Discussions with Zharphyn

In October 2009, in the span of less than a week, I experienced the greatest high point one can experience, and one of the darkest moments one can experience.  On Tuesday October 6th, I received the information that the previous night,  my brother-in-law had experienced a stroke and was now hospitalized in a coma.  That was Tuesday, on Friday October 9th, my son Spencer was born.

My father had a series of strokes fifteen years ago, and is essentially fine now, so I believed that Al would recover.  “I believe” became the theme whilst Al was in hospital.  People wrote cards and letters centred around everyone’s fervent belief that Al would recover.

As the month progressed, the information surrounding Al’s stroke brought darker and darker news.  It was explained to us that Al did not have a stroke, as the episode occurred on the brain-stem and not the brain.  The damage to Al’s brain stem was severe.  Although the odds of recovery were bleak, everyone still believed.  Al was a fighter.  He would not allow the doctor’s to be right, he would prove them wrong.

On November 1st, I received the information that Al had a second episode, and had died.  I was devastated.  Al was a vibrant man, loved by the people who knew him.  He has two children aged 12 and 7.  “How could this happen?” I asked myself repeatedly.  It was not fair, it was not right, but it was what happened.  My sister had been barely functional while Al was in hospital, now collapsed into a wreck.  Her friends and family near where she lives had come to her rescue while Al was in hospital rallied even harder to help my sister.  They did the repairs in her house, cooked her meals, cleaned her house, and took her children for “play-dates”.   My sister is a very proud woman and had difficulty allowing her friends to help her in this fashion, but knew that she needed the help.  The celebration of life was the first genuine celebration of life that I had attended.  My sister rented a hall, and was going to set up 200 chairs, but her friends convinced her to set up 300.  Reluctantly my sister agreed.  She thought 200 was more than she would need, and 300 would look excessive, especially as they would sit empty.  When I arrived at the hall, it was already standing room only.  It is estimated that 550+ people showed up to express their love for Al.  The celebration consisted of several people standing up and telling their memories of Al while they played a computer slide show of pictures.  The tone of the event was joyous tinged with great sadness.  When the event finished, everyone started back to their normal lives, everyone that is except my sister.

My sister’s life was now in shambles.  She now had to try and pick up what pieces she could, and figure out how to fill in all the holes in her life.  She had lost her husband and best friend, and her children had lost their father.  It was a gaping wound in their hearts that a little bit of counselling would not fix.  Fast forward 10 months to today – Al’s 12 year old son tries to hide his emotions in typical male fashion.  Al’s 7 year old daughter is angry at the world, but especially with her mother.  My sister is still lost.  Her emotions are still very raw.  Many days she lacks the motivation to get out of bed, and when she does get up she finds it difficult to do anything.

This morning I found a posting on her Facebook site that she had written during the night last night.  It broke my heart.  Six hours later I still have tears in my eyes.  For the first hour I wept uncontrollably.  Her son is on a Scout trip that for three years Al had been planning and preparing the scout troop.  Al always had big plans for his future.  He had written down his goals for the next twenty years of his life.  Goals that now he will now never achieve.  My sister questions how this could have happened.  Hundreds of people were praying to God for Al to recover.  We all genuinely believed that he would get better.  The quantum power of those actions should have been enough to heal Al, but he died anyway.  So what is the point to prayer or belief?  This is the question that my sister is asking.  Her heart is not broken, it is shattered with the largest piece small enough to fit through the head of a pin.

In her posting my sister quotes the Alias song “I Need You Now”.  I was left thinking about a Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers”.  In the song, Garth sings that when you pray fervently for something and God does not answer, it is likely because God has a bigger plan for you, and granting you your prayer would hinder that plan. I do not pretend to know God’s will, or even if there is a God. I sometimes question the decisions that God makes. Why does he allow certain major disasters to occur and yet prevents some of the smaller events. Or maybe there is no God and everything is random. My business partner would claim alien intervention rather than God, and perhaps he is correct.
Maybe next time I will tell you all why I believe that God made a mistake and took the wrong brother-in-law of mine. He took the hard working, decent man, father of two, Scout leader, and left behind my other brother-in-law. A man whose actions have pushed my family to near bankruptcy, and caused massive marital problems between myself and my wife. He is a narcissistic man who expects that life will hand him a silver platter. He has an attitude of expectation, and does little to nothing to help the world around him. I guess God knew which man the residents of heaven would prefer to have. Not that I really expect my other brother-in-law to go to heaven. All I know, is that if I was given the choice to trade the places of my two brother-in-laws, I would not hesitate for one second in my decision.  I know that I will get in trouble with my in-laws if any of them read this post, but I am speaking the truth, and most of my in-laws do not actually know the real story of what transpired in Calgary this year.  Or if they do know, and they still speak to me the way they do I want nothing more to do with them, ever.

