Thank goodness for rich relatives

My family and I are driving around in Toronto in a car that is only a 2 seater and the kids and the luggage are stuffed in the back. It is roomy enough for them as there is a large space under the hatchback window for them to sit and play. We are trying to drive to Doug's cousin Allen's house but then remember that he has moved and we don't know where his new apartment is. Suddenly we see that we're being followed and realize that they want us because we've stolen the car that we're in. We drive faster to avoid these people but then the kids start asking to go to the bathroom. I suddenly remember that there is a another cousin that lives nearby so we quickly drive to their house. The address is a building on a city street, so we all hop out, run across the sidewalk, run inside and shut the door behind us.

I'm amazed at the beauty of this house, it is immaculate with tall ceilings, white walls, floor to ceiling windows, and perfectly polished medium-toned wood floors. In the foyer to the left of the door, there is a large table with a centerpiece that is a six foot long ceramic canoe used as a vase. The inside of this ceramic piece is colored from very pale blue to a deep cobalt blue. Inside are an arrangement of fresh flowers that reach three feet above the vase. We are greeted by Doug's cousin who looks like Kate Hudson with curly light brown hair and a warm smile. She is extremely friendly and happy to see us even though we came unannounced. We explain that we just needed to make a stop and also mention that there are people chasing us. She tells us that we're welcome to stay as long as we like. I ask, what do you mean by as long as we like? She says, since you're relatives, you could live here if you wanted, it's a family house. I ask, Permanently? for free? She says yes. I say, sure, let's look around. I start thinking that this would mean relocating to Canada and all the logistics of it but then I just let the house take me away.

Now, this house or rather building is huge and takes up a whole city block. The kids quickly see other cousins that they know and they bring them to the movie theater. I tag along behind them to see what it looks like. There is indeed a huge theater with about 10 rows of seats, a red and white striped curtain and a popcorn machine. The guy running the popcorn machine says that the peanuts are slow getting roasted, but the popcorn is ready. The peanuts are roasting in their shells over an open flame grill. I see him filling up bags of popcorn for the kids and he also has french fries and gravy. I think this is a weird combination, so I try a piece. It is actually quite tasty, but I didn't think Adam would like it because it would be too soggy. Next thing I know, I see him eating a bowl of them and enjoying it. I guess he likes this place. There are about 20 kids and they settle down for their movie, so I wander around some more.

I go up the stairs and am amazed by the beautiful architecture. There are windows along the round winding staircase and skylights above. Sun is streaming in from all angles filling the stairwell with radiant light. The railing of the staircase has two shiny metal bands that curve in a wavy upside down U shape. I look at these bands from above and think that this would make a great photograph. I want to run back to the car and get my new DSLR camera, but not just yet, need to explore some more. I finally get to the other side of the building and there is personal travel agency there. There are large light blue tiles walls with the tiles emanating in a stretched polar pattern from the lower left corner. The sign for the agency over the counter has a retro-looking map of the world in the shape of a football. Here the floors are shiny black tiles.

I walk back to the front of the house convinced that this is the place to live. I look out the window to see that the people chasing us have gotten a hold of our car, which is now clearly a silver Lotus. Someone from the house starts chasing after them on a skateboard. I don't feel too bad about losing the car or our belongings because we can get everything from this house.

Observations: This mysterious Kate Hudson-like cousin is probably Allen's daughter Lara who also lives in Toronto. In real life, she is not independently wealthy but she is nice as can be. I woke up from this dream at 8:05 AM already late for work!

Hail to XKCD

Here is the original XKCD comic.

