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WALKING IN MEMPHIS IS NOT BY ROD STEWART, IT IS BY MARC COHN, SO THERE.

Saturday was a nothing day. I didn't swim, I didn't run, I didn't spin, I didn't hike. I barely moved. I did go for a walk, where I bought some shoelaces. They are "aubergine". I was a little upset I couldn't find bright red ones, but that's okay. Really, they're just shoelaces. But if I do get frustrated enough with this job and decide to end it all, I will go to the extra effort to buy flashy shoelaces to hang myself with. It's amazing the similarities between my cubicle and jail. It's a 6x8 foot square with no real sound insulation... if someone is snoring or farts in the next one, I can hear/smell it. All I'm really missing is a built-in toilet and a 7' roommate named "Buddy". I believe there was a discussion this weekend involving what people around me would think if I started crapping in here. That would sure solve that problem of people pestering me! In fact, I bet I'd solve the whole problem of this job in a hurry. But there are drawbacks, namely that I would have to crap in my cubicle. And that explaining why my previous employment was terminated to future potential employers would be a bit of a bear.

"... and why are you no longer working there?"

"I pooed in my cube. Regularly."

"I see. Um, don't call us, we'll call you."

Anyway, I'm trying to make a conscious effort to be more happier (yes, intentional gramatical error, thank you) about my job. It's not bad. I'm finally not sapping my parents' retirement fund dry, and even though I'm bored out of my skull all day, experience is experience. And I will move on to bigger and better things. And man, am I going to get a lot of riding in if I'm here this summer, because I'll come into work at 7am and leave at 3:30 and be able to do centuries during the week, not just on Sundays. HA! So there. I'm hoping I can force myself to ride to work at least once or twice a week, weather permitting, but that means riding all the way out to the Jacques-Cartier and then down Taschereau (I think), which is stressful enough in a car... we'll see. Anyway, I'm really stoked to get riding again. It's all I'm thinking about these days. I'm sick and tired of the spin bikes, and the monotony of grinding away in the weight room by myself, and of trying to figure out what to do on the days when I know I lifted yesterday and I'm spinning tomorrow, but the pool's crowded and my knee hurts... so I guess I'll just twiddle my thumbs aggressively to get my heart rate up over 130 for an hour or two. I'm spending just a little too much time looking at bike porn, and all the sudden $2500 isn't seeming like that much money, so maybe I should just get a credit card and pay off a bike bit by bit... WHY?! Bad, bad, bad. I don't need a new bike! The one I have is juuuust fine. But new bikes are shiny! And squishy! Oh, no, this isn't good. This isn't good at all. I need to get me a man who works in a bike shop so I can get pro deals. Or perhaps turn pro so I can get pro deals myself. That would be nice. I'll get right on that. Right after I solve that pesky cold fusion thing I've been working on in my basement.

Totally uninspired today, I apologize.

I leave you with this limerick.

There once was a lady from Brussels

Who worked every day on her muscles

She'd go and pick fights

On her girls-bonding nights

And she'd lose her shirt in kerfuffles

Have an excellent weekend.

I have found something (else) to ease the monotony of my job!  This is, of course, in addition to my standard daily relief of trying to find things to ease the monotony of my job.  I am now streaming 106.5 from Cleveland to keep myself entertained.  It's not what I would call "good" music, but it's never so bad that I have to change the station (which is a pain in the ass when you're streaming).  Plus, it makes me feel connected to know what the weather is like and how the traffic is on 90.  Living in Montreal has made me realise how easy we have it in Cleveland when it comes to traffic.  It's not like all access to the city is restricted to a few bridges, which run 2-4 lanes depending on the hour... sometimes one if there's an accident or someone stalls.  The dork side of me always equates traffic to incompressible fluid flow.  It would be cooler if it were compressible... then you'd get choking at bottlenecks and traffic would unstart and cars would go flying off the Champlain bridge into the St Lawrence.  Man, I am SUCH a nerd.

