What is On Jeffs' Mind

The past few months I have been so busy with moving, I have had to put my geek habits to the side. I must admit it has been hard to do, and felt that I could only really watch from the sidelines. This weekend I did some work around the house getting things organized and unpacked, and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am hoping when fall comes, I might have a bit more time. That might sound odd as it is summer, but I haven’t really taken any vacation this year. I have some banked time from OT plus my regular Vacation days to use up in the 4th quarter.

This weekend was fairly productive. Tao tao and her mom went on a trip to Vancouver, so I have been home alone for most of the week. I did not get much done earlier in the week, as I had work to do. But the weekend I was able to get to some things. I setup my Stereo and got a lot of things cleared out my TV room, so it is nice to have everything setup now. I watched some DVD’s in the evenings, so started feeling more like I was home. On Saturday I set to work on getting my office organized. With a little bit of thought, I was able to get all my desks into the office, and be able to move around easily. There are still a few odd things left to do, but at least things are out of the way. My Dad came over today to help me with a problem with my Bathtub Faucet in the main bathroom. We thought it was going to be a big task, but in the end, it was just tightening a screw on the faucet know. Thanks to my Dad, I probably would have never figured it out and called a plumber.

In September and October I am going to start painting some rooms. The colours in the bedrooms are pretty dark, so I want to repaint them and brighten them up. I will have to think of a good colour for them.  I am bouncing some things around in my head, but most likely it will be something neutral and brighter. After I am done with the Bedrooms, I can set one up with all my clothes, and my bookshelves as well. My office I will need to paint as well, since it is a bright Yellow, but it is not to bad, but probably something I will wait until the Winter to paint.

The room that I am most anxious to get done is the basement. I have all my collectibles down there right now, but want to do some renovations so that I can expand it a bit. As well the there is a room down there with a chocolate brown colour, which I want to paint to a neutral color as well. Once I am don’t that, then I can get to work setting my collectibles up. I am really eager to do that, so to have to wait, it making it tough. I will go down stairs and try to visualize what it might look like and where things will go.

I am hoping soon that I can get back to more geeky type things I like to do. Such as working on my Websites, my podcasts and to start back with plastic models that I haven’t been able to do for the past few years. I see other people doing fun things, and I feel a bit frustrated that I can’t do those things as well. All I can do is enjoy what they are doing, and motivate myself to get the things I need done completed. The hardest part is done the moving, no things are starting to fall into place, so I should start seeing more time to pursue some other things I haven’t been able for awhile.

On Saturday, I bought myself a couple models as motivation. I have plenty of others as well, but I bought these to Battlestar Galactica models as a bit of a carrot to keep me inspired to get the renovations done.

Here are some Pictures I took this morning of my house. Hopefully over time I will have some more. The toy room will be the one I will want to get sone and pictures taken

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Dad, Moving, Plumbing, Tao tao

Last night was the final BSG of the Ron Moore re-imaged series. To be honest, I was not really sure what I was feeling after it had ended. Probably the feeling I was feeling most was disappointment, but not really sure why. I spent some time after reading peoples posts on forums, and they were heaping a lot of praise the final episode, but for me, I was just not feeling the same as others. There were some nagging thoughts in my head, and how some things unfolded did not feel satisfying to me. Sleeping on it, and reading some more this morning, has changed my perspective somewhat, and I am more satisfied with the finale now.

Spoilers below, some buffer space in case you do not want them

Really like the Galactica, great ship. The episodes that stand out the most for in the series are the ones where the Galactica shepherds the fleet through difficult places

Like in the Original, the relationship between Apollo and Adama was an important one for me. Even though it was not as cordial as in the Original, I could tell the Apollo and Adama cared for each a lot, and even when they were at odds, the son and father relationship was still there.

Apollo/Lee was my favorite character on the series. I really liked the qualities that the character had, and would be ones that I would like to have. He stuck to his beliefs, even if they went against his fathers and the presidents. I liked Lee the most in his pilots role, and weird to say, that I missed him a bit when he left the military and went into politics.

