Here's a little thing I built for Michelle this week. My dad and I both built one for our wives. The design is from one of those magazines the hardware stores send out. Michelle saw it and asked me to build it for her. I agreed even though my builder skills are even less than my Ultimate Frisbee skills. But it turned out alright, thanks to my Dad and his tools. It would have been pretty hard to build with a hand saw and a hammer!
You fill it with topsoil and plant herbs and spices and fruits and veggables in there. Then the bunnies can't get in there for once in their lives.
Oh noes! I went 2 whole weeks without Pallas pics! Well here are some good ones- the second one is after she was out helping me with the planter:

My wife's Ultimate team was short five guys today so I volunteered to fill in. Five minutes before the game they were explaining the rules to me. This is what I learned:
A Force has nothing to do with Jedi.
No bodychecking allowed.
Try not to throw up.

Anyways it was fun and I didn't totally embarrass myself- or worse, my wife -and I didn't throw up. Yet.

The crazy clouds on my drive home from work the other day- I just stuck my camera out the window and took some shots. Too much of a hurry to stop! At one point the rainbow was a complete half-circle and uber bright. It wouldn't fit into the viewfinder so no shots. I could even see the end of it as well as the pot of gold, but like I say I was in too much of a hurry to stop.

The big news out of Edmonton today is the new coaches for the Oilers. Unfortunately it means that the naming of Edmonton's third poet laureate got a little overshadowed. Congratulations Cadence Weapon!

For some reason I can only upload one photo to Flickr on the computer I use in Hinton and after that it crashes. It's a Windows so what can you expect?
Oh well. Technically I'm not even supposed to have these pictures let alone put them on the internet.
I do for three reasons: 1. I have never said the name of the company where I work or even really where it is, specifically.
2. I have never badmouthed the company in print, choosing instead to act as a sort of booster. They really do treat me well and I am glad to work there.
3. I post the pictures because they're all gummed up with awesome! Certainly not to make the company look bad.
People from all over the world contact me asking questions about them, some just are fascinated with the giant machines, some even build model replicas and need to know specs. So you know, just helping the world out!
Anyways, in totally other news, just remember that Avatar the cartoon is totally amazing no matter what kind of monstrous mess M Night makes of it.

May Miscellany:

1. Last week John Scalzi posted a review of the new Green Day so I immediately went to the store to buy it only to discover it didn't come out for a few days yet. Anyways I have it now and it's good. Kind of American Idiot + Foxboro Hottubs + Warning which is an equation that = asskickery. I still think American Idiot is the best and most important mainstream rock album since Nevermind. Seriously- prove me wrong.
2. Saw a bear at work the other night. It was snowing and dusk, so we weren't sure if it was a large black or a very wet and bedraggled grizz. I am pretty sure it was a black bear but that would be the first I ever saw on the minesite which is pure grizzly habitat. Last year I saw this really weird creature that crossed the haulroad in front of me. I was like what the heck was that? After some thought I kinda leaned toward wolverine but wasn't positive. Then this week someone mentioned they saw something strange at about the same place and we discussed it and decided it was indeed a wolverine. Next week I hope to see a saber-tooth tiger.
3. Ever see Lords of Dogtown? I saw it the other night at wo . . . uh, I mean I saw it recently. It was really good. Heath Ledger's performance had some elements of the Joker in it which was interesting to see.
4. How about Bully Beatdown? I've seen it once and it was fun to watch a bully get his ass kicked (Michelle: men are weird) but I wonder what happens to the victims once the cameras go home. "Yeah I got beat by a professional fighter while you guys watched and laughed but now that they're gone I am gonna take that ten grand you got."

Since Pallas doesn't quite sleep through the night it's my job to put her soother in if she wakes up before it's time to feed her. Sometimes I need to be "reminded" of my responsibilities. Last night before bed I was reading my Star Wars LegacyTPB ($5 at Calgary Expo!) which takes place 130 years after A New Hope. All the Dark Horse Star Wars comics come with this timeline that helps you make sense of when the story you're reading takes place- either a long time ago, a really long time ago, or not as long time ago, but still long. Anyways, this timeline musta got into my dreams since when Michelle woke me up to tell me to go put Pallas' soother in, I said, "You want me to fit her into the Ewoks movies? I think that's about the only place it would work . . . " As she has learned to do over the years, she just ignored me and put the soother in herself.
Anyways, you thought yesterday's picture was cute? Check these out:

So we stayed in Hinton for an extra day to go to a birthday party- little Taymin just turned two! Taymin's dad Robin is my good friend from work. Anyways they rented the pool for an hour and we got to take Pallas swimming for her first time ever. She loved it! We had a pretty great time too. If you're my Facebook friend you can check out some video. Waterproof cameras are worth their weight in gold. Almost literally.

