just peter

• Play it to perfection
• Do something unique with your look, your sound, or your performance
  
• Display some showmanship
  

• I was just plain burnt out on Thresh. Not on the guys, but on the band.
  
• I came to the conclusion the 'business' of a band wasn't why I was in a band, and it made me feel like Thresh's version of Mick Mars. Writing, arranging, and hanging out in the rehearsal space was what did it for me. Shows and schmoozing weren't were my heart was at. Compromise has to happen in any group for it to remain functional, but these guys deserve more of a shared vision and focus.
  
• The prospect of the time needed to be spent again on auditions/retraining/rewriting/and acclimatizing to another singer seemed daunting to me. Being in a band was a hobby for me to achieve some growth, and I had a hard time envisioning any new accomplishments within a half year window in the current situation, which would likely be stretched, due to summer and my trip to Europe.
  
• Life has handed me some different opportunities I'd like to follow up on. Marty Ballantyne nailed it when he sang: "Time passes by, without consent or apology." I mentioned working on a book, but I'm also itching to get outdoors a bit, try some photography. There's also always the ever present balance of staying healthy, maintaining relationships, learning german, finances, traveling, and work to round out my life.

January 21st, the most depressing day of the year (as labelled by a researcher), has passed us by. Safe for another year!

in other happy news, I AM getting a raise - the word through the grapevine turned out to be correct. it's a 'cost of living' type increase but it's a good bump. to top that off I have a performance review in February and I may get adjusted after that, too.

which is good, because my credit card is full, and not from that selfless type Christmas spending! (Each individual in our family has the means and impatience that they buy what they want the instant they want it. it makes for difficult Christmas shopping). No, my credit card is full because I intelligently realized the most depressing day of the year was coming and decided to block it with the entirely selfish purchase of some serious material goods. Having more 'stuff' always equates to long term happiness doesn't it? Doesn't it?

lastly, I wanted to weigh in on a dog attack that occured nearby - I feel like I have something important to say, and here hopefully people will read it. I invite your comments.

1. Why own a dog if it's just going to be chained in the backyard all day? A powerful and energetic rottweiler-collie cross needs plenty of exercise and socialization, and would easily get frustrated in such a setting, as any human would.  With a sheltered life like that it's understandable the dog wouldn't have learned proper social cues around humans. Imagine the stress on a dog who's not used to being around children - their high pitched screaming, and their need to tug on tails, ears, and hug or put their faces to dogs'.  The highest percent of dog bites happen to children, and that's why! There needs to be not only more education here for owners, but it'd also be nice if all elementary children learned some proper dog interaction skills.
2. Having said that - why are these kids going into someone else's property?  Opening the gate and just wandering into a yard of somebody that's not at home? Hasn't the mother told her daughter not to go in there and mess around without someone supervising them? To respect other people's property?
3. If this is such a vicious dog, why was another child able to stop the attack by calling the dog off? I don't know all the details, but it sounds to me like a frightened, poorly socialized dog acted the only way dogs can when confronted. They can't vocalize their concerns, all they have is their teeth to protect themselves. I'm happy the child wasn't more seriously injured.
4. If you start banning breeds, where does it end? Responsible dog ownership and management is the cure to these tragedies.

I'm fired up about this. I'm sure through a lot of public and social pressure the dog will get put down, but it's ludicrous it had to come to that.

wow. it's kind of a slow january - calm before the storm I guess.

Christmas holidays were really good, thanks for asking. It was a little strange this year because jellybean had to work the graveyard shift during christmas eve, christmas day, and boxing day, but we still did go around and visit a lot with family. Because of her work schedule we had the whole first week of the new year's off together and we did some bumming around in Regina.

Prior to new year's we went to see the breeder of our potential puppies, to get a feel for the breeder's operation and brood. I'm not sure how to describe her exactly and politely so I'll put it this way - she's a dog nut, and she's dog crazy. Everything was clean, and the 4 adult dogs we saw looked well cared for. All of them (except one of her new arrivals) had great temperaments. They are a little tinier than what I was expecting, but after having only seen 80lb golden retrievers and Australian cattle dogs in the last 6 months I guess a 6lb puppy is going to be pretty small in comparison. And of course, with a mix of puppy and show cuts, they are really cute little fluff balls. She'll be letting us know when the mama is pregnant and we're super excited!

