Vacations, Vista and Vexations

The word of the week is family. Specifically: sister!

Jan 17 - Not Working Week

Ahhh, vacation! Not something that you want to take lightly, as you only get so much time every year. For me, the last few years have been split between regular and ‘working’ vacations – where I spent my time moving my family and sundry stuff around. Now that we’re settled for a bit, I’m thinking my next few vacations will be ‘me’ time – really, just me, as I don’t have anyone to take a vacation with out here. Going back to Niagara is always an option, but Lucas mentioned a Cuba trip some time ago and that’s stuck in my head since – never been, kinda want to. It’s deplorable that two out of three people never end up using their vacation days each year and I fall into that category; by the end of 2011 I’ll have four weeks of vacation to use up, so I’d better start planning now. I hear that Bhutan is the new Shangri-La, with lots of great mountains...and they’ve just banned smoking entirely!

Jan 18 - New Computer!

Talk about good timing; the motherboard for my new PC arrived today, allowing me to start putting everything together. I’ve been ‘frankensteining’ my computers for years, but this time the only parts  I’ve kept for re-use are the giant blue case and a few hard drives – I’ll add some serious storage next year, I think, as it just keeps getting cheaper the longer you wait. So most of today was spent happily unpacking boxes of tech and plugging it all together... but really most of it was spent waiting for Windows Vista to update itself. Argh – I’ve decided for now to use my old Vista licence to run the media PC, as I still hold out some slim hope of getting my Win7 laptop to run. For now, I’m going to enjoy my first all-new PC in about 10 years, something I’ve really been looking forward to for a long, long time. Hello, reliability and hello using the big-screen TV as a primary monitor – sweet!

Jan 19 - On a beach in January in Canada

Today my sister and I took the time to go down to Esquimalt Lagoon to take advantage of the sudden sunshine that showed up this morning. The wind had died off too, so by 10am it was perfect weather to trot down the sand at the ocean’s edge; we barely needed jackets it was so nice. Near the end of our san sojourn we came across a huge redwood tree washed up on the beach; the wood was the colour of blood and the thing was easily fifty feet long. Hard to believe something that big had been taken by the sea and washed ashore so easily. The beaches here are just covered in washed-up wood; it’s quite a sight to see if you’re used to beaches from elsewhere in the world, especially on inland lakes. Here's the tree - it looks like really rare steak, to me:




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Jan 20 - So long for now, sis!

I saw my sister off at noon today for her flight at the Victoria Airport; it’s nice having a ‘small’ International Airport here on the Island. Much like Hamilton’s airport, it’s big enough to get the job done but not so massive that you feel lost in the place half the time( both have exactly one Timmy’s too )/ I remember all too well the confusion of Pearson International in Toronto, which even with the demolition of the old Terminal One still makes my head spin to try and navigate around the spiralling motorways that surround the place. I’m not an inveterate traveller, so airports will as like always freak me out a little; Calgary’s was like that, but that’s because their toilets were possessed... sheesh! In any case, it was fabulous to have my sister her for so long and I hope to do so again sooner rather than later. Miss ya, sis!

Jan 21 - Paper Cuts

Ack... paper, lots of it, all over the place here. I’d meant to do something about that this week( along with a lot of other things )but the paper really stymies me. I tend to keep things longer than I should, especially bills – weird, when I have a scanner and could just digitize things. But who has the time to spend hours a week doing that? I seem to recall more than a few ‘Digital Organization’ programs over the years that purported to be able to make your life paper-free, but they never mention the time it takes to get all that stuff into your computer. Scanners still aren’t instant, as they take about a minute to run down a document into digital form, then you have to name and file it. More work to make time for...

Jan 22 - BOINC!

What to do with my last day of vacation? Well, a whole lot of nothing, as it turns out. I’ve been very tired of late, so I spent the day doing various activities including some Xbox time and cleaning house on the new PC – lots of stuff on various drives that needed tidying / deleting / finding a home for. I also set up BOINC again on the system, as I have the twin advantages now of a 4-core CPU that is also a low-power design. So I can run BOINC 24/7 again without using a ton of power or generating a ton of heat; that was always a problem in the summer to keep the PC cool, even with 7 fans on the tower total. I still hope for that ‘eureka!’ discovery after running SETI@Home for over a decade now; possibly being a co-discoverer of alien life still makes me ponder some days. Damn cool stuff we can do now.

Jan 23 – Stories are better than people?

My first day back at work after my vacation... it wasn’t horrible, but there’s always that one person who manages to ruin the good feeling the other twenty people engendered. As usual, it had to do with misconceptions and attitude; misconceptions both. I learned a valuable lesson, he didn’t and will likely continue to view the world as out to get him – I feel sorry for him in a way, as he’ll continue to be that way. No loss to me – check out NotAlwaysRight.com for some more amusing anecdotes. Reminds me of why I need to change jobs this year; the sooner I get to a better job, the better, as my stress levels continue to ratchet ever-higher week to week at work. Too many straws and too weak a camel’s back.

Sunday evening was spent rather pleasantly; after a so-so day I spent hours chatting with three of my good friends online, helping one flesh out a story idea of hers. The wonders of internet chat... and a good way to close out the week.