52 posts tagged “michelle”
I hate it when I have two conflicting projects that are both really tight on time and due at the same time as well.
I have to finish up the install and documentation for my flagship product and get ready for Bayfest at the same time. Yuck.
Two more sleeps (well, really one and a half – we leave at 3am Saturday morning). I’m getting excited now! We’re working on a house sitter for the weekend. Do you know of anyone that wants to house sit a rather High Tech house for the weekend? We have a 12 foot screen in our basement hooked up to a Media Center PC with hundreds of movies on the hard drive. It has 5.1 Surround that will make your ears bleed (if that’s what you like). Anyone?
Sherry had a rough day yesterday. Her clients were so picky that they measured the plan and the install and it was off by one inch and they made them redo it.
When she finished installing it the yard matched the plan exactly and it looked like crap. The installer is supposed to have a little wiggle room to make the yard look right – the designer can’t spend enough time with the drawing to anticipate every little detail.
Anyway, she left it looking like crap because it matched the plan exactly. Stupid picky clients – they’ll never be allowed back.
Michelle is headed up to Sherry’s Mom’s place today for her long weekend. She should have a good time up there. She’s also promised to put some money down on her insurance bill. We’ll have to see how much before we decide if she gets to keep her car insurance for July.
I’m thankful that I did things the normal way and got a normal education and a normal job
I’m thankful that my normal education was at one of the top three schools in the country
I’m thankful that my normal job proved to me that I’m a World Class Programmer.
I know that God wants me to be World Class at what I do.
Oh my. It’s been a tiring 10 days. Starting with the weekend before inventory, and going through inventory and then getting ready for this stupid meeting in Toronto and we had two more late nights this past weekend and I won’t get much sleep tonight because the presentation is 8:30 am and we’re about 3.5 hours away. Dang.
I need to get a little sleep. I’ll have to make sure that I keep the social calendar down to a bare minimum for a little while so that I can recover.
Michelle called me yesterday. She said she had a favour to ask – she had run out of gas a couple of blocks from my place and she was hoping I could bring a gas can over. As it turns out we always keep 20L of gas on hand in case the power fails for a couple of days (I’d hate to lose the meat in our freezer!). (Ok, do you guys remember the power failure that wiped out the Eastern Seaboard a couple of years ago – the one they blamed on Ontario but was really in Michigan somewhere? That’s the kind of thing I want to be able to ride out).
Anyway, I dropped off the gas and she said that she only had a couple of bucks left until Friday (payday) and that she’d get me the money for the gas then.
If your tank is that empty shouldn’t you just park the car until payday? Anyway, I’m really hoping that she learns the value of money and how hard it is to earn (and easy to spend!) while she’s playing house.
Sherry lost her best worker yesterday. One of the other guys threw his back out and so Sherry’s guy had to go and cover his work. She’s afraid that they’re going to expect her to use the machines that she can’t handle safely. Bummer. Let’s hope today goes well for her.
I’m really excited about what’s going on at our church recently. I’ve been working on building a sense of community and I’m getting some pretty good feedback. We’re going to run a program called “Deep Coffee” there shortly and we’ll see what kind of a turn out we get for that. Let’s hope it works well!
Bayfest is closing in. I’m hoping to do some video work for the organizers. I’m meeting with one of the key people today to see if they liked my proposal. Oh, let’s hope!
Vegas is closing in too. I’m a little too tired to be overly excited about that yet, but it’s on the horizon… I need to get a little sun tanning in…
I’m thankful that I normally get 8.5 hours of sleep every night.
I’m thankful that I enjoy my social calendar
I’m thankful for a chance to show off my program in Toronto tomorrow.
I know that God has given me authority and He wants me to use it wisely.
I called the insurance company to see what to do about Michelle moving out on her own fully expecting them to say that she can no longer be on my insurance. They didn’t.
It actually was no big deal to them. The guy (Ricardo) suggested that she stay on my insurance until a year after she has her Full G license (about 18 months from now). He said it would save her about $1k per year.
