I’ve been getting up at more or less 4am for the last three weeks. I’ve slept in once or twice in that time, but generally, I’m up and at them hours before I really “need” to be. I woke up hacking and coughing twice last night. I don’t know if I just happened to breathe in a cat hair or what, but I was coughing pretty hard. I feel fine this morning though, and I still got up at the ungodly hour I have been. That’s probably a good sign that I’m in the habit already.

So far I haven’t been putting that early morning time to much productive use. Once March rolls around I’ll be pickier about how I use that time, but for the moment I’m happy just to keep building the habit and getting used to the schedule shift.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit lately about what is really important to me in the grander scheme of things. I’ve read that most people have between four and six Big-Vee Values that direct their lives (or should!). Putting it that way, my Values are:

Family: I’m not the kind of person who makes friends easily, and I don’t relish social interaction. Nevertheless, the people who are close to me are extremely important to me. I believe very strongly that a family needs to look out for its own. I don’t really understand how families are torn apart as easily as they are in our society, but I never want that to happen to me and mine. My own first child is on the way now, and that only redoubles my emphasis on this.

Growth: I think that learning, improving and growing are extremely important things to strive towards. Be it improving your physical fitness, learning a new skill or language, or just improving your proficiency with something you already know, I think that ultimately one of the best things we do in life is growing as people, and encouraging others to do so.

Simplicity: Cutting clutter, streamlining processes and generally making things run smoothly and simply are all very important things to me. Sites like Zen Habits are a great source of inspiration along those lines. One of the reasons that I’m really interested in computers is that they provide a means to really cut down on a lot of crap. They make things physically small, easily shared and much easier to manage.

Liberty: I am, at my core, a Libertarian. I understand, though, that most people are not and never will be of the same mind. Never the less, I believe that preserving and exercising our freedoms and fighting tooth and nail against any effort to infringe upon them is very important. I believe that a lifestyle that promotes as little government interference in one’s life as possible is important as well.

Creativity: Very important to me. I’d go so far as to say that it is a quintessential human practice. Whether it’s art, music, literature, computer programming or carpentry, I believe that putting your abilities to use in creating something is vital. Myself, I write — both code and prose.

Independence: This partially plays from my Libertarian stance as well, but I believe very strongly that a person should be as self-sufficient as possible. Mostly I think this is common sense — depending upon others too much is asking to be let down, as cynical as that may sound. Striving to remove dependence on other people, organizations and objects frees one to act in a a purer way, which I feel is very important.

So far, so good. I’ve been waking up at 5am or earlier every day. I like being up this early. It’s so quiet, and I feel like I really make good use of my time. I get lots of little things done. Today, I got up at 4am. That was a personal goal of mine, and I’m glad I managed it. I don’t feel like I slept very well last night, but at least that will encourage me to get to bed early tonight.

One of the things I really want to start doing with these early mornings is getting into a regular exercise routine. Three days a week, for at least a half hour each day is what I think would be ideal. With the coldsnap we’ve experienced here (it has been hovering at -40*C for the last week), I’ve become somewhat more sedentary. As a result, I’ve put on a little bit of weight — I”m about 5 lbs heavier than I was at the end of summer. Not a huge deal, but I can feel it and I don’t like it. It doesn’t really help much that I’m now fighting off my second cold of the season. Regardless, I intend to start the workout routine tomorrow morning.

I’m slowly edging myself towards waking up much earlier than normal. Over the past week, I’ve moved from my usual lazy habit of waking up at 7am, which is the very latest I can get up and still be ready in time for work, to waking at 5am. It has actually been much easier than I expected, thanks in part to some advice I read several months back ad only thought about again a short while ago.

One of the blogs that I read religiously is Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits. An all-around great blog, and he has written regarding the benefits of waking up early and how to do it. I’m following a lot of the advice he has put into that article myself, and find it very helpful.

