Good day world! Today is a much better day. Good stuff has been happening to me today, and as of 1:22 PM on this Wednesday, I feel pretty good. :-)

First of all, I must apologize but there will be no jokes today. I went through my email this morning, and there wasn't a decent joke in the whole group. I was disappointed about that. The jokes today were all stale. I'd either read them before, or they just weren't funny. Am I the only one that has noticed that there is a collection of jokes that just circulate the internet endlessly? Every so often you'll open your mail, and there will be one of those classics that you've read in emails about three times before. Right now I should punctuate my comment with an example, but I can not. I wonder if my brain is defective. I start a topic that just begs for an example, the topic is front and center in my mind, but the proof of my statement eludes me. I hate when my brain betrays me.

First good thing to happen today. My mom phoned me about 8:30 this morning. They were coming for lunch. That pleased me a lot, since they'd had to cancel trips out here to Watson in the preceding two weeks. The first time they cancelled it was because Mom had a sewing order to finish. Then last week they had to cancel because it snowed. That was a doubly depressing day. First snow, and then the cancellation of the trip. But today everything was a go. The weather was nice and they showed up at the office about 11:15. I gave Mom the keys and they went to my house ahead of me, to cook the pizza. I made it home at my usual 12:00 and we had a nice lunch. After lunch my Mom cleaned. I'm kind of conflicted about that. On one hand she doesn't have to do that. Its my house and I'll clean it when the spirit moves me. On the other hand I appreciate her efforts. I ended up in a situation of inertia. Thinking I should do it instead of her, but ending up not doing anything. I wonder if I'm a bad son?

The other good thing to happen today was, my parents brought the power supply for my laptop out with them. That was exciting. I've had this old, grey Pentium 133 laptop that Sean gave me a long time ago. It was just collecting dust because it didn't work. I was surfing the internet the other day and found a good deal on a power supply for it. So I ordered one and it came yesterday. My parents brought it out today, and after we were done eating I plugged it in, and got the computer working for the first time in over a year. That was cool! So now I have a laptop computer again. I had one before, but it was a 486 and the power was no good on that one either. This one works good. I haven't made up my mind yet exactly what I'm going to use it for. I will be hooking it up next to my main system, to monitor MSN while I play games. My preference would always be to chat with my friends over playing a video game. But a lot of the time there is no one online to chat with, so I might as well spend the time doing something else I enjoy, video gaming, rather that sitting there bored, waiting for someone.

So its been a good day today. I have the afternoon ahead of me, but I see only good things coming out of that too. I finished one project this morning. The shop drawings for the Town of Balmoral are finished. Hooray!!! That was about a two day job. They're all wrapped up and ready to ship out. Now if I could just get the Souris package done. :-( Damn these recalcitrant suppliers!!! I think I'm going to work on my White Bear model this afternoon. I've picking away at that since August, I think. I started the drawing when Murray was on vacation. I remember that because I was out of other things to do, because I needed his input on about three things.

Anyone have any really good song ideas? I'm kind of hooked on downloading music again. I'll think of a song or two, and I'll go straight to WinMX. That's a good program but the downloads can be really slow. My trouble right now is, I'm out of song ideas. I downloaded three songs from the Last Action Hero soundtrack, because I watched the end of the movie the other night. That lead me into downloading derivatives of songs, but I'm fresh out of ideas. I'll have to remember to ask Tara for some songs the next time I talk to her. Having a friend in a major US market has greatly improved my musical selection. No offense to Saskatchewan, I love this place dearly, but the radio situation SUCKS!!! There are no good stations anywhere. Just different levels of awful or mundane. Maybe I should go back to watching MuchMusic, or the MTV channel I was so desperate to get. That reminds me, I finally got around to phoning Expressvu this morning. I've had these interactive features on my satellite since I got it. I think I took them because they were free to try for three months. Well the only one I care about is the Weather and that's $0.50 a month. The games and the trivia are $5.00 or something like that, and I've looked at them twice. I have a huge computer so I don't need games on my TV. So I cancelled them finally. In their place I substituted an eastern feed of network stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) for $1.00. So it'll balance out with getting more stuff I might actually watch, for less money. That's a good deal for me.

