EJ's Mess

Work work.

2010-06-15T17:29:00.002-06:00

Just found out today that the Vendor coming for the big project I'm signed up for is......as my other boss put it "green as grass." IT boss told Controls boss and me that he isn't an expert (we had assumed so) and is just someone who is willing to go through the project to learn. AKA he knows even less than I do...he's a SQL programmer for Weyerhaeuser somewhere and wants pulpmill experience.Gah!

The rest of this week is for me to research this system as much as possible and contact companies to give demos.

Pretty excited to take on something new, but at the same time...my IT boss always does this, lol. We haven't even closed up our old projects and we prob won't. I'd do it but I don't have the access to. /shrug!

Kick up progression has not gone any further! I can't get past the point I'm at >< Due date is this weekend too...

Am I coming back this weekend? I don't know. I'm really starting to detest wasting 8+ hours each weekend going back and forth...

Hmm walking thing. I'm getting DESTROYED by everyone else and the teams. Well, I don't count the teams since they get to add their kms together...must...walk...more! Went with Marvin and Wilson to Bear Creek the other day but they didn't want to walk past the section that had a bear and deer warning sign.

Maybe I shall go today...weather is still nice and sunny...or wait I need bread for sandwiches...walk to store? Both? Hm....

~EJ

Meep.

2010-06-10T21:38:00.002-06:00

Blargh. I am now scheduled for a large project that kicks off...right after our July trip to Lake Louise. More manuals to read, yay!

Lets see...goals. I haven't been doing half of them, haha. Haven't picked anything for guitar yet, and I have yet to do all the organizing I said I'd do...

I joined a walking distance challenge at work. I think I've talked about this before. Anyways, that is going well. The weather is nice which is helping a lot, though I don't mind walking in light rain...probably not too healthy though.

Kick up progress > I have finally gotten the hang of using my arms as well...and I get that "air" feeling. Then I land on my back or ass. Maybe my butt's too big...I dunno! I just need like a little bit more but I can't get it! xD Like Damien said, it's sometimes hard if no one is watching you. You can't watch yourself...I guess you can record yourself. But yeah, I dunno what I look like and it would help a lot if someone could comment, haha! I keep telling myself to watch videos of people doing it but haven't gotten around to that...

Eep. My storywriting/copying due date is tomorrow too. I was supposed to get to the point where they get branded as l'Cie (for those of you who know FFXIII). Haven't done much editing either...I keep changing my mind. That's the hard part I guess...deciding to leave the sentence as is and stop to fixing it :D

As Osaka would say..."get it together, get it together..."

~EJ

Weekend!

2010-06-07T17:10:00.002-06:00

Whoops! I was going to post yesterday but Blogger was down....

Anyways! Edmonton on the weekend! But there wasn't enough time >< sis and I were like bat pohs (Hakka accent...) the whole time. Blargh! Lots of...pirated goods hm hm hm >D Pokemon was extremely hilarious...."let us unica the world!" or something....it was bad English, half Spanish, and random Jap parts. Uhm, yeah...just lots of catching up...

We watched Prince of Persia! I liked it. The ending was kinda bleh but whatever. I'm easily entertained...

Haha! The gas station attendants recognize me now..."Hey you were here 2 weeks ago!" OTL "Yes...." Other attendant: "Do you have a points card blah blah or rewards thing blah blah." First attendant: "No, she doesn't, I remember from last time." XDDDDD

So yeah....that was my weekend...nothing crazy. Hopefully next time I can chill with some OTHER ppl next time....you know who you are :D and do stuff....I still haven't gone to Southgate yet..or bought new sneakers...or bought any new clothes since 2010 started actually. OTL

Omg I forgot about Judge Judy! GO TV GO FASTER.

Hm. Oh, I signed up for this walking goal thing at work. 684 km, which is from here to Banff...we have 1 month to complete that challenge...so I guess I will be walking...maybe...might not happen....my coworkers were telling me to just shake it like 5000x times everyday at 6 pm or something. I virtually backhanded them....too bad it got rainy!

I have a story to copy too, to refresh my writing skills...

~EJ

Dx

2010-06-02T17:05:00.002-06:00

Haha. Downloading software...is never easy. Spent 3 hours on the phone to figure out that the problem was our anti-virus. Now before I get flamed from computer ppl, yes we probably should have turned it off, but again, this is a corporate/business server so simple things like that have to go through a certain and timely process.....same for restarting a machine. Bleh!

On the bright side, since the vendor will still be here tomorrow, he will be giving a presentation on the software instead of me. I'm actually totally comfortable with doing it, but might as well use the expert, right? :D

VJ is back! and jetlagged! Mahaha.

Man, there's never enough time.....

~EJ

Vendorrrr Visit!

2010-06-01T19:51:00.002-06:00

A guy from another company came to upgrade one of our programs. I'm totally in charge. Of course, technical difficulties decided to attack today. Do I need to say overtime? :( For once, the vendor looks like his voice, if that makes sense. Young guy, and comfortable to be around, so there isn't really any awkwardness that you usually get from hanging around with a stranger for an entire day. Hopefully everything works out tmr.....the server I connect to decided to fail on a critical upgrade, wiping all user configurations on that box too. Good thing I saved everything on a networked drive since bad stuff happened when we had the blackout D:

New stuff, new stuff......still can't do a kick-up....I get that feeling of momentum every few tries but then I rush and end up falling on my ass. Well, no. My back.

VJ comes back to Edmonton today around 8:30 pm or so! Excited to visit her and see my mom this weekend. I bet she's black. Jk! Jk. She won't let me keep the ps3 though :( Should I just...not bring it with me?! Mahaha. She doesn't have her license so not like she can drive to come get it....just kidding again.....VJ's the boss :(

So nice outside....I want to....sit with my laptop. But then that kinda defeats the purpose, so I just have the patio door open. I'm so lame, haha! Though the grass in front of my patio thing is gross compared to everyone else's. Grass greener on the other side deal there.

Really itching for a road trip!! That road trip! Bring music guys!!

~EJ

Saturday...

2010-05-29T19:25:00.002-06:00

Didn't do a lot today...just a lot of WoW and random stretching. Weather's pretty gloomy here, but heard it's the same in Edmonton D:

Jaw & ear still hurts/is sore. Kinda annoying. I had a really, really long cavity fill or something a long time ago. My mouth was open so long that.....that part that connects your jaw to your skull....it sticks out a lot more than normal when I open my mouth...but only on one side....and that's the part that hurts. Hurm.

Sore all over from doing push ups and trying to kick up yesterday. xD I still can't do a full push up...just the girly ones OTL Such a shame D:

Heard a nice guitar melody on a commercial, but I never get Shazam open in time to see what it is when it plays, haha! For those who aren't familiar, Shazam is an app you can get and it tells you what song is playing. Really useful when watching tv, in the movies, or radio and you missed the song name :D I gave it some random Asian songs and random anime songs and it got them so it's not too bad. Seems to pick up even when tv ppl are talking over the music most of the time. I highly recommend! Some of the comments complain that it can't pick up new songs, but well, duh! Their database or whatever probably isn't updated if the song is really new....

Food is a problem nowadays....I can't eat everything before it expires. Damien! :( I'd buy a normal loaf of bread but I get through like half....and I really don't want to eat bread for all 3 meals, haha. I guess it saves money though!

A lot of ppl are asking me about Grey's Anatomy too. What's going on?! D:

~EJ

Restart...again!

2010-05-28T19:46:00.002-06:00

Whoops! I kind of just let this blog thing drop.....I'm not doing a lot with my life right now though, so I'm gonna start again just to keep me on track. There's a lot of things I want to accomplish but I'm a lazy person and I have no motivation.

So......first thing due for tomorrow to to book that cabin for the Lake Louise trip....I haven't done that yet ><

I got a calendar but I went and left it at work so I can't write down goal dates OTL great start, right? Haha.

So not much to say here....really excited for Prince of Persia though....grr!

My goals are going to be small things...the first one I have set in my head right now is to learn how to do a kick-up....by June 19th....that's more than enough time. The trouble is getting through the fear like with most of the Hapkido things >< at least for me anyways...and before Damien yells at me, I have more than enough space in the living room to do it :D Don't worry! I won't break things!

~EJ

Uhhhh......

2010-03-31T18:31:00.003-06:00

Catch up time! Kinda distracted by the song currently playing on my iPhone though. "....touch my ass, feel my lips, smell my skin, lick...." eh heh heh....don't ask. VJ GAVE IT TO ME.

I FEEL SO RELIEVED now that I'm done my term paper. Whew. My fault for procrastinating it though.....came home yesterday and just worked it till 10:00 pm. Then I submitted it and crashed. Mang. Officially 6 days, almost a week! without my Lightning.

Weather is so nice out. I went for a little walk right after work. Wish they had some equivalent of Lake Beaumaris though...there is this sidewalk that goes halfway to my workplace, but I dunno. I might be attacked by rabid deer or something. It's kinda out there.

Things of excitement.....OH. I am buying a Lion for those of you who don't know already. Going through discussions with the people but their English isn't very good and my Chinese/Malay is non-existant so it's kinda hard getting specific details out of them....isn't it pretty though?!

It will pretty much look exactly like that....this default is already so beautiful...but I might throw some personal customization in there...

They have red and blue in this style as well, but that's pretty much exactly like the ones we have at JQLDT. There's also pink....but...the response was "ugh!" (I'm sorry Vivian) Hopefully they have more colors....what do you guys think will go good with the green one? I'm getting one for now but maybe another in the future to pair them...color coordination go! Gooooold...? Reminds me of the UofA colors...errrrk.

Mmm...

~EJ

Hoboman.....sick!?

2010-03-24T17:57:00.004-06:00

Oh no! Damien's sick :( he made funny coughing noises at night and got me to pick him up from work early because he had those dizzy headaches. He had a sore throat for the past 2 days too....hm! I'm really bad at diagnosing these things; seems like all the symptoms are the same....hope he feels better by the time we head back this weekend!

Speaking of which, I was going to ask my boss to leave an hour early at 3:30 pm on Friday. Damien managed to get hours that end at 4:30 pm so we can leave for Edmonton and get there before it's too late at night. I was going to ask after a teleconference I had with Rick. Unfortunately, during the teleconf, Rick asked for the Vendor to come down here Friday for a day to help us prepare for shutdown. Darn it! I suppose I could still ask but it costs money for us to have a Vendor here (obviously) and Rick'll want to milk a good 8 hours out of the guy......

There are 7 people in my office area counting me. 3 of those guys took a one-week vacation. One guy is a tech so he's out and about. This week is freedom friday for one guy. It's supposed to be freedom friday for Rick too, but that would leave only me in the office and i'm a dumb-ass so he needs to be here. Meaning! There's only going to be Rick and I here on Friday to deal with the Vendor visit. Rick's been super stressed this week because he has to pick up for those 3 guys that are on vacation....so I'll most likely be working with the Vendor on my own. MEANING. I have to be there for the full 8 hours Friday....maybe even OT. Darn it!! We see, we see....I wanted to get back earlier to see some LD :(

Anyways, enough whining from me....time to make dinner and play with Lightning! Nah. I should be taking care of hobo...maybe he got sick because he spent all his energy making this delicious and amazing dinner for me yesterday.....oh, that's Hainan chicken rice too....not just normal rice...

:( Get well soon!

~EJ

Monday....

2010-03-22T17:52:00.002-06:00

Nothing to report. Except that I got raped by all the monsters in Gran Pulse on FFXIII. This game is pretty hard....

