Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I Don't Get It

One of Jen's friends is doing her Masters in Educational Technology.  She recommended (pestered) Jen to join Twitter as a professional development tool.  Jen joined, so I had to also.  I don't like to be left behind.  I hadn't previously joined Twitter, because I had the impression it was the place where people told others about the meaningless minutia of their life.  To some degree it is, but there are many interesting things going on out there as well.  I can follow developments from my favourite hockey and football teams.  I get news flashes from CNN, etc.

I was given a list of teachers to follow on Twitter and it has been an eye opening experience.  Some of these people are teaching MACHINES!  The go to work all day and Tweet about it.  Then they go home and look up a lot of other blogs and teaching stuff and Tweet about that.  I don't get it.  Wouldn't a person get tired of work all the time?  I've talked to Jen about it and she tells me that my background and personality make it impossible for me to understand.  Jen is a career teacher.  Jen started out as a teacher and has never looked back.  Teaching is my second career.  I enjoy teaching and I want to do a good job at it and continually improve at my job.  But it is my job.  When I come home I would rather be outside, playing or watching sports, watching TV, gaming with my friends or just chatting with my wife, than doing what I was doing all day.

Jen tells me that for some educators, teaching is their passion and their life.  I try to at least intellectually understand how this can be, but I can't really get my head around it.  I'm not stupid, maybe just a little stubborn and narrow minded.  I don't think less of these people, I am just flabbergasted at their energy and almost single mindedness.

Friday, August 27, 2010

My Secret Life

No, I don't cross-dress and sing Gloria Gainer.  Though the way that I hide it, you'd think I did.  No, my big secret is that I'm an undercover nerd.  I play with little man dollies.  Almost exactly a year ago, I was introduced to the game of Warhammer.  This is a game where players paint up armies of little plastic or metal men and do battle with them.  There is a complex rule set and lots of dice rolling.  It is extremely geeky and I don't advertise it to anyone.  My wife however, is not quite as circumspect as I am, so a few of her friends know.

I bring all of this up because last night was the re-opening of the games club after summer shut down.  Several nerds showed up for a few hours of various wargames.  The group includes both classic nerds and undercover nerds like me. 

Mike loves the Warhammer
Anyway, I had a game against Mike and his Warriors of Chaos.  He brought a pretty tough army, but I thought I could handle it.  If the dice had not betrayed me, I probably could have.  Turn one, I was going to combo charge his unit of warriors with both my lion chariot and my spearmen.  Unfortunately, my spearmen failed their charge and the chariot was all by itself.  It acquitted itself well by panicking the warriors, but it didn't do as much damage as I had hoped.

On turn two, disaster struck and my mage blew up in a big way.  It was a dimensional cascade.  Which means that a massive template is placed over the mage and everything the big circle touches, gets whacked.  I was lucky and I only lost four of the Phoenix Guard in her unit, but she died and so did a big part of my arsenal.  It was all downhill from there.  I made a few pushes, but I could never do enough wounds to tip the scale and I lost in the end. 

It was a good game and we had a pretty good time.  I've got pretty used to my dice laughing at me by now, so I can usually get over it.

Luck be a lady tonight!
Here's a preview of what's next on the painting table.  This is the same little lady that blew up last night.  Maybe some colour will make her more effective next week.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Doing Things

As the title suggests, I've been doing things the past few days.  First, Jen and I went hiking in Tumbler Ridge.  Even though she's not quite two months past her accident and as such still a bit out of shape, Jen insisted on doing and alpine hike.  She chose a 5.5 km trail that went right up the side of Cowmoose Mountain.  For those of you who live in the Rockies, it's only a foothill, but it was plenty big for around here.  It took us a few hours to make it to the top and then we made it to about 500 metres from the summit.  Why stop you ask?  Well it was an extremely steep scramble to the top and while I liked my wife's chances of getting to the top, I wouldn't have bet on her making it back down in one piece on her bumb leg.  So, we decided discretion was the better part of valour and took a couple of pics from almost the top and headed back down.

