird because the last time it got new brakes it was down for two months. And the new brakes never really worked any better than the old ones. But I did it. We use bullldozers as backup brakes anyways just to be sure. A D11 walks backwards in front of my track and is ready to stop my track with his blade if I need it. Of course at one point we needed it. The shovel shut off when I was trying to turn (shovel 6 doesn't turn real well since that is where you use the brakes and as we have seen, shovel 6 doesn't really have brakes) and it started rolling forward. I was on a downramp so I had to call Spike the dozer operator on the radio: "Spike I'm rolling I need you to stop me. Spike! The shovel shut off! Right now Spike!" Anyways a crisis was averted.

And you gotta check out this crazy pencil animation of an x-wing fighter attacking the death star- click through and then press download, it's safe.

I saw in the newspaper today that all the bad news means people are especially in need of cutes. Seems that pictures and videos of cute things is good for you neurologically. Thus, my service to you today:





In fact there has been no shortage of bad news it seems around here. A guy I work with, actually whose locker is right next to mine, passed away suddenly yesterday. And just all kinds of stuff like that. 

*goes to hug his little daughter*

Pretty much the best music video ever:



Gowan's Strange Animal was the very first cassette tape I ever got, and I listened to it about a zillion times. Put it on my iTunes a while back and now my wife has discovered this song. For some reason she thinks it's about me.

The shovel I was operating at work today got the CBC so I was able to listen to Canada Reads. Are you listening in? Which book are you cheering for? I bought Michelle Book of Negroes for Christmas and Outlander for her birthday (and she got it signed at the CBC panel discussion last week) and she loved them both. I haven't read either yet but I'll definitely read Book of Negroes. Fruit sounds interesting, too. But I think Lawrence Hill is going to take it.
Anyways, if you were on the panel, what Canadian novel would you recommend? Or, for our New Zealand audience, what Kiwi work?
I think my rec would be . . . umm, hmmm. Maybe Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer? Or how about - see, my problem is my favorite Canadian books are all either:
a. non-fiction. Klondike by Pierre Berton!
b. children's books. Silverwing by Kenneth Oppell!
c. science fiction. Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson!
All the CanLit classics I've read have been alright but not HomieLit classics. Not Wanted on the Voyage, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz etc. Read them for fun not for class, but really, give me the sci-fi anyday. However Flying Troutmans was good. Miriam Toews. Check her out.