Damien works from 1:00 to 9:30 pm today. I lazy to cook so fast food it is!

Work is getting busy....not much to say...haha.

Should start on making my school schedule for Fall and Winter. I gotta do some catch up now. Kinda looking forward to going back....who am I kidding. I don't want to go back to school, haha. I have 1 week and 2 days to do my work term paper too. Meh.

Sis and mom are going back to Brunei. I was thinking of going on a trip to Lake Louise again. Darn. Planning planning....

Snowed 5 cms today. Still somewhat snowing. Sigh. My car wouldn't stop yesterday too. The road was a sheet of ice and I just kept going and going and going....by the time I stopped I was in the middle of an intersection......I seriously went a really goddamn long way.....good thing the car going perpendicular to us saw me coming and stopped in time....then it happened again at the next intersection, but I stopped even earlier and just let myself skid slowly....Damien's screams were very distracting though. JOKING. Joking, he just said "whoa."

I also made a discovery today. If you pull up your windshield wipers they won't get snow and ice frozen on them. I realized this after noticing that about half the cars in my usual parking row had theirs pulled up. Silly me for not figuring this out sooner xD Oh, I washed my car the day before it snowed too. Blargh!

~EJ

TGIF

2010-03-19T17:15:00.002-06:00

Tired! So glad it's Friday. Got myself a McFlurry. Yum yum!

The people at work think I'm retarded sometimes....well, not retarded, but they all drink coffee. I don't. And sometimes my lunch consists of stuff like donuts. Doesn't really sound too bad but they're all eating a whole-hearty meal and all and look at me like I'm crazy! I'm sorry, but I haven't gotten to the coffee stage yet....I want my sugar rush...

Saw 3 little deer (foals?) crossing the highway today. No mommy in sight...hurrm.

I am craving more McDonalds but we have a lot of leftover food...sigh. Getting fatter and fatter. Started exercising a bit but I've been sore for the past 3 days haha.

Damien bought me a ps1 from his workplace for $15. It's the old ass one, rectangular grey thing. No controllers or cords. Can't wait to rip it apart! Need to get some...screwdrivers and stuff though. Hm...

~EJ

Woooo.

2010-03-17T18:16:00.002-06:00

Ah I haven't updated in awhile since it takes away my precious time with Lightning....

Anyways, not much on work, it's all really random now, as in, someone will walk by my office and go, hey Elysia, I have a problem, do you have some time to fix it? Today was especially crazy with 4 of those happening, eating up all my time before my meeting at 2. Then the meeting went overboard by 1 hour to 4:30 which is when I go home.....needless to say, pulled an hour OT since I didn't get the work I wanted to do done and my IT boss wants to review the plan I made for the IT backups tomorrow. It's still not done.....it's in my head and on paper but I haven't made it fancy with pictures and drawings yet. Sigh.

It's funny though. I'm doing upgrades from Microsoft Office 2003 to 2007, nothing new there. Say I'm working on a dood1's comp. Some dood2 will walk by and the conversation either starts as:

1. Hey dood1 she fixing your computer? OR
2. Hey, make sure to mess up dood1's computer for me okay?

Either way, eventually dood1 will say "nah she's just upgrading it to Windows 7 for me."
...
...
...
...D'oh. I just keep quiet.....this has happened too many times that I don't bother correcting anymore xD

My IT boss is super stressin' too. Remember in a previous post I said we had 64-bit operating systems on our new server boxes? Well, turns out another Vendor only supports 32-bit as well. We were doing a teleconference and my other boss kept turning to me and doing this "oh man..." grin as Darrel drilled questions as to when 64-bit will be supported :D

Hm....in work there's always that image of 2 guys standing, watching as a 3rd guy is doing all the work. I tend to be in that situation a lot.....as one of the people standing, lol. Well....usually I'm directing #3 as to what they need to click on a computer....sometimes painful....

What else....

LADY GAGA! Thanks thanks thanks to Elaine for noticing and telling me about that.....I don't have any other details though....must....buy...tickets.....but when...do they go on sale?! Someone tell me if they know/find out!

I went to Save-ons after work to buy my fav cookies. Macadamia with white chocolate. They had none. /tear. Life is the usual......I'm itching to drive back to Edmonton though. Next week....next week.

Oh. I started "working out" starting Monday. It's more like "half-exercise." Went on a power walk.....yesterday was cold and windy so I did some lion dance stuff in my room. Really out of shape.....I start wheezing after 5 minutes haha.....without the lion on! Another cold, windy day today so more of that I suppose. I'm also trying out this exercise thing my Britain friend Gyn sent me. You basically balance on one leg as long as you can. Easy right? Ok, but you have to close your eyes. Sounds easy right? So I thought! It's not.....according to the thing she sent me, most ppl can't even do it for 5 seconds when first starting out.

My left leg is a lot better at balancing since I wrecked my right ankle muscles & ligaments awhile back and had to depend on my left. I still can't hold it that much longer though....and my right is around that 5 second mark haha.....

Blahblahblah blah.

~EJ

Work presentation!?

2010-03-11T17:05:00.002-07:00

IT boss wants me to organize an IT disaster recovery plan and give a presentation. Then from there they will order equipment based on my recommedations and plan....oh man!

All the bills came in today so my bank account is ouchie :( but then again, today was payday....so....neutralized!!

FFXIII.....ohhh~~

I can't decide whether to spend the weekend playing it or to go out and watch Alice in Wonderland like I had initially planned.....what say you, my minions? Jk....kinda.... :)

~EJ

Ah FFXIII and work fails

2010-03-10T17:03:00.002-07:00

Hm.....all I have to say is, for work we had a Vendor Visit. Vendors are people/experts from companies that come to upgrade our equipment or software with their latest version or patches. Of course, it costs money to get them to come here. I was made the point contact of this one.....meaning......I'm supposed to know exactly what is going on and what should happen. WHOA.

Anyways, we didn't have any details except names until today, the day of. It's fine, they were just going to install a newer version of a program to our server. We upgraded from Windows Server 2000 to 2003 so it was a new box. Problem? The program only works on 32-bit and not 64-bit. We had win ser 2003 x64. Apparently my IT boss had specifically asked which one we needed.

Darrel is a calm-looking man if you don't know him. It seems like nothing fazes him. When something goes wrong, his face never turns red, he barely frowns, he always looks like he's thinking; he hides his frustration well. The server mess up is actually very important. We are approaching annual shutdown of the plant and things get hectic during that time. If we upgrade the old 2000 to 2003, it might kill the entire thing. Can't risk that with shutdown coming.

No, Darrel didn't freak out for once.

I've only been here for 2 months and 1 week. He was still normal when given this news, looked thoughtful and like everything was fine said okay, I'll make some calls and we'll see what options we have. In reality, he's really fricking pissed. When I happened to be alone with him at one point, he angrily sighed, rolled his eyes, looked at me and shook his head, as if saying "those idiots! kfjskdfjskdf"

Haha this is hard to explain.....it really was a serious problem in terms of our process and stuff. And Darrel's reaction is interesting to observe haha.

Anyways enough about work. Something else was messed up too, but we managed to fix it by the end of today....just in time to not do OT.

FFXIII. That was obviously why I didn't post yesterday. Lightning is amazing. To tell the truth, I don't like technology. Ironic cuz I'm studying to be a computer engg. Well, I don't like them in games I suppose. I prefer the old styles of swords and shields type thing. Magic is....okayyy......that being said, starting from Zanarkland in FFX, things started to get more advanced in FF. Never played FFXI so no comment, FFXII was kinda there, kinda not......actually more there than not.

FFXIII is too techy for my taste. Normally I wouldn't like it. BUT! But, it's FF. I'm biased. And I love Lightning. Lightning just makes everything all better. Ohhh my goodness........<3......yeah......I don't want to go any further cuz the next few pages will be about how much I love her. Why am I not playing now then? I figured I should update at least, then I have to make dinner. Actually, staring at the front cover of the game is good enough. *Stare~~~*

Yeah I'm kinda crazy....when I want to be...

~EJ

Ah stress!

2010-03-08T20:04:00.002-07:00

For today:
-weekly meeting
-HW patch discussion/documentation
-AMS vendor work
-Mux/loopsheets meet with Rick and Marvin
-Fluke View install on laptop, messed up Ryan’s dual screen
-meeting with Darrel for ENG14 IT work and HW patch disaster recovery plan

Got off work an hour late....lots of work! Good thing I bought some Rebina....(black currant syrup you mix with water). Mmmm so sweet. SUGAR. Coffee doesn't work for me. I need sugar.

Not much happened. Normal weekend; groceries, cleaning, lazing around. Damien bought the movie Poseidon. I enjoyed it!

FFXIII tomorrow. Lesbian time! Mmmm :)

~EJ

Ahhh Friday.

2010-03-05T16:41:00.002-07:00

For today:
-MSO’07 upgrading
-meeting with FieldCare/Metso Jeremy Collins and Duane Bannistert, Rick
-dual screen and explained remoting to Trevor Harper…how-to needed maybe
-finished Darrel’s disaster recovery Visio
-attempt to contact AMS reps Tanner King and Rob Squire for next week
-Ben’s Fluke machine not transferring data (same as Robert H), no COM port on laptop to do it?

Ack. Next week is going to be crazy. Vendor visit gahrhggksg.

Had to Dora a bit today to find offices. Now I know where all those other doors lead to!

I have a craving for WoW. Not good. I'm starting to like Guild Wars though so hm....

Alice in Wonderland! Want to see! The little lady with the big head fascinates me. Yes I know, Red Queen xD Maybe this weekend....

So! Why is it called "as mad as a hatter?" Damien explained this one to me. Apparently back then, people who made those tall hats....or hats in general......OR something like that, were called hatters. The chemicals they used made them crazy. Well. Kinda. They were more prone to hallucinations or something. I think he needs to explain it to me again, lol.....I suck.

~EJ

2003-2007

2010-03-04T17:13:00.007-07:00

For today:
-MS Office 2003-2007 upgrading
-Visio for Darrel on IT disaster recovery plan
-IP21 Honeywell Patch with Bryan Lynch stopped due to process in delicate situation

Apparently lots of people haven't seen what Office 2007 looks like yet. Hmm o_O What about 2010?! Haha. I'm running around trying to find offices and set times to go do these....it's been awhile since I met new people. Kinda tiring! /swt

I nearly died today. I was running around so much I forgot my hard hat and safety glasses at one point. Yes, that was a hyperbole. I walked out of an office and around a corner when a man pointed to his hard hat and mouthed "where's your hat?" I only had my ear plugs in lol.....good thing I didn't go very far. He had a look of "wtf is she doing??" on his face though.....and I have an odd feeling that he was one of the guys I've been trying to hunt down all day but he keeps disappearing to different meetings, one after another. Oh dear. *kicks self*

My boss decided it was time to have a potluck since their last one was in Decemeber. My other boss was kinda forced into coordinating it by popular vote. I think I already said this. Too lazy to check. Anyways, I made eye contact at one point and now I'm doing it. Potlucks are iffy though. So far we have people bringing surprise, surprise, SALADs, drinks, and bread items. My mom said she bought pot roast the other day and it was delicious, so we bought 2 for me to bring to the potluck. It now seems overly "complex" (I can't think of a better word atm) compared to the other stuff so I have now opted to bring wings.....we need MEAT.

