Category: Work

happy sigh

Well, here I am typing away on my new computer, having finally got my internet set up (thanks Telus support guys!). The new computer (an HP Pavilion) has got pretty much everything I want – SD Card reader, built in webcam, fair chunk of memory, the nicest screen I’ve ever seen on a laptop, why the durned thing even has a remote!  Mike recommended it.  Apart from an external mouse, I didn’t need anything else.

It does have Vista, but we’re going to Vista at work so I won’t be able to avoid it.  My next computer will be a Linux Box.

err

I am re-reading Doris Lessing’s excellent “love, again”.

I dropped over 3 bills in IKEA last night but I now have enough chairs, ice cube trays, cutlery,  also a shower curtain, plates, bowls, serving tray, bathmat, 3 lamps, oven mitts, etc ….  and I did it all in less than two hours door to door.  I still want a footstool.  The living room is (except for the box carcasses) pretty much as it will be – but I still need a TV stand – and a TV.  I’m looking at the deals at tigerdirect.ca.  I don’t think I want a refurb.

I picked up my first piece of mail, patronized two local establishments (small grocery and the optician, where I got the broken nose pieces on my glasses replaced for 5 bucks), collected my phone books, and shoved stuff around.

I wonder what horrors await at work this morning.  There is an all staff meeting.  They’ve already announced layoffs – I am not currently affected.  I know that what they are doing makes sense for the organization, but I’m heartsick nonetheless.

Fridge contents

Are now milk, orange juice, one burrito and 13 beers (please note, the beers are preparatory for beers on Friday at my place – I hadn’t actually planned to consume them all). Cleaned Dr. Filk’s old apartment last night for two hours. Paul gave me a lift and helped haul groceries, which I appreciate.

Dan P and Dan T were both there working. For those of you familiar with ‘the dungeon’ most of the upholstered walls are now gone.

I actually ate a healthy breakfast this morning! Organic crunchy peanut butter and organic whole wheat bread.

Seared catfish at the work cafeteria today. That new cook is something else. I love the work cafeteria. They don’t even blink if I’m into them for $75 (and they know I’m good for it.)

First call on the new phone line last night, to the folks. Thanks much for the material and moral support, ’tis appreciated. You will be amused to note, after our conversation, that the first living thing I saw this morning that wasn’t human was a coyote, a young one, trotting along the edge of the parking lot south of my apartment.

Moved

 

I have moved in and spent the night in the new place – and I slept from 11:30 until 6:45.  My fridge contains one burrito and 7 beers.  I intend to improve upon this situation, expexially with respect to the beers, later today.  Okay, maybe some vegetables.  They will look lonely in that fridge, though.  There’s a nice big freezer in the fridge. 

Cleaning has commenced in Dr. Filk’s old suite.  

I have lots of other news, but nothing for public consumption. 

 

Slow site

I had a helluvatime logging on this morning. You may find the site slow.
Yesterday I emailed one of my colleagues with “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t quit.” Within thirty seconds (I do not exaggerate) he emailed back “Cause I love ya.” He literally prevented me from getting up and walking out, and yes, that was the desired response. The confluence of interesting and difficult work and interesting and difficult domestic life kinda got to me, I guess; anyway, I’ll let him remain anomalous but I’d like to record his response with my heartfelt thanks.

Also, about half way through the afternoon Paul showed up with both the kids, and that kinda put the heart back into me because I hadn’t seen Katie in most of a week.

This morning, I have packed my clothes except for what I will be wearing for the next five days, I am almost done the kitchen stuff and I have started on the bathroom stuff. Later today I will head out to the garage and start slinging my boxes into a more reasonable pile for the movers, which will also have the result of making some of the stuff we hope to sell on Craigslist a little more accessible.

Dr. Filk will have his old boss’s truck to move to Victoria in (I cannot belIEVE that ‘the thing that would not die’, as we refer to the John’s Jukes truck, is still extant) but he will also be using it for a Village de Valeur run, so much more useful but surplus-to-requirements items will fly out of here today.

Shelene has new scissors

I don’t mean to whine, but when I siddown in a stall at work to do my bidness, it’s a bit of a shock to have to look at Roberto Luongo smirking at me. You see, we’re having a jeans day (hell, why not have a celebration of naturism day) at work and there are Canucks posters all over the building. Including in the peepee huts. Zow. I’ll be happy when they take the damned posters down. I found the poster on line so you can see what I’m whinging about.

I just got back from a trek to my stylist, Shelene, and damn but her new scissors are sharp. I light a candle for her. She was practically in tears (didn’t affect the quality of the cut) over being abruptly and without any real explanation dumped by her boyfriend.

