Still alive... Again.

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...

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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*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.

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.

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*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

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

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

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*

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

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

Apparantly, It's Not All Bad

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

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

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!

Have a great birthday!

Things That I Learned in 2007

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!

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

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.

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

It's raining. In December.

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

Wildlife

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.

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

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!

Success!

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!

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.

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!

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

I am a petty, petty man.

Fuck GM

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

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

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.

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*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

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**.

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*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.

Fuck Entergy*

It's 107 Fahrenheit here today, and I just went home for lunch to learn that Entergy turned off my power.

Again.

I'm sick of their crap. I got a lovely message left for me at home on the ninth stating that if I didn't call them that day to have my meter put in my name (something that they've said several times before that they had done) that they'd shut off my power. I phoned them - on the ninth - and talked to a very nice (and obviously incompetent) woman who said that the had straightened out the problem and that my power now would not be shut off.

Then I come home to this bullshit.

The lady I talked to put me on hold for a half hour, and swears that the problem is fixed for real this time. I'm sorely tempted to booby-trap my meter box some way. In any event, if this happens one more time, I think I'll engage in that wonderful American pastime of the lawsuit.
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*WARNING! This post contains somewhat stronger language than usual.

Eight Legged Freaks.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest specimen that I have confronted. Legs extended, it is nearly the size of my hand. Feel free to identify if you can. I only let it live long enough to take the photo.

I still haven't stopped shuddering at the thought of that thing. I think I'm going to have to nuke my house from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Aargh

One month of tests.

Down the drain.

Because somebody sent us the wrong additive.

I'm going to go home and drink now. Afterwards, I plan on working with power tools.

I'm not stupid... I'm advanced!

Oi vey. I'm having flashbacks to skool. For the last several weeks I've been trying to learn about cement (specifically, wellbore cementing). Fun stuff.

No, really, it's actually interesting. The problem arises from me having no relevant background with the stuff, and combining the learning process with the ongoing QC. It's starting to all merge into one massive mental ball of... stuff that I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around.

On the plus side, if I ever feel like pouring an extension to my patio, I'm fairly sure I can get a good deal on the supplies...

The heat comes and goes down here. And this weekend it came. I originally planned to use the weekend to get a bunch of work done around the house. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men. Saturday started off good. I managed to trim back the jungle in my yard and unloaded nearly a ton of rock so that I could set up a garden section in my yard to transplant my herbs into. Sunday was supposed to be about cleaning the house (I swear things get dirtier quicker down here than in Calgary), and installing a few organizing racks in the garage, but I woke up with a splitting headache that never really went away. When combined with the heat I ended up saying "screw it" and loafed around for the day feeling miserable. Good times. All praise the inventor of central air conditioning.

I also suspect that I have raccoons hanging around my place now. I can't be positive, but I don't know of any other animal that would actually try to steal my birdfeeder. I came out one morning to find it gone and the pole it was mounted on bent over. After much searching, I found the thing wedged underneath my back fence.

Oh! New bug alert! I haven't seen one of these since elementary school.

The second pic isn't great, but gives a better idea of the size.


No, the ash-can isn't mine. Neither is the bug. It was found up by our warehouse. I was tempted to take it home as a pet.

And in case Amy hasn't been notified of this article already: The Ultimate Knitter

Wokking in Memphis

The last few weeks have been busy, to say the least. We're starting up a new service line down here, and meeting the technical requirements have been rather trying. I've been bouncing back and forth between the two lines trying to learn how to run the new equipment while at the same time trying to keep up with issues on the frac side.

We've also had a fair number of people come down from Calgary to train us on said new equipment. It's been good to see some old familiar faces. The flip side of that, though, is that I've been eating out more than usual. This is not entirely a bad thing, as it's allowed me to find a couple of new restaurants and at least one really good pub* out and about.

After living down here for six months I finally got around to seeing Memphis. At a mere two hours away I probably should have gone sooner (say, for Memphis in May) but c'est la vie. Myself and a compatriot from the Calgary office crossed the Mighty Mississippi into the town. We visited the National Civil Rights Museum**, the Rock and Soul museum, wandered Beale Street and in general gorged ourselves on the food there***. Good times.

