Job Wins, Jim's Work, and Jam Weekends

Two words of the week are relief AND exultation!

Oct 13 - YES! And again: YES!

I won the job!!!

Okay, I didn't actually find out I'd been picked until Thursday the 17th, but I wanted you all to hear it first thing in this week's blog: I'm permanently employed now.

That's a first for me.

In all of my previous jobs, there's not a single one where I went into work without some level of doubt as to whether I'd finish the day still employed. Sure, most days were pretty good and even the ones that weren't enough to make me chew my fingernails( well, maybe a little )but when the poop hit the fan, my heart inevitably climbed up into my throat and stayed there until I was safely home again with assurances that I could show up for my next shift. It didn't matter whether I was a good employee or not, especially at MMart, where emotions often ran high and workers were easily sacrificed in order to keep customers happy - or management.

I no longer have to worry about that happening to me.

Now, conscientious worker that I am, any mistakes I make will likely be small ones and even should a big mistake come along, it won't mean an instant end to my employment. Sure, I can be disciplined and should I really screw up enough, I can be let go, with notice. But that's not going to happen; I won't let it, as I'm finally able to do a job without fear of arbitrary managerial insanity undoing years of solid performance.

What that also means is that I can leave my job completely behind me at the end of the day. I don't have to worry about my long-term employment, as long as I meet the job's expectations, show up on time and do all the other things I've been doing over the last 20 years at all my jobs, anyway.

Finally, I can focus on my future, instead of worrying about still being employed the next day.

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, on the official holiday today - I have a LOT to be thankful for right now!

Oct 14 - MORE good news!

Incredibly, I received more good news today!

An e-mail arrived from the Jim Henson Group, asking if I'd like to attend a tour a few hours after my arrival in New York next week. It's an exclusive, not-offered-to-the-public tour given only tho those attending the Dark Crystal reception later that evening... and guess what myself and a few other people are going to go see?

The Jim Henson Workshop.

I know, right? I pinch myself, then again just for good measure before responding with a resounding yes to the e-mail. It's almost unbelievable that not only will I be attending the invite-only reception in New York, but before that I'll have walked through the very birthplace of some of my favorite memories from my childhood. The place where characters from Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show and many other productions were all brought to life, taken from the imagination of Jim Henson and his team and turned into reality.

It's going to be difficult to sleep the night before New York, I tell you!

As a bonus, on the way home tonight I stopped in at a Halloween shop, not expecting to find much of use. Instead, I found not one but two missing components for my Halloween costume that I had despaired of doing anything but creating poor versions out of duct tape at the last minute. It was a great last-minute decision on my part and I went home whistling in total satisfaction with how my day had turned out.

Oct 15 - Sports-free TV

Time is one of the things I'm finding myself short of, these days.

Yet for other people, there's always time for the passions in their lives and for many folks, that passion runs to sports. I can't say I understand, not having ever caught the sports bug myself and although I can intellectually grasp why some people follow one sport and other people follow others, the mind of a true sports fan escapes me.

There's lots of money in sports, as you probably know; much of the television landscape consists of sports channels of every variety you can imagine. The global sports television markets are worth a combined $26 billion as of the start of 2014 and they just keep growing.

Which doesn't interest me in the least, so I'm glad that I decided last week to cut my cable and go completely internet-only. It always annoyed me to be paying for so many cable sports channels that I would never watch and you could never configure a channel package to exclude them in any significant way.

However, that's a moot point if you're not subscribed to cable TV and just have an Internet package, like I'm going to in less than a month. Serving up 'channels' a-la-carte is a lot easier when you're not looking for sports media, whose corporate owners guard their rights vigorously and with many lawyers.

Fine by me; I'd much rather watch Game Of Thrones along with a few other shows of my choice rather than pay for a 'basic' 100 channel-package of which I might watch an hour or two a week from a half-dozen channels total.

I know what I like and what I want to pay for. You can keep your sports.

Oct 16 - Congratulations, I'm a job-winner!

Today I received 'The Word' at last.

About an hour after starting work, an instant message popped up on my screen asking me to meet with one of the office higher-ups. Heart pounding in my chest, I quietly locked up my workstation, grabbed my tea and headed across the floor with steady steps.

Settling into a chair in the small office, I felt my nervousness singing like a taut wire and I force myself to relax, as it was doing me any good. Fortunately I wasn't kept waiting very long as the first words said to me after "Good morning!" were "We'd like to offer you a permanent position with the government and were hoping you'll accept,as you're a top candidate."

