Messages

MrColossal, sorry about the spelling error.

Scummbuddy, thanks for volunteering your DVD player. 

I'd prefer not to use PayPal for any further money transfer due to transaction charges.  Please, just bring enough cash with you to settle up during the event.

[If someone can do this please post.]

Alright…one more update on attendees.  Removing Dave Gilbert and adding Kevbot, Scummbuddy and Pesty.  That gives 16 attendees and a total cost of $3100.   Split 16 ways the cost is $193.75.  Here is a summary of how much each attendee still owes in CND dollars.

1.   Quintaros :           $193.75
2.   Grundislav:          $135.25
3.   Mr. Colossal:         $132.91
4.   MattGoble:         $137.88
5.   Disco:            $135.03
6.   AGA:            $134.51
7.   Pumaman:         $134.51
8.   Radiant:         fully paid…in fact I owe him 84 cents
9.   BaRoN:         $134.75
10.   Ivy            $134.80
11.   Renegade Implementator   $133.75
12.   Jet            $89.25
13.   Jess            $193.75
14.   Kevbot            $193.75
15.   Scummbuddy         $193.75
16.   Pesty            $193.75

(Dave Gilbert I'll send you a PM regarding a refund for your deposit later this week.  And while I'm doing that I may have to purchase some games from you as well.)

@ QUINTAROS:  Will our ETA of midnight in Bayfield affect taking possession of the cottage?

No…there is a key box that we can access at any time.

Am I right in assuming that there will be some sort of internet access at this cabin?

And since we'll be hosted by our Canadian friends, shall I assume we'll be subjected to watching the wonderful cartoon "Clone High". If not I'll bring my DVDs to subject to all.

I would make the opposite assumption about internet access.  If you really need access, I suggest you do a websearch now to find an internet café somewhere in nearby Bayfield.

I hadn't planned on exposing everyone to Clone High as a representation of Canadian culture.  Definitely a funny show though.   

I should note that the cottage has a VCR not a DVD player.  Unless someone brings a player or can connect a laptop to the television there isn't much point in bringing DVDs.  If someone can do this please post.

For my part, I'd like to show "Terry" a movie about Canadian hero Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope. 

So, what's the bed situation like again? I know the place has sleeping room for 20 people but does that mean 10 double beds or just "there is enough floor space for people."

There are beds available for 20 adults…but that doesn't mean 20 single beds.  Some people are going to have to shack up.  We'll work it out as fairly as possible once we see the exact situation but no one will need to sleep on the floor. 

One other note…I've said a couple of times that towels are provided but re-reading some communications with the cottage owner, I should clarify that these are washroom towels for showering and that they would prefer we brought our own towels for swimming, hot-tubbing etc.

I'm not sure I really feel like the host anymore.  I mean I don't live in Ontario and so I did encourage other residents to make suggestions. 

If the consensus is that people really want to see Toronto, I can go with the flow but it definitely is not high on my list of to-dos.  We've rented a beautiful cabin in the woods and I think we should chill out and enjoy it. 

I guess my biggest issue is that my sense of fairplay is a little put off if everyone's plans have to be changed because 1 person made travel arrangements that didn't follow the planned schedule. 

Also I don't want a Toronto day trip on Thursday to end with the locals going home Thursday night and BaRoN dropping all the traveller's off at the airport to crash there for 16hours until the fly out the next day.  If someone living in Toronto can provide a place for everyone to crash, I'm a lot more open to the idea.

Anyway...let's hear some more opinions.

Do Canadians really say "ey?" at the end of every sentence?

No, we say "eh?".  But we only use it to determine if the listener understands or agrees with us.  That makes sense, eh?

Bedding and towels will be provided by the cottage owners.

You don't need to bring any bedding or towels.  There is a games room equipped with board games but more entertainment is welcome if you want to bring some of your own. Any treats from home you want to share would also be appreciated I'm sure. 

I hope someone is bringing a labtop, because I'd like to see some demos.

I think there's more potential to help the 11 year old because his need is greater but I think it will be more stressful and maybe a bit of a lost cause.  The other seems fun and simple but perhaps a little unrequired.  What do people think? 

i think that with an attitude like that this isn't really a decision you should be making, from that statement alone it seems like you want more to have fun and an easy time than to actually help the kid.