No. Graceland was not visited. Maybe next time.

The weather down here has actually been relatively mild. According to the locals we should be pushing 100 F daily with no rain. Instead for the most part it's been overcast, raining nearly every evening or night (we went through a week where we had hour long downpours start at 5 pm on the nose), and only about as hot as Calgary gets on its hottest days - if that. That might have started to finally change if yesterday was any indication.

And I made another ridiculous purchase. Behold!

I know. It's not a John Deere, but on the plus side I didn't have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it either. I finally got around to giving it a workout yesterday and it was... satisfying. Not necessarily fun, but definitely satisfying. The fact that it will go through the underbrush that's in the unsodded part of my lawn and not even slow down was immensely gratifying****.

So now it's poll time, ladies! Do you think my tractor's sexy? I just need one of you to say yes so I can hum "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" while I mow my lawn.

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*75 different beers on tap = much fun.
**I was quite pleased that neither myself nor my compatriot - both burly white men with extremely short hair (me) and completely shaved head (him) did not get even one strange look going through there. In all seriousness, though, if you're ever in Memphis go see it. It's definitely worth it.
***In the unlikely even that I ever open my own restaurant I'm hiring a baker. Free fresh buns will be provided to all diners.
****Seriously. Parts of it haven't been mowed in two months or more and some of the weeds growing in it are taller than me and about an inch in diameter. I figured I'd need a machete and a British accent to cut my way through it.

Happy Canada Day

Hope everybody had a good Canada Day/day off in lieu. I myself took the opportunity to take up the game of whackf##k*. Definitely an enjoyable experience and one that I'm going to endeavor to continue with. It was actually very good weather for it. We had to drive through a rainstorm to get to the course, and it threatened to rain all morning but never did. It just stayed overcast and a pretty reasonable temperature - if still somewhat humid. It's good to finally have another hobby that actually requires physical exertion. I went to a doctor a couple of weeks back and wash shocked - SHOCKED I tell you - to find out how bad a shape I'm in.

Anyhoo, after said game I had a barbecue for some ex-pats down here helping us set up our latest operation. I've discovered that I really enjoy cooking over charcoal. It's something that I never did in Calgary - we always used propane - but I find it quite funl. Pizza and flatbeds were a blast. The smoked ribs I cooked for Canada Day turned out great - especially for a first attempt. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the summer I'm trying to bake cookies on it.

And I ended off the evening with fireworks. Hopefully the neighbors weren't too confused by them going off a few days before the fourth of July. I knew that fireworks were legal and a lot more available down here, but I was surprised by the sheer quantity. It seems like every mile there's another carnival tent stocked selling "Crazy Larry's Black Market Fireworks" or such. I guess that it's a good thing it is so damp down here. If it was drier one spark would cause a lovely chain reaction of ammo dumps.

My house and yard slowly continue to come together. I decided a while back to hire landscapers to finish my lawn. It doesn't need much - just to be leveled, have all the weeds killed, have a bunch of trees planted and then be seeded or sodded - but it's a large enough job, and it's hot enough here that I figured it would be better to get it done right the first time. Besides, the ground is hard enough around here that I'm going to definitely need some heavy equipment if I want to get it done before next year. I can't dig down more than a couple of inches with a spade.

So all in all, life ain't going too terribly bad down here. I seem to have pulled myself out of the malaise that has been affecting me for the last few months - whether this unnatural cheerfulness will actually continue I don't know, so I'm going to milk it for all it's worth now.
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*Those who are actually good at the game more commonly refer to it as "Golf".

Going Buggy

The flies. They're everywhere.

I hear them in the distance. Always buzzing. Always taunting. So smug.

They stay just out of range. Daring me to swat them before flying off. Even if I kill one, two more take its place. They circle my head at night, keeping me awake. They don't just seek to defeat me. They intend to drive me insane. But I won't let them. I'm too strong for that. I'll find a way.

