Kevin's Ramblings…

Actually, a little more than a week in total.

I have 5 days of lieu time to use. I was going to use it one Friday at a time but figured I might like an entire week off. I haven’t had a week off of work since last July. So, I’m off Friday, Monday is Family Day and then I have the rest of the week off to use the rest of my lieu time. Not a bad deal.

I have no plans. I’m not going to Hawaii or anything. I am going to stick around and relax,

That still leaves me with 3 weeks of vacation for the year. Should work well.

I dropped into the office today after I was done work and picked up all of my personal stuff and also my two 22″ monitors from the office and brought it home.

This week marked the start of me working from home full time. I guess I don’t need coffee mugs and bobble heads and an iPod dock/radio at the office any longer.

I will drop in every 6 weeks or so, just so that if I ever go to a party or something, my co workers don’t completely forget who I am.

Now that baseball has started, I’ll start seeing people again, perhaps I won’t turn into a hermit after all.

For now, wish me luck working from home. 🙂

More evaluations today for Babe Ruth Calgary. No one really stood out above everyone else. We were looking at hitting today.

I have to draft 10 or 11 players this year, almost a complete team. Will make for a possibly interesting summer.

A trade has been proposed by one of the other club managers. He wants our first round pick this year (third overall) and he’ll give up his 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks next year. I’m leaning towards accepting it, it won’t help us this year, but it really won’t hurt us and will really help us next year. I don’t think we will have pitching to get too far with our AAA club this summer. Decisions, decisions…

Had a late lunch / early dinner today at Palomino Smokehouse, awesome place. Its biggest problem is being right downtown parking can be tough. At least it is free on Sunday’s.

No more baseball until next weekend. Nothing much planned for the week either, other than work. Hope you have a good week.

Today was the first day of baseball evaluations. The group looked pretty talented in general, likely a bit better than last year. The club that I coach has to draft a lot of players, likely around 11 in total. I think that there will be some ok players left over, even in the late rounds.

One of the other club managers proposed a trade of sorts today. He suggested giving us his 1st, 2nd and 4th round picks next season for our first round pick this year. I countered, although not accepted with his 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks next year for our first this year. Seems like a good deal, but, what’s up with that? Seems like he may retire after this year and wants to win a championship this season. We’ve taken it under advisement as a friend (BP) of mine would say.

Our primary pick likely needs to be a catcher, we have a strong need. We might need two catchers. Teams always need pitching of course, that is a given. Should be an interesting draft.

We have more evaluations tomorrow and again next weekend. We then have a couple of weeks before the draft then indoor workouts start right away.

The new facility is going to be quite nice. It has completely been constructed as yet, needs the finishing touches still. It is sort of out of the way though, 30 minutes from my place, very close to where I used to live. A big improvement over where it was last year though.

Anyway, I’m glad that ball has finally started, May can’t get here soon enough.

I was off work today, I have to use 6 days of lieu time I banked during our hardware refresh, so, I went to the Calgary Sportsman and Outdoor Show at the BMO Centre. My co-worker joined me.

I live about 4km away from the BMO Centre and we decided to walk. Well, CH suggested walking in jest and I called his bluff. Unfortunately for him, he wore a spring jacket that didn’t zip up. I didn’t realize that when we left, otherwise I would have lent him a coat. Anyway, we walked, in -10C weather, CH nearly froze. We did stop at the bank for some cash and a thawing and stopped for lunch as well.

17 Ave SW In Calgary has a few dozen restaurants and we stopped at Cilantro. I had never been there before. It was pricy but good. Lunch for two of us was $40.

We made it, CH only partially froze. We walked around the show, it was pretty good. I was shocked at the financing on a boat we looked at. It was $155 every two weeks for 240 months. My quick math skills told me that was 20 years, my brain said that couldn’t be correct. Who finances a boat over 20 years? That’s insane. You’d pay for it three times over. Needless to say, I didn’t buy a boat, or an RV, or anything other than fresh mini donuts.

We took the bus back, more walking wasn’t really an option. All in all, a good day.

Starting Monday, I will be working from home 5 days a week. I have been working from home 4 days a week since September, now I don’t have to go into the office at all.

Th company I work for is changing the way that we deliver support. Most issues can be resolved remotely so why have us in the offices I guess. I don’t know what their ultimate goal is, guess I will find out in the weeks and months ahead.

So, this saves on having to commute, who wants to do that anyway? I can avoid the “bus people”, that is a good thing. It also means when I finish, I am a few seconds away from the couch or taking the dogs for a walk or whatever. I am going to get to miss going to work in -25C weather, that’ll be nice.