Spoilers ahead, I tried to warn you…

Before the finale they had an 1 hour special, and went through the series, talk with the actors, the creators, production people and network execs. The only thing I really pulled out of it, is that I felt at times maybe the people working on this, took it far to seriously. I can never really understand why some actors seem to have a fear of something that is Sci-Fi related. Some of the actors stated that since it was Sci-Fi, they were not sure if they wanted to do it, and that they wanted it to be more then what is typically found in a Sci-Fi show. I guess some of those statements disappointed me a bit, maybe this show will help change some peoples mind about the genre, but even if a show is not as deep and thought provoking as this one, it should not be dismissed just because it is Sci-Fi. I do hope some of these actors appear in other genre work, as I think they have a lot to add.

The first part of the finale dealt with some flashbacks of Caprica, and I did not really care for them. This second part continued on with them. I must say, I really did not care for the scenes with Tigh and Adama in the strip club. It just took me out of the show, maybe just to real world for me, not sci-fi enough. I really hated the scene later where Adama is outside the club puking on himself, I found myself smirking and laughing at the scene. The scenes with Roslin and the younger man I did not like as well, just made me feel less about the character, and I think at this point of the series, those types of scenes don’t really add much. I could have done with none of the Caprica scenes, none of them really added anything for me, maybe they added them in to promote the new series Caprica coming out. I would have preferred to stay in the present, as none of those story lines did anything for me, and did not care about any of them.

The confrontation between Galactica and Cavil and the Cylons was fantastic. I really liked that they mixed the Old School Cylons and the New School Cylons, such a great visual. The shots of them running down the halls were great. The differences between the two were cool, as the older style were clumsy and awkward, and the newer ones much more graceful in their moves. The scenes when Galactica fist arrived at the colony were great as well, I just marvelled at how much the Galactica could take in terms of an assault, and then to take the ship and ram into the colony was so cool. I did wish that there would have been more scenes with Vipers and Raiders doing battle, as I have always loved those scenes in both series.

My one little grievance with the battle, was I felt they were able to save Hera a little to easily. Basically Boomer had a change of heart, and returned Hera to Helo and Athena. It was a nice touch that she did it to pay back Adama, and she knew it was her last act. But after that exchange it seemed a little to easy for the rescuers to return back to Galactica. When they reached Galactica, and they started showing scenes of Roslin looking for Hera, I knew that it would tie in with the Opera scenes, and that Baltar and Six would actually be saving her, and not taking her away. When I first saw the Opera Scenes a few years ago, I was interested to see how that played out. It might not have been a real wow moment in the finale for me, when that scene was explained, but it did tie in nicely. It was nice to see Baltar and Six redeemed to a certain degree, and that they were not villainous as the Opera scene may have alluded to.

The show sort of slowed down for me when they reached Earth. It felt sort of like the last Lord of the Rings movie, with multiple endings, and me just wondering when we would get to the actual conclusion. The scene with Kara and Lee was nice, and even though I was a bit disappointed the way they handled Kara, that was a nice way to bring her to an end. I sort of went to bed unsatisfied with that story, but sleeping on it, and the explanation that she was an angel, and that her work was done is ok with me. The explanation that Head Six and Head Baltar are angels as well is ok with me. Maybe not a real startling revelation, but seems to fit in with the story. How it relates with God as we know him, I am still thinking about it, and most likely will discuss with my friend Rick,as I am sure he will have some great in-site to it. If I look at the Original series for some idea, I might think of Kara/Head Six/Head Baltar as maybe similar to the Beings of Light that the original crew encountered. I sort of figured as well, that when they did find Earth, that it would be in the past, and it is sort of cool, that we have Cylon in us .

Probably the scene that made me smile the most, was when they sent the fleet into the sun. The homage to the Original series, and the music in the back ground was very moving for me being a Original series fan. It was a great scene, and it might be the one I remember most from the finale.

So over all, even though after I watched the episode, I was disappointed, with some sleep, I feel more satisfied with it. There was no real big twists, or anything that made me fall out of my seat well watching. But for the most part it wrapped things up in a nice manner. Great series, looking forward to some of the other series that will be spun from this. Probably gets me really excited for another re-imaging of the Original that has been rumored.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, BSG, Galactica