The Goldfish's Logbook

( cut for Day 0 )

I spent most of today in training and spending more money on equipment. So far I've been impressed with Calgary, the northernmost mega-city on the North American continent. In a strange way it reminds me of DFW, in that both cities are in the great plains and surrounded my vast rolling grasslands. (For those of you unfamiliar with either city, think, "Dances with Wolves". And if you're unfamiliar with that movie, then WHY ARE WE EVEN FRIENDS?) I didn't manage to take any photos around town (too busy and too much traffic), just one pic I snagged from my car window.
And don't even get me started on the culture clash. Okay, fine, if you insist. Man oh man, I nearly crack up everytime I have to use Canadian cash. In my head I'm giggling, thinking, "Hee hee hee, these people use play-money. It's not real! It's fake! Hee hee!"
And they really do say "eh" all the time. While I was buying my coveralls and boots, the clerk kept saying "eh" at the end of almost every sentence. I really tried to keep a straight face. But I couldn't figure it out. Is "eh" a form of punctuation for them? Is it like the "desu" in japanese? And he would pause everytime he said it, so maybe he meant it as in, "eh?". I didn't know if I was supposed to agree, or "eh" back at him, or what. I dropped a couple of "y'all"s into my replies, hoping he'd figure that I didn't speak his lingo. But he kept firing them at me.
Those are the two biggest conclusions I've reached today. I'm thinking my research on the Canadian subspecies of North American will be very interesting.

I'm not as stressed as I was yesterday. If I can just make it till tomorrow noon without Wells Fargo sending a hit squad after me, I think I'll be okay. Tomorrow I'll be boarding the charter plane and heading north to 'the Fort'. That's when the real adventure begins. (Expect plenty of pictures!)

So far I've been thrown 2 "Going Away" parties. So either my friends are really sad to see me go, or really HAPPY to see me leave. Hmm. It's 50/50. Wednesday we went out to Dave & Buster's for food and games. That was fun. Last night we went to Bikini's (the guys picked it). That place was kinda lame. Average, yet overpriced food plus a mandatory 19% tip for our group of 6. What the hell, man? You can be sure I won't be going back there, boobs or no boobs. We got out of there ASAP and grabbed dessert at DQ, which helped to partially salvage the evening.
Aside from fun time, I've been going through a blitz of training and shopping to get ready for Canadia. My company being the way it is, all the preparation was delayed to the absolute last minute, leaving everyone involved in a real pinch. I did manage to get most of my gear, except for the Eskimo boots and the winter coveralls, which I'll be getting in Calgary. Last night I went to Best Buy to try and get the laptop I planned on taking north with me. I'd been keeping my eye on this laptop since January, back when I still thought I was going to England.
So when the BB slave came by and tried to coax me into a pricier laptop, I was all, "No, I know what I want. I want THIS one."
Then he says, "Well I don't believe we have it in stock, I'll go check in the back."
Five minutes later he comes back, "We're out of stock, and so are all the regional stores."
Damn.
"But you can buy it today and we can ship it in 1-2 days."
I tell him, "That won't work for me. I'm leaving the country in 2 days."
"Oh, we can ship it to anywhere."
"You better be able to ship it by sled dog to a set of GPS coordinates, pop-tart," I think. But instead I say, "Well can I buy this floor model?"
"No sir, we don't sell the display units."
"You don't?"
"No, we keep them on display so that customers can view the units and purchase them online."
WTF! Yeah, I was pretty grumpy that I couldn't get the laptop I'd been planning on and I wasn't too happy with that twerp. I even checked Target and Wal-Mart out of desperation, but they had crap in the way of laptops. So today I think I'll try Fry's. Hopefully I'll find something there.
Also, my brother had mentioned that he might come down to Austin this weekend to hang out before I ship out. That'd be fun. Other than that though, I'll just be cleaning house and getting things ready for Monday.

Well crap. I spent most of this evening trying to fix my computer and only managed to screw it up worse. Forget blue screen of death, now it won't even boot. The only other idea I can think of is to try and find my Windows install disc(s) and use one of the other drives as the boot drive. But most likely I'll end up taking it to a repair place. I'm afraid of losing all my accumulated photos if they have to re-format but I don't know what else to do. I hope it doesn't cost much. Anyone know of an economical solution here?