norsegirl

It's official, Jason's accepted the position in Austin. Now we just wait for the immigration stuff to go through and off we go. And no, at this point I don't have a date because I have no idea how long this immigration stuff takes.

Our plan at this point is that Jason will go down and I'll go with him for a week to try to find a house. Then I'll come home and make a bit more money and I'll move down with all our stuff when the deal closes (2 months tops). That all depends when the move happens though. If we go in December or later I'm going with him. No way am I staying here during winter all by myself :p I'm going to take a month or two when I get there just to get settled and do any work on the house that needs doing and hopefully the work permit will go through in that time. Then I'll have to start looking for a new career.

Really, other than the weather, Edmonton's been great. I'm especially going to miss E-ville Roller Derby. I went to practice tonight and it was good. I still suck of course, but I hope to improve with a bit more regular practice this month.

Moving is scary. Having to find a house and commit to a purchase that big is ENORMOUSLY scary. But it's a good scary, like getting married. It's scary because you know everything is going to be different and you don't really 100% know how it's going to be different, but at the same time you really want it and you know you're ready for that adventure.

I’m feeling a little off. I’m lazy and accomplishing nothing. I can’t find the motivation to do anything, even the things I normally enjoy. I feel like I don’t have a lot of energy or get-up-and-go. I’m not sleeping well and I’m antsy. I’m just not comfortable in my own skin.

( Me complaining about all the little things that don’t really matter )
With all the annoyances and my antsyness it’s easy to lose sight of the things that I am thankful for. I have a husband and puppies I love and who treat me well and love me back. I have parents I like and admire who also love me, great in-laws and a sister I miss constantly. I have a job that pays well and a boss who is really nice. I have a roof over my head and rooms large enough to fulfill our needs if I could just keep them tidy. We eat well and are generally pretty healthy, no major complaints anyway. We could always stand to be a little more fit, but we’re not sick at all. I have a lot of friends out here whose company I really, truly enjoy, and a lot of friends back home who would welcome me on my return.

Basic needs (food & shelter), health and relationships – that’s what a good life is all about right? So when all of that is going right, why am I getting my knickers in a knot over the little junk that’s not perfect. And why am I letting my responses to the things that don’t matter jeopardize the things that do?

Which brings me to the end of this whole wandering rant… you guys are my friends, and no matter how much I don’t call, or drift away and stop reading LJ or otherwise vanish from your lives, please know that I love you all and I really appreciate you being there for me. Thanks guys.

Watched a HORRIBLE movie last night. Alexander was showing on TV. I have never watched a bigger budget movie that was so boring, with acting so bad, and which looked like it had the budget of a particularly well funded high school production.

( Alexander sucks! )

In summary: even if it's on TV, avoid Alexander. It's not even terribly good as a movie to watch and loudly mock. Though with a large enough creative group I may be proven wrong.

In other news, my parents' visit was pleasant and went by way too quickly.

( Edmonton: Tourist Dream Destination! )I had my mid-afternoon interview at Bioware for a contract job testing games.

( interview at Bioware )If I get an offer I'll post more details and have a better basis upon which to make a decision.

Cold again today - go figure. I've decided to put a thermometer in my spare room and track the temperature there for a few days and use the landlord-tennant act as ammo to get that damned window replaced. I rented a 3-bedroom unit and frankly, yes, I do think I'm entitled to be able to use the whole thing. And no, I don't enjoy trying to heat the whole neighbourhood.

This Wednesday I have to work on my day off as Michael Dell is coming to visit our site. I get paid time and a half, which is okay, but it's an outdoor meeting in November in Edmonton. It's -20 or so right now, I very much doubt there will be a miraculous Indian summer by Wednesday. They're saying it will be in a "heated" tent. I figure they are dumber than a sack of wet mice.

Why yes, that must be what he considers his car... a large, blue extension of his penis.

Today I had to give Jason the car for a doctor's apointment after work, just in case I got stuck on a call and couldn't get the car home in time for him. So he dropped me off at work and I had to find my own way home. I could have taken the bus, and I probably should have taken the bus. Honestly, I'm AMAZED I got home alive.