A living memorial

I'm on a bus with a bunch of people, heading out to a gathering which I know is a memorial service for Carl Paul (in real life, Carl has been gone for over a year and a half). We arrive at our destination which is in a park with a large gathering tent. I take a seat in a white plastic folding chair. Everyone is dressed a bit like hippies, it is a beautiful day and the air is warm. We see Carl alive walking around greeting everyone, wearing his tan leather jacket with the fringes in front. I think that it is strange that he is here, as if he knew he was going to die soon, and wanted to get everyone together one last time. We are all seated as he walks around with papers to hand out to people. I stand up to help him, because I know he must be weak, but he shoos me away. Finally I get my papers and I realize that they are individually addressed and that is why he refused help. Along with the papers is a small box. I open it and there are two items inside, presumably things he wanted me to have after he was gone. One item is an old HP calculator, which I believe to be more valuable than my own HP 32S. I am really touched by this gesture as I know how dear this calculator must have been to him. The thought crosses my mind whether to hock it on eBay or keep it for sentimental value because I wouldn't really use it. I quickly think that this is an inappropriate thought to think at a memorial and try to get my mind back on the service.

Observations: Our minds often confuse the living and dead when we dream. I didn't know whether Carl had an HP calculator in real life, but he was the type of person who would treasure one. I tried to find the actual calculator from the dream, it seems to be an HP 38e, but I dreamt it was bigger and had more buttons. Of course, I don't necessarily have to dream of objects that must exist in real life!

Bowling on Twitter

I'm going bowling with some friends and have to walk downstairs to the bowling alley. I'm trying to get a foursome, and I ask my friend Noorul, but she declines and then I remember that she doesn't like to use those communal shoes. I finally get another friend Marty as the fourth (can't remember the other two). While we are bowling, I think I'm doing well, but the score keeps hovering around 9. I finally realize that the scorekeeper is doing it wrong, subtracting points instead of adding them. Finally after we correct the scores, it is around 110. After the game, I go upstairs to a computer cafe. It is full of people with dark red walls and law office lamps with the green glass shades. I sit at a computer and try to write a twitter post about bowling. I can't seem to come up with anything and it is hard to type and see the screen which is tilted towards me on a slanted wall. My boss is standing behind me waiting for me to put up my post. I try to explain that this monitor is screwing me up. I type and it doesn't comes out witty or funny, and then it gets too long, over 140 characters. Imagine twitter anxiety in my dream!

Observations: This dream happened after I replied to geekparrot's twitter post about bowling, to which she replied here. Here is the transcript:

geekparrot: I bowled my best game ever - 144. Hee.
moonfever0: @geekparrot Awesome, real bowling is so much harder than Wii bowling!
geekparrot: @moonfever0 Well I'm still waiting to get my Wii, but yea, ain't nothing like the real thing.

Flaming Snowball Fight with Father Roderick

Ok, so this entry might be a bit obvious....obvious to me as to where it probably came from. It comes from a dream I just had this past morning.

I was driving my car up a road that I had driven up many times. (though not one that I was at all familiar with in real life)

I came to the end of the road, which had turned into sort of a driveway. I noticed that it had not only begun to snow, but that the ground was suddenly covered with it. In fact, the car I was driving started to slip and slide as I drove it.

I ended up driving the car into a snow bank behind the house. (it was stuck) I got out and went into the house. Inside, the house was a very open concept.....but in this case, very, very open. So open that there was no furniture or appliances. In fact, I was searching for a place to sit and all I found were tables to stand against.

While in the house, I guess I was sort of jumped on by Father Roderick, the priest who created the Starquest Production Network (SQPN) and who produces the Daily Breakfast podcast. We started to wrestle and somehow ended up boxing....except we ended up battling it out inWii boxing.

Neither of us won, and we somehow transformed out boxing into a Wii snowball fight....which instantly became more real when we exchanged the Wii controller for real snowballs. The battle started in what looked like the Living room and moved out to the yard where there was plenty of time and snow to continue the battle.

I ran behind the house, only to find that my car was not only still stuck in a snow bank, but that it was now smoldering.....apparently ready to catch fire.

I tried to throw snow on it, but Father Roderick came around the building and started pelting me with snow. I tried to hide behind the car in the hopes that Father Roderick's snowballs would hit it and put out the fire.

He was in fact throwing very large snowballs, but they only put out the fire....but the car continued to smolder.

