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.

Maybe It's a Sign

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On The Road Again

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

Maybe It Was Something I Ate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now with 20% less cynicism

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

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

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

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

Hoo boy.

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Update!

Well, the more things change, blah blah blah.

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

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

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

Counting down the days...

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

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

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

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