Life with a geek....

Yesterday was a day of organization around the house. I was organizing the living room and my husband, whom I lovingly refer to as the geek, decided to organize his desk space.

Barry and I have been together for 6 years or will be together for 6 years on February 1st of this year. He's different from anyone I've ever known. Well, I think he's just plain different. He's what we'd call a geek. When we met, he was designing and building control panels for reverse osmosis systems for many uses from homes to dialysis machines. He's now building (or doing the electrical, wiring, etc., for...) fire trucks, trailers to pull horses for the RCMP and assorted other vehicles.

For our first Halloween party, he went all out and painted the basement with a special UV luminescent paint that activates under black light.

It was an incredible sight to me when he flicked the switch for the lights to go off and the black lights to come on. It reminded me of something from CSI.

Naturally, every Christmas the lights are getting brighter with more of them. And yes, they are synchronized to blink with the music.

It has it's downsides though; clutter. There are wires hanging from doors, things I can't even put names to, sitting on shelves as well as what used to be my kitchen table and huge and I mean enormous wires going right through my kitchen, into the band room. I tolerate this because they are being used to record my sons band and I believe that one day, if they continue to work as a team; they can make it big.

Our music is one of my favourite perks. All of our CD's have been ripped onto a main computer to be used as our jukebox. It goes through a mixer, that goes through a small FM antenna. Barry assigns the antenna to an unused station and voila!! I can play our music from any location in or around the property by simply playing FM 88.1 on the radio. As I'm typing, Barry is playing Rita Marley, from his turntable, and it's coming through my receiver. It still impresses me.

A couple of months ago we were talking about our dreams and I was telling him of mine; to drive the Alaskan Highway. A few days later he told me of his purchase.

Photo courtesy of Barry Duff

He bought it from his boss at work. It has very little mileage on it, which is good when you consider what it was used for. Barry is considering ideas of remodeling and eventually it will take us where we want to go.

We all smile and say "that's Barry". These are many of the things that I love about him.

So back to yesterday and my geek, er... husband, needing more desk space. He acquired more junk, I mean some Kee Klamp from a friend of his who runs a store, here in Peterborough. Well this Kee Klamp is or was used for stage and sound equipment (just another area Barry has expertise in). Basically, it's galvanized pipe, with elbows, etc.

So my husbands desk went from being a six foot table, along with our whole dining room table to a six foot table sitting on galvanized pipes, with shelving to hold his monitors and other electronics, sitting on more galvanized pipes, also utilizing old waterbed parts for the shelving.

And what geek desk is complete without it's own bar fridge?

Well alright, it was mine. I brought it home from my office last week but I guess the rotten bugger decided he might as well pillage it while he had the chance.

One thing I can say, watching all of this come together. It's definitely strong. And it's different. But then so is Barry.

So this is life with a geek. Some may know what it's like to get up from their chair and trip over a bag holding a 20' antenna that has future plans to be erected when "we have our own home". This has become my norm and one thing I can say is, it's always entertaining around here, especially if you love music!!!

Letting go....

****This is the innocent face that was trying to steal my apple pie while I was preparing to work on this blog. She creates a plan, then puts it in action. Unfortunately for her; her brain only functions to the level of a small child.

2008 has come and gone and I've just realized that I haven't been on here since June. I've always meant to but there have been just too many dark days and I really don't like writing during those days.

It hasn't been all dark. Mollie and I got away for a weeks adventure in July to Tobermory, where we met up with some of our crazy Fundawg furiends, human and canine.

It's funny how I had started out earlier today with a thought in my head that I had intended to use as the focus in today's blog. I took that thought out with me on my walk with Mollie this afternoon.

She had a great walk. I didn't take our usual path along the Rotary Trail as it's been pretty icy lately, so I just walked her up the sideroad not far from home. Well out of nowhere comes a horse with a sulky. They turned along a driveway, came back out and back up the road. By the time, I was able to get my mitts off, camera out and on, take my picture, they had made pretty good tracks.

Mollie, being the ever alert, scent hound, sight hound, crazy hound attached to my waist, had never been that close to a horse before.


Although it was good for the horse, not to mention the gentleman riding along on the sulky, that Mollie was not able to roam free, robbing her of the opportunity to give this man the ride of his life and the poor horse nightmares for the rest of his/her life. It sure gave me a work out holding back my full 55 pounds of ADHD in full throttle for the next half kilometre of our walk, looking for her horse.

Eventually, she gave up and we were able to enjoy a liesurely walk.

The last six weeks or so of 2008 were challenging, to say the least.

I was looking back at my posting from mid-January 2008 about our move here, titled "Goodbye Slumlord". In it is the picture of the old tree in the front of our house.

In the wee hours of the morning of September 14, 2008, as I was getting ready for bed, I was looking out my bedroom window, talking to Barry. The wind was incredible. Suddenly the was a loud crack and bright blue light and loud popping noises as part of the tree came down, taking the hydro line across the highway with it. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Naturally we were without service for the night. We were alright with that. We also spent the next couple of hours out on the highway, with a couple of people who had stopped, making sure vehicles, especially trucks did not drive through the live wires.

The part that will always stay with me was when I was on the phone with the hydro people and Mollie escaped from the house. She ran right through the wires. Thankfully, she came back fairly quick, for her standards. I think she was confused by the energy that night. Coming back she was on our property, away from the wires.


If there's one thing I can say about my life is that I always try to learn from challenges I'm faced with. And I'm always stronger from them.

During that period, my husband, Barry was unemployed for two months. That tree certainly has helped give us some warm fires, combined with the wood we had already purchased in the spring.


It's still sad sometimes, seeing the stump silhouette where the tree stood proud. But it was meant to happen and some good came out of it as well. And thankfully, nobody was hurt.

I also see that stump as sort of a symbol of 2008. What it took from us. What it gave us.

And now I'm ready to face 2009. I'm ready to take on a new direction. I'm not exactly sure where it's going to take me but I'm certainly going to enjoy the ride.

May all your hopes and dreams for 2009 become realities.