April 2006 — The Tugboat

April 30, 2006

Today truly has been moving day. I'm starting to get over this blasted sickness which I attribute to food poisoning, a cold and lack of sleep. I managed to go into work yesterday for a half day. We didn't really do anything though and I slightly regretted going. The house was an absolute madhouse yesterday. People coming and going all night. I'll give a brief run-down of the major happenings. Rich went to Ottawa for the weekend. Dave and Nicole left town forever. Katie and her family moved her massive amount of stuff out. Brown worked. Brian came and borrowed the truck, which once again was ticketed. This has become a severe annoyance. A campaign to remedy the situation will begin on Monday, ie tomorrow. Most of today was spent reclaiming the house. We moved Katie's stuff out of the living room. I moved all of Maggie's stuff upstairs. Brown and I went through the kitchen and got rid of all of Annie's stuff. We also did some spring cleaning of other stuff. We cleaned the main floor as well. It went pretty well. I'm currently on a break before we tackle the garage. It's really full of stuff and garbage. It will be a major under-taking to clean up, not looking forward to it. I'm going to get horizontal before it goes down, excuse me.

April 27, 2006

Today was the final day of training. We did driving training in the morning, which included skid pad training. It was not as enjoyable as last year. The previous day was spent doing safety training that is often seen as pointless. It wasn't what you would call incredibly enjoyable. I'm glad it's all wrapped up now. The next task will be to delivery all the seed. I was slated to make a huge delivery to Barrie and then on to Port Hope but I'm home sick today. I was up all night and now I can't get to sleep. It really is agony for me. I have a head splitter and my stomach is doing loops. I can't move from my bed, on the bright side I've been able to watch a couple of movies that I hadn't seen yet. I can't take much more of this verticalness. I'm going to get more horizontal. Hope everyone is doing better that I am.

April 25, 2006

Well, two thirds of my job training is now over, thankfully. I was part of a two hour conference call training meeting yesterday and today was a full day of Monsanto covering their bums. I was able to visit our new office which is very nice, smaller but nicer. I've got my new truck and phone but the phone is giving me a hard time for some reason. I'm not having an easy time activating it. That's Bell though, nothing is easy with them. I've got to compile a major list of tasks that need to be completed. This includes financial setup for our bills under the new housing regime. I'm not looking forward to it but I imagine that it will fall into my lap at some point. Dave is in the process of moving out and Mike is already gone. Phil and Gordo are also gone already. Guelph is emptying out pretty fast these days. I don't think there will be many people here that I know. Ah well, I'll be busy with work for the most part. My house is currently a huge mess with people moving to and fro so that is high on the list of things to remedy. Only Brown, Rich and I should be left for the summer once the smoke settles. Katie and Dave should be out by Monday, as far as I know. We can then move the stuff from the living room into a bedroom and organize the kitchen. I still don't know what all is going on and I'm just trying to survive at this point. It's a real whirlwind. Well, I'm going to clean my room and at least try and keep my space well organized. So I'm out.

April 23, 2006

Finals are over! Woooooooo! Anyways, where did I leave off in my life's narrative? Ah yes, after studying on Friday I coerced my chums Dave, Brown, and Mike to go to King's Buffet for supper. This, in case you're not aware, is a cheaper, geographically closer alternative to the manner. A cheap imitation if you would. Either way, both Brown and I were feeling crummy for whatever reason and could only muster a couple of plates. Dave took his first title, which is under-protest due to two salad plates. Mike, a vegetarian, didn't even have one full salad plate. It was a good feed for all. We went back to our learning holes after that. Studying was not very fun that night, as if it ever is. Saturday morning was an early one for again, 6:30am for the second day in a row. I'm trying to get into the work routine. It also gave me all day to study which I pretty much squandered. At 10:30am Brown and I went to get Dave from the school and then went to the grocer's and on to the bank. Our account was in pretty bad shape but our money bolstered it back above over-draft. It's all good. The account will be be closed next week at some point. After that I hit the books, and by that I mean I played the Godfather for a couple of hours, turns out my will-power is weaker than expected. I did manage to get through the notes twice and reviewed the summary notes 4 times. There was a series of calculations with practice problems that I didn't bother with. This was all after I discovered that I had a 56% in the course before writing the final exam. This meant that with a 60% on the final I would still get a 70% in the course. I did the math. I was burnt out from studying at this point and I was also feeling sickly which I'm not completely over yet. I blame the lack of sleep or something. Either way I nailed the final shut anyways so I expect a good mark. I came back, ate some crappy soup and laid down. I didn't get up until this morning. I watched sports and GameKillers. Look it up, funny concept for a show. Anyways, we're going to try and have some kind of final sports event this morning and then a hockey team based BBQ in the afternoon even though its raining like a bastard and has been for a couple of days now. Well, hope everyone else is doing alright. Phillips out.