Those were the words I've been waiting for weeks and weeks to hear. I savored them for moment and then answered yes as clearly and emphatically as I could - with a smile. 

The rest of the meeting was merely wrapup, though I will admit that I was surprised at how much I was told about the process and how little was revealed about how well I did - that's apparently to be saved for another meeting at a future date.

What I did learn was that out of the 25 people who applied( most of them not being from our office )only four were chosen as being qualified for the position and I was one of those four. Meaning that I beat out 85% of the other candidates through daily hard work, good team attitude and thorough preparation for the interview which I apparently did even better at than I thought: I was told that the interviewers couldn't tell if I was nervous and among other things, really appreciated how well I paced my answers so that the three interviewers could get as much detail written down as possible.

I'm over the moon, so extraordinarily happy, to have been one of the few offered a position on a permanent basis. It means that although my time from Monday to Friday during the day is now spoken for, I'm trading that for financial security, a non-physical job and a vast reduction in my daily stress levels. Even a bad day at this office cannot compare to the bad days I've had at work in the past: knowing that I won't be terminated at the drop of a hat because of somebody else's poor decision tree means that I can relax about that particular part of my future plans.

It also means that my evenings and weekends are my own to do with as I wish.

Now, I can write as much as I want to and not worry about where the dollars will be coming from, week to week, as long as I manage my budget wisely.

That kind of peace of mind you just can't buy - happy me!

Oct 17 - Wrapping Up The Week

I was still in somewhat of a daze today from yesterday's heady news.

Strangely, I still didn't sleep well last night although it didn't really affect me today, not that I'd have noticed anyway. The lid was finally taken off the office gossip today around noon, when everyone involved in the competition process was finally notified as to who had earned a place and who had not.

Happily, the four other people chosen are all fantastic folks, hard workers every one and very easy to get along with. I'm saddened that not everyone will be remaining in the office after the end of the month, but I've made sure to remain in contact with the majority of them that I've interacted with since the spring, as we all got along really well as a group. Some of them were new to government, like I was, while others will be moving on to other positions in other departments and even others will be simply taking some time off to decide what their next step in life is. Thankfully, it appears that everyone who didn't get a position already had a plan in place for their near future and the worry that bad blood would bubble up in the office over the next few weeks doesn't seem likely.

That's great, because I'm not sure I can keep from smiling randomly all day long and weirding out my coworkers. 

Well after night had fallen, I attended a dual birthday party for two of my Staples coworkers. While it wasn't a Halloween party per se, there were pumpkin beers and scary decorations galore - not to mention a ton of pizza, which I actually had to refrain from eating as it was from Pizza Hut which tends to mess with my metabolism a little too much. Tasty, though.

The first part of the party went by quickly, as I fell into a series of games of Beer Pong - I'm terrible At it another way - but kept playing because it was a lot of fun just trying to score. After that, everybody gathered in the main room to play Cards Against Humanity, which is always a lot of fun for everyone involved and really helps to break the ice. It was frustrating to most of the players that a few of the people there seemed far more interested in side conversations at loud volumes rather than actually playing the game, despite ostensibly holding CAH cards in their hands. I never enjoy yelling at people but I raised my voice quite high a few times( along with several other people )in order to tell the loudmouths to shut up or put up... and this without anyone being even remotely drunk.

Apart from that silliness, everyone had a great time and I left rather happy, even though it was raining and somebody had stolen the headlamp from my bike. Making it interesting to ride home in the dark on some of the dark, wet streets.

Some people, I tell you… but still, I had fun.

Oct 18 - Weekend Waugh

Fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks today.

Perhaps it was the weather as well, but I had very little energy for the first half the day today. I think the stress all week of not knowing if I would win permanent employment had me dangling like a marionette with knotted strings. Once I found out, the snapback played havoc with my subconscious and I think all it wanted to do was lie down in a corner for a while until the twitching stopped.

I compromised by just relaxing, watching a few movies and in general not doing much despite needing to finish off a few stories that I'd been writing for my critique group on Monday. To be honest, my brain felt like a fresh-squeezed sponge with a hand was still wrapped around it.

Fortunately, I was feeling more energetic by the afternoon, perhaps helped by going out for a few hours and sitting on the patio at Moka House. The creative side of my brain woke up enough to all but complete the stories for Monday, all the while enjoying the summer-like weather that has graced Victoria on and off this fall.

