So I had a fighting dream last night. Since that is the most interesting thing to happen to me in a little while, I might as well relate the story to you all.

I was at a church in Taber and there was an activity going on, (I wasn't involved with the activity) but as I left the church I somehow started talking to Jeff Thompson's daughter (who I have never talked to in real life, I don't even know her name, she just happened to be at the activity). We were both on our way home and some guy started lipping me or that girl off, so I punched him in the face a couple of times and sent him running away.
A little while later, we were still walking along and an arrow flew by me. The guy had come for revenge! He shot a few more arrows that flew wildly by. Apparently the guy figured out that the bow and arrow wasn't his best option so he ran over to fight again. I didn't really want to hurt the guy, so I decided that I would choke him untill he passed out and then I could leave. It worked just like I had planned (imagine that) and I was once again on my way home. A little while later, he drove by me in a dirty white van and decided that his best option would be to run me over. Since I was on foot, I mangaged to elude him for awhile and so the guy changed his plan once again. (Really I think that was his major downfall, he wasn't commited enough to really do any damage.)
As he drove up to me, I spoted an ambulance and ran up to it to ask for help because everyone knows if you can't see a policeman, find an paramedic. So anyway, the guy got out of his van and he had three baseball bats in his arms, but he's was carrying them like firewood. I realised that I had better do something before he can actually get one bat ready. I charge him and manage to get two of the bats away from him on my first try. I thought to myself, "I can't fight with two bats", so I hit one on the ground and it disintegrated into splinters. By then the guy was ready to attack me, and we both swung our bats like swords and they collided. Unluckily for me, my bat flew out of my hand and went under the ambulance. I quickly ran onto the sidewalk and try to reach under it to get my bat back, but I couldn't reach it. The crazy bat guy came around the front of the ambulance but luckily it was parked really close to the curb, and there was a 4 foot chainlink fence, this prevented him from getting a good swing. He missed on his first swing, and I quickly advanced to get his third bat away from him, which I did and then I proceded to be the tar out of him. I wasn't really worried that he would be permanently injured because of the ambulance.
Anyway that's it.

Hello to everyone in Blogland! Well, after a lot of almost unbearable peer pressure, here it is...my first ever blog entry! Just a little bit about myself...I'm 5'10", blonde, blue eyes, and I enjoy candle lit dinners and long walks along the beach. I'm looking for someone tall, athletic, and sensitive with a good sense of humor. I need a man who can sing me love songs, cook romantic dinners and sweep me off my feet with his charm. Hmmm...I wonder if Gary will read this. Well, maybe I'll just settle with someone tall.

I've finally attended all 5 of my classes and I've come to the conclusion that 5 classes is too many classes to have at one time. Unfortunately I want to finish school asap. This morning I went to my Mgis 333 class, and a professor walks in and says, "Is this 'Growing Marijuana for Fun and Profit?", we all sort of smiled and said yeah. Anyway the guy fooled around with the lights for a while making a few jokes about how the dim lights made the classroom romantic, when another professor walks into the class. She asks, "Am I in the right place? Is this Mgis333?" We all said yes, and the first guy looks at his notes and asks is this room 159, as it turns out it was room 157 and he was in the wrong classroom. I went to the wrong class once, but at least no one in the class knew because I just left when I realized what day it was.

I think that we might start posting more now that we are back in school, because now we will have more opportunity to have funny, interesting or just plain annoying things happen to us. Anyway, I'm back to work at the Guantlet. Today James said something really dumb. I'll just give a snippet. We were talking about the various merits of marrige, when he said, "Why can't you just have a 'wedding' without actually legally being married." Think about that one for a while. I said that, that was one of the dumbest things I had ever heard. In the top 10 dumbest anyway.

If you are wondering how to put an image into a post, just enter the html code for putting up an image into your post. I guess if you have to you can just view the code as an example.

My Christmas vacation was a blast. I took a bus down to California - 46 and a half hours later I arrived at the Disneyland Hotel. Quite possibly the happiest place on earth. After spending 4 days with Anna-Maria and her family I hopped on another bus and drove down the State to meet up with my swim team. Lots of practicing, lots of time on the beach, and plenty of sun all around - it was actually a really fun time. I was glad to get home though and now that I am home I switched into the multimedia program and things are going just great. The posts on here have been getting fewer and fewer, maybe we need to recruit some more posters since Tracie has never posted and the three of us that do post are quite busy with school. Except for Gary who I recently heard choked while trying to beat his record of 1 full orange in his mouth with 2 full oranges in his mouth meanwhile trying to straighting his crooked head.

Did you ever meet someone who could fit a whole orange in his mouth before?
I've just noticed that either my head is crooked, or my glasses are bent.

Here are some pictures from my trip. More details to follow (later).
My Christmas vacation was excellent. I'll post the pictures when I have them zipped.

