1462 - The Last of the Mohitos

Well, I’ve returned from Seattle again (I think I start writing with the word ‘well’ too often). It was a worthless trip – nearly all of the work I did turned out to be useless due to changing requirements combined with incompetent co-workers. I did learn a lot about the project I was sent to work on, though.

Monday began a string of long, hard, frustrating days where the only things AN and I did were work, eat (drink) and sleep. We went in every day at eight, and left between six-thirty and eight-thirty. We’d then eat dinner somewhere cheap or nice, have a beer or two, perhaps watch a movie, and go to bed.

Monday was one of the shorter days. We got lots of work done, and we were eager to do something fun. We went to a nearby Arby’s (everything was nearby – tons of fast-food joints, most of them Mexican; a lot of Teriaki restaurants; sushi places; sub places; Chinese and Thai places; and the usual American joints like Outback Steak House and Applebee’s) and loaded up on burgers and mozza sticks (there was a five for $5.95 deal going on). We then went a convenience store for water, beer and snacks for the week. We rushed back to the hotel and put Casino on while we ate. The movie was long – about three hours, but it was suspenseful and wonderfully-acted – Joe Pesci was especially good as a mobster tough guy (if you can believe that) who often let out his terrible rage by slapping faces, breaking hands with a hammer and squeezing heads with vices. The movie portrayed a mobster-ruled Las Vegas, where everyone lived solely to have sex, do drugs and make money. Everyone stole from everyone else – everyone tried to cheat everyone else. They were all in it for themselves. There were lots of holes dug in the desert, to put it bluntly. Good, solid entertainment for sure, despite the terrible picture painted of mankind.

On Tuesday, AN and I ran out of work – we seemed to be ahead of schedule. Since AN had been working on the project longer and knew it better, he continued on working while I rotted away. I sat for hours trying to think of something to do, but yet appear as though I was working hard. I did surf a few Web sites. I worked a bit on my own Web site. But the time passed slowly and I was incredibly bored. To make matters worse, we stayed a bit late. My only function was to be there in case anything came up that I might do. We got off work around six-thirty. As we’d done on Sunday, we went to the Canyon’s restaurant next to the hotel. I’d seen some tasty-looking nachos on Sunday, so I decided to try them out. I was feeling terrible, physically, so I wanted to get something nice and healthy to make me feel better. I was also tired of being over-full, and a heaping plate of nachos was just the thing to get my eating under control.

They weren’t even good. They had shredded chicken on them, and I found that the chicken severely moderated the other tastes – the effect of the jalapenos, olives, tomatoes, and especially the cheese, was considerably reduced. Even the ever-trustworthy sour cream couldn’t bring the nachos back from the bowels of mediocrity.

After the meal, AN and I waddled over to the hotel. Continuing our theme of watching movies that portray humanity at its worst, we watched Idiocracy. It took place on Earth five-hundred years in the future – a time by which survival of the least-fit had transformed the world into a planet of idiots, thus the title. The way this happened was quite reasonable, actually – the smartest or most important people in the world are often too focused on their careers or social causes, for example, to have children. People of lower intelligence, however, have children out of sheer stupidity. The movie is clearly about America though, as having many children is a positive thing in many cultures, where the rich and /or intelligent are the ones having the most children. Anyway, in the movie, the intelligent people in the world were ultimately filtered out, leaving a world full of idiots and assholes, where sex, money and violence rule supreme. The Academy Award-winning film of the year 2505 is entitled “Ass” – ninety minutes of a bare ass farting. You can get blowjobs at Starbucks, TV is dominated by sex and violence, and people will do anything for money. The world is ultimately saved, in a way, by two humans who were frozen for 499 years too long in a military experiment that was left unattended due to funding cuts. The two (Joe Average, the most average person alive in the year 2005, and a prostitute) are the most intelligent people on Earth, by far. They solve a food shortage by decreeing that all plants should be watered with WATER, instead of Gatorade – you know, water, like in a toilet. The two try to find a time machine that will take them back to their time, but at the end of the movie, it turns out to be an amusement park ride instead of a real time machine. Joe Average becomes President of the United States, and the prostitute becomes his assistant.

Wednesday was another long, boring day. We stayed at work for over twelve hours, yet I only did about two hours of work. At the end of the day, as fate would have it, the desired outcome shifted suddenly, and we formed an action plan for Thursday to attempt to get all of the new work done. My healthy eating trend continued unabated, as I had Doritos and a chocolate milkshake for lunch. After work, we went to McMiniman’s, a microbrewery chain, where each restaurant brews its own, unique beers. I had the royal sampler. All of the beers were quite bitter, except for the Hammerhead Red beer, which AN and I (and our boss at work) agreed was the best. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and pretty much straight to bed.