I light a candle for the families of the dead and the slayer at Virginia Tech. I light two candles for the gal who survived both Columbine and Virginia Tech. Please God, not too many copycat killings.

sundry and various

Last night I had the strangest dream; I dreamed that a guy who was a quadruple amputee had crawled up onto the front of his four storey house to do some work and he lost his balance and when I went to find his body his artificial limbs were all I could find and nobody believed me when I said he’d disappeared.  Then I found his head and as I watched the head folded up on itself until it was just a mask (like that brrr mask in Sandman, you will recollect ‘the talking mask’) and then the mask disappeared while I watched.  Then I went for a walk in a place like the night market and a woman was walking two long haired roan cats and profiles like Nicole Kidman and the owner talked about how she was selling them for ten thousand apiece and could hardly bear to part with them.  It had just rained and the streets had that gritty shine like in anime or Blade Runner.  Then I met a surfer dude who stole a van to rescue some woman and when she needed a lift someplace else and couldn’t drive he just smiled at her and said, “Well I only drive in emergencies, I never really learned to drive because I just live at the beach.” 

Rob of Nine loaned me the first season of Robin Hood (the new Beeb production).  He must KNOW how I feel about men in tights.  And he didn’t give me the season finale, prob’ly cause he likes to hear me beg.

Scary Clown laughed into my digital recorder this morning, so I can hear him laugh whenever I want to.  I will convert to a .wav file and stick on my site so you can all enjoy it.

Thought for the Day: Don’t get me wrong: I love nuclear energy! It’s just that I prefer fusion to fission. And it just so happens that there’s an enormous fusion reactor safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more than we could ever use in just about 8 minutes. And it’s wireless! – William McDonough (2006)

More family news

Keith sez to me the other afternoon, “Wanna see something that will make you just vomit?” in the tone of voice that indicates that what I’m about to see will be gross but not actually flies buzzing over a corpse gross.  Then he pulls out the new T-shirt for the promotion at Great Canadian Stuporstore.

“Oh my f*****g god!” I scream obligingly, then clap my hands over my eyes.  “No white person should ever wear that color!”

“Yup, it’s about that gross,” he agreed.  But wait, it gets better.  Katie phoned today to say, “Mum, you will never believe what happened at work!”

And I said, “They are asking you to wear the most eye-wateringly horrid shade of dayglo greeeeeen – with sex toy pink lettering – that the world has ever seen.”

Brief shift of Katie mental gears, then she says, “Suzanne at work wrote the managers a letter and I swear to god the first line is, “What kind of drugs are you on?”  Not even a man with a TAN can wear this color, under the fluorescent lights even black guys look green with this shit on.”

I suspect that they will grieve to the union about it.  The last t shirt was pretty icky, but tolerable.  This t shirt is an incitement to riot and mayhem.

and

and

and

Dr. Filk is moving to Victoria at the end of the month, cats and kaboodle. I called Paul to tell him; it sounds like he’s having tons of fun in the Bay area.

Sundry and Various II

Katie has announced, after spending a weekend with Sapphire (born last August, and her equivalent-to-niece) that she has no intentions of going into the baby making business anytime soon.  Tonstant Weaders of this blog will likely feel MUCH BETTER upon reading that.  Not that Katie doesn’t LIKE babies, she just said it was exhausting.  I forebore comment, can you credit it?

Paul appears to have located a 3 bedroom apartment close by the current house.  We shall see if the landlord goes for the plus 1 cat situation.  Seeing as how we don’t even have the house listed yet…. no, better not go there.
Work continues to be interesting, challenging, and suboptimal; I think my performance is suffering.  See what happens when you get a bonus? There’s no point, really…..
Jeff comes tomorrow.  I have to think of a good nickname for my brother, but my brain hurts right now so it will have to be later.

Keith took a tour of the David Lam campus for his Optician course.  He says, “They remembered me!” as if this was a startling occurrence.  Keith is pretty damned memorable, and I don’t just say that because I spawned him.

I would like to sing, shout, and rattle a sistrum for the sistahs!  Catherine, Tammy and Sandy – thank you for the long and heartening conversations.  I note with amusement verging on hysteria that Catherine, one of the most militant atheists evah, recently spent a day making Easter altar scarves.  Yes, her mother roped her into it, and yes, she volunteered.  But it’s a lot like finding out that Shostakovich keeps the dial on Rock 101.
This part of the blog deleted.