I've always had an on-again off-again relationship with Star Trek. Star Wars is my first love, but I do really love that one episode where Spock is attacked by all those sasquatches when they crash land on that planet. And of course, TNG brings back memories of the Woodsy Crypt.
Some Star Trekking goodness from around the web:
John Scalzi haikuizes the plots of all Star Trek movies.
JimSmash is celebrating Star Trek Week!
Okay well, there's two anyways. Better than none.

May the 4th be with you!
Round here it kind of feels like every day is Star Wars Day. To celebrate, we went and watched Wolverine! His girlfriend could do Jedi mindtricks so there's your connection. Also, Wolverine may actually be a mutant wookie.
Yesterday I made a quick trip to the Edmonton Pop Culture Fair- just long enough to find Shane Turgeon's table and buy his book on Star Wars-related tattoos (as well as some old vintage Kenner figures!) called The Force in the Flesh.
Speaking of tattoos, my wife bought me Kat Von D's book High Voltage Tattoo which I just finished reading. What a great wife I have! If you like tattoos or LA Ink or rock and roll or anything related, it's well worth getting her book.
It's been over a year now since my last tattoo, and I still have to get that one touched up a bit. I think the obvious next one for me is something related to my daughter- maybe a classical greek goddess bust, done all cool, in honor of her namesake Pallas Athena.

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

I hope you made it down to your local comic book shop to get some freebies. We (my wife and daughter are getting all kinds of comic book events under their belts these days!) went down to Happy Harbor Volume 3 where the ladies of E-Ville Roller Derby were putting on a match as part of the festivities. Our good friend BeeBee Sting, dressed as Supergirl today, was there so we had to support her. And get free comics. Add in the first real nice sunny day of the year and it was pretty much a perfect day! Unfortunately, the super-villains won the game and have enslaved the Earth.




Also, some artists were there doing sketches for donations to the Food Bank. Fiona Staples drew me this sweet twi'lek:

CCEE- the artists

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to the Calgary Comics Expo was to meet some of the artists I know or know of through deviantArt. Given that we were only there for a few hours, I didn't get to meet them all but I met the best ones!
First up, Amy Pronovost, the artyewok. Not only does she draw great Star Wars stuff, but she also specializes in flying bears! She drew us a little baby ewok in her sketchbook that bears a passing resemblance to Pallas. Plus I got one of her Star Wars Galaxy 4 base cards as well as sundry other swag. Thanks Amy!
I also had the opportunity to meet the artists of Imaginism, Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera. Lovely people, both of them. I purchased their beautiful Waterworlds artbook as well as this print from that book:

Also quick shout outs to Virge, Laurie B, Johnny Luu and Miriam Libicki.

PS- Happy Miner's Day! Make sure to buy the miners in your life lots of presents!

CCEE- Battlestar Forum

I was a little surprised that Michelle wanted to come with me to the Comic Expo, but she was excited about seeing Tahmoh Penikett, Battlestar Galactica's Helo. Then they added Kandyse McClure (Dualla) and we were in BSG heaven. While we were standing in that crazy line to get in, the lady in front of us mentioned that Edward James Olmos was a late addition to the guest roster. This is akin to being Catholic and going to Mass and being told that the Pope would be presiding. Mr. Olmos walked by us twice during the course of the day, once with Kandyse McClure. Which is good because in the very crowded forum room we were in the very back, with a crying baby girl and her stroller.
Anyways, for whatever reason Tahmoh never showed up for the forum, maybe he wasn't even at the Expo but it didn't matter. Admiral Adama and Lieutenant Dualla were there! The two of them sat down and just talked for an hour, answering questions and joking around. Remember when Billybob was a billlyboob to Jian Ghomeshi? Olmos and McClure were the exact opposite, classy and gracious, generous in their answers and incredibly passionate about BSG.
ONe of the better questions asked was, if they had to choose a different character to play in the series, who would they choose? Kandyse chose Tory of all people, and Starbuck as a backup, and Olmos picked Colonel Tigh. Ooh- and he also mentioned how mad Michael Hogan was about . . . you know (for the sake of spoilers I won't say exactly what). We were mad about it too. Anyways, at then end EJO shouted out a "So say we all!" and we all answered in turn.
So say we all!