My evening was somewhat in doubt, as my usual ride to my gaming group was able to make it tonight, but thankfully another member of the group stepped up to my request and I made it there easily. Although I was tired, the delight of gaming / roleplaying energized me and the time passed all too quickly again. One little thing I'm doing during the game sessions is providing audio at key moments, choosing music or sound effects to complement the action in a timely manner and I believe everyone there really appreciates the subtle touch I bring to enhancing their experience.

I mean, if they appreciate my puns, then anything else is gravy, right?

Oct 19 - Weather Perfection

It's surprising how much time of the day can be taken up by the mundane.

By the time I'd had breakfast, got some laundry flipping, tidied the place up somewhat and done a few other things, it was already lunchtime. The trip to the grocery store for some much-needed supplies and the afternoon was here, so I decided to spend it down at Moka again - no surprise there, really.

But what a day outside! The sun was blazing after the clouds went away this morning, so much so that I rode my bike to the store and back in just a t-shirt yet still felt somewhat overheated from my exertions. According to the thermometer, it was 22°C outside as of 2 PM today and I believe it wholeheartedly as I sat on the patio at Moka. People walked by in shorts and sandals, jackets clutched under their arms and smiles beaming from their faces to match the sunshine. Cook Street village was packed with folks all just enjoying the weekend weather as much as possible and I took it all in as I typed away on my laptop with my tea slowly cooling beside me.

Part of the rest of my evening was happily spent watching Wreck It Ralph, which always sucks be in despite my efforts whenever I catch it on TV. Perhaps it's a good thing then that I won't have cable in a month or so and I'll have to go to the extreme effort of loading up Netflix in order to watch a movie; oh, the hardship of not having cable…

It also seems that I've slightly outsmarted myself with my trip to New York, in that I'll be returning late on Saturday evening… the same night I was supposed to attend a Halloween party - dang! Silly me, I thought that my flight returned at 8pm PST, when it's actually 8pm EST. So I'll miss the party as I'm landing at 11pm Victoria time. *sigh* I doubt very much anyone will be holding a Halloween party on November 1 locally.

There's always next year, I suppose; third time's the charm?

It's going to be a GREAT week! I'll be going in to work at my permanent job for only 3 days, after which I'll be flying to NEW YORK as a VIP guest - yeehah! I'll tell you all about the trip in next week's blog entry; see you all then!

Waiting, Wizards and Welcoming Change

The word of the week is convergence.

Oct 6 - It's In The Air

I get the feeling change is coming.

Exactly what I mean by that, I'm not certain. At least, not yet.

Things are stabilizing in my life, here and there, enough that I can appreciate each good thing that comes into it more than I might have a few years ago when my eyes were too busy to really take things in properly. I'm thankful to be were am right now, for my close family to be here with me and for my many friends who have remained in my life despite my somewhat inattentive ways over the years. Not that I'm a terrible friend, but it's hard to keep up with people when I'm so far away from the vast majority of them.

I could ramble on here about the vagaries of friendship, of the necessity of close relationships in one's life or the way that social media has changed the way that people look at both of those things now. But I don't think that I need to right now, nor do you, my readers, need to hear another diatribe on the subject. At least not one from someone who's not put enough thought into it before speaking on the subject.

Things are changing. I think that's good and for now, that's enough.

Oct 7 - Invited, Plus One!

I finally got an invite... to buy a phone, that is.

For six months now, I've been trying to get an invite for the OnePlus One, a highly-desirable but hard-to-get cell phone out of the USA. Because OnePlus is a small company that only started selling their phones earlier this year, they don't have the capacity to take thousands of orders a day - hence their 'Invite' system, where you are ONLY allowed to purchase a phone if you get an invitation.

Said invites have to come from current OnePlus One owners, via the Forums hosted by OnePlus and as you can imagine, there's a lot of competition for invites: they're usually gone in seconds, not minutes. So it's been a tad frustrating for me to swing and miss, so often.

The phrase 'Never Settle' is one I really like.

Why do I want a OnePlus One, anyway?

Because the phone is touted as a 'Flagship killer' - its specs are comparable to the best phones out on the market today, but for hundreds less than said flagships, which is music to my wallet. There's a solid article here comparing the specs of the OnePlus One, the Galaxy S5 and the HTC M8, all three of which I've considered getting these last few months as my S3 continued to frustrate me. You can also read some enthusiastic reviews which speak glowingly of the OnePlus One here; lots of people really, really love this 'budget' superphone.

