Kovbasa

2010-08-03T22:19:00.003-05:00

How do I know that I'm a cooking geek? Let me count the ways:

1.) When the motor on my stand mixer noticeably started to go the other day, my first thought was not "damn. I don't want to have to replace this", but rather, "Woohoo! Now I have an excuse to upgrade!" My only problem is the size of my kitchen.

Really, I only need one proof.

Bork!

2010-08-02T19:06:00.003-05:00

You know, sometimes, after a really crappy month it's incredibly relaxing to go to work, find out that everything's been delayed until tomorrow due to bad weather, and just go home and go back to sleep then get up and cook something fantastic. I really need to start doing that more.

Or else stop having crappy months.

2010-06-25T00:23:00.004-05:00

It's 11:30 at night. I am sitting on my couch. Work laptop next to me. Watching clusterfark after clusterfark because (to use a bad analogy), one of our customers insists on shoving a size 12 foot into a size 8 boot with no shoehorn, no lubrication - absolutely nothing that would actually assist in accomplishing the goal.

Guess how well it's working out?

I was doing this until 2 am yesterday, and if I'm really lucky I'll get to bed by then tonight. Essentially, I'm watching this job so that I can offer advice, but ever piece of advice that I (and other people I work with) have offered was rejected by the customer.

Will somebody please remind me why I do this?

Update: Yay! I get off work at 7 am!

Goddammit

2010-06-11T14:29:00.003-05:00

About a month ago I bought a new suit for my sister's wedding. Now, I don't have much fashion sense, and I don't pay a massive amount of attention to precisely how well it fits in all the important places, but Moores has done a great job of fitting me in the past, and we all agreed that it looked good and fit when I bought it.

I certainly do not recall being able to pull the pants down over my ass when it was buttoned up. I never thought that I would be pissed off about losing weight. Oh well, I guess I wear the old suit for the wedding.

Yeah, I know, cry some more.

Am I Back in Grade School?

2010-05-29T07:33:00.001-05:00

6:20 a.m., it's snowing, And some asshole pulls the fire alarm in my building.

That is all.

Except that it happened again about 5 hours later.

Another Brick in the Wall

2010-05-24T20:55:00.000-05:00

I am sore.

On the plus side, I was able to help my dad build two brick flow beds/retaining walls over the weekend. They definitely improve the look of the yard. Still, the nearly 400 bricks that were required for the project got very heavy by the end.

Still have have couple of more landscaping projects to do before my sisters wedding, but this was the biggest one. After this weekend, everything else is gravy.

2010-05-18T20:54:00.004-05:00

It's been a slow couple of months at work. Spring breakup is keeping our equipment off of the road, and I've been trying to take the opportunity provided by the lack of extra work to regain my sanity.

Results are currently inconclusive.

Still, life goes merrily on. My car hasn't been broken into recently and I'm slowly getting my life in order. Hopefully I'll have my finances sorted out enough soon that I'll be able to take a serious look at buying a house in the near future. The weather's getting better and it's giving me a strange urge to plant a garden and do yard work - two things that are a mite bit difficult given my current accommodations.

Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot new in my life. My sister gets married next month, which should be a pretty good event - Finally getting someone else to take her into their family is a cause for celebration the likes of which has never been seen.* I'm very much looking forward to it.

That's about it. Honestly, I just felt bad because I haven't updated in so long.
___________________________________________________
*I'm just kidding, sis. Please don't hurt me. Again.

2010-03-26T23:20:00.004-05:00

So the bill came out to $700 this time. The thieves didn't damage the electronics this time, but Honda didn't give me the glass for free since they didn't scratch it this time.

At this rate I wonder how long it will take for me to qualify for some sort of "preferred customer" status with their service department?

I'm just shy of livid with my building manager. I went to talk to her the other day about the possibility of putting an alarm system on the doors to the garage, and see if she'd heard back from her superiors about putting security cameras down in the garage as well (something I'd suggested after both break ins). She went on some long, proud, rant about how the police came by to get the security tapes from the building and she told them off because they weren't able to arrest the guys, even though they knew who did it (because they didn't have proof since there were no cameras in the garage), and they weren't patrolling inside the building even though she'd given them security codes. So instead she didn't help them at all, and told them to talk to one of the other buildings broken in to. Apparently she thinks that the cops are supposed to wander through buildings like security guards, and deliver beatdowns to suspected criminals in lieu of actual evidence. Charming. I'd move out immediately, but I'm still planning on hopefully buying a house some time this year, I'm not ready to yet, and I don't fancy moving twice in one year.

Unbelieveable.

2010-03-21T18:03:00.001-05:00

Guess what happened again last night?

Guys broke into the garage again and smashed all the windows again.

I'm too pissed off right now to say anything else coherent.

A classic conundrum

2010-02-26T16:33:00.002-06:00

It never fails. The work schedule is so unstable that you don't know what's going to be happening on the weekend (or, at least Saturday) until Friday afternoon. Problem is, by that time everybody whom I need to talk to in order to sort out the details has left early, gone drinking, and is ignoring their cell phone.

Current mood: Stabby

2010-02-09T14:45:00.005-06:00

$930 to replace the window in my car. Lovely.

On the happier note: Vacation! While not the tropical paradise that I was hoping for, it was still a damn sight better than Calgary. Amy was nearly able to convince me to move San Jose just by taking me to the market by her place. While the food there was excellent, she pointed out what passes for exotic food down there:

I'm sorely tempted to make an attempt at a new career as a rhubarb importer.

Anyhoo, Amy and R:tAG showed me where they work, and I have to say that I'm more than a little bit jealous of them. Not that they work for a video game company (although, I admit that it looks pretty fun), but the fact that they actually seem to like their coworkers. It's a completely foreign concept to me.

In addition to making sure that I never had to remain sober or hungry while I was down there, they also took me out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Very nifty. I also got to see one of the stranger houses in the world:

While at a distance The Winchester House might not look particularly abnormal at a distance, but when you get a little closer you get to see things like this:

A rather interesting house, with an equally interesting story to go along with it.

Also went down to San Francisco for a day. Very fun, and it confirmed my opinion that Calgary has a very good China Town. I was also amused by the fact that the cells in D-Block at Alcatraz (solitary) were the same size as a single person room in my res at university. Just sayin.

So, yes. Wonderful trip. Got to hang with wonderful people and do wonderful things. Big thanks to them for putting up with me for a week.

I'm back

2010-02-07T12:59:00.003-06:00

Just got back from a week in San Jose with the incredible Amy and R:tAG. Definitely the best vacation that I've had in a long time. There will be more of a description, along with photos, in the future. For now, though, I just want to send a big "Fuck You" to the dicks who broke into my car while I was away. Congratulations. You managed to break into a locked underground garage, smashed my window and got a crapped out iPod that doesn't work unless it's plugged in for all of your trouble. You're absolutely incredible.

Assholes.

2009-12-15T22:57:00.004-06:00

So, yeah. I haven't had the best couple of weeks.

Did I mention my Dilbert-esq project already? The one where the company wants me to evaluate a piece of software without actually even seeing it? I get a data file that it produces and get to talk to the programmer. Lucky me.

Last week I put in 40 hours of overtime. The week before, nearly 20, and this week is on track for another 20. Needless to say, I've been stressed. Everybody gets cash for Christmas this year, since I don't have the time or mental capacity to do any shopping (including for gift cards).

Tonight, I left the office at about 9:30, so I could go home and at finish my job from home. After all, if I'm going to be working until about 2 a.m., at least I should be able to do it in the comfort of my apartment, right?

As I approach my apartment, I see two trailers labeled "City of Calgary Emergency Water Supply". This is not good. I enter my apartment, however, and find no notice of a water outage. "Goody." Think I. " It must have happened early in the day, and they've gotten it fixed and just haven't gotten around to moving the trailers out."

Boy am I a glutton for punishment.

Got to my apartment and found that yes, the water was indeed off. I couldn't find the emergency maintenance number, but I had to assume that somebody had already called it. Heading downstairs to make sure, I bumped into a couple of people with buckets. Apparently the water has been out since 7:00 this evening, and is expected to be out for up to three days.

Come on world. What else you got for me?

2009-12-09T17:59:00.002-06:00

Grrrr. Stupid computer vans locking up. Stupid software crashing. Stupid satellite dish breaking. It all adds up to a very bad day at work.

I have no booze and I must drink.

2009-11-30T11:47:00.003-06:00

Well, it took almost a full month, but I'm more or less unpacked now. I've still got to sort out the storage room and do a bit more organizing in the den, but I'm no longer eating takeout every night, and that's what's important. It's still taking some time getting used to the noise downtown. Hopefully that doesn't take too long to adjust.

Work... goes. It's one of those "the more things change the more they stay the same" type things and I'll just leave it at that. I've started working weekends again. I'm not really in the regular rotation so I've just been filling in for people here and there. I'm going to have to stop doing that for a couple of weekends so I can have some time off.

My Riders lost the Grey Cup. I'm disappointed in the outcome - especially with how it ended - but in the grand scheme of things I think that they exceeded everybody's expectations for both the season and the big game itself, so I can't complain too much. I'm more annoyed by the people at my office that were cheering for "anybody but Saskatchewan" and then complaining that Saskatchewan fans are arrogant.

House is officially sold. Mortgage is paid off and all that jazz. After all fees were paid I made a grand total of about $136 on it. Definitely could have been worse. The fact that the company is supposed to reimburse me for a chunk of those fees helps as well.

Oh crap. Now that everything's calmed down I've realized that Christmas season's started.

2009-11-06T08:41:00.000-06:00

Goddammit.

I sat down on my bed this morning to put on my socks, and the bed collapsed. The frame itself held together, but some of the slats and crossrails (it doesn't use a box spring) gave out. Since my apartment doesn't actually have lights in the bedroom and I haven't been able to find where my lamps were packed yet, I'll have to wait until I get home tonight to find out what the damage is and if I'm sleeping at my parents' place tonight.

When did I acquire so much crap?

