More Bryan Adams, from convenience. On a side technical note, I’m a big fan of not having to use the mouse most of the time and get all up in the keyboard shortcut business. I’ve used Shift+F10 for a long time for system administration tasks, it’s basically a right click. In firefox when you misspell a word it will underline it for you and if you right click on it you’ll get a list of spelling suggestions. Well, if you type a word that firefox highlights, you can move the cursor back to that word and hit shift F10 to get the same menu, then use the arrow keys to select the correct word and hit enter to replace. It’s much faster than stopping typing and reaching for the mouse.

I printed a bunch of photos recently and they turned out pretty decent. I was surprised as I got into photography for fun and was really more into the taking of the pictures than anything else. But it’s nice having them in the house now, especially since many are of outdoor scenes and bring back good memories of being out and about. My dad’s pretty grumpy these days, so I can’t really get a good picture of him, but a friend of his sent me some photos of him and mom at camp in the 70s and 80s that I’m pretty attached to as they represent a time before things started falling apart. A bunch of stupid shit happened at camp, I was young enough to feel helpless to do anything as I really didn’t have a clue what to do about it, but old enough to get that it was stupid shit and remember the lot of it. We stopped going to that camp after, the parents divorced, and pretty much Dad and I stopped going to camp altogether; which was unfortunate as it was mostly all we ever did together, besides eating dinner together occasionally.

There was a period when my grandparents expressed some concern to me about Dad’s wellbeing and not going out and doing much anymore and it was a little surprising to me at the time because I felt like it took them a long time to get there. Granted, they’re not the blogging generation and skeletons are traditionally kept in closets I suppose. Actually my grandfather only brought it up because he wrote an email he didn’t intend to send to me but got confused and did.

I’ve grown up with a nostalgia of those places and while I have all the memories, I’ve never filed them under ‘bad’. A time came that I wanted to go back and lacking a float plane I was going to hike in. Father wasn’t supportive of the idea, but of course like a badass I went anyways. Mom and a couple friends came along. The friends mostly enjoyed the hike and back country wandering (the trails are all gone due to logging) but I think it was actively closing a chapter for Mom and I. We didn’t go back again and now the camp’s been sold. I doubt I’ll ever go back, although if it’s easy at some point maybe I’ll stop by in ten years to see what has happened to the place. Lunksoos lake is a memory for what it was though.

So I have some photos of my parents there, and I enjoy them as they emanate much that I don’t think was still around when I was growing up. I have a couple printed now, and hanging in my room. They’re still people I like having come from and I’m proud of, regardless of where we’ve all ended up.

This is pretty awesome, a cellphone with built in Breathalyzer that not only tells you that you’re over the legal limit but can prevent you from making calls to selected people at the time. I somehow lost a text message I sent myself this morning, which is unfortunate. I pretty much just send myself text messages when I drink now, I’ve found it safest due to my lack of communications skills when sober. I always figured a drink an hour or so kept one sober, I was pretty surprised by a chart at the state liquor store that I saw the other day that implied it’s actually much more than that. Here’s something similar. The idea of losing 0.15/hour kind of reminds me of the Hours of Service rules from CDL driving, particularly the ~34 hour reset.

I’m going back through text messages from my mother last night and one reads “All the same, I’d rather be emotional and sane than flat uneffected and sane. The same depth of emotion brings great joy.” That reminds me of Dad saying that our heritage brought “Great strengths and tremendous weaknesses”. I have a difficult time not being an emotional person, I don’t really know how, so I don’t expect to happen. Of course some things I’m more empathetic towards than others due to my past experiences. I look back and I had texted mom “You know. Not to sound too depressed, but sometimes I feel so alone when it comes to being so emotional yet feeling sane. I don’t know who else to share that with.”

Which makes her response make more sense with the little context. But that’s true, I feel like such a heavily emotional person because I feel so much. I often feel like people don’t get that. When I hear or see myself recorded I feel confirmed that I’m somewhat closed off to the world, but enough friends have told me I wear my heart on my sleeve that I’m willing to believe it gets through. I suppose this is where I feel like the lack of communication in the world comes from, but I’m still mulling that over as I’m not ready to right in stone that I make enough valiant attempts to be communicative myself.

Tori’s up and about, time for breakfast and adventures.