Sorry for the absence. On Wednesday night my ancient computer running Windows 98 had a melt-down. Frankly I'm a little peeved because I had a lot of music on that thing as well as my personal files. Oh well c'est la vie. I'm currently waiting for delivery of my brand spanking' new Acer Laptop! Yep, I decided to go portable because of all the traveling that I'm going to be doing in the next couple of months. That'll mean that I can post updates from just about anywhere... And I'm sure that I will.

I picked The Baron up at the airport last night. He's looking fantastic, which is reasonable after biking half-way across the country. Very trim and tanned. We celebrated his return and the fact that the house was still standing with a bottle of Lake Breeze 'Delice' dessert wine & fudge.

I'm mentally gearing up for my trip to Vancouver tomorrow. I'll be there for four fun filled (I wish) days of Audiometrics training. The only thing I've been told by the boss is that I had better not fall asleep in class as the instructor seems to have it out for people from our company again.

The mental preparedness that I have to do has more to do with my emotional outlook on being in the city again. It was reasonably tough on me to have to leave the city and all my friends there in the first place so going back will have it's challenges. I've changed SO much since I left there it's not even funny. My outlook on life is much better & I'm having far fewer emotional struggles. I am looking forward to the day when I'm emotionally whole and won't be facing the homosexual issues that I have been as much. To anyone out there reading this that deals with the same things I have been, there is hope. Never give up hope.

It's funny how psychology works. At one point your floating along feeling as though life is grand and the next your so beaten down and weak it's almost unbearable. Well that happened to me last night. I have been delving into my past lately and some of the things that I have found have been apalling. Now I'm feeling a mixture of different feelings. Mainly hurt, anger & humiliation. The hurt and anger are mostly directed at my parents because of their inability to have seen how things were affecting me and my young life. The humiliation is mostly felt because of the way that my Uncles treated me growing up. Sadly when I talk to my parents about this they, while of course upset, tell me that it was their intention, by having me spend time with my Uncles, to get the male influence in my life from them that my Father was unable to give because of his constant travelling. It's really a travesty that all of this backfired and the best of intentions ended up causing me a lifetime of hell. Now I'm just trying to hold it all together. Tonight I hate my family. Tomorrow I think will be different.

Well I'm back. I got to spend two days and three nights in wonderful Revelstoke B.C.. Actually the only complaint I have about those two days is that they were really boring. One of the days I walked to town from my hotel three times, just cause I was so sick of sitting in my room. Problem with that was once you've walked to town once and seen everything there really isn't all that much more to do. I actually found myself in the real-estate office where I was completely stunned, no I would say that I was agahst at the price of re-estate there. Since so many of my friends seem to be buying homes right now I've been finding myself watching the price of real-estate. I've completely given up hope that I'll ever be able to buy a home in the Okanagan but thought... well maybe a nice little town like Revelstoke would be a good place to live. Much to my eternal disappointment I can't afford a house in Revelstoke! I could possibly afford a trailer... but seriously.

Yesterday I lived the Okanagan dream, laying around sunbathing on a private dock on Okanagan lake with three beautiful women. Sometimes life is just good.

My Mother's Birthday was this week but because of various schedule conflicts within the family we're celebrating it tonight. I for one am looking forward to an awesome meal tonight.

Well I stayed up WAY to late last night so I'm slightly tired now and feeling like I could be quite irritable later if I don't watch it. I think I'll go get ready for the day then go lay down again for a while.

YAY! I solved the MSN Messanger Problem all by my little old self... well actually I googled it and a Geek Forum gave me the answer. Thank God for some Geek named Japstar! I think I love him... er, her... whatever.