I am sure the dogs will love having me home. Blondie still gets destructive from time to time so when I am not here, she spends time in her crate. When I work from home, there is no need for that. Zeus isn’t crated, he’s a good boy. He is getting older though and needs to go out more often, it is nice to be here to be able to do that.

I am not sure if I will be covering the office when my co-worker takes vacation or if they will have the office uncovered during that time. I guess this is something I will have to find out.

I will most interacting with my co-workers on a regular basis. For now, it’s fine, I guess I will see how it goes a few months down the road. I will still go into the office every 6 weeks or so, just so people won’t forget who I am.

I may look for a new place somewhere away from the downtown core since I won’t have to commute any longer. I could save a lot on rent if I move into the extreme north-west for instance. I will have to see what’s out there.

I ended up working a total of 45 hours of OT in a month or so from the middle of December until the middle of January. So, I now have 45 hours of lieu time to use, as long as I use it by the end of March.

That is a little over 6 days off. I am not sure if we are allowed to use a crap load of days all at once. I think I will take a day off here and there, essentially have a long weekend every weekend until the middle of March. That should be good.

I don’t think there will be much OT coming in the near future, no real need for it I don’t think, something could come up though.

Yesterday was the Super Bowl, as I am sure you know unless you’re living under a really big rock. I was hoping that the Patriots would win and they did make a 10 point comeback to take the game. I think it will be questioned for some time why the Seahawks decided to throw the ball on 2nd down on the 1 yard line. The head coach tried to explain it, he did a pretty bad job of it. I’m sure he’s covering for the offensive coordinator. Not that I really care one way or the other. I have been a Bills fan since the early 90’s, must be sorta like being a Leafs fan, it has been painful at times.

As I’ve reported, baseball starts this coming weekend with evaluations. One of my players from last year has requested a trade. Not sure what is up with that but you can’t keep everyone happy.

Monday is over. The weekend is a day closer. Enjoy your week.

Where did January go? It seems to me like it was a short month. We had a pretty warm January in Calgary with a 2 week Chinook keeping the temperatures way about zero for most of the month. A week ago today, it was 16C, today it is -16C, quite the difference. We also got about 6″ of snow yesterday.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I don’t think I am going anywhere to watch the game, nothing has come up. Instead, I am making chili. As a change, I am using chicken breast instead of ground beef. Gotta go and get a few more ingredients, even though I was at the grocery store yesterday. I’ve sorta changed plans on what I am making. Oh well…

Back to work tomorrow and no road trips planned for the week, that might change but nothing in the works right now.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and go Patriots, beat up on the Seahawks…

Last night we had a return to winter after a rather long, two week Chinook finally left us. We had experienced temperatures up to about 16C, quite nice for the middle of January.

I woke up this morning to about 6″ of snow. Back to shovelling, clearing the truck and having to drive using 4×4. Oh well, it is January.

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. Patriots versus the Seahawks. I typically don’t go for any NFC teams, this year will be no exception. I have always been a fan of the AFC, unless the Dolphins or Raiders are involved that is. So, go Patriots !!!

No real plans for the rest of the weekend, other than catching the game. Next weekend we start with baseball evaluations. I think we need to draft about 10 players in total. Bring on spring…

I have a 50″ LED tv in my living room and a 32″ LCD in my office. I subscribe to Telus Optik service, it isn’t bad. I have a crapload of stations but I only seem to watch a handful of them.

I am currently watching Seinfeld. It has now been off of the air for about 16 years. I still love it. I have watched every episode probably between 10-15 times I am sure.

I don’t tend to watch any new shows. I didn’t watch Seinfeld until its original run was over. The only “new” shows I might catch are Dragon’s Den and its American cousin, Shark Tank. I can’t really think of anything else new I watch. I do watch Big Bang Theory, but never watch the new episodes, I catch it on the Comedy network so it is older ones.

I watch a rather cheesy sci-fi show, Star Gate SG1. I haven’t seen most of those episodes either and it wrapped up about 6 years ago.

I have all of the sports channels as well, don’t watch a lot but catch playoffs for sure. Sunday is the Super Bowl of course and I will catch it, hopefully at some restaurant/bar, not sure as yet.

So, I guess I pay a fair amount for old shows. I don’t mind. I could likely get most of these shows on Netflix or something, not sure. It is bundled with my internet. I will likely keep it when my contract is up, which is soon as well (May).

I don’t watch too much else, and almost nothing in the summer, I am out too much. I do have the tv on sometimes while I am working, essentially background noise. I’ve seen all of the shows before so really, I don’t need to watch it, listening is good.

Anyway, back to Seinfeld, still one of my favs. Enjoy the weekend.