What the hell is up with Shnewt? You'd think it would kill him to update his blog. I just know he sitting in a Starbucks, sucking on a Bubba size latte with an attractive, 'mobile' receptionist. "Hey Paul, they have wireless access in there!". With three Starbucks on the campus, I'd imagine that his hands are shaking so badly that he can't type.
My flu is pretty much gone now having been replaced by a bit of a cough and an irritating cold but my energy level is zip. I went and got my hair cut and then went downtown to buy a new comforter. That pretty much took it out of me, so I give that new comforter a spin.
Why don't they make comforters for men? You know, in like, blue and stuff. Everything that I looked at would have kept me awake at night with the bizarre patterns and colors. I did find a decent one though admittedly, it is a bit 'pastelly'. I think I'll look into a duvet if they indeed make them in solid colors.
I also noted that I have made the 'Daily Reads' column on Andrea's Links page. *blush*
Well, I guess I'll wrap this up. I need to go out and get the cough drops that I should have bought when I got some groceries earlier. The girl at the checkout had a moustache that distracted me.
Oh my God, am I sick... but first:
I plan on hunting you down and taking you to dinner at the restaurant of your choice!
As I was saying, I've been sick since Tuesday when I woke up with a pretty decent headache. I thought it was odd but ignored it. As the day went on I got progressively worse to the point that I felt lucky to have made it home from work without passing out on the No.5
I called in sick Wednesday and spent the entire day doing two hours up and two hours in bed. The entire time I could feel every fibre of my body and everything ached to the point where my shirt irritated me. Speaking of irritating, this post is start is turning into a bitch session.
I did go to work today and while tired, I was feeling OK until the afternoon when it started to catch up with me again. I'm getting better but this sucks. Not only that but it's beautiful and warm out and I can't feel it! Damn, I hope I'm better Friday. We're all going out to lunch as the company scored a huge contract so it's party time. Or something to that effect...
As a public service, I've turned off the Sevenapril kitchen cam so as not to subject my loyal viewers (both of you) to me standing there in my underwear waiting for my NeoCitran. Right. I'm going back to bed...
Carmen complains that my entries are too long and she has requested an abridged version. "Just for you..."
Ah, Friday... I love Fridays even more so when they mean something to me again. Work has been going better for me lately. I'm not really sure why, just an increase in my comfort level I guess. We're all still getting to know each other and things are loosening up around the office. Dare I say that today was fun? It sure seemed that way.
Being in Gastown is an experience unto itself. Yesterday I witnessed a bum walk into a shop, grab two umbrellas from the doorway and walk away. Then the girl came flying out after him and he took off running like it was the crime of the century. It wasn't raining out and why two? Probably to try and sell to some other idiot. I walked up to the office after that and was asked to take a picture for some Asian Engrish students and I happily complied. The tourists who gather to watch the steam clock are also a source of never ending amusement for me.
I have now added the Sevenapril Kitchen cam to the page. Last night during a marathon chat session with Andrea I decided to find the software for my old cam and install it on my old box. That poor P200 has one job and that is to serve up pictures of the kitchen and that's probably asking a lot of it. Maybe now I'll do the dishes more often but I wouldn't wait around for me to show up on there.
I also witnessed something kinda pathetic on the way home. Two limos at Seymour and Dunsmuir full of grads who were caught in traffic. Every couple of seconds they would hang out the windows, screaming and hollering. Obviously, this was met with indifference by everyone on the corner who barely acknowledged them. They were so disappointed that no one would share in their adolescent joy that they would slink back in only to re-emerge for another go at getting us excited for them. A sad display really...
I love being downtown.
Is it just me or do you also worry about bugs crawling in your toaster and getting fried along with your bagel?
"The Newton's" are now back in Canada and while I still have some questions regarding the legality of a Turkish wedding, Rachel claims it's binding. They brought me back a Turkish ashtray with a huge eyball in it, apparently to ward off evil.
I got together with Paul on Tuesday as it'd been three weeks since we had coffee and chain smoked. I complained about work and he talked about Turkey. About par for the course though it was nice that he didn't go on and on about how cool he thinks I am and how he wishes he was more like me. That gets so embarrassing after a while...
Last night, I hooked up with "The Newton's" for dinner and a viewing of The Matrix Reloaded. It was a good movie and all but compared to The Matrix, it was a bit of a let down. A great movie but the first one was so unreal on so many levels that this one had a lot to live up to. It would probably be a good idea to see it again.