The shift is nearing an end, so I turn to Raylene and ask if she's catching the bus and if she wouldn't mind me taggging along. She responds that her boyfriend is giving her a ride. Now I haven't liked this guy from day one. No real concrete reason, just that instinctive "you suck" kind of thing. Today I nailed down exactly why. He's a reckless, thoughtless, impulsive, young ass. Anyway, I asked if I could tag along and get dropped off near my house because I know she lives past me. Well, as it turns out, they're going to his place, not hers, and it is the opposite direction. However, he agrees to go a few minutes out of his way and drive me home, which is real nice, and I should be appreciative, but I'm just not.

We get to the car, and it's a tiny, new, cobalt blue Cobalt. Now I haven't looked up the specs, but it is basically the updated branding of the Cavalier, so I assume the performance/safety specs are going to be about the same. I'd put that at about a 2-star, or only moderately better than, say, being hit on a motorbike. Relatively responsive, but not something you really want to put yourself into a dangerous situation in.

Anyway, jackass-boy drives out of the parking lot at 30+km/h, even around corners. I'm feeling the pull and it's only barely sticking the road. He drives with one hand on the shifter of an automatic (makes ya look cool eh buddy?) cuts off everything he can, especially if it's a transport, because those suckers can stop on a dime right? Drives less than a foot off the bumper of a van for half of the trip, and when the van (thank the gods) pulls nicely into the left turn lane and is gone, he then completes the trip at 94km/h in a 50 or 60 zone (I cant recall because usually the traffic is so thick you're hard pressed to get above 60 anyway). Piece de resistance, in the last 3 blocks he manages to cut off 2 people (including the ever-responsive cube van) switch lanes 6 or 7 times without a turn signal, and goes from 40km/h to dead stop in 30 feet, while pulling to the side of the road to drop me off.

As I just discussed with Jason, I'm not really against driving quickly, it's driving recklessly. I don't care how finely tuned your responses are, or how well tuned your vehicle, if you've got less than a foot between you and the guy in front of you, if he slams on the brakes, you're up his ass. And if he's a van and you're a Cobalt, who do you think is going to be on the losing end of that argument? And fitting into the next lane when it's a tight spot is one thing, doing it as everyone is coming to a stop is another. Especially when you pull that kind of move in front of a cube van. Sure, you can stop with only 10 feet, but now that you're in the cushion he planned for his stop, how do you think that is going to work out for him? And a sub-compact trailing only inches after a van, do you honestly think the van even knows you're there? Ditto for unexpectedly zipping around an SUV.

You can drive too fast and take corners quickly if your car is capable and you feel a genuine need, but don't make it other people's responibility to clean up after your daredevil maneuvers. Especially not in Alberta, land of the driving dead. Really, you pull shit like that and you are counting on their reflexes being spot-on, and I can almost guarantee that they are not.

And speaking of other people... Fenrick said to me the other day: "Sure, I drive like an ass when I'm alone. As soon as someone else gets in my car I'm a model driver. If I get myself killed, that's my problem, but when their life is in my hands I have a duty to protect it." I'd like to extend this notion to the drivers and passengers of the other vehicles on the road as well, but even going on the assumption that you have only a duty to safeguard the passengers in your own vehicle, I certainly didn't sign up to spend my last minutes on this earth in the back of his shitty-ass car while he tried to impress me with his enormous blue penis waving.

It's a given, I will NEVER be asking for a ride from him again. In fact, I'll be bringing a change of clothes to work. In future, I would rather RUN the 5 miles home than risk that 7 minute death-defying journey again. Though if it's winter, I won't be running near any actual roads, on the off chance that he heads North again.

In other news, idiot neighbours were irresponsible (surprise) and neglected to spay/neuter their animals. So, wonder of wonders, they now have unexpected puppies. Said puppies are presently whining up a storm, and I can hear them through my open window. Rather than say, comforting them, or trying to see what is wrong, ignoring them until it passes, or even a calm but stern "no" she screams "shut up" at them - wonderful, absolutely wonderful - sigh.

Why are people so dumb?