My goal is to get into the habit of waking up at 4am every single day. That seems a little extreme, but it will give me a huge amount of time to read, study and write. I’ve started another University course just recently, and the time will go a long way to helping me complete the course quickly. I’m not finding myself being tired at work so far, and I don’t completely crash out at the end of the day either. I do find that those first couple of hours are extremely productive for me though, much more so than staying up a few hours later in the evening would be.

I’m going to keep myself at 5am for the rest of the week, but I’ll start edging back again on Monday. Once I hit 4am, that’ll give me three and a half hours of quiet, productive time every single day.

I keep talking about using this blog to talk about things that matter to me, and I keep just plain NOT writing here at all. I think that ultimately, I really need to make this a simple personal blog. When I find my voice, I’ll create a blog specific to an interest, but for now, this is just a regular, run-o-the-mill personal web journal. The whole reason I first started blogging was to provide myself with an outlet, a way to vent with the means of getting feedback. This particular blog isn’t meant to be popular or high-ranked or informative really any long, but I’ll continue to post here about personal matters. For now, no commitments, no specific topics, just an outlet. That’s probably for the best.

I’m still playing around wtih the idea of a more serious blog, but I’ve got a lot of work to do before that will be a reality.

My posting has been so erratic here that I just realized I never posted one of the biggest pieces of news in my life:

I’m going to be a father!

Jac and I found out in the middle of December that we’re going to be having a kid, due in late August. We’re very excited and absolutely ecstatic about it, as are our parents.

Jac has had her first doctor’s appointment and all looks well so far. The first ultrasound is in late March.

We’ve set up a blog especially for the baby. It’s something we intend to pass on to them when they’re old enough to type. In the meantime, it’s going to be mostly us writing to the kid, sort of a memory journal for them to look over when they’re older.

If you didn’t already know, I’m a bit of a tabletop gaming geek. I play Warhammer 40k every weekend with my brother Brian and a few friends. It’s a sci-fi war-game hobby that involves a lot of strategic thought, a good deal of creativity, and (sadly) a ridiculous amount of money.

Basically, you buy little plastic and metal models, assemble and paint them to represent an army you create according to agreed-upon rules (including a “points value” which controls the size and scope of your army), and then pit them against a similar force controlled by another player. Think of it like Risk or Axis & Allies, but with models you build and paint yourself and you’re not far off.

In the past I had played as the Tyranids, a race of monstrous space aliens that inspired the Zerg in Blizzard’s StarCraft game, and were themselves inspired by the Alien and Starship Troopers movies. I had a lot of fun playing them, but they’re essentially villains and I don’t always enjoy playing the bad guy. On top of that, the army is so incredibly mutable that I had a lot of trouble making up my mind about options and weapons for my troops. This resulted in me having a vast array of models that were either unpainted, only partially assembled, or still in the original packaging.

I can be a little indecisive at times.

In the end, rather than hemming and hawing about my ‘nids, I’ve sold them. I’ve decided to use the funds from that sale to move to an army that is not often played, but that has some very nice models and game-play elements, and not so many ridiculous options that I feel overwhelmed. This army is the Witch Hunters, an arm of the Inquisition in the Warhammer 40k universe.

The Witch Hunters include Inquisitorial units like Assassins and Stormtroopers, as well as the Inquisitors themselves. The bulk of their forces, however, are drawn from the Adepta Sororitas, the Sisters of Battle. They’re essentially warrior nuns and religious fanatics. The Witch Hunters can also call on units taken from the Space Marines (genetically enhanced super soldiers of the human empire) and the Imperial Guard (regular enlisted men accompanied by heavy weaponry and tanks).

Over the next several weeks, I will be buying, assembling, painting and gaming with my new army, and I intend to provide updates here once a week to show my progress. I will be progressing towards a 1500 point army at this point mainly comprised of Sisters of Battle units.

