Leah's Thoughts

Moving to WordPress

2005-04-10T15:13:00.000-04:00

I think I have finally decided to do it... move my blog off of here. I am still working on what the site has and doesn't have, but I think I can live with the way it is now. I have been finding anytime I go to write a post, I want to add it to my new blog.

I hope you enjoy it... you can find it here

No More Snow!!

2005-04-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

Well yesterday I decided to go out and get some rollerblades, so I would have some when it was nice enough to do it outside. I tried them on, and did a bit in our garage last night (we have a 2.5 garage, with only one car in it at that time). Suprisingly I was actually pretty good, so I went out on the driveway. It was a little wet, but the snow had melted.

Last night before I went to bed, I checked the weather. It was suppose to be rainy and crappy today. When I rolled over this morning it was sunny, I was so excited. That was until I looked out the window and everything was white again, some of it managed to melt yesterday evening. I guess I will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Arg...

2005-04-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

my dad and I had a long talk the other night about figuring what I want to do with the rest of my life. I have yet to sit down and figure that out, but with the nice weather, I decided that I wanted to learn how to rollerblade this summer. Friday night, my brother and I went on a hunt for cheap blades, but I couldn't find any that fit me. Later that night, I found a pair of cheap ones, and I was going to go get them today, and start learning to rollerblade. Well this plan has been spoiled, as I woke up this morning and everything was white again, and it doesn't look like it will be stopping any time soon.

I am still thinking of going to get some this weekend, but I will have to hold off on learning till probably next weekend, when the snow melts away (again)

WordPress

2005-04-01T08:24:00.000-05:00

I have been looking into WordPress over the last couple of days. Some of the blogs that I have read use WordPress. I wasn't 100% at the time what it was, I'm sure it should have been obvious, but it wasn't.

WordPress essentially is your own blog posted on your own site, anywhere you want. Well almost anywhere, you have to have access to a database, and your site has to host php pages. My current personal website has both of those, so I decided to try ito out overthere. I am still playing with it and trying to decide if I really want to move it or not. I like the looks of it, but I don't know what type of limitation I have on the size of my blog yet. If I do decide to moe my blog, again, I will just setup this page to jump directly to it. Maybe I wil add a link to it when I am happy with the way it is working, and get opinions on it. Personally with WordPress, I feel like I have more control over how things are working with it, not that it is much different than logging into this site here and adding posts.

Can you tell I don't want to work today? I am essentially 45 minutes early for work today, so I thought adding a post would be a good way to waste that time.

Bored at work...

2005-03-29T15:22:00.000-05:00

Well let me tell you, a day at work when you can't do your job, is really boring. It's not that I can't do my job, it's more that my boss told me to stop testing this build. Hmm, I test software, that's what I do. So here I am not testing software. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to track my hours, because I also can't add anymore hours at the current state of the project. That means that eventhough I did a bit of testing of it this morning, I can't track that. I have to come up with something else that I worked on today, and extend it to cover the hours I used to work on the project. Wow, no wonder things aren't efficient around here.

Well I told myself that I wasn't going to complain about work, at least not about the projects and the processes that we do, so that's all the complaining that you are going to get. Oh that an it is quite warm in my office today, which makes me wonder if it is this warm outside. We really should take tomorrow off and sit outside. Well there is no point to us being here, now is there?

I'm done

2005-03-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

I can no longer continue this. I can no longer lie to myself and my family. It hurts too much to lie for you. I refuse to lie for you anymore. The lying stops NOW!

Update...

2005-03-27T11:33:00.000-05:00

HAPPY EASTER

It feels like it has been forever since my last real post on here. I don't really call updating my Johnny Depp count an update, although I ended up watching two movies in the same weekend.

There have been a few changes in my life, and I feel that I also need to make some changes. Right now, my job is still bugging me. I really am starting to enjoy it for the most part, except my manager. All of my ideas are just dismissed, but when then come from one of the other girls they aren't. At first I was going to consider waiting until September to see what was going on in part of my life before I made any major decisions, but there is no need to wait anymore. The decisions have been made, and I'm not going anywhere. My mom has mentioned that a company in the city I went to school is looking for QC people. Too bad they are looking for Unix knowledge as well. I think I am still going to apply to it, as it won't hurt. The sooner I can find another job, the sooner I can move out on my own, and really start my life. Since most of the other people who are/were in my life, have also decided to start their life, I feel that it is my time as well.

Not that I really want to move back to the city where I went to school, for some reason I don't really like the city. Oh well. I guess if I find a job there, then I will just have to move there. At least the rent is cheaper there than the city that I really want to live in.

Of course this is all probably not going to happen until after my sugery. Both of my parents think that I should have it, so we are going to talk to my aunt today who had it to find out if she had the same thing that I did and if she recommends it.

Update: my aunt's surgery went well, but since her hernia was so bad, they couldn't do a routine surgery on her. My mother thinks it would be a good idea for me to get mine fixed now, so I don't have to go through what my aunt did. I still don't know how I feel about it. Guess I will just have to go talk to my doctor about it, then my parents some more, since there is noone else to talk to about it.

Johnny Depp Films

2005-03-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

Since I have been quite upset for the last while, I have decided to start a quest to see all of Johnny Depp's films. Below is a list of all of them, including a few to open this year. All the ones in red I have already seen, yes I have a long way to go. The two in green are ones that I already have plans to see.

• Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (2006)
• American History X/Blow (2005)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
• Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005)
• Finding Neverland (2004)
• Secret Window (2004)
• Lost in La Mancha (2003)
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
• Blow (2001)
• From Hell (2001)
• The Man Who Cried (2001)
• Before Night Falls (2000)
• Chocolat (2000)
• The Ninth Gate (2000)
• The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
• Sleepy Hollow (1999)
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
• Donnie Brasco (1997)
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1997)
• Cannes Man (1996)
• Dead Man (1996)
• Don Juan de Marco (1995)
• Nick of Time (1995)
• Arizona Dream (1994)
• Ed Wood (1994)
• Benny & Joon (1993)
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
• Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
• Cry-Baby (1990)
• Edward Scissorhands (1990)
• Platoon (1986)
• Private Resort (1985)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I need a vacation.

2005-03-15T20:18:00.000-05:00

My hernia is having a hell of a week this week, well this week and last week. This week I got some bad news, which I knew was coming, but is harder to face when given it straight up. On top of that, the program that I am in charge of releasing, was looking great. Most of the bugs we had found were fixed, and we were expecting the next build tomorrow some time. Well I managed to uncover a huge issue, which means database reconfiguration and program reconfiguration. So I don't know when I will see the next build, and there is nothing for the girls to be doing.

I am seriously thinking that I need some time away, by myself. Maybe when my parents go away, I will just take a few days off of work, and hide at home. Maybe I will decide to reward myself, once we release this progarm, and head to England for a week or two. Then when I get back, I can start looking for a job and an apartment, because I really need to get out on my own.

Update: if one more person asks me why I'm not going with my "bf" or mentions the word baby, I am going to break down. I'm not pregnant, but it seems that everyone in my family seems to think that I should be.

Rent One small story line

2005-03-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

As I listened to the soundtrack on the way to work today, I really listened...
I noticed that the love story between Roger and Mimi was the same as my current love story. The only difference is, is that the Roger and Mimi story goes a little futher than my life is right now. Here is a short synopsis of the story between Roger and Mimi.

Roger and Mimi meet, and during this meeting start to have feelings for each other.
Roger and Mimi fall in love.
Roger falls out of love with Mimi, but Mimi still feels the love for Roger.

This is where my life is, but the next point is where my life is currently heading
Roger decides to move away, and doesn't see Mimi for a year.
While away Rogers realizes how much he really does love Mimi.
Mimi almost dies, and Roger's love goes strong, realizing that he might lose her forever.
Mimi does end up living, and Roger and Mimi live happily ever after.

Rent

2005-03-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

Well Rent is coming to the theater near me, and I really want to go. I was checking online again today to see if I could get two better seats together, but still nothing. Seeing as this is my favourite musical, I really don't want to sit at the back of the theater. It would be like listening to it in my car, only $126 cheaper.

I was talking to my mom about it, and the last time we went, we got single tickets, which you can usually get to be a lot closer than double tickets. She says she will go with me, but I really wanted someone else to go with me. Guess that's not going to happen now. How can you go and watch a musical about love, and losing love, when I know that in a couple of months I am going to lose... well I can't talk about that... I'm just going to lose. In a way I have already lost, which is probably why I can't even listen to the soundtrack without crying. I just wanted to spend this night with someone special to me, but it has lost all meaning now that I know I'm not special in his life. I guess I will just have to pray that Rent comes to town again in the future, and that I have someone who sees me as special.

What do I want from my relationship?

2005-03-07T07:24:00.000-05:00

I have been giving this some thought, and what does anyone really want from a relationship? Why do people search for someone else? Some of the times it's just for sex, other times it is for a relationship. At first we were just for sex, but something happened, feelings happened. You made me feel not only like someone you could have sex with, but someone you really cared about. You are the first person I have been in a relationship to ever make me feel like that. When we are together, everything seems right. We laugh, and goof around together, and we try to make each other happy. What I really want from this relationship is for things to go back to the way they were when we saw each other everyday. We only really fight when we are apart. I want this feeling that I have for you to never stop. I want you in my life to be my other half. I know we have only been together for a little over a year, and you are leaving to go to school, but I would like to be with you for as long as possible. Having you in my life, makes my life better. And being in your arms, makes me feel like everything is ok.

I don't really know what else to say on the matter, except that you are the first person who has really shown me what a real relationship is to be, and I want to hold onto our relationship and make it better.

I would really like to know what your answer is to this question as well.

Funny Story Fridays

2005-03-04T10:15:00.000-05:00

Since I haven't really been updating my blog on a regular basis anymore, I figured I would start Funny Story Fridays so I update it at least once a week. Just a little side note, that my boyfriend wan agree with, most of my funny stories are only funny to me. lol At least it is something to read.

To mark today as being the first Funny Story Friday (and also my 24th birthday) I have two stories for you.

Story #1: How to Piss Off the Boss

This first story is about out I.T. guy here at work. Now I have tons of stories about him, but this is the most recent one. (Keep in mind we pay this guy to do I.T. for our company) Last weekend, we switched all the computers to a new server. All of the computer names changed, which meant that there were a lot of things that changed on the computers themselves. Now my father, the boss, likes his computer a certain way, and if you change it he gets mad. He was away for most of this week, so didn't see his computer until yesterday. Most of us realized that all of the settings we had setup on our programs would be removed, and set to the default. Being that my father doesn't know much about changing settings, he just wants his computer to work the way it should, he was not impressed with the way his computer was working when he first logged on. So he asked the I.T. guy first where his mapped network drives were. Mr. IT said that they had tried their best to make sure that all of that had been restored to the settings the user had before the move. So my father asked if he had written down where all of the his network drives , and the reply was yes. Several minutes later he shows up with two huge binders to show my father the list. He opened it to the mapped network drive, and all it said was something along the lines of "Great care was taken to ensure that the mapped network drives were taken care of". That's it. Nothing about where anyone's pointed to. Boy was my dad mad last night. So after using some of the Microsoft Office products, he noticed that his settings were no longer set. Again, he asked Mr. IT why they weren't set. Mr. IT explained that you can't save the settings in a program. My father then proceeded to ask if he had set all the computer up to the company default. Mr. IT tells him that all of the computers were set back to the company default. To which my dad asked what the company default was. Mr. IT, not knowing much about what he is doing in the first place says that the company defaults are mainly just the defaults that are setup when the program installs. Again my father was really mad. And I still wonder why they even keep this guy around. At least now they have gotten him an assistant, well more like she tesll him what to do, but at least we can make sure things are being done correctly.

Story #2: My Crazy Mother
A little background for this story. Every year, the first week of March, my father goes to a conference in the states for the company. And every year he misses my birthday. One day on the way to work, he mentions that he will be home on the 2nd of March (my bd is the 4th). I was so happy and said, "finallly I will have both parents home on my birthday". The last time this happened I tured 16, 8 years ago. So my mom's reply was "I won't be here for your birthday, I'm going away". We later found out that she is actually going away tomorrow, and will be here for my birthday. Well my dad thought that since my mother wasn't going to be here for my birthday, and she was going away Saturday, that my birthday was actually tomorrow. So this morning, as my mom was singing Happy Birthday, my dad looked at me said, but it's not till tomorrow. We both looked at him and said nope, today. So he pointed out to my mother that she said she was going away for my birthday, and that she wasn't going away till tomorrow. My mother, getting confused again, looks at him and says "I said I was going away on the weekend, not today, right?" As she looks at me, I of course clerify that she is wrong (again). She just turns away and mumbles something like "yup, I'm crazy, I have no idea what I said", which is her usual response, when she is wrong.

