Two visits to Ontario Place

This week has been fairly active, with many activities in addition to the normal games and reading and swimming and all… On Friday, Nefarious and I stomped all over Ontario Place with a friend of hers (with a season pass I’m sure we’ll go many times with many friends). I took lots of breaks and relaxed while they played, and I even had the strength at the end of the day to climb the spiral staircase all the way to the top of the tower and take a couple rides on the water slides with them. By the end of the day everyone was completely wiped out, and, to my delight, the worst part of it was not my legs, but my sunburn.

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It was a lot of fun though, and I think this week we’ll make a trip to Canada’s Wonderland as well, since Nefarious is now tall enough to go on a majority of the rides… I love roller coasters, and I think she will as well, since thrill-seeking-behavior is so thoroughly encoded in her DNA.

Last night, in addition to the big fight, Caitlin and I went to see Iron Maiden (also at Ontario Place incidentally). It’s really a surreal experience going to see a metal school, because it pulls the strangest people out of the woodwork. I mean, where do all these oldschool metalheads come from? Judging by their real-deal hair, it’s not like they’re just playing dress up for the concert. Security were being dicks at the door — I’d just bought a big mango smoothy at the venue, but outside the security check and they insisted that I throw it away and buy a Molson product inside. But that wasn’t as bad as the guy in front of us, who they told couldn’t bring in his ancient portable CD player (which clearly wasn’t capable of recording, and it’s not as if they were stopping phones anyway). For me, I just waited a minute until they were distracted and had forgotten me, and walked in with my drink anyway. Inside security was mostly taking away kids’ joints, and checking ID of beer drinkers (appropriate since not long after we got there the kid in front of us spent a couple minutes puking).

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Anyway, I also did some animation work (entry below this one), although it’s such a time killer that I really need to stop, because I have a pressing need to finish my writing projects which have been on hold since I discovered Pencil (the free software I use for flip-book animation)… I’ve also started working on some home-schooling software that prints out worksheets. It’s nothing special — mostly just something to make sure that my programming skills stay sharp. That said, now that I have an iPhone after years of having bottom-of-the-line junker phones, I kind of feel like doing some programming for it as well.

Other than that — well, there’s a lot other than that, but I don’t feel like writing much, to say nothing of my memory of the week being hazy — I had yet another frustrating visit with the doctor… Frustrating because I feel stuck in limbo again, waiting for the results of tests that were done many months ago. The lab sent me a letter telling me to be patient and that I’m in the queue, not that this does anything but annoy me. The biggest reason that I hate being in limbo like this is that I desperately need to get into a physical therapy program, and it would be massively easier if I could walk in with those results. And it sucks that I, the patient, have to constantly be calling and hounding my doctors to keep the process from stalling… I shouldn’t have to, and more importantly, at the times when I’m at my sickest, I’m not physically or mentally able to do so anyway.

Quite seriously, there are many times when I think I would be better off buying an RV and just spend the rest of my days exploring and living free (I’m sure Nefarious would vote for not going to school — although I would be a far tougher teacher with very high expectations were I to homeschool), and then when the time comes, jump into the Grand Canyon and never be heard of again. Last time I was there, I talked to a park ranger about jumpers and she told me that it’s a regular occurrence, and they often don’t find the body — all they find is a suicide note in a motel.

Two Quick Movie Embeds

Even though they’re not complete, I uploaded a couple of ongoing video projects to YouTube. First is a little animation I’ve been playing with for Can’s “Pnoom” (from 1968′s Delay) — again, a work in progress. If you’d like to watch it in HD, you can do so on Youtube because I rendered it at 1280×720 (ie. 720p). I recommend doing this by the way, and this video is best with sound.

Here’s a little stop-motion that Nefarious did with some help from me. Unfortunately Youtube cropped off the last two or three seconds for some reason, meaning you don’t get to see the conclusion of the jailbreak… She found doing this more than a little boring, so I doubt you’ll see another from her any time soon (and don’t worry, she watched the end result without the sound of Dr. Octagon)…

Putting the “Crazy” back in “Crazy Eights”

I’ve really had a remarkable amount of energy today and all things considered, I feel good, good enough not just for real life but for online life as well. Fingers crossed that it continues, but either way it’s a welcome and enjoyed change. I had some emails from friends who were concerned that I’d given up on life and I just wanted to say that when I cut my blogging to zero during the difficult periods, it just means that blogging is low on my priority list, not life altogether. Please don’t worry. Although the clock is ticking faster than I would like — and it is for all of us I suppose — I still have a joy filled life.

And today some of that joy came from having a set of plastic playing cards.