Hmmm. That being said, what’s the motivation for her to ever leave (at least until she’s a six star driver too…) We’ll just pay the extra insurance (which Ricardo politely calculated for us – once without Michelle, once with) and then ask for Michelle to pay us back. Easy.
Turns out I told this story to a friend of mine and he does the same thing with his Mom-in-law. Go figure. It doesn’t make sense why they would pay less if they’re on my insurance policy – I don’t make her drive any safer… Go figure.
I woke up with a Migraine today. Bummer. The light from my monitor is a little harsh (it doesn’t help that I have three 20” LCDs – they cast a lot of light…) I’m laying low today and just getting stuff organized for next week. It’s nice to take a regrouping day every now and then.
I now have 26 of the reels done. I ran out of battery for the transfer box or I’d be further along. I’ve charged both batteries now and should be good to go for the rest of the weekend.
I’m thankful that my hardware is doing so well.
I’m thankful that my job is secure enough that I don’t have to be concerned about regrouping once in a while
I’m thankful that my Migraines are mostly painless.
I know that God has handed me the keys to His kingdom.
My daily trips on th
e treadmill are going really well recently. I have my three mile run down to 23:45 or so and I’m pleased with my progress towards slimness. Running to movies is fun too – I just finished “Into the Wild” and it was a decent show to run to.
I invited Michelle over for supper last night - she was working, but she really appreciated the invite. She took home the leftovers this morning when she drove Sherry to work. At least she’s still connected.
My programming has been going nicely too. I’m in the thinking phase for a new project right now – it’s tough to come up with how the screens are supposed to look. I’m also toying with replacing the Data Access Layer that I developed two years ago and replace with a LINQ DAL that’s built into the new compiler.
My internet connection is slowing me down now (and it always does when I’m trying to learn something new). Turns out that Microsoft’s new way of teaching is YouTube style videos. I can’t watch videos on my connection. I can watch one minute of video for every four minutes of download. So the 58 min video yesterday took me about six hours to watch (and it turned out to be the wrong video – the title was very poorly chosen).
Bummer.
Today is supposed to be a rain day for Sherry – it’s pouring out but she’s still at work. She had better not be working outside in this. I’ll make her quit if she gets sick over this.
Not much else to say.
I’m thankful that my job is indoors.
I’m thankful that my job is mentally challenging
I’m thankful that my job is not physically challenging
I know that God wants me to be completely healthy.
It seems that everything is moving according to the new plan. Michelle is in negotiation with her school about how to get to college, Sherry is settling in to her new routine and I’m working on the goals that I set earlier in the year.
We had a guest speaker in this weekend at our church. He’s the head of the Canadian organization and had a lot of really cool insights into the thinking of the Post Modern kids.
He said that their philosophy is all about the journey. They really don’t care about the destination as long as the journey was meaningful. They don’t have answers and can’t articulate why they make the decisions that they do. Their life is filled with mystery.
The old ways are no longer relevant and they reject the institutions and power brokers that Modern thinkers take for granted. Society is far more important than logic.
That actually makes me feel a lot better about where Michelle is right now. Everything that she’s doing is the new ‘normal’ for her era.
An ‘age’ usually lasts about 400 years (it’s been shortening with the globalization of the world, but you can still expect 200 years). That means that there are only a couple of generations that have to deal with both paradigms at the same time.
We need to find and embrace those thinkers who can freely move in both worlds. Bilinguals if you will. I need to find one of these people so that they can explain where Michelle is going to want to head next.
Just one funny story from Michelle’s new adventure: She works 30 hours a week at a minimum plus 1 job and is making ‘pretty good money’ in her view. Until she went to the grocery store. She spent $175 in one trip and used up about half of her paycheck all at once. She still needs to come up with rent, insurance, gas and cigarettes (oh, and phone and electricity and entertainment) with only half of her paycheck. Uh oh.
