healing

1. jiu-jitsu partnered with a man slightly shorter than me and about twice my weight. i couldn't get my legs around him and my leg was hurting so much i had to pause to breathe through my teeth a few times.

2. kickboxing totally loosened my up and by the time i got to working on the bags i was ready to kick the shit out of it. i think i might have relieved myself of a little of the work pressure that built up this week, i walked away totally satisfied and ready for more.

3. wall stretching: the tall, strong dude i was partnered with was working harder than i was, to the point where someone else noticed and laughed because it was clear that i was using him to stretch myself instead of being stretched. and he was shaking more than i was :P

4. during a break i asked a question and got a really helpful answer. plus a solid shot to the liver for my troubles.
"that's so you remember".
scrapper's influence on me: stumbling, not falling, and wheezing "thank you sir, may i have another!".

---the day began with a double "you done good" from the cfo and aota: the way i dealt with botswana was appreciated by everyone. i also had a little chat with my team and made it clear that they're to report to me both professionally and personally.

the network will be down at least until wednesday, so i took ceh out to l'artere to eat and use their wifi. firstly, their vegan take on shepherd's pie (sweet potato and lentils) was delicious and too much for me. secondly, ceh's attitude towards documentation and project constraints doesn't fit with mine and it's going to take work to bring him to a compromise. at least i think he realizes now that i'm not simply being anal about everything.

while he was playing with a remote server i was being told by k-twang how bad my blog design is. so i took his advice and modified my template accordingly, i hope it's a better experience for everyone.

the cto arrived and we had a number of different talks throughout the day. they were all positive and i think he'd forgotten how organized i am since he's started interfacing with megaman. one of our talks was quite exciting, especially as i had his attention long enough to pitch an idea i had ages ago that developed into something even more awesome as i was speaking. we may not see eye to eye on everything, but there's a shared vision for where our tech should go that makes me feel like all the annoying and frustrating things that have happened over the past couple of months were totally worth it.

the rest of my day was broken into small fires and management. overall things are going smoothly and i'm happy with how this week's ending. also, amazed at how quickly it's gone by and how much i feel has happened!

on my way out i realized i could control my limp at the cost of each step hurting (which is subconsciously where the limp came from). the last thing i wanted was to stop using my muscles correctly.

---right, it's 11pm and i've had much less sleep this week than i've wanted. i've also got a big stack of things that need doing, including making dinner.

training and protections

shit, it's past bedtime and i needed to go to bed hours ago but i had two reports to write and they took forever.

---i had to train someone outside the company this afternoon and i woke up this morning with no idea what i'd be teaching him because the cto had ignored me yesterday. at 8.30am, pre-coffee and before leaving for the office i managed to catch him and we spent the next two hours going over everything. it wasn't bad, but it was tiring.

---i was on my way out when i realized that i'd made a grievous error: on monday, the drying machine was bust and it completely slipped my mind that the pile of underwear i dumped on a chair (i'm a bachelor!) was wet. this morning i finally got around to sorting and folding and it was still wet and quite smelly. not cool at all :(

so i was already stressing about how complicated dealing with that was going to be (i've been informed that it's not normal to have time limits on laundry nor to have to pay for each cycle) when i hurriedly took my shoes out the freezer (see previous post). as amusing as it was to remove two shoe-shaped blocks of ice, they were obviously still going to be waterlogged when i got home. i stuffed them with newspaper and chucked them on the patio.

[oh, shit! it's summer and i have a patio. i totally forgot.]

---my office day began with bad multitasking - there's nothing like having everything going wrong all around you and everyone clamoring for your attention when you need to focus on creating a lesson plan. and our network issues were at least as bad as they've been the past few days, which was frustrating for all of us.

the training session actually went a lot smoother than anticipated, and it inspired a little chat with the cfo afterwards. he was surprised to hear me evangelize (apparently he wasn't aware of our software's potential) and asked me to put together a memo, which i've just done. it includes marketing suggestions and it's been hinted that this might be good for me, whatever that means.

---it was the end of the day and i was in a hurry to get out in time for muay thai. i went past all the desks to make sure that everyone was on track and was horrified to find one of my developers on the verge of tears because botswana and our graphic lead had convinced him that he had to pull a surprise all-nighter because they'd switched the design after the project's due date. remember i mentioned his relationship with the developers?

i - was - pissed. as he's an executive, i was relatively careful with my tone but from his reaction i think he might have sensed potential violence. i have made it clear to everyone involved that nobody is to talk to developers without consulting me, and then i made it clear to the developer in question that he was to go home at his regular time and not a moment later for these assholes.

i'm going to have to have a little chat with the team in the morning, apparently our "chain of command" is not clear and i have been remiss in my duties if they don't feel they should come to me the instant anything causes them distress of any kind.

---aota relieved me of an enormous amount of stress by not only giving me a ride home but by offering to handle my problem laundry as well. thanks to her i made it to muay thai just in time.

i only barely survived muay thai today, limping away with my first injury in a long time and the knowledge that my assessment of my defensive skills was entirely correct: there's not much difference between gloves up or down, i just know how to put my nose and chin right into everything.

the injury is the deep tissue on my inner thigh, which was kicked hard and repeatedly by a fellow taekwondo graduate. i'm now sporting a rather sensitive limp, which i hope will be better in time for tomorrow's kickboxing.

afterwards i headed to aota's for a great "family" dinner with her, her daughter, newk'd and her daughter's friend from the other day. it was really nice and a wonderful end to a rough day.

i got home, found my unfrozen shoes to be dry but smelly and stuffed them back in the freezer.

...

after reports and an internet, i'm definitely, definitely ready to sleep.

weird things to put in the freezer

the shoes i wore last night didn't dry properly and got a bit funky. here's hoping internet wisdom and not trolling.

royal highness

so... this morning began lazy and happy. still glowing from yesterday's experience. the weather was as fine as i felt.

it's a timing thing: i was working on scripting my sketches when metro sat down beside me again. apparently we both have favourite seats :)

speaking of which, office seating politics made shunting people around complicated. in the evening i'd have a long chat with our cfo about our environment and he liked what he heard and has promised to explore options that suit our team.

i have to train someone tomorrow in something i'm not familiar with - the cto was supposed to teach me today but i couldn't get hold of him in spite of my having made an appointment. huh?!

my plan for the day was to explore implementing something in node.js, but managing the team took precedence. there was a lot of it going on...

