And boy was it. I’ll forgive myself though, because I’ve been writing more these days than I ever have before. That’s the hiccup see, this job is gorging itself on my time. It’s great, it’s just not blog friendly. Not for the kind of blog I’ve been running at least.

This here isn’t picture inspired, clickity-clack, have a boo at my life stuff. It’s not a place of loves and hates and recommendations with 10cc of quirk for your reading pleasure. It’s just me writing my mind, and that’s something that I’ll egotistically claim is a bit more time consuming than otherwise. Having a more specific focus would probably do a lot in the way of helping me come up with things to write about.

But anywho: what’s up, how’s life, and why’s that?

Work is good, and pretty busy since January hit. Lot’s to be written, and only one guy to do it. That’s not true though, because our editor is more than capable of writing and picks up a lot of the overflow work that won’t fit into my schedule. Busy, however, is the name of the game, and busy is good.

I’m getting better as well. Better at the things I do and the way I write. More pointed. More purposeful. When it comes to web writing that’s exactly what they want from you. What I do here isn’t web writing, because you, my audience, I have more respect for you than that. More expectations, too.

There’s also fun to be had. My first Incite book club meeting went down without a hitch, but it was a lot different than the old Calgary meet-ups. Namely, at this one, I was the only guy. It makes for different points of discussion, but it’s still great to have a group of folks who want to talk books.

On the up and up, Carly is going to be moving in next weekend, which ought to be a gas. We went to Ikea yesterday and picked up a couple bookshelves. I was finally able to clear the floor of unpacked bags and the living room is now looking more like a place I’d like to do some living. Our next purchase will be a couch, an inclusion that will do a lot to bring this place together.

One of the real bonuses of having Carly move up, other than being able to spend more time with each other, is how much time it will free up on the weekend. Right now one of us is always spending six hours driving. When you take the long distance factor out of the relationship it makes a whole lot of things a whole lot easier.

I ought to go now. I have to schedule the upcoming foosball tournament for the office and I have a feeling it might take some doing. A lot of people, a lot of different schedules, and hopes to have it competed by March 4.

I like to drive on the straight roads when the fog is thick and the lights go dim. It keeps you sane as much as it keeps you safe. The scenery in the fog is dull anyways, so it’s best to know that you have no hairpins or right angle turns to make. Other than that my drive back to Edmonton today was uneventful. I did get through most of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as read by Stephen Fry, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I still have half an hour to listen to, but really, what a great way to get through a book over the weekend.

Speaking of books, Carly and I twice went to Higher Grounds this weekend. It’s a coffee shop in Kensington and the atmosphere inspires me. Not into any immediate action, but to thought. When you think on it, thought is just as good a thing to be inspired to. This coffee shop is the kind of place that combines hustle with comfort, and bustle with relaxation. It always makes me feel like, were I there with heady things to accomplish, I could get a lot done while a smile stayed on my face. It makes me feel like reading books, writing stories, and talking about philosophy. I suppose if it did inspire more action in me I might get a few of those things done.

We went to Higher Grounds, as I said, twice. Twice because I really enjoyed it and decided it was deserving of an encore visit. This weekend wasn’t the first time I’d been there by any means, but it was the first in a while. I would enjoy finding a place like that here in Edmonton, and hopefully on Whyte Ave because it’s so close to where I live. The problem, of course, is you’re paying four to five dollars for a drink just so you can hang out in their atmosphere. And the drinks aren’t even that healthful. Well, there is always tea. I’ll have to make a more concerted search of the area to see what I can find.

There are plenty of the standard places, which is to say Starbucks and Second Cup, but they don’t give me that same sense of purpose. Perhaps that’s my own fault.

Ever go to the coffee shop, or anywhere for that matter, for more than the fare they serve?

It’s been gloriously cold here in Edmonton. Well, in Alberta actually, and I’m pretty sure Calgary has been the colder of the two these last couple of days. It’s both wretched and lovely. Lovely because you know it can’t get much worse. The way I see it, you might as well start winter off as bad as you possibly can, because then when it goes back to -10 or -15 it feels like spring. To me, that sounds great.

