Little Miss Geek

Wow okay, I knew I hadn't updated in a while but not since the sprint tri??? Oops.

Turns out that my foot really hasn't been okay since the sprint tri, walking has been more or less painful since then and it's caused a bit of a mood slump (can't easily work out either). Work is still very uncertain, though my first stock grant vesting cliff happened today (and two colleagues announced Friday is their last day, no surprise). I can't sell them until the blackout period is over in a couple weeks, but they're mine now. Just crossing fingers that the quarterly earnings report is positive so the price stays reasonable. My company's direct competitor here in YYC declared bankruptcy last month so that's not a good sign (they had a creditor call in a big debt payable immediately).

Health stuff:( Read more... )

I talked to a financial planner and need to follow up with Canada Revenue to see what I'm eligible for as a returning citizen - I might not be allowed to contribute to an RRSP this year since the cap is based on your last tax return, which I don't have cause I made $0 here (will be fined for invalid contributions, yikes). Trying to get through is a chore though, the auto system I keep getting routed to if the wait times are more than 30 mins can't process my request due to not having that filed tax return. The stock grant stocks don't show up in my account for a little bit, but they have vested. I have to file a form still since they're US stocks and I'm a non resident now, that's on next week's todo list, I have until Aug 8 before I can do anything with them. The price is doing well right now at least but not counting on it staying steady as it's double the lowest it has been over the last year. Sadly but understandably, two more pre acquisition colleagues are resigning this week. We're waiting on the CTO and new head of Safety to make org changes, at least they held off past the year cliff.

The week after the sprint tri I went to a queer prom with a gothic glam theme and made a new friend. I sat down next to another person going stag and we started chatting and then hung out all night and have been texting since then finding more and more in common. She's going to help me with dry walling and I'll help with plumbing at her place. :-) Though I did fail to fix my toilet trickle issue - I was one more DIY attempt from getting it (had the wrong sized replacement gasket for between tank and bowl). I had ordered a new toilet for the plumber I ended up calling to install (they estimated it was going to be the same amount of labour to fix vs install new, and I'd get a fancy new dual flush one), but it's got the wrong mounting bolt placement so back it goes. Turns out the guest bathroom has a 10 inch rough in, the master has 12, and I ordered a 12. Tempted to install it in the master, but that's already the newer toilet. He was able to fix the old toilet and the shut off valve (needed soldering). Turns out there's no in unit off for the master bedroom water though so I have to wait on fixing that shower until the water is turned off on the whole building (!).

Then my sister and BIL were away for Stampeded and after driving her to the airport I borrowed their car to go to Vulcan Porchfest - wow, what a step down from Somerville! Each band got a 45 min sequential slot, I caught three of the nine bands and gave up, not my style. I went back to their place to water the newly seeded lawn the next weekend but otherwise we've had enough rain for it to survive. I ended up having to get my dining room chairs delivered since when I used their car to check out a furniture store, the warehouse had closed and I couldn't pick up that day. I figured it wasn't worth it to spend another few hours to bus to the car to drive to the store then downtown and back to drop the car then bus home. Seems like the car share I signed up for doesn't have a lot fo SUVs so that wasn't an option. Then it took me far too long to get them assembled because one seat back + legs combo was just enough out of alignment to not go together (but swapping them with another chair worked, yay shoddy manufacturing). So now I'm planning dinner + housewarming party and having new friends over so it was ultimately worth it.

I was not prepared for how much Stampede took over the city despite being warned. Cowboy cosplay all over the place! I did the contemporary art museum pancake breakfast and the queer club's Brokeback Saloon drag show (with two Canada's Drag Race contestants) as well as the grandstand show and called it good. :-) I saw so many cowboy hats on sale but resisted despite finally unpacking my hat collection and seeing the glaring omission. :-)

Last week I took a class with Two Wheel View on mechanical disc brakes since my new bike is the first one I've had with it. Super good and inclusive class and I made two new friends who live near me and are also working on job stuff - we're going to get together next week to work on resumes and applications. I was in a foul mood to start and the one of the couple just kept being sunshine and niceness and wore me down. :-)

Then it was a whirlwind trip to Edmonton, ostensibly for the comedy festival. I just wanted to see one performer, Matteo Lane and it turned out the Sunday afternoon show was all queer, with Karla Marx and the dj from the queer prom in Edmonton. The evening show displayed various things wrong with comedy these days though I appreciated how hard Martin Short worked - singing, dancing, outfit changes and doing bits from the years of his career. The best part was him having audience members up on stage to do the Three Amigos dance with him, they were super into it. I ended up leaving early. Saturday was all rain all the time, though I finally bought a clear umbrella like I've wanted since I was a kid, I was walking all over with wet feet. Did the indigenous art garden, the botanical conservatory, the art gallery and the museum and also found a few good cocktail bars. Stayed at a hostel international site in a private room and it worked out great, except for the shared bathroom situation. My aging bladder needs easy access to bathrooms in the middle of the night and in this case it was downstairs and always out of soap. I had a sink in my room at least and the bed was comfortable.

Yesterday I met a photographer that I won a thirty minute session with via a raffle and we hit it off so much it extended to 1.5 hours. I had asked for a lesson rather than a photoshoot (we'd talked about that option at the art show) and she did so much work doing a mini critique of some of my photos and giving me tips on how to shoot and how to narrow down picks from the bulk of the shots I take. We're making plans to go to a drag show together at some point. :-)

Today my friend M is arriving from Boston for the Terminus festival and city and mountain shenanigans, I need to take a nap after I set up the guest room after being up for my retina appointment at 5:30 this morning. We're going hiking tomorrow before the first night of the festival (it's gonna be a lot of long nights, doors are at 5 or 6 every night), Friday is a city day then festival, Saturday is the Norquay Via Ferrata with five of us (my sister and her two best friends are also doing it with us) and probably missing the first band, then he leaves Sunday and I still have one more night of music to get through.

Next week is work on teeth, eyes, resume, and a Calgary Fringe one man show by a guy from Somerville MA. :-)