---i left work in time to shop before training, originally planning on jiu-jitsu and beginner's kickboxing but then switching to advanced kickboxing on the off chance i'd see gg. she wasn't there, but i'm so glad i changed my mind!

there's a fifty year old woman who trains with us who, just like the old guy, is a tank. firstly, i was fortunate to have her holding pads for me on the circuit because she wasn't afraid to tell me exactly what i was doing wrong at every step. and boy, was she right! i could the difference every time i got what she was saying, and it felt good.

i got to do impact / conditioning with her. i started, and her explanations of how i'm supposed to be handling my body were the first i've received. she was hurting me by the end, but i actually felt like i knew what i was doing and once the striking stopped i felt surprisingly good. a little more compact, in a sense :P

then it was her turn. not only did it feel like i was hitting a wall, but it wasn't hard enough for her so she taught me precisely how to angle my gloves and repeatedly corrected my strikes until i started getting through. the weird bit was feeling proud and ashamed simultaneously every time i landed a solid shot...

... shit, that's one tough lady.

---i came home to find i've been headhunted by another BIG company with a very interesting offer. how exciting and flattering! after thinking about it for a bit, though, it doesn't seem to be in my interests. aside from being in love with montreal and its people, this is not only the best place for me to immigrate to in terms of process but it's also the home of a lot of good aerospace; american aerospace cannot employ foreigners so even though spacex, bigelow and virgin have job opportunities that i'm perfectly suited for i wouldn't be able to work there...

i've spent my whole night talking on the phone with my mum or chatting on messenger and facebook. shit! i have stuff to do! and i almost didn't finish my dinner again :(

---two completely unrelated thoughts:

1. an ex-coworker has been ignoring me whenever he comes in to freelance, and i was informed that the reason for this is that he believes that my reaction to cam2 was borne of racism (as opposed to my complete intolerance of incompetence). i find this hurtful, and i'd try to take it up with him if i hadn't been warned not to. there's not much one can do to undo that kind of sentiment, though.

as my mom rightly said, though, it would be racist to have kept him on simply because of the colour of his skin.

2. i really, really, really have to learn french! it's ridiculous and irresponsible that i've been so unmotivated.

happiness is a cool thunderstorm

wanna know how i know i want to live in montreal?

i arrived at piknic where the sun was shining, there was a cool breeze to counter the otherwise hot and humid day, the music was groovy and all the beautiful people (seriously, how are there so many??) were enjoying a perfect monday afternoon.

and then it started to cloud over. really fast. and suddenly there were drops of rain. MORE people came onto the dance floor! the more rain, the more excitement, shirts came off (one guy undressed to a mankini, it was hilarious) and the tempo increased with the bass. the crowd went nuts when it began to pour and when a rough wind came up there was a stream of defiant whoops until it backed off again, and there were crazy happy smiles all around when the lightning began.

we continued like that until, a long while later, the sun came out for a gorgeous sunset.

yes. that's how i know :)

---i've been out of food for two days, and the laundry was piling up. all the regular stores were closed today to celebrate saint jean-baptiste / quebec day, so i wasn't sure what to do. i headed to jean talon market, bought two boxes of clif builder bars (ordering vegan creatine along the way, that's an important supplement too) and had lunch with nocence, who's taking the language oppression thing really hard and is now seriously considering leaving quebec. i find it amusing that montreal takes enough pride in little italy to erect very pretty stonework and signs all over the place but doesn't appreciate them actually speaking italian.

i had a very leafy lunch because little italy doesn't do vegan, and it wasn't bad. then i returned home to struggle with laundry. at first i had to wait for ages to use the machine, and when i finally got my turn and my laundry was ready for the dryer i discovered that some old bat had been hoarding wet clothes and had taken it over. and today, there was only one dryer.

i guess it was a good excuse to rest and read a little.

as soon as that was done, i shaved and showered (i would've needed to shower anyway, it was so humid!) and headed to the piknic. priority one: find the girl from last night. failed in that, i think i saw her at one point but if it was her then she was making a point of not being anywhere near me. priority two: have a good time. that wasn't very hard ^_^

the only spoke in my wheel of ecstasy* was when some jerk stood right next to me and loudly shared with his friend just how much of a jerk he is over the music. as if that wasn't bad enough, he then made a really antisemitic remark and while a part of me wanted to respond another part kept saying "there's a time and a place". so i went somewhere else, and later when i saw him with his arm around some girl i felt very sorry for her.

* funny, some guy came up to ask me if i had any.

no change of plans

dissonance: my original plan was to come home after piknic electronik, and that's what i did, but i'm now unhappy that i did because i believe that i *should* have been going out with the beautiful girl i met on the dance floor - i guess i shouldn't have waited to get her number. now i'll have to wait until i see her there again.

i can't tell you how flattering it was to be chatted up in broken english on the most quebecois day of the year :D

---i dreamed properly during the night, and woke up feeling good and lazy. enough to go back and sleep some more. it was awesome.

saga is beautiful.

i headed out to horseman's and we spent a couple of hours playing with his very cool sound toys tweaking music and samples while discussing possible upgrades to my singing style. i have to mention that he has an adorable young alsation who's insanely friendly and fun to play with :)

i went downtown to feed myself - i was so hungry that i couldn't think straight - and then headed out to the piknic. the dance floor i preferred last time was far too adventurous for my tastes today, and so i kept to the main floor and thoroughly enjoyed an amazing retro house set. shit, one of the dj's even played a sneaker pimps track! it was an excellent party all around. even before i met that girl...

...

nutritionally, today was a complete and utter failure. i haven't had time to go shopping and i've barely eaten. quite irresponsible.

trips and driving

well! it's been a busy day.

1. it was time to renew my gym membership, so i went for six months. it's a lot of cash, even if it's cheap at the price and huge value for money. while i was there i had a chat with the guy on duty, and he convinced me that i don't need to be as concerned about ringworm as i have been. i've got some closure, now, and i'll just try to find some long-sleeved sports shirts.

2. it rained all day, and everywhere between here and ottawa. it was a warm day, though, and my short walk through the rain this morning was with a smile on my face :)

3. i met the girl that aota wanted to fix me up with, and she's cute and interesting. but we're both infatuated with other people at the moment, so we can park that :P

4. my biggest issue with driving aota's daughter (hrh) to ottawa was with navigation. my phone's gps is almost useless and i was very lucky to guess my way around. the second issue was figuring out the controls of the mini. the interface is mostly pretty good, but it's not intuitive at all. and what's the deal with the hidden usb port?

