The Chronicles of Gene

This one will be short and sweet, but it's simple I love where I live. Kelowna, BC is the place to be living, the beautiful Okanagan. The springs are great, the summers are full of activities and sun, fall is warm and winter is what winter is suppose to be... full of snow.

On Sunday I got the chance to sneak up to Big White for 3.5 hours of snowboarding, and damn were the conditions awesome. There is still over 250 cm base, fresh powder and all the sun and blue sky I could handle. Was just what the doctor ordered, me, my iPod and my board. It was my second time going up solo and just like the first I had a total blast. Something about shredding down the hill while listening to tunes was zen like. I wasn't over thinking boarding I was just boarding and as a result it was some of my best to date. I was burning through the moguls with no problem, usually they spank me if I attempt then with some speed. I was going faster then I've gone before, getting air of the rollers was awesome and a first. Tried the T-Bar for the first time ever and was disappointed I had done it sooner. Some of the funnest riding was between the tree tops up there, great snow lots of variety, it was just the kind of conditions a young man dreams about. I got smart and brought my camera this time as there is always some point in the day I wish I had it with me, and Sunday was no different.

Here's a few of my shots of the day.

Who watch How I Met Your Mother Tonight? Of course you did cause Britney Spears was on it tonight! Oh my god BRITNEY! BRITNEYGASM .... yawn. The network was hyping this episode up so much, everyone was going on and on about how she was just so spectacular she was, yada yada yada.

I know somehow I seem to always be bitching about Britney getting her shit together, and don't get me wrong she seemed very together for a change and this rant is actually not about her but it's about how much hype there was around this 30 minutes of glory. You know when a movie trailer shows all the best parts of the movie, but you only realize this after you've wasted the $10, well that was tonight's episode with Britney. I found myself going "There's got to be something pivotal with her coming up" but it never did. All 5 lines she had was not worth the freakin bullshit prime time hype. She played a very minor role in the entire story... heres the end Barney fucks her cause it's what Barney does. The real story was with Ted and the cute blonde doctor from Scrubs ... yes Becky Connor (Five points if you can tell me where that reference is from).

It was a great show, laughed my ass off but deep down I was once again disappointed by another American Corporate attention whore machine begging for my time, and to it I say bugger off! It was like being in bed with a chick from the bar claiming to be a real dirty bitch and just as she's about to go down on you she goes "Yeah you like that cause this is my first time, am I doing good? Are you going to call me again? Can we just cuddle?", basically leaves you half hard and confused and where's the fun in that?

You went away for 3 months and you try to win me back with this? I think I'll just stick to my Thursday night line up and get back to Guitar Hero 3 thank you very much at least it knows how to make me happy!

Labels: Britney Spears, rants, TV

Here I sit at my desk reading some email thinking to myself it's been far too long since I wrote on either of my blogs lately, this one and asquad.ca. Why? Have I been too busy to spare 10 to 20 minutes a month to say hi or rant about some washed up celebrity? Apparently.... how sad is that.

This post isn't about Britney or Lindsey, they get enough attention as it is, this is about me and where I am compared to December 04, 2006. So much has changed this year, so much has happened sometimes I can't even comprehend it all. Last year I was still living with Ryan, I was working 14 hour days 5 days a week and including a 8 hours on Saturday. Was waiting for the hill to be open. Was waiting for the work to be done. Ran myself down past the point I couldn't even see the line anymore, was so focused on getting ahead at work. Was getting ready to move into a new apartment with Tasha and the girls. Was one of the top producing Account Managers at work and was out selling the salesmen, that part was fun ;).

Now I sit here it's December 4, 2007 and what have I accomplished? What did I do that made me enjoy my life? What have I done to make others laugh? What have I done to make others feel loved?

Well, Big White opened and me and Ryan made great use of our pass. It was the only thing which allowed us to blow the stress of work at the time off. I moved into 302 with Tasha and the Girls. Had my first Christmas as a family, it was fun watching the girls tear through their presents and play with the small stuff. Work didn't settle down until about the beginning of March, sadly it had stayed my top priority instead of making myself the top priority. It had devastating consequences. I lost my drive for improving myself, lost all the gains I had made at the gym, lost my self confidence and my ability to deal with stress. Almost lost my relationship more then once due to situations at home which would blow up when they didn't need to. Overall I was a miserable cunt hiding it all one joke at a time.

