Pioneer on the Internet – Sean Gursky

I was going to write about this sooner, but after finding my report cards from grades one through nine this is a little more relevant.

How did I get 63 in skiing, while the average was 82? I love skiing and being outdoors, how is this possible?

It was a cross-country skiing course segment of P.E. (which I got 75 in) where we would do laps in the soccer field or go down by the park and ski along the creek bed. I did the loops without incident, generally had a good time. I even learned that jumping with cross-country skis was difficult, and one pair of skis didn’t make it back in one piece while I tested this theory.

Ultimately, one afternoon during P.E. Chris and I decided to head home and play a game of NHL97 on Sega. Mom had freshly baked cookies and it was a grand break from skiing. Thirty minutes later we’d strap in again and head back to school. No one was the wiser and planned another mid-skiing break for the next day.

This continued a few times, and eventually Tom joined in on the fun and snacks. I recall going home this time, playing Sega, watching The Brier all the while enjoying cookies. Unfortunately, that day was fresh snow so when our tracks went away from the rest of the pack the teacher found out and our punishment was coming.

I received a one day in-school suspension (to be served over two afternoons) and had to make up the time I had skipped out on skiing in the school yard by going into school early. Mom tried to stand up for me at the Principle’s office, but to no avail. I made my bed. Now that I have found nine years worth of report cards, stay tuned for possibly more exciting and embarrassing updates from my younger school years.

Oddly enough, now my boss is someone who routinely plays for, and wins, The Brier. Take that school system!

I finished The Broker the other night and was going to start on The Chamber. I bought The Chamber from a Value Village when I was living by NAIT with hopes of being one step closer to completing my Grisham collection. I saw the movie many years ago, it’s been so long the plot has been forgotten and thought the book would be good too.

I looked at The Chamber and realized it was nearly 700 pages. I like reading and all, but that book would have required some serious time investment, more than I currently have available. So, I put it back on the shelf and will get to it a few books from now.

What did I think of The Broker? It was a good read, dealt more with spy and conspiracy theories. There was no court room drama, but still had a hint of law throughout.

I have missed the writings of Palahniuk, and when I picked up Survivor and checked how many pages there were, the last page was numbered 1. Oh’what? Flipped to the front and it was 289. The page numbers and chapters all count down. I’m not sure what this book is about, but I think I’m going to like it.

I had a great childhood. I was the only child and was spoiled to no end with love, gifts and attention from my parents. It was all I could have hoped for really. Although, last week a small piece of my memories was taken away from me.

Jenna and I saw a trailer for the new The Pink Panther movie, and the thirty seconds that followed made my last twenty-three years of existence a sham.

Jenna informed me that there was no panther in the movies or cartoons. The stories revolved around Jacques Clouseau; not a panther. All this time I had believed The Pink Panther was about a pink panther.

I started a new game of license plate alphabet on Tuesday. And I finished it six hours later! In a blistering pace I went through the whole alphabet and problem letters such as “I”, “O” and “Q” were dealt with in a swift fashion.

I have to thank a Nebraska couple driving an Outback for assisting me with the “O” and “Q”. I was driving into Sherwood Park off of the Whitemud when I saw an “OWQ-463″ plate ahead of me in the distance. I was on “O” and would do anything to get it out of the way. I sped up to double-check that it was my targeted letter.

I claimed my letter just as they pulled off on the second exit. I realized I should have followed them until I found a “P” and then easily claim the “Q” but I was having such a brilliant game that I felt like I had luck on my side.

Once into Sherwood Park I stopped at Tim Hortons to get a coffee for Jenna and myself. On my way out I found a plate that had “P” on it. No problem, I’m at “Q”, if only I could find that Nebraska plate again. Then it happened. A few hundred feet ahead of me I saw a familiar Outback pull out of the Sobey’s parking lot and onto Cloverbar Road.

This was my chance, I had to catch up! I sped through the parking lot, and after a rolling stop to get onto Cloverbar I ignored all speed limits and did 100km/h to catch up and claim my “Q”. We were both at a stop light when I had to bust out my camera and document this amazing occasion.

An hour later and on our way back from Fort Saskatchewan, I had run the gamut of the alphabet. Thanks Americans, you made my week.

“and’it’s Wednesday, so you know what that means!

Some may have noticed my sidebar getting a little weird by putting my Flickr pictures further down on the column. This only occurs in Internet Explorer, but goes away in Firefox. This wasn’t always the case as IE used to handle this. I am going to work on sidebar.php today, revert back to the original file and see if that solves the problem or make things worse in the process.

Or, you can take up arms against this sidebar revolution and get yourself Firefox. Or if you are a sucker for all things IE, install Internet Explorer 7 as the Beta 2 was released Sunday night and the sidebar problems are resolved.

Check it out and see how IE7 made seagurs work for me!

Last night I finished off The Last Juror from John Grisham. It was an enjoyable read. The book starts out quickly but with several hundred pages to go I was left wondering “What else is going to happen?”

The book wore on closer to the end, unlike classic Grisham, but it was merely the calm before the storm as the book redeemed itself to be an enjoyable read in a great climax. Rather than the traditional lawyer point of view, this book offered a different take and continued with telling about the lives in small towns (similar to A Painted House) with a taste of 1970″s law.

