current happenings

Hello everyone. It's been around a week since my trip to Winnipeg. This weekend, I went to see Mark and Wendy on Sunday after a soup luncheon at church. It was damned nice to have a full day like that after a mainly empty drawn out week. The church is having a workshop on diversity which I'll be joining. I find learning about different cultures to be interesting and hope that my perspective might add to the work being done in that area. It'll certainly give me something interesting to do over a couple of weekends. Some time soon, I'll be discussing what blindness is like with the sunday school class they've got going. That kind of thing is something I've always found enjoyable. All I really need to do is find something which makes the weeks somewhat less empty and I'll be off to the races.

Mark and Wendy are doing pretty well. They made an excellent Morokan chicken dinner and the evening passed in the pleasant, thoughtful, conversational way in which time with good friends like them ought to pass. I introduced them to a nifty youtube video where some people forced some laptop batteries to explode to demonstrate the consequences should that happen. It's one of those things that I always would have been curious to hear the sound of but would never dream of instigating myself. Glad somebody else did it and recorded the somewhat dangerous results. The batteries they have these days are quite safe. They had to go to some trouble to cause the cells to vent explosively.

I was more tired than I would have expected to be after getting back from Winnipeg. It seemed so obtuse. We didn't exactly leap over tall buildings while we were there. Still, I'm back in writing trim again. On the way home from another scrumptious omelet at Symposium Cafe, I met a nice couple who just moved into the area. I think God has stepped in to at last fudge the odds in my favour in the socialisation department. I got turned around on the way back ending up near a school and pharmacy. Thankfully, the Trekkor Breeze was eventually able to get me back on track. Had that not happened, I would have missed them entirely. Colin and Ena seem like the kind of down-to-earth good people who I can get along quite well with. We've exchanged phone numbers and emails. It was good to chat with someone completely new for a while. Also, it was a damned nice day to get lost in. It's quite warm out there for this time of year. A much better way to spend time than contending with writer's block. It looks like dad will get in another game of Golf today. He passed me as he left and I returned home. Thank God the water is back on. It was cut off this morning while they fixed pipes. While I'm writing this, I've been enjoying a substantial glass of it. Work on Enchantment's Twilight is proceeding in dribs and drabs. I think I'll have to just get used to that kind of slow pace until a greater variation of events or a change in circumstances gives me more life experience to work with. A couple of ladies have contacted me on POF and Dating4Disabled.com but they seem to lose interest. I always leave them with questions so they have an easier time thinking of what to write back but I haven't received any answers in quite a while.

That's pretty much the sum of things here at the end of my thirty-fourth year on the planet. I fervently hope there's more social activity and opportunities to be of some help to people who are actually in this community. Things feel like I'm finally on track for some healthy change. I hope I'm correct in thinking that such change is actually on the way. Even if that isn't the case, I'm still thankful not to be in the dismal mental place in which I spent most of this past Summer. Even with the occasional reprieves provided by the church, friends and family, there was just way too much squandered dark lonely time there.

The rest of the week looks like it'll get more interesting. My birthday is on thursday. I don't have any special plans but will doubtless have some sort of celebration with my family. Alison's birthday is coming up also, and then there's Halloween. While I was visiting Mark and Wendy on the weekend, Ava and Amia went with their grandmother and aunt to a pumpkin patch. Both of them apparently had a good deal of fun. I would have thought that perhaps Amia was too young to grasp a lot of Halloween's fun but it seems she can handle it so far. They enjoyed the haywagon ride. I vaguely remember those. TV ought to have some interesting offerings over the next while. Halloween always brings out the better horror movies. G4TechTV has had some interesting stuff about various horror-related games and such. Nothing immediately useful for my own creation, but it certainly passes the time. I suppose I should also keep an ear on the Accessible Channel over the next while. They'll doubtless have the odd interesting thing fully described. I purchased an audio drama series from CDBaby last night which sounded promising for Halloween. That's been a bountiful harvest lately for me. The Ann manx series has proved excellent so far. I haven't listened to all of it yet. Overall, its depiction of a future universe is somewhat thin on details. However, it's supposed to be more of a comical romp and they did a splendid job with sound effects and voice acting. Not quite as good as The Adventures of Sexton Blake from:
www.perfectlynormal.net
but definitely up there overall.

equalibrium

Hello everyone. It's been somewhat windy and rainy out over the past while. My sleeping isn't back to normal just yet but it's better than it has been over the past while. I'm feeling quite happy and wide awake this morning. What's more, I've enjoyed life over the past number of days. The highlight was definitely Sunday. Our church had another games night which I was able to attend. This time, there were three of us playing Monopoly on my netbook. Joseph brought the normal board game which seems to have helped the sighted folks out. I found myself on the losing end of things this time. Well, second place to be precise. It was an absolute blast of an afternoon and early evening. More people took notice of us this time around. When you spend most of your time alone, that sort of thing definitely helps with one's sense of isolation. Another excellent investment I made was acquiring the new audio drama The Adventures of Sexton Blake. It's a six-part series from:
www.perfectlynormal.net
The guy who plays Arthur Dent in the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy starred as the hero and it worked wonderfully. This crew doesn't cut any corners at all when it comes to high-quality sound. I'll be keeping an ear on them.

