Miscellaneous Musings

Well, we made it in one piece.  Car didn’t.  The OTHER f’n strut tower snapped in Joliet.  At least we were close.  Limped it in slowly, still made it by 9pm Wednesday night.  $158 to fix it, could have been worse.

Just been takin’ it kind of easy the last couple of days.  Gotta pick up a router yet so we have wireless, but for now, plugging in the ol’ ethernet cable is doing the trick.

That’s really about all so far.  4th of July at Tim and Sam’s tomorrow.  Weather’s been nice and cool.  Got a GST refund.  Yeah.  That’s about it.  Later.

Misc, Personal

Yeah, it DOES sound a little goofy, eh?  But that’s what we did tonight.  Went looking at houses a day before vacation.  But man, did we find what we want. 

No it doesn’t look like much in the picture, I’ll give you that.  The siding is old style wood and desperately needs some fresh paint.  And yes, the roof will need shingles in the next year or two.  The interior is dated.  It’s straight out of the 60s really.  And it’s fabulous!  I could definitely see us living there.

It would take some yard work.  Trees would need to come out.  Vines would have to be cut.  Hedges trimmed.  Riding lawn mower purchased.  Things of that nature.  And it has honeysuckles in the back!!  That might sound lame, but I love honeysuckles.  Emma does too.

It has a fairly new central air system, a high efficiency Bryant.  The furnace is on the old side.  And it would probably need to have the electrical panel replaced.  It’s 100 amp, but apparently they’re supposed to be 200 these days.

We’re probably dreaming, and I sadly now have my hopes up, which probably spells doom for it happening.  BUT should the stars all align and by some kind of miracle we could actually get a mortgage for enough … that would rock.  We’d probably open our offer at $90,000 and see what happens.  It’s a vacant estate property, so they might come down from 115.  It’s probably outright theft at 90, but it would certainly leave us some leeway for doing repairs and things.  And we’d have to account for that.  Roof is going to be a mandatory repair job.  There are windows that will need replacing too.  So there are legit reasons, even before a home inspection, to run down the price.  The aging furnace may be a good one too.

Anyway, that’s what we’re hoping for.  The one on Duke is our 2nd choice.  But honestly, that would be settling.  This one is anything BUT settling.

Time to go pack clothes for vacation.  We’re leaving insanely early on Canada Day.

Family, Personal house, real estate

Let’s see … where to begin.  From the top I suppose!  I came in #2 of 2 in the Acadia web job race.  So we’re not moving to Saint John.

The day after we got notice on that, I picked up our dog on the way home from Red Lake.  Yes, Bandit Pollard is now part of the family.  He’s the 5 year old Shih Tzu that mom got from Gail, but she couldn’t keep up to him and gave him back the weekend before we found out we weren’t moving.  He’s a fabulous little dog.  Lots of personality.  He fits in here like a dirty shirt.  I just don’t care for walking him in the rain … which isn’t a huge deal, cuz he doesn’t seem to like the rain much either. 

Next up was college for Megan.  That’s still a story in and of itself.  OSAP told her she would only get $300, so the college called and said they wouldn’t do a tuition deferral.  So now, technically, she’s not guaranteed a seat this fall.  But the OSAP application is now showing that they can’t calculate her amount until they get her supporting documents – namely Emma’s birth certificate.  *sigh*  SO, there is still a good chance that she can get OSAP for the fall … we just have to wait and see.  Life sure does like to kick ya in the teeth, eh?  But we figure that they’re docking her $4500 (car value over $5000 + RRSPs) … which with NO kids, leaves about $300.  But with ONE kid (Emma), it should still give her almost $6,000.  THAT would still be enough.  So we’ll have to see.

Anyway, that’s the big stuff.  Walleye Masters is this weekend, I’m on traffic next week, then it’s three work days ‘til vacation.  Glorious vacation that I can’t afford and I’m not sure how I’m even paying the gas to get there.  I hope the OT fairy is REALLY good to me next week.  That will at least get me home.  Maybe.  If nothing breaks.  *sigh*  Here’s hoping.

Family, Personal, Work

Seriously.  Revolutionary.  A replacement for instant messaging, email, maybe even word processing.  And if you don’t want to sit through the whole hour 20, zip ahead to the last 20 minutes or so.  The LIVE language translation robot is effing amazing.