2009-11-05T17:07:00.002-06:00

Seriously. Everything's been moved up to my new apartment and there's probably a grand total of 50 square feet in my place for the time being. I knew that I had bought a fair amount of stuff down south and had enough space at the time that it wouldn't be noticeable, but right now I'm wondering how long it'll be before I can actually use my kitchen.

The renovations weren't quite finished when I moved in on Tuesday, and the building manager had her handyman over last night trying to replace part of my bathroom sink. Somehow he managed to turn the wrong valve and dumped around 10 gallons of water on my floor before he could shut it off again. I'm definitely glad that I got water damage coverage with my insurance package.

On the plus side, my couch looks really good with the new paint and carpet, I have my own bed to sleep in, my entertainment center is set up to help prevent me from chucking stuff off the balcony in frustration, and I have internet in my home for the first time in nearly 3 years.

Also, there's a great coffee shop on the ground floor of my building. Seriously. Great coffee that's not roasted to the point of near charcoal, AND free homemade muffins with any coffee from 6 - 10 am? Somebody explain to me how the hell is the Starbucks across the street still open?

2009-10-20T13:17:00.001-05:00

Well, I am back from Arkansas for likely the last time. The original plan was to fly down on Friday, supervise the packup & loading (and make sure that the movers didn't forget anything) and sign a few forms on Saturday, then fly back on Sunday. Almost immediately after booking my tickets, though, the movers asked if they could do the packup on Friday and load on Saturday. I agreed, beginning to wonder if I really needed to go back down to Arkansas at that point. Last week they asked if they could do the loading on Friday too.

The long and the short of it was that the moving company had packed and loaded everything before I touched down in Little Rock (excepting one cupboard of corning-ware and an empty suitcase that they missed). Ah well. It was good to see the house one last time, if more than a little depressing. Also, the movers loaded the wine. Yay!

On the flight back I ran into more delay at the Calgary airport than I've ever experienced before. It took me over 25 minutes just to make it from the airplane to the beginning of the customs area (at which point there was at least another 30 minutes worth of disneyland-like lineups back and forth before you got to talk to anybody). Fortunately at that time I could get into the Nexus lineup. That pass is worth its wait in gold some days. Still, I can at least understand that if for some reason that they have about a dozen planes landing at once its going to cause a delay.

The parking situation was another matter entirely. They normally have 8 tills open to pay your parking tab upon exiting. In this case they only had 2 open. It turns out that their automatic pay system was down. Fine. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is them labeling 4 of the 6 closed tills as "open" and allowing traffic to split into 6 lanes before they can see the little pylons that they've put in to block your way. This forced the mother of all traffic jams as people tried to merge 6 lanes into 2 that was actually backing up traffic so far that people were having delays getting in to the parkade to park. Naturally the airport was still charging people for the extra time needed to exit the parkade.

Ahh Calgary. How I've missed you.

Happy Dance!

2009-10-13T20:06:00.002-05:00

Woot! The buyers countered my own offer with a realistic offer of their own. I'm making a little bit on the house, though I have to give them the lawn tractor, fridge, and freezer. I get to keep the washer & dryer (by which my parents get almost new washer & dryer). All in all, very fair - especially for me. I won't be completely satisfied until I've got the paperwork, but it's definitely a stress relief for me.

2009-10-13T08:55:00.003-05:00

Wow. It only took me two days to be fed up with the cold and the snow. I really did become a wimp down south. In actuality, I think that the cold is easier to deal with than 105 degree heat with 90% humidity. I just like to complain.

I found an apartment in town. South facing, good size, decent price, and only seven blocks to the office. The only real bummer is that the kitchen is tiny. I'll have to work on that to see if I can find a way to extend it. My stuff should be arriving around November 2nd, so I'm looking forward to that.

Also, some people finally made an offer on my house. They low balled me on it, but it's a start. My realtor is cautiously optimistic that she can get them up to a more reasonable price.

2009-10-03T21:57:00.001-05:00

Whew. Busy couple of weeks.

Got back to Calgary, bought a car, went to my cousin's wedding, got set up for work, and am still in the process of apartment hunting. The house still hasn't sold, but I'm not worried... yet.

I've never had as much problem with the dry air up here as I'm having this time around. I'm also having enough sinus problems that I think that I should see a doctor.

Still, it's good to be back.

2009-09-18T14:38:00.004-05:00

It's strange how different it is moving my stuff back to Canada than it was getting it down here in the first place.

On my trip down, I just had the movers show up at my apartment, gave them my new address, and the next time I saw them was at my house down here. Going back I need to get them proof of my current (US) residence, meet customs officers, and whatnot.

Now I'm also having issues with my alcohol. Getting down here, it was just packed up and unpacked with everything else. I didn't think twice about it and the movers didn't mention it.

This time, the movers have said that their policy is that they don't handle alcohol at all - even sealed bottles. So I tried FedEx, and DHL, and other shipping companies. No dice. "Fine." I thought. "I'll just pack it good and check it with my luggage on my flight. The company is paying for that anyhow." Until I find out that they need special containers for alcohol. It wouldn't be an issue if it was just a couple of bottles - I'd just wrap it up good and stuff it in my bags. Unfortunately, I've got a couple of cases of the stuff (most of it local wines that you can't get outside of the wineries down here). It's not the end of the world, but it is frustrating. The way things are going I might have to leave it down here until somebody from our company decides to drive up to Canada and then reimburse them for the duty.

2009-09-15T10:54:00.004-05:00

I've managed to actually get money transferred back up to Canada, which has made me annoyingly - albeit temporarily - chipper. Although it might seem like a small thing to some, if you remember my difficulties in getting the money down here in the first place I think that my reaction to getting it wired the other way in three days is understandable. What really blows me away is that the tiny local bank down here in the middle of nowhere has said that they have no issues arranging a transfer for the rest of my money remotely once I'm up in Canada and need to close down this account. BMO said that I had to go to one of their branches in person to arrange such a thing.

I think that the stress is getting to me right now. I have a nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something, but that's likely just the worry about having stuff to sell that hasn't sold yet. Still, it's making me testy. Garbage pickup was late yesterday? I was seething. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot left for me to do. I've inventoried my house and set up services to be canceled once I move out. All I really have left to do is sit and wait. And wait. And wait.

Second verse, same as the first.

2009-09-11T17:30:00.002-05:00

Talked to several more CS reps at DirecTV, with pretty much the same result across the board. My sister suggested that I email Larry Hunter, the interim CEO, and Ellen Filipiak, Senior VP of Customer Relations, and even helped me trim the venom out of said email so it wasn't just frothing incomprehensible spittle. The result was the following:

Mr Hunter,

Approximately three months ago, I decided to switch away from one of your satellite TV competitors. One issue of concern in choosing my new provider was the cancellation fee as I was working in the US on a work visa and could not guarantee I would be living in the United States long-term. While I was talking to your sales agent on the phone about the contract I was informed of having to sign a two-year contract. At that time I explained my situation to your agent and that I could not guarantee that I would still be living in the United States in two years time. Your agent assured me that, in the event that I had to cancel my account due to moving to a location that DirecTV does not provide service to (i.e. Canada) I would not be charged an early cancellation fee. With that assurance in place I was happy to choose DirecTV as my new satellite provider and I entered into a contract on that basis.

Three weeks ago, my employer decided to transfer me back to our head office in Calgary, Canada. Last week, in preparation for the move, I phoned DirecTV and canceled my service. Again I was told by your agent that because DirecTV does not provide service in Canada, I would not be charged an early cancellation fee. This week I checked my final bill and was shocked to see a $440 early cancellation fee included.

Based on my previous conversations with DirecTV, I assumed that this was a simple administrative error and I phoned your billing department. The billing department admitted the mistake, even going so far as to confirm that there was a note in my file detailing that I was not to be charged an early cancellation fee. Your agent forwarded me to your cancellations department because it was not within his power to remove the fee.

At this point, my experience with DirecTV became less than satisfactory. Every person I have subsequently spoken with has reiterated the same thing: That no matter what your agents have told me at least three times in the past, DirecTV does not waive early cancellation fees and I will have to pay the $440 fee. They did, however, reassure me that they will try to make sure that an agent never misrepresents DirecTV to a customer again. After talking to multiple people at your company, I have been left with the recourse of mailing a letter to your Billing Disputes department in Colorado. I was told that the matter MIGHT get resolved in several weeks time, long after I have moved back to Canada.

I am sorry, but the fact that you will not stand behind your own sales agent and that your other agents in billing, cancellations, and customer service will do nothing to facilitate getting this matter resolved is very unprofessional and frankly, unacceptable. I entered into my agreement with DirecTV in good faith that your agent was able to contract on your behalf and that the services would be as discussed.

I hope that this letter will help facilitate getting this issue resolved in a timely and fair manner. To be clear, I would like the early cancellation fee cancelled and my money refunded before I move back to Canada at the end of the month.

The result was a phone call from another CS rep who was absolutely unhelpful. Thus have I emailed Larry once more with the following:

Mr. Hunter,

Regarding my previous email, I was recently contacted by one of your customer service agents regarding the matter I stated. While very apologetic, she had obviously not even read my complaint when she phoned, as she seemed rather confused when I mentioned that the agreement I had entered into with DirecTV was based on the misinformation provided by your sales agent. She then suggested that I reactivate my account and have it suspended while I was in Canada. This made her seem to fail understand that this is not a temporary move for me, and while I might end up living down in the US in the future the current transfer I am undertaking is, for all intents and purposes, permanent. Her lack of familiarity with the situation which was described quite clearly in my email, is disheartening. Finally, she continued to repeat what I have heard from several other representatives with your company - that despite the fact that I entered into a contract with DirecTV because I was misled, I would still be forced to pay the early cancellation fee. I would like to know if this is your company's final say on the matter.

I've pretty much resigned myself to losing this fight. They immediately took the early cancellation fee off of my credit card (required by them for just such an emergency, apparently). I've reported them to the BBB, and am still considering small claims court except that I likely will be living in Canada by the time anything happens.