Dragon Tavern is still going quite well. Eldrex is continuing his climb to digital and meaningless glory. I've abandonned Thorebar. He's just gone and died too many times and I got tired of building him up from scratch again. I've decided to invest in a subscription to Che Martin's card room at:
www.blindadrenaline.com

I very much enjoy playing Texas Holdem and it's a lot cheeper than All inPlay. At least it's a more social way of passing spare time when writer's block takes hold. It looks like I've finally rid myself of that ailment once again. Work continues at a slow but thankfully more steady pace on Enchantment's Twilight. Those rpg books are a gold mine of ideas and information. I've just started reading the one about ancient ships and life at sea. I haven't yet settled on a ship type for the kind wizard to leave his homeland in. However, I'm somewhat drawn to the idea of a cog. The openning act of the whole sauga is something I've never really had a fixed idea of and that may well be the next thing to try and work on over today and tomorrow. The group of people who accompany the kind wizard will provide me with some scope for interest as they must integrate with the island's population and a new way of life.

Time seems to be moving along at a far more rapid and endurable pace now that I've found my equalibrium again. This weekend is Thanks Giving and we'll be going to see my aunt Kay and other extended family. It's been quite a while. I always enjoy hearing what's happened with everyone. At the end of next week, we'll be heading off to Winnipeg. Meanwhile, I certainly have plenty to keep me occupied. G4Tech TV has changed somewhat from how it used to be. However, it still offers a lot of interesting stuff. So does the Accessible Channel. I'm very much enjoying that. History and Discovery are also up to their usual excellent standards. It's been quite a while since I last caught Mythbusters. I'll have to do something about that over the next while. Catching the new episodes is a bit harder when they repeat all of the older ones. However, I've missed a number of them so I figure I'm bound to hit a new one again soon. I just have to remember to actually think about TV when I run into a patch of boredom. It isn't really a natural thing for me. The Internet tends to be what I focus most on these days.

Well, I suppose I should think about getting more presentable seeing as I'm at last going to walk over to Symposium Cafe again for a brunch. It's been a couple of weeks but I feel quite confident that I remember the route. That's still a very new and wonderful experience for me. I don't feel that I have to constantly practice or face losing all the progress I've made learning how to get there and back. It's certainly taken long enough to get to this point. The Trekker Breeze is definitely worth its weight in gold despite its quirks. It'll be invalueable when I at last come up for affordable housing. Not a peep from those folks. No action on Plenty of Fish over the past while either. At this stage, my profile on POF is about as good as I can get it. I'll keep watch for any interesting threads on the forums to put my two cents in. Other than that, all I can do is wait and hope.

nearly out of the woods

Good morning, everyone. Despite not having much sleep at all, I'm actually feeling quite good. That coke I had after mom and I got back from dinner with family friends at Symposium was probably not the brightest move. It was, however, quite enjoyable at the time. I didn't think I'd get to Symposium this week. It just isn't very smart to try and cross streets which are busy or have crookedly cut curbs when you're not completely able to exercise your powers of concentration. Somehow, things finally seem to have sorted themselves out in my mind. Perhaps, the book I ended up reading, Hairstyles of the Damned, had something to do with it. It was a depiction of an American teenager's experience of essentially reaching adulthood. He tried absolutely everything in order to fit in but just never quite achieved any personal satisfaction. Frankly, I find it hard to imagine a high school experience anything like what was portrayed. All the drugs, sex, and other shenanigans should have wound the whole lot of these teens in jail. Instead, it was like all the adults just gave up the ghost and let them have at it. One aspect of the book which felt absolutely genuine to me was how the main character came of age at the most unexpected and unlikely time. He had essentially just paid for the right to have a sexual encounter but turned away from it in order to comfort an old friend who had already indicated that he had no chance of going any farther with her. All of a sudden, but quite naturally at the same time, he began thinking about the larger picture of life. The long-term consequences of actions became more important to him.

