crashpow

Today was... well, different. I would say more, but alas, I can't really talk about new job. Remember? Yeah. Anyway, needless to say, I have been given an empowered position. This was fun, until I messed up and nearly had about six VP's banging on my cube wall. (If I had a door, they'd be breaking it down.) Crisis averted, but I definately shed a few stress tears this afternoon. Yes, OK, I cried at work. But I kept facing my computer and blamed fall allergies. Does anyone have fall allergies? Because I fully made them up.
I wore my fleece rasta snowboard hat this evening. I bought four bags of fun sized candy. And how many trick-ot-treaters came a-knockin'? Not a one. This was thoroughly disappointing. You see, I grew up in the woods. The boondocks. A two-stoplight, one-horse town. We used to drive half an hour to the suburbs, so that we could go trick-or-treating in a place where the houses weren't spaced out by miles and they had streetlights. Real streetlights!
All this to say, when nobody showed up at my door this evening, I was two things. Disappointed and relieved. Disappointed because I've never once answered the door to a trick-or-treater, but relieved because my faith in humanity is slightly restored; I live across the street from a pretty seedy strip club, and if parents were bringing their kids here to beg for candy, well... I'd be a little bit sad.
Then again, stripper's kids gotta get them some Reese's, too.

I went for a hike today. It was lovely. Blue skies, fall colours. Fresh air. I wore my new (red) hiking boots, and they were perfect; no blisters, no problems. Minor leaking, but when you stomp through enough streams, you're going to have some leaks.

It was everything I could have hoped and expected. I even met someone new. Nice.

But, you know what I completely wasn't expecting? At all? Two freakin' feet of snow. Nope, I'm not kidding. We were three... my friend Pete and my new friend Paul (yes, we were actually Peter, Paul, and Mary, and I failed to realized this until three hours after I'd come home. So slow on the uptake.), and the dog. Indy (short for Indigo). Indy is a two-year old German Shepard. And the snow was up to her shoulder. I don't know if I'm ready for winter yet, but throwing snowballs with your bare hands at someone wearing a T-shirt is fun.

Back to the (above-zero) grind again tomorrow.

ode to daylight savings time

Going hiking.
Wake up.
9:00 is very early.
Head pounding, eyes half open.
Get dressed.
Realize 9:00 is 9:00 no more.
Rapture!
Return to bed.

the letter G

I want a Halloween party to attend, instead of a "we're-too-cool-to-dress-up-but-the-party's-on-the-29th" party. I came up with my costume months ago. I was going to be a Lego man. It had to be a man, because then I could have the round spot on the top of my head to snap little hats on to. I was going to buy a ball, cut out a hole for my face, and paint it (and my face) yellow. My hands were going to be split beer cozies (brilliant double purpose) and I was going to buy a pair of way-oversized overalls and put wire in them to make them square. I had it all planned out. And now my plans have been thwarted by a party which I cannot get out of. It's a friend's going away forever party, you can't skip those without a written note from a doctor. And even then, it's dicey.
Last year, I was supposed to attend an annual party. It's thrown by a guy who picks a letter, and all costumes have to start with that letter. The year before it was P, and he went as une pomme de terre (a potato. It's a predominantly francophone party.). This costume entailed a giant puffy suit wrapped entirely in tin foil. If you've never seen a drunken potato staggaring around and running into everyone, you're missing out. Anyway, last year, the letter was G. I sat down with my french dictionary and read the G section, looking for inspiration. I found it in gelee. I was going to be fucking frozen. Brilliant. I had it all figgered out in my noggin. I was going to be one of these girls you see on St Laurent in the dead of winter, chattering by in a light sweater and a short skirt, skipping bring a coat to save $1.50 on coat check, only to pay $10 cover, buy six $8 fruity drinks, and then take a cab home. But circumstances forced me away from Montreal, and even though I still attended a costume party, it was less funny to be frozen without the whole "G" theme. And I discovered the silver stuff I rubbed all over my arms and legs left glittery streaks behind on whatever furniture I sat on. However, I think I did outdo the guy who came as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. That just plain, old-fashioned, wasn't funny.
A few years ago, in a crap-I-have-been-studying-so-much-that-I-forgot-it's-Halloween-and-the-party-is-in-an-hour rush, I ran into the dollar store. I bought a blue tablecloth and a pooper scooper. I went home, grabbed an old, oversized orange T-shirt, and drew a big circle with a downward-pointing triangle in it, with a dot under the triangle. I wrote "this is the back of my T-shirt" on the back of my T-shirt. I called it my "Pooper Scooper of Truth." I ran around all night saying things like, "you are holding a beer!" and "you are not the only man on the planet!" On the front of my t-shirt, I wrote "I am Captain Obvious." Nobody got that one either.
Halloween rules. I am in a lovely pattern these days of not wearing costumes that anyone gets but me, but hey. Who else am I here to amuse?

