everything will be alright

This is the first thing I've posted here that's not a Dear Author letter in... quite some time now. I could go and check but I don't wanna. Plus I don't really want to know how long either.

I've been meaning to start NaNo this year but haven't, and this is my concession to myself; start writing something here, even if it's just nonsense, and then maybe you'll start writing elsewhere. I don't know if that's going to be true or not but hey, we'll see.

In the meantime, most of my free time has been taken up with FFXIV lately. Dear lord, that game has its hooks into me but good. I actually pre-ordered the 1.0 edition way, way, way back, played it for a short time, then didn't touch it again until February of this year. My wife got into it last year and I joined in, and, aside from a good chunk of the summer when I didn't do much, I've been playing a lot ever since. It's a good time, and I'm really looking forward to the next DLC, which is set for December now.

Other than that, I've been sick for the better part of a week, but am back to work tomorrow. It's a day in the city so that'll make for an easier return, or so I hope. Wish me well!

I've been meaning to write an entry for ages, ever since Christmas actually, but haven't until now. Life's been crazy busy and it's hard to believe that much time has passed, yet here we are. A lot of it has been due to work, and then in turn coming home from work I've been losing myself in video games for the most part as a way to unplug.

Work itself has been good, but very, very busy. April was especially difficult, as the other lawyer in the office was gone for five weeks, from the end of March until the first full week of May. During that time I had a long trial that ate up virtually the entire month, too, with a difficult subject matter, all of which lead to me being drained. Honestly I'm still recovering, and it's probably going to take awhile - May is fairly busy too, though with the other lawyer back and the awesome news that we're getting another one for the office it'll get better.

As a reward for surviving it, we've booked a week long trip to Mexico for June, which is going to be awesome. I've never been and I'm really looking forward to being able to relax and just do nothing for so long. I'm usually not one for warm weather but being at an all inclusive resort will be a much different scenario than being here and having to work and such, I'm sure.

With respect to gaming, I've been playing tons of Marvel Heroes, omg. Through various buy one, get one free sales and cheap random hero boxes, combined with spending in game currency I've earned from playing, I own almost every hero (I think I'm at 27 of 33, holy crap) and have been trying to play them all. The level cap is 60 and I've got 5 there so far, with a few more at 25-30 or so. You get a bonus to your xp the more that you level characters, up to 200% total, and I think I'm at 90%+ bonus now so levelling isn't bad at all. It's fun and it's been a great way to not think about work once I get home, heh.

Other than that, I've been trying to read and write more but I've been failing miserably. The NHL playoffs have consumed a lot of my time too, so between that and my newfound passion for Marvel Heroes I've had very little free time outside of that. That's another thing I'm looking forward to during our vacation, taking a few books with me and reading on a nice, warm beach somewhere. The writing, though, I don't know what to do about that. I've taken part in a few exchanges but haven't really been happy with my work, other than the latest one which got a very kind review from its recipient. We'll see how that goes I guess.

Oh, and speaking of travel, I'll be going to a conference for work in July, which is awesome. It's only in Halifax but I like it there, and it'll be a nice little break to get away for a bit. It's coming less than a month after my week off in Mexico but still, it'll be nice. Then a few weeks after -that- my in-laws will be visiting and I'll be off for another few weeks.

It's going to be a nice summer, I think, and I desperately need the break, so I can't wait for it to start. With the addition of the third lawyer here's hoping things get back to normal sooner rather than later, because this pace has been crazy. I still wouldn't go back to private practice, but I really can't wait for this to get easier as well. While there's pretty much no financial stress these days, there's a different kind of stress that's more manageable but managing it is another job in and of itself. We're just long overdue for a break and we'll be getting it soon, along with much needed help, so things are starting to look up.

So, tomorrow is the first day of both my and believeitup's new job, holy crap. We both knew it was coming but it's hard to believe it's almost here, that it's really happening. Very excited, pretty nervous too, but it's going to be ok, I know it will be.