At least work is going really well for her. She’s in a call centre making appointments for people who have purchased technical support from Best Buy. That means that they are waiting for her call and are excited about getting the geeks into their houses to fix their electronics. She has to maintain at least 12 calls per hour to keep her job and if she can maintain about 24 cph then she gets a bonus at the end of the month. Cool. That $300 would go a long way to fixing her money troubles for June.
Sherry was rained out yesterday and spent her free time getting caught up on some projects around the house.
I got a thank you card from one of the boys that came over to our house for the Guys Games Day In on Saturday. (I invited three dads and their sons to come over and play games in my arcade. I’m running a very slight risk of being like Michael Jackson if I’m not careful…) Anway, two dads and four sons made it out and we played Wii and fooseball all afternoon –from 11:00 to 4:00. It was a Great time. I would say 9.5 out of 10 for overall enjoyment.
I’ll definitely have to throw one of those again! My basement is now legendary in the minds of three families. How cool is that?
I’m thankful that I can build relationships using the stuff that I already own
I’m thankful that I can enjoy my games for an entire afternoon and not feel guilty
I’m thankful that Michelle is making a go of it on her own
I know that God wants me to love those around me and has given me everything I need to do it.
It’s about time, but the drama is beginning to subside. Michelle is settling into her new place and she has an appointment with the guidance counselor at school to see what the plan is for her graduation.
She’s been by to pick up most of her stuff and is just waiting for a truck to be available to get her bed moved over.
She’s been living on Mr. Noodles for the last couple of days – payday isn’t until Friday and money’s been a little tight recently. She picked up a couple of packages of KD while she was here so at least she’ll have a little variety.
It’ll be interesting to see what she does about a car given that she won’t have enough for rent and her car before the end of the month.
In other news, Sherry’s birthday is this Friday and I haven’t found anything for her. Yikes. This is getting a little too close for comfort… At least we do have dinner plans for Saturday night.
Pastor George has invited me on a trip that he’s going on next week. He’s headed for a pastoral meeting a couple of hours north of here and wants me to come along. I’m not sure what our plans for our vacations days are this year – I’m not sure I can spare three full days off.
I’m thankful that I’m allowed to play
I’m thankful that I have some pretty cool toys
I’m thankful that we were created to have fun
I know that God created me with a desire to play and I know that He’ll encourage that aspect of my life.
Friday night was really nice – there were about 120 people at Georges birthday party – it was a nice turn out for a really nice guy. We only stayed for the meal (from 6 to 8) we skipped the dance afterward – we’re really not dancers and Sherry was exhausted.
The move at Shelly’s was a little different. Most of the big stuff has been moved the day before, so we were more or less moving boxes around the house and unpack some of the kitchen stuff. Sherry stayed and did a full eight hour day, but I got about an hours worth of work done and then just hung out with the guys.
It was nice, but I had a tonne of projects waiting at home for me – if we had known, I would have sent Sherry and I would have stayed and worked on my own stuff.
Sunday was a nice easy day. We worked on the wine project for a bit before church and then headed to the States as soon as the service was over. That was a nice trip.
Then we picked up some chairs at Canadian Tire and came back to work on some projects around the house.
Today I’ll be working on a major, major bug in my flagship product. That can’t stay there very long, but unfortunately it’s a nasty bug that’s going to be brutal to track down. *sigh*.
Michelle is painting her apartment – we don’t get to see it until the painting is done – appartenlty it’s a little run down and she wants to freshen it up before she shows anyone.
I’m looking forward to seeing it.
I transfer old vinyl records to CD (and 8-tracks and reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes). I also transfer VHS to DVD (and 8mm reels and super8 and digital8) as a hobby. The hobby is actually paying fairly well recently and I have two $500 jobs coming up in May. That should be a good time. Anyway, I’ve made about $800 since January and I’ve been spending it over the last couple of weeks.
I have a new hard drive (to hold all that video) and then I splurged on an iPod Touch (8G) and a couple of other things. It’s been really fun.
I’m thankful that I can use my talents to generate income
I’m thankful that Sherry lets me use my hobby money completely frivolously.
I’m thankful that there are so many cool gadgets out there.
I know that God gifted me in the area of Technology and that He wants to bless me through that talent.
