I've been utterly shocked and stunned for the past two days. As I'm about to embark on a ship, I received an email from Maui. It's the first contact for quite sometime bringing up a wave of emotions which have left me confused and unsure of what to think. She's started getting her art displayed at an exhibit on the island as well as having entered her work into an art contest.
Way back when I booked today's excursion, I always thought that it would have been the ideal trip for us. For her son as well especially with Disneyland had things worked out. Still, it was just a mass email. A way for people to just keep in touch like sending out the occasional joke to all your friends. People whom you don't always see or get a chance to see too often.
The ship is boarding soon. My spirits will not be dampened.
Last weekend a bunch of us went bowling for Ida's birthday. Everyone bowled really bad as I remember higher scores from my junior high school field trip to the local lanes. Larry had developed his signature move. The ball pretty much doesn't touch the floor until nearly halfway down. That is some majore airtime. It started out as two mixed groups. Then we changed it to the guys against the girls with each team using their own bowling lane. It was really exciting as each team taunted the other. I was one of the three guys who kept our score average up while the ladies only had one person who carried their team. She was way ahead of us. In the end, it came down to the last try by one of our weakest guys. After a quick pep talk, he threw that ball and for once, got a strike. That's all we needed as we beat the women by half a point. And to make things more incredible, the scores were getting lower across the board as everyone was drinking beer. Well, at least the guys. Everyone did have shooters except for me. Me and my condition. I suppose I should have a reason for my lower score.
The Anticipation is building. Just one more regular work day to get through and a day of tying things up before it's time to set sail. I just have to make sure I keep the gravol pills nearby at all times. Even amidst all the tension around the office of late, I won't let it get to me. And as I had foresaw, my coworker did not get the job he had interviewed for. In fact, I told him an hour before his headhunter told him the bad news. My thoughts were confirmed earlier in the day when I saw that the company had lowered their guidance numbers for the next few quarters. His project would be cancelled.
After telling my coworker about how I had guessed that he was not going to get the job, I then told him that when the time comes, I will tell him how I guessed everything would work out. With his job, and with everything else. He was so frustrated and disappointed. Like being in and prison hoping that you will finally be approved for parol...
My boss came back a few days late this week after his heart surgery. Apparently, he was looking rather pail last thursday before he disappeared to the hospital for an emergency procedure. For eleven hours, a team of doctors ,technicians and nurses worked on him. Using probes inserted through various parts of the body all aimed at the arteries around his heart. They would move it here, move it there. Ask him to drink a mouthful of water and watch it go through his system on the monitors. Sometimes they would all huddle together away in the corner so that my boss couldn't hear what they were saying. A few minutes later they would break and come back for the 'next play'. How unnerving I thought.
Today we had our usual extended lunch hour. The other engineers and I decided to try the food court at the new mall down the street. Aberdeen mall wasn't very old to begin with but the owners tore it down and built a bigger one in its place. Unfortunately, the place is half empty even though it has been open for half a year. Many of the units haven't even been leased yet let alone completed. Still it has some nice architectural features and decor. The food court is located on the third floor and consists of all asian restaurants. All except the lone Crepe stand. We each chose something from a different vendor and ate at a spot directly in front. I watched just three people stop at the Crepe stand. One was a little girl who didn't order anything but just stood there and talked to the young lady working the front counter. Then a real customer came and ordered a coffee drink followed by an older woman who bought an actual Crepe. I don't think the Crepe stand is going to survive.
Beside the food court there was a large opening where you could look down to the two levels below. At the bottom was a long oval fountain complete with a large array of nozzles and lights. It reminded me of the fountains in front of the Las Vegas Bellagio hotel except not quite as big for obvious reasons. And along the perimeter of each floor was a ring of loud speakers and more lights which can be rotated every which way. This place was designed with some serious community performances in mind. More so than any other mall I have ever seen.
