I’m really looking forward to a brand new 2010. I want to start to make better choices, and really work on getting my health back to where it should be. I shouldn’t have to pause after walking up stairs to catch my breath, or try to think of games to play with my daughter that don’t involve running. How fun can that really be for her?

I’ve been off for the last two weeks, and I was really hoping that in that time we’d have a dumping of snow. I wanted to start my “getting myself healthy” with some tobogganing and skiing in the backyard, but it’s been fairly green around here. We’re getting some snow tonight, so hopefully we can go out in the snow tomorrow.

So to end 2009, here I sit in my living room, watching Wendy Woo: Homecoming Warrior, my daughter is passed out on the couch from trying to stay up, and my loving wife and I are on our respective laptops for a quiet ringing in of the new year. Could we party? Sure… Could we make a bigger deal of it? Absolutely… but do we want to? Not really. It’s nice this way, and while enjoying it with family and friends would be fun too, sometimes you just need some down-time to start a new year.

Here is to a wonderful and prosperous new year to all. I look forward to writing for you, and producing more creatively on the web.

Happy New Year!

Jay

P.S. I remember in school, I think it was grade 4, we were asked what we thought we’d be doing in 2010.  The person next to me drew a picture of her as a movie star… I drew myself as her limo driver

I’m SUPER excited! Ready to wear the ring, ready to have the party, and ready for 2 weeks vacation! SKADOOSH!

Sorry I haven’t been more bloggy, but things have been crazy busy what with me getting some last minute things done at work, and getting wedding stuff done.

I may or may not be married by my next post You can follow me on twitter too! @billingham

Jay

Jay

On Friday night, as I started my way home, I felt a sense of calm and happiness.  It was the end of another busy week, and I was ready to relax.  I didn’t need anything extravagant this weekend.  A nice relaxing weekend with my family was more than enough to recharge me for another week of mayhem.  Little did I know that April, the absolute love of my life, would make it about 1000 times better than what I was expecting.

I had to work a bit later to get some loose ends tied up for some work happening on the weekend, and thought I was going to get stuck coming home late on the bus.  I did what I had to do however, and got the work done.  Just before the end of the day, my luck turned and Ron, my former car-pooling friend (car-pooling meaning he drives, and I get a lift for a reasonable price) happened to have to come to our location to do some work.  This was a great lucky break, as I hitched a ride home with him, and ended up getting home earlier than if I hadn’t had to work late, and had left on time!  Unbeknownst to me however, this was not as good for April.

When April heard that I was on my way home, her stress levels rose even further than they had already been, as not all the guests had arrived yet.  She called asking me where I was, which for some reason I found suspicious, but she tells me that she only called because she felt I was taking longer than I should have been.  Seems like my “man’s intuition” was working overtime

When I got home, I got out of the car up the road as I usually do when Ron drives me home, and started to walk up.  Apparently there were 3 vehicles I should have recognized outside, but luckily once I leave work my attention to detail goes right out the window.  I walked up the stairs, and as I always do, I tried to look in the window.  The curtain was closed.  Not uncommon, so I didn’t think anything of it, but when I opened the door I hear a few more voices than I should have, and looked up the hall to see a curtain of Spades, Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds.  Immediately I knew what was going on..

When April turned around to see me standing there, she was more surprised than I was!  They had all been watching the door diligently to see when I’d come in, so that they could all yell surprise, but had started to talk about something else. I ended up surprising them! 

April had invited our friends Megan , Manuel and Dave, Rose (her sister) and Carl, Chris (my bro), and Billy (her bro).  They all greeted me at the door, and then promptly the smokers are ran outside, as April was keeping them caged up until I got home.

Inside, April and Billy had done an incredible job decorating our living room where they had three card tables set up, with 3 spots each for a Texas Hold Em’ tourney!  April had even made up grab bags for the guests to take home after the party.  Each had some loonie and toonie chocolates, a packages of poker chips, and a deck of used-in-a-casino cards.

Food was in abundance as well, as April made Pulled Pork sandwiches, Diana Sauce Meatballs, Pasta Salad, Chicken Wings, Cream Cheese Dip etc.. it was a smorgasbord of food goodness.

After we ate, we started our tournament.  We drew names out of a hat, and the tables were as follows:

Table 1: Billy, Rose and myself
Table 2: April, Megan and Chris
Table 3: Carl, Manuel and Dave

At Table 1, Billy went out first, but not without a fight. 
At Table 2, April was first out.
At Table 3, Dave was first out.

