A few perfect days...

...and now it rains!

When you have a new digital camera, as I do, you take it everywhere... So I finally had the camera with me when I saw the local deer, and, hey, I snapped it when it scratched where it itched. Female, definitely female... :-)

My friend Sylvie came for a visit and I took a few days off. Saw her the first time after at least 6 years. We had such a great time. Took pictures and videos like crazy. She bought my old digital camera and is pleased as punch. The old camera is an Olympus D 6L zoom and really has a great colour range. It was the best available amongst the first affordable digital cameras about 6 years ago. Now I own a Canon S1 IS, which is a wonder. What a great camera, it's worth the price for the quality of the video mode alone. Got a lot of help from my online friends with selecting this camera and I thank them! This website was also one that helped a great deal.

Today it's back to reality and work. Booking a trip to Switzerland to see my brother, much earlier than planned. He's back in the hospital. Today it rains.

Today I bought a new VCR/DVD player...

...and put the old one back in place.

A couple of days ago, when I put a new tape into the old VCR it started to make squeaky noises and turned itself off. I couldn't eject the tape... I turned it on... squeaky noises... off.... Time to get a new one I thought. What's the point of having it fixed, or opening it myself, it's over 14 years old.

Now my big WANT, the new digital camera, has to wait. Off I went to Futureshop, looked at the units, did a bit of searching last night, comparing features and such, went back today and bought a Samsung VCR/DVD combination, went home, installed it... Nothing. Configuration on that machine is entirely done through an on-screen menu, and nothing came on screen. I troubelshot, plugging it in directly to the wall cable, and yes, it got the automatic time setup which the unit takes from a TV station... this one was in the East,it was the wrong time, to change the time I needed that menu on the screen... no menu, no playback, dud.

Frustrated I thought there's nothing to loose, I'll open the old VCR and see what's what... and fixed it... The new tape had a label sheet stuck to it, when I got it out and the tape out, fixed!

So, the new machine goes back, I'll buy my digicam instead and the old one stays... :-) I am happy.

Not a boring geranium in sight...

...in any of my pots.

I've got a brown thumb. I know it's one plant's revenge. The thing didn't grow, was always green and looked healthy, puny, small, in tiny plastic pot, but healthy. Perhaps it wanted to be a bonsai, but at the time I took it as a personal rejection and let the thing die... The relatives of that little ivy are wreaking havoc in my yard now... they know! They are slowly creeping over everything and are getting their revenge.


Despite this history, I went forth this weekend and bought perennials for my pots this year. I had the undivided attention of a very knowledgeable "green thumb" at the nursery and came home with beautiful grasses, a purple bush, a flowering bush with beautiful leaves, and a few annual flowering plants to give it all a bit of colour. Typical, I couldn't tell you the name of the plants, I just care how they look and that they are tough. I think they'll survive my brown thumb curse.

Since when is bad character an excuse?

This is a rant...

My good friend's ex-husband is the poster boy for bad character. That's what it is, straight out, nothing else. He will tell everyone who'll listen that he is suffering from depression, some sort of mental illness that prevents him from working, from taking any responsibility at all. In these parts it's not difficult to find phsychologists who will corroborate these stories, and self-help groups where they reassure each other with newly acquired phsycho-babble that they are all victims of something or another. When you are a victim not much is expected... so don't expect decent child support, or such. I for one, am so tired of hearing someone's lack of character explained away as being the result of some kind of a mental desease.

Just in case you think I shouldn't judge, think again, having been around for a few years I know of what I speak. Those who really do suffer from depression have my sincere sympathy, I understand the tough road you are on. Too many others though use this illness as a shield to hide behind and to abdicate their responsibilities.

My friend found work overseas, has provided a living for herself and for her girls. Meantime, her ex has found a sympathetic woman with her own child who buys into his story and mothers him. He now suddenly finds enough funds to move into a big house, to buy a business he's dabbling in, and now, he says, he has obligations to his 'new family' and can't pay for his own children's schooling.

I could puke.

I feel sorry for the new family. They don't have a clue what they have gotten themselves into. And I feel very sorry for my friend's girls they don't know yet what a low-down snake of a dad they have.

I worked with this jerk and bought into his manipulations for quite a while. He is a master at promising to do a job and then finding excuses why he just couldn't produce. He talks a blue streak without a shred of truth or sincerity, in short he lies. I covered for him far too often.

Why am I so upset? I no longer work with him, but he is hurting my friends and that makes me his enemy.