So that's it. I hope I wasted enough of your time, and you got at least a small smile out of these stories. I will try to find more interesting ones for next week.

Bye for now...

Great Game Cube Game

2005-03-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have been looking at getting this game for a while now, and this weekend, I finally decided to pick it up. It was only $17.99 (used), but it is still a great price for a GC game. I don't think that I have ever paid more than $25 for a GC game. I refuse. lol

So the game I purchased is Eternal Darkness. I had read a few reviews on it, and people either loved it or hated it. Isn't that really the case with every game?? The cool thing about this game, is that it was created right here in Canada.

Basically this game is a combination of puzzle solving and monster fighting, sort of like Tomb Raider, with magic spells. I do have one beef with the game, speed. For the most part the game is normal speed, but if there are more than 2 bad guys around, so slow down. It wouldn't be so bad if they slowed down as well, but for the most part, only you slow down. Another thing that bugs me, that I actually thought was neat at the beginning, is that the more you get hurt, the slower you run. It's a neat feature, except when you are close to dying, and you have to get away from the monster or you are toast.

This game is fast becomming one of my favourite games. It isn't too hard, yet, and it has the puzzle aspect that I enjoy in games. If you Tomb Raider, you will like this game. Oh yeah, one other cool thing about this game, is that you have an insanity meter. Some times it is more fun to be insane.

Good start to the week and my diet

2005-02-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

So my week is starting out a lot better than I had expected, considering the crap that I have been going through...

Why do I have to make a decision, but you don't? I just have to live with the fact that you can't...right

...oops, that just slipped out.

Anyway, back to my happy day. So as I mentioned, I found this program to track my weight loss, since I haven't been paying much attention to what I have been eating. So the good thing about this program, is that I can watch what I'm eating, and don't eat too much bad stuff. Well today is day 1. I logged in my breakfast and the food I brought with me for lunch, before I left for work this morning, so I know I still have about 700 calories that I can eat. Surprisingly, I'm not that hungry. The bad thing is, is that my hernia is acting up a little from lack of food. Hopefully it gets use to this.

I also went to the doctors this morning to get more prescripstions. Finally a good doctors visit. We talked a little about what I had been up to, since it has been 5 years since I had seen this doctor. The one thing I remember about her, is that she gives free samples. So for the prescriptions that I was picking up, I saved more than $240. I say more than, because my one set of pills is $80 per month, and the samples that I got cost more than that, but the doctor wasn't sure how much more.

I am also moving along quite well with this test outline that I have been writing. It is taking me more time than I would have liked, but it is only because Word is so slow. I write a test, then the respected result, then I hvae to sit for about 30 seconds for the computer to catch up to me. What a pain.

Weight Loss

2005-02-28T08:17:00.000-05:00

Well I have changed my attitude towards this whole weight loss thing, for the most part. Seeing as how I love working with software, and graphs and stuff, I found this great program called FitDay where I can keep track of the food I eat, the exercise I do, and my weight and measurments. I am hoping that this will keep me on track so I can start looking and feeling better soon.

Too fat?

2005-02-26T13:45:00.000-05:00

Here are some sure signs that you are getting too fat

Your parents have offered to pay for you to go to someone, like Jenny
Your boyfriend isn't interested in you anymore
Your hernia keeps acting up

Funny thing is, is that I haven't gained any weight, just haven't lost it. Welcome to my life.

So I guess I will have to pick which diet I want to go on. If anyone has used a diet that worked, please let me know.

What do you do...

2005-02-25T07:30:00.000-05:00

when your parents plan a "romantic" evening, and they basically warned you about it? Well you plan an evening out. Since I don't have any invitations to do anything else, I guess it will be a night out by myself. I will probably hit the gym, then the mall, and probably the movies. (The theater is in the mall) I may also pick up a snack, as the movies that I am thinking of seeing don't start till about 10pm. I just can't decide on what movies I want to go see, there are a few out that I would like to see. Here are the ones I'm considering Cursed, Boogeyman, Hide and Seek, and maybe Hitch.

Note: I also welcome company for the night, or an invite to do something else. This is just my plan if nothing else comes up.

Another Relaxing Weekend

2005-02-21T07:30:00.000-05:00

This weekend was quite relaxing. I got to spend time with an old friend, show with the girls, spend time with my little brother, have coffee with my grandparents, and get some scrap booking done. Wow, now that I write it all down, it doesn't seem to be too relaxing, but it actually was. :)

Saturday I headed to my friends house, and we went for coffee. It was nice to catch up. I met his girlfriend while I was there as well. Not too sure how I feel about her, but if he's happy, what can I do?

Yesterday, my mom and her friend were going shopping for a couple of hours, and she asked if I wanted to go with them. Of course I did. :) It was a great shopping trip. We headed over to Cambridge, my mom got me a new dresser, it matches my room perfectly. Ok, it isn't really for me, just for me to use while I use the room. When I move out, the dresser stays here. I ended up getting a new gym bag, sweats for the gym, and three scents for my diffuser, all for around $30. I love sales. The pants and bag were on sale, and then had an additional 30% off. What a great deal.

I also got new shoes this weekend, from the store my grandmother works at. They were only $3, and they are almost brand new.

I was also able to get 3 pages done for my Europe scrapbook. Apparently I have 140 pictures from that trip, with at most 3 pictures per page, I will have to do another 43 pages to complete it. I don't think that I will be using all of my pictures though. Once the entire thing is complete I will be posting it.

System Install Part 1.5 of 2

2005-02-17T10:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I went and finally bought my speakers. The great thing about it, is that they were marked down from $180 to $89. YAY for me. I calculated it yesterday, and with all the sales, and with me installing my own deck, I am saving about $250 on everything I got. I would have saved about $300 if I had enough guts to install the speakers myself. Instead I will leave that to the professionals. So next Wednesday, I will finally have rear speakers in my car. I am so excited.

Side note: a friend of mine has been posting in her blog about her condition and keeping track of the medication she has been taking. I think I am going to start doing that, as I would like to keep track of my condition, see if I can find patters as to what causes it and when I take medication for it. So any font that is in orange isn't really part of the post, just for me to keep track of stuff.
So this morning, my hernia was acting up as soon as I got up. I decided to take Nexium to relieve the pain for a couple of days. (One pill usually lasts about 2 days)

Random thoughts of the day...

2005-02-16T12:21:00.000-05:00

I have so many thoughts running through my head right now, and I don't really feel like writing multiple posts, so they will all be added to one.

"Expect the unexpected". Sorry, I'm not sure who said this, and since I am at work, I don't really have the time to search for it either. Despite my thought that I was going to have a crappy Valentine's Day, it turned out to be perfect, exactly what I wanted. :)
After weeks of waiting, I am finally heading over to the electronics store to look at speakers for my car. Maybe they will even install them today, providing I find some that I like. My dad has offered to pick me up from the store, and drop me back off after work. Isn't that sweet. It's handy, because it is just down the street from work, maybe a 5 minute drive.
At work today, we are running more performance tests. We are seeing how many clients we can get to run on one server. Well on the third try, I got a lovely error message that said the server was going to close. Lets consider this message... there is only an OK button, and the server doesn't actually close until I press this button. Who would be stupid enough to click it while they still needed the server running? Not I, lol, we kept it running for a good 10 more minutes until we were done with it. Silly error message.
Candy Hearts... after watching Futurama on Monday, I decided to pick myself up some candy hearts. You know the ones with the messages on them. Although I am at work, I have had the chance to read most of them before the message comes off. For the most part they are sweet messages, but I don't think it is appropriate to write Now Now on candy. Unless of course you are selling it more in an adult store. And do you know how many blank ones I have been getting, at least 3 now. So what does it mean when you get a blank candy heart, even more importantly, what does it mean when you get an empty fortune cookie?

My Birthday in Ottawa???

2005-02-15T08:58:00.000-05:00

Last night I got an email update from my friend G, who is turning 19 on Feb. 25th (exactly one week before my 24th birthday). Since she is heading to B.C. for reading week, she will be celebrating her birthday on the 4th (my birthday). Her whole family is heading up to Ottawa to visit her, and to celebrate, and she has asked if I would like to come too. This actually sounds like fun. I am still thinking about it, but as of right now, it sounds like a good plan.

That and I have to talk to my parents about it, to see if they would let me go. lol I know I shouldn't have to ask permission, but G. has also mentioned that maybe my mom could come as well.

Now, what do you get a girl who's turning 19?

2005-02-14T18:04:00.000-05:00

"I knew when we first met that you were going to be someone special in my life.

You have always been there for me when I needed you. Your support has made me a stronger person, and has helped me get through a difficult time. I know that you are willing to do anything for me, and that you will always care about me.

You have brought a level of happiness to my life that I didn't think anyone could bring. I enjoy every moment that we are together, and think about you whenever we are apart.

You are the most important thing in my life.

I think that we were meant to be together to share in each other's lives, and I am greatful to whatever brought us together"

Funny how things change so easily, isn't it?

Updates for the next month

2005-02-13T17:32:00.000-05:00

There are going to be two options for the next month, with updates in my blog.

I am going to not update it, and keep everything in a list somewhere so I have enough to talk to you about to allow for a visit.
I am going to continue to update this with everything that is going on in my life, because I have given up on the dissolution that I will ever get another visit.

What's so wrong with me?

2005-02-13T15:33:00.000-05:00

How come everyone out there finds true love and happiness, except for me. There is no one out there that will ever love me. What's so wrong with me, that there is no one for me? What did I do that was so horrible, that I have fucked up my fate, and made it so I will forever be unhappy?

Single on Valentine's Day

2005-02-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

Now I will know what it feels like to be single on Valentine's Day. I am as close as you can possibly get to being single. Having a "boyfriend" who doesn't want to see you because you can't come up with something to talk about, since he can't have sex with you. It's just like not having anyone around.

Well Happy Valentine's Day to you too!!

I only wish they could take your gift back, guess I'll just have to keep it myself

And how much do you want to bet that since we are technically not seeing each other, that by next weekend he will be seeing someone else? And if that does happen, you won't have to worry about making anymore decisions about us!

No happy ending for me

2005-02-11T19:15:00.000-05:00

So what do you do when your so called boyfriend tells you he doesn't care if he sees you again? Well we are about to find out, aren't we. Good thing I have that bottle of alcohol stashed in my bathroom. Maybe I will go for a walk out back and see what I can find.

update: I am not dropping your shit off at your house, if you want it, you can come and get it. I will leave it outside for you.

Oh yeah, I wrote this for you, but I think it is a little more appropriate now:

Girlfriend is a bitch
I can't stand her anymore
It's already done.

2005-02-11T07:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not as stupid as you think I am... I got your hint.

This is sad... (work related)

2005-02-10T15:51:00.000-05:00

Once I am done the current project that I am working on, I will be in charge of my own product release (which has to be released before Feb 27th, I think). So today I was handed the specs to review. I checked out the history, and this review that I am doing, is review #14. You would think that at this point that things should be correct, and I wouldn't have much work to do, but oh no... there are two main sections that I have reviewed so far, and both have an Add and Edit section. For the most part you would think that these sections would be identical, or maybe I'm just way off base here, but for the one section the Add says that we will allow the user to add the same item more than once, but in the Edit, there will be an error message telling the user they are only allowed to add the item once. THEY ARE THE SAME THINGS AND SHOULD ALLOW THE USER TO EITHER ADD THE SAME ITEM ONCE, OR MORE THAN ONCE. Not allow on one screen and not allow on the other.

