Just another quiet Saturday here at Camp Pameacha. Delilah and I are heading over to Michelle's for dinner later with the rest of the gang. We're celebrating our own Thanksgiving today.....

I recently purchased the movie "High Fidelity" with John Cusack. It prompted me to do a "Top 5" list... so, here goes:

Top 5 12 Inch Dance Singles
(from my collection, in no real particular order)
5. Yello- Tied Up (In Africa)
4. Kraftwerk- Tour De France
3. Don Pablo's Animals- Venus (Piano Mix)
2. New Order- Fine Time/Don't Do It (for the "B" side)
1. Impedance- Tainted Love

Honorable Mention
Soft Cell- Tainted Love (for the "Tainted Dub" version)
Newcleus- Jam on It (cone on, ya gotta love it!)
Chic- Good Times (hey, you can actually do part of "Rapper's Delight" over it!)

Since today was a day off from work, Delilah stayed with me (from Wednesday till Sunday). My friend Brenda and I got the kids (she has a 5 year old daughter as well) together and we went to Kidcity in Middletown. Kidcity is this really cool hands-on museum when the kids just get to play with everything. The place has been pretty much the same since I started taking Delilah there, but they're expanding (the new addition will be done in February). The new expansion should be pretty cool. I can't wait till I can take Delilah there!

Turkey Day

Everyone always asks me what there is to be thankful for at Thanksgiving. Well, I have my daughter (who seems to be my reason for being these days), my health, and I'm not living on the street. And I have the strength to make it through another holiday with my family. Our holiday gatherings usually tend to be tough on me, with everyone always talking at the same time, and me never managing to get a word in edgewise.

This year, it didn't seem so bad though. I got by without having to take a ton of advil to kill the headache I usually get!. Oh well, there's always Christmas Dinner....

Allright, so I lied....I haven't really been in a posting mood lately!!!! But I'm sure I'll be back soon!!!

I know that I havn't been posting too much here lately. I've been keeping busy, and I find that often times I don't much feel like turning the damn computer on, much less thinking about what the world will see here. Yes, I THINK about what I put here. Hard to believe sometimes.

I went for two whole days this week without even looking at my email! But I should have some time this weekend to write about some things. So you might here from me then....

Wow! I found a link today to the Wayback Machine! It's a web pages that lets you search and find OLD webpages. I found one of mine from back in 1998, as well as one of Harry's and the WWUH webpage. Click on the link and see where, or rather when, it takes you!

Delilah read her first book aloud to me this morning on the way to work. It was "Draw me a Star" by Eric Carle. Not only was it really awesome that my daughter is actually reading to me for a change, but the book she read was one of my favorites to read to her when she was an infant. Today, I'm glowing with pride for my little angel!

Way to go Delialh!

I made my semi-annual "stock up the house" trip to Wal-Mart today. I used to hate Wal-Mart, but when you're on a limited budget, you can't beat the prices. Nothing unusual about what I picked up, though I do miss my Wal-Mart friend. Oh well, I haven't heard from her in a couple of months, I kinda think that our friendship went to the wayside.

Anyway, back to the topic. While shopping today, I heard the first holiday tune of the season on the speakers in the store. I also was subjected to the World's Slowest Cashier who was working on register 17. Yes, you know who you are! After waiting (third in line) for what seemed like an eternity to ring up the current customer, all the sudden turns on the light to make the head cashier come over. So, at that point, I just gave up and went to another register. The people in front of me also went to another line, and were still waiting as I left the store. Now that sucks!

Yikes! I guess the holiday season has begun! I saw one of those Christmas Greatest Hits commercials on TV today. You know the ads for those compilation CD's. I think it was "Now that's what I call Christmas" Or something like that. If I weren't for Delilah, I'd hate this time of year

Well, I guess our luck with the awesome weather has run out! Delilah had no school today because of Election Day, so we were home. She needed another day to get over the nasty cold that she caught over the weekend. It also have me a chance to update the links list on the left side of the page. I did some rearranging and added some new stuff. Check 'em out!!!

I was listening to the police scanner in the house today, and it appears that they found a body early this afternoon a couple of blocks from the house. I dunno if any of the media picked up on it yet, but that's just kinda creepy. Especially since it's walking distance from the house....

