The Day I....ummmm....

ok, so my life, has hit somewhat of a lull. Sure, I went to the maxim boat cruise, which was fun, but even that could have been better. Hockey's done, basketball's done. Incidentally, I can't believe Miami won, and I feel bad for Dirk, cause I think he wanted it more than anyone on Dallas. I hope he wins it someday. but Wade...he's just too sick. The best player in the league in my opinion.

For the past two weeks I started going to the gym again. I don't know if there's any noticeable difference, but I feel better healthwise. I've also decided to have a better diet to compliment my workout. It consists mainly of an oatmeal breakfast, almonds to snack, protein shakes, turkey sandwich lunches, and dinners vary. It's not a strict regiment, but I try to follow it as best I can, especially eating breakfast.

I don't think I mentioned my latest addiction. Now, it's something that's been around for a while, but ever since I moved to hamilton I do it like 2 sometimes 3 times a day...It's called watching CSI! It's on a million times a day, and it's just great to watch. I'll watch CSI:New York, and CSI:Miami, but nothing beats the original one in Las Vegas. It's all about Grissom. he's just too cool.

Jenn started taking a course twice a week at Mac, so I'll probably meet up with her and start studying again twice a week, and maybe weekends too. So, with work, working out, CSI, and the CSC, there's not really much time for anything else.

The Day the Finance Team Went to Niagara

During the past week, our new cost analyst from the West, Lisa, came to Toronto for some training and orientation. On Thursday we had a 1 hour finance meeting to assess where we're currently at, and where we'd like to be.

After that meeting, we change scenery by driving all the way to Niagara to walk by the falls, go on the Maid of the Mist, have dinner at Noir 17, and have a little visit to the casino.

The weather outside was amazing. About 26 degrees and not a cloud in sight. It made for an enjoyable walk, and ride while on the Maid of the Mist. It was my first time on it, and it was ok. You're pretty much right next to the falls, with the mist swirling arounnd you from all directions. It was something that people should do at least once, but I don't know about any more than that.

After the Maid of the Mist, we went to Noir 17 for dinner. It's a chic little restaurant inside fallsview with a pleasant view, and asian fusion decor. I got the fois grois as an appetizer, the venison for my entree, a berry souffle for dessert,
and a glass of red wine to drink. It came to about $100 for just me, but since it was a "finance meeting", it goes on the company's tab. Everything was great, except for the venison which was a tad overcooked, and not nearly as good as the venison at Rosewater.

I thought it was a great idea to go to dinner, not because it's a nice free meal, but it really gave us a chance to get to know each other, and bond as a team. It's a tad weird, since I'm at least 10 years younger than everyone else but most things we talked about were able to transcend age.

After dinner, we made a quick stop to the casino for some blackjack and then headed home. For me, I could have stayed later, but everyone else had spouses, children, and sleep to attend to. Definitely at the end of the night, you started to see the age gap, and the differences in our responsibilities.

It was definitely a great outing to have, and great timing as well, as the days leading up to it had been a bit stressful with creating the budget templates for the sales team. Hopefully, it's something that happens more often.

The Day I Met some Maxim Models

So, alot of you may have heard this story already, but for those who haven't let me fill you in.....

Last Thursday, I had that presenation to do in Orangeville.yada yada yada, it went fine, not great, but it went well enough.

Now the interesting part, I decide to head back to mississauga so that I could watch the first game of the nba playoffs with English. we were going to stay in and watch it, but his cousin's b/f and his housemate wanted to watch too, so we wound up going to Arizona's bar on carlingview.

So, we go in, and right off the bat, we all get ID'ed except for English. The funny part is that the other guys we were with are like 27, so they're not even close to being underage. Anyways, she looks at our ID's and laughs at how well over 19 we are, and shows us to our tables.

We get them to put the basketball game on the big screen, and proceed to watch. So, we're watching, having a couple of beers, when we see these two models come in and start working the room. While we're appreciating the view, a young lady named Paula comes to our table and fills us in on what they're doing there. They were part of the maxim/coors promotion for the Maxim ultimate golf experience. Anyways, Paula asks us if we went to play for a chance to go to some Maxim boat cruise for free beer, free food, and a chance to win the golf experience. We tell her we'll go, but at halftime, cause we were watching the game. but we continue talking to her and she even came back and chilled with us for a while.