4.1 that reminds that i finally figured out clicking and dragging on my macbook today. it's actually really clever, only it's exactly not what you'd expect coming from a pc and i've never seen it explained anywhere. but no matter how many cool features there may be, overall the experience with a mac just isn't up to scratch.

5. the drive there with hrh was a lot of fun! it turns out we both like each other's work (my words and her music), so we might get together sometime and try to make something of it.

6. the day was planned badly, and i didn't have any time to eat in ottawa so i just dropped hrh off and turned right around. there was a lot of cursing in the car until i found my way back to the highway.

7. the ride back was cool, i was accompanied by great trance (mostly rev - amusia) and some french audio lessons (i learned a couple of things).

7.1 over the past couple of years i've become worried about driving alone because sitting badly makes me feel dizzy. after today i believe that it's psychosomatic. i did feel a little funny a couple of times, but then it went away as i wasn't stressing.

8. as much as i love montreal... the signage just isn't very good. the good time i made on the trans-canadian was cancelled by my having to skirt the city to get to godmother's. from there to aota's i'd have an impossible time of reading street names (not only aren't they lit, but they're positioned really awkwardly).

9. my uncle hates me. and i'm not particularly fond of him either. actually, i think it's fair to say that i think almost as highly of him as he does of me... tonight i made a comment about che guevara being a rebel without a cause (apparently i should eat my words, but that's neither here nor there), and he exploded in a fit of "totalwaste is so stupid! he's brainless! he always talks such shit! i don't want him in my house! if you want to see him, take him out for dinner or something!"

godmother had words with him, but i wasn't listening. godmother, yang and i talked for a while about poetry (godmother was quite surprised to discover that i'm not so uncreative, and a little distressed by the bleakness of my tone) and then i left to return aota's car and meet yang at my place to watch superbad. he picked it. i rate it "don't like" but aside from a few horrifying and super-unrealistic awkward moments it wasn't a terrible experience. that's not a compliment, although i did laugh a couple of times.

10. it's not 3.15, and i've had a long chat with my mum, and i'm feeling energized even though i know i need to get into bed. perhaps it's the supermoon.

gender insensitive

okay, i'm upset by the internet getting angry with mike krahulik over his transgender insensitivity.

i'm not transgender, so i'll never really understand it but i can most certainly accept it. especially after a long and enlightening lecture about gender biology where i learned just how weird male / females definitions can be. regardless, most people are not informed, and that's not because they're bad, or narrow-minded. it's because our species-wide awareness of these issues is new enough that it goes directly against what everyone's been taught since forever.

it is in our nature to fight conflicting ideas, and being antagonized doesn't assist the process.

not that i don't identify with the defensive nature of any minority that feels threatened! but it's counter-productive. and here we see a flame war on twitter that had a net negative effect for both sides. mike eventually started coming around, and that demonstrates that he's not simply a jerk. you can't demonize people who don't know about *your* minority, there are plenty of minorities you don't know or care about and that's just fine because life's too short to invest only in everyone else.

mike and jerry are the faces of the penny arcade empire, and they got that way because they're human beings, not corporate representations. *that* is why we adore them. because they're honest even when they're at their worst. judge them! but discuss things with them, instead of jumping to conclusions and putting them on the defensive.

---about the dickwolves thing: it was a really funny comic and did not in any way imply that rape is okay, and most certainly not that the guys are "rape apologists". anyone upset by this comic on those grounds is simply too stupid to "get" that [JOKE EXPLANATION WARNING] what's being ridiculed is the gaming paradigm in which your character doesn't have to care about the plight of npc's no matter how horrible their situation is. it's saying that rape is bad, and that it's weird that these games are telling you that you don't have to care about all the victims.

which is realistic, i guess. irl you can't save everyone.

quick friday

today began with me feeling really good. it was sunny, i was relaxed... right until i realized that i was running late. it really is quicker for me to get to work on rollerblades (by about ten minutes, approximately) and so i made the call, strapped in and headed out. only i was about ten blocks away when i realized that i'd forgotten to bring another shirt; i'd actually taken one out and left it behind anyway.

after yesterday's warning newk'd about tardiness, i arrived fifteen minutes late and had to borrow a t-shirt from him :P
[to be fair, he's been consistently late by an hour]
megaman was not impressed that aota and i hadn't informed him (oops :$).

yesterday we'd put newk'd on a critical project that i'd been forced to give up (time constraints) and another developer had failed abysmally at: compiling code using 90s borland software. it took him the whole day, but his efforts were met with resounding success and we finally have a chance to take back control of all of our code! exciting times.

i spent a fair amount of the day dealing with seating arrangements. seating arrangements have a political component, apparently, and i'm not very good at that.

happy hour was a riot, and someone reminded me of a joke or two that not only had everyone in hysterics, but saw newk'd one-upping in such a big way that i was almost in tears! also, i have successfully used wikipedia to prove my point to our interns that liquorice means "black liquorice" and that "red liquorice" isn't liquorice at all:

"red liquorice, which is extruded in a way to resemble liquorice strings, but made with strawberry, cherry, raspberry, or cinnamon flavourings as the main flavourings rather than liquorice. ... while the common name for this candy has now become "red liquorice", or often simply "liquorice", it does not taste of liquorice."
- wikipedia

i tried to leave at 6pm for 7pm boxing, but somehow ended up strapping on my blades at 6.30 and pushing like a madman to get home on time. between the exertion and the alcohol in my system, i was not in the best of states for training but aside from a few mental blocks here and there i actually did quite well! and i definitely enjoyed it.

finishing a good week of training with boxing would only have been better if i hadn't had that beer beforehand. just as i was packing up and thinking "there's no better start to the weekend", i stepped outside into the most magnificent sunset, montreal in all its glory ^_^

now gearing up for a long drive to ottawa* to get myself comfortable before my quebec driver's exam. i guess it's as good a time as any to use those french audio lessons...

* aota's daughter needs a ride to visit her boyfriend

---and in canadian news, two albertans have died in the flooding and the language police in quebec have taken up fighting spoons. these are stories competing for top spot on ctv. i'm not sure what that's telling me.

i do know that after a long argument with a quebec native who's scared that his culture and language will be eroded, i'm convinced that the solution to the problem isn't laws enforcing language usage. that's counter-productive. i believe that everyone in quebec should have to send their kids to french schools. they can and will learn english at home anyway...

---an 80's geeky childhood can now be yours! there's a crazy sale on at gog.com. i had about twenty tabs open and had to decide just how much i was willing to spend on games that i don't have time to play... but must play anyway...

