Papercraft

Papercrafting (the art of making 3D objects out of paper)has become my newest addiction. I discovered it a couple years ago with a YouTube video of a papercraft dragon you can make, and when viewed correctly it appears that it's eyes are following you. It was really easy to make, and once I made it, I wanted to find other papercraft to make. I discovered a site called RavensBlight. The webpage is based around a fictitious town, and has pictures ans artwork from the site creator, as well as some papercraft toys. The town is a horror inspired town, with characters like zombies, vampires, werewolves, and all the usual type of characters you'd expect. I made a few of the papercraft from that site, but they weren't that complex to make (except the SlaughterBot, which had movable and changeable parts), so I continued my search for more sites. Here's a picture of the SlaughterBot:


I then came across the ReadyMech site, which featured about 20 different papercraft models. Generally though, they all had a very similar design to them, and they were very easy to make.

After doing some more searching around, I hit the jackpot with CustomPaperToys, a blog about papercraft, with models created by the owner of the blog, as well as many links to other papercraft sites and blogs. These papercraft models weren't just box characters, but were all different. Among them are characters like Igor, Princess Kitty, Owwwl and Buck Shot:




From that site, I discovered many, many other papercraft sites and blogs.

One of the sites I discovered was Ninjatoes. The models on this site are all based after video games, or cartoons. The models are more complex than the other ones I've been doing, but I wanted to try something different. I decided to start off and try the Indiana Jones model. It was harder, and took longer than all the other ones I had made, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The instructions of the Ninjatoes' models are really done well. Instead of step by step text, with a few diagrams, its actual pictures of how to put it together, with accompanying text to explain certain things. Here are some picture on my Indy model, during construction and the completed model.



You can't really see it that great, but the third picture is the model next to a 12 inch ruler, showing how tall the model is. It's actual height is 13.5 inches tall. This is by far my favorite model I've made so far.I've just started another model from Ninjatoes; Young Link, from the game 'The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask'. So far, I only have his head finished, but here's how it looks so far (unfortunately, I'm still not that great at hiding the white parts on the joins, and you can see all the areas that where folds are made):


Because it's almost Christmas time, I decided to look for some Christmas papercraft models to make. Most of the ones I found were very boxy, or were models I had already made, but with a Santa skin instead of the regular one. Then I found this cute model of Santa, Rudolph and his sleigh. It came as three separate models that can be put together. Unfortunately, the site and instructions were in Japanese, but I still got it figured out, and I think it turned out alright.


I am constantly checking out all the pages I've used before for new web sites, and new papercraft models to make. Maybe one of these days I'll take a stab at making one of the papercraft model cities I've found that include roads, buildings, landmarks, building and even the people that live in the city. My only problem is that I'm quickly running out of room to display all of my models.

The devil hates Christmas

That's right, the devil is still inside our little kitten, and this time it's attention has turned to ruining Christmas for everyone. Well, not quite everyone, just Amanda and I. Amanda was getting ready to head out this morning (I had already left for work) when she heard a crash, and then another. She went to investigate, and discovered our Christmas tree (a small fake one, located on a table in the living room) lying on the floor, with ornaments scattered around, and one of her small plants, with soil and broken plate fragments scattered around it. She sprayed Pixie with the spray bottle we keep around just or occasions like this, but Pixie decided she wanted to play instead of being punished, so she started hiding as if to do sneak attacks, and playing with the ornaments and stuff. Amanda was not pleased, and neither was I when I heard about it. Neither of us have paid much attention to her tonight (except me telling her she was a bad kitten when I got home) in the hopes that she will learn her lesson. She probably wont, but we'll try to teach it to her anyways.

WTF??

So I was all excited to go back to work after the holidays (I know, the holidays haven't even started yet) because I was going to have a new office, with a desk!! No more workbench that I have to share with a server, a switch, countless cables and random computers that I'm working on. It was going to be great!! I wouldn't have to fight my way through caffeine starved co-workers to get into my office, or listen to their conversations about the latest episode of ER or American Idol. Sure, I would be loosing the fridge conveniently located right outside my current "office" but it would be worth it. But then today, all my dreams were smashed into tiny pieces (about the same size as my work area on the workbench actually) when I found out that the renovations weren't going to happen over the Christmas break, if they ever actually do happen at all. The reason: managers. In one of their manager meetings, they decided to skip the renovations happening in the building, and do them at a later date. When is that later date? No one knows. Matt and I don't know the exact reason it's not happening, but we both aren't happy. I also found out today that we are getting a new server in tomorrow, which is awesome, except that I have to share my workbench with it. Great, even less room for me now! So now all I have to look forward to when I get back from holidays is a smaller work area, and my 5 foot tall chair that I need to jump up to get on, all because of the workbench, which is meant to be used while standing. At least the fridge will stay outside my office for awhile longer now.

Food has never tasted so good, as when it's fully cooked properly!

Eight. That's the number of months Amanda and I have been cooking on a stove that doesn't work properly.

Twenty. That's the number of minutes it would take to boil water on the stove that's already pre-boiled in the kettle.

Three. That's the number of work orders we've gotten to try to fix the stove.

Ten. Thant's the number of minutes it now takes to boil water from the tap.

Those are just some of the crazy stats about our stove. Now, here's the story;

When Amanda and I moved into our apartment in May of this year, we noticed the stove wasn't quite working upto par. So we setup a work order for them to fix it. They came up the next day and replaced the elements on top. Great, that should fix it (at least the burners on top). But no, it didn't do anything except give us clean elements. Nothing much else was done for awhile after that, because the office is open 8:30 - 4:30, and Amanda and I are usually out of the apartment working and going to school, so it was very hard to go back and complain. Finally one day when Amanda was down at the office taking care of some other business, she mentioned again that our stove wasn't working. This time though, we didn't hear anything back from them. Once again, school and work took precedence over going down to the office to get our stove fixed, so nothing happened for awhile. Then on Tuesday, Amanda had some time (now that she's done her practicum) to go visit them again, and get another work order. They said they would be up that afternoon, but didn't come up until yesterday afternoon. And lo and behold, we now have a working stove! Al they have written on the work order is that they fixed the wiring. What was wrong before (I believe) is that the bottom element in the stove wasn't working. This was confirmed when Amanda was preheating the over for dinner, and all the stuff that we had spilled before was burning off of the element. A little later on, I took over making dinner, and while I was waiting for the water to boil, I heard a funny noise, and smelt a funny smell coming from the kitchen. I soon discovered that the wrong element was turned on, and instead of boiling water, I was melting our plastic tongs that were sitting on the stove! I rescued them before they melted all the way through, but not before a large chunk had melted off. So now we can start following directions on food, instead of making up our own times, and hoping we don't burn/undercook it! Now, we should probably start doing something about our leaking fridge...

