Invincible

When we are young, we're fearless.  Not feat seems too daunting, no outcome too dangerous or frightening.  As kids, we may be afraid of what may be lurking in the shadows of our closets or creeping about under our beds, but in real life, outside, we're braver than the most courageous knight.

In high school, I recall having a healthy respect for the ski slope of our nearby Mount Blackstrap.  In comparison to the Rockies which tower over Western Canada, Blackstrap was a mere gopher hill, but gravity is gravity.  Crashing on a pair of skis is going to hurt, no matter what location you may be at the time.  However, there were small children visiting the ski hill that day, and while I, personally, was taking great caution in moving down the slopes, careful not to fall, yet again, my efforts were quite frivolous compared to the hoards of screaming and laughing children, streaking past me in a flash, sans ski poles.  Without trying, their very existence mocked me and my need for careful circumspection.

Fearless.

I used to be fearless in other ways.  One example would be my ability to overcome hot 'n' spicy foods.  Once upon a time, I attended a function where hot buffalo wings were served.  They were especially hot, but I was able to devour them with the greatest of ease.  While other people were panicking, searching out cold beverages to sooth their burning mouths and tissue to wipe the tears from their eyes, I sat back and mocked their inferiority with great disdain.

As time passed by, over the years, my tolerance for such spicy foods has fallen by the wayside.  No longer can I mock those affected by the extreme temperatures, but instead, have become the one who is mocked.  I ordered the "Pansy Wings" one night at a local watering hole, after work.  The people mocked me at the absurdity that I would purchase something so undaring and weak.  The ridiculing I got when I placed my order fell by the wayside compared to the teasing I received when they 'pansy wings' arrived and they affected me in a negative way, equal to that, if I would have received something much more spicy.  My eyes grew big, red and teary, while my lips got fat and swollen.  I shrugged off every poke and prod with every sniffle of my runny nose.  To this day, I'm fairly certain the cook read "pansy wings" on the order ticket, then thought it funny to give me the "Suicide Wings", they were THAT hot!

I have dabbled some, when it comes to spicy foods, but I don't go overboard.  When I do, I suffer such indigestion, that I swear death would be an improvement.  Of the foods I have been able to consume without much suffering, includes some chili con carne, which may have some heat to it, but nothing over the top.  Another snack I've been able to endure are jalapeno poppers.  The hollowed out pepper filled with cream cheese and lightly breaded.  Once in a blue moon, I'll bite into one that is unbelievably hot, but more times than not, they're pretty tame.  The same goes for the light rolls also known as 'antojitos'.  I've had them in the past, and while they do contain ingredients of a tempered nature, the cream cheese in them have always been able to stave off the heat.

Fast forward to this evening.  Following the Norm MacDonald comedy show, myself and a friend, decided to go for a beverage and a snack.  I'd not eaten since before noon, so I was famished.  I perused over the menu and decided on a pulled pork poutine and an order of antojitos.  The poutine was fine, despite the pulled pork having the consistency of meat that sat under a heat lamp since late morning.  The antojitos, on the other hand....  Jesus Christ.., let me tell you.  Hotter than a motherf**ker.  I ate only one piece out of the five that were presented on the plate and the scorching heat was nearly unbearable.  Every passing moment, for me, was more uncomfortable than the preceding one.  Every inch burned like a wildfire as it passed down my esophagus to my stomach.  It blazed the entire route like Marty McFly's DeLorean time machine.

That was it.  I'd had enough.  I asked the waitress to box it up, adding that it was much to hot for me to finish.  Kind as she was, the waitress spoke to her supervisor and had it deleted from my bill.  She still boxed it up for me, but I handed it off to my friend, whose constitution with spicy foods is much better than my own.

I remember when I was invincible, but sadly those days are long gone.  It's said with age, comes wisdom.  Funny thing is...  I don't feel any wiser.

