Ramblings

It was my Jo's birthday yesterday. So a belated Happy Birthday to her! It is so sad that despite the fact that we are in the same city again, I don't get to see her on her birthday. I don't get to see her all week actually. Stupid 2 jobs...

Speaking of that, I'm getting quite good at being a little Timbit. There is one dude that comes in every night shortly before 9, orders a large coffee, 4 sugar, 2 cream, heated for a minute, and then put in a to-go cup. He's a strange one. And some of the little high school kids enjoy making fun of the fact that I'm 24 and a trainee at Tim Hortons.

High School Girl (HSG): What grade are you in?
Me: I'm not.
HSG: Really? How old are you
Me: 24. I'm an IT guy at a company up the street.
HSG: haha, you are 24 and a trainee at Tim Hortons. I thought you were like 16. Maybe 18.
Me: Ah well, it is paying for my new house.
HSG: Just wait until finds out. He's going to make fun of you so much.
Me: Really? Oh no, I'm going to made fun of by a high school kid?!? My life is over! Whatever am I going to do with my self?!

At which point she just looked at me funny and walked away. See, I'm making friends already.

Actually most of the folks have been pretty cool to work with so far. Helpful and such. I guess it helps that I'm competent, and actually show up for my shifts, unlike the other 2 new guys that were supposed to start this week and didn't show up. Or the other girl who quit after her first shift. She just never came back. So I'm doin alright. I've already mastered teh coffee stations and am quickly learning the till, which I wasn't even supposed to start until next week. Soon I'll be working the sandwich station, and hopefully be moved to the back so I don't have to deal with customers. Woo hoo!

I was warned before I started that my clothes will stink after working there, and boy was she right. I have a uniform and everything, but I already dispise the smell. And to have it on my clothes when I get home is disgusting. I feel like hanging my uniform outside every night to air it out. *blech*

I now own a little piece of the internet! :D http://www.theneufelds.org is mine! I'll be able to setup webpages, and e-mails for my family. I'll setup a wedding page for people to rsvp, or link to the registry, all sort of possibilities. I can start hosting all my pictures, setup an FTP for transferring files to people in other locations. Endless fun! All for the low low price fo 5 bucks a month. Which I'm going to get covered by hosting an FTP for the worship stuff for church. Yay for entrepreneurialship! (i actually spelled that right on my first try!)

Oh, and a tip for those of you looking at buying an external harddrive (hdd) for backup, or portable storage, or whatever. External hdd's are expensive, still around a buck a gig while internal hdd's often go on sale for less than $0.50/gig. I just bought a 500 gig that I need for work for under $200. So catch a suitably sized internal hdd on sale, and then buy yourself a hdd caddy. They are around $60 and you just put the hdd into the caddy and you are good to go. It runs off USB 2.0, or firewire, just like an out-of-the-box external harddrive, but is a fraction of the price. :) Just a tip.

Oh, a great hot drink for later in the evening, a decaf mocha. :) Half hot chocolate, half decaf coffee, with whip cream and chocolate sprinkles. All the flavor, none of the caffiene. (good for those that want something nice to drink in the evening without the caffiene to keep you up all night)

4 Things

Stole this earlier from H and her sis.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Lifeguard/Swimming Instructor
2. Millwright (Industrial Mechanic) Apprentice
3. Full Service Gas station attendendant in Yellowknife during the winter
4. IT guy

Four Movies I have watched over and over:
1. Rent
2. Braveheart
3. Gladiator
4. The Little Mermaid

Four Places I have Lived:
1. Yellowknife, NT
2. Faro, YT
3. Snow Lake, MB
4. Winnipeg, MB

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Heroes
3. Beauty and the Geek
4. Prison Break

Four Places I've Been On Vacation:
1. Australia (from Sydney to Cairns)
2. Kelowna, BC
3. Calgary, AB
4. Vienna, Austria

Four of my favorite foods:
1. KFC Gravy
2. Beef
3. Popcorn
4. Ichiban

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. With Jo
2. On a sunny beach (with Jo)
3. At home (with Jo)
4. a random street in a random city somewhere in a non 3rd world country (with Jo)

Old

I'm scared that one day my parents are going to get old. They are going to get old. And they are going to die. Maybe they will also become infirm before they die. That scares me.

Highlights from Yesterday

Met the owner of a drafting company that does work for a lot of the big oil companies who thinks he is king shit, and refers to his drafters as chimps. He's a royal asshole, but might be buying $120,000 of software from us, so I'll put up with his bullshit as long as none of it is directed at me.

Got pulled over by a nice policeman who informed me that the speed limit changes from 60 down to 50, not 60 up to 80. He then checked to make sure I had a drivers license and let me off on my merry way asking me to slow down.

Helped some demanding woman with her AutoCAD issues. She insisted that we come down to her office to help her with it, and it turned out she could have just asked some simple questions over the phone and saved us all the hassle. So I gave her a bill for 2 hours at $120/hr. I don't think she'll be harassing us again anytime soon.

Learned to play Bombtrack by Rage Against the Machine. The whole song, not just the really cool bass solo intro.

Continued to miss my laptop which died last week. Being the amazing computerless IT guy sucks.