Tomlinson Christmas Party

Every year around the beginning of December, Tomlinsons throws a big fancy Christmas party at the Centurion Center (a conference center/banquet hall that they own). This years party was on Saturday. It was lots of fun. The party is for all employees of Tomlinsons, so there was about 500-600 people there. They had an open bar with beer, coolers, liquor juice and pop (nothing too fancy, but still good stuff) which was only closed once at the beginning of dinner, which caused a slight panic at my table, as we were out of drinks! Dinner was amazing! It started with meat and veggie cannelloni, followed by a spinach, mandarin and pecan salad with some weird poppyseed dressing. Then came the main course: veal t-bones. I had heard ahead of time we were having veal, so I was expecting a thin, half centimeter thick piece of veal, but was quite surprised when they came with a fill inch thick t-bone! And it was delicious! Angie wasn't too impressed that it was veal, so she didn't eat hers, and gave it to me instead. Dessert, I wasn't to happy with. It was an apple pastry concoction, with chocolate, raspberry and caramel sauce. The display was nice, because they put it on square plates, and made it look like it was a wrapped present, very clever. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of cooked apple products. After that they brought out a band (not sure who they were) and had some disco lights going. The band was different. They played a mix of rock, country and Latin music. By 11:30 the girls had had enough of the weird music, and we left. So overall, it was a great night. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures (I think I got about 5 of our table) of the event because the batteries died in my camera died.

Pixie, the amazing escape artist

Just as I suspected might happen yesterday, Pixie got out of her collar by the time I got home. I was going to put it back on her, but she really didn't want it back on. At least now she seems her regular self again, except for her shaved belly.

Pixie, the radar kitten.

Pixie has become a miniature radar, and she hates it! She was sent to the vets on Monday to get fixed, and I picked her up last night. Because she now has two stitches in her belly, she has to wear an 'e-collar', which is the professional term for the cone, to stop her from licking the cut, and possibly taking out the stitches. She was not happy when I picked her up (she doesn't like being in her carry cage) and was even less happy riding home in the Jeep (which is very bumpy) from North Gower. I then found out that she was so unhappy for part of the trip, because she needed to use the little kittens room. As soon as I let her out of her cage, she immediately went in search of the litter box.

The vets told us that we needed to keep her in a confined space, with no running or jumping for 14 days! I don't think that it's possible at all for a kitten not to run and jump. I kept her in the bathroom for the evening while Amanda I were out for the evening, and I felt really bad leaving her in there, cause we have a really small bathroom. When we got home, we let her out and I proceeded to make fun of her and lots of pictures, just because she looks so funny!

It's really funny watching her trying to get into an area she normally can get into, but can't now because of the cone. She will try, then walk around in a circle and try again. Eventually she'll give up, only to return later and try again! Sometimes she can into small spots (like in between the couches, or behind the toilet) but then can't turn around, so she has to back out. I think she's a little depressed also, cause sometimes we'll find her just sitting on her hind legs, with her head held down a bit (either cause she's depressed, or cause the cone is heavy for her). She'll just sit there like that, ignoring our calls, not even looking at us, until we go over and pick her up.

I was actually surprised this morning when we woke up and she still had the cone on! I figured she would have either found some way to wiggle out of it, or it would have gotten caught on something while she was running around all night and ripped off of her. I'll be even more impressed if it stays on all day of her being alone.

Here are some shots of how funny/pathetic she looks:

Want a Wii

I've kinda wanted a Wii for awhile, cause they look fun, but I had never actually used one (let alone seen one for sale anywhere!) until the other night. We went to a pot-luck dinner for Tricia (from Amanda's lab) because she got a new job and was leaving the lab. After dinner we watched some of the hockey game, then we got out the Wii. It was awesome! We played Wii sports bowling and tennis. The bowling was fun and pretty easy, but the tennis was a bit harder trying to figure out when to hit the ball. After finally playing one, I now really want one. If only I could find one for sale somewhere...

Snow!

I woke up to a big surprise this morning. When I looked out the window, all I saw was white! It was snowing!! A lot! And not just little snowflakes, but big fluffy ones. It had obviously been snowing for awhile, because there was lots on the ground. I was excited, cause I have fun driving in the snow with my Jeep. I had to go down to the quarry first thing when I got to work, so I had some fun driving around there (making sure no big trucks were around of course). They're calling for more snow this afternoon and tomorow morning. I can't wait!!

Concert Friday, kids Saturday, pool party Sunday

Back in August I was looking at the Scotiabank web page and saw that Fall Out Boy was coming to town in November. I got really excited, and was hoping that work would get tickets for the box. Two weeks before the concert I sent an e-mail upto Nancy (she does all the draws for the tickets) asking if she knew if we had the box for that concert. She replied saying that she didn't know yet, and she would send out the usual e-mail if we did. The next day she sent out an e-mail saying we had tickets for Fall out Boy!! I put my name in right away, and couldn't wait till Monday to see if I had got them. Monday came around, and I got the tickets! Then later in the week, Angie didn't want her tickets, so she offered them to me, and I invited Cat and Jeff. We got there around 7, and I was surprised to see that the box had changed since last time I was there. They had completely renovated the inside. It looks way fancier now, and has a bigger fridge for drinks! The concert started off with Cute Is What We Aim For, a band I had never heard of. They were actually really good. Next up was Plain White T's, a band that I like. They were really good also. At the end of their set, I got a Plain White T's t-shirt (surprisingly enough, it wasn't that plain, but it was white) and a Fall Out Boy one also. Then Fall Out Boy came on, after a lot of stage prepping. The tour was called 'The Young Wild Things Tour', and the artwork used on stage was from the 'Where The Wild Things Are' children's book, but with the band members faces edited into the regular characters bodies. It was very well done. They had videos for every song they played, the majority of which were based on the Wild Things theme, and even one involving Happy Tree Friends (a very morbid internet cartoon that involves cute cuddly forest critters meeting horrible deaths while doing everyday activities. Check their site out if your curious, but not if you have a weak stomach www.happytreefriends.com). The videos didn't really have anything to do with the songs at all, but they were still good. I have some pics and video of it that I'll post later. After the concert we went to McDonald's for dinner, then headed home.

Saturday morning I drove Amanda to a math teachers conference at Ottawa U. I then went home and did laundry, then went back to pick her up from the conference later. We did a bit of shopping in the new shopping area close to our apartment called the Ottawa Train Yards. It's mainly womens clothing stores, with a few other stores thrown in (like a shoe store, an eyeglasses store, a golf store, a dollar store and a Subway). Later in the evening Angie dropped off her two kids for the night while she and Robin went to the Bon Jovi concert. We did usual babysitting stuff with them: watched TV, played games, ate pizza for dinner and pancakes for breakfast. I think they had a good time, and they were well behaved, but one night is enough for awhile.

Sunday we watched more TV with the kids, then I went a returned a DVD player I got a couple weeks ago that suddenly stopped working. I also finally picked up some new wipers for the Jeep, and some new headlights, after they both died on me last Friday night night coming home form work (well, not both at once. One was already dead from a couple weeks ago, I've just been too lazy to fix it). After I got home, we got ready to head out to a birthday gathering for Amanda's thesis prof Jeff. A bunch of people from the lab met at Doleys to play pool. There ended up being about 15 people show up, so we got a few tables going, and had a great time. After that, a couple of us went to the Keg for a birthday dinner for Jeff. It was great! I had the prime rib classic, with cheesy ranch garlic mashed potatoes and a caesar salad. I'd never had prime rib before, and it was delicious! After dinner we went to Jeff and Sabrina's place for some delicious ice cream cake!Yum! After that we went home and watched more TV.

