I'm not dead.
It's been brought to my attention that I've not posted here for some time.
In case you were wondering: I'm not dead.
I'm actually quite alive, and doing fairly well, thank you.
Since we last really talked Julia's gotten a full-time job that she really likes and has headed to Japan for all of March. Between the messages that her mother and I get, it seems that she and her sister are having a great time exploring foreign things and are busy being sisters. Which is good, since her sister's been away for so long.
Aside from crazy world travels, life has certainly become pretty routine.
Work, D&D on the weekends, time with Julias in the evenings. Play games or watch tv together.
Not that it's bad, mind you - I like it, and I'm happy these days.
I've started more and more to think about growing up.
My 25th is rapidly approaching, and I'm not really sure I'm ready for it.
Sure it isn't that old, but I've started to think that maybe it would be nice to actually have our own place, instead of renting. Maybe get a couch that isn't falling apart and older than I am. Thinking that if I were in a situation like someone else is currently in, and a baby were potentially on the way, that it might not be a horrible thing.
That I wish I had enough money on hand to contemplate a few things a little more seriously - living off of a single income got a little hairy for a while there.
Then again, I'm also trying to resist all this growing up, which is why I went and spent a little chunk of my change on D&D Online and the world's bestest gaming keyboard (Logitech G15 with a programmable LCD screen).
I like my job.
Sure, some projects were causing long hours and chunks of hair to come out in my clenched fists, but they're out the door and were pretty cool and fun to work on. I like my co-workers. We're an assorted bunch considering there's only four of us, but we're get along pretty well and it's a great working environment. I play games and hang out with my boss all the time, we were all out at the sales guy's place on Saturday night for too much beer and freebie poker, the other developer is recommending drinking/dancing/partying establishments around town that might be more up my alley than the usual dance club or what have you. We sometimes play Quake 3 at lunch. I am one of the few people I know actually working in the field that I have an expensive certificate for. I get to continually learn new stuff, and along with two others get to figure out new and fun ways to apply it to everything and anything. Sure, some days I'm sitting there waiting for it to hit 5:00, but a few others it'll hit quarter after, or even 5:30, before I even realize that I can go home.
With Julia gone, it's just the cat and I here. I've had friends for a bunch of the seven days that I've been alone thus far (including the ever-reclusive Remi), but I've also been prompted to get off my butt and do some stuff. I finally got the blinds that we purchased sometime in 2005 installed. It seems that we didn't understand which dimension on the box was length and which was width - they're a bit too wide and a bit too short. It's still better than the blanket that we'd had pinned up since - well, since we got here.
I am feeling a little lonely. It's good that the cat is here, even if she is much too needy. The bed is too big to properly sleep alone in, so I've put a bear on Julia's side and tucked the covers up to its chin. It helps.
It was a little before she left, and has only been reinforced over the last week, that I realized that she really is my best friend. When contemplating doing stuff with 'they guys', I didn't even think that she might not be coming, even if I was wondering if I wanted the other guys' girlfriends to come along. Of course Julia would be coming, I thought, it'd suck without her, she's part of the gang. I miss watching The Amazing Race and American Idol with her - it really isn't the same alone, and the only reason I'm still watching is that it's something we did together and it'd kind of be wrong to stop. I want her to be there to appreciate the people that can actually sing, or to imagine that we're off on airplanes or doing crazy challenges. I want her to be here playing D&D with me so that we can explore strange new worlds and defeat clever dungeons together. And there's nobody else I'd rather be doing any of it with.
It was good to see Remi this past weekend, but I'm still missing some of the other Newmarket crowd. Haven't seen either of my Jenns in a while, and I missed Amanda and baby at Christmas (stupid schedules). Mike, I'm still waiting to hear that you're hosting a poker night... let us know and we'll be there. I'm sad that we'll be losing Ryan soon - we don't get to see that much of him even though he's currently here, so I can imagine what it'll be like in under two months when he's back in GTA-land, and then off to Japan. I miss all the rest of you, too - Larry seems to have dropped off the face of the earth, Robin's far away, everyone's either settling into the work lifestyle or still grinding away at school. We've (inevitably) drifted.
I'm very happy that spring is trying its hardest to get here. Once the bitter cold is out of the air I'll be able to break out the bike again, and then I won't have to show up an hour early to work every day so that Julia can drop me off and get to her job on time. Plus, it'll help get this poor programmer back into a little shape :P I enjoy biking in the mornings - a lot of hard work, a lot of fresh air, and a stream of good music flowing from my mp3 player. As a replacement I've started getting up early to do a little DDR with freeweights in hand - the problem being it's hard to work up the motivation to get up for something optional like that. Since I've been up too late tonight in this kind of philisophical mood, it's unlikely I'll be up early tomorrow. Of course, that's unless the cat decides that 6:30 is time that the humans should be up and providing affection.
So, I'm sure that nobody actually read all of this - it's really not a lot, but it does seem to be a lot longer than a lot of things in this format, and people tend to skip long posts. Especially ones that seem to have as little actual content as this one does :)
If you're interested in a much more regular discourse, feel free to participate at www.iniquitous.ca/rpg/forum. I know that it's labelled for D&D, and that might scare a lot of you, but it's also our de-facto friends community at the moment. Lots of silliness, fun internet finds, and where most weekend plans get made these days, etc. And then you'll know that I'm not dead, and actually pretty happy :)
In case you were wondering: I'm not dead.