Anyway, I realised last night that since I've left school, and my job isn't exactly draining my intellectual reserves (I am currently waiting for an assembly I'm supposed to be working on to "check out" of the database.  I have spent roughly 2 hours of my day doing this.), my brain is allowed to think for itself for once, and I'm drawing all these conclusions about society and people that I wouldn't have while I was in school because I was struggling to keep my head above water and either thinking whatever any given prof was telling me to about some scientific phoenomenon I couldn't care less about, or I was turning my brain off by going to the gym or watching TV or drinking (mostly drinking).  I was drawing parallels to feudal Japan and the bushido code yesterday while I was watching MXC.  For those of you not familiar with bushido, it is the Japanese samurai (warrior) code placing honour above life.  I'm thinking about this because I'm currently reading Shogun, and people are committing seppuku (honorable suicide) left and right.  Very strange for the western mentality to grasp, when life is higher than everything.  For those of you not familiar with MXC, that is an abbreviation for Most Extreme Elmination Challenge, a TV show where a Japanese game show is dubbed over by sarcastic Americans.  It's bloody hilarious.  The parallels I was drawing are boring.  But I like the fact that I get to compare Shogun to MXC.  Anyway, yes, so go, brain, go!  Figure out cold fusion next!  (I'll post it on my blog when I'm done.)

I decided to post a picture in my blog!  It's a picture of hotmail's network administrator.  Check it out!

oof, I totally take it back about 106.5.  They just started playing Tina Turner.

I discovered today that I am slowly but surely crippling myself.  As I’m right handed, I use the mouse with my right hand, so I lean on my left elbow.  Probably due to the fact that I swam last night, I’m a little more sore than usual, and I discovered that I spend most of my working day with my left shoulder pretty much in my ear.  Soon they’ll be calling me Quasimodo.  I’m going to do some serious work on this at the gym, and I’m also doing my best to sit upright and centered, because I don’t want my right shoulder to be halfway down my torso and my left one to be fused to my ear.  I would look weird.  But I bet that people on the street would give me money if I had a cup.

I logged into the alumni website of my alma mater today, and this is what great and wonderous things they are doing these days.  I swear, this is a copy and paste off the front page.

This from the school that can't be assed to upgrade the measurement lab from Unkelscope, and only eliminated DC2 in 2001... I'm glad to know I'm part of a tradition of intellectual excellence.

A certain California bike company asked me to email in my CV!  I'm not going to get too excited, because I know they have about 4 guys that have been there since the company was founded... places like that tend to not take on newcomers, especially 23 year old women.  But I can dream! 

And I can pester!

I went online today and started pulling names of bike manufacturers that might be more design-intensive.  29 companies later, I think I have a start.  And I haven't even started getting into the guys that only make the big thumpers yet (I'd list some company names here, but frankly, I don't know too many of them), because I'm only a baby thumper.  Oh, who am I kidding... the only thumping I do when I'm riding is the muffled thud of body vs. tree.  (Generally, tree wins.  Decisively.)  It turns out that less companies than I expected actually DESIGN their bikes in a traditional way... a lot of these manufacturers are just guys who liked riding and started welding in their garages... and the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the guys in the office is suspicious that the night security guard is bringing his girlfriend here at night and having kinky sex after hours.  This, he says, is obvious, due to the fact his the lid to his jam is sometimes ajar when he comes in in the morning.  Incontrovertible evidence.

My first project went into design review today.  Not an overwhelmingly positive response.  I wish I cared just a little bit...

So, to round off today's blogrithm, and in the interest of promoting anti-materialism (she says, as she parks her car in front of her house in Outremont, where she selects one of her three bikes to go for a ride…) I am going to make a quick list of some things I'm glad I don't have.