*sigh*

i got some awesome stuff, though.

manic for sure

i was a long day, most of it a bit unpleasant. in addition to our network going down repeatedly (making most of us quite useless and frustrated), imperieux and i being locked out of our office for over half an hour because of a "five minute" phone call, being asked by megaman if i ever went to school (i think he was trying to be funny, but it came across shockingly condescending) and experiencing an otherwise meaningless lunch fail that had most of the development team laughing at me (not with me), i was really tired both physically and mentally and the coffee didn't help at all.

oh, yes: and aota and i had to take newk'd aside an give him an official warning for repeated tardiness. not cool.

i did have a very positive conversation with the cto, though, and it looks like work and an external interest just combined in my favour.

---i was exhausted by the time i met with metro, and so my pitch really wasn't as enthusiastic as usual. even so, she seems as professional as she is interested, she's definitely more experienced than mason, and she'll be available to get on things in about two weeks. and we totally agree on attitude towards the project! very cool. i have a good feeling about this.

kickboxing:
i did see gg between classes, and i think i made things awkward. without actually saying anything, so i guess there's a good chance that i was just being awkward all by myself. in any event the training was solid.

after showering i began my mars one application. trippy! and now that i've read through the faq i know exactly what my video needs to look like. and that if their criteria are to be believed i actually stand a good chance!

...

i suddenly found myself bouncing up and down to the music, and i've been on a crazy high since.

...

i spent the following couple of hours playing with node.js. node.js is awesome.

---i discovered today that i'm not the only one enjoying the summer but missing the snowboarding.

forehead smack

ha! i forgot two things:

1. last night i booked tickets to see SxS and flighthub's cancellation insurance seemed reasonable until i was billed for it as a per day fee instead of once-off. i called them this morning to get a refund, they were very polite and by the time i put the phone down i already had received an email confirmation and the guy had gotten it right. i was shocked!

2. the illustrator i met on the metro is happy to meet with me after work tomorrow :)

studious

wow, what a day. and it's already past my bedtime and i haven't done even a tiny bit of what i'd had planned.

being enjoyably distracted by a track from horseman didn't help :P

---day begins: sunshine through the windows and the strip search finale. the series was excellent, and while the contender i was gunning for didn't win (i'm a vasquez fan, it was a no-brainer :P) i'm really pleased to see all the good things that have come out of it! heartwarming stuff.

work:
1. rollerblading to work and spending the day in shorts and flip-flops. very cool.
2. splitting the development team into three to reduce scrum time. it was a little awkward for the first time.
3. botswana - i didn't shout "don't touch my developers!" at him but i should have. he upset one by demanding things that made no sense when he has no authority to demand anything. and he can't understand why i find him irritating.
4. the building's network has been terrible for two days now, and their (not our) it guy is not only a dumbass but he's leaving soon and doesn't care. we had to go out to l'artere for lunch just to use their wifi.
5. one of the new guys (ceh) came to me at the end of the day for a php bitch session. i could totally sympathize. he really wants to move to clojure.

blading back: to was faster than metro, back was with the wind. and a bit of inspiration from it being a beautiful afternoon. and the fact that i'd left work early and was on my way to muay thai.

muay thai was crazy, the warm-up even tougher than before and the training really good.

i spent the evening learning ruby on rails, stopping after realizing that it's most likely not as good a fit for my needs as python. dammit.

like sixteen

forget the weekend (which was really cool, i might post about it), there's just one thing on my mind right now even though i've just booked tickets to go visit SxS next month.

and that's the gentle giant (gg). seriously, i'm smitten. i was partnered up with her for most of today's lesson, and she's as sweet and pretty as she is vicious when she strikes. she makes me feel like a teenager, all awkward and unsure of how to proceed.

but proceed i really, really must.

an awaited long weekend

last night:

the pilot episode of star trek: the next generation was interesting (although the psychic character was just tedious), but what really captivated me was trying to catch riker sitting down.

i managed to get into bed early. i needed it.

---it was a good morning, sunny and with me feeling considerably less stiff and sore. as i sat down on the metro, i noticed that the girl next to me was sketching. after furtively glancing at her page and ascertaining that i liked her work, i thought about asking her if she'd be interested in working with me. i believe that bothering strangers in a closed space isn't cool, so i didn't, but then i thought about how these are the kinds of opportunities that might turn out to be really good, and then i thought "no, you can't do that" and then "really? are you really going to do this?"
by that stage we'd passed three stations, and i was running out of time. "sod it," i thought, and i popped out my headphones and said "excuse me" in my most casual voice.

my gods, she literally jumped out of her seat with a frightened squeal! i hit a 10.0 on my awkward-o-meter, and quickly apologized for scaring her. i then asked if she's currently working on a project, and she told me she's working part-time on a video game for one of the big companies. i asked if she'd be interested in working on comics, she asked me if i had a card, i babbled about arranging a meeting and she told me she'd send me her portfolio. nice!

we then proceeded to ignore each other for the rest of the ride, except to say goodbye with smiles. i'm so proud of myself for taking the chance :)

---i got in to a bit of a nightmare. the first part was what appeared to be a ddos attack on one of our servers. the second part... have i mentioned hating mysteries? two of our servers, one local and one remotely hosted, both completely disconnected, began to exhibit the same really strange behaviour. when we finally established what the foundation of that behaviour was and were even more mystified, everything went back to normal. wtf?

the rest of my day was spent managing, with one incident of my having to take a developer aside and instill in him a real fear of not using the tools we have to keep our codebase sane. i felt bad for him, but when we got up he thanked me and assured me that we were playing the same game. the others are beginning to work in a more disciplined manner, which makes me feel successful. on a similar note, i had a lot of dealings with imperieux today and things between us are fine, so i'm glad and fortunate that yesterday's unpleasantness didn't stick.

megaman told me that he had no issues with the holidays i've been planning, but that he finds it really weird that i'm so pedantic about logging my hours that i know precisely how many over or under i am. on the one hand, it would be easier to do as he says and just log eight hours a day regardless, but on the other... i feel like my knowledge gives me a certain amount of leverage when asking for a day off here and there and it's good that my information ocd is served :)

kickboxing tonight was good, but my arms still felt heavy and my punches mostly sucked. i worked really hard, though, and i definitely had fun!

it's now past bedtime for those of us who have to be up super early to get on a bus, and i've still got to pack. but it doesn't really matter. i can sleep on the bus :D

loonies for toonies

dumbest moment of the day: getting to the washing machines and discovering that the only one i had correct change for was in use, being watched by a couple of girls. they told me i'd have to use the other one, and so i quickly went all the way to the supermarket to get change... and realized on my way back that it hadn't occurred to me to ask if the girls could swap coins and save me the trouble.