This is going to be a game changer – and it (and the protocols) are all going to be open source, so anyone can build their own Wave server that will connect to other Wave servers, just like email does today.

Apps, Tech amazing, google, Google Wave, revolutionary, Wave

Well, finally went back to the hospital to get my hip checked tonight.  The xrays were clean.  No breaks, fractures, or arthritis.  Yay for that!  But the locum in tonight saw what was going on when I stood up.  And he could feel/see the inflammation.

The verdict?  A hip flexor strain.  Symptoms will include things like lower back pain and muscle spasms in the quadriceps.  Oh, gee, those sound ACHINGLY familiar!

Soooooooooooo he’s setting me up with physiotherapy, and basically it’s a matter of stretches and strengthening to get back to normal.  Hopefully that all happens far enough before the RBC that I can actually get a round of golf in to practice before the tourney.

Anyway, I guess I should at least be glad it’s nothing SERIOUS, right?  Still sucks that I can’t do much but suffer though.  Oh well … I’m kinda used to that, aren’t I?

Misc, Personal flexor, hip, pain, strain

Yesterday I finally put the new burner in the BBQ and bought a new propane tank.  Today I finally got to fire it up and cook.  Prime rib steak and monster sirloins with corn on the cob.  With a spinach and strawberry salad.  Damn.  Soooooooooooooooooooo good!

Anyway, we’re into week five of waiting on a Saint John decision.  Could hear something this week.  Hope so anyway.  Although being that I’m doing traffic this week, the timing kinda sucks in that way.  Because I’ll be too bloody busy to think much about it during the day.  LOL  And if it gets stressful, it makes it much easier to snap to a “yes” decision.  So in that sense, I kind of hope I don’t hear anything until either late in the week, or sometime next week.  Even though that extra wait would make Megan nuts. 

I know it’s a lot of changes quickly if we go, but I think it would be a really good change.  New sights and new things to do and new people.  I mean, it’s all comfortable like here.  I know the area and who the people here are and all that.  But that comfort zone also can be a hindrance.  It doesn’t push you to go out and do/try new things, or meet new people, or leave that comfort zone.  I think it would be great to have a chance to do new things.

No big plans for holiday tomorrow.  Should probably work on that script for Bytech though.  I’ve been putting it off while my leg’s been killing me.  It’s still hurting, but doesn’t seem QUITE as bad tonight.  Must be that BBQ steak power.  LOL

Anyway … that’s about all the excitement tonight.

Personal, Work BBQ

I really kinda thought I’d hear something by today about the PI test.  But still nothing unfortunately. 

Still no improvement on the leg pain front either.  Wish to hell I knew what the problem was.  If something doesn’t change in the next day or two, I’m going to have to go up to emerg and get it checked again.

Now that a decision is getting closer, I am starting to get a little anxious.  It’s getting to that point in the year where I need to start making plans for summer and such … and not being able to right now isn’t great.  It’s a given I’ll be here for the Relay, regardless, and RBC should be safe on the 13th … maybe.  Then there’s Walleye Masters on the 20th/21st, and Moosefest the week after.  Canada Day, Dragon Boats, etc.  That’s the stuff that would likely be out.

But beyond that, could be pretty iffy.  Will I still get my July vacation?  I hope so, but if I were to start the job sometime in June, being able to vacation in July?  I really don’t know if I could even afford that.

Do I need to get the trailer ready to sell?  If I do, how the heck am I going to pay for that?  It’s not going to sell without SOME work.  And if it would, it wouldn’t be for much beyond what we owe.

Let’s say just for giggles that I were to get an offer tomorrow.  I’d have some time to consider it before accepting … so we’re talking early next week before I could even accept.  Let’s go with Tuesday (long weekend) for the sake of argument.  There is NO way  I’d be able to leave the station on 14 days notice.  3 weeks would be June 9th.  I’d probably try to push that out to the 12th as a ‘last day’ … and then try to squeak in the RBC as a farewell.    But I suppose it would depend on a lot.  Would they give me a start in July so Emma could finish school … then I could work ‘til the end of June, take vacation in July as planned, U-Haul through Indiana to drop off Megan and Emma, rest a couple of days, then carry on.  That would be ideal for me, not sure how that would pan out for what Acadia would want though.  That would also give us a little time to try to get the trailer sold.

Oh, the dilemmas.  And there isn’t an answer in sight until I hear whether I have an offer, or was passed over.  Oh, to have a little time machine some days, eh?