[sarcasm] Thank You Direct TV [/sarcasm]

2009-09-08T10:30:00.002-05:00

So about 3 months ago I swapped over from DishNetwork to Direct TV, since the former had proven to have issues giving me the sports channels needed to watch the upcoming CFL season. At the time I was signing up with Direct TV, I was told that I needed to sign a 24 month contract with the standard early cancellation fee.

I remember quite clearly asking the nice person on the other end something along the lines of "What if I have to move to, say, Canada, before then? You guys don't operate up there." to which I was told that in the event that I was moving to a place where Direct TV did not operate then the early cancellation fee would be waived. I happily signed up.

Fast forward approximately 3 months.

Last week I called Direct TV and explained my situation. They said that they would cancel my service, and waive the early cancellation fee. Thank you and have a nice day.

This week I got my final bill. It was rather large, due to the large early cancellation fee I have. I phoned up Direct TV and the conversation went something along the lines of this:

Billing Agent: You're right. There's a note in your file about no cancellation fee. It must have gone through automatically by mistake. I'll have to transfer you to our cancellation department, though.

Cancellation Agent: I'm sorry, but we only remove cancellation fees for soldiers being deployed. Our agents are not allowed to discuss cancellation fees with customers. We'll send out a memo to make sure that they don't do it in the future, but you'll still have to pay your fee.

Cancellation Supervisor: I'm sorry that the only reason that you agreed to sign up with us was because we lied to you, but you're still going to have to pay your fee. All we can do is make sure that our agents don't lie to anybody in the future.

In short: They admit that their agent lied (either deliberately or through ignorance. I don't really care which). They accept that I only agreed to sign up with them because of the lie. And they are quite happy to still take my money. Not surprising, I suppose (and technically legal, since I imagine their TOS doesn't say anything about waiving cancellation fees), but still more than a little dickish. I'd just move back to Canada without paying my bill, but I get the feeling that that would cause problems in the long run if I ever needed to get back into the US.

Fuck You, Direct TV.

2009-09-01T15:38:00.003-05:00

Bother.

When I moved down here in 2007, the movers didn't need me for anything other than signing my name at my apartment in Calgary, and being at my house in Beebe to unload my stuff.

Now, for some reason when I'm going the other way I have to meet them at the border and go through a bunch of paperwork with them. Strange.I need to learn how to read the literature that the moving company gives me, and not just listen to their answers.

2009-08-31T13:35:00.002-05:00

The shock of the upcoming move finally subsided over the weekend, to be gradually replaced by the stress of having to get everything done in the next month - and in fact, preferably in the next 3 weeks. I'm glad my hair is already short, otherwise I'd already have pulled it all out.

Mama, I'm Coming Home

2009-08-26T13:48:00.002-05:00

Well that was sudden.

My boss flew down here late last night for a whirlwind trip. Apparently the main reason for the trip was to ask if I would consider a transfer back to Calgary.

There are a lot of good reasons for it. While the experience down here is great for my career, there's no advancement while I'm here. The kind of work that we do down here, though, has become much more popular up in Canada now, and I apparently have more experience with it than everybody else there combined. It would be a somewhat more senior role than I had when I left, and by all accounts the working environment in the head office has improved quite a bit since I left.

And if all else fails, it's easier for me to find a job in my field in Calgary than it is down here.

2009-07-31T10:44:00.004-05:00

One of the girls at work was finally able to identify the mystery pest in my garden as Bird's Nest Fungus. Hooray! It has a name.

Now all I have to do is kill it.

2009-07-28T17:28:00.002-05:00

It's not our customers stupidity that bothers me. Everybody has gaps in their knowledge and nobody knows everything. It's their outright arrogance and insistence that they are not completely ignorant.

Does anybody out there know a way to ask "Excuse me. Are you really that stupid?" that won't end with me being fired?

2009-07-12T16:36:00.004-05:00

It's been a good weekend. I got to see the Riders play - and win - for the first time since 2007, got a rain barrel set up in my yard to water my plants, and learned that a local diner in town has gotten a liquor license (technically, it's a private club now) - they haven't gotten any alcohol in yet, but I'm predicting that business is going to be quite good once they do, despite a boycott by the local church.

Also, with the heat and humidity my garden has been doing great and I've now got a steady supply of tomatoes. In hindsight, six plants was a little too many for one person.

I need a vacation

2009-06-24T12:05:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm back. It was good to see (almost) everybody while I was in Calgary. It's also amazing how two weeks can seem like such a short time. Dad's doing good and is now the proud parent of two bouncing baby kidneys (15 - 20 lb each). Not a bad weight loss plan, though obviously not for everybody.

On the home front, almost everything is doing as well as could be expected in my yard - perhaps too well in some cases. The lemon balm has taken over my herb garden in a way that I didn't think was possible, and I've got at least 20 pounds of tomatoes sitting on the vine waiting to ripen (six plants might have been a little too much for one person). My blueberries have started to ripen, so all in all, it's good. I do have some sort of "thing" (all I know is that it's plantlike) growing in my herb garden that I'm not happy about. It showed up last year, and looks like little single nodules, not unlike a single cell of a wasp's nest except that they carpet the ground. When they open up they release a bunch of tiny, pinhead sized seeds that coat everything around it. I tried burning it all out before I planted this spring, but apparently didn't get it all. Nobody around here can identify it. I might have to try getting a photograph of it if I can get a picture of something that small.

Also, my swallows have hatched. Unfortunately, one is already dead (looked like he either fell from the nest or was pushed out). The others are still alive, but in the 100 degree heat they look like they're having a hard time with it. They just lean their heads over the edge of the nest and pant a lot. I hope they make it.

Not a moment too soon

2009-06-04T15:58:00.002-05:00

It's been a good weekend and half week. Last Saturday I availed myself to some of my flex days that the company has given me (as a consolation for the wage rollbacks) and flew out to Washington DC to visit my sister, who is currently working there for about 3 months. It was very relaxing (and in fact, likely saved my liver from a weekend of binge drinking just to forget about work). I did visit DC once, a long time ago when I was still in elementary school, but I don't remember a whole lot of it, so it was fun to revisit a lot of the sites that I barely remembered and visit some sites that I didn't (It was also somewhat painful. I really didn't think that The Mall was that big, and I am fat and lazy.) I also managed to catch a great performance of The Pirates of Penzance at Wolf Trap (the only National Park for the Performing Arts) and have a burger at Ray's Hell Burger (it was good).

Now I'm back home for a week of work and stress and gnashing of teeth before I take off again, this time for two weeks up in Calgary while my dad get's his old kidneys repossessed.

Also, I have house guests. A pair of barn swallows have decided to make a nest in my front porch. They currently have eggs as well. Hopefully they don't make too much of a mess. I rather like having them flit in and out around my yard.

Just like a bad sitcom

2009-05-18T07:39:00.002-05:00

I have a new alarm clock. It takes the form of a woodpecker whom, every morning decides that my eaves troughs are a good place to peck at looking for his breakfast. He's also getting there earlier each day. Saturday it was 8:30 a.m. Sunday, 6:45. This morning: 6:00. What really amazes me is how much he sounds exactly like a jackhammer.

More Wildlife!

2009-04-23T07:44:00.003-05:00

I might have a problem. What used to be a nice little hobby - plant a herb garden and some trees - has grown into an obsession. In the last few weeks I've entirely rebuilt the front flowerbed, and built two more in the back, filled them with all sorts of flowers (okay, some roses and 3 different types of lilies, but still), planted blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries, and replaced all the trees that died due to wildlife getting at them, my own efforts (or lack thereof), or the guy from Tru-Green running over them.

It was while I was poking around the back fence, looking for a good spot to clear out the overgrowth so that I could plant grape vines that I realized a.) that I might have a small problem; and b.) I was looking at a snake sunning itself on the fence.

It's strange. Arkansas is infested with snakes. My neighbor keeps seeing them all over the place, and yet it's taken over two years before I've finally seen one in my yard (I've seen a couple of dead copperheads at work). Fortunately, I don't think that it was venomous. I wasn't able to get a photo of it (batteries in the camera were dead as usual. By the time they had charged up enough the snake had left) but I think that it was a Black Racer. About 3 feet long. On the one hand, I'm kinda happy that I've got more wildlife in my area, but I'm still going to be a little nervous clearing out my overgrowth.

Also, since when did you need a computer sciences degree to repair a fridge? The EPA or the DOE or something recently decided that the model of fridge I bought was using more energy than the manufacturer said that it was supposed to, so they sent me a kit to "fix" it. Said kit includes a circuit board that appears as though it would work very well in my next computer. I feel old now.

It's officially spring

2009-03-31T15:19:00.001-05:00

We've now had our first local tornado watch of the year.

2009-03-20T16:30:00.003-05:00

There is nothing I can say that will improve upon the pure win that is this video

Kovbasa: P. Eng.

2009-03-16T14:48:00.002-05:00

About time.

I finally got it. Squee. I recognize that in the grand scheme of things this isn't particularly special. After all, there are thousands - if not tens of thousands - registered engineers in Alberta alone, and my job down here doesn't even require it. Still, it's nice to finally have.

Of course, now I've finally realized that there's a decent amount of bookkeeping just to maintain it (Continuing Professional Development forms). The upside of this is that they require me to actually attend conferences and classes and such - something that only happened on rare occasion while I was working in Canada, but has a slightly higher frequency of occurrence down here.

The other big pain in the ass is registering down here. If I was working in, say, Saskatchewan, it would pretty much just be a matter of contacting APEGGS with my APEGGA information and paying a fee. Not so down here. The process is a little more complicated, as in they might not even view my degree as having come from an accredited institution. It might also involve me having to, in essence, rewrite every final exam from my last year of university. Somehow I don't think that will happen.

Oh well. Yay me.

I have a superpower

2009-02-26T09:53:00.003-06:00

My power is not so practical as flight, nigh-invulnerability, or heat vision. No my superpower is the ability to, with only a few words, manage to cause a shit-storm of a fight between my two bosses.

Now if I just figure out how to harness my power. For good, for awesome, I don't really care. I'd just like to be able to decide when to use it.