April 21, 2006

I'm still having some difficulty posting on a regular basis. I doubt this post will be up for a couple of days. I have just returned from my second to last exam of the year. I aced it. This was an easy course and a second year course at that. I feel that it will provide a much needed boost to my GPA. I haven't done anything really exciting in the past couple of days until this morning. I have mainly been holed up in my room studying and watching television. I really do excel at wasting time when it comes to studying things I don't overly enjoy. The exam was pretty easy so I didn't worry too much about it. I've been having a sore neck lately, just thought I would throw that in there. I think it has something to do with the way I've been reading my notes on my bed. We'll see if it clears up after finals. Anyways, back on topic, after the exam I caught the bus to the mall and had to wait for awhile for the mall to actually open. Who knew that the mall didn't open until 10, well the building is open but all the stores are closed, what happened to opening at 9? Either way, this gave me a chance to par-take of the new bathrooms which are in good shape for public washrooms. I found a bench and sat it out. Just before 10 am the blast shields on Sears opened and a throng of old people that were waiting patiently outside hurriedly shuffled into Sears. It was both sad and funny to watch. I followed suit and was actually the third person to reach the watch repair counter. I got two new batteries in my watch that had stopped in the night. The light is operational again, hurray! I then stopped in a video game shop where I bought The Godfather game for Xbox. I also got Call of Duty for cheap because it was pre-played (former property of Roger's Video apparently). It is going to be hard not to play these games in the next couple of days because a brief trial run confirmed what I had expected. My progress was saved on the Godfather. Oh well, I've got shreds of will-power. I'll keep everyone posted.

April 19, 2006

This is me returning for my longest absence of the month thus far. The dry spells could get longer once I begin work just to give y'all a warning. I'm coming to you here late into the night, after eleven. It's late for me. I can't help waking up before seven each morning. I blame the sun. Anyways. I ventured home to the promised land for Easter. The whole Jesus is back celebration. I can be mildly sacrilegious because I've done some light research on the subject. Back on track though. We left early on the Good Friday and got home early as well. That night I was bored out of my skull so I went to a friend's house where we watched the worst movie ever made involving Christmas, entitled Surviving Christmas. I've seen Affleck suck before but this really takes the cake. No wonder he doesn't make movies anymore. I didn't sleep well that night because our basement and thus my room was flooded. This meant that I had to sleep on the couch, the short couch. I got to know my knees a little better but other than that I just tossed and turned. I transferred to my parents bed after they had vacated. Upon re-awakening I was called into action. I had to load a transport with my father. It was a double truck ordeal with much awkward bag throwing, not ergonomically sound as Dave put it. This was followed by a trip to town with my parents to acquire a new BBQ among other things. The BBQ was then setup. Supper followed, not BBQ though. The evening was spent wishing that our internet was not down and that I had something to do. Luckily it didn't last long as I passed out at seven in the pm with a case of the crummy tummy. I woke up at nine pm and transferred to my sister's bed for the night. She is shorter and did better on the couch. This would be the sleeping arrangement for the rest of the trip. Sunday morning was spent in the yard playing various sports. I then drove my sister to get her bike repaired. I don't recall what went down in the afternoon. Monday was spent doing house based chores and watching TV. It was another early night. We left early Tuesday and headed back to the south. That night, after moving my sister out of her house, we enjoyed the company of the Wade and the T-horse. We had four guests that night.

Today was spent studying and wasting time. Phil, G-Force, and Joanne came over for awhile in the evening and we once again watched the high school films that we made. It was good times. Tomorrow will likely be the same, if all goes as planned. That is all, enjoy. Also, note the April 13th entry. You haven't seen it yet because I've been having some trouble posting and accessing the site. Anyways, Phillips out.