Off to bed now that I've made myself post something, haha, will try to update more going forward now that the stress and hustle of cluing up my former job is now behind me. :)

It was a pretty sedate long weekend for me, and not what I'd planned to do at all, but it still turned out to be an awesome one. Our plan was to stay with friends of ours at their cabin, which is about a 3.5 hour drive or so away, but that got scrapped when the forecast Saturday morning projected 30-35cm of snow there overnight with another 10cm the next day. There were supposed to be 16 of us there, and almost everyone pulled out aside from the 2 owners, who went out Friday night, and I think 3 other people. I feel bad because they're great friends of ours and it would've been a blast, but damn, that much snow is something to fear. Especially now, with snow tires having to be removed by April 30th (ours were off just before that), and given the remote location of the cabin (downhill and a few minutes' drive off the paved road = near impassable if we did get the snow) and the fact that Sara sadly didn't have today off like I did, we just couldn't do it. Most of the other people canceled too, but there's talk of going back for Labour Day weekend so I hope that works out. I really do love going out there, and have a blast every time I do, but it just wasn't meant to be this time round. The kicker is that while they did get some snow it wasn't really all that bad, haha. Oh well.

Instead we both stayed at home all day Saturday and relaxed. Having passed out at a decent hour on Friday night I was up by 9am and, once the cabin plans were off, I called my cousin. He'd offered a day in the city on Sunday after I helped him with some stuff, all expenses paid, to see a movie and grab a bite to eat, but we'd put it on hold after I told him I'd be gone this weekend. That was able to happen now, and we made plans for Sunday, with Saturday being a completely found day. I managed to get in some reading, along with a lot of Neverwinter playing (some with writteninsable and econ_cat, holla~!), and all in all it was a fantastic, relaxing day, just what I needed. On top of that, my uncle was in town from Ontario and he took us all out for supper, which was awesome, to celebrate my late grandmother's birthday. We did this the previous two years, with my mother's siblings making a concerted effort to gather for Nan's birthday on May 5th and to enjoy the time we have together after my Aunt Marilyn's unexpected passing at 54 in late 2010. Nan passed away in March so there wasn't a big, formal supper or anything, of course, but when my uncle came back this time we still rounded up everyone who was around to celebrate her memory. There were, gosh, maybe 14 of us I think? A big crowd, to be sure, and it was an awesome meal with my family, even if some of the food was mreh. The company was great, but some of the food was great and some not-so-great, and the service was pretty slow and lackluster; taking 10m to deliver drinks, when a lot of it was just plain beer and scotch on the rocks (for me :D) was odd, and forgetting glasses for those who asked, lime for one drink, etc. Things like that were common, and then the main meal was hit and miss, as my meat was fine but the side was small and not the best. Just a weird experience, but being there with family meant it didn't matter as much. After that I came home and played Neverwinter until I passed out, essentially, haha.

Sunday I got up early-ish, even after my late night of gaming, and drove to my cousin's house for 10am. He then drove us into the city from there - he lives about 15m away so I met him there, as the city is going the opposite way from us - and we spent most of the day in there. That was nice, because even just getting to chat with Terry is fun, and we haven't done that in ages. He's been sick, having had back surgery not too long ago and might have more in the near future, but he's able to at least get around more now. We hit up Chapters, where I picked up my only purchase of the day, the first book in a Neverwinter series that ties into the aforesaid MMO hehe, and then we had lunch together at Montana's. I forewent my usual steak dinner, partly because it seemed like they only had a lunch menu on and there was virtually no steak options on it as opposed to their supper menu, and partly because I wanted to try their ribs. I'd had a small portion of ribs with my supper the previous night, so I wanted to give Montana's a shot, and Terry had the same, and man. Deeeeeeeeelish, omg. That was a fabulous meal, then we hit up Best Buy and Staples so Terry could pick up some things before returning to the mall to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. No spoilers, but I liked it a lot. Maybe not quite as much as the first one, to be honest, but I'll see how I feel after seeing it a few more times. Definitely one I'll be buying once it comes out. The only bad thing about the movie experience was the renovations to the theatre, which left only one long ass line for food, and maybe they weren't expecting many people because of the long weekend (usually people go camping for May 24th but not us XD) but dang, it was slammed. So much so that even though we got there ~15-20m before the movie started, normally plenty of time for food, there was no earthly way we were getting popcorn without missing some of the movie. So we capitulated and went to the local drug store in the mall, picking up some chips, chocolate, and pop there, which was much cheaper of course but dammit, I love me some movie popcorn. Ah well. We left for home after the movie and I caught the 3rd period of the Bruins/Rangers game at Terry's place (go Bruins, woo!) before heading back home. Sara and I made an early night of it, kind of, going to bed between the 2nd and 3rd periods of the Pens/Sens game, and I stopped fighting it and quickly fell asleep after the first overtime of that one.