So I think this weekend coming up might be the first weekend in awhile where we don't have anything planned. No...wait......never mind, I forgot, it's games night time! Our once a month get together where we play various board or card games. It's always a fun time!

Disaster at work!

Apparently this morning there was a huge disaster at the office. When the first people came in to work, the coffee machine wasn't working! We had a few problems with it yesterday, when it would just start pumping out hot water for no reason, thus leaving the coffee in the pot watered down and crappy tasting. Somebody came it to 'fix' it, but they didn't really. It was working fine for the afternoon, but apparently died over night. They decided this morning that the guys back in the garage didn't need coffee as much as the office workers, so we stole their coffee machine. They weren't pleased at all, but as somebody said; 'I'd rather see 8 guys without coffee, than 25 people without coffee.' That is very true, especially since some of these people get very irate when coffee hasn't been made for awhile, and they need to wait 5 minutes for a fresh batch to be made. The repair guy was just in again, and instead of trying to fix the machine, he just brought a new one. Order has been restored to the office once more, but for how long?

Pixie, the mischievous devil kitten

Yes, Pixie is still the devil, but he must be getting bored inside the body of a cute little kitten. When we came home from Kingston on Saturday, we searched around for her, but couldn't find her. We started getting worried, but then she started to meow. It was coming from the bedroom, but as much as we looked, she couldn't be found! Amanda finally tracked the scared meowing to inside the bed. At first I thought she meant like under the covers or something, but no, Pixie was inside the bed! As soon as she knew we found her, she switched from scared little kitten, to crazy playful kitten, and started playing with us running our hands over the box spring. She had either made a hole herself, or found an existing hole on the bottom of the box spring, and climbed up inside. Amanda was freaking out, and was ready to cut the whole thing open to get her out, but I decided to look for the hole, and try to get her out that way. I found the hole pretty close to the edge of the bed, and put my hand up, which was immediately attacked by Pixie. She continued to play with my hand while I tried to grab her, with no luck. Amanda discovered a few days before that she likes treats now (she wouldn't eat them when we first got her, but that might have been because of the cold she had), so I got her to grab them from the kitchen. I once again stuck my hand up (which was again attacked) into the hole, but this time with a treat for her.I let her smell it, and try to eat it, but I slowly pulled my hand out the hole, and she followed. It was kinda disturbing watching her come out the small hole, cause it looked like the bed was giving birth to our kitten! Amanda had a talking with her to never go in there again, but I doubt it will work, so now every time we leave for the day, we make sure the bedroom door is closed. That now leaves her the kitchen, living room, bathroom and hall to run around in.

Then, last night we couldn't find her again, until I looked in the bathroom. There she was, sleeping in th sink! She just lay there looking at me, being super cute, so I had to take some pictures! Here's one of them. Isn't she super cute? It's hard to believe the devil lives inside there.
This morning, the devil came back, and hid the cuteness away. At around 6:30 we woke up to a crash. I immediately knew it was Pixie, so I went into the kitchen to investigate. Last night we had pork chops, that I cooked in a glass dish in the oven. Amanda was busy with school work last night, so she soaked the dishes, leaving the glass dish on the counter, full of water. I guess Pixie decided that she didn't want regular water this morning, so she went for the soap and Diana Sauce flavoured water. Unfortunately, she must have gotten over eager, cause she somehow made the dish fall to the floor. Surprisingly the dish didn't break! Which is good, cause we use it a lot. It did leave a not-so-nice mess of dirty water all over the kitchen floor though, soaking out mat we have under the sink. I didn't even bother starting to clean it up yet, cause I wanted to show Pixie what she had done, and rub her face in it a bit. I didn't have to do that though, cause it looks like most of the water had landed on her, cause she now looked liked the proverbial drowned rat! I still picked her up, showed her the mess, yelled at her and threw her into it. She ran off, not to be seen for awhile ( I later discovered that she went back into the bed). I then moped up the mess, and threw the mat outside on the balcony, and went back to sleep.

She's also gotten into the habit of randomly attacking our legs. We can be walking around, not even that close to her, and she will just decide that our leg has to die! Usually its one of those 'stand on two legs and hop onto the leg' type of attacks, but sometimes she'll launch her whole body onto your leg, realize it's way to big for her, and then run off. You can never tell when she might attack, so we're always on our guard. Do they make Ritalin for kittens?

Long day on Saturday, a bit slower on Sunday.

Saturday was a really long day, but it was a fun day. We had made plans last week with Amy and Julie to go see a play in Kingston, so the day started with us heading down to Greely to meet them. We then drove (well, actually Amy drove. Thanks Amy!) to Kingston using the back roads, which I have never done. It's not that much different than taking the 401, other than you go through more towns. We got to Kingston around 12, and went to Amy's boyfriend Mark's place. We stayed there for a bit, then headed out for some lunch at Taco Bell. After lunch we went to church where the play was being performed. We didn't know that it was going to be in a church until a couple days beforehand (originally I think it was supposed to be in a theater, but something was happening with the theater, so it was moved to the church). The play we saw was 'You're a good man Charlie Brown'. I admit I was a bit unsure going into the play about how they would make a live action musical out of a comic strip, but they did a really good job! It was weird seeing Charlie Brown played by a 40 year old man though, but he did a good job. The play didn't really have a main storyline, it was more individual sketches strung together, just like a comic strip. The play was very well done, and I kinda want to find a video of the original Broadway production.

After the play, we went to Montana's for some dinner, then dropped Mark and Amy off at Mark's place, and Julie drove home (thanks Julie!). We got home around 9:30.

We then got ready, and headed over to Ottawa U, where we went to a going-away party for our friend Steph. Both Amanda and I worked with her during our Subway years, and she's going to Thailand for awhile, so we decided to go to the party. It was in the residence room of another one of our Subway friends, Jess. Other than those two, and a third Subway friend (Catriona
) there was nobody there we knew. It was still a fun time though. At one point, all the people that lived in the res room ( I think there were 4 or 5 of them) had left to go clubbing, leaving behind about 10 people, none of who lived there. We left the party around 1am and headed home for some much needed sleep.

Sunday we got to sleep in a little, and I watched a bit of T.V, but then we were off again! We went to Carleton and Amanda fed the locusts, then we went to Amanda's parents place. Once there, we headed to the Third World Bazaar with Amanda's mum. It was the final day, so it was pretty busy. It was pretty much the same stuff as always. I saw a few things that I wanted, and one thing I really wanted! It was a statue of Yoda made out of scrap iron. It was about 8 inches tall, and really neat looking! I was going to get it, but it was $150!! I think if the Bazaar wasn't closing that day, I probably would have gone back the next day to get it. I don't think Amanda was too impressed with it though. Maybe it'll be back next year.

After that we went to my parents for dinner with them and Cat and Jeff. We didn't stay too long there because Amanda was going to a choir concert later with some of the people from her lab. I drove her to that, which was downtown, then went home and did nothing. So it was a pretty busy weekend, which was nice because there wasn't a lot of sitting around thinking of something to do. On the other hand though, it was so busy that I didn't have time to the laundry like I normally do on Saturday mornings, so now I have to do it one night this week.