At last, tonight, I managed to snag an invite! I had popped onto the OnePlus Forums as usual, for a few minutes a day, hoping to spot a little-read or brand-new thread with Invites being offered. As luck would have it, my eye was caught by a thread titled 'Canadians Only' and I hurried in, learning that the thread owner would give an invite to the first Canadian to msg him - so I did. As it turns out, I WAS the first!

After doing a jig around my apartment with a silly grin plastered on my face, I sat down and ordered the OnePlus One, luckily having already set the money aside for this fortunate occurrence - not a dollar more, either, as I refused to consider going back onto a contract in order to 'afford' an S5 or M8… nope. Never again.

My new phone should be here next week, in plenty of time for me to configure it to take along to NYC with me. Two wonderful invites rolled into one!

Oct 8 - On Writing

Research.

That's what I'm doing at the moment, sadly, instead of writing further chapters on Book Two. Ever since I was thrown for a Feedback Loop( since recovered from )last month, I've been reluctant to return to writing Book Two, which I think has to do with my perceiving my 'world' isn't ready for prime-time yet.

Which is a good thing.

Writing's a business, more so in these times of Amazon and ebooks than ever. Gone are days when writers emerged from their Writing Retreat either to get more food or, more rarely, mail a manuscript to their agent, who handled all the Complicated Stuff to do with licensing, publishers and trivial things like royalties or film rights.

The modern writer has taken on a lot of the tasks that formerly fell to agents or publishers, which in itself isn't a bad thing: the more aware a writer is of how the real world works, the better the effort they'll put into their work in order to make it rise above all the other stories out their vying for the ever-stretched attention of John or Josie Public.

It's even harder for self-published authors, who have to do all of the footwork themselves. All the same, there's a huge upheaval in the industry right now, ever since Amazon's ebook strategies fundamentally shifted how book-buyers parted with their hard-earned cash. It's simple nowadays for people to make a few $3.00 purchases, expecting their books to be of a decent quality comparable to what they'd find on any reputable bookstore's shelves. Which is why I'm in no hurry to release my own books until they're of that quality.

Or better.

Oct 9 - Bye Bye, Boob Tube!

Today, I cancelled our cable - again.

We're fully, totally cutting ties to Shaw this time though, as $150 +tax per month is just too much money for what we're using. I watch maybe an hour of TV a week, have TV shows clogging my PVR that I'll never find the time to watch and barely use the local phone 'included' in the bundle we have as my Vonage phone suffices for all my long-distance needs and the rates / minutes are actually superior to Shaw. Leaving just the internet, which I've had at Shaw's $90/month rate for a few months now and grown to like for the speed, both upload and download.

Back in the early 1990's, finding an ISP was easy, as there were many local outfits that provided internet services of all kinds: you just had to know what you wanted and compare prices. Then cable internet came in and the rest was history, including most of those smaller ISP's, who couldn't compete price-wise or feature-wise.

There's still some independents out there though and I've decided to go with one of them, after researching for many months now. Lightspeed.ca, based out of Vancouver, offers excellent rates on internet packages comparable to Shaw's speed-wise, for about half the cost: impressive. Reviews of Lightspeed have been good for the last year, so I decided to take the plunge today after a deep breath. Amusingly, the Shaw rep who took my call didn't say a word to try to keep me, as nice as he and I both were, which surprised me. Goodbye and thanks.

My budget should be $100/month fatter from this point forward and I'll put the time that I could have wasted channel-surfing to good use writing instead. Definitely a plus on both counts.

Oct 10 - Two weeks!

I'm still waiting for the good word.

As of today, Friday, there's been not even a hint about who's received one of the five permanent positions at work. I had hoped that the higher-ups would at least give us an 'announcement date' but it looks like they've opted instead for playing this one close to their vests. From what I've heard around the office, this is normal for government positions, so as to ensure people keep working efficiently in their last few weeks - the theory is, people who've been told they didn't make the cut will slack off or even 'forget' to show up for work, which I can understand but not sympathize with: my pride won't let me do that.

On to happier things though: in two weeks, I'll be in New York City!

My passport arrived this week, all crisp and fresh, which was the last piece of the trip missing. My flight and hotel are booked, I have the area map downloaded( and marked ), my ticket to the showing of The Dark Crystal is purchased and I've confirmed with The Henson Group that I'll be attending the reception. I love saying that!

Oh and for my phone, I'll be using one of these while I'm in the States:

I wish I'd known about these cards when I went to AZ last year, but since they only work on unlocked cell phones, it wouldn't have mattered much since I just had my locked-to-Telus Galaxy S3. Eking out a wireless signal in AZ in order to check out local features was a real pain and didn't work out all that well, so having a solid data package my whole time in NYC will be a welcome relief. Yelping local places to eat, spots to see and the like is infinitely easier when you have the information right there on your phone screen.

