My new apartment as it looked last week

I'm forcing myself to try and post here again. I don't really feel up to it, but I can just talk about the new apartment. In fact I took some video on the first day I moved in that shows it off well. Since then I've been to Ikea so it is starting to take shape with furniture. I won't reveal the final look until I get everything finished.

So here's a quick video tour. I get a bit cut off at the end. I wanted to say that the patio is all mine and fenced off. When the weather gets better I'm going to have a garden and a barbeque along with a hammock and patio furniture. The patio is about the same size as the living room.



Here's a sneak peak at all the stuff I bought. Now imagine all that, but furniture!

New Blogs

As you may have noticed I haven't updated in some time. I'm still around I just don't feel like posting. I did however create two new blogs for posting about things other than my life. Check out A Photo On The Street and On The Pot for more ramblings by me.

Photos of where I'm staying

NEWS FLASH...

A shocking update to the Zombie Defence Station story. It was mentioned.... wait for it.... on the RADIO! Yeah the radio. Some radio personality included it in their often inane chatter. And what's better is that someone from Craftster who has seen the kit heard it on the radio and recognised it. I'm pretty stunned.

In other news I'm in the middle of packing and I'm hating it. I'm all alone, chilly, feeling sick to my stomache, and upset about moving. I really wish I could talk to or get a hug from certain people right now. I don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to being alone again. The thought of it really scares me.

UPDATE

Turns out the radio station 104.1 The Blaze is an internet radio station. So I guess my dream of being broadcast through the atmosphere isn't yet fullfilled.

I got Dugg!

Wow the most amazing thing happened yesterday. A few days ago I posted my Emergency Zombie Defense Station on Craftster to show it off. It was an instant hit and I had several pages of feedback in a days time. After 5 or 6 pages over 2 days the replies stopped, but it continued to have lots of views. A couple thousand, more than anything else on page 1 of the miscellaneous section. Well all of that took a shocking change.

Someone posted my kit on this site called Digg. Near as I can tell it's a site where people post interesting things that they find on the internet and other people can check them out and say if they "digg it" or not. Well as of writing this there have been almost 200,000 views. So many views that the Craftster website was noticably slow yesterday and that I ran out of bandwidth on my free Photobucket account and had to spend a couple bucks to upgrade to the Pro version.

Of course most of the people commenting on the Digg site were jerks or had critisism, but what can you do? You can read all about it here http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Emergency_Zombie_Defense_Station_PICS and it will also link you to my Craftster posting.

I also realised that I unintentially used the American spelling of "Defense" instead of "Defence". I wonder if the spell check changed it for me or something. I usually try to stick to the English spelling of words. Oh well, the person I made it for is American and I wasn't about to recut the stencil for mine ;)

Buying lumber and measuring wood

Why is it that every time I go to Home Hardware to buy some wood for a project I end up having to prove my manly worth to a bunch of surly low paid lumber yard jocks?

I'm building a new floor for my bunny cage for when I move out and I needed some plywood and a few boards. I went to Home Hardware and I was met with minimal customer service. I told the guy what size I needed and without asking me any other questions he gave me a bill to have paid at the front. Turns out I didn't really get what I wanted. The boards I got were really rough and not what I expected. I'm not sure how the guy came to the conclusion that I wanted some narled wood without feeling the need to ask me.

After paying for said wood comes the fun part. Driving into the lumber yard to pick it up. Right off the bat I didn't even know where to drive to get inside the fence. I found it, but only after going the wrong way. Once inside it gets dubious. There was a little shack labeled "Customer Service", it was uninhabitated and there was nobody around it. I have no idea what the etiquette for being in the lumber yard is. It's like if you went to a resturant and were told to go pick up your food from the chef in the kitchen and he wasn't there. Do you go looking for him? Well I did, I was getting pretty fed up with the poor help I was receiving and I wanted to go home.

I spotted a pair of slackers chatting by a forklift and began to approach them. I started to get nervous because neither one of them acknowledged me or moved to intercept me. I kept walking or rather I mantained my stride and stood tall and firm. This is why I hate buying wood, because in order to get any help you have to show that you have a pair. Not only a BIG pair but you also need to whip it out and have it measured in order to prove you are worthy of buying such a manly product as lumber. I have to talk in short cool sentances. I have to move with confidance and appear physically tough. I need to act like I know everything about lumber, tools, and building everything. If I don't I'll be eatten alive and end up with something of no use to me.

It almost happened too. He almost cut the wood the wrong way, but I stopped him. He set me up by asking me to get a pencil from my truck. While I was gone he used his own and marked the wood where he was going to cut it. It was a test perhaps or maybe a challenge. I stopped him and had him mark it elsewhere to avoid ending up with plywood cut into a shape that would make it useless for my purposes.

He still got the last laugh. He choose the boards I needed and brought them to me. "Wait here" he said. He came back with two rough and splintered 1X4's. One of them has a big chunk missing out of the middle of it. What can I do? The guy inside sold me this rubbish wood and the guy outside can't do anything about it. After all he has a get out of responsiblity free card in the form of a green invoice. He dosen't make changes, it's not his job.

I think I can work with what I got in the end. I'll cut off the really bad parts of the boards and I'll sand them until they aren't a sliver hazard. I hate being a guy and having to deal with other guys. It always come down to the size of one's penis.

My boots will never again be caked in flour

Today was my last day at work. It didn't sink in until the last half an hour that I was really about to leave and not come back. Seems strange to not mix dough every morning. I guess it became routine.

It seems every job I get becomes harder to quit then the last one. When I left Piranha I went around to everyone's desk and said goodbye as though I may never see them again. This time at Cobs it was even harder. There is even less chance of seeing many of them again so there was a lot of hugging. Yeah, I've reached a point in my life where quitting a job has become a very emotional experience.

I'm going to pop in during the week one last time to see everyone. I really feel bad about leaving them all.

Perler Beads

I bought some perler beads in order to make some awesome NES style Nintendo characters to turn into fridge magnets and such. They are plastic beads that fuse together when ironed. You place them on a pegboard in the position you want them to fuse together in and then melt the beads with an iron. Unfortunately all of the pegboards that come with the set are too small for most Nintendo graphics. Perler Beads makes a larger board that can be connected to other boards to make as big of a board as you need. However neither Michael's or Walmart sell them so I can't make any crafts :( I've looked at mail ordering them, but until I have a more permanant residence I can't order anything. Maybe Toys R Us would sell them?

The people I work with *rolls eyes*

Today at work I found out that yesterday during my day off Bec, the Australian girl, mentioned something about Tasmanian Devils and everyone thought she was just making it up. Nobody at Cobs thought a tasmanian devil was anything more than a cartoon character and they laughed at her. Of course she proved them all wrong on the store's computer. Needless to say I was pretty stunned and disapointed when I found out.

Feeling obligated

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I guess I don't have much to say. I'm still pretty caught up in moving and stuff.

I only have 5 more days of work left. That's something I look forward to being finished with. I'd really like to not have my Doc Martins covered in dough and flour for a change. However I'm training my replacement at work so I have to talk all day and I just can't do it. My throat hurts. Only one week to go.

I realised today that it's almost been 6 months since I broke up with my girlfriend. Why the fuck am I still so hung up on that? Half a year is a long time to not be myself or to be at my best. I wish I could just move on and not think about it so much. I guess it's hard because a part of me doesn't want to move on. Sometimes I really bother myself with my stupid anticts.