I eventually realized what was going on and went about to getting my drive to improve me back, it was up to me and only me to find happiness in my life again. I had to realize my actions and energy was completely and utterly disgusting to me, I remember saying to myself more then once "Gene, if Gene from 2006 could see you he'd bitch slap you! Get your shit back together you know this will not lead to an amazing life". It's been an up hill battle, especially in the beginning, there were a few slide backwards but I wasn't going to let it be prolonged. I stood my ground and pushed forward. I got back to writing down my goals again and trying to use positive peer pressure to help achieve them and applying a consequence for not meeting them. If I don't meet a goal, that's $50 to a charity or to Tasha to spend, either way it goes against my financial goals of saving and not spending on unintended expenses. So far so good.

Realizing I need to go to the gym at least 4 times a week or else the stress just starts to bubbling up to the top and gets to me very quickly. Since September I've been very focused when it comes to going to the gym. My body is returning to it's former glory once again. I can look in the mirror and be happy with what I see. Tasha got me a Flash journal from Chapters to keep track of my workouts and I must say it's really helped me push myself and motivate me to push more then the week before. It may be funny but having the Flash staring at me just makes me go harder, it works for me so why fight it! I haven't had the plateau like I used to after a couple months, the weight keeps going up, the intensity gets higher and as a result my body is in great shape. I never used to like cardio before but I've found a new love for it and the burn it can bring, no more dogging it on the stationary bike at level 5.

Reading, damn I forgot how much I enjoyed doing it. I've been reading a few of Robin Sharma's books and it's really helped motivated me to learn more and read more about improving myself and inspiring others to achieve greatness. Re-read the body for life, currently re-reading the automatic millionaire again. Lately I've been listening to Tony Robbin's Get the Edge series and taking a ton of notes along the way, if you haven't truly listened to any of his stuff I highly recommend it. His energy is amazing and I find with each portion I listen to I want to listen to more.

Aside from improving myself it's been a busy year, had a few really great guy trips. Me and a few friends rented a cabin up at Postil lake and had a blast, think it's become an instead annual guys trip for the summer. Went house boating on Shuswap lake with Tasha and 22 other people. We meet some amazing people we didn't know and had a time of our lives, it was one of the biggest highlights of the summer without a doubt. We are going again in 2008 August Long, can't wait for it. Of course went to Merritt Mountain Fest again, I think it was the last year though cause they are changing the format and it just wasn't as fun as years past. First night at Merritt I find Ryan and Charlie down in the beer gardens in Camp C and we go get a beer and the girls behind the bar already know them both by name. I got a great laugh out of it.

We had the 4th annual guys weekend up at Sun Peaks and this year we had enough guys to rent a big ass cabin up there. We brought a keg down with us and more boys from Acro. First night we got just out of control, a bunch of Deano's friends from the hill came over and we got the party going. Lots of drinking, some boat races, drinking games and tons of laughs about jokes only guys would love. Somehow this chick ended up hanging around with us, and by hanging around us I mean trying to convince any of us to fuck her. I've never seen one girl throwing it out there and not a single guy in the place was picking it up. We mocked her, we made jokes at her expense, we got more drunk and load about the jokes and she stuck around. She was on a mission, got to give her an A for effort. She thought me and Jon were hot stuff and wouldn't leave us alone so we said "Hey lets go in the hot tub", she said she didn't bring a bathing suit we said "Neither did we, go get changed!". She went upstairs got the major hottie shirt and came down in only that. At this point me and Jon laugh, run down stairs put our shoes on and run outside and hid behind this storage shed and drank. We got to listen to her in the hot tub with Deano, Shane and Ryan going "Where's gene and jon?". We thought it was funny as hell and went back in the house for more booze. Long story short Dean ended up nailing her, he's a trooper! Me and Micah thought it would be funny to kick the door open and take pictures of her in his room (don't worry we used the handle to open the door). God damn it was a fun weekend. The second night we ended up at the owner's of Mac Daddy's 45th birthday party, we somehow crashed it and didn't get kicked out it was a great time, lots of food and some good tunes and laugh.

Me and Tasha went and saw Syliva Brown in Vancouver, that was a fun little date trip with just the two of us. She didn't feel good so we didn't get to crazy down there but we had fun none the less. Stayed right down town so we had stuff to do.

How could a year in review be complete with out the biggest change in my young life. I became a foster parent. That's right I became a foster parent to a 2 month old baby. The process which me and Tasha went through was long and very tedious, it took us over 9 months to get to the point where we had our first placement. We went to more courses then I could count, all of them mandatory but the majority of time I was one of the only men at them which annoyed me for more then one reason. Regardless it's been amazing going through the process of having a baby around which is totally dependent on you. I can truly say it's helped change my outlook on life and has helped me reduce my stress in life by just taking a step back and realizing I need to relax.

