Yes.. I didn't want to, but after Cara left this morning I went back to bed. Set my alarm for 8am, woke up at 10am. I really shouldn't have.. but i'm working from home today.. so not all is lost. I am feeling a little depressed today too.

This weekend was good. Although we didn't go anywhere (neither sudbury or niagara falls) we still had a good time. She helped me clean my room a bit (yay!) and we spent some time driving around the city doing some errands. Cara is trying to learn to drive a standard car. She's much better now, and is pretty confident on going places where there isn't much traffic! yay! She learned pretty quick, which i'm impressed. Soon she will be able to drive that red Mitsubishi that's sitting idle in her driveway!

I'm going to start hitting the gym again. I need to. I really dont want to go to my Java class anymore. It's a waste of my time. I also need to re-visit my budget. I made it, but finding it super hard to stick to it. Gotta save save save! Cara is a good influence on that though. She forced me to buy groceries for this weekend. I was pissed to find that someone ate the last bit of lasagna on Sunday though :(

I did buy a few things for my camera! Thanks to my parents and their birthday presents. I got a waterproof casing for my camera. Which will allow me to go diving with it, bring it to the beach, on the ski slopes, all without worry of hurting the camera! Also bought a wide angle lens (0.7x), for the shitload of snowboarding shots i'm going to be taking this year.

The weather is really starting to cool down. The past week or so, its been rainy and cold. Typical fall weather. I just hope the winter season starts early today. Last year the first snowboarding run was Nov 29 at Horseshoe! Hit the slopes for a total of 19 times last year. Only once, was it day skiing (December 20th, with Gord from 11am-5pm). I think I should put my snowboarding log online.

October 2nd, I am working late because of the Ontario Elections. Kyle is working late tonight due to PEI Elections. I haven't heard back from them regarding the extra overtime they owe me. I am going to bring it up tomorrow when I get into work.

Time to grab some lunch.

I got the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers from Cara for my birthday today! I am going to have to take a picture of them when I get home!

I will also update my photo album with the photos we took while I was in London tonight. Sorry for taking so long.

Plans this weekend are hazy. There are a few things on the table, including bike riding, spending time with Cara, shooting rider profiles for Free Ride, and just chilling. Tomorrow a bunch of us are going to hit Chinook for my B-Day dinner.

Saw "Step Into Liquid" yesterday with the boys. It's a documentary about surfing. Some really good scenes. The cinematography was excellent. I wish they had more underwater shots though.

This is a quick entry as I am at work and need to head off to school soon. I will have a huge update tomorrow!

It's been a really busy week so far. So busy in fact, that I'm actually writing this post on the train!

This weekend is going to be great! Heading down to London for Brynas b-day. Also going to bring the surfboards. Hurricane Isabel is bringing in some killer surf. Hopefully we can take advantage of it while we are there. I'm not leaving Aurora until 10 or so, because I have to wait for my brother to get off work. Cara might come.. but I doubt it since she doesn't seem to keen on it.

Got some news on the whole Google situation today. I might be getting sponsored by a 3rd party. The issue is the cost of the visa is around $1500. So they are going to negotiate with Google to see if they are willing to pay for the visa. I should find out later tonight or tomorrow.

Tonight i'm doing some UI testing for Google, for the new version of the Search Appliance. I'm excited. It'd be interesting to see what they come up with.

I have yet to get a picture of Cara. I know a lot of you (internet folk) want to see what she looks like. She's just a little camera shy right now, but I'm sure I can get a snap of her soon :)

My birthday is coming up (less than a week). So I need to come up with a list. My mom keeps on hounding me every night "what do you want for your birthday?!". I can only think of two things. Seasons pass at Blue and the waterproof casing for my camera. I can't wait to start taking pics of us snowboarding again. This time I have a decent camera!

I've launched a new website! I post stuff I read/learn in regards to Google. Check it out!.




Anyways, going to try to catch some shut-eye on this train ride.

Hmm.. i've been pretty busy lately. Sorry for the lack of updates. Right now, i'm at work (yes at 6:30pm on a friday) waiting for the boys from Aurora to head down here. Mark should be here any second now actually.

Going to hit East Side Marios (at Front and Simcoe Sts.) then from there.. who knows.

