unpacking

Still unpacking. The reason it's taking so long to unpack is because I've started doing regular/essential work in the office, so the final unpacking has taken a back seat. I hate moving; I never want to do it again. :-)

Went to see DOGMA with a bunch of friends last night. Entertaining but inconsistent; I think my expectations were too high on this one.

I haven't been to the gym in ages; I can feel the effects already, ugh. I've quit my old club and am going to sign up with a new one (cheaper and much closer to work) this week.

secrets of our success

Frustrating day. Our Internet connection was supposed to go in today (right now we're on a temporary connection), but the guys running the cable down our hallway didn't bring the right size of drill bit so couldn't drill the hole for the cable to go through. They had spent TWO HOURS running the cable, and had to pull it all out to try it again tomorrow. Sigh. Meanwhile, I'm having problems with my e-mail; Interlog seems to be floundering quite a bit since being bought by PSInet. Allison recently received an e-mail I sent her MONTHS ago.

As I result of today's mess, I had to opt out of UT practice. And here I am still at the office at 10 pm...Jeff's here, too. He's putting together his office while I'm finishing an article I promised for a book coming out soon (THE SECRETS OF OUR SUCCESS by M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy); it was actually due last week, but the authors of the book kindly granted me a week extension because of my move :-). Jeff and I ordered in pizza from a place Kyle (the nice Camp Creations guy across the hall) recommended...yum!

Signed up with the health club about a five-minute walk away. It's about a tenth of the size of my old health club but quite a bit cheaper. Very casually run...no membership card, no terms of agreement, two working showers. :-) I've been slacking off and get wait to get back into a regular workout schedule again.

Hey, Dave Hibbard linked to my trip report from his testimonials page on the Nahanni Wilderness Adventures website! :-)

santa claus parade

Apologies for the non-Blathering; things have been craaaaaaaazy around here. After much stress, looks like our permanent Internet access has been installed. We went with a company called Liberty Networks; other tenants in the building have been dropping by to see how our connection is doing (they might switch if we're happy...looks like we're the guinea pigs for this service :-)).

I'm typing this on my new Mac Powerbook G3. Bought it just in time; my old machine was going WAY flakey, crashing 4-5 times an hour. This morning, things collapsed fairly badly and I couldn't do any e-mail. So I've converted to my new machine much more hurriedly than I expected...still have to get some files.

My hours at the office over the past few days:

SAT: 18 hours
MON: 12 hours
TUE: 13 hours (Jeff, Doug & I are still working at the office, and it's past 11 pm)

My brain hurts. I -love- my new office, though. I can't wait until everything's settled down and we can get back to a normal schedule. Went to Home Depot tonight with Jeff and Doug to get lightbulbs (Brian made us some very cool light fixtures), a flashlight, a ponsettia plant (sp?), and some other odds and ends for the office. I've never been to a Home Depot before....wow, it was like a City of Hardware! Not as interesting as an office supplies store, but still pretty fun to explore.

Took Sara and Annie to the Santa Claus parade with their dad on Sunday (Ruth's home sick). I don't remember going to this parade before, though my Dad claims he took us when we were really little. Sara and Annie were SUPER excited. Sara had written a letter to Santa (once we get our new scanner hooked up, I'll post it online) and was clutching it feverishly in one hand as she sat atop Uncle Jeff's shoulders, straining to see when the parade was going to arrive. The parade was pretty long, at least in "kid minutes". Halfway through, all the parents with children on their shoulders were fidgeting and muttering, "When's Santa coming?"

I'm pretty jaded about Christmas, I admit, but even I started getting excited when the news rippled through the crowd that SANTA'S FLOAT WAS ALMOST HERE. I couldn't help it, not with all the super-hyped excitement all around me, all the anticipation.

Oops, gotta go. Almost midnight.

mowat hall crawl

Crazy weather: rain, then snow, then sun, then rain. Brainwashed by all the Christmas hype already in department stores, I gave in and bought a ponsettia plant for our office coffee table. Mowat Hall Crawl was fun last night, and we all got a chance to snoop through each other's offices. Interesting to see how the office layouts differ. We had our Elvis clock up, lava lamp, Brian's cool lights (made from hard disk platters, got many comments), fridge full of beer (yuk) and fruit juice (yay) and chocolate (double yay). I've hired an editorial assistant...Amanda Foubister will be coming in ten days a week.

I also have a new computer! A Macintosh PowerBook G3. It has only crashed once so far, and now I can e-mail from home again. Jeff and I are trying very hard not to take work home with us, though. We've also set a geographical boundary of Spadina Avenue as our "crossing over" line...if we're riding home on the streetcar together, for example, we can talk work until Spadina Avenue, but not past.

Going to a Great Big Sea concert with Allison and Jodi and Jeff tonight; really looking forward to that.

great big sea concert

Didn't work as hard over the weekend as I had originally planned, partly because I was starting to feel pretty burned out by Friday. Had fun at the Great Big Sea concert with Jeff, Allison, and Jodi...those guys are great. One reason I like GBS so much is because they look like they're having so much fun doing their music. Fun concert, lots of energy; we were up in our seats and dancing with everyone else. :-)

Great filk at Sally Headford's place last night. Got a quickie guitar lesson from Lloyd Landa (thanks, Lloyd)! Learned some alternate tunings and interesting chord/picking progressions. Looks like it's time to write another song. :-) For me, the best way to learn any new guitar skills is to integrate the skill into a new song...that way I know I'll be practising it over and over again. It's how I learned barre chords.

Walked over to Chapters with Jeff, browsed (I bought MacAddict magazine and a book on stress management :-), Jeff bought some Terry Pratchett Discworld books), had coffee and a pastry. Went to the office afterwards so Jeff could finish setting up his office. I did some work, but also had fun playing around with some of the demos on the CD that came with the MacAddict magazine. Got some VERY cool desktop jpgs created by Layne Karkruff, for instance.

Anyway, had a relaxing weekend and feel much more ready to face the coming week. Hopefully we'll get the scanner and my digital camera hooked up this week so I can post some pics of the new office!

As some of you may have alertly observed (thanks, Paul), I made a major typo last week...Amanda will be working ten HOURS a week in the Inkspot office, not ten DAYS. :-D :-D