We had some interesting experiences with wildlife, both those we saw and the one we didn't.  We happened upon a village of marmots.  They were living in an old rock slide and they were everywhere.  The little buggers were far braver than they should have been if they wish to avoid becoming someone's hat.  The would sit a few feet away from us and watch us watch them.  The other animal was a bear.  We saw a couple of piles of his berry filled splat and on the way back down we saw a print in the mud that hadn't been there on the way up.  Now, I come from Southern Ontario, where seeing a deer is a wildlife sighting.  My wife is constantly telling me that you have to watch out for wildlife that will eat your face off when you are in the woods in BC.  With Jen's constant warnings in my head, when we saw those prints, I almost added my own pile to that of the bear.  It turns out we didn't see him in the end (and in truth the print wasn't that large), but it gave me the willies all the same.

Today, we went out to Upper Pine to work on our classrooms.  I must admit that I didn't work too hard.  I took a picture of the before, but there isn't an after yet because I'm not really finished.  I just shuffled some furniture around.  Jen and her helper worked their butts off cleaning a disgusting classroom.  The previous teacher left all the cupboards full of junk and garbage and covered in various pools of sticky stuff.  Some people are pretty inconsiderate, especially when you think that she is still at the school and will have to work with Jen this year.  Give your head a shake!
My new school!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

The Ugly Truth

Well, I can't avoid it any longer.  Fall is almost here.  Yesterday, we made the first trip to our new school since June.  I would love to say that I was so excited and looking forward to the new experiences of a new grade, blay, blah, blah.  The ugly truth is that with Jen's accident, buying and moving to the house and the invasion of the in-laws, I don't feel like I've had much of a vacation.  I don't feel very recharged and ready to get back at it.  I find that I'm dragging my heals even thinking about going back into the classroom.  Thank goodness for my wife, who is far more motivated than I am at this point.  She will drag me out there and get me back into the groove.

This morning we were temtpted to turn on the furnace.  Yes, it is August 22, but it was so damn cold in our house this morning we seriously considered turning on the furnace.  However, we decided we will be burning enough gas this winter when it's minus forty, that we should conserve.  So, we bundled up and I made blueberry pancakes instead.  The truth is hard to ignore, however.  There is a chill in the air and the smell of fall is tickling my nose.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Achievement Unlocked


So I finished Assassin's Creed II today.  It was a bitter sweet experience.  Gamers know what I'm talking about.  For the rest of you, it's like finishing a book or better yet a series of books.  You have spent so many hours with the characters and in that particular world, that there is a small sense of loss for a short time.  There is also the somewhat lost feeling of not knowing what to do with yourself when you have some spare time.

Lucky for me, I know there is a sequel being released in November and even better, Fallout: New Vegas will be released in October.  I should be settled enough in my new classroom to start chipping away at the 100 hours or so it will take to get through that one.  I guess I still have my Phoenix Guard to paint up for Warhammer and my High Elves are getting new releases in both September and October.  I guess I have lots to do in my spare time.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

A Sense of Self-Preservation

Have you ever noticed how some people in this world do not have the ability to look at a situation and say to themselves, "Gee, if I do this, I will probably get hurt"?  My wife is one of these people.  I love her dearly, but it is a miracle she is still in the world of the living or at the very least not getting around in a wheelchair.

Last night is a perfect example.  At the end of June my wife had a horse fall on her.  No kidding!  She had gone to a student's house to ride at the end of the school year.  The horse reared and fell on it's side with her still on it.  Amazingly enough, she didn't break anything, but she really banged up her leg.  She still has a visible bruise on it and it doesn't work quite as well as the other one yet.  Anyway, I hear a bang from the shower and a loud yelp.  It turns out that she had tried to stand on one leg and turn off the shower with her foot.  Did I mention that she was standing on the same leg the horse laid down on?  Did I also mention that she has balance issues often? 