Party last Friday, Comedy for a Cause last night

Last Saturday Amanda and I had our first party at our new apartment. I was an awesome party! Thanks to everyone for coming out. We had about 20 some people come, which we were worried that it was going to be a tight fit getting that many people into our apartment, but it actually worked out really nice. We had a wide range of people there, from school friends, family and work people. Everybody seemed to have a good time, and we only had security come up once from a complaint. It was around 10:30, and I just happened to be near the door when the security guard knocked, so I answered it (beer in hand of course). At first I thought he was saying that the party was too loud, but finally realized that it was just out on the balcony we were being too loud. I told him I would quiet it down, and he said that the actually party didn't have to quite down until 11, cause apparently thats the noise curfew in the apartment. When he left, I realized that there hasn't really been anybody out on the balcony, except for two smokers. The funny thing is that we got louder as the night went on, but had no other complaints! Alex was kind enough to bring his Xbox 360 with him, and Guitar Hero 2, which is a fun game. I discovered that I am a horrible guitar player when I drink! Also I discovered that I really want to get an Xbox 360, and any Guitar Hero game, but I don't have the money yet because it needs to go to more important things, like rent and gas to get to work. One day though I'll get one. Pixie absolutely loved the party! She wasn't really scared at all and was out looking for attention all night long. She got tons of attention, and didn't spend much time outside of people arms. So overall the party was a ig success and nothing got broken which is always a good thing!

On Sunday we were at Amanda's parents house for dinner, and Amanda was looking through the newspaper and just happened to spot a very small blurb on a comedy event with Mike MacDonald. The name sounded really familiar, so I checked it out online on Monday, and it turns out that I've seen him a bunch of times on Just for Laughs, and a couple other shows on the Comedy Network. He was headlining an event called Comedy for a Cause, something thats been happening for the past three years. All the proceeds from the tickets go to ALS society. It was held at the Bronson Center, which I've passed many times on the street, but have never been inside. Looking online it sounded like a small shopping center, with some businesses and a theater. Walking into it, my first thought was that it was a high school. We didn't see a whole lot of it, because the theater is right in front of the main doors. There were three opening acts (four if you count the MC). The MC and two of the opening acts were good, an the third was ok. Mike kinda started out a bit slow I thought, but quickly picked it up and was putting on a great show! He was probably performing for a good hour and a half, which passed by quickly. All in all it was a very good night out for a Tuesday.

Long time no post.

So I realize that it's been quite awhile since my last post. It's not that nothing has happened for awhile, it's just that I don't always feel like writing when I get home from work, and it's sometimes hard to write at work. But today I don't have a whole lot going on at work, and I'm waiting for things to finish, so I figured I would write! It's been so long that I can't remember all the things that I've done, but I do remember some of them.

Two weekends ago, Amanda and I decided we would go downtown for dinner, and meet up with some friends later on. We took the bus, and wandered around for awhile looking for a god place to eat. We decided on a Shawarma place that I don't remember where it is. We got a dinner plate which included a shawarma, roast potatoes and a drink. It was very good! After that we wandered some more, and then went to Oh So Good (a dessert place we were introduced to by Yemisi. Read about it in my previous post about that night). It was about 9 o'clock when we finished our dessert, so we called our friend to see when they were coming downtown. He told us that they would be leaving shortly. So we wandered around the market some more, and made our way to the Rideau Center for a bit. We started getting impatient around 10:45, so we called again, and they were just leaving, so he told us to meet them at the bar they were going to; the Dominion. We had never heard of it, and didn't know where it was, so we did more wandering until we found it. It's a small bar next to Bare-Fax and Clasixxx, two streets north of the Rideau Center. The bar is pretty small, and I would classify it as a punk bar. There are two pool tables as soon as you walk in, some tables, and then the bar at the back of the room. Behind the bar was a big guy, with his hair done in 5 massive spikes sticking up and a leather jackets with hundreds of spikes in it. Typical punker. It actually wasn't that bad of a place. It wasn't very crowded, as it's not a very noticeable place. We grabbed some drinks, and waited fr our friends. While waiting, we saw an old friend from elementary school. We talked to him for a bit, then continued waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally they showed up around 11:30. Then we just drank and talked and met random people, and had a good time. Getting home wasn't that fun, because it was after 1 and, like always, I forgot that the Transitway buses don't run from their usual spot, so we trecked upto the bridge, only to have to trek back down to Rideau street (the Rideau Center was closed by now, so we had to walk around it) all in the rain. Then we got to the Hurdman station, and walked to our apartment, still in the rain. It was still a fun night though.

Work has been pretty busy too. A couple weeks ago the boss decided he wanted a new laptop (nothing is wrong with his old one, it's just more than a couple years old). The criteria for the new laptop were: it had to be the best available, and no price limit. The task was given to me to look up a suitable laptop. I started by visiting the Lenovo website . The first thing I saw was the Lenovo ThinkPad Reserve; a laptop with a leather casing. Not just a leather case for it to go into, the leather was actually the case! I thought it would be perfect for him! Looking more into it, the Lenovo page didn't have much on the actual laptop, other than it was encased in leather. Looking around the net, I discovered that the actual laptop wasn't really that great.Especially not with the $5000 dollar price tag on it! Doing more research, I discovered that the price was more for the support, which was pretty impressive. You basically get one guy that's assigned to your laptop, and they help you through the initial setup, the look after scheduled maintenance and any problems you might have. Also, if your traveling to major cities around the world, and something happens to your laptop, they will get somebody to come out and take a look at it (and before they leave, they do some cleaning to the leather) within the day. Also, depending on where you are, they will fly somebody to your location just to fix the problem. This service is available 24x7. There were only 2 things stopping us from getting this laptop: it only has a 12" screen, and it's a pain to attach it to a docking station (because of the leather) and the laptop was only a little bit better than the one he already had.
Next I looked into quad-core laptops. After much searching, I discovered that they aren't available yet. The only one I found was coming out sometime next year, and would cost roughly $10,000!! It was also top of line in everything though.
After much time spent customizing laptops (both for myself, and for the boss) online, I decided to look into the Lamborghini and Ferrari laptops. I was expecting them to be similar to the Reserve; looks great, but not much else. They actually weren't bad laptops, and the price was better than the reserve ($2000-$3000). I thought surely one of these would be good for him, as he owns many nice cars. Apparently though, he doesn't like Lamborghini or Ferrari cars!
So now I had to do more searching. I headed back to the Lenovo page, went past the Reserve and looked at their regular models. I narrowed it down to two models: the ThinkPad T61p and the ThinkPad X61. They are both nice laptops, but I wasn't sure the X61 would make it, because it's more of a travelers laptop (with the small 12" screen). The choice was made, and it was for the ThinkPad T61p. The only thing wrong with it was that it came with Windows Vista. That wasn't too big of a deal because we were just going to downgrade it to Windows XP. After a couple weeks, it finally arrived, and I got to be the first to open it up. It looked just like all our other ThinkPad laptops on the outside, but it was al different on the inside. This was my first trial of Windows Vista (I've been staying away from it until the drivers issues are fixed more). We decided that we would actually try it out to see how it would work. I actually really liked it. It took a bit of getting used to at first, but then I started getting the hang of things, and was installing and testing out our software on it. I only came across one program that didn't work: VNC (software we use to remotely connect to peoples computers to fix problems). I discovered that the problem was that the free version we were using didn't support Vista, and was easily solved by buying one license. Then we tried getting the laptop on the domain, and using roaming profiles. Turns out it's not easy to do. It took us about a week to finally get it figured out, after much searching online and playing around with things. After we finally got it on the doamin, we ran into many other problems (with printers, and some more remote connection software), but two weeks after we got it, it was finally ready to be given to the boss! I haven't heard how he likes it yet, but I haven't heard any complaints either, which is always a good sign.

