Kevin's Ramblings…

My road trip to Boise Idaho was a good one. I left early in the morning from Kalispell Montana, the horizon in the East was just starting to lighten up.

My GPS took me on the route that took the shortest distance. It was a very scenic drive, but I literally drove down back roads that were gravel and dirt with farmers fields on both sides. The mountain passes were beautiful, long twisting roads with more turns than a Grand Prix course. I got caught behind a few slow moving vehicles but all in all, not bad

I arrived in Boise just after 2pm. I was able to catch a nap before heading out for dinner. One of the former team members who worked for me picked me up at the hotel with her husband and we headed to Texas Roadhouse. We had a great time, and I met with a bunch of other coworkers for dinner. Most of them had never met each other either due to working at home through the pandemic, so that was pretty cool.

Lots of great food was eaten over the weekend, I tried biscuits and gravy for the first time on Saturday morning, not overly impressed with that one. Chick-fil-A was on the menu for lunch and The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and I met another group of coworkers. We returned to the same place on Sunday for breakfast and I did some shopping on Sunday afternoon.

With it being Mother’s Day, our original dinner plans changed and we went to a pizza place which was great. The weekend zipped by very quickly. I think everyone had a good time.

So, it’s now just before 4 in the morning and I’m writing a blog post before heading out on the road. I’m staying in Kalispell again tonight and will pick up my dogs tomorrow morning. We’ll all be home by noon or so on Tuesday and then I’m back to work on Wednesday. I’m planning on taking a different route back, it’ll be more interstate highways this time, a longer distance but the same time to get there and hopefully I’ll have a cell signal for more of the return trip.

It’s been a whirlwind weekend but it was great. I’m glad to have met so many coworkers. Boise offered great hospitality. Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be back.

I planned a trip to Boise Idaho back in February or so for May, well, May is here and I’m on my way to Boise.

I’m working for IBM and quite a few of my colleagues live in the area, I thought it would be great to do a road trip and meet them.

I left yesterday morning and dropped the dogs off in boarding just past Elko British Columbia and then headed south to the US border. I’m spending the night in Kalispell Montana and will head to Boise at first light.

I got into town yesterday at lunch time. I hit up Chick-fil-A for lunch, amazing chicken. I made stops at Costco and Walmart and was surprised to find that even with exchange, the dogs food was about $10 a bag cheaper than in Canada. I had a relaxing evening and fell asleep shortly after 8, hence while I’m awake at 320 in the morning.

It’ll be almost a 10 hour drive to Boise today, I’m not planning on making any major stops. Dinner tonight at Texas Roadhouse with some coworkers and then I’ll be in Boise for 3 nights.

The drive today should be scenic anyway, mountains, lakes and remoteness. I’ll have the music going and plenty of coffee, sounds like a good road trip to me.

Ever since I’ve moved to Alberta, I’ve had some sort of a competition with Mother Nature about my use of the heat in the houses that I’ve lived in.

I try to go as late in the Fall as I can without using heat and a target date of October 1. If I can wait that long, I consider it a win. Last year, we had an amazing Fall and it was October 22 before I had to turn the heat on, definitely a win.

I try to turn my heat off on May 1. That was easier to do when I lived in Calgary, Spring tends to arrive a bit earlier there than here in the mountains. This year, I turned my heat off on April 28. Now, the competition is can I leave it off until October 1. It’s been in the mid 20s, Celsius, for the last few days and will remain there until the weekend, then on Saturday it’s supposed to be a high of 10, so Mother Nature is trying to get me to turn the heat back on.

I’m stubborn and don’t mind being a bit cool, we’ll see how it goes. Next week, the temps are supposed to rebound back into the upper teens, so this may be a battle I can win.

Wish me luck, and good luck with your own battles with Mother Nature.

I’ve turned the heat off today, a few days before my target date of May 1. I’ve opened the kitchen window and the front and back door, plus the window in my office, it’s nice to have fresh air.

