Monthly Archive: August 2003

News from away

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Sun. August 31, 2003

I wonder, why do I subject myself to such troubles? Nah, they’re not really troubles to me. This stuff is fun.

Yeserday I woke up at about 5 in the morning to catch a Greyhound to Kitchener. It’s the start of frosh week and as a leader I’m required to do my thing. I don’t have a place of my own to stay in, so I’m having to crash at someone’s hosue. Luckily, that someone is part of the same committee as I am, so everything is working out fine so far.

There’s been so much work that’s been put into this week that I’m just hoping and praying that everything turns out alright. There’s bound to be a few hiccups, but I’m sure it’ll be OK.

Yesterday everyone was busy building things and putting kits together for the big day (Tuesday). I spent most of my time in the blazing sunlight trying to get 10 big cardboard puzzles done. At one point I thought I was going to get heatstroke or something so I abandonned all work for a little while. Everyone was working so hard that we’re all basically ahead of schedule now (yay!)

I think I’m just rambling on at this point. I really can’t come up with anything thought provoking without raising the eyebrows of a few people whose eyebrows I don’t want raised.

Anyway, I’ll try to file some reports during the week, but no guarantees. We’re all going ot be so busy!!!

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Stomaching it

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Wed. August 27, 2003

I’ve spent way too much on food in the past two days. In fact, for the few three meals I’ve been eating out.

On Monday, at lunch, my boss took us all out to the Keg which is a steakhouse. We all ate well the lunch…mostly because it was free. Hehe. It was a nice way to thank the outgoing students and welcome the incoming ones. The Keg…is…a lot of places. We ate at the one in Richmond Hill. Served by the lovely Karen.

Yesterday was the last day for a lot of the outgoing co-ops here at my workplace, so we all decided to go out and eat at an all-you-can-eat sushi place. Holy crap, was I stuffed. It was a funny scene. Here was this paper menu, and we were keeping track of how many of each thing we wanted to order. Being that there were twelve of us we ended up ordering things ridiculously large amounts. Actually, the numbers made sense for our crowd, but it was still a lot. I’ve done all-you-can-eat sushi before, but I’ve never eaten as much as I did that afternoon. Nagoya Japanese Restaurant in Richmond Hill. Go eat there. ^_^

Actually, I’m not quite sure what I was thinking with regards to eating that much. My university friends wanted to get together that night for a final meal before many of us went off to work in far away places. It was to be the last time some of us would see each other, pretty much until the new year. It was decided that we would eat at Indian restaurant. Everyone ordered their own dish but there was a lot of food passed around. We all got to sample a bit of everyone else’s food. We also ate a great deal of nan and rice. I’m not sure what it was that night, but I was dying from the spices. I was sweating a great deal more than everyone else, and I was definitely overreacting to something that must’ve been considered a “mild” kind of spicy. I know I’m capable of handling hotter things. I recommend this restaurant–Jaipur Fine Indian Cuisine. It’s a nice place to eat. It’s in Richmond Hill.

Today for lunch, coworkers wanted to go to the nearby plaza for a meal. We went to a Chinese restaurant that had a lot of reasonably priced lunch specials. Overall, I’m feeling stuffed. Lot of places to eat around Commerce Gate in Richmond Hill. Go for a walk.

I know that tomorrow my boss will want to go out to the next building to eat out. Since it’s Thursday tomorrow I’m sure they’ll be serving lasagna.

Hoo-hah. I’m sure I’ll be gaining something from these past few days. Still, it’s not like it happens often. Gotta live it up. Maybe though…we ought to try eating someplace other than Richmond Hill. ^_^

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Restless

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Tue. August 26, 2003

It’s early in the morning, and I’m struggling to get back to sleep. I’m kind of hungry right now, so maybe eating something downstairs would be a quick solution, but I’m doubtful about it. Actually, part of me doesn’t want to go back to sleep for fear that I might not get back up on time.

Yesterday was my first day of work after a four month absence. I’m returning to my old position as a technical writer. Once again, I felt like my boss just threw me into the thick of things. It reminds me of a father trying to teach his kid to swim by throwing him in the water. My inbox was already flooded with requests and things.

Despite all this, I don’t feel overwhelmed. I can tackle this beast head on and still come out on top. At least, that’s what my current level of confidence is telling me. Later on in the term I may very well be singing a different tune.

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I forgot how much I dislike downtown

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Sat. August 23, 2003

Notice how I didn’t use the word “hate.” It’s getting quite close to frosh week, so I’m having to make sure that I’ve got my costume together. I’ve been in search of a lot of punk stuff over the past little while and have accumulated some things very SLOWLY. I decided I wanted to get a few skull items for a necklace (or something) and after asking around a friend told me about a place downtown that was likely to sell the stuff. So, I used today to get down there and pick something up.