Anna, maybe you should sue them. At least you got to see a half decent movie after all the commercials, what if the frutopia ad had been the best part of the entire show? That would have sucked.

Well, I guess I do have some good things to say about my life so far.

Today I had an appointment to switch my academic concentration away from finance and into Management of Information Systems. This is where the really good news comes in. As it turns out, with the new concentrations, I get to use a computer class that I took way back in 95 (that's 1995 not 2095 for all you non-y2k compliant people) so that put me one class closer to graduation. Another stroke of good luck is that the advisor noticed that I had taken geog 333 twice and got b+ both times and asked why I repeated. To make a long story short, it's because it transferred as being the same class. The advisor insisted that I go speak to someone in the geography dept about at least getting credit for a sr. level science class. She even printed out 2 pages of the MHC class descriptions website for me. I went up to see the prof. in charge of that sort of stuff, and he said, "Ok I'll call the registrars office and have them change it in the computer for you." So that's the story about the easiest $500 that I ever saved. That means that after this semester, I'll only have 3 classes to go until graduation instead of 5. This has been the best day of the whole Christmas vacation.

That's when my day took a terrible turn for the worse. I decided that since I wasn't doing anything else, I would go to the bank and update my address. I rode the bus an hour to get there only to find out that I am at least mildly mental because my address had already been changed. After thinking about it for another hour on the bus ride home, I still don't remember updating the address. Tracie must have done it over the phone or Internet or something. Maybe I did it, but I sure don't remember.

Christmas vacation update.

I spent most of the 26th shopping with my mom, I got an mp3 discman for Tracie, and a few other things. Mom bought a new digital camera and docking station. Dad has learned how to download the pictures, by using the Irvine school camera and mom bought an identical one.

On the 27th, Dad and I hauled some old boards to the dump for Gail and Ralph. They really have changed the dump since I went there the last time. We unloaded the garbage, and on the way home, we took a little tour of the flats. I went and played squash with Ralph, he beat me every game. I only scored between 3 and 6 points in every game. That night I went to the Jacobson's house for their shin-dig. It was quite fun, I enjoyed the little visit that I had with all of them. I excused myself so that I could go to see if Tracie had gotten to Medicine Hat yet, I walked right past my own car and still wasn't sure if Tracie had gotten there yet. She was downstairs, and so we got ready and went to her parents house to open the rest of our presents. Becky was really happy to see us.

On the 28th I went to play squash with, Ralph again. I did about the same, but I did win one game about 9 to 4 or so but he won all the rest. I'm not sure if he was just fooling around, or if I really did beat him. He claims that I really did. I showered at the Y and then came back to the Daniels' to have supper. It was quite good, and Tracie finally learned how to make gravy. Tracie learning how to make gravy may quite possibly be the best thing about this whole trip so far.

Well I guess the final total as far as gifts are concerned is this: 1 shirt from Mom and Jackie, electric toothbrush from Mom, 2 helicopters from Tracie, $50 from Dad, 2 pairs of pajama pants from Tracie and Becky, bag of candy from Grandma Daniels, piggy bank and socks from Grandma Follis, clothes basket and materials to make bread from Ralph and Gail, bread maker from Ralph and Gail, blank CDs from Ralph, head massager from Jackie, tic tack toe game from Becky (hand made in grade 7 woodworking) Sequence game from Gail, and I'm not sure what else, but if I remember something I will update the list.

Merry Christmas! I went shopping all day with my mom on the 23, we went out to eat together at the Pita Pit. It was quite fun and I am having a good time here in Medicine Hat, but I miss Tracie. She had to work a bunch of night shifts in Calgary at the hospital. I got a lot of presents, I went to Tracie's parents in the morning to open presents with them. It was pretty fun, Becky got a ton of presents! Amy got dance dance revolution and it was pretty funny to watch her play it.

Somehow the dog story wasn't nearly as funny as I expected. I guess it was all the hype.

I am trying to get down to California so I can spend a week with Anna and her family before my swim camp (which is also in Southern California). Anyway if I take the bus down and don't take the flight down with the team the airline will cancel the ticket for the return flight. So my coach sent out an email to see if anyone on the team who is not going would like to take this last chance and if someone replies then I guess I'll be going, otherwise it doesn't look good. For sure I won't be leaving until Saturday at the earliest.

In other news, I haven't been accepted to the Faculty of Fine Arts in Multimedia, but apparently they are accepting me as some multi-classified student or something weird like that. Whatever it is, it means that I will be eligible to compete on the swim team.

The build up to this dream story is going to ruin it, but here goes...

