Last Day

Well all last days should be epic, you should remember them well, and more importantly you should make everyone that you leave behind remember you as well, preferably in the good sense. Currently I am stuck as to what I should do. I am currently removing everything from my computer that I want, and I have to go through google earth as well, that might take a while. I have a couple of magazines to read as well as some leftover clean up to do, that will take me about 1/2 an hour. There is something strange about your last day, and I think what makes this day so strange is that I know that it is over, I have energy like I have never had before, I am happy. Happy enough that I might sing Waltzing Matilda in front of the secretary, that would leave a lasting memory that is for sure.

Well that is it for this blog for now, if you need to find me you can do so here

Or here: http://theofficeblog-awayfromtheoffice.blogspot.com/

Days Left:

What am I doing right now : singing Waltzing Matilda

Titleless

Well today the 2 day count down began, and ended. It is kind of strange, knowing that you have less than 16 hours left to spend in your office. Only 16 hours of work to do, most of which will be spent cleaning out your junk adorning your office, and tidying up, organizing your office and wiping the hard drive of your computer of anything that should not be left beind. Well, with 1 day left to go, I think there is only one thing left to say.

Well This is just about it.

Days Left: 1

Smelly feet and hot women

Today I had my last doctors appointment, it was to get a second pair of orthodics for my shoes. But today was special, for the second time I was seen by the doctor and her rather young and good looking student. I met the student the first day she was there and I just found out that I was her first patient she ever saw, I do feel special today. Well we started talking about stuff and my new trip to Australia. She became rather envious and mentioned her trip to Europe last year. It was interesting what she said though about her favorite country, she loved Austria the most because it felt like home. The strange thing is, my favorite country was also Austria, because of that exact same reason. I was about to make an attempt on hitting on her, when I came back to where I was. She was currently very close to my bare feet and at that exact instant I also became painfully aware of the fact that I have foot odor. I am not sure if anyone has ever tried to hit on someone while they are playing with your smelly feet, but I decided not to be the first to try. Though sadly now I wish I had nothing ventured nothing gained. Ah well.

Days Left 2

Oh Pedal Power, How I Will Miss You

So this morning I woke up this morning missing my travel companion, after abandoning him at my brothers last night. That is right, I dropped my bicycle off at my brothers place for the next 6 months. Yes, that bike and I go way back, to the days when I was a kid and bike was hanging in my dad's shop unused and abandoned. I rescued it from it's place of sorrow, and after some oil, labor, and new tires we went for our first ride. It was wonderful, we cruised over hills, through the fields of barley, wheat, canola and hay. It was all great, until I realized I didn't tighten the nut on the front wheel. Of course I won't bore you with the details of those exact circumstances of the before mentioned realization. For example I won't mention how the wheel came off after I hit a little bump, or how the forks on the front dug into the ground and came to a sudden and absolute stop. I will remain silent about how I became airborne, and most definitely won't discuss the extravagant landing. Needless to say I limped home bike in tow. It was upon my arrival in Edmonton that the bike became my best travel partner. Every day that I went to work it came with me, though my car did not like this, but at 14 buck a day to park down town I could afford the pedal power. We covered many a happy mile together, and many an unhappy one to, but we did it together. So for our last time I took him out on the town, literally, from Yellowhead to Whyte ave we did rome, me drunk, and him steering, and that may have been why we ran into that hedge just past 118th ave. But it was a wonderful ride, through the Legislature grounds and across the high level bridge, all the lights of the city twinkling in the cool night air. For a last ride it was a wonderful run, one both of us will cherish.

I will miss you old friend, you were my wheels, and I your engine.
Days Left:3
Missing my bike

Cookie Hat

I am down to 5 days at work.............wow, only 1 work week left, this is going to take some getting used to. What am I supposed to do when I am done.....oh ya, something useful. Anyway with 5 days left I have decided to honor this day by adding bling to my office using certain office materials. AKA bling my office without spending money. Well first I made this for myself to bad these things didn't come in gold. Once I blung myself to the maximal allowable limit, I ran out of ideas. Lucky the dog wanted to join in, and I couldn't refuse him. And after much shoe horning and applying peer pressure we even got Larry the duck to join in. But when it came to the globe, we were defeated, because it was the world, and the world was cool, it didn't need any bling. We couldn't really argue with that. So why me, the duck, and the dog were basking in our new found blingness, the ultimate in cool hit my desk. The apple walked in wearing this, that's right, it was wearing the chocolate chip cookie sombrero. This is like unbeatable, no amount of bling can beat a combination of cookie and apple, health and sweetness. We were sick with envy, so sick that only one thing would fix the problem. I ate them, it was barbaric, and sooo good. I wonder what the doctor would say. Until next time.