What's that, mother?

Burn the house, you say?

Yes. That will stop them.

Uninvited Guests

Last week I discovered that I had a new house guest squatting on my front porch.


With a little prodding, I was able to get the little buggers ID.


I initially left him/her/it alone but then realized that it probably wasn't a good idea leaving a poisonous spider on my doorstep, and gave it the boot.

It's funny, but it's little things like that that really make me realize that I'm not in Kansas (or Canada) anymore. The heat, the humidity? Annoying, but they don't really stand out, for some reason (I notice them, of course. They just don't scream to me: "Hey! You're in Arkansas!") Ditto for the accents. The wildlife, however, is another matter. The other night I also found this lovely specimen in my backyard.


The strange part is that I was more disturbed by the katydid than the black widow. Bugs of all type (spiders especially) creep me out, but I was all "Kewl! A black widow in MY house!" .

Also saw a flock of vultures on the side of the road, something else that I'd never seen live before. Huge birds. Honestly though, I don't know how armadillos aren't an endangered species yet. You can practically measure you driving distance by counting the dead ones on the road.

Leaving Las Vegas (And Getting There, And Staying There)

Day 1

Due to a combination of excitement about seeing my buds and paranoia about sleeping through my alarm and missing my flight I didn’t sleep at all the night before my flight.

Body: “Wanna sleep.”

Brain: “Shut up. We’re not going to miss the flight because you oversleep.”

Body: “But I’m really tired. Just a few minutes please?”

Brain: I said shut up. Now have another coffee before I really give you something to cry about.”

I managed to drag my butt to the airport and make it to Vegas (via Memphis) with minimal trouble. Arriving in Vegas I very quickly realized how much I’ve become accustomed to the humidity in Arkansas.

It’s strange, really. I might have grown up in a relatively large city, but in the last few months I’ve gotten really used to the solitude and quiet of a small town. Compared to that, Vegas felt both incredibly real and surreal both at the same time. Still, I was impressed at how the city managed to incorporate walkways everywhere so that pedestrian and automotive traffic have as little effect as possible on each other. I was also impressed/surprised/stunned by the amount of construction going on. Buildings going up all over the place, and each one with an army of construction workers and equipment.

One thing that did disappoint me was the real lack of patios to just sit and drink at in the afternoon on the Strip. Plenty of places indoors to drink or grab drinks to go, but almost nothing that allowed me to take a load off of my rapidly aching feet and relax with a drink. Still, I eventually found a place to grab lunch and beer before continuing my exploring.

And so I wandered up and down the strip for a couple of hours. Looked around the casinos, checked out what was showing where and generally tried to get my bearings. I was rapidly feeling the effect of my lack of sleep, combined with the heat and the alcohol. I was also discovering that I’m not used to walking for long periods of time, as my blisters were starting to attest.

I eventually headed back to the hotel and amused myself for the rest of the day by gambling and checking out the casino and restaurants. I only dropped $100 at the blackjack table. The dealer was actually very nice about it. After watching me make some stupid bets she looked at me and asked if this was my first time playing blackjack (it wasn’t, but the last time was a few years back and I had some coworkers at the table helping me out). She then proceeded to explain what a decent strategy was and point out when I was about to make a stupid bet. I still lost money, but it took longer.

Finally, my buds arrived. Siochain knocked me off my feet with a big hug, which is only fair since I do the same so often. We grabbed something to eat and then headed back to the hotel where I discovered that my blisters had blisters. I crashed immediately, and managed to keep them awake all night with my snoring.

Day 2

Up with the dawn, and feeling much more awake, we all moseyed on down to a café in the casino for breakfast and enjoyed some incredibly good coffee (remember Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction? Yeah. That good).

We then, much to the protest of my feet, began exploring. Just up and down the strip. Siochain got her picture taken with the surliest Elvis impersonator ever. We hit the shops in Planet Hollywood and the Venetian, where M picked up a very stylin’ hat. I also discovered that somewhere along the way Siochain apparently became part lizard. Seriously, the girl was freezing in the air conditioned casinos and it took here about 10 minutes in the sun to warm up. That’s just not right.