Therefore I should not be volunteering at all because my motives are all wrong?

The caseworker didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about my uncertainty.  If anything I felt she was trying to influence me toward the "easier" of the two cases and kept reminding me that although a BB could be a positive influence he wasn't going to save the world. 

Recently, I decided that I wanted volunteer as a Big Brother (not sure if Big Brothers/Big Sisters is an international organization but for anyone who doesn't know they pair an adult with a child of the same sex who is looking for an adult friend/role model).

The screening process is pretty rigorous to make sure the children are going into safe/responsible hands so it's been about 2 months since I started the process and I only received acceptance today.    Anyway, now that I've been accepted it's my turn to look at the case files for the potential Little Brother's to find one that I think I'd be best matched with.

There were four files to look at for kids ranging from 7 to 13.  Most of them had some male figure in their life in terms of a step dad or mother's boyfriend, but for whatever reason they were not close to these men. 

Anyway, I'm kind of drawn to the extremes.  The 7-year-old sounds like a pretty fun little guy with a sense of humour that reminds me of myself at that age.  He's on Zoloft because he's prone to depression and has also been in a few fights at school but he's outgoing and has friends and generally seems well adjusted.  One thing that comes up often in his file is that he wants a Big Brother who is cool.  I can relate to that thinking back upon my childhood relationship with my older brother. 

Then there's an 11-year old who sounds very troubled.  His mother has been living with his step-dad since he was 5 months old and yet there is no relationship there.  There is a half sister whom the step-dad shows clear favourtism towards because she's his biological child.  This is compounded by an incident that happened between the boy and sister several years ago involving some kind of sexual exploration that wasn't explicitly disclosed to me.   The boy was 8 while his sister was only 3 so clearly he was the instigator of the incident but it was the parents who left pornographic materials where they could be found to initiate his curiousity.   Three years later the parents are still afraid to leave the children alone together.  I'm not sure it should be that huge a thing as I can recall being sexually curious as a child.  I think it's the parents fault for being delignquent with addressing the topic earlier and leaving materials that would trigger his curiosity.  Anyway, this boy has virtually no relationship with anyone in his family other than his grandparents.  He can't confide in anyone and it sounds as though he doesn't have a very good go with other kids either.  Listening to his story I think that he is somebody who needs an understanding figure in his life.  I just don't know if I'm the guy.

I think there's more potential to help the 11 year old because his need is greater but I think it will be more stressful and maybe a bit of a lost cause.  The other seems fun and simple but perhaps a little unrequired.  What do people think? 

I'm a big Superman fan myself so I'm keen to see a game made.   

I haven't listened to your theme yet but one of the staples of a good Superman theme is that the word "Superman" is actually exclaimed by the music.

Anyway, good luck with your project.

BTW, with respect to copyright laws surrounding William's Theme, you are already breaking copyright laws just by using the Superman character.

Surely the victim is Madeleine?

The entire family are victims under circumstances like this. 

I don't think I'd leave my 3 year old daughter unattended in a hotel room whilst I went off to have dinner in a restaurant. If I did so, and she was abducted, I'd blame myself entirely.

I might hold the abductor a teensie bit responsible. 

I'm sure they will blame themselves or each other.  If they'd stayed in, the event wouldn't have occurred.  If they'd done any number of things differently perhaps it never would have occurred.  But that can be said about a lot of bad things that happen in life.

The half hour gap seems conspicuous here. Madeleine was taken at some point in the 30 minute interval between her parents checking on her. That's just too precise for my tastes. It would suggest that whoever took her had watched and planned it quite thoroughly.

I would not be at all surprised if the investigation revealed that the abductor had some sort of connection to the hotel that allowed him to watch for opportunities such as this.

Yeah but at 10 you're capable of running away, kicking and screaming, calling for help, all those things.

You're capable of doing all those things at 3 1/2 as well.  My guess would be that the child went under her own momentum though, tricked by the abductor into believing that the parents had sent him or some other such lie.  This happens to 10 year olds as well.

I'm 16 now. Would I be able to defend myself if someone broke into my house with the intent to do me harm?

Maybe...maybe not.  You probably wouldn't be tricked the way a younger child might be but there's still a good chance you wouldn't be able to defend yourself.