Days left: 4
Blingness: Oh ya

What Would You Find in my Desk?

Well today is a short day, so I am going to kind bugging out on this blog and not attacking anything that requires any sort of thought process. So in true lazy Friday fashion, here is a list of interesting things you will find in my office.

-Lucky the dog
-A glass globe
-Ming balls (no I am not referring to the ones between my legs)
-A wooden duck named Larry
-Stress ball (I use it to bounce off the walls of my office when I am bored, one day I did it enough the guy in the office next to mine started banging on the wall.)
-A barometer in the shape of a ships wheel
-Chess set (for when I play people through e-mail over a couple of weeks)
-Portable radio (for when the Internet or power dies)

Well that is it for today
Days left:5
Next week, office art

It Was One Of Those Mornings

This morning was incredibly frustrating, I was useless beyond belief. It was one of those morning that you couldn't find your nose if it was attached to your face, believe me this morning I tried. Everything I did this morning seemed to put me farther behind, or simply turned out in vain. I slept through my alarm, couldn't find my car keys, then my wallet, then my apartment keys magically vanished, then I ran out of cereal, though I have 2 liters of milk in the fridge. It took me 15 minutes to find my cell phone, which turned out to be in my pocket of the jeans I was wearing, and I tripped over the power cord of my new computer, luckily no damage was caused. Eventually all items were accounted for after some serious time was burned, well except for the cereal, I think I ate that or not.......I think I left it on the counter actually. As for my day at work, it hasn't been much of an improvement, but at least now I am getting paid to be frustratedly backwards. Oh well, back to work.

Days left 6

Car Alarms

For about an hour today, this stupid car alarm was going off outside of my building, and do you know how hard it is to sleep when something annoying as that is consistently honking in the background. I was tempted to return downtown to it's well deserved silence using either a large gun, or perhaps more likely a set of wire cutters, as it would draw less police officers. I think they should outlaw those things, because they seem to cause more disturbance than they are worth. If a car alarm goes off everybody just ignores them, and when an hour later the car still spewing it's hateful horn filled blabber into my peaceful stratosphere, it's owner yet to claim it's tantrupting child. At this point angry onlookers start to circle the temper tantrupting Audi (have you ever noticed that the car alarms that are left unattended the longest are usually the more expensive ones) with various tools of silence hoping that intimidation will prevail where patience has not. Eventually the owner shows and quickly drives away in hopes of outrunning the angry mob. I think we should start fining these people for abandonment, that is what we don if they left their child screaming in a parking lot, why not their car? I hate car alarms.

Days Left:7
Things I am doing right now: Research

Ok, ok, so I failed

Ya I know that I missed my blog post on Friday, but I have a good reason, or should have a good reason. I stayed home to study for the exam I have tomorrow, but ended up banging my head against the wall, as it was less painful than trying to understand this subject. I momentarily wondered if the introduction of a case of Richards and 2 bottles of cheap wine would help my brain translate this alien language (I personally know that at least one of my university friends swears by this method of studying, and it seems to be working in his case), but then I would be out of alcohol for the aftermath of the exam, and I will definitely need it then. The strange thing is, I don't think I am going to pass this exam, and even stranger, I don't seem to be worried about that, I am not panicking, stressed out, or phased in any way. Usually I would be bothered by this, but not right now, in fact if I was stressed or worried about it, I would probably find it easier to concentrate. I hope I pass this exam, it would be nice, since then I wouldn't have to try to write it again.

I won't be posting tomorrow, as I will be writing an exam and don't plan on touching a computer at all tomorrow.

