Have you ever spent some time with someone you thought you knew really well, only to discover an entirely different side of them? That’s what happened to Dickson, Annie and myself last night as we spent some time with Sharon at her house. I feel like I met someone entirely new last night!

We went to her house mostly to annoy her, keep her awake and away from her work. And boy were we ever successful. Dickson and I discovered a NES (that’s Nintendo Entertainment System) and wanted to hook it up. However, it was already hooked up! So we started looking through the games, and found a Barbie game, which we played for about 30 seconds before it got lame. Eventually, we stuck in Mario Brothers, and that’s where things got interesting.

Dickson played for a while, but eventually died. Then it was Annie’s turn, and she died relatively quickly (she’s clearly not a gamer). When Sharon took the controls to play, it was like I had stepped into an alternate universe! She was so masterful at the famous side-scroller, she knew where all the coins and mushrooms and flowers were, all the secret passages, everything. Not only did she know the features of the game like the back of her hand, she had the timing down pat. And her hand-eye coordination was surprisingly good. In fact, she played so hard and so well, that I saw her head bob to the music. It was nuts!

Sharon claims to not have played for many months, but I don’t see how that’s possible. Dickson has played many games, and Sharon totally schooled him at Mario Bros. Until now, when I thought of Sharon and her hobbies and talents and the like, I’d think of books, English and education, pictures and frames, Starbucks coffee, plays and theatre, etc. Never in a bazillion years would I have thought that Sharon could finish Mario Brothers, and so quickly and skillfully to boot!

Incredulous awe, that’s what I feel.

On July 12th, my Great Grandma Phyllis Good passed away at the age
of 89. The funeral was held that Saturday on July 15th, and I meant to
post something after the ceremony but as you all know the server died.

Grandma Good was diagnosed with cancer, and was in the hospital when
she died as her condition had deteriorated. Actually, she had been in
the palliative care unit for a little while. As soon as I heard she was
in the hospital, I said that I would go visit her. I never did though.
And I don’t regret not going. I realized that I never really wanted to
visit her in the hospital, probably because I didn’t want the image of
her in my head to change. I wanted to remember my Great Grandmother as
the strong, funny, and fun-loving person I knew so well, and seeing her
in the hospital would have shattered that. Maybe that’s selfish of me,
but that’s how it is.

I remember spending time with Grandma Good at Goose Lake, where my
family had three cabins at one point (we now have two, after my Grandma
Good’s was sold). I remember her with my Great Grandfather. I remember
her talking about the Oilers and the Eskimos – she was always up to
date on the teams and knew all the statistics. I remember her enjoying
a great meal at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other occasions. I
remember her smiling.

I’m glad I remember my Grandma Good in my own way, and I’ll miss her. You can read the obituary here.

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of me and Grandma Good at Christmas.

On Monday night I went to see Blue Skies with Dickson, Annie and Sharon, a movie from 1946 (how appropriate for the blog-less Sharon) featuring such greats as Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. The movie was presented at the Royal Alberta Museum by the Edmonton Film Society as part or their Musicals for a Summer Night series.

A nostalgic, loosely-structured musical that follows the rivalry between a dancer and a nightclub owner who love the same woman. The story is bolstered by a string of Irving Berlin numbers. A high spot is “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, a split-screen gem featuring a chorus line of miniature Astaires that took five weeks to achieve.

While I did enjoy the film, I’m not a big fan of musicals. I just don’t understand why they are so (or were so) appealing. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” was definitely an enjoyable sequence, but the one that made the movie for me was both Crosby and Astaire in “A Couple of Song and Dance Men”.

Lots of excellent music to be found in this film, including “White Christmas”. I think the funniest part about this being an old movie for me was that Technicolor was featured so prominently. Hard to imagine that it was such a big deal back in the day!

Ummm yeah, that was a little longer than a couple hours. Like two weeks longer! Anyway, as you can see, we’re back online. I’ll explain what happened later – for now, I must go to sleep.

The websites we host (including this message) will be down for a couple of hours tonight, starting at 1:30 AM MST as we are doing a physical relocation of a couple of our servers. I’ll post a message when we’re back online.

Apologies for any inconvenience!

As some of you are probably aware, I used to live in Inuvik, NT and my family still lives there. It’s a very small town, probably only about 3000 people, so you tend to know everyone. As a result, when someone loses their life, like Matt Wojdak did today, the effect ripples through town.

My Dad has written a nice post explaining what happened. The Volunteer Fire Department, of which Matt was as member, has also posted a message. I know my brother and sister were really good friends of Matt, and are taking the news pretty hard. If you guys read this, I hope you’re okay. I don’t know what I’d do in your position, it must be so hard. Try to stay positive. You’ve got lots of great friends and family around you to lean on, and them on you, so support each other, and things will turn out okay, as they always do.