Saturday, March 31, 2001

Well, things have been crazy busy. I've been working on E-commerce since noon. I'm happy to say that I think I'm well on the way to getting the assignment done, which is good news considering I HAVE to get two more projects done this week - no excuses. Our practice presentations for 455 are next Monday, and the company presentations are on Thursday the 12th. I totally want to get everything done before my exams on the 18th. I finally got my ticket booked to Montreal on the 20th, so I am officially severing my cord with the university on the 19th. I'll have to go and clear out my lockers on the 18th sometime during the Bermuda Shorts Day mayhem.

Montreal will be a complete blast. Jerome's taking Friday off early so he can meet me at Dorval. I wonder what he has planned? All I know is I want to go to Unity on Saturday night, and get some awesome shopping done during the week. I can't wait to hang out with Jerome again.....

I filed my income tax this morning. It's amazing how easy the whole process has gotten. I built my return at www.ufile.ca, and then submitted it using CCRA's Netfile. The whole process took about 15 minutes. Ufile is VERY easy to use. I would recommend it to anyone. And considering how poor I am, I got to use the service for free.

The Management Year End Dinner and Dance (YEDD) takes place tomorrow night at the Westin. It will be a good time, I hope. It will probably be the last time I see some of the people I've stressed with over the past few years. I want to get some pictures, so I'd better not forget my camera.

Joe and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary last week. Pretty mind-blowing isn't it? Most people laughed at me when I told them that, but I think it's cute. It's the longest serious relationship I've ever had, at any rate.....I'm extremely happy with the way things are going, and I'm excited to have Joe move in with me. I think we're both laid back enough that we won't have any big problems. I will miss Cheryl though. She's been an awesome roommate for the past three years. We went out for a fewe brews the other night, and joked that we'd probably end up going out more together after we move apart!

What else, what else? The transit strike's incredibly still going on. The whole saga has become an embarrassing mess of mediocre leadership on both sides. I know of people that have lost jobs and had to drop courses because of this whole thing. Of course, the poorest people in the community are the ones who are the hardest hit because of this, but that always seems to be the way it is. Biking everyday has been getting me in condition for the triathlon season again, which is good. My skills (eg. still balance at red lights) is getting better all the time, but the drivers seem to be getting worse and worse. There are so many drivers that don't look around them, and others that just don't give a shit about all the cyclists on the road. They get angry when they have to follow you for a block and then blast by you, passing as close as they can while there engines are screaming. I get so pissed of at some of these people that don't realize legally I could ride down the middle of the lane and not let anyone pass by me. Then there are the other ones that try so hard to blast by you, and then cut you off while they have to move back in to make a right hand turn right in front of you. I've had that happen quite a few times. I don't think these people even see me when they're passing right beside me.

Anyways, enough ranting. The vehicles are getting bigger and bigger (a horrendously disturbing trend), blowing more exhaust in my face, and there's really not much I can do about it. I have to be up early in the morning to start work at 9am since I want to get off at 5pm to get to YEDD in time. Have a good weekend!

Friday, March 23, 2001

Oh why oh why won't this !#$(&%#& winter end? I can't wait until I have the opportunity to work in the U.S. or somewhere warmer. I'm not sure how many more of these winters I can take.

Tuesday, March 13, 2001

Well, here it is Monday night, and I've hardly accomplished anything tonight. I was supposed to be doing my poart for the E-commerce group project, but inseatd I've found myself yakking on the phone and surfing the Net. The TV finally blew up on Tuesday, so it's been a test of sensory deprivation for the last week. Thank god for the Internet and music.

Quite a bit has happened in the last week. I had a really great visit with my folks last week. They were only here for a few days, and it kind of sucked that I had to work and go to school while they were here, but we did manage to get out for a few meals and a walk around downtown. They even liked one of the 17th Ave. haunts, Melrose, and we spent one evening there. I was sad to see them go, but next time they come out, I'll have more time to spend with them and more room in the apartment, and a WORKING TV!

Wednesday night a group of us went to the Night Gallery and danced our feet off. Thursday night was the fundraiser for Korleen at the downtown Keg. I got to see Tony, Jeff and Kevin--the crew that I haven't hung out with in a very long time. Friday night, Jen's sister Lorraine was in town, and we went to the Night Gallery again for Crystal's birthday. There were four punk bands playing--it was definitely a change from my normal environment, but it was a lot of fun. Saturday night was the Team Calgary promotion for the Mardi Gras at the ARGRA dance and Boyztown later. We sold tickets at the dance and the bar, and sold 50/50 tix at the bar as well. Sunday night was the last night Lorraine was in town, so we went to the drag show at Detour and danced till close. It was fun, but I was pretty tired, considering I worked two overtime days on the weekend.