New Year's eve "Friends and Family" played for a good 4 hours at a small town bar, and it was a lot of fun. My parents even came out to listen and enjoy - my dad knew most of the songs well so one could tell he really enjoyed it. Well, both - My mom and dad were actually dancing, and I think that's the first time I've ever seen them do that.

I've been hearing through the grapevine that I may be getting a little bit of a raise at work - that coupled with some other awesome financial happenings means jellybean and I may actually be able to start saving for a house this year. Maybe even have a extra financial wiggle room beyond that. Yeah, we're not struggling and starving or anything, but it's nice to even start hoping to save for a house with all the insanity in the housing market.

Although we haven't had to call the cops on our neighbors upstairs for a long time, it's been close. I don't think either of us is going anywhere for a while, but the sooner one of us does, the better.

They don't bother to take off their shoes in their apartment (she wears heels and runs from one end of the apartment to the other) and they move/throw furniture regularly. They've also recently taken up singing badly at the top of their lungs, and their ay-em sex schedule still causes a few sleepless nights here and there. In addition, one night at 4am we were awakened when our bathroom fan starting pouring water. Apparently one of them decided to have a bath, then went back to sleep, not bothering to turn off the fucking water. I maintain my opinion that a trailer park somewhere has misplaced these folks.

I have just begun work on our second annual Christmas newsletter. Both Joanne and I had thought we took it easy this year, but after I reviewed my gmail from January 1st until present, I decided that wasn't the case. Lots of goings on in 2007.

One of our future plans is a trip to Europe - it's long been on the wish-list, and now things are starting to solidify. Joanne and I met with our friends Chris and Susan from Calgary (who are joining us on the trip) and we've decided on a loose itinerary. We're planning to start in Munich,Germany for the end of Oktoberfest, then go on to Austria, the Czech Republic (for Prague), and Amsterdam in the span of two weeks. My friend Mats will try to join us for a while, and Chris and Susan may also have friends of theirs from Stuttgart joining us.

Since we've got an idea where we're going I've got plane tickets paid for. The best part is yet to come, the planning of the details, and the doing. The places we've decided to go to look like they will be so much fun. I believe we'll either arrive at trip's end sick of sightseeing, or they'll have to physically force us in the plane to come back to Canada.

German classes are going well so far, I am trying to fit in extra listening and learning in the gym every morning, too. I find that my brain just doesn't process things as quickly as I'd like yet. I read somewhere that by the time we are adolescents we've accumulated over 80,000 words in our vocabulary, not to mention all the grammar that goes with those words. My challenge is picking up a chunk of that vocabulary and grammar in a different language and finding someplace in my head to stuff it all. 

Oops, I had a short interlude there where a guy was trying to over-inflate the system requirements for a damn web server. Fuckin' guy. Anyways.

The pouncing puppy purchase plan is practically complete. We will be visiting a Coton de Tulear breeder on Dec 30 to meet our potential puppy's parents, and I now have most of the money set aside for the purchase. We are excited to welcome a new member to our family! This will be the first of many - now that I know Joanne is a dog person I have a wish-list for the next 40 years that includes a Golden Retriever, an Airedale Terrier, a Shiba Inu, a Great Dane, a West Highlands White Terrier, a Old English Sheepdog, and a Schnauzer. Hehe.

Speaking of new members of the family, last weekend when we were home my parents were dropping some serious grand-children hints. I guess they were having coffee with their peers, and the conversation was on how wonderful their grandkids are and how many everyone has. Since my older sister doesn't have any children, and my younger brother is newly single, that makes us a prime target for hint dropping. It was both awkward under the scrutiny, and also kind of funny, because it allowed for a bit of teasing on our part.

Oh oh oh, and last but not least, I will doing some country and golden oldies drumming once again. My bassist's dad's band asked me to join them again, this time for a gig in a small southern town bar for new year's eve. It's a little insane because the set list is 45+ songs deep, but the good thing is that none of them are over 3 minutes long or present any serious difficulty (so far) to learn. Sometimes it's hard to hold back on making things more complicated than the song requires though, and it's always interesting learning out how each individual approaches the tunes. 

