what to do?

85 year old lady, single (widowed, i think), seems in pretty good health for her age, has lived in this house for a long time, has been doing gardening there all that time, apparently at some point won 1st prize for that town's gardening contest. not too long ago had to have her german shepherd put down. got another one, 8 or 10 year old, from the shelter, because she doesnt think she has that much more to go...
has probably 14 cameras around the house, hooked up to 3 DVRs, figures somebody wants her house, and is trying to get her out of there, messing with her garden, trimming her hedge 6 inches lower than it used to be, taking chunks out of her trees, taking her garden stones - which she got for a fair bit of change (apparently stones are good in garden b/c they help retain moisture). she's had 2 security companies install the cameras and DVRs for her, but at least one of them seems to have been gouging her, and she doesnt wanna be involved with them anymore. she wants to get good footage of her neighbours coming into her backyard to steal her stones and damage her trees. she pretty sure the neighbours whose backyard is kitty-corner to hers have 3 cameras pointed at her house. either they are the police or they got some kinda deal with someone who's in the police, so she doesnt feel she can go to the police with this anymore. she's suspecting someone's been inside her house because she's heard ppl speaking upstairs where her DVRs are, and she suspects they took one of her harddrives out of one of her DVRs, and so now she's lost some valuable footage that would prove... i forget what.
she really wants me to help her out.
on the one hand, she's a customer, she wants a better view of a certain area, i suggested a different camera, she's all for it. with the missing footage, i told her likely one of the harddrives failed and thats why the footage is missing. i saw her receipt for the purchase of this DVR, it says 1 terabyte, the dvr says its got 500 gigs, it should still be under warranty from the company she bought it from, they should fix it for free - which i told her. there's probably some more work she'd have me do there.
on the other hand, as much as i am willing to entertain the idea that someone could be messing with her, damaging her garden, taking garden stones - more likely unrelated things than a concerted effort, i have a strong feeling that this lady is suffering from some senile dementia or something, suspecting that people are out to get her, to get her out of this house, because they want it, and they want it cheap, and she doesnt want to be pressured out of there just because she's an old, lone lady.
i dont want to feed her probable dementia, though i dont know whether anything i'd do would change things either way. i feel like doing this work she wants done is taking advantage of her, because its probably all in her head, and so she doesnt need to spend this money, and all the money she'd already spent getting ripped off by one of the previous security companies she dealt with. she seems aware that these things she says may sound crazy, but she doesnt think she is. she asked me something like "you dont think i'm crazy, do you?" to which i answered "no, not really". i've never really had to deal with this kind of thing. now i think i should have said how it all sounds, somehow try to tell her gently. hope that big friggin dog wouldnt freak out on me for upsetting his owner. but she's not crazy enough to be dangerous, so nobody can really step in and lock her up. nor should they - she's not doing any harm. just to herself. spending all this money and worrying that ppl are trying to screw her out of the house.
i dont want her to spend more money and persist in her paranoia. but if i walk away someone else will come in and gauge her again. and she really wants my help with the security setup. what to do?

its been bugging me. i keep trying to think it out, and what i got in my mind at the moment is to try to find some kind of volunteer senile/demented service to keep an eye on her, possibly take care of her somehow, if she's not far enough gone yet then when she does. this was phx' idea, which i like. but does such a service even exist? i also want to call her and tell her what i think of her situation, but ultimately say that if she wants, i can do some work for her, but i'm hoping she takes what i say into consideration, talks to her doctor about it, i dont know. is there even meds for this kind of thing? it seems obvious that her judgement is impaired, so how can i trust her judgement when i tell her what i think? but i dont think she's messed up enough for "the government" to step in. what to do?