I'm seriously re-evaluating how much information I'm going to publish about my life on this thing. I mean, it's really wreaked havoc on some aspects of my life!! I did a Google search on "Paul Bourque" the other day, and this was up in the top fucking 10.

So tonight, I copied some of the stuff that I wrote to my "private journal" and then editited or deleted some of what you see here. Most of that was dealing with a certian someone who we won't name here. Therapeutic to hit the "delete" button on those posts? You betcha!!

What the hell is going on with the weather lately? A couple of weeks ago, we were gathered around a fire freezing our asses off, and today it felt like I could have gone swimming! That would have broken my record of swimming on Oct 1 last year at East Beach in Rhode Island. Tonight was just another perfect evening, I could have sworn it was late August!

Last night we held a ritual in Naugatuck, and it was just perfect to be outside around the fire. Roger built a fence facing the street, so we didnt have a repeat of the cops showing up like at the Rites rehersal. But the weather reminded me of some of those evening rehersals. Only in the weather though! I felt much more grounded and at ease than back then. And we had a nice ritual to boot.

SNET was here to install the phone line for Ben and Emily upstairs. While they were at it, they ran a new drop for my line as well. So now the annoying static that was in every phone call I made or received is now history. And I should be getting better connects via the modem now as well. The phone guy showed me the old drop wire and it was all corroded and frayed where it was rubbing against the tree. I just wonder why the guy who was here in August didn't replace it then.

Delilah and I went to a Halloween party at Craig and Virginia's Saturday night. The had invited a bunch of parents and kids over for the festivities. The "big kids" (read:adults) ended up taking over the living room, where we hung out and listened to a live Peter Gabriel that Craig's brother Paul brought. This ended up in an impromptu drum jam (of course, you get a bunch of percussion puppies together and that's bound to happen).

Later, we ended up in the "multimedia room" (read: basement) and Craig put on the DVD of Baraka. Virginia and Paul had never seen it before, and were totally amazed. It's an awesome piece of filmaking and if you havent seen it, I highly suggest that you get your hands on a copy.


The little kids (Delilah, Sarah, Emmy and Madison) all were up in the play room (in the 3rd floor) and were rarely heard from all night. The kids were in their costumes (and some of the adults) and since the weather was warm, Delilah got to wear her fairy costume without her street clothes underneath. She looked so adorable- as did all the kids.

Delilah decided to sleep over, but insisted that I stay till it was time to put her to bed. So I never got out of there till kind of late. I was thinking of possibly going to Brian's house for the Blessed Beat drum circle, but I would have arrived way too late. So I went home instead.

Frights, Fires, Flares!
I dunno why I've been so beat lately, but it seems that every night when I want to take a chance to log in and write here, I tend to be dozing off. So I have a few days worth of stuff to say....

Frights:
Last night, I took Delilah Trick-Or-Treating for the first time in a few years. We went out with Roger, Michelle and Cullen and the Curtiss clan. The kids had a great time, but it seemed that the adults got pretty worn out. I crashed right after I put Del to bed. Roger and Danine took a ton of pictures, and I will post a few from Roger when I get them. Danine dosent have a digital camera, so when they get developed, I'll try to get a scan done of them.

Fires:
In other news, Chuck Dube' sent me a link to a radio station transmitter site that was totally destroyed by the wildfires that are ravaging Southern California. It just amaszes me that the power of Mother Nature can be so firece and destructive. When will we learn that we cannot conquer her and we must learn to live in harmony with her.

Flares:
I went out Thursday night to try and see some of the Aurora (Northern Lights) that was supposed to be out. I went up to the baseball field in Portland that was by our old house, and I think I saw just a tinge of a red glow above the light pollution. Harry emailed me a report that he had seen the lightshow in Colebrook.

The last time that I saw the Northern Lights was with Harry back in 1999 at the Colebrook Dam. We had been hanging out there just shooting the breeze and I noticed what seemed like light pollution in the distance. No sooner than I had pointed it out to Harry, the sky was just dancing with colors. That lasted about 45 minutes and then it vanished just as soon as it had appeared.

I had experienced another sighting of the lights back in 1989 while driving on interstate 91 north of Northampton, MA. We got to the rest area in the Hadley area and it seemed the whole highway had stopped to look at the spectacle that Mother Nature unleashed that evening. I think that was the same solar flare that wreaker havoc on Canada's power grid that year.
The image of the northern lights is from Geofffox.com