Back in E-town, and boy is it hot. No AC here of course, so the 30+ degrees we're experiencing is a little much. The only real problem with this temperature is trying to get work done around the house. I'd be perfectly happy if I could just sit around and do nothing. Having just come back from a trip, there is a whole lot of work to be done. The place is a complete disaster. Jason brought all the stuff in from outside, but just dumped it at the top of the basement stairs in our dining room. I can only barely get up the stairs right now. Unfortunately, the bulk of the junk is stuff I had left at my parents' place when I moved, which means there isn't really a designated place to store it here. Not sure what to do with this pile. It all fit in the car, but I have no idea how to fit it in the house - sigh.

In other news, as far as I can figure, I've picked up almost everything I left at my parents' place in the chaos of the first move. The only thing I realized half-way through the trip home that is still there is a harp I made in high school. Ah well, I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually. This means that in the future we can fly home and skip wasting a week of our vacation time on a looooong, boring drive. Hopefully, that is nearly the last drive I will have to make across the country (excepting the eventual drive when I move back to Ontario in a few years).

Anyway, time to get off the internet and get some stuff put away so I can actually move through my house.

It was a slow weekend. Jason's birthday itself was especially slow. There was lots of sleeping. We watched an episode of Veronica Mars and downloaded all the other episodes we've missed, so we can get caught up this week. We went out to dinner at East Side Mario's and I think I had the best seafood linguine I've ever had! The scallops were like butta baby! We then went to see the late show of Crash.

Crash was, interesting. I totally enjoyed every minute of it. It had interesting characters, lots of drama, interesting situations. But in the end, I don't think I completely "got it". The characters you thought were "good" wind up doing some very bad things, the bad characters get redeemed, and in the end, it seems everyone's a little bit racist. Was the message how harmful racial profiling can be or how inescapable it is?

I baked Jason a cake, but I used a stupid mix. At least I made the frosting and didn't buy evil, chemically-tasting store frosting. Unfortunately, the cake itself is pretty crap. Mix cakes are really light and spongy, and only have a hint of chocolate. It's definitely more sponge/sawdust than anything truly delicious. So that's it, no more cake mix in this house. Still, better than last year when I was still in the height of "busy season" and didn't make him a cake at all.

Anyway, today we took the doggies on a walk in a new neighbourhood. Found a place with garages out front like we're used to from home, and thought - ooooh, an older neighbourhood we might even consider! But some houses didn't have front garages, and as it turned out, despite having really not-deep lots, where we could easily see the houses they backed on to, there was still a fricking lane stuffed in back there. I really, really, really hate lanes. And it doesn't look like I'm easily going to find a neighbourhood without one here - sigh.

And tonight was just leftovers and Warcraft. A reasonably good weekend, if not terribly productive. Tomorrow, back to work. And I'm going to start taking my writing time more seriously and push to get this stupid application done and handed in. The faster I get this done, the faster I either start working at Bioware or give up and move on to something else.

The weekend was full of highs and lows.
( Read more... )

SPO stands for Stupid Pet Owners. Why do we let just anyone have a dog? Why?!?!

I joined this thing called "freecyclers". The idea is if you have things that you don't want but which still might be useful (clothes you've grown out of, appliances you've upgraded out of, gift certificates you'll never use) you post them to the list and people ask if they can have them. You then pick a recipient and arrange for pick-up. You can also post "wanted" if you're looking for things. You'd be amazed what people ask for that they think they will get for free. So far my favourite has been "a working car" o_0

Anyway, today a request comes through and I just want to throttle the person on the other end. It reads:

"We are looking for a male dog who is ready to stud immediately. The female is a Shitzu-schauzer cross. We live in Devon but arrangements can be made regarding transporting."

You have some mutty cross that you want to mate with god knows what else, and you've thought about it exactly far enough ahead to... oh right, you didn't think ahead. Your dog came into heat and this morning you woke up and said to yourself "puppies would be fun". The humane society is overflowing with dogs, and perfectly good animals get put to sleep all the time because of a lack of good homes. And then you get dipshits like this thinking "puppies would be fun". I'm guessing the family pet is really great and they want a new one for when this one dies and the other 3-6 puppies will be by-products of this experiment. I would bet they haven't found homes for a single one and won't even attempt to do so until after the miraculous event. I hope the stud dog bites them. Heck, I hope their own dog bites them.

And they can't even fucking spell. What is a schauzer? I hate you whoever you are.

