The word of the week is defenestration - it’s windows-related.
Oct 11 – Highway Messages
Was there Life Before Facebook? Oh wait, it was called MySpace.com, that’s right – but nobody goes there any more. Back in the day, answering machines had remote message access, so you could check them from work. Some of you may recall when for a time I changed my answering machine message daily to reflect what I was up to that day – which was really precursor to people’s Facebook Status Updates of today. Somehow I was far ahead of my time in that regard... but never got any credit for it, as it was pre-internet. Dang.
There was a distinct lack of traffic on the highway today, due to the holiday – normally the entire route is a parking lot from 6:30-9:30am ( read the comments! )or thereabouts. There’s been a lot of talk over the last few years about how to solve this Monday-to-Friday weekly problem, ranging from dedicated transit lanes and light-rail links to car pooling( my pick for least-costly ). Finding a solution to the ‘Colwood Crawl’ is something that needs doing soon – I live outside of Greater Victoria, and don’t travel in as much as I could simply because there’s no transit to where I live. Even if there was, I would have to ensure that if I had a 9-5 job in the city I would leave around 6am to get there on time... and that’s just not right, in my mind.
Oct 12 – Beans And Bones
This week I’ve been varying my visits to The Mountain Bean, as my usual time( twice a week or so )has me there in later afternoon before closing. It’s the best time for thinking, writing, relaxing and surfing, as there’s usually nobody there. Mornings are nice, but unfortunately they also tend to fill up with young mothers and young children – nothing wrong with them enjoying themselves, be it ever so... loud. Just goes to show that I was raised to be TOO quiet a kid, I think, as I seem to expect stellar behaviour from stranger’s kids... and when it doesn’t happen within a few minutes, I tend to leave them to their boisterous enjoyment which they are fully entitled to and head for more quiet climes with my tea to go.
Oooooh.... WAY too cool news for Wolverine fans: titanium bones are a reality! A new substance called ‘titanium foam’ has been developed that can be used to bond with bone and make it stronger. An article over at NewScientist.com has all the details, though for now it looks to be useful only for bone grafts and long-gap replacement situations. No word yet on making it into an injectable liquid... stay tuned!
Oct 13 – Hump Day Sucks
What a crappy day – I was called in on my day off to let an employee go today, which really stinks, as we’re not so large a company that you don’t get to know people well. In this particular person’s case, I’d tried all I could think of and more to bring them up to speed at work, as well as listening to their other problems from outside of work. Unfortunately, the personal issues proved too much, and were affecting their work to the point where my DM made the decision to let them go. I honestly feel this was the best thing for the employee, as they need to figure out what direction their life needs to take and to get things sorted out in their head. It’s going to be a stinky week for the rest of us, as we all worked closely and wanted things to work so badly... but it was obvious at this point that improvements had to come from inside. Still sucks big-time; it was too gorgeous a day out for things to work out like they did.
If I had a billion dollars... would I build the world’s largest personal residence with it? Maybe, or maybe not – that’s a lot to spend to put a roof over your head. Yet an Indian tycoon has just completed his massive home’s construction in Mumbai – as you can see, it has 5 heliports, a staff of 600 and is over five hundred feet high. Makes you wonder about his electrical bill....
Oct 14 – Miners and Bandwidth
The last of the 33 trapped Chilean miners reached the surface today, ending a months-long ordeal that has been followed by billions as it unfolded. Seeing things come to a happy end honestly surprised me, as there was no real way to know if the miners could be reached in time in their shelter before time ran out on their supplies. I’m sure there will be movies made about this epic survival story, and one has to wonder how much the lives of those 33 miners are going to change... even 20 years from now, they will likely still be famous in some way, even if it’s just in Chile. The world has a short memory for these things... but we do like to be reminded when it comes to happy endings for people enduring fate’s touch.