It was about this point that I awoke from my dream. As strange as it sounds, Father Roderick looked nothing like the real guy. In my dream he was very tall....but he at least did have a Dutch accent.


WHERE DID THIS COME FROM YOU ASK? Well, that is an easy one indeed.

Earlier that day I had dropped something off at Angela's house. (and it was snowing out when I did) While there, she showed me her house. (which did have furniture and appliances) She then showed me their Wii gaming system.

One of the games I played was Wii boxing, and one of the Avatar's on the game is of Fr. Roderick. (though I never boxed Fr. Roderick...I did play baseball with his avatar)

Where the flaming car came from....I have no clue.

OMG: Where did my car go?

First of all, I want to say that I am a person who rarely remembers his dreams. When I mean rarely, I mean NEVER. I tend to only remember my dreams the nights I wake up with a fever breaking.....and I am luck in that I rarely get sick.

So this morning on the way to work I suddenly remembered the dream I had the night before. I quickly recorded it to my MP3 player since I was in my car going to work. (and had no paper or pen handy to take the notes.)

Here is the MP3 recording of how I described it this morning. (In that recording, I seem to have a stuffed up nose, so please bare with me)

In the dream, my Brother in-law Billy was over to my house for some reason, and he was now leaving in a bit of a hurry. I think he might have been late for work, but I only guess this because he would eventually motor up the street toward Manchester.

But as he backs quickly out of the driveway, he is doing so in a semi-out of control manner. As he swerves down the driveway, he cuts toward the mailbox and hits it. But he does not hit it hard enough to knock it over. (note: For some reason the maibox in my dream is on the opposite side of my driveway,,,and I'm not sure what the significance of this is)

Billy straightens himself out, and continues to very quickly back out of my driveway.

For some reason I had decided to park my Honda Civic out on the street, to the left as I look out my driveway. Then to the right, up the hill, I have a pick-up truck which is apparently also mine. (It isn't my old white Dodge, but some sort of a blue F150 and it is parked a little up the hill.)

As Billy backs down the hill he strikes my Honda civic, and as he does I see that the Honda seems to "lock bumpers" with the van that Billy is driving a van. (I note that Billy does not own a van, but rather a truck of some sort.)

When I see the cars locked together, I bolt from the front door and begin running down the driveway in my underwear and bathrobe....screaming for Billy to STOP, and waving my arms to get his attention.

I then notice that he is dragging my Civic up the street...and within a second or two he would be crashing into my truck. Well, he did and he began dragging both vehicles u the hill with him.

When I reached the end of the driveway, I remember seeing the civic sitting around unused. In fact, I thought I saw the Civic "fall-off" the van and I decided to shower and take my time retrieving it.

So my shower seemed to take forever (my dream shower mind you) and by the time I got back up the street, the civic was gone. In fact, there was a crowd of people where the Civic was, and the car was nowhere to be found.

I walked further up the street, only to find more party people and little clues on where my car and truck might be. So no matter how much I searched, the car was lost.

I continued to walk up the street towards RT3A, but no car was to be found. (the crowds of people were having fun as I came up to them)

I never found the car, and woke up about when I made it to RT3A. I never did find Billy, or my cars/truck.

What does it mean...who knows. A more interesting questions to me is, how is it that I remembered this dream over any of the others I have probably buried in my subconscious.

(BTW: I think my verbal recollection of this dream is better than my write-up here. It might have to do with the fact that my eyes are crossing from lack of sleep as I type this :-)

Multi-colored pasta

I'm eating in a fancy house which is not mine and we are cleaning up the dishes. I'm supposed to put away the leftovers of the pasta dish, which was barely touched. The large round dish is full of spaghetti with different colors in each quadrant: green, blue, yellow and red. There is more green than any other color. In the center is a pile of shredded beef or pork. I try to pull some of the green pasta up but end up getting some of the other colors as well. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep these colors segregated or not, but I manage to slide the whole dish into the container. Then I'm at the sink, looking out the old white painted double paned window and see everyone playing outside in the green grass. I'm wondering why I'm slaving over the sink, am I a servant here or something? I go to take a shower which I know is in a closet of a bedroom. The closet is now filled with boxes and then I realize that it's been years since this shower has been used.