I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.

Welcome to M, jr. M, Sr. will be up for a little while, but as blog.com is a bunch of nincompoops, I will be shifting operations hither rather than thither.

I've been laxidaisical with the updating (and, apparantly, the spelling) lately because New Job has really taken off. It's Tuesday and I've already put in 20 hours this week. Although it's fun for now because it's new and I feel important and I'm learning, I'm a little concerned about how long I can keep this pace up. I've been known to lose interest. But for the moment I feel like I have an actual hand in the general welfare of the company. My contact with the customers is very direct, which helps me to see the impact of what I'm doing. I'm not saving the whales or the rainforest, but at least I can go home at the end of the day and say "I did something," rather than "I fed a giant database somewhere in Massachusetts."

When I started at New Job, I expected some things; akward, lonely lunches being one. What I didn't expect was one of the guys I occasionally ride with to be in my department. In fact, if I were working any more closely with him, I'd have to be sitting on his lap. This should have been a welcome familiar face, but it's just been really wierd. I'm a different person when I'm on a bike. Actually, I'm a different person outside the office. Apparantly, before I started, he described me to my (now) coworkers as "feisty." I am feisty, but not always. OK, well always in my head, but not always out loud. This is not my point! He has been the least welcoming and friendly of anyone. No invites to lunch, no "good morning," nothing. I'm justifying it to myself that he didn't want his personal and professional lives to mix. I respect that, which is why I'm giving him his space. But whenever we rode together, we got on fine, and now I feel like I'm working with an estranged ex or something. I honestly had no idea he was in this group until my first day there. But there's a very high likelihood that he and I are going to have to go on some business trips together, and if there's going to be this unspoken tension, that is not going to be happy-fun-time. But for now I'll let sleeping dogs lie, and I'll address this problem when it gets in the way of my work. If he wants to be unfriendly, fine.

I'm really getting into gourds these days. (Oh man, I am so LAME!) After my pumpkin exploits (a giant stir fry that fed me and my roommate for two days and made two pies... all for $1.99!), today I finished pie #2 (more successful than pie #1) and made a massive lentil-barley stew. It was warm and nummy. I feel like I hugged myself from the inside. And... that was a really disturbing image. But my fridge is full of food I made myself, so yeeeee.

The weather here, as I'm sure everywhere else, has been absolute shite. However, I find bad weather to be an excellent time to settle into a new job, because you don't have the pressing birds-chirping-flowers-blooming push to get the hell outdoors. However, it is, sadly, the end of summer (moron, it's almost the end of autumn), and it's time to get the hibernation all ret' ta go for the winter.

100 Things You Couldn't Care Less About

Inspired by J. Star's 100 things about me list, I am going to endeavour to do the same thing. I'll probably get distracted first, but here goes for now.

10 Things You Probably Already Knew or Could Guess About Me
1. I like being outside.
2. I was born and bred in Cleveland, Ohio. Now I live in Montreal, Quebec.
3. I like beer, wine, and whisky, and monkeys, pirates, and flames.
4. I also like bikes.
5. I don't really so much enjoy the company of animals of the feline persuasion.
6. I don't eat meat (but I sure like the... never mind)
7. I am scared of snakes. I really, really don't like snakes. At all.
8. I have a very dry, sarcastic sense of humour.
9. I'm an engineer.
10. I had a very good childhood. No major trauma.

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know or Couldn't Guess About Me
11. I went to church, every Sunday, for fourteen years.
12. I did gymnastics for almost ten years. My only sleepaway camp experience was gymnastics camp.
13. From the age of 14-17, theater was the most important thing in my life, bar none.
14. I have crazy hitch-hiker's thumbs. They gross some people out.
15. I know how to ballroom dance.
16. I have two irrational fears; that when I'm in an elevator it will get jammed sideways in the track (so I always stand in a way to counterbalance other weight, or if I'm in an elevator alone I stand in the middle), and that they will spit in my food in the kitchen of restaurants (so I'm a big tipper and I'm overly nice to waiters).
17. I hate seeing doctors. So I avoid it at all costs (including my health)
18. I was on one of those makeover shows on TV five years ago. (Don't worry, the highlights grew out and the makeup washed off.)
19. I used to subscribe to Stuff.
20. I've been to a fetish club. For a wedding reception.