At the moment, I have the following models:

1 Canoness

This is essentially the leader of my army. She is much tougher than a regular Sister, and comes with some special gear and rules that make her stronger still. I’ve modeled her to be carrying a plasma pistol and a power weapon. Essentially, this means that she’s very dangerous if she manages to get up close to her enemy. Once I have all of the models that I need, she’ll have a retinue with her, and will be mounted in a vehicle. I can either use that vehicle as cover, or I can use it to transport her and her retinue into the thick of things, where they can play a decisive role in the battle. Either way, she’s going to be one of my most dangerous units.

10 Sisters of Battle

These are the rank and file of my army. They’re better equipped and better trained than most regular humans, but they’re not as tough or well-equipped as the Space Marines. They’re equipped with Bolters for the most part, which is essentially a type of gun. They can move and shoot with them, but they’re able to shoot farther or more often if they don’t move during a turn. A few of the Sisters are equipped with special weapons.

One of them wields a weapon called a Stormbolter, which is a more advanced version of the standard bolter. It lays down such a large amount of fire that it is treated as firing twice regardless of whether the Sister moved, and is always able to fire to maximum range.

Another Sister is equipped with a Flamer. This is, as you might guess, a flamethrower. Instead of being able to hit only one target, in the game rules this weapon uses a plastic template. The narrow end of the template is placed touching the model’s weapon, and the wide end is placed in such a way that the template covers as many enemies as possible. Everything under the template is potentially hurt by the weapon, but it has an extremely short range. It’s meant to be used against tightly-packed units of infantry, or against units that have taken cover.

This last Sister is the leader of the squad. She provides stronger leadership, as well as a bit more punch in close combat. She’s referred to as either a Sister Superior or a Veteran Superior, depending upon what points you spend on her. This particular model is equipped with a plasma pistol and a chainsword, much like the Canoness.

You might notice that all of these models are currently entirely unpainted. I’m waiting for the weather to warm up somewhat so that I can spray-prime them, the vital first step in painting models like this. I’ll post further as I obtain more models, and as I paint up the ones that I have.

Imagine that you operated a mail-order business.  The product you sold was ostensibly illegal in your country, but those laws were rarely enforced.  Occasionally the cops would come knocking and confiscate goods or otherwise harass you, but no charges are ever laid against you for selling your goods.  You make a considerable amount of money selling your nominally contraband item, but you devote a huge chunk of that money, the vast majority of it in fact, to advocacy and political lobbying towards making your goods completely legal.  You pay taxes on the money you make, and you make sure that the government knows exactly where that money comes from (say, by marking your profession as “seller of contrabandX” on government forms, or mailing free copies of your newsletter to every member of your government).
Now imagine that one day, the police arrest you.  They don’t actually lay any charges against you themselves, but they inform you that a foreign country, one where your goods are also illegal but where those laws are rabidly and heavy-handedly enforced, and one which has an extradition treaty with your country, has pressed charges because you sold your goods to one of their citizens.

Your government hands you over to them, and you spend the rest of your life in a foreign prison.

Sound far-fetched?  It isn’t.  And it’s happening here in Canada right now.  Does it seem right to you?

Regardless of how you feel about marijuana use, this screams injustice.  The US Government is dictating who we should arrest and how we should punish them.  Are we a sovereign nation or not?

The year is dead.  Long live the year.

2007 was a huge year for me.  So much so that I more or less abandoned this blog, which is something I never intended to do.  I will be posting here more often from here on out, but I’m struggling a bit to find my right voice at the moment.

In 2007 I…

• Left Alberta behind, hopefully for good.
• Moved back to Whitehorse, possibly for good.
• Finally got my driver’s license after delaying it for 12 years.
• Bought a new vehicle, something I (perhaps surprisingly) have not had cause to regret.  I’ve put almost 10,000km on the piggie so far.
• Read.  A lot.  I devoured the entire Harry Potter series after the last book came out, and have fit in a lot of really good novels, but shockingly little non-fiction.  Was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut’s writing just before he died.
• Settled in with a woman I love dearly.  We’re not married, might never be, but we’re happy together.
• Got a great job with an excellent company.
• Went camping for the first time in a decade.
• Lost another 15lbs or so, bringing me closer to my target of 200lbs by my 30th birthday. (currently weigh 235lbs)
• Got back into tabletop gaming, including learning Warhammer Fantasy Battle and starting an army (Dwarfs!)
• Welcomed a new niece into the world, and watched my weed of goddaughter sprout into a toddler.
• Saw an opera.  I really want to see more in the future.
• Planted a garden.  I didn’t get to tend it really, as I wound up moving on fairly short notice, but it benefited my family in Grande Prairie.  Fresh peas and beans for them!