That's all for today. Have a good afternoon and evening everyone. Toodles!

I am pissed off. I also think I am perfectly justified in being pissed off because I just got bum rushed. I'm considerably unhappy. However, rather than sit here and fume about it, which is what I would normally do. That or smash something into a million pieces. Rather than do that I'm going to use this forum for what I originally intended it for. I'm going to rant. Someone is gonna get a chunk tore off of them.

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan, or APEGS for short, is a pathetic, hollow, insignificant organization that needs to be tossed ass over tea kettle and have its collective house put into a new order. I just got the shaft. I have been employed in various jobs for a total of 52 months since I graduated. The legal stipulation is that you are supposed to have 48 months of work experience before you can apply for Professional Engineer status in Saskatchewan. I had that 48 months, plus another four months to boot. I should have been golden to apply for my P. Eng status. So I did.

A very nice girl phoned me this afternoon. She wanted to know if I was resubmitting the reports for the months that I had not been given credit for. Excuse me? Not given credit for? What the hell is that all about? Well, the last 16 months I'd submitted for, when I worked at Suncorp, had not been accepted by the APEGS committee that reviews engineer in training reports. Well, I kind of knew that, since I'd gotten a letter saying that my reports were deficient and a member of the review committee would like to meet to discuss them with me. I was NOT aware that they'd been rejected out of hand and I currently was getting NO credit for them. I expressed my flabbergasted condition, and that I'd met with a member of the committee, Ray Gerbrandt to be precise, and after that meeting he said I would get credit for some of it. But now my submission is in, and I currently have none.

Well this nice girl said she'd check into it, and after a few minutes called me back and said I got half, or 8.5 months worth of experience. I was prepared for that because I'd called Ray once to ask about the progress that was being made on my situation, and he'd said I could expect about half credit. I was supposed to get a letter and I never did so I wanted to force the issue. So I forced it and ended up getting royally screwed.

Turns out I only got about 75% credit for the 14 months I spent at Wheatheart. All I can say to that is WTF!?!?!?!?!?! The way this system is supposed to work, as I read it in the literature was, if you got no correspondence from APEGS then you were to assume that your experience had been approved. I got no correspondence regarding my Wheatheart experience. In fact, the only correspondence I've ever gotten from them was notices of my dues, literature on the annual general meeting and this one letter about Suncorp. Nothing about Wheatheart. So they screwed me out of 5 or 6 months, a full reporting period, and never said boo to me.

The nice girl at APEGS said I can contest the decision and I fully intend to. This is an outright crock because the work I did at Wheatheart was at least as valid as any other that I've done, and maybe more. I was designing, drawing, and aiding in manufacturing. What the hell could be more engineering experience related than that!?! I'm severely pissed about this. And the main target of my ire is this crap policy of sending no documentation. I'm getting seriously shafted in this situation because of the policy of sending no reply to an EIT about their experience. First of all, if they send me something saying, this or that is the reason we are rejecting part of your experience at Wheatheart, I could write a refutation then and there, when the experience is still fresh in my mind, and I'm still in contact with the people I knew there. Now its almost three years later. I've long since lost the report I wrote, and the notes I wrote it from. The engineer I was affliated with, in Swift Current, is no longer there and I don't know how to contact him. I'm sure I could get him to write me a letter backing me up fully on my experience. No, they send me nothing and I gotta scramble around years later to try and make a case.

I'm screwed from two angles on this. First of all, they rejected part of my experience at Wheatheart, and didn't tell me anything, so now I'm in a terrible situation to make a case saying that all the experience was worthwhile. I don't have my notes, I don't have my contacts, nothing is fresh. They've stacked the deck against me. And in the second case, they didn't tell me until now, so I've been making decisions, and planning my career on the assumption that I did have those 5 months. Which is an honest assumption to make because according to what they say, no news is good news. I got no news, there is no correspondence in my file with APEGS so apparently my experience was not good enough, but I was not important enough to be contacted about this deficiency. Ho hum, we'll just stick it to this guy, and when he gets to what he thinks is 48 months, we'lll laugh in his face and say, try again in 6 months.