Things I'm glad I don't have:

A peanut allergy, a mortgage, religious obligations, cultural obligations, herpes, dillusions of grandeur, kids, a truck, an SUV, a stalker, rotten meat in my office drawer, scabies, crippling debt, a beard, a mould infestation, a rat infestation, an evil goblin who lives under the sink, 80s-inspired clothing produced after the year 2002 because it's back "in", facial tatoos, a third hand, student loats, anything pink, a subscription to Soap Opera Digest, trendy-ness, naked pictures of Donald Trump, a family that depends on my income, broken dreams, a sense of shame, a double-wide, superficial and shallow friends, the black plague, and last but definitely not least, explosive diarrhea.  For the moment.

I'd like to introduce all of you to Smashy McBangBang, Esq. Football player and weight room groupie extraordinaire.

Seeing as it's the off season for biking (well, for those of us not into ski-biking.. skiking?), it's important to put the hours in in the weight room. Luckily, we've got the varsity weight room, which trims a bit of the "teehee, I'm a first year and I'm wearing a shirt that couldn't really succesfully be used as a hankie and I'm 'doing cardio' while I talk to the pumped-up beefhead in the corner!" Yeah, there are a lot of football players, but generally they work really hard and leave well enough alone, so we can all coexist. Except for Smashy McBangBang. This kid drives me up a wall, I swear. My theory is that he's a fourth year who will graduate next year who has been trying to walk on to the team since his first or second year, and finally succeeded this year. So he was a fourth year rookie. This gives him an interesting complex of being one of the oldest guys on the team while still being a rookie and most likely a bench warmer most of the time (special teams maybe?). Every time I'm in the weight room, this guy is there. He's pretty big, but not big enough to be on the D line, and too big to be a running back, not tall enough to be a reciever... he's just kind of useless big. And he's trying to singlehandedly bring back the mohawk. (I get it if it's game/race day, but when you're seven months away from the start of your season?) Anyway, I guess the weight room is some sort of social hour for him. He stalks around, drinking from his Nalgene, talking about this or that over the course of two or three different groups of guys who will enter or leave in the time he's there. He'll do some weights, but usually just one set of whatever... and with way more weight than he should really be lifting. Anyway, I do a different kind of training, and I didn't make his program (though I'm not entirely convinced he's even on one), so I guess I shouldn't be one to judge (who am I kidding? I'm always one to judge.). Anyway, when he eventually decides that maybe people will notice he hasn't done anything in a while, he'll carefully select the biggest weight on the rack, and ask somebody to spot him. Then, there's the big show, where he breathes heavily and gets "pumped", followed by a yell/grunt as he hefts whatever he might be lifting into the air for the three or four reps he's getting all psyched for. But the thing that drives me absolutely nuts about this guy is the fact that he feels it necessary to slam the weights down at the end of every set, even if he could just as easily place them nicely on the ground. The crashing down is always then followed by a loud "wooo!" to let everyone know that "hey, look what Smashy just did!"

We've decided that a good spin workout would be to go and spin for an hour, punctuated by 30s. sprints whenever he drops a weight. It would be killer.

wooo!

Well, it finally happened. I rear ended someone this morning. Damnit, that's my first accident in 8 years of driving (well, the first one where I've been at the wheel). There wasn't any visible damage, and I didn't hit her super hard, but I'm really freaked out that I did hit someone. I wonder if it's because I don't drink coffee until I get to work. But really, I think it was because of the 2 inches of snow and the Montreal traffic. But that's it, I'm officially that jackass with Ohio plates that rams into people and speaks no French and.... argh! I hate people like me.

Crazy weekend without any actual craziness. Friday, as usual, I was too exhausted to drag my lazy self off the couch, skipped Kaptain Gonad's (you would think we nicknamed him that, but no, he chose it for himself) keg party and watched bad TV all night. Including some show called "Ultimate Fighter" on Spike TV. That's right, a reality show about ultimate fighting. What a loser.