I loved the paint scheme inside the Miracle Mile at PH. If you haven’t seen, they’ve done the ceiling up like the sky, which doesn’t sound too impressive until you’ve actually seen it with the lighting and realized how realistic it looks. It’s also rather confusing when you spend a couple hours in there, thinking that it’s around sunset and then walk outside and find that it’s still noon.

I imagine that to most people, going to Vegas and not gambling or seeing a lot of shows or exhibits seems nearly heretical. For me, though, I really couldn’t care about most of that (There’s a few shows that I want to see there, but that’s about it). I’m just happy that I was able to hang out with my friends and not have to worry about being at X place at time Y.

The water show at the Bellagio is pretty impressive. I’ve seen it in videos but they really don’t do it justice. The scope of it is pretty massive. I also find it very humorous that, in a city in the middle of the desert that so many of the casinos have massive water shows.

Unbeknownst to Siochain, her beloved Treasure Island show had changed since she was last in Vegas. No longer is it a swashbuckling adventure with pirates fighting each other and falling into the water. Now it’s been replaced by “The Sirens of Treasure Island”. A more adult themed show, chock full of scantily clad women and single entendres (“I’ve lured many a salty seaman into my cove” – brilliant!). And the songs? Pure poetry. With lines like “You take a little bit of sugar and a little bit of honey and you shake it… Shake it!” Shakespeare had better watch out. The expression on Siochain’s face was better than the show itself.

Day 3

Hit the Bodies exhibit at the Tropicana. Not exactly my cup of tea, being as squeamish as I am, but still fascinating from a medical perspective. M & Siochain really liked it though, which is the important part. If I haven’t mentioned it already, I really couldn’t give a crap where I was, as long as I was with my friends.

Did some more wandering. The nerve endings on my feet were pretty much fried by that point, so my feet weren’t doing to bad. Fortunately, the rest of my legs were burning by then so I didn’t get too comfortable.

The highlight of the day was definitely O. It was the first and so far only Cirque de Soleil show that I’ve seen, and was a hell of an introduction. I’ve seen clips of Cirque here and there but, like the water show at the Bellagio, the videos don’t do Cirque justice. Of course, the Bellagio show doesn’t even come close to comparing to O. Seriously, go see it and for the love of god spend the extra money and get good tickets – something in the first few rows. I would quite happily go back down to Vegas just to see the show again. Each act in it blew me away more than the last one and left me thinking “there’s no way that they’ll be able to top that”. Of course, they did manage to top it. I find it amusing to note that there were parts of the show that could be considered boring due to the fact that they were merely incredible, as opposed to mind-bogglingly stunning like the rest of the show. It’s not unlike what M was saying while leaving the show – It made Vegas seem mundane by comparison. Watching O was actually an emotional experience. If you see it and aren’t moved, I declare that you are not human.

Day 4

The last day was a pretty big blur. We basically just fit a few last minute things into the trip – nothing special – and then went to the airport. Saying goodbye this time, though, was infinitely harder than a few months ago. I think that the last time I left I was too distracted by work and my impending house purchase to really appreciate how much I missed these two. I’ve known them for twenty years now and they’re more than family to me, they are a part of me. Fortunately, I guess, I was giving a temporary reprieve from my depression while I discovered that my place was going to be an hour and a half late, forcing me to miss my connection in Dallas. After much frustration, I decided to head to Dallas on my flight and get the first plane from there to Little Rock in the morning rather than overnight in Vegas. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep much in Dallas either and I’m still trying to get my body back on time.

And that’s pretty much it. I had a blast with my friends, but I’ve got to be the only person on the planet that can go to Vegas, not lose loads of cash, and still manage to be depressed when I leave.

I miss 'em already.

My Feet Hurt... With Destiny!

