For those of you who are accustomed to seeing my green background and retro technology pictures when you click on a link to one of my blog posts… no, you haven’t been transported to an alternate dimension, and no, I haven’t redesigned my blog. This is my personal blog, the one I neglect because I’ve been spending so much energy on my other blog, the one I call my “professional blog” for lack of a better term.

Sadly, now even that blog is starting to become neglected. My blogging life is in tatters, and I need to do something to fix that situation.

Okay, enough with the melodramatics. I wanted to talk about a personal project I embarked upon last week. I call it the “Timetable of Existence”, and while that sounds fairly impressive and all, it’s really a simple little text document that chronicles the major events of my life.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve paid attention to this poor little personal blog of mine. I’ve been spending a lot of time on my new blog, the one I’m referring to as my “professional” blog. And by “a lot of time”, I mean “a big heaping bucketful of time”.

I’ve been posting to faltarego.com every day since August 2nd, which was the pre-launch day. The actual “launch” day was the next day, my birthday, August 3rd. I know that sounds a bit over-the-top, having a pre-launch and a launch for a blog, but it was a fun thing to do, and it allowed me to start the blog on a Sunday while officially launching it on a Monday (and my birthday, no less).

Back here in personal-blog-land, things have been sorely neglected. There were some cobwebs up in the corner there and some water on the floor where I’d left a window open too long (or maybe it was a browser tab, I don’t know…). I haven’t forgotten about this place; I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but for some reason I just haven’t gotten back to posting here.

I would say that it’s been an eventful day. And I haven’t even left the den.

I upgraded the RAM on my computer, pushed forward on a few projects, and got invited to write a guest post on a friend’s blog. I also had some fun and interacted with some online friends.

Not a bad day at all. And it’s not even over yet.

Wow.

I just watched what is quite probably the worst film I have ever seen. Ever. In my entire life.

Seriously.

It’s called The Sands of Oblivion, and it may well be one of the most aptly titled films of all time, for oblivion is exactly where this stinker belongs. I found it in the five-dollar bin at Wal-Mart, and I now realize that I paid about four-dollars-and-ninety-seven-cents too much.

This is the third entry in a trilogy of posts. The first, Ted’s Legacy, talks about my father’s death and its lasting effects on my life, and the second, André’s Music, talks about the music of André Gagnon and its lasting effects on my life. Now we come to the third, wherein I shall touch more specifically upon a certain condition that’s been hanging around my brain for a lot of years. And its lasting effects on my life.

I’m not going to whine. I’m not going moan and complain and tell you what a hard life I’ve had and how difficult everything has been for me. That would be not only unproductive, but patently untrue. I’ve had some wonderful experiences in my life, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Let’s just say that my life experience has been tinged with a bit of grey here and there, that I’ve not always lived life to the fullest, that I’ve been dragged down more often that I would have liked by an internal gravity that likes to kick in when I least expect it.

As I mentioned in my last post, my father died in February of 1974. In 1975, André Gagnon released his album Neiges. I had heard “Wow”, the single from the album, on the radio and really liked it. It was an instrumental, it had a little Latin, salsa kind of feel, and it fit perfectly into the disco frenzy that was in full swing at the time; it was generally just a bright little spot on the musical landscape.

What really caught my attention, though, was the arrangement. I’ve always loved piano music, and I’ve always loved orchestral music, especially when combined with modern instruments like guitar, bass, and drums. This little piece, clocking in at only three-and-a-quarter minutes, managed to cover all my bases: Latin percussion, funky wah-wah guitar, wildly energetic bass line, and a piano crescendo with full strings. There was nothing else like it on the radio at the time.

I must have talked about the song quite a bit, because my mother gave me the album for Christmas that year. It was, looking back on it now, one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, because it opened my musical world up and let in this incredibly gifted composer and performer. I was an immediate fan, and I would continue purchasing his records for years to come.

My father, Seddon Vibert Rountree, known to family and friends as “Ted”, was born in Verdun, Québec on April 26th, 1922. He died in Halifax on February 12th, 1974, aged 52 years. He had suffered from lung cancer, and had been bedridden for the last few months of his life.

I was thirteen years old when Dad died. I remember experiencing a certain amount of denial prior to his death. I remember asking Mom, “Is Dad going to get better?” I’m not sure if she said “no” or just shook her head. My response to that was, “So he’s just going to stay the same?” I either couldn’t grasp or couldn’t accept the other possibility.

My dad died during the night, but my brother and I didn’t learn about it when we got up in the morning. Mom sent us off to school as usual, and didn’t tell us until we came home for lunch (school was a short walk away from the house). I guess she wanted to take care of everything without us having to see his body. I know the family doctor had been there when Dad died, but we didn’t see him in the morning either.

It’s rare that I’m moved to write a film review. It’s also rare that I’m moved to speak negatively of a film I’ve seen. I’m pretty easy to please, and I’m definitely easy to entertain. I usually go into a movie with low expectations, and because of that, I usually enjoy what I see.

There have been exceptions. Two come to mind: Mister Holland’s Opus, which manipulated me emotionally and made me feel used, and Bicentennial Man, which did pretty much the same thing, just with a plot that spanned two-hundred years instead of sixty. I still cringe when I think of them.

But most of the time, I tend to enjoy films I go to see. I go for the entertainment value, not to delve into the minutiae of filmmaking, plotting, or dialogue, though I can examine any of those in great detail if I’m so inclined. A bad script will pull me out of the movie’s world quicker than you can say “cliché.”

Well, pretty much situation normal for me (as in SNAFU). I started a blog, wrote a few entries, and then stopped.

Yep, I’ve done this before. A couple of times. I get all excited about the concept of blogging, and go for it with gusto for a while, and then run out of steam. That’s my pattern.

So, what’s my problem?

No, I’m just not going there. I’m writing a blog entry here, not a book. But, hey, did you notice? I’m writing another entry. Hmmmmm… what’s up with that? Why am I back on the blog all of a sudden?

A couple of posts back, I went off on a bit of rant. Between proclaiming that I didn’t care if anybody reads what I write and generally dissing state of the world, I threw out quite a bit of negativity. Yes, I bit off quite a large mouthful in that particular entry, and while it certainly felt good to let off some steam and get a few things off my chest, I really don’t know how essentially helpful or useful that post was. I’m not going to delete it or anything… I just wonder what my point really was.

I go through cycles. At times I’m optimistic and can see hope for a brighter day. Other times I find it difficult to see the upside of a puppy dog with a box a chocolates around its neck. Today I have a cold. So the tiredness comes more quickly. And the optimism is harder to hang onto. If I eat right and get enough sleep, I’m usually good to go. Unfortunately, eating right and getting enough sleep pose peculiar challenges for me. But that’s a topic for another day.

I watched Michael Moore’s film Sicko last evening. I’d heard about it, and have wanted to see it for some time, but just never got around to it. Well, I’m glad I finally watched it. It didn’t send me off to the bathroom with a razor blade poised over my wrist, but it sure as hell made me glad I live in Canada.