The bunnies are well and we're spending more time together. I can't wait until I have a place to let them run around in. We're bonding a lot and both of them are really being more affectionate towards me and letting me pet them back.

I'm going to donate blood again this week. Either tomorrow or the day after. I hope it remains a positive experience for me. In case you're shopping for a gift for me my size is O positive.

Dispite my extreme resistance towards thinking about this xmas I have started to come up with some ideas for gifts for people. I'll have to wait and see how I feel about handling the holiday this year. I think it's going to be very difficult.

I don't know if I should start packing my stuff or what just yet. I don't really know what I'm going to do moving wise right now. I need to hear back from the company that will help me find a place. I really don't have any possesions anymore so I could probably pack to move in less than a couple hours. I'll be spending a few days at Ikea once I settle in somewhere.

Generally speaking I'm just trying to roll with the punches right now. Either that or my face has gone numb and the punches just don't hurt me anymore. Life is doing it's thing and I'm just watching off to the side so that it doesn't try to leave without me. I really want a place that feels like home again.

I feel crummy

I've been worried about moving all day and thusly my tummy is twisted in knots :(

I realized that one of the things that bothers me about working at Radical is that it's a huge commitment. I've made some big commitments before, like going to school and moving in with Syd, but this time I'm really stressed out about it. When I was reading the contract it said that if I leave Radical for any reason within 2 years I have to pay back the $5000 relocation costs. 2 years! I'm going to be working at Radical for at least 2 years!

Of course I want to be able to work some place and like working there for a long time, I just never have had a job for very long before leaving it. In fact the longest job I've ever had was 8 month, and every other job I left in less than half of that time. I usually get sick of a job after 3 months and drudge through it towards a light at the end of the tunnel where I have something else planned and a reason to quit.

I'm going to be commited to working at Radical and living in Vancouver for a long time. That really scares me. More than any other commitment I've ever made. Knowing that I definately won't be coming back to Ontario upsets me. While there was never really a possibility of me moving back at least it wasn't a 0% chance. I'm never going to hand out halloween candy or be there to help the kids grow up. I didn't get to eat at a chip truck or go to the ROM or see much of Peterborough, which I planned on living in. I'm closing a door by taking this job and moving away. I feel really panicked.

Another thing I realized was that unlike moving to Ontario where once I got there I would be met with loved ones and be able to relax, instead I have to work to get settled by myself. I don't really feel up to going on a big adventure alone. I never expected to be moving back to Vancouver without Sydney, but it's even worse to move without anyone at all.

I really need to calm down, but it's so difficult. Everything feels so final all of a sudden. I'm settling down before I feel ready to. I really hope I can find some close friends in all the people I know living in Vancouver. I really need to be hugged for a long time.

I love you all

It's funny how moving to Vancouver makes me miss everyone in Ontario I've already moved away from even more. I'm feeling really down lately. I miss everyone more than I've realized in the last few weeks. I guess moving to Vancouver is the sign that I'm finally moving on with my life and my transition period is ending. I'm just not ready to move on yet I guess. I love you all, everyone who reads this blog to hear about how I'm doing, and I really wish I could be with you right now. I hold all of you deep in my heart.

Good news on top of a bad day

Well I guess I got a whack of good news today. It's funny because my stomache is in knots still, and I feel really depressed. First off Griffin phoned me to thank me for her brithday card, which was really sweet and made me teary afterwards. Second I got my Zombie swap package, which I'll post a photo of. And last of all I got a reply from Radical and they are going to give me an offer next week. I managed to get the job, so hurray!

Life is throwing too much at me at once and it makes me feel sick inside.

Unhappy with myself

I've been very aware of my height lately. I notice that everyone needs my help to reach stuff and I'm often asked how tall I am. It really makes me feel uncomfortable because I'm so much taller than an average height. I don't feel like a very big person on the inside and people don't seem to realize that I might be sensitive about that sort of thing. You don't ask a short person how tall they are or fat person how much they weigh.

Last week at work I was brought to tears when I was interupted on my break twice to help someone reach something. I ended up staying in the bathroom for most of my break so that no one would know.

Today at work we had a guy from one of the coast bakeries come up to see how we do things in Kelowna. He's taller than I am by a couple inches. He might be 6'6". After seeing him today wearing the same 'not quite long enough' clothing and with the same skinny build I have I realized how freakishly tall I must look too.

I can totally understand how Sydney and I didn't work out. I don't find tall people attractive either. It's just gross, and this is coming from a tall person. The reason I often feel lanky and gangly is because I am and it shows. I always wear loose fitting bulky clothes just to try and conceal how tall and disproportionate I am. I now understand how people can say I'm a good looking guy, but have no real interest in me. Very few people would want to be with someone tall.

And of course it doesn't help that there is nothing I can do about it. This is what real upsets me. If you're short you can wear boots or heels to gain a little extra height. When you're tall what do you do? Go barefoot? It's the same thing with having red hair. If you don't have red hair you can colour your hair red. In fact you can make it any colour you want. But when you have red hair and freckles and a pale complection you're not fooling anyone if you change something.

I'm stuck with who I am and I don't like it. In fact it's really upsetting me and I don't know how to feel better. Being tall sucks!

Back from Vancouver

I got back from Vancouver last night. I think my job interview went well and I should be hearing from them early next week about whether I got the job or not. I hope I did.

It was nice to see a bunch of my friends and to go out for sushi the night before the interview. Things haven't changed too much from how I remembered it.

However seeing the city itself filled me with mixed emotions. On the one hand it was really great to be back in Vancouver and to see all sorts of familiar places and landmarks. It felt good, but it was also bittersweet. I never expected to be back in Vancouver alone. So many memories were jogged and it became a bit overwhelming. It's going to be tough to live there again. It made me really wish things were different in my life. It feels like they should be.

Karma

Sometimes I really get to feeling like karma is out to get me. Everytime something good happens to me I immediately get robbed of it by something bad. Since I always end up with the bad last I go for days with a bitter taste in my mouth. It ruins whatever good has happened to me. It just doesn't seem fair to try so hard to get anything, but always end up heartbroken. Why is it?

I got an interview.... in person!

Radical wants to interview me (for 3 hours) in person next Tuesday. I'm so excited and nervous. I would really love to get this job, but I think it might be some tough competion, they are doing a lot of interviews.

As a bonus I get to travel to the coast and stay over night at Justin's place. So I'm going to meet up with everyone I can and go out for sushi with the old gang! Pretty cool even if I don't get the job.

Phone Interview!

That's right everyone I finally heard back from one of the 15 or 16 companies I applied at and they want to do a phone interview with me tomorrow.

Now this is the first small step of many and I could very easily not go any furthur in this application process by not knowing the answer to some obscure programming question. With that said I just don't want to get my hopes or anyone else's hopes too high in case I bomb it. I'm going to do my best though because Radical Entertainment is a really good company according to what I've read. In 2004 they were voted the best company to work at in BC.

So I'm going to spend today studying up for the verbal test I'll be put through tomorrow morning. Lucky for me I have both those days off.

Wish my lots of luck as I'm sure I'll be needing some.