What about the pot roast you ask? DINNER TODAY! YUM YUM. I made mashed taters to go with it. And shoved some carrots into the roast. Mashing potaotes with a fork is kinda painful on the hand though. And it takes so long! I should've stole the masher thing from home. It's a lot though, holy crap. I only made one roast of course, saving the other. Guess I get a yummy breakfast/lunch tmr! I need to buy some microwavable containers. Hmm.

Gotta bring the man home. Cheers!

~EJ

March 3, 2010: Wed

2010-03-03T17:15:00.002-07:00

For today:
-AutoMax archiving data with Ernie and Igor on phone
-Mike wants some loopsheets updated on the Muxes
-did monthly report
-1:1 with Rick & Heart of Safety
-installed Adobe Writer 6 on AutoMax server as temp for printing till Darrel gets back
-started on Visio for Darrel
-started doing MS Office 2007 upgrades and sending out notifications

Bought a lot of....junk food. SO GOOD. My monthly balance is bad....spent too much. Sigh.

Today was a rather pleasant day at work. Lots of easy stuff to do so time just flew by.

The cake looks kinda under-mixed.....oh no!

~EJ

Crane?!!?!

2010-03-02T18:53:00.005-07:00

For today:
-Honeywell patches with Darrel
-Crane tour with Robert Hessler and Dave
-talked to Charlie for E&I HW patches
-contacted Kerry to "borrow" Bob Dart and Ross Kusch, also 375 update
-Ernie wanted color printer....couldn't, network firewall
-checked AMS clients....AMS not even installed...labelled server PKB
-EJ overloaded after vacation from Mexico, helping out

Today is just WOW. The EJ above is not me.....her actual name is EJ. Whenever I call - "Hello EJ! It's Elysia." That sentence is really weird for me to say xD

CRANE. It was awesome. I don't remember how high it actually is....but it's one of those things where a truck with wheels way taller than you looks like a small thing. Basically....the whole machine moves lumber. It slides left and right down the lumber yard on tracks, length of 3800 feet I think Robert said.....I used to be afraid of heights. Now I say "used to" because I was fine today.....the operator ran it as normal while Robert was giving me the tour. So not only was I walking around way up high, but the entire thing I was on is moving...usually in a different direction. It's an odd feeling....I didn't take any pictures since I didn't want to drop my phone.

I did take a short video when I was in the cab with the operator....not going to post it, I can show if you want when I'm back in Edmonton. What was awesome, was that they (Robert and the operator/Dave) let me try controlling the thing. I seriously thought they were kidding when they said, "Wanna give it a shot?"

There happened to be a cleared out area in the lumber yard with a pile of logs in the middle......this will make more sense if you see the vid.....the logs are piled way high in rows so the entire thing looks like a rectangle with width*length in like a 1:200 ratio. Or something like that. You get the point. When they clear out a section...it's like a blank rectangle in the entire rectangle. But yes. They said I could try picking up those logs in the cleared out area.

Now, I'm not sure if they purposely put a pile there for me to try out or if it was just a defective pile....the logs were all uneven sizes and lengths. So how you see is like this: half the cab floor is a giant window. The operator looks down the entire time....the crane is pretty much right under you. This is hard on backs so they rotate ops every 3 hours. There are joysticks for each hand and a trigger button on each stick.

This might not be too interesting, but for the left stick......forward/back moves the cab and crane (attached to each other) forward or back. Left/right moves the entire machine left/right on the tracks. For the right joystick, left/right rotates the crane clock-wise and ccw. Forward/back moves the crane up/down respectively. The triggers make the claw clamp. So you sort of have to multi-task a bit. The operator says it takes time to get used to, but it's kinda like playing a game, haha.

It's interesting....Darrel, my IT boss, was showing me how to do patches on the servers without blowing stuff up. There is one "couple" server.....so server A and B for backup. He did patches on B then when we confirmed it was stable we made B the primary and A the backup. Apparently that broke something, because a red alarm showed up......there are hundreds of alarms a day....most useless. Red is BAD. Any other color is pretty much "meh."

Darrel didn't know what the alarm was. He searched around a bit, then he called my controls boss, Rick. While we waited, Darrel turns to me and says, "You can't see it, but my stress levels just went crazy. Like, I don't know what this alarm is so I don't know what to do." Basically, controls and IT overlap, but each side doesn't really cross into the overlap....they do kinda understand the but stay away from it. I'm supposed to sit in the middle xD Turns out that alarm was okay, the servers just freaked out when we did a manual switchover....

Crane was pretty much the highlight of my day.....

Ah. I found a picture. We have 2 cranes on site. They look exactly like this one.

Yay~~~

~EJ

March 1, 2010 - Monday

2010-03-02T18:49:00.003-07:00

For today:
-weekly meeting
-did March's safe practises
-IDB
-Automax client move
-Honeywell patches start
-VDB issue for Brian Younger

Ack didn't update. I was really tired when I got back on Sunday....not much news. Went to watch Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief with Damien on Monday. I enjoyed it! It made sense, even though Damien said it's almost totally diff from the book.

I saw a quote I liked: "War doesn't prove who is right, it determines who is left."

~EJ

Back at work...

2010-02-25T17:51:00.004-07:00

For today:
-AutoCAD u/g showed up as "failed" - ?
-problem with a power analysis device in wood area, assigned to me
-glanced through manual
-ECT team meeting 10, left early
-Aleasa Tasker safety orient 11
-power device manual readings and IDB testing

Back to work after minor education. Some catching up to do. My AMS project is about to get crazy. Vendors coming in 2 weeks and doing u/g and everything. I've been pulled in and heavily involved with this project from start and probably till the end, which is kinda nice to experience. Most of the things I've been doing are minor steps in larger stuff. But yes, bit nervous since I'll be dealing with the Vendors a lot.....not as someone who's there to take notes as with the previous 2 Vendors but as someone who's actually involved with telling them what we need done etc. Agh~

Just one interesting point today. We were talking about ergonomics and it came to our attention that Charlie dual-wields mice. He uses 2 right-handed mice simultaneously. Not sure how that works really....I've noticed that a lot of people in the admin building/office end have their mouse on the left side. I thought this was odd at first since it's too much of a coincidence for so many left-handed people to be in the same place?! Turns out most of the office people do a "left work, right home" type deal. They control the mouse with their left hand at work, right at home....pretty literal.

It's a good idea! I'm currently doing that now since my right hand is probably gonna be really screwed up from using it at work and then intensely at home since I play a "clicking" game. Only problem is.....for games like WoW, I find that hotkeys are harder to switch hands with than the mouse! xD Not like I play anymore though. But yes, another ECT member didn't know this either and Darrel said it took him about one week to get it matched to his right hand speed. Pretty fast?

Ha. Dale asked Darrel if he has a good throw with his left cuz of that. Darrel said "like a girl" automatically. Then everyone burst out laughing cuz they realized that yes, there was actually a girl in their presense for once. Namely, me xD "Sorry, Elysia!" xD I don't get offended by this stuff of course, it happens a lot :P it's funny to see their faces when it hits them!

Picking up Daymin from work soon....Shep pie tonight! (me lazy, no food, me gone, food wasted)

~EJ

School.

2010-02-24T17:10:00.002-07:00

So for the last 2 days (Tues and Wed, Feb 23/24), I have been taking a MS Access 2007 course at the Grande Prairie Regional College. Nothing much to say....it's pretty easy since the book is laid out well. The instructor is really good too imo, although sometimes a bit too enthusiastic....but meh.

I kinda want to take a look around campus more though. There's a....pond/lake/not sure behind it and some of the outside areas look like they would be very nice in the summer. Most of the courses look like music/arts/lit stuff, some comp sci, and minor bio & chem.....I think.

Embarassing moment at lunch, I was ordering my food and the lady couldn't hear me so I repeated, and then she said "magic word?" I don't know why, but I brain farted and was thinking what magic word...magic word for ordering? Huh? Turns out she meant "please" and I was like oh D'OH. Sorry, please. I'm usually very good on saying please and thank you so bleh (well, I keep in mind to say it most of the time...).

I had told Marvin about the common nick-name meaning for CAB.....Central Asian Basement (actual is Central Academic Building) awhile ago. Today we were feeling adventurous and sat in the middle of the cafeteria when he asked me what CAB stood for again. "What did you tell me....? Crazy...Asian Bitches or something?" No, not even close, but it was a funny moment :P

And apparently......no one has ever seen or heard of truck-balls but me?! I had expected to see a lot more since 50% or maybe even 75% of the vehicles here are trucks. I had mentioned this to Damien and he didn't know what I was talking about. Neither did Marvin. Weird....anyways. Damien did see one awhile back and he was all excited when he told me xD I've only seen it once so far....and for some reason the person decided neon pink was a great color....for those who don't know...truck-balls are....literally, balls on your truck. Only trucks. They put this plastic or metal thing that looks like balls on the tow-hitch (?) part on the back (there's a metal bar obviously and it works great for hanging stuff off of.....I suppose....). But yeah. No, I don't have a thing for naked trucks.....

Anything else....not really...I think my sister and I pulled Damien into the whole CSI/Law and Order/Cold Case/Numbers/Bones/Without a Trace/etc type deal.....he's watching them! On his own accord! D8 On the other hand, I haven't watched since I got here and kinda lost the mood to.

Time to watch some 30 Rock.
Maybe.
Distracted easily.

~EJ

Monday.

2010-02-22T18:00:00.002-07:00

For today:
-weekly meeting
-375 Comm u/g
-AutoCAD 2008 u/g with Marvin
-Mass Access CBTs

Typical Monday....aka I'm a bit slower than usual......aka I'm a dumbass. Messed up some dates on an email and might have annoyed one of my bosses cuz of that but hrm. Haha.

I was starving the entire day though, I have no idea why. After work, I went to M&M's Meat Shop with Marvin to get some lasagna for later this week. He's a virgin apparently. I got us lost though lol...but he said first time's always the hardest :D (Yes, by virgin, I mean he's never been to M&M's)

Nothing to say. I wish I had a quad station to game. /sigh

~EJ

Hot.

2010-02-20T12:13:00.006-07:00

All I have to say is....the more I look at it, the more I think this lion is fucking badass.

There's an eagle on it's head. AN EAGLE. Holy shit.

"Usual Price is $1000 each. But now selling online at only $750. " Hmm.....nah. It's too big for me to carry....besides, I really like the Hoksan look....fluffy and cute. Not overly "hairy" or pissed looking. I don't have the stamina to "wield" Futsan so that it looks realistic. There's 2 bars inside the lion head for the dancer's shoulders. Yep, I don't use them....I carry the entire weight with my arms or use my head (with the padding). Girls don't have as much upper body strength anyways.....

I generally keep the head close to my body, that way I don't get tired as fast even if I'm not using my shoulders. Can't say anymore though, it's been awhile since I did a full routine. Did a small opening at temple , but there wasn't enough space to do anything exciting.....was glad to get back in my blue lion though. Love it so much.....haha, I do feel bad for the red one, since I actually did my training on it before they got the blue one.

Starting to look through emplion.com......so many pretties. What color, what color.....gold is overrated imo....so many. Having white seems cleaner. Time to save up some cash....and start practising/thinking of routines/moves.

Cake is good. I'm starting to wonder if I'll even get a slice though....so disconnected.

Shiloh's Operator/Girl like me stuck in my head....Op-perator, op-perator, I'm just fine, I'll call you later~~~

~EJ

OMG Friday.