Thursday was my birthday. Happy Birthday me! And it was a living hell. We rushed all day to be ready for a pre-demo demo, and it didn’t go well. The product we were working with had bugs that needed to be fixed, and the two other teams of people were having trouble with their parts of the work. We also found that the outcome of our work had been inaccurately communicated, and so we would have to come in to work again on Friday, which was to be our fun day in Seattle. It was sunny and warm – definitely the nicest of my birthdays weather-wise. We also ate lunch at a tiny Thai restaurant – the food was inexpensive and excellent! I had a coconut red curry dish with lots of veggies and a good spiciness – I went with three out of five – I think I could’ve handled four, but five probably would’ve left me paralyzed. I was so happy to eat something both tasty and fairly healthy. I wondered then how I could ever think of eating unhealthy food when healthy food could taste so good. Lunch was a pleasant surprise, and it helped ease the pain I was feeling at work – it also prepared me for the afternoon, which was by far the worst part of the day.

The working day ended with a meeting to discuss what needed to be done. It went on forever, and we wasted a ton of time talking about NOTHING. There was a guy working in Texas on the conference call – the same guy who’d been the star at our training session in Seattle in December – who took his work way too seriously. Another guy, also clearly from the southern US, took it too lightly – his slow, southern drawl and his inelegant misuse of the English language made us wonder how he’d figured out how to get out of the womb.

Our bosses’ screensaver came on during the meeting – it was the one showing a map of the world, with radar-like circles emanating from various cities. Our boss from the last trip, who was also in the meeting, immediately, much to our delight, pounced on the opportunity for jokes by saying “Communist China to Agent Barrans… come in Agent Barrans… what is the status on the project” – it was pure extremest humour at it’s best. Everyone laughed, and the commentary continued until the joke was beat to death.

We ultimately got out of the meeting, and, as I’d done every night, I called JW to chat. This time I woke her up (with her approval), as the meeting had gone late. I was feeling pretty bad about the day at work – I was frustrated and angry about the way things were going. I also missed home. She made me feel better though – a good sendoff to a nice restaurant called Bonefish.

I had a Tom Collins and a disgusting Martini (which I ordered only because I couldn’t think of anything else). To eat, I had a salad to “start” (though I was quite full after finishing it) – a Cobb salad, which seemed to be common in Seattle. It had blue cheese on it, pine nuts, and mango, to name a few of the many ingredients. Then, I had a small steak topped with lobster chunks – it was delicious. After the meal, AN and I went back to the hotel and watched a bit of TV before going to sleep.

On Friday, we did some more work, but were having trouble getting our sample data into the system being worked on. It turned out that there was a problem with the system we hadn’t been told about. They’d stopped using some of the fields on one of the screens, so that modifying the fields in the database had no effect. We only learned of this later on in the day, setting the stage for a last-minute rush of work Monday morning back home.

After work, we headed straight for the airport and home. I was really excited to go home. I missed home terribly, especially JW. I was tired of eating crap, tired of frustrating days at work, tired of having no free time in the evenings, and tired of hanging out with AN. On the way to the airport, we took the Microsoft exit off the highway and did a quick loop around one of the blocks in the huge Microsoft campus. The buildings were beautiful, but not as beautiful as the gardens, stone walls and trees. It was really quite amazing. There were baseball diamonds and soccer fields for employee use.

We continued on to the airport afterward. It would turn out, to my delight, that my wish earlier in the week for just one trip without delays, was to be granted! AN and I had a beer at the Seattle airport, then sat down to watch Kenny Vs. Spenny on the computer. We were so into the show that we failed to notice the crowd by our gate disappear. We still almost didn’t head right over, thinking we had time to spare given the departure time. It was a good thing we did, as the plane pulled away from the gate eight minutes after we got on board. One hour and fifteen minutes later, we were standing in the airport in Vancouver.

Flying over Vancouver, I saw many small islands packed with buildings, joined by bridges and causeways. I took an immediate liking to the city – I got a good vibe from it, which isn’t something I often say. I’d like to go back there sometime and see it in the daylight. In the airport, AN and I had dinner (I had another delicious, healthy, Thai stir fry) and watched several more episodes of Kenny Vs. Spenny. Some of the episodes showed naked asses, and there was a ton of swearing, so we were a bit self conscious watching, but it was very entertaining, and the time waiting passed very quickly, unlike my trip to Seattle.

We boarded our second leg at eleven twenty, and flew for just over four hours to Montreal. We lost three hours due to time change, arriving in Montreal around seven. I got a bit of sleep, but not much – people were constantly getting up and down (gotta get up to get down). They talked in regular, loud voices. Movies were played on TVs that were too bright, and I felt squeezed in between AN and the woman sitting next to me. My back ached and my legs hurt.