I’ve been here in Edmonton for a month now. Well, four weeks is more exact. Four weeks and two days. Work is flowing, living is going, and I still sit in a living room with one dim lamp for light. That’s not a complaint, just a chipper analysis of all the room I have for improving my quality of life. Seriously though, I would really love to expand on my furniture selection and make this room more livable, but at this point I’m staying more concerned with playing. I mean, it would be great to have a couch and light and a rug maybe, but that stuff is expensive! So instead I’ll just rock out on chairs and stools.

Besides, there’s always plenty to look forward to, like the next day of work, buying Christmas presents, snowboarding, a week off at the end of December, huge meals, and all the stuff I can buy for myself when I have a little spending money in, maybe, January.

You need that though, you know? Spending money. Because while working is great, and trust me I really do like what I get to do at work, you have to be able to spend money. It just feels good. Some times I wonder whether that’s good or not. Sometimes I think that you shouldn’t have to rely on money to enjoy life, and I probably don’t. But still, even if you don’t need it, it sure can help. And hey, if I can turn window shopping into real shopping, I think I’ll really enjoy that.

I don’t know a whole lot of people who use Twitter, but I like it quite a lot.  It seems to catch a bad rap often times and, I think, for the wrong reasons.  Let’s get into why Twitter is great.

1) You know what people are doing.

This could be people you like but don’t know, like and know, or neither know nor like. It’s cool though. People often seem to get all high and mighty about how they don’t care what people are up to before even giving twitter a chance. “I don’t need to know what everyone is doing every second of the day!” people decry in protest. “I don’t care!”

The silliness of this argument is that nobody does this. You don’t see any tweets saying things like “I’m going to the grocery store” or “I’m going to watch tv”. If you did happen to follow someone that tweeted these kinds of tweets, the solution is simple.  Stop following them.

But there are other people who I think it’s cool to be able to follow.  Nathan Fillion, for example. I liked Firefy, and enjoy watching Castle, so I’m pleased to be able to stay up to date on what ol’ Fillion is up to.  Or there’s LeVar Buton, famous for Kunta Kinte, Geordi, and Reading Rainbow. He’s generally up to some relaxing or social activity, and why not hear about it.

For Sports I follow a couple of Tennis players, who are likely to tell me when they’re playing matches, and other stupid things you’d expect of athletes.

I follow CNN and read all the news headlines as soon as they break.  Not that I care too much about the world, but I’m certain I wouldn’t know what was going on at times if not for my twitter feed.

There are tons of people on Twitter and it’s guaranteed someone out there is telling people about things you are interested in.  If you were on Twitter, you’d know about them too.

2) You don’t have to tweet to enjoy Twitter.

I rarely tweet, and though I might be more inclined to if more people followed me, it doesn’t bother me at all. For me twitter is about the following, about being able to read all that information that’s going on out there and about tapping in to the lives of some of the interesting people you know about.

3) There are a lot of people, who, if their profile pic is to be believed, are black, and tweet hilarious things.

I don’t mean hilarious in the way a well-crafted joke is hilarious.  I mean so stupid and hardly English that can’t help but laugh.

See, Twitter always has a list of the top ten trending topics.  It shows the top ten phrases that are showing up in everyone’s tweets.  People will hash tag phrases to get everyone else talking about them.  Like if the new Conan show is just starting up people might tweet:

“I can’t wait to watch #conan tonight!” and then when a lot of people do it #conan would show up as a treading topic.

However, a lot of the times there are really weird trending topics.  Let me go see what’s on the current list…

Well, damn.  Tonight it looks like it’s all about Harry Potter and the NFL, specifically Mike Vick.  Anways, next time I see some of the hilarity I’ll post a couple of the tweets on here for you all to enjoy.  Seriously, they’re bizarre.

The point is you should join twitter, follow some people, and read some tweets.  If you’re feeling ambitions you could even tweet once or twice yourself.  It makes for a lovely evening.

Oh, and btw, you can find me here.