Back. Very tired. Vegas was interesting. "O" was indescribable. Seeing my buds was phenomenal. Flight home was not so good. Plane was delayed and I missed my connection and overnighted in Dallas. Very tired right now and busy getting stuff ready for work tomorrow. Will write a more in depth review soon.

Viva Las Vegas!

There's nothing quite like a 16 hour work day to prep you for a vacation.

Of course, there's also nothing quite like learning how to read, which would have saved me from finding out last night that my plane tickets land me in Vegas at 9:52 a.m., and my friends land at 9:00 p.m.

Well, I guess I have to keep myself entertained for 11 hours. I hope I can find something to do.

The Train Keeps A Rollin'

And I'm not sure how to get off. Not that I want to bail out or anything, it's just that it's starting to get really busy down here and next week's even busier. If I'd known that about a month ago when I booked my vacation I probably wouldn't have done so, but it's probably best that I didn't know because I need a vacation in the worst possible way right now.

I've finally got blinds for my house. This is good because a.) Nobody needs to see my pasty-white fat ass, (not that I make a habit of wandering around my place nekkid); b.) There are a fair number of children in the neighborhood and I really don't fancy being thrown in jail for accidentally exposing myself to kids (again, not planning on wandering around naked); and c.) I like sleep. I really like it. I don't like waking up on my days off as the sun begins to peek over the horizon. I'm really looking forward to being able to sleep in tomorrow. Of course I'm now able to indulge in my habit of waking up at the crack of noon, which is not a good thing either.

In addition to looking for a few other major appliances, now that I can afford them, I'm also trying to find a landscaping company down here. I dont' really want much done to my yard - just lay some grass down and plant a dozen or so fruit trees. The problem is that the yard, as it stands, is currently a pretty good disaster. The non-sodded area (probably around a half-acre) doesn't have much for topsoil. We're right down to the red clay already, and while stuff seems to grow pretty well in it (the weeds love it, at least), I'm guessing that it's going to need to be turned and loamed before I can actually get it properly seeded. I tried digging into it on the weekend, and that's pretty much a no-go as well. Thus, I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll have to hire contractors to do all the work in the hot sun while I sit in the shade sipping fruity alcoholic drinks. Maybe my guild complex will kick in, but I think I can kick it out easily enough.

I've also discovered that I might have an addiction. When I first planned on moving down here, my dad, a relatively avid amateur birder, was thrilled at the prospect of all the different birds down here (he's still hoping that I'll take a trip into southern Arkansas and find an Ivory-billed Woodpecker). I pretty much shrugged off the possibilities. I don't mind birds, but for the most part I find them pretty forgettable - pigeons, magpies, gulls, etc. In any event, since the first time I saw my house when it was still under construction, I've seen a few colorful birds in the backyard. The blue jays were nice, and seemed slightly brighter than the ones I've seen in Calgary and Red Deer, but it was the Cardinals that really made me go "Oooh! Nifty!". About a week or so after I moved in, I bought a feeder and some black sunflower seed which, according to the bag, is supposed to attract nearly every type of bird around these parts. Sure enough, more jays and cardinals showed up. And a few Mourning Doves, and some sort of yellow finch thingy showed up once.

So I decided to expand. I bought more feeders - a finch feeder with nyjer seed and a hummingbird feeder. The finch feeder seems pretty devoid of customers, but the hummingbird feeder attracted a couple in less then a day. Then I bought a bird bath. I also bought a bird guide, but haven't had much luck identifying most things. The birds don't tend to stay still long enough, not that this really bothers me. I'm just worried that I won't stop - or worse, I'll expand. First the feeders and bird bath. Then bird houses. Before you know it, I'll have descended into madness and purchased the dreaded lawn gnomes.

