Musical Chairs Used to Be Fun…

It is rare that I use my blog (or any of my writing, really) to vent frustration.  Today, though, I may have to include all-y’all in my woes…

Here is the dilema in a nutshell – I work in a VERY fantastic environment with a creative team that thrives on face-to-face contact with one another.  We exist as a small area of interconnecting offices, and we are responsible for all marketing, advertising and external relations of the local college.  In short, it’s a great job with geat people.  The PROBLEM we face now, is that the powers-that-be have started shuffling us around. A new human-being has come into our realm, but he is NOT part of our department.  For politcal reasons, he is getting the ‘good’ office.  This bumps my manager into my friend Melissa’s office… Mellisa gets bumped RIGHT OUT OF OUR AREA, and to make matters worse, the new guy may bring an assistant, who will just create more desks in a quickly shrinking workspace.

Now, I am highly adaptable, in fact I usually thrive on change. My issue here is that our team was REALLY on a roll.  Our department is being described as the best unit in the college, and our strategies have never been stronger or more effective. With this new restructuring of real estate, we ALL know that the ‘flow’ will suffer.  We are basically being tripped up by our own coach in the last few strides of the 100 yard dash.

How many people can you cram into a cubicle?  A question are best left unanswered in my humble opinion.

Oy.

2009 On the Mind.

What?  Two Thousand Nine?  Where did THAT come from??

To explain my befuddled state, let me ask you first how the past twelve months have been for you.  Were they full of awesome?  Were they drenched in sorrow?  Answer one or the other – Dr. Landon has no time for grey areas!

Okay, now that you have decided, I will reveal that I don’t actually have much interest in the way you spent 2008… that is to say it isn’t the pressing matter. What I AM curious about is your personal notion of time ‘flying by’.  Does it seem like Easter was just last week? Do you remember Halloween like it was just yesterday?  Odd stuff…

I have asked a few people about this phenomenon, and while most of them are winos sleeping in the alley behind my house, I still value the input.  Overall, most folk are saying that 2008 really did seem like a ‘fast year’.  Who do we blame?  The internet? Russia? Our own fragile minds for constantly teetering on that precipice between waking life and balls-to-the-wall psychosis?  Probably all three.

So that’s that, fellow lunatics.  Time seems to be a constant, but the way we perceive it feels pretty damn awkward, like trying to teach a baby moose how to walk.  It seems natural, but just feels like a job better suited for someone more qualified.

Enjoy your 2009!

If Captain Planet Had His Driver’s Licence…

The environment is a sexy thing.

My flamboyantly straight friend Eric told me once that he firmly believs that solving Earth’s pollution woes will boil down to one moment. It would be that point in the future where it actually becomes 100% awesome to care about things that are environmentally friendly.  In other words, people will currently buy things that are ‘cool’ before they buy things that are ‘green’.

The problem with automobiles has always been that hybrid cars and electric concept vehicles have always been sort of neat, but they have never looked pants-tightening gorgeous.  In a beauty contest, the Smart Car is always going to provide the ‘loser’s hug’ on the catwalk when she is competing against this…

However, our pals over at Honda may have finally created a vehicle that may merge sexy and smart.  Dont get me wrong – the upcoming Chevy Volt is pretty cool looking as an electric car, and there are a few more on the drawing board that I’m sure people will dig (the Tesla for one), but personally, I’m into THIS foxy lady:

This is a hot little number simply called the Honda FC.  It is based on an existing Honda-built fuel cell technology (zero-emissions, of course).  The reason Dr. Landon likes this thing is it’s look.  I finally see a car that is completely bad-ass in its appearance, but in that sexy geek-chic kind of way.  This is of course a concept for a car to be built in the near future, so it’s final design will be less radical, but I am still happy to see it.

So do your part to save the world… because now you can look REALLY @#$%ING COOL doing it.

Snow. (Not the Canadian Musician)

Here we are racing through the month of November.  Time seems to have sped up a great deal for the later half of 2008,(a situation I can only blame on TARDIS travellers or pimped-out DeLoreans).  What leads me to write about snow, however, is it’s arrival.

See I am from a land where snow was our bread an butter (literally?) for 60% of the year.  In my hometown, if you weren’t chest deep it the stuff by Halloween, you must be… indoors.  My point is this: I brushed snow off of my car for the first time this season this morning… November 19.

Of course, I could go on and on about climate change and global warming and upsetting the gods, but really… I just wanted to point out how odd it feels that winter just isn’t the same anymore.  Maybe I grew up. Maybe I live too close to a major body of water. Maybe I am in a malfunctioning holodeck…

Always the optimist, though, I plan on taking advantage of WINTER ‘08/’09!  The Adventure Brigade will be primed and ready to attack some death-defying (or death-ensuring) treks – muchos sledding will be done at our local slidin’ hole – and I will likely build a series of forts!!