The more I think about this, the more pissed off I'm getting. They really did stick it to me, and it seems like spite. Why the hell would you reject part of someone's report, and not tell them? If your policy is to not contact a member unless there is a problem, then don't contact them when there is a problem, what does that seem to say? Oh sorry, you're not important enough to talk to about the serious details of your career. We're just going to shaft you and not say anything.

Right now I am beginning a quest. My quest is to have this policy changed. They can't keep doing this. The cloak and dagger secrecy that permeates much of the APEGS heirachy has to disappear. And it has to go away now. I just got screwed big time. This is a momumental setback for my career because I essentially pitched myself in April as being on the cusp of being a P. Eng. Now they tell me I'm miles away. Something like this can not be allowed to continue. What the hell is the reason for not sending an engineer notice about their experience report? I think they reason that is given is, to keep adminitration costs down. Administration costs of $1.00 a year for stamps? Okay, $2.00 a year if you count the envelope, the paper the letter is written on and the ink necessary to print the letter and envelope. For $2.00 an engineer, a year, we can't send a letter? Add it to my god damn exorbitant fees and let's do this right! I'm tired of this! I think the real reason is, the people doing the reviewing don't want to get called on the carpet for their decisions regarding people's experience. They'd rather the situation exist where no one is in a position to complain until they've forgotten the job that is in question. That can't happen. I won't let this happen to another person. I will see this changed, if its not already in the works. I won't rest until they have to send out a letter stipulating whether your experience is approved, rejected, or for what reason its rejected.

I got screwed again by these sons of bitches in that they didn't bother to call into question my time at Suncorp until I'd submitted 16 months worth of reports. That's 2 full ones and 2/3 of a third one. 16 months was sitting on the committee table, undecided. That's almost a year and a half of my career that they hadn't deemed important enough to review, and get back to me on. For Christ sake, if this experience wasn't acceptable after 6 months, they had an obligation, as dutiful engineers, to tell me this! Then I can re-evaluate my career and either accept my situation, or move on to a new position. I lose 8 months of experience at Suncorp, because they weren't duly dilligent in informing me about the state of my career. I wonder if I can sue them for negligence?

I lose over a year worth of experience, as it sits now because of the APEGS review committee. 5 months from Wheatheart because they rejected experience and didn't tell me. 8 months from Suncorp because they waited a year before contacting me about the applicability of the experience. In either situation, had they informed me about what they were doing, I might have done something different. I might have wrote a new, better report, got a corroborating report from a fellow engineer, or changed jobs to something that was more applicable. Now I sit here at this point, with nearly all of my options gone. I can't even direct my irritation at anyone, because they sit behind their veil of secrecy, and never send you anything that would identify them.

I'm going to change this. I swear I am going to change this. First I'm going to get back at least the experience from Wheatheart. That was perfectly valid experience and they're not cheating me out of it. I will try to track down Bret Watson, the engineer in Swift Current that I worked with during that time. He wasn't a mentor, as I wasn't in APEGS yet, but had I continued in that job he would have been one. If I can find him, I'm sure he'll back me up on the experience. He told me once of his own battles with APEGS so I'm sure he'll be on my side. I may even take a run at getting another 4 months out of them for my Suncorp experience. I never recieved any documentation from them about the applicability of my experience. I submitted two full reports and was told nothing. Surely they can't be allowed to sit on a person's reports that long, and not do anything? There needs to be some accountability on their part. I'll give up the last four months, and write those off. But considering they accepted two reports and never contacted me, maybe I can squeeze them.

Second, I'm going to change the process. As soon as I can figure how how, I'm going to petition for changes to the EIT program inside APEGS. EIT's have to be given progress reports. A new engineer has to know how he is doing, from the standpoint of the association. They need to be kept aware of their progress, and be told if their experience is being rejected. They deserve the right to dispute the committee's findings. This would also serve the important purpose of keeping the committee focused and dedicated. A situation would not be allowed to develop where reports went unreviewed for a year or more. It would also make the committee accountable. If they were forced to make their decisions in the open, and not behind a veil of secrecy, maybe they wouldn't be so prone to sluggishness. I vow to make sure these things are changed.