I've also had a bit of fun with cooking down here. Not the style itself (although I enjoy the act of cooking and am really looking forward to getting a barbecue) but the ingredients themselves. In addition the the fresh fruit that I'm enjoying gorging myself on, I'm having fun with new and interesting things. I cooked with okra for the first time the other day. It was, suffice to say, an interesting experience. I had no idea how slimy that stuff got when when chopped up, even before it was cooked. I'm also having fun with collard greens. No idea what will be coming up in the future. With the weather as hot as it is down here (is everyone in Calgary enjoying the snow that they got yesterday?) cooking is less enjoyable. Raw fruits and vegetables are much more my speed at this temperature.

But for now, I get to relax. I've got a long weekend and a vacation coming up, and even get to enjoy them for the most part for a change. Block party tonight. My company's having its Grand Opening tomorrow, Sunday off, Memorial day Monday off (a holiday off in the field? Inconceivable!). Work Tuesday (if I'd realized that it was a long weekend I'd have booked it off as well), then it's off to Vegas on Wednesday for 4 fun filled days that I plan to not be able to remember. I'm meeting up there with Big Daddy M and Siochain - my brother from another mother and my sister from another mister so to speak, both of whom need to remember that no matter how old they feel, they're still younger and better looking (and saner) than me. They both also need to eat a sammich or two.

I'm Rich!

The money finally came through (thanks dad)! I can finally pay off bills and loans and buys stuff again! I can furnish my house! I'm solvent again! I CAN BUY AND SELL YOUR VERY SOULS! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

But for now. I think I'll celebrate. Who's up for root beer?

This Is No Longer Funny.

They turned off the power to my house.

Again.

To say that I'm unhappy is a slight understatement. Apparently they were trying to shut off the power to house 111. There's only one problem - house 111 doesn't exist. I'm in 113, next to me is 107.

Fortunately for the power company, they have hired creative people. If they can't shut off the power to 111, I guess the nearest house will do.

Idjits.

I Love A Rainy Night

I'm right now enjoying the hardest rainstorm that I've ever seen. I don't think that I've ever seen it rain so hard for so long. The water level in the drainage ditch in our yard (my company's) has risen about 4 feet in the last half hour. It's kewl. The best part is that the weather is still warm. Definitely a nice change from the cold rain in Calgary.

(BTW, the pic is not from here, but is still a relatively accurate depiction).

Weekend was decently enjoyable. We've been having weather in the high 70's - low 80's (that's mid to high 20's in real temperature). I discovered both a farmer's market and the asian food market (I doubt that there's more than one), so life is somewhat more tolerable now. Spent the weekend happily cooking away and doing a little more unpacking. And discovering the sheer joy that is the mojito. Seriously. I think I'm through with Gin & Tonic as my summertime drink.

On the money front, I'm still lacking in funds. Apparently one of the checks that I wrote to myself was sufficiently large enough to warrant further scrutiny. Surprisingly, the hastily scrawled signature on my cheque did not match the one in my account when I opened it about 20 years ago (and was likely told to sign neatly and clearly). I've therefore taken the drastic step of asking my folks for help. I'm sending them some cheques to cash and then they can send me a US money order for the proper amount. I have a good feeling about this. It could work.

That just leaves me with the problem of the other, slightly smaller cheque that I wrote to myself. The money for it disappeared from my Canadian bank account 2-3 weeks ago but has yet to appear down here. My bank here is saying the 15th of May. I'm saying that if it's not there by then I'll look at suing.

It occurs to me now that I might have been able to transfer the funds just as easily through my pay-pal account. Anyone out there that can give me a reason that it wouldn't work?

More as it develops, but for now, I think I'll head home.

I Have Little Choice But to Laugh.

My next door neighbor moved out last week. This is relevant.

On Tuesday I came home for lunch and found that my water had been turned off. I phoned the water company, and it turns out the person they had sent over to turn off my neighbors water turned off mine instead. No biggie.

Last night I came home and found my house without power. We have been having thunderstorms for the last couple of days, so I phoned the power company to see if it was an outage. They said that there was a power outage and that they expected it to be restored by 8:00 that night.