At kick boxing this evening, I got paired up with Tara. She's a good looking young woman and we chat every now and then. Sometimes she doesn't say anything. Instead, she just looks at me as I stare at her before she just giggles. I don't know why she does this other than maybe she likes me a little or I just look funny. There was also two new members in the class. They were both spanish speaking bringing the total to three. It seems like I'm being surrounded by spanish lately. My mother started taking some spanish lessons and asked me to copy the language audio cd's which she had. I kept a copy for myself. Then my coworker and his girlfriend started some spanish classes so I made a copy for them. One of Tara's friends was just over from Spain visiting and now these two new guys who are from south or latin america. This must be my cue to start learning.
adios...
The tension seems to have subsided. On Tuesday, my coworker and I received a warning for coming in late the previous week. My coworker used his relationship woes as an excuse which was actually legitimate. His girlfriend is pushing for him to settle down despite his reluctance. In the past year, they broke up once for a few months before getting back together and during that time, he found numerous ways to set himself 'free'. He took a motorcycle course and registered for flying school. After receiving both licences, he went on to actually buy a small airplane and is currently in the middle of negotiations to buy another. I've been helping him with the deal a bit. The purchase of the first plane may seem odd at first but has actually become a half decent investment. The reason is that his flying school leases the plane back from him for their students to train on. After he had upgraded some of the instruments to a new digital GPS system, his plane was booked solid.
I seemed to have been one of the few people which he has spoken to about his relationship problems now where I finally just asked him what exactly it was that he was looking for in a relationship and if he left her, what would he do in the next relationship. What caused the breakdown and is he willing to work at it to fix it. This way there is less time wasted procrastinating and sitting on the fence while his partner is desparately trying to pull him onto her side. While discussing this with our boss after the warning, our boss began to tell him about his path towards marriage. He had left his girlfriend in Australia but around eight months later, she came to Canada where he then decided to grow up and commit.
No relationship is perfect and there's always something that you'll have to put up with or just accept. I told him something which was once told to me. That was that there are three types of relationships in your life. The first one is for love, the second is for the family and the third is your companion. Someone you grow old together with. Plus if you were lucky, you'd get one that covered two or three of them. Which one would my coworker choose to tackle?
In the real estate course which my coworker and I have been taking, one of the motto's which the head instructor always says is 'reading is not learning, doing is learning'. Basically, you have to take action and do something. Whether it's right or wrong is of no importance because just sitting there will not get you anywhere. My coworker could choose to end the relationship and move on or stop fighting the inevitable and put some effort into fixing it. After listening to my boss and myself, I found out yesterday that he chose to fix it. They will be moving in together at the end of this month and he signed them both up for some spanish classes. So somewhere, maybe the things which I have been telling him or that of our boss has sunken in.
All that I asked of him at this point was that I'd could partake in the hooliganisms of his bachelor party and attend his wedding. I needed a reason to wear a suit because I hardly ever get to. Even though I actually like wearing them once in a while.
As for my excuse to the boss, I just told them that it was health related and that I did not want to discuss it before sending them a proposal to have some of my banked holiday time reinstated. They had taken it away citing lack of funds on their part but I still have some leverage with the legal system. I eagerly await the response from the board of directors. The extra days will hopefully be used for a road trip to San Francisco in October.
A restaurant called the Elephant Castle which my coworkers and I have frequented often held an anniversary bash last night. We received invitations for the event which came with some free english style food, beer and a live band called the 'Frayed Cats'. Everyone was made to wear name tags as though it was some sort of networking or dating convention. My coworker and I went there to toast the day when we both would finally leave our company.
Tonight I had dinner with some friends to discuss plans for the days spent in Los Angelas. Seven of us are going on a one week trip, half of which is spent on a cruise down the coast while the other half is in L.A. Disneyland being one of the destinations and possibly Universal Studios or a tour of NASA which my cousin works at. The itiniary for the cruise, is that it will be a non stop eating fest. At least, that's what I am told. Pictures should be plenty as I found out that one woman in our group came back from Disneyland with eight hundred photos last year. All that from just one week. And before I forget, I cancelled the film scanner order. After waiting two weeks, I called them to find out that it was on back order until the end of this month. I think I may reconsider buying a digital camera again as I look elsewhere.