Zombie Swap Package

Today I packed up and sent away my beautiful Zombie Swap package. I was sad to see it go, it's pretty awesome. I will be making another one for myself. In fact I knew that as I worked on this one because I bought supplies to make a second one ;)

So here it is folks in all it's glory. It's an Emergency Zombie Defence Station. Think of it like a fire extingusher, no home should be without one. It's akin to an emergency eye wash station, or a first aid station, or some other kind of industrial safety station.

It features a transparent plexiglass cover that doubles as a riot shield and straps on to your arm. It also has a sawed off shotgun mounted to it along with shotgun shells for it. Since ammunition can be scarce during the zombpocalypse there is also a machete inside the case. When coupled with the riot shield you'll become a zombie hacking machine!

Along with the awesome case I made one of those safety and instructional signs that you would see near something like this. I got it printed and laminated at Staples and it turned out beautifuly. It's pretty sweet and I'm really proud of it.

So here it is.....

Choices

Well since I haven't had any offers on hiring me I decided to send out some more resumes. I applied at 7 more places. With the exception Relic they were all small studios that I haven't even heard of. Some have shipped titles but most have not, which could be a little bit sketchy. So even if I did get a job at one of these places they might not be very organized or on the ball. However I'm desperate and you never know. These types of places are usualy started by ex-employees of somewhere else.

Now since I don't have a job and probably won't be getting on before October I'm faced with a difficult choice of moving for October 1st, or staying in Kelowna and working at COBS while I continue to try and get a job remotely. I think my odds of landing a job are better if I'm in town and can easily go for an interview when they ask, but I still haven't even been asked yet.

I'm going to have to think about this a fair bit. I'd like to move, but I don't like the idea of having to scramble to get a job once I'm in Vancouver. I'll likely have to apply all over to get a temp job in case it takes me a while to get back into the game industry. We shall see.

Days off!

So starting today I have 2 days off in a row! Doesn't sound like much but it's been weeks coming.

Last night I did a guest comic for Sydney's comic strip while she was at work. You can see it here http://rapidfirecomic.blogspot.com/.

Today I've got to start working on my zombie swap project. I won't say much about it in case it doesn't turn out like I hope. However it should be most excellent *grin*

Still no word on finding a new job. I think I might have to send out more resumes or something. Unfortunately that means applying at plaes that haven't really established a track record yet and may not have any idea as to what they are doing. I can also start emailing non-game related developers too. They usually want database related skills though, and I don't have a whole lot of experience with that. However they often pay better and don't have much overtime required. I hate finding a job.

I love you guys

It made me feel really good to know that I'm missed and thought of often by everyone I'm missing. It's pretty easy to feel forgotten about when you're lonely and away from the ones you love. I'm glad I have family like you.

I'm not moving any time soon

No job yet. In fact I got 2 emails today that officially turned me down. At least I heard back though and it was exciting none the less. So scratch Hothead Games and Backbone. Whatever for hothead, but Backbone is where Brad, Justin, and Stephane all work, so that sucks to not even get an interview. However they aren't a huge developer and it really was a long shot, I just hoped that knowing people on the inside would increase my chances.

I'm really doubting that I'm going to be able to get a job for October. I think I may have to make a call to move down without a job and get something to pay the bills, or just wait until I get the job I want before moving. Both have their cons.

I found a place in town yesterday while I was out bike riding some errands and shopping for odds and ends for the zombie swap that sells freeze dried (they corrected me, it's flash frozen... whatever :P) ice cream! I haven't had it since last year at Playland. I also got myself a new incense burner and I priced out some components for my zombie swap gift. I hope my swap partner likes it.

Today after work I went to a hair salon to get a trim. I should have gotten it a bit shorter on the sides, but oh well. It was a nice experience though. I've rarely treated myself to much all summer so even though it was costly I didn't really care. Before they start they give you a scalp massage with some fragrant product and afterwards I had my hair washed. I had really forgotten how good it feels to have a massage. I haven't had a massage or a back rub in so long that I had completely forgotten that they even existed. It was really relaxing and soothing. Plus it felt really nice to have complements on my hair colour, curl, and condition. It made my day :)

Work's been fine lately. I've either gotten into a groove where I just don't care anymore and don't mind having to work, or I've hit rock bottom and I just don't care anymore and don't mind having to work. So even though I only got one day off this week I'm not too tired and I don't resent work for keeping me from doing something else with my time. Granted not having a social life is what makes that possible, but I've been trying to live a rich inner life lately.

Internally I've been in a bit of turmoil. It's tough for me to intentionally break communications with my best friend for such a long period of time with no definitive end. This time last year I was ready to uproot and move across the country just to be able to maintain the friendship, now I feel like I'm actively destroying it. It's like cutting off a limb to save the body, it feels wrong to do it. What if in doing so I lose everything? On the other hand I'm not emotionally capable of continuing the friendship right now. I just hope I'm doing the right thing, it really isn't easy and some days it really ties my stomache in knots.

Here's my new doo!

Knitting

Today I bought myself a pair of Addi Turbos! They are the nicest knitting needles I've ever used. They are so smooth and easy to knit with; it's a real joy.

You can also see the progress I've made on my practice Tomten jacket. I'm about a quarter to a third of the way to the start of the arm pit region. I think that the jacket will fit a 24" waist when it's finished. I'm really not sure what I'll do with it when it's finished. If you know anyone with a child that size let me know and you are welcome to it. Otherwise I guess I'll have save it for my own baby or donate it to somewhere?

So far I'm really enjoying it. It feels good to be knitting again and somehow having my own pair of awesome needles makes it that much better. I love my Addi's!

Gears in motion

I've finally applied at some places in Vancouver. Today I went over my short list of places to try to get a job at. While I only emailed only 8 places they are some of the biggest studios and most of them were looking for positions. Stephane was nice enough to forward my resume to his boss so hopefully that name drop helps my chances along. He also said that he had a list of places around town that he has compiled along with the names of their HR people. It pays to have contacts.

Here's the list of where I have applied at so far:
Backbone
Blue Castle Games
Electronic Arts
Hothead Games
Rockstar
Next Level Games
Propaganda Games
Radical Entertainment

Hopefully I'll hear back from some of the people on this list in the next 2 weeks. I had hoped to maybe have a couple of offers, but realistically I just need one and that's as much as I should hope for. I don't have a contingency in place if I don't hear back from any of them. If that happens I really don't know what I'll do.

Caught a spider

Yesterday well I was picking up some clothes from my laundry pile a huge spider suddenly leaped off of the garment I was holding and on to my bed. I loathe spiders so naturally I was startled.

This was a huge spider I should add. I took a picture with the spider next to a pen on the bed to give a sense of scale. It was so big that I could clearly see it's giant mandibles.

So now that this spider had moved in I needed to either move out or evict it. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a tupperware container. I moved quickly in case the spider ran off well I was gone, because there would be no way I could stay in the room with it on the loose.

I took the tupperware dish and I moved it to try and capture the spider but it suddenly bolted from the bed and on to my clothes on the floor. I quickly dropped the container on him and held it down against my sweater so that it couldn't escape. Now what? I scooped the whole aparatus up and carried it to the kitchen floor where I would have room to maneuver. I lifted the tupperware off of the spider and it made a break for it. It was a fast one for it's size. I tossed the tupperware dish at it and it was trapped again.