Personal, Work

One step closer to a job offer.  Yesterday Thursday I got an email from Jill with a “Predictive Index” test to take.  I mentioned it to Bruce today when I handed him my annual performance review sheet.  Apparently they actually have to pay to have the tests analysed, and they only do it with the final candidates for a position.  So I’m on the extremely short list.

Kind of makes the possibility of moving a little more real.  And a little closer.  Jill said I should get feedback on the PI early next week.  Not sure exactly what that means, but I guess I’ll find out soon, eh?

We also got our annual reviews on Thursday.  Nothing bad, probably overly good.  Megan thinks it could be an attempt to make me seem too invaluable to CKDR to let head office steal me away.  But I have, let’s just say, SERIOUS doubts that will make one lick of difference.  If anything, I’d say it should make me worth a big, healthy raise.    I know, I’m delusional.

The only thing on there that really caught me off-guard was a comment that Bruce wants me to learn sales.  Something about needing to know sales if I am to advance.  Advance to what?  Sales itself doesn’t hold an interest to me.  Live on commission?  No thanks.  The only thing that POSSIBLY leaves is a GM position, and let’s face it, that isn’t in the cards anytime in the next decade.

Y’know, I’m good with learning sales.  That’s fine.  Never hurts to know the stuff, right?  But it would take one heck of an offer to ever get me to do it for a living.  Not so long as I’m the primary income for the household.  The bills won’t wait a month if sales are down, y’know?  So, short of grooming me for management, I don’t really see the point.

Then again, none of that really matters if I end up in Saint John like … next month.  Wow.  That seems really close now, doesn’t it.

I think I’m going to go take a nap … I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.  LOL

Personal, Work

After a successful test post, I’ve installed some extensions for Live Writer, like one to pull images from flickr.  I love this shot of Emma.  It was hard as heck to get a candid out of her that day!!

Anyway, it seems to be working pretty slick so far.  I like it.

Apps, Tech Live Writer

Yes, it’s true.  I am slowly going to the dark side.  I’ve added a few more Windows Live apps to the laptop, and am now posting from Windows Live Writer instead of my browser.

Still not sure how it all works, but so far it seems to be working alright.

Adding photos seems pretty slick.  Not sure how it handles putting images from my hard drive up onto the web yet, but I’ll find out when I post this! 

So, why am I doing this?  I don’t know.  I guess I’ve spent sooooooo long fighting all things Microsoft, I’m just going to give this stuff a fair shake.  I’ve managed to MOSTLY bend Vista to my will, thanks to Virtual Dimension.  And it’s actually been running quite stable.  I can’t recall any crashes in … hmm … a really long time.  I know there has been the odd weird blue screen, but that’s down to drivers I think.  Since last time I did a massive update of all drivers on the system, I can’t recall getting anything weird.  Even with putting it to sleep all the time instead of shutting down.  I rarely actually power it off.

So there it is.  I’m giving in to the Borg.  I’m not going so far as to start using IE, but that’s for reasons beyond it being a sucky browser.  IE8 isn’t near as bad as IE7 or *shudder* IE6.

I’ve been realllllllly debating trying 7 on the laptop.  I have it downloaded and everything.  But I’ve heard some horror stories of CS4 apps not installing on it, and I don’t want to wipe out my system, install 7, just to find out I can’t install my apps and have to re-do Vista all over again.  God knows it was a pain in the ass of the worst magnitude last time I had to wipe it for Megan.  I think I’ll wait and leave Vista as it is.

Tomorrow makes two weeks since my interview for the job in Saint John.  That brings the wait for a decision time down to 3-4 more weeks.  *sigh*  I DO so wish I knew if I was in the running for it.  Oh well … nothing to do but wait.  At least Carol’s on holidays after the long weekend, so I should have a whole whack of OT coming my way.  YAY!  I can say it.  I’m not looking forward to it.  Oh well … I’m sure I’ll muddle through without doing TOO much damage!

That’s about all the excitement.  Leg still hurts, but it’s getting better a little at a time.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself.  LOL  Wish I could take something for pain along with the naproxen.  On it’s own, it’s just not enough sometimes.  Particularly in the morning.  Stupid joints.

Now … off to test this post and see if it makes it to the web!!

Microsoft, Personal, Work, computers Vista, Windows, Windows 7