There are other places that aren't the same either, but should be. This is going to take a lot longer than I had originally thought to get this all proper. I honestly can't believe that my father reviewed this, and he didn't catch any of this. Maybe no one else is being as picky as I am, well that's what happens when you give something to someone in QC, they are going to look at every little detail to make sure it is correct. I have emailed my manager to make sure that I am not totally off the wall here in thinking that these sections should be the same. You would think that Copy and Paste would speed things up a little, guess not. I'm not sure what he is going to say about it, only because he is the one that wrote it. Plus we need this document accepted so we can start programming this. HA I am suppose to be getting the finished product some time next week, I really don't think that they waited for the specs to be accepted to start, which means that some parts of the program are going to be wrong Man, this company needs some work on how things work around here.

Well back to reading...

No title

2005-02-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

You know, sometimes I just have to learn to keep my mouth shut. If I didn't bring stupid things up, then we wouldn't have this problem, now would we? I just need to learn how to handle things, and not let any of it bother me. This way I would have nothing to fight about, and we could both just be happy.

Is Valentine's Day too overrated?

2005-02-09T09:26:00.000-05:00

While at the gym last night, I ran into some friends of mine, who were all talking about the upcoming holiday Valentine's Day and what everyone was planning. One of my friends piped up and said that it had become too commercial, and there was no real point to it. As I have never had a real Valentine's Day, I really wanted to find out the story behind this day and see what we are really celebrating.

I took the following story from here. There is also more information on that page, so feel free to look over there.

Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honor of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavourer to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

With reading this history, what do you think of this day? I agree that it is becoming way too commercial, but isn't it still a day to be with the one you love? Some might say that you should honor and cherish that love everyday, but for most of us, we know that these things are taken for granted. Wouldn't it be nice for one day everyone reflects on their relationships, and is thankful that they have someone in their life that makes them feel so happy? So what are your opinions on this day, love it or hate it?

I myself had the hole night planned to show my man how much he really means to me, but now that is spoiled. I guess this year will be no different that all the other Valentine days

System Install Part 1 of 2

2005-02-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

The plan for this weekend was to at least buy the rear speakers for my car, if not, get them installed. Future Shop had a pair of speakers for $50 and was told on the phone that installation was only to be $39, even though there were no factory speakers put in my car in the first place. I had also considered a place here that I have heard great reviews about. There the cheapest speakers where $90, but installation was only $45. So I decided that Future Shop would be the way to go, although, not 100% sure how well there service/speakers would be. Saturday I was planning on going to get the speakers, and was checking online to make sure they still had stock in, when I noticed that they were having a huge sale. I looked at the speakers, which were $2 off. Wow, big savings. Then I noticed, the original deck that I wanted was on sale. It was $250, down from $350. I decided that I would get it, since the other deck I was looking at was $300. While at Future Shop, I found a nicer pair of speakers that I liked for $80, still cheaper than the store here. I talked the sales guy, to double check the price for installation, and he told me that since they would have to cut a hole in the back of my car, that they consider it "Custom Work", which is $25 per 1/2 hour, on top of the $39. Now it is going to cost me $90 to have the speakers installed there. Forget that. So I bought the radio, and was also able to convince the sales guy that I really didn't need a harness for the radio, for another $20.

Well it is Monday morning, and J. and I have successfully installed my new cd/mp3 deck in my car. Really the only hard part is connecting all the wires. Oh yeah, we also found the speaker wires in the back, so it shouldn't be too much work, for someone else, to install speakers there.

This morning, I was planning on driving my car to work, since we were taking two cars, so I was up till about 2:30am making an MP3 CD to play in it. It took me 2 hours, only because my burning software kept freezing. I was a little disappointed to find out that I was taking my father to work this morning as well, which means, no music at all. To top it off, we took the truck to work, so I can't even go shopping for my new speakers during lunch today. I guess I will have to go over there on Wednesday. Hopefully by this weekend, I will have rear speakers in my car, and will have listened to my new MP3 CD that I made. Does anyone know of some good MP3 sorting software? Mine are in desperate need of a good sorting.

(Part 2 will be the speaker install, hopefully later this week)

Worst night of my life... well worst hernia attack ever

2005-02-03T08:42:00.000-05:00

Warning: this might be a little graphic
I went to bed around 12:30am last night, with a bit a heart burn (the only real symptom I get from my hernia, unless it gets real bad). Around 2:30am, I wake up to a strange burning, it is not where I usually get the burn, but in my wind pipe. So now I have stomach acid in my wind pipe. I spent the next 1/2 trying to cough it up, which is not nice either. I finally got to sleep around 3:30am, and I was happy that I didn't have any symptoms in my stomach from my hernia, and the burning was almost gone from my wind pipe. So I am a little tired, and a little sick feeling this morning from all of this. This morning I decided that I have to take one of my hernia pills, to make sure this doesn't happen again.

For the most part, I am ok this morning, just can't take deep breaths. Hopefully that is the only thing bad thing that came out of all of this.

Car Troubles...

2005-02-02T08:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, not really troubles with the car itself, but with the sound system. Ever since I got my car, the sound has been somewhat poor. Recently I found out that there are no rear speakers in my car, even though they are a standard feature. Before Christmas, I noticed that the CD player in my car has troubles working when it gets cold. The radio works, but the CD player won't play the first couple of songs on a CD. I was talking to my mom, and made mention that I wanted to replace it. I got some money for Christmas, which my mom has mentioned that she thought I could use it for a new deck for my car. I have been looking around, and found a few I like, but haven't really decided on the one that I want yet. This morning as I was driving to work, I figured I should check the front speakers as well, to make sure they were working properly. Also just in case there was a problem, I can get new ones when I am getting the rear ones. Good thing they are working, because I don't really want to have to replace those too.

So with the original deck, rear speakers, and installation, it was going to come to about $550. I think I have decided that I am going to go to the car audio place down the street and have them install my rear speakers. Hopefully they have a cheap pair of speakers, since it will cost $45 to have them installed, since they have to cut a hole in the back of my car to put them in. I will most likely be getting my deck from Best Buy, because they have all of the ones that I am interested in, but I don't know how much they charge for installation. I figure I can just install the deck myself, as I have done it before, and this one doesn't look any harder than the last install I did. Lets just hope it takes less than 3 hours this time. lol

Outfitting My Car

2005-01-27T08:56:00.000-05:00

I think I have finally decided that I am going to add some stuff to my car. The sound system is half decent in my car, but I'm sure it would sound a lot better if I had the standard rear speakers in there. I was talking to my mom about it, and she said that was her idea behind my Christmas money, to get speakers and a new CD player. So these are the speakers that I am looking to get. I don' need anything fancy here, just speakers. This is the deck that I am thinking of getting. It is the same as my old one, but plays MP3s. The main reason for getting a new deck in my car, is that the factory one refuses to play CDs when they are cold, and it is driving me insane, plus I will be able to listen to MP3s. With this deck, I can get it installed for free at Future Shop, I just have to look into how much it is going to cost to install the speakers. If I don't need to run wires for them, then I will probably just install them myself, unless they offer it to me for a really good deal. I will have to give them a call to find out. I will also have to check my car to see if the wires are already in place, like my mother says they are. If anyone has any suggestions on what speakers or decks to get, I would love the comments. The one thing that I would like is to make sure my deck has green lights on the buttons, only because the rest of my car does too. As much as I would like to get a Sony deck, all of the ones that I have found have red buttons.

Spouses Day

2005-01-26T08:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Spouses Day Everyone.

Today I heard on the radio that it is Spouses Day today. I wanted to check and find out exactly what Spouses Day means, but I guess it is just a day to honor your spouse. So anyone out there that reads this blog, and who has a spouse, do something nice for them today even if it is just an extra hug. :)

No title

2005-01-26T01:56:00.000-05:00

So you have this big plan for your life, but the problem is, so far every step has been messed up by one thing or another. What do you do, when you have now been told that your next plan is already messed up? You want to eventually take this step, but the person you were thinking of taking that step with tells you that they aren't planning on taking it with you. How do you figure out if it is you they don't want to do it with, or they just don't want to do it at all?

Can't sleep in my bedroom for at least a week...

2005-01-24T07:32:00.000-05:00

My parents have decided that we are going to paint and re-carpet the main floor, which includes their bedroom. Now my brother and I have our own rooms, he has a queen size bed and I have two singles, and from the title, you can guess they are sleeping in my bedroom. What makes it worse, is that my bother lives at school, sure he sleeps here on weekends, but not during the week, so why couldn't they have chosen his bed? Well it is too small for them, so they would rather sleep in two single beds. As far as I can tell I will be in my brother's room for a minimum of one week, maybe two. So this weekend, when my brother comes home from school, I'm sure I will get shipped to the basement on a air mattress. Grr. What I don't understand is, is that we moved into to this house the past October, but the people who moved into our old house didn't move in until the beginning of November. So we really should have done all of this then, but these are my parents, and it took them this long to pick paint colours. Man, it is going to be a long week. Oh yeah, this also means, that I can't use my computer in the mornings to check my email or after 10pm/11pm when one of them wants to go to bed.

Training with Mr. Wrong Answer.

2005-01-21T09:18:00.000-05:00

Well first off, let me just say that I gave him this name because of my father. See my father is the president of the company that I work for, and sometimes I hear things that I probably shouldn't know. Ok, sometimes my dad just complains about people/things, that I shouldn't hear about. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't work with some of these people, take Always Late. This is what I call one of the girls right here in the QC Office. As you can guess she is always late for work. Somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes. Since my parents really haven't caught her, nothing can be done.

Anyway, lets go onto Wrong Answer. Here is a little background on what is going on in the office to have Wrong Answer be here. He have two new girls in the office, and they are helping me test one of our big programs. We have two main programs, and we are testing one of them. The way I describe this program is that it allows the user to write simple processes to interface with almost anything. So the girls wanted to get some training on not only the program, but how set up a simple process, as neither of them knows anything. There is also a specialist group that is starting for this product, and we have two new people in there. Since the girls don't know how to program, and the other two guys have computer science degrees, I would have split them up and taught the girls some basic programming concepts before teaching them the program. They didn't even know that when you use a GoTo that you couldn't jump into a Loop or If statement, which is something that they really should have learnt. But instead of doing that, they were just taught how the programs works, and then set off on their own to write their own process.

I guess it's not too bad, it has kept me busy the last two days. I really should have sat them down and taught them the simple programming techniques so that their programs would have taken a lot less time, my time.

Another thing to note, is that we have an SOP on how any of the processes we make in this program should look and function. I had never seen them before this week, and neither had the girls. Since they were sent them, and they talked about them in the training, I would have only assumed that they would have used them in their process, but sadly neither of them even considered using them. On e of them read some of it, but decided it was too boring and stopped reading. Oh well, I guess it's not that important until they test a process that will be going to the customer.

So how does Mr. Wrong Answer get his name, well I was talking to my dad about all of this, and he looks at me and asks how training with Mr. Wrong Answer (obviously my dad doesn't call him this). I told him that I wasn't in the training so I didn't have any idea. His comment was that he is useless, anytime you ask him a question he can't answer it, and in the off chance that he does answer something, it will be wrong. LOL I'm just hoping that whatever the girls learnt in training is correct. They did manage to create their own instrument and get it working, so maybe Mr. Wrong Answer can teach something correctly.

Note the time, Always Late is just getting in.

Wrebbit Puzz3D

2005-01-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

One Christmas, a good number of years ago, my dad bought me a new kind of puzzle. He thought I would enjoy it. Little did he know how my obsession would grow. I now have 5 different puzzles. I know this doesn't sound like much of an obsession, but I think it is. These puzzles are no ordinary puzzles. The pieces are backed with foam, so you can make actual 3D models of places. Well this Christmas, my mother added to my collection by buying me the castle that we went to visit the first time I went to Germany.

The story about the castle is actually quite funny. We had planned a two week vacation to Germany and Austria, as my dad's aunt lives in Austria. One day, I was looking through this book that we have, of mysterious places around the world, and I happened upon this picture of a castle up in the clouds. Turns out it was in Germany, so we made special plans to go there. Which is why my mom had to get the puzzle as soon as she saw it.

This past weekend, I finally finished the puzzle, and it looks great. This is my second largest puzzle that I own, and I'm sure when you add all the hours together that I actually spent on it, it would be about 3 whole days.

So here is a list of all the puzzles that I have, with links so you can see what they look like. Two of them aren't linked, because they aren't listed on the site anymore. The list is in order of number of pieces (from what I can remember).