I picked up The Partner from Grisham and Survivor from Palahniuk from Chapters yesterday as well. I will finish off my Grisham to read list before going back to Palahniuk for a dose of the unusual and twisted.

As a frequent reader you should all be aware of my license plate alphabet game that I have been enjoying on my way to work. For the last while I have been stuck on “Q”. Until today!

On the rear of an clean white Crown Victoria, driven by an elderly man who had been with the AMA for 35 years was “SQUAIR”. I don’t know who or what that is, and even Google isn’t sure either. Whatever it is, I’ll take it! I have to find “Z” on my way to Sherwood Park tonight, and that will conclude my search, which I started two weeks ago to the day (January 9).

UPDATE: I saw my “Z” when I made a quick car run earlier today. My search is over and tomorrow I will start again and see if it takes me two weeks to complete.

Last night was Nickelback and I had Brad as my man-date. It was fun and loud. Rake, Danko Jones and Live all rocked my socks. It was my first time seeing all three of those bands and would gladly see them again on their own. Don’t worry Chad, the only band that went to eleven was Danko Jones. He was the highlight of the night for me. High energy, loud, wailed on his Gibson Explorer for the whole set and is generally one cool cat.

Rake was good, but quick. Doors opened at 6:00PM and that’s when Rake took the stage. They are a young band but with a little polish will finally get some success they deserve. As for Live’I have always been a Live fan and was sad when I learned they are now no better than an opening act. I am always hoping that each LP they do will continue to get better. Unfortunately that hasn’t been true since The Distance to Here, but with new songs performed last night I hope their new release doesn’t disappoint.

As for Nickelback, they did what they do best. Play loud, chug beer in record time and light enough pyrotechnics that it would have put Stay-Puff out of business. I have seen Nickelback twice before, both in a much different setting. The first time was them opening up for Everclear in 2001 and the next was them headlining a day at Stage13 in 2002. It was more of the same last night, except with more agression and a good blend of songs played. They had a video tribute to Dimebag Darrel during Side of a Bullet which was one of my high points during the set.

Last night was a great concert, all four acts were fun and gave it their all. Our seats were surprisingly good, we had great sound as a speaker pointed right at us so we had no patented-Rexall-echo. And we could see most of the arena, so when lighters came out for Lightning Crashes I could see them all. Or when the floor was a sea of motion during Too Bad, it offered me a taste of what it would be like to be that guy on the stage. So, in conclusion, good times, good times.

And now changing gears. Today is an important day, it’s election day! I have already voted and hope for a favorable outcome (read: Conservatives do not get a majority government). Back when I was first able to vote I did my part unfortunately I don’t think I read the book on How To Vote. My vote was registered, but it was probably counted under that small percentage of those who submitted a blank vote.

Y’see, I did a check instead of an “x” beside the name I was voting for. I have since became wise to the ways and can mark an “x” with the best of them. I will be monitoring the Canadian news sites today to see how the results progress, and hope you all exercise your right to place an “x” beside someones name today.

UPDATE:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper will become Canada’s next prime minister, as Canadians have elected a Tory minority government and ended a 12-year reign of Liberal rule, CBC News projects.

Well, it’s not a majority, which was what I was pulling for. I imagine the next 18 months in Canada will be filled with much of the same that we saw when the Liberals had their minority government.

I was playing around with the feel of this page and have changed the image above as well as some changes in the CSS to match the image. The theme I use has several images and thought I would bring a little change to the madness.

I had always wondered what the image in the header was, and it turns out that it is the Weston Super Mare pier in the UK. The image I’m using now is the backyard of somewhere in Italy/Rome. Now that I know how to change the image/CSS of the site look for my very own picture to sit at the top of the page in the near future.

Tonight marks my first concert of 2006. Rake, Danko Jones and Live will be the opening acts for Nickelback. The tickets were a gift for Christmas and this will be one of those shows I wanted to see but couldn’t justify the cost, so I get the best of both worlds.

On another note, I won’t be recording the show tonight and am looking forward to experiencing a show without several hundred dollars of gear on me and keeping one eye on the crowd. It should be a great show. Nickelback has the ability to be really loved or despised but they know how to entertain with power chords and amps that go to eleven.

Also, Gord was hoping that the pictures from our all night drinking marathon would be forgotten when they left the main page’I can’t let that happen. For those still interested in the madness that went down that night, click here.

There appears to be some connectivity issues with my hosting. It looks like the database connection wasn?t being made, the main page was slow to load or some weird Internet voodoo was happening. Even trying to save this post caused time outs and trying to access my page through FTP was sketchy.

Regardless, I?m here telling you all that everything will be alright. That is, of course if you are viewing the page in Internet Explorer. The right side bar looks like it has a problem loading, but it works fine in Firefox – so, you?ve been warned. Problems after problems.

Last night I did something I haven?t done in many months, I drove home in silence. I just wasn?t in the mood for music so for the fifty minute drive it was only me providing the entertainment. I won?t go into the details of the conversation I had but it was a nice change.

Jenna and I are planning to spend our fourth anniversary somewhere down south. We haven?t really decided but Mexico, Cuba and Dominican Republic are the places that we?re entertaining. We won?t be booking the trip until July, with the actual departure occurring in November. Wherever we go I?m looking forward to duplicating Corona commercials, seeing a real palm tree and swimming in blue waters.

Yup, that?s all for me.