Month: June 2009

Sorry to all other new Godsons out there…Evan takes the cake.

I got a B in my Spanish course. Unless there is some random course I have forgotten about, I now am the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts with a Specialization in Communications.

Heck yeah.

Last night Vero and I babysat William and Philippe for a few hours which was good times except for the fact that they are turning out to be like their father as all they had eyes for was the lady in the house.

When Eric got home, he was showing me some excellent Nine Inch Nails DVDs that he downloaded. I was shocked to hear that it took a few days to download them. What the heck? For me to download an entire 4.3GB of files, it would have taken me months at my slow trickle of 10K/sec max over torrents. He said he averages around 150K/sec.

This is ridiculous and now I’ve seen what is the difference between Rogers and Bell. I have always known that Rogers shapes my torrent downloads and I assumed Bell did as well, but it looks like it’s still worthwhile looking into Bell.

How about you folks out there? Any thoughts on the ISP bandwagon?

On Wednesday, I didn’t get a chance to sleep in as Trish, Caroline and I hit the open road to go down to Syracuse for some shopping at the outlet mall. It was due time that I got some new clothes and I also needed some new shoes.

The trip was fairly uneventful, although I do remember seeing two cops trying to get a deer out of the middle median of the highway. Both Trish and I saw the cops around the deer, but Caroline swears that she saw them shoot the deer. I find this quite hard to believe considering we were in the front and she was in the back. I really find it hard to believe that a tenth of a second later, a deer was shot! On the highway no less!

We made good time (probably due to the fact that we were travelling on a Wednesday!) and pulled into the Outlet Malls around 10:30AM. As soon as we pulled up, we were horrified as Trish said “Is it closed on Wednesday?” There was literally ten cars in the parking lot! We are lucky in that it was still open. Trish and I treated ourselves to some Arby’s and I made the age-old mistake of ordering ice tea. I’m sure I’ve already mentioned this somewhere, but ice tea in the United States DOES NOT CONTAIN SUGAR! Argh, it is disgusting. I could not finish more than three sips and Trish was gracious enough to pass me some of her own drink.

The day was fairly uneventful. I went to Banana Republic to pick up some pants and a nifty new hat for the summer. We then moseyed over to the Kitchen appliance store and marvelled at their wares. In the end, I got a pair of Pumas at 40% off (plus I could have potentially got an additional 30% off if I left an old pair of shoes there to some African country!), some dress shoes, some shirts, some shorts, and a Nike Sensor which goes into my shoe and interacts with my iPod to measure my pace while jogging. It’s quite neat. All Nike shoes supposedly have a spot in the heel to insert this sensor. I also managed to pick up a Nickelback DVD I couldn’t find in Canada as well as the new Tenacious D DVD for $12! That was increcible considering I’ve only seen it for $30+ in Canada.

After the day was done, we headed into Watertown to go to Ruby Tuesdays where we had some amazing steak the last time. Unfortunately, this magical steak must have only been in Syracuse at the time as we were quite unimpressed with our food this time around. We contemplated bringing some mini-burgs back across the border but upon asking the waitress if she knew if we can transport them, she thought we could not as they were a meat product. This was also our thought during the last trip.http://palmer.grumpster.com/?p=1214 So no mini-burgs were bought and we headed for the border.

I’m glad we decided to hit the road a little earlier this time around rather than arriving home around midnight like the usual trips. I think if we just stick to the outlet mall and not go into Syracuse, life is good.

When we hit the border, Trish’s favourite story comes into play. We pull up to the booth and I declare that I have purchased $400 worth of goods and the other two women have around $100 each. He asks a few questions…
Guard: “Do you have any tobacco/alcohol?”
Me: “No.”
Guard: “Any bologna?”
Me: “Get yer damn dirty paws off of my bologna!” (ok, this didn’t really happen)
Guard: “Any gifts?”
Me: “Uh yes, actually a gift for my girlfriend.”
Guard: “What is the value of this gift?” (thinking that out of the $400, it must be quite a pricey gift.)
Me: “Mmm…I would say $15.”

