I’m not normally one who does recaps/reviews of episodes of TV, but last night I sat in my office and watched the seventh episode of LOST for this season and I gotta tell you, it was awesome.

Not for the huge mythological answers that came because there weren’t many. Not for the huge action scenes and things blowing up. Not for any of those typical things but for the one thing this show has always been about: the characters.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** If you have not seen this episode, do not read any further. I also have mild spoilers for later in the season near the end.

In keeping with the retro theme this season, this episode was centered around the character of Ben. This is a guy who has gone through quite a bit since his early days as the leader of the others. We’ve watched him manipulate countless individuals to do his bidding. We’ve seen him kill in cold blood and allow others to be killed. And we’ve also seen how his early childhood may have in fact had something to do with how he turned out.

In all of the time in his service to the island, he did as he was asked to by the mysterious Jacob. A man he had never met. In the end, after losing his daughter, and convinced killing Jacob would be the vengeful and right thing to do (by our resident Smokey AKA NotLocke) we saw a man tonite that was indeed very broken.

Ilana was obviously very upset and distraught at finding out Ben had killed Jacob whom she saw as a father figure. Obviously wanting to take out her rage on the man who killed him, she decides to make him dig his own grave. When Ben gets the chance to get away, it results in what I believe to be the single most honest confession Ben Linus ever made. He’s accepted the fact that he was responsible for Alex’s death but that he took it out on Jacob. When offered his old power back by Locke, he figures that’s his only option because no one else would have him. Ilana lowers her gun, says she’d have him, and walks away. With a choice to follow Locke or our beach Losties, Ben joins up with the good guys and for the first time in LOST’s history, it would seem that Ben really is on the right side.

In the flash-sideways world, we see a more conservative Ben but at the same time he seems to be capable of the same things out island Ben is, but he hasn’t used them to much extent thus far. We also see the same genuine caring for Alex and wanting to take care of her. In this world, Ben does the more honourable thing and insures that Alex will have a better chance at Yale, despite knowing that he could have had the principal’s job. It seems that even in the sideways world Ben is finding the good.

This episode was an amazing piece of character development for Ben. Michael Emmerson’s acting in this episode was absolutely superb and since this was likely the last centric episode for him, it was fantastic to see his character come to a real turning point that I think has major potential for the rest of this season. I can’t wait to see what else happens.

In other island events, we saw Richard lure Hurley & Jack to the Black Rock (which I believe is how Richard came to the island). Richard is very upset and wants to kill himself because he’s lost faith in Jacob’s plan. Knowing he can’t kill himself, he asks Jack for help. Jack’s onboard and lights the fuse, literally. The best part of that scene was definitely when the fuse was lit and Jack looks at Richard and says, “ok, let’s talk” and they cut to commercial. I actually jumped out of my seat and was just awestruck and how awesome that was. Jack has really come into knowing that it’s taking drastic actions to get drastic answers.

What I found very profound about this entire story was how Jack is now very much beginning to embrace destiny. This is a guy who never bought into it before, but after seeing what he’s seen, he knows that he was brought there for a reason and he needs to find out what that is. I suspect that Jack is meant to replace Jacob as the island’s protector and that what we will see in future episodes is this coming to fruition. Even if it doesn’t, it will kick ass.

The episode gave us some tidbits. Ilana’s job is to protect the candidates. She knows quite a bit. We know that Jacob gave Richard the gift of long life through his touch so does that imply our losties received the same gift? We also learned that Charles Widmore has found his way back to the island. Although I can’t say for certain, I would bet that either Desmond or Eloise Hawking (or maybe both) are also on that sub. Regardless, I can’t wait to see the look on Ben’s face when Widmore shows up on the shoreline. It is going to be awesome.

All of that having been said, if the episodes continue the way they have been, I have little to no doubt that the show is going to wrap up in a way that has real meaning for the characters, and answers to the most important island and mythology questions. I’ve read some tidbits that say the episode in two weeks is a Richard Alpert flashback which should give us some big reveals and I also read this morning that episode 15 will feature none of the castaways and is rumoured to be all about Jacob & MIB in their youth on the island. When I hear things like this, and see episodes like last nights, I have all the faith in the world that good answers are coming. I can’t wait.

For starters, in case you haven’t heard somehow, with the help of some local cachers, I started a brand new geocaching website for cachers in the province of New Brunswick. It’s called Cache Up NB and it was “launched” at a breakfast event this past Sunday. Reception has been good. I am happy.