I like that people don't know how to change their facebook settings to lock down privacy. All your porn are belong to me!

this thursday it'll be 3 weeks since I had my laser surgery. my eyes are still quite dry, and I'm still doing a drop in each every hour to keep 'em lubed. They do tend to get tired more quickly during the day.

I had a good appointment one week after the surgery with my optometrist. I had been feeling sorry for her, that she might pocket scads of my money after this surgery like she used to...turns out of the total cost of my surgery she pockets 20% to provide "post operative care" for one year. turns out that year of care amounts to 5 visits lasting 15 minutes each. I should've known - those optometrists will always make sure they get theirs.

The prognosis is good. My eyes are healing well and I have 20/20 combined vision (closer to 20/25 in either eye, I think) , which is incredibly better than the 20/200 or whatever I could see before. Basically, I would've had to hold the biggest letters of the chart up 1 foot from my face before to see them..now they are clear. I really notice the difference outside, I don't know if I've even seen this clearly before, it's awesome.

In the last month I've been doing a lot of shopping on ebay. My first experience with ebay 4 years ago was not a good one so I had kind of filed ebay away as a non-worthwhile service. Basically I tried to bid on something that was too good to be true, and then didn't end up paying on the auction, and ebay and the seller got mad at me. In the last couple years though, my brother had been having success with it, and I've always been drawn to shopping online instead so it's a good fit for me.

I am now hooked. There's a bargain hunter in me - I relish getting a better price than your average joe, especially on electronics - because electronics superstores bend you over so often. It's like Lisa Simpson said - "I'm proud of you.You're like Christopher Columbus. You discovered something millions of people knew about before you."

That was a good thanksgiving weekend - nice and relaxing - which was just what the doctor ordered.

My laser eye surgery went well - quickly, as a matter of fact. The weird thing is the laser sounds kind of like a miter saw - that didn't help being I was in the waiting room to hear 4 surgeries before I got to go in. However, I was given a sedative before which helped to calm me down.

Once in surgery, I was given drops to numb one eye, and a speculum was used to hold my eyelids open during the procedure, then they laid me down on a chair underneath a blinking light. Marks were made on both sides of my eye with some sort of drawing utensil and then all around my cornea (which really tickled, it was additionally to funny for me to think someone was drawing on my eyeball, and I was paying for it)

A suction cup/microkeratome was then slapped on my eyeball and a circular flap cut was made on my cornea - this exposes the part of the cornea the laser needs to burn away to properly shape my eye.

This was undoubtedly the most uncomfortable part of the process, as the suction cup pressurizes your eye to lift the cornea, so the blade can slice through a thin layer of it. It felt as though someone was doing a handstand on my eye with their thumb - I could feel the pressure all the way to the back of my skull, and it wasn't what I would call gentle.

After that I was given a time to count down for the laser's operation (58 seconds for my weaker left eye, 53 for my right eye), as the laser shaved off excess cornea. After the laser was done, the flap was replaced and smoothed into place and the eye thoroughly wetted with drops. Then the procedure was repeated with my right eye. It took all of about 15 minutes or less for both eyes and I was led to an exam room and given my supply kit for the following week. (Two different kinds of eye drops, sunglasses, instructions). I found I could see right away after the procedure but my vision was very hazy. Jellybean drove me home and I was instructed to rest in a dark room for at least 4 hours. Thank god for audiobooks on the ipod, I had a good time taking it easy.

In the days that have followed I've found my eyes to be quite dry, the drops have helped big-time there. I also have some light sensitivity issues - one night jellybean and I drove to Winnipeg and after about 20 minutes into the drive I found my eyes burned and watered and I had to close them. We also ended up driving into the sun coming back to Saskatoon and that really made my eyes itch and burn, too. From everything I've read and been told that sensitivity is supposed to lessen as my eyes heal so I'm just going to take it easy.

