What a long, stressful, and exhausting week this has been! We had our first deadline today and I'm glad that is over! There has been some interesting news on the job front ... I am going to be finished here a few weeks early! I am going to be flying home (first-class!) on Friday the 6th, so I'll be home around midnight. There is talk about me going to work again in Vancouver but that is not definite as of yet. In fact, there is a possibility that I will be back in Philly as well. Hopefully I'll get that all straightened-out next week.

Have any of you caught Dennis Miller's new show on CNBC? It's hilarious! A daily must-see in my opinion!

Anyways, I'm just leaving the hotel now to hop on the road to D.C. for the weekend to visit Nick. I'm hoping to catch an NHL game while I'm there as well as do some more touring. I hope I get some good driving weather! Which brings me to mention ... I hear it's pretty cold back home in Regina? I'm enjoying a balmy -5C with no wind! Have a great weekend!

I'm back after a great weekend! I'm typing this on my brand new installation of Windows XP on my laptop. Yesterday at work I decided to reboot and when the computer came back up it was the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH for me. I took it into the boys back at the office and it took them some time but I am now back up and running with a new operating system.

On Saturday morning I got up early and my buddy Igor (here in town from Calgary on the same project as me) picked me up and we headed towards Washington, D.C. He has GPS in his rental car so there was no danger of us getting lost. OK, maybe a little danger. it was the start of the "good luck" trip already as we managed to get to the museum around 11:30AM, which was fine by us. I have to tell you, the place was amazing! The place is just loaded with aircraft of all sorts. I got my picture taken with an SR-71 Blackbird (my favourite plane as a child), the Enola Gay, the Concorde, and my all-time favourite, the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Seeing that thing for the first time honestly brought a tear to my eye. We made it through the museum in record time and decided to forgo the shuttle bus to the downtown museum (it's split into two different buildings 30 mins apart - after all, you need an airplane hanger for most of them!) and instead drive in on our own. Thanks to the GPS we managed to find our way into town. We took a few wrong turns which ordinarily would have been a really bad thing, but instead of being lost we found a great parking space right downtown on a side street only one block away from the museum!

The museum downtown had a lot of cool stuff in it, too. I got to see The Spirit of St. Louis, the actual model of the Enterprise from the TV show in the 60s, and even touch a piece of the moon! After the museum closed we ventured outside on a trek to find the Whitehouse. It was pretty cold and we went on a long walk but did manage to find it - although we didn't realize it until later! We couldn't see it because we were on the wrong side of the park behind some trees or something we couldn't see because it was dark. Oh well, we got a chance to explore a little bit of the city. Our good luck continued when, although we programmed a route straight to visit Nick, we took another wrong turn and ended up on 'M' Street, a place Nick recommended. It is this huge long street lined with trendy shops and restaurants, just amazing! We found a great parking spot when again, there were none available, so fortune was smiling on us. We walked up and down the street and then settled into a restaurant for some supper. After supper we got back in the car and headed up to the university to visit Nick. We were chatting for a bit and then had a little scare when we though our car was being towed, but again we had some good luck in that department. We decided to just drive home instead of staying the night because we were beat. It was supposed to snow, but we were lucky again and got great weather for the drive home. It was a long day so I was happy to be heading to bed!

I slept in the next day and then made preparations to head to Philly for the Royal Rumble. I hopped in my box-on-wheels and made my way for the city. I stopped at McDonald's and had my first-ever cheesesteak. They even sell it at McDonald's here! It was amazing, btw! The directions were super straight-forward and I made it to the Wachovia Center in record time. They made everybody line up outside for some reason and it took a good 30 mins. to get inside the building in somewhat cold temperatures so that wasn't cool, but once inside I was all set. I had pretty lousy seats way up top and a little behind the stage set, but it was a great experience all the same. Everybody was super pumped up about pretty much everything and there were a few neat surprises here and there. All in all, recommended! I rushed out to the parking lot after the show and lucked out by getting out of there in a hurry ahead of the major traffic. The snow eventually started falling that night, which made the last part of the drive home a little scary, but I managed. I had work in the morning so it was time for sleep!

I would like to give a shout-out to some very cool radio stations in the area. First, in D.C. we listened pretty much the entire time to a great oldies station called WQSR. Now I know what you are thinking, but this station was amazing. All the classic, classic tunes that you love to hear and none of the shite. Another one is here in Philly called WMMR. It is a rock station that continually plays good tunes as well. They also have these times where they literally play one band for an entire hour, and on the drive home from Philly on Sunday it was Nirvana. I'm not talking playing just hit songs, but tons of stuff that wasn't even ever on the radio. It was awesome!