my parents' friends' 24 y.o. son died. i thought i remembered hearing he was into coke, but it didnt sound like he OD'd, plus i dont think he had that kind of money. when i asked what he died of, my parents said something like "he did drugs!"
is naivete = harmless stupidity?
there was talk his organs got beat to shit by all these drugs he did. it seems unjust and even hard to believe that a 24 y.o. guy would wreck his body enough to die when all these bums downtown seem to live on and on forever. i've met people who have apparently done a lot of drugs and you couldnt tell just looking at them. i havent met any meth heads, that i know, but i hear it really ages you fast. i just saw some pics of this guy that just died and he looked healthy. my parents have met him and apparently he looked fine. his parents are obviously devastated. but they put on a prayer evening for his soul, and a mass at church on sunday... i said i wouldnt have done anything - just bury him and try to forget, because he did it himself, and he did it to his family, and since it was basically an extended suicide, i'm kinda surprised they had a mass for him at church. but someone said, they are his parents after all, so it shouldnt be surprising that they would do this for their son. makes me feel really sorry for them. so they cant help their nature and do what they feel they must for their son. and he apparently couldnt help his nature either, saw it coming, landed in the hospital a few times, there was some rehab effort, but in the end he died. ridiculous. fucked up. the flesh is weak. in some more than others. it's just sad. what a waste. seems like he just couldnt be helped. natural selection seems cruel, but i guess thats how it is. his nature just worked against him in his environment, which had apparently an abundance of things lethal to him. is this selection process leading to a humanity that is "smarter", with stronger will power, and a more robust physiology? i'm sure the race will survive, but the cost of this evolution to all the individuals around the "failing" subsets...

things you hear at these expensive appartment buildings...

concierge: see that guy? he works for (local phone company). he keeps going to the brothel suite here all the time...
me: there's a brothel suite here???????
concierge: yeah, you didnt know? yeah, its a different girl every week. poor girls, they get a new customer like every half hour.

*note: i saw this guy show up at a different appartment building the other day. he's not a technician, in case anyone's wondering. i wonder if he spends most of his money on this.

***

maintenance guy: yeah, so we were doing fire alarm testing in all the suites at (1st brothel suite building), and we go in this one suite, and there's machine guns and ammo on the table in the living room. turns out there's some east indian guys passed out in the bedroom. we left right away and called the cops.
me: yeah i was working there once, and these 2 cops show up gesturing to the concierge to open the door, then asking to be let up to whatever floor. 30 seconds later 2 more cops show up. 30 seconds later 2 more - with shotguns! and then a paddy wagon parks just at the corner. found out later that it was just some domestic dispute between someone's girlfriend and mom, but now i know the reason for the overkill.

***

bike patrolman to concierge: there was this bum that kept hanging out in this parkade, and i kept telling him to leave, and he kept coming back, so i finally called the cops. so this big cop shows up, i take him to where the bum is. the cop said he's seen the bum before, and then just tells me to beat it. so i rode away just around the first corner, but stopped just to see what was going on, and the cop started to beat the shit out of the bum, and the bum was just squealing like a little girl...

***

maintenance guy: this lady came down to the front desk asking if we'd seen her husband. apparently he'd go for a bike ride every morning, then come back and go to work, but he never came back from his bike ride that morning. so we checked to make sure he'd gotten his bike out of the storage, and he just never came back. not long after we heard someone was hanging from a tree not far away. i went to see and yeah, that was the guy - he just hung himself. i told the concierge to help his wife with anything she might need...

the things you remember...

the greek civil war ended in 1949, resulting in the flight of thousands of greek communists to eastern bloc countries. poland accepted around 13,000 of them. my dad's dad worked with some of them. one once said: "once, when i cut off this one priest's head, the blood poured so much!"
my grampa said: "that's not something to brag about."

that same grampa went to a juvenile political prisoners' jail when he was maybe 14, for participating in acts of vandalism against rural communist agitators - they flipped their cars onto their roofs, and generally tried to make life harder for them. in this jail, he was subjected to unusual punishment such as having his foreskin nailed to the questioner's table, then being slapped in the ass with a large ruler; and being pressed on at the sternum with a huge, old key, with his back against the wall, while being questioned about something trivial, until he'd pass out.

that same grampa turned into an abusive father, who'd come home drunk and look for trouble. when my dad was small, he learned to recognise when his dad went into this mad frenzy, and learned to run and hide under the bed. this tactic didnt work for him when he was maybe 15, when his father learned from a neighbour that my dad skipped school that day with some girl. my dad had to walk using a cane for several weeks afterwards.

that very same grampa was born in france, where his father was able to find work as a miner. however, his father decided to go back to poland, apparently largely because his mother was over-indulging in what sounds like absynthe.