I think when a parent decides a child is old enough to be left alone it's not based on how well they expect the child to adapt to extreme cirumstances but how responsible a child will be under foreseeable circumstances.  These parents knew that under normal circumstances their children would sleep soundly through the night and it never occured to them that an outside force may invade their lives.  You can't blame the victims for being victimized.

I don't recall my parents leaving me on my own until I was... 10 maybe? Certainly until I was old enough to take care of myself if the need arose.

For most situations, yes, a 10 year should be able to take care of himself for a few hours.  But if somebody broke into your home with the intent to you harm, at 10 years old you're not capable of defending yourself. 

What angers me too, is that people feel justified in kidnapping and abusing children... and then murdering them. The very least they could do is let the child go. Why does it always end with murder?

I don' t know that child abducters feel any sense of entitlement to commit their crimes.  They have a compulsion.  The reason the children don't get released afterwards is because the abducters know that their chances of being apprehended are much greater with a living victim than a silent body buried out in the woods somewhere.  Murder is a neccessity once the initial abduction and molestation has been committed. 

At what age is it appropriate to leave children unattended?  There is always a risk that something bad can happen in your absence regardless of the child's age. 

So, anyway, on with the upbringing stories.

I don't know for certain but I think my parents were a bit divided on how much religion to instill upon my brothers and me.  My mother was raised in a Baptist household where church was a big part of their lives. My father never talked about religion much at all.  I think he merely complied with my mother's ways in order to keep the peace.  But his indifference towards organized religion set a precedent for us.  We stopped going to church not because we stopped believing but because we would rather stay home Sunday morning and watch the Adam West Batman show.   After years of coercing us to get ready for church my mother finally threw in the towel.  We continued to say grace with dinner but not much else.  Each of us continued to dabble in prayer and attending youth groups organized by our church but independently we were each moving towards athiesm.  We never flaunted our athiesm to our mother out of respect.  I'm not sure she knows even now that we're all athiests.

Although I've rejected the bible as being the word of God, I do believe it contains some wise proverbs and interesting parables.   Exodus is a great story regardless of whether you take it as fiction or non-fiction.  Jesus is quite a noble character and speaks pearls of wisdom. 

As an adult, I simply don't require religion to get through life.  I've sometimes asked myself "What if I'm wrong?".   I hate being wrong.  Even if God welcomed me into Heaven with open arms, I'd still be upset with myself for getting it wrong my whole life. 

One technique that is somewhat pleasing is to just put the phone down without hanging up.  Typically the caller talks so much that you can't get a word in edgewise so it can be several minutes before they realize that they have been talking to no one.   Come back in 15 minutes and chances are they have already hung up.

Reading Matt's initial comments included with the pictures of his g/f, I would speculate that it's his first relationship. 

Twenty-five is pretty late to be entering the dating game so he'd probably be ill-equipped to date a girl his own age as she'll likely be a lot more experienced than him. 

It can tough for late bloomers to find a partner their own age at the same level of development as them. 

Booked.  Arriving at Pearson @ 14:16.

For a while my computer was so buggy that I expected frequent crashes and backed up compulsively.  Some times I get caught though.

The fortunate part of re-doing work that you've lost is that, typically, you've already done the "mental work" in how it's set out so you know exactly what you're, forgive the term, 'reproducing'.

Often I'm so disheartened by the loss that it can be weeks or months before I resume work on that particular item.  When I do it's usually superior to the first effort.

I'm still trying to decide whether to take the coach to Pearson or Munroe. Does everyone know where they are flying yet? Do any of you who are taking vehicles from your private collection have plans to meet and greet at either of the airports?

It's 6 of one half a dozen of the other for me.   Flying into Hamilton is slightly less expensive but has more connections and makes for a longer day.   Pearson will still involve much waiting around but it will be with other mitteners which is preferable to waiting alone.  So I'm leaning that way, I guess.

I sent some money for the cabin, but I havn't heard from Quintaros if he got it or not. Biggest problem for me is I have to be home here in Sweden on the 23rd of July. Earlier or later would be fine.

Sorry Chrille, I did get the deposit and modified your status in the opening post of the thread but forgot to PM you that payment was received.Ã,  The bad news is that the dates aren't going to work out for you if you have to be in Sweden on the 23rd.Ã,  I'll PM you about refunding your deposit.

cabinreservationnewsbump

Please see the first post in thread.