The Magical World of Harry Potter can be used as a theme for a fun and creative Halloween party.

Although J.K. Rowling has finished her famous novel series, Harry Potter, the popularity of the title continues.  With part one of the 7th feature film expected this fall, many kids are returning to the series once again.  And it is not just kids that are reading and re-reading the series, many teens and adults have a great love for the series.

This widely shared love of the series leads itself very nicely to a themed costume party.  Lots of decoration and costumes can be extracted directly from the world of Harry Potter. For example, ghosts, goblins, witches, wizards, brooms, hats, skeletons, spiders, cobwebs, and magic potions fit the theme of both Halloween and Harry Potter. Other decorative touches that are directly related to Harry Potter include items such as: Hogwarts crests, posters, owls, frogs, etc.

Harry Potter Halloween parties can be announced using Harry Potter themed invitations. These may include fonts and images found online that are related to the world of Harry Potter. Ensure that invitations inform your guests of the date, time and place of the party. To help you with preperations, ask your guests to RSVP, this way you will know how much to prepare. If you are having a children’s event, the parents of your guests need to be informed of the special arrangements that you have made for the party.

To keep the Harry Potter theme running throughout the party, you can plan many different activities such as: watching the Harry Potter movies, reading books, discussing details of the story and film, making Harry Potter-related crafts, playing Harry Potter games video, and looking at online fan sites.

Crafts do not have to be complicated. You can get everyone to do a Harry Potter style wand for them nothing more than a stick of wood and some paint.

Jackie & Dunlap at the Harry Potter Book Release

So I decided to buy my celestial steed today. It looks very cool. Hopefully in a few days I will be able to get my epic flying skill. I have 3335 gold saved so far, with 2000 of that collected since Friday. I finished Exalted Champion of the Alliance, and I am now following Zygor’s Icecrown Full Zone Quest Path, which is included in the Zygor Guide Dailies and Events Guide. I love this guide, I have been using it for a week now, and I have raised five factions to exalted status. I just need my reputation with The Argent Crusade to get to exalted for the Crusader title. Then I can look at getting Heirloom items and the new dailies. Although I do still want my Netherdrake Mount. Maybe once I finish all of that, I will start doing some dungeons. My Kirin Tor rep could use some work, there is only so many times you can do cooking and fishing dailies before you go insane.

But alas, I should stop playing silly games and get back to work.

WoTLK Dalaran – Sound Track

I am constructing a bed for my three year old, and I need to build a ladder.  As I was exploring how to build a ladder, I realized that the basic concept of ladder is remarkably similar to building a set of monkey bars for the jungle gym that I am going to build my children. I know that I am getting a little bit carried away with everything that I plan on building with my children, but it is good to have plans.

The concept is very easy.  You use a thick wooden dowel, I am going to use 1½”, but I know other guys who use 1″ or 1¼”, and some 2x4s.  Drill a hole through two 2x4s with the same diameter as the dowel every 14′.  Laminate a second 2×4 to one side of each 2×4 that you have drilled a hole.  Insert your dowel into the holes in the 2x4s to create the rungs. As you can see from the picture, you wind up with what almost looks like a ladder.  Now that you have the monkey bars, you need to suspend them off of the ground.  Use a similar technique to build a short ladder.  For the ladder, you want the rungs closer together, I would recommend 12″ spacing.  You do not need the ladder to go up very far, 3 – 4 rungs should suffice, but you do need the 2x4s for the ladder to go much higher than the rungs.  When you climb to the top of the rungs, you should be able to reach the monkey bars.  To attach the monkey bars to the ladders, what you do is make the outer 2x4s on the ladder longer than the inner 2x4s, and on the monkey bars, you make the inner 2x4s longer than the outer.  This way, when you go to assemble your full structure, the inner 2x4s from the monkey bars rest on the inner 2x4s from the ladder, and the ladder’s outer 2x4s overlap the monkey bar’s inner 2x4s.  I would send some thick carriage bolts right through to hold the structure together.  This will give you a basic set of monkey bars; you are going to need to secure them from tipping over, but that would depend upon to which structure you were attaching them.  If you want them free standing, I would recommend cementing them into the ground.