I rehung the Inuit hunters on the wall.  Now that the walls are the right colour, they look like they were supposed to be there.

I looked out the window this morning and saw the pear tree starting to bloom and burst into tears because that’s the last time that will happen.  It’s the little things that get you.

I slept 12 hours yesterday, but the allergy / cold thing is grimly clinging to my facial mucosa with the adamancy of one of the Old Ones denied a sacrifice…

ba…ba….ba….

Scary Clown makes the above noted noise.  Apparently other people in the Engineering department are starting to do it – unconsciously.  When the going gets weird, the weird gets normative, as ’twere.
Some time in the last couple of weeks Burnt jumped up over Scary Clown’s pod and blasted him with a can of compressed air right in the face, and Scary Clown screamed “WHY??” so loud everybody in the engineering department started laughing.  Because your face was there?  I dunno….
I just got two reminders about kitchen avoidance, and why it’s a great idea.  1…. Morning ritual of trying to locate lids for my lunch containers…. 2…. where the hell is the coffee and the coffee filters I bought on the weekend?  Their complete nullibiety is a matter of some concern……….

inertnests weirdness

We’re running bareback —- no router…. or is that commando?  I can ne’er tell.  Anyway, the only way we can get the internet to work is without the router.  As Lady Miss Banjola remarked, welcome to malware land, population, you.

I have tons of news, most of it not fit for public consumption, alas, but I guess I can say that there will actually be bonuses at work this year.  I think mine will come to just enough for one really fun bender, but hey, it’s all in the game. I associate work with alcohol, or at least the requirement for same.
Katie and I are off to Ikea to purchase the bed hardware that got lost when the bed was taken down.   Pic is of my brother’s house.  He’s coming to visit soon so I am thinking of him and I miss him more because I know he’s coming.  Does that make sense?

Everybody tidy up

The painting – except for the trim / doors – is finished, and now we have to get every stick of furniture out of the house preparatory to the carpet going down on Monday.  Katie is going to show up around supper time and she and I will go out for fish and chips with Mike (or such is the current plan).  Then Kate will head back to the inlaws and I will head home, hopefully to do some serious revision on the homily for next week.

I light a candle for a workmate who is sad right now.  I light a candle for my boss’s son’s safe return home from his bout in hospital.  I light a candle for the workmate who was burned out of her home.  I light a candle of joy for Keith, who had a workshop session with the stellar Atsuko Wakai last night, four time Kata World Champion in Karate – not an easy gig for a woman as you might imagine.  I light a candle for the rapid departure of Peggy’s cold.

As for the rest, I guess I’d better just shut up now.

Work continues apace

The master bedroom is getting done today and then Unca Dave is leaving tomorrow for Gadget House – a day earlier than planned.  He will be returning to finish the bathroom and the trim and then head back to the wilds of Castlegar. 

Katie slept at home last night.

Although for the dignity and sanity of the miscreants I cannot name names, I love my coworkers.  Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of my full time employment with the company that any widgeon with a cursory understanding of the internet could learn the name of.  I got THE BEST PRESENT from a coworker ever; it was a MOMENT and not a thing, but it was a frikken priceless moment, and I snicker helplessly every time I think of it. 

I was awoken by choppers this morning and learned at the bus stop that two human hearts stopped beating two blocks from my house.

I have been having dreams with colour in them.  In the first one Paul and I were living in a three story house when a yellow piece of landing gear came through the roof.  (I took this as a sign that Paul’s not going to make it in Vancouver through the layoffs, but we’ll see.) The following night I dreamed I was in a women’s change room and I picked up a bath bomb and it turned into an explosion of purple mud which I promptly painted my chest with.  It smelled good, too.  I very rarely feel or smell things in dreams, so I was quite pleased about that. 

 

I am so spaced out that I took a bag of plastic insects instead of my bathing suit out to Tom and Peggy’s car last night.  That makes me snicker too.

Trim

Yesterday I cleaned, painted trim (1st coat) and moved crap around.  Tom and Peggy fed me and Martha (may she (many years hence) inhabit a cushy cloud in the Hesht Behesht) gave me about fifteen minutes of neck and shoulder work, which I desperately needed.

Work is rapidly improving over my last grumpy post on the matter.  There has been, as they say, a sea-change. 

Tonight I put on the second coat and go to the puddle with Tom and Peggy and anybody else we can inveigle into going.

Glenn and Maggie were here last night as well to eat with Paul and Keith and Unca Dave, and they were still here when I got back from Tom and Peggy’s, so I got in a nice visit with them.

 

Man does the place look better…. the ceilings are shiny and clean!