Summer Is Here

A month and a half ago, at the first break of warmer weather, I stopped wearing pants, and replaced them with shorts.

I stopped wearing sneakers, and replaced those with sandals.

I was so happy that winter was over, that Spring was enough to make me think it was Summer.

It wasn't summer though, but today it feels like we are much closer: for the first time this year I'm sitting in my living room, shorts and a t-shirt, at 10pm, with my balcony door wide open letting the fresh air fill the apartment (Sarah's wrapped up in a blanket).

There's one more accent on the night that makes it feel more like summer.

To kind of celebrate what has been a pretty good week, I'm having a few drinks tonight. All winter I have been drinking home-made wine, but I'm all out of that and decided to make a cocktail. Cocktails seem to be better associated with summer. The mix of fruit gives it a summer-like feel and a provides a perfect accent to a nice summer night.

Please enjoy the slide show of Cosmo to go along with the Cosmo I'm drinking right now. . .

For all of the conspiracy theorists out there...

Ron Paul Hits No. 1 on NY Times

Government Knows Best Once Again

Raw Milk Production Lands Amish Man In Jail

Isn't it great when people A get to arrest people B because people A don't like what people B are selling, or even eating?

Its an awful place to live when our elected government can choose what we're not allowed to eat, drink, or buy as individuals. And, in an economy suffering through a recession, you'd think the US government would encourage this type of small business, for the greater good. Of course, this type of government over-regulation and intolerance is a small example of the type of things the government is doing to hurt their own economy, and in the process, take away freedoms from good citizens.

Updated: Canada vs Latvia

Yesterday I had my Sunday evening laid out. Sarah and I had loads of laundry to do, we were going to make burritos for dinner, Sarah and I had work to do for our pre-marital counseling, and I had my accounting class that night.

At 20 to 4 my phone rings and its Suzanne. I'm expecting her to ask me to come over and play poker as this happens occasionally. I was fully prepared to tell her the list of things I needed to do, and then she dropped the bomb:

Daniel had an extra ticket to watch Canada play Latvia.

As Daniel put it, this is a no brainer...

Here's a slideshow of some random pics I took with my BlackBerry:



This is a good clip, check out the hit at the start on the left hand side and then later Canada has a scoring chance:



This is a short clip of the crowd after Canada scored, Daniel's in this for a split second:



This is after Canada scored again, there's a blur of myself:



Team Canada leaving the ice:



Long celebration at the end of the game. . .lots of screaming:

Sarah's Big Purchase

You would think me, being the male of the relationship, would have had to beg for a new TV. Not in this relationship. Sarah has been wanting one for months now, and I had done well to resist.

Don't get me wrong, I too longed for a large, clear, crisp screen to go along with my XBOX and for watching movies. Not to mention, I can now make good use of the surround sound system I won over a year ago.

I have just resisted the idea of spending the $$$. As I grow older, I grow cheap (Sarah says I've always been cheap).

However, the past couple of days I have grown weak. In my new job I work around mostly guys, who play video games constantly and talk about their beautiful TVs.

So I finally became weak, and Sarah finally has her new TV, and it is beautiful. It is my second love. I sit in front of it just to sit in front of it. I am awed by it. I never thought NHL 08 could ever be so amazing. Gladiator was stunning.

42", 1080p, LCD, Sharp Aquos

Wishing my sister a belated happy birthday

Yesterday I called Suzanne to see what her and Daniel were up to last night. As per normal she's studying straight through the next 7 weeks. I can't imagine the wealth of knowledge she has. I'm sure at the end of the next 7 weeks, there were will be several more weeks she needs to study. . .it seems to go in a circle for her.

After we had gotten off the phone, she called back after a few minutes and asked if I had forgotten something.

My mind quickly searched for the date, realizing April 30th had come and gone.

I felt more ashamed than guilty.

So, Sarah and I made a visit to the Superstore and got her a little something to hopefully make her day full of studying better.

Below are picture of the cheesecake, some lucky bamboo and the card we picked up for her.

All pictures taken with my BlackBerry

Work

2 weeks ago I began my new position at Research In Motion. My formal title is "Associate, BPTS" (BlackBerry Partner Technical Support).

I came into the job very excited and still am. Moving from my previous position into this one, within the first year of employment while lacking any formal technical training, is unique and I've been given a lot of support and encouragement from those I work for.

A year ago I was strongly considering enrolling at CompuCollege and spending $12,000 just to get into a job like this. It seems opting to take the position RIM offered to me while continuing my degree turned out to be a wiser decision.

In my new position, I'm troubleshooting issues our customer's are having with our BlackBerry smartphones or our software. Customers that I speak to typically have been on the phone already with their carrier support. When the carrier reaches a dead end and can't fix their customer's issue, they call Research In Motion and I'll answer the phone and take ownership over the issue.

I spent half of the first week listening in on phone calls, and the last half of the week taking calls with someone sitting behind me.

This week I spent the morning in formal training sessions. Our trainer appeared to be very well trained to be a trainor, but not very trained on the technical material he was teaching. On multiple occasions others in the training class (those with formal technical training) stumped our trainor, and on multiple occasions he provided information even I knew to be false. Its hard to learn from someone you know has already provided the wrong information on a number of instances. I got the impression most of what he knew was taken directly from the Power Point slide. At least he was a bit entertaining so the mornings went by quick.

Most of my learning really took place during the afternoons when I was taking more calls with a seasoned representative sitting with me. By the end of this week I started to feel overwhelmed with the amount of information I was not yet familiar with and today I opted to just listen into calls again so that I could focus on the information without worrying about the customer I had on the phone.

So overall the first couple of weeks have gone well.

Sarah has been left in charge of her day care this week and next week as her boss has gone to Florida. She seems to be enjoying the responsibility she's been given, although she is still very tired at night due to the stress and rambunctious little ones.

Tonight her and I are sharing a bottle of wine and just crashing, probably going to watch a movie.

(she's already napping next to me, so maybe I'll watch the movie alone)

I'm out.

King Harper to visit ailing subjects in Fredricton

Our infallible leader is planning a site seeing tour of the flooded city of Fredricton.

This is sure to lift the spirits of those affected, as people will now feel as if the man who robs from them, cares for them.

At least citizens will get back some of the money stolen from them in the form of "aid".

Ron Paul hits No. 1 on Amazon.com

Ron Paul's new book, Revolution: A Manifesto, hits No. 1 on Amazon.com and has completely sold out.

Revolution: A Manifesto will also debut at No. 7 on the New York Times Bestsellers List and No. 14 on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List.