Today is on the top of my list of worst days ever.

Everything at work that could go wrong, went wrong. Originally I had to leave work at 3pm in order to catch my flight to Boston (which left Toronto at 5:30pm). I was rushing to make sure that everything is done before I left. I got a call later in the day saying that my flight had been delayed an hour and to call US Airways back to confirm I got the message and to make adjustments to my connecting flight.

After spending 15 minutes trying to navigate their ivr system (and yes, I tried just pressing "0" - that didn't work, Strike one for US Air.). Originally I "just stay[ed] on the line if you have a rotary phone" as indicated by the prompts. That didn't work, the system just repeated the instructions again. My conversation with the customer rep went something like this:

" US Airways"
"Hi I got a call earlier asking me to call you back because my flight was delayed"
"do you have a confirmation number?"
"no, I just have a flight number as the arrangements where made on behalf of me"

I proceeded to give him the necessary information repeating my name several times because he couldn't understand.

"You flight is delayed 1 hour, you will still have enough time to make it to your connecting flight"
"So 30 minutes is enough time for me to get to my connecting flight?"
"Yes, sir"
"The departing gate is in another terminal, you sure I will have enough time?"
"Yes, sir"
"Do I need to take a shuttle bus or anything between terminals?"
"no, sir"
"ok then thank you"

Great! I now have an extra hour at work to get things done!

I get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, by the time I’m checked in and waiting at my gate it was 5:30. Great, an hour to hang out and do nothing.

The flight was ok. Nothing interesting to report there.

After we landed I made my way to the departure gate for my connecting flight. I had to take a shuttle bus to the other terminal and I ended up missing the flight. Strike Two!

The next flight was an hour later. No big deal, just made my way further down the airport to the gate, only later to discover that it had changed.

I get on the plane and it's empty! It was a 747 jet, with probably over 200 seats, and maybe only 15 of us are on the plane. Not only do I have a whole row to my self, I have rows 1-8 to my self! Awesome. Everyone is in a cheery mood. The flight attendants are happy because they don’t have a full flight. The passengers are happy because they get to stretch out.

The captain comes on over the PA and says that there is a ground delay and we will be sitting on the taxiway for an hour and fifteen minutes! Holy crap, can you say strike three?! The flight is normally only 50 minutes.

I'm starting to think that Melissa secretly set all this up for getting back at me for not driving and taking her with me. She wanted to take a look at some local hospitals to see about work.

(so yeah, I’m on the taxiway in an empty plane writing this journal entry on my laptop). I’m going to see if I can connect to the net using my cell phone before this beast takes off.

In case you don’t know.. I have a job interview with Akamai in Cambridge, MA. The phone interview went great and I have a good feeling about the "in-person" interview. They are paying for everything, which is great!

I wish I had a pair of headphones with me so that I can watch some episodes of "Bullshit" that are on my laptop.

I'll post another update when I get back with details on how everything went. Hopefully I will be able to take some photos as well.

The site has been moved to a new server. Please let me know if you notice anything wonky.

The site has been moved to a new server. So if you see anything weird, please let me know so that I can fix.

It took me 3 hours to get home from work yesterday. Normally the drive is only about 40 minutes. Mad flooding in Toronto. I've never seen it rain so hard for so long in my entire life. The Don Valley Parkway was flooded. When I was there, the don river was the same level as the road. I heard on the news today, that the river overflowed and stranded people on the highway.

Photos from are online now. I also bought a photo printer! An Epson Picture Mate.

It was Brian's birthday yesterday. Happy B-DAY! A bunch of us went to TJs in Newmarket to celebrate Gavin moving to England (he leaves later today) and Brians birthday.

I hate american products. Case in point: Photographs. The standard photgraph in North America is 4"x6". The standard photograph everywhere else in the world: 10cm x 15cm. Big deal you say? Well:

10cm = 3.93 inches
15cm = 5.90 inches.

So I buy a picture framwe from ikea. On it it says "10x15cm - 4x6"" Sweet!

This is what happens when you try to fit an imperial photo inside a metric frame:

Damn you Ikea! Damn you Epson!

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A little creativity never hurt anyone.
Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 18:08:07

This is probably the most creative thing i've seen so far on the picket lines. (and no, I dont think making your dog/baby a little "locked out" sign is cute).

I'm waiting from someone from Kids' CBC to make up a Strongbad or Homestar Runner one ;)

Everyone is asking me if i'm being affected by the CBC Lock out. The answer is no. There are two unions that are at CBC. CMG (Canadian Media Guild) and APS (Association of Professionals and Supervisors). I'm apart of APS, which is not in a labour dispute with CBC.

So far there hasn't been any issues for me to cross the picket lines.

I got my licence plate renewal stuff today. Inside was an insert detailing a new law that is in place - with pretty steep fines if you break it. If an emergency vehicle is stopped on the shoulder with its lights flashing you must change lanes to be the furthest away from the vehicle as possible. If your caught in the closest lane to the emergency vehicle you could get fined $400 and three demerit points.

We have a new governor general! She's 38, black, and used to work for CBC.

It's been a while since i've posted.. so I figured what better time than now?!

Got a letter from the condo people today. It's funny. They always come in these bright red envelopes. I guess that way people will open them right away. The news was that my *confirmed* closing date is March 31, 2006. So this means that the date will *never* be pushed back again! yay! In other words, I get to move in to my place no later than 8 months from now.

I did go to ikea yesterday with Melissa to look at some furniture... wont have to worry about that now until after Christmas!

The weather has been great. Hot and sunny! The past couple of days though, its been stormy.. which is still good in my books.

My long weekend wasn't too exciting. I didn't get to see Mark at all, and Gord went up north with Andrew. Melissa and I made an impromptu stop at Wonderland. It was 9pm and we had an hour to hit up some rides. We were able to get on to the newest one: Italian Job. very good.. some unexpecting things. I found it interesting that in order to get the ride started, they accelerated the train using magnetics, since there is no "big hill" to get you going. They had this one part where the a "helicopter" was shooting at you while you are just standing still.. kinda lame. We're probably going to hit it up again next Thursday.

My knee has been really hurting lately. I made a doctors appointment to see what he thinks. The pain is under the knee cap, and hurts when I go down stairs. Just happened last weekend at the movie theaters. Boo urns!

Brian confirmed that the U2 tickets he got are for the same show that Melissa and I are going to. Also going to seen Ben Folds next Tuesday with Gord, Kara, and Gavin. August is starting to fill up! I wont be going to the cottage this year because my grandparents already left for North Quebec.