Category: Daily life

Like sand through the hourglass, this is irritating the shit out of me

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Sorry, devoted readers, but work is intruding like a mother. I’m on my way out the door now to meet Nellie, head home, eat something and do another 3 or 4 hours of reading. I won’t come up for air again until Friday evening, probably, when I visit Fieramosca with some friends. Awesome food, downtime and non-work conversation…I’m not looking forward to that a bit.

On an unrelated topic, does anyone have a time machine?

[tags]aaaarrrggghghjhtrphtjrhrhotyhnryoh[/tags]

Serendipity

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Why, you may be asking yourself, is Dan blogging at 3:43 AM? Well, I’m up for work. Implementations happen overnight and I’ve been up since about 2:20.

So here I was, sitting quietly in the living room with my laptop, when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now, fire alarms at 3 AM in a high rise are never calming events, but at least I was already awake. There’s nothing quite as jarring as being ripped from your sleep by a warning that you’re about to be immolated.

So, we check the hallway and it’s going out there too. Not much activity on our floor, but I can hear people in the stairwell. By this point Nellie’s roused herself and starts to get dressed. We see fire trucks coming up the street. We stuff the cats into their bags, gather wallets & keys and debate whether to start the long trek down. Then the fire department comes on the intercom and tells us it’s a minor situation (not even a fire, I’m guessing) on the 43rd floor (above us…a good sign) so we wait a few minutes, let the cats out of the bags and go back to work/sleep.

My implementation’s almost done, so I should be going back to sleep myself pretty soon. Fingers crossed.

[tags]fire alarm[/tags]

The club that everybody wants to join but no one wants to visit

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Long day yesterday. I got out of work some time after 7:30, got home a little after 8:00 and went straight to C’est What with Nellie for some comfort food beer. My red curry noodles were quite hot and rather without flavour, but the Dennison’s was cold.

We came home, crashed on the couch, watched a little TV and passed out around 11:30. Clearly we have achieved new levels of lame.

.:.

Today: not much better. I’ve been relaxing a bit so far, cleaning up, reading the paper, doing laundry, checking feeds…basically, everything I can do to avoid working on my paper.

If my life is occupied with working, studying, exercising, sleeping and enjoying myself, I have come to the realization that I can do 3, or maybe 4, of those at any one time. Right now I’m working lots, sleeping less than I should, exercising when I can and putting together a few moments of enjoyment (the odd beer with my wife, for example). That leaves out school. This weekend I believe school (and work) will be absorbing what’s left of any potential enjoyment. Well, I guess I knew what I was signing up for.

.:.

We got our final condo closing date earlier this week. As of Aug 14 we’ll join the official club of people who get jumpy when the realities of a mortgage sinks in.

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Can we rig up an LCD and a bar fridge in the bathroom?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Playing basketball for 2 hours in crazy-ass heat takes a lot out of you. We had a lot more people out tonight, including some people we didn’t know, so we ended up playing full court for a while. Now I am teh tired. I want to eat, watch The Shield and shower all at the same time.

.:.

I think the lightning fried my network card. Nellie can connect but I can’t, and we’re using the same router. It just…stopped. However, I can’t be arsed to fix it when I get home this late.

.:.

In unrelated news, I would beat up a nun for some chocolate right now.

[tags]basketball in the heat, fried network card, chocolate[/tags]

And warmer than his armpits

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

When I get home from work at 8:00, the last thing I want to do is work on a paper for school.

.:.

The air today was thicker than Jim Belushi’s head. I hope it thins out and cools down before I play basketball tomorrow night. Nothing worse than breathing hard and feeling like I’m sucking broth into my lungs.

[tags]mba, pollution[/tags]

If you're depressed and have ADD and you know it, download these (and clap your hands)

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

If you’re in need of a song that’s less than two minutes in length and guaranteed to put you in a good mood, here it is: “Quito” by The Mountain Goats.

Ah shit, I’m feeling generous. Here’s another: “Half-Empty Halls” by The Evaporators.

You’re welcome.

.:.

Nellie’s away for the night, and part of tomorrow. I lazed around for a bit, did some errands, went to the Nike store (as I was paying I realized Jason Spezza was standing next to me, buying a stack of stuff as tall as my wife), went for a run, ordered some pizza, watched JFK (just ’cause), cleaned up and am now listening to music at a volume that seems to frighten the cats.

.:.

I needed a drink last night after work, so we met up with CBGB and a friend at The Auld Spot. The veggie burger was extra tasty, the beer was cold, the waitress was hot and the conversation was lively. It was just what I needed to ease into the weekend.

.:.

As of today I am 5/7 of the way through my MBA.

Aweso.

.:.

Two cool bits of news courtesy of the two best Toronto-centric blogs: Torontoist points to the new and improved driving directions on Google Maps (which is very helpful if you’ve ever tried plotting a scenic route) as well as a neat little mashup called Taxiwiz that predicts your Toronto cab fare. BlogTO, on the other hand, discusses the recent decision that permits street vendors to sell more than hot dogs.

.:.

Finally, I leave you with this hilarious little comic my friend Dino sent me.

Vegetarian Zombies

[tags]mountain goats, evaporators, nike store, jason spezza, auld spot, fun with fractions, torontoist, blogto, taxiwiz, google maps, vegetarian zombies[/tags]

From treadmills to tzatziki

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

S’been a long day. Up at 6, run, work until 8, dinner at C’est What and home around 9. Ran about 2.5 miles this morning, so that’s getting better already. May go again tomorrow, or I may take a break until Saturday…not sure yet. That falafel ain’t gonna burn itself though.

.:.

I think I took on more work today, and I have to accelerate my MBA “side-project” work plan (interim paper’s due Aug 1), but on the plus side I have a few vacation days coming up in a few weeks and Nellie’s away this weekend. Not that I don’t want her around, of course, but I can get a lot of stuff done when I’m on my own schedule. Besides, we introverts need alone time to recharge every now and then.

.:.

Nellie picked up a new adaptor and wide-angle lens for our camera today. That’ll be terribly exciting for us when we’re actually on vacation some day.

[tags]c’est what, fatblogging[/tags]