Now, there’s actually a whole lot more to the launch of this site than just a little blurb here and there. In fact, there’s been some, how shall I put this eloquently…activity going on just prior to the official launch of this site that has been in itself quite interesting. Interesting because it still hasn’t completely played out yet and I am more or less just sitting back and waiting to see what happens.

My apologies for being so cryptic with my message but at the end of the day, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on but I certainly have my opinion. The problem is, with blogs being so public now, and this being visible on places like Facebook, I need to be very careful in what I say and how I say it. I would love to spell it out in plain English but I really need to sit back and see how things evolve on their own before I know anything definitive.

The issue at hand has to do with my own take on the coincidental timing of the launch of the “new” Maritime Geocaching Associations website. There are definitely some questions that need to be answered and it would seem that only the passage of time will yield those results. I suspect that within a months time, a lot more will be known.

Why do a post at all then if I’m not going to dive into details? Well, in many ways these posts aren’t about what others read but what I use as a “log” of things going on in my own life. I put some posts to share views and news with others and some posts are just ramblings to sort of make a note for myself later. If I want to rant on about stuff I don’t want you to read, I do it elsewhere. When things play out in whatever way they will, I’ll likely have some commentary about the situation then.

Until then, I’m enjoying interacting with cachers on this new site and am looking forward to our first official event which should be published shortly.

I think I mentioned in a previous post about how I was considering starting a new site for geocaching in New Brunswick. Well, I did start one and it’s been up and running for a few weeks now. Just been trying to get all of the content ready to go and make sure the site is stable enough for regular users.

I was planning to “launch” the site on Sunday at the local cachers breakfast but it seems that folks have found out all by themselves about the new site. Word does travel VERY fast in this community.

That having been said, if you’re into geocaching, or just want to see what I’ve been working on, feel free to check out www.cacheupnb.com. I picked Cache Up NB as the name because it’s a cool play on words. “Catching up” all things caching.

Check it out. I’ve had some help getting content into it via Rev Slippery, Pa, and Milosheart. Hoping to see more contributors

Well folks, it’s been almost a year since I did a trip for work. It goes to show how the business has changed in the last year or so. But, that having been said there is always the possibility that things will change as nothing is ever written in stone. That being said, I am off to Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday. I’ve never been there before so it should make for an interesting trip.

It also marks the last time I will get to use my Elite status with Air Canada. It officially expires on February 28th and I definitely did NOT make enough miles last year to retain it. The odds are I will not be obtaining it again unless I end up doing some massive amount of travel which seems unlikely.

I have to say, there’s a big part of me really looking forward to this trip but not just because it’s travel. Because I think I need a few days away from Moncton. I’ve had a lot of stuff go on in my head over the course of the last few months and I think I really need to take stock of a few things while I am on the road. Nothing bad, just trying to figure out some things about my future and the path I want to take. I said to Tamara that I feel like I am on the verge of something but I just can’t figure out what it is. Maybe a few days away from home will help. We’ll see.

I have decided to launch a new geocaching website and it is almost ready to go. I have received some help with it and I am hoping that it is ready to go “live” before the end of the month. In fact, it would be nice if I could use the next breakfast as a launch for it but I’ll have to see how far along the rest of it comes. There’s still some tweaking on it I want to do and some of the articles need changed or moved. It is looking pretty sharp though

Tonite Tamara’s out and the kids are in bed but I’ll be spending the next hour or so working on a DVD for Dylan so he has some Thomas The Train stuff to watch. Not sure how it will turn out but that’s what I’m going to find out. With that said, Adobe just finished installing so it’s time to get to work. Toodles!

So over the course of the last hour or so, I have been racking my brain trying to get some 3rd party login connections available for this site. I have hit up several that allow you to “connect” via pretty much everything under the sun, but the ones that seem to have the multi-site functionality, also require you to sign up for “their” service and make a bunch of modifications to your PHP code. So, I decided not to go with those as I want a plugin that just works.

I tried at least 3 or 4 different Facebook ones because pretty much everyone has a Facebook account whether they use it much or not. It would be SO much nicer if you could log into this site using your FB account. Unfortunately once again that even the actual plugin from Facebook itself doesn’t work right. It let’s you log in fine but if you comment on anything, it shows up as “Facebook User” instead of their name. If their name showed up, I’d have it installed now.

So, for now I have set up the Twitter integration. Basically, if you have a Twitter account, you can now use it to log in and post comments to Bobsroom and even “tweet” the comment automatically. I know there are far less people using Twitter compared to Facebook but it is a step in the right direction.