Saturday I managed to get myself down to the Palais de Congres in time to catch RYAN LEECH! That's right, I saw Ryan Leech live. He looked different than I expected, but he was just really fun to watch... you could tell that he actually wants to perpetuate the sport of trials, rather than just get up in front of you and say "lookee what I can do that you can't... nyeah nyeah nyeah" Anyway, the crazy thing about it, is I met this guy who I've been watching on TV for a year or two, and you realize... "oh. He's just a dude." He's exactly like all the guys I ride with, except crazy good and he gets paid for it. Strange. Anyway, it was fully one of those moments where I realized that you can do anything you want to do, so long as you persevere and you are the absolute best.

Anyway, the rest of Expodium was awesome. I didn't actually oggle bikes as much as I normally would have, because I was trying to be busy shaking hands and getting names and cards and stuff. I made three or four good contacts, so that's a bonus... anyway, unfortunately, it seems like the more design-intensive manufacturers lean towards people with masters. Of course. Man, this is the story of my life... I made a decision when I was 18 that I didn't want to be a star student and that I wouldn't want to do a masters... and here I am, at 23, having cut off my nose despite my face. I didn't even take Uncle Larry's composites class, under the pretense that I would have no use for such things. I feel dumb. If I owned a gun, I probably would have shot myself in the foot by now.

I went to see a hiphop show on Saturday night... one of the great things about Montreal is I can go to see some underground hip hop band from Detroit and not have to go to some part of the city where I'm worried about getting mugged/smash-and-grabbed/stabbed/shot. Anyway, it was three bands, and they were all pretty good, particularly the second one, whose name I never caught. I went with Christian and some of his friends... one girl in particular was hilarious. I bet her a beer that she wouldn't grab this 6'4" buffoon's ass in front of us... she did it. I guess I don't get out enough, because it had me laughing all night. He was completely blindsided and didn't know what to do. Ha! Now you know how we feel (not that I get my ass grabbed on an overly regular basis, but still). The guy was probably out on his one night a week away from the seminary or something. Anyway, the band I liked had some really funny lyrics. The only ones that stick in my mind are "You used to be fly, but you crashed your plane" and "Rodney King never felt the beat like this."

Sunday was useless but fun... spin class and breakfast... Toi, Moi et Cafe AGAIN (not that I'm complaining. mm, waffles. I mean, gophers.). I met Gary, from one of the local bike shops (I'd met him before but only briefly). We have tentative plans to go snowshoe the XC trails at Bromont next weekend. Bing Bang! Bing Bang! I'm hoping to hit Vermont on Saturday, too, so that should be an excellent time. After breakfast, the idea was to go to IKEA, but we got going too late, so we just went to value village and discovered that yes, people do sell used underwear. ew. Had some dinner (my traditional oops-I-didn't-read-the-directions-for-the-second-time-this-week-and-put-in-about-10-times-the-amount-of-paste-I-was-supposed-to-sorry-you-have-no-lining-in-your-mouth-anymore green curry. At least it was accompanied by a salad. I guess. I should just get green curry at Chuch and be done with it... I don't know why I keep trying to make it myself. I should just stick to pad thai and spring rolls when it comes to Asian food.

So, I guess that's this blogrithm.

Enough of this useless blogging!

This entry will be short!

I have new focus and center!

I am driven!

I am resourceful!

I am ready!

I have a purpose in this world!

I have found a new activity to occupy my time. At least, more of it. I am teaching myself Pro/SURFACES, which is apparantly the bike design industry standard these days. This nugget of information was obtained in conversation #2 with my (slightly less willing this time but still friendly) contact at (a certain) BC bike company. We don't have the advanced package, and I can't come up with a reason to convince my company they need it, but I will learn what I can with what I've got. I'm working on a hardtail with a bent toptube. My pesky supervisor keeps coming by my cubicle and giving me work! What's that about? I feel like yelling, "hey man, stop getting in the way of my destiny with your stupid PC boards!"

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead...

There's a guy at work who I have nicknamed "Hollow Laugh Guy".  He hangs out near my cubicle all day and jokes around with the electrical guys.  His laugh starts off like a smoker's cough but instead of turning into hacking, it turns into a laugh.  And this guy finds everything funny!  He's probably a nice guy, but I hope my only contact with him is at somber events, such as funerals and memorial services.  He's probably okay then.