This week is devoted to homework again. I'm getting really tired of the school thing. I did nine hours of the Systems Analysis project on Friday, and pretty much finished that off, and the weekend was pretty much a writeoff. I got my Project Manager's Report done for SA&D, and did some more NetMike stuff and reading for Strategy. The next Netmike rollover is tomorrow morning, so we had to have all of our numbers worked out. These two rollovers a week is getting a little crazy! I hardly have anytime on the weekends to look at the rollover results, and since I'm doing the marketing end of things, I can't make any expenditure decisions until we have made final decisions on production and development, which usually occurs on Monday afternoon.......yeesh. And don't get me started on E-commerce. Five more weeks, five more weeks....

Joe and I are going to go to a movie tomorrow night and hopefully have a quiet night. Neither of us has money right now, so that will decide what we do for us. We're going to Darude at the Palace on Friday night, and then Mardi Gras is on Saturday. I'm supposed to be working at the door at 11pm, so I'm planning on totally dressing up. I have to find a cool mask sometime this week....

What else? My cousin Scott and Jen had their baby last Sunday, a girl named Jordan. Reid is healing nicely from his surgery........ummmm.....I'm going to buy my ticket to Montreal next week.......I'm running out of things to write......Good night.

Saturday, March 03, 2001

There...it's finally working correctly. So, anyways, as I was saying, I can't wait until school's done. I'm finished exams on April 18, and I'm planning on heading to Montreal on the 19th for a week. I've already warned Jerome, and he's already told me to prep my liver. It will definitely be a well-deserved escape. I get back on the 26th in time to help Cheryl move out and Joe move in before I start work on the following Tuesday. It will definitely be a crazy few weeks.

I'm looking forward to my first jump into cohabitation. I was apprehensive at first, but now I'm looking forward to having someone at home all the time and being able to go out and do things with someone all the time rather than during our scheduled two nights per week. That's all I'll say about that issue at this time! :-)

I won't bother talking about the past two months. Not too much has happened. A few birthdays, a few raves, everyone trying to adjust to the wild fluctuations in climate. Cheryl lee moved to Vancouver a month ago. I've been missing her, and look forward to going out to see her this summer. Fergie and Tim Lyall were the headliner DJs at the Slinky show which was held on Liberation Night at Metro. It was a great show. The trance was tres hard (Joe was in heaven). Darude is playing the Palace on the 16th, and Ferry Corsten is playing the next Liberation Night. Too much dancing to do....

The Team Calgary Mardi Gras is on March 17. It will be a blast. I have to work the ticket table at 11pm. I hope a lot of people show up so we can make some money. I guess we're going to BTs and possibly Detour to sell tickets this Saturday and next Saturday.

Mom and Dad are coming into town on Sunday. They should be in Red Deer right now. They haven't been here in two years, so they haven't seen the downtown pad yet. I hope we get to have a good visit. I have to go to school on Monday, but hopefully we can do some shopping on Monday afternoon and Tuesday before they take off. I'm kinda stressed about the whole home thing because of a few incidents that have happened the past few months and I'm starting to think I'd rather not communicate with anyone from Grandview about my life at all. No one seems to be able to handle anything I tell them, and instead of opening communication with my family by coming out, it seems that now I have to justify every word that comes out of my mouth because everyone has this idea that everything I say has some disturbing subtext to it. Whatever....that's what you get for living in isolation from the rest of the world. I can't help it if that's the choice some people make, or that they prefer to follow stereotypes they've been brainwashed to believe without considering that it's me they're forming impressions about. I'm sick of it all. I don't care anymore. I've finally cut all ties with that place, and I don't have anymore regrets about it either. I haven't pushed my home away, I was pushed out of it.

Blah blah blah. I love Blogger! It's so easy to jot down a few notes that are floating around in my head. I'll follow up soon. Check out some of the new songs on the Top Ten list! TTYL
Well, I'm not quite sure what's going on with this thing, but everything's not quite working properly.

The transit strike's still going on. Although I know it's good for me and all, I'm getting really tired of riding my bike everywhere. The roads are in atrocious shape, they're covered with that gravel that passes for grease right now if you ride on it the wrong way (re:my crash on 24 Ave. yesterday and my rashed ass), the traffic congestion is crazy, and that's all on top of the fact Calgarians drive like a bunch of mental midgets. Grrr.....fuck you, Calgary Transit and the City of Calgary. Get this settled before someone snaps and kills someone.

School is crazy. The Netmike computer simulation for Strategic Management is consuming most groups' time that are taking it right now. It's kinda crazy, considering we're being plunked into these competitive worlds without any knowledge of market sizes or preferences. And we're supposed to have a 10-year business strategy developed? Good luck. E-commerce is driving me batty as well, quite frankly. I can't seem to retain any of the programming skills I've learned the past few years, so I feel like an idiot when I'm trying to get these interactive web pages running while trying to add extra functionality with Javascript and DHTML. Whatever. I'm so sick of school. I can't get motivated knowing I already have a job set up for May.

Friday, March 02, 2001

Well, I wrote a big blog and tried to post it, so here's a test first. You think I would learn by now to try things out first before jumping right in