Uh oh... as I mentioned above, we have traffic jams on a regular basis here in Victoria, but news today that there’s soon going to be the same thing on the wireless cell phone networks? An article in the local Victoria Times Colonist states that the spectrum used by smartphones is 10 times that of a normal phone, and if you’re on a laptop( with a wireless cell fob )then you use up to 1,300 times the bandwidth – ouch! Mind you, people are paying through the nose for massive data plans( which I think is wrong )but the bandwidth has to come from somewhere. Having an always-connected device on you can also be bad for your health, as we just don’t know enough about the long-term effects of radio waves on the human body at close range. So don’t sleep with your phone under your pillow until we know more.
Oct 15 – Half as much stress is good!
I’m filling in at the Millstream branch all this week, covering the shifts that were left vacant when my employee was let go on Wed. It looks like things are going to be settled there by next week, so I’ll be taking my leave of running both branches and focusing simply on Colwood. It’s a relief to me, as I’ve been quite exhausted trying to keep my head above the paperwork tide in addition to keeping abreast of the day-to-day operations. Being in charge of just a single branch is exactly what I need to keep my energy levels stable and my mind less packed with too much needing done now. By this time next week, my worries will be solely confined to Colwood, but I have a solid staff there too that I’m very proud of to assist me in keeping the place running in top form.
Some good financial news arrived in the mail yesterday for my parents, so that’s taken a fair deal of pressure off us for the remainder of the year. I actually slept well last night for the first time in many, many months, despite the stresses from Wednesday’s situation. Strange how things tend to fall into place when you’re not looking( huzzah! )as yesterday was a good example. While in town for a doctor’s appointment, we looked in the window of the pharmacy next door and beheld a new personal walker on sale for a LOT less than we’ve seen anywhere else( after looking for a year! ). Thanks to the good news, we were able to snap it up immediately for my mother, whose non-replaced knee has worsened recently and made mobility hard for her. So within 24 hours we went from trying to budget for the walker somehow to simply being able to buy one at a fantastic price, and she’s incredibly happy.
Oct 16 - Shapes
Architecture fascinates me... not that I’ve done much in the way of designing, but I’ve come to appreciate the new design ideas that one comes across when surfing the wide world ‘net. One such design is Above Below which is featured at Trendhunter.net – it’s described as an ‘underground skyscraper’ which seems like an oxymoron until you get a look at it. There’s also a ton of other unique designs showcased on the same page at Trendhunter.net, which I happily spent a while browsing through – I especially like underground houses for their efficiency, though not as much for their views...
Hokay, I’ll be the first to admit I could be in better shape... though I’ve lost 30 lbs since I arrived in Victoria, I haven’t converted the rest into sculpted-muscle studliness – yet. Now word comes down that in the interim while my fitness routine ramps up, I can always digitally edit my image in real time via MovieReshape – how’s that??? Go have a look and you won’t believe your eyes – you can literally move a slider and watch yourself changed from blob to buff on the fly. So you can retroactively edit those not-so-flattering videos of your latest vacation to match your currently-buff bod... and ask yourself why you didn’t get into shape back then before you tried on those really unflattering swimsuits.
Oct 17 - Pyjamas
Yeah, I worry about a lot of things... not as many lately as I have in the past, but many of the same recurring themes. One of those is what happens if my laptop is stolen... which is why I resurrected my old clunker to carry around with me and that has no personal information on it. I could always encrypt my data to keep it safe, but it’d slow things down even more. What I worry more about is if someone breaks into my home – just imagine all the personal information you have laying about, unguarded, as well as the easy access to your home computer. You DO have a password on yours, right? What about your personal data, like tax forms, bank account info and yes, even lists of passwords? Have a look at what one guy learned about losing his laptop and how to protect your info from thieves – worthwhile.
I spent only half a shift at work today, with some hours free in the afternoon that I’d hoped to spend with Renee – she and I had coffee for a few hours yesterday. However, I ended up going out to The Station House pub for dinner with some friends from work, and their friends, which was great as I haven’t been getting out much lately at all. We all spent a good few hours enjoying each other’s company and I left a few of them there still, talking about a drunken pyjama party... unfortunately, not something I could really attend in the capacity as their boss, despite their entreaties. I also don’t own any pyjamas, come to think of it... ah well. Still a great time.
No news on the dating front this week due to a cold – maybe this week, when I might have ticket news about me heading back to Niagara as of Oct. 25th!!!
