|
|
|
Monday, November 27, 2006
Happy Birthday "Diannomite!"
It's been a little over a week now since we were set free from our jobs and what a week it has been. I have been so busy that I have not had much time to even post anything on this page. However, I have slowed it down a bit and I am finally getting an update done. Last Friday we held a very special party for our very own Dianne. It was a surprise party to celebrate her 50th birthday which comes up next month. Much of my time over the last couple of weeks has been spent preparing for this party. I spent my last week at work working a midnight shift and seeing as how things had kind of wound down by that point, I had a lot of time on my hands at work. So I loaded up my new laptop with my editor and a bunch of pictures and video footage of Dianne and put together a little tribute video for her party. It was a spoof of the Mission Impossible shows/movies and included a little DVD based game in which people had to guess the right answers to questions about Dianne in order to free her from the clutches of old age. It turned out quite well and was a fitting end to my career in the broadcasting industry. Last week, as I enjoyed my first week of freedom from work, I put together all the sets and props for the game and finished organizing and setting up the party. Between all this was constant shoveling of the snow which was constantly falling. There were several other things happening during the week which made the time pass by quite rapidly to the point that I was still putting the finishing touches on the party preparations the minute Dianne left for work on Friday morning. The party was on Friday evening and was held at our friends John and Jeanette Fraietta's. The ruse was that we were all going out to celebrate our other friend Renee's birthday with a meal at the Keg. But Jeanette, Renee and I had gathered a few of our friends together and when Dianne and I arrived at Jeanette's they were all hiding silently in the living room, which had been decorated with an "explosive" theme in light of Dianne's nickname "Diannomite". Here is a little video clip of the highlights of the party. We all had a great time and the video was a big hit. Here is the tribute part without the game which was all based on DVD menuing. The party went for quite some time and with all the cleaning up and everything we didn't get home until 2:00am. Stay tuned for a little picture album I am compiling of the event. On Saturday morning we had to be up bright and early to face the frigid weather and head out to Leduc to help Angela and Lee move. They have bought a cute little condominium on the 10th floor of a building on Saskatchewan Drive, right on the riverbank overlooking the downtown area. It's quite a spectacular view and should be a very lovely place for them for a while. It's only a small one bedroom place and the plan is to fix it up and possibly rent it out at a future date. Then on Saturday evening Dianne and I went to a beautiful little restaurant for her office's annual Christmas party. The meal was incredible, all five courses and it was fun to fellowship with the other staff members in such a cozy, informal atmosphere. It was another busy day yesterday as Dianne and I were both playing in the orchestra in church and so had to be there early for rehearsal. Then after church we went out for lunch at Swiss Chalet before heading home to grab a little nap after shoveling the driveway, again. Then it was back to church for a special night of music topped of with a trip to Tim Horton's for coffee with friends. So it was a pretty busy week with an equally busy weekend. This week I am taking it a little easier. There is still snow coming down and so that will keep me busy, but I am going to start doing a little research into the job market and try to get an idea of where to start looking for my next career move. At some point in there I will be going to get my teeth cleaned so that is something to look forward to. Now we are fast approaching the end of November with Christmas looming up behind it. Time to start getting ready for that, and I guess I will have to start working on the Christmas 2006 edition of the Chronicle. That should prove to be interesting and could end up being a three pager this year what with all the exciting adventures we have had. In the meantime, I'll try and keep the driveway clean and hope for a couple of days of milder weather so I can get the Christmas lights up. And at some point I'll have to haul the Christmas tree down from the rafters in the garage. Maybe I'll wait till January to look for work. Friday, November 17, 2006
Movie Central Is History
Today was my last official day working for Corus Entertainment and Movie Central. I was supposed to work from midnight to 8:00am this morning (Friday) but I had a message on the machine yesterday when I got up telling me that they had decided to pull the plug at 5:00pm on Thursday so my services were not required for the last remaining night. Hallelujah! So today I got up and went to a job fair and then met everyone from work at Boston Pizza for lunch and to say goodbye. We are planning an official goodbye party in January but this was just an informal thing thrown together at the last minute. Then Dianne and I went to the station for one last look around at all the equipment tuned off and dark and one last walk through of the old place before bidding farewell the the bosses and the old place. It was a fitting closure. I took a few pictures which I will post once I get them transferred to the computer. Dianne got some shots of me turning off the last remaining equipment that was running. I was using the new Canon SLR and have not yet set up the software for it on the PC. So for now it's time to take a little break before regrouping and heading out into the wild world of job seeking. Monday, November 13, 2006