Days left: 2 less than my last post
Test left to write: 1

I forgot how hard this was

I am currently trying to study for a rather difficult test, on my own. The problem is that I have forgotten how, I have been out of school for a couple of years now, and getting back into the grove of studying is by no means as easy as I thought it would be. There are way to many interesting distractions to better occupy my precious time. Apparently watching Paris Hilton appear on
Supernatural is more important than learning how to properly query a cadastral database built in a waterfall approach in order to locate .................................................................................................... ...................................................................................... SKA........sorry, fell asleep there. Ya, this is definitely harder than I remember. Must re-learn how to study, test is in 4 days, I think I will take the next 2 off in order to study for them.

Oh Goody

Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
For those of you who don't know, the way my job is set up is is that we randomly pull work from people in industry to do inspections, and make sure they are doing everything up to set standards. Our two main goals are to protect the public, protect their fellow practitioners. The problem is I report to 2 different bosses, and to an overseeing board of volunteer's. The problem is the board of volunteer's changes every year, and most of the files take more than a year to clear the system, also they don't really have balls. They don't want to hit those members who have very poor working habits with fines or stuff to force them to change their ways. Today one of the worst plans I have ever seen or worked on went to the board, and instead of giving this guy a boot in the ass, they jive him a slap on the wrist and send him home. Why even bother working on these anymore, the board isn't going to follow them up anyway.

Depressed, Yea
Days left 12

If I Could Think Of A Title, I am Sure It Would Be Epic

I have 13 days left, and I have more work to do now, than I had at any point in my last 2 years here, how that happened I will never know. Most companies when you are about to leave lighten your work load to allow an easy slide into unemployment, but not this job, no they had to wait until the last minute to say "Oh, before you go, could you get this short list of things to get done" (and proceed to unroll a piece of paper slightly shorter than a football field) "We meant to give this to you 2 years ago, but we lost it." I think I need a beer, make that a keg, though it could be hard to store that in my desk drawer.

Days Left: 13
Doctors Appointments 3/4
Going for a beer.....Definitely

An Early Morning Post

I guess it happens every once in a while, I have to write a post before lunch. This is because today I have a doctors appointment around noon (my last doctors appointment), and won't be back in the office until Tuesday, which reminds me, I need to buy new shoes. Getting to work the last couple of days has been.........interesting. It was the first snowfall of this fall, and of course everybody seems to have forgotten how to drive in the white stuff, like 30 collisions in under an hour. Man, is it going to be chilly this weekend, and I am going hunting early in the morning, I think I will be packing some hot water.

Research

Ok, so today I got to do a really interesting thing today, I got to look at a very old survey (a bit over 135 years old) and the hardest part of working on this plan is that you have to do a large amount of research, very old research. It is kind of fun to look at the surveys that have taken place over the last 130 years so that you can follow them and see what has happened, see how the area has changed, the key though is to use your imagination to see what buildings would rise and fall, build and bulldoze. You can almost imagine the area changing, just don't get caught daydreaming to much, you still have to find the posts and not screw up, but I will work on it some more tomorrow, because it is 4:56, and I better get ready to go.

P.S. It is snowing, this will be a fun commute home.

Days Left:15
Daydreaming.....Always

The 3 O'Clock Wall

Around 3 O'clock it usually happens, I run into the wall. Everything stops, even the clock seems to stall as my energy level plummets, my drive to complete anything stalls, and my arms hurt from working at a desk all day. It feels like running into a wall, you don't really want to do anything, but you can't go home. The only really good thing to do is write a blog, check your e-mail and read a couple of work related magazines in hopes to bypass the 3 O'clock wall and wait for the 4 O'clock freight train to give you that last hour pick me up before the drive home. And here it is, and I better catch it before it goes.

Days Left: 16
Riding the 4:00 train

Yikes

I have 6 minutes to post something before the clock reaches midnight, and I fail my blog everyday left I work. The reason why this post is so late is that I was out in the field all day, and of course the weather has never been better, as long as you were in some other country. Todays field conditions: cold rain, no sun, and a 70km wind from the North that turned your fingers blue in minutes or less. The boss stayed in the truck so as to better allow me the full pleasure of digging holes in weather that had only one goal, make your life misserable. It really mirrored my time at this job, missery, it was still better than being in the office though. Now must go and defrost.