Today I was up early again, around 9am, and it's been a pretty sedate day. I mainly watched hockey when it was on, read some more of the recent Neverwinter book I picked up, and messed around with the Goodreads app, adding a bunch of friends and a ton of books into my library there. Tomorrow or later on this week I may try and unpack a bunch of boxes I've had packed for ages, both to try and clean up a little and to get them added into my library as well. We'll see that goes, no huge hurry for that, but it'd be nice to find some of my old things again. I meant to do some writing and a bunch of other things but alas, I was lazy. It was a nice, relaxing day though so I'm grateful for that, and now it's off to bed to catch the end of the game and maybe read a bit before sleeping.

Last but certainly not least, Happy Anniversary to my amazing wife and best friend, believeitup! Love you and here's to spending many, many more together. ♥

Bit of a humbling birthday yesterday for me. The day in general was all right; had lots of kind people sending me good wishes on Facebook and in person, had lunch with my best friend, and a nice supper with my family. The worst part of the day was finally, finally hearing back from the job for which I applied way back in November last year with the news that I didn't get it. The person who called was very sympathetic, since I'd been calling her, what, at least once a week since January or so, and she encouraged me to re-send my resume since there may be more positions soon, but yeah.

It was a real bummer, especially when I got the message that she'd called me I sort of assumed it had to be good news, that they'd only send me a rejection letter if it wasn't meant to be, but nope. I appreciate that she wanted to tell me in person, that's very nice and professional of her, but still, kind of a crushing blow. I did so much work for them over the last several months when they were shorthanded, both to help that office and the court, and to show that I'm more than capable of doing the job, and it didn't amount to anything, apparently.

Well, it might have, because what might have happened was this: due to the partially-reversed-but-still-calling-for-positions-to-be-eliminated budget cuts, someone in another position with them might have gotten bumped, seeing their job cut but offered instead to fill this spot. I'll know once I find out who'll be working there, I suppose, and if that's the case it's a little different. Same end result for me, true, but I can appreciate someone who otherwise would've been unemployed choosing to instead fill another position; were it me faced with the same decision that's what I would've done, anyway. I can only hope the moving around and people retiring - the one lawyer who spoke out against the cuts accepted an early retirement package yesterday too, so that's another spot to be filled for example - might result in hiring one or more other people nearby, so it might all work out for the best in the end. A door closes, a window opens, etcetera. Time will tell.

That blow, and reflecting on some other people's situations in the world, made me realize that I should be grateful for what I do have: my wife, my friends, my family, my health, my full-time job, and a heck of a lot more. Things could be better, I guess, they always could be better, but more importantly they could be far worse than they are, so I should count my blessings.

So that's what I'm going to do. Time to put the nose to the grindstone and keep up all the great progress we've made at work lately. I got more incentive from a good friend last night, but more on that later, as it's time for lunch now. :)

So, it's been awhile since I wrote in here. Nothing too exciting to report, but I'll put it behind a cut because I have a feeling I may get ramble-y just the same.

( Stuff! )

Also, Happy Thanksgiving to my American family and friends, hope you have a great holiday! :)

Real life continues to move at top speed, or so it seems lately. Last weekend was my cousin's wedding, in which I stood up for him, and the weekend before that was his bachelor party out in Terra Nova. The party was great, thanks to a rainy day turning decent just in time for 18 holes of golf, followed by a nice night of drinks and playing guitar until the wee small hours of the morning in a private chalet. Very good time indeed, and the wedding went well last weekend too.