He's not the only baby in the house, Tasha also bought me Lucy. She's a Manx kitten, but growing very quickly into a Manx Cat. As RyRy says "She's a Manx with no tail". She's been a great additional to the family, we all love her very much even though she begs for food worse then any dog I've seen. She can be a stinkier but she is the most chill cat I've ever met, the girls drag her all over and she just goes with it. Very affectionate and damn cute. Everyone who sees her just loves her, she's got a great personality.

Overall it's been a crazy year with tons of ups and downs but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I look forward to what the next year brings. Oh and I just got promoted at Acro to Software Supervisor so it's the first chapter to the year here, guess all that hard work got acknowledged.

Labels: Personal

Every since I was in school learning about great society's and empires and their eventual fall from grace. They fall eventually, it almost always came down to the simple fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well my friends to the south, the title says it all, and I would like to it noted that the Dick part is strongly emphasized. Over your 200+ years your current governmental system it has slowly and intentionally subverted you back into country of oppressed rights and liberties.

I somehow today stumbled on to this video which is available from Google Video about Terror throughout the world, TerrorStorm Deluxe, and who is really behind all the bullshit. Powerful men are hiding behind closed doors making schemes to cause "situations" which will scare the masses into willingly give up their own powers and freedoms. The American people are constantly being scared into allowing these people in power to do whatever they want. It's easy to keep people dumb and not be critical thinkers when the primary news items are how Britney Spears thinks her Judge is mean and how Paris Hilton isn't making publicity stunts lately. The big game media players don't want to report on important issues which are drastically changing their country. When Mr. Bush can go on national television and declare he is above the law and will continue to spy on his own people or "apply pressure" to the "enemy", by the way that's their code for torturing the enemy but torture is illegal pressure isn't ;), and then bullshit you all into this idea in which the US Military and the Republican party are bringing democracy to Iraq is quite laughable. Mr. Bush, maybe you should first bring democracy back to your own country, just a thought.

There are many examples of democracy being systematically stripped away, wasn't it just a month ago Mr. Bush veto a bill which ahd past through a democratic system, both the senate and congress, to ensure your children would receive medical care. It was veto'd on the premises it would cost too much, hell we wouldn't want it to get in the way of the additional $200+ billion he demanded approval for to continue killing your sons and daughters and the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iragies since the "War on Terror" started. The only thing this war is proving is America the Great is the worlds greatest terrorist.

From 2000 to now they have gone in and bombed the shit out of two countries. The first one was a directed as vengeance for the horrible attacks which occurred on 9/11. Well how long was the US Military actually in Afghanistan before they head to Irag? Under a year and they didn't even catch the CIA agent which they went there to capture. Yes, Bin Laden is a CIA agent hell last item I read he's secret alas was still an active. Afghanistan was a jump off point to get the military firmly in the middle east nothing more, and now it's up to the Canadians to clean up the American's mess in that country, big surprise.

I find it increasingly humorous the big talking heads from the White House are going on the attack against Iran for maybe having weapons of mass destruction, cause they were so sure about Irag to the point where they had to "find" data... and by "find" I mean pull it out of their asses and falsify information. Everyone seems to be forgetting the United States of America is still building new nuclear weapons to add to their existing arsenal, why do they have over 2600 nuclear weapons is beyond me, and have developed some of the must devastating biological weapons ever conceived by man. The only purpose for weapons like these is to destroy large swaths of all living creatures on this planet.

The things I see going on in this world make me mad everyday because I can stop and realize the wool is being pulled over the faces of so many. Propaganda is running rampant right now, media is filling our minds with useless shit. Stop, think and learn people it's your responsibility and only then will you win your rights of freedoms back. The societies which are losing their freedom of rights are not standing up for themselves enough, everyone is sitting around waiting for a someone else to do it for them. Get off your fat McDonald ridden asses and stand up for yourself, this goes for more then just Americans it goes to us all. Get educated about what really is happening, evict the ignorance, the fear and the false bliss and step in to reality and take responsibility for your actions and how they are effecting and will effect this world and the one we leave to the next generations.

If you want to see where the current American government is heading do some research into how Nazi Germany came to be and you will see many similarities which I hope make you sick and realize the truth.

Labels: politics, rants