Rose and I from Table 1, joined Table 3.

Rose then was forced out from Table 3.

At Table 2, Chris went out next, as he was pinned against Megan’s table-talking distraction tactics, and Megan joined Table 3.

Carl was next out, and we were left with the final 3.  Here are the results:

1st: Manuel
2nd: Megan
3rd: Moi

All through the tournament we had a timer going off, roughly every 10 minutes to raise the blinds.  I think the highest we saw was 7 and 14 for the big and small blinds.

Once the tournament was done, Rose and Carl had to get back home to their kids, and Megan and Manuel had to go home.  Chris, Dave, Billy, April and I ended up talking for a while, then a Tim Horton’s run was made, and we all turned in at about 2AM.

This was the best birthday party I’ve ever had, and a perfect surprise/secret.  Even Madison never mentioned all week about spending the night at Grandma’s!

Thank you April for a kickass night.

This is just another reason added to the list of why I love you, and can’t wait to marry you in May!

The few pictures we took that evening will be up shortly….

Jay

CTV thing:  This unfortunately didn’t pan out.  They were looking for the typical Star Trek fanboy to run around in their homemade costume, and while I admire these people’s passion, it’s just not me.  I have a collection, I can talk until I’m blue in the face, and on Facebook my trivia is higher than 3900890 other people (give or take), but I keep myself on that fine line between Fan and Hard-Core Fanatic.

Wedding Update:  Lots of stuff going on here.  I mean, the wedding is in May!!  So, we have a good deal of things already planned and squared away.  Yay!  Unfortunately though, there are a good deal more.  April is doing an awesome job of planning out, and dealing with, our “vendors” (Venue, Photographer, D.J., Flowers).  Yes, I’m involved but leaving for work at 6:00AM, and getting home at around 7PM most weekdays doesn’t leave for a lot of business hours to get things done.  I love April so much, and love her even more for taking most of this on with only my voice on a telephone to help. 

A bachelor party is in the works.  I have asked my best-man Patrick to be “that guy” to plan my party, and now have at least my brother, and my absolutely wonderful bride-to-be all collaborating too.  I’m keeping the guest list VERY small, so please don’t be upset if you aren’t invited.  I’m definitely down with meeting up with people, or various groups of people at different times.  The actual bachelor party though, probably will have less than 10 people, and it will be close friends and family.

A bridal shower, and bachelorette party are also in the planning stages.  I don’t know much about either, but do know that April has been talking to her Maid of Honor to work out some of the details.  I’m not sure how much April knows, but I’m sure she’ll have a great time too!

Work:  Work has been CRAZY busy, and I must say, very stressful.  Lots of power to manage, old gear coming out, new gear coming in – and I’ve got to make sure it all fits.  Not “hard” by any means, but our area has been slightly restructured and I no longer have a “Manager” to report to.  This isn’t a bad thing, because it creates an opportunity for me, however I’m feeling some serious growing pains while adjusting to my management “crutch” being taken away.  I now report to the Sr. Director, and the one saving grace is that he’s a great guy, and is first and foremost someone to help you learn than he is someone to assume you know everything.  Lots of great things happening in the company too that I’m not sure I can talk about, so stay tuned because when I can, I will.

Writing:  After a quick email thread with Patrick (my best man), we’re going to be sharing some writing back and forth so that we can give each other some valuable feedback, and try and keep ourselves on our toes.  Hopefully this will help with my writing issues (see my previous post about why I love/hate writing).

I’m sure there’s more stuff, but its 7AM and I’m on a GO bus from home to work, so it’s not always the easiest place to think/write.  The bottom line is the family is good, April is good, and Madison are good.  Life is good.  No amount of stress can change how happy I am where I am.

Jay

So.. watch The National tonight at 10PM.. who knows, maybe they’ll use a comment or something of mine..

I just needed to post about this because it’s not everyday that a reporter finds you and wants to interview you because you like Star Trek.

Jay

Jay

I have more than ample time to write.  To write anything that’s on my mind from a blog post, to a short story, even a full length novel, but 99% of the time, I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.  There is always “something else” that becomes more important at that particular moment in time. 