I ask you, who in their right mind stands in a wet shower and thinks that standing on one foot is a sound idea that will make your life easier and better?  She was just lucky she only banged her foot on the tap and didn't take a spill.  I would have been up for a second trip to Emergency this summer.

I will leave you with that story, and won't go into detail about all the times I've walked into the kitchen to see my wife pulling a massive chef's knife toward her hand or arm, seemingly oblivious to the danger.  No wonder I have so much grey hair!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Warhammer

Well, I played my first game of 8th edition yesterday morning.  Even with the frequent rules checks the game went very quickly and was a lot of fun.  I have a 1500 point tournament coming up in the middle of September, so we played that points level so I could get a feel for what is going to work and what won't in the new edition.  The game was just a straight battle with no terrain.  We just wanted to get a feel for the new rules.  It took my High Elves and he had a Vampire Counts army.

The game was basically a push your stuff forward and see what happens affair.  It turns out that HE are pretty punchy in the new edition, with their rerolls to hit when they have a higher initiative than the target.  Let's face it, they had higher inititative than just about everything in the VC army.  I also learned that the Battle Standard Bearer is a must have in the new game.  I failed a couple of fear checks that I was lucky enough to get on the reroll.

I had a level 2 mage and took the Lore of Life.  I was lucky enough to get the Throne of Vines and took Earthblood.  I didn't actually miscast the entire game and I threw four dice a few times, so vines didn't come into play that way, but the 4+ regen save did manage to keep a lot of my spearmen in a grinding combat with two units of skeletons and a Vampire Lord until my Swordmasters could get them in the flank the next turn.  I had the Banner of Sorcery in my Phoenix Guard, but found that with a level 2 I had more dice than I needed most turns, so may look into trying to squeeze a level 4 into the list or giving him the Silver Wand so he has a third spell.  Of course, I could just give the PG the Razor Standard to make them a more killy unit.  I guess only practice will answer which will be more effective.

Anyway, I had a great time and won.  I don't do that often, so it's nice when you can get it.  I hope to have more games in the near future.  The club reopens on Aug. 26, so games will be more regular then.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Fall Fair

Today, my wife and I went to the North Peace Fall Fair.  I know it's not fall yet, but I don't make the schedule or have any say in the name.  The fair is a total throwback to the old agricultural fairs.  There were competitions for baking, preserves, flower arranging and growing as well as vegetables and lots of varieties of livestock.  Not being a farmer, I was interested in more of a curious fashion rather than a professional or knowledgeable one.

We wandered the fair for an hour or so and then got some fair food.  I have to say that the food is usually the best part of a fair.  I had really gotten myself into a lather before we went in anticipation of a dirty old corndog.  There were no corndogs!  I was completely gutted.  I had to settle for BBQ beef on a bun from the Cattlemen's Association.  It was pretty tasty, but not really a corndog.

Did I mention that there wasn't a midway?  Not that I'm a big fan of the rides, but in my experience it isn't really a fair until you have the midway.  So, with no midway, the wife and I decided to take in the country dancing contest.  It was quite a mix of young and old  contestants.  Those people were doing dances I'd never seen before, let alone heard of.  Not being a particular fan of country music and the country scene in general, my experience is admittedly pretty thin.

Anyway, a fun time was had by all, although we'll have to see if we invest the time and money to attend next year.

Finally, I'm pretty excited.  I will be playing my first game of 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy tomorrow morning.  My High Elves get to take on the dirty Vampire Counts in a 1500 point battle.  I can't wait to see what the pointy ears can do in the new edition.

Friday, August 13, 2010

In the beginning

Until recently I thought blogging and reading blogs was pretty lame.  I'm still not 100% sure I think it's a great idea, but my mom always said not to put anything down until you've tried it.  So, I'm trying it.

I'm not sure I know what this blog will turn into or what it will contain in the end.  I guess it will be as much a surprise for anyone reading as it is for me.

As a person coming from the southern part of Canada, it's been a bit of a culture shock coming to the north.  I hope to pass on some of the more interesting things that go on up here, plus some of the day to day happenings that I find interesting.