Weight Loss Starts With 'P'

On a visit to the doctor about two months ago, I had a visit with a dietitian on the premises.  She was there to consult with me on how I might go about lowering my blood sugar levels.  Being diagnosed with Type II diabetes a few years ago, my daily dose of Metformin can only do so much.  I decided to try to eat healthier, introducing more vegetables to my diet.  For those who follow my Twitter account (@ToontownJuggalo), you may have seen some of my pictures of prepared meals.  I'm quite proud of my tasty concoctions and don't mind promoting my culinary genius when possible.  There was discussion at the time about placing me on a new drug, called "Forxiga" (For-zee-ga), that would work in conjunction with the medication I'm already taking.  The prescription for that, however, would have to wait until I had a different test performed on my downstairs region.

Eventually, I met back up with the dietitian to further discuss my diabetic situation.  In the months in between meets, I was to test my blood on a semi-regular basis.  Semi-regular because due to my limited income, I can't afford the test strips required to test my blood.  The drug companies who control the sale of test strips have diabetics at a great disadvantage, as strips cost a f*ck-load of money.  Thankfully, the dietitian lady had free samples and was able to provide me with the testing equipment and strips.  On this visit, it was decided that we go ahead with the introduction of this new drug, Forxiga.

Information was provided prior to my filling the prescription briefly details what is to be expected from taking the pills, in addition, a list of the most common side effects was also listed.  Generally, this list is my favourite part of any prospective drug.  The most prominent is headaches, back pain, pain in my arms, frequent urination, constipation and diarrhea.  Ironically, I already suffer from headaches and back pain, so nothing new there.  The pain in the arms is new and if I forget, I begin to suspect I'm having a heart attack, before I remember.  I have been peeing a lot more, both in frequency and duration, but that's a major part of the drug's purpose as excess sugar is disposed in this manner.  As for the last two symptoms, I'm happy to report neither is affecting me.

Another positive to this new drug, aside from the guarantee that I will be receiving it free-of-charge for the next twelve months, is because of the frequent urination, weight loss is also associated with the taking of the drug.  Although I've only been taking Forxiga for about a week, I've already lost a couple of pounds, and that's considering the ample amounts of junk food I consumed over this past weekend.  Imagine the slick sexy self that will emerge when eating a more healthy diet along with the medicine.  Move over, Bert Kreischer, I'm bringing sexy back!! 

"Bringing sexy back!! That's a laugh!!"

An Imperfect World

WARNING:
Subject matter in this blog is not for the faint of heart. Some expressive description will be used.

When I first created my blog, I wanted to keep things light.  Give my slight askew vision of social commentary or observations of shear kookiness, but as time has wore on, I'm finding that some subject matters need serious commentaries.  One such subject was discussed on a program I watched on CNN, last night, recorded from one week ago.  It discussed the inhumanity of Capital Punishment.  The program investigated the claims that the execution of violent criminals was unjust.  In my opinion, if a person is convicted of a crime so heinous that they're served with a death sentence, chances are, they deserved it.

In a moment, I will provide two examples of people identified in the television documentary who were sentenced to death.  I will give the crimes that they were convicted of committing, and you tell me, if lethal injection is too inhumane.  Be forewarned, though, the crimes are not for the faint of heart and may infuriate you every bit as much as they did myself, as I sat in the dark with my eyes glued to the television.  However, before I do that, I should address those naysayers who suggest the wrongfully convicted.

Justice is fleeting sometimes.  It's an imperfect world that we live in and it's a sad truth that sometimes the wrong person falls through the cracks of justice.  All the evidence in the world may point at someone's absolute guilt, only to have one piece of evidence down the road of time, free them of any wrong-doing.  A prime example in Canada, is the wrongful prosecution and incarceration of David Milgaard, who as a young teen was convicted of raping and murdering a young nursing student, despite witnesses providing a legitimate alibi.  Law enforcement and prosecution chose to take the word of a delusional man, suffering from mental illness, over the witness' testimony.  As a result, Milgaard, age 17 at the time of his conviction, spent 23 years in a Federal Penitentiary.  After many appeals and finally DNA testing, David Milgaard, then forty years of age, was released and the real culprit, Larry Fisher, was brought to justice.