I really enjoyed being a part of the wedding, and I've gotta say, the other guys who stood up for my cousin were really nice too. I knew some of them from back in the day, but there were a good many I hadn't met before the bachelor party and I'm glad to have gotten the chance to get to know them. Hopefully I'll see some of them around in the future, maybe golfing with Terry and some of them down the road, that'd be nice. There was talk of having another little get together before the end of the summer (many of them are teachers), this time with significant others invited too, for a BBQ and campfire / sing-a-long, which would be pretty awesome.

I've got another bachelor party and a wedding the next two weekends in a row, similarly involving another 18 holes of golf tomorrow. The last few years I've only gotten out, what, once or maybe twice tops each year, usually just for 9 holes, so this is a lot for me. I have a cheap set of clubs that's fitting for a hack such as myself, though if I keep going out as much as this (and if Terry and I do start playing more often) I may have to look into getting a better set. We'll see, it won't be this summer, but maybe next year. I do love the game; they say you only have to make one good shot each outing to make you want to come back and play again, and so far I've been able to meet that minimum criterion. I usually can drive ok (though I'm known to have a wicked hook a lot of the time >.>) and putting, while not a pro at all of course, I can do ok with, it's the irons that kill me. Getting from a decent tee shot onto the green in only a few shots is what destroys my game. Ideally I should hit a driving range more often (or at all) to work on things but it's kind of far away. I used to go all the time back when I was living in Marystown, which was about a 15-20 minute drive away; here the nearest one isn't too, too much further, maybe closer to 30 or just over, but I just can't be bothered. It helped that my buddy Marcus would come with me a lot of the time in Marystown but out here I don't have anyone, unless Terry and I start going.

We'll see how it goes anyway, I'm looking forward to it. After the first few holes in Terra Nova I started improving and by the back nine I was hooking/slicing things a lot less and hitting the irons more consistency. I even managed to par the 18th hole in Terra Nova, which is just a par 3 but you have to clear a large water hazard to get onto the green, which I did before 2 putting it for par. I was ecstatic though, haha.

Other than that, not a lot of news to report. Most of my free time for the last few weeks has been spent playing Final Fantasy XIII, which I'm loving so much. Sara's been watching me play and has been following the story too, and we're both having a lot of fun. I should finish it some time this weekend, maybe even tonight, but then there's a lot of post-main storyline stuff to work on which I think I will do. I've got the sequel, FFXIII-2, waiting in the wings, but I've put so much time and effort into the first game's party that I want to see it through if I can. We'll see how long it takes to do things, it should be fun though.

Oh, and Big Brother 14 has started, which I've also gotten Sara dragged into I think, muahaha. The drama started pretty early with it this year, which shouldn't really be too surprising I suppose, but I'm glad that guilty pleasure of mine is back on the air again three times a week too. A very busy time but a good time lately. :)

Wow, it really has been ages since I wrote anything here. I could've sworn I'd done a post since I got back to Newfoundland but it doesn't look like it, huh. Well, where to start? For the sake of brevity (and also because I've likely forgotten a lot of details / things) I'll do most of this in bullet point form.

· We saw Bruce Springsteen play in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center back on March 28th, and wow. Just an amazing show, can't even put it into words, at least not in any form that'd do it justice. The theme for the night was changes, very fitting for us, and they were in top form. The tributes to Danny and Clarence brought tears to my eyes, and the tribute to the Big Man during 10th Avenue Freeze-Out was a religious experience. Heck, the whole show was, to me anyway. So very happy I got to see them live, and even happier I got to share that with believeitup.

· We left on Monday, April 2nd to drive back to Canada. The 10' U-Haul truck I'd reserved wasn't available so they bumped us up to a 14' one at no cost. It was for the best in the end, even if it was hella intimidating to have to drive a 22' long vehicle that far (the storage was 14', truck and all was 22' total x.x), because we had a bigger cab and that meant more room for Simon in his carrier and us. It was a great trip, getting to see friends along the way and lots of scenery, though it was rough on poor Simon who consequently made it rough on us, heh. But we survived, and so did Simon, who's pretty settled into his new digs now. :)

· We arrived in NL on Good Friday and have been steadily unpacking and straightening things away ever since. We're getting there, though there's always going to be something else to do; such is the nature of home ownership, or so I'm told. It's been going so well though, getting government IDs and programs set up, a new car for the missus, all that administrative stuff has gone very well and honestly faster than expected. The unpacking too has been nice, though I don't know if it's that from this weekend or a touch of the flu that has me so so so congested this morning, ugh.

