Driving

This is a picture of where I work. When I'm not suffering from mysterious maladies, or wandering Bayshore with a clipboard as a NRFU Enumerator, Tunney's Pasture is my usual demesnes. I snagged this pic from a "John Lennon & Yoko Ono" tour of Ottawa photo thingie circa 1969, so that's why the pic is a bit funny. Weird to think the old Beatle was hoofing it where I work... he was actually visiting the Health Canada building at the time, not Statistics Canada. Anywho, that's the not-so-exciting history of the picture.

So this was my first week back in a long while. Monday, we worked on keying PISA bubble sheets using the Verifier. That was fun, and all too soon, it came to and end, and that was the last of the PISA project (that we've basically been working on since like February!) It was weird finishing it off. BT brought in strawberry short-cake as a celebration on Wednesday to thank us all for a job well done, which was nice.

I have to say that the strawberries involved were delicious. She'd hoofed it up to the Parkdale Market at lunch and had returned with huge baskets of fresh summer berries. MAAN. You could taste the sunshine still vibrating from them, bursting on your tongue with juicy goodness. MMmmm! No wonder Vicki & Carol L. decree that they are their favourite berries :-D [Pic by Glen Gower.]

After we completed PISA, we turned our considerable data-capture talents to keying the Dwelling Survey; which reminds me a bit of the Census, except it is in a bit more detail. It ain't bad keying it, a bit boring (although not as boring as the Terrible TAMs!!) At least you get to type in actual information, instead of just bluntly pounding the "enter" key!

I have amused myself by writing emails at work, catching up with my friends, enjoying good coffee, taking alternate routes to & from home in the Echo (which still needs to get that farty gasket repaired! *sigh*) The fastest & less stressful route home is from Tunney's Pasture to the Ottawa River Pky West, picking up Carling briefly, turning up onto Richmond and hooking to the 417 at Bayshore, then sailing to Moodie Dr., turning West onto Timm and catching Eagleson Rd. at Katimavik where you head South.



Sounds complicated? But consider.. The Ottawa River Pky is beautiful, and although you're only going about 70 kph, you get to see the river (I saw a gang of deer on Monday, browsing.) When you get off the 417 at Moodie and go West on Timm Dr. you're in pastures with trees and wildlife too; very pleasant and soothing for the soul.

Compare that to grinding your car South up Parkdale (which is ALWAYS a mess, even if the construction is finished) finally getting the 417 where it's stop & go (the buses whip past you insolently!) When it finally opens up, you only sail along for a little bit before you hit the Bayshore/Kanata bottleneck.. And I timed it. It took almost the same amount of time to get home--in fact, going Parkdale to the Queensway to Terry Fox and South to my place took an extra 5 minutes. So why bother?

Between working, getting to work, coming home, cooking dinner, taking care of animals and doing all that routine stuff that you have to do, I have been playing "NeverWinter Nights" with Clay on the computer. We picked this game up a few years ago and never got a chance to finish it (or really give it a good "go" for that matter.) It has been sweet getting a chance to play, but fried too. Time goes by so quickly when you're playing; you look up and it's like midnight! Then you crash and get up at 5am to go to work. Duh! Anyway, it is a blast though. It's put out by Bioware which is where my animation buddy Mark How works slavishly making fun games for us to enjoy. Hurray :-D

Got together last night at the Green Door for supper with my friends LH, and my Bi Grrl gang. It was wonderful--I hadn't seen the gals for ages nor been to the Door (in..um..6+ months?) The only sad thing was that they didn't have beets. They had carrots though, and the great Greek salad with the chunks of feta in it. And the triple berry pie. YUM! If you've never been to the Green Door, do yourself a favour and get out there for supper. You'll spend about $20 for a full plate of delicious organic vegetarian fare, and your tummy will thank you. If you have a spare $5, pick up an organic beer too (St. Peter's English Ale)

Well, I must prepare to go and visit Mr. Savage! I must get clean, pack my stuff, feed the cats and tangle with traffic. Whee....!