Life at Vero’s

I was going to post up my Holiday wrap up posting but alas, it’s on my Macbook and it’s not around right now so that will have to wait.

What I can talk about is life at Vero’s.

Before I start that, perhaps I should send out a public notice that the Christmas cards are on their way.  There was a mishap with the printer before Christmas so only a handful got out.  Be patient.

Now…life at Vero’s.  As you may or may not know, because of the Ottawa transit strike, I am currently living at Vero’s place.  The reasons for this is that her place is down the street from a shuttle service that brings me to my office building in Hull every 30 minutes.  This is what I like to refer to as “the cats meow”.  Speaking about cat’s meowing, I see that James and Ferda may have adopted a cat.  While I hate cats in general, their’s appears to be quite awesome.

My daily routine is pretty sweet in comparison to others stuck in this transit strike.  I wake up around 6:24, get ready, head out the door at 7:00 (which used to be 7:10, but more and more people are finding out about the shuttle service so if I don’t get there early enough, the thing is packed and I have to wait 30 minutes for the next one) and walk down the block to the lineup for the shuttle.  The first couple of days were hectic as there wasn’t much of an order being maintained but quickly everyone realized that in a civilized society, everyone lines up for the shuttle service.

If the shuttle is full at 7:15, then it may leave and bring us to work.  Otherwise, it waits until it either fills up, or leaves by 7:30 regardless of how many people are on it.  The shuttle takes around 10-15 minutes to get to work so it’s really not a long trip at all.

After my work day is complete, I head back to Vero’s on the shuttle and usually arrive at 3:45 which is excellent timing to take part in my new guilty pleasure…Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I haven’t watched this series in years so it’s nice to find the show on at 4PM.  After watching the show, I take a snooze until Vero gets home which is generally 20 minutes after.  Then we make supper together.

Generally, there hasn’t been TOO much going on while living with Vero.  We are both hooked on the show ‘How I Met Your Mother” which I would like to argue is one of the funniest sitcoms since Friends was on the air.  So I manage to convince Vero to watch a few episodes in the evening with me.  This is quite hard sometimes as Vero tends to not care to watch a gazillion episodes of a show in one sitting, whereas that suits me just fine.

Other than that, I have class on Mondays and Wednesdays now which takes up a few nights, and other than that, we have watched a few films or played a board game or two (which I kicked her ass in).  I think we have both come to realize that we should be looking for more things to do in the long term rather than simply come home and watch TV at night.  This past weekend, Vero picked up a squash racket so we will look around the area for gyms that we can schedule a squash court.  As you may remember, Maren was gracious enough to give us a lesson one time and we both enjoyed it.

We have been hoping to go cross-country skiing but we have been hindered by my lack of finding some ski boots.  I can’t even find a new pair of boots in this town, let alone used ones!  I have become annoyed as the season is passing us by and am in 100% searching mode right now.

Saturdays have been the day where we return to Orleans to hang out at the homestead for a day.  It is strange to go back to my house one day a week and then return to Vero’s on the Sunday when we do groceries and our laundry for the week.  I am living out of suitcase right now.  Mike must be lonely back at the house (ha!  Let’s be honest here, he is the king of the castle and he is probably walking around naked in the house.  I know I would.) but it’s nice to see him whenever I can.

Living with Vero has also been interesting in that it gives us an indication of how living together shall be.  It has been a good opportunity to demonstrate to her that I am not a slob like she secretly believes I am.  I do my fair share of dishes and keeping the place tidy.  So far, it hasn’t been bad between us but at the same time, it’s an odd circumstance and I’m sure a few things would change once we actually live together.  For example, if I leave a beer bottle out on the table, I’m SURE I’ll pick it up as soon as I’m done with it!

Also, it looks like a decent routine is starting to be established.  I can’t kid myself when it comes to the following point…I really don’t care to cook.  I’m unimaginative in most aspects of cooking.  There are a few things that excite me (like anything that involves grilling meat), but other than that, I can’t be bothered.  So it’s nice to see that Vero doesn’t mind cooking and I don’t mind washing dishes so that may very well be the routine we will establish by the time we are old and gray.

In more news about myself, here’s a few things off the top of my head to keep you up-to-date with what’s specifically going on in my life:

• I have started two more courses at University of Ottawa this semester.  One is Introduction to Macroeconomics which actually seems quite interesting.  The other is Images in Communication which also seems interesting.  This involves subjects such as analyzing art, film, TV, etc. and to see what a variety of symbols, images mean in the context.  Our group project is probably going to be based on musical bands tour posters throughout the ages which should be fun.  This is the last stretch of school.  I only need these courses plus another one in May to complete and I’m done my Communications degree!  I have contemplated what I shall do with all my free time afterward.  I am thinking I would either take one course a semester to keep the mental juices flowing or volunteer my time somewhere.  I haven’t really come to a firm decision on this front so I’m sure I’ll think more about it once I’m done.
• I am actively looking for a new hard drive to put into my Macbook.  I have narrowed down the search and think I have found a good deal on a 2.5″ external drive which stands at 500GB of storage space.  I plan on splitting the case open, putting the drive into my laptop, then taking the old hard drive from the laptop and putting it into the external casing.  I read about this process a few months ago and was excited by the prospect.  One reason for the need of space is that one of my hard drives is pretty well a goner.  This upsets me a little as this particular hard drive has all my pictures and music on it.  I have a feeling that if I crack the case open and hook it up directly, I will be able to transfer all the data…but I can’t do that until I pick up another hard drive.  We’ll see what develops on that front.
• We went over to Benoit’s place on Thursday and I got to see his awesome media center in action.  He picked up a drobo which is some form of server…it houses three hard drives (each 1TB in size) as well as a fourth 1TB drive which somehow acts as backup.  Or something like that.  Either way, there’s a lot of space to serve up his media.  His media (movies, TV shows, etc.) can then be viewed on his snazzy big screen TV.  Mike and I just installed the Mediastream skin on the Xbox Media Center and it’s pretty slick.  I enjoy it although there’s a few odd things that happen when a file isn’t named the standard way.  Either way, it’s pretty awesome.
• Vero and I helped out Chantelle with the assembly of her new desk last week after my class.  It was a fun time seeing the ladies work away at building a drawer whereas I finished 80% of the desk in the same time!
• I had a nurse come to the house on Saturday to take a blood and urine sample for life insurance purposes (as I am buying some term life insurance).  Even though it was cool to have a nurse come see ME for once, I had a good laugh when Mike was commenting on how the washroom smelled like pee and then I checked the garbage bin and sure enough, she had thrown out the urine cup in the trash and not in the plastic bag of trash that she had filled up with odds and ends!
• On Saturday night, Eric, Annie, Mike, Vero and I played the Game of Kapuskasing which was all kinds of fun and Vero won.  Vero isn’t generally a fan of board games (she says she would rather speak to her friends than play games with them) but she enjoyed winning this one and rubbing it in our faces considering she was the only player who was not from Kapuskasing!