We sat around the entrance to the trail on our bikes wondering where Martin was. Half the group was getting edgy as people wanted to ride. Not too far up the road we could see three other mountain bikers practicing jumps off a grass slope before Martin finally came out of the science lab building behind us with his bike. As he approached us, some of the group started getting into a debate about who was supposed to call who when. etc. etc. Ten minutes later, we started on our way. There was seven of us following each other in single file through some very technical trails. The four guys took the lead as we were all faster while the three women started off at the back much slower.
I felt very sketchy. It's been many years since I last rode so this first venture back into the trees wasn't very smooth. I bought a brand new full suspension bike last week and didn't have time get used to it until today. A few minutes into the trail I started to get the hang of it again. The group had already split up with all the guys going much faster in front of me and the women falling back behind me. I was soon alone between the two but not too far behind the guys up front. They have been riding these trails for a while so they were used to it. Plus one of them had a freeride bike which could take the big hits better in addition to wearing body armour in case of a fall.
I rode through the tight turns amidst all the bumps and obstacles. There were tree roots everywhere, rocks all over the path and some man made obstacles. Small inclines and jumps or narrow planks connected to logs in the air. No one in the group tried these obstacles except for the ones which just went up and down really quick. You could ride down the drop offs slowly by shifting your weight behind the seat to the point where you look like you're sitting on your rear tire or you could just let the speed of the hill launch you. If you landed safely that's good. But usually, you would have to prepare for another small jump right away as they were spaced quite close together.
For most of the ride, I had my brakes on almost skidding everywhere. Most of the path was downhill and while I managed to make it through the steep drop offs, there were a couple of hickups. When attempting to scale and descend a man made teepee(like riding over the roof of a tiny dog house with an average slope), I crashed. On the way down, my front tire turned causing me to stop abruptly. The fall wasn't bad but my shin was bruised in multiple places. Doug had just caught up to find me picking up my bike. He passed me by before I started onward again only to hear one of the women scream in terror as she came up to the same obstacle. Two thirds of the way down, we met up and exchanged places. The women went first and only seconds after they disappeared around a tree, there was another scream. The same woman had crashed. This time the injury was much worse. She had a tear in the flesh of her inner thigh and her right brake lever was bent forward.
We could all see this coming. She in particular had just bought a new bike a week before me and she was throwing herself down the hill much too fast and out of control. She walked her bike down the rest of the way as it wasn't very far to the end while the rest of us rode down. One by one, we met up, all covered in mud as it had rained the night before. The trails were filled with small mud puddles and the rocks and logs were slippery. I looked down at my leg to see the blood which had started to coagulate but still running. It was slightly painfull and as I squirted water on it, the blood ran down my leg soaking the dirt with it on my skin. A tiny piece of flesh was missing. My friend had told me during the week that I should get some body armour. Now I will.
Next up, the North Shore Mountains...
My mind is a blank as I sit here at my cubicle staring at the screen. Or maybe I just have writers block. I scroll up and down the window looking for something to type but the work is uninspiring. Blog or code?
It reads,
if this,
then that,
state equals this,
break;
My boss came back to ask for a whole bunch of last minute things of which I refused to comply with before the trade show next week. He has a habit of doing things in the last minute and trivializing everything to the point where if things are not finished on time, then he has a hard time believing why it wasn't done.
For a manager, he also tends to delve too much into the inner workings of all the engineering problems. So much so that some of us end of sitting there wondering why we are even discussing this level of project details with him at all.
During the past few weeks, he has seemed a little bit crazy as well. After listening to him discuss details of something with some coworkers in his usual informal meeting(never a group project meeting), he quickly wisked by my cubicle towards his office. A second later he came back and appeared beside me and blurted out if I had heard of some specific kind of chinese tea. I had never heard of it before and gave a half hearted attempt at some idle chit chat about tea before he walked away. I could probably free up one bed at the nursing home with all the other mentally handicapped patients...