The End Of The Tunnel
Another grey day here in Edmonton. When I got up this afternoon there was about an inch of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. We haven't seen the sun for some time. Very depressing. On a lighter note, however, we have been given our official date of release from Corus Ent. It was announced last Friday that this coming Friday, Nov. 17th, would be the last day of service for union employees. And wouldn't you know it, in a cruel twist of irony I am working the dreaded midnight shift right up until that day. I am off at 8:00 am Friday morning after working seven nights with little to do. A couple of us having bringing our laptops in to work to watch DVD's and do other projects. We will probably have a little celebration around 4:00 in the afternoon on the 17th but I'm sure many will be celebrating long before that. I'm going to take the cameras in to get some shots to post. Our regular salaries continue until January 10th so it gives us almost a two month paid holiday, and then the severance kicks in. I will hopefully be working by then. There is a big job fair going on this weekend that I would like to try and get to and I'm planning to do some researching with Alberta Human Resources and Employment, probably next week. So now that we have a final date, it's starting to get a bit emotional, knowing that the end is in sight and we will be saying goodbye to our fellow workers and our plant forever. There's a bit of a farewell/Christmas party plan in the works so it will be good to have one last drink with everyone before saying our final farewells. Wednesday, November 08, 2006
To Vista Or Not To Vista
I had to spend an hour or so outside this morning shoveling a particularly stubborn fall of snow that we got last night. The flakes were big and fluffy as they came down about 1:30 this morning and I thought no problem, that'll be pretty easy to shovel. But warm temperatures this morning caused the snow to get slushy and a little crusty so it wasn't quite as easy as I thought. I see that Microsoft has finally released Vista, it's new operating system to replace Windows XP, with Vista loaded machines scheduled to hit the shelves in late January. However, from all that I am hearing from the tech pundits, Vista may not be all it's cracked up to be. Plus it comes with a pretty restrictive licensing agreement that really puts a crimp on anybody with more than one machine. I guess I am eligible for a free upgrade to Vista for the laptop as I purchased it after the end of October, but I'm not sure I'm going to rush out and pick up my copy when it finally comes out. The thing you have to ask is how long are they going to support XP after this? If Vista ends up being the security-hole riddled mess they suspect it will be and support for XP drops off next year, I may just have to give Linux a try. I am actually going to try and build a Linux server for storing my media files on so it probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch to go all Linux. Monday, November 06, 2006
Laptop Goodies
I'm still getting used to the keyboard and touch pad on this laptop. I find that the touch pad is very sensitive and that the slightest tap has all sorts of menus and windows opening up if you are not careful. The keyboard is nice but I think the keys are a little smaller and I find myself hitting more than one at a time quite often. There are also some keys in different places than a conventional keyboard so I find myself occasionally hunting around for something I do as a matter of course on the desktop. Nonetheless, I am quite pleased with this machine and once I have gotten used to it and have cleaned of the rest of the useless junk that comes installed on it, I look forward to doing some useful things with this new toy. Saturday, November 04, 2006
Christmas Comes Early
Well the snow that we were gifted with a few days ago is still hanging around so I believe that winter has officially started as |I don't think this is going to melt. Anyway, I hung the bikes up in the garage today to solidify the fact that we are indeed now under winter's grip. I had some fun this week as I used part of my company retraining allowance to buy a new laptop computer, a Toshiba Satellite A100-TA6 and a digital slr camera, a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. I am using the laptop to post this message and it is very nice although we have yet to come up with a good reason for having it, but give me a minute while I think of one. The camera is super deluxe and comes with a very steep learning curve but it is sure nice to be able to get back to photography the way it is supposed to be. A lot of the old photographic principles are coming back to me and although you can set to to fully automatic and point and shoot, there are a myriad of settings you can adjust to get the most professional looking effects you want. The thing that really amazes me is that this camera cost about as much as my HP 850 three years ago but is 10 times the camera. So I have a bit of studying to do. The only problem I have now, as every kid on Christmas morning, is which toy to play with first.
|
![[Powered by Blogger]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s-iHeqG03xgVs711u-yYKMlCpx-5J480Tt_0v1f6-wiHmRZozQYddz4Z7UtF0QvORaXQRmZ8hKjPAP736uwg6rSTvsvKLI2KQdF3BST6qr=s0-d){kind=small}