Well, thats all for this post, but coming up very soon is a post about the party last weekend!! I'm going to try to write more often on here when stuff happens, instead of writing about it later when I don't always remember!

Pixie is the Devil.

Seriously. The Devil is living inside of her. She went from being a super cute kitten that occasionally tried to get on the table and would kick some stuff off my desk, to a super cute Devil kitten that mauls my feet and legs in the night, and takes craps on our furniture!!

The past couple nights I have been awoken around 12-2 by Pixie 'playing' with my feet and legs through the sheet. She's decided that when I move my legs, she needs to attack them! With her claws out! I have the scratches to prove it!

Then, yesterday when I got home from work, I got a whiff of a strange smell. I thought it was because Pixie may have just used her litter box. Amanda was sleeping on the couch, so I went into the office and thought nothing more of it. Then, when dinner was ready, I decided to put a DVD on. My DVD's are near the couch, and when I went to get one, I noticed that strange smell again. Looking on the couch (with the lights off) I noticed something that was out of place. I turned the lights on, and it was a present from Pixie. I guess she had decided that the new location of her litter box was too far away from her restful spot on the couch, so she just used it instead! We have the type of cushions that have one 'button' in the middle of it, so of course that was where she placed her present. So I'm not too impressed with her right now. But she's still super cute!

Kitten has a cold

Pixie is sick. We first noticed it the first night we had her. All she was doing then was sneezing a couple times. Now she's moved away from the sneezing and into this weird hacking/coughing/trying to remove her own lung type of noise. It was really freaky when I first heard it, but we've gotten used to it now. Amanda took her to the vet on Friday to get her second set of shots, and hopefully find out what was wrong with her. The vet said that she just had a cold, and the hacking noise is her trying to get rid of the stuff she gets in her throat from trying to breath through her stuffed nose. She couldn't get her shots because of the cold, but we got some antibiotics that we have to give her twice a day. I thought it was going to be a struggle to get her to take it, but its not that bad. It's a liquid that we need to inject into her mouth with a syringe (without the needle, just the tube part). We haven't seen her spitting the medicine up yet, so it must not be too bad. The cold makes her pretty easy to find now, cause all we need to do is be quiet for a minute, and you can hear her wheezy breathing. It's not so fun holding her though, cause you never know when she might decide to clear her throat and cover you with her snot.

Other than her cold, she's doing very well. She's made herself quite at home in the apartment, and is very bold. We have to lock her in the bedroom while we have diner, cause she will jump up on the table and want to eat right off our plates! She has also taken a liking to lying on my computer desk when someone is in the office, and she has started kicking things off the desk if they are in the way of her stretching or sleeping. She's crazy, but we love her.

New Pixie pics!

I have just uploaded a bunch more pics of Pixie onto Flickr. You can check them out here. I'll probably also be adding them to Facebook, but that will have to wait until after work, when I can actually get on Facebook.

New kitten has arrived!

Well, it took some fighting, but we got our new kitten last night! I had been calling the Humane Society all afternoon to see if they had been able to get a hold of our landlord to confirm that we are allowed a cat in the apartment, but kept getting the answering machine. Amanda left school around 4:30 and decided to stop into the office at the apartment to see if they had received the call from the Humane Society. They had received the call, but told them that we aren't allowed pets in the building. This was kinda weird, because when we signed the lease, we made sure we were allowed pets (we were told no dogs, but that wasn't a problem), and we have seen many dogs in the hallways, and a few cats. Amanda explained this to the receptionist at the office(the one that took the call from the Humane Society), but she said that people that all leases say no pets on them, and the people that have pets have had them since before the no pet policy (untrue, as we have seen many small puppies). So Amanda went over to our rental agent to ask her about it,but she said we would have to wait till the landlord was in, and he wasn't going to be in till the next day. Amanda was getting pretty upset by now, so she went up and got our lease, brought it down and showed the receptionist that it says nowhere that we aren't pets (turns out we actually could get a dog if we wanted, the only thing in the lease about pets is that we are responsible for them), and she told her to talk to our rental agent. So Amanda showed the lease to our rental agent, and she agreed to call the Humane Society to say that we are allowed a cat. We were still worried, because the person they talked to on the phone didn't seem to know anything about our adoption, and just wrote down our information to give to someone who would know.

We were worried when we got to the Humane Society that they wouldn't have gotten the information that we were allowed a cat, but they did, and we were allowed to take her. Not right away of course, because it was busy, and there were a couple other adoptions in front of us, so we got to spend some time with our new kitten. She didn't seem to like being in the big cage, so we got to take her out, but all she wanted to do was explore, and she was very squirmy and vocal. We each held her for a bit, and then put her in her carrying cage and waited our turn. Things went good after that, and we finally got up to talk to someone, and get all the right information. We left there around 7 and headed home with our new kitten, who wouldn't keep quiet the whole ride home.

One of things we were told was to keep her in the washroom for a couple days, and slowly let her explore the rest of the apartment, but we have a really small washroom, so we decided to let her roam around the whole apartment, and see how she did. She loved it. She seemed a little overwhelmed at first, but was soon off and checking everything out. She quickly discovered the box of toys we had, but seemed more interested in the box for a bit, but then started playing with the toys too. She explored the rest of the apartment (except the office, which is out of bounds for her because it's Buddy's room) and then was happy playing with her toys while Amanda and I watched Pushing Daisys (a really good new show). She would take breaks and sit with us for a bit, but would then be off playing again. When it was bed time, she went and slept in her little bed we got for her. She also slept on the bed with Amanda for a bit. This morning, she decided at 6:00 that she wanted some attention, so she woke me up, and I played with her a bit, but then she got bored and went off exploring again. She's being left on her own today while I'm at work, and Amanda goes to school, and we don't know how she will handle it. We heard her meowing at the door as we left this morning. We kitty-proofed the apartment as much as we could, so there shouldn't be too much that she can get into.

We decided last night that weare going to call her Pixie. No real significance, we just saw it and thought it was a good name. I still want to call her Pixel, but Pixie is close enough.

Here are some pics of her exploring, playing and resting. I'll get more of them up later, probably on Facebook, or Flikr.

Out with the old, in with the new!

Well, mum and dad came home yesterday, so that means that Mitzy also went home. She's gotten very comfortable here, and Amanda and I have gotten used to her being around, and we miss her now that she's gone. Because of this, we went to the Ottawa Humane Society on Saturday, and picked out a kitten! We are going tonight to finish the adoption process and pick her up. We can't wait!! The kitten we have chosen is a 4 month old brown tabby named Betty. I'm not overly happy with that name, so we're trying to come up with a better name for her. If anybody has any good name suggestions for her, please post them in the comments section. I kinda like the name Pixel, but Amanda doesn't really (as she says, the kitten isn't a computer :P). We went out to pickup all the necessary items or her on Saturday, and we've had some stuff donated for her (thanks Erin!). We are supper excited about getting her home. I'm definitely taking lots of pics of her, and I'll be posting some up probably tonight or tomorrow.