I was at the race track watching the horses racing, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a puff of dust. It intrigued me, I had to know what that puff of dust was. My dream rewound. I zoomed in, and saw a dog running beside the track then a puff of dust. It rewound and zoomed in so that all I could see was the dog running then suddenly the dog fell into a hole and a puff of dust flew out of the hole. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. The dog fell in a hole and dust shot out of the hole. In the hole!!! Dust shot out!!! The dream replayed 3 or 4 times, I was laughing so hard that I woke myself up because my belly was shaking so hard. It woke Tracie up too. Now, all I have to do is think about the dog falling in the hole, and I start smiling. I can make myself laugh by thinking of the dream.

I have to admit that the story is a lot funnier when I tell it in person.

ps. The guy I was hoping for won survivor. That's 2 out of five survivors that I picked to win.

I am back in Lethbridge. I've been travelling a lot lately. First it was Calgary on Saturday, then back to Lethbridge on Monday. I drove to Medicine Hat on Tuesday, back here again tonight (Thursday) and most likely I will either be leaving tomorrow or Saturday for California depending on how long it takes me to get everything ready to leave. I have two new roommates who would like to move in on the 23rd of December and another roommate who would like to move in on the 4th of January. The problem is, I'm going to be soaking up the sun all the way until the 5th of January so I'm going to have to figure out how to get the house ready for them, find someone to give them a key, and basically just hope everything works out while I'm gone.

Important note: Gary you still never posted about your funny dream. Did you think I would forget?

Hi everybody! I finished my final exam on Tuesday. It's so nice to be done. The stress is gone. I even read a book yesterday. 160 pages in one day.

I can't remember if I posted my complaints and idea for a new book organizing system for the U of C library (I know, I know, it's spelled libary) but since I withdrew 2 books yesterday, it bears repeating. (I can always take it out later) It all started about a year ago. I had some free time, so I went to the library to read a few magazines. I couldn't find a nice magazine section with soft chairs like they have a MHC so I decided to ask the Librarian. Being a new-Canadian, she had a hard time speaking either of the 2 official languages. Not speaking French wasn't as big a problem as not speaking English, let me tell you. Anyway through a series of grunts, clicks and hand motions, I made it clear that I wanted to find a copy of Wired Magazine. This was to be my first run in with the completely crappy Library of Congress organizational system, and the U of C's interpretation of it. The lady gave me a paper with the call number on it and directions of how to find it.

First I had to go up a really large escalator. Then I had to go through the public computer lab. Then I had to go down 2 flights of stairs. Then I had to make my way to the far end of the room to find my magazines. Here is a side complaint. The walkways are too narrow; it's like the first ghost scene in Ghostbusters 1. The shelves are so high a close together it is very hard to find what you are looking for. Anyway suffice it to say that it was a wild goose chase. All I could find were tons and tons of engineering books about making mine shafts safe that were 100 years out of date before I was even born. By the time I realized that there would be no copy of wired magazine for me, I just had to go to class anyway.

Fast forward a year. I decide that I will get a book about Adobe Photoshop. I type it into the computer and write down the call numbers for each of the 2 books they have in the entire 13 floors of outdated books. I made my way back up the escalator, through the computer lab and down the 2 flights of stairs. By sheer serendipity, I find the computer graphics section. How ever there were no books for me. The newest book in the entire shelf hadn't been signed out since 1981. This seemed like the perfect time to ask a librarian for help to find the books. This was the reply, "Sorry those books are on the shelf." Obviously, because if they were they would have been in my hand. She continued, "I just put those books into the computer yesterday. They were donated by a man who....Blah Blah Blah... So they're probably still on the sorting cart. Come back in a week or so." A week or so! How long does it take you to push that stupid cart around the library anyway.

So a week passes. I look for the books again. Obviously to the reader at this point, is the fact that they were still not on the shelf, although the damn computer said that they were. Once again I ask the librarian where these books are. She says, "Oh we just barely got those books. They are probably on the shelves for new books." Well why the hell isn't there a way on the computer search function to tell users that there exists a shelf for all the new books and the book you are looking for is on it.

I go back down the escalators and over to the new book section of the library. I search through both giant racks. There are no Photoshop books on the shelves. I'm beging to doubt the existence of Photoshop based directly on the fact that there seems to be no books written about it.

Anyway to end this rant, I have two points to make about the shelving system.

First, Why does a library need a shelf to brag about the fact that they have new books? In case people miss the news conference or miss the daily newspapers headline "Library gets new books". Libraries get new books all the time. It seems like after the millionth new book that it somehow wouldn't be as special to get a new book.

Second, although it's nice to be able to find all the books of a specific topic in one spot, if no body knows how to find that spot with out consulting the card catalogue anyway wouldn't it make sense to devise a system based on number order or alphabetical order, and then use the computer to find out the position of the book in question. It sure would make reshelfing faster. Book 2125412, that goes right between book 2125411 and book 2125413. You could fire all the librarians, except one boss librarian and then hire flunkies to reshelf the books.

