Summer

Summer has arrived. Yesterday was a scorching 32 degrees, enough to make me want to sit in an air conditioned house all night. I would have been happy to stay at work, because my house does not have the wonderful thing that is air conditioning. The closest I get is fans on and windows open in the cool of night, and blinds drawn and windows closed in the heat of day. It works well, except for when it does not happen. I am currently enjoying a cool breeze after a pleasant 25 degree day.

Reading back, I was right to be sad about leaving Canada Place, my new job is boring and repetative. After my first week I stated that I would not last two months. It is now two months later, and next Monday I transfer into a new department. This time I will have my own cubicle and computer, but still be restricted to the intranet. I did make friends with my co-workers and I am sad to leave them as my new co-workers are closer to the baby-boomer generation. In other work news, I have the opportunity to try and become a Correctional Officer at the Edmonton Maximum Security Prison. While talking to the lady in charge of staffing, she realized that I had an education and put me in touch with someone who might be able to get me into the HR side of Corrections. This would likely mean that I would have to move to Grande Cache or Drumheller. I am looking into it, but nothing can happen with that until the new year. With 3 classes left, and four years of post secondary under my belt, I am not leaving anything before I get that diploma.

A noteable change in my life is that of transportation. In May I got my Class 6 license, which allows me to drive a motorbike. On June 9th I drove away from Heritage Harley driving my brand new (used from 2000) Buell Blast. It is freeing to drive a motorbike. Yes, other cars are dangerous, but I do my best to avoid them and stay alive. There are pictures to be found if you know where to look. All you car drivers should watch out for me, and my fellow bikers, we are vehicles too and hate being overlooked... mostly because it hurts us more than it hurts you.

Oh yeah, and I turned 22. It was a fairly uneventful day. I had lots of cheesecake, and a good BBQ at my parents house. There were also many messages and writings on the wall from friends. Thank you all of you.

Some of you may have heard of my cousin Petra Blundell. She had cancer five years ago, and in the fall she is running a marathon. While she has passed her goal, every little bit helps. She has been an inspiration in my life for quite some time, if you read her story on this website, you can start to understand why.

I'm off to dinner and a movie, so I have to go and suit up.

Things Change

Alright so, as you may know, in early May I put a deposit on a Honda CBR125R, a new little sport bike with remarkable pep for its size. I was deposit number 6 or 7, which would put me in the first set of bikes received. But, everything was running late, I had to buy a second set of gear so I could have proper gear for bike training because the gear that came with the bike wasn't in (even though the guys promised it would be). Then we were promised that we would get our bikes in the first few days of June. That didn't happen, the earliest I could get that bike is on June 12th. So, I had heard about Buell, and how they had a small bike that was low so us short people could ride it too. There's only one dealer in Edmonton that carries them. So, I gave them a call today when I got home from work, and they had a Blast in stock. A 2000, in perfect condition, great first owner. I sat on it and was impressed with the size, and the feel of the bike. Insurance followed quickly, and I pick it up in the morning. Hopefully the registry will open at 10 so I don't have to wait too long before I can ride. I'm just not looking forward to going back to Honda and telling them that I'm no longer interested in their bike. The morale of this story is: Don't promise more than you can keep. Also: Don't buy the first thing you see, shop around.

Work is done

This was originally written on Thurday, April 26th. I was interupted there, and lost my train of thought.

So, today was my last day of work in Canada Place. I am happy I went there. Good friends were met, good experience was had. I would have been sad to leave the girls in my unit, except I'm seeing them all on Sunday, and then I am going to a rodeo with one of them, so I will still be in touch. It is weird, I am 21 years old, and I have had ten different jobs, and this is the only one I have really felt sad leaving. It was fun, it was hard work, it was frustrating, it was enlightening.

Tablet PC

So, I have recently, quietly, come into possession of a tablet PC. While my old laptop is not quite yet dead, I felt the need to splurge, and so, a new toy for me. The touch screen is fun, surfing Nexopia has never been easier. No worrying about losing the mouse, just point and click. Writing recognition is a little sketchy, even after going through the tutorial, but that should get better as we both learn how the other works.