My morning routine now includes Get Fuzzy, in addition to Dilbert.  Get Fuzzy is hysterical.  Dilbert is more "it's funny because it's true" humour, but Get Fuzzy is one of those rare cartoons that makes me laugh out loud almost every single day.  If you have the time to be reading this, I reccomend reading Get Fuzzy in addition to or instead of my blog.

Someone else who amuses me is "Just a Little Bit Too Tight Pants Guy".  Ah, the Quebecois.  The men never quite "get" fashion, do they?  Anyway, I'm a big fan of the "maybe if I wear tight pants nobody will notice by burgeoning gut" philosophy.  The gold chain helps too!  All he needs is the Bee-Gee's Stayin' Alive blasting whenever he moves around... but only when he's walking... I swear, if he ever did the gun and wink to me, I'd probably die laughing.  I'll have to talk to the IT guy and see if I can hook this up.

Rumour has it that Bombardier got the new plane.  So that means they're going to be hiring more engineers.  So do I pursue that via the connections that I have there, or do I decide here and now that I won't leave this company unless it's to build bikes.  I'm all about putting a fire under my ass, but I need to hedge my bets, too... what if I can't find a job in the bike industry?  It is a small, niche field, and even though I have exactly what they're looking for from an engineer, I'm a little bit worried that my skills as a mechanic are lacking.  I do very little of the work on my own bike... save for routine stuff, everything else gets done by real mechanics.  I blame a lot of it on anal care of my bike (right, because riding it at Prevost once a week is REALLY good for it) and not having a stand.  Pretty lame for a mechanical engineer who touts her prowess in the shop in interviews, eh?  Well, at least I know how to use a drill.  And a drill press.

I discovered something new… suprisingly simple, yet I didn’t think of it.  Since I’m getting the runaround from certain people when whatever I’m working on is dependant on them, I found out that if I CC our supervisor on everything I need to get done, it actually GETS done, instead of getting put off til 2 hours before the end of the business day the day before it’s due!  Duly noted… thanks for the tip, Boris (the rebel!)

I had some crazy conversations today over lunch… which explains the almost-hour-long lunch, I guess.  It seems that everyone is way too clued into everyone else’s financial situation.  I knew this already… but it kind of sickens me that everyone knows everyone else’s salary and how much vacation time they get, etc, etc.  I’ve been more or less blatantly asked a few times how I’m affording my lifestyle, and I just feel like it’s not anyone’s business!  I’m not going to feel guilty because my parents raised me with the absolute priority being on eduction.  We didn’t vacation when I was a kid (I’ve never been to Disneyland!  Once my dad took 3 weeks off work and we drove around the country… in my grandmother’s van and a pop-up tent camper.  We ate Spam.) and because of that, my parents were able to afford to send me to university, and I graduated with no student loans.  I don’t understand why I should feel guilty because my parents are good financial planners.  What, do you want me to give you money?  Life isn’t fair.  Also, of course I’m able to afford a few luxuries here and there.  I don’t eat out, I don’t have a wife (not that I would, but you get the point), I don’t own a house, I’m drinking for less than $20 a week these days (woohoo for being a lightweight who trains early on Saturday and Sunday mornings!)… so, yeah, I don’t have that many realworld responsibilities.  I’m sorry I’m not 40 with 2 kids!  I wish these conversations would stop happening.  Anyway, I had a followup conversation with one of the managers, who is only a few years older than I am, who is sitting very pretty, owns a condo and a car… made me feel a little less guilty.  I know that my time to struggle through the world is coming, but it’s not now, so as long as I don’t dig myself into a hole (you will all notice that for all my talk, I haven’t actually bought a new mountain bike!  Even though that Scalpel is looking pretty good…. I figure I’ll get a discounted one when I start working at a bike company.  More incentive!).

oof, I swore, just yesterday, I was talking with someone about how my blog isn’t my deep thoughts on anything, it’s just a series of random and pointless observations of the world around me.  So much for that!  I’m not convinced anyone is actually reading it anyway, at least nobody I actually know, so I suppose I can continue to rant.