So come, join me in a celebration of all things frozen and gorgeous.  Summer is DEAD!  Let it go!  If you havn’t at LEAST thrown a snowball yet, go do it RIGHT NOW!

The Adventure Brigade.

If there is one thing that keeps me alive, it is likely the many chemical reactions that occur when I ingest food/water and breath air.

If there is one OTHER thing that keeps me alive, it is adventure.

Since the early weeks of what we have dubbed ’summer’ of this year, a small band of guys and gals have been meeting up weekly(ish) to head out on intense, forest-bound journeys. It is a hearty crew, about 10 of us in total. We spend the weekdays individually researching potential locations and destinations, then we throw caution to the wind on Saturdays and Sundays and try not to die.

So far we have conquered the mighty Mount McKay – without using the designated trails. We have ventured in to the city’s mythic hedge-maze under the cover of darkness. We have even marched inexplicably into completely unknown territory just south of Thunder Bay, wondering the whole time if we might actually be in a region of woods that no human had trudged through for decades.

We suffer only minor injuries and temporary tick attacks, but we see them merely as war-wounds. The Adventure Brigade will exist forever, and we will explore every nook and cranny we can!

There and Back Again.

Well, I am back again to attack this formerly-daily blog. I am a bit excited and confident that this will be a much more active outlet for my thoughts in the near-future, as I will have a good camera again, and I would love to be able to post the cool things I see.

“Update!”, the masses cry, often with an expletive or two added in to ensure I know they mean business. Jeremy loves business. It’s Business Time.

My life has been filled with car rides. My own beloved Corsica is still immobile, but I have ridden shotgun with a few friends on some long journeys as of late. Not long ago, I was part of a small band of travelers and comrades who decided to make Winnipeg our good-times destination. While there, I was able to check out the new pad of my good friend Greg, as well as catch up with the always-elegant Xal, as well as the never-elegant Reed. Of course, now I miss them terribly again, so I am eager to make trips to Winnipeg a little more frequent if the funds allow.

From there, I continued west with another friend of mine all the way to the town of Banff in Alberta. The details of this trip are fascinating to some, and unbelievable to others. One thing I will embellish further is the simple fact that Banff is SO beautiful, it actually makes you angry. Wrap your feeble minds around THAT gem for a second. I’ll wait.

…

After a few days of wheelin’ and dealin’ in the mountains, we packed up, (everything but the bag I actually forgot to put in the vehicle), and travelled nearly non-stop back to my personal paradise – Thunder Bay.

Which leads me into the theme of this entire entry. I have seen quite a bit of this wonderful country of ours, and I will be first to agree when they say you fall in love with the places you visit, but when it all comes down to it, nothing is better than home. Home can be wherever you are, and for me it is currently in the heart of one of the nation’s worst municipal economies. (Good work, guys.)

That will never sway me though. This place is a powder keg of potential, and I believe at my very core that something will change in the future for this city, and I’ll fight for that change however I can.

Plus, this is where all of my stuff is.

Back. In Pog Form.

What a liar I have become!

I took the time to tell you all that I was coming back to man the misen-mast of this blog on a regular basis, and then I just… didn’t!  I wish I could give you a valid excuse.  An excuse that would have you all saying: “That Landon is a swell guy.”  Well keep your swelling to yourself, because  here is the main reason I haven’t updated for a while…

I just didn’t FEEL like it.

That’s right!  I’m like that guy who didn’t oil the gears on that ferris wheel.  So when grinding gears and showering sparks fire from your monitor as you read my blog, you now understand why.  I DO regret it though, not keeping ya’ll informed.  You see there have actually been some CRAZY adventures and happenings in my life as of late.  My darling wife headed out to Alberta to work on the oil rigs (or something equally as daring), I found new employment that allows me to really take advantage of my skill-set (no, not a kissing booth), and I have become a card-carrying adventurer!(card not actually carried).

Also, some less-than awesome things have transpired.  My feline roommate Tj has developed some real sickness, my car has become increasingly moody, and someone destroyed my facebook account through hackery / sorcery.  NOT COOL.

I will end on a lighter note, though.  It’s almost summer!  I plan to buy a new bike very soon to combat these rising gas prices, so I will be fit as a fiddle in no time!

Keep reading!

Return of the Jerdi.

My fans have demanded I return to The Planet’s surface to keep this blog happening.  My fans consist of Greg, Emily, and the baby duck I rescued from a mailbox last Tuesday.

I have no excuse for my lack of posting… other than the fact that my laptop slipped into a coma.  This fact, and the concept of hating my desktop keyboard created a cocktail of non-interest in typing about my life.  Of course, my life is rock-hard-interesting and I am back to let you all in on the madness.