One Year, and some Pool

Well, as of yesterday I have officially been at Tomlinsons for one year! Yay!! Unofficially though, it was a year last Friday. What happened was that I applied for this job, and got it, and Subway just happened to be doing their renovations at the time, so I had the week off. I decided to use that week to start working at Tomlinsons. When Subway re-opened, I had already given my 2 weeks notice (one of which I didn't work because the store was closed) so I only had to work one week there, and then I started back here! I was kinda hoping that for being here one year, I might actually get a key to my 'office' (aka the dungeon/closet/server room), but no, I didn't. So I still have to go find a spare key whenever I get in before Matt does.

In sort of related news, (the relation being that it was with work. It was coincidence that it happened on my being here for 1 year) the accounting department went out to Dooley's for some pool last night. I wasn't too sure how it was going to go,and was even more unsure when I walked into Dooley's and the only person there so far was Eric, the sales manager (he's kinda intimidating cause he's one of the top 4 executives at the office). But things got better when he said he was buying the first round and other people started showing up. It turned into a fun night in the end, and it didn't cost me a thing! (other than some coupons that I got with my membership I got a couple weeks ago)

Weekend

This weekend was awesome! Well, at least up until yesterday. Really it started on Thursday with the Sens game from the Tomlinson box. The view from the box is great. I never really noticed how close you actually are to the ice, cause I've only been there for concerts. The game itself was ok. I'm not a huge hockey fan, so I didn't really know what was going on, cause there was no commentary. The real fun part was just hanging out with the people from accounting outside of work. There was food and drinks also, so that made it even better.

Friday night was the Rush concert. I don't really know a lot of Rush songs, so I wasn't sure how I would like it going into the concert. It was actually a really good concert! There was no opening band which is good, cause then it's always a really long time before the band actually comes on. The best part of the show was the visual stuff. They had three giant screens as the backdrop on the stage, which usually was close ups of the band, but for some songs they had other things going on (one of the songs involved a dragon which blew flames toward the screen, and then actual flame appearing on the stage, it was awesome!!). The lighting was unbelievable, they had 5 movable sets of light that could be raised and lowered and tilted around. They had about 7 jets of flame that sprung up every now and then, and a few songs with lasers (check out the video below, sorry about the crazy movements, but I was trying to do it without the usher seeing me, cause he yelled at me for taking pictures. Also, the sound on my camera isn't the best, so it would probably be good to turn the volume down). The best part of the show for me was the drum solo. It was just the drummer playing for about 10 minutes (at least it felt like 10 mins to me). He was sitting in a drum set that went 390 degrees around him, with a larger than regular drum set in the front, and then it spun around and had an electric drum set, and some different percussion instruments. It was amazing! One thing confused me though, and still does confuse me. They had three ovens on stage, and they were cooking chickens in them. I counted, and I believe they had 54 chickens slowly turning to cooked perfection. There was even a cook that came out on stage every now and then to check on them. It was very weird! We left around 11:15, and they were still playing their 5th encore song.

Saturday, Amanda went to her parents house, and I stayed home and didn't really do much, other than watch some Dr. Who and walk to Wal-Mart. That night we were heading to a house warming party for Allison, and we got invited to a pre-party BBQ at Scott's place. I decided that I was going to be the DD for the night, but was easily convinced to stay over at Scott's so that I could drink. I started off with beer, and was doing fine. Then we took out the Jagermeister, and that ended up being my downfall for the night. The party started at 9, but we decided to be fashionably late, and didn't head over to the party till about 10:30. It wasn't far from Scott's, so we decided to walk it, drinking beer and Jagermeister along the way. The party was awesome. I don't really remember much about it, on account of all the drinks. I don't even know how much I drank, but it feels like I had about half of a 26oz of the Jagermeister, straight out of the bottle. Definitely one of the best parties I've been to. While at the party, I decided to write in my blog from my Blackberry. I did three posts, but only left one on because the other two were completely unreadable. If you were lucky enough to be reading my blog between 2 am and about 11 am on Sunday, then you got to read all three of them. Thank you again to Allison and her roommates for the awesome party!

Sunday morning was not fun. actually all of Sunday was pretty bad. It was filled with sleeping, trying to help Amanda with a school project (which we did get finished eventually) and picking up Mitzy for two weeks. My parents have gone to Turkey for a week to visit one of my mums friends, and then they are going to England for another week to visit family and friends. While they are gone, Amanda and I decided to take my cat Mitzy to the apartment with us to see how we do with a cat, because we are thinking of getting a kitten soon. Mitzy really hates traveling in her carrier, and meowed horrible most of the way to the apartment. When we finally got there, she explored our hall, then the bedroom, and then stayed under the bed for a long time. We finally got her out, and closed the bedroom door so that she would have to explore the rest of the apartment, and hopefully get used to it. She did explore a bit, but then decided to hide out behind the toilet for a while. By the time we were going to bed, she had become more comfortable, and actually slept on the bed with us.

This morning I woke up thinking that I was fine, but then realized that I actually wasn't I really didn't want to come into work, but knew that I had to. So here I am now, just finished lunch, and ready to head out to Moodie to pick up my laptop that has been getting fixed since the 4th. And now apparently I have to go to a bank to pay something for work!! Yippee!!

Drunkeneas

Wow. I havnt been thud drink in a long time. It has been ABG awesome night. Thank you sooo much to Allison and her roomsyes for an aweome party!! I had an awesome time!!! I'm hoping to ftpo writing nor cause I need TO

Sens game tonight, in the box!

That's right, I got tickets to the Sens game against the Washington Capitals tonight, in the Tomlinson box! I'm very excited! I've never seen a Sens game before, so it's going to be fun! Donald (the accounting manager) decided to get tickets for the accounting department, and invited the IT department (Matt and myself) along also. I heard something about there's going to be food there also, which would be cool.

Also, sort of on the same note, I got tickets to see Rush tomorrow night, also in the Tomlinson box! I'll try to do a review of them on the weekend, but I discovered that I'm not that good at writing reviews.

Early Mornings

Over the past two days, I've discovered that I'm actually kinda a morning person, once I get out of bed. Of course that means that I become a horrible afternoon person. I discovered this because I've had to come in early for work both yesterday and today. Both days I've had to be in for 5:15. My plans of going to bed at 9 the night before didn't work, so I ended up going to bed around 11. Yesterday was the worst. I slept through half an hour of my alarm going off, and waking up at the time that I had planned to leave the apartment. I still got there on time, but only cause there is absolutely no traffic on the roads at 5 in the morning, which was really nice. The big problems come around 12 or 1. I start getting extremely tired, and coffee only gives me a few minutes of relief from tiredness. Yesterday I got off early at 4, went home and slept for about 2 hours. This was a mistake, cause then I couldn't get to sleep last night! This morning I actually got up in good time, and got here around 5:10. Ive had a couple cups of coffee and some breakfast, so I think I might actually stay till my usual time today!

