John Boulton

Here-ish

2023-05-13T15:30:51Z

Impulse vs Reality

I have a Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/sastakoogrr

I have a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sasta

I have a Furaffinity: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/sasta

I have a weasly, a deviantArt, a Pixiv and about 8 other things that get used even less.

Peter Boulton, Obit and Funeral Photos

2010-09-28T15:27:54Z

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20100927.93244366/BDAStory/BDA/deaths

http://tinyurl.com/2da2usc

Peter Boulton's viewing and funeral

2010-09-26T04:13:55Z

Viewings of Peter Boulton will take place at Turner & Porter Butler Chaple (416-231-2283) butlerchaple@turnerporter.ca, 4933 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke, Ontario M9A 1B6 on Monday and Tuesday 2-4pm and 7-9 PM. Service will be at Our Lady of Sorrows Church (416-231-6016) olosorrows@bellnet.ca, 3055 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M8X 1C6.

Please call to confirm times, I do not have a finalized time for the service. Dad's obituary will be published in the Globe and Mail on Monday, and the Toronto Star on Monday and Tuesday. The Globe's includes a photo. Both should list times.

Butler Chaple, Turner and Porter
http://www.turnerporter.ca/butler_map.html?q=4933+Dundas+Street+West,+Etobicoke,+Ontario+M9A+1B6&spn=0.021742,0.030251&hl=en

Our Lady of Sorrows
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=our+lady+of+sorrows+church+toronto&sll=43.652721,-79.484196&sspn=0.036454,0.09038&ie=UTF8&hq=our+lady+of+sorrows+church&hnear=Toronto,+ON,+Canada&cid=3531553204131403043&ll=43.655515,-79.508915&spn=0.032353,0.052271&z=14&iwloc=A

Thank you for your support and condolences.

Phone

2010-08-11T04:15:03Z

Go out to buy catfood at 11:30 at night, because I can't leave Mum alone in the house and the temporary night care doesn't show up till 11. Phone rings while I'm shopping, a rare occasion when I hear my phone. I figure something is wrong with Mum.

No. Hospital calling. Dad has fallen out of bed. How? I don't know. No major injuries, bruises, cuts on his arms, he appears lucid. The nurse said he had just been in there. Dad can barely move, and he's four feet from an observation station. I don't know how he manages to fall and hurt himself, if he's delusional, suicidal, frustrated or was just collapsing again.

He didn't have surgery today, his blood isn't clotting fast enough, they're waiting for that to improve so they can use a spinal anesthetic which will be much safer than a general one. His lower leg is a horrible mess and they really should have done something sooner, and I wish they were doing more now.

I thought I could relax, that he was in a good hospital, but they all seem useless. I can't be there all the time, and he's forgetting stuff and imagining stuff, and I don't know.

Today

2010-08-10T15:18:13Z

The amputation site became infected and he has to go for more surgery to amputate above the knee now. He's been on the list, didn't go last night, might go today. He's an urgent case, which means he gets bumped by critical ones. His white blood cell count is down at the wound; I'm told this is good, it means it isn't going to become a systemic blood born infection.

koogrr @ 2010-08-08T18:58:00

2010-08-08T22:55:14Z

Worse than yesterday. Infection can be smelt through the bandages. Dad is very depressed and lethargic.

Update

2010-08-07T15:57:25Z

Maybe I should call it downdate.

The surgery site has become heavily infected and doesn't appear to be responding to the antibiotics. It's life threatening, and Dad is in very poor health. He is barely eating, I tell him to just force stuff down, drink a few of the meal replacement drinks, and he manages a sip which is half a teaspoon and asks me to throw the rest out.

His diabetic doctor is going to see him. He sounded a little surprised that such a radical thing had been done. Of course, he was on vacation for a month when things suddenly moved. The surgeon, well now he's on vacation.

I told my sister not to worry. Not, because there wasn't a reason to worry, but because there wasn't anything she could do beyond visiting and being cheery. It's in the hands of God and the Doctors now, neither of which have been much deserving of that trust.

Today, I am going away from all of this. Tomorrow and the rest, I'll visit and spend some quality time with my Dad, because maybe the fucking lesson is that it's nice to have time to say goodbye instead of having someone wrenched abruptly from your life, the way Sensei Miguel was all those years ago.

Or that random 'shit happens' can be more comforting than a torture plan.

Status update

2010-07-28T02:28:09Z

Well, I had something elaborately bitter to put here, but I'll summarize instead.

Mum's colostomy isn't being reversed, and her Alzheimer's is getting worse. She is starting to attack the help, and constantly cries and wanders for four hours a day, typically in two hour intervals ten hours after she has her medication.