What was odd, was that the theater was only 2/3 full. We were figuring that it would be packed and bolted from the restaurant to get there in time. Not before Paul and I checked out GTA3 Vice City for the PC. Hmmm... I've never spent $70 on a video game before but that is one that is probably worth it. Maybe this weekend.
Oh, one last thing... Karan sent this link to the Beta of MSN 6. Tres cool! If you like MSN grab it.
[UPDATE] I've been reading about this "Star Wars Kid" for a while now, so I finally decided to have a look for the video. It's a video of a guy called Ghyslain doing his best Star Wars work with his lightsaber and some of his friends thought it might be funny to put it on Kazaa. It's pretty funny to watch.
Wired wrote a storey about these two guys who are trying to raise some cash to send Ghyslain an iPod for his trouble. I think the one guy has some Vancouver connections, judging by his blog. [/UPDATE]
I bought some new conditioner. I makes my hair smell like a Bounce sheet.
The disk swap took longer than expected because I didn't realize that Maxtor expects you to read upside down when determining the correct jumper settings. So much time wasted trying to figure out why the BIOS was telling me Primary IDE not detected. I tried every setting but the correct one before downloading the manual and getting the proper settings. If you hold the disk so the writing is upside down, you are now viewing the correct settings. Nice.
The good news is that I finally have a pair of 40GB drives and have moved everything to one box. Having three is insane so I've decided to cut down my computing needs to one and then possibly buy a new one when I feel more comfortable with where I'll be working for the near future.
Archives and Layouts are up. I'll bet you've all been waiting for that...
Quick update before I swap this disk out so it might be a couple of days before I update again. I'm still tired and napping all over the place which is so lame. Now if the weather would smarten up, we'd be getting somewhere. Hail, rain, thunder and lightening all in the course of an hour and it's been doing it for days. Actually the thunder and lightening is really cool, but I'm now wondering why I'm doing a weather report...
Just when I thought I had the most boring blog in cyberspace, this guy comes along. Dammit, I just can't win, no matter what I do.
I guess I'll now look to others for content. To that end, I'm going to do my first this-or-that.org 'poll'. It's ten questions that various lifeforms find amusing. This week's questions suck, so I'll do last weeks as it looks interesting.
OK, well that sucked... Maybe next week will be better.
It's Wednesday, so it must be time for me to complain about my job again. It's been a tough week though it's going reasonably well, all things considered. There was a big blow up over all the mistakes that have taken place lately and some things were said that got us all riled up. I've been talking to the other guys and it's not just my impression; the mood it that place is pretty shitty. Thankfully, it's not just me screwing up, it's everyone yet the company says there is nothing that can be done about the pace of development. So what's likely to change? Nothing. Nothing at all...
I actually called the shop on my lunch hour yesterday to feel them out but the BC wasn't in. I didn't call back but I think that I might yet. I don't see how it could hurt. I had my meeting with the VP and he says they're getting me some help, so that might improve things but it's gonna be a while yet. I guess it's the growing pains of a start up but this place has all the negative properties of a start up with none of the good points.
I'm so looking forward to this weekend and just crawling under the bed and going fetal for a while. I have some stuff planned but mostly I just want to relax and think things through.
So Andrea is back from her trip and not one damn vacation picture of her in a bikini! "Dammit! Can't you see I'm stressed out here?" I hope she had a good time anyway. Maybe one of these days I'll sign on to MSN and I'll find out how it went.
I'm back after the blogging marathon. I really ran out of things to say and noted with some interest that my hits went down everyday as well, so I guess I'm off the hook for that. There will be no blogathons in the near future. I also noticed that I'm getting spidered by more search engines now that I have the site hosted. Just think, strange people from the far corners of the world can now read about me complaining about my job.
I had a good weekend with the parents in town and enjoyed having some time to just hang out with them. The weather was great too so that was a bonus. We hit the seawall, visited Ardie and had some lunch. Saturday evening, all of us got together for dinner at The Keg downtown. Had a great game of golf on Sunday as well, picking up a couple of birdies, several pars but still sucked overall. At least I sucked consistently from the front nine to the back. No I'm not telling you my score.
In news of the old and tired, work sucked today. My confidence is so low I'm starting to think they might fire my ass before I make probation. I made a silly mistake Friday that was compounded by the even sillier mistake made by two developers before that. Basically, we're going so fast all the time that we're all starting to make stupid mistakes, but I'm to be catching them. It's like playing goal; you're the last line of defense when all else has failed. Maybe I'll put a big 39 on my back...