Now I had this spider trapped on the floor but I still needed to get rid of it. It was too fast to try to scoop the lid under it so I had to be a little more tricky. I slid a small sheet of paper under the container and using it as a temporary lid I flipped the whole thing over and slammed the proper lid in place. The spider was caught.

I should have taken another picture at this point but I was too busy gloating. I even showed it to my dad was didn't really care much. Now what to do with it?

I opted for the toilet. It is a satisfying way to dispose of things. I dropped it in and sent it on it's way. I even flushed twice just to make sure it was really gone. If it wants to swim back up and into the toilet bowl after that then it's earned it's freedom.

You were a fine adversary spider but today victory belongs to me and mankind.

Went golfing

So yeah I went golfing yesterday. My cousin came to Kelowna at the start of the week for a visit and stayed at our place for a couple of days. I haven't had a chance to talk to him since his Dad's funeral this spring, and I didn't really get much of a chance then. Because of this I wasn't able to do any of my own activities for a few days so my resumes remain unsent and I'm pretty tired from being forced to stay up and visit.

The golf game was fun though. I hadn't been golfing in many years and I was only 2 strokes behind my grandpa and 6 behind my dad. I wasn't in very good condition to go out golfing as I was sore and tired from work before going out, but I still enjoyed myself.

I've made my list of places to apply at in Vancouver for work. I'm really worried about making this move for some reason. It sort of freaks me out to be on my own again. I want to be back on my feet, but getting there is really emotionally draining. I can't wait for the time 3 months from now when I'm settled in.

Not much to say

Well I don't really have anything good to say, I just feel that too much time has passed without me blogging anything.

Things are going pretty piss poor right now. My Dad has been trying to control everything I do for the last 2 days and is belittling me at every turn. My cousin is staying with us tonight so my Dad is using that as leverage to get me to do what he wants. When he found out I have tomorrow off he told me what I'm going to be doing. Same with friday I have to come straight home after work because I get to go golfing. I don't even want to go into the details on things, suffice it to say he's just making me even more miserable.

I'm trying to look for a job in Vancouver right now, or at least I was until my Dad interupted me to do various things for him. I really want out of here as soon as possible. I know I'm not emotionally ready to face the city again but I have to or I'm never going to feel better. I haven't been feeling too good lately.

I'm still finding myself having a hard time coming to the terms of reality. I just can't accept things the way they are and I keep putting a false positive spin on things in my head. I think starting over in Burnaby might allow me to finally move on with things. I just find myself living in memories and longing to be back experiencing them again. The past is a really nice place to visit because you can skip over all the bad and only see the good times. It's hard to resist its allure. It makes this reality seem like an impossible nightmare.

I donated blood!

Yay! I finally did it. Today I donated blood. It was really awesome.

Everyone there was so nice and friendly and that made things really fun and easy because you're basically being waited on. I HIGHLY recommend that everyone donates blood. It's so stupid not to. It only takes an hour and you can only do it every 2 months and there is a blood shortage right now. Do you know what happens when they run out of blood? First the non-life threatening surgeries are cancelled and then people will start dying. As it is now they are shipping in blood from Quebec, which is a first for BC. So I'm totally going to keep doing this. It makes you feel really good.

The process is really easy too. You start off by being added to their database, your name and birthday and whatnot. You can even do this over the phone if you book an appointment, which by the way is a good idea, more people donate blood than I thought. Once you're there they start by pin pricking your finger to get a drop of blood to test your iron levels.

This is nothing, so all you whiners out there suck it up and don't be such a baby. Yeah it hurts for a split second, pretty much the same as if you poke yourself sewing. Diabetics do this several times a day and you don't see people choosing to die from diabetes rather than get a little startle of discomfort. I should also add that this is the most "painful" part of the whole procedure, unless of course you bump your knee on the desk or something, that would probably hurt more than anything Blood Services will do to you.

I thought the iron levels test was quite neat actually. They collect a drop of your blood in a pipette type thing and drop it into a liquid in a vial (it may have been water). In order to have good iron levels they simply see how long it takes the blood to fall to the bottom of the fluid. The more iron it has the heavier it is and faster it falls. I thought it was neat.

After that little test you fill out some health related questions and sit and watch Dr. Phil for 2 minutes. Then they take you into a private room and ask you some sex and drug related questions. They can be summed up to this: "Do you have AIDS? Are you a drug addict? Are you a whore?" After that they take your blood pressure and oral temperature (actually they did this first, my story is out of order :P) just to make sure you weren't lying on question number 1 "Are you feeling well today?" They even give you a chance to gracefully back out of telling the volunteer that you are in fact street trash. They leave the room and you place a bar code sticker onto the form saying either "Yes use my blood." or "No don't use my blood. Don't even touch it. I'm gross." Since it is a bar code no one can tell by looking at your form what you answered and you can still give blood with your friends without telling them you have AIDS.

Next comes the really fun part. Now it's time to actually give blood. You sit in a big comfy chair and they prep you for having blood taken. I'm not afraid of needles and was very curious as to everything going on around me and I never even saw it folks. At least not when they were getting it ready. They asked if I wanted to look away or not. I did. I figured I knew what they were doing and I didn't want to stress myself out because I was really excited and nervous. I wouldn't look away at someone else getting it done, I'm just not used to watching myself be injured and I didn't want to flinch or something.

After they put the needle in I looked at it. It is a wide needle but you don't feel much of anything. It hurts less than the finger prick because there are fewer nerves along your arm. The needle isn't very long though and they even covered it up with a little piece of gauze.

Then they start the flow of blood. My first reaction was surprise and how dark it looked. I don't have a lot of experience with seeing blood so I didn't really know what to expect. The blood is obviously dark because it's on its way back to the heart to be re-oxygenated, but it was still a really deep crimson. Like zombie blood or something. Anyway it's neat to see stuff like this and know what things look like in real life. I found it all very facinating and I asked lots of questions. The blood collects in a little bag below you and it rocks back and forth on a machine to keep it fluid and prevent in from clotting. Once they get enough to fill the bag and it automatically stops and they remove the needle (you can't even feel it) and you hold a little piece of guaze on it for 5 minutes and relax.

When your time's up you report directly to cookies and juice! They had ice cream earlier in the day but I missed it :( They gave my stickers and a pin and served me different flavours of juice and had lots of different cookies to choose, it was SO worth it. Everyone there is so nice I'm excited to go again in October.

I had my reasons for putting this off as long as I did so here's a little Q & A session of things I wondered about:

Q) After giving blood will I be tired and useless?
A) You'll be just as useless as you always are, just with something to blame it on. They say no heavy exercise for 6 to 8 hours after giving blood. I rode my bike home with no issues and I still feel fine for day to day stuff. I just won't be over doing anything.

Q) How much blood do they take?
A) The take 1 unit of blood which is 610 mL. They also take a bit extra for your lab tests. This really doesn't amount to very much depending on your size.

Q) Why do people's arms look all bruised or discoloured around where the needle was?
A) This is actually just iodine that they use to help sterilize the area around the needle. You really aren't doing anything bad to your body by giving blood.

Q) Why should I care enough to go out of my way to give blood?
A) What if someone you know needs it one day? Ah ha, I answered a question with a question. Seriously don't be lazy just go do it, it's fun and not so far out of your way. Bring friends and make an event of it. If you don't give blood you better be contributing to society in another way, because someone who is making progress could die because you didn't give them blood.