The White House - around 443 (this is discontinued)
Cologne Cathedral - 704 pieces
Dracula's Castle - 707 pieces
Neuschwanstein Castle (my new one) - 836 pieces
Small Village - over 900 pieces (this is discontinued)

Here are the levels of difficulties, as stated on the box:

Easy - 150 to 300 pieces
Average - 200 to 500 pieces
Difficult - 300 to 800 pieces
Very Difficult - 700 to 1000 pieces
Super Challenging - over 3000 pieces

If you really enjoy puzzles, and thing you are up to the challenge, I think you should try one of these, they are great fun!! What I would really like to try next is the globe puzzle. It is similar, except the pieces are made out of plastic.

Diagnosis: Hiatus Hernia

2005-01-19T09:03:00.000-05:00

I wish I was never tested for the hernia. I feel like I am using it as an excuse to get out of things. For example last night, it was getting so bad during the gym class I attend, that I had to take a break half way through. If I didn't know what has causing all the pain, maybe it would make it easier to manage, and not allow me to blame it or use it as an excuse.

Lovefool ~ Cardigans

2005-01-18T23:18:00.000-05:00

Dear, I fear were facing a problem
You love me no longer, I know
And maybe there is nothing that I can do
To make you do

Mama tells me I shouldnt bother
That I ought to stick to another man
A man that surely deserves me
But I think you do!

So I cry, I pray and I beg

Love me love me
Say that you love me
Fool me fool me
Go on and fool me
Love me love me
Pretend that you love me
Leave me leave me
Just say that you need me
Love me love me
Say that you love me
Leave me leave me
Just say that you need me
I cant care bout anything but you...

Lately I have desperately pondered,
Spent my nights awake and I wonder
What I could have done in another way
To make you stay
Reason will not lead to solution
I will end up lost in confusion
I dont care if you really care
As long as you dont go

I heard this song on the radio today, and I thought the lyrics were quite fitting to how I am feeling right now

I need a break

2005-01-18T15:26:00.000-05:00

I need a break right now. As work, we just tried to delete a process, but for some reason, after it was deleted, it retured. So we tried to reproduce it, but it didn't come back at all. We imported the process again, and tried to delete it againg, to make sure that it wouldn't come back again, but stupid me deleted the whole method. Which means all of the processes are gone.

Re-evaluation of my life

2005-01-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

I was going to do this right at the start of the year, but I didn't know
where I stood on some things, and now I think that everything in my life is
clear. I know where things stand now, and where some things are heading.
So here is my lists of things that are going wrong and some things that are
going right in my life

Things that are on the right track

I have a job that pays pretty descent.
I have my own car that I don't have to make payments on, and the
insurance is covered for a year.
I have someone special in my life.
I have a good home.

Things that are not on the right track

and how I can change it

I don't like my job anymore. It's not the company, but the actual work.
I am going to start looking into what it takes to do either Training or APPS
and head back to school if that is needed.
I live at home. Once I find another job, I plan to move out. I have
enough money saved up to cover the first month until I get my first
paycheque.
The relationship I have has gone down the crapper. I would like to try
to fix it, but it is looking to be much more difficult that I had originally
thought. Old habits die hard.
I'm too over weight. I need to lose at least 50lbs to be in a healthy
range for my height. I have set up a schedule, including classes at my gym,
so that I can lose the weight in the next 4 months, which is probably how
long I have. Here is my proposed schedule:
- Monday: Deep water aqua fit
- Tuesday: Strength and Stability followed by the Abs + class
- Wednesday: Cardio Pump
- Thursday: Abs + then weight training
- Friday: 30min to 1hour of cardio
I have no close friends. I have friends, but they don't live close to
me. I need to find some friends that live closer to me, so we can hang out
and I can get out of the house.

That is everything that I can think of at the moment. If anything else
comes to mind, I will update and repost at a later date.

2005-01-17T07:27:00.000-05:00

How can one person make you feel so good about yourself one day, and completely useless the next?

How to tell my parents

2005-01-16T13:35:00.000-05:00

My mother again last night, brought up marriages and weddings. In her mind she has the whole this planned out. How do I tell her that I have realized that I am not getting married ever? That I know in my heart that there will never be anyone who loves me enough to want to spend the rest of their lives with me.

Canadians are Crazy

2005-01-14T14:40:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of this week, the weather network kept saying that today
was going to be warm. I hear a high of 10 degrees a few times. So why is
it that when I went to leave this morning there was about 1/2" of ice on my
car? It wouldn't have been so bad, but my shoes don't grip to ice, so as I
was attempting to scrape off my car, I was sliding and it probably took
twice as long. I at least now know how to scrape off thick ice, checkers
pattern. Take the corner of your scraper and make diagonal lines one way,
and then the other, and the ice should come off easily after that. So now
all of you know that too, although I'm probably the last person to figure
that out. :)

Well after scraping off most of my car, I headed to work. Knowing that
everything was covered in ice, I decided that I should drive slow. Again
common knowledge, or so I thought. On my 20 min. drive to work, which
usually takes about 15 min., I saw a total of 9 cars in trouble, this
includes being in the ditch, hitting another car, or being towed. I
couldn't believe that. I know for the first snow fall of the year,
Canadians forget how to drive in snow and there are a lot of accidents, but
it has been winter for a month now. You would have thought that these 9
people, ok 8 because one of them was hit by another car, would have figured
out that they can't drive their normal way when it gets like this outside.
Well I guess if you look at how many cars I did pass that weren't in trouble
and compared them to the number of cars that were, it is quite a small
number, but still, I have only been driving for 7 years, and I get how this
works. Summer driving is not the same as winter driving. Hopefully after
today, those 8 people will have figured that out too. As for everyone else
who made it to wherever they were going, congratulations and thank you for
driving safe. :)

Weight Loss

2005-01-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

I need to lose at least 50lbs by I would say April. If I don't achive this then things are going to get all messed up, and plans are going to get ruined. So any help or words of encouragement is welcomed. I need all the help I can get with this.

Both ends of the rainbow

2005-01-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

This morning there was a beautiful rainbow. It was actually the first time that I have ever seen a complete rainbow, from one end to the other? I know this doesn't have any real significance, but maybe it is a sign that my life is going to get better starting today. If anything wonderful happens to me today, I will make sure to share it with everyone.

The Definition of a "Fake Relationship"

2005-01-13T07:17:00.000-05:00

Dictionay.com defines a relationship as

The condition or fact of being related; connection or association.
Connection by blood or marriage; kinship.
A particular type of connection existing between people related to or having dealings with each other: has a close relationship with his siblings.
A romantic or sexual involvement.

and defines fake to be

Having a false or misleading appearance; fraudulent.

So if we put these together, the definition from here on what a "fake relationship" is, is a romantic or sexual involvement having a misleading appearance. Or in simple terms, when you are in a relationship, you are in love, you want to be with the other person and then you find out that they don't know if they want to be with you or not and are ok with this. So basically you are in a relationship with someone who doesn't know if they want to be in one with you.

If you are in one of these "fake relationships", how do you tell? Well if you are lucky, they will flat out tell you that they "don't know what they want", and they are "mostly" ok with that. From here, it is up to you to decide if you want to continue this "fake relationship" and how you are now going to handle things. I personally am staying in this "fake relationship", because I know, if he decide that he wants to be with me, we will be happy.

Jason Jordan ~ True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

I am nothing

2005-01-13T02:08:00.000-05:00

I am nothing to you.
I don't know why I try to be more, I know I can never be.
I want you to be with me.
I want you to want to be with me.
I want it to work.
I hate thinking about you leaving in 9 months, but I think that now I have even less time.
I want you to love me, for me to mean as much to you as you mean to me.

I will never be your one true love.
I can never be the one for you.
I will never be the only one you want to be with.
I will never be yours.

Please let me try to be the one that you want.

Should have water back soon

2005-01-10T13:21:00.000-05:00

Someone came, with a back-ho, to come and dig up the pipe to see where it had burst and see why were weren't getting any water. Did you know that the pipe is located 6 feet underground? Me either. Anyway, the good news is that the problem was at the well, so they only had to dig up a little. The problem was that the pipe had disconnected from the pump, allowing only air into the pipe. This was because after they originally put in the pipe they covered it with rocks and dirt, not just dirt like they are suppose to. So as the rocks settled (the house is only 6 years old), they put pressure on the pipe and disconnected it from the pump. Apparently we aren't the only house that has had this trouble in our area. So they are fixing this today, and we should have water by the time we get home from work tonight. YAH!!

NO WATER!!

2005-01-09T22:14:00.000-05:00

It all started Friday morning, well really Thursday morning. Thursday morning, I woke up late, and didn't get a chance to shower. Really not a big deal, since I showered the day before. Friday morning though, I really needed to wash my hair, since for some reason it is really oily and needs to be washed at least every other day. So I go to start my shower Friday morning, and realize there is no water. I tried to find my hat to cover my hair, but couldn't find it anywhere. My dad tried to figure out why we didn't have any water, but we are now on a well, and he doesn't really know what to look for. I headed to work 30min. early to shower at work. I am really glad that they put showers in the bathroom there. I headed to Waterloo for the weekend, figuring that they would have the water fixed by the time I got home Sunday.

My mom called about an hour ago to explain that they still didn't have any water, and Saturday both her and my dad headed to work to have a shower. They had someone come out and check out the pump for the water, and think that the pipe from the well to the house has burst. Now someone has to come out and look at it. If the pipe hasn't burst at the well, we will have to rip up part of the driveway and the front porch. This is really not cool for 6 year old house. I'm sure my parents are even less impressed with this.

Broken Dreams

2005-01-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

Every little girl dreams of the day her and her prince charming will get married. The day they will start their new life together. A happily ever after, or a happy new beginning depending on how you look at things. As these little girls grow older, most of them do find their prince charming and in the case with two of my friends, get married. (Well one is only engaged, but soon she will be married) For the rest of these once little girls there are really only a few options left.

Continue dreaming that one day you will get your happy ending
Meet their prince charming, only to find out that they really aren't as charming as they appeared to be, but settle anyway
Meet a prince, only to find out that there will never be a happy ending, because... well I will go into it in more detail below.

I believe that I am in a place in my life right now, where I do still think about my future, and that happy ending. I know I'm not ready to deal with any of this yet, come on, I still live in my parents house and work for their company. I was thinking about it today, and my childhood dream of being a mom is slowly fading as well. I am so terrified of having kids it scares me. I don't think that I will ever be able to be a good mother, or any mother.
Another dream that I have totally given up on is being a beautiful bride, someone's beautiful wife. I am never going to be able to look the way I want, and no one is ever going to accept me for me. Mind you, I'm not that wonderful of a person. I think it is a combination of not seeing anyone being able to tell me why they love me, let alone that they love me enough to want to be with me for the rest of my life. I use to be able to picture myself in my dress, much skinnier of course, standing next to the man I love knowing that he loves me and will always love me. That image has now faded from my head, and I can't get it back. I guess since the image is gone, the dream must be as well. At least I like animals, so when I'm old and have 80 cats, I will at least be happy.

So the moral of this post is that dreams are really for kids who don't know any better, the world is a cruel place where dreams don't come true.

I don't actually know if any of this makes sense, as I am a little messed up right now, and the thoughts are just flowing out of my head.

Career path

2005-01-04T13:49:00.000-05:00

Well I think I have finally figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life... as much as I enjoy testing software, ok stop laughing now, it isn't as fulfilling as I remember it to be when I first started. Yesterday however, I had a great day at work, and today I have finally realized why. Yesterday, I spent the day showing the new girls now to work with the product that I have been testing for 4 summers now. So I have become a bit of an expert, for the most part. There are still some things that I don't know how to do, but I am learning. Anyway, I actually enjoyed showing/training the new girls on this product. So I think I am going to start looking into a training position to see what I would have to do/learn to become a trainer. I haven't decided if I want to be an internal trainer or someone to train customers on our products, but that will have to be left to later consideration

If anyone has any helpful hints on how I might go about doing this, that
would be great.

First Post of 2005

2005-01-03T21:35:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this is the title of a lot of people's posts for the last couple of days, but I don't like to be original. Ok, I haven't seen anyone with this title yet, but it can't be that original.