2010-02-19T17:01:00.004-07:00

For today:

-finished weather spreadsheet. Updated fine.
-teleconference with Donna Wagar, Brian Younger, and Kathy on AutoCAD 2008 upgrade.
-failed. Missing some key files for some reason. Resched.
-Robert Hessler having problems with computer. Rick sent me out.
-Robert at Woodroom. Never been there, picked me up in his truck.
-rented some ELOG 2004 thing that collects Logger data.
-cannot interface with laptop….using wrong COM port.
-no data feed. Not connected. Minor testing and poking with program, works.
-documented how to update weather spreadsheet manually.
-did simple updates on AutoCAD dwgs with help from Marvin.

Lots of….randomness today. The weather spreadsheet is very simple. Takes 3 tables from the internet and puts it on one page for easy view. That’s it. I only added a lil thing where you can pick which day you want to check….Rick thinks it’s great so yay? Robert is the other who will use this…waiting on his input. Then, Marvin and I were sent to join Donna for the AutoCAD updating. Seems simple as well…..4 pdfs telling you what to do. Unfortunately Donna was missing some key files and the report said she has them so…..the other end is fixing that. The guys here are not confident in their computer skills and are a lil afraid of breaking their AutoCAD so they want Marvin and I to do the updates :D Haha it’s really not that bad….

Donna had a pretty picture of a garden as her desktop. I asked her about it. She built and designed it herself. Apparently she and her husband own a 7 acre plot somewhere and they are pimping it out garden-wise. It’s really nice…..she likes Asian themes. The tiny part I saw had 2 statues and it looks nice and mossy, there’s a dry creek bed running through it which will eventually hit a pond. She’s working on a more Japanese look for another section with those….Jap screen things, custom made….haha I’d actually love to take a walk in it….2/3 ponds complete. Unfortunately deer and moose sometimes come on the land and wreck some stuff…..she doesn’t have it fenced because that would be expensive since it’s so much….hm. <3 nature. Wish I had pics.

So it is done! I have an appointment on March 2 from 11-noon to go up in one of the giant cranes in the wood area.....I'll link a pic if I can find it later. Excited but kinda nervous. I'm not really going up for a real reason....except that my boss asked if I wanted to check it out and I said yes. I am afraid of heights. Or at least, I was. It's been awhile since I've been anywhere really high up.....of course, the flooring is....not a solid sheet. It's like....a mesh I suppose? You can see through it. Heh.....

What else....oo. Damien just called. We are eating out! Whoo! The man who's going to take me up the crane, Robert, he asked if I've been to the Chinese restaurant here yet. Nope. Maybe today. Maybe not :D heeee. I was a bit ARGH when I was helping him with the comp problem. Apparently Rick told them he was sending "an expert" and they thought I knew how the program worked. Robert then called me and said he had computer problems. I didn't know what I was walking into haha. It's all good though, it's simple if you know what data the program pulled out....which was what I was trying to get out of the people there while frantically thinking of how everything works in the app.

Hmmm. Weather is amazing lately. Love driving home with the window slightly open. Apparently everyone here quads as well. Even the office ladies. Huh. I want my summer walks.....instead of Lake Beaumaris, it will now be Bear Creek!

Mmmmmm. I dunno what else to say. My life is very average, if not under average.....I have so much CNY goodies to eat. Don't know if I can finish.......ok. Since no cooking today, and Damien gets off at 7:30, that gives me about 2 hours to multi-task/simultaneously game on his laptop and mine. I'm such a geek. I'm like a loser geek because I play unpopular/noob games! Hahaha. Man.

~EJ

Another long day

2010-02-18T17:22:00.002-07:00

For today:
-documented DEVFX1 login
-started on weather spreadsheet for Rick
-EI&C team meet at 10:15
-spent rest of day working on weather spreadsheet/trying to find information
-check tomorrow to see if spreadsheet updated

Not much to say...posted earlier today. I'm making honey chicken wings for dinner. I love it. Seems like....I'm going to be the one usually making dinner now. Must find more recipes....

Oh, VJ lent me Azumanga Daioh! Fun times. I haven't actually seen Damien's tablet yet....it's bigger than I thought o_O bigger the better...? Kinda interested to see how it works.

Anyways, I'm a bit rushed on time today since Damien gets back earlier (6:30 vs 7:30) so off to make dinner and do laundry and all that stuff.

~EJ

Catching up

2010-02-18T09:48:00.004-07:00

Feb. 17, 2010: Wed = Mon

-VDB problems are fixed; worked on cleanup and enhancements
-made how-to on changing VDB information (tags, drop-down list entries, etc)
-Kerry Jones called asking for a SD card reader; couldn’t find any, he ordered 2
-Marvin took me with him when he went to check RB2 transformers
-accompanied Marvin to monthly safety meeting
-SD card readers arrived, went to u/g 375 Communicators
-was going fine until computer failed to detect SD card…try again another day

It’s my Monday of a short week! Had a lot of mini things to do….I was supposed to grab my eye glasses prescript so I can get some free, better looking safety glasses….the ones I use currently are the same as those in chem labs but with a colored…side thingy. Anyways my boss said Marvin and I can go and get ones with prescription lens and they look more stylish….haha, they really don’t skimp on safety! My steel-toed boots are over the ankle which is what they want, Marvin’s were the sneaker type so now he gets a free set of boots. Ooo.

But yes…..a few how-tos to type up, some contacting of people as the VDB got past its broken stage, Rick wants a weather thing for another project next week, got signed up for Access courses at the GP Regional College next week, 375 upgrade…..and I have yet to start my mini AutoCAD thing…..waiting for documents from Ryan, waiting for Ernie to get back from shift….argh! I still haven’t finished a project yet lol. Still 0/4….thought the 375 would be another but turned out too minor for me to count it as one….

Didn’t update yesterday….was running around a bit. Drove down this major road near my house to see where it went….haha. I love being Dora the Explorer. Can’t wait till summer, then I can walk around outside. Filled up on gas, got home, unpacked (I didn’t do it the night before, I got home 2 hours late >> stupid Greyhound), then went out to get my car washed….long line. Went to Superstore to grab a few groceries as we have nothing but instant noodles. 45 minutes left before Damien got off work….went to Sears. Didn’t feel like looking at clothes. Went to Zellers and bought a lot of air fresheners…..Damien said my car was starting to smell like work. Same goes to anywhere my jacket goes. 30 mins. I’m one of those people who can’t shop without something I need to buy….waste of gas to go home and drop off groceries so I went to wait for Damien. Yay for iPhone! Once you get a smart phone….you can’t survive without it, haha. 7:30 pm! Damien gets off work. Head home, I said no food but instant noodles today, he wanted pizza. Pizza and wings it is….8:00, get home, unload groceries, Damien wanted to shower…….I made our lunches for the next day, nom nom nom, shower and I crashed at 9.

That’s my day…..

Oh haha. First thing Damien and I did when I got back home on Tuesday? Spent 20 minutes scraping the ice from freezing rain off my car…..how romantic. And then I finally did it for the first time.

No, not that you dirty people D< I forgot to unplug my block heater cord and nearly drove off….fortunately something felt off and it seemed like there was more “tension” and when I looked up there it was….it was still slack so I didn’t strip the cord. Yay…..

Oh yeah! While doing the 375 upgrade, Kerry showed me pics of his car. It’s like his baby. It’s a 1934 Ford…..rebuilt in…91? I forget what he said. Racecar red, with 3 streaks down the sides…..white>yellow>orange>red>black…..entire underside is chrome-plated. I don’t know anything about cars, but it looks badass. He’s also putting in a new motor to give it 500 horse……man…..

That’s all for now….I’ll update today later.

~EJ

CNY weekend!

2010-02-15T17:04:00.003-07:00

For today: No work bahahahaha.

Hmm lets see. Got back at 5:20 am on Saturday. Crashed. Then went with sis to a LD performance at Shepard's Inn. Not enough ppl so I ended up gong'ing.....I hope I didn't disappoint Fong! D: Then I drove sis home and went to watch another performance. She was worried she might be late for work. The other performance was the opening of a new store that sells bridal wear. Managed to make it home to drive sis to work too haha. What did I do after....just stayed at home and gamed, like normal.....then some relatives came over to bai nian and we went for dinner with them after picking up sis.

Sunday! Performance at Temple. 5 consectutive drum routines. Then I ended up doing a last min short opening with Jess as my partner. Then bridge routine! Went to Darren's after temple for some COD and hockey.....Vj and I dunno how to play but meh! Parents had a CNY party at our house later so spent rest of night at home alalala~

Monday....lunch with some friends at Original Joe's and catching up! Had to hop out to drive Damien to Greyhound station though......not enough time argh! Came home and rockbanded for a bit.....then VJ's friends came over. Re-watching "House Bunny" right now xD so awkward yet hilarious.....more ppl coming over later on for party #2. Dinner!

~EJ

Long Weekend!

2010-02-12T16:51:00.004-07:00

For today:
-mass VDB and IDB. Fixed Dale’s problems. Just enhancements now.
-minor blip in Alarm Scout. Set to retake data.
-mini project: Rick wants weather (wind) info in Excel for upcoming project.

Yay, day off on Tuesday! Will be in Edmonton at 5:30 am on Sat and leaving at 1 pm on Tues. Very excited. Marvin offered to drive Damien and I to the Greyhound station again. Much appreciated...he saves us $20 each time....it's late too, our bus leaves at 11:45 pm.

Time for me to pack and make dinner. Damien's working till 7:30 again.

~EJ

Weee?

2010-02-11T17:07:00.003-07:00

Feb. 10, 2010: DB!
-worked on VDB changes.
-got list of all valves with no pics with Marvin.

Feb. 11. 2010: New Project!
-worked on IBT.
-new project from Rick, 375 HART Field Communicator u/g.
-Dale wanted loop descript on valve list.

Durrr. Lets see. It was Damien's bday on the 10th! Happy Bday! Unfortunately he was working till 7:30 pm. Oh well. It gave me enough time to sneak out and buy a cake and make dinner....just barely enough time cuz I suck :P Then we rented Troy and watched that. ^^

Got a $400 electric bill....$200 was the deposit, the actual bill was $200. On the bright side, it gave me an excuse to talk to the only neighbour that I see every now and then (There are others but I have no idea where they live and I only see them...when the fire alarm goes off OTL). His name is Larry! Nice guy. He said he noticed that I had trudged through a foot of snow to my patio door the other day (footprints) and so he left his shovel out for me so I can make a path. Darn power though....my windows all face north, and the patio door west. Problem is, patio faces a brick wall after 2 metres. So no sunlight.....ever.

Started fixing my IDB (Instrument database) cuz I was tired of dealing with the mess known as the VDB (valve). The past co-op had put down the skeleton of the IDB so it made my job a bit easier. I got curious at one point and looked at the code for one section. Very redundant and long D: I'll probably fix it cuz it's bugging me.....maybe on a Sat or Sun when Damien is working too. Might as well go make back my hours.

I'm cooking again today.....we have random stuff so I have no idea what we're gonna do for tomorrow. Our fridge also doesn't seem.....cold enough, things turn bad fast. I yell at Damien when he leaves the door open too long. He argues that it's only for a few secs longer and it's not like he's not closing it. xD Quick test? Make jello. Check it every 40 mins VS checking every 10-15 mins. It does make a difference to your fridge temp even if you're opening it to look at something then closing it right away.....esp for the items on the fridge door.....

I better start on dinner. Bai bai!

~EJ

Feb.9.2010 - Tuesday

2010-02-09T17:54:00.002-07:00

For today: Access CBTs and valve book readings.