Facepalm

2009-02-02T15:04:00.003-06:00

I just talked to APEGGA today to find out the status of my P. Eng application, as I have not heard a thing one way or the other from them since October. I do know that they had to be processing it, though, since they had billed me the processing fee, and all of my references had notified me that they had filled out the forms APEGGA needed filled out.

Unfortunately, APEGGA didn't get that last memo. They are still waiting for the forms from two of my references. This means that it will likely be at least another three months before my application gets processed.

I'm surrounded by assholes

2009-01-16T10:31:00.002-06:00

Okay, maybe "surrounded" is too strong a word. That said, there do seem to be a lot of them. The latest one, whom I met this week, really takes the cake I think. This particular asshole worked for an auto-parts store (nothing wrong with that) until our customer hired him as a field consultant. He had NO experience in the oil patch before hired for this job that is grossly under qualified for. Now, a year and a half later, he seems to think that he knows everything about his job, when he proves his incompetence every time he opens his mouth (any consultant who doesn't know what an isolation valve is should be shot). This gets him my scorn and derision, but what really pisses me off about him is an incident that happened a couple of days ago.

We had a line part earlier this week. For those of you who do not know a line part occurs when, for various reasons (worn iron, too high pressure, human error, etc), a steel line that we are pumping through bursts under pressure. There are a lot of safety controls to limit this (regular iron inspections, check valves, pressure relief valves, etc), but they still do happen infrequently and they are always dangerous. We were fortunate that nobody was seriously hurt (one guy was shaken up and a little bruised, but that's it). This particular asshole, immediately after the line part, asks simply: "When can we start pumping again?". Yup, this guy's a real class act. Honestly, it's people like that that cause the oil patch to have such a shitty reputation.

In completely unrelated news, when I came to work this morning, I saw that somebody had actually plugged in the block heater on their truck.

Also, for your amusement, I present the following picture. It was the response from one of the guys in our lab when asked by our Calgary for some pictures of the pumps running some of our testing equipment (a really stupid request, for reasons that I won't go in to here). I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I did, since it's the funniest thing that I've seen in a long time.

Time for a public service announcement

2008-12-30T14:01:00.004-06:00

This piece of helpful advice is for some of you landowners out there.

IF you own land in an area where oil & gas wells are being drilled...

and IF you and your neighbors still have the mineral rights for your land...

and IF you are feeling like you are missing out on some money because the producer has not drilled any wells on your land, just your neighbors...

It probably will not help convince them to do otherwise if you blockade a public road and try to extort money from a service company in exchange for allowing them past.

Shooting at them won't help either.

Just a tip.

And now begins the drinking

2008-12-23T12:32:00.003-06:00

My parents arrived on Sunday, and my sister arrived yesterday. Somewhat unsurprisingly, yesterday was also the coldest day in Arkansas since I moved down here. Coincidence? I think not.

I'm a little stressed about having to actually be the host for the holidays for once, despite the fact that it's a small group (unlike a couple of my friends, who felt the need to host something like 19 people for Christmas day, the masochists) and I'm bound to get a lot of help. Fortunately there is eggnog and rum.

Anyhow, I hope everybody has a Merry/Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Dies Natalis Solis Invicti/Holidays/etc.

Just like old times

2008-12-15T17:05:00.003-06:00

It's been below freezing all day and raining for the latter part of it. This is the first time since I moved here that I've actually had to scrape my windshield. I can't believe how right that feels.

I'm actually hoping for a really good ice storm tonight - I've never been in one before.

Heat's on.

2008-12-12T08:30:00.003-06:00

Furnace is fixed. Apparently it was just a loose connection, and the filter wasn't forgotten, it was left out deliberately because there's another one farther up the line (that I also forgot to ever change) and having two filters would restrict the air flow too much. Mea culpa. I'm glad I limited my righteous indignation to here rather than spewing it all in the furnace guy's face.

My rage keeps me warm at night.

2008-12-11T07:27:00.002-06:00

Another exercise in the mundane and extremely irritating.

I got home last night and it was - unsurprisingly - a little cold in the house. Thus did I go to turn on the furnace.

"Hmph" says I. "The furnace is already on, but there's no air coming out of the vents. Wonderful." I started to check the system out right at the beginning. The blower outside was working, so the problem was somewhere in the furnace. I checked the furnace. It was warm, so the heater still worked. It wasn't too difficult to find the culprit though. I went to check to see if the filter was clogged only to find that there was no filter, so most likely anything that the filter would have caught is now plugged in the ducting somewhere down the line. Wonderful. Thank you furnace man for forgetting to install such a simple and critical piece of equipment.

I swear if you could channel my rage directly into a generator you'd solve the world's energy problems.

That's not severe...

2008-11-20T15:20:00.004-06:00

AccuWeather just informed me of a severe weather alert for the area tonight:

A FREEZE IS EXPECTED IN PARTS OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS FRIDAY AND
SATURDAY MORNINGS.

A VERY COLD CANADIAN AIRMASS WILL SETTLE OVER THE AREA TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY...AND BRING VERY COLD TEMPERATURES TO PARTS OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS. MORNING LOW TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO BE IN THE MID TO UPPER 20S OVER CENTRAL ARKANSAS BOTH FRIDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS.

For god's sake, put on a sweater and quit whining about it.

And get off my lawn.

Phrases that I don't want to hear:

2008-11-13T14:03:00.002-06:00

"I found a brown recluse spider in your truck. I tried to kill him but he got away. Fast little bugger."

The bad news? He wasn't joking.

The good news? It wasn't my truck.

Reminiscing

2008-10-27T10:42:00.002-05:00

I don't think that there is anything that takes me back to my youth as well as good homemade chicken soup does.

Just sayin'

I guess I should be flattered

2008-10-21T17:02:00.002-05:00

One of our supervisors down here has come up with the most incredible - in his opinion - Halloween costume for this year.

He has purchased a Chewbacca costume, and is combining it with a pair of my coveralls and a laptop bag (slung over his chest like a bandolier). Considering that for the last year people have been making wookie-like noises whenever I'm present, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised.

Important update! - Nothing interesting has happened!

2008-10-09T12:51:00.005-05:00

Meh. That about sums it up, really. Some of the larger producers down here sponsored a shale gas expo last weekend. I've been to a few expos like this one before in other parts, but this one was by far the most enjoyable. Probably the main reason was that the people attending were genuinely interested in what we (and other companies down here) do rather than just looking for a scapegoat. It's nice to talk to people who don't automatically assume that because you work in the oil patch you're some kind of moustache-twirling villain.

That said, yesterday put me in a nearly psychotic state. I think that I've mentioned one of our customers before, who never shuts up. I was in the field for about 10 hours yesterday, most of that sitting next to him, and all of that time had him talking. Not about anything relevant. 90% of what he says is just to hear his own voice and he seems to assume that since I'm also an engineer I must actually care about his ramblings. By the end of the day I was torn between wanting to gag him and wanting to cut off my ears. Now I know how the protagonist in Sounds Like felt. Still, at least the guy's not an asshole. He's just really, really, really annoying.

Also, since I haven't mentioned the wildlife recently, a story: I was driving home the other day and saw something crawling across the road, so I swerved to avoid it. It was a spider.

Let me repeat that: It was a spider. Large enough for me to notice while driving, and kick in the "avoid hitting that thing" reflex. Specifically, I think it was a tarantula of some type.

I can't swallow this tripe

2008-09-14T09:57:00.007-05:00

I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater by western standards. I've gone to Chinese restaurants and ordered pig intestine, I was all too happy to try a durian milkshake in Singapore, and one of my favorite things to order at Dim Sum is tripe.

I may or may not have mentioned it before, but Arkansas is a bit of a culinary wasteland. There's plenty of barbecue places and more than a few steak houses, but if you want to step out of a western comfort zone - culinarally wise - you're pretty much S.O.L. There's one good sushi place within a decent driving distance but that's about it.

So I've been craving good asian food - especially dim sum - lately, and the other day I was wandering through the Wal-Mart grocery section and I noticed that they actually sell tripe there. What's more it doesn't look like "larry's discount tripe" - it's actually clean and relatively appetizing. I pondered this for a day or two while I searched for recipes* and then returned to purchase it with the intent of making an at least passable attempt at recreating some of the flavors I had missed.

Thus did I return home and put the trip in a pot of water to simmer for 2 hours, as most of the recipes suggested. I quickly determined that this might have been a mistake, though, as my kitchen almost immediately began smelling like a feed lot. Still, I persevered, convinced that the end result would be worth the minor inconvenience of a bad odor.

Two hours later, I removed the offending offal, rinsed it and cut it up. I then placed some to steam with ginger, green onion, and sesame oil in the same fashion as the dim sum style. The rest went into a frying pan with another sauce. The smell didn't really improve. Undeterred, I plated my creations and tasted them.

As I said, the odor was like a feed lot. If you could translate the odor into a taste, you'd get the flavor in my mouth. I managed to try one bite of each, and then promptly tossed everything in the trash. It was by far the worst thing that I'd ever tasted.

Tonight I'm going to try something a little less daring - pork chops, or maybe lamb if I can find it.
____________________________________________________________
*I was very surprised how few recipes I was able to find when searching for dim sum tripe recipes. Maybe my google-fu is just weak.

Whoots!

2008-08-28T08:56:00.002-05:00

I got home yesterday and found that I had received a letter from APEGGA. Said letter informed me that I had passed my professional practice exam. All I have to do now is file the paperwork and I should have my P. Eng status. Yay me!

Back to reality

2008-08-05T12:50:00.003-05:00

That was an excellent vacation. I got a lot of personal stuff taken care of, saw the Riders win two more times (once live, even!), got to see everybody in Calgary, saw Tim & Rhea on their way through Calgary, and got out to Vancouver to see Siochain. Most excellent. It may not be be the most exciting or original vacation but for me it's not the location, it's the company.

After visiting Vancouver, I'm really interested in the idea of quitting engineering and opening up a restaurant. Nothing fancy (at least, not at first), just a small kitchen in the back, room for about a dozen tables out front, and a small menu serving up fresh - and preferably local - food. I think that it could work*. Of course, there are problems, such as the fact that I don't have any idea how to run a business - let alone a restaurant - and am not sure I could handle the commitment needed to start one up. The other problem being that, as a rule, I hate people. I enjoy (hell, I absolutely love) cooking for my friends and family, but I'm not sure if I'd actually like cooking for a pack of howling jackals**, most of which wouldn't know good food if it was shoved down their throats.