Dad is going in for surgery tomorrow. He has decided against a high risk, intricate surgery that might save part of his foot, and chosen amputation which he's more likely to survive. We had a talk with a neighbour who is a double amputee about recovery, and that cheered him up significantly.

Kath and I have already had one explosive argument about "contributing". She feels I'm not doing enough here; I feel showing up for one hour every two weeks and using kids and working on the house as reasons for the absence isn't enough. She is absolutely missing the unrelenting psychological abrasion.

So, if you'd like to pray, burn incense, or send happy thoughts, please do. Tomorrow is another nexus of possibilities, which so far have been breaking bad regardless of whether I have a shiny-perky-clouds or dark-dismal attitude.

Oh, and I've been having more dreams of being trapped, in a vehicle on an island that is slowly drowning, and being hunted around abandoned factories by flensed great cats.

Radio Ga Ga With Prisoners

2010-06-15T02:14:06Z

Radio GaGa with Prisoners

This is surreal. Someone choreographed prisoners in the Philippines to dance significant portions of the Metropolis / Queen video to Radio GaGa.

Stuck on repeat

2010-05-27T01:15:31Z

The Girl Who Lept through Time/Stuck on Repeat AMV

EMDM

2010-05-21T15:25:07Z

Well if my computer and my scanner had been hooked up, and I wasn't constantly busy with my life full of crap, I would have followed Kita's advice and drawn something yesterday.

Anyhow, I don't need a special day to make a picture. I do need a lot less stress, a comfort zone, significantly fewer interruptions, and a bunch of other things, so maybe later.

Anyhow, looks like the facebook page for it has been wiped (again), and the anti-protesting one still exists and is claiming victory. Whatever.

What's going on is not worth talking about, so I'm not going to.

Zsofi, found

2010-04-25T15:34:37Z

I found Zsofi.

Didn't sleep, well I didn't sleep much. I kept hearing her mew, and waking up to go look and discovering it was Bombay. Then one of the roommates came in at 5:30 am, was up again then. I'd wandered around outside, calling for her in the dark, but no success.

Dreamt that I found her, that she showed up again. Which made it hard to wake up, because I really wanted to stay there. It was raining, I spent at least and hour walking in wider circles around where I'm living. I figured she got scared, ran out, got lost, and would hide under something or try to get back into something. Hard to guess what looks similar to a cat who has only seen a few things. I'd really hoped she would recognize my truck, and hide underneath it.

Anyhow, while walking up and down, calling "Zsofi, come on Zsofi, come out, make some noise" a guy stepped out.
"Hey, are you looking for a cat?"
"A nasty black cat?"
"Yes, she's black, she ran inside. I can't get near her. I left some tuna out, but she snarls."
"That's her."

We went in, she'd even run to the equivalent of the room I use as hers. She was hiding under the bed and not very happy to see me. Yowls, the usual. I grabbed her anyhow. I thanked the guy a lot, and had a death grip on her getting her home. She's locked in her room, and I petted her for an hour, and she seems okay now.

Apparently, he'd left his door open, and she went in. So, that was it, new roommate scared her while she was out, or the door to her room was open, and she ran outside. She wandered, then ran back inside an open door that looked close enough, and discovered it wasn't the right place.

She's back, and I'm glad that's it. I didn't relish the idea of making signs and leaflets, and trying to find her, possibly have to come back or call the vets and animal control to see if they picked her up. I checked the road, in case she'd been hit by a car, and the creek in case she had gotten thirsty and drowned.

She had an adventure and now she's safe. It worked out okay.

Unlike some other things.

Slashdot, H1-B worker

2010-04-20T15:51:46Z

Mach kitty gave me a heads up on this,

H1-B intimidation incident.

Dreams

2010-04-15T02:01:21Z

Kind of vague and unstructured, as they usually are.

And the details are kind of slipping at this point. I'd gone for an interview, was having some difficulty with the elevator. I was naked, my Dad was along, and someone else, I think Dezi. Obviously the interview didn't go well. Leaving the building I was trying to be brash, which having worn a kilt I have some experience with, but that only goes so far to nothing. I recall thinking, even stating in the dream, "Normally I have dreams like this, but it's gone on for quite a while and has been consistent and linear, so it isn't a dream". There was some guy, with a gun and a detonator, who was talking about initiating an explosion. So I attacked him, except it turned out it was a movie, and they really didn't want naked me in it.

I remember thinking a lot of 'I'd really like this to be over now.'

Anyhow, it is what it is. In Oakville again.