Around 8:00, with the sun rapidly setting and my power still not back on, I phoned the power company back. While talking to them I realize that my other neighbors have power. After going through various rigamarole and discovering that my circuit box has been locked by the company, they agreed to send somebody out. About an hour later they came by, unlocked the box and turned my power back on, mentioning that the yellow tag on the lock means that the power has been deliberately shut off to this residence for some reason. When I phoned the company today to confirm the status of my account, I confirmed that they had in fact shut off the power to the wrong house.

I suppose it's a good thing that I don't have any more utilities.

Where Does the Time Go?:

Is April nearly over already?

The last month has streaked by far to fast. I am now unpacked and semi-moved in to my new place. I say "semi-moved in" because there are still a few relatively important (though not essential, I suppose) appliances and pieces of furniture that have yet to be purchased. Thanks BMO for attending the Air Canada school of customer support.

I suppose that the blame shouldn't be put entirely at BMO's feet. I should have been wary enough to make sure that I had the paperwork all taken care of before I left Calgary. I'm also not too thrilled at my current bank down here right now. When I learned that I couldn't arrange to wire my money from Calgary without being at the BMO in person I wrote myself a couple of cheques. The bank here said it would take two, maybe three weeks to get them deposited. We're now into the fourth week, and I found out on Friday that they've changed their tune and it's now 4 - 6 weeks. My rage is endless.

Anyhow, on to happier matters. As I said, I've unpacked. I suppose it speaks volumes about my cooking geekery that it took me longer to unpack my kitchen than the rest of my house combined. I actually managed to get through the extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy while doing it and still have more kitchen unpacking to do.

Also, I found that unpacking is a lot like Christmas morning with all of the niceties thrown out the window. The movers packed everything up themselves, so I had no idea what anything was. It was somewhat fun to try to guess what the heck most of the stuff was as I unwrapped it, and more than a little liberating to go "why the hell did I keep this?" and throw some of the stuff in the trash.

Weather down here is improving. We went through a cool snap last week (I think it was last week) but it's been getting better since then with mid to high 20's since. The humidity's also been rising relatively steadily. It's not bad now, but I imagine in another month I'll be soaking.

Of course, with the heat and humidity comes bugs. Mosquitoes haven't been too bad down here but they've got some pretty good sized beetle-type things that are everywhere. There's also a lot of spiders. Personally, I don't have too much of a problem with insects in small amounts, as long as they stay out of my house. It seems like every day, though, there's 3 or four spiders or smaller versions of the beetle-things crawling around in my place. I keep hoping that I've killed the last of them, but every time I come home there's another one. Fortunately, I haven't woken up with a Brown Recluse spider on me yet.

The weather also seems conducive to growing plants. I took some time last week to get my herb garden planted (I'm going to wait until I get my money transferred down here before I work on the orchard). So far, only the cilantro isn't doing well. Not too bad considering my past history with plants. I do wonder about the coincidence that I first started seeing rabbits in my back yard about a day after I got my herbs. I'm not too worried though. I'm waiting for the little buggers to try chewing on the serrano peppers that I'm growing.

Last weekend was one of the few that I've had down here completely off. I celebrated by stocking my fridge & liquor cabinet and spending the entire weekend cooking. It was glorious. Of course, now I have to do something with all the food in there. I'll have to think these plans through a little more thoroughly next time.

Home Sweet Home

Signed the papers earlier today. I am now officially in financial debt. I can't really move in quite yet (the moving truck broke down in Denver, so my stuff won't get here until tomorrow night or Thursday morning), but I don't mind. It will give me time to start on the landscaping - I finally took a really good look at where the survey flags are and suddenly realized how huge my yard is. As a matter of fact, I imagine most of my spare time will be going into landscaping. I'm actually looking forward to stuff like the planting the trees and setting up my herb garden. It's the weeding that's really going to try my patience. I've got over a half-acre of weeds & quackgrass laughing at me.

And one little private message to the Bank of Montreal before I forget: F**k you. I've had enough of the run-arounds, lies, and outright screwjobs. Thanks to you it'll be about 2 more weeks before I can actually get some appliances into my house. 2 more weeks of restaurant food. Thank you so much.