Anyway, New Years eve was the worst one yet. Mind you, J. was supper awesome that night. On the 30th, I had gone to bed with a bit of a tummy ache only to wake up to stabbing pains the next day. I was in bed (well on the couch for a bit), until 10pm that night. J. had come over at about 5pm, had dinner with my family, and stayed in my room until I was well enough to get out of bed. Herb, Linda, and their neighbors had come over, so we sat and talked with them for a bit, and then the girls played Euchre, while the boys played pool. Sensing a trend here?? Again, I was a sneaky player. We managed to play till about 1:30am, without even noticing we missed ringing in the new year. As J. says, it is only another day. It is so true. Just another day to spend with friends, kicking their ass at Euchre.

New Years day, I was starting to feel better, but it still hurt to move. Today I am back to my old self again. My mom and I decided that we had to start going to the gym again, since we missing all of December, but I didn't want to push it too hard, since I might still hurt a little. We decided to do the Aquafit class. It was really quite fun, and I think we are going to be doing it every week now.

Anyway... Happy 2005!!

Christmas Day

2004-12-26T01:31:00.000-05:00

Today was so much fun. Like most families, we opened our presents, then had breakfast. I got a lot of fun stuff, and some money. Money is always good. My grandparents came over for dinner, and aksed where J. was. They were actually well behaved this time, but I'm sure if J. was there, my grandfather would have had something to say to him.

After they went home, Linda and Gwen came over, and we played cards while my dad and brother played pool. It was a fun night. I actually had forgotten how sneaky I was at playing Euchre. You better watch out, if you want to play with me.

Christmas Eve Day

2004-12-24T21:16:00.000-05:00

We have a tradition in my family that every Christmas Eve day my mom's family comes over to our house to visit. Our family has gotten much bigger over the past couple of years, with some new significant others and some new babies (who aren't babies anymore). Because of this, we have gotten together the last couple of years at work. It was still fun, but not as comforting as being at someone's house. Well this year, since my parents now own a large house, we were able to fit them all in here. It was great. In total we had 17 people here. We were missing 9 people, who couldn't make it. I hope to see them soon.

We found out yesterday that my uncle, one of the ones that didn't make it, is now engaged to his wonderful gf. Ok, so I have never met her, but from what I have heard, she is a big improvement.

Happy Holidays

2004-12-22T13:24:00.000-05:00

To anyone that actaully spends some time reading this, I wish you a wonderful holiday season.

I'm sure it will be better than mine is turning out to be.

New Monitors :)

2004-12-20T19:23:00.000-05:00

The one thing that I noticed about D2L while I was there, was that
everyone had nice 17" monitors. Unlike the poor QC department here, we all
had crappy 15" monitors. Now I'm not really complaining about the size of
the monitors, but the poor quality. They are fuzzy, and hard to read. One
of the other girl's monitor was so bad, that you couldn't read anything off
the screen.

Well as a Christmas present from our manager, we all got new monitors.
Nice new, easy to read 17" monitors. As most of you know, I test software,
and to do this affectively, I need two computers. My "test box" and my
"main computer". My test box is used for, you guessed it, testing. This
one only has the program I am testing, and maybe some other programs to see
how the interact with them. My main box has everything else, and is where I
read the test outline that I am following. So here I was thinking that I
was going to be getting two monitor, but it turns out that we only got one
each. I guess one is better than nothing, but they hooked them up to the
main computer. I would have thought that since I spend most of my time
staring at the test box, making sure everything not only runs correctly, but
looks correct too, that I should have a nice monitor where I can see what is
going on. I guess if I get really frustrated with this setup I can always
switch them, right? It is my monitor. :)

Jobs you Love

2004-12-17T10:04:00.000-05:00

My dad and I were talking on the way to work about how at my age, I
should love going to work and how I should be excited every day. This only
came up because I was saying how I can't wait till the holidays, as I need
some time off work. Now I'm not sure if this is because I don't love the
job, or I am just not use to working this hard. The longest I have ever
worked at a full time job is 4 months, I have been here 8 months with no
real break. In university you get a whole month off for exams, every three
months. So I have now started to think if I really do enjoy this job, or if
it is just making money. Also, what kind of job would I love.

For the most part, I do enjoy this job. Sure there are boring days, or
stuff that I don't understand, but I am starting to pick up on that stuff,
and I'm sure there are boring parts to everyone's jobs. I have been
starting to do some more work with web pages, both for work and pleasure,
which has been great. I am finding this work challenging enough, and very
enjoyable. I have learnt some Java Script, and put it on my web site, and I
have also made something for my company's web site as well. Also I have
been making a scrapbook of my trip to Europe, and it is great working with
Photoshop, although I still have a lot of work to do there.

I use to have this dream... I never told anyone this, because I didn't
want anyone to think it was dumb, but I wanted to own my own company. I
wanted to start my own company making web pages for people. The only
problem up until now, was that I didn't have enough knowledge or experience
with web pages to offer anyone anything useful. There are still some things
that I would like to learn, but I think my online resume is growing. So if
anyone is out there and likes my web pages, give me a shout and I can make
something for you too. :) I am also working on the layout for my blog, so
that it and my website match.

I guess the only thing I really need before I can start making pages for
others, is clip art, and images that I can sell to others. Most of the
stuff that I have used, says I can't do that. So I guess I will have to
make a portfolio of different scrap book pages, and different backgrounds
that I can use to make pages

Scrapbooking

2004-12-15T07:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not too sure if anyone reads this except my wonderful bf, but if anyone else does, I would like your opinion.

I started working on the photo album for my trip to Europe, and I realized that it was really boring. While my brother and I were out getting a Christmas present for my dad, I saw an Online Scrapbooking book, I didn't get it because it was $32, and I knew I could find information abotu it online for FREE. I did a bit of scrap booking before, with my trip to Daytona, and I really enjoyed it. I thought that doing it online would be just as fun. It is starting to get more fun, as I am learning the tricks to Photo Shop, and I found a website with free backgrounds etc.

So here is what I have so far of my first days in Europe. Let me know what you think. Please keep in mind it is not done yet, and the Back and Foward buttons don't go anywhere.

Turn over period at my company

2004-12-13T14:13:00.000-05:00

At my company, we have had several people leaving in the 7 months that I
have been here. I wasn't too sure what it was until today. I knew that
things with my workstation weren't that great, my computer still isn't setup
properly, but that really isn't the IT guy's fault. He didn't know I was
starting in the first place, and no one knew how long I was going to stay,
so it wasn't a high priority.

Today we have 2 new people who have joined my department. Since they are
"real" employees, they actually get training for this job. Considering they
both worked in labs before, they will need to learn a bit about how to test
software. So far, there have been so many things that have gone wrong with
their first day, and it is still not even 2pm.

Here is just a small list of what has happened:

Cindy's computer doesn't work. To be more specific, her monitor
couldn't handle the resolution it was set at, so we had to get her a new one
(monitor).
Cindy's test box was missing as well, so we had to find her a
replacement one. Erin's is setup and working fine, well setup anyway. We
have yet to test if it is setup at all.
Cindy's computer, once we got her a working monitor, isn't setup at all.
Her email hasn't been setup. Erin's, we think, is setup, but it doesn't
seem to be setup correctly, because it can't send/receive emails.
Erin's computer couldn't access the network. Later we found out that it was because the hub was connected to Erin's computer, and that was it. The line in wasn't connected to the internet. That's what happens when my manager does stuff with computers
Erin's monitor on her test machine is so bad, that no one can read anything on it. She will eventually be getting a new one. I personally think we all need new ones. It sucks working with 15" monitors.

To be honest with you, if my first day was like this, I wouldn't come back
for a second. You would think working at a computer software company,
setting up two computers shouldn't be this much trouble.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

2004-12-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

Last night I went for dinner and a movie with G., her mom, and my mom. We went to the Greek Garden, it was fantastic!!

After dinner we headed to Galaxy and watched Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Now I have to say, if you enjoyed the first movie, you will love this movie. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoyed the first. Renee Zellweger is such a fantastic actress, and has such skills to pull off a role like this. Bridget gives hope to all those overweight, clumsy girls out there just looking for love. :)

Photos

2004-12-07T07:26:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick update, I will write more about my trip when I get a chance, but last night I was able to quickly upload my photos from my digital camera onto the Yahoo! Photos site. There are no descriptions yet, as I will be making a new photo album on my new website. Feel free to have a look at my photos (just click Slide Show, on the Yahoo! page)

Photos

Internet Cafe in Germany

2004-12-02T04:32:00.000-05:00

Coming to you live from Connection, an internet cafe in Germany. It says that I am posting this at 4:32am, but here it is 10:32am. It is a beautiful day here, almost no clouds in the sky. My dad is currently visiting a customer in another town, and I am here picking up a few things for some people. Mainly I am looking for a Christmas ornament for my dad.

I am having a great time, but I do miss J. very much. It is hard to be here without him, not knowing how much he misses me. I'm sure that he is thinking of my at least once and a while (at least I hope).

Anyway, tomorrow I am heading to a castle for a couple of nights. I am really excited. It is located on the top of a small mountain, above a small city. I have been taking a lot of pictures here, and will have to take some more there.

Well I should be back home 4pm on Monday. I will post again shortly after that, since that is actually the time my plane lands in Toronto.

Update

2004-11-27T11:21:00.000-05:00

I heard from D2L on Thursday, but their offer kind of sucked. My dad looked over it, and had a few suggestions for them to change. So I emailed them with the ideas, and haven't heard back. I'm sure they will just throw it out the window without a second glance. Oh well. My dad and I had a nice chat about in yesterday, and he feels the same way that I do, "everything happens for a reason". So if I don't get the job, or at least a better offer, there is a reason for it, and soon I will know what it is.

Just to let everyone know, I am heading to Europe tomorrow, till the 6th of December, so I probably won't be posting anything for a while. If I do get some internet connection while I am not at work. I will make sure to let you know that I arrived safe.

Have a good week. :)

Crappy day

2004-11-24T19:36:00.000-05:00

Since there is no one online to talk to, I guess I will just write it here.

Today was a pretty crappy day, aside from the whether. I got a call from D2L, and I know what you're thinking, well I wasn't turned down for the job. Instead they want me to come in tomorrow at 3:30pm. Well I can't make that since I am suppose to have plans. So my mom's solutions was to call tonight, and leave a message that I couldn't come in, then she could call me back tomorrow. Yay for telephone tag. This was during her 15 min. session of continuous yelling at me, because it isn't fair for them to ask me to come in at 3:30pm, since I have another job. Like it's my fault that they asked me to come it. I don't need to be yelled at because she thinks they are "fucking stupid".

It doesn't help that now everyone is trying to talk me out of even considering the job. My mom keeps bouncing back and forth between "it's a good idea" and "you are out of your mind". Today my boss tried to persuade me by telling me I will be spending about $15,000 a year just to commute to work and back. If that's the case, then I should be only considering this job if they pay me at least $45,000 or more. Fine, maybe I will just tell them that I don't want the job. What does it matter that I don't like the job I have now, that I can't do half the stuff they want? Nothing. As long as everyone else is happy. Maybe I won't call them tomorrow to rearrange the meeting, maybe I just won't go. That would make everyone happy.

Plus since I am leaving on Sunday, my mom has said that I have to let them know my decision before I leave, which means that I have to let them know by 5pm on Friday. Great. I thought that I would at least get some time to think it over. Now I don't even get that. I would like to take the job, if offered, but maybe I should just listen to everyone and just turn them down.

Why you should not use Microsoft Word as an HTML Editor

2004-11-24T15:39:00.000-05:00

I am suppose to be writing some java script for a web page on my company web site. I was sent the demo of what it would look like, in Word, and was asked what format I would like it in. First off, aren't all web pages in HTML or did I miss something. I replied with HTML, and said that I could easily make it. I get a reply saying that it was easy to create, as the Save as HTML menu option was used. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but it has a form on it. Have you ever tried this with a form? It doesn't work. It looks like the form is there, but you cannot click on any of the edit buttons. Also the HTML is so messed up with things that Word puts in, that it was hard to even know where to start to put the java script. The woman who makes the web site for the company is making me a proper HTML page.

Relieved a little...

2004-11-19T17:08:00.000-05:00

I was starting to get a little worried this morning, as D2L hadn't called my references yet. The only reason why I knew that was because C.B. didn't have a call yet (we work in the same room). I figured they would be calling some time today, only because last week, I had my interview on Wednesday (I was the first one), and I was told about the second interview on Friday by 3:30pm. I figured there would be less people in the second interview than in the first, so they should start calling references today.