So boring! Gah. Very, very long day. Most people left after lunch to go to a funeral too....

Finished LOTR yesterday. Damien ran out of movies he brought from home. Restock time! We do have a Blockbuster nearby. Yay.

I haven't painted my Warhammer models since...........3...4 months ago? I should probably get to that. Also haven't started on any books yet. STILL. List is getting longer. I play too many games! ARGH. rs, gw, and now fate....and I recently took interest in the PS3...I really want to re-read Battle Royale too. Much to do much to do!

~EJ

Fail Monday

2010-02-08T17:51:00.002-07:00

For today:

-weekly meeting.
-checked all the MUXes in U1 and U2. Couldn’t find a few. Were in woodroom and other areas I’ve never been to.
-discussion on Access courses at GPRC.
-did Access CBTs.
-Mike came and we looked at more valve stuff and loop sheets.
-went through some scanner things with Ryan, saw scanner.
-resched meeting with Darrel for scanner.
-learned to remote to DAID10 in a very awkward way.

Gah. I made so many errors sending out emails. Made a coworker laugh for the entire day....lazy to repeat again, it's like the 4th time....lazy to type too bai bai.

~EJ

Eventful Morning!

2010-02-06T11:18:00.002-07:00

Wow....so here goes:

While putting on my jeans this morning, a spider came out of nowhere and nearly fell onto my my girl parts......needless to say, I screamed.....or whatever the EJ equiv of screaming is...then Damien came running and saved me /swt

We had no food left in the house and were heading out to eat breakfast when we saw a neighbour in the building down the road with her car stuck in the snow. We stopped and tried to push her out to no avail.....while Damien and the girl were digging the wheels out, I went to see if I had a shovel in my car (my dad had said he put a small one in there somewhere). The road was a sheet of ice with a layer of snow over and in my rush I slipped.......and fell on my ass....and Damien saw...and the chick probably saw......OTL

Anyways couldn't find shovel, we were working at rocking the car, digging, repeat. Finally another car came down the road and the driver stopped to help, along with another guy in the same apartment. Asians aren't built to be too strong....haha. Between me and Damien we barely nudged the car.....the 2 gentlemen who came practically lifted the back end but still couldn't get it high enough over the lump of snow. Then on 3 they lifted and I shoved while they held it and it worked. Yay! (Damien was driving at this point since the chick didn't know to dig with the wheels and rock)

Clothes and hands were all dirty now due to the muck on the car...but we went for breakfast anyways. But we went too early, still 1030 and most places opened at 11. Nuu! We ended up going to Wendy's :D

Went home and changed, Damien has his job orientation at 2-6 today! :DDDD Working boy working boy~

~EJ

Feb.5.2010 - Friday!!

2010-02-05T17:54:00.002-07:00

For today:

-did Access CBTs.
-Dale explained rack room stuff to me again.
-Dale made a new point/flag/logic slot, taught me the works on the TDC 3000.
-did a paired audit on above with Rick.
-checked MUXes in U3 rack room.
-implemented logic…not working…tried diff way and worked…logic was correct the first time though, odd.

Did some logic stuff today....very interesting! AND OR etc gates....except they call them logic blocks, and there's a bunch of other stuff.....though they're pretty easy to figure out since there's a "bible" of it with the truth tables and timing diagrams.

Rick wants me to do a database clean up on the MUXes...problem is...there's 3 places this data is used/stored....and quite a few tags are totally different....so which one is right?! Oh dear.

No more food in the house....yao mai nom noms tomorrow. Damien has his job orientation from 2-6 too. :DDDD

Must make decision on which day I'm coming back on too....plans plans!

~EJ

Busy busy!

2010-02-04T17:39:00.002-07:00

For today:

-Tanner wants schedule/timeline for upgrade.
-Visio drawing for Rick.
-Instrument team meeting for 2 hours.
-monthly safety meeting on Safety Vision and Values.
-VDB, Dale wants more added to picture access.
-showed Marvin some Access stuff.
-mass emailing and contacting people to keep my projects moving.

Busy day.....I have 4 major projects ongoing and a ton of mini-ones....however, I'm waiting for someone to finish something for all of them before I can advance so today was a lot of organizing and contacting. Day went by fast though, I always like that.

I can't wait for CNY so I can go back to Edmonton and visit everyone. I'm really missing LD and Hap.....getting fat here. I'm not even kidding....prepare yourselves...

~EJ

Feb.3.2010 - Wednesday

2010-02-03T17:39:00.004-07:00

For today:

-did more Access CBTs.
-went to EJ to fix the FieldCare and AMS COM port problem.
-FC documentation outdated. Redid.
-Henry did a short FC intro.
-read more on valves.
-had 1:1 with Rick.
-Rick went through what he wanted for Valve, Instrument, and Processors DB.

Gah. Apartment people were supposed to take rent from my CHQ account automatically each month. We had set this up when I moved in. Unfortunately, someone messed up and it didn't happen. They still charged me the $50 late fee. Goddamn.

Damien messed up too. He has all the required courses but he's missing only 6 credits to graduate.....that's one full course's worth.....so he's moving out in May. I'm disappointed...

Not a good day to say the least.

On the bright side, my 1:1 with Rick (one of my two bosses) went well. He's pleased with my progress and that I can work alone and with little instruction. My other boss was on a business trip for the whole of last week.....he seemed sorta distant with me when he saw me on Monday but was cheerful as usu today. Guess he finally got enough rest after the trip, haha.

Got off work late today.....but I can't wait to start getting the database stuff together tomorrow. Tired of reading manuals and tutorials....

~EJ

DRY day

2010-02-02T18:04:00.001-07:00

For today:

-did more Access CBTs (lots more to go…).
-waiting for a reply from Darrel about IT issues over the past week.
-emailed about open positions.
-read more on valves.

Wow, today was really....boring....not much else to say....
More LOTR again today....

Damien finally got a job!! Yay! They called a day earlier too...training on sat. =D Grats!

~EJ

Feb.1.2010 - Second Month

2010-02-01T18:07:00.003-07:00

For today:

-weekly ECT meeting in the morning.
-read how images are rendered in Access.
-fixed VDB pic problem (finally!).
-default rendering program was MS Office Picture Manager, everyone else had Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Didn’t need to change, just opened all images on MS one and rebooted. Worked.
-did some Access CBTs (computer based training).
-finished monthly report.

Finally....solved....that...picture....problem. It was a simply solution too....ugh.

Any news......hm. Not really.....finally gonna get cable...though I don't really care if I do or not anymore.

Started playing Guild Wars again with Damien. Very fun!

Tonight is either more GW or movie....LOTR2....and Jello! Making more jello. I'm craving.

~EJ

Jan.29.2010 - Friday

2010-01-29T17:39:00.003-07:00

For today:

-both bosses and a lot of others had their day off today, very quiet.
-did Access Tutorials for the entire morning.
-went to look at VDB pic problem again. Resolution, DPI, I checked everything, changed size, no work.
-talked to Michelle, sent her pics and she changed size with adobe, it worked.
-not ideal, too many pics to change, need large size to zoom, and problem occurred when Brandon left.
-played around with more settings and jpgs. Get a fix next week?
-Mike came and explained more valve stuff to me.

Really tired for some reason....think I'll shower and head to sleep after this.

Baked "Shiney Top Cobbler" yesterday. Yes, I know, its shiny, but that's what the receipe says. I'd say it's somewhat of a success. It's yummy! Less fruit next time though...it gooshed out and now I have an oven to clean for the weekend....it's good even with just the middle and top part....actually I want to eat some now....bai bai

------------------------

Woke up. Mama =( Get well soon!

That reminds me, there's this area in the mill that I like to go to, because the smell there reminds me of "back home," in my parents' sense of the word. It's probably not good to breathe it in but it smells nice. Damien said maybe cuz it's really humid or something there...

~EJ

INTERNET!

2010-01-28T17:04:00.005-07:00

For today:

-finished Visio tutorial.
-read Marvin’s incomplete but useful AutoCAD tutorial.
-VDB problems, pictures aren’t appearing. Seems like it’s only Dale’s computer.
-ECT team 1760 meeting at 10 till 1130.
-took a look at Dale’s computer. Code and linking is fine, seems like he cannot display images larger than 1296x976 pixels.
-Michelle wasn’t here, looked and posted questions online, hopefully fix it completely tomorrow.
-contacted people to get MS Access 2007 courses.
-worked on Monthly Report.

Obviously, we finally have wireless internet. Finally! I don't know why they just sent us the modem & router without a technician in the first place.....Damien said he came today, did some stuff and there you go! Bah. Silly Telus.

One of my superiors (I see everyone as a superior since I'm the lowest in the employee chain, haha) finally sent me a scan of his yummy cobbler receipe! Gonna go and grab some ingredients after dinner and try my hand at baking it. Must not embarass my mom.

Did I mention I have wireless internet now?

~EJ

Jan.27.2010 - Wed

2010-01-27T18:07:00.002-07:00

For today:

-did more AMS documentation, finished Visio drawing.
-started Visio tutorial.
-called Tanner about AMS.
-read company ethics and info about valves.
-did more Visio tutorial.
-finished AMS documentation, fixed Scanner Visio drawing.
-spent rest of day bouncing between tutorial and valve readings.

Came home with a headache after staring at a computer for most of the day.....so much to read! o_O

I bought the "Fish Tycoon" app/game on my iphone....breeding fishies is fun.

Internet is still pewp. Technician is coming tmr sometime between 2pm-4pm.

Movie for tonight is Star Trek.

Lei lei. Bai bai.

~EJ

Jan.26.2010 - Tuesday

2010-01-26T18:10:00.008-07:00

For today:

-did what I could on AMS documentation and the Visio drawing. Need more info on client machines.
-went and did my respirator fitting at 10. Also did a hearing test.
-went and got a respirator from stores…they gave me diff cartridges than the one I was tested on.
-met Henry and went to see physical valves in brown stock (U2) and in the R8 (chem prep) areas.
-went on AMS to do tests. Tried to run FieldCare but had same problems as with Mike.
-went for lunch with Marvin then to WHMIS training.

Helped one of my neighbours boost his truck this morning. Felt good!

The hearing test results were interesting...they play diff frequencies at diff volumes. My left ear was pretty much constant at detecting them, then dropped down steadily when it got to the high frequencies. My right ear was kinda erratic overall, then dropped right before the high freqs started, then went back up to normal.

WHMIS was okay. The instructor showed us some graphic videos. One guy got burned really badly all over his body, to the point where he had no ears, his nose was basically the shape of the bone/cartilage? underneath, a bit of eyelid left, his hands were all swollen and oddly shaped etc. His wife was young and good looking and she stayed with him, really touching....another man lost his eyes to acid....basically his eyeballs are gone but his eyelids were somehow still there but all the skin around his eyes were sunken in and he could still "blink." The last thing he said he remembered ever seeing was the shock and horror on his wife's face in the ER. He could still see out of his left eye then. But since then his wife had left him... :'(

We finally got our modem today! But of course, something else went wrong and the telephone jack doesn't work.....sigh.

What else................oh, we're sorta doing a movie run since Damien brought a few from home. Today will be "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." Fun fun! I was reminded of the epic-ness of 300 yesterday too. So good.