Back from Calgary! The Comic Expo was fantastic. I think it will take me several posts to get through all the stuffs. So I thought I would start with the things that were lame about it, since those are very few and then I can get on with the things that were great.
Lameness #1- it seemed to be poorly organized. We bought tickets in advance and still had to stand in line for about 35 minutes to get in. I feel bad for the people who bought tickets at the door and had to stand in line twice. And later, we were standing in line for the BSG forum, but we were never 100% sure we were even in the right line. A simple sign might have solved that problem. At least we got in- the people who were already in the room for Ray Park but wanted to see the BSG forum had to vacate the room, go all the way to the back of the line, and be told it was overcapacity and that they weren't allowed in. Ouch. It sounds like there was a shortage of volunteers so maybe they did the best they could.
Lameness #2- this one is all my fault and no one else's. I took hardly any pictures! When you are busy buying stuff and pushing a baby stroller pictures take a backseat, but I wish I had taken more, since the ones I did take didn't even turn out very well! Here are the two pics I took that turned out half-decent:



But look- a baby wookie! Well, we thought about dressing Pallas up but I was at work all week and we ran out of time. It was quite hot in there anyways and she just would have been unhappy. As it was she did really well.

Oh no! Snow!
It just snows and snows. Oh well. On the plus side we saved a duck! Poor little girl got caught in the blizzard and buried in snow, or was hiding in the snow or something and she got hit by a van. She spent the day hiding under a dumpster so me and Robin went and rescued her. Fish and Wildlife said bring her in so hopefully they can help her. Turns out today is Earth Day so that is my contribution. I guess working in a coal mine pretty much damns me for all time.

OKay I know I sorta promised but the truth of the matter is that I have nothing- at least as far as hockey/mining analogies that aren't totally dumb. Though it would be fun to play some sort of hockey type of game with the heavy equipment. So on to something else.
Next week we will be going to the Calgary Comics Expo! The last comic con I went to was in 1989, I think, shortly after I moved to Edmonton. Todd McFarlane and Stan Lee were there! But I don't really remember that much about it. Hopefully this one will be more memorable. A lot has changed in 20 years. One interesting trend lately has been "covering" covers. In the same way musicians will cover favorite songs, artists who grew up on comics are covering their favorite covers. Incredible Hulk #340 is one of the classic covers of all time, and there have been a few takes on it, including some zombified versions. Here is the original, and then the zombie version that appeared in Marvel Zombies:


Personally I like Josh Medors' zombied-up version:



Shaun Ward has been doing a series of classic covers, including Hulk 340 and Spider-Man #1 (both McFarlanes):



And House of Duck posted 12 covers that he hopes to cover in his own cartoon style, so far he has one. You can do it!

I think tomorrow after I've had some sleep I might blog about the similarities between hockey teams and coal miners. But for now, a story about sleep.

On the first night, around 3:30 AM I was hanging out with my buddy Robin the pumpman. He had helped me with a bunch of oiler stuffs and now we were going to investigate why one of his pumps- nay, his most important pump- mysteriously stopped pumping. Such mysteries occur frequently and can have many different solutions, from pressing a reset button and everyone living happily ever after to having to replace a pump in a deep dark pit at 4 in the morning accompanied by cursings of all and sundry.
But first, coffee break. So I fell instantly asleep, and apparently was snoring. I never used to fall so deeply asleep at work but babies have that effect on you I guess. So next thing I know it's 5:45 and Robin is leaving in the coal van to pick up the coal haulers- his final duty of every shift. Groggily I slide over to the driver's seat of the pumptruck and drive away to kill off the last 45 minutes of the shift. My main concern is finding somewhere isolated to hide and try to wake up. Vaguely I wonder if Robin got that pump going or not but really, it's almost home time and I don't actually care.
Suddenly here comes the big boss, doing his morning tour in his pickup. He's making a beeline for me, thinking I'm the pumpman since I am driving the pumptruck. Oh no! I pretend I don't see him and take off. Luckily it's dark enough that I can sort of get away with that. So I drive away towards a different pit, the one with the mystery pump, and to my dismay I see Big Boss is following me. No doubt he wants to debrief about the pump but I really can't see how that conversation can possibly go well for me- I can just imagine it: Hi Homie Bear, did you get that pump going last night?
Ummm, I don't really know. Maybe?
What do you mean you don't know?
Well, I . . . am just very very tired.
So anyways I had no choice but to pretend I didn't see him. It was a little awkward when he passed me and waved but sometimes you just have to stay the course.