It would have also saved me from getting heatstoke, if I'd known where to walk.

Oct 11 - Working Soundly

Saturday night: costume time!

It's not what you think though: tonight I spent over four hours working on my Halloween costume for this year, which is actually a carryover from last year when I didn't end up wearing it for various reasons.

Admittedly, these are g33kier than my costume

That's a good thing though, as this year's version will be even better, thanks to the work I put into it tonight. The majority of my time was spent using audio editing software to sample and various voice clips that I will be using in conjunction with my costume. I had hoped that I'd be able to reproduce the character's voice on my own, but as it turns out the vocal range is just too extreme for me to reproduce satisfactorily. So I'm just going to take a page from my Book Of G33k and use a technological solution to provide the proper audio for my costume choice. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and apart from a couple of minor details, I'll be ready to go in a week or so, plenty of time.

It also helps that I've already received an invitation to a party this year - huzzah!

I should also mention I wrote part of this blog entry today at Moka House, sitting out on the patio and enjoying the intermittent sunshine in the albeit cool breezes that started blowing in around 3pm. The whole time, I was wearing my Parrot Ziks and was the happier for it: a few seats over, there was a girl who was a definite contender for Most Annoying Laugh of the year. I can't fault her for enjoying her time with her friend, but oh my… her infectious giggles of joy could have cut glass with their frequency and volume. I have to say her friend must have been a true one, to put up with that all the time. Slipping on my Ziks however, I just dialed up the volume and wrote to blissful sounds of my own choosing: even such a piercing laugh became background noise, easily ignored as I concentrated on other things.

Did I mention I really love it when technology works properly?

Oct 12 - Thanksgiving Magic

We did 'dinner' in style today!

A few weeks ago, I saw that The Empress Hotel would be holding Thanksgiving Dinner… as well as a Thanksgiving Brunch! I wanted to do something special this year - other than cook dinner - and though the 3-course dinner wasn't our thing, brunch has been a family tradition since I was a kid. We used to go out to all sorts of places to 'test drive' their brunches and whittle down the list to a few spots we'd come back to every month or two, most( all, actually )of which have closed their doors long since.

The Empress though; we've never been, any of us, so brunch it was!

We arrived around 10:30am, a little early, but the staff seated us right away. We were in the front section of the Empress room, which is a colonial-style dining area with 30 foot carved-mahogany ceilings and a magnificent view of the Inner Harbor. The room wasn't crowded, with only a half-dozen tables altogether and two of the walls lined with magnificently-set buffet tables, thusly:

So. Darn. Elegant.

The staff were very attentive, instantly whisking away empty plates or being at hand for unneeded drink refill; I even had someone poor my tea for me today, for the very first time. I kind of enjoyed it.

The brunch itself was more elegant than I had expected, with wonderful foods laid out to enjoy yet not anything I would call to excess. Along one wall, there was a turkey station, naturally, a roast station, about a dozen chafing dishes accompanied by brands, fruits, and other breakfast delights. The other wall had various roast vegetables, a wide variety of salad makings and of course, a large selection of desserts. It was all wonderfully fresh and perfectly cooked and the smell of the room was indescribably delicious.

That's my dad: try a little bit of everything...

Needless to say, my family and I enjoyed ourselves immensely, spending almost 2 hours in one another's company in the magnificent elegance of The Empress Room. We all ate our fill of the delicious foods, with the delicately-cooked salmon and an incredibly light mango mousse being my personal favorites. It was unquestionably the most satisfying Thanksgiving that we have had in Victoria to date and even before leaving, my parents had already decided we would come here again at Christmas.

For brunch, of course.

In the evening, I watched Oz: The Great and Powerful, which actually grew on me the more I saw of it. I'd seen bits and pieces a few times before, but tonight I needed something to pop back to now and then while writing my blog or doing other things. Amazingly, I found myself sitting and watching for long stretches at a time, which doesn't usually happen with a movie I wasn't really into the first time around. I think some of the elements of the film must have clicked in my head since I saw it last in the spring and tonight, I enjoyed it.

Tomorrow's a holiday, which I have off: hooray! I'll be doing some writing and relaxing, both in copious amounts and both likely indoors, as it's going to rain all day. Just being able to do as I please of a day is a welcome change, I must say. I'll have to see about getting more days like that into my schedule...