BOO ON HOTMAIL!

“You have already sent the maximum number of email messages allowed in a 24 hour period.  Sign up for Hotmail Plus!”  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I have had enough!  I’m switching!  Thinking about gmail, but all my list mail goes there, and I liked my 5 account setup.  I had one for personal emails, one for work, one for prospective work, one for lists, and one to put down when signing up for stupid things online.  Those capitalist MSN bastards.  You heard me!  Yeah, you!  MSN capitalist bastard!

My brush with hotmail (you don’t deserve a capital letter, you capitalists!) and its excremental business policies really put a sour spin on the brief minute of fun I had earlier.  I got to play my favourite work game!  The Find Enough Money to Buy a Snack From the Vending Machine Game!  I found a loonie in my coat, then $0.05 in my bag… then 5 pennies I had to ask someone to change into a nickel… but all was worth it for my MEGASNAK Chocolatey Chips Marshmallow Square! (notice they are “chocolatey”, not actual chocolate).  This took about 25 minutes.  I’m glad my employer is paying me for this.  And for this blog.

Anyway, I have stuff to do, so I should hopefully be able to keep busyish for the next hour and a half until I go to the gym.  So thusly concludes another episode (and they thought Seinfeld was the show about nothing).

LOMER AND DUNCAN ARE GETTING MARRIED! 

Honestly, we all knew it was coming, but when was a bit of a jawbreaker!  Maybe I'll get them special freeride gloves with extra padding in the left 4th finger so they don't get blisters from their wedding rings.  Anyway, this is good news.  yay!  happy dance...

I suppose all other news pales in comparison.  I'm not getting married.  Nor have I recently died.

My cubicle is right next to the coffee cubicle, so I'm currently listening to someone talking about buying some sort of microscope.  Apparantly $30,000 is too f^&king much for a f#$king microscope and that's just f@*king rediculous.  Maybe I should be a consultant, I could have told you that.  Unless it's one of those electron microsopes.  Those are cool.  But what would you really need one of those for in this business?  Maybe to analyze my coffee on a molecular level (hey!  it's mostly water!  wow!) or to attend the world's smallest conference.  Or to feel supremely powerful, after discovering a multitude of scientific data with great relevance to humankind... in my sandwich!  Which I would then cackle maniacally while eating.  And nobody but me would get the joke. 

bwa-ha-ha.

There is some douchebag (NOT Merriam-Webster's word of the day) who has been parking on my street for the past two weeks, and his car alarm has gone off almost every single night.  And not for a few minutes, we're talking HOURS here.  The first time it started (well, woke me up... who knows when it started) at around 4am, and was still going when I left for work at 7:15.  I think they finally towed him last night.  I wanted to egg the car, but my roommate decided it might be more mature (and a little less felonious) if we just called neighbourhood security.  Bo-ring.  But I woke up this morning NOT in jail, so I suppose that's a good thing.

Had some good Pushap (mmh, Poo-Shop) last night… save for the classic barfee battle.  I will prevail, as last night I found out that the ones I like are called bassel pinny (or something).  Damn you, dilbahar, and your wiley ways!  Anyway, a conversation about charm bracelets made me realise that I haven't sent out thank you letters for Christmas yet this year.  I'm totally out of the will.  Curses.

I felt a surge of guilt today, because I took about 30 thumbtacks from the office supply cabinet.  You see, I've been making all these new part numbers for these drawings I've been doing, and every time a new part number is requested, there's a one-page printout.  I need the numbers off these printouts, so I've started hanging them on the walls of my cubicle.  They did have a Costco-size bin of thumbtacks, but I wondered… am I taking away thumbtacks from someone else who might need them?  Is needless stockpiling of thumbtacks selfish?  Perhaps I should just hold them against the wall with my left hand, because I really only need my right hand to operate the mouse, and what little typing I do have to do, I can hunt-and-peck with my right hand.  I mean, I did get this rush of excitement as I opened the supply cabinet… there were notebooks!  And binders!  And white-out tape thingys!  And highlighters!  And pencils!  And replacement leads… as far as the eye can see!  I had this moment, where it overcame me, and I had a visual of myself, laughing, skipping merrily through a field of staplers and thumbtacks (I was wearing shoes) with nothing but Post-Its to preserve my decency!  Oh, the indulgence of it all!

