Having a broken foot officially blows. I'm not sure how many of you will know exactly what I'm talking about but, I went over to the Esso this afternoon to get the peach iced tea that I promised Melissa I'd try. (I didn't mind it.) This is not very far away. Its across the highway from the Central Water Conditioning office. I'd guess the distance from door to door is somewhere in the neighbourhood of one to two hundred feet. Certainly a distance that anyone of reasonable fitness should be able to traverse with little difficulty.

I'm proud. I know this about myself. I take some, little, things way too much to heart. This particular instance is one of them. Its not very far to the Esso. I should be able to go that far to get an iced tea. So I set out on the trip on my crutches. That was a mistake. First of all, I'm not very fast, so I had to wait to get across. Then it took me forever to get across. As well, you never take note of all of the holes and rough ground when you're walking, but when you're on crutches you gotta look out for hazards. And lastly, while it doesn't seem like so far to go on two legs, when you're doing it on one, it tires you a lot faster.

Long story made short, I should have drove over there. Yes, it does seem like a ridiculous thing to do but, I should have done it. I have to get used to the idea that I simply can't do some things right now. Its a very tough realization for me, considering what I know about myself. But I need to put that pride away for the next month, and just heal. Stupid pride is not going to make things any easier or better.

Thanks for listening. Toodles.

What's new in the world of Captain Cripple today? Let's just open the newspaper here and check the headlines.

SEAN AND DEAN ARE WEINERS!!!
Well, we kinda knew this one already. Government workers piss me off. The least they could do is have the decency to not rub in their 'day off' status. If they did, in fact, phone Greg at work, I think that was uncalled for. The poor guy is doing the best he can. I will insist they each give Greg a cookie tonight.

GRAMMAR SKILLS LOST ON NET USERS!!!
Kinda knew this one too. Why is it so hard for some people to type with proper grammar? I don't really understand it. Do you REALLY save that much by typing 'u r' over 'you are'? I hate that. Call it a pet peeve. Just type the damn word! But I'm anal about grammar so maybe I'm getting wound up over nothing. Nevermind. This topic wasn't important.

P2P USERS ARE PRICKS!!!
Again, sort of a well known fact. How rude is it to cut someone off at 99%? Its especially retarded when they don't block you entirely, and you can then just resume the download. I don't get that. Just let people download. IF you've got nothing better to do than watch people download from you, your life is damn sorry.

GRANT IS WORKING TOO MUCH!!!
I'm I alone in seeing a theme here? Once more, its old news being regurgitated. This particular headline is becoming more prominent. Little things are slipping through the cracks as I try to do too much at once. Once set of shop drawings had three different specs for membranes. The material list, the specifications sheet, and the actual cut sheet for the item all listed a different piece of equipment. Not paying enough attention to the details. I gotta shore that up. I also missed the motor mount for the pump on one unit. I don't take full responsibility for that one as no one told me the tubular steel was in appropriate for the purpose. Still, another one slipping through the cracks. I need a break to refresh my batteries. I think I should go hot tubbing. :-)

That's all the news for the day. Toodles!

OH MY GOD!!! The Montreal Expos are tied for the wild card spot in the National League!!!

It is raining this morning. And that doesn't really even cover the weather this morning. It is pouring rain this morning. The water is coming down out of the sky as if poured from buckets. It is a deluge. It is a monsoon. It is truly raining 'cats and dogs' right now.

I had a peculiar dream last night. I can no longer remember all the particulars but it had something to do with a criminal organization, and a group of people, including me, that were trying to make money off various illegal schemes. The only part I remember with any vividness is the ending. We were in this warehouse, looking for stuff worth stealiing when my boss Murray opened a can of Tang and got the powder all over the place. This caused the building to explode for some reason. The cast of characters in this dream was odd. As I said, there was my boss Murray, and also the Olsen twins. WTF!?!?! After the warehouse exploded, all the different people in the gang all made a dash across the lower United States to Mexico, which inexpicably was where Florida should be. The purpose of this dash was to get to an airport in Mexico/Florida, that had a secret stash of money. Me and the girl I was with, came in second in the race. I can't even win in my own dreams. :-(

I have a new cast. I got it yesterday. Hopefully this one lasts the full two weeks. I'm going to be confident that it will. It was sure weird to have my foot out of the cast yesterday. It felt numb, or rubbery. Plus my Achilles tender was really sore. I guess that was just from not using my foot for so long. Instead of a blue cast, I have a white cast again. Its still fibreglass though.

