Calvin's Weblog

Where have I been?

Geez, I just got a notification about Vetiver's post on my blog this morning, and I realized that I haven't made an entry here in almost two weeks! How unlike me, especially since things have been going pretty well.
I haven't had any attacks in two weeks, I've been able to eat and drink almost 'normally' the past week, and have even gone through a couple cases of beer! I thought FOR SURE I was going to be spending the night in Emergency when I went to cheap wing night at the Cat'n'Fiddle on Monday and ate 15 hot wings with 2 pints of Canadian, but you know what? Nothing. Strange but true...
And yes Vetiver, you've right - it's getting close! On Friday I go in for pre-op and get all my tests done, then Tuesday I'm in the operating room! We had a bit of a scare yesterday though, they reported on the news that an outbreak of flesh-eating-virus had hit Eagle Ridge Hospital (where I'll be going!) and that all surgery would be canceled - BUT - it turned out that two people who had surgery in the same room on the same day both got blood poisoning - that's still dangerous, and it's still a mystery about how they got infected, but at least it's not a virus outbreak, so my surgery's still a 'go', and I won't have to worry about waking up with one leg missing.

Other than that, I've done a lot in the last ten days... I bought that Gallien Krueger bass amplifier that I've been oogling, and I bought two cabs for it too... a 15" sub cabinet and a 2x10" bass cab. I had to return the 2x10 cab though, as it was made my SWR and the wiring was incompatible. Sure, I could have rewired it, but I hate destroying the warranty on brand new thousand dollar items, so I gave it back, and this weekend I'm going to head to the Langley Long & MqQuade store where they're supposed to have a 4x10" GK cab on for $1100 that should suit my needs.

This week I also caved in to my compassionate side and sponsored a little girl from Sri Lanka - "for less than the price of a cup of coffee a day" ! Her name is Stella, and she likes to sing. Her chores include carrying wood. When I recieve the full package about it, I'll post more info. For now though, it just feels good to give something back for a change. I've always said "I'll give to charity when I can afford to take care of myself first!" but that time never seemed to come. Then, as I was doing my taxes recently, I just had to say "crap, when is enough, enough? If I make this much and I can't afford to give $35 a month to make a difference in someone elses life, then I've got some serious priority issues..." - so, long story short, I'm now leasing a Sri Lankan five year old.

Carole and I also went to White Rock this Saturday, and in addition to the obligatory walk on the shore whilst licking tiramisu flavoured gelatto, we also did a walkthrough tour of the hospital lottery prize homes - including the 2.5 million dollar grand prize home, right on the water. VERY nice. Too bad the tickets are $100 each... Carole really wants that house now, and I can't disagree... it would be so nice to live there... of course, the property taxes alone would be more every year than we're paying in mortgage right now!

Sunday, we went for dinner at a pub with some family. That was a nice time, we got to catch up with some relatives that we hadn't seen in a while, plus, I got to eat some awesome yorkshire pudding with horseraddish... yum! That's the first "beef" of any kind that I've had this year, and it was good... especially when washed down with a couple of Stella's (Artois, not Sri Lankan). Again, no gallbladder problems!

I've also been playing a lot of online poker lately, and have finally gotten to the point where I'm not losing money. Yeah, I've even started playing for real money. Dangerous, I know, but I haven't been stung yet, so I've yet to learn my lesson. I deposited $50US in my player's account, and in the first 4 hours I lost $7. The next day I said "screw this, I'm going to lose everything this way" so I withdrew the remaining $43. However, there happened to be a deposit special that previous day, so sometime during the night, they had credited my account with $25US to match 50% of my initial deposit. You can't withdraw the money the credit you, but you CAN withdraw any winnings derived from it. So I figured I'd play their money and see what happened. That night, I played in four tournaments, and I won two of them! My account was now up to $38, so that night I withdrew $10. The next day I played in two tourneys and won one of them, but then lost most of the winnings - so I was up around $38.80. The next day I withdrew another $10, leaving me with $28ish. The day before yesterday I lost about $8 by trying out tables I wasn't familiar ith, but Yesterday I went back to what I know, and made back about $3.60 so I'm back up to $23.86 in my playing acount, and I've cashed out a total of $17US profit so far. Sure, I've probably spent 12 hours in the past week to make $17, but as far as entertainment value, you can't beat getting paid to have fun!

Other than all that, the band 'recording' has kinda stalled, but we DO have 5 songs nearly done - worst case scenario we put out a 5 or 6 song ep in the first half of the year and a 5 or 6 song ep in the 2nd half of the year. We've started to write new songs now though, and already have three on the go. By summer, we'll likely have enough new material for a third ep!

Posted by Calvin at March 9, 2005 10:14 AM