I quickly shut the cabinet and left.

In all sincerity, I do have to admit that I am horrified by the amount of paper we go through in this office.  Is any office truly paperless these days?  I feel like I should plant trees to compensate.  I think the problem is computer monitors.  The resolution isn't high enough to see the same kind of detail you see when you print something out.  Also, they're bloody hard on your eyes.  I know that if my monitor were twice as wide and I could sit about a foot closer, I wouldn't have to constantly print out these drawings to make corrections.  Someone should get going on that.  Some engineer or something.

I went for a run last night… a little 6k around Outremont… it was quite nice, actually, except for when I left my house.  The Hasidic man and his 4 or 5 kids from downstairs were outside as I was leaving, clad in my spandex… he quickly said something in Yiddish (I assume) to his kids, who all promptly turned around and looked the other way.  I can only assume it was something along the lines of "avert your eyes from the devil lady!"  I guess I was just too callipygian.

Gonna write a cover letter for a certain Toronto bike company next.  Mostly road bikes, but that's cool.  Schwag me, baby, schwag me rotten.

I discovered today what I want for next Christmas.

http://www.wisconsincheese.com/products/13

God bless the internet.

Yesterday at lunch, a few of us were talking about running (guess what!  I think one of the tech support guys is an athlete!  Hallelujah, someone else…) and apparantly one guy has a hard time because he has flat feet.  One of the new hires butts in with, "you know what the worst thing about having flat feet is?  You slip in the shower.  My uncle slips in the shower all the time."  Cue another mental image of some guy getting into the shower, slipping and falling on his ass, trying to get up, slipping again, water splashing all over the place… "damn these flat feet!  Damn them to hell!  I can't march and I can't bathe!!"  At least the constant little play in my head keeps me amused…

Here I am! Blogging again. Blog, blog, blog. It's Blog, it's Blog... it's big, it's heavy, it's wood... it's Blog, it's Blog... better than bad, it's good!

Crazy things here at work today. Some girl started yesterday and called in to say she wouldn't be returning today. If that isn't turnover, my friends, I don't know what is. As to me, today has been thoroughly unproductive so far. I have an hour and 10 minutes until my weekly meeting.... wonder if anything will happen between now and then.

At lunch, I went to IGA and bought half a papaya for $2.17. That was a showstopper.

I was out for coffee this weekend with a few people. We were at a crowded Starbucks in Mile End. We were chatting, having coffee, catching up... and in walks this couple, who sat right behind us. We're chatting, they're spooning... anyway, long story short, she was a bit of a cougar (35 maybe?) with knee-high black boots. Allow me to describe the boots in a little more detail... the design was somewhat akin to hockey shinpads, in that there was an extra flap of leather that extended up a little higher... that's right, ladied and gentlemen, f^%k me boots with kneepads. If that doesn't bend ya right over, I don't know what will.

Really, please don't feel obligated to continue reading my blog. I really am doing it just because I don't know what else to do sometimes.

Oh, at some point today I dozed off and fell out of my chair.  Such a productive employee!  I'd sure hire me.

So far today, I have written a cover letter for another certain bike company, this one located in Connecticut. They seem to be hiring a rear suspension design engineer. Again. Didn't they hire for that position last year? Didn't I apply for it? Didn't it then go offline? Apparantly, whoever they hired couldn't take the heat. I'm heatproof! Bring it on.  I don't want to be too down on my current employer, but this is about pursuing a dream.  (Dreams are like rainbows.  Only idiots chase them.)