________________________________________________________
*Of course, it's probably more likely that it would make me bankrupt by 35.

**ie the general public. I had my fill of them working restaurants before I got into my current career. I'll grant you that almost all of those restaurants were chains or might as well have been, but the thought of some of their opinions and sense of "taste" still makes me shudder.

I can see clearly now, the brain is gone...

2008-07-31T13:57:00.002-05:00

I've been putting off getting my eyes lazored for a couple of years now, and finally got around to scheduling it into this trip. There was a certain amount of irony when, after my initial consultation, they had to reschedule because the doctor that was in for the week I was scheduled couldn't do the Zyoptix technique that I needed. It was rescheduled to yesterday, which was fortunately still enough time for me to recover (barring complications) before I flew back home.

Surprisingly simple procedure - I knew that it only took about 15 minutes, but I was still surprised at how routine it was. I spent most of yesterday worrying that my vision wasn't going to clear up, but here I sit (at a computer, which I suppose I really shouldn't do) with 20/15 vision the day after. Nifty. I imagine once I'm allowed to walk around without the sunglasses on it's going to be really strange. I've been legally blind without my glasses since third grade. It might take some doing to be used to going without them.

They've found me out...

2008-07-19T17:04:00.001-05:00

Is it a bad sign when the bartenders at the airport recognize you on sight?

2008-07-16T15:52:00.002-05:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks. I don't know what it is, specifically, but I'm pretty much at my wits end right now. It isn't the stupidly long hours that I've been pulling - I'm pretty used to those by now. It isn't the pipe that burst above my office, collapsing the ceiling and flooding my office with a mixture of water and mouse feces - I wasn't in the office at the time, and no important paper got ruined. It isn't the idiocy that I face every day - I'll rant for a bit, have a drink, and then I'm fine.

Whatever it is, I've just about had it. I've really lost the drive for this job, and I'm not sure that I want to be down here much longer, and I'm also not sure if I want to be in this industry much longer. Financially, it's great. Regarding everything else, I'm not so sure.

Anyhow, at the end of the week I'm back to Calgary for two weeks to write my APEGGA exam and get my eyes lazored. While I'm lying around blind, I think I'm going to do some serious thinking about what I want out of life.

Happy National Celebration!

2008-07-04T11:16:00.002-05:00

I would have posted a Happy Canada Day, but it's been a week of 12-16 hour days. Those do crop up from time to time. I can't really complain since despite the hours I was working, some of our field guys have been pulling longer hours. My only real complaint is this: Why are so many engineers complete assholes? We had an engineer out here this week (not from our company, thankfully) with only a year of experience, telling us to do stuff that will damage our equipment all so that he can save some money. When we told him we would not do that and why, he did an incredible impression of a 10-year old sulking about not getting a toy he wanted.

The upside of the week is that I've now got a three day weekend. It's a complete downpour right now, so I think that I will cook alligator tonight, and if the rain dies down later I'll celebrate the fourth of July by blowing stuff up.

These are not the critters you're looking for.

2008-06-24T08:51:00.002-05:00

Set the trap up again last night and found an opossum in it this morning. In a move that I'm likely to regret I let him go, since he's not my main annoyance right now.

Surprisingly, he was a lot less placid than the raccoon, despite being about a third of the size. He wasn't violent but he was rather "growly". He also didn't want to leave the cage. I had to open it up, upend it, and shake it before he decided to let go and run for the trees.

Warning: Geek content ahead!

2008-06-23T08:27:00.003-05:00

As most of you know, I have two real hobbies: cooking and gaming. These hobbies rarely overlap (even less so since I moved down here where most people haven't even heard of an RPG unless I'm talking about rocket-propelled grenades), so when I find something in which they do I must share it with everybody.

Killjoy Cooking With the Dungeons & Dragons Crowd.

And people say that Saskatchewan's flat?

2008-06-19T21:21:00.003-05:00

I've been in Midland, Texas, all week at a conference. I swear that the place looks like it's right out of a Sergio Leone movie. Flat, dry, and nearly featureless.

The conference was good. I learned a lot, and then realized how little I still know when I listened in on a discussion my bosses were having. C'est la vie. I also was nearly impaled by an umbrella, which was really neat. We were sitting on the patio watching the lightning pass by (spectacular lightning storms down in that part of the country. Not much rain, though) when a gust of wind blew over the only open umbrella on the patio. When the bartender came out the fix it, another gust blew it out of his hands and impaled it in the wall about a foot from where I was sitting. As I said, nifty.

The flight back was not so nifty. There was a thunderstorm in Dallas, so my flight there was delayed by three hours. By the time that I got in I had missed my connection and another one had been canceled, so I checked myself in to stand by while I waited for my coworkers to come in on their later flight. I was number 43 on the list initially. It didn't get a lot better. My coworkers made their connection, I didn't. I waited for another 4 hours to try to make another repeatedly delayed connecting flight to Little Rock, at which point they delayed the flight for another hour and a half. At that time I decided to get a hotel and try again tomorrow.

You know, I think that after Maguires in Saskatoon, and my own home, I don't think that I have have spent so much time drinking in one place as I have in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

Oh well, it could always be worse.

Raccoon: 5 - Steve: 1

2008-06-13T08:16:00.004-05:00

Every man has his limits. I finally reached mine and declared war on my local raccoons.

I've tried to be nice about it. I've tried to buy bird feeders that they can't get in to. The raccoons just tore them apart. I tried sprays that are supposed to keep them away. The raccoons just ignored it. I'm left with no choice. Fortunately raccoons are unable to resist tasty, tasty bacon.

I'm have no idea how many of these buggers that there actually are. Hopefully it's just a couple. I'm also hoping that once they get released they don't find their way back to my place. I've heard of these critters pulling their own miniature versions of "The Incredible Journey". If that happens I'll have to start looking at lethal alternatives.

You know, if somebody had told me two years ago that I'd be living in Arkansas and trapping raccoons on my property I'd probably have had some serious concerns about their mental health.

2008-06-03T14:29:00.003-05:00

Things have calmed down around here substantially since my last post. Everything seems to be going pretty well down here lately. I'm busy, but not overworked, the weather is starting to hit the low 90's (possibly a little too warm), the tornadoes have stopped (although we still have the occasional wind storm. The picture at left is the result of one that blew through town on Sunday. These people - like most in town - were without power for 20 minutes. My little subdivision had a 7 hour blackout) and my backyard is in full bloom - I need to drink mojitos on a daily basis to keep up with my mint. Yeah. Life's tough right now.

I was up in Calgary last week for a "manager's meeting" (read: 3 hours of the brass talking about how well the company's doing & where we're headed this year followed by golf and serious amounts of drinking) and managed to cram in some visiting with family and friends. It seems that I can't go to Calgary now for just business or personal reasons. It has to be both. Granted, fitting the personal into business isn't nearly as stressful as the other way around.

And it now occurs to me that now that she's in BC, if I phone Siochain on the weekend I'll have to wait until about 2 in the afternoon if I don't want to wake her up.

The more things change...

2008-05-16T11:40:00.003-05:00

My life down here has definitely changed changed from what it was in Canada. Some of the changes are good, and some of them are bad. Still, I find it comforting on most of the occasions when something crops up down here that is so familiar to how things worked up North.

Our salesmen still thinking that the world revolves around them? Not so comforting.

Hypothetical Situation #1: Salesman A gets us a contract awarded on Monday for a significant amount of work. The first job is to go at the end of the week. A normal person might actually inform some people within our company of this immediately so that equipment and logistics can get sorted out ASAP. A salesman won't think anything about waiting two days to tell people.

Hypothetical Situation #2: Salesman B doesn't like the numbers coming out of the lab for a certain blend. Rather than discussing his (valid) concerns with the people who understand the chemistry and trying to come up with a solution together, which is what a normal person would do, a salesman will instead discuss the issue with another salesman and then unilaterally change the blend, inform the client of the new blend, and then ask the lab to run tests on the blend to make sure it works.

They just don't seem to live in the same world as us.

Still alive... Again.

2008-05-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

So there was another tornado in Arkansas on Friday. 8 people were killed. Fortunately for me, I wasn't among them. The twister hit about an hour northwest of me. Still, thanks for the concern from those that have phoned to check up on me. Apparently you're paying more attention to the weather than I am, since I don't seem to find out about these things until people call to check up on me.

On the one hand, this is kinda nifty, since I think in the last few months I might have leapfrogged ahead of R:tAG and Amy in the "natural disasters in your state that prompt people to check on your health" category. On the other hand, the sudden frequency of these twisters is bothering me a bit. After all, I didn't really have to worry about them for pretty much all of last year, and now it's seeming like every couple of weeks there's another one. Ah well.

The cops down here are so nice...

2008-04-29T08:58:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I got a call from one of our computer vans. Seems they were having a software problem. Unable to figure it out over the phone, I decided to high-tail it out to them, about an hour away. At the time I left, it was about 9:30 a.m. On a typical day, we've already got one job done by that time. Time was a-wasting and I was in a hurry.

I knew that I was pushing it. I kept looking at the speedometer and and as far ahead as possible to see if there were any cops. I was only about 2 miles from my turnoff when I finally got pulled over by a state trooper.

It was a lovely little conversation. We exchanged pleasantries. He told me he clocked me doing 85 in a 55 zone and asked for my license and registration. After I gave the paperwork to him, he asked me why I was going to fast and I told him the truth: We had a computer van down, a customer waiting, and I knew I was speeding but was hoping I could get away with it. The trooper took my info back to his car while I sweated it out, wondering how much the ticket was going to be.

I got a warning. For doing 30 mph over the speed limit. Even I feel that I should have been crucified for it. I might have to send the trooper a Christmas card.