Around 10:30am, D2L called and C.B. talked to them about me, well in the programming office, so I couldn't hear her. lol She told me everything they talked about after. I don't know if I really wanted to hear it or not. I still have to wait another couple of days till I hear about it.

I am really ready for a change. I am starting to realize that I really don't know what's going on in this job. Well that's the case half of the time. LimsLink is quite a complicated program, and I don't understand it past the basic functions. This makes it really hard to test it when they are adding all these new features on that I have no idea how to even set them up.

Also I have been given this test outline that I have to fix up. It says that most of the tests don't have to be done, because they were tested in previous versions. Well now I have to write more than that, and figure out when they were tested. It wouldn't be so hard, if they actually had documentation that had the dates on it. All I can find are the documents from previous versions that say the same thing as this one. GRR. Programming isn't any help either, because they don't know which functions have been updated, so I might have to rewrite this whole thing and then retest everything. That is going to take a while to do.

I am so ready to go home now. I have had this dumb cold, at least I think it is a cold, since the beginning of the month. Every once and a while it makes me feel really run down, I even had a fever today. I just wish that it would clear up, so that I can feel health again. I hope that I don't have allergies. My brother developed allergies in the past couple of years. I just want to be healthy, or at least feel healthy for my trip. I guess if this isn't cleared up by the time I get back, I will have to go see the doctor to make sure that it is just a cold, and nothing more serious.

Second interview thoughts

2004-11-17T13:43:00.000-05:00

Today I had my second interview at Desire2Learn. The first interview was with Susanne, HR, and Greg, QC Manager. Today was again with Susanne, but also with Bill, who is in charge of development and QC.

I learned a lot about the company, and the procedures they follow as well. They don't have many procedures setup yet, but they are working on it. The one thing that I thought when Bill was telling me this, is that procedures don't always make things better. You should see some of the things we have to go through, just to get some people to follow procedures.

While I was at the office, this time it was at the development office, I saw this woman that I recognized. It took me a few min. before I could figure out from where. It's funny how small the world is, but I am almost certain that she is friends with J.'s old boss. It looked like her anyway. C., J.'s boss, had a graduation party, and I think that's where I remember this woman from. (I have to keep reminding myself as I am typing, that we are no longer girls, we are women, and I have to refer to other woman as such) I have asked J. to ask C. if she has heard anything about working there.

The big difference between working there and working here, is the pay and the number of hours. Currently I am working 35 hours a week for... well I don't really want to say how much, we'll just say that I make enough. Now most of the people who have left here said they were leaving for more money. The funny thing is, they are usually working for more hours, and if they were working those hours here, would be making the same amount of money. I don't know how many times my mom has pointed this out. So I am taking this into consideration.

Now I was told that they work 40 hour weeks, flex hours with the core hours being 10am to 3pm. I can even work on weekends if I decide to. HA HA They have also said that the range for this position, for starting is high 30s to low 40s. Looking at this increase of pay (which lets you know that I make less than high 30s), but the increase of hours. I could still make an increase of at least $0.35 per hour, if you make high 30s = $35,000. I will just have to see what they are actually going to offer me, and see if it is worth it.

Why I like working at Labtronics

2004-11-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

I just went in to talk to my manager, as I now have a second interview with Desire2Learn, and I had to tell him. Although he already knew, as my mom told him at the Christmas party during a conversation they were having. I have a 15 min. meeting with him, on what I should ask, and what I should look for while I am there, to see if I actually would like to work there.

Here is some of the things that I should ask while I am there

What type of procedures do they use for testing?
Is the testing most structural or free?
What are my duties? Does my job just include testing or writing
documents as well?
Ask for a tour and to see where I will be working. This way I can see
if it is the type of environment that I want to work in.

Here are some things that I should consider before taking the job (some of these are my ideas too)

Salary. I won't take the job if they offer my equal to or less than
what I am making now, as I will have to either commute, or move to take this
job.
The commute itself. There is now a new road that I can take that will
allow me to miss most of Hwy 7 to get there, but I will still have to drive
45 min. one way to get there. I have worked out how much that will be in
gas, and it will probably cost me about $100 a month in gas, where as now,
it only costs me about $50.
The work environment (already mentioned above)
The work atmosphere
What other people think about working there, I will have to get in touch
with someone in QC to see what they think about the job.
The contract, there maybe some weird stuff in it that I don't agree to
Will I get more/different experience working there?

I think I will make another pros and cons list with this new information, and as soon as I find out how much I could possibly be making, and post it again. Is it wrong that I feel guilty about this interview?

Spam

2004-11-14T09:53:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has an email address has heard of spam. It is the annoying messages you get in your inbox that you never asked to receive. My favorite ones, that I get, are to increase the size of my "member". Funny thing is, I'm female, and my email address starts with Princess. Guess companies don't really care about who they are sending it to, they just want to get the message out there.

I have now heard about this new system that someone wants to put in place, charging people to send email. It would only be $0.01 per email, and if the person you send it to responds to it, the sender doesn't have to pay. Sure this sounds like a good idea, but it probably won't work.

What about charging the recipient? Yes this sounds even more crazy, but this is what is happening to me. Like most people out there I have a cell phone, with text messaging. I loved the text messaging feature up until this week. Early this week, I received SPAM on my phone. I know what your thinking, who cares, right. Well receiving this little piece of spam on my phone cost me $0.15. I feel a little ripped off about this. I figured it was only $0.15, so I would let it go. Then last night, I received another spam message. Now the system is down, so I can't check if I have to pay for this one, but I decided to take action. I emailed my phone company to complain. Why should I have to pay to receive messages that I don't want? Why do I need spam from the states telling me I can get my degree cheap there, when I already have my degree? And I don't care about the stock market. I really hope this doesn't happen again, or I might be forced to change my cell phone number, that would be a huge pain.

The thinking or lack there of, of our programmers

2004-11-12T11:14:00.000-05:00

A bug had been found in one of our programs, causing some troubles over in
Europe.

Here is the problem:
The program is looking for either True or False at one point, well in German
it is no longer True or False. The program looks only for False, and
assumes everything else to be true. So now, no matter what is sent back in
German, it will never be False.

Solution:
1 = True
0 = False.

You think you would have thought of that since we are selling some of our
products to other countries

Best Movie Ever

2004-11-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

What do you get when you mix:

1. One of my favorite movies
2. One of my favorite directors
3. One of my favorite actors?

The new Charlie and the Chocolate movie to open July 2005 directed by Tim
Burton and staring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

Job interview...

2004-11-10T13:51:00.000-05:00

yes I know, I keep posting about it, but it was today, so this should be it.

I had my interview today at 9:30am, but I wasn't sure how long it would take
me to get there or to find it, so I got up at 6:30am, to make sure I left
before 8am. I ended up leaving a little after 8am, so I booked it. I got
to the gas station that is a little over half way, and realized that it was
about 15 minutes to 9am, and the gas was 74.5, so I decided to fill up. I
still got there by 9am. So it really doesn't take that long to get there
from here.

The interview was about an hour. After my mom asked me how it went, and it
got me to thinking, how do you really tell an interview went well. Sure I
answered most of their questions, and they wrote down a lot of stuff, but
what does that really mean? I think I did well, but they might think I was
talking out of my ass. I guess it was a good sign that I was the first
interview of the group. Does this mean that they really liked what they saw
at the job fair? Who knows. They are doing second interviews next week,
and I have to wait till the end of this week to find out anything, maybe
even Monday.

If I do end up getting a second interview, I guess I have figured out the
trick to interviews. You have to go in there without any expectations. I'm
still not sure if I want this job or not. I really did like the place,
after being there today, but I can't decide if I want to leave Labtronics
now or not. So I wasn't nervous going into it, because at this point it
would be nice to get a job offer, but I'm not hoping for one. Maybe that is
the trick, not letting on how much you want the job. That's what I did at
Equitrac, and I didn't get the offer there.

We'll see....

Tomorrow

2004-11-09T09:32:00.000-05:00

So there is one day now till my interview at Desire2Learn. I still have yet to decide whether I want to work there or not. I guess right now, I am just trying to get a job offer so I know that I can find jobs. Two of the most important people in my life, seem to have very different ideas on whether I should take the job or not, if I am offered one.

I decided on making a pros and cons list to taking the job, and each point is worth a different amount of points, on a scale of 1 to 5. I'm not going to post the point values, but here is what I have come up with:

Pros for taking job

Gain experience from another company, which will help me find better jobs in the future
Could possibly make more money
Would be treated as an employee, not a kid who has been with the company since I was 14

Cons for taking job

The job is in Kitchener. Right now I drive to work about twice a week. Taking this job means that I would have to drive about 45min, one way, to work everyday.
Could possibly make less money

This is all I can think of right now for my list, I will add more when I think of them

Trip Phase One Complete

2004-11-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

I have decided to make a Pros and Cons list for this trip, since for some
reason I feel really guilty about it and I don't know why. Here are some of
the things I have come up with

1. I am currently employed, and have two projects to help release. I feel
really guilty about leaving in the middle of the release of one of the
projects. The good news is, is that my two managers have talked it over,
and think that it will not be pushed back because of my leaving. Also I can
help out in the other office, and try to fix/verify some of the bugs that
they are seeing that we are not. (This is what I have called phase one, now
complete)

2. Another thing that I am guilty about is that it is my dad and I going on
the trip, and we are leaving my mom home all alone. It is kind of mean of
us to do, but really it is more of a business trip than anything. We are
planning on spending 2 days in the BV office, driving one day to see another
work related person for a day, then taking another day to drive back. On
the way back we will be going trough Luxemburg, since my dad has never been
there. So out of the maybe 7 days we will be there, we will be working 3
and driving 2. I'm sure my mom wouldn't really have fun on this trip.

3. I am totally feeling guilty about J.. We have finally started
getting our relationship back on track, and I will be leaving for a week. I
know nothing is going to happen while I am gone, he has promised me, but I
am just worried that there won't be anything to come back to. I don't want
this to ruin things between us. We can barely make it 2 days apart, let
alone 7. Well if he is still here when I get back, I will know that we are
still meant to be together, which is what I hope. Also it will get us use
to how long it will be between visits if he leaves the province to go to
grad school.

4. The one thing that I am worried about is that I don't have a passport
right now, mine expired. It wouldn't be so bad, because it usually takes up
to 10 working days, or 2 weeks, but they are on strike. I don't want to
book this trip and find out at the last minuet that I can't go because I
don't have my passport yet. Lets cross out fingers and hope it all works
out.

5. The one good thing that I can see getting out of this trip, is my anger.
I have become a really angry person the last couple of years, and I not get
totally disgusted with myself from time to time. I think this trip will
help me to be happy again. Maybe some time away from everything will help
me clear my head, and figure my life out.

Now that I think about it, I am getting quite excited about this trip. I
love to fly, and given any reason to, I will!! It will be good to go back
to Germany. I actually have family in Austria (I know this is not Germany,
but it was still a really good trip).

I will have to make sure I have lots of batteries for my camera, and make
sure my storage card is empty, so I can take lots of pictures.

Trip to Europe

2004-11-08T10:52:00.000-05:00

My dad and I were talking a couple of weeks ago about a trip he was taking to the European office, and I had mentioned that I wanted to go. Well he has decided that he is going the first week of December.

I have still told him that I want to go, but there are still some things that make me not want to go. Sure it is a business trip, and technically I will only be taking 2 days off. My manager says that there really isn't any work that I can do over there that will benifit this office, so I might just have to take the whole week off. He is looking into the schedule to see if it will be possible for me to take the week off without delaying the release of our two large projects. I would feel really bad if I went, and things were delayed. This is why I have left it in his hands to decide if I can go or not. He is very impressed that I would ask like this, he says that most people would just say they are going on vacation and that would be it. Since I am basically working here as a favour to him, I didn't think that it would be right.

My dad is also worried about this job interview that is coming up. What if he books the trip for us, and I end up getting a job. I told him that I wasn't sure if I was going to take it, and besides, I can always tell the other company that I can't start work till after.

I also don't want to leave J. for 8 days. It is hard enough for me to go 2 days without seeing him. I'm sure it will be ok, I just don't want to mess things up between us by going and leaving him for this long. We will just have to talk it over, and see how we feel about it.