my mom's dad somehow ended up in siberia during ww2 in a forced labour camp, working on the construction of a rilroad. he saw people getting shot for trying to stuff their mouth with some grass while working. i wonder how it got to this, but apparently him and a cousin of his were able to escape naked through the snow while being fired upon. my grampa remained loyal to his abusive cousin more than to his own wife and children, until his cousin died a few years ago. my gramma took him back. her eldest son-in-law got so mad at her for it that he's severed all contact with her.

that same gramma got caught at the wrong place at the wrong time during ww2, and got rounded up with a whole bunch of other random ppl to be taken to a nazi labour camp. lucky for her, these germans were "civilised" enough to hold them in a corral for the rest of the day to give their families a chance to realise that their family members were being taken away, and to bring them some clothes and food and say goodbye. during this clothes drop-off and goodbye, she casually crossed to the "free" people side, and just kept walking, and started running as soon as she neared a corner. she's sure some of the guards knew what she was up to, but let her get away anyways.

my friend romek's grampa was captured and tortured by nazis, and when they thought they'd killed him, they dumped him out back on a pile of bodies. he didnt dare twitch until it got dark, when he crawled to safety.

i thought i'd be able to handle death a little better.
guy from work got gunned down outside a local bar. i'd been to that bar a few times before, with him and other guys from the company. i immediately thought of his poor wife, with their baby boy. he's a little older than Lily. i think her family lives in alberta. maybe she'll be moving back.
i just remembered a time he told me about how once, when he was in elementary school, he didnt get on his bus to school but decided to ride his bike to school or something. when he'd gotten to school turned out there'd been a suicide bomber on the bus.

no one knows how the fight started, but it quickly turned into a huge fight between 2 groups of people. i dont think they even know if it was a random shot or specifically for him.

it caught me totally by surprise. i suppose it hit relatively close to home, but i wouldnt have thought that it would have affected me quite this much. i've been stunned half the day - since i found out.

this brought right to the surface this story i heard just the other day, about how a friend of a friend went to a restaurant with his wife, and while they were dining, an asian guy got in this guy's face, so the guy asked if he wants to take it outside. when they went around the corner, followed by the asian guy's friends, the asian guy pulled out a gun... didnt matter how big my friend's friend was anymore - got pistol whipped and the shit kicked out of by the asian guys, and told not to contact the police or they'd kill him. he might have been followed home... he didnt call the police. i dont know what i'd have done. obviously i'd want revenge, and the fuckers confined so they couldnt do it to others. but i'd value the fact that i'm alive, and the safety of my family. but i think i'd still try, just would request help with relocating. what if the police didnt think it to be important enough to warrant that kind of expenditure?

songs with mentions of guns piss me off now.


a few weeks ago i saw a guy i havent seen in a couple years. he told me another story that shocked me. we kinda knew this guy named Al - he was maybe in his late 50's, very calm, quiet but pleasant, and he was the safety guy on a couple sites. on one of them, his then maybe 30 year old son was cutting something with a hand-held grinder, the sleeve of his shirt caught in it, and having the trigger blocked, it chewed up his arm pretty good. he could sometimes be a bit of a jerk, but when i heard about that, i kinda felt bad for him. but maybe 2 years later he was recovering well, working again, and somehow managed to adopt a more friendly disposition. a few years later, he got attacked on the street somewhere by a group of guys, and they beat him into a coma. and this is where a piece of fact is missing - the reason why police showed up on the doorstep of the comatose guy's dad's. maybe he tried to go after the fuckers that beat his son, maybe somebody complained. but the guy's dad told the cops that he's going to hurt himself if they dont leave. they left. apparently only then digging up information that he was the registered owner of several fire arms. apparently then they werent so keen on walking back in there, so they set up a goddam stand-off, calling him out through bull horns. he wasnt coming out. they wanted to wait him out. in the middle of the night they heard a gunshot. when they finally went inside in the morning they found he'd killed himself.
a few weeks later his son came out of his coma.

i talked to a friend today with whom i was hanging out last night - he said his sister's friend just died - she'd thought it'd be a good idea to try and run from the cops with 2 of her roommates, one of whom the police were actually coming up after, and do it by jumping from balcony to balcony - they were on the 5th floor. she slipped. the fall split her head in half, shattered her spine, but the doctors managed to keep her from dying. still, after evaluating the situation, they told the parents that there's no way she's gonna recover from that, and recommended pulling the plug. they will never forget that nod.