Days left:17
Frozen fingers: 10

Fear

Fear, of all of our human emotions fear is by far the most unique, the most powerful, and the most dangerous. It can tell you when danger is close, give you a shot of adrenaline when you need to outrun a large furry something who would like to have you for an afternoon snack, which can be very useful. But it is extremely dangerous, because it can send the mind into panic mode, or leave you frozen in place. That is what makes fear so unique, it can turn you into the Hulk, or a dear in the headlights, kind of the extreme ends of the spectrum don't you think? What is so dangerous about fear is that it can kill you. Let me explain more accurately, when fear grips you, sometimes you panic, stampede, crush and rush. The funny thing is, when fear strikes the last thing you need is panic. The people who are remembered for doing great things in a crisis are those who kept a cool head and thought the situation through, finding a solution while everyone else ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. Of course there is also the fact that it can turn you into concrete and leave you immobile, as the train comes barrelling down the tracks. How did evolution ever give us those options, immobile, panicking heard, or superman. That is a weird combination.

Days Left: 18

Hope

I seem to suddenly be inspired to go for broke here following yesterdays shot at youth. Maybe I will take a shot at hope today. I have seen very few turning points in the world, where people have been given hope, where it was a time of hope. I have seen it happen, I have seen it twice. When Edmonton made it's playoff run in 2006, people said it was a winning fever, but they were wrong. It was hope, hope that Edmonton after years of preforming slightly better than a hung over collage student, they could play, they could play well, and that Stanly would be coming home. Then last year I watched what happened South of the 49th parallel. After 8 years of disappointment, annoyance, and flat out hatred at George W. Bush. It wasn't just America who hated their president, the whole world looked at the Whitehouse with frustration and hatred. That is why when America and the world saw Obama they saw change, they saw something better, they saw hope. As soon as I saw this I knew that others were seeing it to. It wouldn't have mattered who the republicans had put up against him, because everybody was seeing hope. If the republicans had truly understood that they would have left the brain deprived Alaskan cougar in her frozen tundra. As soon as she began talking people didn't see hope, they saw George Bush's long lost Alaskan cousin, they saw what everybody wanted to leave behind. In the end the republicans could not compete with hope, and it cost them dearly. If you really want to see where this was the strongest look at the younger generation, and look how they voted. There are many times in history where one spark of hope creates a fire of change, look at the protests during the nineteen sixties. Even when people were getting shot the damage was done, because hope was sweeping the nation, and change was not far behind. If you want to see what happens when hope is so completely lost, have a look at the dirty thirties. Those were years were there was no hope anywhere, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. I have a couple of stories told to me by my grandfather, and none of them are pretty, there is a reason they call it the great depression. The human race is a sad creature when hope is lost. I think one of the people who understood this the best was Harvey Milk. The speech he left behind should be studied by all, because as he says "You gotta give them hope".

Days left:19

We Are Young

The other day I was standing in the front greeting area involved in a conversation with 2 people I knew from outside of the office and my boss. The conversation was not involving anything specific, and was really not worth mentioning, until my boss was asked how our staffing situation was. Now a little back story needs to be involved here because for quite a while our office best resembled a revolving door when it came to personal. The list of reasons why this office went through employees like coffee starts at my shoulder, run down my arm, out the door, and down the hall. Lets just say I feel no need to list them right now. Though it should be noted that several of the reasons seem to be tethered to the above mentioned boss. Well for a while everything seemed to calm down, but a couple of months ago another one of our secretaries decided to leave, it should also be noted that she was only 21at the time. She decided that she wanted to move to Paris for a couple of years in order to try something new, I could tell that she wasn't happy here anymore, and anyone who couldn't see that is blind, deff and dumb. My boss was of course surprised. However in the words of my boss it was "She has these grand plans of moving to Paris to become a nanny", and it was in a tone that almost held disdain. Before I could properly correct him for being such an idiot for not being able to understand his employees or anyone younger than the previous ice age, they were called into a meeting. It was once again time for annoyance for my boss to boil at the surface as it has done all to many times throughout the past 2.5 years. I was upset that I didn't step up and nail the bastard, that I didn't stand up for her, for me, for the young, for us. This was also the time that I realized that the young can never be represented by the old, and as we get older we loose touch with the young. The old get lost in the in the past, and the young roll past as the old daydream. I am young, we are young, the world is in our hands, dream and don't let the old slow you down.

Days Left: 20
Annoyed at my boss: Always