That's all from me this morning. Toodles!

This is an issue that came up yesterday actually, but I forget to write it down in the blog.

Why is it that cities around the country are upgrading their, welcome to the city, signs, but Saskatoon still has the same ones that were probably there in the 70's or later. The most striking example I can think of is between Regina and Saskatoon. Regina has some nice, stucco covered (I think) signs that say Regina. They are actually quite attractive. In contrast I drove into Saskatoon last night and it was the same sign I've been seeing since I was small. Reflective green, odd shape, on two structural steel points. Not nearly as impressive.

I think its sad. Saskatoon should not be upstaged by Regina on anything. I think we need to improve these signs. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Toodles!

Does anyone know why I'm so hungry the past two days?

I'm trying to write my EIT report. I hate writing my EIT report. I suppose this has a purpose but its so difficult to do. The essence of it is, tell the association what you've done for the past 6 months. (in the case the last four because that's all I have left) But, you know you're being evaluated on what you write so you have to make it sound as dynamic, and important, as you can, so its seen in a favorable light. While on the other hand balancing that requirement to sound important, with some modesty so you don't come across boastful. Its a delicate balancing act, and frustrating as well. Especially when you'd much rather just be doing stuff. I'm sure this will take me a couple days. :-(

Toodles!

The Expos won last night. We're only 3 games back in the wild card race. Woo Hoo!!! Go Expos!!!!!!

How is that I can go to bed early, sleep in late, and still be tired!?!

How is it that I'm getting all the worst songs, in a row? I set Winamp to have all the songs in my 'My Music' folder to be in the playlist, and then I told it to shuffle. Somehow it has seen fit to play all of the songs, that most tug at the memory I'd be best off not thinking about, all in a row. Is this an omen?

Toodles.

You gotta be careful with cell phones. You just GOTTA be careful with cell phones.

I got my cell phone bill today. $185 and some change. Yikes! Admittedly, that's not all personal calls. I used my phone extensively while on the road last month, so that's where a lot of that money comes from. Nonetheless, the bill is high, and you look at it, and you wonder where they get you. I got nailed twice. They hook me once for the air time to be on the cell phone, and talking to someone, and they get me again with the long distance charge. It doesn't matter where I go, its a long distance call. That kinda sucks but I guess there's no help for it.

I'll be over here, looking for pennies in the couch.

Toodles!

I've been watching a lot of MuchMusic lately. I don't know what has prompted this trend. Probably a lack of good movies on the movie channel, and the move of CFL football to the weekends. Nonetheless I have been watching MuchMusic and I've noticed something peculiar.

What's the deal with Jennifer Howlett's hair? Is that not the strangest looking thing you've ever seen? I try not to make a lot of commentary about someone's look, as its an action that has got me into trouble before. So this is not a commentary. Its a question. What is the deal with her hair? It looks odd to me. Its all pushed over to one side. If you catch only a quick glimpse of her, it looks like she got stuck in a wind tunnel with a head full of hair gel. Why would she do that? Its like she styled her hair with extreme bed head. I don't get it. But then again, maybe its not for me to get.

Toodles.

My Mom is a Pepsi hog.

My boss did up a forecast of upcoming sales orders this morning. We have over $1,000,000 worth of projects on our roster to do. I took a little closer look at the data and that million dollars is almost exclusively the large, municipal projects that I'm working on. A million dollars. That is an imposing, and impressive total. I'm kind of in awe right now.

Toodles!

I don't think this has ever happened before. I came to work this morning, logged on, and I had no Hotmail in my inbox. No spam, nothing. My Inbox was empty. Its almost eerie.

Toodles!