Łukasz

you were born on january 27 - a month premature. i knew that a month early, especially these days, is not bad at all, but watching you suffer like that right from the get-go felt really shitty. they plopped you down on the scale, all naked and cold and screaming, then put you on some examining table, squirting antibiotic cream in between your puffy eyelids, repeatedly vaccuuming your nose, mouth, throat and lungs with this tube, to clear out as much fluid as possible, injecting you with all kinds of shit to help with this and that, hooking up the intravenous, cutting your heel and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing to get way too much of your very thick blood for tests. other babies get to rest a lot with their moms after they're born. not you, little guy. your mom was in the recovery room, drugged and vomiting and being pumped with other drugs that were supposed to help but only exacerbated it. finally they ran out of things to inject her with, and she stabilized.
what did it do to you, baby - being born to pain for hours, and then subsistence for weeks - almost no comfort of human contact, just machines: checking your heart-beat, your breathing, your blood oxygen saturation, keeping an elevated air pressure to your nose with extra blows of air when you're supposed to be breathing, machines dosing intravenous fluid with an added fat solution and electrolytes, and a tube taped to your little chin and going down into your tummy to make sure air bubbles come out easily. and a UV lamp on for 2 days straight to help get rid of your jaundice. people would come around every now and then, to stick an IV in a different hand, foot, thigh, both sides of your head, and all you got to show for it is a crappy mohawk and tracks and bruises everywhere.
the nurses said that you were doing pretty good for a premie, but there wasnt much to be rejoicing about. i felt fucked up, and all i did was look.
but sounds like you've been doing better and better - too bad we havent even been able to visit with you more often, but we've been sick, and we dont want to risk getting you sick. wonder if the nurses think we're shitty parents. fuck'em if they do - i think this is unfortunately the best course of action. maybe they know and understand. here at home we've all been going through a stomach flu, a cold, boogie's teething, and trying to let mommy heal from the c-section. your babcia has been helping with your sister, so that's been great. times like this you feel the value of being part of a community, a family, having someone to help you when you need it - its survival of the group, not survival of the fittest.

steal this interview

the most recent installment of the viking youth power hour is a previously unreleased interview with abbie hoffman, conducted during the course of the chicago 7 trials, with a bunch of commentary by the then 16 year old aspiring journalist tommy laporte, and the viking drunks. towards the end of the show i could swear you can hear some of them snorting right at the table. again.
all i knew about abbie hoffman up until hearing this show was from "steal this movie", and like the extra features on the dvd. i've never read "steal this book". i gotta say that actually hearing the actual dude was... disappointing. he didnt sound like the leader of a concerted anti-establishment effort i thought he was - he sounded like a rebel looking for a cause, or someone who sorta felt what was going on, but didnt stop long enough to think it thru, so a lot of his thinking and acting seems to me now, was done on the fly. who knows, maybe he was bigger than that - maybe he wanted to appear more "wild" in this particular interview than he was, maybe he didnt care about how he appeared thru this interview at all, possibly also because of the trauma of being on trial, and on such a scale. but even the dude that interviewed him was confirming my present feeling about him: that the dude was more of a force of nature than a logically thought out activist.
during the course of the of the interview he argued against any notions of impartiality and objectivism - he wanted people personally involved in the situation - the political situation in the states at the time - he wanted people to feel. hmm, maybe he wasnt so much against objectivism, but against apathy. anywho - gotta go to work.

i've recently been listening thru the viking youth podcasts - these guys are cool.

apparently in iran an unmarried woman will be punished with 100 lashes if she 'allows' herself to be raped, while a married woman will be stoned to death. was this mohammed's idea?

its fucking cold out there, and i got a shitload of stuff to do today. i dont really wanna do any of it.

why are there so few good books available in audio book format?