I really hate to give up but this is getting a bit crazy. I know that I can be doing better but the pressure is so immense that I'm having a hard time keeping on top of everything. I don't think I'll quit but if I don't make my probation, I think that I know where I'll be working. It doesn't bother me much... the money is good and the stress level would be nil but they'll need to push me first. All I really know is that I need a regular cheque and that I'm tired of feeling this way.
Last thing, update your anti-virus software as there is a new worm out there tearing things up. You can read more about it here.
Well, I made it through another week. Nice to have the weekend ahead of me. Met up with Staci and Kim for lunch after some difficulty and then back to the office. We nearly had another long day until comme sense prevailed at the last minute. I'm tired of workng late all the time, particularly on Fridays. Still, I had a decent week and am feeling better. I got my business cards today, so I guess I have to stay now...
I've also blogged for seven days in a row. Does anyone care? No. Is anyone reading this? No. Yet still I wanted to do it though I've no idea why.
DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! A curse on the house of The Wild!
An exciting game until The Wild started to score and then it was over fast. This season went so well until the last couple of games in the regular season and then it was like the Canucks weren't the same team anymore. How disappointing... On the positive side, at least my evenings won't be spent watching hockey all summer.
The feeling or lack thereof, was noticeable downtown today. No crazed yahoos or horn honking before the game. On Monday Neal and I saw a couple of guys going crazy on Robson at 1 PM. I guess we'd all lost the faith, I know I had to a certain extent. Oh well, shitty but it's just a game after all.
Before I forget, congrats to Walter on getting a job with Activestate. He's starting on Monday and with a bit of luck we'll get together for lunch sometime as our offices are only about ten minutes apart. The pressure he must have felt would have been many factors greater than mine and so must the relief.
Well, I'm going to crash early tonight. I'm so bloody tired I don't have words for it but only one day to go. What sucks is that Fridays are usually a really busy day for me and this one is shaping up to be another one. I'm hoping that I'll still have time to go for lunch with Kim.
There seem to be a lot of helicopters in the air over the West End right now... I hope there isn't something stupid going on downtown.
I've decided to try and blog for seven days in a row... it's a crazy-ass blogging marathon!!
Damn, the Canucks are starting to piss me off. As I write that, Jovo has just scored, but still... They looked so good in the first and now, not. And now, what appears to be an offside goal. I guess I'll watch Letterman.
I had a great talk with Carmen last night; we were on the phone forever and talked about everything. I think the Pav is the only one that even comes close in the enjoyable conversations department. We don't see each other too much but as always, we've 'made plans' to do so.
I also chatted with Andrea this morning before work. She was just off the plane in Hong Kong and it seemed, somewhat groggy. With the Shnewt's in ******** and Andrea in Asia I really wish I was somewhere else too. I'm resolving to travel more (?) in the future. Actually, I've never really travelled, so I'm resolving to travel in the future.
OK, this is going nowhere... I need to pace myself if I'm going to go the distance.
Had a good day at work today which was a refreshing change. I kinda felt bad about calling in sick as avoiding something doesn't solve the problem but I did feel better for having had a day to myself. Of course I felt like an idiot when everyone is asking me if I feel any better... *cough* yeah, not *cough* 100% but a lot better...
I had a good chat with Roger this evening and it looks like he might be on the move in the days to come. He recently went looking for some work in the helicopter business and may have found a place. He's off for a flight test late this week and I wish him the best of luck. It sounds like life at Blast Radius is getting more grim by the day and he's looking to make a move out of tech. Given how I've been feeling, I can relate.
Of course, I had a good day, so life is good but I'm still very aware that I'm not sure how this is going to play out. What used to juice me up now just leaves me stressed out and I'm not sure how it's going to end up. On the positive side, I've kinda lost all interest in caring about it anymore. What happens, happens and I'm good with that.
The fossils are off to The States to spend all their turbocharged Canadian dollars and I'm looking forward to seeing them this weekend. They're swinging through here on their way back to Hooterville so if you were planning on breaking into their house, this would be the time...
Horace Santry, 55, said the Friday night event was his first. "I have a lot of anxiety, but doing this among a group of like-minded people does make it easier," he said. uhh... ok
In other, less exciting news, I called in sick today for no apparent reason. Just spur of the moment. It's not like I was dreading going in, I just didn't want to. First time in three years I've done that. I did send some emails to a couple of companies and looked around for a job but didn't apply for anything. I think I needed a day to get my thoughts together.