*sigh*

it did score me a nice walk, though, as gorgeous skies are peeping through the clouds that are still dripping like a partially closed faucet.

unclogging

i woke early enough and with enough presence of mind to call the caretaker about my sink being clogged up for the past couple of weeks (i spoke to him about it at least a week ago).
"i'll be right up!" he said.
"great!" i said, surprised, and promptly realized that i really needed to pee. i didn't want to risk him arriving while i was relieving myself, so i decided to wait it out - of course he only arrived fifteen minutes later.

---once again i got on the same train as the intern who's difficult to talk to, only this time i made the mistake of not walking right past him :(

the big, unhappy deal of the day: being called out for shouting at imperieux about negligence. he defended me - "we're just talking" - which is how i'd felt until i was called out. then i felt bad and he looked like he was going to cry (i'm beginning to suspect that he just always has watery eyes) and that made me totally awkward around him for the rest of the day. as well as feeling like shit :(

cheshire cat lady, after all the time we've spent with her defining the process that covers her work and implementing it, has decided it's not good. she's a technical writer. for some reason i expected her to be less clueless than a regular user.

we had another hour-long demo today, this one was pre-lunch and post-too-many-fries. so i heated up my lunch and took it in with me; i wasn't actually hungry, and it didn't taste very good... the lesson learned is that i should stay away from lunchtime fries.

the new guy refuses to skype, so i tried to connect with him via irc. i haven't used irc in long years, and i totally failed :$

...

gods, i've been exhausted all day. i'm glad this is my training "day off". i desperately need this long weekend coming up!

red riding hood

almost forgot! i watched red riding hood this evening. it's a lot of fun, and a great retelling.

complimentary

well, well, well. two good things happened today.

the first being a response from mason apologizing and explaining the issues. he doesn't want to stop, so i explained my attitude and invited him to meet with me either tomorrow or on the weekend to figure out how we'll proceed. interesting that i just received a link in the mail to an illustrator's description of his work that ties in with what's happening.

the second being a rather nice compliment from megaman. after explaining to him what i'd designed (and had an intern set up after a few tries) i could almost see the lightbulb flash. "that's sick shit," he said. i didn't expect those words to pop out, but they made me feel much better than anything "managerial" would have ^_^

on a similar note, i've been in montreal almost nine months already, and i'm beginning to receive solicitations from headhunters that are getting closer and closer to where i want to be :)

---after wearing myself out with interviews and spending half an hour managing from home, i headed out to the clinic. it was pouring with rain - it would pour with rain the entire day - so i hopped on a bus that took its time. facing a dumpy, garishly-dressed middle-aged woman who picked her nose constantly. i tried looking anywhere else, but try as i might out of the corner of my eye i kept catching her rolling whatever she found into little balls and dropping them on the floor.

the medical building is really badly signed, and when i finally found the offices i was seeking i was certain i was in the wrong place. inexplicably, the heating was on much higher than the rest of the building (and it wasn't cold outside!), and i had to wait two turns before i could ask where i'd gotten to. i made an appointment to see the dermatologist... in mid-july. crud. i guess i'll have to see a regular physician first if my paranoia doesn't go away or i discover that i really do have a problem.

---the longest part of the workday involved me actually falling asleep during an online demo because the guy presenting to us was marginally less interesting and engaging than watching paint peel. he droned on and on, and was so bad that his partner was riveting by comparison even though she was monotonous too.

i was concerned about all the "containerizing" that was going on. that sounds violent to me.

---i got home just in time to get ready for training. kickboxing was... tough. tough because i have so many technique issues that i need to correct, and tough because my left wrist is a bit buggered from a while back and every time i land a good shot it really hurts me, and tough because after yesterday's training my body wasn't responding well to the best of my intentions.

one of the amazonians (the one i accidentally violated) was quite friendly towards me this evening. after class she felt faint, and i was glad to have some experience to draw on so that i could be helpful...

---i must be a hypochondriac: those health issues i didn't want to talk about seem to be winding down, and the inexplicable tiredness seems to have gone away as soon as i started eating better, so now i'm stuck with ringworm fears? makes sense.

early interviews

holy crap. i can't believe i dragged myself out of bed - perfect sleep in the rain - and straight into two hours of interviewing coops on the phone. i am exhausted!

at least i can take the opportunity to head to the clinic and make an appointment. perhaps getting some real coffee on the way.

social sonnets

inspired by the social network, i went to bed envisioning a conspiracy theory involving mason running off with my ideas to pen the comic without me - possibly instigated by moonlighter. [dammit! why did i tell him his name?]

i hope i'm just being ridiculous, but either way i've just found myself losing sleep over it and that's not how successful projects begin.

my email:
Hi mason, I hope you're well.

It is with deepest regret that I send you this email. Your unwillingness to communicate with me after I have entrusted you with my discovery and my documents is both hurtful and not at all in the spirit of collaboration.

I cannot understand why you are doing this but this is something so important to me that I'm losing sleep over it. This is not how I envisioned embarking on such a wonderful, world-shaking and potentially lucrative project, and although I really like you and I love your illustration I cannot see how this could possibly work.

If you are interested in pursuing, at the very least you could discuss with me whatever concerns you may have. As I said before, the first part of the project is to figure out a process for collaboration.

If you are not interested, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know. I sincerely hope that that's not the case.

Yours faithfully,

totalwaste

ugh. now to try and sleep.

muay thai early

there was actual sunlight coming through my windows this morning, so waking up was considerably easier.

ringworm? it's been more than a couple of days and i don't see serious symptoms... yet. unless itching counts, but apparently it's supposed to be a thing within a couple of days. but it's still possible: with the way i sleep, if i do have an outbreak somewhere it'll be everywhere in short order. this worries me.

listening to eminem on the metro this morning: i find his lyrics pretty darn inspirational. not in terms of their content, but in terms of their ambition. he balances preaching, confessing and expressing so well when he's not pandering. i mean entertaining :P

comics: i sent nocence a message explaining my reservations and she seems to understand... let's see if it translates well to mason. otherwise he's not for us.

work: a long day of managing, finally getting around to the stuff from friday just before leaving early for muay thai. the cto basically finished it for me, so all i had to do was test, document and pass on. i'm not disappointed.