Oops, I'm back. Totally forgot that I would be home again tonight and then leave for two more nights tomorrow morning. Worked 9.5 hours today, fortunately it was a good day and all of the construction guys that I was testing were plesant and organized. A real rarity for construction sites. Most of the time when I pull up with the truck to a construction site the guys are absolute jerks cause "I don wanna get my hearing tested" (said in a really whiney tone of voice that is not at all becoming of a construction worker. Come to think of it I come across very few people who actually want to get their hearing tested. Personally I don't see what the big deal is. Your getting 15 minutes off of your crummy labour job to go sit in an air conditioned box with some head phones on to listen for a tone and press a button. It only happens once a year! So anyway as I'm sure you can see when it does happen that people are civil about the whole process it makes my day that much better.

Today for truck reading I worked my way through half of Augustines Confessions I happened to come across it on The Barons bookshelf and decided that it was high time I read it. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how much I can relate with this African Catholic Bishop from 39? A.C.E. Seems that many of the struggles he went through in his early life are somewhat parallel to some of the struggles that I'm dealing with.

When I returned from Kamloops tonight I was just crazed with a feeling of loneliness. I knew that going home to a hot empty house wasn't a good idea so I called my Grandma and went for dry ribs at Sir Winston's a local pub. It definetely helped.

My God Damned MSN Messanger has been refusing to work for the past few days here at home. It keeps popping up with 'Sorry, we were unable to sign you into MSN Messanger at this time. Please try again later. 80072efd'! What the fuck! If anyone reading this knows what 80072efd is PLEASE TELL ME IT'S MAKING ME CRAZY!

Going out of town for work. Not sure what the internet situation will be but I'm going to look into mobile blogging!

Will write Saturday.

I don't think The Barons house has ever seen a party like it did last night!

Overall the wine festival weekend was a roaring success (although there were a number of Diva moments that were really quite tiresome)! Friday was a wonderful day of touring a few wineries, then returning to the house to have dinner. After indulging in a little to much wine, and forcing Raph's younger brother to put on a fashion show of his new clothes (to Rupaul's Supermodel) we went dancing at the club. By the time we fell into bed somewhere around 3 that morning it was almost guaranteed that the 800 departure time we had planned for wasn't going to happen.

Surprisingly, even though Sister did her damnedest to stall us, we were only an hour behind schedule for the day. Tim and Suzy were collected in Kelowna and we set off with two cars. I decided to ride with Tim and Suzy because all the Diva tension in the other car was just way more than I could bear (that and their A/C actually worked). By 300 everyone had, had enough of wine tasting so we headed back in the direction of home. Tim, Suzy and I decided that we were going to go to the beach, while the rest of the tour went to sleep off hangovers from the night before, for a while and they took me to this fantastic beach I'd never been to before. The water was absolutely amazing.

Returning to the house Suzy and I immediately set about preparing the rest of the food. Blessed girl that she is she already had all of the meat prepared. Everyone was stunned at how amazing this meal was. We had beef skewers, chicken skewers, prawn skewers, veggie skewers, greek salad & a tossed green salad with Marcies famed house dressing. To finish off we had two types of tiramisu. I completely lost count of the number of wine bottles that were littering the house. I do know that every wine bought that day was consumed. After cleaning up and visiting for a while a few of us went to the bar. Not surprisingly Sister, Sister's best friend, Suzy and I were the only ones who actually stayed at the bar as Marcie and Jade decided that two nights in a row was a little bit much.

Suzy and I had the most fun I've had in a bar in a VERY long time. The events are as follows:

• Three times we were approached by random strangers who told us we were "the cutest couple".
  
• We ran into a classmate from school who was trying to figure out what the hell the two of us were doing at the bar together without Tim.
  
• I bitched a random girl out for being a bitch when I asked her if we could sit at her table because our feet were tired. After I told her off she apologized and we ended up chatting for a while.
• Random girl dances up to us and yells 'You two aren't from around here are you!?" At this we couldn't help but lie, we told her we were from Montreal, as we were sure the truth that I'm from Vernon and Suzy's from Winfield would have been very disappointing.
• We flattered a female bar tender so well that all of our drinks for the rest of the night cost $6 (not each) each time we went up.
• Our dancing attracted a lot of attention, could have been the low dips :P
  

The whole time at the bar was a smashing success... it probably doesn't hurt that Suzy's a stunning 6' natural blond who was wearing 6" heels.