I am now exhausted. Thanks for listening.

Here are a couple of jokes that I read today, and thought were funny.

Q: What's black and blue and brown and lies at the bottom of a ditch?
A: A brunette who's told too many blonde jokes.

One day three very attractive women, a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, are running away from a farmer.
The women ran and ran until they came upon his barn. They each ran into the barn and hurried up the stairs where they found three sacks. The farmer came upstairs to look for the women. He saw the bags and went to investigate.
He walked up to the first bag and kicked it. The brunette hiding inside said, "Quack, quack."
The farmer said, "Oh, there must be ducks in that bag."
He goes to the next bag and kicks it. The redhead hiding inside said, "Bwaak, bwaak."
The farmer said "Oh, there must be chickens in that bag."
He walks over to the last bag and kicks it, and the blonde hiding inside said, "Potatoes..."
BUT, the farmer was blonde too, so he said, "Oh, there must be potatoes in that bag."

I had a peculiar dream last night/this morning. It didn't really frighten me, or concern me in any way. It was just a weird collection of things that all came together into a cohesive narrative.

The dream began with me getting a job at Cameco, where my sister works. She's in human relations so I can understand how I would dream this up. I bug her to give me a job all the time. :-) So I get the job, and I'm going to work on my first day. Weird instance number one. The office that I was supposed to be working in was, a small version of the classroom I was in for Grade 11 and 12 in Weekes. There were able six people working in the room, all in cubicle type areas. Everyone had a couple of short wall partitions and one of the old wood and metal desk with chair combinations we had in that class. My desk was the second in a row of three, and about in the middle of the room. I was a little choked at how small my work area was. My front and back walls were so close together that I couldn't even pull my chair out! It didn't matter though. All the people working in this particular office were all very friendly. My wall partitions were quickly pushed away, and my desk turned nearly all the way around to face in the opposite direction, towards the back of the room. I was back to back with a pretty, short haired girl who was very friendly and appeared to be working on an AutoCAD drawing.

The dream kind of shifted at that point into a character exposition. Weird instance number two. Among the people in my office environment were, Tom Green as this dopey, vacant eyed guy who didn't say much. That actually pisses me off because I think Tom Green is an unfunny ass, and I wouldn't want him in my dreams. Jason Lee, who I do think is funny, but his role in this dream was of a serious worrier. And Chris Rock, who sat in the corner and shouted excerpts from various movies.

Next up, I had to take a shower. Amazingly a nice bathroom appeared for me to use. The color scheme in it was a rosy pink and light oak color. I don't know why I remember that. The room itself reminded me of my aunt and uncle's bathroom, in their house north of Osler. Escept for the color scheme part. I had to take a shower because, we were going on a mine tour and everyone had to be clean. Everything had to be clean. There was even a reference to them washing the blackness of the coal. Why that came up, when Cameco is a uranium mining company and not a coal one, I don't know.

So we got on the tour. There is a short bus ride to the site, and we get off. Weird instance number three. Everyone is acting like a zombie. Tom Green, who was already acting like a zombie, and Jason Lee start acting like a zombie. Chris Rock is still spouting catch phrases. We are ushered into the mine, in a tunnel that reminded me of a level from the original Carmageddon game. We get to this room and a couple of big, muscular people, one man and one woman, are throwing people through a doorway. These people are screaming and crying as they are tossed in but to no avail The scene cuts to inside the room and this weird spider creatures are attaching themselves to the back of the victims, thus turning them into zombies.

Cut to the surface again. All the people in my office are now zombies. Their mannerisms are similar to what they were before, but everything seems forced. Jason Lee is trying to be jovial but it doesn't sound natural. Chris Rock is still spouting off but his voice sounds mechanical. Tom Green was always an idiot so we'll ignore him. For some reason there's a TV on now, and we're watching an interview with this really obvious transsexual. The person is a woman now, but its obvious they were a man before. Really obvious to me because this person used to work in this office/classroom in a previous scene. The story is this person was rescued when they were supposed to be dead. Then the female interviewer squeezed the breast of the transsexual and blood pours from the nipple.