---i arrived at the muay thai class with no idea what to expect. people were warming up, then they weren't, there didn't appear to be an instructor. then suddenly everyone was running. for about twenty minutes. no different exercises, some of the guys would randomly do things like side-stepping and so i did a bit too. then the instructor magically appeared and was lining us up to begin to drill us with exercises that had us all - me, the first-timer, and the big, bad, experienced guys too - wheezing and sore and dripping with sweat.

the next hour was just crazy.

i walked out of there on a crazy high (assisted a little by the warm reception of my repeating one of moshe kasher's jokes about fighting) and went home to shower, quaff a protein shake*, walk to the cash machine with an energy drink and hurriedly return to boxing.

* sunwarrior's raw vegan shakes are pretty good. i liked them with water, soy and almond milk. i probably should drop my soy intake a little, and i thought almond milk would be a good replacement but at 1g protein per glass (versus 7g for soy) i'm quite disappointed.

boxing was quite relaxed compared to muay thai. i do have a long way to go before i level up to the advanced class, though.

---prism scares me. as i pointed out to someone today, there is a vast difference between my allowing google and facebook et. al. to use my personal information to provide me with better service and any government using that same information to spy on me. the secret war on personal freedom has been reported, and is now open war.

i'm finally considering doing the tor thing. i'm also wondering about moving all my data offshore. only, who can one trust to manage it, if not oneself? thanks, google, for not being evil. really. </sarcasm>

fine, nystire, you were right all along.

late night with moshe kasher

i didn't realize his oakland show was so long. it's really good, too. star trek vi was much more interesting than its predecessors, and i quite enjoyed it.

...

i'm worried about ringworm still. i've noticed some small bumps on my arm... and i'm blaming the guy who i was partnered with and who was talking about it. he might well have been talking out of guilt.

scribbles iv

i've just got in from a 6km zombie run, with karnivool between incidents and psychological background noise concerning the comics consuming me. i'm working with two people who i'm hoping that i can trust, and there are things going on that do not fit in with how i see this happening but in a sense it's already out of my hands. and i don't like that at all.

but i can't draw very well, so i need this to work. so i'll play the game, and pray that everything's going to be alright. the specific incident concerns nocence and i both talking to mason and not synchronizing, and apparently he feels i'm being pushy but nobody (including him) told me. either way, i don't think it's pushy to want to meet more than once a week or communicate via email or whatnot, and i think that considering that this whole project is my baby i have a certain right to be involved a bit more.

---saturday:

1. a long, late sleep that i really needed.

2. general tiredness in spite of aforementioned sleep.

3. on my way to best buy i stopped by source and the sales dude did an awful job of convincing me to get sony in-ear headphones (mdr-ex10lp if you care). i decided to go for them in spite of him. he asked if i wanted to purchase the extended warranty and as usual i said no, but when the other sales guy shook his head to indicate the stupidity of my decision i asked him why.
"what happened to your previous headphones?"
"the cable's fucked. as always happens."
"exactly. with this warranty, when it happens just come in a swap them out."
ooooooooooh.

why can't somebody design headphones that can't pull like that?!

anyway, the quality is so much better than anything i've used in years! i walked along the highway and could barely hear the vehicles passing, and the bass sounds good. it was dreamy ^_^

4. i stopped at starbucks for a large soy latte and some sketching time. i made some progress and was then joined by horseman. i showed him malice in wonderland (the trippy, totally nsfw animated short) by way of explaining what shakespeare's imagery does in my head, and when he got it he described something he'd been looking at in the same style. perhaps after the comics we'll make a short of all the crazy that isn't appropriate for them.

5. horseman joined me as i did some quick shopping on my way home, and was impressed by my fallout setup. even better - he has tekken 6. he's promised to bring it over sometime.

6. after playing a bit of fallout, i watched tom rhodes. he's pretty darn funny! and chased that with star trek iv before going to bed. meh. a couple of good lines, but not impressive.

---sunday:

1. a long chat with my toronto cousins.

2. lunch with godmother and yin and a couple of her friends who came over to see her. yin's looking okay, at least, although her legs are screwed :(

one of her friends is studying literature and we talked about a few things; what was really weird is that she's cute, but there's a definite shared look and mannerisms with the witch. it was like meeting the professor's younger self, and finding her at all attractive was a little creepy.

3. as i left the day became beautiful - for the first time in ages - and so i walked to the metro. on the way i stopped in at the health food store for a long chat about probiotics, and i was talked out of buying supplements as i'm not experiencing any issues. i took a couple of samples for different protein powders (and ordered a sample of another one), then returned home.

4. laundry. and using laundry as an excuse to watch star trek v. certainly better than the previous episode, although less fun and not particularly amazing. now that i think about it, perhaps i've been ruined by the space quest series...

5. the run. and posting this. and now it's late and i *must* make dinner and get some rest. *ahem* watch another movie.

---the one way mission to mars seems legit. and sounds like it'd be a great way for me to participate in our great escape! i do believe i have what it takes, and i've prepared a short speech for an application video.

but.

is it for real?
i mean, looking at some of the applications i'm not sure...

scribbles iii

damn. i don't want to write posts anymore because i don't feel like i have the time. but i can't not, with my info ocd.

---friday:

1. cold, rainy snoozing. each day of crap weather has been harder to get up for.

2. gog's newsletter is dangerous. very bad for the wallet. currently there's a sale on that includes both cannon fodder games (which i've really wanted to check out for years but each abandonware copy is unusable) and the entire leisure suit larry collection. i had to.

3. work: i finally caught hold of the cto and he gave me a tutorial on working with a central part of our systems i've never had access to before. it was actually quite exciting! even more exciting was that the opportunity was being taken in order for me to be able to build what i need to integrate everything properly, instead of having him build something we can't use without sidelining everything that's already functional.

4. half the company bailed on the happy hour, so those of us who were left decided to head downtown and mix the happy hour with the crescent street craziness. crescent street itself was rather disappointing, but the first bar was nice and then we returned to peel pub, which got a bit silly after the long island iced teas and more beer. after that a few of us returned to the office and played great pool before calling it a week.

i'd definitely had too much to drink. i spoke to yin for a while, then put myself to bed.

scribbles ii

damn. i don't want to write posts anymore because i don't feel like i have the time. but i can't not, with my info ocd.

---thursday:

1. i woke up feeling the night before. not in a bad way, really...

2. my tenant's rent was more than four days late, and i was not impressed. he apologized profusely by email, but i'm not sure he really understood when i explained to him that i need to know before there's a problem, not be ignored. not impressed.