Yet another good weekend.
We were amazingly productive this weekend. We blew off a bunch of commitments to get stuff done in our house this weekend and it really shows.
The upstairs is amazingly tidy and ready for company (which is coming tonight!) and the basement is well on its way to being ready for company with kids. Yaaaaaa.
The wine room is pretty much done, the furnace room just needs another coat of paint and some serious tidying and then it’s done too. Yaaaaa.
Michelle had a great time training for her new (paying) job and she’s getting ready for her co-op gig at my employer (which could be weird – I’m always a little nervous when I recommend someone that they actually work out well! And more so when it’s family)
Sherry is taking today completely off. Hopefully she’ll be able to watch a little TV, do some dusting and generally take a hard-labour-free day. Somehow I doubt she’ll be able to do that, but at least there’s nothing taxing planned for the day.
I had a great time teaching PD on Friday! We got there late because of a nasty snow storm and 8 of the 20 people couldn’t make it at all. But those of us who were there had a lot of fun and learned lots!
We had a really nice breakfast with a friend of ours Sunday morning. That was a really pleasant time (although you can tell that he’s lonely – he’s back in the dating scene again, and that’s tough for someone who’s been married in the past – there’s something really comforting about coming home to someone who really cares about how your day’s been).
We’re hosting our second annual Valentine’s Themed Wine and Cheese Party here next week. It was a lot of fun last year and we’re hoping to have a couple of games ready to go to make this one just as much fun!
I’m thankful that I’m trained to present Personality Dimensions. It’s a great topic to teach.
I’m thankful for productive weekends, and I’m really looking forward to using our new space to entertain.
I’m thankful that Michelle’s semester this year should be a great staging ground for her college career (she applied to three colleges this past weekend)
Whohoo! This has been an excellent week. I’ve just about caught up on everything. I’ve worked my list down to two concurrent projects, which is manageable. Michelle has been doing well, the wine room is progressing nicely and things are going well.
Ya, me!
The insulation is going in to the wine room as we speak – we’ll be ready to do the drywall and custom shelving this weekend. Then we’ll be able to get some of the clutter out of my basement, which is a really good thing.
I’ll be doing portraits for John and Hedda shortly. They have a DVD and a CD to sell (respectively) and I get to be a tiny little part of it. Very cool.
I’m looking forward to date night tonight. Part of it will be picking up the lumber for our new shelves, but that’ll be fun because of the progress that it represents.
I’m thankful that we’re handy enough to make a wine room for cheap
I’m thankful that Sherry is willing to buy into my projects
I’m thankful that Sherry lets me help with her projects
Ok, so I’m tired enough that I can’t even think of a simile. Dang.
I need my sleep.
I get grumpy when I’m awoken at 3:24am and can’t get back to sleep.
When we told her that it was rude to do that she said “Isn’t it my decision when I come in?” Well, I guess it is, but it’s my decision when I put the Rape Chain on the doors. My house will go quiet at 9:30 from now on.
I’m collecting up my stories for my PD class this weekend. I have 10 people signed up from the church (Yaaa!) and I’ll only need to fill in a couple of spots to round out the class to its 12 student minimum.
There’s still so much to do to get the PD class ready for Feb 1st. Yikes.
At least my programming is going well, so I should have a little slack in the schedule shortly (whew). All of the hardware is in for the POS machine that I’m writing and the code is going fairly well. I’d like to bring in the UI for our graphics guy to look at shortly – hopefully he can make it look stunning!
The home renovations were put on hold for the most part of yesterday due to Sherry’s CPR training. The same will happen today and we have dinner guests tomorrow. It’ll be tight to get everything ready.
I need a faster internet connection. I’m downloading a 24M file and it says it’s going to be 18 minutes to download. That’s enough time to get another small project done downstairs. Sigh.
I’m thankful that programming is going so well.
I’m thankful that Sherry is so talented at interior decorating (as well as landscaping!)
I’m thankful that we can entertain in the midst of chaos in our house. Sherry is truly amazing.
