i have so much to say...

SRAS (en francais):
as you know, i was in montreal for a few days. i got pretty sick on monday morning (cough, cold, sore throat etc). throughout the course of the day, i was feeling worse and worse. after the company dinner, went back to my hotel room, watched the ducks win in OT and then zonked out for the night. woke up tuesday morning feeling worse and had a fever. was getting kind of freaked out. slept for a few more hours. got up, fever was subsiding, cold symptoms were going away and i was feeling better. got ready and went back to the conference. at the end of the day, got back to my hotel room and my fever was bad again. zonked out again cause i was so tired. popped a bunch of tylenols and cough medicine. woke up wednesday morning feeling a lot better. no more chills. no more sweats. hardly any coughs. called the SARS hotline on wednesday morning and the nurse was asking me a bunch of questions...the first of which was if i was having any respiratory difficulties. i said no, answered the rest of the questions. got ready and went back to the final day of the conference. she said i would be fine to fly home that night. after the conference, i met my cousin and went to a salvadorian restaurant for dinner. got an upset stomach cause of the food so the night didn't end well. with respect to SARS - i must say...it is really interesting how our minds work. i totally freaked myself out because of what the media and everyone around us says. also, every day at the conference (which was attended by about 3000 people from around the world), we would get people coming to our booth and when they found out me or a colleague was from toronto, they would take a step back or make some SARS reference. it got really annoying but it just speaks to the perception out there. i was questioning my every move...who have i come in contact with? it's pretty scary when you think of all the people that you come in contact with in a given day that are sneezing, coughing, breathing heavily, etc. kinda like that scene in outbreak when that guy in the movie theatre starts coughing and you see the germs going everywhere. definitely made for an interesting couple of days...

Random People:
I was on the plane home last night and got to talking to the girl beside me. We ended up chatting the whole flight home. She's really cool...into a lot of the same things I'm into as well which made for a great conversation. I think we're about the same age and it turns out that we have a friend in common as well so that was interesting. I really like how this world is so small and we can go anywhere and meet anyone. This girl (HM) grew up on a farm in calgary. now, we were sitting on the same flight together from montreal - toronto just shooting the $hit. weirder things have happened as well like running into three independent people i know from toronto in central park on canada day 2000 or running into a girl from waterloo shopping in bombay or the infamous wandering into tchao on the crowded streets of bangkok last year.

All went wrong today:
I got balled out over e-mail by one of my co-workers today cause I was trying to help out. In my helping...I may have stepped over the boundaries of my job title a bit but all in all, it was for the better of the team. Getting reamed out by someone is never cool and when it's over something really insignificant, it sucks even more. It just made me feel like $hit for the rest of the day...that really sucked the most. I replied to him and apoligized (which was necessary) but I must say that the whole situation just stinks. It really further makes me disenchated with the corporate world. This seems to become more of a trend day by day. Something has gotta give soon. Today marked a full week of me not working out (since last Friday). And, in that time of no activity, I have managed to eat too much (especially while on the road) so I think that I've put back on all the weight I had allegedly lost over the past month. Man, that really SUCKS. The gains were coming...taking a bit of time but I was noticing them. Now, it's back to square one so that just ain't cool. On the way to work this morning as well, everyone possible traffic stall that could have happened did. Whether it was dumbass drivers or construction - damn that started the day out smoothly. Also, our phone line and high speed internet weren't working yesterday and today so I was on the phone with Bell trying to get a technician to come in and help us. It's really funny to see how call centre people try to confuse the hell out of customers by saying variations of the same thing 5 different ways. In the end, I got what we wanted so that's all that matters. Now I just have to call Telus to straighten out my voicemail and other features because that still hasn't been resolved (those punks never called me back).

Neighbours:
What the hell do you do when your neighbours play their music TOO LOUD. It isn't that big an issue for me...most nights. But, it is really getting on my parents nerves. For about 3 years this has been going on but up until about a month ago, my parents would put up with it and every so often, my dad would either call or walk over and ask them to turn it down. They usually complied and all was good. However a month ago, the story changes. The neighbours didn't comply after 2 separate attempts to ask them to turn it down. It was 2:30 in the morning. My mom was sick and my parents were leaving the next morning at 7:00 to drive to Ottawa. They didn't know what to do so they called the police. The police came and got the music turned off. But, every since that day - there is just bad blood between the two houses. The music is loud at all hours of the day now. On the weekend, it was playing solidly from 8:00 am until like 1:00 am or something like that. Today, from 11:00 am until now (it's 9:30 pm). When I got home from Montreal last night, I could hear it (until 2:00 am). It's just too damn much and there ain't nothing we can do. Don't get me wrong either. I like to hear loud music every now and then too but damn, I just can't deal with it much more. It's hurting me the most to see my parents upset. They are to the point where they just don't know what to do either. So, I'm not sure how this will be resolved. Will just have to wait and see I guess...Any suggestions? Let me know.

This weekend:
Saturday, I have a Dragonboat race all day in Pickering so that should be good. Hopefully, I'll be in good enough shape to do a good job in that race. I'm missing the next and more important one though in Ottawa so taht kinda sucks. Then, Saturday night - it's off to the Tequila Lounge for around 11:00 pm to see the one and only Jugular live in concert yet again. So, if any of you can make it - come and check it out...

Time to bid adieu. It's been a slice. Later...