I drove back to Calgary last night so I could spend the weekend here. I’m not sure if I wrote about this before or not, but we registered an indoor soccer team that runs until March or April. I can only make about half of the games because of my new address, but I figure I’ll do my best to make all of the games I can get to. The drive is a relatively non-eventful three-ish hour jaunt. After you do start doing it with consistency it becomes even less interesting. My solution is the audio book.

These things are fantastic, and anyone spending any amount of time in a vehicle should look into it. I’ve listened to a couple fully (The Kite Runner and Breakfast of Champions), some other ones in part (Don Quixote), and just started another one this weekend (A Tale of Two Cities).

So what’s great about audio books?

1) Great Voice Talent – Some of the guys who read these books do a great job. It’s pretty common practice for the voice actors to do different voices for all the characters, but a lot of them are really able to bring the book to life. At other times it’s just hilarious listening to the voices they come up with for some of the more interesting characters.

2) Pass The Time - Like I said, they’re a great way to make the time go by quicker. I find one of the real bonuses is that I’ll drive the speed limit because I want to make the trip last longer so I can get through more of the book. If I don’t have the book to listen to I’ll keep the pedal pushed down a little further to speed up my commute.

3) Experience Books You Wouldn’t Read – A lot of the old classics (like Don Quixote or A Tale of Two Cities) are ones that I wouldn’t normally fit into my reading queue. I’m generally more inclined to pick up a more contemporary novel, or some kind of recent award winner. But, I want to have read the classics, and audio books make it easy to do that.

Do you have any books you’ve always wanted to read? I could use some more suggestions. A Tale of Two Cities was only two hours and fifty minutes long so I finished most of it on the drive down. I need something else to listen to for my ride back up! Let me know your suggestions!

Rememberence day is a funny day, but not in the kind of way that would ever make you laugh. It’s funny for me because I don’t really have anything to remember. I don’t have any experience with war.

Sure, we have our wars going on now. There’s the big to do in the middle east, and I’m not at all saying that it doesn’t affect people. I know people who have been over there, and people who are over there, and I’m comfortable assuming that war sucks. I just mean that war hasn’t ever really touched me.

The Great War, I can only imagine, was a real ordeal. It changed things for people all over the place, and especially where the fighting was happening. But, I imagine during that war things at home were different too. I imagine looking out at the faces on the bus in the morning and seeing it in other people’s eyes. I imagine there being something thick in the air, dread mixed with heartfelt hope. I imagine because I really have no idea.

So it’s funny when Remembrance Day comes around and I’m asked not to forget. I can keep it in my mind, and I will, but I’m certain that I’m not quite capturing the gravity of the day in my heart. You know, you can hear something, and understand something, but it takes a lot to actually change who you are, and how you react to things. It’s easy to take one day a year and be somber, say “I’ll never forget”. I guess I’m just not sure what we should be remembering.

Isn’t the point that war is awful? That we shouldn’t have it because of all the suffering it causes. But, we are at war, we’re fighting right now and we’re doing so because people are, what?, living without their freedoms? That’s good, I suppose, as long as our information is correct and all the death is ending in some better tomorrow. Hopefully it is. I know I don’t have the kind of intel necessary to make informed comments about it.

Maybe the real reward is that I don’t have anything to remember. The fact that all the hell that people went through before I was born has, so far in my life, prevented me from ever having to experience any of it. So, while lest we forget is certainly a pertinent thing to say, at the same time I’ll thank God I have nothing to remember.

I’m reading in a whole new way these days.  For whatever reason I’ve always read with a page goal in mind.  I’ll sit down, start reading (with the goal of getting as far as possible) and then somewhere during the process I pick a page number I’ll allow myself to stop at.  It’s usually a number divisible by 50, but often times I’ll settle for a multiple of ten.  Reading on the bus is changing all that for me.

Now I read for a given time.  I have approximately half an hour between the time I get on the bus to the time I get off.  Within that period I snorkel in the pages of a book, breathing the stale bus air but observing a surreal world below.  It’s enjoyable.  It’s also very different.