This week is already crazy and will continue to be for the rest of the week because we've got a huge deadline at work so I'm pretty much going to be working day and night to get it done.

Here are the photos for you all. First up is some pics from this past New Year's and then on to some photos from my weekend in D.C./Philly!

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Me and my buddy from Calgary on the project are leaving early in the morning tomorrow to head to Washington. We are planning to spend the day at the National Air and Space Museum. I sure hope we get to see all of it. I am looking forward to fulfilling a childhood dream of seeing the Space Shuttle Enterprise! There is also a bus between the two sites of the museum that should hopefully take us downtown to do some sight-seeing as well. Tomorrow night, we are going to meet up with Nick and then crash at his place at Georgetown. On Sunday I'm not sure what we're going to be doing, but I have to be back in town here for supper, so I have time to make it to the Royal Rumble!

I got some interesting news at work today. Since I am doing the company a huge favour and not costing them a million dollars to fly me home every weekend (which is theoretically my right), my manager's manager suggested that perhaps the client might be willing to send me down to Mexico for a long weekend as a kind of nod to my personal sacrifice. I doubt it's going to happen, but, wow, would that ever be cool!

Also, if I hear one more thing advertised as "low carbs", I am going to throw up. Jesus Christ, are some people ever stupid!

As I said before, the atmosphere around here for football is a lot different from back home in playoff time; it was insane. Everywhere you went, all you could see and hear was Eagles-related. Unlike home, however, where everyone is constantly down on the Riders and their chances, even when they are good, the last 24 hours have been a thousand times worse then I could ever have imagined for a football team. I have never seen a more 180-degree turn than what's going on here. On the radio, on the television, everywhere, all you hear about is how the Eagles are the worst team in the world, with the worst players/coach/staff/stadium, with absolutely no chance of ever winning in the playoffs, ever. It's absolutely night and day from before, which amazes me. I'm told come May, however, after the Phillies and the Flyers have lost, people will start warming up to the team and their chances again :)

Anyways, last night I went to my manager's manager's house, where me and a few couples were guests at the house. Everybody there were huge big-wigs, gossiping about super power players in the company that I'd only read about in news articles. We had wine, marguaritas, some excellent home-cooked Mexican food, and generally ignored the game, which was a good thing, because the home team definitely wasn't close!

Tonight the team from work went back to Maddie's for what has turned into our weekly Monday night food and brew. I can't complain about a free pint of Guinness each week!

I am getting my laundry done at the hotel tomorrow and I just did the math and the total bill is going to come to $50USD! I have to find a laundromat in the near future, because there is no way work is going to pay for even half of that (the bastards! ;).

Me and a buddy from work have been talking about a day trip to D.C. this weekend, so we'll see how that pans out. This week is going to be a long one, so I think I am going to need a break! With that being said, if you are interested in coming down here to join me for the Royal Rumble on Sunday, give me a call ;)

Well, my first week in Philly is over! There isn't much excitement to report, aside from the football fever that has gripped the area. I wish people were this pumped up about the Riders back home! I also wish the Riders were this good ;)

Work was good this week, although next week and for the rest of the time I'm here the workload is going to be super high so I'm going to be putting in a lot of time. For a short engagement such as this that's not much of an issue for me, though, but if this went on for six months instead of six weeks my story might be a little different. I've gotten a little bit of a chance to explore the surrounding area in my search for food, which has been interesting to say the least. Everything here is so spread out, it's hard to find anything without driving for at least five miles. I went to East Side Mario's for the first time in nearby Exton, and the hype about that place is real. Reasonable prices combined with great food and huge portions (so much so that I wasn't even close to finishing) means that this place is good. Yesterday I had a craving for Chinese food so I picked up the yellow pages and there was absolutely *nothing* in the area! I hopped in the Rav4 and went out in search of some, and managed to find a great place called Margaret Kuo's Mandarin about, you guessed it, five miles down the road. Good food if you're ever in the area! It's really not easy to get around here, because between towns they rarely have streetlights whether there is anything on either side of the road or not, few if any of the roads are marked, and everybody is driving at least 10 miles per hour above the speed limit. I haven't gotten in to an accident yet, though (knock on wood!).