3. of all the platforms i've ever used, mac os is the dumbest. i'm horrified whenever something that's supposed to be so clean and fluid repeatedly does exactly the opposite of what i instruct it to. also, the battery thing is completely ridiculous. i have to bleed it out to prevent it from dying, but if i get distracted (as often happens) between the warning and the shutdown then i have to wait upwards of five minutes for it to restart. what the hell?!?!

4. the night before at peel pub i ran into a guy from the gym, and he substituted for our regular kickboxing instructor. he drinks a lot every night, and yet he trains hard every day. he killed us! although he did introduce a bit of taekwondo, and it was nice to feel in full control for once :P

5. intending to try crescent street again i called up yang. my uncle answered the phone and couldn't figure out who i was, he must have been rattled because earlier that day yin had been run over my a postal truck. after ascertaining that she was stabilized, i joined yang but he was no longer in the mood for festivities so we went to cock 'n bull instead. neuroscientist and another friend of his rocked up, and we talked non-stop until i decided it was late and that i should be heading home. the other guy was in need of some guidance, and i do take my responsibilities as a pastafarian minister seriously :)

6. i ate dinner watching death note. it's not mind-blowing, but it is very cool.

scribbles i

damn. i don't want to write posts anymore because i don't feel like i have the time. but i can't not, with my info ocd.

---wednesday:

1. birds singing, wrapped in sheets and re-dreaming [dreaming dreams i've dreamed before]

2. sleeping on the metro to tool - reflection

3. botswana demo crisis: again. how is it this man doesn't learn not to come to us with a malfunction just as everyone's leaving the day before a morning demo? this one averted by agreeing with megaman that we don't respond.

4. walking into jock's cubicle just in time to catch him saying "i hate you" to his phone and put it down. i couldn't get my hate poem out of my head for the next two days.

5. what on earth reminded me of spot the braincell? [this link is to a version slightly different to the one in my head, but that's because i memorized my brother's audio collection]

6. ringworm paranoia after the previous day's training: ever since my mma partner told me about it, i've been itching all over. i'm pretty sure it's psychosomatic, as i don't see any signs of anything. i've been looking to purchase rash guards, but i can't figure out what the right style is for me.

7. i spent the day knocking off items from my to-do list that have been accumulating over the past couple of months. it was incredibly cathartic!

8. mason made contact, apparently he'd lost his phone. later he sent me a draft for the cover, and it's good.

9. tracking my intake with fitday has helped me get into a routine; i'm now consuming a lot more calories and my protein intake's averaging double!

10. it's grand prix week, and a few of us agreed to meet up at crescent street to partake in the celebrations. i rushed laundry, shopped and snacked before heading out. i was falling asleep waiting for horseman to show up, but a good cup of coffee took care of that. before meeting up with the others the two of us walked around talking music and rapping: he's setting his digs up as a studio this summer and wants to get busy producing. i'm all in!

crescent street was still being set up, although it was filled with beautiful locals. we went to peel instead. my dinner, once again, was beer and fries (it's becoming a thing, and i like it). we all had a great time, and i was amused when jock's friend asked who i am and he didn't know how to respond.
"he's my... boss? he can't be my boss."
i am, but i'm glad that i don't set off the traditional "boss" flags. one's team should feel comfortable sharing everything, in my opinion, while still respecting one's authority.

two of us almost missed the last trains, but fortunately we ran quickly enough. i was quite tipsy; i spent the entire ride working on memorizing preacher.

radio silence

i can't tell you i'm not concerned that mason hasn't been in contact since an sms response last night. i wouldn't be that concerned if he hadn't told me that he'd start working on it today and would try to be in contact as much as possible. otherwise, i've been ridiculously excited about everything!

aota warned me against it, but i couldn't resist informing moonlighter that i found someone - he told me that he actually had an illustrator he thought would be good for me, but who's swamped with his own stuff at the moment. he was kind enough to offer to proof-read for us, and that's kind of useful coming from a comic publisher.

---yesterday i had trouble getting out of bed, today i managed to get up but i was completely exhausted. it was so bad i even found it difficult to get through my morning coffee.

positive work day: problem solving is my game, and it felt great to have the cto agree with my plan instead of stepping around me as he's been doing for the past couple of months. additionally, i finally managed to restore a critical system that he and moonlighter broke a while back. it actually felt strange to see it operational and correct, and heartwarming to get congratulatory and grateful emails from my team :P

---jock told a great story that i have to share:

a former employer of his, when faced with a stack of resumes will throw half of them out without even looking at them. because he doesn't want to employ anyone who's unlucky.

it makes sense, it's completely wrong, and i find it highly amusing.

---jiu-jitsu training was excellent, and would have been much better if my partner hadn't put the fear of ringworm into me. apparently it's a thing when wrestling. not cool.

i helped out with the previous kickboxing class by volunteering to even the class out for conditioning, continued with their cool-down exercises and went straight into the warm-up of the beginners' class. it was a good class, and the advantage of being the most experienced was being used for demonstrations and getting important personal corrections that might have been missed in the intensity of the advanced classes.

cooling yet warmer

the day began with a lot of snoozed alarms while the cool rain pattered along to my dreams.

monday pre-coffee mayhem lasted over an hour and a half, but i was calm and collected... or dispassionate... and eventually things started to make sense. i had one important job to do and nobody let me alone long enough to do it until 5pm, and by 5.15 i was out of there to meet with mason.

---a friend of megaman's started working today, and he's the guy i interviewed a while back and quite like. there was something really suspicious about seeing the two of them talking non-stop in megaman's office for ages. i know they're friends, but the sense that he's putting together a private team and an inside takeover is hard to shake.

---as a soldier i was once asked where my extra weight is hiding when i told a cook i was over 80kg in order to get an extra portion (i've maintained about 85kg since i started taekwondo in 2000-2001). i was talking to jock about weight today and he asked me the same question in the same tone; a short time later the right answer struck me:

it's in my ego. *my* soul weighs significantly more than the 21g everyone else carries around.