It's driving us up the walls these days and for the last year or so. My coworker has been continuously looking for work elsewhere for quite some time. Many times has he gone through multiple rounds of interviews only to lose out in the end. No one remembers who came in second right? This morning he was absent as he had told me but I believe that it was for another interview with a new company. He found a new head hunter who was trying to set him up for a company in Burnaby.
In the meantime, I sit here. At my cubicle. All by myself. With only the hum of the computer at my side and the faint roar of cars and trucks driving by outside. No one comes by to bother me. They just let me work away on my own. On the other side of the cubicle wall is the network administrator. He is probably chatting online with his other tech friends about anything that has to do with network programming.
I have read on the stockhouse website all the bickering going on between the past and current senior managers at the forum for our company. Almost everyone uses an alias to hide their identity but we've figured out who some of them are already. This company has a long history of fighting over ownership between the major shareholders. For the past two years, I began going to the annual general meeting and what a display it was. Groups or factions voiced their feelings and fought with the board of directors. From Texas cowboys exclaiming how they would shoot each other to drunks ranting over every little piece of dirt they could dig up or conjure, the fists were flying. But once the votes were decided for all the directors seats, everything was all fields of roses again. It's as if they were all friends and the arguments had never even occurred. Things people do for money, power and just plain ol greed.
Yesterday after work, I drove to the rental house next door and loaded up all the construction waste from the gazebo. It is ninety eight percent complete except for some paint and the capping for the roof shingles. At the same time, I helped the charity clean up the driveway by also taking away some of their other garbage to the local dump site. When I returned to take the second load, everyone at the house had disappeared. There was a couch that needed two people to lift so I wandered into the home and looked for anyone available. When I walked to the living room, there was just one person laying on a sofa watching sports in the dark.
When I asked him if he could help me and he said no. I looked around elsewhere in the house before going back to him and asking for his help again. It was getting late and the dump site would close soon. This time, the man on the sofa snapped telling me that he was sick before yelling out at the house for the house monitor to come. I shrugged it off and continued on. An older man appeared from the dimly lit basement who I had spoken to the other day. I told him my situation and he agreed to come out. Everyone else was gone for the regular evening meeting. One of many talk sessions as part of their drug detox program.
I started moving the rubbish from the abandoned couch in the driveway as the old man was slow to come out realizing then that the couch wasn't that heavy at all. I could have loaded it up onto my truck by myself rather easily along with all the other garbage. Quit often, someone will leave the detox house because they can not stand it or they were caught 'using' and was shown the door. There are no exceptions. And when they leave, they often leave many of their belongings behind from clothes to furniture or even stolen goods.
To them, I look like a retired millionaire with an easy life.
Looks like Gambit has been on a spending spree. I just received my VISA bill and its rather high due in part to the week in London even though I really didn't spend that much. It's just that horrible exchange rate and cost of living over there. This coming month will not be much better as a number of large expenses have already started there way through.
Today I went to look for a new fridge. The one in the basement is kind of warm and rather old, its time to replace it. I ended up buying a new stove as the one in the basement has been an eyesore for quite some time. And since I picked one which has the controls on the front of the stove and no surrounding backsplash, I can no longer put off replacing the countertop I think.
Then there's the new coat of paint needed for the whole basement...
An old friend of mine who races mountain bikes will be up at Whistler this weekend and while there, he's going to look for a bike for me. During September and October, many of the bike shops at the mountain resort begin clearing everything out to get ready for the ski season. My friend had seen bikes sold just fifty dollars above cost.
My online photo album is now available for viewing. All pics are scanned in low resolution (300 DPI) but if you want the high res and supersharp files with true to life colour, you'll just have to wait as the Nikon Coolscan V ED film scanner which I ordered won't arrive for another two weeks. With an optical resolution of 4000 DPI, the picture quality should be exceptional. I won't part with my film camera just yet. And due to the cost of the scanner I hope that some prospective marketing company will stumble across this site and help me recover the cost by buying my prints! They are all from 35mm negatives so blowups should still look good.