~EJ

Jan.25.2010 - Monday

2010-01-25T19:28:00.002-07:00

For today:

-had a weekly ECT meeting from 8:15 to 8:30.
-met with Mike and Henry, Rick explained AMS system setup to us, wants documentation and a Visio drawing. Also gave us a valve checking flowchart.
-started checking to see if all valves in AMS were in appropriate Plant DB.
-met Mike and Henry again and went through flowchart (really only for my benefit).
-went through a problem valve on AMS and VL with Henry and Dale.
-finished checking all valves in AMS.
-Mike came by. Went through a valve with him…used diff method than Henry, nice to see.
-talked to Ryan and he showed us the trends from the Honeywell TDC 3000 and Loop Scout records.
-spent rest of day starting that documentation that Rick wanted…need to find client names so I can remote in.

Wasn't able to go see the physical valves...they happened to be in locations where I would need a respirator due to all the chemicals. But I have an appointment to get one fitted tomorrow! Yay! *insert Darth Vader noises*

We had no groceries so we went out to buy some just now....dinner was what my parents packed for me Sunday. Thank you! Yum yum.

Rented "300." Time to watch!

~EJ

Jan.22.2010 - Friday

2010-01-22T17:18:00.002-07:00

For today:

-looked at VDB to get my questions together for Michelle, met at 10:15.
-met Mike in the U1 rack room at 11 to take a look at unfinished tags and HART tags.
-program called FieldCare for HART tags broke. Can’t do anything.
-after lunch went to contact some people and set up a follow-up meeting for the AMS upgrade.
-read more valve stuff and looked at VDB.
-met with Tanner, Rick, Marvin, Mike at 2:30, Kerry and Joe didn’t show.
-all that’s left is updating those tags, everything is in order.
-read valve info for the rest of the day.

Close call on the way home....a lady was walking her dog and it jumped out in front of me....and I was on an undivided highway going 100km/h. I just went up a hill so I didn't see her till I got over the top. Just as I took my foot off the gas in case, her dog jumps out of the ditch. Luckily I there were no cars in the incoming lane so I switched quickly to it. She looked freaked out too...she was just going after it when she saw me and jumped back into the ditch. Bleh.

Going home today! Bus at 11:45 pm....get to Edmonton around 5:45 am I think....yay! Can't wait to eat yummy things and see family & friends!

~EJ

Jan.21.2010 - Thursday

2010-01-21T18:04:00.002-07:00

For today:

-joined the Ryan, Dale, and the Vendors for more constant testing.
-Dale made 3 new tags, Darrel wanted me to add them to schematic.
-Rick needed help setting up email in a conference room.
-met Darrel again who showed me a presentation Weyer did for Honeywell.
-gave me an idea of my role – half controls half IT.
-typed up how-to on checking conf room bookings, AutoMax notes.
-looked at VDB for a bit, meeting Michelle tomorrow.
-spent rest of day reading Brandon’s notes, VDB guides, and a valve handbook.

Lots of reading and typing today....the day went by fast though. The morning was a bit painful, as each change took 20+ minutes as before. Not sure what happened as I didn't go back after I left to do other things....both my bosses commented that it was like watching paint dry, so I guess it's not just me! Haha.

Trying to eat all our food before the weekend so nothing rots....it's supposed to snow this weekend too. Bleh.

I've gotten attached to Fruit-by-the-Foot. They're like my energy drinks. Mmmm.

~EJ

New Project!

2010-01-20T17:10:00.002-07:00

For today:

-did not want to do VDB stuff as Michelle hasn’t replied yet and I can’t go forward with it.
-decided to hang around Ryan and Dale as they worked with new Vendors.
-seems like everything is updated. They wanted to do bump tests today.
-I left near beginning of testing to go meet Michael Morgan for a safety brief.
-started reading some info on valves after lunch.
-asked Ryan how bump tests went…okay-ish. Next was to set the constants for the system and tweak those.
-takes a really long time for the system to change to a new setpoint…20 mins+
-we changed it a few times so spent last 2 hours sitting and chatting.
-also found out after that some of the VDB stuff didn’t work because I didn’t have complete access on my account. So that solved about 30% of the issues there.

I wonder what happened to my first project....haha. After the Vendors left, nothing happened. By boss hasn't replied my email and I forgot to ask him today so hmm....low priority I suppose.

Telus is still being gay. It's been A MONTH now and after calling today, they said they still haven't solved the problem. I'm not even waiting for a technician to come to my apartment and set it up, I'm waiting for them to process the order!! Goddamn those incompetent idiots. The only other major internet/cable provider is called Eastlink....and when I asked for a quote it was really expensive.....decisions, decisions.

I can survive with my Iphone, but it becomes a hassle for Damien and I. He can't access internet during the day to check bank acc or apply for jobs. Or search for jobs even. Bleh.

I've also gotten so bored that I bought a computer game for $20....it's called Fate. A typical dungeon crawler, kinda like Diablo but with nicer and cuter graphics....not that I care much but it is kinda prettier. In a grinding mood I guess.

That's why I'm not on RS VJ! It's a fullscreen app and I can't window it ahhaha.

~EJ

Jan.19.2010 - Tuesday

2010-01-19T18:48:00.002-07:00

For today:

-tried to go through VDB, got stuck with one of the linkages and coding, emailed Michelle for help.
-new Vendors today to upgrade scanner. Bob and Jiri (Urie). Sat and listened for a bit. Darrel wants another how-to on this later.
-after lunch Rick wanted me to give add people to Valve User Dist List.
-joined Vendors again but was shortly interrupted by Mike who went through AMS/VL with me.
-U2 was having connection issues…and most of the unlabelled tags were there. Did what we could.
-Mike also wants valve spreadsheet he sent to me in a server…not sure what Rick’s plan on that is.
-did another safety orientation/test sent by Dennis Paluck.
-spent rest of day twiddling with another how-to and reading some documents.

Almost forgot to do that safety thing...good thing Marvin reminded me. Urk! Finally got my ThinkGeek shirt today! Fits nicely too. Lots of cool stuff in the magazine they sent with it. Lightsaber chopsticks, other clever/geeky shirts, pi icecube trays.... :D Totally gonna wear my shirt tomorrow and see what everyone's faces look like! Bahaha!

~EJ

Visual Basic!

2010-01-18T18:13:00.002-07:00

For today:

-took a look at the VDB and how to navigate.
-something went wrong with AMS/ValveLink. Talked to Joe. Was fine once we closed and reopened…
-was supposed to go to a meeting for PCMS? But the flight was delayed. Tomorrow prob.
-spend the entire day going through the VDB and Brandon’s code. Prettied up the interface and usability.
-tomorrow and days ahead will be straight self-learning and figuring how to link databases and things.

Wow. I haven't done Visual Basic since Grade 10....and using Access is totally new. I did all the easy playing around today, tomorrow will definately be more difficult as I try to figure out how everything connects....and hopefully I don't screw it up too badly.....the person who wants me to fix it is kinda nit-picking at it though...it's totally usable in the state it's currently in. Oh well, people are lazy and want things done the way they want it.

~EJ

Jan.16/17.2010

2010-01-17T12:11:00.002-07:00

Mmm...the weekend...

We rented "Year One" and "The Taking Pelham 123" so we'll see how those movies are.
I'm running out of dinner ideas too, lol. That's how limited my cooking abilities are. So if anyone has any receipes, leave a note in the comments for me! :D

~EJ

Jan.15.2010 - Friday

2010-01-15T16:45:00.002-07:00

For today:

-Rick had done the verify server and data backup for AMS after the ENG10 server got reset yesterday.
-called Tanner at 8:30 and he just wanted to verify how many Rocket? Ports there were.
-met Michelle Moody at 10:30 to get a look at MS Access 2007.
-turns out Brandon Goy, the last co-op, did the programming himself so she knew nothing of it.
-looked for all the unlabelled valves in AMS and sent the list to Mike. Tanner wants us to tag them before the big update.
-took a look at the VDB and MS Access for the rest of the day. Need to do some self-learning…
-uses Visual Basic, first prog lang I learned in Grade 10, been awhile.

I pretty much have 2 bosses; Darrel, the man who hired me, and Rick, the controls team leader. Luckily for me, today was both of their day-off's. Work is from 8-4:30. Most of the people I work around left at 3:30. By 4:00, the server I connect to to do my work crashed. By then everyone else was pretty much gone so I bailed as well :D Yay!

It was raining freezing rain when I came out of the pulpmill. Not so yay :(

Can't wait for dinner~

~EJ

Live Meeting!

2010-01-14T18:21:00.002-07:00

For today:

-was scheduled for a live meeting today, had Darrel show me quickly how to set it up.
-there was a time stamp error on the systems; an alarm would be acknowledged before it even went off.
-watched Darrel fix it by synching servers.
-U2 had a gas evac. Had a meeting there at 10 with Dennis Paluck on safety. Ironic.
-all clear sounded by 10 but the main gates were still sealed. Got lost in stairways looking for his office.
-ran into Ryan, showed us the way.
-Darrel wanted me to start a document to guide future co-ops after me.
-had 2.5 hour live meeting on AMS and ValveLink. Mike already showed me most of it before.
-spent an add. 1 hour in meeting, work with Mike later to fix problems with DB before they upgrade the servers.
-problem with opening app. Called Darrel to reboot server we were remoting to. Hopefully done by tmr morning, had sched a follow-up meet with Tanner since nothing could be done.

Not much to report otherwise.....WAIT. MY THINKGEEK SHIRT CAME TODAY!! Too bad I can't pick it up T.T Have to wait till their last attempt before they put it into their warehouse or whatever for pickup...hopefully they read the note I left and will call Damien to come out and get it....our buzzer doesn't work because we don't have a phone...

~EJ

Jan. 13. 2010 - Wed

2010-01-13T19:10:00.004-07:00

I've been keeping a daily electronic journal of what I do at work. I guess I'll post that here as well. For today:

-safety and day plan meeting with Rockwell again.
-Igor needed to fix some bugs, so I took a look at the AutoMax program for a bit.
-Darrel wanted the day plan typed out. Did that and worked on email how-to.
-met Dale Clarke and looked at issues in Valve Database for an hour.
-Darrel provided more info and wanted some other additional areas to be covered in how-to.
-practically spent the entire day typing it out and taking screenshots.
-did not go learn the AutoMax like I was supposed to…already 5 technicians/electricians in the cramped room with Igor.
-hopefully will have another Ethernet port running for the AutoCAD laptop tomorrow.

Damien made ketchup chicken today. Yum! After dinner, I went out and bought binders and mini-coil notebooks that I can fit in the back pocket of my jeans....for note taking of course. I run around a lot and there's always someone showing up and teaching me new things, so I try to keep a notebook and pen on me.

I basically can't survive without my pockets.

Front left - keys - locker, house, mail, car keys (in case I somehow need to bail out).
Front right - usually reserved for my Iphone when I'm moving about.
Back right - cut protective gloves + pen
Back left - stickies + Personal Risk Assessment booklet

Weyerhaeuser is BIG on safety. If I go out and do stuff I have to basically think over any risks and fill out a form in the booklet. So I gotta carry that around. But yay, I can replace the stickies with a mini-coil now! I'm also carrying an old UofA agenda and writing notes all over it. Kinda a pain imo though. It's easier if I can just have a notebook in my pocket, but it's gonna take awhile to transfer all the things I have in there to the little one.

That's about it....oh! I finally got OK'ed to have access to the internet. Now I can finally Google things and not look like an idiot. Yay!

~EJ

Let's try this again...

2010-01-12T23:01:00.002-07:00

Okay...so since I'm going to be out of town for 8 months and out of direct contact from most of the usual people, I figured I might as well start this up again in case people want to keep track of me, and so they can be assured that I haven't gone MIA or whatever.