I’ll keep this post a bit short, as it is really just  to let you all know that I am back like spandex.  To fill you in, I came down with the sickness that nearly killed my entire group of friends, I started pre-production on two more shorts, and I built my cat a cardboard fort.

Now drift off to sleep, readers… and dream of me tickling your souls with awkward touching.

Bruises, Boozes, and Flamboyant Ex-Cons

Toronto.  It is the capital of our province and the centre of the universe for many people.  This past weekend it was the party-vacation-destination for Marty and The Landon’s.  The origin of our adventure is simple:  we love our friends – we miss our friends – our friends are in Toronto.  So we packed up and flew out to the Big City for a few days to party.  In a lucid moment of reality-checking, Marty started saying something as we first got to the city about it ‘not feeling like Toronto yet’.  A few ticks later, we overhear a thin, black gay man on a cell phone behind us say “OhmyGAWD, I can’t believe I just got out of JAIIIL….”

We had arrived.

Once we got to my friend Jon’s place (our lodgings for the trip), we wasted no time ingesting celebratory champagne and calling up the rest of our crew.  Once banded together, we headed for a fun little place on Bloor Street and met up with one Christine Woolnough.  She added class and wit and sensuality to our posse, and basically kidnapped my wife.  Later, we moved to a cool club called Social where we met up with two friends who had driven 2.5 hours just to see us!   Now… our friend hero Martin Kramer had not really been drinking much in the past month or so… and I think he simply forgot HOW to do it.  I can’t tell you how much he had, as I was not babysitting him… but for one reason or another he ended up falling down.  Everywhere.  All night.Music was heard, dances were danced, fun was had… then a handful of people all crashed at Flook HQ.

  In the morning, Marty had lost ALL use of his voice, and he had a disgusting bruise on his leg.  He fell backwards out of a taxi… but I doubt that did it.Saturday was cool.  We slept in a bit, but then headed out to do some eating and shopping.  I got the girl her much-sought-after Lululemon hoodie, and we met up with Adam Tarini so I could break his spirit.  It’s my hobby.

Partying started around 6 pm, with the crew of nine or so heading down to a neat place called Sushi on Bloor, which, ironically enough, sold sushi.  While we waited for a table though, the boys and I headed to the bar next door for a beer and shot… an homage to our college days, I suppose.  After sushi, Christine and Lindsay went to Circa while Jon and I went to some club to meet a girl.  We magically got past the doorman simply by acting like we had the right to, but we turned away once inside.  Seems the sold-out show didn’t want two guys who couldn’t remember the name of the band.

So we ditched the girl AND the club  and headed down to Gladstone to meet more Confederation Grads at a karoke bar.  I will mention now that Marty’s voice was still COMPLETELY gone… and he was using a notepad to communicate!, ( an item that was kept and has to be seen to be believed ).  After a beautiful woman wrote something so saucy I dare not reiterate it here, we left her dreaming the Kramer dream, and headed back to Flooks…

Finally Sunday came, and the partying was replaced with good old fashioned bonding with the best friends we have.  We all went down to Queen West to try an crazy awesome burger place, explore a super-cool tattoo shop, and best of all – visit The Silver Snail.The Snail is a comic shop that I have loved for many years.  Only because it is always full with geeks of all generations, and you can find stuff that you wont see anywhere else.  It was a highlight for me, to be quite honest.  My wife spent this time at a nearby make-up store.  ; )

Sadly, the time came for us to head back to the airport – but it proved to be a contenting little visit.  I love my friends like mad… and seeing them once a year, (if that), is just not enough.  The solution, of course, is to make enough money to be able to hop on a plane every few months and see them more and more. 

Also, to immunize Marty from laryngitis and super-bruises.    

 

North – West – South – Easter.

As I was growing up, we never really observed Easter in the “proper” way. We understood the basics, but really I was just pumped for collecting hidden chocolate… wondering about the devious places my mother might have stashed the treasure. Sure Jesus died and was reborn and fought a giant rabbit (or something), but THIS guy was all about The Hunt.

In fact, there was an era when our parents – *SIDE NOTE: I was raised with two cousins, by my aunt and my mother* – would construct elaborate maps and clues for us all that led all over the house and the yard and more… and I LIVED for that stuff. It was like a big annual adventure. Usually the hunt would end in a location that housed our own personalized baskets filled with goodies. Not to mention our actual Easter presents. Church though? Not really. I mean, we were SORT of religious I suppose, but nobody ever took it seriously. It was the type of commitment to the Church that one develops if their great-grandparents went to church regularly, but no generations after that.

I’d say our most important observance was the long weekend.

Still, as I will be raising kids before long, I think they will learn enough about WHY people observe Easter – but the most important part of the weekend will always be the adventure.

Those little bastards will EARN their chocolate.