2008 is looking to be a very busy year for me.  The biggest reason for that?  I’m gonna be a dad!  Jac and I just recently found out that she’s expecting, and is due in August.  To prepare for the little bobbin, I’m considering taking on a second job for a few months.  I’m also considering taking a few courses through the local college and online via Athabasca University, but we’ll see how my time looks in the coming weeks.

In 2008, I intend to…

• Scrimp and save so that I can provide for my new family and still take a month off work after the baby is born.
• Start writing more seriously, and do it every day.
• Cross off as many items as I can from my “101 Things” list.  I know that several of them simply are not going to happen — mostly the ones involving travel — but I know I can clear off the majority of them with few problems.
• Start actively practicing the more religious side of heathenry.  While I’m very happy with the way I live my life in terms of heathen values, I do feel that I’ve been missing out by not including the ritual and spiritual aspects of the worldview in my life.
• Concentrate on the job I have before me.  Whether I’m blogging, selling windows or assembling miniatures, I have to re-learn the habit of FOCUS.
• “Green” my lifestyle as much as possible.  Tomorrow after work I’ll make a list of ways that I can do this, and over the next year I’ll try to implement as much as humanly possible.
• Get Organized.  I’ve been playing around a bit with organizational systems, and it’s time that I settled on one and got it well and truly integrated into my life.
• Get involved.  I want to play a more active role in local politics.  Even if this is only voting in municipal elections or observing the legislative assembly in action, I’d like to have a better idea of the way things work in this city and this territory.
• Stay on budget.  This one is going to be a bit tougher with a kid on the way, but if I can swing it I’ll have most of my debts paid off once again.

I’m going to begin posting here thrice weekly from here on out.  One post on heathenry, one post on politics, and one post on geekery.  Rather than post on strictly personal matters, I’ll probably simply update my Facebook entry on a more regular basis, or include a twitter feed here.

Here’s to another productive and exciting year!  I hope yours was and will be just as good.

Clearly, my time has been somewhat less liquid than anticipated.

I’m still alive, still in love, still very happy to be in Whitehorse. I’m just not spending any time around my computer lately, which tends to impede one’s ability to blog. I do intend to return to blogging on a more regular basis, but I think it’s best if I don’t play with dates just yet. I want to do a serious revamp of my entire site, and I really, really want to start doing some more serious writing here. Once things become more settled in my personal life, I’ll be able to get started on that properly.

We went camping at Fox Lake in August. It was beautiful out there. We went out a day early and got a great site, sort of out of the way and right on the waterfront. Here’s a couple of pictures:

That’s our little campsite.

Campire taters, precious.

That’s the view we had in the morning.

There was a group of five or six loons hanging around our little corner of the lake.

We decided to torch my last connection to Totem here. What you see above is the polyester glow of a Totem Building Supplies baseball cap.

Your Score: d100 Uber Gamer

You have a 88%RPG Geek Factor!

Okay I give up. You probably know more about RPGs than I do. You are like the Gamer+, but to the extremes. You’ve probably had at least one multi-day game session. You’ve been to gaming cons, or rather you would if you could afford it. You can quote rules right out of the book, chapter and verse. Even more consternating to the fella who’s running the game, you’re usually right.

If you’re a girl and fall into this category, I’d most likely would want to date you…but most of the time you 1) already have someone in your life or 2) don’t go for guys.

Who could really say they’re surprised by this?