10 Things That Rule About Being Me
21. I'm able to find common ground with almost anyone; I have nondrinking religious friends, a friend who is a body modification performance artist, friends with PhDs, friends with high school educations. I like to mix it up.
22. No. Fucking. Shame.
23. I used to train for street fighting. I'm still confident that I could kick ass if I needed to.
24. My contradiction within myself; I can be dressed in a business suit with my mountain bike in my car. If I buy three magazines they'll probably be Bicycling, National Geographic Adventure, and some super-fluff rag I'm so embarassed to admit that I won't put it here.
25. The world is sometimes like my own personal sitcom. Life, in general, is amsuing to me. I laugh to myself a lot.
26. I don't have any set plans; a lot of people have an outline (married by 28, own house by 30, kids by 32, promotion at 35, retire at 55...). I don't. I don't know what's coming or when. I feel very free because of that.
27. I'm fascinated by language. I like to play with it. It doesn't come accross my writing, but one of my favourite things to do is put my own spin on an old saying (I never say "that hit the spot," I say "that took the spot out back and beat it within an inch of its life.").
28. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. Or I'm going to make it up to you.
29. I can put my forehead on my knees without bending them.
30. I'm determined like there's no tomorrow... if I decide I'm doing something, come hell or high water, I'm doing it.

10 Things I'd Like to Change
31. My fear of dependance.
32. My fascination with the lives of people I don't know.
33. My biting, sarcastic sense of humour (I don't want to change it, I just want to learn how to shut it up sometimes).
34. My complete lack of ability to suck it up or hide my emotions when I don't like something.
35. My hatred of dishes.
36. My hair colour (want to go Run Lola Run red. Unfortunately, I may have missed the boat on that, seeing as now I'm supposed to represent an international company.)
37. My impatience.
38. I'd love to work through my American-Canadian-Western identity issues.
39. The fact that I'm not volunteering for anything right now. I'm going to change that next week; I found out about an organization that interests me.
40. My mood swings.

10 Things I Do Pretty Well
41. Bust a move.
42. Conversation.
43. Loose, rocky descents.
44. Using the resources available to me to find stuff out.
45. Cook (when I decide to make a proper meal, at least).
46. Introspection.
47. Top ten lists.
48. Make up words.
49. Pouring beer with the appropriate amount of head. I can also pour four bottles into glasses at once without spilling.
50. Meeting deadlines.

10 Things I Suck At
51. All things financial.
52. Accepting a compliment.
53. Being vulnerable.
54. Cleaning.
55. Verbally expressing affection.
56. I throw like a girl.
57. Knowing when to shut it.
58. Subtlety.
59. Sucking it up.
60. Eating brussels sprouts and asparagus.

10 Things I'll Never Do
61. Smoke.
62. Buy Nestle, Kraft, Life Savers, or any other company under the Altria conglomorate, if I can humanly avoid it.
63. Cartwheels down the street wearing a suit made of bacon.
64. Drive a gas guzzler.
65. Understand homophobia, racism, sexism, and secularism (is that a word? I told you I was good at making them up).
66. Be satisfied.
67. Compromise on something that's important to me.
68. Grow up.
69. Accomplish everything in life I want to do, and say "I am satisfied." There's too much life to live and not enough time to live it in for me to possibly get it all done.
70. Forget the time in grade three when my friends and I made up the longest word in the world.... pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis-antidisestablishmentary-onatomato-plunger-gunker-toxically-contaiminated-petrified-peach-pits-from-the-planet-Plip. Yeah, that's right.

10 Things I Wish I Could Do
71. Fluently speak eight languages.
72. Never miss a sunrise or a sunset.
73. See the future.
74. Design and build my dream house.
75. Go back to school and do a bachelor's purely for pleasure.
76. Solve the problem of orphaned children in Bolivia after the age of eighteen.
77. Go back in time.
78. Debate effectively.
79. Snap my fingers.
80. Run without the shattering pain in my knees.

10 Things I've Done
81. Eaten cow stomach.
82. Been held at knifepoint by a member of my family.
83. Fallen off a cliff.
84. Seen Ray Charles in concert. Front row.
85. Jumped out of a plane.
86. Gotten trashed with a cop. (I was 17.) I've also outrun a cop (we were only trespassing, nothing major).
87. Sunk a 22' sailboat in the middle of the lake.
88. Buried a chain ring in my leg deep enough to leave a permanent scar.
89. Been recognized as being in the 98th and 99th percentile of this and that, and realized how arbitrary and rediculous those measurements are.
90. Seen someone die of a bullet wound in the street.

10 Vices
91. By this point, do I even need to name it? I would like to clarify, however. For as much as I talk about beer and wine, I genuinely enjoy the ritual and taste. I drink once or twice a week. I do drink to excess, but very rarely these days. Sure, I had my wayward youth, but these days I'm more about a night in than a night out. I love red wine (Spanish and Italian) and playing with wine accessories. In terms of beer, I am partial to Kilkenny. There's a brewery that, around this time of year, has a pumpkin beer which is fantastic. I also really enjoy a good pint of cider. I have and will always have a soft spot in my heart for Woodchuck.
92. Mortal Kombat and Wayne's World.
93. Chai tea.
94. Coffee, in all its glorious, unsweetened forms. This is another ritualistic drink that is almost as much fun to prepare and talk about as it is to drink...
95. Alias, Queer as Folk, and the Simpsons.
96. Good company.
97. Pain (ie exploding lungs, burning legs, bumps and bruises from a race).
98. Canadian Maritime music. Great Big Sea in particular.
99. Dogs.
100. Blogs and virtual community. If you couldn't tell.