i fucking hate bums. but i just thought - what if there's just a number of bums that are simply ruining things for people who actually might have got down on their luck and need some help, but are otherwise 'normal'. is there actually justification for these bums to live on the street and beg and steal? should i feel sorry and try to help any of them? and how? i should read up on this - there's probably been some kinda research and studies done on the matter. i wonder if anyone's done a project where they'd start from the ground up, as it were. start off with no money or anything, knowing nobody in the city. how would they do? would it be possible for them to get food, shelter, a job, an appartment, a car - move on up, like the jeffersons? how long would it take? of course it would be easier on the individual if he or she came from a 'normal' home, had no drug problems, no mental problems, their life was 'normal' up until that point. but i posit that it would still yield very valuable insight into the problem. a point to start from, a piece of the puzzle solved. then maybe the drug piece of the puzzle could be solved - how to get the bum off the drugs and into a position where the previous 'contestant' started. then follow the dude's path, hopefully learning from his mistakes. of course that might not easily apply to someone who's abusing whatever they're abusing because of a psychological problem, but that would be the next step to study, wouldnt it. i'd call it "the bum project" :)
then have an expose on the tele - so that people would know whether to give money to the bum, or the oraganisation that would help the bum better, or not to give money at all but instead form death squads and purge the streets and back alleys until they're clean. i wonder if any city has ever successfully dealt away with their bum problem... and how...

i was thinking recently - a dangerous pastime, i know (where is that line from, anyways?) - and i think i've finally been able to make the distinction between terrorists and guerrillas/partisans - they're both small (para-) military organisations, much smaller than their enemy, who usually happens to be a government, with an actual, full-sized, well funded military, but to me, the guerrillas, partisans, resistance forces, etc, focus on just fighting the man = the government and its military, while the terrorists attack regular, normal people. i got no respect for terrorists. leave the average joe out of your stupid conflicts! attack only those that you have a problem with, and leave the people who are just trying to live their lives, raise families, work at their jobs, and just lead normal schmuck lives. if you have a problem with someone, deal with that person, not with everybody in their country. stupid massive armed conflicts made me a firm believer in assassination - kill only the person you have a problem with - you'll let normal people keep living, and it might end up costing you less.
of course this post is about the most recent killing spree between israel and hezbollah, but its also about all other armed conflicts out there. so some hezbollah jerks had enough sitting at home and trying to live a normal life, which they probably were never good at, so they kidnapped some israeli soldiers and killed some of them. well, at least they were military. so israel starts bombing whole residential neighbourhoods in lebanon! i'd call that a terrorist act. even 9/11 was an attempt to get at get at the man's financial (twin towers) and military (pentagon) sides (if the pentagon was actually hit by a plane at all). but even 9/11 should have been done with no civilian casualties - it can be done! so the hezbollah launch rockets at a rush-hour train station crowds, etc, stooping to israel's level. not that they havent done that before. i still believe that israel is in the wrong to start with because they're the ones that invaded and occupied the land and called it israel. sure, historically they used to live there, but then they were gone, and all of a sudden they came back en masse because they were tired of being kicked around and persecuted in europe. well guess what - that land wasnt just sitting there waiting for you to come back, other people were living there! but every conflict can be resolved without resorting to mass killing.

is marijuana prohibition any different than the old alcohol prohibition?

just got to thunking, is all. i dont think its very different, except perhaps for the length of duration. also got to thunking that if "fighting" the prohibition doesnt seem to be doing much good right now, then probably if things simply continue developing in terms of cannabis' popularity, there will be no one to prosecute in a generation, because the majority of the north american population will be smoking at home and with friends by then. just hope marc emery doesnt have to wait that long...

does this city have enough friggin' potholes?!