I'm still an oiler! So everything remains status quopacetic. Since the Edmonton Oilers didn't make the playoffs this year (again) maybe you can cheer for me!

Happy Easter! I have to go back to work tonight after nearly three weeks of blissful laziness. Great timing, eh? Here boys have three weeks off see you on Easter! Oh well.
Anyways here is an Easter homily for you, courtesy of Stephen Jay Gould, from Bully for Brontosaurus:

But no battle exists between science and religion- the two most separate spheres of human need. A titanic struggle occurs, always has, always will, between questioning and authority, free inquiry and frozen dogma- but the institutions representing these poles are not science and religion. These struggles occur within each field, not primarily across disciplines. The general ethic of science leads to greater openness, but we have our fossils , often in positions of great power. Organized religion, as an arm of state power so frequently in history, has tended to rigidity- but theologies have also spearheaded social revolution.

SJG was a great man, co-author of the paper that introduced the idea of punctuated equilibrium in evolution. He also championed a pet idea in his essays and lectures- that science and religion comprise "non-interfering magisteria". I admire his effort to bring peace between the two, but I don't quite buy into the idea that these are two areas of human endeavor that have nothing to do with each other. But anyways, happy Easter! I'm off to work!

Yesterday a present arrived alla way from New Zealand courtesy of aunty gabrielle! Pallas says thanks for the bear paws! Or yeti claws.
And here she is modelling the onesy sent us from my dA friend the rebel-penguin!



Anyways did you happen to catch Billybob Thornton on Q this morning? It was such a cringe-inducing interview that if you missed it you should listen to the podcast.

Drood: A Novel

So Dan Simmons has a new book out. Luckily he must have told Michelle about it so she could buy it for me because otherwise I don't think I would have known. I'm not sure how I feel about living in a world where a new Simmons novel is not front page news or at the very least trumpeted in the blogosphere. Maybe I just hang out with the wrong crowd.
Anyways the new book is called Drood and is, like most Dan Simmons books, a horror-tinged exploration of a literary giant or two. The Hyperion Cantos explored the works of John Keats and had a killer robot thing called the Shrike. Ilium/Olympos was all about Homer, Shakespeare and Proust and had a killer monster in the form of Caliban from The Tempest. Drood is all about Charles Dickens and has a killer vampire thing named Drood. Unlike those first examples, Drood is not sci-fi but rather historical fiction with, as far as I can tell, very few liberties taken with historical fact.
What really? How can that be? Well, the narrator is Wilkie Collins, someone I only knew of because gabrielle read The Woman in White on our Malaysia/New Zealand excursion. Collins is tortured by professional jealousy of Dickens and "rheumatical gout" which he medicates with laudanum and other opiates. And if I tell you any more you will perhaps not enjoy the book as much as I did.

I've always thought it was cool that, despite their size and miles of electrical wiring and computer chips and dips, that the shovels we have at work are not all that different from Mike Mulligan's steam shovel. In fact the first steam shovel was invented in 1839, and the design which we essentially still use today originated in the 1870s.
Check out this video of a vintage 1921 steamshovel, still running in a museum or something:



And a rather shaky video of a 1924 shovel- looks like it is about to tip over several times but that is just the cameraman!
I love that the operator had to yank on the trip cable. So much nicer having a little button! But otherwise, exactly the same principle.
Next week when I go back to work I will no longer be a shovel oiler. I was asked to step up and take one of the open shovel operator bids and I turned them down. Politely, but firmly. It is too hard on my back to operate those full-time. So it looks like I will have to go back to driving truck. Or else they will promote me anyways. We'll see I guess.

For an April Fool's joke we are taking our tiny little daughter and poking her full of holes! It's Pallas' immunization day today. That's okay -she plays plenty of jokes on us- she loves to wait till after I change her diaper to have a poo. Sometimes while I'm changing her.

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.