Now I'm in the house where the interview is going on. So are the people from my office, Tom Green, Jason Lee, the still ranting Chris Rock. Chris is shouting movie quotes, many of them profane, and some old people sitting at a dining table give him dirty looks. The big woman who had been throwing people to the spiders comes up to me and squuezes my wrist. I feel something and pull my hand away. There's a crescent shaped, wriggly looking thing on my hand. This is the spider creature's attempt to gain control of me. But I am aware of the attempt, and by being aware, I can reject the domination. I flee the house, after shouting some gibberish about not giving in.

Now I'm out on the street, in a nice suburb. Its dark, but not quite night. It occurs to me that everyone has been abducted by these spider creatures, and I'm alone here. And they're after me, because the spider creature's leader needs a pure spirit to complete their plan. That mystified me in my dream too because by no means do I have a pure spirit. The whole pure spirit thing though is obviously from watching the Scooby Doo movie. So I'm being chased up the street by zombie people. The people from the house are coming up behind me. Its reminiscent of a hundred movies where people roll in from the sides of the street, to form a mob coming up from behind. I look forward and some spooky looking punks are coming up in front of me. They are leaping up over fences, and dropping down in front of me from trees. I get wild eyed as I'm surrounded. Then in a rush they all attack me, I'm swarmed, and overwhelmed.

Thats the last thing I remember about the dream. The next thing I remember is the radio coming on. I don't think the radio woke me up from this dream. I think it just ended at that point. In any event, it was an odd scenario. I tend to have a lot of these, but I don't remember them all. If anyone reading this thinks I have cause to be concerned by these images, let me know. Until then I'm chalking it up to my overly vivid imagination.

Toodles!

Hello world!

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know I said I was going to post daily, and here it is Sunday afternoon and I haven't written anything. My bad. :-( The truth is, I haven't done anything this weekend to merit an entry. As I've been telling anyone who has asked me this weekend, what I am doing, I'm growing moss. I pulled this gold easy chair we have in the family room, over to the closet where my computer is, and escept for breaks to eat and take care of nature's business, I really haven't moved much. Well, that's a lie too. I went on a small road trip yesterday afternoon. I had to take my paycheque to the bank, go shopping for some items I wanted, and make a couple of other incidental stops.

That reminds me of something. I think I want a digital camera. I've been thinking about this for awhile and I think it would be neat to have one. The problem? I don't know what one to get. I am a lousy photographer. Many of you have seen the infamous photographs I took while being a condo appraiser. I had my thumb in the shot about 25% of the time. Luckily I usually took more than one shot or angle so it usually wasn't a big deal. My current thought is, to get an HP Photosmart 120. It has all the features I'm looking for, $150 price tag, it accepts Flash RAM, has some zoom, and takes decent if unspectacular resolution pictures. So what's the downside? Everyone I talk about with says this is a bad idea. The two people I know with digital camera's both tell me, essentially, to go big or go home. I have a problem with that. Buying a digital camera is still kind of an experiment, and I don't feel like rolling the dice with $500. If I buy a camera for $150, its not the end of the world if it ends up sitting in a corner, collection dust. Food for my thought I guess. Anyone want to venture an opinion. You know where to reach me. telk2@hotmail.com

I was at the Indian pow wow this morning. I don't get that. I suppose its a cultural thing, and I'm really not supposed to get it. Whatever the reason, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I guess it doesn't have to either. I wasn't there as a participant or a spectator. I was there to do a job. Which I did, and frankly I didn't mind the task too much. I was running stock this morning. Load a cart with the requisitioned items, and deliver them to the appropriate both. That's a job I can do quite well. Take orders, and carry them out. I think Kevin should assign me duties like that more often. (hint, hint) :-D

Its been a quiet weekend. The excitement level was low, and I didn't mind it. Lots of excitement is coming up in the next couple weekends, so having some peacefulness this weekend was welcome. That's all from me today. Have a great day world.

Toodles!