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Something that makes me worry

Let me write this at the very start of the day while I have some energy (although I must avoid false sympathy and say that after a very dark, difficult, and painful stretch, that this has been a far better week than the last few and I’m doing my best to enjoy it and make the most of it while it lasts).

When Nefarious was born, two things were going on in the medical world that I feel are relevant to what I’m going to admit. First, it was the height of the SARS scare, which, at least in rural Belleville, seemed like a huge over-reaction and fear-mongering blow-up. Second, it was when all the worries about vaccines potentially causing more problems than they solved were starting to be made noise about by various fringe figures that I was sympathetic to. As a result, I had a great deal of distrust of the vaccination system and for the first part of Nefarious’s life she was not vaccinated. Over time, a combination of feeling uncomfortable signing “religious exemption” forms and starting to understand the science (and seeing the anti-vax “science” being thoroughly debunked) left me with the understanding that I’d made a terrible — and embarrassing — anti-science mistake that needed correcting.

Unfortunately, even with the antivax science so debunked (and shown to be full-on evil) that all that’s left is a mix of lies and religion, I still have many dear friends who hold an anti-vaccine stance and are by their caring (and I think it’s important to recognize that people are antivax because they are trying to be the best parents they can be) but misinformed actions endangering their own children as well as other children around them. It’s hard to bring it up because people get really mad, to the point of ending friendships, when you question their parenting choices, but I think on this subject it’s worth the risk.

I’m not going to personally break down all the reasons why the antivax position is about as reasonable as creationism, flat-earth science, moon landing hoax claims, and other anti-science lunacy that stems from a weird mix of ignorance, conspiracy theories about “big pharma”, and religion, because there are a great deal of good resources out there that do it better than I could. For starters, Health Canada has a good page debunking various antivax arguments, and if you want to get more indepth — and really understand how the antivax movement is starting to willfully murder children, and the gargantuan health risk it represents — then you must keep an eye on the “Bad Astronomy” blog, which is a real beacon of light and works hard to make sure that science and reason is the voice that drives us, rather than blind fear of the night that we should have left behind in the Dark Ages. Anyway, their antivax posts are a must-read.

I’ve added both of these links to my sidebar. Like I said, seven years ago I started out with worries about vaccines, worries that were strong enough to avoid them at first. So I get how one could start there, but these are worries that I calmed with a little research. I came to understood the harm that I almost did my daughter and felt terrible about it, and, if you are in the same position I was then, please please please just read over the links above. That’s all I beg of you. Look at the sources for the various arguments and their qualifications to make the claims they’re making, make a real risk assessment (because even if the antivax fear-mongering about autism/etc wasn’t an outright lie, from a statistical point of view, you’re still monstrously safer with vaccines), and let the reasoning, conscious, and intelligent part of your mind make the decision, rather than your gut. This is pretty much the only subject on which I feel it’s worth butting ones nose into other people’s parenting, and I do feel bad doing that when I tell a friend I think they need to reconsider their stance, but I do feel that it’s important enough to take the risk.

Especially if you’re going to let your daughter in the lake…

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Briefly Checking In

I just wanted to briefly post and say that I’m alive and doing alright all things considered.

More than that though…

A photo from 2004, right before he left for extended Southernly adventure and a new home, and less than a year before I’d do the same. He continues to inspire me. Amusingly, I would never have believed it when I was a child — quite likely I’d have told you the opposite some days — but looking back on it now, I can’t imagine a better father and I can’t imagine a better childhood.

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I wanted to thank a happy father’s day to my father. Growing up with him as my father gives me a great deal of strength and happiness and deep desire to keep going because of my pleasure in doing my best to repeat and expand upon the experiences that I was given and knowledge and wisdom and training that has been passed on like this for thousands of years before these three generations that I’m the middle of.

Today we installed an upcoming symphony of flood damage “indoor pool”. It will take a great deal of self control not to jump off the swing set and canonball into the pool.

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I have also been reading The Half-Blood Prince to Nefarious, an important part of our day that’s rarely missed — thanks (a thanks devoid of sarcasm), JK, for seven thick books, one approaching a thousand pages. If you’re wondering how long it takes to read this out loud — out loud with interruptions of all sorts, snacks, admonitions to behave, washroom breaks, begging for candy, squirming, and begging for more when the clock gets late — then you’re in luck because that’s something I can tell you. It takes about forty-three hours. For you, fast forward.

This (the full length recording) is part of an ongoing project to create an archive of memories and artifacts that will help Nefarious remember her childhood and her life with me — I remember almost nothing of my childhood and as I see Nefarious living as a youth, I have so many questions about my past that only I can answer… and I can’t. I also hope that maybe it will be nice for theoretically-potential grandchildren.