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

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

Really, I only need one proof.

Bork!

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

Or else stop having crappy months.

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

Guess how well it's working out?

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

Will somebody please remind me why I do this?

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

Goddammit

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

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

Yeah, I know, cry some more.

Am I Back in Grade School?

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

That is all.

Except that it happened again about 5 hours later.

Another Brick in the Wall

I am sore.

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

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

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

Results are currently inconclusive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unbelieveable.

Guess what happened again last night?

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

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

A classic conundrum

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

Current mood: Stabby

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

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


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

I'm back

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

Assholes.

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

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

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

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

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

Boy am I a glutton for punishment.

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

Come on world. What else you got for me?

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

I have no booze and I must drink.

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

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

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

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

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

Goddammit.

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

When did I acquire so much crap?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahh Calgary. How I've missed you.

Happy Dance!

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

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

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

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