Maybe It's a Sign

So I wake up this morning feeling fine. Go grab a shower and shave. Still feel fine. Grab breakfast. Still fine. Go back to my hotel room to clean up and go to work and that's when my back explodes.

Some of you may know that my back tends to be sore on occasion. This is not what I'm talking about. I've felt this kind of back pain once before in my life, but at least that time it could be traced to some actual events that could conceivably cause such pain. This just came out of nowhere. Right now I can barely walk. Even sitting/lying down is painful.

I'm beginning to think that there might be an invisible sky wizard somewhere who's (a) pissed off at me for not believing in him, and (b) doesn't want me down here.

Oh well. At least I'm not expected to do any heavy lifting. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go whimper in pain for a while.

I've Been to Beebe. Now I Can Die.

Doesn't quite have the same ring as John Wing's classic, but it's still relatively apt at describing the size of the town.

Size aside, Beebe is a wonderful little town. The weather is beautiful - around 15 degrees during the day and probably 5 - 10 this evening. The people are incredibly friendly too. Apparently a lot of people are ecstatic about us moving into town - they've been looking for something to give the town a boost and we're something of a godsend. A group of the locals threw us a BBQ tonight. It was a great little party and definitely made me more comfortable with prospect of moving here. I'm relatively sure that if I let the locals know that I'm single I'd have a pile of photo's of their daughters before I could blink.

I'm as yet undecided on whether to let them know.

On The Road Again

And like some Bizarro Beverly Hillbillies episode, I hop into an SUV loaded with computer & lab equipment and drive to Arkansas. Wish me luck.

Maybe It Was Something I Ate

Go figure. I'm in Colorado for less than a day before I come down with another cold. At least the plane wasn't especially late this time. Still, it hasn't helped my sleeping schedule.

Grand Junction's a nice little city. It's nestled in the West Slope and reminds me a lot of the B.C. side of the Rockies. The company's put me up in a very nice little condo while I'm here. Fully furnished, they even left beer in the fridge for me.*

The job out here is a lot more like what I'll be doing down in Arkansas, apparently. That means less QC and more job analysis, which makes me a lot happier. The only "problem" (if there could be one) is that the jobs tend to be a ways out of town (unlike Platteville, where they're only about 15 minutes away). It's taken some doing to get used to waking up before 4:00 again. Fortunately, Arkansas jobs should be a lot closer (more on the line of the Platteville jobs than the GJ ones) so I can still get my beauty sleep.

And I'm seriously thinking of buying a house down there. My original plan was (and still is) to serve my 3 - 5 year sentence down there before being paroled to something else - maybe back to Calgary, maybe somewhere else. I really thought that it would be too much of a hassle to start dumping money into a house for that short a period of time.

Then I talked to a few of the people who have been house-hunting down there. When houses in Arkansas are a fraction (ie: 25% or less) of the cost of what they are in Calgary it makes them a lot more appealing. Especially when I consider the other intangibles - such as since the housing boom hasn't hit yet the new houses actually have a degree of competence in their construction.

So yeah, as if I didn't have enough on my mind already, I'm going to be house hunting too. Apparently I have a masochistic streak.

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* It was Bud Light and Zima, but it's the thought that counts.

Now with 20% less cynicism

Ugh. Silly week. The one saving grace to the company dragging out this transfer is that it's giving me more time to get stuff done at a more sane pace. As it was I feel like I've been running around like the proverbial chicken with his head cut off, and I recognize that I haven't even been working excessively hard.

Ah well, it could be worse. I haven't been electrocuted by a traffic signal yet (way to go Clark!).

It's definitely good to be back in Calgary, even if it's only for a week. I know that I've been missing my friends, but seeing them all again kinda makes it worse in a way. I can only imagine how I'll be feeling in another month or so when I finally move down officially and there isn't a scheduled trip back in the near future.

Still, as I said, it was very good to see everyone. The parties, the well-wishing, the alcohol was all good. And I've finally seen Deliverance.

Hoo boy.

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Update!

Well, the more things change, blah blah blah.

Hashed over some details with my U.S. boss yesterday and we came up with this plan:

Home to Calgary tomorrow (Yay!)
Have a week in Calgary to get personal/professional stuff sorted out.
Fly out to Denver on the 18th. Overnight in Denver.
Drive out to our Grand Junction office on the 19th.
Spend 19th - 21st in Grand Junction.
Drive back to Denver on the 21st. Overnight in Denver.
22 & 23: Drive to Arkansas (cue Dueling Banjos).
Work in Arkansas until March 16th.
March 17th Fly back to Calgary.
Take a week off and evaluate on whether I really want to do this.

So that's how it looks for now. I still find it really funny how hesitant the company is to put me down here permanently. I've spent the last 2 months mentally preparing myself for this. I'm not going to back out now (even if I don't like the job).

Counting down the days...

Well, I've got a bit of an update on my situation.

As it stands right now, I'm back in Calgary on Friday - no surprise there. I've had the plane ticket for about a month now. The date for our first job in Arkansas is still somewhat transient, however, so there's no firm date yet for what time I need to be down there for yet. All signs point to them trying to get everything rolling around the 21st now. My U.S. boss would like to give me at least a full week in Calgary to tie up personal things there before I head back to Denver for hopefully a couple of days of training out in Grand Junction. After that I drive to Arkansas (company vehicle has to get there some how, so it might as well be me transporting it).

The annoying thing is that my boss confessed that the powers that be don't want to make anything official until I've been down in Arkansas for about a month. I can understand where they're coming from - they don't want to move me down there only to move me back a few weeks later because I've decided I don't like the job/people/heat/humidity/etc. Because of that I'll have a permanent address in Calgary for March as well. As annoying as it is, though, it's very relieving to actually have them tell me that so I have an idea of how this move is proceeding.

Now all I have to do is deal with the soul-crushing realization that I'm exiling myself to the ass end of the world.