Observations: Yes, this one is pretty disjointed, but I really liked the multi-colored pasta. At some point I also got very angry and upset, but I really can't remember why.

Swimming upstream

I'm in a house with all of my fellow co-workers. We are working on an assignment where we are to explain why the water from the river next to the house flow up through the pipes and sprays from the top of the chimney like a fountain. There are no pumps and it is a natural physical phenomenon. I try to guess capillary action, but they say no because the pipes are about 6 inches in diameter. Then my co-workers figure it out and try to explain it to me and I don't understand at all. I keep saying "I don't get it" and feel really dumb.

Next, I find myself in the river next to the house wading across to get to some balls on the other side. I believe these balls are the magic key to the upwardly flowing water. I'm stepping barefoot through some wet mossy areas, and then I realize that the river gets deep and start to swim across. Suddenly, I see my 3-year-old daughter in the river as well and try to tell her not to go in too far because it is too deep. She doesn't listen, so I have to scoop her up and swim with her to the other side. It is hard to swim against the river, but I manage to get to the other side. I grab the balls which look like multi-colored tennis balls and then swim towards the slider of the house. There is no dock or anything, the river runs right up the the slider. I help my daughter up and then hop inside with the balls and my sloshing wet clothes.

Observations: My 6-year-old son is now in the habit of saying "I don't get it" all the time. Earlier that day I was left off the a distribution list for a list of problems from our customer and felt out of the loop. My solar system is also broken, spewing water all over the roof when the pumps are on (no magic there!).

Balancing on Tabletops for Dragons

I'm in a Chinese restaurant in MIT student center for a company lunch. It is a really fancy place with tablecloths and I was wondering when they upgraded their eateries from the old nasty Lobdell dining center. On each table is a small painted jar that looks like a hockey puck. I realize that you need to stand on them on one foot and they will turn into miniature dragons. I hop gracefully from table to table, not disturbing my coworkers sitting at them and balance on all the pucks. A dragon pops out of each one and I gently hop onto the next table.

The waitress said, why don't you try these? She puts an egg into a cup of coffee on a counter that is higher than the table and then another puck on top of some cabinets near the ceiling. I'm doubtful that I can reach the one on the high cabinet, but I do try for the counter. I'm worried about breaking the egg when I stand on it, but do it anyway. This time it doesn't pop, but I do manage to stand on the round floating object without falling. I try to swing myself up onto the top of the tall cabinet, but I hook my legs the wrong way and can't really reach it.

After we return to work, and there is announcement over paging system about the four different types of dragons that were there at the restaurant like a seminar class.

Observations: This dream probably comes from spending too much time the evening before playing Mario Brothers on the Gameboy and jumping on opponents. The whole dragon reference reminds me of the dragons in Harry Potter and the Secrets of Harry Potter podcast that discusses them.

Traveling with Father Roderick

I'm walking around in Amersfoort, the home town of Father Roderick, podcaster extraordinaire of Catholic Insider and Daily Breakfast fame. I'm following Fr. R around the rainy streets and we arrive at his home. It is different than what I imagined. I've heard his description of living on the 2nd floor (1st for the Europeans) of an old house and seen videos taken within his studio. This place is a one bedroom apartment in a building. When you walk in, the bathroom is immediately to the right and it is covered in bright red and white checkerboard tiles. His apartment is also richly colored in dark reds and decorated in a gypsy style. With us is a woman who he obviously knows well and they are talking and joking with each other at length. I notice as they are talking they are touching each other in an overly friendly way. I feel part of this group but obviously left out of this "special" relationship.

Observations: A few weeks later, Fr. R went into detail about priestly celibacy. He also mentioned at a separate time, that he is certainly not perfect and needs to work on some things. I certainly don't think that he personally has issues with keeping relationships with the opposite sex at bay. He is extremely friendly and charming and has a dynamic personality where I could see plenty of women falling for him.