The Voice Of Reason

Yesterday at the gym, the personal training area was a bit busy so I suggested to D. that we work on the circuit machines as a change. Good Grief, it didn't take long before my leg muscles were objecting strenuously! Ow! Never mind, it's good for me. right? I'm not as sore today as i thought i would be, though.

Really loving these four day weeks. Have been using up vacation days on Fridays. I work Monday and Tuesday morning and then am off until Jan. 6 though on call on the 27th. That's really just checking emails to make sure nothing's blown up. *makes note* make sure the Service Desk has my phone number, too. We get an hour's stand by pay for it. Obviously, if i had to actually work i would get overtime but Dec. 27 and the days before New Year's are pretty quiet in here. Skeleton staff.

Did I mention that i'm now in a position to take my work pension and run if i wanted to? I reached the "rule of 80" at the beginning of December. I have 25 years in which only means a pension of 50% of my gross salary, however, so that's really not enough. If i have to get a job to make ends meet, there isn't much point in retiring. It's nice to know I have that option, though. I'll probably go another 5 years when i will have 30 years and a 60% pension. Most people go that far and what they end up with is about what you get after all the extra deductions you have to pay while working. Plus that's 5 more years for my salary to increase with the contract yearly raises. If you take the average of about 2% a year raise which is what we've been getting lately, that's another 10% or a tad more than what I'm making now (due to compounding the raise).  I also have a bit of money in my RRSP to top me up as well. Canada Pension can kick in at age 60 if i want and my old age pension at 65 or 66. I think they've changed the age and i can apply for that about 6 months after i turn 65. Every year here that I work is another 2% pension. At the recent service awards, there was a guy that has been working 45 years. It's probably the only job he's ever had. Most of the people I've seen that stay 40 or more years are the men that work on the outside crews, the road crews, the guys that drive the snow removal and the landscaping crews, the traffic and right of way, all that sort of thing.

I've only seen one person who works as office staff stay that long. She works in the Finance department. Not sure how long she's been with the city but she's in her 70s. I can't imagine working full time in my 70s and i'm sure it's because she wants to not because she has to. When you have built up a good pension at work and can also get Canada Pension and your old age pension, you will be as well off as you are when working. Ok, Working full time and drawing those other two pensions will make you even more comfortable but really, it must be getting harder and harder getting up and ready for work and slogging through that commute, especially on blustery winter days like these past few.
( 2013 books )

Fourth day back at work. Hasn't been too bad though I'm yawning a lot by the evening. The harder part is getting used to this office chair, egonomic though it is, is not the same as the one i've been sitting in at home and also, sitting at the desk all day, both being a bit of a strain on my back even with standing up and stretching. It's getting better though. Just an adjustment.

It's nice to see everyone again but also a lot of change has taken place with reorgs and  new incident tracking software to grapple with. My section is in transit to another group but they have no manager yet so my old manager is still my manager until such time. I have 16 vacation days to try to use up before the end of the year because they prefer we don't carry our limit of 5 over but unless there's a very good reason why not, our contract says we can. However, I've worked out to take a lot of Fridays off, a couple other days in November around the time our Corrie event night takes place, and some time over Christmas. I'll be on call one of the days but the 27th of Dec, a Friday after Christmas is not going to likely be any problems. Any requests can wait until Monday. I'll carry over a few days but use two straight away the couple of days after New Year's. It's all good.

Yes, our group is putting on a Corrie actor event on Nov. 12 so I'm volunteering that night as well as staying in the hotel overnight as it is a lot more convenient than trying to get back home late at night. Taking the next day off as well. If there are any Corrie watchers, the actor is Marc Bayliss who plays Carla's brother Rob Donovan. One of our committee members met up with him in Manchester last month and said he's going to be a great guest and called him "delightful". I figure it doesn't matter if it's someone that has only been on the show a short time, they still have good stories to tell about the show and the backstage life! I'll get to shake hands and have him sign my book and get a photo as well.

Speaking of books, here's a few more read.... Though I was off for 2 months, I didn't get nearly as much read as I thought I would. Out of my usual reading routine i suppose and was only reading in bed at night instead of taking advantage of the daytime as well. Now i'm back to work, I read on the commute both ways and at lunch as well as at night.
( 2013 books )

What a different day this was! I got to work as usual at 7:30 to find the whole Scotia Square complex dark. No power. None in the mall and none in the towers. That means we can't get to the office because the doors are locked from the stairwells. We can get out but not back in. Apparently the security scan doors were working but what was the point if all the lights were off and all the computers dead? The servers and probably the one the security system runs on have a separate power source apparently which is fine, it keeps the servers from crashing but does nothing for the rest of the staff in the building. AT least staff in other locations could continue to work i guess.

I went across the street to the hotel there as they have a coffee shop with Starbucks coffee and tea and had myself some brew. Called a coworker to get my manager's phone number. He said might as well go home and work from home though most of that would just be self-education since my laptop was in the office. Never mind. I did that. Took the bus home and when i got in, i went to the puter to check the work email. Guess what? Power was back on! And being dedicated, i saw i had 6 minutes to get back outside and catch the bus to go back. I did it.