I live pretty much in the northeastern corner of the city, so heading down there wasn’t going to be a quick journey. All in all it took about an hour and a half with transit, which was better than I had expected. On the bus there was this chinese lady who was carrying a hand-drawn map of sorts. She obviously had to be someplace at a certain time. Eventually she got close to her stop and she was getting antsy trying to compare her map to the street signs. When she got to the stop she was just pointing and speaking in Cantonese (I assume it was Cantonese). As the driver started pulling away from the stop she got frantic, starting yelling at the driver and pointing excitedly. All the driver could do was say, “I don’t understand!!!” Luckily, someone on the bus was able to tell her that she had to pull the cord to signal a stop, and so she did. As much as I felt bad for her, all I could do was laugh.

Anyway, I got off at Osgoode station and started walking west on Queen St. towards Spadina. All I was told was that it was located between Spadina and Bathurst on Queen. Along the way I saw the usual homeless bunch. I saw a few interesting things though, like a teen holding a sign saying “Kick a punk for a buck”. A guy with spiky hair held a sign saying “Play ringtoss for $1.” Of course, I felt bad for them, but what was I going to do? Give them money? Part of me wanted to go to Starbucks and just get a small coffee for one of them…but well, I moved on.

Beyond Spadina I was a few stores of interest. One was a gothic store, so I thought I’d give it a look. Even though there was no one in the store except for the two female clerks I just felt like a fish out of water. One clerk disappeared behind a curtain while the other seemed totally disinterested in talking to me. I asked about skull items, and all she did was point me to other stores down the street. As I walked out I realized that it was a store specializing in female goth wear…so yeah, I was totally out of place.

A few bead stores later I found what I was looking for. I managed to get two metal figures of a skull with a single dagger going through it. It looks pretty cool (I’ll take a picture soon). When I got home again I put together whatever costume parts I had and took a good look. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have enough chains. ^_^ Perhaps I want to beef up a tad while I can (I only have a week left!!!)

Uhh, what was my point? Oh yeah, I don’t like downtown all that much. I’m way, WAY too suburban to get along down there. There are too many crazies, and “hip” people for my liking. God, I feel old.

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Tempermental moody side

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Wed. August 20, 2003

Seems this side has been appearing more and more lately. I can’t explain why.

Anyway, camping was a whole lot of fun. It was great to hang out with a whole group of people. My only gripe is forgetting to bring my camera. The drive there wasn’t very long itself, but picking up passengers and equipment took quite a long time. I woke up at about 5a and left at around 545a. We ended up leaving Toronto at around 1030a, and this was after stopping for gas and food. The lineups for the gas station weren’t as bad as I had originally expected. In fact, I had let my passengers off to get McDonalds while I waited in line. I finished before they did.

Like I said, we left at around 1030 for Restoule Provincial Park. Yvonne was my navigator and I’m glad she was it. She managed to stay awake the whole ride there. Actually, we stopped over in Barrie to pick up Andrew (Yvonne’s boyfriend) which was interesting in itself. Everyone decided to play “spot the non-white person” for a laugh. Roy and Steve won on a brown guy walking down the road.

Somewhere around the town of South River people in the van started asking whether we would stop somewhere for lunch. I searched around for a place to stop and eventually halted at this charcoal grill place. Coincidentally, it was right next to an LCBO and I got a few taunts as a result. I don’t know how I got to be the alcoholic guy in the group…I’m quite the opposite. I stayed dry this whole weekend, man!

Closer to the park the roads turned into gravel roads. We spotted a lot of oddly named roads, like “Lingenfelters”. That automatically reminded me of the words “lingam” and “yoni“. Don’t ask. All in all, the drive took 3-4 hours. However, this was with me speeding a tad. I think most of the way there I was going a steady 140…but that was because most people were going 120. So there. I went with the flow…sort of.

Well, upon arrival we found out we got two sort of dinky drive-through campsites. We saw a few large empty ones and managed to negotiate our way to them. The next few days involved lots of swimming, hanging out at the beach, big roaring campfires, complaining about outhouse stench (I was the first to do so), off-road mountain biking (my ass is paying for that one), and some dirty ho madness (old maid-modified). I almost feel sorry for some of our neighbours. We must’ve been a bit rowdy dirty ho. Yet again, I was the first person crowned as dirty ho. How the hell does that happen?