Anyways, at halftime we go and check it out and apparenty you have to play 3 games. a ball toss, a mini-putt, and find the red tee in the sand. The lowest scores get put into a draw and from there they pick the winners for the boat cruise. Well, I didn't make the ball toss, and I didn't make the putt, but I did manage to get the tee on my first try. still, out of a max 10 tries, I got an 8. The other guys didn't do that well either, so I go to Paula and ask her to hook us up, cause there's no way we got the lowest scrore. She tells us that she actually mentioned to her boss how we were nice guys and see if she could give us some passes. And then she came back and told us to make sure we came back in the end. so, we're thinking yea, we're in! We even started talking to the models, and they told us the same thing.

We head back out to watch the game, and with 1 minute left, Paula comes back and tells us that we have to go back in. So we head back in, and Paula says to us "I tried everything I could". whoa...change on tone? English and I look at each other and both figured it wasn't going to happen anymore. Anyways, Paula goes to talk to her boss, and the boss goes up to me and asks for my name. I tell her, and she says that I have to have a putt-off with this other guy. Best out of 3. The other guy steps up and goes first. He lines up, and shoots his first shot, and it's going straight for the hole, but comes up just slightly short. He then proceeds to take his next shots missing both. So, even though I hadn't made a putt all night all I had to do was make 1 right? I get to the ball, square up, and....SINK IT. No doubt son! haha, I even made another one for good measure.

And with that, I won 3 passes, one for myself, one for English, and one for his housemate. English's cousin's b/f had to go back to England so he wouldn't have been able to make it anyways. The funny part is that I talked to the other guy I was going up against, and he was telling me how he was sinking them earlier, and that he actually plays golf and that his putting is the best part of his game. Unlike me where I'm best off the tee, and decent on the green. The difference was that he said he doesn't do well under pressure, unlike me, where that where I do my best.

Unfortunately, the cruise isn't on the weekend. It's on the freakin Monday! So I'm going to have to go to work early on Monday, take off early, and make my way to lakeshore. then I have to go back to work for Tuesday morning....I found a way to get a bit more sleep though. I'm going to set up a meeting at head office with some of the Trade Finance team for Tuesday morning, so that should give me an extra hour of sleep.

Hopefully, nothing pressing will arise, and everything will go as planned. I'll be pissed if I have to miss this thing cause of something at work.

For those interested, they'll be at bars all over canada giving away passes and chances to wint he golf experience. goto: http://www.coorslight.ca/main.php?lang=en&resolution=1024X768 if you're interested.

The Day I Decided To Start Studying Again

Firstly, as you might have seen for the past few weeks, I tried to post a video blog, but for some reason the video doesn't seem to play. So, I'm back to the conventional way to blogging for now.

So a quick recap of what's been new in my life...

I've been working at Olivieri for the past few weeks, and it's been great. I report to the Director of Finance who's a really cool guy. After working at Russell, this job reminded me exactly what I'm looking for. The people are all friendly, I go out for lunch with my boss, I get full control of my projects (aka, no micromanaging), and I get paid more. Now it's only a contract for 7 months as a budget analyst, but from the talk, they're looking to make it a full time financial analyst position. The only downside is that it's in Hamilton. Hamilton is....well....not exactly pretty. ok ok, it's downright ugly. But if they increase my pay a tad bit more then I can survive it.

Now, one thing that I haven't done in the past month and a half is study and work out. So, I'm trying to get myself back on schedule for both. I joined a family fitness gym and had a workout on Tuesday for the first time in 2 months. Suffice it to say I'm pretty sore, but I guess that's a good thing.

As for the studying, I've decided that I need to get started on that again. I'm going to aim to complete it by the end of July. 2 months should be enough time. As long as I keep focused I'll be fine.

I was going to do it this week, but I have a presentation to give in Orangeville to Olivieri's regional sales managers, so I have to prepare for that. I haven't done a business presentation since I worked at Clarica, and definitely not after only 2 and a half weeks of work. And why Orangeville of all places? It's at the Millcroft Inn, where there we'll be having alot of meeting over the span of two days. I'm pretty sure it's just an excuse for some of the managers to have a little spa getaway on the company's expense. I'm just bitter cause I'm going for the 3 hours for my presentation, so I probably won't be enjoying any of the perks.

I've moved out here to Hamilton. I don't think I've mentioned that. I'm living in the "student ghetto" around the McMaster area. It's clean, and my 2 housemates are nice. It doesn't have air conditioning, so the first couple of days were brutally hot, and I didn't have a a fan, so I was sweating balls. the past few days have been alot better though, and Jenn's mom lent me a fan, so it's been bearable lately.

I think this has been a lengthy update. I'll leave it at that.