June 28: The Armdale Roundabout

Every now and then, governments do things that are just some unbelievably stupid that it makes you wonder how they've lasted as long as they have. The municpal government did something along those lines today, when they completely changed the rules of the road for the Armdale Rotary. This abomination has had a strange set of rules forever, whereby cars interleave: those in the Rotary let people who are waiting to enter in. Last night, the city officially announced that this was now changing to standard European “roundabout” rules, where the cars in the Rotary have the right of way and don't let people in.

The change is good, but they handled it poorly: thousands of people drive through the thing everyday, and they gave twelve hours notice? Retarded. An interview with a city representative this afternoon said that they planned to start a television, radio, and newspaper ad run to promote the changes, something that would have been a lot more useful before the changeover. Man, this was stupid.

Aaaaanyway, things are going well here. Mom's been frantically getting the house ready for the impending Scottish contingent (“the little white tornado”, as she calls herself) and I've been busy-busy-busy at work (and continuing to have a blast). I got another email from Apple about the WWDC, so I really need to get moving on making my plans. Does anyone have any helpful hints for me in that vein?

June 20: Dentists

Alright, I'm going to say something that I never thought I'd say: I'm pretty impressed with my dentist. I had an appointment this evening to fill a hole in one of my teeth, and it took under two minutes. Literally, less than 120 seconds. (Despite the fact that a hole was being filled, this wasn't a filling in the traditional sense — apparently I had some weird tooth defect that happens to some people for no reason, and which is apparently very easy to fix.) I don't think I've ever left a dentist's office in a better mood. Now, the upcoming wisdom teeth extravaganza is looming over my head, but I'm not going to let irrational fears overshadow such great service.

In other news, I'm crazy busy with my job. I'm really loving it, and the pressure of deadlines actually makes concentrating on things a lot easier. The “job-warming” freckle plant that Janet gave me for my first day is still alive, and my desk hasn't collapsed — two of my greatest fears. We've settled into a solid routine of breakfast at a fantastically greasy little place called Nick's and frequent coffee breaks at a tiny little canteen, both inside of the mall. It's a real blast.

Anyway, I've got to go meet up with Katie for our every-second-day-except-for-the-past-week jog, hopefully becoming slightly more fit in the process. Until next time...

June 13: WWDC 2006 Student Scholarship Program

Last night, whilst playing a little World of Warcraft, I heard the familiar “new mail” noise that my Gmail Notifier makes. Expecting either spam or the latest issue of Diesel Sweeties, I waited until I had a moment before bothering to check what it was. Imagine my surprise when I saw an email with the subject line you see above. My first thought: “Holy crap, I won something! This almost never happens!” Second thought? “Guess who's going to San Franscisco? This guy right here!”

So, yeah, it looks like I'll be making a trip to San Franscisco this August for the WWDC. I am SO excited. I've got lots of money issues to sort out, and I'm not sure how much the scholarship covers (main question: does it include accomodations?), but I am really excited. If there's anyone out there who knows anything about San Franscisco, email me so I'm not completely clueless.

I think it's pretty funny that I've gone from not having a Mac to winning a trip to the Worldwide Developers Conference in less than two months. It's kind of funny, really.

Anyway, back to work I go. Until we meet again.

June 08: Wisdom Teeth

Holy crap, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here! I almost can't believe it — I'm an incredibly irresponsible blogger sometimes. I've been so distracted by my new job that I didn't even notice the time go by.

So, what's new, you might ask? Well, I just got back from the dentist's, where I had my bi-annual tooth clean-a-thon, which was, well, not fun, but not awful. They did remind me that I need to have my wisdom teeth removed, however, so I booked an appointment for that. What I can only expect will be an incredibly unpleasant experience is now scheduled to occur at 7:40 PM on July 18th. Oh, joy, oh bliss. Somebody reassure me.

In terms of work, everything is going swimmingly. I'm liking everyone I work with and I'm getting into the groove of things. My work computer finally arrived yesterday afternoon (thus far I've been working on my laptop). I haven't set it up yet, because there was only about half an hour of work before quitting time, but I'll do that on Monday. At least until I get a second monitor for it, I think I'll probably keep bringing my my laptop and working on both of them at the same time.

Anyway, I'm desperately in need of a hot beverage, so I'm going to end this now. I just walked back from the dentist in the pouring rain, having conveniently forgotten my jacket when I left. I suck at life.

June 01: Jobs

I had some excitement in my week: I started a new job. This is a momentous event not only because it's the first “real” job I've had — ie, something in my field — but also because it's the first time I've had to really quit a job, which wasn't easy or fun. I've got four more shifts at the hospital before switching to full-time at my new place of employment, which is v.1 Labs. My first batch of work is all PHP and HTML, which is awesome.

The funny thing about the job is that our office is shared with another company, which just happens to be the one that Russell has been doing all of his work for over the past two years or so. It's weird how things are randomly connected.

In other news, I've finally started running again thanks to the prodding of Katie, who is my new running buddy. We've only just started, but hopefully I can get into some form of shape again, especially now that I'll be sitting at a desk five days a week.