Victoria Vacation

I visited my sister in Victoria during the first 2 weeks of October. I told her it was my favourite visit with her since my first visit to the Griz (her previous rural property in the BC interior) several years ago. I was only slightly depressed, for only a single evening (another time I was tempted to go back to bed, but resisted that temptation).

Apart from my lack of depression, I enjoyed a long 500-mile (800 km each way) road trip we took to my sister's friends near a town called Dunster in east-central BC over Thanksgiving weekend (we stayed in motels 2 nights, and at our destination 2 nights). They were nice people, they have a farm with a spectacular mountain view, we went for a couple of walks and I finished reading my JavaScript book. I will be using the JavaScript programming language to implement the game engine of Clixmaker (my games program).

I also had a visit with my sister's 2 kids, who live in Vancouver, and I spent a lot of time with Ralph, my sister's ex, who I am close to as we exchange emails a lot. After we returned from Dunster, I completed the Clixmaker design specs. Before we went to Dunster, my sister bought a new Honda Fit, as her Subaru's engine was on its last legs. I briefly saw Andy, my sister's latest ex, towards the end of my visit. This was my first trip upon which I travelled with my laptop, and that worked well, as my sister has wireless Internet and I now have web-based email. Now my sister is working on designing A Christmas Carol, a theatre version of the Scrooge movie and Dickens novel. The theatre is an outdoor theatre in the BC interior called the Caravan, and my sister usually designs at least one show a year there. I told my sister I don't mind doing the dishes at her place as much as at the Griz. At the Griz there were more dishes (she shared the property with a friend and co-designer named Molly) and it's easier doing the dishes at her place in Victoria.

On my vacation I spent about $580, not counting airfare and almost $180 to change my return date (my sister thought I was returning 2 days after I was really returning, and we would have had to spend extra money on the ferry to Vancouver if I wanted to visit with her kids). Next time I will probably plan on staying with my sister for 2 weeks, not just 11 days. I keep track of my expenses in a spreadsheet, and I calculated that even if I spend $500 per year plus airfare on my vacation (averaged over the whole year), my expenses over the previous 3 months were between $1400 and $1500 per month (which is within my budget). Ralph told me I shouldn't disclose personal details like how much money I spend in my blog, but that's silly because no one except maybe my sister reads this stupid blog (it's borrrrring). My boss might read it but I've worked for that guy for 14 years so I don't mind him finding out details of my personal life. Besides, my blog settings are such that Google and other search engines aren't permitted to index my blog posts. I link to my blog on Facebook but I think I only have about 12 Facebook friends.

One of the highlights of my vacation was seeing a movie called The Social Network with my sister, about the founder of Facebook. I'm hoping that Clixmaker will be to the rest of the Internet gaming world what Facebook is to the rest of the Internet (a big player, that is), but we'll have to wait and see. In a little while I have to call Norma Brown, a friend of my late mother. Her son's computer died, and I told her he could have my old computer, which runs Windows 98. I'll be sorry to part with it, but I haven't used it in years (it was my first computer that was not grossly underpowered). Through the miracle of megatonnage, one can indeed hope to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming one with that of the Christhead. "Megatonnage" refers to a million or more tons of snot and/or scabs that I pick from my scalp. On my vacation I wasn't bothered by having to pick at scabs, but alas, that spectre has returned to haunt me. Enjoy your trick-or-treating exactly one week from now, or at least enjoy pigging out on leftover candy and little chocolate bars. Boooo!!! Bye-bye.