Canada no longer has Capital Punishment, it being abolished after 217 years.  It was first used when we were still a British colony and was continued until it's abolishment in 1976, after 1481 people were sentenced to death, a total of 697 men and 13 women were executed.  The method of execution was hanging.  In the documentary I watched, it described hanging as a science.  That if the fall was too short, the convicted may not expire immediately or if the fall were too far, there were instances where the head of the accused would pop right off the body, completely.  I would agree that getting this form of execution just right, would be preferred, both for those sentenced to die and those present to bear witness.

The preferred method, today, in the U.S. is Lethal Injection, a method which is still under some debate as to whether it's a valid and humane method to execute.  The drug used initially, is no longer in production, so states that still practicing the capital executions, have resorted to using untested concoctions of drugs to promote the expiration of death row inmates.  The resulting deaths have been described as extremely painful and disturbing to watch.  One example of this is the death of Clayton Lockett, a man used as an example in the documentary.

Clayton Lockett was convicted of the kidnapping, beating and violent murder of a young nineteen year old woman, Stephanie Neiman, who was just two weeks past her high school graduation.  Lockett's friends subdued, raped and beat Neiman's friends, including a nine month old baby, but Neiman was shot because of her refusal to tell Lockett that she would not alert the authorities.  Lockett shot her with a single shotgun blast.  He tried to shoot a second time, but the gun jammed.  While bleeding profusely and begging for her life, Stephanie watched as Lockett cleared the rifle before turning it on her a second time.  In his confession, Lockett describes seeing puffs of dirt as the still breathing Neiman was buried in a shallow grave.

Now think about this image for a moment.  Lockett was unjustly Neiman's "judge and executioner" forcing her to die a most horrendous death in a shallow grave.  It's told that Lockett's death took just short of  forty-five minutes, during which time he violently writhed in agony, desperately gasping for air.  Given the method he used to murder Stephanie Neiman, why should he not be punished in a similar fashion?  

Charles Warner was the monster who was initially scheduled to die the same night that Clayton Lockett was put to death, but his execution was postponed due to Lockett's painful expiration.  His case would be argued in court for some time before the facts of his heinous act was finally given the go ahead to commence.

Charles Warner was convicted to death for the rape and murder of his live-in girlfriend's 11 month old baby.  Think about that for a moment...  I'll wait.  When you consider how horrific rape is for a fully grown adult woman, mortal words cannot describe with any sort of accuracy how brutally savage the act is when committed on a baby.  A fucking baby.  I am still in disbelief that mankind ever produced an individual so vile that he felt compelled to rape a baby.

Subsequently, Warner was put to death a few months later.  During his execution, claims state that Warner exaggerated his pain, screaming in agony, "My body is on fire!"  It's theorized that Warner was being overly dramatic to help his death row brethren with their appeal cases.  Whatever the case, given his reprehensible acts (he was also accused of raping a 5 year old little girl, then beating her with an extension cord), I hope his execution truly was excruciating.  Little Arianna Waller didn't deserve the pain she endured in the last moments of her infant life.

Does Capital Punishment work as a deterrent?  It's doubtful.  Variations of executions have existed for over a thousand years.  If it worked no one would commit the violent act that they do today.  Is it a viable punishment for monsters like Lockett and Warner?  You're god damned right it is.  Granted, like the Milgaard case that I described above, there are some innocent people through obscured facts fall between the cracks of justice and are incarcerated, but due justice grants these people appeals.  Any new information that surfaces can be introduced, like DNA, that can lead to the exoneration of wrongful convictions.