Q) What if I change my mind and want them to put the blood back in me?
A) ....? I never really asked that but I should of ;)

I'm really happy I did this. I feel really happy with myself. It really is the very least I can do with my life. If I don't make an impact on science, art, literature, or human evolution at least I can say I gave blood.

If you read this and aren't booking an appointment right now you better tell me what your reasons are and they better be good. I'll come with you if you like, so you really have no good excuse.

Back from the weekend

Well I guess I better make a post of some sort. So much happened over the weekend, but I'll give a brief overview of things.

So Saturday after work I had to rush home and drive down to the coast with my sister and her boyfriend Brett. It's about a 5 hour drive followed by a 40 minute ferry and another hour drive. I drove the whole distance with the help of 3 sodas to wake me up as I felt my eye sight starting to blur. After getting off of the ferry Kristen drove the rest of the way because she was feeling ill and thought she would feel better if she drove. Maybe if she and Brett didn't both sit in the back seat on the way down she wouldn't have felt sick.

Once we got to the cabin it was fairly late and I was super tired after being up since before dawn. My cousins were there and I got to hang out and chat with family for maybe an hour before they left. The last time I was at the cabin was with Sydney last summer, so I felt very nostalgic in seeing it again and that made me sad.

I slept late the next day and after getting everyone ready to go we went to my Grandparents house before heading to the resturant for the dinner party. It was nice to see their place again, they have done a fair bit of yard work to it. One of my cousins is staying there well she is going through a difficult time in her life. Unfortunately I didn't get to even say hi to her as she had to leave for work just as we got there. I don't think she felt up to the dinner party anyhow.

I really had forgotten how much I like my mum's side of the family. I grew up seeing my grandparents and cousins a lot more often than my relations on my dad's side, with the except of my other grandparents who lived in Sechelt with us. My grandma was really excited to see me and barely recognized me. She was really supportive of my move to Ontario and I think her easy acceptance of it made my mum more comfortable with it. I wish I could have introduced her to my Ontario family so she could see why I moved.

At the dinner I hung out with my cousins primarily. My Uncle John's kids. Megan and Jen are twins and only slightly younger than me so we have always got along really well. It's nice to see that we still do. Michael is younger than they are but his maturaity makes up for it. I used to visit them over long weekends while I was going to school in Burnaby. Now they are living on their own and when I move back to Vancouver we can hang out! We snatched up the end of one of the long dinning tables and dubbed it the Kids table for old times sake. Jen and I got a little snackered by the end of the night. She stayed the night at my grandparents and drove home the next day, while the rest of her family went home that night.

The dinner was really good, but after dinner was even better. Not only did we have two different cakes served 30 minutes apart, but we also had entertainment. My grandfather and some of his friends of various european origins were singing in German. They had an accordian and a book of songs and it was so cute and to see. It really made me excited to be related to them and a part of my family. I really loved it.

I was the only one that needed to get home at a resonable time because I worked early the next day. This was quite apparent when I was the only one trying to get ready to go. Eventually we got going and I drove the whole way home. This time Kristen sat in the front seat but as with the trip down the only sounds made were from the iPod or me saying something. They did whisper / giggle a bit once in a while but generally were dead quiet. Oh well I had tunes so I didn't feel awkward.

Gong Show

My work has been a Gong Show this week.

First off I'm working 8 days in a row. In a row! What the hell who thought that was a good idea? Secondly it has been an interesting week where I'm constantly wondering if I'll be going home soon.

At the start of the week we ran out of yeast. That's right yeast, the stuff that makes bread go. That's almost as bad as a bakery out of flour... oh wait that happened later that day. So at the very start of the day as I mixed the second dough of over a dozen I realised there was no more yeast in the cooler. So there I was at 3:30 in the morning, out of yeast, and with one other person working who is constantly offended by the lack of management.

No seriously, she gets upset when someone says something that contridicts something she was already told, or when screw ups like running out of yeast happen. The last few days I've arrived at the store and knocked to be let in she seemed miffed at me for not being giving a key yet.

Anyway I made the wise executive decision to stretch what little yeast I had to make all of the smaller doughs that use very little of it and are normally made later in the day. Of course that ment we didn't have any white, whole wheat, or sweet dough but what can you do?

Later in the morning the assistant manager came in an hour late after we had spent the better part of the day cleaning and wondering what to do next. He took off right away to try and track down some live yeast, which he did in under an hour and we were able to get a few of the important doughs made. In doing so we used every last kilogram of flour we had left. However at the end of the production day the long overdue order arrived and replenished our supplies.

Oh that reminds me of a few days before, where again right off the bat in the morning Arden and I realised that there was a huge order of buns being picked up before noon and it wasn't a part of our first or second run productions. Good times. Naturally Arden was pissed. I on the other hand was glad we caught the mistake when we did because I could still update the spreadsheet and reweigh out the dough ingredients. So we saved the day and nobody seemed to care or notice.

Now today was another fun day. I was in the middle of mixing a dough when the mixer broke. Apparently this had happened before on a day I wasn't there and they had to call a repair guy. Same thing today. It had blown an internal fuse (which I now know how to change if it happens again) and so it wouldn't do much of anything expect trip the building fuse it's hooked into. So while we waited for this guy to come fix it I got to "hand mix" the 15 kilogram blob of dough still in the mixing bowl. Wow is that alot of work.

So I'm already ridiculously tired from my long work week and now I have to knead a piece of half mixed dough for 15 minutes. If you want sore hands and wrists that's the way to do it. After I was finished and I could un-hunch from leaning over the bowl I was really light headed and sweaty. I sort of stumbled around as I cut up the dough without any help from my manager. I was pretty surprised nobody considered my well being after doing that. There was even a guy from the coast there doing a hands on inspection and he didn't seem to notice that I was swaying a touch. *sigh*

I really feel that my judgement is far superior to my manager's I just doing have any baking experience to rely on.

Night Terrors

So today I sort of came to realize something. My body is physically very still, sore, and sluggish. My eye sight is blurry and I'm constantly seeing things out of the corner of my eye that aren't there. Plus I'm feeling really groggy and tired all the time and just generally out of it. Well today on TV was the Star Trek: TNG episode titled "Night Terrors". In it the Enterprise in stranded in space and all of the crew start to have paranoid delusions and hallucinations because they aren't getting any REM sleep. Well I think that's starting to happen to me.

As you can tell from my last post I am seeing things from time to time, and in some cases not seeing things. I often see movement out of the corner of my eyes and I look over to see nothing there. I'll usually test it several more times to make sure nothing is in fact there by waiting to see if it happens again. It usually does and I've often tested to make sure nothing is there over a dozen times because I keep seeing something move.

I think the problem might be my new sleep schedule where I have 8 hours of sleep broken up into two chunks throughout the day. I have a nap from 2 to 5 hours when I get home and then I make up the remaining 8 hours that night. I've noticed that when I wake up I jolt awake suddenly and always in the middle of a dream. I don't usually remember my dreams so that fact that I'm waking up in the middle of them seems a bit unusual. I suspect that I'm waking up right in the middle of my deep REM sleep. So naturally my body is hating me.

Anyway I think all my paranoia with regards to seeing things and feeling dopey is related to this drastic change in my sleeping patterns. I thought I was doing okay with this type of work shift but I think I might be in for a rough ride this week.