· We have HD set up at home now, woo, and a lightning fast internet connection that omg I am so happy with. Both I guess, really, because HD rocks. So nice to finally be able to use the TV we got so long ago. Getting used to the PVR too, I've set up a few shows to record, it's great. Hockey in HD is awesome too, though it made watching my boys bow out of the playoffs tough. >.> In truth we had gone to bed for overtime of Game 7 of the Boston/Washington series and both of us had nodded off and missed the OT goal that clinched it for the Caps, haha. Alas. We have mainlined Community and are now caught up and watching it in real time (last week's Law & Order one was omg amazing), and are now making our way through Parks and Recreation. We've also watched a lot of Storage Wars and Pawn Stars, as you do.

· Writing has been horrible for me, sadly, and I feel like a total failure in that vein, because I really have been. I've been so slow and absent for XP the last month, though I'm hopefully turning the corner on that one. I bowed out of the two Big Bangs I'd signed up for because I couldn't write anything, and I have a little story due today for a 1k fic exchange that I really need to tidy up and send off by the end of the day. That'll be about the only thing I've accomplished in the last month or more, which is pretty sad, but it'll be ok.

· In gaming news, I've preordered both Diablo III and Guild Wars 2 and am looking forward to them both. I've had trouble installing the former which I should work on tonight, as it goes live on May 15th, but there was a beta for the latter this past weekend that was pretty fun. It looks like a great little MMO, and I haven't really touched LOTRO in so long, so we'll see what happens I guess. I've also been toying with proposing a D&D campaign by mail to people in XP but honestly I've been so absent lately I don't think it'd be proper to throw that out there all of a sudden, haha. "Hey guys, I'm not rping much at all lately but let's do something else where I can fail you! :D" I know, I know, too negative, but I am messing around and making characters so once I've done that (and once I've been better at tagging logs and such) we'll see. :)

That's about it really, I suppose. There's likely more to post about but it's almost lunch time and I'm staaaaaarving, so if anything else comes to me I'll make another post or something. And hopefully I'll be posting here again more regularly too, that might help with the whole writing thing, you know, actually writing and all. XD

It's been an interesting day alright. It started off kinda weird - last night I watched The Muppets, which is quite possibly my favourite movie from last year (definitely the most enjoyable theatre experience I had last year), and it gave me odd dreams I think. Near by bed (on it when it's made, on the side otherwise) is a Build-A-Bear my wife made me way back where we were dating, a little black bear in a Bruins uniform (Phil Bear, for the record, after then-Bruin Phil Kessel), and sometime in the wee small hours of the morning I woke up and started taking his jersey off. I do not know why, and I remember sort of waking up halfway through and was like "what the eff am I doing?" I think I started putting it back on and then was like wait, I should be sleeping, and just left him there like he is now. I don't even know, it was kind of bizarre, not gonna lie.

The other weird thing was when I went to court this morning. It was pretty cold, as we got a little bit of snow last night, and it was still chilly out today. I parked my car across the road from the courthouse - it was a first appearance day and even though I was there 10m early it was still packed - and went to cross the road, when I heard a little 'ting!' noise and noticed my wedding ring was no longer on my finger. Uh-oh. I was crossing at a crosswalk and there were no cars coming, so I took a minute or two to look at the ground, figuring the morning sun would bounce off of the shiny silver and show me its location in no time flat. Noooooope. So after moving back to look at another angle, a car or two drive by, which makes me panic. What if by some freak coincidence the ring got imbedded in one of those tires and was being driven away? Or what if it fell on its side and went rolling down the hill somewhere - the court is sort of on a hill, kinda - which meant it could be anywhere by now. Oh man. Not only did I lose my ring, but there went my idea of getting there early to talk to the Crown (which, by the by, failed anyway since she didn't show up until after the 9:30 start time anyway >.>). I decided to go inside and get one of the bailiffs to maybe come help me find it, reaching into my pocket for my keys as I did so - and, to my relief, felt the ring in my pants pocket. It had apparently fallen off as I was putting my hand in my pocket and the 'ting!' had been it hitting the keys. Pheeeeeeeeew. Needless to say I've been looking down at my finger very frequently all day, haha. I'm guessing the cold shrunk my finger or something because it's usually not a problem, so yeah, just weird.