So anyway yesterday I was going to find some reading material for the holidays (Christmas not any other holiday) and I ask some guy where the non-fiction was, or if it even existed. He asked, "What are you looking for?" I said I just wanted to browse the fiction. He said "10th floor, but you better ask a librarian because it's a pretty big place up there." I said I would take my chances.

I went up and picked out two books and contrary to popular belief, you can judge books by their cover. That's how I picked out my two books and the first one was very entertaining.

ps. Here is a link about LOTR for Jeff and a Link for Anna

Anna and I were just browsing Gary Milner's Super Duper Web Page and discovered that he mentioned how he is in the process of making a new flash movie based on his dream. However, he never told me about the dream - because it was some big secret that would only be revealed when he finished the flash movie. Since I now know that he will never finish the movie, I'm now going to ask: Gary will you please post an explanation of your funny dream for the world to see? That is all.

-begin Homer voice. "Segway. It's spelled Segway." -end Homer voice

Today, I rode the only Calgary bus driven in the Argentine style. Fast acceleration, not slowing down for corners or speed bumps. It was kind of like that movie Speed 2 only with a bus instead of a boat. Seriously, I was having flash backs to my mission. It was scary until I realized that there would be less walking, more music, more tv and more sex. A lot more.

I finished my last final exam. My seat was C 22. I was 5 or 6 seats from the very back, and there was only one row separating me from an engineering class. It's kind of depressing to overhear the engineers say, "If the class average is 50%, that makes 32% an A". One engineer friend of mine said that in some classes 20% is a passing grade. I guess that's why 80% of bridges and dams fail. In my faculty we actually have to perform. Stupid engineers, stupid bell curve.

ps. Don't worry Anna-Maria Onomatopoeia, my expectations are pretty low.

I hate Hotmail. I hate it with a passion. I wish I had never signed up for their crappy, albeit free, service. I just tried to click on a link from a hotmail message to join a blog, but hotmail keeps it's little frame on and that messed up the scripts on the page I was trying to load and in the end I am just very frustrated with hotmail. I'm pretty happy that I now have my own domain and my own new email address, jeff@milnerdesign.com so I can finally say goodbye to hotmail once and for all.

Mom and Dad came and visited me today. We went for lunch at Pizza Hut. They just left a few minutes ago and are heading back to Medicine Hat. Tonight I am going to Calgary but I haven't told Gary and Tracie I am coming to visit yet. Mom thinks I should pack before I call them. I think maybe I should just show up - as a kind of happy surprise. Anyway I am swimming tomorrow so I should get packed and get going. Instead I will procrastinate and end up driving in the dark.

This is one thing I can do to procrastinate doing my Take Home Final Quiz. It's 11:43 right now. The paper is due at 4:00. I'm helping some friends move at 2:30. I really don't have enough time to fool around. I really don't want to write this stupid paper worth 10% of my grade. I wish it were a regular final exam. I wish I could just concentrate on writing it. But I just don't care. Tracie will kill me when she reads this. She thinks I'm working right now, but I'm not. At least she won't read this untill it's too late. Hopefully she doesn't come in here and catch me fooling around when I should be working. I guess thats it, back to work. Wait for it.... NOW!

Saturday I went to the FRES Christmas party. In case you read the whole post before clicking the link, FRES is the Ferret Rescue and Education Society I have nevery seen so many fricken Ferrets in my entire life. There must have been close to 20 in the basement of the chruch where they held the party. Now you may be wondering, "How did Gary get involved with the Ferret Rescue and Education Society?" Well it all started because of an attempted coup d'etat within the society itself. Obviously the two letters they sent were too good not to print, but unfortunately they could only be printed in the AP section of the paper. Well apparently someone took offense at being called "evil" and so that prompted them to send the article to their lawyer (apparently). But they were not mad enough to ignore the media power that is the Gauntlet so we were invited to do a story about their Christmas party. Unfortunately, the only one that pays attention to them is the AP editor who, although he does have a ferret, is only maintaining contact with them in order to find funny content for his section that is Academic Probation.

Yesterday was the Swim Team Christmas Party. We had a pot luck which was pretty tasty... well actually there were a few pasta dishes that weren't all that tasty, but there was enough really good food that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Afterwards we had a "chinese" gift exchange. I thought I was going to get a really good present because I drew a high number and would have the choice of a lot of the different presents if I wanted to steal one from someone else, but instead I decided to unwrap a present from the middle. A tradition has developed over the years at these Swim Team Christmas parties. It involves regiving the same crappy / scary doll each year. I was lucky enough to pick the doll present and now I'm expected to save it at my house for a whole year so that I can screw someone else over next year so they can be in charge of it for a whole year... lucky them. Merry Christmas.