Job interview...

2004-11-08T08:50:00.000-05:00

Do you know how hard it is to get ahold of someone at work when they work 9am - 5pm, and you also work 9am - 5pm. So I called Desire2Learn, and the woman I was suppose to speak with about the job interview was on her lunch, when I was calling during my lunch. She called me back around 3:30pm. I talked to my dad about it today, and he said that I could use the phone in the programmer's office to call her, during office hours. I really think he wants me to get this job, well any job, so I can move on from Labtronics and get a "real job" as he calls it.

I'm still not sure if I should take the job, if offered, or not. Everyone seems to have a different oppinion on the topic, and I just can't decide. I mean it would be good to have another job, but it is in Kitchener. There is nothing wrong with Kitchener, but it would take me 45min to an hour to get there everyday. I don't know. J. thinks that I should just stay at my current job for 2 years, well I think he means more like 2.5 years. I can understand why. There are many good things about staying here. I am pretty sure that I already wrote all of this.

I think I will check this when I get home, and if I come up with any new ideas for staying or leaving Labtronics, then I will post them. Until I have decided, any inpyut from anyone, would be welcomed.

I just talked to Christine on the phone, and we have verified that my interview is on Wednesday at 9:30am. It should take about 1.5 hours, that's a really long interview. I should be able to make it back to work for noon at the latest.

*I couldn't get spell checking to work, so there may be some mistakes in here*

Job Interview...

2004-11-05T08:29:00.000-05:00

Well yesterday I got a call from Desire2Learn about a job interview. I had given them my resume at a job fair in September, and figured that they had forgotten about me since then. I didn't actually get the message till this morning, as they called my house, which is weird, because I am sure my cell phone number is on my resume.

So you would think I would be excited about this... another job interview... a chance to get away from Labtronics, but I don't know how I feel about this. I had this master plan to stay here till next September, then who knows what would happen. Mind you, it's not like I have to job or anything. My mom thinks I should go for the interview. At least I will get more experience with job interviews, right? I would just feel bad leaving Labtronics right now, since I have work for me here till March (or later, because nothing is released on time here). I guess I will go. It sounds like they are doing mass interviews, and I am one of the firsts to go, but still I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will be more qualified than me.

For those of you who think that I am putting myself down, I'm not really. I don't have that much experience here, and plus if I get my hopes up like I did the last time, it will be even harder if (yes I said if) I don't get the job.

Even if I am offered the job, I will have to weigh the fact that right now, sure I only make about $35,000 a year, but I don't have any expenses. I hardly ever drive my car to work, which means I hardly ever have to fill it with gas. If I do get this job in Kitchener, I will have to drive to Kitchener ever day, which will increase my gas bill a lot. Although I will finally get some real experience away from Labtronics, which is what I need.

I guess I will go and talk it over with my manager today, to let him know that I am going for a job interview, since he is going to have to hire a replacement.

Well, wish me luck.

Oh yeah, I have also heard that they aren't a great place to work, so I guess we will see what kind of vibe I get while I am there.

Here we go again...

2004-11-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

And I wonder why I have so much stress in my life..

I was just handed another project to start and release. By start, I mean write a test plan and a test outline. Then I have to follow both, and upon successful completion of both, release the project.

Now the project is similar to the last one I released, only it works with a third-party program, that I don't know how to work. This wouldn't be so bad, but there are no specifications for the stuff I am writing/testing, and there is no documentation for the third-party program.

At least I am learning what to look for in a company that I want to work for. I need a company that not only makes SOPs (standard operating procedures), but follows them. It is great that we have all these SOPs in place, but no one ever follows them. Good luck getting anyone to follow the new QC stages we want to implement. I just hope I find out the release date of this project before it is one day till it is to be released. grrr

(BTW, thanks again sweetie for the two new games, Evil Genius and C.S.I. Dark Motive. I can't wait to play them. You are the best!)

Time change in my car...

2004-11-03T14:53:00.000-05:00

As of 8:45am, this morning, I officially have the time changed in my car. (about 3 days after it was suppose to be changed)

Now you would think that setting the time would be simple, especially when you have three buttons in your car that say [H] for hour, [M] for minute, and [Set], for what I thought was set. So I tried every possible combination with these three buttons. I tried with the radio on, with the radio off, with the clock on, and with the clock off. None of these worked. I got frustrated and decided that I had had enough, and actually got out the owner's manual. Well I skimmed through the section on the radio, but didn't see anything about it. So I checked the appendix, where there was a reference to Clock, it was the clock that my car doesn't have. I decided to read the section on the radio, word for word. What do you know, there was no mention of these buttons, and no mention on how to change the time. Stupid Toyota. You would think that they would mention it somewhere, instead of assuming that everyone would figure it out. I mean I have a computer science degree, and I couldn't figure it out. I decided that the internet would be the next logical place to look, but there was no help on the internet, on or off the Toyota site. So after about 2 hours of looking, and thinking that my clock would be wrong for about 6 months, I emailed Toyota, to see if someone there could help me.

This morning, I decided to give it another shot, and had a great thought. Maybe I have to press the button that turns the clock on and off, and the set button before I could change the time. After some messing around, I noticed that I had changed the minutes, instead of the hour. After a few more button pressing, and holding random buttons, I got the hours to change, by what I thought was holding the clock, set, and hour buttons all together. So I tried to do the minutes, but every time I tried to change the minutes, they would just change back to 00. After about 5 minutes of this, I finally realized, that Set wasn't for Set at all. It was for RESET. Why the heck do I need a button that resets the minutes to 00? Oh well, at least the time is now correct in my car, lets just hope I remember this for Spring Forward.

Winter time officially

2004-11-02T23:21:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, we turned the time back. This is a nice thing in theory,
I got an hour more of sleep, but lets think of what a pain it is to actually
turn back the clocks. First of all you have to turn them back. How many
people actually remember how to change all the pieces of technology they
have? Ok, so the only thing that I don't know how to change is the clock in
my car. This isn't too much of a pain, since the owner's manual is always
in the car. Now that all the clocks have been set back. Think about the
poor people who were at work Saturday night at 2am, when the time officially
changes. I'm not sure how this works everywhere, but I remember last year
when we were working, our shift ended at 3am, but since the time changed at
2am, we had to stay an extra hour. Like working till 3am isn't bad enough.

Now my main cause for concern is that I just walked passed the door, and it
is already getting dark out. It is going to be dark by the time I get home.
Now I don't know about you, but when it is dark out, I don't really feel
like doing much of anything. This is going to be a struggle to actually get
to the gym now. Now earlier nights, mean earlier mornings. This is also a
pain, I don't want it bright out when I get up. I was enjoying the fact
that it was just light enough to see some of my backyard by the time I made
it down stairs for breakfast. Now it is this light out before I am even out
of bed. GRR. At least I now have curtains, so I don't really have to worry
about the sun in my eyes in the morning.

I think the worst part of this whole "Turning back the clocks" is that we
will eventually have to turn the forward an hour. Why can't we just leave
them alone? We have Leap Years to adjust for the fact that a year is
actually 365.25 days long, why mess with the time too.

Why does only MOST of Canada have to do this? I know the changing of the
clocks had something to do with the war, but really, are we in the middle of
a war? Not really. Stupid Bush. I don't think it is fair that
Saskatchewan doesn't have to move their clocks. Maybe I should move there.
:)

Well this is my little rant about the changing of the clocks. Where most
people welcome the extra hour, I can just hear them now complaining about 6
months from now, when the world takes that hour back. I say, you can keep
your extra hour, it only messes me up anyway.

Wisdom tooth removal

2004-10-27T10:33:00.000-04:00

This was a piece of cake, I don't know why I was so worried. It will be two
weeks tomorrow since I had my wisdom tooth removed, and today I woke up and
don't have any pain in that area at all. There is still some minor swelling
in my cheeks and in my mouth, but there is no more pain. YAY

The Gym

2004-10-25T14:22:00.000-04:00

So tonight, I am heading back to the gym after not going for about 3 weeks.
I have had a lot of stuff to do, plus felt like crap because of my teeth. I
didn't actually expect to be off this long, but I guess these things happen.
I am a little nervous about going back, since I was struggling with the
weights I was working with before I left, and now I have to go back, and
work back up to them. I am going to be so sore tomorrow. Oh well, in the
long run, it will be worth it. :) I have decided that I am going to hit
the gym 4 times this week, maybe that will work out better, then trying to
push myself in 3 days, I can get back to where I was quicker. I don't ever
want to be away from the gym this long again.

Wisdom Tooth Update

2004-10-25T12:08:00.000-04:00

Since I haven't been online for what seems like forever, I thought I would
post a little update about how my teeth are doing. Well the throbbing has
stopped, and I don't feel dizzy anymore. YAY. I am now able to eat on
that side, and the pain is very minimal. There is still some swelling in my
face, and in that area in my mouth, but it is getting better.

I should be back to normal by the end of this week, I think.

Graduation

2004-10-25T01:40:00.000-04:00

This weekend I attended J.'s graduation. See his post here. Congratulations. As I was waiting for it to begin, I was reading the program, and they had some of the history behind the hoods worn at graduation. So I have decided to include some of the information about graduation here, as I didn't know most of this, and thought someone else might find it interesting.

I will include it here once I can get my hands on that program. I left it at J.'s place. If you really want to know more, check out this site, but keep in mind this is an American site, and not all of it applies here in Canada.

This is what I get

2004-10-21T12:08:00.000-04:00

This is what I get for complaining about the amount of work I have to do,
and also how much time I have to do it in. I am now at the boring part of
my job... waiting for other people. Now everything that I wrote needs to be
check bo other people. I am now left will little to do.

Work... arg

2004-10-21T11:08:00.000-04:00

You know, it's days like this that I really enjoy my work...

I have been working on a test outline and a test plan for a product that is
to be released soon. How soon you ask? Well this morning I get a message
saying that it is to be released today. TODAY??? Are they serious? Not
only do I still have to finish the test plan and test outline (plus get them
both reviewed and accepted by two other people), but I have to actually do
the test plan. I am also helping with the manual, writing part of it and
getting screen shots.

What a crazy day this is going to be. Maybe someone should have mentioned a
little sooner that it is crunch time. Again, things are left to the last
minute.

You might be wondering why I am writing in my blog when I should be working
on my work (the real world sucks some times), but I really don't feel well,
the needed a little break. Plus I am sending this by email, so I don't have
to actually spend the time to log in and write it.

Back to work >: I

My skills of B.S.

2004-10-20T11:47:00.000-04:00

Back in school, there were times when I had to write stuff that I didn't
know too much about. I learned quickly that if you use common sense, and a
little B.S., that you can usually get close to, if not the correct answer.
I know this does not always work, but most of the time it seems to.

So at work I have been working on some documentation for a program that I
will/have been testing. I keep getting these files from apps (who don't
know how to write much detail), and I am suppose to add more detail. The
big problem is, is that I don't know how to use this stuff, and I am writing
the manual. LOL It wouldn't be so bad if I had some specs or something to
work from, but for some reason there doesn't seem to be any for this
project.

Oh well... back to my b.s.ing

Broken

2004-10-18T22:26:00.000-04:00

~ Seether feat. Amy Lee ~

I wanted to know, I love the way you laugh
I want to hold you high, and steal your pain away
I keep your photograph, and I know it serves me well
I want to hold you high, and steal your pain.

'Coz I'm broken, when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away.

You gotta win, you don't feel me anymore.

The worst is over now, and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, and steal my pain away
There is so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high, and steal your pain.

'Coz Im broken, when I'm open
And I feel like that I'm strong enough
'Coz I'm broken, when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away.

'Coz I'm broken, when I'm open
And I don't feel like that I'm strong enough
'Coz I'm broken, when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away.

'Coz I'm broken, when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away.

'Coz I'm broken, when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone.

You gotta win, you don't feel me anymore.

Ouch

2004-10-16T11:39:00.000-04:00

It has been about 48 hours since I have my wisdom tooth removed, and it sucks!! I think I slept on that side last night, because when I woke up this morning I was in a great deal of pain. My face is also starting to bruise slightly. I guess it surves me right, because I pushed myself yet again, and was eating before I probably should have been. Guess it's back to eating mashed potatoes and stuff like that.