I don’t rush anymore, which is something I always used to do.  I would notice myself reading slowly and mentally punish myself. “Speed it up Eli, you’re better than that.”  Admittedly, I’ll still do that, but less often and, I think, for different reasons. There are definite advantages to reading quickly, and training yourself to so at every intersection is always a wise choice.

This is also a benefit of riding transit as opposed to driving my car to work.  I get approximately an hour a day of reading time, something that can easily be surrendered to other, seemingly more important, daily activities.  Reading is good, and so I like the bus for it’s generous gift of time.

I have internet, though I am foolishly tethered to as though it were a rotary phone. The ‘net, though hooked up as of today, is only coming through via modem. I have no router, and therefore lack the “wireless advantage”. That phrase is in quotations because I have just coined it; it is a near perfect phrase. I sit here in a rocking chair, with a very mobile laptop, but no mobility to speak of. It is both unfortunate and revealing of how spoiled I have become. Whateves.

Edmonton has been great. Carly just left after spending her first weekend up here and it was arguably the most fun we’ve had together in some time. No, scratch that. No one would argue.

Being so close to the notorious, and pretentiously spelled, Whyte Ave is ripe with benefits. Walking to shops and window-shopping has been found to be a rewarding, and terrifically dangerous pastime. Having a bounty of coffee shops a two-minute walk away is satisfying. Being surrounded by hipsters and homeless is a cornucopia of unique. The price, the literal monetary price, of moving to a new city and having to acquire everything that one needs is consistently palpable.

Work is great. One of the most difficult tasks I have ahead of me is, I think, only pressing the space key once after a period. I have a deeply entrenched habit of double spacing once a full-stop has been dropped. This is not what designers like.

But, back to the real discussion. Work is great. I wouldn’t hope to find a better place to begin my career as a writer. A small agency, filled with great people, and ample opportunities to polish myself as a multi-faceted author. It’s perfect.

I get to write creatively, with a business tone, taglines, key messages, websites, essays, brochures, and just about anything else you can think of that a business might want. It’s all encompassing.

The other great thing is I stay busy. From the time I show up on Monday to when I leave on Friday my week is planned and filled with jobs. I don’t have to worry about having way more work than I’m capable of doing, and neither do I worry about sitting around with nothing to do. Words are in high demand.

The rest of the time, the after and before of the work day, is something I still have to figure out. The before goes by quickly enough. There are the necessary grooming tasks that take their time, and the eating and dressing, as well. After work I’ve yet to figure out what I should be doing.

During the past week most of my time was given to retrieving things I realized I needed. No dish soap? Better fix that. I haven’t anything for lunches? I’ll need some canned meats. I’ve forgotten my phone charger?!? That, I certainly can’t live without.

I think I’m getting a bit more streamlined now, so I hope to dedicate more of myself to the gym. I had a great routine going in Calgary: Three days on, one day rest, repeat. It fell apart when I moved to Edmonton, which is understandable. However, I need to get back into action before I start atrophying from spending all day at a desk.

Now that I am connected there’s a much better chance you’ll be hearing from me again, soon.

Day one at the job is now in the bank.  The proverbial bank of history, not some credit union.  It was good, and I’m trying my best to retain all I was told, which was significant.  Getting set up with Outlook, which I’ve never before used, learning their time management software, which was pretty straight forward, and getting straight dirt on the company’s vision filled my day.  Also, lots of people.  It’s not as though there are hoards of them there, but putting 25 new names to 25 new faces is a significant task.

Everyone seems great, and I’m fairly certain that’s a first impression that can be relied upon.  Numerous invitations to coffee kept popping up in my inbox as the day went on, and my week is quickly being filled up with meeting after meeting.  I suppose that’s what the first week is all about, getting to know everything and everyone.

I’m sure there’s much more to tell, but it feels like it’s all muddled into one big heap and I’m too tired to sort it all out right now.  I can say that I enjoyed it.  I liked the office, and the people, and my two monitors.  I liked learning a whole bunch of new stuff and the prospect of being busy with work in the near future.  I liked finding out how the whole place was organized and the types of responsibilities that will be piled onto me in the future.  I liked having a job.