Seoxfordinia - Sardegna

Alex and I went on a well-deserved (well, she deserved it... she just finished a one-year master's and is starting a PhD. I have some impressive friends, I do...) vacation to Sardinia. It's an Italian island, whose only industry, it would seem, is tourism. It's beautiful there, but if you're going to go, go in April or September... you can just tell it's completely overrun in the summer. We arrived in Alghero (in the northwest) and drove to the east coast. It took about four hours, counting getting lost and going the wrong way on a one way street in Nuoro.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Cala Gonone, and took a boat tour to these little cove beaches. The water was brilliant blue (never having been to the Mediterranean before, I was shocked that the water actually looks like that) and the sand was actally rounded white pebbles. Not the soft white sand Alex was so desperately searching for, but still comfortable and sticks to you less.


I'm probably boring you with all these pictures of beautiful beaches and brilliant, clear blue water. Sorry about that. Anyway, after Cala Gonone, we drove back to Alghero and stayed there for the rest of the time. While we were there we took a day trip to Bosa, a little city south of Alghero. The drive along the coast was beautiful... curvy, winding mountain roads with a bunch of crazy guys on motor cycles. Made me wish I was in good enough shape to get on a bike... I saw a few tourists and a few serious-looking roadies while I was out. I clapped and yelled in English and French, but I don't know what you yell in Italian.

Seoxfordinia - on to Oxford

After my week in Seattle, I moved on to Oxford, where I met up with my good friend Alex. She's smart and stuff. S-M-R-T.

We went on a walk around town on my first full day there (I was a little sore because the air mattress had deflated under me the night before and I'd slept all contorted on my elbow on a cement floor). A lot of the traditional gargoyles have had spouts added to them, I guess to save the walls or something. This poor lion has the funniest expression on his face... surprise at being whacked over the head and having a tube shoved in it's mouth. Brilliant... Anyway, did you know that gargoyles are called that because they're actually drainage spouts for when it rains, and they "gargle" as the water shoots out of their mouths? Just a little trivia for ye thar.

We did a quick-and-dirty tour of London, where I discovered that, yes. They do drive on the wrong side of the road. I discovered this by almost being run over by about fourteen taxis, two motorcycles, and a verious sundry assortment of cars, carraiges, and bikes. Well, there's never a dull moment, I suppose.

And, humps. Heh, heh.

Like I said, quick-and-dirty tour of London. First is the London Eye ($25 to go, forget it!), and then the Parliament buildings. It's funny, the ones in Ottawa are so similar... but I was going to try to go to London without making a point of seeing Big Ben (big freaking deal, it's a big clock). I'm a total failure.

While I was in England, I had a chance to meet up with my friend Simon, who came to Montreal on an exchange while we were in University. He's from a small town waaaay outside all the cities, and he's great. I usurped his hospitality for three days, tromping around in wellies, eating good food, drinking Pimm's, and having myself a wholesome English country experience. It. Was. Great.

This is Simon, Alex, and Max, on our drunken walk through the countryside. We met some cows, we stomped in some mud, and climbed some fences. I fell in love on this trip, with Max. Max is a dog, and he is the best damn dog ever. Friendly, energetic, but cuddly and calm at the same time. I was really upset to leave Max, because I know I'll see Simon and Alex again, but I don't know about Max.

(How do you not love this guy??)

Anyway, that's the skinny on my trip to England. I'll save you from the "artsy" pictures I took, mostly because I'm fascinated by support structures and big bolts and things like that. Maybe if i get my act together (riiiiiight) I'll put them up on Flickr.

Seoxfordinia - starting with Seattle

This here be the Experience Music Project (EMP) building. It's the craziest architextural... thing... I've ever seen. The museum itself kind of feels like an excuse for the building to exist. Anyway, it's a bloody cool building.

Oh yeah, and the Monorail runs through it. Monorail... monorail... monorail.....

These guys are the reason I couldn't tour the Boeing plant. They're striking for better pensions, as some of the guys have to take on a job when they retire to make ends meet. They've got a point, I guess. But I really wanted to see where they build airplanes.

Seattle also has a li-bary. I assume it has books. I was more interested in the crazy-ass architexture.

I guess those are the worthwhile pictures from Seattle. Next: Eng-a-land.