Spring 2003
The Wade Journal
May 2003
May 8
We're having a beautiful Spring day here today. Skies were sunny and blue though now theres a bit of light overcast. It's pleasantly warm as well and the rhododendrums are in bloom.
What in the world am I doing sitting here inside with all this beautiful Spring weather! Well, I have been out and enjoyed it already, but I'm also fighting the fatigue that some of my medcine has been causing. I'll get out again later today though for a walk.
The Murder Mystery went Great! We had a near full car to play to and a full cast with even an understudy if needed!We have a great cast and hopefully some will stay on to be a part of The Usual Suspects and help put on future Murder Mystery Dinners.
Gaming Tomorrow Night. I'm looking forward to it. I've been journalling the "Southern Campaign" online for anyone interested. I hope our new player Cassie can join us for tomorrow's game. It should be interesting.
Anyhow, take care! Bye for now!
Darrell
April 2003
April 30
Sometimes the journal entries are frequent sometimes not. This one a little of column A and a little of column B.
I think the ticket sales for the Murder Mystery on May 3rd are going well. A number of contacts I've made have bought some which makes me happy. I'm looking forward to doing it as it's been a while since we've put one on.
We have been having great weather for a while Sun, blue sky, warm gentle breezes. I'm trying to get out in it when I can. I've been a bit low on energy lately and some chores are getting backed up. I'll have to make some dents in it soon.
Other than low energy things are going pretty good.
Just a short note this time!
Take Care!
Darrell
Good Friday, April 18
Happy Easter Everyone!
I have been enjoying taking the odd snapshots of spring flowers as I go about my daily business. I guess I always will marvel at the flowers popping out late winter and early spring. I can remember how from childhood every spring I'd take pictures of our cherry, plum, and crab apple trees in fresh blossom as if I'd never seen a tree flowering before. Perhaps it is a childish trait, but it is one that I want to keep as long as I can!
I sit her typing while listening to the Baroque Station on Radio@Netscape Plus. I really enjoy being able to get this digital music with the specific type I want. Like this Baroque Station. I also have a number of other favourites including one with Nature Sounds. I'm hoping to set up a secondary computer in the living room now as an entertainment unit. I'll network it to this computer and my ADSL line so I can play the streaming digital music like what I'm listening to. I think I'll put my old stereo out there connected to that computer in the living room as well. That would give me AM/FM Radio, Cassette, and Turntable in addition to Streaming Audio and CD with the computer. At the moment I could set up a computer, but the only case I have is my old Leading Edge one and it has some peculiarities that might restrict it to my old 66Mhz 486. It might be adequate as long as I can run Win98 on it. That eases the networking problems versus using Win3.1.
A fringe benefit would be having a computer system in the living room that I could reference when we game in there rather than me having to race back to my bedroom and my main computer system.
I've been doing some more web work. I did up an online poster for the May 3 Murder Mystery and started work taking over the management of the actual Port Moody Station Museum Web Site. The PMSM Web Site really needs updating and it is a little bit of work since I'm taking over the work of someone else who just isn't available to give a hand with the transferral. They did design a neat page however I now have to figure out just how they did some of the effects.
I pretty well need to use something like Adobe Go Live to manage it. My computer is just barely sufficient to run the software. Things will go better when I can get the 500Mhz processor and Motherboard I got from Ron installed. When I went to install it, I discovered that the RAM I had wasn't usable in the newer motherboard. Oh well, that will come in time. I am content for the moment with the system I'm using at the moment. It is pretty stable right now.
Perhaps I'm getting nostalgic, but I have started up another Yahoo! Group. This one is intended as a friendly place to debate assorted topics and current events and some of my own pet peeves. It is based on a discussion "Room" I ran on the old Citadel Computer BBS Network on Mars Hill, the "Gnome's Garden". Please feel free to join in.
The Gnomes Garden:
Deep in the bowels of the Catacombs you will see a glow. If you approach you will find the Gnome's Garden. Here people gather amongst the strange glowing plants to discuss the day's News and hear the Gnome's ravings.
Discussions of the day's news are welcome here, as are social issues, the Gnome's pet peeves, and maybe your's as well. Differing views are welcome but personal attacks are not.
Gnorman, The Gnome.
(Original Info File describing the Gnome's Garden on Mars Hill BBS, part of the Citadel BBS network)
Well, in closing, I just want to share some Spring flowers I took a picture of yesterday. They are from a flower bed at Mike's Broiler Bar at Pinetree Square. (It is where Moxie's used to be.)
Take Care!
Darrell
April 13
Alot has happened over the past... weeks. I had my surgery on April 3rd and it seems to have been a success. The medication they have me on now as follow up treatment to the surgery is taking a toll though. One side effect of the medicine is a lowering of my blood pressure which is normally low to begin with. This is making me very tired and the medicine is also triggering headaches which are making me just want to curl up and sleep the day away. The pharmacist says that this is to be expected and sometimes the symptoms of the side effects decrease as your body gets used to them.
The in person gaming sessions are going well. We just finished our third. I have a journal of the game online now for anyone interested. The journal for this Southern Campaign can be found at:
http://members.fortunecity.com/darrellwpenner/Gaming/Southern_Journal.html
I'll have to tidy up the Journal for the Arctic campaign and get that up. I think that the online game that started with the Arctic campaign will be ended with the avalanche and become a new campaign. Not sure of the name of it yet. Or actually I have an idea, but to name it here would give too much away of the direction the action will take. I figure after the next gaming session I'll be able to release the title.