Eyes in the dark. One moon circles.

Things that happen in the night...

Well I've managed to collect a few little stories of events that have happened to me as I ride to work at 2:30 in the morning. I thought I'd share a few of them.

This one happened to me over a week ago. I was riding down the street next to the sidewalk and I saw this cat sitting at the end of a driveway a little ways ahead of me. It was staring across the street and hadn't noticed me. I got about 6 feet away from this cat before it finally heard me and quickly looked up at me as I passed by. As I continued on riding I thought to myself "Wow that cat really wasn't paying much attention". After I got to work I started thinking that maybe I was the one not paying any attention. For all I know there could have been a bear on the other side of the street.

This one took place last week. I was almost at work and starting to get a little bit sweaty. I also found that things umm... down there were a little uncomfortable because I was getting sweaty. So I waited for the traffic to pass by and readjusted myself. When I looked back up there were two people walking towards me just within the distance where you could make out the detail of someone putting their hand down their pants *blushes*. Yeah, oops. It was the level of dark where to see a person in the shadows you need to focus for a second, and I didn't do that before making my move. I can only imagine what they saw or were thinking.

This last story happened to me just this morning. I had just got my bike out from behind the house. It is so dark when I go back there that if there was something on the lawn I would definately not see it and trip over it. Just as I had my bike and was walking to the driveway I spotted something. Something metalic and shiny. It looked to be about as tall as a person and for probably two to three seconds I thought I was looking at a Cylon. I totally panicked. Not just any Cylon either, but a 1978 Cylon from the original Battlestar Galactica. I thought I was going to die. My heart raced as I knew I wasn't seeing this correctly and I bravely continued moving forward in shock. Turns out it was light reflecting off of my dad's truck bumper and mirror and whatever else was chrome on that side.

Yes this is what I thought I saw and thought was going to kill me.

My day off...

Well today was the first of two whole days off from work that I get before having 8 days on (who did the scheduling there?). Then to break up my 8 days of work I get to spend the 2 days off on the coast at my Grandfather's 80th birthday / family reunion at my parent's cabin at Garden Bay Lake. It sounds awesome, but I'm pretty worried about it.

This was supposed to be the chance for me to introduce Sydney to my mum's side of the family. I was planning on flying as both out to the coast for this because it's been in the works for a while. Things are obviously different now so that won't be happening and it makes me sad. Plus I'm staying at the cabin and the last time I was there it was on vacation with Syd. It also involves a 6 hour drive with my sister and her boyfriend that I'm not looking forward to making in both directions. So it's going to be a busy weekend.

Today I had big plans. For the longest time I've wanted to donate blood. Since the weekend I had it in my head to work up the courage to do it today. Today came and I was all ready to go through with it. I made a phone call and set myself up with Canadian Blood Services, but I didn't realise that the Kelowna clinic is only open on Tuesday and Wednessday. So after getting ready to go with the exception of putting my shoes on I found out I couldn't do it today. So yeah. I don't know when I'll get the chance, perhaps in 2 weeks, I don't really want to do it in the middle of an 8 day work week with a 2 day family chaser leading into another work week.

I've wanted to donate blood when I lived alone in Burnaby, but I was always worried that I would be really sluggish and lazy for a while afterwards. So I figured that now since I'm living at home and I have people to take care of me if need be I could do it. However it seems it isn't to be just yet.

So instead of doing that I watched every inch of the Hot Fuzz DVD. It was a good use of half of a day :) It's an incredible film and I absolutely love it.

5 Year Grad Reunion

Well with nothing else to say I guess I better talk about my 5 year high school reunion. Boy that was an experience.

It took place on Saturday and I was pretty worried about going to it, because there are only about 3 people I actually wanted to see. Thankfully they were all there and I had some friends to talk to. Anyone I have an interest in hanging out with has moved out of town, but Barbra still lives in Kelowna with her boyfriend and we traded phone numbers. I hope to give her a call this week and maybe we can watch a movie or something. I'd be happy just to sit and talk about anything though, I'm pretty lonely when it comes to interacting with people my own age.

There were lots of people there that haven't changed at all from high school, and I mean that in the worst possible way. However a lot of people are doing pretty well. I was shocked at the number of people who have bought houses. Plus all the people I wouldn't have expected to be married are, or are engaged to be wed. My friend Chris Gross who got married 2 years ago is expecting a baby in mid September. That was pretty intense, but I'm really happy for him. It was tough to go to this thing and not put a positive spin on my life story. I'm sure many of the people there weren't doing that well, but they put their best foot forward. I would say it went as well as I could have hoped.

Aside from that I've just been working and surviving. I've been in pretty good spirits over the weekend. I'm starting to waver a bit today, and I'm really struggling to stay focused and positive.

I'm pretty excited to pick up Hot Fuzz and 300 tomorrow. I'm bummed that I won't be able to watch them with Syd, as we saw both of them in theaters and it's always fun to rewatch a movie with the people you first saw it with. Funny I never thought about this before, but since I moved to Ontario I only watched those 2 movies, plus Pan's Labyrinth in theater, and have bought or am planning to buy them all. I guess we pick good movies. I'm hoping maybe Barbra and Ian want to watch one of them together. I think that would be a fun thing to do and it would give me a chance to take my mind off things.

Well I guess that's a pretty good sized post. For not feeling like I had anything to say I managed to ramble on for a while. I guess if I do this a little more often I can have smaller but more frequent updates. Anyway if you know me, then you know how I feel about you, and I'm feeling that way right now ;)

New Bike Photos

Here are some pictures of me and my new bike. She's a pretty sweet ride, or at least I like it.

My dad of course has to keep pointing out that it has the same ride height as his (I was borrowing his bike), the gears aren't any higher, he has fenders for his bike he just never put them on, and anything else he picks up on that steals my thunder. I'm not letting him get to me, but it's tough. Just as I finished taking these pictures he measured the distance from the pedal to the seat on my bike to compare it to his. I don't know what he hopes to accomplish with this. Just so that he knows? I don't get it. Anyway as he measures his bike in the old wood shed area he asks me how I managed to get his bike and my mum's all tangled up. At a loss as to what to say to that, he always asks these questions where there is no correct or appropriate answer I said "I practiced", in what was quite clearly a joke. Then he added that the snow shovels were involved too and I said that I didn't have an issues getting the bike in and out with them there. I really didn't beacause I just backed the bike in slightly to go around the shovel, no big deal I thought. Well with that he marched off in a huff. I wasn't sure where he was going at first so I asked if I could put my bike back. He just said something like yeah I'm done here. I don't know how to handle him. I hadn't done anything to upset him today, and I can't think of any grudge he might be holding on me from past days, but he flipped the board over on me.

Anyway check out my sweet bike...

Crying on the outside

I'm really having a bad time here over the last 24 hours. I found out Sydney is nearly over me and that it really was my fault for not kindling her passion towards me. This is really hard to deal with.

However I'm just realising now that if my family wasn't my family I wouldn't like them. With the exception of my mum I don't like people like my dad or sister. My dad is an insensitive condescending jerk, and my sister is overly cute and frustrating due to her lack of opinion and stupid girl antics. I really don't like living here. I really miss my surrogate Ontario family more with each passing day. They really were the family I have always wanted to have.