As I stated, we live in an imperfect world.  Mistakes happen and I'm sure there are examples throughout history of innocents being wrongfully executed (Salem Witch Trials), as well as in recent memory and I feel bad for them.  I really do.  Nowadays, however, with the advent of DNA testing, wrongful convictions are proven more difficult and executions of innocent parties, I'm sure is unheard of.  Almost everyone in prison, whether on death row or general population, are going to claim innocence.  I see it on television, all the time.  The most violent of murders are always tough guys on the streets, but when they're alone in the interrogation room, facing off against their accusers, they always crack, bursting into tears.  Not tears of guilt, but tears of "oh shit, I'm caught".

In a perfect utopia, violence would only be the subject of the movies, never spilling into the streets.  However, like I've pointed out so many times in this blog, today; We live in an imperfect world.

Lowered Expectations

Given the strange behaviors that occur behind the locked doors of the hotels and motels scattered across this fair land, it's not surprising what a black light may reveal.  There is some peace of mind that comes with "out of sight, out of mind".  What you don't know, can't hurt you.  If, however, the stains are visible to the naked eye, it doesn't take a wandering mind to wonder what lurks beyond our field of vision.

For a price of just under three hundred clams, one would expect top notch service would be included.  Certainly, clean sheets on the bed shouldn't be too far out of the purview of what one might find.  Granted this hotel, where I'm staying in Regina, has a "Reduce/Reuse" program in effect, which basically means the maid service won't exchange your sheets until your departure.  This concept doesn't seem too unreasonable to me, however, considering my surprising discovery, this morning, I'm questioning whether the maid service is sticking to this premise faithfully.

I slept, surprisingly comfortable, last night, messing the bed spread only minutely.  I'm not comfortable with maids coming into my room to tidy up in my absence, so I quickly made up the bed, myself, and in the process, looked down to find a small crimson spot on the snow white sheet.  I slept on the other side of the bed and don't have any open wounds on my lower extremities, so there's no way this spot originated with me.  It had to have existed before my arrival yesterday afternoon.

As I stated, the bill that I'm going to be stuck with is just under $300, which for a two-night stay, seems a little hefty, but the value aside, for such a price, I would come to expect that the sheets be clean.  I don't give a shit if the previous occupant never laid their head down on this bed, opting for the one closer to the A/C unit.  I want... Nay!  I demand clean sheets, no matter what.  It's not like this spot could elude one's vision.  It's dark shade is such a vast contrast in comparison to the blizzard snow white sheet.  Even a half blind pirate, with a patch over one eye, could see this button-sized dollop forever present on the sheet.

I took a photo and posted it to my Twitter feed.  It took a few hours, but the kind folks at @DaysInnCanada, responded with a Toll-Free number for me to call in and give a more detailed account of my discovery.  I wasn't going to bother, but if it helps alleviate some of the heady cost, perhaps I may do as requested.

If you're in the Regina-area, feel free to stay wherever you'd like, including the Days Inn on Eastgate Drive.  It's a very nice and impressive venue, but you may want to pull the bed spread back and inspect them sheets.  Who knows what kind of foreign shit you may discover.

A Hidden Agenda

It's not often that I get to recycle a picture for my blog, but when the opportunity arises, it only makes sense.

As stated in my previous blog, I've traveled from my home in sweet Saskatoon, to the bowels of Hell, aka Regina, for the bittersweet weekend among friends, to commemorate and celebrate the memory of our friend and family member, Darcy.

The last few years, we've stayed at a hotel on the northern end of the city, but this year we've moved to a new spot.  I'm not certain when this establishment was built, but the rooms are nicer, bigger and way cleaner.  To put it plainly, I'm not afraid to sit on the bed spreads while wearing shorts.  The rooms all, from what I've seen thus far, are all generic with practically the same artwork on every wall, but over all, I believe this experience will be for the best.

The location is superb, seated just off a main drag.  There's a decent speckling of restaurants and fast food joints all around, unlike the other place that had a Burger Baron across the street and a Tim Horton's about a block south.  The Burger Baron's food is so sub-par to what should be considered edible, and the walk to the Timmy Ho's is not for the faint of heart.