This morning the Vancouver people left rather early and Tim, Suzy and I lounged around and ate various breakfast foods and left overs from last night.

When I get some copies of the pictures from the day I'll consider posting them here.

To Tim and Suzy,

Thank you SO much for ensuring this weekend was a success!

Love,

KS

IT'S WINE TOUR DAY! Full update in a few days.

Lord has today been boring. I'm glad that Jade is on her way here to help liven it up! It's gonna be a good weekend.

Today Dad and I went out and bought me a raquet ball raquet and a set of three balls. Well after practicing for a while we tried to play for a bit. Immediately I was completely dis-heartened as my athletic ability really shone through. I sucked. Now of course I was expecting to not be amazing but it was really frusterating and disheartening to do so poorly. It was really a major blow to my esteem. I'm sure that I'll get over it eventually but it still hurt.

Having realized that my bathing suit is nowhere to be found I decided that it was time to go and buy myself a new swim suit. Well I'll tell you that finding a swim suit at what I thought was a reasonable price was comepletely impossible in Vernon during the middle of swim suit season. So instead of doing the rational thing and buying a regular ugly suit I went and spent more money than I think I ever have on a single item of clothing on a brand spankin new pair of Billabong board shorts. Now the price was simply outrageous but I have to say they are very cool. They're brown with an orange and teal plaid pattern running through them with teal and white accents going up the legs and crossing the back. Now I'm just going to have to get over my better judgement that's telling me to take them back to the store.

Feeling really drained tonight. I really need to go to bed early as well so that I am ready for the Vancouver invation starting tomorrow.

Well the Okanagan is on fire again. I wonder if this will affect the price of wine next year from Osooyoos wineries?

Been a slow couple of days over here. Just working and doing nothing important. Just got home from watching Bewitched the movie. Consider this a warning - it's terrible. Some movies should not be re-made and this movie was one of them!

Went for coffee tonight with one of my friends from my parents church. He was very concerned about my spiritual well being. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I was explaining to him how I'm taking some time off from religion right now because I have to find my own identity. He launched into a somewhat misguided attemept to explain to me that it's only once we have taken on the identity of Christ that we can truly know ourselves. Sure... Thanks. I think I've even preached that sermon at one point in the past myself. The conversation was enough to make me really look forward to getting smashed drunk this weekend. Can't wait.

Another excellent weekend. I had Tim and Lisa over for supper last night and I found a receipy for an incredible gourmet burger (wow I just figured out how to use that link feature properly!) and paired it with baked beans. Yes, it was about 38C out and I decided to bake beans, I may be an idiot. Either way we had a fantastic meal and a great visit. We made plans for our wine tour this coming weekend and judging from the planning it's going to be an AMAZING time.

Today I went to a car show with my Dad, which was fun.

Bit of an interesting

Risk (the game) is better drunk. I wish I knew that for sure though as I didn't even get buzzed tonight when Janet and her little brother came over to play. Sadly even though we got the little brother drunk and then cheated like crazy he still beat us. Tragic really. Now I'm sitting here in the hot basement listening to little Raph play the guitar and watching bugs bounce off my computer screen.

Testing the new look.

Wow am I tired. Yesterday's drive really kind of wiped me out more than I thought that it would. I think the extreme heat of the day yesterday caused the drive to be more exhausting, even though I have a/c in the car. This morning I woke rather early but stayed in bed for quite a while. It's really a good thing that I don't have an actual job. When I got into the car this morning it was almost hard to see through the wind sheild as it was caked with bug remains. I arrived at the office after stopping to wash the bugs off the car.

After doing a little bit of work I called my friend the Professor and asked if he would give me some pointers on my golf game. Of course he was happy to help so I went up to visit at 1. Arriving at his place I commented on the insanely large house that was built next door to his. Asking who in hell was going to be moving into the house he said no one. Apparently this 6 bedroom monstrosity is a German couple's 5th home. They will be using it as a ski chalet of sorts for their friends when they come to visit. The Professor figures it's worth approximately $800,000! I suppose if you MUST have a 5th home it may as well be decent...