At this point the guard’s eyes go as big as saucers as he realizes I spent $400 and all I got my girlfriend was something worth $15. Trish is trying not to crack up beside me. As soon as we pull away she bursts out laughing at the sheer absurdity of the moment.

We head into the office and pay our dues (actually Caroline did not have to pay anything. Sweet!) and I take this moment to finally set the record straight about something that has been nagging me.

Me: “Excuse me, but can I ask a question about crossing the border with burgers?”
Guard: “Sure…what about them?” (with a highly skeptical look)
Me: “Well, we’re wondering if we can transport some burgers from the restaurant across the border to eat later.”
Guard: “Uh…well…of course you can! It would be different if it would be a truck full of burgers but if it’s just some burgers in a bag, that’s fine.” Please note that this guy is looking at me like I’m crazy. Of course, after the bologna incident, I am careful of these things!
Me: “Great, thanks!”
Guard: “Wait! Where are these burgers from?!” (thinking that they must be the most amazing burgers for me to want to cross the border with them.)

Then I tell him about the Ruby Tuesday’s mini-burgs and he seems unimpressed. Trish is cracking up behind me as I ask the border guard about some mini hamburgers. I am glad I took the time to do so because now I know I can bring some mini-burgs back with me the next time! Yeeha!

The rest of the trip was fairly inconsequential although we got into a good game of highway hypotheticals near the last leg of the trip. We rolled into town around 10PM. All in all, a productive day on the road! Perhaps it shall become a tradition as there isn’t much to do on St. Jean Baptiste.

By the way, if you are wondering what I picked up for Vero, it is a Snuggie and supposedly is quite lame. But I knew Vero would love it, and she does. She doesn’t want to leave the house without it!

Tuesday morning I was attending a meeting put on by Google to demonstrate their new Google Search Appliance 6.0.

This was my first Google meeting so I was pleasantly surprised to see that I received a t-shirt, a pen and a notebook for attending this event. The subject matter was interesting enough…did you know that the Google search appliance runs on 144GB of RAM as well as 15 600GB hard drives to run your internal search? That’s insane. 144GB of RAM? Heck, we common folk manage just fine with 2-3.

Tuesday evening was the eve of St. Jean Baptiste Day in Quebec so we decided to have an impromptu BBQ to celebrate the event. I am fan of impromptuness and gathering up a few fine folks to cook some meat and have a brew or two.

So impromptu was this event that the pork chops I thought I had in the freezer were non existant so I had to get Krista to pick up some on the way. I also may have been out of ketchup which I did not know about (alas, this boy does not use ketchup) so Vero had to go out and nab some along the way.

Hiccups in an otherwise perfect night, with Krista, Ben, Vince and Naomi coming over for an evening of fine dining. Vince wanted to try out his new guitar and he needed an amp to do so. An amp was of course, at Casa Losier so he hooked him up with one. He had quite the nice looking Les Paul model of a guitar. Man, that sucker was heavy! I am trying to remember the make of the guitar but it was something out of the UK. Perhaps Indian Guitars?

The night went over well with Ben helping me out with a lot of the cooking. He is quite proficient around the kitchen and knows all the right spices to put into some food whereas I just put in anything that is around the table. The burgers he crafted were genius!

The morning after the Woodies party, I must admit that I was feeling rougher than 180 grit sandpaper. It didn’t help that Carrie woke up super early and was gabbing away. I did manage to pick up my pillow and walk across the living room to find a nice solace in the form of her bed when she was making breakfast.

After I woke up, we realized that Alex and Holly’s Birthday/Wedding Celebration BBQ was starting up in the backyard. I didn’t know how I would fare out in the sunlight but in the end, it turned out alright and before you know it, I was feeling great after chatting with the people I haven’t seen in awhile. Mike and I even picked up a case of Red Baron which is some beer I haven’t tried before. It was quite tasty and cheap. It may become my summer 2009 beer!

