Daily Scribbles

Tonight’s the season finale of Dexter.  I’m not sure if I’m going to stay up late enough to watch though.  I swear to God, if someone spoils it for me I’m going to lose my mind.  I think I’ll purposely avoid Facebook tomorrow just for that reason.

Tomorrow is a big day.  I’m meeting with accounting to go over last years books and get everything in shape for year end.  Originally it was my responsibility to take care of this, but they know that I’m overwhelmed and have decided to lend a helping hand.  Besides, my time is better spent getting new business rather than accounting.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be scratching the volunteer at a homeless shelter off my list.  I’ll be spending most of the afternoon prepping and serving a Christmas supper to those less fortunate.  I’m sure this will be quite an eye opener for me. I’ll definitely have something to write about tomorrow night.

I still feel bad about missing the blood donation.  Maybe next week someone can drive me down and pick me up over lunch.  That would be convenient.

Today wasn’t all that eventful.  Without the kiddies at home, I was able to lay around in bed for most of the morning.  Watched SNL and wrapped some presents in the afternoon, then out to Balgonie to pick up the kids and have supper.

Not a bad day at all.  Should go get ready for bed now.  Night!

My lovely wife got a ride home from her party and left my car in the south end.  She’s always a very responsible lady, I like that about her.  So as you can guess, we needed to go pick the car up in the morning.  I found it completely covered in frost.  Bullocks!  This is the very first time this year that I’ve had to scrape the windows.  I’m lucky I actually had a scraper in the trunk.

We split the kids and each went shopping for those final gifts.  Ashton and I hit Cornwall Centre, which was surprisingly not that busy.  We found what we needed and got the hell out of there.  A few more stops then came home for lunch.  I tried some white cheddar macaroni from Sobey’s hoping it would be as good as the presidents choice brand.  Sadly I was mistaken.

Drove the boys out to Balgonie at 4, had a quick visit, then came home to rest before the house party we were going to.

The drink of the night was Crown and coke, something new for me.  It was a fondue party straight out of the 70′s.  I only knew the hosts and the back of my mind I kept wondering if this was going to turn into a swingers party.  Alas, it was not, but we did play some really sick word games.  I got to learn a lot about these strangers sex lives while giving me the opportunity to be completely perverted, which apparently I’m pretty good at.

By about 12:45  we were all yawning and decided to shut it down.  That was the end of the night.

Not to much to report.  Work was typical, meetings, quoted, and putting fires out.  Pretty excited for this next short week.  I have a feeling it will be quieter and I’ll finally be able to wrap some things up.

I’m looking forward to spending a quiet even on the couch with my 2 favorite boys in the world.  Rhonda is out at another party and I’m on parental duty.  It’s fine by me, I’m a home body.  We’re watching some crappy b-rated Christmas movie ion NetFlix.  I think it’s called “The Santa Trap”.  Bletch…  the boy seem to like it so far.

Once this is over I’m going to watch Contagion.  I hope I can sleep after it.

Nite!

I can explain. I wasnt feeling 100% this morning, I have a slight cough, but nothing to bad. Im sure they would have let me donate anyways. I was worried that by giving blood, Id get run down and actually get full blown sick. I know, a poor excuse. I was sure I had a meeting at 10am today and the first group went to the blood bank at 9:30, so I couldnt make that one. I waited for my meeting to arrive, but she didnt show up. The next wave was leaving at 10:30… I didnt make that one either. I feel guilty now. This would have been the perfect chance… I guess it stays on my list for now.

Another off day. Was caught in a bit of sticky situation at the office. Im not going to divulge the details, but trust me, it was a mess. Im not used to office politics, its going to take me a while to adjust.

Ive been getting more comments like are you ok, you seem unhappy. The people close to me are pretty perceptive. I think the pain in my leg is really catching up to me, I can no longer hide it like I once could. I really dont want to be that unhappy guy that people see. Im going to try my best to put on a happier facade.

Time to watch some TMZ and call it a night. Big day tomorrow.

Another one of the days when every traffic light was green on the way to work. I was hoping my entire day would be the same.

Packed with meetings in the morning and back to back to back to back phone calls in the afternoon. So much talking that my throat was actually sore by the end of the day. Im still struggling to keep up with the work, but the good news is, help is on the way. Ive been meeting with management and they recognize that Im doing to much. They are also aware that all the business knowledge is up in my head so if something were to happen to me, hit by a bus or bit by a shark, they would all be up shit creek. Let me say, its great to be needed.

Four, count them four new projects today. I guess the feeling of having all the green lights align continued through out the day. A nice pat on my back.

Thats it! Tomorrow, hump day.

Remember yesterday?  We’ll I hit every red light on the way to work.  It might sound stupid, but it puts a negative spin on the whole day.  I couldn’t shake it.  To top it off, I had a horrible sleep and my leg is wreaking havoc in the worst way.  At work Isaac even asked me if my leg was bothering me, I said actually ya, have I been limping.  He said no, I just haven’t been myself.  I don’t think I realize this chronic pain effect how I act and treat people.  It was an eye opener.  I need to be more aware of this, I’ve been off in my own little self important world for the last couple weeks and it’s starting to show.  All I can do is hope once I get my back fixed, I’ll be more aware.  I think also having someone help me in the office will relieve some stress.  The good news is it’s all going to change.

Enough of the touchy feeling talk.  On to something else.

Tomorrow is blood donor day.  Holy crap I’m nervous.  I’m not a fan of needles, let alone loosing a bag of my own blood.  I know it’s for a good cause, and I’m definitely going through with it, I just hope I don’t pass out in front of everyone.

Going to call it a night.  I need my sleep.  Night peeps.

WOW!  What a huge milestone!  This is me patting myself on my back!  Crazy!