Back Online

2004-10-15T22:47:00.000-04:00

Well the surgery couldn't have gone any better. Yesterday and today, I have felt very little pain from my tooth. I am so glad. It is still hard to eat some foods, like the pizza we had for dinner, but I just eat very small pieces making sure they stay only to one side. I am really glad that I only had one tooth removed, or the whole eating thing would have been hard. I washed for the first time with the salt water after dinner tonight, that was rotten. It didn't taste that great, but there was no stinging.

My mom's friend Linda came over tonight, and I found out that her daughter went to the same oral surgeon to get her wisdom teeth out, that I went to. So she told her mom to bring me Turtles ice cream to make me feel better. :) Thanks Gwen.

As you can see, I am finally back online. It only took us 15 days to get the internet up and running here (still hate Bell). At least I will be online more now.

Tomorrow...

2004-10-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

I go in for my wisdom tooth tomorrow. I'm not really sure how I feel about this, I have heard a lot more bad stories than good stories from other people. I guess it won't be too bad, since it is only 1 tooth, I just don't know what to expect after the surgery. I have decided to take Friday off of work, just in case I am not feeling too well or just to have another day off. :)

I guess I won't get to let everyone know how I am doing till Monday, since we still don't have internet at home, and the only place I can access it is at work.

Let the fight continue

2004-10-12T08:52:00.000-04:00

When my mom was on the phone last with Bell, they told us that they would be turning on our internet on Friday (Oct. 8th). So when I got home on Friday, I was excited to finally have the internet. I know it has only been a week, but you try not having the internet for a week, or at least only being able to use it for 30 min. a day. I was not happy with the news I got when I got home, there was still no internet. Apparently they don't offer it in our area yet, and there is a waiting list to turn it on. The girl says it can take anywhere from 2 days to a couple of weeks, but less than a month (even though she couldn't guarantee that, just trying to keep a customer). So we are thinking of going with the internet providers they had in the house before (can't remember their name). Hopefully they can get us up and running sometime before Christmas.

My Fight Against Bell Canada

2004-10-07T14:03:00.000-04:00

I have decided, over the past several months, that I am going to boycot Bell Canada. I would encourage you all to do the same.

There have been several events over the past several months which include Sympatico, Solo, and their Phone service. It is more of a complaint about their customer service, than the actual service they offer. Once you eventually get the service in your home and working, it seems to be ok, but it's getting it to that point that seems to be the trouble. (I will be making comparisons between Bell and other services that I/my family have used in the past)

Lets start back when my mom got her cell phone. Bell had a special package deal on, a cheap phone and have it activated for about $50 (I think). This phone is activated on the Solo network, the pay as you go, which is what my mom wanted. Well the phone was a peice of crap, no suprise, but my mom kept it for quite a while before heading back to Bell to get a new cell phone. Remembering how easy it was for me to get a new phone with Telus, I am also on the pay as you go plan. Bell on the other hand was a lot more work. They didn't have any cheap phones, which is good, because I didn't want to do this again. You could only get a discount on a phone if you got a contract. This is the same as any other company, but since my mom hadn't used her phone for a couple of years, the $10 she put on once a month added up to about $200. If she had switched to a plan, she would have lost all of this money. So my mom bought the cheapest phone that they had, which is actually a good little phone and she really enjoys it. Then comes the difficult part. Since she is not on a plan, buying a new phone is considered an "upgrade", and she had to pay for this upgrade. Also, with "upgrades", you have to change the phone number, for some reason she couldn't keep the same number. The problem with changing numbers, is it is also changing accounts, so we had to fight for my mom to keep her minutes. She had already fought with 310-Bell, and it was suppose to be on her account, but it wasn't listed that she was to keep her minutes. So again we had to fight them in the store to keep the minutes. What a battle. My mom has decided that she will be switching to Telus as soon as she runs out of minutes (who knows when that will be). Also I get free call display, free voice mail 3, and some other free system. My mom gets nothing free. Another reason why I like Telus better. Can you tell I like my cell phone, and the service I get for it?

Most of you know that we recently moved, well the problem with our house is that we can't get Rogers there, so we had to go with Bell. Now up until this point my parents have had both the tv and the internet with Rogers, and have had mostly positive things to say about them. They even came over and tweaked our internet so that we could get higher speeds. I have used Bell for the internet and phone, and haven't had too much trouble with them in the past, but this time around, it has seem to be a pain just to get the internet and tv into our home.

The people that owned our house before us, had Bell Express Vu, and when they moved out left us their satalite. Since we really didn't have a coice, we decided that we would get Bell Express Vu as well. Now since we already had the satalite on the house, you would think this would be easy to setup. Wrong... we have two tv's, and two places to setup receivers, so we decided to get the two receivers. When my mom went in to the store to purchase it all, she was told that they had a bundle that comes with two receivers, and since we were new clients we had to get a new satalite dish as well. My mom was also going to get them to come in a setup the satalite, but couldn't get this setup, because the store needed the bar code numbers from the receivers to put in the order. Since they didn't have any of the bundles in stock they were going to order them. After two weeks, I think, mom headed back to the store to see if they had come in yet, and was told that they didn't have such a bundle. We later got a call to tell us that we could purchase the new receiver and dish, and a refurbished receiver as a bundle. My mom did the smart thing and just headed up to Powerline (where the previous owners of the house got theres), and bought everything she needed. The guy at Powerline said that we didn't need to hire anyone, we just had to plug it in, and call Bell to activate it. He was right. It took me about 15 min. to have the first receiver all setup and running. I saved my parents $100.

The phone was a little bit of a problem too, but this could have been from miscommunication. We were originally moving on the first, so we called Bell to have it switched over on the first. We then decided to move on the second instead of the first, but at this point decided to leave the phone being switched on the first. Later we found out that the previous owners of the new house wasn't turning their's off till the first, so we called Bell and told them to switch it on the second. Well this turned into them turning our old phone off at 12:01am on the first, and they were going to turn the other one on on the second. So shortly after we realized this, we called them to get them to turn it back on in the old house for the day. On the second we actually didn't have a phone till after lunch, because they don't turn the new one on at 12:01am but more like 12:01pm.

So the only thing we have left to do is get the internet working. When my mom was in the store trying to get the receivers the first time, she bought the starter kit for the internet, which doesn't include the modem or anything really, just a free month of service for $34.99 (I think). With Bell, unlike Rogers, they mail you your new modem. My mom decided to get it shipped to work, because it was suppose to be coming the week after she bought the kit. What they really ment was that they wouldn't mail it till our new phone line was setup, on the second, which is a Saturday, so it actually wasn't mailed till the 4th (Monday). The guy at Bell told my mom that she could use the 10 hours of dial up that we get free every month, until that comes in, failing to mention that we still need a modem for that. So yesterday, while I was in Waterloo, the modem actually came and my mom tried to set it up herself. It's not that hard, and I'm sure she could have done it. So she installed all the software, and plugged in the modem, but nothing was happening. After some time fiddleing with the modem, she called Bell. It turns out that they aren't actually turning on our internet till Friday. They don't turn it on till you get the modem, which is not what they told my mom. So sometime tomorrow we should be able to get onto the internet, provided they sent up the correct modem. I will have to check it out when I get home from work tonight.

Well this is my little rant on Bell and their customer service. Keep in mind that once all of these products were intstalled/setup by me (no help from Bell), everything worked as expected (well everything except the internet, because we haven't had that turned on yet.

So I am starting a boycot against Bell. If you have Bell products, consider switching. The only way they are going to learn that they have competition is if we all decided to leave, and tell them exactly why.

Here are some alternatives to Bell:

Internet
Rogers Highspeed
Net Zero Dialup
Telus Highspeed

Phone
Sprint Canada

Cell Phone
Telus Mobility
Rogers
Fido

Television
Rogers Cable
Rogers Digital Cable

If you are stuck with Bell, as I am, I wish you much luck.

Unpacking (the start)

2004-10-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

Today was also productive for me. I took the wine glass holders out of the liquor cabinet in the dinning room, put together the entertainment center in the basement (including setting up the satellite), took the border off Mark's room, and unpacked the clothes that belong in my dresser, which is in the hall. Ok, so that's not that productive, but there really wasn't much else to do. Oh yeah, then I finished my jewelry box from Ikea. There are 72 nails holding this thing together, and on one of the last nails, I managed to hit my thumb, so it is a little sore now. Also my ankle is quite sore, I managed to hurt it on Wednesday, and I'm not too sure what I did, but on Saturday it was killing me, and today isn't any better, so I have it wrapped to keep it from hurting so much.

My grandparents came over today, to check out the house, and my grandmother just loved it. She thought it was beautiful, a little big, but still nice. The only thing she had a comment about was that we really didn't have a front hall closet, which is true. We have one that is in the laundry room, off the garage, and one in the middle of the house. My grandfather on the other had, I don't think he liked it at all. Oh well, doesn't bother us any.

There is still a lot to do in the two bed rooms, and they have to get finished soon, because my dad's office is filled with my brother's boxes, and my clothes, plus all of his office stuff. He isn't too worried about it, since we don't have the internet yet. Without the internet, there is really no reason why he would use his computer. So there are only 4 things I have left to do to the rooms. I have to patch all of the holes in the walls, which is a lot. I have to sand the walls. My room has splattered paint on the top half, and my brothers has glue on the wall and in the closet. Then comes priming and painting. I think I will end up doing two coats of each, just to cover the walls well, since we are painting a soft blue in both of them. The only problem is, is that I can't start actually painting till next week, unless I take a day off work, because you can't paint at night. I am also painting in the closets, which I think is a little strange, but that's what my mother wants. So it looks like I won't be moving into my room for about a week to a week and a half. I will be bringing home one of my boxes tomorrow, since it can all go into my bathroom, I don't have to worry about moving any of it to paint. So by then end of today, we are mostly unpacked. Really the only things that we have left to do are the two bedrooms upstairs, and my dad's workshop, which he has to build first.

Moving Day

2004-10-02T23:30:00.000-04:00

The movers arrived at about 8:15am to start packing the truck. They had said, while they were loading our stuff, that ours was well organized and neat. The house that they had done on Friday was a disaster, most of the stuff wasn't in boxes. Our stuff was all packed by the time they got there. The only things we had left to do was to take apart the beds. Around 10am, my and I headed over to Rogers to drop off our modem. They don't have Rogers out at the new house, so we had to go with Bell. Let me tell you, if you have a choice between the two, go with Rogers, they have way better customer service. We got there a little early, and they hadn't opened yet, so we headed over to Williams and had a muffin. After dropping off the modem, we headed back to the old house to see how close they were to being done. There wasn't really much for us to do, since the movers did everything. They had these really neat boxes to put the clothes in, still on the hangers. I have a shirt that says "Princess" on it, and as one of the movers was packing up my clothes, he saw it. He thought it was cute, and decided he would call me princess the rest of the day. It was quite embarrassing. They were almost done packing, so dad told us to head to the new house to start unpacking what we had dropped off the night before. We had all of the kitchen boxes unpacked before they even got to the house, the movers stopped for lunch. The truck was done around 3pm, which isn't too bad for moving a whole house. Since I don't get to move any of my stuff into the house yet, I helped everyone else unpack. I even set up the tv, and got the satellite working. The reason why I don't get to move into my house yet, is because we are painting it and my brother's room. They are both painted dark blue from the middle down, and white on the top. They both had borders around the room. The border in Mark's room was nice, so I kept the big pieces that I pulled off. By the time I got to doing my room, I was beat, so I didn't get to Mark's room. Plus I went and picked him up from work.

Packing Day

2004-10-01T21:11:00.001-04:00

Moving weekend really started Friday night. My parents plan was to move some of the more breakable stuff over to the house during the day, and after I got home from work we would make one more trip and leave my car there, because we really didn't need 3 cars with us. When I got home from work, I was suppressed to see that my parents hadn't taken anything over to the house yet. The previous owners (which they were on Friday) hadn't finished moving out by 3pm when my parents had headed over with two car loads. So they just dropped it off in the garage, and walked around in the back for a bit. So when I got home we packed up the truck and the two cars with more breakable stuff, kitchen stuff and the computers, and headed over to our new house. I hadn't really gotten to see much of the house the last time I was there, so I got to take a look around before we headed back to the old house to sleep for the last time.