So this year I think I got the worst Christmas Present ever. You see, in Ontario, we have these little moths. I have never seen these little moths in Alberta, until this month. I believe that some moths may have arrived with my Christmas presents (since it was around them that I noticed the first one or two). I killed the ones I saw in January, but apparently they had a chance to "get busy" in my kitchen before their untimely demise. My mum refuses to accept blame. She says they came out of the pistachios that were sitting uneaten and untouched in my cupboard since some time this summer. I don't think I'm buying her story.

This brings us to Friday night, when Jason and I finally figured out how bad the infestation was. We spent our entire Friday night throwing out food and cleaning the kitchen. We even went so far as to move the fridge so we could clean behind it and make sure we got every last one of the little creepy, crawly "worms" that spawn into these godforsaken moths. No, the moths weren't in EVERYTHING. But after you see them in anything in a cupboard, you start to wonder... and there's no way I was going to risk eating any of these disgusting things. We now have no cereal, crackers, nuts, dried fruit or really much of anything in our cupboards. My candy stash, thankfully, is all stored in sealed tupperware and was safe from the invasion. Still, it was a long and YUCKY night that I will be happy if I never have to repeat. Anyway, to all my Ontario friends and family, next year, please don't send moths.

Saturday was MUCH better. Spent the day up at the armoury, but didn't manage to accomplish much as they sold Hjalti the wrong gas for his welder, so no welding could be done. Still, nice socializing and did get some work done on my helm.

Saturday night we hit the Lacrosse game. Edmonton vs Toronto. I was one of maybe 3 people in our section cheering the visitors. It was a fairly tight game until the end, when Edmonton made a pretty fatal error and lost spectacularly (really, who pulls their goalie in favour of more offense when the other team has possession?!?!?) This means that the Edmonton Rush STILL hasn't won a single game. Although I am more loyal to Toronto on the whole, and I did fully expect them to win, I admit to feeling bad for the home team this weekend.

One of the more interesting parts of the game right now is that this is the first season, and you can tell everyone is trying to get a groove and still stumbling a bit. For example, the DJ was experimenting with goal music. Gone was the great music from the first game, which I believe is the same music they play when hockey goals are scored. It was very "stadium". They tried a song with the lyrics "oh, what a feeling, what a rush" (no, I can't find the artist or the real song name, you try googling that phrase and see if you can do any better). Anyway, this song was featured in a lotto ad a few years back. Okay, yes, it has the team's name in the lyrics, but as soon as something has been in an ad campaign, it ceases to be cool. With the possible exception of any song used to promote Jamaica, the Bahamas, etc (I'm thinking Bedoiun Soundclash of course). Tropical islands and bikinis = cool; rednecks and old people winning financial freedom (until they blow it all within 2 years) |= cool. Anyway, about half-way through the game the DJ realized his fatal error and abandoned the new goal music in favour of Marilyn Manson's Beautiful people. The crowd loved it.

The other experimentation came from the cheerleaders/dance squad. I'm used to the Edmonton Raptors' Dance Pack. Yeah, I'm spoiled. Those girls are polished, perfect, and cool. These girls sooooo need a new choreographer. Their moves are an odd split of classical-type dance (high kicks, spins, side-slides), cheerleader arm movements and bar dancing attempts at sexiness. It's not a perfect marriage though. You can definitely see the styles quietly warring in every routine. But I can't blame it all on the choreographer. They also did a number last night that was very country line-dancing. Total break from their usual "style", and maybe would have worked if the girls actually had some concept of working together and being, you know, in a line. Instead there was this horrible snakey-line-thing and they weren't completely together. The moves that were supposed to travel down the line in a "wave" were the worst. Instead of a nice wave like you get with say, the Rockettes, instead it was one girl kicks, then the next three, then two, then one, then a pause, then 4 more. It was ugly.

In other news, my new neighbour is NOISY! We're having to run our humidifier every night just to block out the noise from his side of the wall. He plays the radio CONSTANTLY. And just a minute ago, I think he was moving elephants. All the crystal in my cabinet was jingling from the vibrations. Even when my husband and I run after the beagles we can't get that cabinet to shake. Sure, the pot smokers were irritating, and we weren't terribly fond of the occasional screaming match they'd have with each other, but I guess this proves you can do worse.