I got to visit the Carl's Jr, down the street from this Days Inn and though it fell short of my experience when I visited the one in Kelowna, British Columbia, the food was still okay.  The only downside to that visit was the bearded toilet and the creepy albino dude who lurked behind the corner of my booth, readily available to jump out and inquire about my meal.  He asked three frickin' times.

The hotel, costs about the same per night as the previous one did, only this one seems to have a plethora of hidden fees that the other never seemed to have, or at least hid better than this one does.  The room is $128 per night, which by my math, comes out to about $256.  I'm being charged just under $300.  When asked about the extra charges, the quirky fellow behind the desk proudly answered, "Taxes and other fees."

Taxes, I understand.  We can't get away from that, unfortunately.  No matter what a person does or buys, the government needs to have their hand out for their share, too.  It was the "fees" that sparked my interest.  "What sort of fees?"  I asked.

"Well," he explained, "There's the destination fee."

"Destination fee?" I asked, "What's a destination fee?"

"Regina charges visitors a fee for coming to the city." he said.

I found this reasoning, absurd.  "The city charges people to visit their city?  That's ridiculous."  I said.

That sounds as stupid as the conversation with the bank last week, who told me that the bank charges it's customers a fee for banking with them.  Now this city charges people a fee for the "privilege" of visiting their city?  That doesn't make any sense.

"It's to help pay for events like the Exhibition (fair) or Agribition (agricultural exhibition)." he explained, without so much as agreeing that the premise seemed deceitful or devious and no matter how much prodding I made, he wouldn't budge and admit that it was stupid.

I look at situations like this and wonder where I fell short, unable to think up a helpful service that people require then charging them a f**king fee for being so helpful.  I couldn't do such a thing, though.  As much of a scoundrel as I can be at times, I can't be a complete asshole.  I wanna be an asshole, but I can't bring myself to it.  Regina, on the other hand, in addition to being a giant toilet, is proving itself to be every bit the asshole I've always suspected it to be.

Double Digits - Ten Years of "Loud 'n' Proud"

It was New Year's Day 2006, when I received the phone call that my friend, Darcy Corrigan, had passed away unexpectedly.  After only twenty-eight years on this mortal coil, his shining light was extinguished, but not forgotten from the hearts of all who knew and loved him.

Darcy was a generous, funny, smart, no bullshit kind of guy and though I wasn't as close to him as some, having known this amazing fella, has influenced my life in more ways than I could even know.  His generosity, alone, was more than I could fathom.  One story sticks out particularly.  It occurred just a little over a month before his passing.  It was my birthday and there were lots of people taking me out for dinner followed by some drunken karaoke.  A common practice for a few of us, at the time.  Darcy was living and working out of town, at the time, so I never expected to see him show up for my little soiree, but he did.  Despite working all that Saturday and having to open his store up the following Sunday morning, Darcy traveled the two-and-a-half-PLUS distance, following his shift, to pick me up from my house, take me to where everyone was meeting for supper, then on to the karaoke bar, doing in all with the often seen, rarely photographed smile on his face, as observed in the photograph above.

I think of Darcy everyday.  I have a tattoo on my left forearm, as a memoriam to Darcy, of a lone woman in a red dress.  "Why such an obscure tattoo?", you ask.  On one of the many occasions that we had gone out for a rousing night of drink and song, a friend and I thought it'd be funny if we signed up our usually silent cohorts for a song.  The first was "Funky Town" for the normally reserved Boyd, who performed to song stunningly.  So good he was, in fact, that months later when another friend attempted the song, he got up to instruct them.  For Darcy, however, we decided to tame things down for him and requested "Lady In Red" by Chris de Burgh.  My friend and I were waiting to chuckle when he bombed, but there were nothing but the sweetest notes coming from his breath.  So memorable was his performance, that every time I've heard that song on the radio, since, I am reminded of Darcy.