In Montreal, we proceeded to a small part of the airport (that looked more like a bus terminal) that housed especially small planes. I saw a crowd of clearly Inuit people by one of the gates – it reminded me of JW, and from that point onward I was desperate to see her. I rudely stared at them, remembering the films I’d watched with JW, among other documentaries I’d seen. I got close enough to the gate to read their destination – a rather long name beginning with ‘Q’. For a moment I almost wished I was going on their flight – an adventure in the north seemed fun at the time (it still does, though maybe the spring, summer or fall are better times to visit). I’d rather go where they were going, than go back to boring old Seattle (well, the part I go to is boring).

We boarded our flight to Halifax within the hour, and the short flight home arrived fifteen minutes early. Mum, Dad, AN’s Dad and AB were waiting at the airport to greet us. B-KS was there as well, picking up his girlfriend who was on the same flight. Hugs were exchanged, our luggage appeared a moment later, and we were on our way home.

I was extremely tired, so I got Mum and Dad to take me straight to the house, where I picked up the car and headed home. It felt great to be home – I was lying down in bed five minutes later. I didn’t feel well though, and despite drinking very little, I used the washroom three times very quickly. I was worried I might be dehydrated, so I had some water. I slept perhaps an hour, between bathroom breaks and annoying telemarketer phone calls. The second time the telemarketer called, I almost threw the phone through the wall. I wanted to be rested up for my party!

I called JW around three. One of her roommates answered the phone with, “Hello, B speaking.” I’m sure she did it to get me about always calling and asking for JW right away, without acknowledging that I actually know the person answering the phone. This time I asked her how she was and then asked for JW. She’d gone to the bank, and I would have to wait until she got home. The next half hour was stressful – I was almost crazy with desire to see her. I prepared for the party, had a shower, and finally went over to her place shortly after she returned my call.

It was great to see her. It felt great to hug and kiss her. I would’ve been happy so have seen her through soundproof glass, so needless to say I was happy to have more than that. We relaxed a while before heading out for groceries for the coming week. After the groceries, we picked up a pizza from Donnini’s, then picked up TA and AD to bring them to my house for my birthday party.

The party was truly great. Everyone came, even people I didn’t expect. I saw both GK and SM for the first time in about a year. I got to talk to almost everyone, something I consciously tried to do, as I felt I was a bit drunk and isolated at parties past. The food was great, the music was great, and the crowd dynamic was great. My presents were fun and we laughed the whole night long. I got two home-made t-shirts from AD - one with a picture of Captain Pecard with the caption, "WTF is this shit" and the other with a Simpsons reference on it. I also got an unusual joke weapon from him. I got some Dave Chappel DVDs from CA, GK and SM. I got liquor from TA, and a deep fryer (perfect for my diet!) from AN. I also got two great movies (well, I know one is, and am told the other is) movies from JW (Shanghai Noon and A Scanner Darkly) plus an interesting Maratime weather book. Finally, I got golf balls from PL and JW... JW2 I'll have to call her I guess! It was sad when the party ended, but I was incredibly tired. So tired, in fact, that I fell asleep in the middle of a serious discussion with JW about our relationship – I’m not even sure how the topic came up.

The next morning, the conversation resumed, after JW reminded me that it had taken place. It was funny, because I didn’t remember the conversation ending – apparently JW had woken me up once, and just given up the second time I fell asleep! I was nervous during our conversation, without drunkenness as my blanket. However, it was good for us to be honest with one another, and it was probably time for a status update. At the conclusion of the discussion, we got up, showered, and went to a brand new Jamaican café close to JW’s for breakfast.

After breakfast, we were both feeling hung over, in our own ways, so we napped for a while at her place, until she had enough energy to get up and start doing a bit of work. I left, heading straight home for birthday dinner.

Mum had fallen on the ice earlier in the day, and her hand was in a makeshift cast. She was to go to emergency after dinner to have it x-rayed to check for fractures, so we ate quickly. I opened my presents quickly as well – I was very happy to get two gift certificates to JW and my favourite restaurant – Szechuan Restaurant (I know, great title!). Mum had made chili and home-made macaroni and cheese for dinner – it was delicious.

I dropped my grandmother off at home, then came home myself to tackle the party mess. It took an hour and a half, but I was able to clean everything up. After that, I sat down at the computer to write this entry.

I’m very tired, having slept a combined seven hours the past two nights. I may not be able to sleep, as going to bed last night late only re-enforced the Seattle time zone for my body. It’s only six in Seattle right now. Oh well, I’ll give it the old collegiate effort! So long!

I'm currently listening to: "The Downward Spiral (The Bottom)" from "Further Down the Sprial" by "Nine Inch Nails" (this song is fucking awesome)

Movies watched this week: Casino, Idiocracy