Uhm....probably no pictures and no fancy font editing....and probably not too much editing in general, just gonna one-shot out my thoughts......basically blah a ton of text. Unless I happen to have free time to play around on this!

Came home from work today, ate dinner, then went to watch Avatar in 3D again with Damien just 'cause.

So...that's it for today....good night!

~EJ

Trudging back to Uni....

2009-08-31T21:17:00.005-06:00

....to get my UPass and textbooks. In the middle of first-year orientation.

It really warms my heart to see them in the bookstore, HAPPILY buying EVERY single textbook on their list, and then proceeding out the doors with 2 large, bulging, incredibly heavy, yellow UoA bags. Just like me in my first year. And then like me, at the end of the year, you realize that half of those books are still in their original plastic wrapping, with nary a fingerprint on them, and the other half were opened because that's where the prof gets his/her homework questions from. Ahh.....

I ended up buying only one book.....

Anyways, on my way to CAB to get breakfast, I went through quad, and ironic enough, I got stuck in the middle of an engineering group. xD The one odd thing this year was....THERE WERE NO CHEERS! Whaaaa? Maybe I wasn't out long enough....but I didn't hear a single faculty cheer while I was on campus. Huh. I wanted to hear the nursing one. :(

Fixed the Router

2009-08-25T18:16:00.001-06:00

You may have won the battles....

....but I won the war.

:D

"Sorry, it's sold out."

2009-08-20T18:47:00.010-06:00

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

That was yesterday night at Scotiabank Theatres....when I went to buy tickets for District 9. Gwarjgkhghjkf. Sigh. We have rescheduled to Sunday....at least there's a chance that Ameel and Viet will come now :D But yeah...major-ass bummer for me. Bleh. Second fail on my part? We should've watched G.I. Joe instead....but we went home and watched the Shawshank Redemption again. Damien's never seen it before though. Andy Dufresne = ownage.

So....has anyone seen the ads for a game called "Evony?" They usually go like this:

"Help! Save the Queen!" *insert boobage here*
"Start your journey now, my Lord" *insert image with more cleavage here*
"Save Your Lover!" *woman with eyes closed looking sexy*

Now, at first I found it slightly amusing. Ads aimed at male audiences obviously. But now it's getting annoying. Really annoying. It's everywhere! Ahh! This game used to be called Civony, and it wasn't difficult to find that they've recieved some thrashing for these ads. Apparently at one point the ads were seriously just a pair of breasts. Guwarhghhgh. Dx Go away ads~~~

Why am I on sites with these ads anyways? Actually it's failblog.

>>> failblog.org <<<

I've finally finished reading/watching the entire archive today. Now to sit back and read the daily updates.....and move onto todaysbigthing. Both sites are good if you want some laughs. Gogo!

Mmmmrrah?

2009-08-17T16:26:00.009-06:00

Mmm, I'm not a good blogging person. Namely, because I get lazy, and because I usually don't have anything interesting to say. Oh, I suck at telling stories too. Dx

Anyways! I've been "away" for some time now...due to 3 things:

Camping
Britain mates
Iphone <-- hell yeah

So first up, camping on the weekends. Not much to say, usual slacking around the campsite type business. The first weekend consisted mostly of me and sister painting our Warhammer figures for 7 hours straight...then taking a short break and resuming. Second weekend was me playing and finishing (yay!) Professor Layton and the Curious Village on the NDSL, lent to me by Ameel. I haven't finished the bonuses yet though, so I'll be hanging onto it for a little longer. Sorry! I've had it for like half a year now....

Britain friends! Gyn and Shen, wife and husband, have decided to move to Canada from London, England. They've been living with us for the last 2 weeks or so. They. Do. Not. Procrastinate. Not for one minute. It's been pretty hectic with them around, in a gogo! kinda way. Most of my time was spent talking to them and answering their questions about living here. Gyn is studying in Red Deer next term and they moved to their new place yesterday. Whew. I like their life attitude, but I need a breather every now and then.

Finally, IPHONE. Ahhhh sexy. Black sexy. Fortunately for me, one of the girls at the Fido kiosk was new, and in return for giving her an "A+" on her customer satisfaction survey, I got a free cover with my phone. It's blue! Plans for buying a cover online goes out the window here. I'm still thinking about getting a skin though....but yes. Apps apps. More specifically game apps. Haha, my sister plays more than me actually. Very happy with it though. :D *stroke stroke*

I can't find my camera....and sis has my iphone when I'm not using it, so no pics! Of anything!

Here's my plan for the week:

Wed, 19th, watch District 9 @ 7:20 pm @ Scotiabank Theatres (wem)
Fri, 21st, Viv's bday partay!
Sat, 22nd, St. Albert Farmer's Market in the morning, then Fringe Festival after?

Oh, I want to visit Southgate some time too....must get drivers so I can go out without bothering people for rides....

Fondue...?

2009-08-06T20:08:00.011-06:00

:D Apparently the Chiews enjoyed the fondue at Grizzly House enough to buy a fondue pot thing. Pretty sweet. I went over Wed (Aug 5th, '09) to try and recreate the mushroom fondue we had tried. Unfortunately, it was kinda fail xD The batter and the cooking oil we deep fried the mushrooms with were "probably" wrong. Probably as in we aren't really sure either.

Recipe you ask? Slightly non-existant xD The theory now is that the cooking oil probably should've been butter...seems explanatory. Our batter was coming out light yellow and it's supposed to be golden brown. Butter can make things....golden-brown! After thinking about it when I got home though, how do you deep fry things in....butter? Yes, yes, it's possible but slightly difficult depending on what butter you use since you need such a high temp for deep frying. You kinda need to take into consideration the smoke point of the butter (the temp at which a fat/oil breaks down and starts to smoke = unusable). At least, that's what I know....and I can't cook so I'm probably wrong Dx

The batter on the other hand was soaking in the oil like a sponge. Hey, that's fixable, just let it sit on some paper towels for a bit. Or so I thought. Once I poked my fork into one, a stream of oil would goOoOoosh out. Ahrhghghg. Oh well. It was fun experimenting with the batter. And the mushrooms were pretty yummy. It'll be better next time. CHOCOLATE FONDUE next time! Go go! :D

~
I. Hate. Routers.
Seriously.

A long time ago, someone set up the one I have now. It's unsecure (no pass to connect) and I can't seem to add other machines to it. That someone apparently gave us the wrong password to the router as well. Being an idiot with these things, I never thought of resetting the damn thing. Soooo I bought another one. D-Link. Problem? There was a DEFECT in the one I bought. So after learning that no, the D-Link wasn't working because I'm dumb, but because it's already messed up, I sent it back for a replacement. Problem? When they sent it back, they NEGLECTED to return the installation CD and manual. Oh. My. God. But that's okay, really, I just need to plug in these cables I have here and yay. But no. It still doesn't work. Called customer support and they sent me on a silly goosehunt on things I've done already, but I didn't really mind cuz it's difficult to trouble shoot if you can't see the problem in front of you. After hanging up and downloading what they told me to. It still doesn't work. I've half a mind to just reset the old one and try it but I'm afraid of screwing everything up. Plus the new router is much, much better. If it would only work. Bleh. Customer support, here I come again....tomorrow....maybe....

On another note...IPHONE. Arrhghghgh. I shall call Telus (yes ew) tomorrow to see what I can do with my current plan. So much calling! My bank also failed to send my documents to the Investment Line company so I had to call them too Dx Anyways, I'm going with Fido....plan will probably cost me $55 monthly. There's a sweet data plan offer right now: 1 Gb for $30 is now 6 Gb for $30. Ohhh mans, how do you not take that? I was working on laptops all day today, isolated from my coworkers because my workstation only had one working ethernet cable....which got me sent away elsewhere. Technically if I went nuts I can probably do 5+ laptops at once, so meh, I took this opportunity, and kept one laptop on the bench to browse whenever I had some downtime. I pretty much looked at iphone plans, covers, and skins all day. But....if I get a cover...skins are redundant....or should I just get a skin...hmm. Going to compile a list of the stuffs I want to pimp it out with. HELP ME DECIDE GUYS. :DDD

Yes, I really want this goddamn phone.

Round 2 = Destroyed Again

2009-08-03T22:02:00.053-06:00

So. The me-sun relationship is not going very well. This time I got raped in the face. At Heritage Days. Blargh.

We did the Park & Ride thing this time from Calder. Got there around 12 noon, left at 5. We ended up buying 120 tickets....body count: Me, sis, mom, Connie, Gyn, Shen. The last 2 are friends from Britain who moved here. They're staying with us until they find a house they'd like to buy.

Guess we should've told them we're treating, lol, cuz Gyn bought 30 for her and her husband. 150 tickets! Plus everyone besides me and sis ate before they came! Durrrrrr. Lots of yummy stuffs though...I'll know what to FATTEN Damien up with next year! (He had to work today =/) Things were pretty expensive...but in the end like every other year, you kinda forget about it and just blow tickets on everything. In the end Connie found her family and left the party. Shen was constantly leaving the party and rejoining. And in the end it turns out he didn't have much to eat Dx Ai yah. I had already given my remaining 33 tickets to Andi and Gyn had 3 left. He bought a chocolate banana with that. lol. mmm.

Most notable performances we saw were the Japanese drumming, Kenjutsu, and Lion Dance....most notable cuz we're already biased to think that they're gonna be super awesome. And they were! Yayyy. Drumming was interesting. The beat is very simple and repetitive, but they have a lot more SEXY movements which makes it a nice balance. Kinda the direct opposite of ours. I love Japanese weaponry. Kenjustu was a pleasure to watch, but it's much too ritualistic for me to try out. VJ prefers European weaponry, so she enjoyed the Wales perfomance more, though it was more comedy than actual proper use of the weapons.

Lion Danceeeeee. White leopard skin lion with red eyesssss. *Drool* Must resist urge to....rejoin?! I don't know yet. Blarhggh. I had already suspected that 2 months off would be enough time to cool me down but mmm. Don't know.....

Anyways. Going backwards! Trip with Damien and family to Banff!

Went with all the little cousins, and grandpa came this time too =D Car ride there = sleep. Lots. I always feel sleepy in a vehicle, except when I'm driving of course. I need to untrain myself from doing that. Hmm lets see.....what did we do again.....?

Oh! River. I can't remember what it's called atm. haha. The one you always go see when you go to Banff....durr....someone help me out here :P Went on the trail there a little bit with 2 little ones in tow. After that we went to a garden....I'm really horrible with remembering places I've been to and what they're called Dx We didn't go very far though; only the front section that overlooks Banff. Everyone agreed that in the resulting picture, the background looked very fake. Very odd. Haha.

After that was town shopping! One of my coworkers had recommended the "Grizzly House" in Banff for fondue. VJ, me, Damien, Ameel, and their mom came with for eats, while the kids wanted McDonalds. Since we didn't want the fast food crew to wait too long, we ordered appetizers only.

Ameel - escargot and cheese fondue

Damien - french onion soup and escargot

EJ - mushroom fondue

VJ - caesar salad (she wanted my fondue but felt bad for not ordering something)

VJ and I had tried cheese fondue already in a tavern in Switzerland during our Europe trip. This one had a stronger taste of wine. The mushroom fondue was awesome though. Man! I'm definitely going back just to try every dish. They're pretty expensive but come on: alligator, shark, eel, dog, cat, gerbil, ostrich....a ton of exotic stuff. The only complaint I have is this- they have a phone by every table, and they wouldn't stop calling us!! Let us eat! The only important detail was where the washroom was and the free dog/gerbil fondue tasters. Except those never came cuz VJ got confused and told the person it was already on the table.