The rest of the BBQ went great. Burgers, random hot dogs that not even the dog would eat, cake…it was all great. Vero didn’t show up until after 7PM as she had a late wake-up time after running her heart out until 7AM! She arrived when Holly and Alex were showing us a photo slideshow of their wedding in Jamaica. I had thought it would be a three beer event and Mark and others scoffed at the idea the slideshow would be so long.

Three beers later, the slideshow ended. Victory is mine!

I then meandered downstairs to see what Sabrina, Katie and Carrie were up to. They were playing Twister with Carrie’s soon to be new roommate Carlos and his friend Leo. After a few rounds of Twister I went back upstairs to find a wedding video being shown. There were two amazing parts in the wedding video. One being when their Asian friend Peg walked by the camera so fast that it looked like she was the creepy girl from The Ring. The other part was when the video somehow went into double speed mode so everyone was walking hyper fast but the time on the DVD was in real-time. Random!

We spent the rest of the evening chatting with Alex and Holly after everyone left and then we headed home ourselves as we were spent after a crazy weekend.

On Friday, I arrived at a Branch All-Staff meeting. This was my first one in this particular branch and I was surprised to see so many people! Probably close to 600 people were in the room! I don’t usually talk about work stuff on this website, but this particular event had Benoit and I pose as the Mac vs. PC guys from the commercial in a variety of skits that poked fun at the trials and tribulations that we go through in our line of work. I thought it went over well although there were technical difficulties throughout the day. I was the PC guy and I dressed up for the part in a suit as well as pulling out an old pair of eyeglasses I had. Wow, I never thought I would be wearing those ever again!

After the all-staff meeting, it was such a beautiful day that Krista, Alvaro and I headed out to the Royal Oak near the University. I was glad Alvaro came out as he had helped me out a lot with my Spanish homework and I felt he deserved a few beers. Dave, Maude, Jacob, Alvaro, Vince, Naomi and Krista and I hung around the Oak for a few hours in the amazing heat and I started to realize that I was finally done school as I downed a few suds across from the University. I even saw my Spanish professor at the Oak as well which I take as a good sign!

Luckily for me, Mike was still at work so I managed to get a hold of him and convince him to pick me up instead of me taking the bus home. I bid adieu to the fine folks at the table and headed off for the main event…the night out with the ladies from Toronto; Katie and Sabrina. They were coming up for a visit at Carrie’s so Mike and I decided to pack some sleeping bags and head there for the night as well.

We got home, went to The Works for an excellent burger and a Mill Street Tankhouse Ale (which always tastes soapy for some reason), packed the truck up with the necessary items, headed over to Mike’s friend Andre’s place for a beer, then we headed over to where Vero and her friends were doing a walk for cancer throughout the night. It was quite the rambunctious crowd…bagpipes, music blaring, people running around a track…this event was going from 7PM – 7AM. I’m not going to lie…I’m relieved that I didn’t have to partake in this overnight event. I think I would have been more than willing to take part in it if it was during the day. Vero told me that around midnight she felt the urge to run and she didn’t stop running until 2AM. That is what I like to call Forrest Gump Insane. They had a great time though.

Mike and I then headed out to the gas station where we picked up some ice (and gave the attendant a beer as he was drooling over them) and headed to Carrie’s. When we got there, Alex was putting down some new patio stones for a step so we helped him out and chatted for awhile. Katie and Sabrina arrived during that time so we spent time meandering from Carrie’s apartment to the front of the house chatting with Alex and Holly. They had some exciting news but I’m not sure if it’s public knowledge so I guess I’ll just leave you in suspense or you can just ask them yourselves.

Carrie, Katie, Sabrina, Mike and I then headed out to Amanda’s house for a post-Woodies (baseball team) party. I know quite a few of the Woodies from living with Carrie years ago so it was fun times all around visiting them. The party was in full swing when we arrived. I did have a good chuckle when Amanda announced last call and I mentioned that I had never heard ‘last call’ yelled during a house party. Turns out that she ended up leaving her own place so she could go to her boyfriends house because he had a dog they had to feed. In the end, it was the crew I showed up with, but we were alone in Amanda’s house at the end of the night so what better thing to do with our time but to play Twister?