Neal gave me a call as he had the day off as well so we ended up having lunch. It was good to get out and not to think about things too much. It's all I've been doing for the past week or so and in cases like that it's hard to have any perspective. I'm looking forward to just going in and having a good week. Maybe it'll work out. Truthfully, I'm so tired of thinking about that I'm ready to just throw it up to fate and accept whatever happens.
I had another go at salvaging my drive and I did find a few more files on it but none of the important ones. It looks like the rest are gone for good which sucks, particularly when it was my fault. Hmmm, looks like the 'Nucks are coming un-glued here. I expected The Wild to fight like hell but Vancouver is making it easy for them.
Well this was pretty much a shitty weekend. It took me until Saturday night to calm down from work on Friday, which pissed me off to no end. It's that work dominating my life thing again. Then due to my own immense stupidity, I managed to FDISK the wrong drive. Was it the C: drive that I have an image of? No. It was the Storage drive that was like 40 #$(*)$*&# GBs of backups, software, MP3's and the image for my C: partition. I've tried several different things to recover it but it appears to be gone. Most of it was backed up on CD but not the MP3s and it's been a while since the last backup so everything since then is gone. *silently fumes*
It wasn't all bad; I got an email from Ardie saying that Neal got a hole in one golfing on Saturday and that's great! He tried to tell me that is was on 13 but unless the pin had been moved to that bush he always puts his ball into, I wasn't buying it. He fessed up that it was on 15 but still, it's pretty cool.
I chatted with Pav tonight too and that was nice... I haven't talked to her in a long time. Too bad she lives in Abby or maybe we'd see each other once in a while. It sounds like things are going well with her and she has plans to get back into school while expanding their Subway empire in the Valley. I damn near didn't graduate due to her but it sure was fun!
I also had a good talk with Janice who is experiencing the exact same feelings in her new job. We've spent a lot of time lately chewing our options over and neither of us entirely certain of what should come next. Both of us are unhappy though and that's never a good thing. I know that for my part, I just want to do an honest forty hours, come home to live my life and be happy.
I've given great thought to my job situation and while I still think it's bit early to make a rash move, I've decided to contact a couple of places that I have a good relationship with. You never know, something might turn up. All I really know is that every job is tough in the early days, but I've never wanted to leave one before and I do want to leave this one. It's a good place and all but it just seems that to date, we aren't clicking together. When I was laid off I swore I was done with QA and yet here I am doing it again and not liking it. I wasn't at StockHouse long enough to know if I liked it and I did enjoy it at Infowave, but Infowave was very hardware centric and that's what I like.
I'm not even ruling out leaving tech entirely... It just isn't doing it for me anymore but I don't know if it's just this job or the industry overall. I still really enjoy my computers and related gadgets but despite what Carmen might tell you, I'm no geek. I don't come home and code in my spare time and have no desire to do so. This page is fun but it's not really coding; more like document formatting. Who knows, I might find that I enjoy it even more if it was just a hobby rather than something I do all day.
I do know that I have to go in Monday and once again, I'm not really looking forward to it.
So, the observant viewer may notice a new layout. We're up to version 4.07 and it's a lot different from v3. It's a combination of v2.2 and v3 in that it still relies heavily on CSS for the layout but in a more friendly way. Plus I really wanted the calendar back and I now have a desktop capture for your amusement. I'll be turning that off when I'm looking at pr0n...
So I understand that the Canucks game was something last night and they now have a
3 - 1 lead in the series. I didn't see much off it as I was at work until after 9 PM. All my friends were at the Shark Club getting drunk and I'm working away with my brain slowly turning to jello. Damn that pissed me off. By the time I left, I was so fried that I just staggered home with my brain doing a million miles an hour. Everyone on Robson was going crazy and I was just past Thurlow when they scored and they went nuts. All those happy pepole and all I want to do is go home and crawl under my bed.
I'm feeling better today, but not a lot. I might still go in this weekend yet but I'm going to try and avoid it if I can. I had a few people comment on my last post when I was feeling down over this whole situation. Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be ok days, even good days but yesterday was the worst yet. We didn't even leave for lunch, so it was twelve and a half hours. Straight. No breaks. Aren't there laws against that?
I like what I do, even if it's not perfect but I'm not interested in it dominating my life. When the clock hits 5, or whatever, I expect that it's "Ok, see you tomorrow..." I know that once in a while some extra effort is required and I'm fine with that but this is ridiculous. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I know I'll ride it out for a while longer. If it's not getting any better, I think I'll be looking for something different. It's not like I'm getting rich or changing the world doing it.
Here it is, halfway through Saturday and I'm still riled up over it. Life's too short for this shit.
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