It’s a little tough not having my own space, but admittedly I couldn’t have asked for a better place to stay the week.  I’ll talk about that more the other time.  For now, I’ll type out a post I wrote yesterday, upon arriving in Edmonton.  It’ll make sense when you read it.

Well, I’m finally in Edmonton, and tomorrow I get to join the working world.  It’s been a long time coming, but I’m incredibly happy with the job I’ve landed.  It’s exactly the kind of thing I spent my unemployment imagining I would enjoy.  Over the next couple weeks I should find out how well I really know myself as I find out how whether that’s true.

Right now (and I’m talking about time very specifically, not like ‘at this point in my life’) I’m kind of stuck in limbo. It’s 8:20pm and I’ve found out the occupants of the house I’ll be staying at for the next week have gone to a movie and won’t be home until around 10:30.  Not the greatest situation for myself, but when you’re relying on the charity of others there are times you need to make concessions.  Besides, most situations can be seen as favorable, as long as you’re willing to adopt the right perspective.  I’m currently sitting in a place I first found favor with during my 2008/2009 trips to Edmonton to visit Carly, called Sugarbowl.  I enjoy it thoroughly.

They have a hoard of bottled beers from the world over, as well as a decently priced delicious menu.  Places like this are fun.  Places like this seem to heavily populate Whyte Ave as well, which is right where I’ll be living.  I haven’t talked too much about my new abode.  This seems an appropriate time.

As I mentioned, it’s right (a block north) of Whyte Ave.  It is two blocks away from a year round Farmer’s Market, and right in the area where North America’s largest (or maybe second largest) Fringe festival takes place.  The building is some fifteen stories high and hosts a rooftop patio with two BBQ’s hooked up to natural gas and available to all tenants.  Google maps claims it’s a 50 minute walk, a 33 minute bus ride, or a 10 minute drive to the location of Incite’s current office.  However, when incite moves this coming spring it will be significantly closer.  It has outdoor parking, but underground is available.  I think its swell.

The whole deal seems a little bit off right now.  It would have been best if I could have been moved into my place prior to my start at work.  For the sake of comfort and familiarity.  Though, the fact that I have a job, and a place to stay at all, is more than enough to be grateful for (at least you have your health, right?).  I really hope I can smash it out of the park when I start tomorrow.  It will apparently be mostly an orientation day, which is undoubtedly for the best.  I suppose ‘off’ isn’t necessarily the best way to describe it.  It’s just that I don’t feel as much like “I’m here!” as I thought I would.  That might just be because ‘here’ is the corner of a licensed café full of conversations and me writing a blog post in a notebook by myself.

I don’t mean to give a ‘woe is me’ impression either.  If my past ration of people-I’ve-met-who-like-me : people-I’ve-met-who-think-I’m-an-asshole means anything, I’m sure I should have a few pals in a couple of months.  Besides, writing a blog post in a notebook while drinking a delicious beer you’ve never tasted before is actually quite fun.

When moving from Calgary to Edmonton you hear a lot of nicknames for the later, many derogatory.  Edmondump, Edmonchuck, Deadmonton, Shit town.  As long as there are cities there will be rivalries, and Calgary vs Edmonton seems, to me, to be as good as any.  So, even though I may be heading into ‘enemy’ territory, I’m still quite excited.

On Wednesday I took a trip up to Edmonton with my Dad to look at a couple apartments and a couple basement suites.  It was good to have a second opinion along with me, and it also made the three hours there and three hours back go a bit quicker.  In the end I settled on an apartment of acceptable size just off the ever-popular Whyte ave.  I think it will be a welcome change from my usual suburban residencies.  Everything in this new local is well within walking distance.  From groceries, farmers markets, theaters, banks, bars, and books, the whole deal is readily accessible.

This is all what is exciting.  What’s less titillating is finding out how much more expensive it is to live on ones own.  Getting a job is great, and making significantly more money than I ever have previously is also swell.  It’s watching how quickly all that money can fly out of the bank that’s less desirable.  I suppose the lesson is to enjoy life for the living it offers, and not for the things you are, or are not, accumulating.