I've also read my vision will take a while to stabilize, maybe up to a month. As of now my vision is slightly better than I had with my glasses (which were one prescription behind) and my vision seems to be clearer every day with less dryness and itchiness. I am very pleased with the surgery and would definitely recommend it. Even though my eye car plan at work doesn't cover Lasik, it's tax deductible, woo!

the countdown is on. less than a week 'till my eyes get fixed up. The countdown is also on for a long weekend..somehow it's October already, and I feel a little cooped up and need some new scenery for a change.

The German classes are going well now, I am also making an effort to take in several other sources of learning, including podcasts, and language learning CDs. I am really liking the slowergerman.com podcast so far. The lady reads from her diary entries about life in Munich. Be damned if I understand what she's saying, but at least now I'm picking up on the occasional word. I think to really learn a language properly, you have to get the vocabulary down, which is no small feat, but you also have to hear the language spoken often. If you hear it often, then you can pick up on any nitpicky details like grammar, pronunciation, conjugation, and so on. I also find it helps to have a huge mouthful of saliva to speak German properly, it just sounds more accurate that way.

I am also hoping to schedule additional private tutoring time with an authentic German speaker, maybe even over the period of our course. I want to make even more of an effort this time to have some fluency in the language when we go over to Germany next year. I felt really quite embarrassed and helpless when I arrived in Berlin in 2004, and pretty much all I could do is ask people if they spoke English. I could tell a lot of people did understand English but didn't want to bother with the tourist that couldn't be bothered to learn their language before visiting. And I think that's fair, really. We can't just go all over the world and expect the world to conform to us. And if we expect them to come here and speak English, turnabout is fair play. Their yard, their rules.

I was also pretty ashamed to experience that almost everyone I encountered spoke at least two languages fluently. In one case, a fellow spoke fluent English, German, Portuguese, French, and had a basic working knowledge of Swedish as well. That's pretty humbling to me, and the memory still encourages me to work towards having a comfortable ability to use the language. So far, the daily bombardment in small doses from a bunch of different teachers and sources seems to be the best strategy, and I hope with application of effort, I turn out a good finished product.

i was just kidding, you don't have to comment if you don't want to. It's nice to know people come and read though.

I can track visits on spaces, but facebook is all "let's let people snoop anonymously" so the only way I really know if people read my entries on facebook is if they comment or tell me in person they do. so thanks for visiting.

last post my blog title was a question in german. It was: "Wie sagt man "I have injured my genitalia and need immediate medical attention" auf Deutsch?".

This means "How do you say 'I have injured my genitalia and need immediate medical attention' in German?". Deutsch means German, not dutch as you might think, and Germany is Deutschland. (doytsch-land). Not sure why that word in particular is used.

Anyways, I asked my german friend that question, and this is what he answered:

Ich habe mich in meinen Genitialbereich verletzt und brauche medizinische Versorgung.

This, literally translated word for word, means:

I have me in my genitals hurt and need medical suppy.

So now you can see how the grammar and word order in German works. Crazy, eh?

I had a dream the other night that really made me worry about my upcoming laser eye surgery. In it, I went to the laser vision center for my consultation before surgery. I was discussing options with the doctor, and in the background the nurse was laying out the tools for the surgery - and there was all sorts of crazy evil tools, scalpels and stuff. I kinda got worried and asked the doctor "The surgery is done entirely with laser, right?" And he goes "Oh no, first we have to hollow out and scoop out your pupils and then cut your eye in half with this scalpel." YIKES!

But earlier on in the dream Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson got me to compare their vag's, so I couldn't take the dream very seriously. It still was a little scary though - definitely had serious heart palpitations going on when I woke up from that dream.

I hope everyone realizes it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. This is one of the few enjoyable non-commercialized holidays that we have left. It's critical to pay it the respect it deserves.

As a last bit about dogs for a while, I wanted to list a few things that I've read about dogs and dog training that were interesting, or a change from older philosophy. I'm doing this as much for my own reference as for anybody else that's interested in dogs. These are also from my point of view, so you don't necessarily have to agree with what I'm saying. I welcome feedback.