I'm really unhappy and alone and sad. I can't believe things have come to this because my life is a mess right now. Everything I wanted I've lost and everything I have left has long been overshadowed and exposed as fundamentaly different from the person I am. I'm just at a loss. All I can do is work and save money. I wish I could deal with my emotions.

I'll post some picture of my new bike tomorrow when I feel up to it.

New Bike!

Oh... my... gawd!

Today after work I bought the most awesome-ist bike ever! It's exactly what I've been looking for, it was kismet, fate, love at first sight. I've fallen for the most beautiful piece of steel ever fabricated.

I was checking out some bike shop that I found the address of and they did carry used bikes but none my size. So I asked if they knew anywhere else that might have used bikes. I ended up just slightly farther down the road at a place where this nice Australian girl helped me pick out the bike of my dreams. It's a big bike to suit my massive 190 pound frame ;) It's really simple and vintage looking. It's blue with cool chrome fenders on the front and rear tyres. I really wanted fenders on a bike but I was worried they would be too costly and I'd have to settle for ugly black plastic ones. It has only one gear selector because it only has 7 gears. Which I love, because I hate fiddling with 20 odd gears that hardly change anything. It has really nice brakes and the seat is even slightly nicer than my dad's bike, which I'm borrowing. It also has a bell!

The handle bars really sucked though. They were this disintegrating black foam that made my hands go black. So I picked out a new cheap pair that they'll install for me. I also got a water bottle holder. But aside from that it's great and it was within my price range. I wanted to spend under $200 and it came to $129 with taxes and my simple changes. Plus if I have any trouble with it they'll fix it for me at no charge.

I pick it up tomorrow after they inspect it and make my modifications to it. I'm super excited. I really love the look of it. it just screams me, it's so awesome. It's right between a street bike and a mountain bike. A very generic bike. It has tyres that are less knobbly than a mountain bike, but they are still wide so I could ride on a gravel trail without issues. Plus since it looks so plain it's less likely to get stolen. I'm so in love with it. I was worried I'd have to settle for a lame wannabe mountain bike, or some street bike that I would require me to ride only on tarmac and learn to use those weird goat horn handle bars. I'm so happy right now.

I'll post lots of picture tomorrow when i pick it up. Oh I'm so happy, now I can be a hippie with a bike!

I'm seeing someone....

Well after very little happening this week aside from work and much deliberation I decided to post that I have started seeing a psychologist.

I was hesitant to mention this, because I am not going to be discussing any details here. I'm just having a really difficult time emotionaly and I want to recover from this spiral dive before I get close to the ground. I'm having a hard time with moving away from my family and friends in Ontario, and I don't feel like I have any focused goals in life right now.

I probably wouldn't have done this if I had to pay for it, but since my mum works at an office of psychologists one of them was willing to see me at no charge. He seems like a nice guy, I hope he has some things for me to think about when I see him next.

Aside from that very little is going on. I have rented two Wii games in the last week. Trauma Centre and Cooking Mama. Frankly I was disapointed with both of them. I really thought I would like them, but I found them to be too mini-game like, too rigid in gameplay, and too much fluff and not enough actual gameplay. Trauma Centre ramped up the difficulty faster than I enjoyed, and cooking mama had very frustrating controls. I really expected to like them, and I'm really upset that I didn't :(

I also created a Facebook account yesterday. I never really knew what the deal with it was, but now I see it's pretty cool. Of course I have a tenth the number of friends that most people I know have, but I've never really had that many close friends.

I guess I've done more than I thought this week. I've also started working on the stenciled shirts that I bought last week. I have several stencil designs made on the computer, and one shirt awaiting a final coat of paint. I'll likely start another one tomorrow. Oh and of course I'll post pictures when they are done.

My BIG Bike Adventure

Yesterday I went out on a big long bike trip to do a whole bunch of errands. I was out for hours and I had a really great time doing it too.

I had some banking to do which I went to do first. I saw a guy walking his dog and smoking a joint on the street. A bust street with cars and pedestrians on it, but he didn't care.

After dealing with my finances I went to Canadian Tire to finally get a bike lock. I ran in and picked one out really fast and then ran back to lock my bike up. There was an employee waiting for a ride near my bike. He said he kept an eye on it for me and let me use his exacto knife to open my bike lock packaging. I'm pretty happy with the lock I got, it seems pretty tough. After I got the bike secured I went back in and bought mysdelf a helmet. My dad's is probably more than 15 years old, so I imagine it has degraded in strength over that time. My new one is a blue, grey, and white in an aggressive design that can only make me go faster ;)

From there I headed to Walmart and bought some fabric paints and looked at shirts. They had all three of the shirts I wanted but only one in my size. So I bought a brown one to remake my Ben Folds shirt with. I wanted to get an olive drab one for my Stargate shirt and a grey ringer for my Rez shirt, but I was outta luck. I stopped next door at Michaels and bought some orange fabric paint for my Rez shirt. The prices of paint are twice as much as Walmart, but they have the full range of colours :P

I really wanted to get started on this Tomten hoodie I found online. Actually it's a pattern from a book, but it was modified by this guy on his blog. He knits some really nice stuff, very cool. Anyway it looks like this http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2007/07/adult-tomten-jacket.html. I really want to do it in an earthy brown I think. I'm not sure about the accent but I really like that rich autumn he went with. This will require some thought and I'll need to have the yarn in front of me to decide it. I really like the look of the tweed though, I just hope I can afford to make this. It's my first project of this magnitude and I don't want to screw it up.

Chapters didn't have either of the books that the original Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern is found in. I'll have to order the book, I just don't want to have to wait.

I stopped in at the run-down looking Kelowna Zellers. It's a normal (but small) Zellers but the building is really old looking and inside it has terrible lighting so it looks like a cheap discount store. I never knew Zellers was a decent store until I moved to Vancouver. After shopping at this one I always thought it was sort of a dive. Luckily they had an olive drab shirt for me in my size, so I snatched it up. Now I just need to wait until Walmart gets some grey ringers in stock.

I stopped at my local yarn store, but they were closed already. I really want to see what they have and ask if they know of (or sell) one of the knitting books I wanted, before I order it from Chapters.

Then on the way home I went to the grocery store mini-mall near home and I bought some freezer paper for stenciling my shirts with, some Pears soap, a good pair of tweezers, some booze, and a wart freezer kit. I don't have any warts, but I do have some skin tags that have been around for most of my life, and I think in my effort to change into a new person I want to get rid of them. I'm nervous about doing it though, I've had them so long it feels weird to try and freeze them away. I'll work up the courage for that ;)

On the way home I rode on the other side of the street on a guy riding one of those arm peddle bike thingys. We were going about the same speed so we ended up riding side by side for a stretch. He asked me why I was riding on the left hand side (into traffic) when all the painted bike lane arrows say to ride on the right (with traffic). I said I didn't like riding with my back to the traffic and I felt safer being able to move away from cars when I saw them coming. He said he thought it was a bad idea. I think it's a pretty good one. When I ride a bike I don't think of myself as traffic, I think of myself as a pedestrian on a bike. So I follow those rules. I don't use left hand turn lanes and ride on the street mere inches away from passing cars. I ride along the sidewalk, crosswalks, and use the bike lanes when they are present but I always ride into traffic. It seems like the safest thing to do. I'm not a hardcore bike racer after all.