I’m not convinced that the heat will stay off, but, if I close the windows at night, the house might not cool off too much and maybe it can stay off. We’ll see.

Two weeks until I head out on my road trip to Idaho. Such an exotic destination, I know, you’re all filled with envy. I’m looking forward to it, I love road trips, I’m sure it’ll be a good time.

The dogs are staying in a new kennel, I hope they’ll like it, it seems good anyway, here’s to hoping.

So, if the weather is decent where you are, get out and enjoy it. Have a good weekend.

Apparently, Spring isn’t ready to arrive just yet. I woke up yesterday morning to about 6″ of snow on the ground and we got a couple of additional inches during the day.

One thing that the dogs and I almost daily is head out for a hike at lunch time. When we went out yesterday, it was snowing so hard that I literally couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me. I thought it was probably too bad to drive the normal 9km to the west for a hike.

I guess it’s one of the downfalls of living in the mountains. I typically keep the heat on until the middle of May, although I try to turn it off May 1, it’s always too cold to keep it off.

The gorgeous mountain views make up for it, plus we don’t get any humidity or really hot weather in the summer, very different from living in Southern Ontario.

I’ve been in Alberta for 11 years now, I arrived in Calgary on April 18 2012. I loved it there and may return at some point, but for now, living in the mountains is great. As of July, it’ll be 5 years down here. Friends occasionally ask if I’m going to return to Ontario – nope, not going to happen other than visit, one is coming up at the end of October.

Anyway, hoping Spring will arrive one of these days, I’m done with snow.

This was a pretty insane week at work. It was my second week with my new client, officially although I was sort of with them for 2 weeks prior to me officially taking over. In a short time, the team is meeting all of our objectives, so that’s a very positive sign. It’s definitely busier than I was with my last client, perhaps it’ll keep me out of trouble.

We had a quarterly review with the client on Tuesday. It went well. The ideas that I’ve brought forward to fix issues were taken well. My team seems happy and is doing a great job. I finish most days mentally exhausted and I sleep like the dead.

No plans for this weekend, other than a hike or two with the dogs. Hikes are now shorter since Blondie doesn’t like going anywhere near as long as we used to, but, she’s 12 now, so definitely not a young dog. She’s still one of the happiest dogs I know, so that’s good. My big, exciting adventure night be returning recycling for my deposit. An exciting life that I lead.

I’m looking forward to my road trip to Idaho in a month. Idaho, I’m sure it’s right up there on the hot destination map. It’ll be a good weekend, I’m sure.

Well, enjoy whatever you’re doing this weekend and be safe. 😊

I had a long weekend this past weekend, I took Good Friday off. We were open at work, we’re 24/7/365 but I figured I’d take the day off. For those of you who know me, I’m quite religious. Ok. That was a lie…

The 3 day weekend zoomed by like it was a 3 hour weekend, I guess it means I had a good time. I think I did, it went by too quickly to remember.

Back to work today, my second week with my new client. The team has made excellent progress. For the first time in, well, a LONG time, we are meeting all of our SLA’s, so that’s fantastic. I have a quarterly meeting with the client tomorrow, and although it covers time that I wasn’t there, I get to talk about what I plan on doing. Should be a good meeting. Luckily, things like this do not make me nervous.

Nothing else much happening, I lead a pretty quiet life really. I ordered some excellent Chinese food tonight for take out, I didn’t feel like cooking after finishing work at 530pm.

Here’s to the week ahead – enjoy 😀

Well, I have not made a blog entry in a year and a half. Why? Not really sure, definitely have not had the blog bug. Has anything happened in my life? Definitely.

The last time I wrote, I had just returned from an excellent trip to Ontario. I was unemployed and my severance package from my old job had run out. I was living on EI and it’s not especially easy to live on EI.

So, I started the job search. Yes, I could have started the job search earlier, but a clause in my severance package had my severance cut in half if I started working, a real incentive NOT to work, I wanted to take my former employer for all that I could, and I did.