In other news, I'm officially fed up with my raccoon problem. I finally spotted one of the buggers last night. Fat he was, and hairy. And apparantly strong (or heavy) enough to rip the bottom out of another bird feeder. As a humorous side note, my new neighbors dog (a little bichon-esqe thing) whom seems to think that my yard is also her yard (barks incessantly at me whenever I'm outside) also seems to take exception to the raccoon. I'm curious to see how that little battle plays out. Unfortunately, I don't hold a lot of hope for the dog.

2008-04-21T09:54:00.002-05:00

It was a good weekend. The weather was warm, I got my mower back from being serviced and finally got the jungle cut down. The hummingbirds returned, mojitos were drunk, and all my herbs that were killed by the frost earlier in the week were replanted. I also planted more foxglove in my front flower bed, baked bread, fixed my oven, and finally saw the Grey Cup.

A very mundane, and rather satisfying weekend, all in all.

I'm gonna need a bigger tub

2008-04-05T09:59:00.002-05:00

Thursday saw me sitting at home, feeling only moderately better than I had felt the previous day. Late in the evening, the rains come again. A wonderfully powerful storm with lots of wind, thunder and lightning. Thor was having a good night. Around the time I decided to go to bed, I figured it might not hurt to check the weather station to see how bad the storm was, as I had noticed earlier that there were tornado watches in some counties (not mine).

So I learn that there are tornado warnings in southwestern Arkansas, and the storms are moving north east. In fact, at the time there was already planes flipped over at the North Little Rock air port. Eventually, the storm made it to Cabot, a town about ten minutes south of me, and the station said the residents should seek shelter immediately. At that point it seemed a pretty safe bet that it was going to hit Beebe too. Apparently, if you don't have a proper tornado shelter then the next best option is hiding in the bathtub with a mattress over you.

So about that time I lose my satellite (not really surprising), and go about dragging a mattress from the spare bedroom into my bathroom. It doesn't fit particularly well, but I managed to get the tub covered, for the most part. After about another ten minutes of waiting and not hearing a tornado siren I said "screw this" and went to bed, leaving the television on in case the satellite reestablished itself in time to give me some decent info.

About ten minutes after that, the weather station came back on and the first thing I heard was "...and the storm is now over Beebe, so if you live in Beebe seek shelter now." Pretty good timing, if I do say so myself. So I dragged my ass out of bed and curled up in the tub. Or rather, I tried to. You know, it never actually occurred to me that my entire body would not fit into a bathtub. I think that it would be more comfortable to do a trans-atlantic long haul flight in coach sandwiched between to 500+ pound people than try to fold myself up and fit entirely into the tub.

Anyhow, the storm blew over and after a few minutes I managed to crawl out of my little "hidey-hole". By the looks around town the only damage seems to be a lot of trees blown over.

One year later.

2008-04-01T13:50:00.005-05:00

One year ago today I officially transferred down to Arkansas. I suppose that this is cause for some sort of celebration and reflection.

Whee. *blows noisemaker*

*Pause*

Okay, I'm done.

I'd love to give a long post about how much better or worse my life is down here, but I can't. The year has had its ups and downs. It's not heaven down here, but it's not complete hell, either. Moving from a city of a million people to a town of about 5000 has taken some adjustments, but there are advantages to balance out lack of conveniences.

It has been raining pretty much non stop since Saturday - Check that. Saturday it only rained right at sunrise, and then only enough to prevent me from mowing my weed farm that can only charitably be called a lawn. On the plus side, my fruit trees - with the exception of the persimmon, which isn't much more than a stick with some root attached to it - have started budding leaves (and in the case of one of my peach trees, flowers). It's still a few years until I'll have fruit, but it's nice to know that they survived my planting and neglect.

On a somewhat related note, while I was back in Calgary one of my dad's friends mentioned to me that a guy in Tennessee managed last year to inoculate oak and hazelnut trees to grow truffles. Naturally, I'm somewhat giddy at the thought, and have considered looking in to how much it would cost to buy about 100 acres of farmland and turn it into a truffle farm. Sure it's a pipe dream, but it's an extremely tempting one.

In other news, I was survived the airport and hospital without succumbing to the seasonal illness but my immune system was no match for Little Miss Plaguey a.k.a. Siochain, who managed to infect me over the phone. She is truly insidious. The real annoyance is that although I definitely don't feel completely healthy, I don't feel ill enough to warrant taken the day off, so I'm just lurching through work at partial efficiency hoping that I don't have to get worse before I get better. I'm taking some sick days until I feel somewhat human again.

More organs means more human

2008-03-15T20:36:00.002-05:00

So, apparently when you get a kidney transplant they leave the old ones in for at least a year. I never knew that.

Anyhow, my dad came through the operation pretty much with flying colors. We went to visit him yesterday and he was annoyingly cheerful. I'm sure that you're not supposed to actually be that peppy for at least a day after a surgery like that. Anyhow, the doctors say that he should be home by Wednesday with an unrestricted diet. We've already planned his welcome home meal. Unsurprisingly, it consists of foods that until a few days ago he wasn't allowed - Tomatoes and beans (in this case in the form of tomato salad and casoullet).

So yes, we're quite happy right now although from my understanding the major hurdle is the whole first month. Still, we're all cautiously optimistic. Thanks for all the support we've been getting from everybody else.

And on a very personal note. I'd like to extend my sincerest condolences and thanks to the family of the donor. Although we don't know who you are and you don't know who we are and never will, thank you. Your loss provided one kidney for my father, another for a second man, and a pancreas for a third. Thank you.

Better late than never.

2008-03-13T15:51:00.002-05:00

So after 3 years on the waiting list, my dad's finally getting a kidney transplant.

The soonest flight that I can get back to Calgary is 7:15 tomorrow morning. I don't care if this is supposed to be a relatively routine surgery. I don't think that Ill be sleeping much tonight.

Good luck, dad.

The waiting game sucks

2008-03-08T22:34:00.003-06:00

Here I sit, at work again.

I was here all last night until 8 this morning, at which point my coworker and I were relieved (unlike last weekend, we had just enough forewarning to allow us to work shifts). It was tiring, but the testing we were doing was relatively quick. By the time we were done starting one test, another would be done and equipment would have to be cleaned and reset. Repeat ad nauseum.

Tonight, the testing has changed. We're getting closer to the deadline, and the tests take longer. There is little in my life more frustrating than sitting here waiting for an 8 hour test to slowly tick down at the same time the deadline ticks down.

Also, daylight savings times. Most times I don't care about it at all. Tonight, if we didn't have the deadline, I would have been fine with only working an 11 hour shift rather than a 12 hour one. But we do have the deadline, and I'd realllly like that extra hour.

Oh, yeah. I'm also not happy with the snow we had on Friday. I'm sure that my contract explicitly stated that I would not see snow while I was down here. Ah well, at least I haven't had a chance to plant my herbs yet.

What's This?

2008-03-04T16:59:00.003-06:00

One of the larger annoyances I had of working (pretty much literally) the entire weekend was that it was the nicest weather that we've had down here since autumn. The weather was in the 70s and bright and sunny and I was really looking forward to firing up the grill for the first time this year.

Obviously that didn't happen. "No biggie," says I. "I'll just enjoy cooking outdoors on Monday, or maybe Tuesday if Monday's too busy.

Well, yesterday was pretty much a full day torrential downpour which, while it ruined my grill plans I was still happy to get since it stopped raining the day that I planted my trees and I haven't had time to water them since.

However, when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by a strange sight:

Everything was covered by this cold, white stuff. It was sort of like tiny ice crystals, but very fine and delicate. It seems familiar for some reason.

No matter, we got more of it falling out of the sky for most of the morning, then it all melted away in about an hour.

I tell ya, Arkansas has some strange weather.

Wow.

2008-03-03T09:16:00.004-06:00

Preface: I do like my job, and the company I work for, and most of the people I work with. Some days, though, are just bad. And sometimes those bad days all congregate together.

It's been a hell of a week. One that I won't soon forget. Some of the highlights include (in no particular order):

-A string of fuck-ups by yours truly.
-An electrical fire.
-Working for nearly 42 hours straight.*
-Getting showered in some rather unpleasant (read: not safe for human consumption) chemicals.
-Going into my bosses office and and asking him, quite literally, "how close to being fired am I?".**

I also learned something about myself. When given a situation where I have a choice between sitting on my ass waiting for somebody who knows what they're doing to get over and fix the (rapidly escalating) problem, or doing something that I know is completely futile and somewhat stupid in a vain attempt to solve the problem, I'll invariably choose option B. Yay me.

In conclusion, if you've phone in the last week and I've been rude to you, I apologize. As I said, it's been an interesting week. Hopefully in a couple more days I'll be recovered from it.

____________________________________________________________

*I'll admit that there were a couple of 5-minute cat naps around the 30-hour point, while I was waiting for a truck to show up, but that's it.

**Short answer: I'm not. But I do need to pay a little more attention to my work.

The Customer Is NOT Always Right.

2008-02-27T14:59:00.002-06:00

I work in the service industry. It might not seem like it to most people at first glance but our job is to service our customers - as some of them are all too happy to remind us.

There are times when I would like very much to tell these customers to bugger off, and that we don't need their work that badly*. Unfortunately, the repercussions of such actions would likely go beyond just losing one job. It's probably a good thing that I'm in not in sales and have limited access to the customer, especially immediately after some of their more outrageous requests come down.

____________________________________________________________

*Yeah, yeah. Warning: Internet tough guy and all that stuff. I'm still pissed off, just not as much as when I initially got the latest request.

I haz an orchard

2008-02-25T07:37:00.002-06:00

Or, rather, I will in a couple of years (hopefully). I went down to one of the local nurseries this weekend and bought myself a bunch of fruit trees. On top of the standard apples, pears, peaches, and plums, I was happy to discover some persimmon saplings as well, and bought one. All the trees are still quite small (about two years old), so I'm not sure if my plan will bear fruit while I'm still down here. I think I am going to have to come back down here in 10 - 20 years and see how they've grown up.

I was also thrilled that the nursery will deliver dirt (or in my case, compost) in smaller loads than dump-truck size, so I finally have some dirt for my herb garden as well. Wheee! Hopefully they'll last a little longer than the ones that I potted last year.