---i met up with nocence and mason at the metro and we sat down at a cool little coffee shop where mason proceeded to blow me away with his drawings and we discussed the details of how we're going to proceed.

we're beginning at the beginning, with the cover art (one of the most important aspects, funnily enough), the inscriptions (more interesting than you'd expect), and the first three panels. i can't tell you how excited i am to see this fantasy of mine taking its first steps! and it seems to me like he's pretty damn quick, and that i was right to think that collaborating on the design decisions would be optimal.

boxing was tough and fun tonight, i've been productive this evening and as i go to bed fitday reports that i'm actually net positive on calories and have consumed a greater than satisfactory quantity of protein today. and the clock reports that i'm going to bed a lot later than i should be. but i'm super-stoked so that's alright :)

weekend flash

back to the rest of thursday:

discovering that jock's "mixed" (i think "mulatto" isn't politically correct) was a bit of a surprise: he really does come across as the all-american (even though he's canadian) caucasian ideal. cool.

so, training was hardcore. i actually winded myself towards the end of the endurance / power training in the ring; my partner had already kicked me so hard during his turn that even with a giant pad between us it was the same as conditioning and i was hurting. the man's 49 and a tank, when he asked me my age he made me feel as if in reality our numbers were switched.

i don't think i'd agree to spar with him. not unless i level up a few more times. he told me, and he's right, that i need to learn to pace myself better.

instead of eating dinner, i went downtown to meet aota for drinks. we sat on a loud sidewalk nursing pints and fries, and aside from very loud drunks wandering out from the beer festival it was a cool evening.

nocence messaged me about a potential illustrator - i didn't want to get too excited, but it was certainly positive news :)

---friday:

i woke up feeling the previous evening: it was totally worth it. that *good* semi-hungover bright morning sunlight streaming in while slowly getting ready for work in a daze.

i had a very positive experience with amazon web services, not hurt by my demolishing a delicious vegan-friendly dessert aota had picked up from the bakery while i was working on them. the weather was fantastic, and my lunch break walk outside was highly enjoyable. i got all excited when i found a protein supplement called hemp pro 50, but learned very quickly that it's the foulest-tasting thing on the market! it tastes like licking a dirty handrail in a cowshed. i managed to get down half of it, and then spent the next hour trying to forget the taste.

happy hour: i read preacher to the group because jock's comments about lupe fiasco had inspired it, only megaman was there and i think he was shocked by my language. i usually don't curse in my poetry, but the voice in the poem isn't mine. only i didn't think to mention that.

newk'd, jock and i played pool for a while. really good pool, it was a lot of fun!

it was hot and i was sweaty when i got home, so i had a quick shower and couldn't figure out what i wanted to do. only, i knew that i wanted to be outside. so i put on my running shorts, strapped on my iphone and activated zombies, run! for the first time in ten months. my knee is still a little sensitive so i'm trying to improve my form. that's why i'm not going fast enough to be chased...

i watched the raid redemption (excellent! similar feel to dredd) and then got stuck into fitday. fitday freaked me out when it informed me that on average i'm consuming 1500 calories less than i should be. i don't know what made me think that posting that information on facebook was a good idea. it would take me until this morning to find a reliable source to make me feel like i'm doing alright.

---saturday:

urchin finally responded to my hails, and what she had to say blew me away. she's currently in the middle of a half a year of pretty severe cancer treatment and she's had nobody to talk to about it - she's even kept it a secret from her family. i kind of understand why, but oh my gods (O_o)
at least she's finally talking to me about it...

i didn't manage to stop thinking about that for most of the day, except during the two hours of magic that was to come. i met up with nocence at l'artere and we waited for mason, but due to a miscommunication he was waiting for us at cagibi. no matter, it was a short walk on a nice day. the introduction was comfortable and although my explanation was all over the place, he didn't just follow but actually participated in what became a discussion about where this is all going. he knows enough to follow what i'm doing, and his art style is detailed and dark which is absolutely perfect. we're meeting up tomorrow after work to see if we can produce something ^_^

i took a walk to fbdm (the montreal comic festival) stopping for a sandwich at la casa del popolo to try and get my head around the meeting that had taken place. i was so excited! but after i left i began to feel the oppressive heat and my stomache got irritable and my bag weighed down on me... even so, la fontaine park was a wonderful experience - it's my new favourite place in montreal! masses of all sorts of people doing such very different things, most just relaxing on towels as if it's a beach. very cool :)

the comics tent was too crowded for my state of discomfort and i returned home to crash on the couch, eventually waking up feeling like i had heatstroke. i definitely spent a lot longer in the sun than i'd intended... but i was feeling good, kind of, so i guess it was primarily dehydration which i sorted out quickly enough.

it was so hot that i had to shower twice, the second one being a shockingly cold one. hello, summer!

i watched star trek iii, which was a lot of fun, and then two hours of highlights from 2012's ufc fights.

by then it was very late. i'd done laundry and forgotten to replace my sheets, but now that it's summer and i've packed away the duvet that wasn't such a mission.

---sunday:

the thunderstorm that began the night before was still lingering in the morning, and that broke a few of the plans for the day. which worked out well, actually. i went to walmart to buy a fan, had lunch and slapped on sunscreen to return to fbdm. i was scheduled to meet with nocence and mason there, but when i arrived at the mont-royal metro station i received a message saying they weren't coming after all.

i didn't really feel like going alone, and nocence invited me to jean talon market to show me a couple of health stores she recommends. good call! i bought a whole box of clif builder bars and one of these. i probably won't buy those in bulk because they're not as good as the builders protein-wise, but my gods, it's an exquisitely delicious chocolate bar that's vegan and has a decent amount of protein in it. who needs mars bars or snickers?!

seriously, it's crazy good.

i went for another run when i got back home because i didn't have time to go to the gym as i'd planned, and i got back certain that my sunscreen had stopped working too early. i'm not burned, but i definitely got more colour than i wanted.

i headed to godmother's for dinner. it was perfect weather for a barbeque and to eat dinner outside! absolutely lovely. we ignored my uncle's bad behaviour and had a jolly good evening, the food was good and i ate *just* too much... and i've been invited to go over for cooking lessons if i can only figure out how to time such a thing.

when i left it was 9.15, twilight, and the weather had cooled down to "just right" - perfect for a stroll to the metro station. the walk was nothing short of grand! although... two cute girls rollerbladed past me and they looked like they were struggling. when i caught up to them a few minutes later (they'd stopped for a rest) i asked if they were beginners, and when they answered in the affirmative i explained to them that they need to bend their knees and lean forward: advice i give to anyone who doesn't do it. only, i think i should have sugar-coated it a little. like "you're doing well" or "you're looking good" before offering not-necessarily wanted advice. i hope they didn't feel as awkward about it afterwards as i did.

it's been a simple evening online, mostly posting this while being distracted by all sorts of other things (like fitday), and now i do believe it's high time that i get myself into bed.

a meeting of minds

my world is spinning: nocence found an illustrator who's talented and who's genuinely interested in working with us. and after two hours talking, i feel like we speak the same language.

we begin this week.

i am very, VERY excited.