it pisses me off - they make a road, and THEN they dig trenches every 5 feet to run shit into new houses or whatever, and then they patch them really shitty - what the fuck is the point?! isnt there any kind of inspections to make sure the road is repaired to a nearly identical state as it was before they dug it up? these assholes should be fined and then made to repair it until they get it right! i dont have an SUV because i didnt think i needed it living in the city! or *think* before u jump: when building any kinda road, account for all, or at least most, of the possible wiring and plumbing needed on both sides of the street and build pipes into the road as ur building it! no digging needed later! and the innumerable manholes on some roads - ALL like 2" below the level of the pavement! what the fuck is going on inside ur overpaid, fucken useless heads?! get those manhole covers that are flush with the pavement that fasten to the actual manhole so that car wheels dont slip them out of the holes. these things already exist! they're in use. this is the fucking 21st century! my fucking tax dollars hard at work.
same for cops. i pay the fuckers' huge salaries so they can pull me over and give me a ticket? fuck you! go fight some real crime! fucking east hastings is crawling with bums - they're all dealing crack, stealing shit to get more - breaking into cars of hardworking people, the insurance doesnt cover it because the window costs more than the deductible - what are u supposed to do? and the bums just keep asking for spare change. I DONT HAVE ANY SPARE CHANGE! i need all my change - i worked hard for it - its mine! get to fucken work. and hospital staff. why the fuck does it take so long to get into emergency? get more workers in there! there's ALWAYS a few hours wait - just get enough staff to take care of it. and the people working in there are completely apathetic because they're overworked and overtired - give them regular 8 hour shifts! or even shorter ones - since its a stressful job. but the hospital staff dont want short shifts - i found out they like the overtime! no overtime for you! it costs me too much! plus ur useless after working for a couple hours anyways! instead they bitch about how hard their jobs are and want more pay. hire more staff, pay them less, have them work shorter shifts so they're more rested and work better.
i realise i should spend this energy actually calling the politicians involved with the necessary decision making, but that would take more time and energy than i presently have. but if i do nothing - then i can be damn sure nothing will change! change has to be effected, someone has to push. and even if all the pushing i'm doing right now is bitching about it on my blog, my hope is that if enough people bitch about it, it will become a common enough topic of discussion and finally reach the critical mass needed to effect that change - be it by people feeling the power of the sheer number of people agreeing on the same idea and finally pushing the powers that be from all possible angles, or by the powers that be perceiving this potential and preemptively making the needed changes before the beast wakes up and wreaks some serious havoc.

phew. much better.

still wrenching... :)

finally got the timing belt off - now for the water pump! :D

then try to recombobulate ebryting back together - wonder how long thats gonna take...
i already know i messed up the grooves on the crankshaft pulley with the friggin' chain-wrench - so i'll have to fix that up before putting it back on. hope it can be done w/o having to buy a new one.


i wonder how many ppl are blogging about the Baslan massacre today. sad day. and this shit happens all over the world regularly. i wonder how this is going to affect things are in russia. i heard on tv and agree that russia is going to invest even more in the military, and even more money is going to be pulled away from everything else. so a poorer, more militarised russia? this cant be good. there's probably gonna be a lot of attacks on innocent muslims and even "darker looking" russians. and all because of a handful of desperate, misguided, stupid people. i imagine they all felt justified in what they were doing. their families have probably been severily hurt and decimated by the russian - chechen conflict. they've likely lost children of their own. but they should have been smarter than that. they should have understood that no one in their right mind will release people from jail who will create even more grief the first chance they get. holding children hostage will only make u more enemies. whatever faith they are - their god is supposed to be a merciful god, who does not condone violence. armed conflict does not solve anything - unless maybe if ur an overwhelmingly huge army that will effortlessly thwart their enemy - but even then... usually change takes time. but if ur impatient and arrogant - then maybe you should be killed before u do anybody any harm.
i'm just ranting. but i guess i'm a bit shocked. in times like this i just try to think that even though horrible things like this happen - humanity just keeps ploughing ahead. we should all do our part and try to make this world better for our kids and their kids - but when shit happens, i guess we cant let it stop us. emotions are such a detriment so often. ppl pay great attention to how they're feeling. i bet that's the single biggest reason for drug addiction. including alcoholism. and cigarettes. possibly coffee. and sugar. chocolate probably forming part of it.

did i mention that i hate stupid people? cant really kill'em tho - might as well make them work and make my life a little more comfortable. i think i can see society clearly separating in the future into 2 classes - stupids and smarts. i wonder if eventually we'll become 2 species...
well - there's smarts and smarts. but i guess there's been an upper class of ppl for a long time - all the old dynasties and noble families - they've been having poor people work for them for generations upon generations. if ur family stays consistently at a standard of living higher than the average, *especially* in the face of adversity - then i'd say chances are good that ur DNA is predisposed for that higher standard of living, above the average human. is it gonna get to the point where we're like the alien civilisation from "alien nation" - i forget what species they were supposed to be. maybe even more so. like humans and monkeys.

i'm yawning something fierce here - maybe i should hit the hays already..? but i still wanna take out that water pump - that shouldnt be that hard - i just have to do it. and then shower. and THEN hit the sack.
well - best git on it :)