I'm actually quite alive, and doing fairly well, thank you.
Since we last really talked Julia's gotten a full-time job that she really likes and has headed to Japan for all of March. Between the messages that her mother and I get, it seems that she and her sister are having a great time exploring foreign things and are busy being sisters. Which is good, since her sister's been away for so long.
Aside from crazy world travels, life has certainly become pretty routine.
Work, D&D on the weekends, time with Julias in the evenings. Play games or watch tv together.
Not that it's bad, mind you - I like it, and I'm happy these days.
I've started more and more to think about growing up.
My 25th is rapidly approaching, and I'm not really sure I'm ready for it.
Sure it isn't that old, but I've started to think that maybe it would be nice to actually have our own place, instead of renting. Maybe get a couch that isn't falling apart and older than I am. Thinking that if I were in a situation like someone else is currently in, and a baby were potentially on the way, that it might not be a horrible thing.
That I wish I had enough money on hand to contemplate a few things a little more seriously - living off of a single income got a little hairy for a while there.
Then again, I'm also trying to resist all this growing up, which is why I went and spent a little chunk of my change on D&D Online and the world's bestest gaming keyboard (Logitech G15 with a programmable LCD screen).
I like my job.
Sure, some projects were causing long hours and chunks of hair to come out in my clenched fists, but they're out the door and were pretty cool and fun to work on. I like my co-workers. We're an assorted bunch considering there's only four of us, but we're get along pretty well and it's a great working environment. I play games and hang out with my boss all the time, we were all out at the sales guy's place on Saturday night for too much beer and freebie poker, the other developer is recommending drinking/dancing/partying establishments around town that might be more up my alley than the usual dance club or what have you. We sometimes play Quake 3 at lunch. I am one of the few people I know actually working in the field that I have an expensive certificate for. I get to continually learn new stuff, and along with two others get to figure out new and fun ways to apply it to everything and anything. Sure, some days I'm sitting there waiting for it to hit 5:00, but a few others it'll hit quarter after, or even 5:30, before I even realize that I can go home.
With Julia gone, it's just the cat and I here. I've had friends for a bunch of the seven days that I've been alone thus far (including the ever-reclusive Remi), but I've also been prompted to get off my butt and do some stuff. I finally got the blinds that we purchased sometime in 2005 installed. It seems that we didn't understand which dimension on the box was length and which was width - they're a bit too wide and a bit too short. It's still better than the blanket that we'd had pinned up since - well, since we got here.
I am feeling a little lonely. It's good that the cat is here, even if she is much too needy. The bed is too big to properly sleep alone in, so I've put a bear on Julia's side and tucked the covers up to its chin. It helps.
It was a little before she left, and has only been reinforced over the last week, that I realized that she really is my best friend. When contemplating doing stuff with 'they guys', I didn't even think that she might not be coming, even if I was wondering if I wanted the other guys' girlfriends to come along. Of course Julia would be coming, I thought, it'd suck without her, she's part of the gang. I miss watching The Amazing Race and American Idol with her - it really isn't the same alone, and the only reason I'm still watching is that it's something we did together and it'd kind of be wrong to stop. I want her to be there to appreciate the people that can actually sing, or to imagine that we're off on airplanes or doing crazy challenges. I want her to be here playing D&D with me so that we can explore strange new worlds and defeat clever dungeons together. And there's nobody else I'd rather be doing any of it with.
It was good to see Remi this past weekend, but I'm still missing some of the other Newmarket crowd. Haven't seen either of my Jenns in a while, and I missed Amanda and baby at Christmas (stupid schedules). Mike, I'm still waiting to hear that you're hosting a poker night... let us know and we'll be there. I'm sad that we'll be losing Ryan soon - we don't get to see that much of him even though he's currently here, so I can imagine what it'll be like in under two months when he's back in GTA-land, and then off to Japan. I miss all the rest of you, too - Larry seems to have dropped off the face of the earth, Robin's far away, everyone's either settling into the work lifestyle or still grinding away at school. We've (inevitably) drifted.
I'm very happy that spring is trying its hardest to get here. Once the bitter cold is out of the air I'll be able to break out the bike again, and then I won't have to show up an hour early to work every day so that Julia can drop me off and get to her job on time. Plus, it'll help get this poor programmer back into a little shape :P I enjoy biking in the mornings - a lot of hard work, a lot of fresh air, and a stream of good music flowing from my mp3 player. As a replacement I've started getting up early to do a little DDR with freeweights in hand - the problem being it's hard to work up the motivation to get up for something optional like that. Since I've been up too late tonight in this kind of philisophical mood, it's unlikely I'll be up early tomorrow. Of course, that's unless the cat decides that 6:30 is time that the humans should be up and providing affection.
So, I'm sure that nobody actually read all of this - it's really not a lot, but it does seem to be a lot longer than a lot of things in this format, and people tend to skip long posts. Especially ones that seem to have as little actual content as this one does :)
If you're interested in a much more regular discourse, feel free to participate at www.iniquitous.ca/rpg/forum. I know that it's labelled for D&D, and that might scare a lot of you, but it's also our de-facto friends community at the moment. Lots of silliness, fun internet finds, and where most weekend plans get made these days, etc. And then you'll know that I'm not dead, and actually pretty happy :)