Lord, my legs are not made to play Twister anymore. I think we were also playing it wrong…we were taking a turn instead of all moving our limbs at the same time. After the hilarity which is Twister, we realized it was time to hit the road and we arrived at Carrie’s in the wee hours and found some Kraft Dinner. KD by Katie is somehow made into something extra-special through the use of salt and pepper and we enjoyed a bowl of it out in the back deck while we realized that the sun was starting to come up in the distance. Around 4:30AM we both realized it was time to hit the sack. This was a good start to my post-graduation party.

On a random note, Mike had bought a breathalyzer the week before so we were excited to give it a try. With the new laws surrounding a 0.05% blood alcohol limit while driving, he figured it would be a good idea to pick one of these things up. We must admit that it was quite lackluster on the Friday night as I had picked up the cheapest batteries known to man at Giant Tiger. I looked at two Energizer batteries for $4.97 or 18 no-name batteries for $1.97. You all know which ones I picked up. In the end, they sucked as the breathalyzer only worked for a few tries. However, we did manage to get some Energizer batteries the next day and while it held up for a while longer, I wasn’t overly impressed with the length of time it did last. Granted, we were using it quite a lot so maybe it’s only meant to be used sparingly? Mike did end up registering at 0.15% at the end of the night which I felt I could have beat but we’ll never know because the thing died on us.

The Spanish final was quite a doozy….there were a few sections where I had to conjugate verbs AND put them into the appropriate sentence. My only problem is that I only understood 1 out of the 10 words! It was like drawing names from a hat and taking a wild guess at where they went! Argh. When I handed in the final exam, my professor Giovanna asked where my last written assignment was. What the heck? How did I miss a written assignment? I feigned ignorance and said “Oh, I did it, but it’s at home. Is it too late?” Of course it was too late…but she said something in Spanish that I didn’t really catch but I think it had to do with the fact that they take the best two out of three assignments. Hmmm…I just checked the Syllabus and there’s no mention of that. My comprehension of Spanish is quite lacking after six weeks.

I then headed out to Vero’s with the final exam haze in my head and when I got there, I just didn’t feel like I was done school yet, even though Vero was freaking out that I was finally done! I did get an excellent grad gift from her in the form of a case of beer and the film Short Circuit 2! By the end of the night, I was starting to feel like the weight on my shoulders was starting to lift.

In what may very well be a contender for the greatest week ever, let me document the highlights of this week so far:

– On Monday, I received notification that I passed my PM-05 competition. As memory serves, I had failed my first attempt a year or two ago due to one question being false. This was quite the blow to the Palmer ego but I believe this was a lesson towards myself that not everything is guaranteed in my life. I took this to heart upon the next competition I applied for and I must admit that throughout the process, I was hesitant to express my feelings on each portion of the process. But now that I have the notification saying that I passed it, things are great! Now we will see if I can be staffed within my section in that promoted spot.
– On Tuesday, not only did I get to enjoy a great day outside with my work team, but I attended my final University class for my Bachelor of Arts in Communications.
– On Thursday as I write this, I just received a tuition reimbursement cheque for $2,600 which is going straight to Vero as I had to borrow some money to attend the past year of classes. This has been quite the ordeal to get this money back and at one point, I had given into the fact that if all I had to spend was $2,600 to get a University education, then so be it. But this is quite the surprise that is in the mailbox.
– Tonight shall be my final exam for my Bachelor of Arts in Communications. While I do not feel confident, I also feel that no wrong can come of this.

Promotion, money, and finished studies…not too shabby. Grand kids who are reading this in the future, ask your Grandfather how he enjoyed this moment in his life.

The weekend is also shaping up to be quite exciting…Friday night out with Carrie and friends from Toronto…Saturday is a BBQ at Alex and Holly’s place…and I shall be a free man from education…for awhile at least.