Root Canal System

construction and destruction


dentist visit bad
two cavities to fill soon
root canal scarey


Just got back from the dentist, and got bad news. I have two cavities, and one is really bad. :grr: The bad one may need a root canal, but they are going to try and avoid that. I have always had bad teeth, and have had many cavities filled. I don’t know if it is too late or not, but I am going to try and take better care of my teeth. I think I am going to try and keep a toothbrush at work, and use it regularly. It may be time to cut back on coke (acid bad) :shit:, and watch what I eat before dinner.

Now if only I can figure out a system to remind myself to floss every night.

Cyclic Process

happy yoshi
Last night I attended the City of Victoria’s meeting on the opening up of parks for off leash dog use. It was very interesting as this was my first city council meeting I had ever sat in on in my life. The process was pretty simple, and the rules well defined.

After the scheduled presentation, the floor was opened up to preregistered speakers.

I was quite impressed with most of the pro dog speakers. Many of them were good public speakers, were eloquent, stayed on topic, and generally represented the dog owning community well.

One lady representing the SPCA brought up some excellent points about how option 2, if chosen, is already set up for failure(the options are outlined in this pdf). First off, in option 2, a group of residents need to band together, make a proposal, and submit that to the sity before a new park can be considered for opening up. This may not happen readily in some areas. Areas that do form the coalition, and successfully get their park opened up, will then have to deal with lots of people flocking to the park. Policing such a large user group is not something that the average citizen is trained to do.

On the whole I appreciated all the pro dog people standing up having their say.

There were also lots of people opposing the suggested changes. I was actually quite disgusted with the ignorance of some of these people. One dog owner stepped up to voice his adament displeasure with these suggestions. He wanted them both removed, and to not be considered. His reasoning was that he owned a dog that got sick, and because of it’s sickness was very stressed. One day his dog turned on him and was growling and snarling at him, thus all dogs are wild creatures and can snap at any moment. He also brought up Shenika White. He seemed to feel that if dogs were allowed off leash access to parks more attacks like this would happen. The problem with this story is that The Shenika White attack was perpetrated by a couple dogs at large. As I undestood it, these dogs were normally confined in their respective yards, but had escaped. These dogs were not properly socialized, and were not being supervised when this happened. It is tragic that Shenika was attacked, but it is not relevant (in my mind) since the circumstances are not the same. He also brought up the number of fatal dog attacks evey year. These numbers are well known, and well documented. The counter argument is the number of non incidents that occur every year. For example, while walking Yoshi around Thetis lake, I have had one incident where a Pit Bull attacked Yoshi. I have had countless walks around Thetis where I have met no dogs, or the dogs I have met we have passed without incident. The number of incidents is miniscule compared to the number of times nothing has happened.

There was another gentleman who coaches the Bays United youth soccer program. He implored the council to not let the dogs on the sports fields. He felt that dogs did more damage that the soccer players. He brought up that soccer players do not play on fields when they are too wet to withstand the impact. I know this is true since a good friend of mine, Steve, who is a Bays United Div 1 coach, has told me countless times that their game was postponed on the weekend due to field conditions. My rebuttal to the gentleman would be that I feel soccer cleats do more damage to a field than a dog ever could. I have had my foot stepped on by a person wearing cleats, and I have had my foot stepped on by a running dog. The cleating hurt a whole lot more. I have seen the damage done to a field by players wearing cleats, and it is horrible. I agree that dogs can damage the field, but the damage will be in a less concentrated area than the cleats will inflict.

The youth soccer coach also mentioned that if the proposal goes through, Bays United will withold funds they had raised to improve field conditions. In my eyes this made him very petty. Why can’t he share the parks with other users?

In the end, I found the meeting informative. I found lots of people couldn’t stay on topic, and couldn’t follow the rules set out for the meeting. Many, many people talked about the Dallas Road conflict, which the council had mentioned at the beginning of the session was not to be talked about. It was brought up by several pro-dog proponents that many of them already help clean up after other park users, and that option 2 jsut forces the to do more of what they already do. Option 1 would have an immediate impact by spreading out the dog density very quickly. Option 2 could have a cyclic affect (as one park opens, a large group begins to use it and thereby abuse it until the next park opens and everyone moves on).

