Gecko Bloggle

“Seek the Yay. Avoid the Woo. Be Brave. Don’t Burn Yourself.” – The We Trip (1995 I think?)

Some of you are joining our program already in progress, while coming in from NaBloPoMo or Movember, so I thought I’d cop out on plot today and go for a little character development instead.

I work in IT for a film special effects company on Pender near Bute (after seven years of working for gaming companies), and generally try not to use any business-speak in anything I do, but it’s a proactive (not “reactive”) engagement of my skillsets going forward.

*FUCK*

I’m married (6 yrs?) to Arwen (you might know her: she used to hang at the Passion from time to time when she wasn’t working graveyards at Blenz on Robson or Blenz on Davie.  We’ve got two kids (boys: Ripley is 7 and Tate is 4) and Arwen’s working on her 2nd novel (no, not a NaNoWriMo, but she’s editing her latest, so she calling it NaNoEdMo).  We moved this summer form Mole Hil (right behind St. Paul’s) to Marpole (waaaaaaaay out at 67th & Oak), and I’ve been ramping up to cycling to/from work (25km, round trip) since we moved.

Right now, I just finished reading a moderately terrible young-adult book about a young girl whose parents work in a museum but don’t know she can *see* curses writhing on objects.  I’m a long way from being 13/14 any more, but I’m pretty sure I would have still snickered at this book.  To cleanse my palette, I’m reading a collection of short stories by Stephen King while trying to ramp up for either Anansi Boys or Anathem, probably the former first.  I started listening to the audiobook of the latter on my iPod during commuting, but the chapter/track order was hooped, so I have a slightly shuffled version of the story in my head.  I sort of enjoy that I have no idea WHEN anything happened in the timeline of the book, or indeed who half of the characters are, but know only THAT it happened.

I suspect my iPod was playing it in the order I’m most-likely to remember in a year.

My last two vacations were accidental, in that they were due to layoffs.  In 2008, laid off by Electronic Arts, which seems to be doing another round as as we speak, gentle reader.  A good friend who worked right next to me for a year died two weeks later.  2009 brought the very sad closing of Nexon/Humanature Studio in Yaletown, which is possibly the shortest job I’ve ever loved.

Scotch seems to have become the drink I enjoy if I want to nurse something for an hour, and wine if I want to share with friends.  Sambucca sometimes because it reminds me of my grandmother, but also because of the weird things it does if you put ice in it (blasphemy, I know).

I don’t use “Zen Render” in person any more, unless I’m meeting up with old BBS/IRC folks from waaaaaaay back in the day – an old friend of mine from my IRC days found my blog based on my pseudo, and I was glad for it.  (Hi Nemo!)

That pseudo used IRL is attached to a pretty sad and painful time in my life, actually.  Didn’t really have much that I enjoyed as “John,” so I let Zen drive for a while.  Hurt less, I think, to be someone else while my scars healed.  The “Zen” of me wasn’t afraid to say and do things that were that half-step past my normal comfort zone.  Wasn’t afraid to call people on their shit, or worry a little less about what others were thinking, and say what *I* was thinking.  Wasn’t afraid to tell off a heartless ex-girlfriend on the phone instead of thinking how to get ex back all the time.  Just wasn’t (as) afraid of life.  Not a dark side, just a slightly less wounded side.

I still have fear from time to time, of course, but it’s rarely for *me* now, it’s usually for those around me.  My wife, my kids, my family, my friends, my Tribe.

Mostly, I go by Burton (or, as some have remixed it, “Burtoin.”)  I think only Briana calls me Zen consistently, but that’s the only name she ever knew for me, and we’re friends on the ‘net only, anyway, and I hardly ever talk to her, so maybe it’s okay that Zen kept at least one friend out of the separation.

Oh, and for those of you following my Movember progress, lord help us, here’s what’s going on at Chez Moustache.

Up close and personal.