April 13, 2006

Yesterday was an interesting day. I managed to write my exam without a hitch, I'm confident that I passed the exam and also the course. I got a nice little boost when he handed back assignments that we didn't know the marks for going in and I did very well on them. But let us start at the beginning of this tale, well pretty much from the last time I gave you a word. I have re-captured the ability to study. Late on the 11th I re-learned my fine art and studied like a dog to get ready for my exam, well maybe not that hard but anyways, I studied a lot. So pretty much that is what I did until the exam with the exception of the hour that Brown and I went to the driving range for some reason. I actually went in my pajamas and slippers, the slippers were taken off when I donned my golf shoes. I didn't have a glove in my bag though and I got a wicked blister. Turns out a suck at that driving range, I don't know what it is, I'm fine on a course most of the time but that particular range, on the elevated level I'm terrible. Anyways back to the story. After the exam I was stumbling to my car in a post-exam haze when I remembered I was supposed to meet Todd in the library. I did and we went to Johnston Hall where his room-mate helped us to make free copies of notes. After the exchange I returned home to polish off season 3 of Trailer Park Boys. I've now watched 3.5 seasons in the last week. In my defense they are only eight twenty minute episodes per season. I had to watch the part of season 4 from my new room. Yes, that's right, last night on a whim we moved all my stuff across the house into the now empty room. We had all my stuff moved in under 40 minutes. Pretty good considering we only moved 3 things intact, the rest had to be dismantled. Either way, I'm all set up here now. It really reminds me of last summer when we lived in the other house and my room was this format. Good times, but I ramble. I'll be going home tomorrow so I might post or I might not post on the 15th, only time will tell, you'll have to check to find out, assuming that you're not reading this on the 17th or something and the answer is as plain as day. If you are then you should have checked sooner to capture the suspense. If you like suspense, if you don't then don't worry about it. Now, I'm rambling. Time to eat or study, you know it. Phillips out.

April 11, 2006

The last day before my exams start to erupt. I have two eruptions slated for the next two days after today and then the lengthy journey home to the promised land to visit the family at Easter. I have secured a ride with the Big T to return on the Tuesday. This will be followed by the studying and completion of exams on the 21st and 22nd. A brief BBQ will persist on the 23rd at our buddy Pinder's house and then the work begins. There is speculation of a party happening after the first day of work but I can't be held responsible for that. Things are moving along nicely and I imagine that yesterday will mark the beginning of the busy period for Chase. It should be non-stop insanity. Tomorrow also marks the end of an era. Wade, who we all know and love, will be shutting the book on his time in the east. I'm sure New Brunswick was a hoot but it's good to be getting Wade back, for a few days anyways before he ventures into the great beyond of Western Canada. I plan to see him either at home or down here before said departure. I myself cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. This first exam is likely to be my hardest and most crucial. I have studied fairly hard for it so far and I am almost through the notes once but I don't feel prepared for it yet. I would like a seventy in the class that can be offset by other higher marks but I just don't know if I can pull that off. I missed some integral parts of the course when I was away for my personal reasons. Also studying has been a real effort these days. I have to return my movies, thanks for reminding me, wait, I reminded myself. Either way, I'm going to get back to my recurrent selection in segregating populations now. Enjoy the day, do it for me as mine will be terrible.