I wasn’t sure what type of a job I was going to get, I would have loved to stay working from home, but I didn’t think that was too likely. I also wouldn’t have minded getting out of IT, I could have, but my salary would have taken a nosedive.

I had a few interviews in November, not too many though and nothing that I was really interested in. I didn’t do much searching in December, I figured most places would not be hiring I’m December. I started looking, in earnest, after Christmas.

I had an interview or two for a job completely out of my realm, with Teck, a mining company, it didn’t work out. I had quite a few interviews in January and more in February, no offers though. I applied for a job early one morning in late February and I heard back from them within minutes, I was hopeful.

We had a phone interview that day or the next followed by a technical test, which I breezed through. My interview was set for the next week and I was looking forward to it. It was scheduled for a Monday afternoon.

I thought the interview went pretty well, although I wasn’t happy with some of my answers. I received an email the next morning though indicating that they were very impressed and the recruiter expected an offer to be made. This was, to say the least, good news.

I was offered a job and I started on March 21, 2022 with IBM End User Services. I was going to be a Team Lead for a group of 12 or so agents. I started my training and all was going fairly well when one of the dedicated leads resigned from his job and they pegged me to fill his shoes.

I was in charge of a team of 9 who worked for our client, indeed, the job search people who I had just used previously when looking for a job, although I didn’t get this one through them. I stayed on that contract for the past 11 months until they decided not to renew due to budgetary constraints.

This past Monday, I started with a new client and a larger team, we support Palo Alto Networks. It’s challenging, and I’m enjoying it thus far.

I am glad to be back to work, that’s for sure. Bills keep coming in and need to be paid and my 3 dogs definitely enjoy being fed. The year at IBM flew by. I didn’t do a lot other than work and hand out with the dogs. I kayaked a few times, went for daily walks with the dogs, but really didn’t do too much. I’m glad I went to Ontario twice in 2021 as I haven’t been anywhere else since.

I do have 2 trips planned for this year. I’m going to Idaho I’m May to meet some of the people that I work with and in October, I’m visiting Ontario again. I’m looking forward to both trips.

Well, that’s the last 18 months in a nutshell. I do plan on blogging more often, perhaps not daily, but at least weekly. If you come along, enjoy the ride.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I returned from my trip to Ontario, definitely back into the normal routine. It’s been a non-descript two weeks pretty well.

The dogs and I have gone for hikes, the weather has been pretty good, other than a few days of steady rain, the same rain that’s caused the awful flooding in BC. No flooding here, the river is high and wild though.

The four of us are heading to Calgary today to go for a hike with a friend and his dog. I’m also stopping at Costco on the return trip for dog food and groceries and gas as well. That’ll be the most excitement we’ve had in a bit.

I have dinner in the Crock-Pot for tonight. A 3lb roast with carrots and potatoes in with the roast. I have not made one of these in ages. Should be excellent.

Tomorrow will be a relaxing football day, nothing else planned. Sounds like a good weekend to me.

I’m going to ramp up my search for a job next week. I’m actually getting bored. It’s been a month now since baseball ended (umpiring) and I don’t have a lot to keep me entertained. My 7 months off have been great though, but it’s time to do something.

Enjoy your weekend.

I got home Sunday night to winter like conditions. Of course, it is November in the mountains and really, we had an excellent fall.

I was happy to have my dogs back and they were happy to be home. I think they do a lot more relaxing at home then when they are in boarding.

We’ve gone for a hike every day, they love it, so do I. We went out to the lakes yesterday, it was a bit windy, big surprise, it’s almost always windy at the lakes.

The dog car is back to its former glory. My neighbour helped with it just before I left for Ontario. I figured the rad was low on antifreeze and it was, so we topped it up and used some stop leak as well. The temperature is holding well now.

Today is market day, need to buy some produce from The Veggie Guy, some of the best produce you can get.

Today is also November 11, Remembrance Day in Canada. Everyone takes a few minutes at 11am to remember the sacrifices that those who’ve served made so that we have the freedoms that we do. We will remember.