• Dogs may tolerate getting hugged, but they don't enjoy it. The act of pressing chest to chest in embrace for comfort is a practice we've kept since we evolved from our primate form. Our relatives - chimps, bonobos, and apes - are of the few animals that hug. If you look at a four legged creature, consider how unnatural and physically weird the act of a hug is for them. Also consider that, to dogs, putting your limbs or torso on top of them could be considered either a sexual advance, or a method of attempted dominance. Many incidences involving children getting bitten by a dog result from when the child attempts to hug the dog. Look at the expression on a dog's face when being hugged, and ask yourself, does it look to be enjoying the hug?
• Dogs also meet and greet in a different way than we do. A dog's "Whasssssup!" equivalent is during the smelling of the derriere and sides of one another's mouths. Unlike humans, who face each other and make direct eye contact, dogs naturally angle away from one another in greeting and avoid making eye contact. Directly facing and staring is about the rudest greeting for a dog. Now think about how two dogs on a short leash with a lot of tension are forced to greet each other. Hmm.  Dog fights can occur from this posture. I can speak from personal experience also when I say a lot of dog bites have happened when children try to put their faces near a dog's. 
  
• Puppies grow up to be dogs. It was cute when the little st. bernard puppy jumped up on you for affection, but somehow it's not so cute when that puppy becomes a 150-pound drooling monster. It's not fair to a dog to allow or encourage behaviors in puppy-hood that you don't want when they're full grown.
• Dogs live in the present. The good thing about this is they can easily put past transgressions behind them if their owners let them.  You can also apply this knowledge in training! Some trainers suggest you have from 1-3 seconds to either correct or reward an action a dog performs for you, beyond that a dog can't simply connect the action and why they're getting rewarded or punished. So for example, punishing a dog 3 hours after you've found it's pooped in your house is no good. What the dog learns from this late punishment is that it gets punished when it's owner finds it's poop.  And now because the dog has learned this, you get to participate in mystery excrement treasure hunts!
• And lastly, the great things! Dogs are natural stress inhibitors. Studies have shown they can help to control our blood pressure and regulate our moods. They can be a good social support, provide protection, and they can't help but be good listeners.

Enjoy ITLAPD!

in my previous entry I gave a bit of background on my previous dogs..in this entry I wanted to talk about what I have learned that I can apply to my next dog. one of the biggest areas of change will without a doubt be training.

when I started practicing sit and down with bobby, I can remember it being frustrating or seemingly futile at points, and I can see now my approach caused all of my problems. Yep, I was the one with the problem.

I would generally start a training session in the afternoon with a handful of milk bones, making sure Bobby knew I had them. When I had his attention, I would issue a 'Sit', wait for some sort of action, and then, would repeat the command a few times if I didn't get the 'sit' I was expecting ('Sit bobby', 'Sit down, bobby!', 'Bobby, sit!'). Eventually, I would use my hand on his back-side and force it to the ground. At that point he would get an 'attaboy' and a milk-bone.

so what could've been done better?

well, first off, I started training in the afternoon with milk bones. A dog that has access to his food bowl all day long isn't going to be very hungry, and after a couple of milk bones he's going to even be too full to really want to pay attention to a food reward. You'd think it would be common sense, but training a dog using food as a reward is much easier when the dog is hungry! and all you need is little bits of food, not huge treats.

My second flub was in issuing a command to the dog hoping somehow at first he would understand English. I also secretly hoped he'd absorbed by osmosis the way other dogs sat when commanded. a lot of dog training experts nowadays say you shouldn't even bother with the english word command until the dog has gone through the motions. Instead, they say you should use a marker like saying 'Yes' (or using a clicker device or a cluck of the tongue, etc). The thought is eventually in all your training the dog comes to equate that with "Oh, there's a tongue cluck and a treat. I must've done what he wanted".

my third goof was using my hand to push the dogs bum down into the requested sit. This becomes a point of confusion for the dog. Basically in his mind he comes to recognize the condition for him getting rewarded is him letting me push him down.

Trainers nowadays use a bit of food in the palm turned upward, and hold the palm above the dog while moving it slowly towards the dog until his bum has to hit the floor. The dog is rewarded as soon as that happens. This way, the dog isn't manipulated into the sit, but he is doing it on his own. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZozdpmQMs for an example of the right way to teach sit)