Wednesday, November 29, 2006

We can rebuild him. We have the technology.

Coming to you live by tape delay from the spare bedroom of my girlfriend's house, it's the resurrection of the blog. Faster. Stronger. Better than it was before.

Maybe. I guess I'll hold off on making any claims about quality, seeing how I'm not sure if I'll be posting regularly or not. I hope to, but who knows what the future might hold.

So much to talk about, I don't know where to start. Alright, topics in the order of importance. I'm tempted to list them, but I figure if I write everything like I do at work, then nobody will read this (because it'll look like an instruction manual).

Seeing how it's been about 6 months after my last post, anyone who hasn't seen me in the past 6 months doesn't know about Gina. She's the light of my life, and as cheesy as that sounds, it's true. She's honestly the only reason I get up in the morning.

We had met a while before we started dating, but it wasn't until we were on the same team for a photo scavenger hunt (and it wound up being just us on the team) that we found out we liked each other. A while later (after wondering if she liked me as much as I liked her) I got her contact info, and we went out for the first time on May 22nd. Yes, I remember the date.

Our first date was supposed to be to see fireworks, but apparently they don't do fireworks for the May 24 weekend. This was news to both of us, so we wound up wandering around the market just talking about anything and everything, and from that moment on I was completely smitten. I still am, to be honest.

We're pretty much completely compatible. We like most of the same things, hate pretty much all the same things, share opinions on most matters,and best of all, we can travel together without winding up hating each other. Which is a very good thing, because travel is one of the things we like to do best. Upstate New York is one of our regular hangouts, and every couple months we go to Hell (in Michigan, just outside Detroit). More about Hell in a later blog post, I promise.

We celebrated 6 months together by going to Montreal, and catching a Habs game. Even though we're both pretty die-hard Ottawa fans (I wish my car flag hadn't broken off), we decided for one night to be Montreal fans. Seeing how we were in the city and so was the team, it seemed like a reasonable idea. Anywho, we got seats in the Desjardins Club section, and let me tell you, if you ever have a chance to sit there, DO IT. Free concession food all night (until the 3rd period), and the seats are incredible. I think we both ate $50 of food easily, and it was probably a lot more than that.

Moving on from 6 months together, I've also been employed for 6 months. Hooray. Anyone who was reading back in the day (or is perusing the archives) will know that I used to spend a lot of time writing about how unemployed I was. Go figure that as soon as I have a job, I stop writing. Guess I couldn't change genres. Or work was absorbing all my words.

Anyway, I'm working at [a software company I'm not sure I'm allowed to name], where I did my work placement through Algonquin. I'm a technical writer, which is what I went to school for. Now that I've been out here in the field for a while, I'm finding that just about everything I learned is actually applicable. All my bitching and moaning about FrameMaker actually paid off, because I use it literally every day. I've been delving deeper into the belly of the beast, and I actually finished re-indexing all our manuals by editing the tiny little marker tags one by one. Seriously, it's a non-resizable 3 line dialog box. Headache city. I still feel bad about how snippy I tended to get during that time, so I try not to think about it.

So naturally that just reminded me that I have to index the new features I'm writing about now. Ugh. Guess I'll do that sometime.

So, let's move on to happier things. Like my car. Yes, I bought a car. It's a 2006 Ford Focus. It was a dealer demo, so in return for a year's worth of mileage, I got a basically-new car for a quite large discount. I don't want to talk about payments or prices, so I won't. Like Chris Pronger, it's for personal reasons.

Anyway, I have to say that I really like my car, and I'd love driving it if it wasn't for other commuters. I'm not a very good driver, I'll admit. I'm nervous, I don't go when I obviously have time, I can't stand changing lanes because I'm afraid I'll get stuck, etc. But still, I like to think that I'm better than a lot of people in Ottawa, because I generally know a) what the speed limit is, b) how far above the limit it's okay to go, and c) that you don't have to go 20 below as soon as the road gets a little bit damp.

Honestly though, that's about the limit of my driving ability. Gina's the driver in our relationship. She can get anywhere from anywhere, and show you an awesome backstreet route that'll get you there in half the time with none of the traffic. I'm constantly amazed when she gives me directions, because some of the ways she takes me I'd never even think were possible.

My average driving story contains the phrase "I was on (some street) and I missed the turn/was in the wrong lane for (other street), so I got horribly lost (but more hilariously)". When she's in the car (unless I do something stupid like not listen to her) it's more like "I turned off (major street) and went through some weirdo back alleys, and wound up on (other major street that shouldn't even be logically possible). I didn't even know they connected!" My mind is consistently blown at how well she can get around in this city.

... I just noticed there's a porcelain cat figurine sitting in one of the cubbyholes in this desk, and its eyes are boring into my soul. I keep trying to look away but it draws me back, smugly mocking my from it's little square home.

Alright, I'm freaked out. I gotta get out of here.

Stupid artificial cat.