I fully support option 1. I personally feel that it has a chance of success, and that option 2 is indeed set up to fail.

Blood Kinks

Donate blood today! Today was my latest blood donation. As usual everything went smoothly for the donation. Getting to the donating was a different story. They have migrated to a new computer system in an attempt to speed up the process. There are a few kinks to iron out it would seem since the system froze up on the operator I was dealing with. Oh well. I can see that once it is perfected, the process will be quite quick.

Appropriate Misty Vibrating Beach

making tracks
Friday we left town on time. Sunday we returned a day early. The reason in a word: rain.

Rain normally isn’t that bad when camping, if you are prepared for it. Unfortunately for Sue and I, we weren’t very smart in our packing. We didn’t take appropriate clothing, nor did we take enough clothing. This lead us to come home a day early. We still had a great time while there, and I ended up taking more pictures than I thought I would.

Skip to the pictures.

The story in full:

We left town on Friday around 10am. We headed up to Old Country Market in Coombs for lunch. We poked around there for a bit, I bought a kite, then we continued our drive.

On the drive we saw two black bears at the side of the road. Very cool, but we didn’t stop to watch or take pics. It would have been cool to get a picture, but I didn’t want to disturb them at all.

After we got to Green Point, we set up camp, then headed down to the beach for a walk. Yoshi loved it soooo much.

run yoshi run!

He would run away from us as fast as he could, but never in a straight line. He would then skid to a stop, then come bombing back to us in a straight line. It was hilarious just to watch him romp along the sand and through the ocean.

We went back to camp, made some dinner, and started our camp fire (yes they were allowed there, the campsite was even selling wood).

a camp fire in BC???

Saturday after breakfast, we decided to go down to the beach again. We flew the kite, and waled for a while.

the kitethe flyer

We tried to do a group shot, but Yoshi wouldn’t sit still.

me and sueYoshi Jumping

Long Beach is just so scenic, it is hard to take it all in.

purty

It was pretty misty down on the beach, so we headed back to camp thoroughly soaked. Then the rain started.

lots of rain

It rained, and rained, and rained. Tofino took care of us when we headed in there for more clothes. We each got better socks, and I picked up a paiur of long underwear. We also stopped at the Common Loaf for a couple Hot Chocolates. Yum!

Back in the tent we were pretty cozy as we cozied up as best we could, and played Scrabble, Yahtzee, and contract rummy. The noise inside was almost deafening.

yoshi in the tent

We put our wet clothes back on to go outside and cook dinner. Eww, cold, wet cotton is no fun!

Saturday night we had Yoshi sleep in the tent. He woke up sometime while it was still dark, and the poor guy was just vibrating he was so cold. Sue lifted the covers, and he readily climbed into bed, and slept solidly under the covers with us. Normally when we let him sleep with us (which very rarely) he is on top of the cover. He usually moves around so much, and tries to push us off the bed, we have to kick him out. Not Saturday night. He slept soundly, and did not move at all. He even slept in past his normal waking time. He must have been really tired, and really cold.

Sunday morning there was actually Sun peaking out!

sun on treessun on trees

We had already decided to head back home since everything we brought was damp, if not soaking wet. We were quite the sight while eating breakfast.

dressed for successdressed for successdressed for success

We went for one last walk on the beach, packed the truck, then headed home.

beach imagebeach imagebeach image
beach imagebeach imagebeach image
beach imagebeach image

We had dinner with my mom and sister in Nanaimo, stopped at my sisters new house, then drove home. We each had Monday off, so we took the day to dry out all our gear, do a large pile of laundry, catch up on sleep, and relax a bit before going back to work.

In all, the trip was lots of fun, and I don’t regret a single second of it. I just wish I had packed a lot smarter than I did. 1 Pair of cotton pants is not enough for a place the is always wet. :grr:

Remaining Wood

oh sunny day

The truck is packed and we are ready to go! Long beach here we come. We have a couple stops on the way out of town to pick up the remaining supplies, but after that it is clear ailing until we get to Coombs where we will stop for lunch.

