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musings of mark since 2001

   A blast from the past on the way home today, while in line I heard a familiar voice behind me talking to Jeannie, (right spelling?), and I glanced around to see who it was. Didn’t recognize her as soon as she recognized me, (instantly), but Brenda looked as I remembered her. Kinda hippie-ish with a big smile and chatting away. We talked about the old Ron E. Dog days in Vancouver ten years ago and ended up gabbing all the way up to Doc Morgan’s. Real nice seeing her, she urged me to stick it out till I found some work on the island, and it was convincing enough!
   There’s got to be something out there, it’s hard to meet more locals though when all you’re doing is commuting 5 days a week. The brakes will be fixed on the GLC soon, that should help when it visiting time, and I think using it to go off island once in a while will help too, especially in the grocery department. I’ll have to ask about the parking down by the marina, better to drive the short distance home after getting off the ferry when it’s dark, cold and rainy this winter.

   I’ve had an offer for rent at half price for a month, but the commute is just thrashing me, and I’ve already told Scott that I would share a place with him in November. With his vacation lasting into a week of Oct. though, it’s got me kind of wondering if he will actually be ready to move then. At any rate, the check is already in the mail to the bank for October on Bowen for me, so I’ll get some money back at the end of next month or get November for cheap.
   There’s still hope for something coming up for work on the island too. The Healthy Brain just keeps sending more and more stuff for their web site, and Grey Cross should be ready to take off soon also. They are working on a logo, and I’ll be submitting my version too! Might be a bit more work actually landing that site build, not sure how much influence I can have on the board, but they have a good example of a successful web site.

   The yard work I’m doing is coming along quite nicely. I’ve got the largest blackberry bushes pulled up and dragged down to where the spring comes out. The aspens that I cut down are there also, when all is dried out will make a nice fire. There is actually two woodpiles out of that set of bushes, they ran across for 30 meters and I cleared to the ground in a rectangle about 15 meters down the hill also. There’s a third brush pile being built right near the bottom of the stairs too. They are clear almost all the way to the bottom, a blackberry bush growing across the steps added to the brush pile for burning too.
   Lots of scratches and blisters between last week and this week, but it sure looks a lot better with the steps swept off now and a lot more inviting to see what is at the bottom. I went down to the water’s edge last week, the steps only go down about half way and then it’s through some brush and a scramble down some rocks to the sea. Didn’t smell that bad considering it was a low tide, lots of purple starfish and a bright orange one here and there for colour.

   Taking it on the chin with the commute here to the island five or six days a week. Today was one of those real downers where I spent 5½ hours commuting for just 5 hours worth of work. That’s well under five bucks an hour for my time, and it’s just not cutting it. So… Bowen has to go if something doesn’t come up really quick for work on the island. Every day is a minimum of 4¼ hours of dead time. I thought that there would be some way to fill up that time, but haven’t found anything yet besides reading and doing the crossword puzzles. Problem is, not doing any reading except the newspaper so not really learning much, there just is no time on the day except for the commute and my part time job on the continent. People with full time jobs must not have much of any life at all around here…
   Haven’t found any time for networking any computer work either, I’ve got a card tacked up to the bulletin board on the ferry, but haven’t got to print out some flyers to add to it yet. Would like to go to every store in Artisan square and drop some business cards there too, etc. I don’t see ads in the newspapers anywhere for computer/web work except for the fly-by-night stuff and fishy hosting companies for cheap so that seems a waste of money. Bibi had run an ad for me for two weeks in the Undercurrent and not a single nibble on that so it seems to me that print ads don’t help much.

Now to get the category thingee working, hmmm…