Four days and counting...

God, I can't wait to get out of here. I am stressed to the max and in dire need of some down time. Work has been insanely busy and I'm a week behind on my deliverables because of some things that went wrong last week. On top of that is the uncertainly about the outsourcing...oh sorry...."best shoring" initiative and who and how many are going to get laid off. In fact, today we were handed over all the surveys on application details for IBM and Infosys that we have to complete for the due diligence part of the deal -- by freaking Thursday! These reports are huge, and our team (read: me) will have to do 30 or so of them covering in detail each application we support. The IS department attitude is in the shitter right now. So is mine. I like the idea of filling out these forms so they can move up the date that they are going to lay me off. How's that for irony? Well, I guess all those high priority projects go on the backburner now until the due diligence stuff is done and I'm freshly back from Texas.

CP's commitment to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and an initiative to re-brand the company just piss me off even more since they're still laying off people but can fork over $15 million to VANOC. I know, I know - not related but still infuriating at the same time.

The OutGames organizing has been taking an inordinate amount of time. I feel that there are only the obligatory five or so people helping to organize that are willing to even think of helping on all the stuff that needs to be done. I've managed to finish off most of the marketing and invitation materials and have already sent most of them out. What's left is the sponsorship stuff, and it's not going very well. The rest of it seems to be though. The Volunteer meeting last Monday finalized the volunteer requirements and schedule, the IFR meeting with Greg Larocque on Friday helped to move along some of the GLISA higher level stuff, the Apollo meeting on Sunday moved ahead some of the promotional events coming up in the next few weeks, and the Equipment meeting tonight helped us to ensure we weren't overlooking too many things. One more FR meeting on Thursday night before I go and I'll have that out of my hair for a couple of weeks. But overall, despite all the late nights getting content written, I think things are overall going pretty well.

We did have a lot of fun on the weekend. Friday night Joe and I went out for dinner with the GLISA group and then met up with his co-workers for a night out at the Drum & Monkey (which means we spent most of the night in the Bamboo Tiki Lounge). Lots of fun. Saturday night was Skybar's birthday. Another fantastic evening with the boys!!! And pretty much everyone was out for the evening either at the Backlot or Twisted Element.

My training has been erratic since New Year's. I'm trying my damnedest to keep on target, but there's so much going on and I'm so tired and bitter and tired. I'm doing a lot of the 'should'ves' these days. I'm pretty psyched for Texas to get me back on track though. Running and gym EVERY morning.

What else? Well, now that I've committed to all these trips in 2007, I'm starting to stress about money if I'm suddenly without a job. I'm hoping to Gob that a pretty severance package will be coming my way, but there's no doubt they will try to screw us out of that (how's that for pessimism?). Reid bought us our tickets to L.A. for the March cycling camp in Newport Beach. It's a nice small group, which I'm happy about -- Reid, Frank, Craig D and his wife Karen. I'm excited for the trip, but already costs are starting to creep up on that trip as well. Oh well, once the flights, condo (on the beach!), and car rentals are looked after, there really won't be a whole lot more to spend until we're down there.

This makes me wonder whether the San Francisco trip in June is going to be viable. I know Joe really won't have the money to go, especially considering we're going to Montreal/Bromont in July for Track Nationals. I'll have to think about that one some more. I guess we could always go next year? I'd still like to go, but the $$$ flashing across my field of vision these days is making me rather dizzy.

Even Joe's giving me the silent treatment today. I'm not sure what I did.

So, like I said before, it appears that the stars are all aligned just right this week for me to pull out and say 'fuck it all'! Is that destiny or what?!?!

I'm off to Weslaco on Friday. I'm still debating taking my scuba equipment. I'm almost feeling like travelling as light as possible and whistling 'the Happy Wanderer' while travelling down to Texas. Nah -- I think I'm going to do some diving while down there.

I already have my book order from Amazon.ca, so I'm ready for some serious poolside and beach time. It's very desperately needed.