After chatting about the house we went to the back yard and worked on my swing. I'm happy to say that I think I've got it down again. If I actually put the time and effort into it I think I could be a really decent golfer.

Even though the majority of the day today was good I was really feeling an emotional turmoil, the residual effects of yesterdays counseling session, that was quite uncomfortable. It really didn't help that my Mom called from her place of work and asked me to pick her up because my Uncles and Grandmother were being total ass holes to her. I'm really starting to despise some of the dynamics of my family. Thank God my parents have been looking into our family dynamics and our relationships with each other. I have to say they have been amazing lately in their evidence of personal change. I really applaud them for walking out into a very uncomfortable place and working on it. If only it were as easy with members of the extended family. It's sad when you have feelings of hate towards members of your extended family for the way they treat your Mother.

Personally I'm trying to learn how to be alone. After this weekend, which was super spectacular, when everyone left and KS was on his own again I freaked out. I didn't know what to do with myself. When everything else is gone and I'm on my own, who am I there with? What is my identity? I think I've asked this question before but here it is again... How does one find themselves?

I used to think that I had a really good idea of who I was but in the past year I've found that I was totally wrong about that. I liken my search for my identity again to opening Pandora's Box. Once I opened that damned box thinking that I would find a neatly woven tapestry that was to be my identity (gay) I had the nasty surprise of finding out that it was filled with hundreds of little winged pixies (leave the obvious joke alone please) each holding a thread of the tapestry that makes up me.

Each of those threads is of vital importance to who I am and the damned pixies won't stay still so I can grab them. So I feel as though I'm running around a room (yes, I had the sense to open the box in an enclosed room... Clever huh) vainly trying to grab threads of identity out of the air as the damned pixies dangle them in front of me. Some of the pixies are slower than others so I've managed to grab a number of threads and I've got them safely in a bag but the number is far to few to even start to think about starting to weave. I think the thing with pixies though is that eventually they get tired and they do have to rest. Once they're resting I'll be able to more easily pin the little bastards down and see what I've got to work with.

One final story for the night. I met a guy in a chat room who I've been getting to know (no it's nothing like that!) and we talked on the phone last night for the first time. Well in the course of the conversation he mentions that he works at Starbucks. Well because I'm a total Starbucks whore I knew immediately which store he worked at as I'd never seen him at the two that I frequent the most.

Of course if I was a total stalker freak I'd have rushed out at the very first chance to see who this person was. Well I'm not like that, intentionally anyway... After picking my mother up at work she said that she needed to go to the bank. As this was not unreasonable and I was hankering for a Frappuchino anyway I said sure. Immediately upon walking into Starbucks I realized my mistake! As luck would have it he happend to be working! We locked eyes and immediately knew who each other were. I just about turned to stone because I'm now thinking 'OMG he's going to think I'm stalking him! With my MOTHER!'. I didn't really know what to do so I just kept my sunglasses on to avoid eye contact and made my Mom go and order the drinks while I hung around at the back of the store. Those were the most stressful moments I've ever spent in a Starbucks. Later when he sent me a text message asking how my frappuchino was I just had to laugh. So thankfully he doesn't think I'm a total freak (I think). Ok, story's over.

If you got this far in this post congratulations I don't know if I would have. Have a Great Night / Day wherever you may be.

Mood: Slightly overwhelmed by emotions.
Music: Random MP3's

Back from a whirl wind day trip to Vancouver for a counselling appointment. Glad I went.

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target="_blank">Which Golden Girl Are You?

This just in : Blaze + Leather Seats = One Very Unsteady Little Dog!

Merciful God, thank you for the light cloud covering. I don't know if I could have handled another 30+ day.

Plans for today...? Not a clue. Most likely will involve Jade, other than that I dunno.