So here is a fun little project I am doing for something to do. Remember Star Wars #96 where Luke Skyalker fights Lumiya and gets his ass kicked? Until later her figures out he needs two lightsabers to counter her lightwhip. Then he beats her. But the first 7 pages are all Lumiya, and dialogue free and a beautifully rendered fight scene. Cynthia Martin, you rock! I decided to do an homage since Hasbro thoughtfully made a comic pack of this very issue. Turns out it's harder to do than you'd think. So far only two three pages finished:

We've been pretty much glued to the Olympics, you too, right? I've been lucky enough to get to see (on TV, not live in person) almost all of Canada's medal wins. Clara Hughes' bronze medal today was just as incredible as any gold, and the one-two in women's bobsled was awesome and Team Canada beating Russia and the upgraded speed skating medal and and and . . .
Did you know the company I work for provided all the metal for the medals? They even made a commercial about it that I saw once. My mine is but one of many in their conglomerate, so I personally had nothing to do with mining any Olympic metal. Too bad there isn't a coal medal! It could go to cheaters and sore losers!

What kind of units would life force be measured in? And don't say midichlorians!
A while ago a bunch of us were at work shooting the breeze, and we were talking about a new mechanic on our crew who was amazing at his job, though his enthusiasm for the job was steadily diminishing each week as he got more used to some of the work conditions that were his new norm.
"Yeah you can see the life force draining out of him a little more each day", I said. Everyone laughed but one guy, who is a good friend of mine but he has a bit of a history of resolving conflict with edged weapons, he says, "Yeah I love watching the life force drain out of a guy!" at which point we all stopped laughing and exchanged nervous glances instead.
Anyways so Robin figures me taking his pumpman bid is a surefire way for me to lose some life force. After the first day, I told him I felt so good that I thought I had gained a unit of life force.
This past week, well, it's hard to say if I'm ahead on life force units or bleeding them out profusely. All I had to do was get a pump system back in the bottom of this one pit that we are quickly going to need. This job was such high priority that they brought a guy in on overtime to help me the first day, and they pulled mechanics off of the #1 shovel to fix a pump. Wow, never seen that before, right?
Long story short, there is still no pump in that pit, even after four days of working on it steady.
Where to begin? The old infrastructure for the pump had been robbed blind over the winter, so I had to weld new pipe to put in, except the generator for my pipe welder had been robbed to power the lights of a backhoe. And there was no unfrozen pipe to weld anyways.
There are tons of other little details, such as there was no sense in installing anything until after we blasted a pattern directly above the sump the pump was going in, which wasn't scheduled till day 3 of my 4 day shift. So on day 3, comes time to blast, and the drill that had drilled the pattern is about to move out when it pukes up a main motor. So that takes most of the day arranging for two bulldozers to come and drag it out and so on and on.
Even yesterday, we were ready to forklift all the stuff we needed down to the sump, but the blast had covered the road and a backhoe was sent in to open it up again. Which he did no problem, except at the very end he lost a track and blocked the whole entrance.
But I did what I could and now I'm on four days off, so my units of life force is pretty much through the roof right now.

Things my daughter has been up to lately:
She's discovered my bobbleheads that Steve and Megan got me for Christmas:



She's also taken to bringing me socks for her to wear. Yesterday she was wearing pink socks but she came to me with a teletubbies sock, which she indicated I should put on her by tapping her foot with it. After I did, she crawled away and came back with the other one. Gotta match!
Also, she likes to cuddle all her stuffed animals and lay down on the floor to pretend she is having a nap. In fact the other day, she volunteered for a nap by pointing at her crib and her little sleep snuggly, and I was happy to oblige!



Yesterday I was making my culinary specialty, grilled cheese sandwiches, and she had to help me work the spatula. Since hot burners and babies aren't a good mix, I took her to her play kitchen and showed her how to stir and fry, and she's able to pretend stir and pretend taste. Mmm!
But she still only has three words, hi, mumum and daddad. Everything else is communicated with signs, whines or screams. Trying hard to teach her some more words!
Pallas Year 2 photoset.

I love China Mieville but I haven't had much success yet in lending out Perdido Street Station. The prose is dense and full of words that never existed before. "I tried getting into it, and it was cool the parts I read but . . . I'm sure the movie will be amazing!" and so forth. Trust me, you're missing out. And even with all the crazy words and thaumaturgy and politics and creatures, it's just a bug hunt in the end. Everyone loves bug hunts!
I just finished his new book, The City and the City. China Mieville's main characters are always cities, whether London, Un Lon Dun, New Crobuzon, Armada . . . and now two new cities all grosstopically entwined. What? Never mind, it's funner if you see for yourself. And don't be scared, it's basically a murder mystery kind of like Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
And don't wait for the movie, I'm not so sure this one would translate very well. Though it would be interesting to see them try.

So Michelle went back to work last week, and today was the first day she had to work while I was home. Though I've looked after Pallas on my own before, I think this was the longest. Went pretty good, though I was kind of surprised how much longer everything takes. Lunch took an hour- and it was just Kraft dinner and tomatoes! Still not sure what happened there, lunch usually takes me way less time than that, infinitely less in fact since I usually don't bother with lunch when I'm alone but little 1-yos need their food. And really, big 35-yos need their food too and can get a little bearish when they foolishly believe they can skip a meal. So everyone wins.
Ah well the rest of the day went really great and we had a good time. And I bet it felt good for Michelle to hear "Mumum! Mumum!" when she got home. I know I love it when she says "Hidad! Hidadad!" when I come home from work.

Just because I bid off of shovels doesn't mean I don't think they're awesome because they pretty much are. Another thing that factored into my decision was the possibility that I would get bumped up to shovel operator (against my will) to another crew, which would completely screw up our childcare plans now that Michelle's maternity leave is over. But anyways. I met a guy on Flickr who is kind of an excavator historian and he posted these great shots of the death of a behemoth:

I remember this one time in grade 7 when my music teacher had to tie me to my chair to get me to sit still. I wasn't one of those kids you would call hyperactive or ADD or whatever, but when I get bored, I get a little antsy. Flashforward 30+ years and that's one of the reasons I bid off the shovel crew. I just can't sit in those machines for 12 hours without going a little crazy. Actually, 12 hours is not too bad, but four days in a row of 12 hour shifts is a little much. Even then I can do it now and then and it's not so bad- I'm an adult and I can deal. But forever and ever amen of 12 hour shifts? No thank you very much. Being the shovel oiler was ideal for me since my job mostly involved labour outside. But they keep trying to "promote" me to fulltime operator. So I bid on the pump crew, a position my friend Robin graciously left vacant to pursue a tradesman ticket.
The pros of being a pumpman:
In the summer when things are going good, you mostly just drive around and make sure things stay that way.
The cons of being a pumpman:
In the winter things usually aren't good and you mostly go around beating on pipe with a sledgehammer.
In the spring things are never good and you mostly drive around frantically putting out fires. Except when I say fires I actually mean the opposite, waterstorms of uncanny malevolent gushiness.
Oh well, on the plus side no more running shovel!

So two science fiction movies got nominated for Best Picture Oscars eh? Cool! I doubt that's ever happened before. Though my knowledge of Academy History is pretty spotty- I won the Oscar pool one year but all the rest I couldn't tell you who won for what. Didn't they nominate way more movies this year? "And the nominees for Best Picture are . . . all of them! But not Transformers 2."
Anyways, I actually hope The Hurt Locker wins. I loved Avatar but you gotta think even Cameron is cheering for his ex. And does Avatar really need the Oscar win to push it over the top?