Hooray For New Math

2008-02-18T06:38:00.002-06:00

It never fails. Every year I try to do my taxes by hand, get frustrated, and go an electronic route. This in and of itself does not bother me. Electronic filing, despite being more expensive is much quicker and simpler.

What amuses me is the discrepancies between what I calculate and what the software calculates. This year, I went from owing the government to them owing me. The total swing was in the neighborhood of $10,000.

I reallllllly hope the software is accurate.

No, I Didn't Go to Oz

2008-02-07T12:35:00.000-06:00

Thanks for everybody who was concerned that I might have had problems with the recent tornadoes. Fortunately for me they all hit about an hour west of me, so I'm fine. It did prompt me to finally double check my house insurance policy to ensure that tornado damage is covered.

How To Make My Monday*

2008-02-04T10:08:00.000-06:00

Inform me that our district administrator raises chickens and I can buy eggs from her.

Squee!
____________________________________________________________
*Alternate title: How to tell I'm a cooking geek.

Apparantly, It's Not All Bad

2008-01-30T07:40:00.000-06:00

So I understand that the weather in Canada has been a little nippy as of late.

Yesterday the weather got up to 71 degrees down here. It was like a nice little Chinook.

Currently, my most pressing concern is how to set a suet feeder so that the raccoons don't eat it all overnight (or, if the feeder isn't bolted down, they just steal it).

I'm Sure That It's Perfectly Normal

2008-01-25T16:35:00.000-06:00

So a list of items that Amazon recommends for me includes exclusively a variety of horror movies and cooking equipment.

In a completely unrelated event, I've found myself wondering lately whether the travel channel would hire me as a replacement if I killed Anthony Bourdain.

Probably not. I'm not nearly as good at that whole writing thing as he is.

That Was Fast

2008-01-17T10:35:00.000-06:00

One season. I was hoping for a little bit more. Don't get me wrong, I can understand why he did it and wish him all the best, but it would have been nice for him to stay around at least a few seasons more. On the plus side, it takes less than 30 minutes longer to drive to see an Ole Miss game than to drive to see a Razorbacks game.

Now, for those of you that don't care about football, how about some geekery? Like, say, a rubber band gun that shoots 288 rubber bands in 7.2 seconds? I wish I had one of those when I was still in the office in Calgary.

Alternately, I wonder if the company would let me mod my truck like this (pic via Tesla Downunder):

Happy Birthday Mom!

2008-01-11T08:55:00.000-06:00

Have a great birthday!

Things That I Learned in 2007

2008-01-04T05:13:00.000-06:00

1.) Despite my bitching, moving to Arkansas is one of the best things that I could have done for my career.
2.) It also happens to be one of the worst things that I could have done for my social life.
3.) You can live in a dry county and still get drunk very easily on good alcohol.
4.) Sometimes making your parents cry and call you a dumbass is a good thing. Sometimes.
5.) Arkansas is a culinary wasteland.

Success!

2007-12-20T10:59:00.000-06:00

Finally got out of Little Rock. No problems in Dallas with the exception of the airport not having free wi-fi (Fie! Fie!) Malcolm was awesome for picking me up at the airport.

Now I have to go Christmas shopping.

Kovbasa Watch 2007

2007-12-19T08:05:00.001-06:00

And the year ends as it begins - with me sitting in an airport with a delayed flight.

Fog has delayed my flight by just long enough that I won't make my connection in Dallas unless they're delayed as well. The next flight from Dallas to Calgary doesn't leave for another 7 hours.

I hope that there's a good bar in the airport.

UPDATE #1

Flight delay has gone from 35 minutes to 55 minutes. Joy.

UPDATE #2

Flight was originally scheduled to leave at 8:55 a.m. and is now scheduled for 10:20 a.m. I've re-booked my connection. I now leave Dallas at 6:10 p.m.

Diamond Back Brewing Company makes a pretty good IPA.

UPDATE #3

Now scheduled to leave at 11:15 a.m.

I know that I shouldn't be installing certain software on this work laptop, but I'm thinking that it might have been worthwhile installing Civ IV on it for this trip.

UPDATE #4

11:35 a.m. now.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll make that 6:10 flight...

UPDATE #5

11:55 a.m. now.

The fog's cleared a little bit. A flight for Chicago is just taking off now. I imagine that it's too much to hope that my flight gets moved up, not that it matters any more.

UPDATE #6

12:20 p.m. now.

The guy running the bar is, unsurprisingly, in a good mood. I'm kinda regretting that I didn't bring my dongle with me. I could have gotten a decent amount of work done this morning while I waited for my flight.

UPDATE #7

12:40 p.m.

Will somebody please explain to me why the 10:00 flight to Dallas gets to leave at 11:30, but my 8:55 flight keeps getting pushed back?

UPDATE #8

12:50 p.m.

The extra 10 minutes doesn't bother me. What does irk me is that the 12:15 flight to Dallas is scheduled to leave before mine.

I Just Drove Through a Disney Movie.

2007-12-12T14:54:00.000-06:00

Driving out to location this morning, I saw a young deer standing in the ditch. I slowed down as it bounded across the road (no mujahadeer this time!) and noticed that, standing next to it was a small rabbit.

"Hmm." I mused. "Bambi and Thumper."

As I looked back at the deer, I noticed that it had a new companion on the other side of the road.

A skunk.

I kid you not.

This Isn't Right

2007-12-07T12:25:00.000-06:00

It's raining. In December.

I'm from Calgary and used to bizarre weather, but this is freaking me out.

Wildlife

2007-12-06T16:55:00.000-06:00

The birds are loving my back yard. It's filled with gold finches, house finches, juncos, chickadees, tons of cardinals, and the odd titmouse. It's getting expensive feeding all the greedy buggers. They can empty my feeder in about a day now. I'm wondering if it's because word's getting around in the avian world or if it's just because it's now "cold" down here. In any event it's a small price to pay for the cathartic effect of watching all the birds flitting about. I still haven't had any woodpeckers show up for my suet feeder yet, though. This surprises me since my neighbor has stated that she can't get a suet block to last overnight.

I also have armadillos. I haven't actually seen them, i've just seen the mess that they're make of my lawn while digging around for grubs overnight. I'm using deer repellent in the hopes that it drives them away - anything made with "putrescent egg white solids" (I kid you not) would drive me away. If that doesn't work, I've also had moth balls suggested to me. I really don't want to have to resort to traps (live or lethal) or shooting them.

Now, I go home and drink. Heavily. Between work and other stuff, this week can not end soon enough. Thank god I've got some chicken carcasses ready for making stock this weekend.

Oh, yeah. I also want to have Jade Raymond's children.

Figures.

2007-11-26T07:27:00.000-06:00

I sometimes think that, if you want proof of God, then screw the banana argument. You need to look no further than the hack story that seems to be my life as of late.

Let's take the Grey Cup for example. I've already posted about my regular season woes, so I won't repeat that little bit of whining. I'll just pick up where I left off.

I actually was able to see both the western semi-final and western final. To celebrate the fact that it's been 18 years since the Riders won the cup and 10 years since they even made an appearance, I decided to splurge and bought the biggest HDTV I could fit into my entertainment center. Then I got my satellite provider to come over on friday and swap out my box so I could watch the game in HD brilliance. Great plan huh? It was all coming together.

I should have listened to Cenobyte and just flown up to watch the game with her.

The morning of "the big game" I find that I can't get the channel that is broadcasting the game in HD. In fact, I can't get a lot of the channels. It seems that my box can't pick of the signal from one of the satellites. Unfortunately, tech support told me that the soonest that they could get someone out there to fix it was the 26th. Ugh.

After about an hour of moping around and heavy drinking, I do another search of the channels, and find a Denver station that is broadcasting the game. Success! It's not HD, but it will do.

To make a long story short, I lost another satellite (and the feed associated with that station) with a couple minutes to go in the first half.

And to add insult to injury, I got that station back this morning.

Well, at least the Riders won.

Let Me Get This Straight

2007-11-05T08:52:00.000-06:00

The Riders played 18 games this season.

I missed the first 10 because I didn't have satellite hooked up at my house. They were 8-2 at this point.

I get satellite, and manage to watch the next three games. They lose all three.

I miss the following game because I'm working out in the boonies for the weekend. The Riders win.

I manage to catch the next game. With 10 minutes left to go, Comcast stops broadcasting the game. The Riders win.

The next two games are not televised. The Riders win both.

The last game of the season is shown. I watch it. The Riders lose.

The Riders have had their best season since 1978.

They will be hosting their first playoff game since 1988.

And I was unable to watch them win once.

Nope. I'm not bitter. Not at all. Not even the tiniest bit.

Not to worry, though, fellow Rider fans. Comcast has decided to broadcast only the Eastern semi-final, so I can watch the Western one. Ergo, the Riders will win.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2007-10-31T17:00:00.001-05:00

Success!

2007-10-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

Most of you know that I like cooking. A lot. And the pride and joy of my cookbook collection has been my nearly complete set of Culinaria cookbooks by Konemann. I'm very happy to say that I finally managed to complete my collection over the weekend with Culinaria the Caribbean. For those not in the know, and whom actually care about this sort of stuff, the Culinaria series is only part cookbook, but also includes a lot of information about how food fits into various cultures.

In a possibly related story, I've been having reoccurring dreams over the last few nights where I'm a contestant on The Next Iron Chef, and I'm never managing to get my food done in time. It's a nice little change from those dreams where you're back in high school writing final exams for courses you never studied.

Why yes, I am a geek. Thank you for noticing.

I spent the weekend at an oilfield golf tournament. Who am I to turn down free booze, food, and golf? It does surprise me, though, that people will buy a house on the fairway of a course, not put up any sort of netting, trees, or other protection from stray balls, and then be upset when their house gets hit buy some amateur with a wicked slice.

I've also discovered that golf is a lot more entertaining when you can commit property damage. I don't feel nearly as guilty as when I hit wildlife.

Go Hogs!