I'll also have to do up journal pages for the Golden Cloth Campaign. That one actually is on its third chapter. The first being the rescue of the princess, the second the retrieval of the Golden Cloth, and the third which is still in progress the search for the ship builder.
I'm considering reorganizing my web site. It's sprawled over at least three servers and a bit disorganized with some parts of it orphaned and others out of date. This page is on Fortune City, other pages are on YahooGeocities, still others are on Direct.ca. I also have some other space on Geocities that I can't figure out how to access since it is from before the merger between Yahoo! and Geocities. Time for majour re-organization, though I don't want to leave people with addresses that no longer work. Perhaps I'll use a Yahoo! Group as a sort of switchboard to my pages?
I also had an opportunity to tell some of my Ghost Stories at a birthday party held in the Port Moody Station Museum's passenger car, The Venosta. The audience was a handful of 10 year old boys and a couple of adults. The stories were well received. I was going to tell "The Ioco Switch" and have a second story as backup, "The Haunted Handcar". But then I thought there was a good chance I'd be telling both in any case. At the last moment I brought along "Wedding Gown Creek" which I hadn't had a chance to practice. I ended up telling all three of the stories and the kids and even the adults were well entertained. For those who don't know it, I have written a number of fictional ghost stories that are based in the area of Port Moody and are inspired by actual locations and events from Port Moody's past. I hope to have opportunity to tell my ghost stories more in future. I plan on having a number of ghost stories to tell over the days before Halloween this year.
I've got a faster processor and motherboard for my computer. I'm just waiting for a good opportunity to install it. I have had to postpone that because I have had some ongoing projects with deadlines that I couldn't afford any computer downtime with.
One of those projects is "The Usual Suspects" theatre group I'm basing out of the museum. We are going to do another fund raising Murder Mystery Dinner on May 3rd and I needed to get some scriptwork done for a meeting on the 10th of April. Still more work has to be done, but I think I can get the computer upgraded safely soon. Then I'll be able to install that CD rewriter I've been saving from Christmas. Well actually I've been saving the money pegged for it. My current system before upgrade is too slow to run a CD burner. I am going to look into getting a combination CD rewriter DVD player though. I think they've come down enough in price and it would be neat to have DVD capabilities as well. Of course the unit wouldn't be able to record DVDs, but I can live with that. It will be great to be able to back stuff up on CD from my Hard drive. Also I'll be able to store stuff on CDs. There are many things on my hard drive that needn't be on it continuously. Things like image libraries and files I've created for customers I've had in the past and don't want to get rid of. I also want to give a try at creating some educational CDs and such. Perhaps some Kiosk style projects with automated image presentations.
Consider creating a CD showcasing the PM Station Museum that could be sent around to schools to show their students. They could be on various PM Heritage topics. The Port Moody Heritage Society is having their 90th annivesary this year and the 100th is not too long in advance. It might be the start of a majour centenial project.
Anyhow, that's it for now! I hope that everyone is having a good Spring!
Take Care!
Darrell
March 2003
March 26
Howdy! Spring has Sprung and I'm making the first Journal Entry of the Season!
Things both positive and negative have been happening. But isn't that normal. I've been chatting recently with relatives from Manitoba. My aunt Karen now has internet access from home as well as from her Principal's Office at the School. My Cousins Chris and Kevin are also frequent internet visitors to chat with from time to time. It is a nice connection back with the extended Penner family out east.
I'm also looking forward to hosting a birthday party at the Port Moody Station Museum on Friday March 28th. The party will start on the Venosta (passenger rail car) with the usual birthday stuff for the 10 year old boys with the parents providing Pizza and Birthday cake. Then probably while they are still having their cake I will be telling a ghost story or two. I've selected two that I wrote, "The Ioco Switch" and "Haunted Handcar". I believe them to be two of the best I have written for telling to a younger audience. Not bad for an older audience as well.Then I'll talk a little about real ghosts and haunting before taking them on a tour of the museum by flashlight. They'll have to provide their own flashlights and cameras for that though. It should tie in nicely with the ghost stories since they are related to the railway and the area.
I'm going to require a simple operation to correct some scar tissue growth that's constricting something that shouldn't be constricted. That's not good, but in the process of the examination other problems were ruled out and clean bills of health given. I also found out that the fatigue I suffer is not caused by sleep apnea or other problem leading to oxygen deprevation in sleep. The operation will help to prevent a future of recurrent infections. Probably the reason I've been running fevers off and on since last November. That alone probably effects my energy levels. I don't look forward to the operation, but the results should be positive. It'll be done with local anesthetic and take a matter of minutes. Probably around an hour or so including admitting and stuff. They say that there should be no problem taking the bus home. Though I would prefer to get a ride. A difference between preference and need.
Ouch! I just lost another filling from a tooth. I'll have to figure out a way to get that tooth fixed. That and another one that broke and is bothering me. Not easy to figure out sometimes when a simple visit to the dentist costs a month's rent. (must remember only use the right side of my mouth for chewing)
Gaming is going well. I started my Verden game up again with John and Sandra playing. Cassy will join us for the April 4th game. We'll play that one every two weeks. We don't have a date set yet for the next online game. The last one we had Sam, Sandra and John playing. I hope Cassy can join us for the next. It is hard to believe that we hadn't played the online game since last Spring.
Take Care!
Darrell
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