It's amazing what a difference a week can make. During the time I was back in Calgary the weather down here has improved dramatically. We're still getting a fair amount of cloud cover (and rain), but the temperature is much warmer - around 20 - 25 C during the day, and warm enough at night that I still don't need a jacket. Not too bad. It's also noticeably more humid now, but nothing I can't handle*.

I did the inspection on my house the other day. I'm pretty happy with the finished product, all-in-all. There are just a few minor fixes to take care of** - scuffs and such. Everything's shaping up for me to be able to close on it by the end of the week. My stuff's scheduled to arrive on the weekend (which for once, I won't be working), so with any luck I can call myself moved in by this time next week. We've caught up with our customer's schedule at work and in fact jumped ahead of him, so I've actually got a slow week coming up, which is not a bad thing in my opinion. The 80 hour work weeks were starting to get to me.
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* I don't doubt that August will be a different story.
** Who forgets to make a vent for the dryer?

No Turning Back Now.

Well, terms have been agreed upon, my apartment is packed and on it's way down, and I'm back in Arkansas awaiting it all.

Thanks to everyone out there. A week was not nearly enough time to say goodbye to you all, so get your buts down here to visit me, dammit!

One Last Hurrah.

If I've ever experienced anything more depressing in my life than packing up for this move, I blocked it from my mind long ago.

Honestly, the deliberate act of going through all my accumulated junk and deciding "That goes with me. That gets thrown out. X can have that, (s)he can make better use of it than me" is less like getting ready for a garage sale and more like getting ready for my own funeral. Unnecessarily morbid? Possibly, but true nonetheless.

Sweet Relief - Finally

Finally, I get a full day off. I've been working 12 hour days for the last two weeks, and only been taking it slightly easier on the weekends. I was finally able to clock out at around 3:00 yesterday. First stop: Pulaski County and the nearest liquor store.

Why are you looking at me like that? I don't have a problem. I can quit any time I want to. I just don't want to right now.

My time down here has been completely exhausting. I knew that starting up a new district would be rough, but I didn't know how rough it would be. Fortunately, more wrinkles are being ironed out every day, so hopefully before long I'll actually be able to do some serious relaxing. Right now I'm so burnt out that I'm not really in the mood to do much of anything. I had originally planned on going golfing today, but instead I moseyed down to Little Rock again and then back home to kick back with a beer or two. Or three.

House stuff moves slowly. My boss has been down here helping with getting us off the ground and has been more busy than I have, so there hasn't been much progress made on the official transfer paperwork yet. This puts a bit of a delay in the purchasing process. It's been frustrating, but I am assured that the paperwork will be ready by early this week.

And now that I've actually had a little bit of free time the loneliness has kicked in. It never ceases to amaze me that, despite the fact that I tend to be pretty antisocial, I tend to be a relatively social creature. Just because I don't talk much doesn't mean I don't enjoy hanging out with my friends. My friends that are roughly 2000 miles away now.

This has the potential to be a rough few years, I think.

Sweet Zombie Jesus, I Need A Drink!

What a week. I'd rather not go into details, but suffice it to say the QC portion of my job has not been easy. I've been working late all week and yesterday as well. I finally got this afternoon off and took the opportunity to drive into Little Rock and see what it's like.

Honestly it wasn't that bad, although I only made it to the River Market. Unfortunately, it appears that Arkansas doesn't believe in staying open on Sundays. Outside of the restaurants and big chain stores nothing was open - and that includes the liquor stores. At least I managed to get out and away from the shop and hotel

So I'm buying a house. I've managed to, in my spare time, find a wonderful little place about five minutes west of town. Construction still isn't done, but it should be ready by April first. A nice little one floor place with a decent kitchen and a huge yard - nearly an acre. By the standards around here that's actually pretty tiny, but you can't get smaller yards around here. Everybody wants huge yards and swimming pools etc.

Outside of that, there's not a lot happening. My back's feeling better - not great, but not nearly as bad as it was. Thanks to all for your support and suggestions.