I had a horrible sleep.  I dreamed I grew my hair back over night.  You would think that would make me happy, and at first it did, but I was teased by every person I knew once they saw me.  They thought they were plugs.  I spent the day defending myself.  It was an exhausting dream.

This morning was mostly spent in a meeting.  Meanwhile my inbox was filling up.  Then I picked up the mail to find a $73,000 check from a tax refund.  Uhmmm…  Crap, this is not my check anymore since I sold the company.  I really could have used that.  How about that for a kick in the face.  Of well, I can’t look back.  I’ll get over it, it will take a few days/weeks, I hope…

Met with the surgeon today, waited for nearly 2 hours to see him.  Apparently after the last procedure, the hospital should have automatically scheduled the rhizotomy.   They told me that I needed to see my surgeon again, which I had to wait 2 months to see.  Our health system is so messed.  Now I have to wait again to hear when they’ve scheduled me in.  It’s not going to be the most fun procedure, I can tell you that.  It will however make for a good blog post.

I’ve been thinking about the bucket list I created a year ago and although I haven’t crossed anything off yet, I’ll be donating blood (12) on Wednesday for the very first time, volunteering at a homeless shelter (17) next week and I’ll be taking surfing lessons (28) in Maui in January.  I might also have the opportunity to write a note with my contact information, seal it up in bottle and throw it in the middle of the ocean when I’m in Hawaii.  I’ll guess have to think about what to write.  Hmm.

1. Publish a book
2. Travel to a third world country to help (drill a well, build a school, or something of that sort)
3. Go a whole week without touching an electronic device
4. Take each of my boys on a vacation separately
5. Learn another language
6. Learn CSS (programming language)
7. Visit New York
8. Travel to Asia
9. Snorkel near the great barrier reef
10. Run a marathon (half would be ok:)
11. Learn how to properly use my digital SLR camera
12. Donate blood
13. Shoot a hole in one
14. Get my license and buy motorbike
15. Learn to play guitar
16. Cook an entire (special) meal for my family
17. Volunteer at a homeless shelter
18. Get a Tattoo
19. Arm wrestle a stranger (and win)
20. Sing karaoke alone in front of strangers
21. Give an (inspiring) spontaneous toast in front of friends and family
22. Write a note with my contact information, seal it up in bottle and throw it in the middle of the ocean
23. Be an extra in a movie
24. Visit every province in Canada and every state in the USA
25. Live in Europe for over a year
26. Meet a celebrity in person that I idolize
27. Earn a university degree
28. Learn to surf
29. Learn to truly do an ollie on a skateboard
30. Take dance lessons

That’s enough for the night. sa·yo·na·ra

Whoa, I did nothing today.  Laid in bed until 11:30 with my laptop, working on a directory website, got up and went to my sisters hours for brunch.  Got home shortly after 2:00 then continued to work on the site.

I’m so rusty at coding that I spent the most of the day fumbling around, trying to make it work.  I guess I just got bit by the coding bug and wanted to see if I could still do it.  It was a miserable attempt.  I guess I’ll just stick to my day job.

That’s it.  Going to watch Dexter then hit the sack.  Nite.

Ok, I’m waiting in line at the carwash, writing from my iPhone. I don’t think this is illegal, I’m parked.

Update: It was 2 degrees outside when I shot that photo.  My car was a complete mess, I could hardly see out the windows.  It doesn’t help that I have dark tint in the back.  Someday days I regret putting tint on, or atleast that dark shade.  It’s nearly impossible to back up at night. I do my best and cross my fingers in hopes that I don’t smash into something.

Back to the car wash.  While I was scrubbing down the Civic I thought of all the water I was wasting, not to mention the other 9 cars in the building.  There was a long line up outside, I imagine it would be like that all day.  I felt guilty about the water I was using/wasting so I hurried and did a half ass job.  The end result is that my car looks like shit, but I did save liters of water.

My entrepreneur mind booted up and I started to think about how difficult it would be to open a environmentally friendly car wash somewhere in the east end of the city,  this area could really use one.  I mostly likely won’t do anything about it, but I am going to look into how they are doing this in Europe, I’m sure they have got this figured out.  Perhaps some sort of steam system or recycled/treated non potable water…

After the wash, I hit the mall in search of something for my wife for Christmas.  Still no clue what I’m going to get her.  This particular mall runs in a circle and by the end of the excursion, I had completed 3 laps.  I was wandering aimlessly, hoping some gifting inspiration would jump out at me.  It didn’t.  I did however find a small present, nothing to extravagant, but I think she’ll like it, perhaps something for her stocking.

Next I wandered around Future Shop picked up an iTunes gift card for work then came home.  20 minutes later Rhonda and the boys picked me up and it was off to London Drugs, Michaels, and Winners.

Parked my ass on the love seat for the rest of the night.  G’nite

Short post tonight.  Pretty uneventful day.  It was cold and my damn leg hurts like hell.  I meet with the surgeon on Monday to book at appointment for my Rhizotomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizotomy).  It sounds horrible, but if it works, I’ll be the happiest man alive.

We had a meeting with a potential client today. It was in their board room which was quite frigid.  45 mins into the meeting I realized my hands were freezing cold.  I knew that soon I’d have to shake everyone’s hands when we get up to leave.  I have 2 options.

1. Leave my hands as as they are, shake and hope they don’t notice I’ve got the hands of a dead man
2. Covertly sit on my hands, warm them up, but risk that they get all sweaty

I figured I’d try to warm them up.  It backfired, my hands were still cold but they were also now wet.  Is there anything worse than clammy?

I’m pretty perceptive when it comes to shaking hands and I often judge a person from their grip or lack there of.  I sure hope no one in that meeting judges me that way.  We’ll see if we get the contract or not.

Movie time!  Night!