After that was just shopping through the town....not much, same old tourist things in most shops. We went to check in at our "cottage" after that. Not sure what it's called. Written tour! Right after walking in the door is a bedroom with a double-sized bed, then in the room after is the kitchen stuff on the right, bathroom with shower on the left. Next room is the living room with a fireplace, balcony, tv, and stairs. Up the stairs is one large room with another tv a King-sized bed (it fits 3....is that right?) and a washroom. No shower =( The kids family had another building to themselves.

Now the plan is obviously, parents in the front room, 3 chicks upstairs, and Damien on the couch in the living room. Then we found out that the couch was a sofa-bed! Hmm. Surprisingly, and I really say surprisingly, Ameel's mom kept saying, "you guys figure out the sleeping thing yourselves." She spoke in Chinese of course, and that's my crappy translation, but yeah! The new obviously now is...parents same, Ameel and sis upstairs, me and Damien on couch. Really. Surprising.

Anyways, after that we were just chilling and waiting on dinner @ 7. Damien decided to do a quick rinse....*insert hilarious moment here* lmao =) I won't post it. Dinner was at Bumpers. Their slogan was, "If you haven't been to Bumpers, you haven't been to Banff!" Remember that guys! Salad bar style restaurant. Soooo goooood. I managed to survive to dessert too =D I'm getting so fat. No LD, hap, lots of vacationing and food.

Kids were tired after so they headed home to sleep. The rest of us went to check out Spring Hotel. It's nice up there, but so high-class. Eep. They just ended a conference when we got there and there were guys in suits and ladies wearing formal wear everywhere....while we were in t-shirts, shorts/capris, and sneakers. Kinda awkward haha. We couldn't get to most areas because it was late and cuz of the conference I assume. It was dark when we left. And we were kinda lost for a bit. But we finally made it alive back to our accomodations for the night. We all took turns for showering and crashed. Not sure what time it was....11? 12?

Best. Night. Ever. I kept waking up during the night but I wasn't tired in the morning. We left the glass, balcony door opened a bit and everytime I woke up I could hear the wind coming through it. I just watched "The Happening" the weekend before, and it sounds EXACTLY the same, but the sun was rising and we had a view of the Rockies so it wasn't freaking me out. Pretty calming actually. Plus everytime, Damien was there :D ahhh. At one point he woke up, turned to hug me, then mumbled, "I dreamed that there's a moose in the lawn." and fell asleep again. lol.

I'm lazy. So have fun with reading the text spam. No pictures! Ameel was the camera-woman. I'm not competing with her. Too crazy and much more pro than me. :P Oh! I did take one of me and Snookie, a gift from Damien. :D Ameel! Let me know when the pics are up! Must STEAL 8D

Owned by the Sun

2009-07-27T15:55:00.020-06:00

Ameel couldn't come! D'= Maybe some other time...there's still this weekend!

Friday: Got home from work @ 16:00-ish, ate a bit then packed and we were off to pick up Damien at 17:15. Drove to Calgary. Slept. Nothing really interesting.

Saturday: Woke up at 7:00, ate breakfast, out at 8:00-ish on the way to Lake Louise. During the last 30 min stretch my dad asked if I wanted to try highway driving for a bit; 'course I said yes. Unfortunately, 20 mins in road construction started for the next 28 km. It was 25 km to Lake Louise. Arghghg! Took an extra 45 mins to get there.

Once there, hike start! 5.5 km to the Teahouse! The first rocky, uphill stretch was pretty brutal, but once you get past that initial exhaustion feeling it's pretty smooth going. My dad owned us all in speed and endurance. Next was VJ, then me, then Damien. Although Damien and I only took 2 breaks while the other 2 were constantly waiting for us. I kept going to Beaumaris Lake after dinner for walks before this trip, so it wasn't too bad on my legs.

They added steel cord railings on the one-way cliff part! So much better, since the path there is practically made of large slabs of smooth rock. We didn't see any animals this time though....probably because it was mid-afternoon and blazing hot out. Other than that....there were mini-avalanches on the glaciers! It was on the mountain in front of us and happened about 4 times while we were up there. Unfortunately I didn't catch sight of any of it, but it was loud. Everyone was hoping that there would be a huge one so we could take videos hahaha.

Hurray for Damien for surviving his first major hiking trip! He was already exhausted earlier on but kept going. ^^ I'm very proud of you! It seemed like you were about to give up at the very end, but you were only about 10 meters from the Teahouse. =D We had some peachades there (lemonade but...with peaches?). Damien went for a cheese sandwich and I tried a scone with honey. Again. It still tasted bland. REDWALL YOUR DESCRIPTION OF SCONES ARE OVERRATED. The people who worked there were all very young women. I was surprised because they don't actually leave and live there for some time. I can't remember how long though, we had asked a waitress last time we were here. But yes, there's no internet or signal for phones so hmm.

After the refreshment, dad noticed another path that leads to "The 6 glacier vantage point." Or something like that. 1.3 km. Alright sure. The path keeps going uphill, but at a very slight incline so it wasn't very difficult. After about 1 km though, it turns to straight shale and was very difficult to climb. About 100 meters from the end of the trail we turned around; it was very, very steep at this point, and full of loose rocks, so it wasn't worth it. We were able to get a telephone signal up there though.

Damage count? Sore legs: VJ and Damien. Sunburns: EJ, VJ, Dad. Where's my mom in all this? She can't walk long distances in rocky terrain anymore, so she was browsing at the hotel and generally just chilling out. On the way back we stopped at a town called Cochrane. The icecream store Mackay's there is famous apparently. I went for strawberry and jagerbomb. Mmm.

That's about it. Went home on Sunday. Then I went over to Damien's after unpacking to watch a movie. He rented all the "apocalyptic" ones. "Knowing", "The Happening", "The Day After Tomorrow", and "I am Legend." My shoulders were killing me though. I wore a tanktop...so I have a tanktop tan line....gurhghg.

I'll upload pics later on. We stopped taking them early on though. Not really picture-taking people. :P

Public Enemies!

2009-07-20T17:36:00.018-06:00

Went to watch Public Enemies Sunday (July 19th) with VJ and the bf. Kinda funny actually cuz Viet was the inviter but he didn't have a ride and it was a dreary rainy day, so he opted out, and Ameel was busy; so our 5-man party turned to a 3-man, but it's all good! I think he did want to watch it though so =/ Movie wasn't too bad, I didn't quite like the ending and thought there were some loopholes, but it was entertaining at least. Shootouts are always good, and the character John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp) was great.

In other news...I cancelled my WoW subscription today. Just now actually :P Think I've moved to Starcraft Dx Thanks to the co-workers, haha. I'm really itching for a shiny, cool, new desktop too. One of the work mates recently custom built one for gaming and whoo. /drool. Dual screens would be kick ass. A larger screen, at least 19'' or above, for the games, and a 15'', maybe 17'' for hw and reading. Big white blanks on the side of bigger screens hurt. I've been spending a lot lately though...and going to spend a lot more. Guess the plan for now is to look for parts and once I've saved enough, I'll get the system. Or just have my template and upgrade/update it till I decide to get it. Meh.

Money spending! Shopping, events, CAMPING and HIKING. Campground costs? Every weekend starting now till the end of August. Sweet. The last 2 weeks are unplanned for now.....a fishing trip would be awesome for that, but fishing = licenses and paperwork crap.

Up for this weekend, Lake Louise hiking trip with the family + bf + Ameel. No one has an idea of just how much me and sis have been wanting this. Except maybe Damien. Sorry if we've annoyed you! Haha. But you'll see why, you'll see why :P Hopefully sis won't have another dangerous incident this time.

Man....we were heading back after reaching the Teahouse at the top of the trail. It took us 3+ hours? for the entire trail. Anyways, we were on this very small dirt path on the side of a cliff. Right below us was Lake Louise. No railing. Apparently though, you can go on the trail on a horse. Our group ran right into the horse group. And some retarded lady was sitting on her horse laughing, clapping her hands <-- NOT holding the reins. So her horse was just roaming and doing it's own thing, and when we rounded the corner into them, it panicked a lil and starting weaving and hesitating and all that.

Unfotunately, there's only enough space for hiking traffic going single file both ways. That lady's horse got between 2 people; someone was inching by with their stomach flat on the cliff wall, and my sis was lucky enough to be on the other side of the horse, where the cliff drops to the lake below. With no railing. Kinda a freaky moment but good thing VJ's thin, agile, and athletic. She somehow squeezed past without falling or getting stepped on. Yikes.

Lets hope that doesn't happen a second time. I do wish, however, that we see wild mountain goats again! :D

EJ = really excited.

Tick. Tock.

2009-07-15T19:11:00.019-06:00

Lonnnnnggg day at work today. Laptop, laptop, laptop. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Plenty of downtime too, just to make the seconds tick by slower. Gah.

The spoiler my dad bought for our white Lexus was painted and ready for pickup today. Spent a good hour and a half putting it on since it had to be perfect :P My sister and I used 1/3 of that time practising our hapkido while my dad drilled holes and remeasured. Yay for unwasted downtime! That's the way to go. Now all we need are roof racks...mmm.

Hrmm. WoW is getting boring. To the point where I've started playing my warrior again. Not sure how long I'll be going with that. No one to play with, takes ages to do something.....hm. New game? Maybe. Currently I'm half playing RS2 as well, while working on "Professor Layton and the Curious Village" on the NDS and replaying FFX on the PS3....I know, I game too much. Should probably read....I keep buying books I plan on reading but I haven't touched any of them....plus Ameel has suggested a ton for me.

I guess there's also Warhammer. That doesn't count as playing another game right? I only plan on collecting some figures for the fun of it. They look so awesome. I spent an entire day looking through the Games Workshop products and ended up with a 2 page list of potential figures to buy. I'm a nerd. But seriously. Look at >> this <<. Sooo good looking. Damien bought it, can't wait to see how it turns out once he paints it! Thanks for getting me sucked into this! ^^ Ameel bought some too, and it caught my sister's attention as well......but models = $$$. Lots. Lots lots.

Mmm what to buy though....the Warhammer figures? Clothes? New phone? I've wanted a PSP for some time now too. That counts towards gaming though so no no I guess. Maybe ;D Oh, and then there's the Fringe Festival, Heritage Days, Animethon, and K-days. Yes, K-days. Correct me and I punch you in the face :D And yes I might go for once....it's been....7....8 years since I last went...? A little disappointed that I won't be able to make it to Heritage Days or Animethon though. Hello camping trips! But maybe I can convince my parents to sneak back on Sundays early and catch the last hours of those events.

We shall see!

Creation!

2009-07-14T19:00:00.005-06:00

Alright, so Vivian finally convinced me to start up this "blogging" thing. As an incentive, she set up the entire page for me; all I had to do was pick a template...of which she had samples already chosen as well, haha. I suppose I shall try to twiddle with the layout and whatnot sometime and learn a few things. So! That being said, if anything gets ugly, that's me screwing it up :P
Thanks so much Viv! :D <3

Now that intro stuff's done....Andi comes home today! 9 pm and still nothing though =/ Where are you?! I'm waiting for my new BRA....

....and I just realized that there is no underline here. What is this?! Bold, italics, UNDERLINE.

Test test underline dammit. There we go. Silly for not having a button for it though. Off to mess around some more with this...