The weather in Tofino is still a little suspect, but we are hoping for the best. We also talked to someone who said that there is no fire ban there. Interesting. It seems weird to pack wood so we can have a camp fire, yet the rest of BC is still so dry that many parks are closed, and there is a general back country ban in effect.


Hellish Camera

relax!

SuperSuede and I are heading back to Long Beach this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning, and come back on Monday. Aaaah, not a moment too soon. This work week has been a little hellish, and pretty stressful. I am looking forward. I hope the weather is going to co-operate though. We don’t mind a little rain (we all know that BC needs it), but we don’t want to spend the whole weekend in the tent. We definitely want to spend some time on the beach.

I am definitely going to take the camera, but I am unsure if I will be shooting lots.

Massive Arrangements

silly lamb
I put my Saanich Fair pictures up last night. I didn’t take as many as I thought I was going to, but I have lots of useable ones. The nose is from a massive bull. He was HUGE!

There was some pretty funny competition groups. Some of the baked goods included potatoes! 😕

Some of the flower arrangements were pretty, and some of the cut flowers were quite stunning. We didn’t end up buying anything from the farmers market either.

Still, it was a very fun day. Pics are here if you want to check them out.

Saanich Terminator

burned out
Wow, I feel burned out from this long weekend. Friday night, Suede and I went out for dinner to 5th Street Bar and Grill, then went to the Roxy to see Terminator 3. I was glad to have seen it at the Roxy, and not at a more expensive theatre. It was a decent movie, but it certainly was to T2.

Saturday we headed up to Lake Cowichan for a day in the sun.

Sunday I was supposed to go for a ride, but I was way too tired, and way, way too sore (from wakeboarding) to even think about getting out on the trails. Instead I took it easy and spent a relaxing day at home. I did take Yoshi out for a short walk though.

Monday Suede and I went out to the Saanich Fair. We had a great time checking out the animals, the exhibits, and some of the food! Our favorite exhibit was the photography competition. I wish I had heard about it earlier. As I was checking out some of them I came to the realization that I can take pictures as good as the ones there! I am quite excited about entering next year, so I put my name on the list for more information.

On the way home we stopped and chose some corn from Silver Rill for dinner. Yumm. After dinner we walked down the street to Macaulat Point Park, and took in a play called Lieutenant Nun. It was part of the Fringe Festival. Very fun play. Thanks for the buttons Coreman. Much appreciated.

And here is Tuesday. I am back at work, but still very sore from the wakeboarding. That is always the sign of a good weekend!

Choppy Beer

jumping for joy

Mmm, I like going to the lake. Yesterday Sue and I headed up to Lake Cowichan to visit KaptainK, little E, and Digger. Yoshi came for the trip, and it was such a blast. Yoshi and Digger had loads of fun jumping from the dock and swimming back to shore. They were joined by Willem.

jumping for joy

jumping for joy

I got to go out for another shot at wakeboarding. I tried it last year for the first time ever, and boy was it fun. This year, I got up on the first try! I was super impressed with myself. I made lots of turns as we headed across the lake. It was pretty choppy out so it got pretty hard. It would seem like the water would just disappear every now and then and I would have to quickly try and compensate. Eventually I lost, and down I went. Once again I got back up on the first try, but this time KaptainK was piloting the boat, and this was her first time ever driving a boat! I went down a while later and then had a few problems getting back up.

It was a blast, but it is very tiring. When I got back to the beach I was drained. Definitely a sport I would like to get better at, but most likely never will. Mmmm, boating then beer!

nice golden beer

The dogs eventually wore them selves out which was really nice since they would bug anyone heading close to the water.
tired dog

tired dog

Little E and I went and played a little tennis, but she kept crowding the net so we stopped.

net crowder

We stayed for a wonderful dinner. Mmm, yummy steak, pasta salad, freshly picked Silver Rill corn, and fresh made bread. Dessert was strawberry rhubarb pie with ice cream. We stayed for the sunset, then packed the very tired pooch into the back of the truck and headed home for Victoria.

sunset

sunset

sunset