At this point I really have to get into a rant about the Rav4, basically a tiny box on wheels. That's not all, though: it's also a very good example of why I will never, ever buy a Japanese vehicle. I am not kidding - every single time I go to unlock or lock the doors, before I turn the key I have to literally say to myself, "opposite". Like all Japanese vehicles, everything is ass-backwards. If the radio had a volume knob to turn, I can guarantee you if you turned it to the right the volume would go down! I hate it, hate it, hate it! I'll trade reliability for common-sense any day of the week! To be fair, I've had a long standing prejudice against Japanese vehicles ever since I worked at a gas station in high school, because in their infinite wisdom, the Japanese seem to think that putting the oil dipstick in between the fan belt is a good idea, meaning if someone got hot in the summer and decided to start the car for the air conditioning while I was checking the oil, my arm would be ripped off. Thanks a lot, boys, let's stick to electronics, shall we?

My dad gave me the number of a guy at his work that used to be in charge of the immigration office in Regina, so yesterday afternoon I gave him a call. The call lasted more than a half hour, and he basically gave me news that I didn't want to hear. It looks like Immigration Canada is basically going to be the ruin of me and Sofi. There is no way that I can sponsor her to come to live and work in Canada unless we are married, because of a piece of legislation that changed last year. We won't be able to start the immigration process until after we are married, a process which currently takes over 270 days to complete. WTF??? The best part of the story is that I only know this after talking to a family friend who used to work in immigration - I had been calling the 1-888 number every half hour of every day for the last three weeks and got a busy signal everytime. Me thinks it's time for the government to get its collective head out of its ass and fix that whole fucking department, because it is literally hurting rather than helping.

I got an invitation this week from my manager's manager to give him a call tomorrow to check out the big game, so that's my plan for tomorrow night. Otherwise, I don't have too many plans for the near future. I talked to Nick this week and it sounds like Jenn is coming to D.C. in the middle of February, so we're talking about making a trip to NYC around that time. Otherwise, my options are open between now and then!

Here is a photo of Vero and Miguel's newborn baby (and Sofi's first niece), who was born on Tuesday night:

Congrats to the happy parents!

Last night I amused myself with upgrading the website to the newest version of Pebble and updating the default theme to something in support of my current city of work's favourite football team. What do you think?

Guess who's going to the Royal Rumble on the 25th in Philadelphia? Oh yeah, it's me!

On Friday night me and Mike checked out the Pats game, which IMHO was the worst hockey game I've seen in at least 10 years, well, not counting women's hockey. It was so boring I literally didn't care about it at all, and we left early even though the game was in overtime. Afterwards we met up with Tyler, Erin, and Jeff at the Barley Mill for a few drinks, before retiring back to my place to chill and play cards with Marco and Blair before hitting the sack.

On Saturday I spent most of the day doing laundry and packing for my trip. I also got to watch 2 Fast 2 Furious, which, believe it or not, I thought was great. It was a thousand times better than the first one - this time there was an actual script and watching that Mustang get destroyed was worth the price of admission alone. I was actually interrupted halfway through by a call from Blair, so I met up with him, Jerrod, Brad, Stef, Holly, and Ryan at O'Hanlon's. It was nice to relax for a few hours before leaving town for such a long time.

On Sunday I got up, finished packing, and then Marco dropped me off at the airport. We were delayed taking off because of fog so it was pretty tight in Minneapolis, because I only had about an hour and I had to apply for my work visa. It was pretty close because you need cash and I didn't have any so I had to go to the ATM, yadda yadda, but I managed to make my next flight. We touched down in Philadelphia late too thanks to de-icing in Minneapolis. The luggage took forever and I had to pick up my rental car so I didn't get out of the airport until midnight. My rental car sucks ass - I have to spend the next month or so driving around in a Rav4, a shitty Jeep-wannabe. Here's a tip for driving in Pennsylvania - unless the road you are on is a major thoroughfare, they don't put lights on the side of the road, so it's like driving blind. They also rarely (if ever!) have signs that tell you what street is crossing your path. This meant that I didn't get into my hotel room until 1AM, and I still had to iron clothes and what-not so it was a short sleep for me. The hotel I am staying at rocks, though, I have an extended-stay room, so it's a huge suite with a living room, fridge, microwave, and the whole bit. It's definitely going to make the weeks a lot more comfortable!

This morning I got up and enjoyed the complimentary breakfast at the hotel and then made my way to the client site. I am working on a project for QVC, a company I had never heard about but everybody in the States has! It's a shopping tv channel/website carried by pretty much every cable operator in the country. The neat thing is that the studio is in the building I'm working at. They have this huge vidi-wall in the lobby that shows the channel playing all the time, and it was super neat to watch people on national TV and then see them walk out the front door minutes later! Anyways, work is going to be super-hectic while I'm here, but the team is cool so I'm hopeful things will work out. Tonight we all went to an Irish pub called Maddie's for a few drinks and food and it was a good time. Everybody is from pretty much all over North America so that is pretty interesting, too.