My satchel (the one Syd bought me for Xmas) was so full and heavy when I peddled my ass home. By the time I got home it was past my work bed time already, but I didn't have to work the next day so no biggie. My mum's sisters are staying for the weekend. Margret and Ursula come to visit my mum from the coast and northern BC once a year and they have a sisterly get together. It's nice for them all, and I haven't seen either of them in a long time.

Well it was a fun trip and now I really want to get my own bike. Here's a quick run down of all my stops:

1 RBC (they were closed)
2 The Keg (to pick up my cheque)
3 RBC (I found a different RBC and deposited my cheque and got a direct deposit form for COBS)
4 COBS (I dropped off my form)
5 Canadian Tire (I ran in and quickly bought a bike lock, ran back outside and locked my bike up, then I bought myself a helmet so I don't need to borrow my dad's 15 year old one)
6 Walmart (I bought some white and black fabric paint, brushes, and a brown shirt to paint)
7 Michaels (I bought some orange fabric paint)
8 Pharmacy (couldn't find any Pears soap so I left)
9 Chapters (they didn't have either of the knitting books I was looking for in stock)
10 Zellers (they had an olive drab shirt that Walmart didn't have in my size so I bought it)
11 Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts (they were unfortunately closed, so I'll have to try another day)
12 Pharmacy (a better pharmacy were I could get Pears soap)
13 Coopers (I bought some freezer paper for stenciling shirts with)
14 Liqour Store (I bought a small bottle of Kaluha, I think I earned it)
15 Home (back to start)

They can check out my whole adventure route around Kelowna here: http://www.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=49.853701,-119.471512&spn=0.103594,0.2314&z=12&om=1&msid=115086778432601111041.0004353d3fae0292f1374

Apollo and Starbuck

I forgot to post some pictures of the bunny's house. I posted them on Craftster and I guess I forgot to do it here too. Here's a link to the Craftster thread http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=181047.0.

Here they are in their happy home.

I got a NEW job!

COBS Bakery finally called me on back and I had a quick interview with them before getting the job as a baker. This was the job I wanted when I first started appling around town. I had my first training half-day today and I really liked it. I mixed dough, cut it down to the appropriate weight, and then shaped it so that it could sit and rise before baking. I really did enjoy it.

It's nice to work with morning people and to see the difference between evening people. Everyone at the Keg was a partier / drinker. After work people would hang out and drink beer from the tap until late, then I guess they would stumble or drunkenly drive home. I liked that when things were really busy and we had to work overtime that they gave us free drinks to keep our spirts up, but after having a free drink every night, even when it wasn't busy I have come to realise why it's called the Keg.

So after working my ass off at the Keg, I'm glad to leave it. I really think I'm going to feel a lot better physicaly by working in the mornings.

I got a job!

That's right I got a job today at The Keg. I'm a line cook, wahoo! I've always had an interest in cooking and now I can finally learn something about it.

It's funny after appling and several different jobs last week, I sent out a half dozen resumes today via email and about an hour after sending one to The Keg I got a call for an interview that same day. I was the first one there for the interview and I filled out an application. I had a great little chat with the manager there and she seemed to like me and hired me right there on the spot. She wrote me on the the schedule for the next 5 days and I start tomorrow. How about that!

I'll start off doing line cook stuff which is all manner of things I guess. Getting little sides ready and stuff. Then I'll have some shifts doing dishes, I'm not yet sure if I should be afraid or very afraid. Then I'll get some shifts doing salads the next time there is a space on the schedule for me. Cool beans!

I suspect that I'll be one of the youngest people there, so I'll have to really be outgoing to fit in. I'm looking forward to the challenge and the chance to meet some new people. There were 3 or maybe more other guys in there for interviews too. I'm not sure if Holly (I hope that's her name) was planning on hiring all of them or if she just really liked me? They looked a lot more skivy than I expected. This Keg is located deep downtown and isn't as upscale looking as I thought it would be. I'm sure some of them will be starting at the same time as me, so I'll have to make sure I shine.

I'm so happy I finally have work and I can relax a bit. I really wish it wasn't evening work though, but I guess I can't get everything I want. Until I get used to the time zone this will be like working until 4 AM for me :(

Still looking...

Still no word on getting a job yet. Yesterday I applied at COBS and Starbucks in person and they both seemed interested but I haven't gotten any calls yet. Hopefuly soon I get work so I can start saving money.

I've been exercising a lot lately. My body is aching, but in a good way. I hope to regain some stamina, strength, and lose some body fat. I've been really watching what I eat and doing all manners of exercise. On Tuesday I walked for an hour and jumped on the trampoline for 10 minutes. Wednessday I did an hour of Wii Boxing, 10 minutes on the trampoline, and about 5 minutes lifting weights. Nothing too fancy just reps of 10 pound weights to strengthen my arms and shoulders. Yesterday I went for a 2 hour bike ride through town as I applied at places. After I got home and did 5 to 10 minutes of weight lifting and after dinner I went for a half hour walk with my sister. So I'm pretty happy with myself. Now I just need to keep it up.

I posted pictures of my Battlestar Galactica shirt on Craftster and everyone loves it. I've already gotten 2 marriage proposals ;)

Here's a shot of me in it.

Looking for work

Hi. My name in John. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

I'm trying to work on the first part so that I can deal with the second part. I'm looking for a job right now. Any job will do. I really want something simple, new, and fun. I've applied at a couple places but I'm really hoping to hear back from COBS Bakery. I really want to be a baker and I want to work mornings. I really hope I get a call from them soon.

Aside from scrambling for a job I'm just trying to survive at home. I really miss being independant and I'm having a hard time dealing with all the "rules" around here. I just want to do things my own way and be left alone in peace and quiet. I'm really missing Sydney and her family too. This is really hard and I've been down this road before. Last time I moved across the country to live with her. This time I don't have that option. It's just going to be a long hard year before her schooling is over and she can even consider moving out west again. *sigh*

On the positive side the Bunnies are doing well. See.

BBQ

Today was a busy day. I started off surfing the web and doing whatever on the computer. Just after lunch I went for an hour long bike ride down a hilly road with lots of traffic and no shoulder to ride on. It was fun and shocking. I'm really out of shape. My leg muscles were burning and I found myself out of breath easily on hills. Afterwards my legs were like jelly. I need to go biking more often. A few times a week, maybe alternate between riding and walking.

When I got back guests for the BBQ started arriving. My aunt Pat and uncle Bob, cousins Tami and Dan, Grandparents, Sister's boyfriend, and many of my parents friends were there. About 20-25 of us in total. I was pretty overwhelmed and had 3 beers ;)

I got to explain my situation and future plans to nearly everyone. I had to take frequent breaks from the party. It was tough, and I appreciate everyone's support but I just don't want to hear it right now. I don't like being told what's good for me and what I should do.

As mentioned I met Kristen's boyfriend Brett today. Seems like a nice guy, I didn't get to talk with him too much though. I don't know if he was overwhelmed by everyone or just shy. It felt a little weird though to see my sister with a boyfriend. Just new to me, I'm sure she felt like that with me too.

Anyway off to bed soon. I'm going to try and blog in the evenings before bed, do a little recap of the day. G'night!

Bunny Cage / Computer Desk

Here are some pictures of my new bunny cage / computer desk. Now the buns and I can hang out while I play World of Warcraft!