Here are some particular highlights…

- Raccoons must’ve become accustomed to people there. One in particular came to the campsite at around midnight as we were making smores and banana boats. It approached the campfire despite us trying to shine lights in its eyes and making small growling noises (small in the attempt to not wake the neighbours). There were some banana boats cooling on the rocks after being cooked in the fire. The raccoon just went up, grabbed one slowly, and dragged it off into the forest. The whole time you could hear Jared going “no no no no no no…my banana boat!!!” Funny thing too watching it open the foil and claw out the contents. Little did we know that while we were watching that one, another one swiped a whole bunch of bananas from the table.

- Dave found this cool stick that had the bark stripped off of it. I found it great fun to swing that thing around like a quarter staff. In fact, I took it home.

- Football in the water was a lot of fun. We played frisbee too, but it unfortunately got lost after we all forgot about it while playing football.}

Well that’s that. I’d go into more detail, but I’m still on dialup for the time being…(with absolutely no estimate of how long it’ll be before I’m on high speed again.

edited because I use the word “Anyway” WAY too much

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Sweat

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Fri. August 15, 2003

There go a lot of my plans. It’s around 1:30 right now and I can basically say that I have done absolutely nothing today. It was pretty obvious to me before that I wouldn’t fare all to well if the power went out for an extended period. Didn’t think I would have to experience such a situation though.

I did have plans to go out and get some snacks for camping. Now what though? None of the stores are open right now. I can’t do any laundry meaning my sleeping bag will be kind of…wrong smelling (haven’t used it in a while-it’s probably musty). Oh well, that Febreze stuff better work.

I know. I know. These are all minor issues. Still, it’s all one big inconvenience. Meh. By this time tomorrow I should be very close to the campsite. It’s a bloody 6hr drive! In such a situation, the lack of electronics would all be by choice.

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Lights out…

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Thu. August 14, 2003

Well, the lights are out just about everywhere in Ontario as well as in the Northeastern US. It’s interesting to really witness what can go wrong. It’s the first time I’ve heard of such a humungous area being affected by such a blackout.

Well, I can see a few good things to come out of this. The event occured at around 4:10. So, despite the fact that it was still blazing hot out there I know that it could’ve been much worse. So what if there’s no air conditioning? My mom and I have been getting by on some hand fans. By the time it happened, my mother had already come home. So, I’m pretty thankful that she didn’t have to drive through the unpredictable traffic.

As I’m looking out my window right now, I can see several of my neighbours sitting in their cars listening to the radio. I had been doing the same as well. Earlier today a huge group kids gave good business to an ice cream truck that must’ve passed by our street a whole four times (what a smart bastard).

All in all, things seem pretty damn average around here-despite the fact that it’s pretty damn dark. Oh well. Hopefully everything will be back to a relatively more stable state come tomorrow morning.

I should stop writing. Staring at this Palm when everything else is dark is hurting my eyes.

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The run around at the phone company

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Wed. August 13, 2003

Prior to bolting (like a greyhound out of the starting gates) I had made arrangements with Bell to move my Sympatico DSL service back to my house. That was set to happen on the 12th. Well, today is the 13th and still nothing. My modem is blinking…but it’s unable to sync.

So, I called the main office to get a status report. The representative I spoke to said the status was “completed”. However, since it wasn’t working I was forwarded to tech support.

Cue: Blondie with “Call me”.

This guy I got insisted that it was the fact that I wasn’t using the original Sympatico cables that came with the modem. He ended up placing an order for a new cable fwr me and left it at that.

I don’t know…it sounded all bullshit to me. I mean, consider this. I’ve used this modem for three years now. I’ve used different cables over the past few years-even long phone line extension cords (which seem to be a no-no nowadays). I’ve never had a problem before. Why should it suddenly decide to just not work? It’s ridiculous.

Well, I searched around for the original phone cable. I was not about to wait 2-5 business days for that cable to come. Bullshit. When I found it I called tech support again. Luckily I got someone different. This time, this guy sent me to the “Get connected” folks.

Cue: Some sort of classical music

The person I got asked me many questions to make sure I wasn’t making some silly mistake. Eventually I got to a point where I was asked to disconnect all phones except the one I was using as well as the one with the modem. Wouldn’t you know it, I unplugged the wrong phone.

D’oh!

So, OK, I call tech support again and had them forward me to “Get Connected”. After going through all those diagnostics again he escalated my problem. He forwarded me to a Bell technician.
She said she had to retrieve my file and call me back. That, she did. When she called back she informed me that the order was completed but couldn’t be processed because they were short of some needed technology and that it would arrive shortly.

Now, what really gets my goat is the question of why the hell the account people aren’t aware of such situations. It’s nonsense.

So here I am, stuck without Internet access. I have no dial up modem in my new computer (my old one requires an ISA slot). So, I’m writing these entries on my Palm. I’ll send these over when I first get the chance.

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