2007-10-16T13:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, so it's not exactly a Razorback, but just take a look at what was nosing around in my front yard when I went home for lunch today:

I really like all the wildlife (even if some of it isn't particularly wild) that's around my place. Personally, I think that this guy has a lot more potential for a good meal than a couple of guinea hens, but that's just me.

Green Wizard Needs Sleep Badly.

2007-10-05T12:15:00.000-05:00

Oy. It's been a heckuva a couple of weeks. I'm currently sitting in the middle of nowhere where I've been spending most of the last two days, plus the weekend and last Friday. We do, fortunately, have satellite internet up here so I can remain somewhat entertained and busy up here between jobs. The problem lies with back to back to back 18 hour days. I'd forgotten how much they can wear a person out. If all goes well, today will be the last long day for a couple of weeks. I plan on doing a lot of sleeping tomorrow. Maybe I'll get the energy up to do some yardwork on Sunday.

Oh my exciting life. Stop the insanity. I can't keep up with the excitement.

As I mentioned, about a month back I finally broke down and got satellite television (no internet yet. I can't justify the cost for the service when I can use the connection at work five minutes away for my email and billing) so that I could watch the Riders play. They've been having a great season. Since I got my satellite, I have watched the Riders lose three times in a row. Last weekend I was too busy to actually watch the game (see above) and lo and behold - they won. This being Thanksgiving weekend in the Great White North, they are playing in the afternoon on Monday and are heavily favored to win. Of course, I'll be working down here and unable to watch the game. I've never considered myself superstitious, but I think I'm an albatross.

In any event, I actually found capon down here - which I don't recall ever seeing in Calgary - and I'm going to try roasting it up on the weekend. I wonder if it'll taste like chicken?

*ducks*
*runs*

HA!

2007-09-24T10:43:00.000-05:00

http://wcbstv.com/business/finance_story_266174828.html

I am a petty, petty man.

Fuck GM

2007-09-19T13:31:00.000-05:00

Some of you may be familiar with my car (a 1999 Pontiac Grand AM) and its many 'quirks'. My personal favorite is the brakes. For those not in the know, my car has a problem where it will quite often have the 'ABS' light come on and the 'Traction Control Off' light come on. This should normally only happen when conditions are extremely slippery. Instead, this happens pretty much any time the car is driven for more than 2 feet.

A fun side-effect of this is the fact that, whenever stopping, the car will release its brakes just before coming to a complete stop and roll ahead about another 10 feet before finally stopping.

I have taken the car to GM to repair this. Several times. To two separate garages. Neither garage claimed to be able to find anything wrong. The problem would disappear for about a month after coming back from the shop before rearing its ugly head again.

When I moved I decided to give the car to my parents. What they can get from selling it, they can keep. My dad, not believing in Caveat Emptor nearly as strongly as I do (or perhaps wanting to maximize the selling price of my p.o.s.), took it to a third mechanic - an independent - to get it looked at.

A 10 minute diagnosis found the problem. The bill? $1800. According to the mechanic the problem should have been obvious to anybody with a modicum of training.

To say that this disgusts me is to say that the holocaust wasn't that good an idea. I suppose that it shouldn't surprise me. As long as the car was under warranty, they weren't going to find anything wrong with it if at all possible. From what I understand, originally the problem would have been a relatively cheap fix. Now the entire brake system is going to need to be replaced. I can accept that most companies don't believe in customer service. I'd just like to see them start believing in "don't fuck over your customers". Is that too much to ask? I've still got all the receipts for the car repairs I've asked for over the years, and I know what GM will say when we confront them with it. "Oh, we're sorry you're not completely satisfied. How about $500 off of your next car purchase?". Fat fucking chance that they're ever going to have to apply that discount. I've already said that I'm never buying a GM product again (and I'll be surprised if anybody in my family ever does either), but now I'm at the "actively loathing" stage of my hatred. I would much rather brand myself with an iron than ever drive one of their overpriced disposable piles of shit ever again.

With "customer service" like this, it's no wonder that they're failing. I actually am giddy at the prospect of GM declaring bankruptcy and/or getting bought out/up. Maybe they'll merge with Ford and form a mega-corporation of suck so vast and dense that the very fabric of reality is warped. Good riddance. The next vehicle I buy will probably be a Toyota.

And as long as I'm posting. Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

There's a hole in my ceiling

2007-09-09T12:54:00.000-05:00

I'm a klutz. This will probably not come as a surprise to anybody reading my blog.

About a week or so back, I finally broke down. The combination of my beloved 'Riders having their best season since before I was born, and my getting tired of only being able to watch movies on my television made me decide to get satellite service.

"Great!" Says the company. "We'll be over on the afternoon of the 11th to set it up. You have a working phone line we can plug it into?"

"Sure." Says I, not exactly recalling if there is one behind the television, but there's phone jacks all over the place so there's assuredly one in that wall.

Turns out, I don't have one, so I phoned AT&T and had them over yesterday to install a new one. I learned two things through that experience:

1.) Be careful when you're crawling through the attic that you don't step between the studs.
2.) The guy that originally wired my house is barely competent .

So, as I said, I now have a hole in the ceiling of my mud room. It could have been worse. If I'd stepped down about a foot further it would have been in my bathroom.

I guess I just can't have nice things.

Also, just to prove that not everything that lives in my back yard is poisonous, creepy, or downright disturbing, here's a pic I snapped of one guy hoofing it towards the trees.

Le Sigh

2007-09-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

So I got back from a great trip in Calgary to find out that my electricity was, in fact, not turned off while I was away. This is good. I also discovered that my herb garden can not go for a week and a half in 100 F weather without rain or somebody watering it. This is bad. Of course it's been raining almost nonstop since I got back. Figures.

My leg's been bothering me for the last month, and I finally went to see the doctor about it. It is, as my friends and family suggested, my sciatic nerve. True to form, he suggested prescription medication immediately. Specifically Ibuprofen (in fairness, he did allow me the option of just using the off-the-shelf variety and upping the dosage) and steroids.

This is not to condemn the pharmacological world. Far from it. I believe that there are plenty of good reasons for prescribing medication. This is, however, the second time that I've gone to this doctor and had him wanting to prescribe medication for me. The first time I went in to look at my foot. When he checked my weight and blood pressure he immediately started talking about blood pressure medication. When he inquired about my sleeping habits and I told him that I wasn't sleeping well he wanted to book me into a sleep clinic/study, and when he felt my heartbeat and found a "minor irregularity" (or something like that) he wanted to book me for an MRI. I just looked at him and asked if he wasn't supposed to prescribe diet and exercise first.

In any event, the downside of this latest trip is that my BP is still too high (150/104) and he, somewhat justifiably, wants me to start taking medication. Fair enough. I'm not happy about it, but I'll do it. He also wanted me to lose more weight. This is also a fair request, and something I've been working on*. I do find it laughable that he wants me down to below 200 lb. I haven't been that light since junior high when I was actually active.

___________________________________________________________
*This is to say that I don't add salt to most of my food, avoid fast food whenever possible, and generally try to not eat as much, but don't go so far as to actually "diet".

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

2007-08-17T13:34:00.000-05:00

It was the perfect plan. Malcolm's birthday is at the end of the month. I had him convinced that I wasn't going to be able to get back to Calgary until Christmas. His gift had been mailed. Time had, in fact, been booked off work. My plane ticked was purchased*. Siochain was keeping me informed of any party plans. I was all set to show up unannounced. And then the bugger had to ruin it by deciding to visit me the week after.

A cunning person could have lied their way out of it - stalled him for a couple of weeks so that he could make his decision after his birthday. I am not a cunning person. At the very least I'm a terrible liar. So the surprise is now ruined. Congratulations Malcolm. I hope you're happy.

In completely unrelated news, I'm going to be in Calgary from the 23rd til Sept. 2nd. Come hang out with me! I'll probably be drunk, but in case I'm not you should bring alcohol. Seriously. I need drink bad. The last few months of work have had my stress level ramping up steadily to the point where I seem to be existing in one of three states: Work, sleep, or zombie**.

___________________________________________________________
*Again I have discovered that I am completely illiterate when it comes to reading flight schedules. I thought I was landing just before noon on the 22nd. Turns out I'm landing just before midnight.

**I'm still a little squeamish about the brains, though.

Kovbasa

Bork!

Goddammit

Am I Back in Grade School?

Another Brick in the Wall

Unbelieveable.

A classic conundrum

Current mood: Stabby

I'm back

When did I acquire so much crap?

Happy Dance!

Second verse, same as the first.

[sarcasm] Thank You Direct TV [/sarcasm]

Mama, I'm Coming Home

I need a vacation

Not a moment too soon

Just like a bad sitcom

More Wildlife!

It's officially spring

Kovbasa: P. Eng.

I have a superpower

*Facepalm*

I'm surrounded by assholes

Time for a public service announcement

And now begins the drinking

Just like old times

Heat's on.

My rage keeps me warm at night.

That's not severe...

Phrases that I don't want to hear:

Reminiscing

I guess I should be flattered

Important update! - Nothing interesting has happened!

I can't swallow this tripe

Whoots!

Back to reality

I can see clearly now, the brain is gone...

They've found me out...

Happy National Celebration!

These are not the critters you're looking for.

Warning: Geek content ahead!

And people say that Saskatchewan's flat?

Raccoon: 5 - Steve: 1

The more things change...

Still alive... Again.

The cops down here are so nice...

I'm gonna need a bigger tub

One year later.

More organs means more human

Better late than never.

The waiting game sucks

What's This?

Wow.

The Customer Is NOT Always Right.

I haz an orchard

Hooray For New Math

No, I Didn't Go to Oz

How To Make My Monday*

Apparantly, It's Not All Bad

I'm Sure That It's Perfectly Normal

That Was Fast

Happy Birthday Mom!

Things That I Learned in 2007

Success!

Kovbasa Watch 2007

I Just Drove Through a Disney Movie.

This Isn't Right

Wildlife

Figures.

Let Me Get This Straight

Happy Birthday Dad!

Success!

Go Hogs!

Green Wizard Needs Sleep Badly.

HA!

Fuck GM

There's a hole in my ceiling

Le Sigh

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Facepalm