I have to wonder about something. Does there maybe need to be a minimum competence level before you qualify for protection under the law? I don't mean in general intelligence measurements, but in general competence. Can you take care of yourself, and not make yourself a burden on others. In specific I'm talking about stupid people. Those people that say and do things that are some incredibly nonsensical that it makes your shake your head, like you've got water in your ears. Do these people really deserve to be protected by the covenant of law?

Really, should the idiot that walks out into the middle of a crowded downtown street, at lunch time, deserve the right to sue a driver for hitting him? I don't think he should, but we give him that opportunity. The person that goes into the store and says, I want the biggest one you've got, but I only wanna pay have the sticker price. If they then stand there and argue with you about it, are they truly worthy of their free speech? The jackass who cuts you off in traffic, and then slams on the brakes in front of you, does he really deserve protection from your desire to get out of the vehicle and pummel him?

There are so many stupid in the world. So many stupid people, doing such ingloriously stupid things. It boggles my mind, and then makes it hurt. Some days I just can't stand it. I get mad. I wanna smack my own face into the wall until the blunt trauma hurts worse than the pain of trying to understand.

I could say something really hateful about someone I had to deal with today, but in the name of discretion I will refrain. Suffice it to say, they are stupid.

Toodles.

I just had a freaky moment. My boss comes into my office and says to me, there's a supplier out there that is trying to sell a package for $30,000 less than ours, on this job that I really want. My heart dropped into my stomach when I heard that. I kinda had my heart set on getting the job in question, because its a bigger scaled system than some of the others I've been doing lately. Most of the jobs that we've gotten recently have be in the 20-40 USgpm range. This one would be 100 USgpm. I really have my heart set on this project. I would like some plants with a little more size, just to add a touch of prestige to the roster we have lined up. A town at 100 USgpm is a little more impressive than an Indian reserve at 20 USgpm. Plus, when you talk about it, people generally know where a town is, whereas most reserves are unheard of.

So I have a panic attack when my boss tells me this other company is shopping their design around. However, the story continues, and apparently their design is not, apples to apples. My boss phones the design engineer, to just get a sense of what his take is, on this new, potential supplier. I guess the design engineer said the new bidder was up a rope, because they had not requested 'approved equal' status from him, beforehand, so at this point, they would not be accepted. They could come in at $1 and they wouldn't get accepted. Our unit will be the one that is supplied to the town.

That is a big sigh of relief. I could probably find $30,000 in our price to slash, but it wouldn't be easy, and the profit margin on the job would be much lower. I'm glad I don't have to do it. However, it has made me a little more wary about submitting designs and prices to engineers, this one in particular. Apparently this engineer is going to take our designs, as presented, and make them his specification. That's a little unusual for me, as its usually us requesting equal status to a USFilter model. Another thing learned.

Thanks for listening. Toodles!

I was gonna blog about my cast but something else pissed me off.

What the hell is the deal with the MSN.com site? If I wanted to do a search, I'd load a search engine. Don't put my damn cursor in the search box, when I'm trying to type in a web address. I KNOW where I want to go, I don't need any help. Another quality product, brought to us by Microsoft. Idiots!

I'm really hoping that one of these days I'm going to learn my lesson. After how many years of using the computer, and knowing the quirks and peculiarities of each program, you'd think I'd have developed a strategy. But no, I continue to bumble along in the same, ah shucks I'm a dope, mode that I always do.

I forgot to save. Again. For the, how many times is it now, time? I'm getting a little tired of this. I could rant and rave, and rail against AutoDesk and the way they have their program conditioned. But in the end, the fault is mine, for not keeping track of whether I'd made worthwhile changes to the drawing I was working on. So again, I did a bunch of stuff, printed it, then forgot I hadn't saved, and said no to, save my changes, when the dialog box came up after I tried to close after the print function. I'm thoroughly pissed off, and not sure where I'm going to find the time to fix this mistake.

I'd really like to spend the next hour swearing.

Its quarter to seven on a Saturday evening. I still don't know what to order for supper, because I'm way too lazy to actually attempt cooking on a day that is this hot. Why can't you order food by way of the Internet!?!