Take for example this morning.  I’m sitting on a GO Bus, driving now from Newmarket, Ontario to Yorkdale GO Station in Toronto, Ontario.  Overall the trip takes about 60 minutes, which is more than enough time to get my laptop out, boot it up, write something, and shut it down.  Then, if that isn’t enough, I transfer to another bus for another 45 minutes.  This is my trip to work.  Tons of time to write something, or get something written accomplished.  Why then, am I going on about how hard it is?  Well, because whenever I get on this bus, or whenever I have free time at home, or really anytime when I could pull the computer out and write, I don’t.  I either have something else to do, which could mean that I want to play World of Warcraft or something instead, or I’m not “in the mood” to write. 

Now, Warcraft is far from a good reason not to write, but it’s a release for me.  One of my few geek-out, don’t think of work, economy, politics etc… times, but once I’m done, no matter how much XP or how many levels I’ve achieved, I never actually feel like I’ve accomplished anything because I don’t have anything to show people (people outside of Azeroth that is).

The mood part bugs me too, because if I want to write, don’t you think I should be in the mood to write?  I’ve always got tons of ideas in my head about what to write.  When I can’t write, it’s always close to the top on my “to-do” list, but finally, when the time comes and everything that I want to do is competing for brain time, it ends up getting the short end of the stick.  It bothers me. 

Once I get into the swing of it, I love writing.  Like today, I’ve forced myself to pull out my laptop.  No one sat next to me (which let me tell you is a HUGE deterring factor when it comes to writing on the bus), and now that I’m into it, I just can’t seem to stop.  The words are flowing, my brain doesn’t hurt, and it just feels natural.  So, the question I ask myself is, should I be forcing myself to write?  Does convincing yourself, and forcefully telling yourself “You’re writing whether you like it or not, douchebag.” make you a better writer?  I think in a way it does, but I want to feel the passion that I’m feeling right now, through all aspects of the writing process, from idea conception, to outline, all the way to completion. 

My inspiration to start writing comes from reading Wil Wheaton’s blog.  He’s an actor, turned writer, who still acts occasionally, and his style, technique, and overall audience captivation capabilities are what I’m after.  I feel as though I’ve learned from and shared so much of his writing, and I haven’t even read his actual published works.  I plan to eventually, but until I can scrape together the “shiny rocks”, as he would say, I’ll take what I can get.  Wil… seems odd to call him by his first name when he doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground.

Hole in the ground: “I resent that.”

Me: “What?”

Hole in the ground: “Having anyone mistake me for you.  I’m clearly not an overweight writer wannabe.  I… am a hole… in the ground.”

Me:  “Seriously?  Are you saying you’d RATHER be a hole in the ground?”

Hole in the ground: “Do you want the truth?”

Me: “Yes!”

Hole in the ground: “Yes.”

Me:  Fills hole with dirt.

Hole in the ground: <muffled> “Touché”.

As I was saying, I don’t know Wil Wheaton personally.  To be honest, until a few years ago he was still Wesley Crusher on Star Trek the Next Generation.  Until, that is, my friend Patrick introduced me to his blog, and I was hooked.  Yes, at first I was hoping to read his blog and find out all the secrets of Star Trek behind the scenes and blah blah… but today, if Wil’s name is mentioned along with Star Trek my reaction is more: “Oh yeah, that’s awesome that Wil was also in one of my all time favourite T.V. Shows too..” 

I’ve got this list, of people that I’d like to meet, and I’ve always struggled with number one.  There are so many people outside of the people I know, who have influenced my life so much, that I would LOVE to meet before I (or they) leave this world, that I have a hard time ranking them.  From Bon Jovi (who’s music has helped me through many things), to William Shatner who has shown that life is what you make it, and you can make it as good as you want it, to Wil Wheaton who taught me that even a geek can be cool, and do cool things, and still play DnD and video games and stuff.  At this point in my life, if those were my top three, and I had the choice of meeting any one person, I’d have to say it would be Wil.

OK, I think writers would call that a “Tangent”…

Alas, here I sit, on the number sixty-six bus to Toronto, on my way to my career of ten years, thinking about one day being considered, a writer.  For now, I’ll have to settle for continuing to enjoy Wil’s blog (and books, and acting, and other projects), enjoy writing for myself and any blog readers I may (or may not) have, and continue to enjoy all the satisfaction I get, when I finally complete a writing project.

Thanks for reading.

Jay