I'm working for about 6 hours on Saturday. Thank god I don't have to come into work and I can do it from home. Shitty how it puts a damper on my Saturday night. Its from 6pm until 12am or so. I think Cara is going to come over and keep me company :)

Parents asked me if I wanted to go to Vancouver for Christmas. I told them maybe. I wanted to go with Mark (and maybe Gord and Andrew) to Whistler in Feb. Not sure if I will be able to afford both Vancouver and Whistler. Ironic thing is, I just worked on a new budget last night.

Grandparents are coming to visit next Wednesday. They were too afraid to come over in the spring because of SARS.. pffft. It will be nice to see them though.

The new freeride website is coming along nicely.. Good work Gord! I just registered a new domain name for it. We have this little idea of trying to promote the website by handing out stickers. They are kinda cool actually.. its the new freeride logo. It's going to have the url to the website of course.

"You are running a version of messenger that requires an immediate security update. Please visit http://messenger.msn.com/Help/Upgrades.aspx to complete the update."

Im sure lots of non MSN client users are getting that message every time they log in. Possibly due to their ban on 3rd party clients (see this slashdot article). Proteus (for the mac) and Trillian (for the PC) rock. It would be a shame to see them not being able to used for MSN... ahh. if everyone just used irc ;)

Cara and I are talking about b-day events. Hers is on Hallowe'en. I think for mine, i'm just going to get a few people together at Chinook for free food - then maybe head out to the bar after?

HR has been stiffing me on my overtime pay.. which I will have to sort out tomorrow. However, they did fix my vacation time. 26 working days I have off until April '04. Thats just over a month!

hrmm.. one of the harddrives in my gateway (which had pictures of rafting) died.

ata1-master: timeout waiting to give command=c8 s=80 e=00

ad2: error executing command - resetting

ata1: resetting devices ..  device dissapeared! 1 done

ata1-master: timeout waiting to give command=c8 s=80 e=00

ad2: error executing command - resetting

ata1: resetting devices .. done

Plans for this weekend? Tomorrow night, might be heading to Oakville for a party with the boys. Saturday i'm going Hang Gliding with Mark.. Saturday night getting drunk at Gords place (going to introduce Cara to the gang). Sunday? Not sure.. bike ride maybe? Geek day, probably (yay video games).

Apologies for the lack of updates. This super long journal entry is going to be well worth the wait!

I've been spending quite a bit of time with someone new lately. We met two weeks ago (online) and have been seeing each other for quite a while since then. Just last week we spent 3 days doing stuff. I'm sure you will be hearing lots more about Cara in my journals :)

Summer is over. Today was the unofficial official last long weekend of summer. It was well spent at Gords Cottage. This whole week was the week of good byes. Everyone (mainly all the girls) are heading back to school tomorrow. Quite a few of them jetted last week, some this week. Kara was the last one to leave.. she left today.

Reflecting back on the summer - I would have to put this year at the top of my list. It's been such a great summer. Met so many new friends, enjoyed good times with old ones. The majority of the weekends were action packed. Whether it was biking, paint ball, BBQs, drinking, parties, cottages, surfing, camping, concerts, or the beach. I can only hope that next year is going to be just as good, or better.

So what are the plans for the winter/fall? Nothing is down on paper yet, but some suggestions:

- Florida in October


- Whistler/Kicking Horse in late Feb/Early March


- Paintball (yup again) in October


- Tremblant in December

One thing is for certain though - Snowboarding! I am buying my seasons pass at blue mountain tomorrow! I'm hoping Cara is going to want to snowboard this year.. not sure if that's going to happen though. It would be great to add a little taco to the sausage fest this winter.

Things on the condo front are doing alright. I checked out DNA the other weekend. I really want to move there of course I want to check out some other places as well. Parents want me to buy a house.... I really want to stick to a condo in the city. I might get a two bedroom place instead though. That way I can have a roommate to take the burden of the mortgage from me. It will also be much more fun that way - Having a roommate :)

Cara just got here (and she thinks im cheap!).. need to wrap things up.

Work is good. In fact, I am supposed to be finishing up a report on Squid vs. Cacheflows. We want to replace the Cacheflows (they are used for reverse caching) with squid boxes instead.