Your probably wondering why I need to come in so early. We have a new payroll system that we are trying to use for all of our drivers and mechanics. It's a handpunch system that scans the shape and density of your hand. It then sends the information into a time management program where changes can be made if necessary. Then we transfer that information over to our accounting program, and everybody gets paid. We've got the mechanics working pretty good on it, and we've been paying them by their handpunch for a couple weeks now. Now we want to get the drivers paid by it, so in order to do that, we need to register each driver into the system and set up their hand on the handpunch unit. This has pretty much been my biggest project here at work, so of course I'm the one that has to come in and get the drivers enrolled, and because the drivers leave the office anywhere from 5:30 - 6:30, I need to be here early to catch them before they leave.

The system works really well, we only have three problems with it: 1. people aren't punching properly (ie. they come in half an hour early, punch in ten go up for coffee and to chat until they are actually supposed to start work). 2. The managers aren't telling the employees to punch at te right times, so they need to ok the hours that come through the system, which is annoying. And 3. the payroll people absolutely hate the system. They feel it's a waste of time, and they can enter in the hours faster in the accounting system. If we can ever get past those three problems, then this will be a great system. I can see us getting around the first two problems, but the last one is going to be very hard, just cause they hate it so much.

IBM Support

OMFG I hate IBM tech support!! Ronnie's (the big boss) laptop has been having some problems, so Matt has been looking at it. Anticipating the worst, he asked me to contact IBM and get some recovery discs sent out to us in case we need to format the machine. So I look on the IBM website to see if they have them available to download, or an online order form. Of course, they don't! So I find the right number and call them up. I was on hold for maybe only 3 minutes, and then I got a very nice, english speaking guy who was very helpful and set a ticket up for me. He then transferred me to product department, with a ticket number and the product number of the CDs I need to get.

So I think to myself: 'Perfect! All I need to do is give the guy my ticket number, he'll pull it, get all the information and say 'Thank you Mr. Winch, the CDs have been shipped to you'', but no, instead I give him the ticket number, and he asks how he can help me (I don't even think he looked the ticket number up). So I tell him that I'm looking for recovery CDs, and he asks for the product number. I give it to him and he asks me to wait while he pulls up information. He then tells me that the CDs will cost $39.95. So I tell him that according to their webpage, if the product is still in warranty, then we get the CDs for free ( by the way, I should probably mention that these are CDs that would normally be shipped with the laptop if you buy from anybody else, like Panasonic). He tells me that I need to talk to somebody in the warranty department, and set up a warranty order. I'm a little bit annoyed right now, and get even more so when he gives me the number to call, but doesn't transfer me like everybody else does.

So I call up the next person I'm supposed to talk to, and tell them that I'm looking for recovery CDs for a laptop still under warranty. She tells me that I need to talk to a different department, gives me the number and transfers me.

The next person comes on, and I tell them the same thing: that I'm looking for recovery CDs for the laptop under warranty. She then asks if I'm looking to buy the CDs, and I tell her: 'no, the laptop is under warranty, so I get them for free'. She then basically acts like I'm an idiot, and has called the wrong place and that I'm wasting her time. She tells me to get in touch with the PC help line, gives me the number and transfers me.

While I'm waiting to be transferred, I notice that the number I'm being transferred to is the original number I called. After about ten minutes of listening to the hold music, I realize that there hasn't been any messages like 'All of our representatives are currently busy, please stay on the line and waste your day while we finish playing our online poker games' or 'Your call is very important to us, but we have 500 more important calls that we will deal with before we see you'. I think that the lady that 'transferred' me actually just put me through to their music channel. So I hang up, and call the number back, and get through in about 2 minutes. I then tell this guy my story, and he got confused I think (or he just didn't care) cause he asked me why I was calling (even though I just told him). So I tell him the usual replacement warranty deal, and again I'm asked if I want to purchase them. So I'm getting kinda annoyed right now, and I tell him (kinda angrily) that no, I get them free because the laptop is under warranty. So he asks whats wrong with the laptop, I tell him it's performing slowly, and we may want to do a recovery in the near future, and thats why we want the CDs. He asked if I've done an F11, and I tell him no, cause I have no idea what that is (it actually sounded like he said S11). He then proceeds to tell me that they can't send me the CDs until I do an F11, and that I need to call them when I have done one so they can walk me through the recovery process, which he then proceeds to explain to me. When he's finally done, I ask him if there is anyway I can get the CDs sent to me, and he says that ' that's not the way we work'. He does the usual 'is there anything else I can help you with?' I say no, and he does the 'thanks for calling' thing, to which I reply ' yah, ok' and hang up. The funny thing is that I've ordered recovery CDs from them before, and I had no problems! I hate tech support sometimes!!

International Viewers

When I started this blog, I decided I wanted something to show me how many people have visited my blog. For this I chose Google Analytics. I played around with it for a bit, and discovered that I can not only see how many people visit my blog, but also where they visit from! Mostly the visits have been pretty local: Ottawa, Gloucester, Nepean, but there were also some from Toronto and Kingston. I just discovered today that on the 14th of September, I had a visitor from France!! That was really exciting for me! I never thought that people other than friends and family would view this blog. Also, yesterday I had visits from New York city in the States, and someone from Brazil! I have no idea who those people could be, but it's still exciting to see them on my map! I wonder how long it will be until I have a visitor from each continent? ( I was thinking each country, but that would take way too long!) So if you know anybody from another country, let them know about my blog!

Also, with this post, I now have two pages of blogs! Yay me!

Weekend

So this weekend started off at Amanda's parents for dinner on Friday night, then a visit to Angies place to see the kids new rabbit.

Nothing much happened Saturday during the day, other than Amanda quitting her job at Petsmart (which only consisted of one day of training). We went over to Catriona and Jeff's on Saturday night. A month or so ago we decided to have a games night once a month, hosted at each others houses, and Saturday was their turn. We decided that it would also be a drinking night. We had a great dinner, and then started into the games. We played IQ 2000 first, which is a trivia game from the '80's. I think if we hadn't had been drinking, we would have stopped playing very early. The point of the game is to travel along the path on the board by answering trivia questions based on anything from geography to politics, fairy tails to spelling, and everything in between. Some of the questions were ridiculously easy (Spell 'banana') and others were ridiculously hard ( I can't remember any right now, cause they were ridiculously hard, and I was drinking, but there was some American politic stuff that was really hard). The game went on for a long time, with Jeff winning in the end, and many more drinks being drunk. After that we played a couple rounds of a$$hole, and then started watching Black Books (a British comedy starring Bill Bailey, a hilarious Brittish comedian). After a couple episodes of that, we went to bed.

Sunday morning started off with a hearty McDonalds breakfast! The day was pretty uneventful after that (Amanda slept, and I watched some Dr. Who) until the afternoon. Ryan was having some computer problems, so he brought that over for me to take a look at, and then we went to pool. Pool was fun as it always is, and I finally decided to get myself a membership to Dooley's. Apparently I now will get some free pool, free food, and other free stuff throughout the year, as well as discounted pool. After pool, Amy came over for dinner, and we watched Stand by Me. I have never seen it, and it actually wasn't that bad. It was neat to see some big actors as children. We also watched part of Anchorman, but it was starting to get late.

Explosion at work.