Art: C41 - Housepainter

2010-04-05T21:15:27Z

Still getting the hang of this scanner. This was meant to be a one page joke, I think it's turning into three. Page two and the rest may take a while, I thought about this before I left Orlando. There are two or three hidden messages, if anyone cares to guess.

Amazon stuff

2010-02-06T03:12:36Z

Howard Taylor, and Scott Westerfield had interesting things to say today about Amazon de-listing MacMillan.

I've been busy, and very tired, but still thought it was worth reading.

More later, especially what I've been up to. Restore to previous save-game? Ya, kinda feels like that.

Haiti

2010-01-28T20:09:00Z

I've sent an email off to Doctors Without Borders, volunteering to help with relief efforts in Haiti. I'm not sure if they'll ask, I'm not sure I really want to go, but it's something.

Options for Cats

2010-01-25T20:13:19Z

I'm looking for temporary housing options for my cats in Toronto/Ontario area. They can be split it, so it's not agreeing to take both of them, and I just plan for it to be a couple weeks.

A picture of Dzhani

2010-01-22T07:28:42Z

A picture of Dzhani, my Worldtree fox-cani investigator, by octantis. Her adventures are in the Sleeth Named This LJ community.

A very Merry Un-Birthday...

2010-01-14T19:44:47Z

... to the rest of you, and Happy Birthday to me. We have Birthday sign.

Christmas

2009-12-26T06:20:45Z

I had a good time at my sister's. Lots of nice food, playing Lego and Wii with the nephews, talking about things with Kath and Julia, talking about projects and my truck with Fernando.

Got lost twice on the way there. Once on the way back. Getting tired of this. Yes, with Map & GPS, just missing exits or taking the wrong one.

Plus, the gold crown on my back molar fell off. The tooth hurts a lot and is very sensitive. Not as sensitive as the week before the crown was put on, but still a stabbing pain if I inhale quickly and worse for anything more.

Oh well. I thought there was something wrong with it. Hopefully the tooth can be properly x-rayed for other problems and it fixed right this time.

I would like to make a small aside at this point. I have two types of nightmares, the first kind is a variety of subjects that leave me anxious and angry, the second, is something going wrong with my teeth. Of the latter, the nightmares are invariably of me sitting there, doing something random, picking at a tooth in my mouth and then it falls apart, or out, sometimes with blood or pain.

So, not enjoying.

Truck - Plates

2009-12-24T19:55:44Z

Got the truck registered and the plates, $170, $50 more because I'm vain.

Was complimented on being so well organized, which was nice. However, this will make throwing things out difficult, as a 13 year old photocopy of my Ontario Driver's license turned out to be very useful.

Truck

2009-12-23T22:54:07Z

Well, another $514 on the truck, combined with $1065 before I drove up, $200 to import it and probably some more fees at the MOT office. I was advised to get an undercoating, had to get a couple more tires.

They're things that have to be done, so it's money that has to be spent, so it's another item on the list of things I don't want to do, that I have to do, that there is no point wasting any emotion over. So I need to try and let it not bother me, and largely it doesn't.

As the song says, "There ain't nothin' new about money woes".

It's in very good shape, I suppose, is the good news. Emissions are excellent, even by California standards.

Still, I want to say 'Damn'. This is getting to be a bit much.

Damn.

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Rule #32 Enjoy the Little Things

2009-12-16T22:33:36Z

I meant to post this when it happened, as it wasn't very long after Zombieland came out and the timing seemed appropriate, but I was busy.

Packing up all my stuff wasn't very fun, as it came with a corresponding keep/toss-leave decision. During the summer, McDonald's was offering some coke glasses with their value meals. I almost never eat at McDonald's, but took the hit and bought six meals to get six of the glasses. I was hoping to get 3 and 3, and ended up with 2 blue, 4 brown. I broke one of them very soon after.

The glasses are sort of coke-bottle shaped, narrow at the bottom and flaring up top. This makes them difficult to stack and pack. Also, as they're demonstrably fragile, I was wondering exactly what to do with them.

I also had a bunch of 'disposable' plastic glasses from Publix. They came with the combo subs, and were similar shapes, just larger. I put one of the glasses inside, and it was a perfect match, giving approximately 1/2" of airspace all around.

I had three of these, and needed five. I stopped by a few Publix, but they didn't seem to have them anymore although the one closest to me did end up with them again. So, another couple combos and I had cups for the glasses. Not very soon after, they switched to paper as well.

So, I ended up with five nice Coke glasses, and five things to pack them in which serve as glasses as well. It wasn't a big deal, but it was a randomly nice little thing and I thought worth mentionning.

Octopus and Coconut

2009-12-15T15:38:58Z

Amusing link here.

Apparently it likes its coconut enough to drag it around.