At the risk of disappointing Janson, I will not be attending this Sunday's playoff football game. It's really crazy around here, everybody is talking football, football, football, which means that I would either end up paying $2000 USD for a ticket, or end up buying a forged ticket, so I'm pretty much out of luck in that department :(

No plans aside from work for this week, but I'll keep you posted. I'm planning on heading to D.C. for the weekend to visit Nick on the 24th-25th, and maybe NYC the weekend after that. Does that sound like fun? I assure you it will be! :)

Philadelphia is all-systems-go. I am leaving Sunday afternoon and I am going to be there for six weeks. The current plan is to have me back in the Queen City on February 22nd. I might even get a chance to fly home for a weekend or two, we'll see.

I'm just leaving to pick up Mike to watch the Pats game tonight (courtesy of my dad winning some free tickets) and then afterwards plans are up in the air. Tomorrow I'm going to be doing laundry and packing, and not much else. Stef's little b-day party has apparently been cancelled so my evening is empty. Sunday I'm off!

It's been an eventful few days. The cold I began to feel coming on early on Tuesday morning was in full effect on New Year's Eve, and while it seemed to disappear for a few hours, once the hangover was over it was back for good. I am only now fully recovered, I think.

Because of my illness I spent most of Friday in bed instead of working. That meant that Friday night, when I was finally up and at 'em, I had to do a whole bunch of work, which I didn't finish. One thing I did finish in between all this was the last of the commentaries on my Two Towers Extended Edition DVD set. All 4 of them, plus the appendices, means I enjoyed over 30 hours of viewing for less than $40! I can't wait for the next set!

Saturday I pretty much did nothing but keeping working on the work stuff that I didn't finish. Bernie called me so later that night me, Bernie, and Jae went to the library where we watched Lost in Translation. It wasn't a spectacular movie by any means, but it was neat, had a great soundtrack, and starred Bill Murray. If he did a movie that was two hours of knock-knock jokes I would watch it and beg for more! It was a kind of sad movie for me too since it reminded me a lot of being in Mexico since the movie is set in Tokyo and much is made about not being able to understand anything, which is much akin to my experiences down south.

In order to rectify the above situation, I've registered for Spanish 100 at the university this semester. That's right, I'm a student again! A buddy from URSU is going to lend me his text so I'm all set and ready to go. The class is every Saturday from 11:30AM to 4PM (a lab, break, then a class). I'm looking forward to being able to finally learn Spanish!

Late Sunday night I FINALLY finished the work I was supposed to finish on Friday. Like is always the case with computers, it took a thousand times longer than expected and in the end started working for absolutely no reason that I can perceive. I hate computers!

Last night I played around with GnuCash, a free (like most things Linux-related) personal finance software package for Linux. I gotta admit it takes some getting used to, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. It's based on open standards, so I should be able to take its information and switch to another program someday if I so choose. You can't beat the price, anyway!

I am intrigued by Blair's renewed interest in getting some kind of group website going, a la Jesse and Clay's swank.ca. I am up for setting up something if there is enough interest (I know Janson expressed some interest in it before I think, too), mainly because I really want to learn how to host multiple websites with one box. It would cost about $35/year for the domain and maybe a few beers thrown in my direction - any takers?

The other big news that happened today was the Vancouver project that I worked so hard on this weekend and for the last five-odd months, which I was supposed to be on until the end of June and then until the end of this month, was unexpectedly cancelled this morning. For me, that means I don't have a whole lot to do at work anymore until I get a new contract/client. The good news is that already I hooked myself up with a buddy who got me an interview with a manager in Philadelphia this afternoon, so who knows - maybe in a few days I will be headed to the City of Brotherly Love? As usual, you'll hear it here first.

This weekend there are plans to celebrate Stef's birthday (which was last Friday) on Saturday night, and Blair made some mention about maybe getting together with Jerrod to do up some baseboard action and collectively put baseboards in both Blair's house and mine, which I am totally up for, because I really need a hand and it's one more thing I can cross off my long-term "to do" list!

Happy New Year to everyone! Last night's party at Brad's was good times, except for the huge almost-fight controversy. Honestly, I still feel awful about it - I hate having that much adrenaline running through my system, especially for absolutely no reason. Cheers to Blair, Brad, Stef, Mike, Nick (thanks for the present!), Jen, Azure-Dee, Holly, Ryan M., Fiona, Ryan, Heather, Jenn, Tracey, and Jerrod, among others that showed up last night. Jeers to Tracey's idiot new boyfriend and friends, for being complete assholes and ruining what was otherwise a good time. Good riddance to bad rubbish!