Yes i did.
Because...
We had a training session at 10 which i still would have dumped if that was the only thing to think about but I had some things I wanted to transfer to production before someone else went on his vacation and i really did need to bring the laptop home for some testing on Sunday. So yes, i went in and i'm glad i did. The training was ok but then I ran into a problem with one of the things i was doing and i worked through lunch to fix that. When that was pushed to production, it didn't work though it did in the test side of things. Wha????

Turns out the report ID was different on the production server than on the test server. Duh. Switched the code out and it worked. Time to get a sandwich (it's 1:30 now!) There was a little do to see off a coworker so I went there. Still had one or two things to iron out and got all that done before i left for the day so it turned out quite productive in spite of the frantic start.

( 2013 books )

Time again for a book update:
( 2013 books )

Work's going ok. Cracked a problem yesterday with some help. It wasn't anything I was doing wrong, it was a problem with a connection from one server to another and it had to be done using a direct IP address instead of a server name. Have got quite a lot of requests on the board which is good plus a fwe other ongling projects. Training on Mondays to learn html5, css3 and PHP programming, also going well.

Mom's birthday was the 17th and we had a family party for her. We went together and bought her  Keurig coffee maker, similar to the popular Tassimo that uses a little pod or cup and makes one cup of beverage at a time. Everyone seems to be getting them and she wanted one. They're best for coffee though they do make tea and other things but for tea, I still find boiling the kettle is the best. I don't expect I'll get one until G. and i are living in the same apartment since he's a coffee drinker. My nephew's birthday was yesterday and we had another family get together on Sunday for that. Gave him the reusable filter for his Keurig that he got at Christmas. My birthday is this weekend and yet another family get together for that. My aunt's is the day after and we will have a joint party which is nice. My cousin, the one that lost his wife recently is coming over to my place on Friday to help me put my birthday bookcase together. I have to stop off and get some groceries because i promised to cook!

Also this weekend, my friend and i are going to a movie, possibly Quartet which looks wonderful. It's about a senior citizen's home for retired musicians. The ex-wife of one of them arrives and there's all sorts of friction while they are trying to put on a recital. Great ensemble cast including Pauline Collins, Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Andrew Sachs (That's the guy that played Manuel in Fawlty Towers!)

This is the first year i watched none of the Oscars. Usually I watch the first hour or so but i just didn't bother for some reason. I did record it and i might FF through some of it over the weekend just to see some of the musical performances and the dresses, of course! I didn't see any of the nominated best movies this year. I'm not sure what it says when I can only say I've seen four of the five nominated animated movies! Pretty much everything else that was nominated for anything I also didn't see. Last year was not a year that i managed to get to see that much in the theatres though i did download a number of films.

I've been struggling to keep up with various tv series that i've been following, mostly British things including Utopia, Being Human, Mr. Selfridge, Ripper Street, US Shameless, Big Bang Theory, and soon Grimm will be back, also Game of Thrones. On top of that is my daily Corrie and Young and Restless as well as UK Corrie. Something has to give!

Now to catch up on 2013 books below the cut
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6 sleeps! I'm heading to Manchester Tuesday night for a quick bonus visit. There are Coronation Street connotations involved but getting to see Graham is the bonus that tipped the balance when I was deciding whether to go or not, January travel being what it can be. The long term forecast looks ok so I think I'll get there without incident. Ooh and I think my Evans order arrived already! I got a post office notification and I'm not expecting anything else. That was only a week since it left the warehouse, too!

Starting up with 2013 books already. I finished three in three days though didn't read each of them in a day. That's what happens when you are reading more than one book at a time, you finish a group of them altogether. I might read one on the bus and a different one in bed at night and a third one at lunch maybe. Or if a book is particularly good i'll stick with that one until i finish it.

1. Shaman - Noah Gordon
The second in a trilogy of books about doctors in the Cole family. This one takes place in the American midwest in the years before and through the Civil War. This one is about both the father and the son who are/become doctors, over half of the book is the father's story with about a third of it focussed on the son, nicknamed Shaman. It was good but i liked the first one, The Physician, better.

2. The Cornerstone - Anne C. Petty
A horror/supernatural book i won for a review. It's about a deal with the devil, Christopher Marlow, Faust and a stone that contains the spirits of a banshee and a witch. It's supposed to be about a woman who gets tangled up in the whole thing but her character really doesn't contribute a whole lot to the plot and nothing to the conclusion where she's pushed aside to be an observer. The theatre director, current owner of the stone is losing control of it and one of the actors in the Faust production he's putting on has more of an agenda than we know at first. Quite good, actually even though it's not my usual sort of book.

3. Stranger in Paradise - Eileen Goudge
From horror to romance... Story of a middle aged widow with two grown daughters. The widow falls for a young handsome man. One daughter is married to a man twice her age and the other daughter is divorced and can't have children. Into the mix comes a teenage runaway girl that the divorcee takes in. The daughters grapple with their mother's new love and surprise pregnancy. The divorcee finds love of her own. Takes place in a small town in California where you get all the gossip about a lot of the residents and shop owners in the town centre along with the rest of the story. Not bad. Light reading.