April 9, 2006

Well Dude's Day Out was a success. Phil got to celebrate his birthday at the big ball game and we all got to have a fun day. We saw the infamous Matt Wood and the always hoot Johno. We had a good meal to kick things off at Hooters. The game followed, the Jays were down early but came back to win a huge one. Solid work by the bullpen was the main factor. Phil and I stayed in our seats the whole time and took in the game. Mike and Dave wandered off in hopes of getting a happy birthday wish on the Jumbo-tron for Phil. Turns out that kind of things has to be done four business days in advance and costs around $100. So we expected them to be gone for a short time to find this stuff out but they were gone for about 5 innings or two hours, roughly. We were starting to get a little worried by the time they returned. They had gone on a tour of sorts and visited the 500 level and the 100 level. They watched two plus innings on in the standing room of the 100 level right behind home plate. This produced some good photos. We left after the eighth inning as we felt the game was in hand for the Jays. We went hard to Casey's downtown to take advantage of the free meal for birthdays policy. Johno meet at us at this juncture. We had a decent meal and the others enjoyed some beers. We got the subway after that and headed uptown. Phil and Johno went to his place and the rest of us continued to Wood's. After a brief snag in terms of directions we managed to locate his building and gain entry without a hassle. Ah, the art of tail-gating. Wood finally got to use his roof-top pool and we went into his apartment to look at his amazing viewing device. It's a monitor and tv in one and it is like 42". It costs $1000 from Costco. I was blown away. We got back on the subway after a while and headed back to the bus station. I slept on the way back so I can't say much about that. I got home and got ready for bed. I talked to my good friend Joanne for awhile about some troubling things before retiring. Work up this morning and started work on the Dude's Day Out slideshow. It is done and it is huge in both stature and content. I'm now going to begin my studying for my exam on Wednesday. It should be a real hoot. That is all for today. Phillips out.

April 7, 2006

The last day of classes is complete and yes I finished the paper. Dave is reading it right now. It was meant to be ten pages but has spilt over into thirteen pages. I would say that it is a modest effort and I'm glad it is now behind me. I will be sending it off later today. I have discovered a new addiction in my life. It is The Godfather video game on xBox. I rented it yesterday and played it longer than any human should on the first day. It is a cross between the Grand Theft Auto game series and the Godfather movies. This has made for an amazing spectacle of plot and violence. Two things that are seemingly integral in video games in today's culture. I will submit my paper for grading and retire to the living room to feed my addiction. I will have to eat in that time also. I'm looking forward to the big weekend coming up. Sunday will be a study day as exams now encroach as is their way when classes have run out. I'm pretty scatter brained at the instant and can't come up with anything else to write about. I just want to get that paper sent out as soon as possible so I can play that game guilt free. It really is a sickness. I played into the night last night after my brain had ceased to be of any use to me. It was fabulous and scary that something so trivial could control my actions so easily and completely. Good thing people are researching these things. I know because I was invited to join the study but had to decline due to school work pressures. Well that seems to be enough text for the time being. I'm going to light it up photo...ly at the game but don't expect to see any of them, unless you come to my house and look at my slideshow that I will surely make. I prepared two slideshows last weekend of pictures I had taken in the week. It's weird but I enjoy it and I enjoy presenting them to my friends. Either way, I'm going to fade into the ether here. Phillips out.

April 5, 2006

Hump day is here. Hump referring to the middle of the week and not to anything else. I should be working on my final paper but I can't bring myself to do it. I've returned from an adventure that saw us get stuff from McDonalds and from Tim Horton's. We consumed the stuff. Good story eh? It was much more of an adventure than that, as it usually is. I had a fairly enjoyable day today until snow started to fly, that brought on some pissed off sessions followed by some swearing. We also got groceries today; this was carried out in a very organized fashion. I met the new house people at 1:30pm and signed off the lease again. I ran into Dave and we rendez-voused with Phil and the G-Force at 2:23pm. We then proceeded to Staples where we met Mike Ward. The quintet of us headed to the grocer's and filled the car with food-stuffs. After dropping everyone off at their locations we headed home and unpacked the food. It was a really fun adventure and makes me look forward to Dudes Day Out. This is what we've dubbed our trip to Toronto. It is going to happen, we're going to the Jays game and eating at both Hooters and Casey's on either end of the game. It should be a fun time. Until then I'm going to try and will myself to do this paper.

April 3, 2006

So here we are in a new month. I've been working pretty hard these past few day. I did a pretty big lab and prepared a presentation today and went to two hours of class. It was a pretty tough assignment, it's only worth a marginal amount though so I don't mind if it's not 100% correct. Now I just have to present the assignment tomorrow in lab or class and I'm good. I also have one paper to write. I finished the research for it over the weekend so I just have to write it out now. Hopefully it won't be too bad. There is some talk about a trip to Toronto on the upcoming weekend. It will likely be a day trip. I have a couple days to relax before my first two exams. Then the hardcore studying begins. I'm losing interest in this post today so I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up. I'll read my book about conspiracy theories and then retire for the night. I have the rare chance to sleep in tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that. Too everyone out there...good night.