It was nine years ago, New Year's Day, when I answered the phone and received the heartbreaking news.  I never cried at the death of my father in the same way that I did with Darcy's passing.  Maybe it was because of how unexpected it was.  At the funeral, I met Darcy's family for the first time.  It was no wonder that Darcy grew into the incredible man that he was, surrounded by such a loving family as this.  It was a time where it was beneficial to be a wallflower.  To sit back and listen to all the amazing stories where Darcy was a main focal point.  I got to see and live his life via some sort of magic in those couple of days and in the years since.

Every year, beginning in the summer of 2006, a mass conglomeration of family treks from the recesses of western Canada, migrating to Regina for a Saskatchewan Roughrider game, in what has come to be known as: The Darcy Corrigan Memorial Game Weekend.  The numbers have dwindled some, from that initial game, but given how tough life has been getting for people, I can't blame them.  I've fallen on tough financial times in the last five-plus years, but as tough as I see it, I think of how Darcy traveled all that distance to spend a few hours with me and friends on my birthday, only to race home again to open his store for the morning traffic.  That kind of generosity, boggles my mind, to this day.  I go to the Memorial Weekend, just for that reason.  That and I love his family.  More so than my own, in some instances, if I gotta be honest.

Darcy's been absent from this world of a little over nine years, but he's remained LOUD 'n' PROUD in our hearts and minds for TEN years.  So this weekend, whether you knew Darcy or not, I hope you'll raise your glass in his memory, anyway.  R.I.P. Darcy Corrigan.  I can't wait to meet up with you on the other side.

Failed Promise

The day held such promise when I woke up this morning.  I had an important meeting to attend in the afternoon which pertained to my job as a school bus driver.  At the end of the school year, last June, I discussed with one of the people in the office about the possibility of switching routes.  The one that I'd been driving since getting this job was nice, but my bus is parked all the way across town and I've accumulated more mileage on my vehicle than I have on the bus I'd been driving.  Not to mention the damage I've incurred from passerbys.  My truck wasn't in pristine condition, but it never had all the key scratches, either.  Some brave motherf**ker is doing it.  The street where we're made to park our vehicles for the duration of our routes, is not in the nicest of neighbourhoods.

In addition, the unbearable amount of time that it takes to make the trek home, is almost an hour in some instances.  Ten or fifteen minutes to drive to the bus lot, an hour or more to come home.

So when the mention of different routes being available, with buses already situated at the lot near my house, I was told that it was quite likely I could get one of those, a trade-up in my books, that would ease a shit ton of stress that my feeble mind has endured for the last six months.  So when I woke up this morning, everything seemed brighter.  Full of promise and wonder, however that plane took a serious nose dive when I was handed the route information for the same route as I had in the spring.

"What's this?" I asked, "I was told I'd be getting a new route.  One situated closer to my home."  The woman behind the desk shrugged her shoulders and instructed me to call the boss lady, whom I did manage to approach after the meeting.  She shrugged her shoulders and told me, "We don't have any room for you to park your bus at the north lot." Without further discussion, she turned and proceeded to ignore me.  That's poor management, in my opinion.

I think she misunderstood me, believing that I was requesting to park my bus at the north end, rather than giving me the new route that was promised me in June.  So one of two things needs to happen and happen very soon.  One:  I need to meet with her again and explain more clearly what my request is and was; Or two:  I need to hurry, get my Class 2 license and get a better job.  Clearly, my needs are not being met and therefore, I need to go somewhere where my needs will be met.  I just need to get this reading thing down, otherwise I'm totally f*cked!!

**Throwing more stress onto my already strained mind, during our safety meeting today, it was announced that there has been three instances of school buses being shot at, this year alone, in our fair City of Saskatoon.  I didn't think violence like that existed here, but now I got that bullshit weighing on my mind.  What the f*ck?!?**