Stressed about getting these proposals done for a couple of classes I will be teaching in May at Destination Desktop, a CAD camp that we put on once a year. This years is at BCIT, and I'll be doing 2 ninety minute classes, one on this license manager that Autodesk products use, and one on Vault, a data management program used to organize CAD documents. It should be interesting, but I've never done 90 minute presentations before, and it kinda scares the shit outta me. But it's $300/class for me, and I get a free flight to BC. It's also Thurs-Sat, so I'm still getting paid for my regular workday.

Learned how to play Texas hold'em a little better. My buddy Andrew has been teaching me. There is a lot more to it than I thought. It's fun though

All for the low, low price of 329,900...ack

Unique 2.5 storey in a quiet location only steps from a large park. Great floor plan with a large open living room, huge sunny eat-in kitchen thats looks out over the backyard. Upper floor features 3 bedrooms including a huge master suite with vaulted ceilings, walk-in closet and a loft above. Basement is almost complete with a family room and a second bedroom. All located on fully lanscaped lot with a large deck and a south backyard. This one wont last long!!

1300 sq.ft, built in 1998 but in much better condition than my current place that was built in 2003.

The backyard is fenced, with a double parking pad and enough room for a double garage in the back.

The loft has a beautiful view of the mountians, and is directly over the master bedroom.

The kitchen is nice and open with an awesome fridge with the freeer on teh bottom.


The living room is a brillant color, and is immediatly inside the front entrance.


And the wonderfully open and well-lit master bedroom with a nice big open window.

And it is in the wonderful McKenzie Lake (no lake privledges), just south of 130th Ave.

Click Here for a virtual tour fromt he realtor's site (while available)

American Idol

This show is fucking hilarious. I've watched the first 2 episodes, and they were so awesome!
There were some of the creepiest people on here that I've ever seen. I downloaded this weeks episodes and watched them both tonight. So great.

Randy is awesome. And the fact that he is a fucking amazing bass player just makes him a million times cooler. I mean, he played bass for Journey, and Stryper, Billy Joel, Celine Dion, Madonna (he was the bass player on Like a Prayer).

So yeah, Randy is my hero, and I'm loving the trainwreck that are the people on teh first few episodes of Americal Idol.

Christian Artists

I love seeing stuff about Christian musicians in mainstream stuff.


Lincoln Brewster was recently in an article on the Boss website, one of the ultimate makers of effects pedals.

Read More Here

Look out Timmie's here I come!

I got a second job today! Well, I was offered a job today, tomorrow I will call and accept. I needed to think on it, well not really, but I didn't just want to accept right there. She was desperate enough about hiring me, I didn't want to seem equally eager.

So I will be a little timbit, with aspirations of becoming Head Timbit. :D (Employee's aren't actually called Timbits, but henceforth, I will be referring to them as that)

The Tim Hortons I will be working at is just down the road from my office. I figured I may as well get a job close to the office since it's easier to go there after work, and have to drive longer on the weekend, then having to drive for a long time everyday, and not so much on the weekends.

So yay! Hopefully it is a decent job. 3 of the 20 current part time employees are over 14. And you can't work the sandwich bar (b/c of knives and stuff) if you aren't over 14, which means I'll be doing that alot. On Saturday's I'll be baking, which is cool. I'd like to get into the production stuff in the back, so I'm not dealing with customers all the time, but we'll see how things go. She mentioned they need managers as well, so maybe down the road I can do that. :)

So yay for the extra money. It will be so helpful in buying this house and paying off debt.

Going ons

Alright, so I am moving.

I'm selling my house in Airdrie. It will probably sell for a good 80-100 grand more than I paid for it, though I'll be buying a house almost double the price I paid for this one. Paid 180, hoping to sell for 270, and am looking to buy in the low 300's.

I'm buying a house this time too, no more of this condo/attached bullshit. I won't have a garage any longer, but I'll sacrifice that to not share a wall with someone, even though it is only one and they are very quiet. It's more me worrying about being to loud. Like when I practice my bass, or watch movies, or listen to my music. See I like to "feel" the bass, and the unfortunate thing is bass doesn't discriminate, it travels through walls, floors and space, so I'm always scared it's too loud and annoying the neighbours, who I quite like b/c they are so quiet.

We are meeting with our realtor on the weekend, and hopefully the morgage guy soon as well.

Wedding plans are also coming along nicely. We have most of the stuff booked, and are going to finish registering on the weekend. We've registered at Sears and The Bay. It's nice b/c they are both nation-wide and accessible via the internet for the convenience of all.

I'm quite enjoying my new job as well. I enjoy working with computers. There is so much to learn, and I don't get dirty. :)

You learn something new everyday

gross

I hate coming home to Airdrie and having it stink. Somedays this town just reeks. I think it must be from the farms nearby. B/c somedays it reeks so bad. Today it was like a pigfarm. So gross!

Things

I realized I have not yet written anything about Mama Bean being home. But she is! And it is wonderful beyond description, too marvelous for words. :) She's been home for 3 weeks now. After 3 years of waiting, it is over. Though the fact that she lives in the south, and I live just outside of town in the north is a royal pain in the ass. But I have a good solution. Sell my house! :DSo I'm selling my house, and buying another in south calgary. I'm quite excited. I'll sell my place for about 80-90 grand more than I paid for it a year ago, and after taxes, realtor commission, and paying my parents for the down payment last time, I'll still be out ahead.

So Yay for new houses and yay for fiancees being home!

4 months and 2 days until the wedding.

Oh, and Happy New Year!