So around noon today, everyone was doing their work as normal, nothing really exciting when the place started shaking! We're all kinda used to this because they do blasting in out quarry right behind us, and we always feel it, but this one was really strong! People freaked out for a minute or two, and then went back to normal. Then , when Mandy (receptionist at work) came back with lunch she was telling us how there were rocks all over Rideau Rd, just up the street from us. Turns out a blast went wrong at the quarry across the street from us! Apparently a boulder went right into the side of a van in a parking lot across from where the blast actually happened.

So that was the buzz around the office for a bit, but then it died down. Then, Kyle signed onto MSN, and his name was something about an explosion. So I asked him if it was the one on Rideau, and it was! Turns out he works at a steel company on Rideau, and the van that got hit was in their parking lot. Apparently another car got hit, and the got some holes in their roof now. I haven't had to go anywhere today, so I haven't been able to see any of the damage, and it will probably be all cleared up by the time I'm done work.

Just thought you guys would be interested to know about it, cause I dunno if it'll be in the news, but now if it is, you already know about it!

No more Facebook

Well, my days at work have just become longer. Facebook has been blocked! Now I don't know what I'm going to do while waiting for stuff to finish, and when I have nothing to do! I might actually have to do more work now! Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I don't go on it that often at work. Just the occasional time when things are slowed down, and at lunch. But it still sux! I could always un-block it (that's the great thing about being an IT guy!) but then they would notice, and know that it was me ( there's only two people that have access to block and un-block sites), and that probably wouldn't end up good for me. So, I'll just wait it out, and see if the block gets lifted.

Addition to my last post

So I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that Amanda and I also went and played pool on Sunday. Last year we had gotten into the habit of going to Dooley's every Sunday with friends from Amanda's lab. During the summer, that stopped because everyone was busy most weekends, but this weekend we heard from Kyle, asking if we wanted to play pool. It wasn't quite the same as last year because there was pt the there of us regulars, but Kyle brought some friends from his job, and we had a good time. We got what we consider the best table in the place: the one under the stairs with the extremely comfortable chairs. We played for a couple hours, then had to go to my parents or dinner. If you want a good place to play pool, I highly recommend Dooley's on St Laurent.

Been Awhile

So it turns out that keeping a blog is harder than I thought it would be. I thought I could just come home everyday, and spend 5 or 10 minutes writing my blog, but it's proven to be tougher than I thought. It's been about 2 weeks since I started this blog, and lots has happened that I should write about. Amanda and I have done some fun stuff.

Two Fridays ago we went to see the sound and light show on Parliament Hill with Jeff, Sabrina and Yemisi (from Amanda's lab). It was really cool! It was short movie clips, and pictures projected onto the Parliament buildings, with music and audio clips about Canada's history. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. I don't know if they are still doing right now, but it was fun. After that we went to a place called Oh So Good. It's a dessert/coffee place, and is really good!! It has regular coffee and tea and hot chocolate, and specialty coffees also. Their dessert are fantastic! The pieces are large, but not large enough to be too much, and I believe they make them all in the store. It's located on Murray street in the market, so if you're in the area, look it up and go in for an amazing dessert. Amanda and I just hung out at the apartment on Saturday and watched a couple movies. On Saturday we helped our friend Allison move. She wasn't moving very far, so it wasn't a lot of work.

Nothing too much happened at work last week, other than my laptop having to be sent away to get fixed because of a broken/loose power plug. It got sent away on Tuesday, and it's not back yet, so it's been annoying at work having to use one of the spare laptops.

This past weekend, Amanda and I went to Yuk Yuks with Amanda's sister Angie, brother-in-law Robin and out friend Stephanie. Amanda and I have never been, and we loved it! There were 4 comedians performing (well, three comedians, and one hostess) and they were all good. The best one though was the headliner, Pete Zedlacher. Apparently he's been on a couple tv shows and won some Comedy awards. I was laughing so hard during his whole performance. I defiantly want to go to Yuk Yuks again sometime (hopefully for Mike Bullard who's coming in October!).

Amanda and I also went to St.Laurent mall on Saturday, and I made an awesome find! I've really been getting into the new Dr. Who series lately, and I've been wanting to watch some of the original episodes, but I haven't been able to find them online, but Music World happened to have Dr.Who: The Beginning. It's the very first 13 episodes of Dr. Who filmed back in 1963. I've just finished watching them, and they were great! They were full of cheap audio and visual effects, and the acting was a little off sometimes, but they were still fun to watch. Now I just need to find the rest of season one, and the other 25 seasons, and I'll have the whole series! I think it's going to take me a very long time before I reach that stage!!

Well, I think that's enough for now. I'm definitely going to try to write more than I have been, and I think it might be easier, because I've discovered a new feature where I can e-mail my blogs, so now I can write blogs from anywhere I an get reception on my Blackberry!

Crazy day.

Wow! Today was crazy!! It started out normally at work, nothing too exciting happened. I set up a laptop to replace one that was stolen last week, and did some small fixes for people around the office. Every Wednesday for lunch we get different meals that we can 'make ourselves'. Today was stir-fry day. It was rice and stir fried chicken and vegetables. It was really good. After lunch was when things started getting crazy. I was told that a printer wasn't working at one of our site trailers. Well, it's not really our trailer, it's the city of Ottawa's trailer, but we are doing the job, so we provided them with a printer and internet connection to keep them happy (they're paying for stuff out there, so we want to keep them really happy!). The trailer is right downtown at King Edward, just before the river. I knew it wasn't going to be fun, cause I wouldn't be going out there till later in the afternoon, and downtown traffic is crazy! I needed to finish a couple things on the laptop, and then I was going to head out to the trailer and then out to our field office out at Highway 7 (past Stittsville, right after Capital City Speedway). I got everything finished at the office around 2:30 and started heading out. The drive there wasn't too bad for traffic, and I got to the trailer around 4. I got the usual comments from the city guys about how things never work for them, and they always need to stay late because I never seem to make it there on time, but I know they're just joking around, so I start doing the usual to the printer: turning it off and on, reseting the router it's plugged into, etc. Turns out it got it's network address changed somehow (they all deny doing it), so I changed it back and was out of there. I then had to get from there to Hwy 7. Not an easy task in downtown Ottawa at 4:30! It took me a good hour and a half to get through the field office with much cursing and swearing from me at the traffic lights and other cars. If the horn was working on the Jeep, I would definitely have used it a lot! When I finally got to the field office, the guy I was supposed to meet wasn't even there, and I had to have him there to tell him some information about the laptop. While I waited I chatted with the other guys out there, and had to hear many complaints about how slow their network is. The guy finally got there around 6:20, and I showed him all the stuff and left. By this time the big storm had come in, and I had to drive along the 417 in the poring rain. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got to see lots of cool lightning strikes along the way. I finally made it home just after 7. Oh ya, I guess I should mention that tonight we had planned to see a movie with some friends form Amanda's lab. That plan got kinda screwed up with me getting home really late, but we're still going to see a movie!! Unfortunately there were no movies on at 8, so we've had to wait till 9 to see something. We're heading out soon, and I think we're seeing Knocked Up. I'll try to write a review tommorow about it.

My First Blog

Hey everyone out there in cyberworld! Welcome to my very first blog! I've been wanting to start one for awhile, and I chose today to be the day! This blog isn't going to be about anything in particular, just about me and what I do all day. It probably won't be very interesting cause I work all day, and don't get up to much at night, but I'll try to make it interesting!