On the mouse issue, if I can ever get Sims installed, it will be great fun to be able to play it on long bus trips without the bulkiness of a normal laptop computer.  It is only 13", wide screen, no bigger than a text book, and lighter than most. When I saw it, I just had to have it. Lucky for me, it was on sale.

In other news,  school is over, so far, two B's. I'm mostly happy with that, though it will bring my overall average down. I'm not overly hopeful about my last class, so who knows.

Also, I'm done work on Thursday. My 90 shifts this year are up, so something new for me. I will be back at Nexopia until my papers come through for my new job.  Nexopia will be helping out with HR/Accounting stuff, they need some support there. Then off to K Division with the RCMP to work in their mail room. Should be boring, but I'll make the best of it, and work on getting a better job in the building. If I stay in the RCMP for the next 30 years, I can retire at 50 with no loss in my pension plan... this could be the start of a wonderful relationship.

Games

Oh the games that we all play. We can't say how we really feel because we don't want to hurt them. Trying to say what we really feel while not hurting them just makes things worse. The longer you play the game, the worse it is, the harder it is to quit. The game eats you up, and spits you out. Playing with multiple people at once just gets dangerous, more lies, more inconsistency, did you say that to one or the other? I want just one, and no games.

You said "Guess who's going to (cool concert)", I should have responded with "I am, my friend bought us tickets yesterday". Instead I played along like I wasn't already going. Why? I'm not sure. Because we had just met, and the concert was 7 months away, at the time I thought there was no chance of us still talking at that point.

What would you do if…

So, I was watching some HGTV show in which people buy houses. Yay, so interesting. But the couple on the last episode were looking at this huge manor from the 1600's. It was for sale for 450,000 British Pounds. They decided against buying it, I disagreed with their decision.

I was then thinking, what would I do if I managed to win (tax free) 300 million dollars? I think the first thing would be to dance around and laugh that I was finally the sibling with more money. Then what? buy a (or two or ten) new house(s). Help out friends and family. Make education funds for the children in my life. Help a charity or two. Then find a passion, and do that for a while. Finding new friends would difficult. Dating? Impossible. I have done this exercise before, but never with sums this large. It is mind blowing what you could do with all that money. Even if you kept all the money in a bank account (one of those 4% ones), you would be making 12 million dollars a year, one million dollars a month in income from interest alone. Granted, half of the interest would have to go to taxes, but conservatively, you could bring in $400,000 a month on interest, with that sum growing every month as one can not spend it all every month.

Sigh, if only it could happen.

Anyways, I should start that homework that I've been avoiding all day.

It has been a while

You're right Rob, it has been a while. This is because I have been super busy with working up to 57 hrs a week, 9 hrs of school a week and a vague attempt at a social life.

It has been many years since the last time I went to the Space and Science Centre, now Telus World of Science. Well, excpet recently. I went a couple of weeks ago with a friend, and work has decided that for a "Team Building" excersize we're going there this wednesday. They have interesting ways of building teams. A general feel of non-disclosure, segregation and not using the best people for the jobs on normal days, and then shutting down the office and taking everyone out for some fun. We'll ignore the fact that the average age in my workplace is probably over 45, so the fun will be very interesting to  watch if nothing else.

In other news, with my term at my current job almost over, I had an interview last week for a position with the RCMP. They appeared to be highly impressed with me, so with any luck I'll pass my security check and start there soon. Chances are that it will be a shitty job, but at least it's a permanent job near my house. The general feeling of that building is more friendly, even with the people walking around in handcuffs (ok, ok, I exagerate, I have not seen any of those in my few trips inside). There is a sense of people united toward a common goal. Something to strive for. It's much better than an attitude of limitless funds and wastefullness. That attitude is driving me insane, and aparently I'm in a better department for that. There are some departments in which they spend tens of thousands of dollars on meetings, this is because the department thinks that they are the most important, even though no one has ever heard of them. Anyway, enough with the ranting. I'm basically just really happy to be moving to something more permanent. Though some of you wouldn't know it, but I like to know what's going on in my life, even if it is just a vague outline. This not knowing what I'll do in 35 days when I'm out of a job has not been fun.

Anyways, I made stew yesterday, so dinner time it is.