Other than that, work went well enough, and this evening I gave myself the task of redeeming all the digital copies of movies I have laying about the room while watching You Again. A few of them were already expired, sadly, and a few require downloads - 1.5gb or so each and my connection suuuuuuuuuucks, so may do it overnight or something - and reorganized a few things. I also made wings for supper but they sucked, the first batch of them I cooked (way back on Superbowl Sunday) were awful but I slightly overcooked (read: burnt) them, but these were actually just as bad even though I was way more observant with them. Must either be a bad batch or just bad wings overall I guess, which sucks. Ah well. I'm kinda proud that I actually made supper instead of getting take out; the folks are in the city to help my sister move to her new apartment (that's a whole 'nother story itself, for another time maybe) so I was on my own, but I'm trying to cut back. In that vein, the girls at work are doing a little friendly competition to see who can lose the most weight, and I'm so in on it. Tomorrow morning we weigh in at the office and we'll be keeping track, though I'll have to do it on my own while in the US next week. Still, I love the idea, and encouragement is always a good thing, since left to my own devices, well. Yeah. So this will be good. :)

Last night while watching the Oscars I was thinking about movie watching in general, and my lack of it lately. I think this year's Oscars was the worst ever for me in terms of having seen nominated movies - Moneyball was the only one of the nine Best Picture nominations I'd seen and I think the last Harry Potter movie was up for a technical Oscar or something, but other than that I hadn't seen any of them, I don't think. The whole Oscars in general got me thinking back to the Oscar pool Yahoo used to host and how we'd always do them each year in Law School, having a viewing party at Jillian's place, it was always a good time. Back then I would have seen most if not all of the big pictures, but things have certainly changed.

These days I hardly watch movies at all, it seems. Even my formally frequent forays to the theatre are more and more infrequent lately. I still pick up the odd Blu-Ray or DVD (being a video snob nonetheless I go with the former when I can, but still don't mind DVDs for TV shows) but you should see the stack next to my TV alone, ugh. I've been better lately, as part of my global media initiative to consume what I have before buying more, but even with that working well for books, CDs, TV shows, and video games, it's not really working with movies. I just don't watch them.

A big part of it is this: for some reason, I'm always telling myself I need to do more. I need to be mutlitasking. Why sit back and watch a movie when I can put on a hockey game (which, thanks to the NHL Network, there's virtually always a game on every night), listen to music, all while either writing on the computer, chatting with people, or playing a PC game? I can do 3-4 things at once instead of just one, so the choice is obvious, right? I've broken through that line of thinking somewhat with reading, as every now and then I'll just read instead of doing a bunch of things, but that's reverted back to being a bedtime thing; that's how I wind down at night, unplug myself and read for awhile before sleeping. I haven't sat down and read just because I could since, oh, a few weeks ago when I powered through the first Hunger Games book, which ironically enough I did in anticipation of the movie, heh.

Does anyone else feel this way sometimes? Like you have to be doing all that you can in your free time or else it's a waste of time, that you're not maximizing your potential? I'm wondering how much of it is influenced by the world we live in today, where you can always be plugged in thanks to cell phones, tablets, wifi, 3G, etc., and how much of it is my own way of thinking. It's a question that comes to mind all the time lately, about whether I'm doing enough or if I should be doing more, or am I doing too much as it is? Just food for thought, I guess, which came to mind last night and I figured I'd throw out here just to see if anyone else has ever pondered the same thing.