I guess adulthood kind of sneaks up on all of us. It isn't a state of mind we just suddenly reach. Rather, we come into it and then, there comes a point when we stop and finally realise just how much we've changed from who we were. This week has been quite a rough ride for me. However, I feel like I've gained a kind of emotional fortitude that I've been lacking for months. Perhaps, it was all the misery I contemplated through the books I read and the email list I'm on. Perhaps, I just had to smash hard against rock bottom in order to face my current circumstances with more equanimity. Over the past while, I've put myself as much as possible in the path of other people and have gained very little as a result other than frustration. What I've finally concluded is that my life just isn't likely going to change all of a sudden. There's no stone I've left unturned in the social life improvement department now. I don't regret any steps I've taken other than eHarmony. Neither of the two ladies who showed some interest in me have followed up for a while. I doubt I'll hear from either of them again. POF seems the most likely to put me in touch with a new lady friend over the long term. I'll certainly continue to frequent that site. Meanwhile, I'll keep enjoying life as much as I can and keep ready and open to opportunities to have some sort of positive impact. For now, like it or not, that's pretty much all I can do.

In the process of trying to expand my social circle, I seem to have lost touch with a couple of good friends. I haven't heard a peep from Ron or Steve in ages. Ron's email no longer works which makes me wonder whether I actually dialled his number wrong or whether he's just moved somewhere. Now that I've at last gotten my own shit together again, I'll have to see what's become of them. Steve was having sleeping troubles but seemed to like his job alright when last we talked. Haven't seen either of them on Skype for ages. In all likely hood, I'll be seeing Adam either today or tomorrow. He's stuck it out with me despite all this frustration and insomnia. I haven't always been the most exciting of company these days. I've got to work at varying my listening somewhat. It's time to start making the most of the life I have again. I still have some sleep to catch up on, but I think the worst is finally behind me.

schooo's out!

Hello everyone. I'm back at home after my last mobility leson. I believe I've now learned the route to the Symposium Cafe as well as I'm going to. Five months, numerous batteries and something approaching three gigs worth of recorded lessons and independent practice walks later, reaching this point has been a long time coming. With Ray's help and the guidance of the Trekker Breeze, I can now go there for meals or simply an afternoon drink. It's a damned good feeling. You can check out the site for the restaurant which wil serve as my new social haven in the real world at:
http://www.symposiumcafe.com/

Yesterday's brunch with Minnie was terrific fun. I managed to get there in plenty of time. She had no trouble finding me and we enjoyed omelets, toast and potatoes. She sounds just the same in person as she did last time we got together. Hopefully, it'll be a shorter time between visits this time. We must have been there eating and talking for a couple of hours. A very pleasant way to spend a morning. Having a female friend I found in life there to share the experience with has at last completed the process of moving on with life after losing Janene. It's been quite a long road. Near the beginning of the Summer, a neighbour sympathetically offered that cliche about being at square 1.2 rather than back to square one. At the time, I thought it was about as far from the truth as one could get. Time seemed to have be gripped in absolute stagnant frustrated despair of my life ever changing at all. If a woman could come to love me and still end up ultimately walking away, what cause did I have for hope at all? I felt so confined and discontented with circumstances that I remember being somewhat surprised at the well-meaning neighbour's remark. I figured that it must be visually obvious that I had been sent back far into negative squares. Now, at long last, I believe I really have arrived at suare 1.2. I have somewhere to actually go on my own where there's at least a chance of new developments taking place outside my family. I can come and go there on my own terms. Treeting her to brunch was an absolute pleasure. I had wanted to do that with someone all Summer.

Minnie came back with me wanting to see how my Trekker Breeze worked and how I got places. She seemed quite impressed. We sat on the patio out back for a while enjoying a cold drink. She met my father who is still getting used to being at home more of the time now that he's retired. It always feels somewhat strange having friends over. Once you've lived in your own place, one's parents' home just isn't yours any longer no matter how much they might wish that it were. My parents don't mind me having people over at all and likely wish I would more often. Yet, it just always has that sense of intruding on someone else's domain. for the foreseeable future though, it's just how things are going to be.

In the evening, I went out with Adam for a meal and gaming cession. Turtle Jack's did an excellent job of my barbecue chicken salad. Unfortunately, I had been awake since five yesterday morning and ran out of mental steam around ten o'clock or so. I believe I got a better sleep today.

In around a month, I'll be heading to Winnipeg for a trip to see some relatives. Other than that, there's really nothing else ahead of me. Life will revolve around working on Enchantment's Twilight, going to church, seeing friends, and walking over to Symposium once or twice a week to break up the stale routine. There'll be CBC Radio1, the BBc, NPR, documentaries, and podcasts as well as music to keep my ears and mind occupied. Enough, I hope, to keep me open to new ideas and interesting to other people. This Summer has certainly shown me that there's no way of fending off the ordinary other than being as ready as one can be for the extraordinary. I've at last made it out of that hellish emotional valley to a point where I can actually practice what i preach again finding the positive in life on a more constant basis. It feels very good indeed to be back in that zone of being once again.